Why pens have rubbery grips - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/09/19/1706233114.full <comment><USER2> Most commodity ballpoint pens didn't have rubbery grips prior to the mid 1990's. I remember back-to-school shopping at the end of one summer, and most of the bags of pens were upgraded to have built-in grips. Prior to that, you'd buy triangular slip-on sleeves separately, if you wanted additional gripping traction.

It was a trend that started, and progressed like many other marketing arms races. One stand-out product emerged and out sold the normal offerings, due to novelty, and all other imitators jumped on the band wagon to cash in on that novelty.

<comment><USER3> >triangular slip-on sleeves separately

As someone who grew up in the 90's, I can almost guarantee you would get the crap beat out of them for walking into school with something like that.

Thank goodness they're integrated into the pen now!

<comment><USER4> I was a teenager throughout the 90's and was a bit of a bully from time to time, and I don't think bullying has changed much since then. If it wasn't a pen, it was the shoes, t-shirt, or the way someone pronounced a word.

Bullies are bullies, they will pick up on any thing they can and exploit it to belittle another person.

<comment><USER5> My parents once bought me Mighty Ducks shoes from Payless, without consulting me, when I was in around the 7th grade; suddenly everyone at my school was a bully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me that research have learned titling from modern journalism.

It is the actual research title and it is clickbaity.

>Without a large true contact area made by our hands, it would be nearly impossible to lift a glass or to hold onto a handrail in a transport vehicle.

As a side note, the reason why usually you don't drop a glass when gripping it with your hand is largely due -besides friction - to the fact that the glass is usually a truncated cone with the larger base on the upper side, and as well handrails have a suitable outer diameter to be enclosed in the hand and allowing to tight your fingers around it - between 40 and 50 mm.

Try holding (in a transport vehicle) onto an 80 or 90 mm handrail (rubber covered) ...

<comment><USER7> Or even just an upside down glass in the comfort of your own house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just saw on a catalog the 20 or 25th anniversary of a certain Bic pen. It was on the cover page

I thought it signified some milestone in printing where component pieces combimed with easy logo/name printing changed the logo game

Thus, more pens made with plastic (rubbery) grips had to do with manufacturing

Now i am enlightened

</comment><comment><USER9> Are there any smartphones that have a rubber coating? Something akin to the Thinkpad lid coating. I use a rubbery case, buy that's something else.

That got me to thinking. Why doesn't Lenovo cash on Thinkpad brand with a smartphone line that would be branded as such. It could use the same rubber coating and maybe titanium skeleton or something. Maybe I'm just not aware that they indeed have such a thing.

<comment><USER10> Apple made (makes?) a thin, silicone-coated case for the iPhone. It was monumentally annoying. The extra grippiness of the silicone meant that every time I pulled my phone out of my pants pocket, the pocket came with it and turned inside out. It was also hard to put the phone back in my pocket because it would grip the pocket material instead of sliding in. And finally, the silicone was a victim of its own grippiness and wore out rather quickly.

I've found a textured case like Magpul makes to be far superior to one with soft rubber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's why I dislike iPhone - 5S was last grippable version, since then it's slippery material PLUS slippery shape.

Miss my HTC M7 - it had a few milimeters larger back than front, and well defined edge, it was the last phone that you could hold really comfortably and safely even without the case.

<comment><USER12> iPhone SE is just as grippable as the 5S, it's the same design but 2.5 years newer. Unless something changed in the aluminum finish, but it feels fine to me. (Don't have a 5S for comparison)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Because it sucks to hold a plastic pen slipping around in sweaty hands?

<comment><USER14> Terrible title problems. To save time, here's the outline given when you click on the link: TL-DR: 'Why does gripping a pen, tool, or handle feel more secure when it is coated with a rubbery material? The keratin of the skin outer layer is stiff and rough at a small scale. When encountering a smooth, stiff, and impermeable surface, such as polished metal or glass, the actual contact area is initially small as is the friction. Because the keratin softens when it is hydrated by the moisture secreted from the sweat pores, it requires many seconds for the contact area to increase to the value reached almost instantaneously with a soft material, such as a rubber. This mechanism might be used by our tactile sense to identify materials and has implications for the design of tactile displays. '

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How is this a thing that needs explaining?

<comment><USER16> Try actually reading the paper. The analysis is actually quite compelling.

<comment><USER15> I did read the paper and I'm not saying the analysis isn't compelling. I'm saying it is obvious and does not need a paper to be explained.

<comment><USER16> _The process by which human fingers gives rise to stable contacts with smooth, hard objects is surprisingly slow. Using high-resolution imaging, we found that, when pressed against glass, the actual contact made by finger pad ridges evolved over time following a first-order kinetics relationship. This evolution was the result of a two-stage coalescence process of microscopic junctions made between the keratin of the stratum corneum of the skin and the glass surface. This process was driven by the secretion of moisture from the sweat glands, since increased hydration in stratum corneum causes it to become softer. Saturation was typically reached within 20 s of loading the contact, regardless of the initial moisture state of the finger and of the normal force applied._

So, nothing to see here, totally obvious?

<comment><USER15> Many words to say "Moist fingers grips smooth,hard objects better than dry finger". Again, I'm not saying it is useless or uninteresting or that the science is simple, I'm saying you can see the behavior without knowing the science and still understand it.

Then again, what is interesting to one person might not be equally interesting another.

<comment><USER17> But it's not just a moist finger, initial moisture doesn't matter much. It's the whole process that starts when you touch an object. That doesn't seem obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TLDR from the article:

> Because the keratin softens when it is hydrated by the moisture secreted > from the sweat pores, it requires many seconds for the contact area to > increase to the value reached almost instantaneously with a soft material, > such as a rubber.

<comment><USER19> This is interesting, yes, but it seems immediately ... odd to me.

Do we use rubber to manufacture tires because the frictional coefficient between rubber and asphalt is established rapidly due to asphalt sweating? No, it's because the frictional coefficient is already rather high to begin with. Is this not the case with rubber-keratin as well? Why involve sweat when static friction is sufficiently explanatory?

<comment><USER20> They are talking about non rubbery surfaces

> When encountering a smooth, stiff, and impermeable surface, such as polished > metal or glass, the actual contact area is initially small as is the > friction. Because the keratin softens when it is hydrated by the moisture > secreted from the sweat pores, it requires many seconds for the contact area > to increase to the value reached almost instantaneously with a soft > material, such as a rubber.

<comment><USER21> As compared to rubbery ones.

> the value reached almost instantaneously with a soft material, such as a > rubber</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft can remove apps and data from Windows 8 devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/microsoft-can-remove-apps-and-data-from-windows-8-devices/16998 <comment><USER2> What exactly is the point of this?

If it's to protect users from malicious code then make it an opt out policy.

If it's to allow them to just remove stuff at their whim then why does it exist?

this is why I don't like app stores. We are taking steps backwards with this garbage.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      It might sound both harsh and draconian,

Yes, it certainly does.

      but it's a necessary feature of a modern app store.

Really? I don't see anything in the article to support that conclusion.

<comment><USER4> I think they defer to the fact that both Apple[1] and Google[2] also have the same feature in their App Stores.

Edit: [1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3358134/Apples-Jobs- co...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3358134/Apples-Jobs-confirms- iPhone-kill-switch.html)

[2] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/07/google_remotely_kill...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/07/google_remotely_kills_android_malware_apps/)

<comment><USER3> "Everyone else is doing it" doesn't cut it with Mom or with me. :)

<comment><USER5> Maybe not for you, but I'm willing to bet "same as Apple and Google" does cut it for Mom.

(Note: I'm talking about the figurative mom, not your biological mother.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Programs doing stuff against the user's will on his/her computer are what generally is classified as malware.

</comment><comment><USER7> ...if the app arrived on the device from the app store.

<comment><USER8> Which all Metro apps will (for non-developers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, since I hate giving Microsoft money, they won't get any for their app store with this decision.

Same with Amazon and their kindle/ebooks. If you can delete my stuff I don't buy from you.

</comment><comment><USER10> I honestly wasn't surprised to read this, I mean I'm not in favor of it, but look at Apple and the iPhone. They have the same ability, and unless I'm mistaken so does Google and Android.

Precedence (of cultural acceptance, not legal standing) on this has been set for awhile now.

</comment><comment><USER11> What could _possibly_ go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER12> These terms are absolutely unacceptable: "We may change or discontinue certain apps or content offered in the Windows Store at any time, for any reason."

Reminds me of the Nintendo and Sega emulators in the Android market[1]. Microsoft will be more than willing to comply with takedown requests -- regardless of how legitimate they are -- if it gives them even the slightest potential to put another dime in their pocket. Why would they ever favor consumers who are locked into their devices for 2 years at a time? Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/06/gaming-system- em...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/06/gaming-system-emulators- pulled-from-android-market.ars)

<comment><USER13> Except Google doesn't give refunds for those apps. The money and apps are gone from your posession forever, whereas under these terms Microsoft gives you your money back.</comment></comment>


Show HN: PXLPNT social pixel art - <AUTHOR>

Small side project I've been working on to learn new things — PXLPNT lets you create 10x10 pixel artworks, share them on twitter, tumblr, facebook, and print them on Zazzle. The images are stored in the URL by representing the colors as letters so they can be remixed and passed around, and it works on both Android and iOS devices, with multi-touch enabled on iOS. <comment><USER2> Sounds intriguing. Can we have a link?</comment>


How to Fix the Flawed Startup Visa Act - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/12/how-to-fix-the-flawed-startup-visa-act/ <comment><USER2> The mistake happens in these two sentences:

"The bill makes the wrong assumption that all startups raise angel or venture capital. As my team's research has shown, nine out of 10 successful entrepreneurs don't."

Entrepreneurs are not identical with startup founders. An entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business. Only a small fraction of new businesses are startups; most are unscalable service businesses like barbershops.

As of now, at least, nearly all successful _startups_ have investors.

<comment><USER3> Paul: you are absolutely right. I think it is hard to find a better way to differentiate the barbershops from the startups short of having smart folks in the government who subjectively examine each application - and we all know how likely that is. Also, if we go that route, the startup visa will take years just like the current green card application which IIRC requires an in person interview.

Vivek does have a point as well though. Currently, employers who sponsor "green cards" have the power to get the sponsored employees and their families kicked out of the country simply by firing them. I don't think you'd want to replicate this with the startup visa. Using investors as an 'entrance requirement' may be o.k., but once someone qualifies for a startup visa, the path to a permanent residency should either be really short (months, not years) or independent of whether the investor continues to 'support' the entrepreneur.

I am in favor of strong filtering up front, but anyone who qualifies should then be treated just like an American citizen or permanent resident.

<comment><USER4> The VC investor is, I think, to stop the property loophole that used to apply here. To get a visa you had to invest $1M in a business, so people registered a company, bought a $1M house, leased it to themselves, employed all their family and moved in.

<comment><USER3> I assume you are referring to the way the government is constraining who they qualify as an 'investor' (someone who has made an investments of at least $50,000 every year for the past 3 years)? It does make sense to have some clause like that to avoid the loophole you mentioned.

It is still orthogonal to what I am saying though, which is that once an entrepreneur has raised the money from a qualified investor for a legitimate startup, they should essentially get a permanent residency permit.

<comment><USER4> Oh definitely agree - I would say that anybody graduating form a US uni with a science degree should get a green card.

in my own field, we train physics and comp-sci PhDs then throw them out of the country like itinerant fruit pickers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> much of vivek's criticism focuses on how to optimize the Startup Visa bill. however, left unspoken is how to construct a bill such that opponents will allow it to pass. we spent over a year consulting a variety of folks on this issue (including vivek, who at the time offered much less feedback and a lot more support than recently when he appears to have had a change of heart).

while his feedback may be relevant, unfortunately it's not very helpful AFTER we have spent so much time getting bipartisan support for the current bill. in fact his rather late critiques may actually reduce the chance for ANY kind of bill to pass.

any bill we put together is best constructed with awareness of opponents, and an eye to compromise on getting SOMETHING done quickly, rather than nothing. we can always modify & improve, but if we miss the chance to pass a bill, thousands of startups will again he stuck waiting to create their businesses and jobs.

again I'm extremely frustrated vivek waited a year to voice his opinions, well after we asked for his input (and actually got it) and support (which he gave, and now is withdrawing).

if not for his "fixing", we might already be able to get the bill to the floor for a vote.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why does the bill need fixing - it seems to function perfectly

The purpose is to make two politicians look good, to allow their respective parties to claim they are doing something while at the same time being able to reassure their supporters that nothing will change.

That's basically the point of politics since some greek guy stood up in the market place

</comment><comment><USER6> The entire US visa system is flawed.

The H1B visa allows an entire family to be kicked out of the country with very little notice simply because an employer wants it done.

To extend a visitor visa the person needs to leave the country (further than Canada and Mexico) and return. Great for airlines.

Many companies have employees sitting in Canada who they bring down for meetings every now and then. They just have to stay away longer than 30 days at a time.

Many technology companies have complained, Bill Gates and Google included.

Hillary Clinton (immigration head) is not going to allow anything to improve under her watch. The only real hope is to see what happens with the next election. Hopefully Hillary will be shown the door.</comment>


Fire ants lock legs and jaws to form rafts, avoid drowning - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/latest-headlines/2010/08/25/AFd3EbjE_story.html

<comment><USER2> Check out the book 'Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software' (Steven Johnson) for more awesome discussion of ant behavior, among other things.

Some highlights:

* Ants will sacrifice themselves as 'living bridges' to help most of their comrades pass an obstacle.

* Individual workers choose their role by keeping a running tally of what the other workers they walk past are doing.

* Any single ant follows a pretty limited instruction set, but the colony--taken as a whole--exhibits traits comparable to the intelligence of a small mammal.

* Ants in a habitat manage to stack the corpses of dead ants as far as possible from the queen, the nursery, any food sources, and paths between them. So in any ant habitat, you wind up with a row of dead ants arranged neatly in some corner.

There's more, both ant-related and not, but the general point I'm trying to get at is that the book is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a BBC video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A042J0IDQK4>

<comment><USER4> That was really a great video to watch. Equally interesting is the impact that fire ants have on electronics [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vVUh-194vU&NR=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vVUh-194vU&NR=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do ants do this when they become airborne? My neighbor has an infestation and sometimes as they crawl up his tree (20 to 30ft), a gust of wind will whisk them away.

I have had several land on my arms and begin crawling business as usual.

</comment><comment><USER6> Fascinating article... pity about the random and incongruous political jabs. Did the writer have a Post-It tacked to their monitor with "More political!!" scrawled on it? :P</comment>


New Futurama episode makes fun of iPhone, Apple users - <AUTHOR> http://www.edibleapple.com/new-futurama-episode-pokes-fun-at-iphone-and-apple-customers-in-all-sorts-of-ways/

<comment><USER2> Simpsons did it better

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZGIn9bpALo>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L2fsubA2-c></comment>


Two Types of Curiosity - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/52/the-hive/why-curiosity-can-be-both-painful-and-pleasurable <comment><USER2> Interesting, I learn subject such as math and programing, by trying the exercises at the end of the unit first, looking through the unit as needed, then I can sit down and read the unit and really getting it. If I start by reading, I tend to understand and retain very little...

On the other hand nothing infuriate me more than when told "I'll tell you later..."</comment>


Wired Issue #1: NSA, Nootropics and OOP - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/hypelist.html

<comment><USER2> The more things change, the more they stay the same</comment>


Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions Of 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/top-25-oddball-interview-questions-2010/ <comment><USER2> These are all pretty great, but I admit I'd likely blank on most of them. One of my favorite questions to ask when I interview people is "what would you do with $10 million cash right now?" It's a question that exposes a few key things about the person's set of values. There is no right answer but if the candidate starts off by telling me what clothes or car they would buy, they are the wrong person. I want someone who would start something in the same field they are interviewing for and a series of follow up "why" questions usually puts us on an interesting path.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like there are two distinct type of questions in the list.

The first are math-based and seem to have real value, like this one from amazon: "If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?"

The rest (in significant portions) fall in the more philosophical "how would you move mount fuji". I've never been asked this type of question, I hope I never am. I don't plan on wasting time trying to answer...just give a "no clue" and move on. I find these question to be total BS and super arrogant. Supposed to see how you approach problem solving...seriously the best way to do that is to provide a stupid problem? I honestly think it made sense to ask this when you were the only one...made you look cool. Now it makes you look like a "me-too".

Does anyone know of any real value with this 2nd type of question which couldn't be served by something more straightforward (which isn't to say easier)?

<comment><USER4> Those questions can show you if someone is willing to call out an interviewer for asking a stupid question. I doubt the people asking these kinds of questions are looking for that sort of answer however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 26\. How many times would you click "View Answers" before you say, "Fuck this" and close your browser?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the page is clearly built for SEO purposes and the links out are designed for padding the page view numbers.

<comment><USER6> And to top it off, a link bait title "Top %d %s of 2010".

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.google.com/search?q=headlines+linkbait>

<comment><USER2> Which are, not surprisingly, some of the headline structures that pulled the best in old direct response copywriting ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The majority of the questions that I looked at where applications of binary search.

<comment><USER8> I think I know why so many of these are simple binary search questions. If you actually read the full interview descriptions that most of these come from, you'll see that the vast majority of them were rejected. As an interviewer, the very first question I ask is "what is a binary search and what is its big-O run time?" Assuming the candidate has a CS background, this is meant to take up about 15 seconds of the interview and allow us to get to the real questions. I suspect many other interviewers do something similar. Most of these posters likely struggled with it and didn't get to the real questions, so that's all they could share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unsurprisingly some of these are just Fermi questions. Many others are just designed to see if you can actually analyse and talk.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't know what comes over people when they are faced with the prospect of interviewing someone. For every interviewer it seems there's a unique crackpot theory on how to hire people. And, to be honest, I myself have given some dreadful interviews to candidates in the past based on whatever happened to be my current favorite theory of how to weed out the good from the bad.</comment>


Mystery of superior Leeuwenhoek microscope solved after 350 years (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-03-mystery-superior-leeuwenhoek-microscope-years.html <comment><USER2> Since we are at the topic of microscopes, here's the best pocket microscope I know of: Carson MicrcoBrite Plus. It has magnification 60-120x [1]. The same manufacturer makes a few more models. I personally bought this model and 3 others, some of them multiple times (they make for nice presents):20-60x, 60-75x, 60-120x (this one), and 100-250x. I also bought some other pocket microscopes from other manufacturers, Carson leaves them in the dust. And among Carsons, this one is in my opinion the best. I am not affiliated with them in any way, I'm simply a happy customer.

Now, I'd like to make the jump to a higher magnification microscope, like 1000x, but they start being expensive, and you can't just use the strategy "buy and throw if you don't like" with them. If anyone from the HN crowd has any recommendations, that would be much appreciated.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LAX52IQ/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LAX52IQ/)

<comment><USER3> Curious, what do you use this for? What are some of the samples you look at typically?

<comment><USER2> Paper towels, cloth, coins, written words on paper, the edge of a knife etc. I tried using slides too, but I don't remember being too successful.

One thing to note for whoever is interested: being pocket microscopes, you don't treat them as precision instruments. You (and your kids) drop them frequently. They are quite sturdy, but after countless drops the quality of the image starts to suffer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The interesting summary is they decided after using neutron tomography to scan the "too expensive and fragile to disassemble" microscopes that he was just really great at grinding them. Still uncertain is if he used some unusual variety of glass. I hate teaser titles.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Though at least the article wasn't just all fluff only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There was this 1977 science fiction book called 'Inherit the Stars' by James Hogan [0] about finding the corpse of 50,000 year old astronaut on the moon. He carried a 'book' that was too fragile to read and to explore with any kind of electromagnetic radiation. They used neutron tomography, like they do here, to 'read' the book.

The author predicted something like to emerge by 2027. Neutron tomography has been around for a while [1].

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776489.Inherit_the_Stars](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776489.Inherit_the_Stars)

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

</comment><comment><USER7> Probably made other larger lenses for the purpose of assisting the grinding that smallest lens.

<comment><USER8> I dont think the lenses were that small though. They seem to be at least a couple of millimeters if not more, because the article mentions the lens being mainly concealed inside the contraption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I read somewhere that today a 100 times magnification requires a oil objective and very sturdy microscope frame.

In Wikipedia they wrote that _The single-lens microscopes of van Leeuwenhoek were relatively small devices, the largest being about 5 cm long. They are used by placing the lens very close in front of the eye, while looking in the direction of the sun._

So van Leeuwenhoek was able to look in tiny device pointed to the sun and incredibly close to his eye and magnifying up to 275 time or more? Incredible, specially for someone like me who has shaky hands and poor vision!

<comment><USER10> That would be 10x100 or 1000X. 100X (10x10) is easily achievable with a high objective.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, a typical research microscope gets magnification from both the objective and the eyepiece. A scope with 100x objective and 10x eyepiece is no longer considered high tech, though not cheap. The oil objectives are still useful, and particularly so when specimens are mounted under cover glass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just going to leave it here. Leeuwenhoek microscope made an appearance in a Manga Isekai Yakkyoku [Other world pharmacist]

[https://mangadex.org/chapter/10571/18](https://mangadex.org/chapter/10571/18)</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone have experience comparing genomes?  - <AUTHOR>

What types of complexity would be involved in computationally comparing 2 genomes to find over-expressed genes?
There has been news of success in comparing the genome sequences between cancer cells and healthy cells. I would like to hear any expert opinions regarding the complexity.
Some background:
The goal is to sequence patients' and their cancer's genomes, then compute the gene candidates to target for drug therapy, based on the difference of the two ( I know it's more complicated than that ). It took researchers a month to process the data, between the diff of normal and malignant cells. They then found a likely candidate gene that was over-expressed in the cancer cells- and coincidentally, a drug existed that targeted the gene, to the apparent success of the patient.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12455 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-for-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html <comment><USER2> Sure. There are teams doing it every day right now, with clinical patients. It's still research, but we are pushing variant calls back into patient's medical record to help make treatment decisions.

From a complexity perspective, not nearly as much as you would think (by which I mean there are _many_ software tools that already do this pretty efficiently). The day-to-day problems are much simpler (and more standard IT) than you might think. For example, you can safely assume that finding variants is done. Now, where is the source of drugs that are in clinical trial or in approved treatments for a specific mutation. Can you get that in front of pathologists quickly?

You probably want to take a look at The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. They are sequencing normal and tumor tissue from patients across a large number of cancer types and making the resulting sequence data available for research.

Edit (additional info): It does NOT take a month to do this sequencing and it is getting tremendously quicker every day. The MiSeq from Illumina can pump out the fastq file from a normal or tumor sample in 24 hours (and it can do something like 96 samples at a time, but I don't know if people push that in production).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm no expert, but it's an incredibly complex process. One of the things about cancer cells is that they mutate at an amazingly fast rate because they are constantly multiplying and dividing, and so it can be difficult to target just a single gene that is responsible for transformation from a normal cell to a cancerous cell. Unfortunately as well, we may be able to tell that a particular gene has been mutated in such a way that it leads to overexpression of X, but it's often not just the overexpression of a gene, it's often the mutation of some enzyme that blocks another protein that will serve as a repressor of some other gene. There's immense bodies of research, but there's a ton that we simply just don't know yet.</comment>


Apple has told several social-networking apps to disable their 'tip' functions - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-tip-for-apple-in-china-your-hunger-for-revenue-may-cost-you-1495100964 <comment><USER2> Am I the only one here who thinks Apple/Google should not be able to skim more than a token 1-3% fee off transactions? Both already make enough money off their customers and they effectively have a duopoly on mobile platforms. If there were dozens of app stores (more like repositories at that point) that you could easily search across, then the market would be self regulating. I don't think that's the case right now.

<comment><USER3> well, "should vs can"

In the realm of "should", I'm afraid regulation is your only bet.

Otherwise obviously any company will take whatever % they think will get them the maximum long term profit

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Next will Apple command a cut when I transfer money via my banking app or PayPal?!

<comment><USER2> That's my thought here as well. This seems eerily close to just demanding a cut of every transaction on their platform.

<comment><USER3> Wonder what'll happen if they demand Amazon pay some % of sales for their physical goods.

<comment><USER5> In their guidelines, IAP is specifically for virtual goods and services (i.e. definitely not physical goods).

<comment><USER3> Right, but what's stopping them from charging say 1% on every transaction whether it's financial or physical, on some future date?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, this genuinely upsets me. This is one of the few ways to make mobile publishing an ad-free experience and Apple mindlessly injects itself into the process. They did the same thing to kill Readability's monetization model awhile back.

</comment><comment><USER7> So will they be coming after Square? I use square cash to pay friends and even rent.

</comment><comment><USER8> Any links that are not behind paywall / register-wall?

<comment><USER6> [http://wsj.outline.com/bX3c93](http://wsj.outline.com/bX3c93)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for outline.com! Was not familiar.</comment></comment></comment>


Nigerian Geniuses: Drawing Made Entirely Using Blue Bic Pen - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/yblnigeria/status/749857814508670977/photo/1 <comment><USER2> That's amazing. I found some more drawings of him here:

[http://zikoko.com/gist/oscar-ukonu/](http://zikoko.com/gist/oscar-ukonu/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's even a better post the link I posted.</comment></comment>


30 years a sysadmin - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/article/2987198/operating-systems/30-years-a-sysadmin.html <comment><AUTHOR> Another great read by same the author, one I wish I had given all my trainees to read: 18 cardinal rules of system administration - [http://www.itworld.com/article/2987063/careers/18-cardinal-r...](http://www.itworld.com/article/2987063/careers/18-cardinal- rules-of-systems-administration.html)</comment>


Show HN: A browser extension that prevents "pastejacking" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rocketshipapps/hardenedpaste <comment><AUTHOR> Pastejacking is an interesting new exploit that was discussed last week on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11757973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11757973)

I took a crack at creating a patch in the form of an extension since I've created some similar extensions before (Adblock Fast, Disconnect, Facebook Disconnect). The extension works by providing a small shim to override exploitable JS methods on the webpages you go to.

You can install Hardened Paste for Chrome from the Web Store: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hardened- paste/gie...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hardened- paste/gielgconhpjjpkkfomnkdnfinilggdmk)

An Opera port is in review and, if there's interest, we can also port the extension to Firefox and Safari.</comment>


Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use? - <AUTHOR> http://battellemedia.com/archives/2012/09/am-i-an-outlier-or-are-apple-products-no-longer-easy-to-use.php <comment><USER5> Much of this is dopey nonsense but he's correctly describing a few Real Problems.

\-- iOS devices blowing their asset layout and 'Othering' out is a Real Problem that used to happen far too often. The only fix beyond a backup+restore is to remove and re-add photos and music. If that doesn't work? Time to restore up to 60GB over USB2! Whee. Good luck explaining this to mom.

\-- The built in Mac applications and frameworks are frightfully poor - it's unacceptable from a company that prides itself on quality. SyncServices is still a flaming travesty, Mail.app spontaneously corrupts messages and passwords, Spotlight can die in twenty different ways, iCal is a UI disaster, Address Book has completely broken sync options... the list goes on and on and on. Of all of these, I think Mail is the absolute worst. Three total rewrites and it's still neurotic on a good day.

\-- iPhoto _is_ goddamn slow. No matter what, no matter where, no matter when.

iOS is an order of magnitude more usable for two orders of magnitude more people with an order of magnitude fewer issues and two orders of magnitude fewer things to go wrong that makes an order of magnitude more money for them. So I think that's where he Lion's share (haha) of Apple's QA is spent. Sadly, I fear OS X will never receive that same level of care.

<comment><USER6> Hi,

I am not an iPhone user, but if what you have described above are problems that a significant number of iPhone users face, then I am pretty surprised/disappointed.

All of these would be hampering user experience ( something Apple excels at ) irrespective of whether the user is a casual one or a heavy one.

Also, if these problems are easily reproducible and quite prevalent, isn't Apple solving these in upcoming upgrades? In other words, they must be getting some kind of feedback/bug-reports and these problems should surely have to be part of that.

<comment><USER5> Given its financial performance, I can only imagine that iOS's quality is priority #0, #1, and #2 through 10 at Apple. From an anecdotal perspective, it has all gotten a great deal better over the years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd agree. This is the sort of stuff that lead to me dumping my MacBook in 2009.

I found that most of OS X worked pretty well and the UI looked good, but when it came down to actually being consistent and productive, it fell over pretty quickly. There were a lot of nuances and rather basic problems which got in the way of literally everything I did from my iPod not playing certain mp3s (very frustrating!) to import and export problems in iWork, automator deadlocking, iCal losing data, Mail sending emtpy messages.

I had some hardware problems as well (not charging and cable fraying after about a month) and while they dealt with them instantly, they shouldn't have occured.

Not a great experience. I've switched to Lenovo and Windows and everything pretty much just works.

<comment><USER8> Apple should stop making their own productivity software as it is pretty poorly done. Mail is OK, but I would not recommend anyone to use it. I works is probably some of Apple's weakest software. They should really just retire the suite.

<comment><USER9> The three components to "I works" (or iWork, as it's more commonly known) are now sold individually through the App Store. And they vary in quality from poor to excellent.

Keynote is probably the best presentation software available on any platform, in my experience.

Pages is the word processor and page layout tool. It's just OK for light word processing but pretty good at page layout.

I haven't used Numbers much, but apparently it doesn't provide the advanced functionality offered by Excel. But I certainly prefer it to the Google's web- based spreadsheet tool.

<comment><USER10> Keynote was originally designed for Jobs, and so i'd guess it got a disproportionate amount of attention from him:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(presentation_software)...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_\(presentation_software\)#History)

And, FWIW, I only occasionally need a spreadsheet at home and Numbers works perfectly for my limited requirements.

<comment><USER9> I actually agree, I don't use Numbers often, but it does whatever I need for basic at-home use without a hitch.

In Numbers' case, I was going by claims I've heard from Excel power users, who say it lacks Excel's advanced functionality. I edited my original post to reflect this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've read the article front to back twice. Carefully - and I'm still not 100% certain whether it's a troll, or for real.

The interesting thing is, many of this persons problems come from Apple trying to support multiple platforms, instead of locking the person into a single unified environment.

Others (like iPhoto starting to suck after 10,000 pictures) were an issue in the first couple releases - but it's not uncommon for people to have north of 100,000 photos, and get reasonable performance in recent releases.

The difficulty hitting the search magnifying glass was interesting - I wasn't even aware that magnifying glass existed. You normally just scroll to the top - now I can do it faster. But - it makes sense - what's just one above the letter "A" - the search icon.

All in all - I'm believing it's an article whose genesis was a user who got hit by an edgecase/bug on their iPhone, and then turned it into a generic rant about all things Apple.

But the problems this person are having do seem to make it clear to me why, if anything, the OS X platform / iPhone are too flexible. There are lots (lots!) of users out there who would trade some of that flexibility for more predictable performance/ease of use.

And thus, Sandboxing.

<comment><USER12> My iPhoto Library grew rapidly over the years. As in: it doubled its size, even though I did not add many photos. Thus, after a few years, I ended up with an iPhoto Library of 60 gigs that contained 30 gigs worth of photos.

And apparently, I am not the only one with this problem. And there seems to be no way to fix this. At all.

Luckily, at some point I found some 3rd party software that can rebuild an iPhoto library by basically simulating the user dragging all his images there manually and re-applying all the tags and stuff by hand. Honestly, what they are doing is quite an achievement in the face of an utterly defective piece of software.

 __Edit: __

For the record, I used this tool to salvage my library:<http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/>

<comment><USER13> When you double-click a photo in iPhoto to look at it full screen, it makes a copy of it on the chance that you intend to edit it. It stores that in a shadow directory called "Modified". Even if you don't edit it, the copy is retained.

Right click on iPhoto Library, Show Package Contents, look at size of Modified vs Originals folders to see if this is the cause behind your library doubling. If it is the case, please report back, I'd like to know as I also do not care for the implementation of this functionality.

If you crop and such your photos then you can't just delete the Modified ones without trouble.

<comment><USER14> Are you serious? I double click pretty much every photo I find interesting in my collection. Is that not the natural way to view a photo full-size? Editing requires you to click "edit". Why would they needlessly allow this to bloat if no edits are made?

I currently have:

        1.2G Previews
        7.8G Masters

(BTW in my version at least, Modified/Originals are symlinks to Previews/Masters.)

<comment><USER15> Same here, as far as I understand it, when you rotate a pic, or make some other changes, it creates a new version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Absolutely. Apple always has, and always will cater to extremely simplistic use cases. Apple products are a lot like a conspicuously clean room - <USER2> look around too much and you'll be fine, but the second you open that bulging cupboard, all the shit piled in there comes crashing down on you.

I still think that Mac OS (not necessarily iOS) is much much more reliable and has a better UI than Windows, but this brings to light an important point. Apple's software tends to have a lot of nasty little edge cases that you run into (and not as a power user either). Its also unfair to marginalize the view point as a minority (for example, until recently, you couldn't even properly set up google calendar to work with multiple calendars on iOS. the issue about a 19 GB other is definitely not an uncommon occurrence either). Further, its not functionality being sacrificed for aesthetics. It's aesthetics being prioritized over functionality consistently leading to bugs which we have to put up with for years.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've slowly fallen out of love with MacOS X. The final straw was when I installed Mountain Lion and a number of highly annoying things started to happen. (For instance, on reboot it would try to restart the game which switched the video mode to something my HDTV won't read)

Since then I've been booting it into Windows 7, and honestly I think Windows 7 has a better GUI than Mac OS. I'll grant that bash is better than CMD.EXE. In terms of bulls--t per mile on the desktop, I think Windows today does better than anything else, and it gets much better with Win8.

There's really a pervasive attitude in Mac software that I don't like. When I first used iMovie it took me a long time to figure out how to turn off the "Ken Burns Effect", which automatically applies zooms and pans to photos you add to a video. I'll grant it's a nice feature to have, but I feel that my creativity is disrespected when the default is turn on all the gimmicks.

<comment><USER18> I'm probably being a simpleton here, but are you aware of cygwin? It's not the same as a terminal, but it's really useful.

<http://www.cygwin.com/>

<comment><USER19> I would also recommend learning PowerShell. Your knowledge of bash will not help you through it, but it's easily as powerful as bash, and native to the Windows environment.

<comment><USER20> The problem with PowerShell is that it's a Windows thing. Whatever you learn will only be useful on Windows and everything you develop with it will tie you further to the platform (and make it harder for you to move on once something better for you appears)

Seriously, it's much smarter to just install Cygwin and forget about Windows- only solutions. You are probably going to deploy whatever you develop on Unix- like servers anyway...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "I restored my phone" => "I lost all my apps and data": Did you not back it up? Did you not restore that backup? iTunes warns you that it will _erase your phone_ and _reset it to factory settings._

"I can't hit the tiny search button": Have you tried scrolling to the top of the list? The index bar's magnifying class is a mnemonic identifying that "the search is at the top of the list." When you scroll up there, in fact, it's shown at the top of the list.

You can disable keyboards you don't want. You can disable any keyboard you want save for the one tied to your phone's language. Why is Kanji even enabled if you don't want it there? Keyboards do not just turn themselves on (except when the phone's language has changed, but we do not see herein a rant about the phone suddenly displaying everything in Japanese.)

The other concerns outlined are honestly valid, these simply stuck out to me as being more than a little absurd. It wouldn't be a rant if it didn't involve every problem, no matter how insignificant, of which you could possibly think (and that's not necessarily a bad thing.)

<comment><USER22> The thing is, you are beginning to 'blame the user' because they 'don't get it'. Isn't the purpose is that there isn't anything to get? It should 'just work' with minimal thinking, with no frustration. It doesn;t matter that Kanji is enabled... maybe it was enabled by accident? But it doesn;t resolve his problem? Maybe he doesn;t know how to easily enable/disable languages because he finds it hard to configure? If anything, this is useful data for Apple (and any UX designers) to look at to resolve potential usability problems.

<comment><USER23> Guy activated kanji in preferences, but doesn't like it. I don't know who else should be blamed! The iPhone comes with only your local keyboard layouts.

Do you expect apple to display a pop up every time you change the language saying "did you know you can disable unwanted keyboard layouts?"

<comment><USER24> He actually needs to switch to Kanji several times a day as he says clearly "I must turn my texts and emails into Kanji ten times a day." The gripe is with the layout of the Kanji keyboard which, looking at that screenshot, is indeed pretty ridiculous.

<comment><USER25> First, he had to very explicitly enable that keyboard (not easily done by accident, considering it's about 7 taps deep in Settings). After enabling, it is rather simple to activate that keyboard – hitting the globe icon on the keyboard will cycle through all enabled keyboards.

Second, the keyboard isn't ridiculous. It's actually quite powerful. He took a screenshot of the Chinese – Simplified (Handwriting) keyboard, which allows users to draw characters in the blank area. I hear it's an incredibly popular input method in China. Of course, the iPhone offers 6 other Chinese input methods, ranging from traditional keyboards to the drawing methods.

<comment><USER26> I thought apple was all about picking the best method for you rather than having you make decisions.

<comment><USER27> And you think that principle applies well to... keyboard layouts?

<comment><USER26> Within a single language, yes. Obviously you want a different method for Chinese than for English, but I don't want to choose between six different ways of inputting Chinese.

<comment><USER25> Check out the input method list on whatever OSs you use, and I expect you'll see multiple Chinese input methods. OS X 10.8 has 10, Windows 7 has dozens, a quick Google search shows that Ubuntu 12 around 13.

It turns out that, with over a billion people and dozens of dialects, many different writing styles, and a long history of different electronic input methods, Chinese speakers really do need multiple different ways of inputing Chinese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone else feel that OS X has gone downhill since Snow Leopard?

I can sympathise with much if not all of what this guy is saying. My Aunt recently bought a new Mac, not really knowing how to use OS X. I'm pretty familiar with most versions of OS X, but found myself struggling to justify to her the usefulness of quite a lot of the UI mechanics of the OS. What annoyed me the most was that the parts of the OS she found most confusing seemed almost universally to have been introduced since 10.6.

The 10.7+ habit of remembering open windows seemed to flummox my Aunt and continues to irritate me on a daily basis. "But I closed that window, why has it come back?"

Take Mission Control. Exposé was incredibly simple conceptually and worked very well for most people. I don't hate Mission Control, but explaining its workings to my Aunt was somewhat difficult, and I'm still not convinced that it's better than Exposé.

I feel like a lot of the simplicity that originally attracted me to OS X has been convoluted recently. And don't get me started on stability, performance and skeuomorphism...

<comment><USER29> I agree, Snow Leopard was my favorite. I'd like to go back to it but I have a retina display, so Lion and up it is for me.

As for remembering open windows, which is indeed very annoying, you can turn it off at System Preferences > General > Close windows when quitting an application

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Case in point: my last purchase of Apple hardware was a Mac Mini in December 2010. Nice installation, I like Time Machine. Max OS X Server is obviously a broken product, but there is a BSD-like OS underneath so no problem.

Two weeks later internet connection dies. After spending huge amounts of time investigating all kinds of things that seem that they might be relevant, I use the Time Machine "revert OS to a previous state" option and it works again. I spend more time on support forums, &c, and find out more about how to diagnose problems with the wireless, in case it happens again, which it does, 2 weeks later. With this new-found knowledge, I figure out that the firewall is blocking DHCP lease renewal, a problem easily fixed with an ipfw command. Every two weeks since then, 30 or so times, I guess, the same thing happens, and I have to fix this. I have stopped trying to understand why my installation of OSX seems to think it should periodically block DHCP lease renewal.

It's my impression that, based on my experience trying to find help, that the Mac OS user world is different to that for Linux or Windows in that the people who get known as Mac OS experts generally don't have much in the way of detailed knowledge of what the OS does at initialise (despite Singh's out-of- date documentation of that in _Max OSX Internals_ ), how to query device state, &c, but instead have cookery book knowledge of things like tricks you can do with the defaults command.

And this seems to be the way that Apple likes it. They make a polished product that you are not meant to mess with in ways they did not anticipate, with the OS exposing a limited API.

<comment><USER31> > with the OS exposing a limited API.

Can you be more specific ?

OSX's problem for me is that it exposes too many APIs (FS/BSD/Carbon/Cocoa) which can overlap in odd scenarios e.g. accessing the AddressBook.

<comment><USER30> I only dabble with OSX internals so it is not much more than an impression, but when I try to dig deep, I find that not much of the internals is on display. And I should say, by "exposing", I really mean "documenting" - clearly there are people who do know the internals well, they are just not sharing their "how to" knowledge much.

For example, OSX has the library com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family which provides the interface to its wifi hardware. It is completely undocumented. By contrast, Linux has the internals completely exposed because we have the liberally documented source and lots of open developer mailing lists, while MSDN has literally thousands of pages with documentation and developer discussions about hacking and developing drivers to fit into and make use of the Windows 802.11 interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Welcome to Microsoft's world in the early/mid nineties - turns out software isn't as simple as we thought, and when you become really popular the 0.01% of turns out to be a lot of actual disaffected customers.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think it's a case of optimization. You can either build a handles-all- situations MS-Office, or you can optimize for an 80/20. When your feature set grows out of the 80/20 you run into issues.

For me, a perfect example is locking/unlocking the pivot on the iPhone by double-clicking the home button, sliding the bottom bar rightwards, clicking an icon with a turny-lock on it. That's total madness, but I understand how it got there. When I finally discovered that I mailed all my iPhone-owning friends, none who knew the trick.

Similarly, killing apps that remain in memory. Double-click home, hold down one of the icons until all the in-memory apps show a (-), then delete each of them. Granny will never get that. I'd personally like a settings page that just lets me set a default on/off for in-memory for each app so I don't have to keep cleaning up apps that want to use GPS and memory.

So, rather than having 10 buttons on your iPhone you now have one button and have to use morse-code to tell the thing what you want. Rather than an ugly screen menu, you have to use Google to figure out how to take a screenshot or un-lock the swivel.

When all you have is a home-button, everything looks like a nail. Or something.

I've made similar optimizations/(later possible "mistakes") myself. I tend to put a lot of effort into few features to do exactly what's required, but that always has to be balanced with possible future feature expectations. It's possible to paint myself into a corner with that, so I often think "is this app meant to be 'tight' like an Apple app, or should I optimize for extensibility?"

<comment><USER34> Those aren't necessarily apps that remain in memory. The first few might be, but not if they haven't been used in a while. The rest of the entries are merely a list of recently used apps that are neither using processor time nor in memory.

[http://speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios- mul...](http://speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios- multitasking.html)

<comment><USER33> Point taken, but when I want to remove a GPS-using app because the GPS indicator is still on, I need to go there and kill it. Usually I do this for recently-used apps because I no longer need them. Granny wouldn't have a clue, even though she's now "stopped" the app. And I do try to make sure all apps know to not run in the background, but even that's extra admin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've been a Mac user for nearly a decade (and now I feel old), which isn't as long as some people but a bit longer than others and if I'm honest I have to agree with many things.

OS X has been through a couple of really big leaps really, which whilst I think were necessary they've come at a great cost in terms of usability. I'm going to pick on _one_ Apple application for a minute, XCode.

I used XCode on Tiger, on a very late model iBook and did my final year uni project on it and it was great. It was a genuinely good, solid and stable IDE, very easy to use and very easy to navigate and work with. Then incrementally it started acquiring new functionality that was needed, then the UI changes started coming in, then more functionality, then more UI and also in a cycle it kept amassing additional cruft. It's now a lot more difficult to use, a lot more overbearing.

This is kind of where the entire platform is starting to shift, Apple has been forced to jump the platform ahead but it's trying too many clever things and adding more and more functionality at the expense of usability. I still think it's one of the nicer operating systems and I'm not going to be switching anytime soon, but it's definitely not as gloriously user friendly as it used to be. In my _opinion_ , different strokes for different folks after all.

<comment><USER36> Well, if you compare Xcode with Visual Studio or Eclipse, I'd say Xcode is a lot easier to use. The UI is a lot more streamlined, much less buttons for example. And I wonder if you've used Xcode back when it was called Project Builder. In my experience Project Builder also had a more complex UI than Xcode. But if you're looking for a good alternative to Xcode, perhaps AppCode is a nice replacement? <http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/>

<comment><USER35> Oh it's _definitely_ nicer than VS or Eclipse or NetBeans or the many other IDEs with crap design and poor layouts and even worse stability, but it's still gotten worse over the period of time I've been using it. I'll still use it as it's still significantly better than most IDEs, but I do hope they take some time to refine it again.

I missed Project Builder, it was just slightly before my time so I won't comment too much on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's amazing to me the level of cognitive dissonance many Apple fans have. Like the script of how easy and simple to use everything is can be so unrelated to their actual experience. If you've ever gone to the "Genius Bar" for any reason, you've wasted more time with customer service than I have in the last 10 years of using PCs. The problem is, when you have an issue of any size with Apple, there is just no way to resolve it yourself without nuking your system. I'm sure there are 1000 reasons why I'm supposedly wrong or trolling or whatever, but that's MY experience with Apple, minus what Apple would have me believe.

<comment><USER38> The only time i've gone to a genius bar was to show them the dead pixels on a macbook pro. Got a new one right then too.

Personal anecdotes are not data.

<comment><USER37> Sure they are. What would constitute data if not actual use cases? I'm not defending Windows or Linux as great alternatives, but at least "wipe and restore" is not the default answer to minor problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Several of the article's points really resonate, specifically the ones concerning iPhoto, the Internationalization 'feature' of iOS and iChat/iMessage. It does seem, to me, that Apple has begun to sacrifice usability at the altar of aesthetics, or worse, are unable to engineer stable and resilient applications.

</comment><comment><USER23> > _Have you ever done a search in your iPhone contacts? You need the fingers > of a poorly fed six-year-old to activate that search function. No, really, I > must waste four or five minutes a day trying to make that damn thing work._

> _Seriously, how can an adult finger ever touch that little search icon > without either hitting the "A" or the "+"????_

You're not supposed to touch the minuscule magnifying button; you're supposed to drag the content down to display the search button. This is standard in iOS (almost all system apps do this, and thanks to the "rubber banding" effect it must be pretty damn easy to discover.

But I think the fact that the OP hasn't discovered such a basic thing proves his point that maybe apple products aren't so easy to use anymore! (Though I personally disagree wholeheartedly. It's anecdotal so I don't get into that)

</comment><comment><USER12> I am still using OSX, and modestly enjoying it. But I feel the same way the author does. (Here is my list of complaints: <http://bastibe.de/how-apple-is- failing-me.html> )

Still, I find that OSX is a fine environment to run Unix software. Most of my computer interaction these days revolves around Emacs, a terminal and a web browser. Which is fine. It is a nice system. But really, I used to feel that OSX had a certain elegance to it that other OSes lacked. And that feeling is fading. Thus, I doubt that my next computer will come with an Apple logo. And incidentally, neither will my next smartphone or tablet.

Sad.

<comment><USER31> Sure. I thoroughly look forward to you trying out Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8 and seeing how they compare.

I think you will find that both are orders of magnitude worse than OSX. Why ? Because from a UI perspective both are complete rewrites and are reminiscent of 10.0 beta. Lot of potential but a lot of polish required as well.

<comment><USER12> I know and use both Ubuntu and Windows regularly. At the moment, OSX is still my operating system of choice mainly because the hardware is seriously great. The OS itself is becoming more and more awkward to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> One of the comments says "I have been developing my own theory that Apple products are the technological equivalent to junk food, psychologically fattening an already physically obese populace."

If you have a completely bullet-proof OS and your applications are solid, locking down the system should ultimately make it easier for the user. As soon as there are even minor flaws, locking the system down is going to keep the user from helping themselves.

I don't think this phenomena only applies to Apple products, there are similar issues with Android phones and even those of us creating web applications can create systems that frustrate our users. If you're putting a wall between a user and their data/assets, you could be next.

</comment><comment><USER41> That's another myth. Apple products had never been easy to use. iTunes is heavy and cumbersome and play lists never work as expected. Wheel iPods had erratic behaviour and its random/shuffling were crap.

And please don't start talking about XCode and development in general.

Things have worsen these times. "Acceptably understandable" is not the same as "easy".

</comment><comment><USER42> Recent Story:

My 8 year old has an iPad that was setup by her and her grandmother. She recently had it replaced at the Apple Store because of a busted WIFI antenna.

A few days ago, she wanted to buy the 2.99 version of Draw Something. I happened to have a iTunes gift card worth 15 dollars. I opened her iTunes account on the iPad, punched in the gift card code, and the money was added to her account without ceremony.

So she goes to buy Draw Something,and 15 minutes later I hear "It's not working." I figure she must have broken something, so I take the iPad from her and click the 2.99 Draw Something button to download the app.

This is where the fun begins.

The App store asks for the username and password. We entered both. Then it tells us that the iTunes account has not been activated on the iPad, so we need to answer two security questions - I look at my daughter and my wife and only get blank expressions. I call my mother-in-law and she doesn't know either. So the next step is to reset the password by sending an email to a failsafe account - some AOL email address that nobody can access either.

Normally, at this point, I would just say we screwed up and start a new iTunes account - but why in the hell did they let us put the 15 dollar gift card on the account if they weren't going to let us do anything until the account was activated?

Epic fail.

<comment><USER43> So let me get this straight. You lost your account password, your email password, and your security questions and somehow Apple is at fault for making it easy to add gift cards to your account?

<comment><USER42> That is not straight. We had the correct username and password. We lost the security questions.

It asked us for neither when we wanted to redeem gift cards, and then wanted answers to the security questions after we had already given it the correct username and password before we could purchase anything using the gift card money.

If it's going to inconvenience me to spend the gift card money, then it should do it before I redeem the card so that the card money isn't trapped within the account if the account is currently inaccessible.

\--edit

Accounts are pretty broken on iOS in general. I once logged into my appleID using my Dad's iPhone to download an app for him because he hadn't setup his own appleID yet. Later, he setup his appleID. The problem was, whenever he went to update his apps, it would ask for my appleID password when it wanted to update the app that I installed - only it didn't mention anywhere why it was asking for the password to my appleID. My account credentials did not appear anywhere else on the phone. We checked the settings, looked up things online, and even asked support. No idea why it was asking for my password. Eventually we traced the problem back to the update feature, and deleted a bunch of apps we thought I may have installed. It solved the problem and it doesn't prompt for my password anymore, but there was no way for us to know which app was causing the problem.

<comment><USER43> Ok, that makes more sense. From reading your original post I thought all the login info had been lost.

I agree that their account system is poor and it isn't clear when you need to authenticate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So, your device hit an edge case bug. Why aren't you talking to Apple? They'll have a fix for it, get you to bring it in or send it in.

Worst case scenario your edge case cost you some data loss.

That certainly doesn't mean their products are no longer easy to use.

<comment><USER45> > Worst case scenario your edge case cost you some data loss.

How is this __ever__ acceptable?

<comment><USER46> Is it not possible to make backups of your iPhone ? (I do not own one).

<comment><USER23> Every time you plug your iThing to your Mac/Windows it backs it up. And as of iOS 5 you don't even have to plug it in. They only have to be on the same network and the device automatically backs it up daily.

Oh, and if you feel nervous, you can right click on the iThing in iTunes and select backup to manually backup again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I understand the authors experiences and how that may have tarnished his thoughts on Apple products.

Under normal operating conditions however which applies to the majority of iOS users out there, iOS is just as easy to use as it was when it first came out, it really hasn't changed that much from a UX point of view at all.

In regards to his gripes with OSX, well.... It is silly to expect any OS to be magical, even an Apple one. From a UX point of view it is better than every other OS, but from a package management point of view, Debian/Ubuntu is far superior to OSX and from a hardware support point of view, Windows beats both of them.

It seems the author wants the perfect OS, where problems never happen, unfortunately it doesn't exist yet, and it may never exist!

In the meantime, if you specifically want "ease of use", regardless of the authors troubles, your best bet for the meantime is the Apple ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER48> Even though I'm a big Apple fanboy, I have to admit I avoid using Apple's _desktop applications_. The one exception is Mail.app, but even there I'm always eagerly looking for any possible alternative. iPhoto, Addressbook, iCal, none of those have ever appealed to me, and I've always use (mostly web- based) alternatives. And enough has already been said over the years over that piece of bloatware called iTunes.

So as far as I'm concerned, this isn't something new. IMO, with some rare exceptions, Apple has never been very good at application software.

</comment><comment><USER49> I find iOS and the iPhone/iPad/iTunes interaction particularly frustrating - <USER3> case where it really should just work.

Some of my issues: \- Restoring from a backup does not, for some reason, does not consistently restore the folder structure - thus I spend an hour or two recreating the structure. Waste of time. \- iCloud syncs a lot of things - <USER4> for some reason does not allow me to sync apps. There should be an easy way to do this such that if I buy an app on my iPhone (and it is compatible with my iPad) it should be synced. \- Moving purchased music from one phone to another. Maybe somebody can enlighten me, but moving my iTunes purchased music from one device to another, as far as can tell, is still a stupid, manual process. \- In general, iTunes should be in the cloud - when I buy a new device, I should be able to enter my account information and then have it automatically pull down all my stuff - and offer me choices for what I want to pull. To me this seems so basic.

This is stuff that is all generated by the way my wife interacts with these technologies - and she gets very frustrated by the hoops that have to be jumped through to make it all work.

Next week, I'm likely buying my wife an iPhone 4S (AT&T or Verizon - suggestions from anyone in the Boston area?) I'm not looking forward to getting her setup - I anticipate pain.

</comment><comment><USER50> The search actually has the largest touch area of all the letters, because it extends to the top of the pane.

There are a lot of ways to get there: * Tap the status bar, which takes you to the to of most scrollable areas. * Be conservative, if you accidentally hit A, scroll up. * Hold your finger down on the letters to activate scrubbing mode, then slide your finger to the top.

I'm not saying they're all perfect usability wise, but picking out search as a small touch target seems a little odd to me. But then I've probably spent a lot longer than most obsessing over every pixel and touch target of the UI.

To me it seems like a trade off. Is searching contacts important enough to have a big button for? Where would you put it without completely overhauling the iOS UI? Is it of more or equal importance than any of the current elements? Admittedly annecdotal, but I see far more people scrubbing to the first letter of the contact and flicking through the list, because typing takes time (though a 'hard to find/activate' search feature might contribute to that). It seems to me putting it where it is allows for a good cross- platform solution to an unobtrusive search function.

</comment><comment><USER51> I really wonder why don't we see any new PC platforms coming to the market. Where are all the startups taking on Microsoft and Apple?

And by new I don't mean Linux.

<comment><USER52> I really hope Valve takes them on in some shape or form, even if it's their own flavor of Linux. Then Windows will be good for just Microsoft Office. And that's it. [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/steams-newell- windows-...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/steams-newell- windows-8-catastrophe-driving-valve-to-embrace-linux/)

<comment><USER50> Much as I love Valve, Steams usability is pretty poor. I wouldn't trust them to make good OS X replacement any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> > Have you ever done a search in your iPhone contacts? You need the fingers of > a poorly fed six-year-old to activate that search function. No, really, I > must waste four or five minutes a day trying to make that damn thing work.

> Seriously, how can an adult finger ever touch that little search icon > without either hitting the "A" or the "+"????

Why exactly do I have a hard time believing someone this stupid would be as diligent as he claims to be in attempting to solve his issues?

I'm supposed to simultaneously believe that he is competent enough to understand and solve a corruption issue, yet he can't figure out the single most discoverable gesture on any phone, "swipe down"?

$20 says he restored his iPhone from the corrupted backup and then rushed off to write an article on the experience instead of performing the due diligence he claims he already has.

Bullshit. Nobody has this kind of laundry list of whining complaints unless their actual motivation to solve problems is almost zero. He sounds like one of those people that put all Apple products on this ridiculous pedestal where they are shit if they cause you any frustration or confusion ever.

Sorry, it's not magic. It's just a really nice computer. Expect some problems and issues, and expect to spend some time troubleshooting them. Just like any other machine on the planet.

If your first thought when seeing a 4x4 icon on a high res 3.5 inch touchscreen is "Stupid Apple, how am I supposed to hit that!?" then you are looking for things to complain about instead of actively trying to improve your experience with the phone by, oh I don't know... learning things?

Apple products are getting more complex and the older classics are getting bloated. There is an interesting discussion to be had on the topic. This isn't it. This couldn't be further from it. This article is basically just idiotic whining.

</comment><comment><USER54> What Apple really gets right is it's hardware. The Macbook Air is in my opinion the best laptop on the market. The touch pad really shines. Apple gets the hardware support perfect.

That's where its greatness ends for me. OS X is just not as good for developers as Debian sid.

Debian wins for me hands down for three simple reasons:

1\. Package management. With apt I can install any open source tool with one command, and update my entire system with another. Homebrew is a good effort, but just isn't nearly as good.

2\. With Debian I can install any window manager I like without hack jobs. I like ratpoison because its simple and gets out of my way.

3\. As a python hacker I like to develop on a system that is nearly identical to the server I deploy my code on. That is why I work in Debian.

I need OS X to run the hardware, but that is all. I do everything besides watch Netflix inside a virtualbox Debian sid install.

<comment><USER55> Whether the hardware is right depends on the usage. In my case I've found the hardware terribly inadequate for what I need to do. I have an early 2011 MacBook pro, and it has proved to be incredibly frustrating for me as a general purpose computing platform. The main issue is lack of inputs, removal of inputs, and a lack of options for inputs.

Having only two USB2 ports, removal of ExpressCard34 slots used for third party hard drive adapters on the 15", and a thunderbolt port largely unusable by the cost conscious makes shuffling things quite painful.

Some usage paths lead backwards. For example, video editors using a MacBook pro 15 who used the ExpressCard34 for sata drives lost that capability with the upgrade. You had two ways to go, either downgrade to FireWire 800, which was still available, and if the reduction in transfer speed was acceptable, or try and find a thunderbolt setup that was both cost effective and mature. Good luck on that! If you went the FireWire path, the next model from 2012 left you needing a thunderbolt adapter, as the FireWire port was dropped.

They are quite well built, but they certainly have shortcomings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> From what I've noticed there are many apple issues experienced by a smallish set of users, which in aggregate affect many people, but not all with the same issues.

For me the list is: (1) early deterioration of plastic in macbook, (2) wifi connectivity issues on leopard, (3) wifi connectivity issues on snow leopard, (4) unexplained time machine failures, (5) major performance issues on lion. And that's just for my macs. My ipad suffered from unexplained app crashes every ten minutes, which were due to memory shortage problems that i could only solve by disabling mail sync (i use purely gmail in the browser now).

On the other side, with windows and android, i've had roughly the same amount of problems. In my experience, apple's stuff breaks as often, but has a different "feel".

</comment><comment><USER57> iOS has never been about easy to use, its been about hard to fuck up. I find it hard to believe that so many people who use windows but own an iphone/ipad are afraid of a filesystem. You show them a commercial where you plug an android phone/tablet in, then you are instantly dragging and dropping files just like a thumb drive without having to sync, then they are opening up an excel file using preinstalled open office (or for commericals airing on the internet maybe a video file being played using preinstalled vlc). Say the words "out of the box", no extra cost for these apps. If HTC and/or Samsung threw a hanful of programmers at porting open source apps to android and started this kind of advertising, iOS would be on the way out quickly.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is like saying that my car is not easy to use as a bus for carrying 50 people. (In Africa you see cars with 15 people onboard).

If you have 10.000 photos and thousands of contacts you are not a normal user anymore, you are a pro and you need pro tools. I have tens of times more big photos in my computers, and huge videos but I don't use Iphoto, this would be so non sense, Iphoto would make a local copy of everything it touches, like iTunes.

Apple is selling this thing called iPads like hotcakes because the intended audience is normal people, people that can't use a pc, like my father, who are much much more than those that can.

</comment><comment><USER59> I think he may be a bit more alarmist than I can agree with but I will definitely attest to the fact that Apple is having some serious UX growing pains as they try to accomodate the largest and most international user base they have had to date.

Possibly the best one-liner comes from one of the comments: "I have been developing my own theory that Apple products are the technological equivalent to junk food, psychologically fattening an already physically obese populace. Like the Sun newspaper their products are encouraging us to be lazy and dumb down our intellectual capacities."

</comment><comment><USER60> "you'll need to restore your iPhone to reclaim the space occupied by Other."

I can't get the picture out of my mind, of some mysterious entity creeping up on our iPhones like cancer. Soon they will all sync up with each other and then initiate the battle for world domination.

Come to think about it, the iPhones of the world might make for a pretty good attack vector for alien aggressors. A lot of earth's elite is bound to carry one around. If you can disable all of them at once, the rest of the battle might a walk in the garden.

</comment><comment><USER61> I was visiting home over summer, and my 85 year-old grandmother got a chance to use my iPad. I basically handed the device to her, went to the restroom, came back, and found her editing some photos of my sister she had just taken. She described the red-eye reduction feature as "magic."

Seriously, if my 85 year-old grandma can figure this stuff out, then the author _is_ an outlier. Apple devices are ridiculously easy to use.

edit: gotta love it when people downvote without giving a reason. Must have hit a soft spot.

<comment><USER62> I was tired of my mother always calling me for help with her laptop, so I bought her an iPad with 3G for Christmas. After two phone calls to get her into the swing of things, she's never called me for tech support again. She updates it when it tells her to, she uses it to navigate when she goes into town with her neighbour, she uses it to place orders for supplies when someone comes into her store to make a custom order. It's pretty great, all in all, and she's never once called me for help in two years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Apple products are as good and better than they have always been, the problem is that users now have this entitled attitude and nothing is good enough for them. Witness the tech press' reaction to the iPhone 5, they're bored because it doesn't look new, irrespective of it's actual merits. it's very tedious and a shame to see this attitude here on HN, where the discussion threads were usually more considered and the level of debate generally higher.

</comment><comment><USER64> I was really disappointed when Apple started making their IPod's into touch screens. When I'm going for a run or walking around with my ipod in my pocket, theres nothing i despise more than pulling out my ipod, having to tap the specific spots of the screen 3 times just so i can skip to the next song. The click wheel used to be very easy to use. I could skip songs without taking it out of my pocket.

</comment><comment><USER65> I don't have his problems. I have other problems, not as bad (I've started to wonder about that Other space on the iPhone too...). I think this could be all summed up as: Desktop OS's ain't tablet OSs.

I don't like OSX Mountain Lion. I anticipate that 10.9 will be extra smartphoney, and I won't be upgrading. I will, however, be looking at well- designed Linux laptop solutions for my XFCE/Enlightenment needs.

</comment><comment><USER66> Just as a note to anyone with the same problem, I had difficulty renting a movie recently on my iPad because I was told I have no storage space available. This was unusual because I have hardly any photos on my iPad and almost no music. I later realized that movies that you rent, even after they expire, remain on your device and take up storage until you actually delete them.

</comment><comment><USER67> "This stuff is too complicated. There has to be a better way."

and to the comment on the blog saying how Apple is our "junk food."

Raspberry Pi might be the solution. It's literally a blank slate. Users, with some tech knowledge, have the ability to update and move stuff around without being dragged into an iCloud sort of mess. It's as clear as it gets IMO.

</comment><comment><USER68> To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Apple's products are the hardest to use, except for all the other product out there...

</comment><comment><USER69> Intuitive design is a myth. This idea that a company could build something that is just simply better for everyone is a fallacy.

Apple products, considering their competition, are really good and believe it or not, cost effective.

However, some people do things that certain systems don't like. This isn't the users fault. They were not considered in the design of the software. Over 1,000 contacts; sorry. iWork and want to export your workflow to other suite; sorry. Music collection and you want to tag and organize in a way that iTunes wasn't designed to do; sorry.

I have been professionally troubleshooting Mac and PC computers for 13 years, and I have seen it all. One of my clients had 10,000 messages... in his inbox. Mac Mail would launch and freeze. Beach ball.

This idea that you don't have to do maintenance to a computer was started by Apple, and it's a fallacy too.

Apple has done a better job of assembling a set of well rounded tools for the average man, go out side of average and you are on your own. But then you are were you would be on any other platform. iPhoto not doing it anymore? Picasa. iTunes not doing it? Winamp or Songbird for mac. Mac Mail not doing it? thunderbird. Safari? Chrome.

I used to have an iPod 60GB and it would about every 4 month get harddrive corruption, then I would have wipe and transfer 60GB via USB. It would take hours. I haven't corrupted my iPhone yet.

I don't rock the boat, I try to stay average. I don't change default settings unless its to turn off face recognition or auto-copy. That being said, I have GBs of email going back 6 years (another 6y archived), a 12,000 song 70GB library, and 60GB Aperture library. While I have had my problems, I have never had catastrophic loss, and it works.

I am at a loss with all of this ragging. I know there are problem with programs, but that is the essence of programs, no one size fits all.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think the issue is that user expectations have gone way up, and that results in disappointments that get amplified when coupled with frustrations.

</comment><comment><USER71> finding the search on contacts has never been easy on iphone!</comment>


Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould - <AUTHOR> http://collectionscanada.ca/glenngould/028010-502.7-e.html

<comment><USER2> For more on his eccentricity and genius, I highly recommend "32 short films about Glenn Gould".

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108328/>

<comment><USER3> And then ethere's an excellent play called "Glenn" that is structured around and like the Goldberg Variations.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1552450589?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1552450589?ie=UTF8&tag=raganwald001-20) (Fully whored link).

Glenn Gould is depicted at four different stages of his life, and like a contrapuntal piece of music the four characters speak against and with each other in various combinations. If you love Bach's music, this play is an amazing experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> BTW, have you read the novel 'The Loser' by Thomas Bernhard?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loser_(book)>

I bet most people here would like it. One of the three main characters is a fictitious Glenn Gould.

<comment><USER5> A frightening, humorous, and nerve shatteringly good novel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth reading to understand what he means when he says: "that liberty, surely, is the product of -- what shall I call it? -- the enthusiastic irreverence of a zero-to-one relationship." Reminds me of some code I've written.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was just walking past his childhood home the other day, on the way to the beach. There's a small plaque commemorating the location, but that's it. I'm not sure whether the house is still in his family.

</comment><comment><USER8> nice! If you like Glenn Gould then look into Dinu Lipatti as well.</comment>


Show HN: Zokyo – Chrome Extension for GitHub Developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.joinzokyo.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

I've created a free to use chrome extension that allows you to view all your assigned issues, edit any issue, add new issues to your repositories, and go to each issue from one simple UI that you can access from any webpage.

As a developer myself, I got frustrated having to tab hop between ticket windows and my work. I wanted an easier way to see what I had to work on for the day. Since I always use chrome, I thought a chrome extension for a GitHub issue management dashboard would be great.

I've called this project Zokyo.

You can watch a video of the extension in action here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gF2GDbqOCM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gF2GDbqOCM)

I always welcome feedback, so if you have any comments, feature requests, questions, or just want to chat in general, then you can email me at email@example.com

You can also subscribe to Zokyo's mailing list to find out when new features are added! Or find out more information.

[https://www.joinzokyo.com/#foot](https://www.joinzokyo.com/#foot)

Hope this tool helps developers out there and any/all feedback is appreciated!</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a unikernel for Golang and/or Rust? - <AUTHOR>

I'm aware of MirageOS for Ocaml and HalVM for Haskell.
Is there a Unikernel project for Golang and Rust?
How about other languages?
What is it exactly that makes one language suitable for a unikernel, and another language not suitable for unikernel? <comment><USER2> Don't know about those, but in the D cookbook by Adam Ruppe he talks about running D apps under QEMU without an O/S installed</comment>


Geiser: Emacs modes that conspire to keep the Lisp Machine spirit alive - <AUTHOR> http://nongnu.org/geiser/ <comment><USER2> There's one thing I always wanted to understand about working with image-based system (like a lisp-machine o smalltalk VMs): when you change a class or a function, how do you manage the mismatch between the code you have just written and an already running version. For example: you change the definition of a function on a live system, and then you go home for the weekend. Monday morning you notice a background process running that uses that function; how do you check if the version used is the old one or the new one?

<comment><USER3> You check the stacktrace of the background process and see which function got called. How you do that depends on the implementation. If you have some handle to the called function, you can check that against the current definition. Functions are 'objects' and you can compare them for identity. In real implementations there also will be some id.

<comment><USER2> Did the function object have a reference to the source object, so that it would be possible to read the original source until it is garbage collected?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> scsh hackers might enjoy using geiser-scsh:

[https://github.com/rmloveland/geiser- scsh](https://github.com/rmloveland/geiser-scsh)

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool! I'm not a Scheme fan (Common Lisp all the way!), but it looks like some nifty stuff. Nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER6> Another Racket friendly Emacs major mode is Greg Hendershot's racket-mode.

[https://github.com/greghendershott/racket- mode](https://github.com/greghendershott/racket-mode)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think the Lisp Machine actually ran Scheme, did it?

<comment><USER8> No, the two branches (Symbolics and Lisp Machines) ran their own Lisp Machine Lisp which was a fairly complex melange of MacLisp-derived CommonLisp- precursor constructs.

Plus it had its own object system (Flavors).</comment></comment>