Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-sports/35164700 <comment><USER2> I used to fly remote control aeroplanes as a hobby. There's a really strong culture of having a licence and insurance before you're allowed to fly solo. You have to pass a test before you can get insurance, and there are more tests if you want to fly around spectators (stunt shows, etc).

This seems to be completely missing in the drone community. I quizzed some drone enthusiasts about it and they responded with "meh", touting that they have home insurance and it doesn't matter.

<comment><USER3> There isn't really a drone community. With RC, almost everybody involved was an enthusiast who would meet with other enthusiasts.

Anybody interested, even for a few minutes, can get a drone. This is the RC world's "Eternal September".

<comment> at-fates-hands >> This is the RC world's "Eternal September"

I would liken it to the Wild West, where anybody with money can buy a fairly large quadcopter and go fly it without many consequences. I'm glad there is a push to get these registered.

I think one of the reasons there isn't a greater push for safety (licensing and insurance) is you're not seeing the stories that would compel the general public to react and have a large outcry over drones yet. Yes, you've seen some privacy issues surrounding them, but stuff like kids getting severely injured or this causing a ten car pile up on the highway hasn't happened yet - or at least not that I'm aware of.

Thus, with no major public outcry, the politicians have no desire to push for laws that regulate the industry and the people using them. I'm sure in time, we'll start see more stringent regulation of drones, but for now, there is little if any.

full disclosure: I own several drones and do aerial videography as part of my job.

<comment><USER4> > _stuff like kids getting severely injured_

A baby lost an eye: [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford- worcester-349367...](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford- worcester-34936739)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not just any skiier it's the guy winning the world cup total the last years! Wish my favorite sport was featured on HN in some better light, heh.

From my experience in flying drones in wintery mountains, it could be a battery failure. Cold batteries suddenly drops in voltage, too fast for the failsafe mechanisms to trigger. Can explain why it drops like a brick and not slowly descends.

<comment><USER6> That is why true "failsafe" mechanisms tend to be mechanical more than electrical: less prone to failure.

<comment><USER7> How do you provide this in a quadcopter? The rotors are too small to allow autogiration...

<comment><USER6> you might use something different, like a parachute.

<comment><USER8> No, that's been tried and it doesn't work well for multicopters.

* They're only effective from quite some altitude, much higher than you typically fly multicopters

* They'll still just soften the landing somewhat anyway

* Multicopters are much more fragile than, say, EPP planes,

* You have to make sure they don't get caught up in the props

* Also you need to find a reliable way to trigger them -- for model aircraft in general and multicopters in particular, humans are way too slow and sudden high accelerations in arbitrary directions are common for multicopters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am sure when the first cars hit the road, similar news made it to the newspaper front pages then.

<comment><USER10> Funny story, heard Marc Andreessen once saying:

During the early days, whenever a horse cart came in opposite direction to a car, the car owner was supposed to disassemble the car and hide behind a bush before the horse came near.

We have come a long way :)

<comment><USER11> In some ways, be grateful that it never became law. Just some wishful legislative thinking.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a malfunction on a homemade rig. Possibly throttle cutout when descending?

Why the pilot would insist on using this on what seems like a professional job is beyond me. The industry is coalescing around a couple of field tested professional rigs (DJI products for instance). I hate all these FAA regulations around stuff people do in their backyards but at a professional event like this (with this many people around), it seems like a no-brainer that air worthiness should be tightly regulated.

Source: been building drones for 5 years.

EDIT: This is Europe. So EASA not FAA

<comment><USER13> No idea about italy but austria has strict regulations for drones. So this is already happening anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was the breakout year for dangerous drones. Wait until there are 10x more drones in the skies. I was tracking drone incidents for a few months. It's too hard to keep up:

[https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones- dai...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones-daily/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the title should be updated a bit here. When I read "drone nearly hits" I imagined it flying by and getting to close on the way passed. The video shows it crashing to the ground with some force. It isn't clear whether this is under its own power (so an issue in directional control by either a pilot error or equipment fault) or due to loss of power (so it hit the ground due to gravity). Either way it could have done the skier quite some damage if it had been just that little bit closer.

<comment><USER16> > Either way it could have done the skier quite some damage

Not either way.

If it was the pilot's mistake then yes, but if power was lost then the blades would not have had much force anymore. They can cause very serious cuts when propelled, but half a second after losing power they hardly have any momentum left. Tripping the skier over would likely have been the worst of it, if a loss of power was the case.

Either way, safeguards may be necessary when flying so close to fragile objects...

<comment><USER17> He was taking part in a slalom race. These guys hit ridiculous speeds. "Tripping the skier over" could have had absolutely disastrous consequences.

<comment><USER18> Slalom is fast-ish but not ridiculous like downhill. Falling in slalom is common and even for crazy falls it rarely leads to major injuries. Compare that to downhill where falling often causes serious injuries. If this had been a downhill race it would have been a near-letal accident.

Still, hitting the "solid" bit of the drone (camera, battery), which is probably over 1kg for this type of pro footage, the skier would definitely have been injured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I imagine this is going to have implications reaching beyond just professional skiing. I won't be surprised if other governing bodies follow suit and ban "drones" as well.

I'm also really interested to know more about how this could happen. High end, professionally operated drones don't generally just fall out of the sky.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've seen drones used in US sporting events, where they fly directly over the crowd. It is only a matter of time before one of them crashes into a bunch of people.

</comment><comment> UK-AL Bad risk taking drone pilots are incredibly irritating, because they will ruin it for the decent pilots.

<comment><USER21> This is very relevant to your comment. "In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error, also known as the correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the tendency for people to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics (personality) to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation rather than considering the situation's external factors."

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

<comment><USER22> It's not just that. It happens always when a particular thing becomes of interest to the general population. Suddenly, domain-geeks are being swamped by normals who have little interest or experience in the domain itself, and they make stupid mistakes that sometimes end up being corrected with law.

Happened to programming too.

<comment><USER23> I've only been a professional programmer for 2 years now. For my own edification, what events or laws or shifts are you referring to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe it's a translation thing, but I love how calmly the skier talks about the incident afterward. It would have been very easy to take the "F __that drone pilot! " road, but instead he just says "Please be more careful next time."

<comment><USER25> He is the best austrian skier, and a professional. He behaves professional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Has anyone actually been killed by a non military drone yet?

<comment><USER27> I haven't read the FAA regulations in extreme detail, but from what I've surmised, RC copters would count as needing to be registered. So if that makes it a drone -- and I don't see why not, as it is an unmanned aircraft and whether it had a camera or not doesn't seem to matter to the FAA -- then yes, people have been killed by them. I remember in Brooklyn a couple years back a teenager was killed quite gruesomely in a public park by his own RC copter: [http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote- contr...](http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled- toy-helicopter/)

<comment><USER28> Yep, the FAA does not distinguish between an RC aircraft and a drone.

There's also been accidents with larger UAVs: [http://www.suasnews.com/2012/05/15515/schiebel-s-100-crash-k...](http://www.suasnews.com/2012/05/15515/schiebel-s-100-crash- kills-engineer-in-south-korea/)

<comment><USER29> >the FAA does not distinguish between an RC aircraft and a drone.

Which is kinda funny, because congress have expressly forbidden the FAA from rulemaking about rc aircraft. the FAA have gone and tried anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wired cameras have also had problems such as [http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2013/05/26/coca-...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2013/05/26/coca- cola-600-cable-cord-caution-nascar-sprint-cup/2362613/)

It would be interesting to start comparing accidents per hour for wired and drones.

<comment><USER31> ... and in football games : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5ji-S2Kj8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5ji-S2Kj8k) or one of my favorites when a camera fell off a skydiver [http://wgntv.com/2015/04/08/watch-what-happens-when-gopro- fa...](http://wgntv.com/2015/04/08/watch-what-happens-when-gopro- falls-10000-feet-from-the-sky/)

but it's more trendy if its a drone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Car nearly hits cyclist .... Wait no, the car actually hits cyclist dozens of times per day...

<comment><USER33> The rule of thumb on newspaper statistics: common risks are boring, therefore not news. (Note that "car hits car" is too boring even for you to mention ;))

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Didn't this also happen at an NFL game with those camera's that zip around on cords above the players? I don't recall everyone yelling to ban those when that happened.

</comment><comment><USER35> Note to self: add a small mechanical trigger for a parachute for cases of emergency. This will trigger if the drone falls at a certain speed.

<comment><USER22> You could add an electromechanical failsafe that would trigger in the event of loss of power - i.e. the safety device wants to deploy itself, but is actively prevented from doing so by the electronics.

<comment><USER33> Won't help. An unsteered parachute _slows down_ the fall so that it's sort-of survivable instead of terminal-velocity; there wouldn't have been any significant effect in this specific case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Really sad to see media trying to make UAV's look bad. Instead of investigating why it happened they just want to ban them.

Governments can use real drones to kill people and still allowed to continue the death and destruction.

People need to get some perceptive here. I've been flying over 11 years and not one issue ever!

<comment><USER37> It was most likely a licenced and insured pilot - looked like battery failure to me, but usually large unit (this was an X8) would have had dual batteries for redundancy. Being an X8 it would have dual motors and props, so if one failed it could still fly.

The media shouldn't blow this out of proportion - if quads are banned they will regret loosing such awesome aerial footage.

<comment><USER38> The main problem, as stated in the article, is that he was flying right above the head of the competitors instead of from a distance as he was suppose to do. But that cameraman/marketing company decided instead to go for the better angle, ignoring the risk for the competitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> A mandatory security parachute could avoid this scenario.

To ban drones is the simple way out.

<comment><USER16> Of all the things that can go wrong, falling out of the sky is one of the least of the problems. A bulky parachute is extra weight so people are going to avoid building it in, and besides that, I doubt it's going to help in most situations.

E.g.: Who decides to deploy it? The pilot? In that case, signal loss or interference might get in the way. Or does the multirotor decide for itself when to deploy? In that case it could decide to do so at the wrong moment, which can be just as dangerous. You'd need safeguards against this safeguard.

The main danger of these machines are the blades, not it falling out of the sky without inertia in the props.

<comment><USER22> Depends on the mass, the momentum a drone carries, and how high it flies. Replace "drone" with "stone" and think again about the damage potential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It was an official TV-video-quadcopter from an Italian local TV company. The FIS was initially okay with it. The quadcopter operater has a pilot license and was suposed to fly only in a specific corridor with no visitors nor athletes underneath. Though, the quadcopter (intentionally?) left the corridore several times in the minutes before the crash (for better videos?).

[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=auto&tl=en&u...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsport.orf.at%2Fstories%2F2243235%2F2243236%2F)

Just last week a new unproofen airbag system seriously injured an athlete [edit: still under investigation]. The new airbag system was from the Italian company Dainese. The athlete suffered a 3 times vertebral fracture which maybe ends his young career.

[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsport.orf.at%2Fstories%2F2243222%2F2243146%2F)

[http://www.dainese.com/eu_en/newsdetail/D-air-Ski- official](http://www.dainese.com/eu_en/newsdetail/D-air-Ski-official)

[http://www.dainese.com/eu_en/athletes/](http://www.dainese.com/eu_en/athletes/) (the athlete in question isn't featured on the website anymore)

<comment><USER41> Wow, it was news for me that athletes _wear_ airbags.

<comment><USER40> It's very new.

"The airbag is in this debut season by no means standard. Because many drivers believe he would impede on the track. Others fear aerodynamic deficiencies and malfunctions. In addition, the Italian manufacturer Dainese many teams not supplied as outfitters. And so had the sixth race this winter in addition to Mayer only five further downhill in Val Gardena over the air bag striped, four Austrians and two Canadians." (from the source above)

<comment><USER42> To clarify these are airbags designed to protect you in a downhill crash (which are usually very violent for big alpine riders) but avalanche airbags that help you rise to the top of the stream of snow have been pretty standard equipment for the past ~5 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> ...and won that one, big time: nowadays, just _suggest_ that the road is not exclusively owned by cars, and watch the foaming-at-the-mouth flamewar.

<comment><USER43> In the US, maybe, but for sure not in Europe. We don't even have a word for "jaywalking" in Germany.

<comment><USER33> And there's no single word for _Schadenfreude_ in English, but it exists there as well ;)

IIRC, it's a traffic offense in Germany, too (as well as here in Prague ;)). While city centers may be pedestrianized again, it's bound to be an uphill battle for some time.

<comment><USER44> I'm more partial to _Fremdenschämen_ myself. Also fits in this situation :)

<comment><USER45> Great word, but lose the "en": fremdschämen

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is why we can't have nice things.

</comment><comment><USER47> It must be technically possible to prevent a drone from flying below a certain altitude. Probably one of the many features that will be added to drones in the coming years.

<comment><USER48> Perhaps this is possible with a software update, but it doesn't fix the standards to which the drone was mechanically constructed.

Other commercial flying objects are rigorously safety tested for their ability to remain in the air despite different mechanical failures. Without the same standards applied to drones, we are likely to continue to see near-misses or full accidents happen. (Note: I'm not weighing in for or against drone regulation)

<comment><USER28> > Other commercial flying objects are rigorously safety tested for their > ability to remain in the air despite different mechanical failures.

The key phrase here is _commercial_. There are strict regulations on commercial aircraft, but there are no such requirements for home-built or kit built aircraft. (quick edit, there are regulations/requirements for all aircraft, but it's a much lower standard for home-builts than for commercial)

Many people think that there aren't many kit aircraft out there, but there's actually a huge number. Oshkosh is the largest airshow in the U.S. for experimental aircraft and there were over 10,000 experimental aircraft at the show last year. There's even more who didn't attend the show! For comparison, Delta Airlines operates about 800 aircraft.

<comment><USER49> > Many people think that there aren't many kit aircraft out there, but there's > actually a huge number. Oshkosh is the largest airshow in the U.S. for > experimental aircraft and there were over 10,000 experimental aircraft at > the show last year.

Most RC'ers I know are very intentional about when and where they fly; they aren't strapping a GoPro to them and flying them all around the city randomly and presuming they have the right to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> In other news: __Moon nearly hits earth. __

</comment><comment><USER51> More bullshit almost hits.

Exactly the same as 'scary thing' could..... But never happened.

Why does HN become crap whenever tech is the boogieman.

It's good to know dangers, but this bs upvoting nothing is pointless.

<comment><USER28> Check out the video, this was actually a close call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> He's wearing a helmet. What could wrong?

Sorry--too much Reddit.

<comment><USER22> He could start tumbling down the slope with all the momentum he had at the moment, break various bones and die. _The guy was not standing still at the moment of the incident!_

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm a little outraged that the skier was outraged while being interviewed. He's in a sport that is very risky, and part of that risk is performing for an audience which wants to see things better and in more detail. Those drones are part of the camera network of an event he's performing at, so it's unlikely anyone did anything wrong, other than maybe they put in the wrong battery packs. You can't have it both ways.

Note that I'm not saying he can't have some emotional response, but public outrage is basically saying "this shouldn't ever happen and people should be afraid of this" which is stupid given shit happens when you are doing highly competitive and dangerous things as a performer - which includes the venue and staff filming it in new and interesting ways. The audience demands it, and you as an athlete and performer are part of it.

The older I get, the more the unnecessary spread of cognitive dissonance irritates me.

<comment><USER54> He should be outraged! The drone operator was told that he "had to fly outside of the race track and follow the racer from a 15-metre distance." This clearly didn't happen.

If the cameraman on the side of the track suddenly took his camera into the middle of the track, it would obviously be outrageous.</comment></comment>


Guide to Leaving your Mac - <AUTHOR> http://gigasquidsoftware.com/blog/2013/12/26/guide-to-leaving-your-mac-laptop/ <comment><USER3> I've got an iPhone, iPad, and MBA. In an abstract sense -- that is, all other things equal -- I'd like to swap them out for non-Apple products. I dislike Apple's software, their entire "magic/creative/yadda-yadda-yadda" branding, and of course their price tag.

But the app ecosystem and hardware to me seem absolutely incomparable. I can't see myself ever switching my phone or tablet because it seems as though iOS apps are just unapproachably better than Android counterparts -- and there aren't any laptops as functional and, yes, straight-up pretty as the MacBook Air.

(The reason the author cited for switching from Apple was two failed laptops. For what it's worth, my previous laptop -- a Dell -- broke every six months or so. [I had four-year insurance, thankfully, and replaced it once the insurance ran out.]

<comment><USER4> I would ditch Apple in a heartbeat if I felt that anyone could provide a similar hardware experience. I'm not just talking about CPU/RAM/Graphics card (yes, I know I can get a slightly better deal with non-Apple hardware), but everything else as well. Apple displays are beautiful and completely free of defects, Apple trackpads are incredible, the computers are ridiculously thin (my new ThinkPad is twice as thick as my MBP), the battery life is incredible (my early 2013 MBP gets 5-6 hours, new MBPs get 10-12 hours), etc. The hardware is just great. I don't understand why no one else can make hardware like this.

Re. failed laptops: I had to take my last MBP in for repair something like 8 times in 6 months. Totally unacceptable. Most of the time it was for something they botched during the last repair. However, Apple gave me store credit for the purchase price of the laptop and then some, so I'm happy. I do beat the shit out of my laptops, so I'm sure someone who was more gentle would have better luck.

<comment><USER5> > I would ditch Apple in a heartbeat...

Why would you ditch it in a heartbeat if you think that:

\- Apple displays are beautiful and completely free of defects

\- Apple trackpads are incredible

\- Apple computers are ridiculously thin

\- The battery life is incredible

\- The hardware is just great

\---

It's like saying I would ditch my wife in a heartbeat, but her face is super pretty, her body is perfect and her heart is a heart of angel...but I would still ditch her in a heartbeat...

<comment><USER6> Maybe you and your wife have fundamental differences in beliefs about how people should live their lives?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author was having hardware problems, so he switched his software? There's nothing more open about Dell's hardware than Apple's and just because Dell offers a laptop with Linux does that mean you're now in some sort of open- source utopia where the open-source community comes together to solve every single computer problem that users encounter.

Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is great and there's tons of awesome open- source projects, but I don't think Ubuntu is one of them. If you've been following Canonical's behavior with Ubuntu over the past few years, you should be aware of what I'm talking about. And Dell? Well, their XPS laptops do seem to be of higher quality than what most of the PC industry offers, but support? I'm sorry, but I feel much more confidence in the Genius Bar.

Apple's not perfect, but the rest of the latop manufacturers are a joke.

<comment><USER8> I was hoping for a comparison between competing platforms and how they stack up against iOS OSX.

But this article is free software evangelism ("I set myself free") not a serious guide to moving away from Apple.

<comment><USER7> > But this article is free software evangelism ("I set myself free") [...]

That is what is so irritating about this type of rhetoric; _I switched from OS X to Ubuntu and now I 'm free!_ Well, no, you just switched from one corporate controlled Operating System to another. Ubuntu may be open-source, but it's hardly free. Biggest example: You have to opt-out of Canonical's desktop search results sharing relationship with Amazon. At least when I look for files on a Mac, I don't get ads in my search results. If you like Ubuntu over OS X, then that's fine, but please don't say it's because of "freedom".

If people are going to write about their holier-than-thou articles about how they switched to free software, they better be running something like Trisequel Linux on a Gluglug Laptop ([http://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified- to-...](http://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to-respect- your-freedom)) or perhaps they should think about something else to write about.

<comment><USER9> _> I switched from OS X to Ubuntu and now I'm free! Well, no, you just switched from one corporate controlled Operating System to another._

You're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking. Because there is an obvious difference between the two that you're eliding: Ubuntu is forkable, and OS X is not.

In other words, Canonical only "controls" Ubuntu in the sense that a community of users and developers trust their stewardship of it. If they squander that trust, that community can pick up Ubuntu and take it wherever they prefer it to go.

This is not a theoretical freedom; people exercise it all the time. Look at the diaspora from MySQL to products like MariaDB, for example, or the split from OpenOffice to LibreOffice. These are both cases where the communities around the products decided that the company stewarding those products (Oracle, in both cases, as it happens) was failing in that role. So new stewards stepped forward, and the communities followed them.

If you feel that Canonical's decision to include online search results in the Unity dash is a deal-breaker for you, you are free to vote with your feet in the same way. You could use Linux Mint, for example, which is basically Ubuntu without Unity.

Here is how "corporate controlled" Ubuntu is -- so much so that a third party is free to pick it up, strip out some features, and re-distribute it to users who don't want those features! And those users are free to switch over to it, if they wish; Canonical won't stop you. They _couldn 't_ stop you, even if they wanted to. Which is kind of the point.

Now imagine what would happen to someone who decided that OS X would be better if (say) Chrome were the default browser, and released their own re-spin of it where that is the case. The flaws in your comparison become evident.

 _> If people are going to write about their holier-than-thou articles about how they switched to free software, they better be running something like Trisequel Linux on a Gluglug Laptop or perhaps they should think about something else to write about._

So either you are 100% Pure, or you are 100% Impure. This would come as news to (among others) the makers of Ivory soap, who famously advertised it for decades as "99 44/100% Pure." I could understand an argument that this degree of purity doesn't make it better or worse than other soap products. What I could _not_ understand would be an argument that unless it is 100% pure, it is _not soap._

<comment><USER7> False premise: something being forkable does not make it free. Perhaps the derivative is free, but this article wasn't about running the derivative, was it?

Also, your last paragraph pretty much backs up my original point: if you're going to stand on your high horse of software-freedom and write about how great it is, you better go all in. That Dell is running proprietary software; at the firmware level in the least, but probably with binary blob drivers. Oh, and the article doesn't mention (nor you) about how you have to opt-out of third party sharing of your desktop search results with Amazon! __That 's not freedom respecting __, so please don 't try to divert attention away from these very valid points with arguments about how something is forkable.

<comment><USER10> Ubuntu is (almost all parts anyway) free in exactly the way the Free Software Foundation defines the word. Ubuntu is created by a community and overseen by a corporation, but you can take the Ubuntu source and do what you want with it within the terms of Free Software. You cannot do this with OS X.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Every time I consider ditching my MacBook for a Linux machine, I come back to wondering why I'd want to do that at all. If it's to appease my command-line- junky insides, I can open up Terminal (or iTerm 2) and have instant UNIX. If it's to run some LAMP-esque stack, I can fire up homebrew and have everything I want. And if I don't really want to deal with the inner-workings of a machine, I can spend time in Aqua and have access to some of the best designed software in the game. Lastly, it plays with my ecosystem of gadgets - <USER2> iPhone and iPad are first class citizens, and thanks to iCloud and quality developers, things work seamlessly between all my tech, including my AppleTV through mirroring or extended display in Mavericks. I realize that this last bit makes me not the target audience for the article anymore, but it's worth saying.

The author states his only reason for leaving is failed hardware. I've had nothing but great experiences with Apple's hardware, and in the few rare exceptions, Apple has gone above and beyond to make the situation right. Fixes after warranty period, quick turnaround, etc, have kept my business with them.

</comment><comment><USER12> At least there's the option of leaving Macs for other brands. As a ThinkPad user, I'm totally fucked because of Lenovo's decision to get rid of the physical TrackPoint buttons[0]. First they got rid of the traditional keyboard in favor an Apple-style chiclet keyboard (which, after using both extensively, is a severe downgrade from the traditional ThinkPad keyboard). Now they're getting rid of the TrackPoint buttons. Next is going to be the TrackPoint, all in the name of copying Apple. There's no one else making a proper TrackPoint (and HP and Dell are ditching what they did have), and using a trackpad is so slow. It's sad to see Lenovo take a great laptop line and turn it into an Apple clone.

0: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXa0XzNvuZU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXa0XzNvuZU)

<comment><USER13> Have you actually tried and compared the physical buttons to the new ones?

I have a slightly older Thinkpad with the physical buttons. I am trying to decide if I should buy one of the T530 from last year's models or just get the newer version.

<comment><USER12> > Have you actually tried and compared the physical buttons to the new ones?

No, not yet. However, I'm not holding out much hope, considering that the change to the chiclet keyboard was also proclaimed as being an "improvement", when in reality it was not. Also, as a Linux user, having to configure the trackpad-based buttons is definitely going to introduce driver headaches, something else that I have been able to avoid so far by sticking to the TrackPoint.

<comment><USER13> I am holding out hope.

I have used the 4 trackpoints on the market. I own an HP Elitebook and the trackpoints aren't as nice as the ones on the Thinkpads, but are the closest I have found to the Thinkpad pointing sticks. If I have to leave Thinkpad/Lenovo I might go to an Elitebook. HP quality control is terrible, but it might be the only option if the new buttons are really that bad. HP at least has buttons.

They should have kept the mousepad as an option.

Charge extra for it, just don't blatantly remove it. Maybe either Lenovo or someone else entirely different will figure out a way to install the old keyboards on the new computers.

<comment><USER12> As mentioned in the video I linked, I've got an extended warranty for my X1 Carbon, so I will just hold out and see what happens. Maybe I'll buy a couple of T420s's (the last of the T line with the proper keyboard) and make them run for another 5 or 6 years after that. I definitely don't need the latest hardware, given the sort of dev I'm doing on my laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really want to like Linux. I've spent hours, here and there, hacking away with various distributions of Linux and on different hardware (I was part of the group that finally got CompizFusion working on the HP Mininote 2133). But when it comes down to it I don't want to have to be elbow deep in source code just to fix a sound card problem or similar.

I love Linux as an idea, and that it's free has done wonders for the world as far as opening access to the internet and its knowledge. But I just don't see it as a viable day-to-day OS __for me __.

At the same time, I have and will continue to tinker around with Linux (I learned about Lua because of Conky!) because I don't think that there's any harm in learning new things. And I've found that I learn best by breaking things and then trying to fix what I broke - and that's a nearly weekly experience for me when I try to use anything but Unbuntu.

</comment><comment><USER15> The article doesn't address what for me are the major sticking points: iTunes and iPhoto. I have years of music & photos stored in both, and to switch to linux I'd need an relatively painless migration strategy. Anyone have any suggestions?

<comment><USER16> For iTunes, Google Music provided a pretty darn seamless transition. You download their client software, it scans your iTunes library, and registers the songs you have with Google Play. Songs it doesn't recognize, it uploads.

This is a double-feature because Google Music is both platform-agnostic, and integrates with Android.

Google Music itself is not necessarily the most amazing user experience, and someone with a bajillion music files may be upset with it, but for me the high quality (all purchased & "recognized" music is 320kbps) and general platform- and client-agnostic nature trumps music management "power".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a mid-2011 Mac Mini and for a while considered an rMBP almost necessary. Instead of shelling out for one, I stuck a $40 SSD in a Lenovo x100e I had sitting around and installed Arch on it (after a decade or so of being a Slackware user). Best computing decision I ever made.

For one, I prefer the smaller form factor, trackpoint and much superior keyboard (even if it's still chiclet). Secondly, I hardly ever use X. I get so much more work done on this laptop than I can on any other computer and it's relatively distraction-free (I added a couple roguelikes and dwarf fortress). Just log in and tmux is ready to go with what I need to start working.

The one downside is that, on the occasions that I do use X, the fonts aren't very good. I wouldn't even begin to know how to approach making typography more Mac-like, but I'm okay with that. I spend 99% of my time in the console.

In fact, going forward I see myself using a VPS or running a dedicated server somewhere and then it doesn't really matter what laptop I use.

<comment><USER18> That's the problem. Apple's typography is well ahead of anything in the Linux world, and even Linux is still ahead of what Windows has.

The "Retina" screens make this even harder to match.

<comment><USER17> For sure, but I'm not such a typography nerd that what's on Linux is unacceptable to me. Ultimately I'm going to get my work done however is most efficient; that just tends to be Linux. My Mac (which I'm using now) is great for web browsing and reading articles. I'd sooner use my Kindle for that than my Linux laptop though and often I do.

Once Apple makes a retina iPad around 10 inches and lets me use my own USB keyboard, I'll never use anything else. If that iPad Pro rumor pans out, it'd better have USB.

<comment><USER18> I've been impressed that typography on Linux isn't as bad as Windows, but it's still got a long way to go to measure up to Apple. It's not just clarity and accuracy of the typefaces themselves, but subtle details like how the ligatures (things like how "fi" and "ff" are rendered) are properly applied.

Typography is one of those things that, once you've seen it, you can't un-see it. You can only try to not care.

Apple's not interested in adding USB to the iPad since Bluetooth already does anything USB can do and more, at least from the perspective of a consumer. If you want a portable USB-capable tablet, maybe you want a Surface Pro. That thing would be pretty awesome if someone can Linux it.

In any case, you can already use pretty much any Bluetooth keyboard you want, and there are a large number of third party ones to pick from.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. See my comment here though. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973619)

Much like typography can't be unseen, once you use good keyboards, anything but is maddening. The same goes for good UI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is sad but the MBA really has no rival, quality/hardware wise.

<comment><USER20> Mac hardware doesn't break, but when you purchase the four year warranty on a Dell (which will get you a total near the price of an equivalent Macbook) it will break a few times during the four years, but each time you get it fixed or replaced next day at home.

<comment><USER21> I've never seen an apple laptop that didn't break after a few (<= 2) years. YMMV.

<comment><USER22> I've yet to have any of the Apple laptops that I've owned (or desktops for that matter) that have broken in that timeframe. In fact I'm using an MBP that's going on it's fifth year here, and the only thing that's changed is I popped in a new battery after about four years. Excellent track record for me. (Of course, YMMV.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Would be more useful to hear a retrospective after six months.

<comment><USER24> I left apple a bit over a year ago because I wanted to get a laptop with some serious GPU power (I was doing lots of sequence alignments that took hours to do on my old laptop and hours to upload to / download from my university's compute cluster). The computer performed fabulously at this task, but my experience with the Microsoft ecosystem has been absolutely dreadful. Now that I no longer need the GPU power, I will gladly pay a few hundred dollar premium to get a mac laptop for my next computer. I would probably pay a 2x premium if Apple asked it.

\</comment></comment><comment>-- OS Installation: The Horror Story </comment><comment>--

* Reinstalling the OS is a 4-5 hour manual slog through serial numbers and a dozen drivers that must be manually installed in the correct order, not a 1-hour fire-and-forget process like in the Mac ecosystem. (hours of my time vs minutes of my time).

* The bundled "backup solution" works neither for imaging nor for incremental document recovery. "Time Machine" this is not.

* MSE antivirus was dreadfully slow (Just downloaded an installer? It'll wait 30 seconds before launching 5 copies of the .exe corresponding to the 5 times you clicked on it).

* I got a 30gb SSD as a boot volume and put Windows on it, then linked ("junctioned") the "Program Files" directory to my HDD (I'd done similar on my mac without trouble). Big mistake, none of the applications would launch. They didn't launch after I copied them back either (yes, I looked up permission-resetting instructions and followed them to the letter). I had to reinstall.

* I looked up a Microsoft support document explaining how to properly put programs on a different HD (and also that it was unsupported). It involved registry edits and DOS-fu from the system restore disk. The next time Windows Update ran, it broke my system so that no program would launch (DLL error every time). Rolling back the updates didn't work, of course. I had to reinstall. Gave up on the 30gb SSD.

* I tried to upgrade my Win7 install to Win8. Big mistake. The installer took 2 hours to give me an unhelpful generic error message. After hours of searching through forums I found out that it scans your installed Win7 drivers+programs one by one and barfs if any of them aren't compatible (but it doesn't tell you that, of course).

* I tried a fresh install of Win8 on a new 250gb SSD I got on black friday. It froze every time I woke from sleep. Oh, and it would boot to an I/O error bluescreen unless I booted into Win7 first, touched a file on the SSD, and rebooted (yes, touching a file was necessary). Two firmware updates and a handful of driver updates later and I had the same symptoms.

* On a hunch, I switched the SSD from SATA slot 2 to 0. This broke the bootloader, and Microsoft's instructions to fix it didn't work, giving a generic error message that many people on the support forum seemed to experience but that nobody had a fix for. There were 2 Microsoft employees with unhelpful non-fix "solutions," though.

* I nuked the Win7 HDD install and reinstalled Win8 afresh on the SSD (now slot 0). It seems to be stable so far.

* There was a 4-month period where Dell's GPU drivers had broken OpenCL compatibility and the manufacturer drivers would silently fail to install unless I ran a 3rd-party sketchware wiping program first and disabled signature enforcement on every boot.

* Audio drivers occasionally fail to wake from sleep (no audio till reboot). No, updating them to the manufacturer version didn't help. No, reinstalling Dell's recommended drivers didn't help either.

\</comment><comment>-- Small Gripes </comment><comment>--

* No decent UNIX command line. Cygwin starts slowly and is poorly integrated with the system.

* I can't get decent 2-finger scroll without a 3rd party program that is occasionally broken by system updates.

* I can't remap capslock without downloading a 3rd-party program to perform registry edits.

* I can't shut off the screen without installing a 3rd party program to do so.

* In Win7, all allowed keyboard layout switching shortcuts were combinations of modifiers that conflicted with productivity apps like Illustrator. Also, the layout would occasionally become "stuck" and failed to respect the GUI switcher. In Win8, they added a no-conflict key combination for switching layouts but it doesn't work in fullscreen apps.

* Metro. It looks slick, but it doesn't have any of the options you regularly need to access. Fortunately the old menagerie of Windows utilities is still there, just moved around.

* No standard install system that lets you inspect the installer's logs, scripts, or contents.

* The intimate connection between my computer account and Microsoft cloud account creeps me out.

* The full-screen force-quit mechanism is insane (ctrl-alt-del, open Task Manager, press Windows to reveal the Launch Bar, click on the arrow to see all system tray icons, right-click the tiny Task Manager icon (a gray box), enable "Always on Top", highlight the program in the task manager, hit "End Task", wait, hit "End Task" on the dialog box that pops up, and finally decline to send a bug report to Microsoft)

* I can't use the keyboard to navigate directories that contain a mixture of files and folders because in Mircrosoft-Land "Alphabetical Order" means "Sort folders first, then files."

* The sub-HD preloaded desktop backgrounds (yes, really).

\</comment><comment>-- Small Victories </comment><comment>--

* Cheaper, better hardware (not remotely cost effective, given the hassle)

* I can manually tweak virtual memory settings (not that I should _have_ to tweak it, which I do, but I think it's terribly cool that I _can_ and that there's a GUI for it)

* Compatibility

* The super-handy "superuser menu" (Win-X)

* The ability to roll-back updates. It has never worked when I needed it to, but I like the idea.

\</comment><comment>-- Concluding Remarks </comment><comment>--

I've had better UX with linux, which is saying something, since I had previously considered linux UX to be fairly poor, or rather great -- until a mission-critical piece of it inevitably broke. Turns out the same thing applies Windows, except worse. Sadly, it sees that there is tremendous value in having a non-fragmented ecosystem.

My next computer will be a mac.

\</comment><comment>-- My Plea to You </comment><comment>--

If you know how to fix any of my gripes, please speak up. I'm still a newbie. Maybe these are just growing pains. I don't think so, but I can hope.

<comment><USER17> My last Windows OS will be Windows 7 because of many similar problems and reasoning.

This has spawned a change in career because I currently make my living working in the Windows space. I'm throwing away 15 years of experience and a deep knowledge of Windows' internals. Also, work has slowed down tremendously since the year or so leading up to through the release of Windows 8. I don't see my current job existing in two years or other people as capable remaining where they are.

I can only address one of your gripes, but not really. Powershell isn't that bad. It's not good, but it's not that bad. It can do some things, but probably not the ones you really want.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, I need to check out powershell. I've heard that it has some pretty neat tricks up its sleeve regarding typed output. I won't expect more than "two steps back, one step forward" wrt the UNIX command line, but I should check it out.

Anything on my new "gripes" list that you have advice for?

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>---- More Misc Gripes </comment><comment>--

* No emacs-like cursor movement shortcuts in GUI text fields

* No emacs-like cursor movement shortcuts in DOS

* Copy+paste is broken and/or inconsistent in terminal windows

* Can't jump to a document's location from the document's GUI

* The 2nd type of file open/save dialog (you know, the one makes you start from root, makes you scroll through every folder, and doesn't support copy+paste of paths, favorites, or any other civilized feature?)

* No equivalent of "Spin Control.app" (now spindump, Instruments.app) that automatically traces hung apps

* Can't take time profiles (function call trees weighted by # hits over a 5s interval) from the built-in process viewer

* NTFS wants to spend 8 hours (I let it go and timed it once) checking the disk after every crash, which amounts to every other time I restart.

* No "screenshot region to clipboard" shortcut. I have to printscreen and crop in paint every time.

* No "look up the word under the mouse in a dictionary" shortcut

\</comment><comment>---- More Misc Small Victories </comment><comment>--

* The utility that profiles startup times and identifies boot-slowing apps is awesome

<comment><USER25> * No emacs-like cursor movement shortcuts in GUI text fields

* No emacs-like cursor movement shortcuts in DOS

You will definitely not find emacs-like anything in Windows-land. It's pretty much an anathema in the ecosystem.

* Copy+paste is broken and/or inconsistent in terminal windows

Copy+paste in cmd.exe works weird (not to mention that cmd.exe is far inferior to even basic terminals in the x-nix world).

1) Click the upper left icon/button in cmd

2) Click edit/Mark

3) With you mouse select what you want to copy

4) Hit enter

5) It's now in your clipboard and can be ctrl-V'd anywhere else This works 100% of the time and is consistent even if it's weird. I suspect they couldn't get ctrl+<key> deconflicted for dos compatibility and it just sort of stuck around

to paste into cmd:

1) Have something in your clipboard

2) click the upper left icon/button in cmd

3) Click edit/paste

4) Stuff pastes. This also works 100% of the time as expected.

* Can't jump to a document's location from the document's GUI

What do you mean? Pg-up/down doesn't work? Or you need to ctrl+f find?

* The 2nd type of file open/save dialog (you know, the one makes you start from root, makes you scroll through every folder, and doesn't support copy+paste of paths, favorites, or any other civilized feature?)

No idea, some oddball java/cross platform gui toolkits screw up the conventions but I just checked all the apps I typically use and I can click in the path at the top of the dialog and type/paste/etc. my path.

* No equivalent of "Spin Control.app" (now spindump, Instruments.app) that automatically traces hung apps

True, you probably need a third party util. They're likely dozens and they'll likely all be free.

* Can't take time profiles (function call trees weighted by # hits over a 5s interval) from the built-in process viewer

True, the process lister is no ps.

* NTFS wants to spend 8 hours (I let it go and timed it once) checking the disk after every crash, which amounts to every other time I restart.

One of my pet peeves is that Microsoft really needs to get a modern file system. NTFS is "ok" for all the permissions stuff, but it's a lousy file system w/r to putting files in sane places on the disk. Defragging should be a rare thing and checking for disk errors should be much faster.

That being said, why is your machine crashing that much? My uptime in Windows is usually measured in months and outside of bad hardware they don't crash -- ever. My last Windows desktop ran without a crash for 3 years then 3 more years (it crashed because of PSU issues, pop in a new PSU and it was up and running fine). My brand new machine is a month old and I haven't had it crash yet and it's been up and running continuously.

My Mac crashes or beachballs every couple of weeks in comparison. Either that or the system will just start behaving weird and I'll have to restart.

* No "screenshot region to clipboard" shortcut. I have to printscreen and crop in paint every time.

1) Use the snipping tool.

2) Be glad you have paint. I've needed to do some cropping on my mac and the lack of a basic paint program is forehead slapping.

* No "look up the word under the mouse in a dictionary" shortcut

This is very app dependent some like Office have better support for this sort of thing. But I agree, it would be nice. I usually just define:<word> in chrome and use google for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's unfortunate that your Apple hardware experience was so poor, but you're really not going to have better luck elsewhere - all the major hw manufacturers have a fairly similar failure rate [1] (Apple apparently is one of the better ones). You just got unlucky.

[1] [http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliab...](http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf) [http://www.statisticbrain.com/laptop-malfunction- rates/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/laptop-malfunction-rates/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I recently switched my Windows desktop to Ubuntu, with the intention of making myself an at-home desktop dev environment. I still use my Macbook for work, and my MBA for personal dev.

My thoughts have been positive, Ubuntu is much nicer than I remember previous brushes with Linux being. A lot of things required slight configuration, but Ubuntu and Linux have hit that critical mass that most of my problems can be solved with a simple search. However, there are a few persistent problems that have lots of different solutions that dont all seem to work; and I feel there are lots of lacking areas in the app ecosystem. For instance, there does not seem to be a single well-designed SQL gui for linux. Everything looks out of Windows-ME-era-enterprise. For Macs, you have Sequel Pro amongst a lot of strong competition. Additionally, homebrew is a lot easier/more robust than apt-get; no repositories to deal with.

I think this all points to something about me, specifically: I want software to make _some_ assumptions for me. Brew does this, apt-get doesnt. This is both the strength of Mac and the strength of Linux -- they cater to the level of assumption that their camps want. I, unfortunately, want more assumption.

Also, as a small side note, I can't get League of Legends to work on WINE, so I am unable to play with excoworkers -- that was the main way we kept in touch and it's pushing me to a point that I might put Windows back on my desktop, if only to have that connection back -- a little juvenile, but oh well.

<comment><USER28> > Additionally, homebrew is a lot easier/more robust than apt-get; no > repositories to deal with.

Until I can do stuff like `brew install safari` in OSX, e.g. keeping your whole system up to date with one tool, I find it inferior to the Linux package managers. Although I find pacman and emerge better than apt, them being much easier to configure and use.

<comment><USER17> Right. Homebrew is okay, but pacman is _amazing_. I actually have completely avoided setting up Homebrew on my Mac and the only Mac dev environment I have set up is in an Mountain Lion VM running on my Mac. I don't want to screw some strange thing up and then have to resort to using a Time Machine backup to fix it...

...Reasoning behind that one is that documentation floating around for solving Mac problems is quite terrible. A lot of information isn't well categorized and results for very old versions typically come up first. Fixes for problems I've had (getting CLANG to work in a VM under virtualbox, getting virtualbox to work after a restart because they stupidly use OSX features that were phased out) often only came up after digging quite hard to find the correct fix. Support and Documentation are what I do for a living, so I have a better shot finding the right fix than most.

Arch documentation and the forums are like the gold freakin' standard. It actually blows my mind how well organized and thorough it all is. I've yet to find a situation in Arch that didn't have a document to get me out of it...and often I use their documentation to fix problems in OSX and other Linux distros.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> For me the real breakthrough was to get rid of Ubuntu and install Arch and configure everything by myself for my laptop. It was super fun, learning to use systemd and making everything to work. Having xmonad, with pretty fonts, automatic suspend, wifi, vpn and all that working. And it was not at all that hard and took me one night and a couple of beers to get everything done.

I might be different than most of computer users, but I really do enjoy doing everything by myself. Now I know exactly what's wrong if something breaks. And Arch (or Funtoo, my work distro) are much easier to configure with a text editor compared to Ubuntu (or if we go this path, to OSX). I like systemd much more than upstart or launchd. I like the idea of a rolling release, so I don't have the nerve breaking massive updates every now and then.

But if just switching from OSX to a Unity distro, for me that wouldn't be enough to switch.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wouldn't take OS X vs Linux advice from a person who calls her computer a "Mac Air"

<comment><USER30> That's cheap and hardly warrants a reply. "Mac Air" may not be the trade name of the computer, but it's not ambiguous and has no bearing on the substance of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This article mentions that there is no native 1Password client for Linux and recommends some kind of dropbox workaround. While this probably true at the time of writing, Icculus recently wrote a native Linux client [1]. There's more details about it in this G+ post if you are interested:

\- [https://plus.google.com/+RyanGordon/posts/ZFyb9TQS9zB](https://plus.google.com/+RyanGordon/posts/ZFyb9TQS9zB)

[1] [https://icculus.org/1pass/](https://icculus.org/1pass/)

<comment><USER32> With the exception of using the browser plugins, 1password works great in wine—I pointed it to my Dropbox folder and was able to read and write passwords.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I looked at getting a Sputnik 3, but it's available only in select countries and 16GB isn't an option (nor is it for MBA, but it is for the relatively light rMBP).

And I hate the Dell logo. In fact, I hate all text logos. It's ridiculous. 150" TVs in shopping malls with a huge "SAMSUNG" or "SONY" at the bottom. If you have to do something, use some image (an apple, the ubuntu reactor thing, windows 4 squares...)

</comment><comment><USER25> I currently split time between a 15" rMBP and a few Windows 7 machines and to be honest, I prefer the time on my Windows 7 machines despite many downsides.

Every few years I'll have a go at going Mac (this is try #3) and they'll all sort of peter out and I'll end up back in Windows.

I think this current go around has been the most successful, I _love_ my rMBP hardware. And the work that Apple has put into making touchpads actually useful (both with hardware and software) is miraculous. The keyboards are nice typing experiences (I'm more mixed on the magic mouse). It's also an awesome portable virtualization platform that I've had 4 or 5 Linux VMs all up and running like a champ on it. Multiple workspaces are usually awesome, I keep several workspaces for different semantic parts of my day and the flow is really nice. Airdrop is magic.

For the _most_ part things just work.

To try and make it really stick, I went cold turkey for the better part of 9 months and didn't touch a Windows machine.

But then, small frustrations and irritations finally built up and I recently just built myself a new Windows 7 computer and pretty much use it for all of my day-to-day with my Mac sitting in a travel bag for when I need to go on the road. What is it that keeps pushing me back? I've spent a _lot_ of time thinking about why this is and sorta have it narrowed down to a few user scenarios: Here's 1 line of reasoning:

1\. When I'm using my Mac, I find I try and avoid actually interacting with OS X as much as possible. I spend all of my time in Office, a web browser, a console window or a virtualized linux machine and that gets me through 95% of my day.

2\. Digging in deeper and I find that OS X, while having some nice bits here and there (as discussed above), is so full of so many clumsy frustrations that I've never really been able to get over the feeling of reduced productivity when I'm dealing with it. I've realized that I deal with this by simply avoiding doing the things that frustrate or irritate me. Some of this probably stems from me not wanting to do things the prescribed "Apple way" and wanting to do it my own way. But it's irritating enough that I want to get away from the entire system after any extended interaction with the OS bits.

3\. By and large this is focused on Finder (there's other issues, but Finder is the biggest problem I have), which is probably the single worst file manager I've used in 30 years of computing, and no amount of "getting used to it" seems to alleviate the simple fact that it sucks. I've tried a couple replacements, but they all seem to scratch some small itch and nothing really comes close to the magical file management wonderland that is the Windows 7 Explorer. It's so bad that even after a solid year with my Mac I still can't reliably predict where a new folder is going to be created. I know this makes me sound impossibly dumb, but these kinds of simple file management interface problems have been _solved_ everywhere else. Even the various Linux file managers work better and more reliably. I would be so much more interested in staying on my Mac if I knew I could manage files without feeling like I was poking around a dark damp hole trying to sort through and pick up grains of rice with my elbows. I could go on for pages ranting about the abortion of ideas that is Finder, but let's just conclude that I hate it.

4\. I realized that one of the reasons I spend so much time in a terminal then is because managing files form the command line is better! (the other reason I'm in the command line is so I can ssh into my linux VMs)

5\. so if most of what I'm doing is Chrome, Office, ssh and Linux via VirtualBox, which are essentially equivalent experiences in OS X or Windows, and then doing OS things like moving files around works better in Windows, why should I still use my Mac?

I've come up with other lines of reasoning:

\- all of the media production tools I personally work with have emphasized Windows development over Mac development for a while or no Mac equivalent exists at all.

\- retrocomputing and retrogaming, which I have a deep personal interest in, has a far richer ecosystem under Windows and the tools that have version for both OSs tend to work better in Windows. Also moving around and organizing tens of thousands of files related to this hobby is much better under Windows

\- another hobby, photography, I shoot thousands upon thousands of photos and haven't met an photo organizing tool I like, so I manage everything on the filesystem, which again means I'm avoiding finder

\- Until Mavericks, multi-monitor support with full-screen apps was broken, and there's no excuse for it. None. Maximize was solved in Windows 3.0. _23 years ago_

\- OS X seems to keep growing interface hair, meaning what started as simple elegant design slowly accumulated feature cruft until the design is no longer simple or elegant and the design wasn't really flexible enough to accommodate this growing interface hair. Witness the madness around the resizing window buttons in OS X. But all the various crap that shows up in my menubar vs. sometimes in my dock vs. sometimes nowhere but ps, etc. Or the haphazard combinations of modifier hotkey combinations that don't really carryover between apps, a legacy of the one-button mouse movement which is now just vestigial, but now means I have to keep track of which combination of shift, fn, control, option and command to use in _some_ combination _before_ I even think about what button I need to push to modify some other key to do some menial task that's standard and two buttons in Windows.

\- Even after taking hundreds of screen shots over the last year, I _still_ have to lookup the madness of screen capture in OS X every single time I sit down to take more screen shots. Here's a 3 page article on it. [http://osxdaily.com/2010/05/13/print-screen- mac/](http://osxdaily.com/2010/05/13/print-screen-mac/) Sure I don't get a "prt scr" key on the keyboard, but I get half a dozen key modifier keys and an eject key. I'll sometimes just put off the task till I get home and just do it in Windows it's so irritating.

\- There's no paint program that ships with OS X. Boggles the mind.

\- Having to buy and install tons of little apps to "fix" some broken or poorly designed behavior in the default apps that ship with the OS. This isn't like buying photoshop because it fixed paint. Photoshop is a different level entirely to paint. This is like iTerm2 which is _almost_ exactly like, but just fixes a few things and adds a couple things to iTerm. And this kind of drop-in replacement cancer permeates the entire Mac experience. There's entire ecosystems of slightly different replacements for the default apps, and it's entirely expected that setting up a new mac will involve hunting these down and installing them to replace the broken stuff that the OS ships with. I'm really just exhausted of both this process and the attitude that this is a perfectly normal and sane thing to do. It's not, the OS is shipped broken and Apple needs to fix this stuff.

\- Video performance is noticeably better in Windows. I'm not sure what it is, but I find my Mac has lots of little screen-tearing issues, and watching full- screen video on it just isn't as snappy (using VLC on both) as it was on my 6 year old Windows box (before I built my current one).

\- Things usually _just_ work in OS X. But when they don't you enter a world of mystery that goes as deep as a computer science degree can take you. In Windows, these days things also more or less _just_ work, but when they don't, there's a kind of expectation in the design that you're likely to have an issue so there's all sorts of good error reporting and resolution paths to try and exhaust before even having to start searching forums for advice.

\- I need to read NTFS volumes frequently and OS X's default NTFS compatibility sucks and the fixes are out of date and don't work very well either. In contrast, I've never had to read an HFS (or whatever Apple journaled blah blah file system) volume.

\- no dedicated page up/down home or end keys. I use those keys _all_ the time. Why are they gone? It's irritating having to hunt down a modifier key and an arrow and hope that you figured out the magic combination that's "home".

\- I can't multi-tab drag in Chrome. I drag groups of tabs around in Windows all the time. Doesn't work in OS X.

\- minimized windows are a pain to bring up. Therefore I don't minimize in OS X. The dock (especially when auto-hid) is flaky and won't show up half the time. The delay for when it _does_ feel like popping up when my mouse is down at the bottom of the screen feels entirely random.

\- I don't like any of the text editors I've tried. I just end up in vi in iterm. But I really want a good text editor.

\- VNC is not a suitable remote desktop solution compared to RDP. It's just not. I Remote into half a dozen machines over the course of a day and wish I had a decent way to remote into my Mac that wasn't VNC.

\- and more and more and more

I'm sure there are built in solutions I'm overlooking, or some app I can install that fixes this or modifies that, or some setting that makes something behave better than the default. But the point is that outside of applications that exist on both platforms equally, I'm avoiding or annoyed with everything else on the platform. I'm committed to sticking it out and have even resolved to spend more time on my mac - especially post-Mavericks. But it's just not a better computing experience for me. It's interesting and it's different, and it makes me yearn for certain things that windows doesn't have (multiple workspaces), but when the equivalent functions work better in Windows I'm forced to choose the easier and less frustrating environment to spend time in.

<comment><USER24> It's funny because you seem to be in exactly my situation, but in reverse (I'm going mac->windows). We have similar types of gripes, maybe we can help each other out.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973925](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973925)

A few suggestions:

* Use QuickTime and avoid VLC if possible. QuickTime on mac is awesome. VLC is often worse and seldom better.

* Command+Shift+4 is the only screenshot shortcut you need (toss in ctrl if you want it clipboarded, not in a file). Waaay faster than printscr+paint+paste+crop.

* OSX respects a subset of emacs keyboard movement and editing shortcuts. Ctrl+ae replace home/end. I usually remap capslock to ctrl to make them ergonomic. I like them better (no need to move hands), any way to get them on windows?

* On OSX, the universal installer app lets you list the files installed and view a textual install log. Install scripts are bash scripts. Console.app helps with both system problems and application problems (that's where stdout goes by default). Go there to start your debug journey. Haven't found the equivalent in windows.

* You can debug hangs with a time profile from Activity Monitor (yep, time profile built into the gui) or spindump. Any way to do this on Windows?

* I'm in the opposite situation wrt HFS+ and NTFS but I've had great luck with the commercial solution "Paragon" ($20, worth it). WTF is up with the whole thing where NTFS wants to spend 8 hours checking the disk every time the computer crashes? Apple figured this shit out 16 years ago.

* Command-Shift-T puts TextEdit.app in plain text mode. Hey, it's better than Notepad. What's the killer text editor that's windows only?

How 'bout you list some of those little nitpicky features you like so much from Windows. I've already written my list of things I miss from the mac side (see link, Small Gripes and More Minor Gripes sections). While I'm stuck here I might as well enjoy what it has to offer. Ditto for you, of course.

<comment><USER34> What's good about windows:

* Explorer is better than Finder.

* Right click that works

* Start menu + Win7 taskbar is better than OSX Dock/Launchpad (can't comment on Win8 metro but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it)

* Maximize

* clicking the clock gives you a calendar

I'm not exactly pro-windows but I believe the GP's point is that OSX is not flawless (neither is windows by far) but there's a lot of dumb things in OSX that should've been fixed but weren't because MS did it therefore it is not elegant by definition.

I've been able to _make_ OSX work for me only because I get my real work done on the command line. Finder is nothing but a source of frustration. Also I ought to be able to right-click the volume icon on the menu bar and get the same menu as option-click but I don't...probably because that would be too windows-like.

<comment><USER24> Hey, I'm not trying to say OSX is flawless. That would be silly. What we're both saying is that we feel like we have to _make_ the opposite OS work and that it's an unsatisfying exercise in frustration whichever way you go. It's about the pain of learning different conventions and the unwillingness of OS vendors (both of them) to copy each other's good bits.

Neat about the calendar. I have to disagree about the dock because it can force quit things, the Windows taskbar won't auto-hide, and some of the ugliest UI hacks in Windows all live in the tray (2 finger scroll, task manager, etc).

I disagree about explorer, mostly because I can't figure out how to get it to sort in alphabetical order (instead of folders and files sorted separately), a feature that's crucial for keyboard navigation and extracting files after download without scrolling through the entire downloads folder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I happen to like the hardware a bit more than when I first got the MBPr, but would LOVE to have a good Debian install guide for this puppy. Heck, I might even settle for Ubuntu in the meantime.

<comment><USER29> Run a live cd and double click the installer icon?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> My experience:

Broken motherboard AND screen on my Macbook air.

Apple replaced both for free, with no AppleCare.

I have a few other stories just like this one.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't need a guide to leaving the best computer currently made. If I had to use a PC I don't know if I would bother with computers at all except for my job. PC laptops have the reputation they deserve and I think they not only tarnished personal/mobile computing as a general concept (only to be rescued by Apple), PC laptops should be the first category of the PC family to die out completely and save people the misery and disillusionment that when you buy such a thing, that you think you actually bought something.

And Im not even saying Windows laptops, this is a commodity hardware issue combined with fantastically disappointing software (Windows or Ubuntu), but I wouldn't want one running OS X either.

It's time for the PC industry to take out its own trash.

<comment><USER17> The OEMs have been quite terrible for a long time. Even Lenovo is a barely- trustworthy brand to me anymore -- and it's the only brand and they don't currently have anything in their product lineup that I'd be happy to use. Dell and HP have become especially crap. Toshiba, which used to be crap is now somehow the better mass-market OEM out there. I wouldn't spend my own money on anything from Asus; every single Asus product I've ever come across has failed in under 3 years.

What I really want is for Apple to make an iPad that will let me use a USB keyboard. Safari and SSH are all I need.

<comment><USER38> There are many nice bluetooth keyboards that work fine with iPads.

<comment><USER17> I use a Realforce 87U as my primary keyboard and my secondary keyboards all have Cherry MX Red or Blue switches. I have purchased custom-manufactured aluminum cases for my KBC Pokers. I also hate Alps switches. It's almost a guarantee that there is nothing on the market that I will find suitable for getting real work done. There's the KBTalking Pro, but it's fullsize and not good for travel. The Neo 87 has poor build quality and the wireless barely works. It'd have to be at least a TKL but a 60% or HHKB would be better.

The best I've seen is a bluetooth mod that's far too battery-hungry for prime- time. I want something with a wire. Bluetooth keyboard pairing and the typically-horrendous bluetooth stacks border on nightmarish.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why male Uber drivers earn more than women - <AUTHOR> https://work.qz.com/1198825/why-male-uber-drivers-earn-more-than-women/ <comment> tuna-piano Gravity is a law of nature, it pulls at 9.8 meters per second squared.

Equality of people is not a rule of nature. In fact, some individuals are born with Down Syndrome and some are born Einstein. Some are born tall and some are born short.

Equality in the average income of different ways of grouping people (gender, race, religion, country, state, height, etc) are also not rules of nature.

Just because the outcome isn't equal doesn't mean there is discrimination. This paper had to start with the assumption that there wasn't discrimination (after all, it's an app).

I wish those analyzing every situation where there is an unequal outcome between groups also had to start with the assumption that there is no discrimination until there is evidence for discrimination. Unfortunately, discrimination seems to be the default answer for unequal outcomes between groups, even when there is no or limited evidence for it.

<comment><USER2> Do you think women are generally discriminated against in society?

<comment><USER3> What people think is irrelevant. Let's focus on facts, not unsubstantiated opinions.

<comment><USER2> I'm really bummed you dodged this question. I think HN lacks discussions like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr: "the biggest contributor to the Uber gender gap, accounting for almost half the difference, is the higher average speed for male drivers ... Men in Chicago, the study found, drove 19.5 mph, compared to 18.8 mph for women."

</comment><comment><USER5> The 7% pay gap comes down to speed, experience and preferences on when to drive, according to the study. I wonder if women are less likely to become Uber drivers and less likely to continue driving because they don't feel safe? There are plenty of experiences shared by Uber and Lyft female drivers of being sexually harassed and propositioned: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/04/09/female- ube...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/04/09/female-uber-lyft- drivers/#7e149f22a28e) I think it's the sort of discrimination that could lead to having less experience + a preference to drive during the day rather than at night and could be measured by a correlation between driver complaints and attrition rate by gender.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's unfortunate this study didn't compare differences in tips. Do passengers subconsciously assume men are the primary wage earners in a household and inadvertently give higher tips to men. Is that subconscious bias is higher in male vs female passengers ?

<comment><USER7> Perhaps female drivers are more cautious, especially with male riders, and this is perceived as less friendly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Business as usual. I can't believe anyone would be surprised.

A few months ago, I shed my last hope of working for someone else ever again. I gave my resignation, and I am now the captain of my own small ship.

My clients respect my expertise, I respect their money.

</comment><comment><USER9> "There are far more men with two years of Uber experience than there are women."

Which might mean that women move on to better paid jobs faster than men, right?</comment>


Zotonic - A High Performance Web Framework in Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://aosabook.org/en/posa/zotonic.html

<comment><USER2> I spent the week before the holidays playing with zotonic. It's quite impressive and in my humble opinion blows away what wordpress does. Once the community levels up I'm sure it will give all other cms platforms a run for their money.

The features are impressive, but the requirements for the lowest-common- denominator (strictly regarding code-savy-skills) consumer of a cms might be a bit higher than they can deal with.

I've never used erlang before that, and have a heavy exposure to php and js recently. I did not have extreme trouble getting basic things working. Small things like syntax were the hardest part.

That being said, this really blurs the line between framework and cms. If anything, this is a framework specifically for a cms. It looks like it's light-weight enough that it could be grown into other uses, but for that I'm leaning towards ChicagoBoss.

<comment><USER3> > blows away what wordpress does

Wordpress is top dog because it's easy like copy-paste, not because it's particularly powerful. Probably every other PHP CMS blows away Wordpress in terms of features, but they all add a degree of complexity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use this for my blog site. It is an awesome Content Management System (I wouldn't call it a Web framework). It has some caveats but is as good as Django in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> They call themselves a framework, though, not a CMS. And you've compared it to Django, which really is a framework, not a CMS. What part of Django would you say it is most directly comparable to?

<comment><USER6> The most striking similarity is the template syntax, it uses an Erlang implementation of Django templates. I think it draws some inspiration from Django's "batteries included" philosophy in a couple of ways. It encourages developing with small re-usable modules, like contact forms or blogs, that might be considered similar to the Django apps philosophy. It has an automatically generated admin area for your content/models, but it doesn't have a strong notion of model fields so you might have to do more admin view development (HTML/CSS/JS). It has an opinionated data and deeply integrated data model abstraction, although not being relational it isn't at all similar to Django's ORM.

In Zotonic a single Erlang VM hosts multiple sites (equivalent to Django projects), which can be nice for certain uses. Like most Erlang frameworks it is a little better at handling concurrency and AJAX-y ("realtime") websites than some of the more popular web frameworks, to support this the template language is extended to allow wiring UI elements to controllers without explicitly writing the JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We live in amazing times where a framework/tool/hybrid like this pops up as complete as it is, with the sort of instructions for installation that used to take a year to appear.

I'm going to get it installed, just to celebrate that!

</comment><comment><USER8> It's my first commend at ycombinator and I want to say: Hacker News, I love you! ^^

I tried to install Erlang IDEs such as Erlide ( [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/zotonic- users/CdLhhQ...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/zotonic- users/CdLhhQdXKSY) ) and open Zotonic projects but features like code completion and quick reference didn't work. Maybe some folder access rights problems, I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER9> This looks really interesting. A very well laid out description of the reasons behind the core decisions made.

Any plans on supporting elixir ? The syntax seems much nicer then plain old Erlang.

<comment><USER10> They're totally interchangeable so there's no reason you couldn't, maybe with no modifications. It's not uncommon to see a mix of Erlang and LFE (lisp flavored Erlang) or elixir when they're well suited (usually for meta programming features to eliminate repetitive Erlang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would pay a lot for a Rails-like framework written in Erlang. Erlang really hits a sweet spot between performance and developer-friendliness.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're in luck!

Check out ChicagoBoss, another Erlang web framework which claims to follow the Rails-like MVC pattern closely.

[http://www.chicagoboss.org/](http://www.chicagoboss.org/)

<comment><USER12> Is not compatible with Erlang R16B03

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazing blog. I had also tried Zotonic and was impressed by the performance.

This should work great in Indian market.

<comment><USER14> I'm not being combative here, but I'm curious why you said "This should work great in Indian market."

<comment><USER15> Because he is from Brazil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> wow... integrated OAuth and ACL to the site or database... and code hot swaps while the site is running...</comment>


Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders? - <AUTHOR> Currently, I'm a single founder with an idea for an initiative. It's not exactly a startup yet but might become one in its later stages. On what basis should I select co-founders, and if I might need them? <comment><USER2> Character (integrity, drive to learn & improve) and skills that you respect or admire. Then shared values and life situation: the startup should be the #1 priority for everyone on the core (full-time) founding team. Missing any of those requirements increases the risk of failure.

Unfortunately for those without a wide/deep network of college friends, former colleagues, etc. it's hard to judge character and skills without a previous friendship or shared work environment, etc. If you're forced to evaluate a potential co-founder in the absence of shared history, work on something small together for a few days/weeks and see how it goes.

Another thing to do in all cases is to discuss downside/failure scenarios right up-front, and see if there's a sense of openness and fairness. Check out the books _The Founder 's Dilemmas_ and _Slicing Pie_ for structuring the conversations, as they give vital ideas and precedents around formalizing the founders' relationships. It's much easier to chat about failure and equity before real work starts, and I've seen many times that it flushes out assumptions and behaviors that you won't want on your team (assuming you're the reasonable and fair one :-).

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's my best tip: Make sure they are in a similar life situation. ie. Wealth, kids, family, etc.

If one of you has three years of life savings and one of you needs money in three months, that will affect your decision making.

If one of you wants to take weekends off to go to the kid's soccer games and the other one wants to go out and drink on Friday afternoon, you had better figure that out ahead of time and make sure you're both ok with that.

<comment><USER4> Is it important for both people to sign a vesting schedule from day one?

This seems like a surprisingly common scenario: The initial agreement is a 50/50 split, and then a few months down the road one or both founders feel that 50/50 is no longer fair. If a vesting schedule is signed, you never have to think about this or revisit it.

The point of a one year cliff is that you can say "Ok" without worrying whether the other person is ineffective. If they are, you part ways.

This usually kills the company, of course, but squabbling over scraps of equity seems to do at least as much damage. Enough that YC wrote [https://blog.ycombinator.com/splitting-equity-among- founders...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/splitting-equity-among-founders/) about it. And it seems especially dangerous if you can't both agree to sign from day one, before doing any significant work.

But perhaps that's that's too inflexible. I don't know.

<comment><USER5> I guess even with equal ownership it would be beneficial to decide who has the final say on things. "A pirate ship has to have a captain." Rather have the business die because of bad choices than the inability to make choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doers[1]. Aka, people who act. move mountains. get stuff done.

[1] [https://medium.com/@alain94040/doers-b364a4d2de3f](https://medium.com/@alain94040/doers-b364a4d2de3f)

</comment><comment><USER7> Meta: is anybody else here thinking "what a strange question"? Is there some kind of co-founder aisle in the bay area grocery stores or something?

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's a strange question at all.

I have good friends who I love to spend time with, but I never want to work with them.

I had colleagues in other teams I loved to work with, who I never wanted to have in my team (e.g. development vs operations. Really cool for problem solving and interacting on a project basis, but too different in daily habits).

I had colleagues in my team I loved to work with daily, who I never want to start a company with.

Even when you already know a lot about people that doesn't mean they'd be a good fit for a cofounder. But then I've never started a startup, I'm happily employed and don't plan on going back to be my own boss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ive gone through this a few times. The best approach I took was to look at myself and assess my strengths and weaknesses. Knowing that made finding people with other complimentary strengths easier, and also results in (hopefully) a better product, solution or what have you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here is my list of 3 qualities:

1\. Emotional Maturity - startups are super stressful, you need someone who can be a steady voice of reason.

2\. Relentless - someone who is stubborn and never gives up.

3\. Complementary - someone who can fill in the blanks vis-a-vis your skills (tech/business/sales/..)

</comment><comment><USER11> Choose people you work well with, who just won't give up, and share similar values. If one of you wants to build a long term company, and the other wants to cash out as soon as possible and go work for Hooli that could become a serious issue down the line.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's almost impossible to reduce the criteria in finding the right cofounder. Likely the ideal candidate will also look at other person with an equally critical eye as well. I'd say serendipity and chance occurrence that the business is something you both want to work on and find regular intervals of success are probably determinants in deciding (retrospectively) if the cofounder was right.

</comment><comment><USER13> You really need to know how they are going to hold up under adversity (you will face adversity). I have always thought the idea of going on some sort of difficult adventure (long trek through harsh terrain) is a good way to see how they will hold up.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ability to sell. Sell product to customers. Sell company to investors. Sell organization to potential hires.

</comment><comment><USER15> Complementary skillsets/interests.

</comment><comment><USER16> Each co-founder relationship is different, but there may be some items below of use to you.

1) Find someone who can be on the same wave length as you for 1-3 years, at least in terms of what you both want, how hard you can work at it, etc. A co- founder relationship is harder than marriage. A lot of it due to getting on the same page, and staying on the same page for 3-5-8 years isn't always easy. My marriage is much easier because of all I learnt about having and being the best partner I can be and always improving.

2) Date before you go steady, before you get married. If you meet someone interesting, try a practice project together. Too many hackathons are about making a baby over a one night stand and putting on rose coloured glasses.. Still, would you open a bank account, move in with, and get married to someone you speed dated over a weekend?

3) Focus on short-term and healthy partnerships on small projects at first. They will become long term on their own.

4) If it's all going to hell, it's going to go to hell no matter what you do, or don't have in writing.

5) Make sure your work ethic and philosophy is the same. Being effective is critical as is delivering results, being responsive, available. A startup is a baby. Don't feed it, it won't grow.

6) Don't make co-founders out of loneliness or to add people to the mix. The potential 1+1 should always equal 11 with cofounders.

7) Success in startups (and business) is about discipline, execution, focus, and doing what needs to be done, not just what's shiny or interesting. If the average maturity of co-founders is not high or strong enough, it will be hard.

8) If your potential co-founder has shiny object ADD, take that into consideration.

9) Hang out with people you can develop fierce trust and loyalty with. You can go much faster, then.

10) Vesting for shares is good. It's OK to tie it to a Harvest timesheet in the beginning. All shares are worthless unless anyways they make them valuable.

11) If you have a business development (sales) co-founder, it's not unusual to have their top line sales vest/convert to a certain percentage of equity. As a technical founder, I know I can build and deliver. I expect the sales guy to be able to deliver sales, or the only thing of value that's created (IP), falls back to the people who built it.

12) Some people will say partnership is about leverage, ultimately. This is true to some extent, however, I wonder if it should be about partners leveraging and exploiting an opportunity, instead of each other.

13) Partnerships like marriage are not measured in the good times. They are truly shown in challenging times. Being able to communicate in tough times is really critical.

14) Despite the above, learning to work with others is an invaluable skill. Just don't bank too much on others. You'll do good, and meet others who are doing good. Ignore talkers, only pay attention to doers.

</comment><comment><USER17> Someone who completes your...

</comment><comment><USER18> >> a single founder with an idea

You don't need a cofounder. You need to learn to program.

</comment><comment><USER19> I really liked this blog post from Leo Polovets for measuring the overall risk of a startup.[0]

Maybe in the same vein you could do it for cofounders? De-risk yourself by picking a cofounder that you know well and will be helpful. It's definitely not perfect but maybe this will help...

If you pick someone that you know well, you'll be a better judge of whether you'll have work conflicts later. I'm not a fan of working on a project together to test your chemistry. It's still a big gamble if you do that. People are too nice.

Your cofounder judgment ability:

\- random person

\- acquaintance

\- previous co-worker

\- friend

\- family

You could draw up the major roles that you'll need to take on for the early stage part of the startup (UX, sales, engineering, design, marketing, management, fund raising, etc.). When picking a partner try to optimize for filling as many of the roles as possible. It helps if they have a different background but I think proven skills are more important.

Cofounder skill balance:

\- they're me and we do all the same stuff

\- same skills but different background

\- they know some other skills but together there are still many gaps

\- together you cover most skill gaps and have different backgrounds

\- they know enough of what you don't that together you'll cover all the skill gaps

From the roles you laid out, how much experience do they have with each? Add up the points 1-5 for each job to get an idea of how likely they are to be good at their tasks.

Cofounder job experience:

\- never done work like this before

\- worked a bit in the industry but not this role

\- worked in this role in a different industry

\- worked in this role in this industry

\- excelled previously working in this industry doing this job (really know the ropes)

Take these three criteria and weight them properly for a clunky formula that sorta helps with cofounder picking, e.g. 5 * chemistry + 3 * skills + (total_experience / # jobs)

non-starters:

\- can't do it full time

\- squabble over equity or other founding stuff

\- don't want to do work (after you agree on tasks)

\- talk past each other often/can't work together

I'd second what other people in this thread have said about reading _The Founder 's Dilemma_. It's well worth the time if you haven't read it.

[0] [https://codingvc.com/how-to-de-risk-a-startup/](https://codingvc.com/how- to-de-risk-a-startup/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Someone who knows "criteria" is a plural word. The singular is "criterion".

<comment><USER21> Also someone who is not excessively pedantic.

<comment><USER22> or maybe someone who has a certain degree of "excessively" in their "pedantic"</comment></comment></comment>


Arctic summers ice-free by 2013 (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm

<comment><USER2> I hope readers understand this 2007 prediction didn't happen, but that this doesn't count as evidence against global warming. It's a matter of which interval one chooses for a moving average -- short interval shows cooling, long interval shows warming.</comment>


Apple scraps iPhone Walkie Talkie feature for texting without service - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-walkie-talkie-feature-texting-without-cell-coverage-report-2019-8 <comment><USER2> AIM? Apple Instant Messaging? Too soon?

Curious what Intel will do with this technology if Apple is no longer willing to license it. My father was a HAM operator and I would have loved discussing this with him if he were alive.</comment>


GCC vs. Clang/LLVM: An In-Depth Comparison of C/C++ Compilers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/gcc-vs-clang-llvm-an-in-depth-comparison-of-c-c-compilers-899ede2be378 <comment><USER2> One key metric where Gcc and Clang differ is in their willingness to produce 'cmov', "conditional move", instructions. ('cmov' is an instruction that implements '(a=c?b:a)' without a conditional branch.)

Partition is an essential component of numerous key algorithms; almost half of C++ STL algorithms depend on it. A key primitive to implement partition is the 'swap_if' operation. Performance of this operation thus directly determines the performance of many important algorithms. For best performance with word- sized arguments, 'swap_if' must be implemented with a pair of back-to-back 'cmov' instructions.

Gcc got its fingers burned a few years ago from emitting 'cmov' in loop contexts where the condition was predictable and the result immediately depended upon in the next iteration, creating dependency chains that slowed execution of some benchmarks by a factor of 2. Now, Gcc will never, under any circumstances, emit two 'cmov' instructions in one basic block.

Clang is happy to emit a pair of back-to-back 'cmov' instructions, which enables it to perform partition operations very substantially faster than Gcc. However, it fails to generate 'cmov' instructions in important cases.

The fully general expression of 'swap_if' looks like:

      template <typename T>
      bool swap_if(
        bool c, T& a, T& b)
      {
        T v[2] = { a, b };
        b = v[1-c], a = v[c];
        return c;
      }

It may be used in the inner loop of quicksort's partition operations as

      right += swap_if(
        *left < pivot,
        *left, *right);

A 'swap_if' implemented with 'cmov' makes quicksort fully twice as fast as, e.g., current 'std::sort'. However, neither Gcc nor Clang recognizes this 'swap_if' as a place to substitute 'cmov' instructions for the pointer/offset accesses. (The latter are slower, probably because they produce more L1 bus traffic.)

Clang will happily emit 'cmov' instructions for a specialization like

      template <>
      bool swap_if(
        bool c, int& a, int& b)
      {
        int v[2] = { a, b };
        a =  -c&v[1] | 1-c&v[0];
        b = 1-c&v[0] |  -c&v[1];
        return c;
      }

where Gcc emits exactly the 'and' and 'or' instructions. (Interestingly, Gcc's code for both definitions, despite failing to use 'cmov', runs quicksort quite a lot faster than std::sort; just not 2x as fast.) Clang will also emit 'cmov' instructions for

      bool swap_if(
        bool c, int& a, int& b)
      {
        int ta = a, tb = b;
        a = c ? tb : ta;
        b = c ? ta : tb;
        return c;
      }

but Gcc will only produce very slow (i.e. badly predicted) branches for this case.

If we had 'std::swap_if' in the C++ Standard Library, probably all implementations would produce good code for it.

(As an aside, I find it odd that changing the second line of the template 'swap_if' above to

      a = v[c], b = v[!c];

makes it much, much slower when compiled with Gcc for recent Intel. I would welcome any insight into why this is.)

<comment><USER2> Apologies, the "1-c&v[.]" above should be "c-1&v[.]".</comment></comment>