A quiet investor becomes a media powerhouse everyone and nobody knows  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/business/media/28vivi.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> What a strange story. It seems like it has to be a hoax, but there's a lot of news mentions about the guy after 2007 or so.

The guy seems like a James Bond villain -- doesn't every briefing by M start with "nobody knows how he makes his money, but he's taken the world of $X by storm"?. He even looks like a movie star, is engaged to a movie star, and dresses in mostly in black.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone considered the possibility that he was funded by the Israeli government? This would be one of the smartest ways to influence the US media, to finance a genuinely charismatic investor in media companies.

<comment><USER4> old-new story. I guess the same ending. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_2514000/2514649.stm)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Death>

<comment><USER5> Wow. Whenever Israel comes up, it's always "Never attribute to your own ignorance what can be explained by the involvement of Mossad."

In Maxwell's case, he was working with too many different countries to be totally loyal to one in particular. He was semi-famous for publishing translations of awful hagiographies of communist dictators in the 80's (and of censoring other books as a favor to friends).

<comment><USER4> .ro, .il, .cn ...usa???

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> did anyone else think that a "modest inheritance" was going to be a bit smaller than 10 million dollars? with that much money, its [relatively] easy to make more money -- granted to turn it into billions you have to be extremely savvy (and probably a little lucky) but when i started reading i thought this was more of a rags to riches story, not a really rich to absurdly wealthy story haha.

</comment><comment><USER7> This was a tough one. I wanted to pull out the "how is this hacker news?" hammer, but then decided I want to be this guy, and probably wouldn't have heard about him unless someone posted here.

</comment><comment><USER8> "The loudest one in the room is usually the weakest". Noone is hearing Nevo. There are very well connected players, like Nevo, who do not like to be in the public eye. Nevo shows that social skills matter even more than we think (to bad for an introvert like me).

EDIT: Read "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by D. Carnegie. (Pick an old-less-edited version from your local library).

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like he has a Y-combinator style of investing in media companies. Relatively "small" investments (1MM in his case), but outsize influence in his ability to make personal connections between people who can complement each other.</comment>


Take a peek at the world's most exquisite libraries - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/27/world/gallery/most-beautiful-libraries-in-the-world/index.html?sr=fb113013libraries2p

<comment><USER2> It's kind of sad in a way...Libraries, as repositories of books, may slowly be going on the way out. Up until college I collected a decent sized library of books and a few shelves of professional books since then. My personal library fills up a small bedroom comfortably. It's not fancy, a little over a half dozen IKEA bookshelves, packed to the ceiling with books that decorate the room. My books are roughly arranged by personal theme, not any formal system. Books on ancient history on these shelves, light sci-fi/fantasy on these, serious literature here, technical references on these, etc.

But about 3 or 4 years ago it just... _stopped_. Pretty much everything I want to read through leisure is digital, and almost all of my professional needs likewise.

I realized that what I liked about libraries was not just the books, but the notion that it's a place to collect knowledge, organize it, make it available -- to celebrate knowledge. I decided to move a small desk, a chair, some lights, my NAS, a wifi router and an old laptop to control the digital bits. My library now has gone high tech and I think it fits right in with the book collection. I put my CDs, DVDs, etc. in the same room.

I now access all of my collected data, from my library either digitally or physically from Tablets around my home. It's cleaned up lots of the rest of my house and makes a kind of cognitive sense to do it this way. Toss in various curio I've picked up, a few instruments, various other sentimental items and it's one of my favorite places to be and I'm very proud of it.

I love the libraries in this article, but I'm often more interested in the large personal libraries of well-read rich folks. The curio they've chosen to collect, the way they've designed and built the place. [http://flavorwire.com/261320/](http://flavorwire.com/261320/)

</comment><comment><USER3> It is usually against the rules to drool in libraries...

</comment><comment><USER4> It's great but it looks to me that those libraries are not intended for people to work in, except for the Utrecht library in Holland.

<comment><USER5> ... and the Andover library, and the Merton College library, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A social network + wiki for future products - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, we have launched Hypejar in beta mode a month ago.
Hypejar aims to organize all of the world's upcoming mass products and make it more accessible. Visitors can see when products are coming out along with information about them. Also, users can keep track of products and be notified of their releases. It's a fun way to see what your friends are anticipating.
We are currently doing our best to make the site be as useful as possible. As such, we would greatly appreciate if you can provide us with your thoughts about the site.
www.hypejar.com
To see how the idea/concept was born in 2006, please check out blog.hypejar.com. You may be surprised. <comment><USER2> What's so different from Metacritic sans technology products (which you could gauge through a more specialized website)? What do you guys offer that would make a user want to switch over?

<comment><USER3> That's a good question. Firstly, Metacritic focuses its score/reviews of critics and not really the public. Hypejar on the other hand, focuses on the level anticipation of the general public before a product releases.

Secondly, Hypejar focuses only on products before they release whereas Metacritic does both pre and post release of products.

Hypejar also offers notification system for upcoming releases and features such as the Browse and the Calendar.

So to answer your question, it's not really to "switch over" users, but to rather offer something vastly different.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

<http://blog.hypejar.com>

<http://www.hypejar.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> I really like the design of the site. Clean, sleek, simple and easy to navigate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love the site... Fresh, inspiring and lots of cool stuff :)</comment>


Close the libraries and buy everyone an eReader - <AUTHOR> http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/burn-the-libraries/

<comment><USER2> Ew. What a nasty, mean little article. He's been drinking too much techno-pop koolaid.

"Every person - not just children - get access to infinite knowledge."

But what about the history of their community's books? The picture books thumbed through by children? Sure, perhaps we'd be better off if everyone read The Casual Vacancy on e-Readers (and many libraries are moving towards systems where demand for popular paperbacks is satisfied by digital) but getting rid of every book? EVERY book?

The value of a book isn't just in the combination of letters. Books are much richer than their raw genotype. There is the feel of the pages, the textures, the heft, the binding, the hundred little details and sense-impressions, from smell, sight, texture, sound, of reading a book - often unique from book to book. To ignore all of these displays is simply ignorant nothing more. This guy just somehow grew up with a completely fucked relationship to books.</comment>


Proposal to add characters from legacy computers and teletext to the UCS [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18275r-terminals-prop.pdf <comment><USER2> The Commodore 64 block graphics should be one of those.</comment>


BIOS will be dead in three years - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/6/8/exclusive-msi-bios-will-be-dead-three-years/?full

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thinks the BIOS interface is just about perfect? When I'm trying to diagnose a low-level system problem, having a simple text-based interface is much more useful than pretty marketing slogans.

It's simple fact that hardware manufacturers don't know anything about user interface design, or software in general. Any "value-added" software bundled with motherboards is evidence of this. Look at the screenshots in the article -- they look like a child's first adventures with Visual Basic, cramming in flame decals and lens flairs in every unused inch. Sure, it looks good for marketing, but ask yourself this:

 _Do I want to be interpreting gradient icons across two cultural barriers, at 3 AM, to figure out why a production system isn't recognizing a new RAID controller?_

Furthermore, I am baffled as to why MSI would think a "user-friendly" BIOS replacement is needed. There is no reason for end users to be digging around in the BIOS. If somebody who can't figure out keyboard navigation has accidentally stumbled into the BIOS, the only command they need to know is "reboot".

<comment><USER3> Familiarity shouldn't stand in the way of progress. A good modern BIOS replacement could eliminate a lot of these low-level issues and offer better troubleshooting tools. For example you could have LOM-ish style features standard on every machine to troubleshoot basic booting problems. Wifi/ethernet booting standardized. Something like target-disk mode for quickly mounting the HD inside of a machine with a dead video card or toasted OS install. You could even have a web browser that could get you access to stuff stored in the cloud in the case of a local HD failure.

<comment><USER2> But then you'll need a troubleshooter _for_ the troubleshooter (yo dog). Given that most motherboard manufacturers can't seem to figure out even the most rudimentary software development for bundled utilities, I don't trust them to write a web browser.

<comment><USER4> They don't write their own firmware though, they buy it from one of a few places that hopefully know what they're doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "original EFI project, which was designed to replace the BIOS with a user- friendly point-and-click interface"

"A UEFI system replaces the text-based BIOS with a user-friendly point and click system"

Seriously. No. BIOS is a lot more than the interface used to configure it, and UEFI is even more than that. It's like describing Linux by describing Gnome and telling how its an improvement over DOS because of the point-and-click interface, ignoring all the tech behind the scenes.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank god for <http://www.coreboot.org></comment>


Concurrency vs. Parallelism: A breakfast example - <AUTHOR> http://davidvedvick.info/notes/2017/01/20/concurrency-vs-parallelism <comment><USER2> This is a great short explanation! I think I'll pull it out next time I need to explain this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What happened to tensorflow lite? - <AUTHOR> They announced it at Google I/O in May See : https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/17/googles-tensorflow-lite-brings-machine-learning-to-android-devices/<p>I can't find another announcement is this vaporware? <comment><USER2> I asked on the following discussion:

Pixel Visual Core: Google's first custom-designed co-processor | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15495907](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15495907) (Oct 2017, 89+ comments)

>londons_explore: _It became tensorflow slim:_ [https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorf...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorflow/contrib/slim)</comment>


The Tragic iPad - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2020/the-ipad-at-10-the-ipad-disappointment-ipads-missing-ecosystem/ <comment><USER2> Prior relevant discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22166421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22166421)

</comment><comment><USER3> Generally speaking, there is a lack of vision at Apple that has slowly deflated since Jobs has passed.

Jony Ive's departure to start a private design firm is confirmation of such, despite Apple being his 'primary' client.

One has to wonder what Apple would be like if Forstall was still there. People should remember it was his team that won the internal contest for the iPhone interface. And it was Jobs' willingness to create internal competition that brought the best out in his employees and the company.

Tim's runs Apple with the same kind of unchallenged vision that allowed George Lucas to produce Episodes 1, 2 and 3 without any kind of creative push-back.

It will stagnate until new hands take control.

It's a cycle. All life is.

How soon Apple's cycle turns upwards towards innovation remains to be seen.

<comment><USER4> The market disagrees

<comment><USER5> This conversation is about the iPad, as of yesterday iPad sales are down 11% YOY [https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/01/28/aapl-q1-2020](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/01/28/aapl-q1-2020)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This "consumption device" meme might reflect how a lot of people use it, but it's the opposite of my use case.

I find iPad to be the best device to use for train/coach commutes (and flights), or occasionally if I'm a long (15+ min) Uber or taxi ride.

I can do code reviews, emails, bug tracking, calendar-related things like setting up meetings, as well as reading debug logs (on our log search page, but can also SSH into specific machines).

I don't use the fancy multitasking split-screen features either (just copy and paste).

In fact, for many of these tasks, I find it smoother to use an iPad than a computer. YMMV but a lot of people use iPad for specific workflows.

</comment><comment><USER7> The blame here is squarely on Apple. After Jobs they treated the iPad as if it is just a big iPhone. It is a device of incredible potential but developers can't make an economic model work with iPad centric software which really takes maximum advantage of it. Apple should have developed killer apps in- house specifically for the iPad to seed the ecosystem but they didn't.

It is crazy that ten years after the iPad came out the only real way to keep large numbers of documents in sync and organized between it and my computer is Evernote.

</comment><comment><USER8> iPad will always remain stuck between being a consumption and a creation device (a "creasumption" device?). Anyone who seriously attempts creation on the iPad will eventually want to move to more specialized hardware.

Garageband on iPad is nice, but if you're serious about music, you will want Logic Pro. Doodling on the iPad is great too, but if you're a serious designer, you'll buy a Wacom tablet and Illustrator.

Which is perfect. Creators need their gateway drug, and the iPad fills that role perfectly

<comment><USER9> > Garageband on iPad is nice, but if you're serious about music, you will want > Logic Pro

Nothing against Logic (or Garageband, which is great) but there are so many incredible instruments/synths/AUs available for iOS, as well as a number of highly capable DAWs, including Auria Pro, Cubasis, FL Studio Mobile, Korg Gadget, Beatmaker, etc.. Several of them also work well with respective desktop versions. Ideally I'd say you want an iPad _and_ a Mac running Logic (or your favorite desktop DAW) but a high quality all-iOS workflow has been doable since early versions of NanoStudio, BeatMaker, Multitrack DAW, and AudioBus. Multitouch is also nice for mixing (and you can use an iPad to control Logic.)

> Doodling on the iPad is great too, but if you're a serious designer, you'll > buy a Wacom tablet and Illustrator.

For vector graphics, Affinity Designer goes a long way. For digital painting and drawing the combination of iPad Pro + Apple Pencil + Procreate is hard to beat.

<comment><USER8> At present, the iPad is simply not powerful enough for pro quality music production. Serious, ready-to-release songs usually have 40-50+ tracks. That really stretches powerful processors on desktops.

I produce some music as a hobby and while I've seen some iPads being used during live gigs as a second screen, the studio is strictly Macbook Pro/desktop territory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a perfectly capable drawing device with sidecar even more. A lot of professional artists switched from Wacom to the iPad and now with sidecar they forced Wacom to make a device for just 499$ which is about 500 cheaper than before. There is a market and a use case it is just not yours.

</comment><comment><USER11> The iPad is there for mass consumption as primarily a consumption tool (pun intended). Power users following the aptly named power law already know the tricks to use it as a production tool like split screen and multitasking etc... the masses will not invest the time to learn those tricks because they don't need it and their willful ignorance is bliss.

The good thing that the article points out is that Apple's historical business model (4.99 price cap) limited productivity tools by capping the prices that could be charged through the app store. Fair point there. Apple can still breathe life going forward for developers by rebooting the developer ecosystem. 10 years on the tablet has just arrived for productivity. That is still a fraction of iPad consumers. Prosumers are a minority and the only ones demanding landscape view and split screen apps.

I work for an IAM consultancy and the password manager we recommend to our clients and that I use is SAASPASS and one of the reasons is that it supports multitasking, landscape view and split screen. Split screen is great for Authenticator codes and password management. But the masses probably don't care at all for these features. Although AutoFill has solved some of these UX issues with most apps and websites.

If anyone is interested in an iPad friendly Authenticator and Password Manager see here:

[https://saaspass.com/](https://saaspass.com/)

<comment><USER12> You seem to mention/link saaspass (almost always in all uppercase) quite a lot (while claiming you don't work for them), and have been accused of working for them in the past (5 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746919) ).

Any response?</comment></comment>


All but One "Watch Dogs 2" Hacks Work in Real Life - <AUTHOR> https://learntemail.sam.today/blog/peak-internet-of-shit-all-but-one-watch-dogs-2-hack-works-in-real-life/ <comment><USER2> They're exaggerating to say that these hacks are real. They certainly aren't real in the way they portray them in the game, by just pointing at something and knowing instantly what can be hacked on the device and then pressing a single button to actually do the hack.

But even without that, most of the "real life" versions of these hacks aren't nearly so useful as in the game.

The game even invented fake operating systems and security systems so that they could have what the game needed to be able to hack them. And they were all internet connected, of course. Unlike real security systems. (I'll grant that a lot of home security systems are on the internet, but corporate offices? No.)

<comment><USER3> I mean there is also the conceit that there is a black hat movement (e.g. dedsec) backing the main character composed of a few hundred people writing exploits, etc. Which is of course a bit of superhero-esque fiction. But the point is if Anonymous was organized and a bit more radicalized, it would be _possible_ to write hacks like this.

For example if instead of presenting at conferences the exploit writers shared them with other people who weaponized them and hooked them up to a proprietary toolkit to act at the push of a button. Supported by a team of people who managed an OS that provided these features. Supported by a team of people who managed and maintained exploits into various networks.

In the game dedsec is a terrorist organization, with hundreds of cells, all cooperating and sharing exploits, source code, 3d printing designs, botnets, etc. internally. There are missions where you build a new tool for their OS by working with multiple cells. Getting the prototype code, testing it, giving it to a another cell to integrate, and then having it.

The point is with devoted manpower of that degree, and with common purpose, this could actually happen, even if it's super unlikely, like many non-magical superhero movies.

<comment><USER4> Reminds me a bit of Daniel Suarez's Daemon/FreedomTM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The hack for causing accidents by hacking traffic lights wouldn't work because they are physically incabable of giving green lights to the wrong combinations.

<comment><USER6> Any resources? I'd be interested in reading about that.

<comment><USER7> A unit such as this[1] monitors the state of the lights and will not allow an "illegal" output such as "all green".

[1] [http://www.orangetraffic.com/en/products/edi- mmu-16e-malfunc...](http://www.orangetraffic.com/en/products/edi- mmu-16e-malfunction-management-unit-edi)

<comment><USER8> What if the monitor unit malfunctions or is misconfigured?

<comment><USER9> My understanding has it that it's a comparatively simple piece of hardware, and isn't networked. It certainly ever happens that they're wired up wrong, but aren't something you can remotely hack.

<comment><USER10> Well, this could help you detect malfunctioning/hacked unit. But I doubt it's installed on every traffic light. AFAIK the traffic lights are controlled by PLCs which can be easily reprogrammed if you gain access to them.

On the other hand, I've had an assignment a few weeks ago to make a circuit to control some traffic lights for crosswalk, and I'm pretty sure it was simple enough that the only way to hack it was to have direct access to it with a soldering iron.

<comment><USER9> It's my understanding that it is quite specifically installed on every traffic light (in the sense that it's both the purpose of the device and that it's legally required). Note that this does not _control_ the lights, it simply monitors and switches to flashing-yellow (until a manual reset) if there's an error.

Mind you, none of this is first hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes ... our lives will get a lot more "interesting" as the script kiddies figure out how to disrupt physical infrastructure. Most of the state actors aren't interested in crashing these systems (at least for now - that could change with the appropriate war). Instead, there's a profit motive in electronic espionage. When this knowledge is acquired by those that just want to break things, we'll find life a bit harder.

<comment><USER12> I do think a lot of the "comfort" that we have now is security through obscurity, i.e. lack of motive or passion. Ignoring the discussion of who actually was behind the targeting of the Clinton campaign, it's clear that all it took to make a massive impact is a batch script and very limited social engineering: [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into- john...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into-john-podesta- and-colin-powells-gmail-accounts?trk_source=homepage-lede)

<comment><USER11> That reminds me of another point ... we're getting used to seeing breaches that expose personal data, credentials, etc. But what other kinds of "data disasters" might come about through mass breaches similar to the MongoDB story on the front page yesterday. It seems inevitable that there will be confidential and/or proprietary data in some of these breaches that won't lead to identity theft but will lead to embarrassment or have financial ramifications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of the SoMa stuff in my backyard is in the game:

[https://www.cnet.com/news/watch-dogs-2-screenshots-vs-san- fr...](https://www.cnet.com/news/watch-dogs-2-screenshots-vs-san-francisco- real-life-pictures/)</comment>


Exactly How Screwed Is PayPal? (Hint: Very) - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/14/exactly-how-screwed-is-paypal-hint-very/ <comment><USER2> If you're based in the USA, if your business is largely with Americans and conducted exclusively in USD, then: yes. You're in luck.

What's that? You're one of the 6.7 billion people who _don't_ live in the USA? You want to conduct business in more than one currency? You're not an American company?

Then guess what: you're still stuck with PayPal.

Nobody seems to get that PayPal's killer feature is not its userbase. It's that it's everywhere and has multi-currency support.

I would very much like to use Stripe or Braintree or whoever there is who doesn't resemble the truly and sincerely Kafkaesque[1] experience of dealing with PayPal. But until I, as an Australian, can do business with foreigners _in their currency_ then Stripe and the like are basically useless to me.

All I can do is lick the windows.

[1]: I'm semi-serious. Read _The Trial_ and tell me it wasn't written about having a PayPal account frozen.

<comment><USER3> Funny enough, I came here to argue more or less _the opposite_.

In many countries, the standard payment problems have been largely solved locally, at least for the local markets. In the Netherlands, a wide selection of payment providers will give you the ability to receive payment through virtually any method.

Merchant accounts are easy to get, and the most popular local form of payment, iDeal (direct "my bank to your bank" payment), is supported by all banks and can be easily implemented without the need for any payment provider. The vast majority of all only transactions in NL go through iDeal.

Most payment providers also offer multi-currency support, but it's only a very small part of the market that needs that. The use of PayPal is very rare and becoming rarer by the day. It's about as old school as seeing a "made for Netscape" button on a website.

There's only one area where PayPal is easier and more accessible, and that is very low budget private stuff like donations on a small software project. But given the constant horror stories about PayPal, any solution that targets that market effectively will wipe PayPal away in a matter of months. And then PayPal will be history in the Netherlands.

<comment><USER4> < In many countries, the standard payment problems have been largely solved locally, at least for the local markets. In the Netherlands, a wide selection of payment providers will give you the ability to receive payment through virtually any method.

Is it really? Sometimes I feel the Netherlands is the only country where it's been solved. Who of you live in a country with a satisfying, cheap, standard local payment provider?

<comment><USER5> In Sweden you can either use bank transfer, invoice (provided by Klarna), and I do not think accepting credit card payments is hard either.

Almost no Swedish businesses who target the Swedish market use Paypal. Paypal is mostly use by Swedish companies when they want to target any country in the world (for example Minecraft).

<comment><USER6> Dealing with the Swedish credit card providers isn't really any nicer than dealing with PayPal, but it feel better to be dealing with a local company in case something goes wrong.

In Europe bank transfers solve the person-person transfers so there's no need for PayPal for those situations, but for small fry accepting credit card payments it's hard to beat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Has anyone under 30 ever bid on something on eBay?"

What a load of shit. I'm 25, and I use ebay all the time.

Sure, you can make the argument that Etsy and Amazon are taking business away from eBay. But suggesting that they have replaced eBay as a platform is ridiculous. This is also a very USA-centric view to take. I'm from Australia, so using Amazon is a pain due to manufacturer export restrictions, and the often prohibitively expensive shipping costs. So in many cases eBay is a better alternative. And as for Etsy, it serves a niche. If you want to set up an online store to sell kitschy homemade toot, knock yourself out and use Etsy. But if I want to sell some of my second hand stuff, eBay is what I'm using.

<comment><USER8> You, being merely a single example of an individual who does not fit her statement, does not invalidate her point that it's a marketplace that an older demographic audience uses.

If she (and you) could demonstrate that as being true (or false) with research and statistics, then she (and you) would have a leg to stand on.

<comment><USER9> Draftable isn't getting paid to peddle anecdotes though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hint: However much the venture investors in my blog want me to tell you it is

<comment><USER11> It also feels like a thinly disguised way to send traffic to NSFW Corp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, that's a shockingly bad article, even from Sarah Lacy's standards. Here's a summary:

"Here's a list of PayPal's fringe competitors" -> PayPal is VERY screwed

"Ex-PayPal co-founder says bad things about PayPal, while investing in a small competitor" -> PayPal is VERY screwed

"Young startup has a better user experience compared to 10-year old behemoth" -> PayPal is VERY screwed.

Sure, some of Lacy's Valley friends are making (or investing in) interesting products in the payments space, but man, does she let her 'network' write all her articles or what.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm going to ignore all of this article except for:

"The first step was Canada, where Stripe has just gone live. It's actively working on Western Europe too."

This isn't even true is it? There's no mention of this on their site/blog. Nothing on Google. Their Twitter feed even recently replied to someone saying it isn't in Canada.

<comment><USER14> It is in a private beta in Canada as of last weekend. You can ask them for an invite.

<comment><USER13> Awesome! "just gone live" is a bit misleading then.

<comment><USER15> I read it as live but not public. You're reading tech blogs, their main beef is to get news as soon as possible.

<comment><USER16> Live means that it's publicly available as a finished product, doesn't it? Private beta is not "live". That's like saying a stage show has opened when they're doing a dress rehearsal.

<comment><USER15> It's like saying the show is on, it's live, there's a reception for VIPs then there the general admission are allowed in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yeah, let's just ignore all facts, such as actual financials, those don't matter when you're a tech reporter who likes to make things up out of thin air, right?

I dislike PayPal, but this is a terrible piece, and what is it, fluff for NSFW, Corp.?

<comment><USER18> Completely agree. The most shockingly amusing part is in the second paragraph, where she uses the fact she has no financial proof as her financial proof...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> All I can think about when reading this is Betteridge's Law of Headlines.

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880>

<comment><USER20> This has to be one of the most invaluable filtering techniques I've learned to employ in the past year or so in regard to sites like HN.

It seems obvious in hindsight, but I'd never realised how many article headlines ending with a question mark naturally contained so much fluff.

I now instinctively answer the question with a 'no' and move on without reading any further.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> PayPal is not going anywhere for the same reason Facebook is not going anywhere - over time both created a solid presence for non-technical users. No matter how cool squared looks i can guarantee you a typical paypal user won't care because what they have works good enough. It's the same reason G+ will never be more popular than facebook. For a typical user there is very little incentive to switch.

</comment><comment><USER22> "It may not be showing up in PayPal's numbers yet. Indeed, by the time you start to see these things on the balance sheet, the damage is irreversible. The question is whether it can still be reversed now." So much Win in that small paragraph alone. So, the numbers are good, put you are not convinced... because why? Ah yes, the damage is irreversible - let's see how we can reverse the irreversible then, shall we? Mind, blown.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have two reports of people having their accounts frozen for 6 months at paypal for no apparent reason, no recourse and no explanation.

I also have severe problems paying with paypal. Why is it that I can pay on amazon, apple, expedia etc etc very easily, never have a problem, but when I try to enter my credit card on paypal they do not allow the payment?

And yes from personal experience braintree is a million times better than paypal.

</comment><comment><USER24> Personally I think it's time for ebay to get rid of listing fees and MASSIVELY increase it's listings.

These days I go to amazon first for used stuff since people can list there with no fees, so I get better deals.

The only place where ebay wins is one of a kinds since amazon will only sell items with SKU's or part numbers.

<comment><USER25> The reason listing fees exist is to reduce the amount of dumped crap onto eBay. Besides, for individual sellers, listing fees are basically gone (or de minimis) anyway. There's a perpetual 'promotion' for your first N listings a month to be free of listing fees.

<comment><USER26> Interesting how Yahoo Japan got away with having no listing fee. And continue to be successful with it. Cultural? Or just precedence since dominating the market there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Tripe fails at a very important point.

Paypal subscriptions are dead simple to cancel and there is no way to for the merchant to make any funny business, at all.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hint: the hint is misleading

</comment><comment><USER29> "Has anyone under 30 ever bid on something on eBay?"

I'm under 30, and I just won two auctions in the past week, bidding on many more to buy at the lowest price.

Really, we're posting articles from Pando? And it's from Sarah Lacey to boot. This article can't be anything but accurate. Oh, hold on, never mind...

<comment><USER30> I'm 20 and use it all the time. Don't people buy used things anymore?

<comment><USER31> Not in my experience. I can't sell any of my used stuff on ebay these days, however years ago it used to be great. These days i basically have to throw stuff out! Things i've tried to move: speakers, leather jackets, fridges- nobody wants it on ebay any more. It's just a buy-it-now-opolis these days.

<comment><USER32> Set market prices and it will sell</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: When was the last time you had to know advanced algebra when coding? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Coding what? Web applications? Never. Learning algorithms? Yesterday.

It all depends on what you are working on. I know plenty of successful programmers who have gotten away with knowing absolutely no math (not even basic calculus). However, if you don't know "advanced algebra", there may be doors that are not open to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is your definition of "advanced algebra" ?

Group theory ? Galois Theory ? Category Theory ? What ?

</comment><comment><USER4> Linear algebra? All the time.</comment>


Nutanix IPO: Distribution of Investor Returns - <AUTHOR> https://equityzen.com/path-to-ipo/nutanix/ <comment><USER2> it's silly folks were calling it a "down round IPO" more than anything, people were over blowing the ratchet protection and misunderstanding the difference between allocated and issued shares.</comment>


DNA Replication Filmed for the First Time, and it's not what we expected - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/dna-replication-has-been-filmed-for-the-first-time-and-it-s-stranger-than-we-thought <comment><USER2> [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.05.041](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.05.041)

Original paper link. Sci-hub ought to be able to get you the paper.

On first pass, seems like this is an in-vitro study. I would hesitate to go from "we didn't observe what we expected to see, while performing a limited, highly abstracted experiment on a glass slide" to "based on this, everything we understand about what actually happens inside a cell now has to change" . The article on SA feels a bit over the top.

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14591751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14591751)

</comment><comment><USER4> How do I interpret the video? It just looks like dots and lines, to my untrained eye I have no idea how it relates to the article.

<comment><USER2> So, the authors used a fluorescent dye that only fluoresces when it is part of double stranded DNA.

The surface is a glass slide / coverslip on which you have DNA + the DNA replication enzymes (not the entire set used inside a cell... Just the most important ones for the actual process of DNA replication).

They used a technique called tirf microscopy [1] which allows them to, in effect, monitor only the molecules and dyes adhered to the surface plane they want to observe.

The lines are, at a simplistic level, single stranded DNA getting converted to double stranded DNA.. as the DNA gets replicated, the dye fluoresces. As the replication proceeds and the replicated length increases, more of the dye gets incorporated into double stranded DNA and starts fluorescing, acting as an indicator of ds-DNA formation, and therefore, a proxy for DNA replication success in this experimental model.

The dots ( if I am interpreting correctly) are the template DNA in circular form.

It's a very cool technical achievement in itself, getting this system to work!

[1] [http://www.leica-microsystems.com/science-lab/total- internal...](http://www.leica-microsystems.com/science-lab/total-internal- reflection-fluorescence-tirf-microscopy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In one sentence the strands act "independently", in the next sentence they are synchronizing via halts and speed ups. What am I missing?

<comment><USER6> It's a bit subtle. What they found is that the polymerease step (the actual duplication) is independent, but the helicase step (this unwinds the original double strand DNA) has some sort of mechanism to limit the difference between the two strands.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Discover Forever, a Set-And-forget to Save Your Spotify Discover Weekly - <AUTHOR> http://noeltrivedi.com/discover <comment><USER2> Seems like a good learning project, though for anyone else who wants a solution, there's a pretty popular IFTTT applet that does the same thing: [https://ifttt.com/applets/47502738d-automatically-keep-a- pla...](https://ifttt.com/applets/47502738d-automatically-keep-a-playlist-of- your-spotify-discover-weekly-recommendations)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is something I made to learn Ruby on Rails, Spotify's Web API, and solve a problem I personally, had over winter break. It's really small and simple, but you gotta start somewhere</comment>


Gaping 'hole' in Qualcomm's Secure World mobile vault leaked sensitive data - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/qualcomms-secure-world-virtual-processor-leaks-mobile-payment-data/ <comment><USER2> > Check Point wanted to tamper with the code responsible for calculating hash > block signatures or for comparing segments of hashes with verified ones to > trigger an exploit.

So fundamentally it's a parsing exploit on untrusted user input. They should have been able to simplify and test this mechanism extensively enough to not have this type of vulnerability, because it doesn't sound like researchers even had to go to the level of the timing attacks that came up recently in a related area [0] [1].

[0] [http://tpm.fail/](http://tpm.fail/) [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21520074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21520074)</comment>


Microsoft Incorporates Graphcore AI Chips in Azure Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1335297 <comment><USER2> The author seems to be completely clueless.

1\. "This is the first time any major cloud service provider has publicly offered customers the opportunity to run their data on an accelerator from any of the dozens of AI chip startups"

No. Google purchased an AI chip startup around 2015 and since February 2018 you could use TPUs on their cloud. The TPU is a hardware accelerator for AI and matrix multiplication.

2\. The TensorFlow values in their diagram are "* estimated" which I guess makes sense because TensorFlow & TPU is the biggest competitor to Graphcore. Thanks to XLA, TF2 tends to be a few percent faster on GPU than PyTorch. For example, see here: [https://wrosinski.github.io/deep-learning- frameworks/](https://wrosinski.github.io/deep-learning-frameworks/)

3\. They compare Graphcore against GPU, but the real comparison target here would be other accelerators, e.g. TPU. Graphcore comes out similarly fast as a V100, meaning it would be roughly 50% slower than a TPU.

<comment><USER3> > 3\. They compare Graphcore against GPU, but the real comparison target here > would be other accelerators, e.g. TPU. Graphcore comes out similarly fast as > a V100, meaning it would be roughly 50% slower than a TPU.

Hmm, business wise, GPU is every AI accelerator startups biggest enemy.

BTW we are building software infrastructure for AI chips, ping me if interested. firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER4> I'm interested, but you don't seem to have an email address I can ping you at.

<comment><USER3> Added an email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, in their benchmarks it shows that Tensorflow is nearly twice as slow to train on a GPU compared to PyTorch. That's a surprisingly large difference.

<comment><USER6> 2X slower is unlikely, but Pytorch does tend to be faster than TF in most recent benchmarks. See this link posted by another commenter for one example:

[https://wrosinski.github.io/deep-learning-speed- vol1/](https://wrosinski.github.io/deep-learning-speed-vol1/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm afraid these AI accelerators available only to the Big cloud companies would further 'prevent' democratisation of AI/ML.

GPU is already a big bottleneck for an individual/startup from a poor economic region. Considering, even entry level Software Engineering jobs now expect the candidates to know ML; it is imposing a huge disadvantage over a large sector of students from poor countries.

I understand this issue has largely to do with how semiconductor industry by itself is structured. With only handful of fabrication plants capable of mass producing semiconductors of this nature and they being integral part of 'soft power' in Geo-politics; it's hard for a startup to enter this space and when they do, they have no option to tie-up with these cloud companies.

But, without the hardware bottleneck being addressed not only 'AI powered end product' will increase the in-equality; but the ML education/research ecosystem is already raising the inequality.

<comment><USER8> I hate how people perceive unequal growth as a bad thing even when everyone benefits on an absolute scale. In particular, it's a completely ridiculous standard to apply to technology. The fact that Google can train a 12 billion parameter model does not make my 2 million parameter model any less effective. And when you're concerned with actually doing useful things to create value, that's all that matters.

I will not go into how completely detached from reality the rest of the comment is except to say there are approximately zero people who cannot learn ML because they don't have access to a GPU.

<comment><USER7> > there are approximately zero people who cannot learn ML because they don't > have access to a GPU

That sounds like an entitled, myopic view.

There are reputed, fully meritorious govt. run Engineering colleges in India, where tuition fee is ~100 USD/Year. Many of the students studying there are in poverty, govt. provides free laptop albeit obviously cheap one. Almost everyone studying there are placed in top companies around the world.

In my previous startup I've conducted ~80 ML/DS interviews, fresh graduates from above colleges perform very well in DSA & other CS aspects; but perform poor with ML when compared to those from expensive private institutions.

When I enquired them, it came down to lack of proper access to ML hardware. Their college labs are not equipped to provide ML training at scale, their access to Internet is limited to make use of Google Colaboratory or similar services.

Yes, they could run a CPU bound training for days, but it isn't practical and many don't have consistent power supply.

Economic disadvantage in education is real, more pronounced when it comes to ML in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The architecture of these seems quite different from GPUs and Google's TPUs. It's interesting that they went with smaller amounts of on-core memory and very high bandwidth, rather than a large amount of on-card memory.

</comment><comment><USER10> Training ResNet with 8IPUs is roughly the same as 8GPUs. I doubt it was Tensor Core optimized so I assume the GPUs can go way faster.

I'd love to spend some time and come up with Graphcore optimized models. But at this stage fused Tensor Core optimized ops are much more interesting to me.

<comment><USER3> Yep, nVidia CEO claimed nVidia is really a software company citing the complex software they built on top of their GPU.

But I think AI as a whole needs to make optimizing ML AI workloads on non GPU accelerators equally well. Otherwise the industry will be stifled by the money seeking shortsigtness of nVidia

<comment><USER11> Easy enough to optimize a net against a new architecture: [https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/08/efficientnet-edgetpu- creat...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/08/efficientnet-edgetpu- creating.html)

<comment><USER3> Seems this is to using automl to find NN architecture that fits well in certain inference chips.

The orthogonal issue is given a trained model how to make it run faster on a given inference chip.

Either way, a blog post on Google AI is a symbol that 1% of the work is done, the rest 99% needs more investment from the believers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Which is the best [human] language to learn? - <AUTHOR> http://moreintelligentlife.com/print/4256

<comment><USER2> The point made about Chinese is harsh, but basically valid. I'm a Mandarin Chinese language minor, and I've been studying it for a couple years now; it's really _just_ the writing system that's difficult, because it's so heavily memorisation-oriented. The syntax, morphology, and phonology are _way_ simpler and more uniform than English. Even my peers with the most pronunciation difficulties had little trouble with tones. (It's mainly the affricates and some vowels that cause trouble.)

If China were to move to a further simplified writing system (as Korea has already done with Hangul), then sure, it would remove barriers for foreign learners. But it won't happen, for basically the same reason that English spelling reform won't—the orthography is fairly standard across dialects, and nobody is willing to accept "breaking" changes.

Now, as for French…I've spoken French since I was little, and speaking it lets me understand Spanish and other Romance languages rather well. But I think perhaps I would be better off knowing Spanish, because French pronunciation differs so much from the Romantic norm. You're much less likely to be understood speaking French to a Spanish speaker than you are speaking Spanish to an Italian speaker.

So my votes are for English, Mandarin, and (some variety of) Spanish.</comment>


A Comparison Between Left- and Right-justified Site Navigation Menus [2003] - <AUTHOR> http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/94/93

<comment><USER2> Maybe it's due to the translation but the use of left- and right- justification and left and right side navigation bars is very confusing.

Also, in Figure 1, despite their claim that nothing has changed except the placement of the bar, the justification of the text in the bars has also changed. Not compelling.

</comment><comment><USER3> The writer seems to be actively trying to find some superiority to right-side navigation menus, even after conducting experiments that show no real difference.</comment>


Ask HN: Overcoming Blah? - <AUTHOR> Lately I've found myself unable to conquer even the smallest challenges.  I've been trained my whole life to look a dozen moves ahead and choose the optimum path towards solving a problem.  But most of the challenges I face now are mundane (where the decision isn't that critical) or worse, come down to a choice between two or more mediocre solutions.  The consistent lack of challenge is sapping my motivation.
So while overanalyzing a problem is good for engineering, it's often bad for short term contracting and personal relationships.  I've become disinterested in work and seem to read the news or do anything else besides getting the job done.  Sometimes I wish someone else could take the reins and just give me a stream of tiny tasks and simple yes/no or A/B choices so all I have to do is make a decision and not have to worry about maintaining the whole context of the problem in my mind.  But I don't want to work for someone else, because it's resulted in negative reinforcement and burnout.  I also don't see a way to be compensated fairly for taking on the burden of being solely in charge of a project, with its loose ends and followups.
So my question is, how do you "snap out of it" and get real work done consistently day by day?  I've found trance music to be helpful, and working at certain hours.  But I'm looking for deeper inspiration, more metaphysical, like if I do A B C, then X life goal will result and my life will move forward.  I'm not feeling that now.  As far as I can tell, my future entails a never-ending stream of minutia that causes a spiritual crippling of my resolve and psyche.  I worry that since I work and correspond with regular folks, that their agenda will always be at odds with mine and govern my life.
Continued here due to 2000 character limit:
http://pastebin.com/3pmNXDM2 <comment><USER2> _The consistent lack of challenge is sapping my motivation_

 _Sometimes I wish someone else could take the reins and just give me a stream of tiny tasks and simple yes/no or A/B choices so all I have to do is make a decision and not have to worry about maintaining the whole context of the problem in my mind._

There is an odd juxtaposition here. It sounds like you need to re-frame your first sentence into a larger context. Is this X that you are doing functional to a larger goal? Or not. The second part, needs to be also simplified. You can abstract the logic, and solve problems on a higher plane. You can compartmentalize and solve smaller, less complex problems. Or you can delegate to solve the tasks. That, of course presumes you have the power to do anything about the situation you are in.

If your job is just a one-man-wack-a-mole game, it might not be a remediable situation. At either level. Then, you must decide if it's on a critical path to your future success, or not. If yes, you have to suck it up and get to the next level. If its not, time to consider extracting yourself from the situation.

Pre-visualize your situation with clarity. That is the virst step. Then you can build momentum. As the movie said, "Fear breeds hesitation, and hesitation makes your worst fears, come true." But it is important to think fast and move slow. Until you get that clarity. Then you go.

</comment><comment><USER3> I see a lot of my own opinion in your post. I did not have similar feelings when I started the transition from college to SV about 6 or 7 years ago but have similar thoughts after going from project to project, company to company. Oddly from the outside most would look at my history as a good career. Learning the new thing no longer feels like tangible growth that will move things forward for me personally. I love software development but sometimes the ecosystem of work that surrounds it depresses me - PM, buzzwords, hype - to me its all pretty intellectually disengaging and tiring. Interesting creative solutions to real problems done with other genuinely technically minded people is inspiring but seems to be increasingly rare in terms of the pool of opportunities.

Anyhow enough about me - I think you've answered your own question in the continued part. Id certainly like to see a similar ecosystem grow as you you've described it. Try to work toward that - helping empower other folks like yourself could be pretty energizing.

</comment><comment><USER4> You will probably need to look outside work for meaningful challenges and deeper inspiration. My serious suggestion to you is to take on a big goal that has nothing to do with your job, like say, run a marathon or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya I used to weight train a lot and when I reached my goal on bench, I fell out of it back in early 2008.

My goals now mostly involve inventions or kickstarter projects but I can't figure out how to incorporate them into my life.

For example, my girlfriend's main priority is that I make money so I can be a provider. I just worry that without real meaning in my work, that I will never make any money anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Help people and be grateful for what you have.</comment>


As Pay-by-Phone Advances, Square Takes Another Leap - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/technology/personaltech/as-pay-by-phone-advances-square-takes-another-leap-state-of-the-art.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> What happens when your phone runs out of juice?

<comment><USER3> Same thing that happens when your leather wallet runs out of juice... ... err.. oh...</comment></comment>


Norway's Opera warns on growth, says firm may be sold - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/08/opera-software-ma-idUSL5N10J09C20150808 <comment><USER2> This is really too bad -- Norway has a severe lack of software product companies. Most graduates end up in one of the country's many consulting outfits, both due to the lack of positions in product companies and because those that do exist offer worse opportunities for career development than the consulting companies do.

<comment><USER3> Last year Schibsted hired ex-Googler Rian Liebenberg as CTO and started bringing in people from Yahoo, Twitter, Amazon, Google, Spotify and even Qt/Nokia. apparently there are opportunities for career development even in Norway. Watch this space.

<comment><USER4> They outsourced operations to IBM, is that a good sign?

<comment><USER3> Schibsted is huge and consists of a lot of companies running their own stack. I am not surprised to see some of that operated by IBM.

It is a good sign if it enables Schibsted to focus on becoming more like a Technology company. It is too early to tell of course.

Full disclosure: I am one of those ex-Googlers recently hired by Schibsted, and I am not working with IBM. I believe that what is happening is the most interesting thing happening in tech in Norway at the moment. Far better opportunity than the consulting companies Aqwis referred to.

<comment><USER4> I've always viewed Schibsted as a owner of media companies, VG, Blokket etc. Not a company that is producing software. That at least how I read your views. From the little I've viewed they don't do anything special on IT operations, quite boring. So it might make sense, and what I've heard is that the quality of the operations (at least in Norway) haven't been to good.

Random ramblings ends here <-

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Opera bought a company that I felt was the most challenging and least rewarding (I left 3 weeks befor vesting despite employee number sub 20). Glad for those that stayed and what opera bought was a very focused version of what we started with.

</comment><comment><USER6> Happens if you betray Power Users and move forward to an almost non customizable Chrome clone.

That should be a warning for Mozilla too, fool the users once and they fall for it, fool them twice and they fall again but try to fool them 1001 times and they give you the middle finger!

</comment><comment><USER7> > * 2015 revenue now forecast lower at $600 mln to $618 mln

How does Opera generate revenue? Ads?

<comment><USER8> Opera went on an acquisition spree over the last few years to buy and stitch together what is now the largest independent mobile ad network. Pretty much went from nothing 2 years ago to the vast majority of their revenues this year.

Which is to say the Opera most people think about, the browser, isn't where the money is being made. In fact, Opera MediaWorks, their mobile ad network, isn't really connected to the browser in any way, and the business is structured as a nearly separate entity.

<comment><USER9> that was the shift they did when they gave up browsers (i.e. become chromium skin makers).

it was a crazy shift. they always made some money with ads. so they decided to cut the middle man, but they forgot a) they didn't have the eyeballs anymore, b) they know nothing about being a network. yeah they bought companies, but probably the clients didn't stick around otherwise people here would at least have heard they are a publisher now.

<comment><USER10> Opera is far from a "chromium skin maker". In addition to features like autosizing modes for mobile, Opera developers are heavily involved in specs as well as the entire Chromium stack:

[https://blink.lc/blink/log/?qt=author&q=opera](https://blink.lc/blink/log/?qt=author&q=opera)

[https://blink.lc/chromium/log/?qt=author&q=opera](https://blink.lc/chromium/log/?qt=author&q=opera)

They have an incredible team.

<comment><USER11> It's a little ironic for such news to end up here, because I'm pretty sure Opera (mobile) is the only one of the major browsers still supporting text reflow, which is why I use it for reading HN which doesn't have an official mobile site version.

<comment><USER12> I too use Opera Mobile for its text reflow feature. A feature sorely lacking in (AFAIK) every single other mobile browser.

<comment><USER13> Firefox has text reflow on zoom.

<comment><USER14> But it isn't even comparable. I've tried switching to Firefox, but the text reflow sucks badly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Who do you guys think purchases Opera?

Facebook? Google? Microsoft? Nokia?

<comment><USER16> Yahoo!

<comment><USER17> What implications, if any, would this have on their relationship with Mozilla?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Opera is no longer working well on my old PC with windows 10 Speed Dial wont even load.

</comment><comment><USER19> Kind of makes all the job positions seem less appealing, eh?

[http://www.operasoftware.com/company/jobs/list](http://www.operasoftware.com/company/jobs/list)

</comment><comment><USER19> I remember people told me Opera was dead years ago. Strange all the adjectives people use for companies pulling $600+mil/yr these days... ;)

Good to see one of my old favorites making it so well so long in a cut-throat business. Unsurprising that it might come to an end soon. I know they used to brag on their strong and interesting approach to diversity. Wonder how much that ended up helping them innovate into survival where others failed.

<comment><USER20> Opera the _browser company_ is dead.

Their management decided they don't want to make browsers anymore, replaced the presto development team with a chromium modding team, and focussed on selling ads.

In the financial report 1Q15 you can see that out of 127 mio revenue, only 17.1 mio come from browsers: [http://www.operasoftware.com/company/investors/finance](http://www.operasoftware.com/company/investors/finance)

If they're still one of your favourites, then i guess you like ads a lot?

<comment><USER21> I agree that Opera the browser is not as competitive as they once were, but for the ads point you could say the same about Chrome since Google makes its money from advertising, not from the browser. I haven't seen any ads outside of the web content in Chrome or Opera (at least since version 8.5).

<comment><USER19> Good counter. It's pretty much all ads these days with browsers being a delivery mechanism.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reverse Engineering Wipeout (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://phoboslab.org/log/2015/04/reverse-engineering-wipeout-psx <comment><USER2> One of my all time favorite games and I'm sure for other oldtimers/oldskoolers. I still got the original PS1 along with Wipeout and the memory card with my records :-) I think I'll have to revisit it someday.

<comment><USER3> You'll love BalisticNG, it's like playing the original with better resolution and framerate.

<comment><USER4> I tried Formula Fusion on Steam (made by former WipeOut devs) but it just wasn't the same. The tracks were boring and the music may as well have been non-existent.

I'll give BaseNG a try though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The linked model viewer is great: [http://phoboslab.org/wipeout/](http://phoboslab.org/wipeout/)

<comment><USER6> Coincidentally enough, I had Future Sound of London on when I checked this out. Very appropriate!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article got some interesting discussion on reddit, especially the threads from this comment:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8yv842/reverse...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8yv842/reverse_engineering_wipeout/e2efugp)

</comment><comment><USER8> Great music too.

What recent game comes close to Wipeout? I've looked at FastRMX and Redout (both on Switch) but they don't quite do it for me.

<comment><USER9> I haven't played it myself but user 1ko recommends the following: "You'll love BalisticNG, it's like playing the original with better resolution and framerate."</comment></comment>


Damn Girl, You've Got a High AQ - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/damn-girl-youve-got-a-high-aq-ba71a5c9c7f6 <comment><USER2> I wonder as AQ becomes more common, where it will fit into the "nature vs nurture" discussion. Seems like adaptability is more of a muscle we can flex and strengthen while IQ/EQ may be harder to develop, so "training" AQ could be an interesting approach for anyone trying to increase their opportunity set, assuming higher AQ does in fact lead to more opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Super interesting article. Curious, with the pharmaceutical developments we have already, what would be an upper bound for human AQ today? How might we measure it?

</comment><comment><USER4> thanks for posting! curious to hear more thoughts/critiques</comment>


Locust Swarms Are Getting So Big That We Need Radar to Track Them - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/locust-swarms-are-getting-so-big-that-we-need-radar-to-track-them-dc79c06496a0 <comment><USER2> Recommended listening to get historical proportions: [https://allthingscomedy.com/podcasts/431---year-of-the- locus...](https://allthingscomedy.com/podcasts/431---year-of-the-locust)</comment>


Onyx Boox Max 3: E-Ink Android 9 Tablet - <AUTHOR> https://shop.boox.com/products/boox-max3 <comment><USER2> Looks amazing! Very excited for this one. Some good information here: [https://cloudconfusing.com/2019/09/10/e-ink-monitors- ready-f...](https://cloudconfusing.com/2019/09/10/e-ink-monitors-ready-for- prime-time/)</comment>


Video to GIF - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/vidgif

<comment><USER2> I wonder how this will face up to gfycat? gfycat has the ability to turn a video into a gif as well as an HTML5 video - it is already pretty popular and the benefits of HTML5 videos over gifs seem obvious. How much longer can we expect the gif format to be around for?

<comment><USER3> Imgur's default is also HTML5 video– we support both WebM and MP4

<comment><USER2> Excellent - thanks for pointing that out :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unsure if I'm doing something wrong but I just pasted in a Youtube URL and it did nothing but show a little red X in the entry bar.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi! I helped create video to GIF and would be happy to answer any questions.</comment>


Why isn't ssdb more popular? - <AUTHOR> http://ssdb.io/ seems to be a reasonable alternative for redis for data sets that are larger than memory, but I don't see nearly as much "buzz" about it.  Is there some reason people don't use it or are they just unaware.<p>I would love to hear about any success or failure stories about it. <comment><USER2> After reading the website and looking at the current production users, it seems the project has been created by a chinese team. Some (not the majority) commits were written in mandarin. It doesn't help to bring foreign developers to contribute. Also, they might not be in touch with the influential blogs or developers on social networks to talk about their project. Many nice front end projects made by Chinese developers have the same problem.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the communication with the community is very important.

A more difficult path is to have good benchmarks. I only found this: [http://www.ideawu.com/blog/ssdb](http://www.ideawu.com/blog/ssdb) . It's like a 10% improvement, probably not enough to convince someone to switch. Is there an specific use case where they get a bigger difference?

<comment><AUTHOR> When you have 100GB of data on a 32GB machine. Redis will choke and ssdb will keep going (it's using leveldb under the hood). The point is not better performance but acceptable performance that's more than fits in memory.</comment></comment></comment>


Unix for Poets (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs124/lec/124-UnixForPoets.pdf <comment><USER2> Aw. I thought this was going to be more about using Unix as a natural language to write poetry, the way poetry competitions are held for programming languages.

I think it would be interesting if more programs were written with an aesthetic or artistic goal in mind, rather than functional. Like network code that has feelings, or fonts that get blurry the longer you look at them, or programs that, instead of crashing, simply find something else to do. Maybe a program written so the source is a poem about lost love, and results in bugs that randomly corrupts your memory on your lover's birthday.

I'm weird.

<comment><USER3> "The music of streams" by Doug McIlroy, an inventor of Unix pipes - [http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/powser.html](http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/powser.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice introduction. Though I disagree his opinion that it is not worth learning awk in 2013. For quick operations on DSV files it fits perfectly for the command line and learning its compact syntax is not hard for (most) Unix users.

<comment><USER5> I particularly disagree with anyone's opinion that Awk is not worth learning, if they proceed to whip out "cut" as an example of something worth learning.

Awk generates solutions to certain problems involving record and field delimited text whose succinctness cannot be approached by common scripting languages.

<comment><USER6> Scripting languages, not even Perl?

Cut provides massive bang for buck , just learning "-f -d" and "-c"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A friend of mine is a poet. He is creating an entire mythological saga with an exact pool of letters per stanza. The same letters must appear in the same amounts in every one. He has programmed his own tools. I think he uses Python. It brings a certain awesome vibe to the story. It's a bit like photography in colored versus natural light.

<comment><USER8> For comparison:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunoia_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunoia_\(book\))

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

I recommend finding people with letter-related synesthesia and showing them your friend's poetry!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been encountering a lot of deep humanities types lately who nevertheless are not mathematically incompetent, have math knowledge up to (say) first-year and can code competent small-script Python just fine thank you. And frankly, we need more of this. The STEM/humanities divide is artificial, and any competent intelligent person needs to be able to sling both to at least a basic level.

<comment><USER8> It's kind of a big field by now: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities)

One of the earliest triumphs (from the scholarly point of view, although it's also super-scary for privacy) is the success of stylometry for authorship attribution of unknown books, letters, and manuscripts.

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

I had a high school teacher who (as an English grad student) used a concordance to make an argument about Mark Twain's vocabulary, showing either when a particular work was likely written or when Twain likely read some other work (I forgot which). But that kind of thing and even more impressive inferences would be pretty routine today using computer tools.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, this stuff is marvellous. These days it's not even "digital humanities", it's really just "humanities". All this human interaction stuff we do is what humanities people are there to understand, whether digital or not, and that too requires some understanding of the machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know of a good collection of exercises for other UNIX tasks besides text-based ones like this?

<comment><USER11> The great trajedy of Unix -- and of of the greater trajedies of computation -- is that the composable, user-visible components that made Unix great have never been matched in later stuff, not even in Unix stuff.

We have lots of systems which make software modular and composable, but they are not for the end user. At best they end up being build-blocks for programmers who make gigantic black boxes. More often, programmers of gigantic black boxes struggle with tools and libraries that are themselves gigantic black boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who can post a copy of nyt_200811.txt somewhere? This resource looks great, but it seems you need shell access at Stanford to get a copy of the example data set used?</comment>


Ask HN: Should I Accept or not this internship opportunity ? - <AUTHOR>

I'm doing an internship in a big international company in Europ and they just offered me to do my next internship with them.
Knowing that :
* I'm in my first year of university in computer science in Canada in a Coop program (4 months internship / 4 months of courses) and that I still have 2 internships left to do
* That my parents are in that same country
* That it might be difficult to find internships back in Canada due to the difficult economic time.
* That I would prefer to find an internship in Ottawa, Canada to be near my girlfriend, to practice my english and to possibly do my internship in a startup (or in that same company if possible - but not as interesting as the work offered in europ)
What do you think of my situation ? What should I answer ?
Thanks for your advice <comment><USER2> Do u go to Waterloo? I'm an alumn there and have been through this many times.

My advice is that your first few jobs are very important. I have done countless interviews (as an interviewer) myself and when it comes to selecting students to interview, the coversheet with the companies you worked for and the titles on them usually count the most. So if you want to be a dev and get leg up on the competition then make sure that you get a dev job as soon as you can and this way you can jump ahead of the curve. I have seen a lot of people take an IT job early in their co-op careers and they paid for that mistake later. But all said and done, no matter what happens its what you make of it. Let me know if you want some hints on how to get noticed. There area lot of things that you can do to stand-out and get noticed.

In principle, here are the basic 3 steps.

1\. Submit kick-ass resume that gets noticed and selected. 2\. Interview for the job. 3\. Negotiate terms of your offer. This is more-so for FTE, but interns can negotiate a lot of things too if they choose to do so.

To answer your question though, do you think that this company can help you learn and explore an area that you are interested in? If so, then go for it. Co-op is the time to explore and really go out there and try things out with little risk and to network. My biggest regret from my co-op was not going to Europe, Japan, and other places for opportunities. I did 5/6 of my internships in the US and I felt that really hampered the opportunities that I would have had now if I went further out.

Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> We use Canadian co-ops at our shop. Being offered a second internship at the same place is a big compliment - we only offer a second term to the best students. Doing a second co-op in the same company has certain practical advantages (eg. minimising your moving costs) but also professional advantages: it allows you to deepen your expertise, and it makes you more memorable to the people who work there - I am still writing references for co- ops we had years ago, and one 2-term co-op now has a permanent position with us.

If your main concern is whether you will be able to secure an internship in Canada, you should raise this issue with your co-op co-ordinator at your University - s/he will know whether they are successfully placing all the students or not.

I have no advice about the girlfriend situation :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> When do you have to decide?

How much looking have you done for an internship in Canada?

<comment><AUTHOR> Will have to decide within a week.

I haven't done any searching yet except sending my cv to that company division in Canada to be told I have to go through the standard way (sending my cv by their website) to apply for an internship even if I already worked there.

I still have a little more than 4 months to find an internship.

<comment><USER4> > I haven't done any searching yet except sending my cv to that company > division in Canada to be told I have to go through the standard way (sending > my cv by their website) to apply for an internship even if I already worked > there.

Make your own success.

Find out who approves interns, and reach out to that person. Tell me "You've got six days to make this happen".

I spent far too much of my life following the rules.

The chutes and ramps are for the cattle.

Most people are cattle, so organizations that want to deal with lots of people use chutes and ramps.

However, most organizations also are willing to work with a rock star, a rule breaker, and someone who makes his own luck.

On that note: good luck!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Turn Your Smartphone into Security Cam Anyone Can Watch - <AUTHOR> https://perchlive.com <comment><AUTHOR> This product blends concepts related to slow tv with security and reality entertainment.

One of the first live cams setup is of the West Co gas station in Oakland, California [http://perchlive.com/lens/NOLVg/](http://perchlive.com/lens/NOLVg/)</comment>


What's taking so long, Mr. Babbage? - <AUTHOR> http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=446 <comment><USER2> "Quantum computers are not known to be able to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time."

I don't get the blog's subtitle. Why would anyone suppose that quantum computers could solve NPC problems in polynomial time if non-quantum computers can't? The P and NP complexity classes don't have anything to do with the hardware used to perform computation. Quantum computing isn't some new model of computation, i.e. it's equivalent to Turing machines or the lambda calculus.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a myth that quantum computers are known to be able to solve NP- complete problems in polynomial time by trying all possibilities at once using quantum superposition. For example, by simultaneously trying all possible variable assignments in a SAT problem.

In general, you're confusing decidability and running-time. Just because two models of computing are Turing equivalent (are capable of deciding the same problems) does not mean that they have the same running time on those problems.

<comment><USER2> I didn't intend to imply decidability at all. I just meant that since a quantum computer is equivalent to a Turing machine, and complexity classes are often (and I think were originally) formally described and proven in terms of Turing machines.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe decidability was the wrong word to use.

There are two separate questions: 1) Can model of computation X recognize language Y? 2) How fast can it do so?

When someone says quantum computers are "equivalent" to Turing machines, that's referring only to question 1. In other words, any given language can be recognized by a quantum computer if and only if it can be recognized by a Turing machine.

Just because they are equivalent in this sense doesn't imply anything about question 2. For a concrete example, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shors_algorithm> \-- if factorization takes polynomial time on a quantum computer but exponential time on a Turing machine, it must be reasonable to ask whether quantum computers can be that much faster for a whole class of problems.

Edit: also note that a complexity class is just a set of languages. We can talk about those languages in different contexts, even if they are specified in terms of a particular model of computation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Election Results - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results

<comment><USER2> I like The New York Times coverage more: [http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/big- boar...](http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/big-board) \- I think it's more visually appealing and also more functional.

<comment><USER3> I'm not American, but visually I like this one [http://edition.cnn.com/election/2012/results/main?hpt=elec_f...](http://edition.cnn.com/election/2012/results/main?hpt=elec_flippertkr)

<comment><USER4> The Huffington Post is good too: <http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/results>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do they count a state as having been won by a candidate after only 5%, 10%, or even 25% of the total precincts are reported? That cannot possibly have given a candidate the 51% they need to carry the state.

<comment><USER6> There are only 9 states that are actually in question (the battleground states). All the others are known well in advance.

They pretend they don't know till the polls close, but it's just to avoid discouraging voters.

Load this: [http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/scenario...](http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/scenarios) and mark the 9 states as they call them, and you'll know who won.

<comment><USER7> Annoyingly, that site now redirects to results reporting.

Or only on mobile?

<comment><USER8> Only on mobile. On the desktop it includes the current results but is still basically the decision tree. However, it doesn't let you choose the states that are already decided. (New Hampshire at the moment).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bing has the same: <http://www.bing.com/elections/>

<comment><USER10> Yeah Spiderman uses Bing, we should too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am really annoyed to see many of these pages calling states for a candidate with 0% of votes in.

Can't we at least wait until a statistically valid sample of actual votes is in?

<comment><USER7> They do. They just round down from 0.4% in the summary. When 3600 of 4000 people vote one way, across several precints, it is statistically significant. You won't see that in a statr like Florida that has less consistency across precincts, but in NH and DC, it is a valid call.

<comment><USER12> I don't think that's what's going on. Once polls close, early vote totals are available. Those aren't counted in the percent of precincts reporting. That means there can be zero percent of precincts reporting, but 25% of the vote counted already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, surprisingly Google appear to be quite behind in terms of tallying up the votes. The Huffington Post amongst others appear to have way more up-to-date information: <http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/results>, disappointing on Google's part.

<comment><USER14> They're using AP's numbers. I dodn't know why they don't just scrape the state govt websites, which are where all the news orgs are getting their data anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The NYT (and other news sites...check out the Chicago Tribune's clean map <http://elections.chicagotribune.com/results/us-president/>)...win hands down in looks and functionality, in such a way that you wonder why Google even tried. They don't appear to have more up-to-date info either.

They might have a different source of data but that isn't at all communicated in this format. There must be other, niftier ways to present the data (results and any other kind of data) and chronological structure of our election day than just a map.

That said, I hope Google continues to be a real competitor in terms of providing the voting results data.

<comment><USER16> CT's map is a lot cleaner but it doesn't have the county by county maps that Google does.

<comment><USER17> The county maps have coloring errors. When I checked Oregon, most of the rural counties voted red but are colored blue.

<comment><USER18> Ouch. That would be my bug. Fixed now, with my sincere apology and thanks for reporting it.

[https://code.google.com/p/election- maps/source/detail?r=4975...](https://code.google.com/p/election- maps/source/detail?r=497599a16f84e77fb644d150d4a73df82e9153ec&repo=2012#)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Politico seems to have more current information: <http://www.politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/>

<comment><USER20> According to the current total vote count I see on both, Google is more up to date by a few thousand votes.

<comment><USER19> Odd. A spot check of a few states is showing a much higher vote count in Politico's graph.

<comment><USER20> Odd indeed. I suppose the actual count and timing doesn't matter so much when they call most of the states with only 1% reporting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I dig the InTrade page: <http://www.intrade.com/v4/misc/electoral-map/>

</comment><comment> brown9-2 NPR had a really nice results dashboard also: <http://election2012.npr.org/>

</comment><comment><USER14> WSJ.com had great looking coverage, but their flash (I think - didn't check) seems to be broken and their map is unusable under load. PBS has the best commentary IMHO, but their website crashed early under load.

</comment><comment><USER22> More first-past-the-post foolishness: Obama got 50.3% of the popular vote but 59.9% of the electoral college vote, while Romney got 48.2% of the popular vote but 40.5% of the electoral college vote.

<comment><USER23> In the last Canadian federal election, we gave one party a majority government even though they only won 39.62% of the popular vote. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2011>

<comment><USER22> Absolutely. I'm also Canadian, and therefore sensitized to the issues surrounding FPTP. So far, Canada has somehow resisted the tendency toward a partisan duopoly, but that's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means you can actually choose to vote for a progressive party, a moderate party or a conservative party (or a regional party). On the other, it means we get lots of bizarre artifacts, e.g. the 2008 election, in which the NDP had 18% of the vote but only 12% of the seats, while the BQ had 10% of the votes but 17% of the seats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> BBC is my favorite: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20009195>

</comment><comment><USER25> Yahoo! <http://news.yahoo.com/control-room/>

</comment><comment><USER26> Regarding Google News real-time coverage, they should call it near-real-time coverage.

</comment><comment><USER27> ...and so, with the way it's going... can we make a decent estimate of the victor?

</comment><comment><USER28> I just get a box under results saying 'access not allowed'. Anyone else?</comment>


Show HN: I've compiled a list of books on cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> https://www.readthistwice.com/lists/best-cryptocurrency-books?s=hn <comment><AUTHOR> Please let me know if I'm missing an important book.

The list has the top rated books first.

American Kingpin by Nick Bilton

The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

Mastering Ethereum by Andreas M. Antonopoulos

The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin

Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos

The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous

Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper

The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos

Creating the Twentieth Century by Vaclav Smil

Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier

Blockchain Bubble or Revolution by Neel Mehta

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies by Arvind Narayanan

Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

Inventing Bitcoin by Yan Pritzker

The Little Bitcoin Book by Bitcoin Collective

Serious Cryptography by Jean-Philippe Aumasson

An Altcoin Trader's Handbook by Nik Patel

Programming Bitcoin by Jimmy Song

The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth

Bitcoin by Knut Svanholm

Bitcoin & Black America by Isaiah Jackson

The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis

Mastering Monero by SerHack

Grokking Bitcoin by Kalle Rosenbaum

Why Buy Bitcoin by Andy Edstrom

The Book of Satoshi by Phil Champagne

This Book Will Save You Time by Misir Mahmudov

Bitcoin by Knut Svanholm

Cryptocurrency Investing For Dummies by Kiana Danial

The Dreams of Reason by Heinz R. Pagels

21 Lessons by Gigi

Bitcoin Clarity by Kiara Bickers

Rethinking Money by Bernard Lietaer

From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond by John H. Clippinger

The Bitcoin Revolution by Dominick Barbato

How Money Got Free by Brian Patrick Eha

Handbook of Digital Currency by David LEE Kuo Chuen

Blockchain Technology Explained by Alan T. Norman

Cryptoassets by Chris Burniske

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain by David Gerard

Blockchain Basics by Daniel Drescher

Code by Lawrence Lessig

Blockchain and the Law by Primavera De Filippi

Blockchain by Mark Gates

Bitcoin by Dominic Frisby

The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman

The Age of Cryptocurrency by Paul Vigna

The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance by Brett Scott

Bitcoin For Dummies by Prypto

The Truth Machine by Paul Vigna

Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott

Digital Cash by Finn Brunton

Blockchain by Melanie Swan

Introducing Ethereum and Solidity by Chris Dannen

Building Blockchain Projects by Narayan Prusty

Investing in Ethereum by Oscar Flynt

Bitcoin and Blockchain Security by Ghassan Karame</comment>


Employers are offshoring jobs to get around US visa restrictions - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1883261/h-1b-restrictions-are-pushing-companies-to-offshore-jobs/ <comment><AUTHOR> Link to the working NBER paper study referenced in the article - [https://www.nber.org/papers/w27538.pdf](https://www.nber.org/papers/w27538.pdf)</comment>


Verizon is looking to sell Tumblr after squandering its potential - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/18527177/verizon-seeking-tumblr-sale-rumor-blogging <comment><USER2> Banning Adult Content on the "me too" platform, whose only differentiation was Adult Content, caused the platform to fail. Who'da thunk.

</comment><comment><USER3> If they federate with mastodon they will effectively get all the lost users back.</comment>


GTX 1070 beats the 980ti and Titanx in every game we tested - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcgamer.com/geforce-gtx-1070-performance-preview/?3 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking about upgrading, but it seems the performance gained to money spend ratio might not be worth shelling out for a 1080.

I am contemplating getting an HTC Vive, too bad they didn't really test VR devices with the card. But I believe NVIDIA mentioned that the 10xx cards are all highly optimised for VR, so that might pull me over the edge and get a 1080.

<comment><USER2> I think a lot of people are in this camp right now. I think when they release of Vive-optimized drivers and related tests, then we'll see the real results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unsurprisingly so, yet the price point is way too high to go for an upgrade. I feel like upgrading when the 11XX (they are coming, right?) series come in is a much better idea.

<comment><USER4> AMD Polaris comes out tomorrow, which should meet VR minimum specs and will be a lot cheaper.

If it doesn't meet VR minimum specs then AMD has really missed a golden opportunity that nVidia handed them. The prestige is in the high end cards, the money is in the mainstream & mobile ones.

VR's steep requirements plus the really nice performance bump we're getting from finally getting off of 28nm means that this is probably going to be one of the most vigorous upgrade cycles for GPUs that we've seen in a while.

<comment><USER3> I'm not going to be able to warm up to AMD until they get their OpenGL drivers' performance up to par with NVIDIA. It's such a big deal breaker for me, as someone who actively uses OpenGL for both applications and development.

<comment><USER5> AMD is never going to get their OGL driver up to par with Nvidia's. That's why they created Mantle and are enthusiastic about Vulkan/DX12. It gets them off the hook to make and maintain those drivers.

Whoever decided to save a buck back at ATI and not hire a massive driver development team a couple decades ago did irreparable harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A nice comparison chart for hundreds of cards, with the 1080 being on top (this is updated daily) [http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html](http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html)

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't take PassMark too seriously. It's a dated synthetic benchmark that isn't controlled for other system components or driver versions, since the results are coming from many different users at different times.

Here's an aggregate of 15 real world benchmarks on a consistent test rig: [http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/2...](http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/26.html)

<comment><USER8> I've got out of the game of upgrading PCs years ago, so have no clue.

To me I'd think the average user with his drivers and different components might get a better impression what to expect if he buys the card from the first link, than your link? (which would more express what to could be expected at maximum?)

<comment><USER9> Not really. The Passmark is useful to get a broad comparison, but real benchmarks will be closer to what users see in practice. Some results show that clearly. E.g. the 780 Ti is in the passmark before the GTX 970, but in games with modern drivers the GTX 970 is better. But well, they are close in both. More severe is the GTX 960 – the passmark sees that card above a R9 380X. That's completely unrealistic, the GTX 960 is slower than a R9 380, without the X.

Most user run games and not artificial benchmarks, thus the performance measured in games is closer to what they will get in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Midrange card barely beats out enthusiast range card from last cycle.

Congratulations?

<comment><USER11> Nvidia has done a bunch of product release cycles where this was not the case lately. Kinda like Intel's depressingly bad "4-7%" single core performance increases, maybe a little bit better.

This is one I might finally want to consider upgrading to, from my GTX 670...

<comment><USER12> Same, this sounds the first upgrade that's worth the money since I bought a GTX 670 slightly used for ~$250 a couple years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is impressive for the money. AMD is in a real fix, the 1070 is the new 970 and the 1080 is the 980Ti all over again. These 1070s are going to fly off shelves. I just don't see people getting excited over the Polaris chips as no one cares about performance they already had. People really want the 1080 but 1070 offers the bang for buck yet still top-tier performance.

That said, being as I work all day at a computer and spend my freetime at one, I'm looking to change up my lifestyle. I probably won't be building more desktop gaming machines at this point. I'm looking at Intel NUCs for desktop machines or a gaming laptop. I'm interested in VR gaming using a laptop to go tether-free with a backpack harness.

I'm looking forward to seeing the 1080M. A laptop with that would be a great match for cord free SteamVR.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm waiting for Polaris 10 benchmarks.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would love to buy a couple 1080s for my new rig. Too bad it seems impossible to get any. The only ones for sale are from scalpers. Any tips on how to actually acquire them?

<comment><USER15> I think the only way is to wait a few weeks until things calm down.

<comment><USER16> Isn't it a good idea to wait for models with non-reference coolers anyway?

<comment> semi-extrinsic The reference cooler is actually quite good, especially if you are putting several GPUs in one box, since it blows the hot air out of the case.

<comment><USER9> Still, the reference version is more expensive and clocked lower than the vendor versions will be. Also, at least the GTX 1080 is limited by the temperature it reaches with the reference cooler. SLI is really the one usage where the reference version is well suited, but otherwise it is good to wait.

<comment><USER14> I was going to go with 2 EVGA GTX 1080s [0] in SLI with 4 4k monitors [1]. I currently have no video cards at all, and will be installing using on-board video. The computer will be used for both development (therefore 4 monitors) and gaming (powerful video cards), and without any video cards, I can't really use it for either. I want to get pascal chips with GDDR5X, but can't wait months for the next wave of cards to be released. What would you recommend?

[0] [http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-6180-KR](http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=08G-P4-6180-KR)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PC9HFO8/?tag=pcpapi-20](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PC9HFO8/?tag=pcpapi-20)

<comment><USER9> When going SLI the lower clock of the reference card won't matter, they'd be fast enough – to put it mildly – for every game anyway. And the reference cooler might really be a good thing in such a setup. On the other hand, there will be aftermarket cards with coolers like this as well – I think I even saw a MSI card which combined such a cooler with a second liquid cooler? Yes, the Sea Hawk: [https://msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1080-SEA- HAWK.html...](https://msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1080-SEA- HAWK.html#hero-overview) – of course idle speculation without reviews, but something like this could be cool for you.

I don't think the aftermarket cards are month away. A german vendor was listing some versions yesterday as 3-10 days away. I think that could be accurate, the listings on the vendors sites are all ready.

I would recommend to do it stepwise. One card with two displays, look how it performs, then add one or two displays more and maybe the second 1080, if needed – I don't know which game one would play on more than one 4K displays, and to play on one 4K display one 1080 would be fine.

Don't think I have to explain here that this is still a pretty crazy setup, do I? ;)

<comment><USER14> The 4 monitors aren't for gaming, they're for keeping code, multiple ssh terminals, file managers, query results, browsers for research and documentation, and all that other stuff up at the same time while working. It's gotten to a point where 2 monitors is simply not enough when there are so many things I want to view side-by-side.

I also figure it'll be a good chance to learn how to offload my data processing to the GPUs with CUDA, and then I'll be able to use as much power as the cards can possibly give, even if it's overkill for any particular game.

I saw the listings for nonreference cards up, but couldn't find indications on availability. Thanks for the advice!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>