GitHub Android App Released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1187-github-android-app-released <comment><USER2> I was really disappointed with this -- I was hoping to be able to view source code nicely on my mobile device. Instead, I get a list of repos (not helpful), "news" (not helpful to me), and issues (we use Pivotal Tracker). I just uninstalled the app; I can't think of anything I'd use it for.

<comment><USER3> > I was hoping to be able to view source code nicely on my mobile device

That would probably be bloody hard though, making code readable on a mobile device. Also of limited use, if you can't edit it.

I could see it useful to e.g. read & review pull requests on the move, but there really isn't much you can do with just a phone's surface.

And if you have accessories, why not carry a small laptop you can tether to your phone?

<comment><USER4> I don't think it would be unusable at all, with the average tablet.

<comment><USER5> Is the app even optimized for tablets?

<comment><USER6> It is not available for any of my tablets. (Notionink Adam, Transformer Prime and lg slate)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hubroid[1] has been an awesome github app for android for a long time. Considering that I get a force close when just trying to open the new app, it's still a viable option.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.idlesoft.a...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.idlesoft.android.apps.github&hl=en)

<comment><USER8> Hubroid developer here.

I was in contact with the GitHub team for awhile and had a good idea that the app was in development for awhile, but since I didn't know when they'd be releasing it (internship with them fell through this year so I didn't get any top-secret info) I just decided to keep up developing Hubroid. Still going to do that, of course, I like my design ideas better. ;)

Oh, and the force close you get is sort of my fault. I erroneously used the "com.github" namespace when implementing the account authenticator, which wholly belongs to GitHub. Thought I was using "com.github.eddieringle" but I guess a commit was overridden once or twice. Whoops.

EDIT: Btw, thanks for spelling the name correctly. I couldn't tell you how many times people write "Hubdroid" instead. Ruins my Google search result ranking, heh.

<comment><USER7> Haha, well that is certainly one way to stick it to your competition ;)

But seriously, great app. Keep up the good work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lately I have been finding myself surfing github just to read other folks source. I just downloaded the app. Unfortunately it doesn't currently display source... Bummer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems like it allows merging of pull requests. I can now review and merge pull requests while travelling in a bus. :-)

<comment><USER11> Don't forget to disconnect and relax every now and then.

<comment><USER10> :-) Yeah I will.

I travel to a neighboring city quite often and have to often deal with urgent issues/PRs. In which case, I use Github's website on my mobile browser, but it kind of sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Linux desktop app???

<comment><USER13> purpose?

<comment><USER14> What is the purpose of the Mac OS Desktop app?

<comment><USER13> frankly, I have no idea, but win/mac users love to app-everything and except people with IT background, if you can't install and click on something it's like it doesn't exist. linux community is a bit different, and when you narrow the target: using linux + using git + using github, the probability he needs a desktop client is very low and it wouldn't get so much traction.

I work on linux and I often use gui tools for my hg/git repos, but it's eclipse extensions where I do my code, I can't even think of a use case for a standalone gui app.

<comment><USER15> I've had a few situations where I found it easier to review commits, retag, and merge from `gitk`, which sadly has a very confusing UI, over the command- line, where it's difficult sometimes to keep mental track of commit trees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would love if I could clone repos on the sdcard, and push commits from the sdcard. So far the app doesn't even allow to browse code, so I have a hard time figuring out any use for it. I don't really care about news, and viewing commits is fine, but I can't even see the diff so... I don't know. I assume it's just a start, so I'll keep it and wait for updates to see how it goes.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's open source -- and hosted on Github. Awesome.

<comment><USER18> Gives them an easy April 1st prank. Move the project to bitbucket.

// Comment written while my flight is delayed.

// Note to self. Download this app and do some github work next time flight is delayed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If there's only one action in the overflow button in the action bar, you _make that the button_. In this app, the only action in the overflow button is "Refresh", so the app should simply just have a refresh button there instead.

<comment><USER20> Or implement pull down to refresh, which would remove the need for the button altogether.</comment></comment>


Surfing the Internet from My TRS-80 Model 100 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/surfing-the-internet-from-my-trs-80-model-100/?mbid=synd_moz_technews <comment><USER3> Enjoyed the article, but the title was misleading. Should have read as "Surfing the Internet from my Raspberry Pi, using my TRS-80/100 as a terminal"

</comment><comment><USER4> When each of my daughters turned 10 (within the last 10 years or so) I gave each of them a TRS-80 Model 100 and taught them basic. One really took to it and used it to write software for a science fair project on genetics - <USER2> judges were of the right age to appreciate it (although she didn't win anything!)

In any case, its a lovely computer with a pixel addressable display, which was perfect for doing newtonian physics demos for extra credit in high school physics...

(But they make lousy terminals at 40 col.)

</comment><comment><USER5> The T100 strikes me as the complete opposite of the sort of devices people use now. It is entirely optimized for the creation of content. It has a good keyboard but the screen is almost an afterthought. That screen works best in well lit areas (even direct sunlight) where as today most displays work best in dim light. It has a battery life of 20 hours where today a device with 8 hour battery life is considered pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER6> From last month:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10008198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10008198)</comment>


What to Use Ethereum For – Vitalik Buterin - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1123136930177118209 <comment><USER2> A store of value? With all the known problems in Solidity and the recent discovery of many simplistic private keys, it's hard to take anyone seriously when they suggest using Ethereum for money.</comment>


A Dynamic Siri - <AUTHOR> http://kickingbear.com/blog/archives/264 <comment><USER2> "Once you allow plug-ins that potentially lie then you've ruined the entire Siri experience."

Apple already has a solution in place for this problem: the app review process. When Apple figures out how apps should integrate with Siri, I think they'll have guidelines/rules for how apps should use the Siri APIs and they'll be able to enforce those rules with the review process.</comment>


The U.S. computer industry is dying - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2015/06/24/the-u-s-computer-industry-is-dying-and-ill-tell-you-exactly-who-is-killing-it-and-why/ <comment><USER2> This guy is not smart.

The tech industry is only expanding. Not only in terms of total revenues, but also total employment. In fact its one of the few sectors where employment is increasing.

This guy is not educated in what he is talking about. His narrative about American manufacturing is wrong too. American manufacturing has only increased almost every decade since WWII. There has not been a decrease. What HAS decreased is employment in manufacturing. But that decrease has happened because of automation. Is that a bad thing?

You know, we used to be 70% employed in agriculture, but then we figured out how to use machines to reduce the people required by an order of magnitude. That's how we had enough people available to become a manufacturing power.

Now we are a service/tech power because people are slowly not needed in robot factories.

Employment isn't the goal of an economy. Production is. We can give people a basic income if necessary, if robots are doing everything. But we shouldn't artificially boost employment where it isn't needed.

This guy is supposed to be a tech author and he's talking like a Luddite. In the end I think this guy is just warm in his pants because he doesn't like so many foreign looking people in the industry he covers.

Well, its too bad. The cat is out of the bag. Everyone knows how to program and make tech now. You either bring them here, or they'll go work for tech conglomerates in China, India, and Europe. All the colored faces in Google and Facebook aren't there because they are accepting less money than American graduates--they are getting paid a lot more than most graduates would get in their random IT jobs around the country. We are hiring the best of the best for our tech sector. That's good for America, and keeps America ahead of the competition.

<comment><USER3> Everytime, I read hacker news comments, I feel like the folks in Silicon Valley are dense to the fact that there is an entirely different IT Industry out there providing services to Fortune 500's that are not Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and other technology companies. etc. Cringley is talking about the technology companies who provide technology services to the other companies, not customer facing companies.

>All the colored faces in Google and Facebook aren't there because they are accepting less money than American graduates

No they are definitely not, but they ARE at Verizon, Disney and ExxonMobil.

<comment><USER4> They are also at the companies founded by local arms of foreign companies.

I've observed Chinese companies paying Chinese speaking workers and Indian founded companies paying Indian nationals less than they paid Americans (of varying ethnicities). On my limited observation, this practice is not uncommon. And, as we know, small and medium sized biz employ more people than do large firms. This wage variance is little mentioned but quite prevalent. Same as the hole in the wall taco joint run by foreign nationals, they tend to exploit their own the most taking advantage of national affinity or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Basing the compensation of CEOs on the stock price is a real problem.

I also see a link to politics. In politics we have a similar situation: Most politicians (at least in our country) are planning for one or two terms of office. After that, they are eligible for a pension big enough for them. And when this is not enough, they also can get money from corporations just by being a consultant after their time in office. So, the plan is just short term: Get into the parliament, get a big seat as secretary if possible or other good job and after just a few years you don't have any trouble in live any more, money-wise. This can be best reached, by short-term thinking. Be helpful to the right people, be a "party soldier" (as it is called in Germany) that does what the party top wants from you.

Own thinking, or long-term success or even thinking, what is best for the people, is counter-productive in this scheme.

So what we more and more get, are short-term solutions, that only make you popular for a short-term but does not help with the long-term problems. Troublesome decisions are shifted into the future, when you are out of office, even when the troubles will increase meanwhile.

The same short-term thinking is produced in CEOs today. A CEO just has to get the job and be there, for 4-8 years to earn enough money, most people don't have in a lifetime. So what does he do? Make troublesome decisions, or decisions, that cost money for the next 3-5 years and will pay maybe in 6 years, maybe later??

You know the answer.

I think, this short-term thinking and the greed, that is injected in many of us today, are the reason of the most problems we face today.

</comment><comment><USER6> I get so tired of this "sky is falling" crap. I've seen the outsourcing, I've seen the H1B fraud, I've seen the shit performance from IBM and virtually every other household name IT consulting firm out there. I've even seen the Google/MSFT/Apple salary collusion scandal. But you know what? In spite of ALL OF THAT five out of the top ten salaries for bachelor's degrees are all IT related. [http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that- pa...](http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that-pay-you- back/bachelors)

IT unemployment has been 2% in my region for nearly a decade. That means everyone with any skills who wants a job has a job.

I can hardly imagine how you could try to screw over IT workers any harder than is being done by the corporate big wigs and yet IT is still one of the best places to be. And if it gets bad? God help us, we can just unionize. But it's hard to convince people to organize and complain when they're making more money and enjoying more benefits than most people on the planet.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what your point is. I'm reading it as: "You shouldn't be complaining, because you are being fucked, but you are being fucked over less than others. So stop complaining." Is that what you are saying?

<comment><USER6> My point is that we're not actually being fucked. In spite of people trying to fuck us over right and left, it would appear we're winning.

<comment><USER8> Then you'd be completely wrong. We are being fucked.

<comment><USER6> In what way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Do HP's or IBM's whole organization understand the "value" of their service?

It is only a matter of time until a company emerges that truly understands the value of IT service, because that need isn't going away."

Not a single company but their business is being eaten by all these thousands of new small SaaS businesses that cost a fraction of what they charge for their terrible enterprise software.

We are only focused on a niche but we do it amazingly and we have customers from virtually all big businesses. These companies don't need IBM any more, because employees in these companies can now do their forms on JotForm, their CRM on Salesforce, their communication over Slack, their emails on google apps and hundreds of other products that focus on only one thing but do it amazingly well.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like the first half talking about the poor decision to link stock price with CEO's performance. Also, his ultimate conclusion is that the USA lost manufacturing industry and half of the car industry, but it doesn't have to lose the technology industry (Cringely thinks if the status quo is kept, the USA will indeed lost the tech industry). After reading his article, I strongly think Microsoft is positioned to realize this. Their CEO recently said something of this effect, 'Our goal is to solve more of our customers problems everyday. So that they can do things that add value in the world.' It's how I've viewed Apple (minus the past two years) and I think MSFT is on the right track.

<comment><USER11> I'd love it if you documented some of the following:

• 'Our goal is to solve more of our customers problems everyday. So that they can do things that add value in the world.'

• (Separately) How Microsoft is on the right track.

• How you've viewed Apple (minus the past two years)

<comment><USER10> Sure.

Point 1: " revealing the company's new, official mission statement: To "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more."" Source: [http://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-satya-nadella- reveals...](http://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-satya-nadella-reveals- microsofts-new-mission-statement-sees-more-tough-choices-ahead/)

Point 2: Microsoft is shifting to create scaled services that solve various problems (Azure, CRM, mobile first campaign, etc).

Point 3: I've viewed Apple that simplified the users' experience with computers and made it easier for their users to 'do more' as Nadella has been saying in the press. Apple did a solid job but unless they find other ways to add value to their users lives, their competition will squeeze most of the market share. *Note: I understand that Apple has a monopoly on the premium smartphone sales (~75% last time I checked) but this can all easily changed due to Moore's Law. Ie., most desktops and laptops sucked 10 years ago but now, they all are fairly solid products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "USA IT workers make about 10 times the pay and benefits that their > counterparts make in India."

There's medium to high quality workers in India that only cost companies ~$15k / year? Nothing I've ever read indicates that. Always seen $25-$30k/year cited, with the number steadily increasing every year.

<comment><USER13> > "... pay _and benefits_ ..." (emphasis added)

I'm guessing the benefits we in the USA get are much better than in India.

<comment><USER12> Yes, that was accounted for. Pay and benefits for a mid-level US dev is probably in the $140-$150k range. $90-$100k in pay. $40-$50k in 401k/Retirement, Health, PTO, Bonus, etc.

1/10th of that is ~$15k

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As _Bloomberg Business_ puts it, "How Bill Clinton Helped Boost CEO Pay" ([http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2006-11-26/how-bill- clin...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2006-11-26/how-bill-clinton- helped-boost-ceo-pay)), or more succinctly:

 _In 1993, Section 162(m) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code was passed into law. The intent of this law was to reign in outsized executive compensation by eliminating the tax-deductibility of executive compensation above $1 million unless the excess compensation was performance-based._

([http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=942667](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=942667)).

I'll also note that those running companies are, by definition in the US, responsible for providing good returns to the owners, AKA stockholders. And it's been noted since 1941 or so, in James Burnham's _The Managerial Revolution_ , that there's a divergence between the interests of managers and owners, so efforts like Section 162(m) are understandable.

</comment><comment><USER15> This guy has got many facts wrong here. And why is he using HP/IBM examples to represent the industry - These co's have earned some disrespect quite some time back.

I believe the opposite is true. The US computer industry would have been dead out of cost and competition if it did not embrace offshoring. Instead what it is doing now is taking a bit of hit and staying in control. It has generated more leaders than just workers. I can only wonder what country would be the leader in the computer industry within a decade of the US banning offshoring or H1Bs.

</comment><comment><USER16> i am somewhat conflicted on the article. on the one hand his arguments are almost all logically weak, they just aren't compelling in most cases. They are mostly emotional appeals more than logic.

on the other hand i actually agree with a lot of what he is saying so there is that...

<comment><USER17> And when have emotional appeals ever let anyone down? :-)

Sounds like a valuable opportunity to practice Bayesian reasoning. One thing I like to do in situations like this is see if I can figure out any data that contradict my emotional response, so I can build a data-driven case that makes what seems to be emotionally right as implausible as possible.

If you're a Bayesian, you've got to go with what is most plausible according to the data. Your emotions are data about you, which may be really relevant in some cases, but probably not in the case of international trade...

<comment><USER18> 'Fuzzy logic' may be a better fit since individual subjectivity isn't always that amenable to quantification. There you can wind up with results that look stochastic and range from 0 to 1 but technically are the just numeric values assigned to value judgments. You probably know the text book example where the 18YO who views 40 as 'old' assigns 29 a value of .73 if what has been defined as 'young' is < 26\. Something else to play with...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> We have, and actively are moving away from "form factors".

Technology is not necessary.

Enjoy.

;-)

<comment><USER20> Following the same logic, human life is not necessary. Technology, in the broad meaning of the term, is what make us men and not animals.</comment></comment>


Penn study demonstrates wearable sensors to detect firearm use - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/uop-psd090314.php#.VAd-5MM7gh8.hackernews <comment><AUTHOR> "It turns out that gunshots are highly distinctive events when viewed from the perspective of the human wrist," \- one of those things that you probably don't need a research grant to figure out...

Interesting approach regardless.</comment>


A Primer on Critical Mass: Identifying Inflection Points - <AUTHOR> https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/07/critical-mass/ <comment><USER2> I was really hoping to get some insights upon seeing this headline but came upon a collection of shallow anecdotes.</comment>


Ask HN: Most productive OS for web developers? - <AUTHOR>

Which OS do you find most productive for web development? <comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I am writing this form a Linux machine that I use for web development. Fedora, lightdm, i3wm, i3status, dmenu.

Despite being a big fan of opensource and how much I love Linux I think a OSx machine is far more productive, for these reasons:

* It just works. I am well aware that linux is way better than 5 years ago and works just fine on most systems, but I am yet to not need some sort of tweak and configuration to run Linux on a laptop, to the Linux is defense considering that number of target platforms it is inevitable.

* Adobe creative suit. Yes, there is alternatives, inkescape, gimp, and others but they're still way behind.

* It's still _nix. I am not going into technical difference or the background and what not, from a users perspective, I can install Homebrew and use most of_ nix tools.

* More visualization options You can't visualize OSx on Linux or Windows for legal and practical reasons but you can still run Windows and OSx on Mac.

Obviously these are mostly only an issue if you are involved with front-end development where you need design and cross-browser compatibility tests and such, if you're doing only back-end, Linux works just fine once you get it run and learn to stop spending time to tweak it.

<comment><USER4> > You can't visualize OSx on Linux or Windows for practical reasons

I have an OSX and XP virtual machine on my Ubuntu chroot on my HP Chromebook 14, so I don't know where you're getting this from.

<comment><USER5> How did you create/configure the OSX virtual machine?

<comment><USER4> There's many Hackintosh VMware images available online.

<comment><USER6> OS X server edition EULA allows for legal copies too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> OSX - Expose is my favorite feature; throw the curser into my top left corner, pick the window I want, rinse, repeat.

I'll flip between code, photoshop and browsers like this 100s of times a day.

Though, you can't talk about the OS without the software that runs on it.

Transmit (ftp) is hands down the best (S)Ftp program I've ever used and I've become a fan of Sublime Text.

At home I keep a few Windows PCs around for IE testing and at work I run Parallels

<comment><USER8> >At home I keep a few Windows PCs around for IE testing and at work I run Parallels

You can actually get free IE VMs for testing. [http://www.modern.ie/en- gb/virtualization-tools](http://www.modern.ie/en-gb/virtualization-tools)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As Front End Developer - OS X - I have access to Bash and for things like Node do not need to install a terminal (like Windows) for running commands. There's a lot of OS X only apps that make my life a little easier, Tower, Kaleidoscope, CodeKit, Colorsnapper, Sketch, Fontprep, Transmit, Slicy, Web Code that mostly have equivs on Linux and Windows but aren't as polished. Plus iOS simulation is OS X only and regardless of feelings towards this, it is something that has to be acknowledged. VM software seems to be the most polished for OS X with options of VMware, Parallels, and Virtualbox, which is more than enough for running Windows Server Edition for ColdFusion legacy projects or just general testing with all the modern.ie distros.

Also as front end developer, I'm tied to commercial software (Photoshop, Illustrator mostly, sometimes Indesign and Lightroom) and while there are Linux solutions they aren't ideal.

My job of course can be done from any OS, but OS X I feel offers the most advantages having the best of both worlds from Linux and OS X. I'm able to config apache2 and manage my own Vhosts more sanely than Windows, but I'm also not as beholden to open source and always running workarounds like WINE and VMs for everyday stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> OS X by a mile.

I was a big proponent of Ubuntu (and Linux in general) for years, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was able to tweak the hell out of my environment, and I didn't mind doing the occasional Google to see what I need to do to make some package install/function correctly. I thought I enjoyed that, since I felt a little victory rush when it finally worked.

However, I recently bought a Macbook Air, and haven't looked back. The form factor is amazing, the trackpad is the best I've experienced so far, and I feel pretty close to home with the underlying Unix OS. Workspaces in OS X are really great.

I find myself WAY more productive with my Macbook than I ever was on Linux. I'm never wrestling with the OS (as cliché as it is, pretty much everything "just works"), and I'm still empowered to tweak my environment to my liking. The software available for the Mac is pretty consistently great (even though I almost always have to pay for it, I don't mind). Alfred 2 (an application launcher/productivity tool), along with the Powerpack, has saved me untold hours of productivity: I rarely have to take my fingers off the keyboard while working. Dash (a local docset manager) has rescued me numerous times while working offline, and has saved me a good bit of time (Ctrl+H in Sublime -> API docs on the spot).

Overall, it's all the little things that add up to making it a wonderful experience. I'll echo the testimonial that helped me get over the hump to buying a Mac: "Using this machine is so delightful that I find myself writing more, and higher quality, code than I ever have before. My designs have grown by leaps and bounds, since I'm always reminded what great design looks and feels like. My Mac inspires me to create great things." (copy-pasted from a Skype chat with a coworker a few months ago). A little over the top, yes, but I agree with most of it: I also find myself coding more in my spare time, which has resulted in better performance at work. On the topic of my job, I've transitioned from a 2-monitor desktop setup, to exclusively working off my Macbook, and haven't looked back.

I'm by no means an "Apple fanboy", but I'm going to tell you in full seriousness, wanting only for you to find the same happiness and productivity gains that I and others have: do yourself a favor and get a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER10> Depends on what you are doing as a web developer. I work off Linux while the rest of my team is on OSX, but I'm also primarily a back-end developer and if I'm dealing with HTML or CSS at all it's because someone else did markup and styling and handed it off to me to turn into a view. I don't really need to care about making sure everything lines up nicely across a bunch of different browsers or that the end result looks like whatever the graphic's designer promised the client.

The front-end developers at my shop spend a lot of time interacting with the graphics department and less time interacting with the production servers, databases, etc. So they need to be on similar platform as the designers -- OSX. If they were on Linux the workflow of going between Adobe and Gimp would add an additional unnecessary hassle since frequently Gimp ends up rendering PSD files differently then how graphics is seeing it on their Mac. The downside is if they do end up being tasked with something back-end heavy they have to rely on virtualization or a development box running Linux.

If, you're more involved in the back-end and spend more time interacting with the servers, building databases, models, writing deployment/automation scripts and not really touching the markup, then I figure it's best to be on whatever OS your production servers are running or at least something as close as possible. It just nice to have stuff intuitively work 1:1 instead of having to mentally remind yourself of the subtle differences between OSX and Linux or finding yourself relying on packages that are available on one OS but not the other. If I'm using Linux day in and out, I'm more likely to have a full understanding of how it works than if I'm only interacting with it in random encounters with the production and staging servers.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a front-end dev I am actually a big fan of Windows 8. I used OS X for a couple of years and finally realized I was placing too much emphasis on flashy GUIs and I had a different program for every little task.

Around the time Windows 8 came out I built a new pc and started using Win8 as my main OS. Now, my workflow basically consists of git, sublime, Photoshop/Illustrator, and gulp. I do use putty/rdp for server admin related tasks and filezilla for any ftp needs. I am pretty obsessive about having a clean OS, knowing exactly where my files are, and having as much customization as I need/want and I feel like Windows does that better for me than OS X. I also just prefer the design of Win8 to OS X.

Here is the kicker, most of things I prefer about Windows can be accomplished on OS X, it's just a personal preference. In general, I don't think Windows 8 is necessarily better than OS X for everyone but for me it is better. Find the OS you like, find the tools that you are most productive with, and build great products :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Finally someone who likes Windows 8. I do too

<comment><USER12> I've been finding 8.1 really nice also. Design apps like Photoshop / Macaw etc work fine in Windows... for things like Rails / Node (stuff that seems to be a better experience on Linux systems...) I've been using Vagrant to setup a box specific to the project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So far I've found i3wm on linux to be the most productive desktop I've ever had. It can be run on any linux OS though ubuntu or mint are probably the easiest to get up and running with.

The main reason is multiple desktops and speed of switching between programs. For example I use 10 desktops with the following programs on each:

1 - Web Browser 2 - Terminal 3 - Apps (whatever project I'm working on logs its console output here) 4 - Unit tests on left, integration tests on right 5 - Music manager 6 - SSH (into test / prod server usually) 7 - Collectd server stats 8/9 - Misc 0 - <USER2>

So whenever I need anything it's a single keypress away, instead of alt tabbing or jumping between a bunch of windows trying to find the one I want. It's allowed me to work while travelling the world on a 13" laptop when I used to have to use 3 large monitors at home to feel productive.

It's also really easy to jump between and reorganise windows with vim bindings.

</comment><comment><USER14> Windows by a mile. The plethora of top notch development environments and tools, and the "just works" attitude of installing and tweaking software makes it my choice hands down. Not to mention everything has a GUI, this in itself would make it the winner.

I've developed on OS X in the past, used to have a linux box as my main desktop OS, and I currently develop a project that's targeted for linux and so I develop on a linux VM, and I am constantly amazed at how frustrating the process can be, even more amazing that people actually convince themselves they prefer this to a more streamlined process.

<comment><USER15> Just out of curiosity, what are the development environments and tools on Windows that you're referring to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Linux is my choice (more specifically ubuntu). I dont need the eye candy and prefer minimalism when working.

Ubuntu also gives me a powerful set of commands. Easy installations and I dont need to keep reaching for my mouse. Meaning I can keep over the keyboard to complete all the tasks I need to.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is going to be correlated to what the web developer is doing more than anything else.

Doing .net work? Windows.

Doing Rails? Probably OSX.

Doing Python? Slight edge towards linux.

Java? Toss up.

Etc..

</comment><comment><USER18> An OS that stays out of your way.

These days, it doesn't matter much if it's OS X, Windows, or Linux -- as long as it is configured to stay out of your way and let you get your work done.

</comment><comment><USER19> OSX - I can't say I've used Linux enough lately but in terms of shell power, there's very little that I'm missing on OSX, especially with the active Homebrew community.

However, my affinity for OSX is also tied to the hardware...and so much of the pleasure in computing is tied to how well the Apple hardware works, regardless of the software.

</comment><comment><USER20> Not a fanboy but OSx</comment>


Steve Jobs - Billion Dollar Hippy [bbc iplayer uk only] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018ct00/Steve_Jobs_Billion_Dollar_Hippy/

<comment><USER2> This was an excellent documentary even though it relied perhaps too heavily on the recent biography of Jobs. The title 'Billion Dollar Hippy' sums him up nicely and captures his chief contradiction.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article not visible in US? Why post it here, then?

<comment><USER4> Because the USA makes up a small fraction of the worlds population? Was an interesting show, could've done without the Apple puffery but the parts focussed on Steve Jobs himself were very good.

<comment><USER3> I wonder what fraction of HN audience is non-UK.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans? - <AUTHOR> I read within a job description, "...open floor plans inspire a constant exchange of ideas, advice, and banter.". Is it just me, or do all of those things make you cringe when you're thinking about actually getting work done? <comment><USER2> I have noticed a strong trend away from doing actual work, towards cooperation and collaboration as a means of increasing the upside of the small amount of work that is actually done, to ensure it is worthwhile and relevant work being done. People in knowledge work create tremendous, near infinite at times, value - in a very small percentage of their work time. The majority of the work is meta-work that enables those tiny periods of massive contribution, and the balance is just hanging out.

<comment><USER3> That is a wonderful thing for the folks who have such a light workload.

In my experience, even operations and development teams are under this canopy. Only execs and legal have doors, and the only sanctuaries are conference spaces, which have time limits imposed.

On one hand, it is nice to "see daylight" as a member of an operations team. Not sequestered in a windowless NOC, but as things go 'serverless', so does our sanctum.

Headphones only do so much, whether on or off.

<comment><USER4> It's been 30 years since _Peopleware_ was published. If we haven't figured out that giving people that have to solve hard problems peace and quiet and adequate room to lay out their materials yet, I don't think we ever will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Among many reasons, open floor plans are cheap. Offices require drywall and doors and (re-)construction permits. Cubicle walls are surprisingly expensive for how cheap they look. If you are looking to cut every cost you possible can, open floor plans certainly cut costs.

<comment><USER6> If anyone was curious, $150 for a single straight cubicle wall, up to $1,500 for an "Office Space" style fully surrounded cubicle (inc. desk), and $5,100 for four cubicles (inc. desks and shared walls).

These are all generic grey looking ones, nothing fancy like tempered glass.

<comment><USER7> Isn't that peanuts compared to other employee overhead costs?

<comment><USER8> It is, but the management sees staff as a fungible resource. So why treat them well when you have a glut of people wanting to work for you? - so they like to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In decades past, it was predicted that people would work far less than 40 hours per week due to increases in productivity. Maybe that has happened, but we just pretend it hasn't: people now spend hours a day discussing beer with their coworkers in their open offices instead of working.

<comment><AUTHOR> Feels more like, "We couldn't afford to build offices or didn't feel like spending money on that, so we'll give you a big cheap floor with lots of distractions, but hey creativity and all that."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The book "Peopleware" discusses this. [https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware- Productive-Projects-Tom-De...](https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive- Projects-Tom-DeMarco-ebook/dp/B00DY5A8X2/) Basically, open floor plans are cheap and you can maximize metrics like $/person-sqft.

Other factors:

* "everyone else does it"

* Open floor plans seem like a good idea when you first hear them; the downsides are not immediately obvious. Verbal reasoning, no matter how flawed, almost always wins.

* The decision makers tend to be blissfully unaware of the dynamics of knowledge work because their work is typically interrupt-driven. Thus, they don't see any problem putting 50 programmers in a cramped and echoey gymnasium.

* Even if the decision maker is fully aware, their boss might not agree to a higher-cost office plan. Actual dollars will almost always beat non-metrics like "compounded employee productivity" or "time and money not wasted due to mistakes caused by people operating in a distracting environment".

\--Yes, in theory you could design an experiment, but that would delay the decision and probably require spending money. And the outcome would probably be misinterpreted: the open floor people will be louder and will appear to be working harder. (But are they actually more productive or are they just scrambling to fix all the bugs they created?)

</comment><comment><USER11> Switched to remote work because of this.

<comment><USER12> Same here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I work in an open plan office and sometimes I find it annoying. If I come in early, I get about an hour's peace. When people start coming in I hear conversations about kids then sport.. then when people who sit closer to me come in, I obviously have a quick morning chat with them.

The whole thing can be very distracting.

On the plus side, it's never lonely even when I am not talking to anyone. It's easy to see if people are available. It's easier to go chat to people about work.

<comment><USER14> "It's easier to go chat to people about work."

That's a plus for the person who wants to chat. It's a massive negative (far outweighing the positive for the person who gets to chat right now instead of in an hour's time) for the person who was several stacks deep in mental context in chasing down some Heisenbug, or really involved in bashing out just the right code with a head full of flowing understanding. Especially when it's a chat that lasts thirty seconds.

<comment><USER15> Sure...if you want to get things done. From what I can tell, most people prefer to goof off as much as possible.

<comment><USER16> I'm going to assume that I'm working in a company that actually rewards productive work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's a trade-off. Closed offices make deep thinking easier; open floor plans make communication easier. Ideally, you want both, but how do you get it?

<comment><USER18> True. Although I prefer cubicles any day but communication is hard - 've seen some have this way of treating as if u've invaded private space. I guess for open office - a good noise cancelling headphone which one of my colleague used to use is a need

<comment><USER19> Not even necessarily noise cancelling, if you're playing music, generally the background gets drowned enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Because the management doesn't!

Notice how the further up the hierarchy you go the larger and better appointed offices the managers have? They then hold their meetings in conference rooms, or better still, swanky restaurants and clubs.

And all that is based on the revenue generated by the cube farm slaves.

</comment><comment><USER20> I love open floor plans. I've been working >10 years in cubicles, ~5 years in offices and >5 years in open floor plans. My favorite has been open floor plans. It's far more social and people are a lot more accessible. The other benefit of open floor plans is that people can go elsewhere if they feel like they don't want to be disturbed, so it's almost the best of both worlds.

<comment><USER21> In what companies can you go elsewhere if you don't feel like being disturbed? My experience is always that the entire office is a single noisy room and conference rooms are overbooked.

<comment><USER22> You go to a coffee shop down the street or sit on the roof and cry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I used to find open floor plans the most annoying thing in the world. People would pop up behind/around me unannounced. However, since we started using slack, such annoyance has declined dramatically. I wonder what will happen to office planning with better communication tools around.

<comment><USER15> The tools exist, and have for a long time. But unless you're the boss, there's little you can do to get people to use them.

<comment><USER16> Even IF you are the boss it's difficult to force people to use communication tools. We've tried a bunch of different things for our company and the only one that actually stuck was Slack (for some reason).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> this is really typical. good luck finding a startup with cubicles or private offices. It might be cheaper or maybe it's a design attempt to look effortless and elegant.

</comment><comment><USER12> open floor plans can cause something like that: [http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt- interrupt-...](http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a- programmer/)

</comment><comment><USER25> The use of open floor plans could also be a choice towards company culture.

I work in an office with an open floor plan, and, most of the time, no one is even talking.

The amount of work you could do in an open floor plan office might also depend on the company culture.

</comment><comment><USER26> Because they are cheap.

</comment><comment><USER27> Headphones were invented to rescue you in open floor office ...

<comment><USER28> Unless you happen to think best in silence....

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Because some people (like me) don't want to be locked up in a boring cubicle like chickens in a battery cage.</comment>


Is Internet Explorer Dead? Are You? - <AUTHOR> http://www.seattle20.com/blog/Is-Internet-Explorer-Dead-Are-You.aspx

<comment><USER2> So is he the only person in the world who thought that in the hypothetical case that Mozilla Firefox returned to single digit market share, it would be because IE9 ate its lunch?

I had assumed Chrome on desktop and various Webkit on mobile was the assumed competition, I honestly never even considered IE.</comment>


Are You a Hacker or a Designer? - <AUTHOR> https://www.yegor256.com/2014/10/26/hacker-vs-programmer-mentality.html <comment><USER2> Without doubt, the "hacker style" code example is the better one in this example -- if equipped with a suitable comment ;-)

We will always need "hackery" people because they are the ones who write groundbreaking codes never seen before. It's not so much a question of writing assembly but of being able to master the math and the abstraction. That's why functional programming is still a myth for the majority of programmers ("designers"), who still stick in 1995s OOP world. And that's why the security world will still be ruled by people who understand the systems. Hackers.</comment>


Why California's Privacy Law Won't Hurt Facebook or Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/why-californias-privacy-law-wont-hurt-facebook-or-google/ <comment><USER2> The tone of this article makes it sound like it's a bad thing that Facebook and Google won't be much affected by this law, but I don't really think it is.

The reason the big players aren't much affected is that they've already had to make huge privacy changes in response to GDPR. They've already paid those costs.

A lot of what you see about privacy is uninformed fear mongering. This article is a good example: it seems to take it as a given that anything that doesn't substantially increase privacy protections is a bad thing, but no reasons are given, and the costs aren't weighed. In reality there's a balance to be had here and we need to be looking at both sides. I'm not saying there's nothing to fear, just that there's a real disconnect between what the media's afraid of and what we should actually fear, and there's a very real danger of legislative changes doing more harm than good.

GDPR actually provides some pretty substantial privacy guarantees and I think we should wait to see the effects of GDPR play out before we go fiddling with the system more.

<comment><USER3> It seems to take it as a given that anything that doesn't substantially reduce exploitation is a bad thing, but no reasons are given, and the costs aren't weighed. In reality there's a balance to be had here and we need to be looking at both sides. There's a very real danger of legislative changes doing more harm than good.

Sure, a few billion humans might be being invasively tracked and having their data sold, and their mental biases ruthlessly exploited for profit, addictive behaviours encouraged with personalised alerts, but you've got to look at both sides - on the other hand, a few companies are making a HUGE PILE OF MONEY, and I think everyone can agree that's unquestionably a good thing. (No reasons are given).

<comment><USER4> > a few companies are making a HUGE PILE OF MONEY, and I think everyone can > agree that's unquestionably a good thing.

Unquestionably? No, it's a bad thing for the monopolies to maintain through capitalism's achille's heel. Weighing the costs would require insight into the cost-benefits of those mega-corporations, which we will never see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a start. I wish the CCPA took a few stronger stances to match GDPR for end users, and consistency in compliance would be nice.

<comment><USER6> What is CCPA? I haven't been able to find an entity with those initials besides [0], and I feel like that can't be what you're going for.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Centre_for_Policy_A...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Centre_for_Policy_Alternatives)

<comment><USER7> [https://www.caprivacy.org](https://www.caprivacy.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Couldn't even read the article. The ads are so aggressive that my instant reaction was to just close the page.

</comment><comment><USER9> I follow Antonio García Martínez on Twitter and he's usually always making this same argument: that any privacy regulation is just going to entrench Facebook and Google. Which is very convenient because the implied solution to that is no regulation at all [1]!

But no one who cared about privacy thought this California bill was anyway a giant triumph. Everyone knows it's not equivalent to GDPR, for one because it's just in one state. This was just the result of a handful of people taking advantage of a quirk of California's legislative process to a put a gun to lawmakers's heads. If not for the ballot proposition process, California would be the last place I'd expect to pass strong EU-style privacy laws, because it's home to the surveillance capitalism industry.

What that California bill did do was show some tangible movement can be made in the US, to the point where the internet companies are now mobilizing to make a federal law (in the hope that this current Congress and Administration will not pass anything close to what's on the books in EU) [2]. What they didn't expect is that it's not just the left that is gunning for Facebook, Google, and Twitter anymore, it's the right as well. You might believe both aisles of the political spectrum are motivated by partisan reasons, but it doesn't matter. The bipartisan environment required for strong regulation to happen is here.

Privacy activists should seize on the opportunity to pass a federal law that's equivalent to the EU's. And if there's no movement on that, force the issue by creating a patchwork of laws in state legislatures. They should also seek out the backing of Apple, Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, or anyone else in the tech industry that has the straightforward business model of selling a product or service for money to a customer. It's critical to make clear to legislators that there's no united front from the "tech industry" on this.

[1] The real answer is antitrust enforcement, which is also gaining political support.

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech- industry-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry- federal-privacy-law.html)

<comment><USER10> Over the last few years I've observed a growing sentiment on the right that they are not being treated fairly by a lot of big tech companies. I don't know in what way it'll manifest, but if that trend continues it might seriously harm some of the big players. Therefore it wouldn't surprise me to see support from the right.

<comment><USER11> You don't specifically say one way or the other, but your phrasing made me curious: Would you assert that big tech companies _do_ treat the red team fairly? I don't know how many people will reply, but if you are reading this, I would also like to know your answer to this question. I have been a social outsider my entire life, and while it's been tough in almost every conceivable fashion, it does let me see the forest of American politics for the trees with respect to both the blue team and the red team. And I assert that big tech companies in fact _do_ treat red-teamers "unfairly" (for a value of "unfair" which is not limited to right-wing fringe elements). Please note however that I assert nothing about causality, only that it is so.</comment></comment></comment>


Theranos Announces Expansion of Board of Directors, New Organizational Structure - <AUTHOR> https://www.theranos.com/news/posts/theranos-announces-expansion-of-board-of-directors-and-new-organizational-structure <comment><USER2> The tone of the press release is very strange. There's no acknowledgement of how much trouble the company is in, no acknowledgment of the loss of confidence on the part of their key distribution partner (Walgreens), no acknowledgement of the fact that they need to be more open and transparent, no acknowledgment that the CEO is under investigation and might be banned from the industry, and no hint of contrition for the missteps that took them to this point. Sunny Balwani has "retired" with a glowing testimonial from the board.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step in fixing the problem. Theranos have yet to admit that they have a problem. I find it astonishing that, despite their regulatory challenges, they haven't found someone with a background at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to join their Board.

If Theranos were a public company, I suspect Holmes would have been ousted by now. At the very least, she should step back and appoint an interim CEO (who has experience in this sector) until the ban question is resolved. Refusing to do so lends credence to the accusation that she is incompetent.

<comment><USER3> Having worked in many large corporations (and seeking to get out), admitting mistakes and problems can not only harm your PR, it can also open you to liability.

Also, given that the CEO of the company seems to emulate Jobs and Jobs never apologized, it's reasonable not to expect one.

<comment><USER2> _> ..Jobs never apologised.._

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070908223628/http://www.apple....](https://web.archive.org/web/20070908223628/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/)

<comment><USER3> Fair enough, I was thinking about Apple Maps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of the biggest "the emperor has no clothes" stories of Silicon Valley and healthcare startups . When are they going to stop trying to pivot or make people think things have changed and just close the company ?

<comment><USER5> They're already acting like HP!

<comment><USER6> apt, considering their HQs are on adjacent blocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Theranos is now under a criminal investigation by federal officers from the Department of Justice. This is not going to end well for Holmes.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/business/theranos-sec- just...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/business/theranos-sec-justice- department-investigation.html)

<comment><USER8> This is USA. She's worth multiple billions of dollars. Money talks. She'll buy her way out.

Sorry for sounding so cynical. But it's just facts.

<comment><USER9> That's not cynical at all. Rich people don't go to jail in the US unless they really, REALLY screw up, and even then it's not a guarantee if they have the right friends. Citation: the banking crash in 2008.

<comment><USER10> Just out of curiosity, who specifically should've gone to jail in 2008, and for what?

<comment><USER11> who: Anyone who profited from defrauding the us tax payers. There is a very long list. given the proper time and budget from, say, the department of justice; we'd probably have it. however the doj did nothing twice, and so I doubt they'll be the ones to whom we should entrust such long list making.

why: billions of dollars stolen from the world economy to make people who were already wealthy; more wealthy. All at the expense of hundreds of millions who have a lower quality of life because of it. on this you'll just have to trust me or research on your own.

There are several movies and documentaries which address it in depth on Netflix/HBO/Amazon.

<comment> saiya-jin if they broke the law during that time then yes, otherwise no.

the last part about "you just have to trust me" is pretty funny - there are several movies and documentaries on Netflix/HBO/Amazon (and youtube!) about how jet fuel can't melt steel beams. or you just have to trust me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just suits, no highly-qualified scientists. I'm sensing this is a precursor to some litigation or investigation.

<comment><USER8> They did hire a highly-qualified scientist: Ian Gibbons.

> Rochelle Gibbons, whose biochemist husband, Ian, was hired by Holmes in > 2005, confessed to the reporter that her husband "told me nothing was > working." Ian Gibbons committed suicide in May 2013.

Source: [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/theranos-founder- eliz...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/theranos-founder-elizabeth- holmes-report)

<comment><USER13> That is so dark I can only hope for Mrs. Holmes sake that the suicide was unrelated.

I couldn't live with myself if somebody else committed suicide because of my lies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The saying about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, it seems their only hope might be to construct another ship out of those deck chairs. If you read that announcement the mandate of the company gets even more general and vague.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a bit curious since I haven't had the time to read up on this whole case. From what I understand, they have used fraudulent tests and pushing guesswork as scientific results? Yes?

But I'm also a bit curious as to the idea itself - could a healthcare-company actually provide this service at the said price with the right staff and technology, or is it simply an overly optimistic setup?

<comment><USER17> In theory lab on chip testing may reduce costs greatly, yes.

The harder(or maybe impossible) part is collecting clean samples from the fingertip. But maybe theranos will pivot to collect blood via veins, at least for now ?

That of course will reduce their valuation greatly(because people hate vein- puncture, so no frequent blood testing scenarios), but the cheap price could be very valuable to third world countries.

But again, that's just theory.

<comment><USER18> Umm.. How much do you think a blood test costs in India?

[http://m.upto75.com/Thyrocare/m/6693/Sale_Offer.html](http://m.upto75.com/Thyrocare/m/6693/Sale_Offer.html) is a set of 32 tests that costs roughly 14$ . and this is the most expensive company there is.

The only tech that could make this better is fingertip testing.

<comment><USER19> Romania: set of basic tests for equivalent of $20. In Britain it's free if your doctor orders it else it seems to be much pricier.

Incidentally I noticed that [https://www.medichecks.com/](https://www.medichecks.com/) offer " Finger- prick - comprehensive entry-level health screen" analysis for $142. Someone should investigate!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Did they also announce actual viable technology?

<comment><USER21> Oh Snap! I knew I forgot something in the action plan!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...

</comment><comment><USER23> At first I was very pro-Theranos but their behavior, particularly the CEO, has given me great concern. I'm sad to say aside from the media coverage, I'm starting to think this was all a fishing expedition wrapped in a fraudulent pitch of actual science and technology. I'm also seriously irked that the tech media didn't probe as critically as they should have in the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER24> I find it discouraging that everyone is looking at Theranos. It smells dead and it is dead. Can't we just leave it alone and untouched, please?

<comment><USER25> Sorry, you can't found a $9 billion company on wishes and promises and then simply get left alone.</comment></comment>


Google IO registration opens March 27th - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/events/io/register

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like they've also decided not to do the coding challenge, originally suggested to stem the "first come first served" rush.

A bit of a shame, could have been interesting - and would have made for more devs at, what is after all, a developer conference

</comment><comment><USER2> Big price increase from last year, up to $900.</comment>


Bitcoin is Much More Than Money - <AUTHOR> http://btcgeek.com/bitcoin-much-money/ <comment><USER2> Didn't the founder of Bitcoin himself dub Bitcoin as money?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a floor wax _and_ a dessert topping!</comment>


Driving for Lyft in Sacramento - <AUTHOR> http://cockeyed.com/personal/lyft/lyft_intro.html <comment><USER2> Some of my best stories are from the passengers who remembered me, and he ones who called me back.</comment>


Artwork Personalization at Netflix - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/artwork-personalization-c589f074ad76 <comment><USER2> > How do we convince you that a title is worth watching?

That question seems revealing to me. Convincing me that a title is worth watching is good for business, I'm sure, but I want to decide what (and whether) to watch, not be convinced. Most titles are not worth watching.

I don't enjoy how relative and personal the recommendation system is right now, and I don't want more of it. The current recommendation system is showing me hundreds of titles that all say something like "97% match", plus or minus one percent, even though the majority of them are objectively crappy. It seems like the personalized ratings are all super inflated.

I want to know what other people thought and make my own decision, not be subject to a data collection and personalization system that filters everything through the eyes of a neural network that only knows what I've rated in the past.

It also feels like it's getting harder to branch out to genres I don't usually watch. The recommendations are giving me a metric ton of stuff that is similar (same genres, same actors) to whatever I rated highly, but not much that is dissimilar. It feels like I have to work harder now to find good stuff that is new or unusual.

<comment><USER3> This, please, pretty please.

Not to mention the surveillance chill of "how will watching this flick affect what the recommendation algorithm thinks of me." At least let me turn that shit off.

Maybe that's just context though, on say youtube where you have a billion vids and I'm just watching short music clips or programming vids, sure it may be helpful to show me stuff related to what I just watched. On Netflix just give me a directory and make it easy for me to browse, maybe show me the new releases etc. There's mostly no such things as 'similar' when it comes to feature length movies except for sequels and remakes.

Or I dunno, maybe they really just didn't have a single thing I wanted to watch, which is entirely possible.

<comment><USER4> >On Netflix just give me a directory and make it easy for me to browse

If they did that, you'd see just how small their catalog really is. For Netflix, the recommendation engine is vital camouflage for the fact that they just don't have very much content. Netflix have about 4,000 movies in their catalog, of which a substantial proportion are low-budget filler. Once you remove the obvious junk, you're left with a selection of movies that's no better than a Blockbuster store circa 2005.

<comment><USER5> Fundamentally, you don't get Netflix for movies. Maybe that's why you sign up originally but if you don't watch any TV shows, Netflix is probably not worth it for you. One of their senior people told me a few years ago that "People come for movies and they stay for TV." And that's probably still the case. I doubt its catalog is anywhere near the quality of a 2005 Blockbuster for films. Unfortunately, their DVD back catalog is also rotting away to the point where I'll probably end up dropping that subscription at some point.

<comment><USER6> Agreed w/the rest of your comment but "[...] they stay for TV?" I take it they and/or you meant "series".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Years ago when there still was a public API I wrote a super simple script that just listed movies in order by how much Netflix thought I'd like them. This was the best Netflix interface I've used so far. While the predictions weren't super accurate they were accurate enough to quickly scan over it and find interesting stuff. They also we accurate enough to easily notice at what point in the list the was no reason to look further down. If I had spend some more time to substraction what I've already watched and maybe also make it also sortable by IMDb ratings it would have been perfect. Also no fing photos. Just give me the title and ratings, maybe just maybe the release year. At least on the overview.

I believe Netflix moved to the current model because they don't care about you spending your time well and in addition need to fudge their catalog. It's ultimately wasting user's time. Before they had the new match percentage it regularly would suggest movies that they themselves predicted I'd hate. WTF?!

At this point my favorite movie platform is mubi. Just 30 well selected movies. I can quickly tell what's new to their catalog and also if I should just close the app and do something else.

<comment><USER8> That is something I still don't understand about the modern Netflix recommendation engine. Before the percentage system, it would literally recommend things to me that it predicted I'd give two stars. It's probably still recommending things in that range today, but I gave up consulting it.

<comment><USER7> HBO Go's interface has its issues, but it makes it relatively easy to see what's new this month or so. Well, I can tell usually it's not enough to justify staying subscribed. So I subscribe ~4-6 months a year watch what I want to see and then unsubscribe. I'm pretty certain I'd follow a similar pattern with Netflix if there isn't wasn't obfuscating their catalog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> All due respect for the authors and engineers that worked on this, but this solves a problem that does not exist. In fact, it has produced confusion as my wife and I can't find a title if the artwork has changed or is different on mobile vs web vs FireTV, etc and the sands are shifting on each depending on whose account we are on.

You're gonna get higher click through in the short term but lower satisfaction in the longer term. This "up-and-to-the-right" disease will erode your credibility by not treating artwork as canon in subtle ways and alienate your audience who are disappointed Good Will Hunting, in this example is more drama/romance than comedy, and that Robin Williams, (usually) a comedian, is the most serious character (he graduated from Juliard).

tl;dr Long time personalization product manager here, don't do this: it will hurt you

<comment><USER10> They don't use click through as their success metric.

It is based on their engagement score for the title. With this change, folks are consuming more content, so I don't think it is correct saying this will hurt them based on your own negative reaction.

<comment><USER11> I think it's a mistake to optimize for most hours watched. The price for user is constant, but cost for Netflix - probably not.

For example I watched some shitty movie recommended by Netflix and I feel less satisfied with the service than if I didn't watch it at all.

<comment><USER12> That's the best explanation I have seen so far. They're optimizing right but maybe for the wrong metrics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this highlights an inherent tension between marketing and art.

When I create such and such a piece as an artist I want to present it a certain way, even down to the marketing material--I want it all to express the correct vision--i.e. there is one 'correct' promotional image for it.

Marketers, contrarily strictly have the utilitarian principle of conversion in mind--they want to manipulate my vision to make it a better fit for as _wide an audience as possible_ and in so doing diminish and cheapen the art to target certain subsets or groups who may not actually fit the intended audience when you consider the work as a whole. Art is reduced to a profit making instrument.

That's precisely what this method attempts--cast a wider net by deceiving the fish and ignoring the wishes of the fisherman, who, only wanting trout, now gets the whole biosphere of the sea in his boat.

Its not very honest, and will probably make people upset unless the content based recommendation algorithm aligns perfectly with the image focused one (i.e. the image is only manipulated to fit your taste after it's ascertained the content as a whole and on its own fits your taste, and not only a subset of that content, i.e. one or two brief romantic scenes in a movie that has as its actual subject matter something entirely unromantic).

<comment><USER14> Author of any kind is not an abstract "artist" from an ivory tower that receives his work from a muse in a fit of inspiration - it's just an image that helps to sell copies. He's a marketer, too. He has to sell his image and unique style. When he works, he has to imagine what effect will his work have on the audience - which is exactly a marketer's skill.

Also, these "versions" of product are quite common in different forms of art. Songs have radio versions, album versions, remixes and simply alternate releases. Whole albums have different masters (released for different medium and audience). Movies have director's cuts, movie cuts, TV adaptations (where they sometime get serialized). Books composed from chapters printed periodically in magazines, with author responding to reader's feedback (which was much more common in 19th century, but still).

</comment></comment><comment> crooked-v All this and they still haven't done anything about the basic problem with the front page: I don't want to see things that I've already watched or that I'm explicitly not interested in.

<comment><USER15> I do really wish I could tell Netflix about things I never want to watch.

<comment><USER7> I think they will never implement it. If all the shit and stuff you've already watched was filtered out and every movie was only listed ones you'd likely see a fairly empty page.

<comment><USER15> I think there's a large enough repository that there would always be something to show. Why wouldn't Netflix prefer to show me things I _might_ want to watch (even if it's a low probability) over things I said I definitely _don 't_ want to watch.

For me, I think it basically just reduces my engagement. If my recommendations are filled with things I've already decided I don't want to see, I'll just go do something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > This is yet another way Netflix differs from traditional media offerings: we > don't have one product but over a 100 million different products with one > for each of our members with personalized recommendations and personalized > visuals.

What? If I go over to a friend's house, I don't think of myself as using a different product. I don't _want_ to use a different product. This advice seems to go against everything I've heard about brands and recognition.

<comment><USER17> Indeed.

My perception is, they're a big enough brand now that they don't have to care anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One practical point anyone implementing bandits should be aware of is time correlation. Bandits are awesome if your data behaves the same going forward as it did before. But when you change your A/B split on Friday based on what you learned over the week, then suddenly whether someone saw A or B is correlated with being the kind of user that visits on weekends. That leads to selection bias, which is a pain in the ass and screws things up. It can be time of day, day of week, and even season (I bet all of our jobs will be a bit unusual going in to this coming week, for example). The problem's present on many time scales.

You can deal it, but everyone should be aware of this before doing the naive thing of just throwing bandits at things. Sometimes some regret is worth the plain validity of an RCT, and sometimes not.

</comment><comment><USER19> This thing is hilarious. I've noticed that Netflix far prefers to display black faces to me, and women's faces to my wife. Personally I think they should spend their time making sure I can read the title of the show, but whatever...

</comment><comment><USER20> Just fix /browse/just-added, the only useful page on all of netflix.com. None of this algorithmic crap matters, the catalogue is _tiny_.

</comment><comment><USER21> Netflix gets huge props for paying their engineers handsomely, especially the infrastructure guys. And they still spend more on content acquisition than they do on payroll. The fact that their lackluster catalog costs them more than a staff full of $400k/yr+ engineers and executives sheds light on the real problem: it's too goddamn expensive to get the licensing rights to show a movie or television show.

My wife and I own two gyms and payroll is our largest expense by _multiple orders of magnitude_. Every business I've ever looked at or been involved in, payroll has been the largest expense, often by one order of magnitude or more. The fact that _licensing_ still beats out Netflix's payroll is insane.

<comment><USER22> While your observation is interesting, it seems a bit silly to compare the operating expenses of a global media distributor to a local gym.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Why should you care about any particular title we recommend? What can we say about a new and unfamiliar title that will pique your interest? How do we convince you that a title is worth watching?_

How about, instead of overpersonalizing everything, you say "we recommend X because you liked Y and people like you also like X."

<comment><USER17> OH GOD YES.

I wish sites were more up-front about it. In many places, I get a recommendation and I wonder, "why on Earth did the site just suggest that?".

Steam does a little bit of what you suggest for games. When I browse their recommendation queue for me and I see a weird title, I can look down and see a little text that say something like "This game is suggested because it's new on Steam", or "because you've played similar games", or "because you've played games tagged XYZ", etc. It makes me feel that they don't pull the queue out of their collective ass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The whole "a machine decides what I watch"-thing scares me a bit. It creates a world where people only listen to the exact thing they like. Like a reddit/HN echo chamber, but instead of being designed for communities, it is tailored to one person. An individual echo chamber.

Of course it is nice to listen to music we love and to see movies that fit our past viewing experience, but what about putting some plain randomness in there too. Wikipedia has a "random article" button. The online content world is not random enough.

</comment><comment><USER25> The "My List" is terrible, fix that. On XBox360 there is no gridded "My List", so I have to scroll through pages of a single tape. If I've watched all episodes of a series, have it filter to the very bottom until there is a new episode which I HAVEN'T yet watched, and only then add a red "new episodes" tag and filter it to the top. That's just the start of it. With all the ridiculous easy-fix problems, you have the audacity to post this crap? These kinds of show-off posts make me cringe at how poorly you, Netflix, are being managed. You're showing off the wrong thing! It's like if I hire a kid to mow my lawn, and I come back 2hrs later and instead of the lawn being mowed he shows me with great pride how he planted a fucking pineapple in the fucking back corner of the yard. I just wanted my fucking lawn mowed!

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm aware of a general screaming into the void complaining here, so I'll add two different comments.

About the article:

Very interesting idea, and the Replay is a fascinating and in hindsight obvious way of being able to quickly test out new approaches without waiting for the data collection.

Screaming into the void:

If you're able to do all this, why do you still write "NEW EPISODES" on the thumbnails of shows _you know I 've already watched_? Why do I have broken images _constantly_ in my android app? Why can I not turn off autoplay of trailers (meaning if I don't want to have things spoiled I need to keep flicking around)? Why do you suggest I watch things I've 1. Already seen and 2. Told you I hated?

</comment><comment><USER27> So... as useful as Amazon's 'products we think you will like', an echo chamber of previous purchases ala Google's search bubble. This feels reminiscent of Facebook's attempts at emotional manipulation experiments.

</comment><comment><USER28> Well, since you removed rating by stars and replaced it with nigh useless thumbs system, you don't seem to be very interested in personalising what I want to watch. And it shows.

Since the recommended titles are clearly very focused on Netflix production, I just ignore any recommendations altogether and just browse all new arrivals every week...

<comment><USER29> >I just ignore any recommendations altogether and just browse all new arrivals every week...

I do the same only to find that there's nothing interesting there and watch Arrested Development again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I hate shit like that. I pretty quickly memorise covers and then it's agony to find anything when I have to read every single freakin' title in their super small UI :/ Do. NOT. Do. THAT.

</comment><comment><USER31> Amazon Prime shows me rating from IMDB (or Rotten Tomatoes), which I find more useful in making a decision on what to watch, than these tweaks. For me, these are cool, but will not move the needle much.

Also I am not sure if I want a different "Poster" for "My Cousin Vinny". Ever.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can they also do some explaining on how they get to those seemingly completely irrelevant match percentage scores? I have to _avoid_ things that have too high of a match, to the point that I don't think it's just a crappy match system but rather one that actively tries to push content on me that I _hate_.

</comment><comment><USER33> Now let's talk how Netflix "personalizes" Most Popular and Trending titles - on 3 different accounts I've seen there 3 different set of movies in each of the hit lists.</comment>


18 year old BBC Micros used in retro programming class - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10951040 <comment><USER2> At university I had to code an emulator in assembly and I thought how much more fun it would have been to use some old 8-bit micros.

I've got a BBC B+128KB and the coolest thing about them is that you can mix BASIC and assembly.

<comment><USER3> Ah, the '[' trick, I remember when I first found out about that and thought it the neatest trick ever, no need to have a separate assembler. That said, it was mostly useful to speed up basic programs, if you wanted to write a program completely in assembler there were better options (the 'ade' rom for instance).

I still have a 'mostly functional' bbc emulator that I wrote for the ST laying around, there are much better ones available now so there is no point releasing the thing, but it was lots of fun to code that up, the 6502 part is about 1600 loc, the rest of the project another 1600 lines or so.

I never did implement mode 7 (teletext) or sound, but most of the other stuff worked.

Can you still read your old media?

<comment><USER2> All of my cassettes and most of my 5,25" floppies don't work. My drives are also starting to fail, so I recently got some new 3,5" drives installed and wrote about it here (portuguese only, I'm afraid):

[http://alquerubim.blogspot.com/2010/07/upgrade- historico.htm...](http://alquerubim.blogspot.com/2010/07/upgrade- historico.html)

The only floppies that still work are those that came in those nice black folders from Acornsoft.

<comment><USER3> With cassettes the problem is usually copy-through, with one layer influencing the next on the wound up spools so you get pre and post echos of the signal. You can possibly fix that using a bunch of processing.

The disks is a harder problem, surprising though, that they've already degraded that much, I would have expected the 5 1/4" to be readable a bit longer than this.

<comment><USER2> Well, this is Brazil (hot and humid) and they did have to endure about 10 years in my dad's shed, so I didn't really expect them to still work. The BBC, on the other hand, only requires maintenance on the power source's capacitors every 10 years or so (I've changed them twice so far). It's quite a sturdy machine!

<comment><USER3> Yes, electrolytic caps tend to dry out over time. There are special ones that are mil-spec that don't have that problem, or you could try your luck with Tantalum.

The Sprague brand used to have fairly affordable long life electrolytic caps, maybe you can find those where you live or order them online. That way it's a one time affair.

On another note, if you open up the power supply you'll find a bunch of coils in there, some of them are fairly loosely wound, eventually the windings will rub their way through the insulation and short out. It's not a bad idea to put some hotmelt on those windings to dampen the vibration. Just a little line on either side will do wonders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I disagree with that most of these oldies are 'cast aside', they actually fetch good money (if you can find them, they're collectors items) and are still some of the easiest machines to learn with and to teach with.

We should really revive that somehow and make a teaching course around a simulated 8 bit computer that you run as a VM on top of your regular OS.

I'd contribute to an effort like that, both financially and with work.

<comment><USER4> >I disagree with that most of these oldies are 'cast aside', they actually fetch good money (if you can find them, they're collectors items)

They're collectors items that fetch good money _because_ most of them were cast aside. :)

<comment><USER3> That's possible but quite unlikely, especially in the case of the machine we're talking about here. The ones that I know about that were bought almost 3 decades ago are either still around or have died in terrible ways, but none were 'cast aside'.

MSX and such, yes, I'd agree with you there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know of an "online shell" and tutorial combo that would give a similar kind of learning experience for understanding how computers work at the lower levels, as mentioned at the end of the article:

"The day of study had begun with what must be the ultimate hands-on technology experience: Mr Abrams got the students to be a computer.

They each took on the role of a different part of the machine - CPU, accumulator, RAM and program counter - and simulated the passage of instructions through the hardware.

The five shuffled data around, wrote it to memory, carried out computations and inserted them into the right places in the store."

Through self-study of CS texts and good code that others have written I've been gaining a lot more depth to my OOP programming skills.

I'd love though to get a more ground up, "live action" education on what's happening at the machine level, albeit it would probably need to be based on the simulation of a tiny computer by modern standards, maybe something like Knuth's MixMaster.

<comment><USER6> I recommend The Element of Computing Systems (<http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/>). It's has no "online shell" but the book is accompanied with hardware simulators

<comment><USER5> Perfect! Thanks a bunch.

<comment><USER5> Ordered on Amazon! Really, I feel very excited, just wanted to say thank you again. I had not stumbled across this resource when googling around for such an intro/guide, or maybe it just didn't catch my eye.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember a brand of washing detergent running a "Computers for Schools" marketing campaign, here in Ireland around about 1986. Myself and my classmates had to cut out tokens from the packaging and bring them into school. After a year, all the tokens were counted up, and we finally had enough to get one "free" BBC Micro.

All we were missing was a teacher who knew what to do with it.

/doh

</comment><comment><USER8> 28 year old I think you'll find.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that was a funny mistake there. 18 years ago we were almost a decade in to 'ARM' (Acorn Risc Machine) territory already.

Anybody here remember 'lander'?

edit: maybe they meant the 18 years relative to the date the computer was officially discontinued? But it had already been out of the regular trade for many years at that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some interesting points there about education in the UK

1) using Visual Basic by default (which is obsolete in industry and was never even intended to be a pedagogical language anyway)

2) The reference to "ICT" which is a term that doesn't exist outside of schools.

<comment><USER10> Depends what A-Level subject they're taking and school; at my school, they're taught Pascal and C (possibly moving into Objective-C this term if I finish installing the Macs into my department before the end of next week!)

<comment><USER9> At secondary school we had BBC Basic running in an emulator on the RM Nimbus, which had the mysterious 80186 processor. You could run Turbo Pascal if you first ran the 8086 emulator.

If I were designing the curriculum kids would be taught Forth or ML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm amazed they're using BBC Micros for game programming, an awful choice. They should be using ZX Spectrums or C64s.

<comment><USER9> BBC Basic was easily the best on the 8-bit micros. You can go straight to procedures and functions without ever using GOSUB or GOTO. Plus the OS provided an interface to its internals (e.g. *FX, the OS... routines like OSWRCH, the in-line 2-pass assembler) and vector tables, no need to peek and poke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I for one would be intrigued to program a punch card computer. They were before my time and sound like fun.

<comment><USER13> If you are excellent typist, perhaps. Otherwise, they were a pain.</comment></comment>