Facebook Calls All Hands Meeting On Privacy - <AUTHOR> http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-calls-all-hands-meeting-on-privacy/

<comment><USER2> Don't expect a reversal. This meeting will be because staff are seeing their peers suddenly hating them on their favourite forums, and execs are seeing the media having a pop. It's to reassure the troops, to tell them "we're right, here's our strategy, the rest of the world are idiots, carry on".

Forget Google, these guys are the new Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> Warning, I'm going to plug my personal blog:

> Forget Google, these guys are the new Microsoft.

I wrote something about this recently. I think the reason why Google and Facebook are acting very differently can be explained in good part by the kind of incentives that they face (they're very different):

[http://michaelgr.com/2010/02/15/why-google-is-not-like- micro...](http://michaelgr.com/2010/02/15/why-google-is-not-like-microsoft-or- facebook/)

<comment><USER4> Instead of plugging your blog, why not put what you said here? It's your content, just copy and paste and link to your blog at the bottom. (If you do a good job, people will check you out.)

<comment><USER5> Are you really complaining because he used proper data normalization?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This meeting isn't an all hands, it's an employee-driven open forum. It was schduled because there has been interest around the public's recent reaction to facebook's privacy decisions. I don't expect any announcemets to be made, just a discussion to be had.

One lesson I learned from the internal response: Many Facebook engineers read HN. Your opinions are being heard.

<comment><USER7> But are they _listening_? Hearing me and listening to me aren't the same. Just go look at all those groups "We want a dislike" button, obviously the _users_ want something and Facebook just sat back and went "Uh. No"

<comment><USER8> Listening to someone and deciding to agree with them aren't the same, either. Parents listen to their children asking for unhealthy foods, and then deny it to them. Facebook knew that a dislike button would hurt their userbase sociologically just as much as any HFCS-laced soda would physiologically (it would allow people a quick, automatable way to bully others, it was shown when a closed test was attempted to be taken far out of proportion by the recipient compared to the signaler's intent, etc.)

That's not to say that Facebook's current privacy attitude is "healthy" for its users (and it's not to say that it's unhealthy, either); it's simply that Facebook has to consider their userbase as a _society_ with _interactions_ , which can't be swayed by the aggregate opinion of self-interested individuals who aren't thinking about how what they want will affect others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I suspect they didn't realize how many people, when faced with the mangling of their profiles, replacing all of their interests with poorly and inconsistently guessed 'likes,' would simply get rid of all that data.

It's really interesting looking at Facebook in Spanish, their localization with these roll-outs is pretty slipshod. "Mark as read" showed up in English for over a month after the big PHP-compiling to C++ shift, which otherwise was pretty good.

Likewise, though my profile is written in English, Facebook took it upon itself to guess what everything meant, and translate it into actual books and such. The result was actually remarkably effective, but still imperfect, and plain text is simply a better data model for what should be a simple "here's who I am."

<comment><USER10> You're wrong about too many people getting rid of their data. [I work at Facebook]

<comment><USER11> [citation needed]

<comment><USER12> Seriously? Aside from a minority fraction of the techies, do you really think facebook users care about this?

<comment><USER13> Those small pebbles and chunks of ice sliding down the mountain could be normal erosion or the first signs of an impending avalanche. Facebook is firmly in the "evil" category for many outspoken techies (e.g. those people every Facebook employee runs into at parties who no longer think they are working for a cool company but who instead mention how they are now working for Sauron) and even among the general populace the company is widely considered to be bit creepy. If things continue the current trajectory I think a serious backlash and government regulation is not out of the question.

<comment><USER4> Fantastic point. We all want the respect of our peers. Even if this doesn't affect FB's public status, their ability to attract great people will be severely diminished.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's probably too late. Not to regain user's trust, it doesn't appear most users actually care about Facebook's privacy issues. No, I think it's too late to avoid the creation and eventual passage of some "protect the children" laws that at least a few politicians are almost certainly working on right now.

<comment><USER15> If I were an exec at Facebook, I wouldn't worry about laws, I'd worry about a small project in some CompSci student's garage that is going to turn into an open, fully encrypted, freely available, direct competitor within the next year.

One potential rival service has been all over the geek news sites for the past day or two after raising a significant level of funding via donations very quickly. No doubt there are dozens more experiments out there that might turn out to be the next big social network instead...

<comment><USER16> It's an oversimplification to see facebook as one product that can be replaced by another product. Facebook as it is now fulfills a lot of roles, some roles are going to see competition, some roles like facebook connect are here to stay.

<comment><USER15> I'm sure Facebook would _like_ to be some sort of all-emcompassing platform, but its main value has always been the "self-updating address book", which is useful if and only if almost everyone you know is on there. All the other stuff, the messaging and photo sharing and toy apps and personal information pages and so on, can already be done elsewhere as well or better than Facebook does it, except for the automatic links to friends and the security/networking that come with that. If Facebook either loses a significant number of people in someone's friendship group to a rival system or loses the privacy/networking effects by making almost everything public, its value is going to drop very quickly for a lot of users and a vicious circle of people leaving is likely to follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [x] Mark Zuckerberg and 6 other friends are attending Privacy Meeting.

<comment><USER18> where's the unlike hyperlink?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Facebook has come under increasing scrutiny for a number of reasons and many were left with a sour taste in their mouth following a New York Times reader Q&A with Elliot Schrage, the company's Vice President for Public Policy."

Vice President for Public Policy.

What does "Public" mean? If I hide him from my friends, is he then invisible to my friends but still "public" and accessible by facebook's partners and affiliates?

I'm so confused.

<comment><USER20> If anyone from FB is reading, its responses like this one (from the linked NYT article) that are leaving the sour taste:

 _"Our extensive efforts to provide users greater control over what and how they share appear to be too confusing for some of our more than 400 million users."_

\- Elliot Schrage, VP public policy @ Facebook

What an asshole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the NYT Q&A linked from the article, VP Elliot Schrage gives a link to his profile and Zuckerberg's.

Zuckerberg's is a good link. Schrage's is not found.

Bad link, or item three for tomorrow's meeting?

Edit: typo.

</comment><comment><USER19> "... many privacy advocates want further changes involved with Facebook's new social plugins, as many of them function when a user isn't logged in ..."

Wait, what? What plugins operate when I'm not logged in? What did I miss?

<comment><USER21> I generally find the log out action to not actually work.

<comment><USER22> Forget that, the "deactivate profile" function barely works.

I deactivated my profile last Monday. Out of habit, today I went to Facebook from another computer that still had a session cookie. It reactivated my account, no questions asked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is what US$50,000 (and rising) in donations buys you (for Diaspora). (Hopefully, it will also buy an interesting and valuable project/product, in the long run.)

Being about money, the Facebook executive suite takes notice when people start putting significant (aggregate) coin towards their replacement. (My statement's a bit facetious, but the level of participation -- and contributions -- doubtless has contributed in finally convincing them this all is more than just "some d-mned users b-tching".)

The thing is, we've had long enough, and enough distinct events and changes, to see their true stripe. I hope people won't be lulled back into complacency by any diversionary actions they may take nor by any placating language they may issue. If they temporarily retreat, just remember Beacon.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Important vs. Urgent Broken? - <AUTHOR> I'm experimenting with yet another planner / organizer, and like many it allows me to flag tasks with some combination of "important" and "urgent", and based on that they go into a quadrant to a. do, b. schedule, c. delegate or d. delete them.
And as I was going through that, I realized I have a host of ideas that I don't plan to do any time soon. They're certainly not urgent, but they're important to me, but I don't have any schedule for them. At some point, I'll finish a current project and pick one of them up.
Maybe these task managers are just not well suited to anything beyond errands, though ideas lists must be pretty common. Or I'm just going about this the wrong way. <comment><USER2> 'Urgent' vs. 'important' is useful but incomplete.

Though it's not without its flaws, _Getting Things Done_ by David Allen is at the least a good starting point to personal time management.[1] I also recommend Thomas Limoncelli, _Time Management for System Administrators_ , which addresses specific requirements of many tech workers (programmers too).

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596007836.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596007836.do)

From Allen, particularly, the notions of different levels of task (he uses flight/elevation metaphore for Immediate to life-long goals), and of regular review. _Information capture without review has very little value._

My first problem with the genre generally is that it seems to presume everything _can_ get done. Actually, no, it cannot, the attempt will burn you out or kill you (see the FT burnout article I'd submitted earlier: [http://archive.is/OQSTS](http://archive.is/OQSTS)). But your planning/tracking system may well (and really should) help you discover your pace, rhythms, limits, and warning signs.

Allen shares my general disdain for computerised trackers. I've settled on bullet journal and index cards, mostly, though I'm still developing my system and tuning it.

Another issue is that many "tasks" really aren't; they're goals, aspirations, large projects which have not yet been analysed, assed, broken down to subtasks, and/or abandoned. Even apparrently trivial items can take far longer than anticipated.

Your personal community -- at work, home, social, commercial, political -- has a tremendous influence. If you are constantly facing opposition or at best apathy to even basic goals or needs, _any_ progress will be exceedingly painful. Changing environments is almost always easier than changing peoole, though if you find the situation unchanged even in new environments, consider looking at yourself and how you respond. My first approach is generally to try to work with or accommodate others, but I'm getting far quicker to push back and demand what I need to function and succeed. That's often the only thing that works.

________________________________

Notes:

1\. Though in fact took me nearly ten years to get _Getting Things Done_ done, no joke.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for a thoughtful response. I read GTD ages ago, might take a look at that again.

Your second point is well taken... maybe the real problem with the genre is that it's much easier to deliver a system that handles discrete tasks, whereas dealing with larger goals or aspirations is too open-ended to design a product around.

I thought GTD had a good idea regarding stuff you can't get done by shoving it in a circular file, and maybe that's what I need to do. Not abandon it, but it's better to not worry about it for a while and come around to it in time.

<comment><USER2> GTD's emphasis of _getting thing out of your head_ is particularly good. Both BJ and index cards (I'm somewhere between POIC and Zettlekasten) do that for me.

I'm looking at tools such as vimwiki / orgmode, possibly task-warrior or renind (both CLI task managers) for longer term/repetitive stuff.

On my (linux) desktop I've got a set of general information displayed via xrootconsole, and having reminders there might be useful w/o being excessively distracting.

A script sets up multiple "panels" of information for me -- (randomly selected) RSS feed, weather, essays-in-ptocess (a large part of my To Do), and systems monitoring. That's usually obscured by open windows (and I don't use a desktop file-browser, so this isn't cluttered by file or app launcher icons), but I can check quickly by hiding open windows/reveal desktop.

With CLI reminder/calendar tools, ant term window can show wahat's pending / manage tasks.</comment></comment></comment>


Awesome tools a happy startup shouldn't live without - <AUTHOR> http://happystartups.quora.com/10-awesome-tools-a-happy-startup-shouldn%E2%80%99t-live-without

<comment><USER2> The first tool "Lean canvas" I looking for a long time.after reading the book"The Lean Startup" and "The Four Steps to the Epiphany". recommend the books, recommend the tool</comment>


Godoc.orgGitHub.com redirects to the Rust website - <AUTHOR> https://godoc.orggithub.com <comment><AUTHOR> Err, needs to be non https; I broke it.</comment>


Ask HN: Options Trading Platforms and Resources - <AUTHOR> Hey all, I'm getting further into options trading now and am looking for good resources. So far I'm doing quite well, but don't want to get too far without the right tools and community.
Can anyone recommend:
1. The best trading platform for a smaller trader that is both cost effective and (maybe) has an API? Currently on eTrade
2. Good communities of like-minded people?
Thanks all <comment><USER2> 1\. Interactive Brokers. IB's interface is not my favorite (I liked Options House in this regard) but is exactly what I need from a pricing perspective.

My experience is likely limited compared to yours. I focused originally on covered calls, with some occasionally speculative short-term bets. I was very successful using Options House for about a year or so. It turned out to be mostly dumb luck and ultimately more or less broke even. After some analysis that wasn't too bad considering all of the commissions I had to pay. I've since re-evaluated my strategy, resigned myself to believing that I'm likely not going to beat the index, and only actively trade with "entertainment levels" of money. The minimum to open an account with Interactive Brokers may be high (or maybe not for you, depending on your situation) but just because you need an amount to deposit doesn't mean you have expose that full amount to whatever strategy you have planned.

Definitely check the numbers (and interface) for yourself. One "gotcha" is the data-access fees (some are waived with activity). My time-horizon for my current strategy is typically in the 3-6 month range so I can't offer much advice on the IB bells and whistle - which are many (Yahoo Finance checked once a day is sufficient for my needs). I currently only use options as protective puts on volatility based short sells.

I hope more people respond since I'm genuinely curious as well!

</comment><comment><USER3> Regarding the platform I looked into Interactive Brokers before deciding on eTrade. Their API setup requires running a local trading station and doesn't seem to be terribly easy to code against. After seeing eTrade's docs I was pretty well sold.

Quantopian has a pretty active community, but I get the impression that by and large trading is not as open and communal a space as coding is.</comment>


Transit Projects Are About to Get Easier in California - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/transit-projects-are-about-to-get-much-much-easier-in-california/374049/ <comment><USER2> Something of a bait-and-switch. It's not that transit projects are not still required to prepare enormous reports that take years to complete if there is any possible "negative impact" \-- it's just that worsening traffic is no longer considered a "negative impact." The immense bureaucratic snarl still exists, it's just being pointed in a slightly different direction that fits the new anti-car political winds.

<comment><USER3> I can't totally agree with this. Vehicle miles travelled is a much more relevant environmental metric than "level of service" for cars. While "level of service" does measure the impact for car drivers, it neglects any environmental impact, and also neglects other, non-car transportation as being something that people may want to do.

So now, for the environmental impact report, the metric will actually be environmentally related rather than "speedy car traffic" related.

<comment><USER2> My main concern is that the immense bureaucratic delay is still in place. "Level of service" for cars may no longer trigger it, but that just means something else will instead. We can't go on being a nation that takes decades to build minor transit improvements due to walls of paper.

Well, we _can_ , it'll just suck.

<comment><USER4> >We can't go on being a nation that takes decades to build minor transit improvements due to walls of paper.

The sad thing is, the minor transmit improvements are lauded as "marvels". Being recently back from Hong Kong, taking 15 years to build a 2-mile bus route just doesn't impress me.

And when you consider that a system like this (only far more extensive) is already in place in Bogotá [0] and has been for about 15 years... well, this little 2 mile stretch seems a bit underwhelming.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy SF is improving transit. I just wish it didn't take decades because it seems like other solutions are likely to come about in the mean time, which means wasted time.

[0] [http://www.streetfilms.org/bus-rapid-transit- bogota/](http://www.streetfilms.org/bus-rapid-transit-bogota/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In this particular case though, doesn't Van Ness function as part of the 101 to get people from the 80 to the Golden Gate Bridge? I'm no car-centric person but what will happen when you disperse those cars that are making that journey across, to Octavia and Franklin? Let alone the other way across 19th Avenue, which is already a mess. Hopefully less people will attempt to traverse the city but that will take time to change people's routines, during that time I feel like the traffic impact will be enormous. I can imagine that's why they needed the study.

<comment><USER6> SF doesn't particularly care for people driving through the city to get to North Bay -- IIRC, there have been protests against building new highways (e.g. along Cesar Chavez / Army St) dating back to the 80s. Drivers will probably shift to CA-1, or Bay Bridge + 580, or even the San Mateo Bridge + 580.

Ideally we'd also replace cars running along 101-Van Ness-GGB with shuttle buses for North Bay commuters working at tech companies in SF and the South Bay.

<comment><USER7> They've been protesting against wrecking the city with shitty highways since long before the 80s.

Here was the freeway plan from 1948. [http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~25...](http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258970~5522255)

Thankfully SF residents blocked it, and the city was mostly saved, unlike many other US cities which had their urban centers completely destroyed in ~1940–1980 by freeways and parking lots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Bus-only lanes make a lot of sense in high traffic areas. The time has definitely come for this sort of thing in many California cities. They should put some on the 405 through the Sepulveda corridor in Los Angeles.

</comment><comment><USER9> From 2014, not sure much has changed in a little over a year

<comment><USER10> Construction is apparently expected to begin in early 2016.

[https://www.sfmta.com/news/project-updates/construction- cont...](https://www.sfmta.com/news/project-updates/construction-contract- awarded-and-tree-hearing-notices-posted)

The project's home page:

[https://www.sfmta.com/projects-planning/projects/van-ness- co...](https://www.sfmta.com/projects-planning/projects/van-ness-corridor- transit-improvement-project)

Interestingly, they're - remarkably sensibly - taking advantage of all the activity to replace the firefighting water system, sewers, lighting, and overhead bus electrical systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a stupid idea, IMHO. Most maps label the Van Ness Ave as "Hwy 101". When tourists come from the south, they'll naturally keep on 101.

If you look at the concept figure, there'll be 2 "lanes" on either side. If you reserve 1 lane for parking, you've reduced Van Ness to 1 lane of road in each direction.... a disaster in the making!

Surface transport is risky anyways: what if there's an injury accident (as happens _all_ the time on roads), and ambulances block the transit bus? Whoops, no more "rapid" in BRT!

The solution is either a subway (expensive), or an overhead line (fugly). Not BRT.

<comment><USER3> First, the rendering does not show a lane of parking, so Van Ness is going from 3 lanes to 2.

Second, current bus traffic on Van Ness makes it effectively 2 lane for car traffic. The lane nearest to the sidewalk has a stopped bus every few blocks, and there's lots of inefficiencies with cars getting stopped, then waiting for an opening to get around the bus. Making the lane dedicated will not decrease car throughput significantly,while simultaneously increasing transit throughput for the busses.

Third, a temporary slowdown does not stop BRT from being rapid all the rest of the time.

BRT is an inexpensive way to increase throughput on existing infrastructure. Though I would heavily support subway, BRT will improve transit much sooner.

Finally, BRT can easily coexist with subway, and will likely be used heavily when subways finally do get built. So opposing the near-term improvement does not damage longer term possibilities for improvement.

<comment><USER12> Yea, if you've ever driven on Van Ness, you know that buses already occupy a lane entirely to themselves, and people trying to get around them cause all kinds of traffic headaches. This is actually a logical solution to an existing problem, not a stupid idea.</comment></comment></comment>


About Feminism - <AUTHOR> http://aboutfeminism.me/

<comment><USER2> This is one of the best written summaries about discrimination that I have read.

I will be sending this on to a number of friends both in and out of the industry.

Edit: I am rather embarrassed to say that my comment was the first after over 50 minutes on HN. This a major issue for our industry. I remember when I went to college in the 1980's, the Computer Science programs had a very high female enrollment compared to many of the other math/science/engineering fields. It is very tragic that our industry has regressed in the numbers of women.

Edit 2: Ah so it appears the original article was cross posted. I did search HN for other threads to the above link

<comment><USER3> Is it still not comparatively higher than said other STEM fields? I recall that the areas with the most females were Molecular Biology, Chemistry (Chemical Engineering), followed by Computer Science when I was in school.

The numbers were definitely better than Electrical, my own department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Existing discussion of identical text, on mvc.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7784868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7784868)</comment>


On System Design (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/waldo/files/ps-2006-6.pdf <comment><USER2> This post has long since scrolled off the front page but for posterity here is the best part:

"The fact is that good system design takes time; it is the sort of thing that requires hard solo thinking along with long discussions with other engineers. There are days when no real progress seems to be made, and other days when the only progress is to realize that what you thought was progress over the previous few days or weeks was in fact a wrong turn that won't really work. Such a realization is progress. In fact, such a realization may be the most important kind of progress, as it can save huge problems later in the project. But to a manager it may not seem to be moving forward."

I recently came to this exact realization. So when I saw this post I had to see if it was in there. And it is!

</comment><comment><USER3> "Like patterns or open source, there is considerable theology in the characterizations of agile methods, and I don't wish to get caught up in such theological debates"

Finally I see a sane stance somewhere :) This article is pure Gold on a lot of fronts and seems to have also aged decently well.

<comment><USER4> Like 3 patterns is or not open

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "About the series - The Perspectives series is a collection of essays written by individuals from Sun Microsystems Laboratories. These essays express ideas and opinions held by the authors on subjects of general rather than technical interest."

Would someone know where I could find other essays from this collection?

</comment><comment><USER6> Can anyone point to good resources on systems thinking and design in general not just software ?

<comment><USER7> Christopher Alexander's work introduced an approach to design using patterns from nature. [https://arl.human.cornell.edu/linked%20docs/Alexander_A_Patt...](https://arl.human.cornell.edu/linked%20docs/Alexander_A_Pattern_Language.pdf)

"You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction". - from the Semantic Scholar introduction

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok</comment>


Show HN: Colorify - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/colorify/ <comment><AUTHOR> Happy Easter HN.

A simple extension to bring colors to your readings.

It only needs minimal permission (active tab and storage).

You can customize the colors in extension options and view the current pos-tag of a specific word by using "inspect element".

It uses wink-nlp parser so it's english only and far from perfect.

If the extension gather enough interest, I'll do the natural language parsing with neural networks.

There are still rendering bugs on some sites.

Firefox only for the time being but should also work on chrome once the store approve it.

It is an experiment to see whether reading comprehension and reading fatigue can be improved by preparsing for the brain.</comment>


Steve Jobs and Apple's Influence on Gaming Massively Overstated - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2011/11/04/steve-jobs-and-apples-influence-on-gaming-massively-overstated/

<comment><USER2> I helped create Crash Bandicoot at Naughty Dog back in the late 90s. I've been out of the game industry since 1998, but find the industry changes catalyzed by iOS and the app store fascinating. It must be very unsettling for those working in the industry.

The survey results were indeed silly, but you have to forgive people a bit for being enthralled by the rapidity with which Apple has changed the game (pun intended). It's not just mobile vs console/PC -- Apple (and, to be fair, Zynga, though I personally despise their work) have also ushered in a new era of _casual gaming_ that really appeals to the mass audience. And, let's not forget, to little kids.

With Crash we tried to channel Miyamoto's emphasis on simple game mechanics and fun for all ages. Nobody did more than Miyamoto to make games (industry- wide) fun. (As an aside, though, there are many largely unknown industry figures who have worked very hard in the same way, and have accomplished similar results; Mark Cerny, whom we worked with at Naughty Dog, and who designed or co-designed the gameplay for the Sonic, Crash, Jak & Daxter, and Ratchtet & Clank series certainly deserves a lot of credit as well.)

As a now-industry-outsider, it seems to me that Apple's resurgence has had the following effects on games:

1) casual gaming is again dominant; 2) it's no longer clear we need dedicated consoles in our living rooms; 3) one or two people can make a viable, salable game again

Naughty Dog has seen their budgets increase from around $1M for Crash 1 to many tens of millions of dollars these days. There will still be a big market for AAA titles with huge budgets. But what interests me most is that two coders in Laos (say) can now make a game that lots of people will buy. Sort of like in the Apple II era, when one or two people could create salable games (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Gebelli> for a great example); this is a welcome change for aspiring game developers.

And I confess I'm happy about the return to casual gaming and greater emphasis on pure gameplay.

But if I were Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, I would be very concerned about #2.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing Mark Cerny's influence here...Jak and Daxter really rekindled my love of "fun" games vs. FPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a lot of truth in this article but that didn't surprised me at all.

What did surprise me was the arguments against the author, specially those who said that Steve Jobs was more known that other options in the list. Under that -and many of the other- premises the top spot would definitively belong to Bill Gates, since for a long time the best games ran almost exclusively in PC, or because BASIC -that had the snake game or the one with the gorillas throwing bananas- came with MS-DOS and was the first development environment offered free for anyone who bought a PC, with no $100 annual fee and no big- brother curation.

Also I can argue against the notion that the future of gaming is mobile, I've been in the (mobile) industry for many years and I came to the conclusion that mobile gaming will always be a niche for a casual gamers, but heavy gaming, the one that pushes the technology to its limit, will be for a long time the realm of the consoles and PC's. The future of gaming is virtual reality, EEG controlling and motion sensors, not virtual potatoes spamming people's email.

And this illustrates very much the reality of Mr. Jobs, his products were in many cases very innovative from the consumer electronics point of view, but not necessarily from the technological point-of-view, even the iPod, by far his most breakthrough product, was developed from parts he bought off-the- shelf somewhere.

Saying that mobile is the future of gaming is like saying that the iPad is the future of computing.

</comment><comment><USER5> The child who wrote that article is clearly too young to realize that the Apple II was a HUGE gaming platform back in the day: <http://www.angelfire.com/80s/apple2/>

"In the 1980's (and into the mid 1990's) the Apple II computer series was one of the premier game systems in the computer industry. Despite it's graphical and sound shortcomings (especially with the 8 bit series machines), programmers always found ways to make the best games possible for the II series. In it's heyday, Apple II supporters claimed the Apple II had some 10,000 programs for it and many of those were games."

<comment><USER6> If Apple was such a HUGE gaming platform, why was the company completely ignored when it came to major titles? It's only recently that studios have started investing in Apple ports, and so far the ports are late compared to the premium platforms (consoles or PC).

In conclusion, Apple II's popularity is an interest factoid, but not relevant to the article. It is barely a blip on the radar of gaming history.

<comment><USER7> You realize that the Apple 2 was CLI and predates Windows right?

<comment><USER6> How is that relevant to the discussion? Let's recap: X says Apple II was a huge success in the gaming community, I say that the success was all but forgotten today and it couldn't have had an impact in the poll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> chao- While I entirely agree with the thrust of the article, including that his criticism is all-the-more necessary given that poll was of industry professionals, this really points out the weakness in moment-to-moment opinion polls more than anything. Much like day-to-day polling of presidential primary candidates, an even-handed, reflective consideration doesn't seem to be the dominant force in this type of measurement.

To actually consider the point at hand (influence of iOS on the game industry), it's fair to note that this battle is far from concluded. The advance of video games targeting new demographics, as led by the Wii, smartphone and social network games, and how they will play out versus sales of tried-and-true genres on PCs and consoles, is far from over. One could be forgiven an ambiguous stance on the matter.

Personally speaking, as a recently retired gamer (that is, I plumb don't have the time these days), my hat is in the ring with Gabe Newell. Game distribution following a publishing model is flawed, and while the industry is just barely waking up to this, Valve seems to be in the best position to adapt as time goes by.

</comment><comment><USER8> Did no one here own a Mac prior to the introduction of iOS? It's a plainly undeniable fact that Jobs refused, year after year, to do anything to make the Mac a viable desktop gaming platform despite developers and publishers begging him to do so. (Valve's Source games [HL2,TF2,L4D,etc], which came out nearly six years after the first PC release, is the exception that proves the rule.)

The reason that games are a success on iOS is due to the fact that the graphics support was already there for other purposes. If an extra chip was required in order to enable that level of gaming Jobs would almost certainly have killed it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think mobile games are opening up a new market, not taking over an existing one. The fact that X% of gaming is taking place on i-devices / Facebook doesn't necessarily imply that people don't play AAA devices anymore.

The wave of mobile games allows people who don't play games to start - and the fact that you can play off a mobile device means all they have to do is buy a $1 game off the App Store instead of spending $250 on a PSP/DS. It also allows gamers to take their games on the go without bringing along ANOTHER device. So in this way Apple probably did influence gaming more than any other company.

That said, it was NOT Apple that got the industry to where it was before the iPhone came out. It was NOT Apple that developed video games from their infancy to the art/science it is today. And at this time, Apple still hasn't interfered into the console/AAA market, which is, in a sense, the foundation of the industry. Apple is popularizing casual games and carving out a new market, which is good. Apple is providing a good way for indie developers to distribute their games to a mass audience, which is also good. But at this point I think it's too early to give Apple so much credit, and rankings like these ones are definitely unjustified.

Note: While unjustified, the rankings are understandable, given the craze about mobile/"social" games in the industry.

</comment><comment><USER10> The first thing you have to ask when faced with a survey like this is: who conducted the survey and to whom?

The London Games Conference is a high-level biz-dev and marketing conference. The questions were asked to readers of MCV - a games industry business and marketing magazine who are also sponsors of the show.

Says the editor of MCV:

"LGC is the only event dedicated to examining the ways connected gaming has transformed video games – we will be welcoming 300 industry professionals to head great leaders speak and discuss hot topics including how smartphone games are transforming the world."

[http://bastion.gamespress.com/link.asp?i=2097&r=7899&...](http://bastion.gamespress.com/link.asp?i=2097&r=7899&r2=5750)

</comment><comment><USER11> Not that I think Steve Jobs was the most influential person in gaming, but it would've been nice if the author had mentioned that Jobs worked for Atari, where he and Woz built Breakout. Also, let's not forget the Apple ][, which was wildly popular with gamers -- Apple sold millions of them, before anyone had a IBM PC.

<comment><USER12> Actually, WOZ built Breakout. Steve (as usual) stole his work, and lied to him about the amount of the payout.

<comment><USER13> The missing citation: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_%28video_game%29#Histo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_%28video_game%29#History_and_development) :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > treating him like some sort of god who invented anything with an on switch

actually, he never invented anything with an on/off switch; he claimed so in one of those 60 minute interviews because it reminded him of death

<comment><USER11> That is incorrect, plenty of Apple devices had an on/off switch. The original Macintosh and LaserWriter, to name a few [1][2].

The quote you were referring to:

"ISAACSON: I remember sitting in [Jobs'] backyard in his garden one day and he started talking about God. He said, "Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. I think it's 50-50 maybe. But ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of-- maybe it's 'cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated. Somehow it lives on. The he paused for a second and he said 'yeah, but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone.' He said—and paused again, and he said, "And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices."

[1] Original Mac on/off switch: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/AnOrigina...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/AnOriginalMacintoshBackCaseUNALTEREDMACINTOSH.jpg)

[2] LaserWriter (on/off switch is on the left side): [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/wp- content/gallery/gallery_jo...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/wp- content/gallery/gallery_jobs_inventions/laserwriter_f.jpg)

<comment><USER15> I find it hilarious he managed to put a little Apple tag-line on an existential crisis (and it worked), "marketeer" indeed. Ups for the stat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What about John Carmack? He's not even on the list, and certainly has contributed more to gaming than Jobs.

</comment><comment><USER17> From a developer standpoint, the App Store did eliminate the barriers to entry for mass distribution. In order to distribute for Sony, Nintendo, or XBox, you had to go to large publisher. Just as it is with iTunes, any studio, big or large, is capable of distributing on the App Store. Even if Steam isn't difficult to get published, the App Store certainly has the perception of being easier.

</comment><comment><USER18> What can you say, the man knew how to market himself, period.

</comment><comment><USER19> If Steve Jobs is that much serious about gaming then he would have taken the acquisition offer from Bungie first time, not after hearing that Microsoft also wants to buy Bungie. Source [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/10/jobs-turned- down-...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/10/jobs-turned-down-bungie- at-first-how-microsoft-burned-apple.ars) .If they bought Bungie then there was a chance that Mac would have been a gaming platform not PC or XBox.

iOS devices emerging as a popular casual gaming platform is a side effect imho. The credit goes to casual gamers who plays games for time passing. By that same logic one can easily say that Mark Zuckerberg is the pioneer in gaming, in a sense that he brought gaming to 800+ million user.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have played computer games since I was about 6 years old, starting with an ancient text-based nethack clone called LARN.

I played (many) dozens of games on the C64 that was my next computer. The first game I bought was Civilization, for the PC. I have bought (a large proportion, at least) and played (many) dozens of games for the PC, everything from UFO: Enemy Unknown, to Populous 2, Black&White, Warcraft (1, 2, 3, WoW), Diablo (1, 2, 2X), Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1/2/3, Dune 2 (and Dune 2k), C&C, Red Alert, Dawn of War, Total War, Total Annihilation, King's Quest, Space Quest, Flashback, Prince of Persia, Duke Nukem, Quake 1/2/3, Loom, the TSR/SSI rpg's (played through the whole Krynn series and the Savage Frontier series), Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate, The Elder Scrolls Arena/Daggerfall, etc. I played them online and offline. I played MUDs till my social life withered to a pale, ghoulish shred of nothingness. I have never been much into consoles, but some of my friends have been, so I've played games (to completion) on the PS2, PS3, the original Xbox, the Xbox 360, and the Wii. I bought games on the XBox Live Arcade, and on PSN, and at the time (before the iPhone) I thought this was an awesome way to deliver games at the right price point, and it was the future of gaming.

I think I qualify as one of those "real gamers" - at least I did in the past.

Despite this long and varied history of playing games on many platforms, today, I own about 3 games on my mac (HL and clones, Trine, and Braid). I own about 40 on my iPhone and iPad.

Arguing who has the most influence is retarded. The unarguable fact is that the iOS platform is indeed having a huge effect on the games that I, a "gamer", play.

I look forward to the final annihilation of the console and PC gaming worlds when the Apple TV comes out.

<comment><USER6> I find your conclusion disturbing, to say the least. In what parallel universe is it a good thing to have one corporation control an entire market?

ESPECIALLY if the name of that corporation is Apple - doing its best to destroy customer and developer freedom while baiting everyone with aqua-glazed convenience.

<comment><USER20> It's all a tradeoff. I'm ok with giving up the freedom to install any random software off the web on my phone, if in exchange I get access to hundreds of thousands of apps that just work, are cheap, and do pretty much everything under the sun without screwing up my phone.

Not having to worry about being a sysadmin for my phone gives me more freedom to do the things I actually want to do. As the Linux world and its permanent state of "it'll be ok next year" have demonstrated, you can't have it all. Freedom to mess with the innards of your system, or freedom to forget you're using a "system" and just do stuff with it. Pick one.

<comment><USER21> I find your comment a little naive, with respect to the 'cheap' part.

I doubt the apps will be as cheap in a situation where there's a single company monopoly.

At the moment, it is in Apple's interest to keep apps cheap, to drive sales of hardware, and adoption of their platform.

If they ever got a stranglehold on the market, however, it would be logical to increase the price of the Apps, up to the price people were willing to pay.

This is exactly what happened with Nintendo in the late 80s and early 90s. Nintendo took a cut of the sale of every cartridge - think it was around 30%

Video games became very expensive.

iOS is not Windows. It is much closer to the controlled channel that NES was.

Apple very much have the ability to narrow access to the walled garden, and increase prices, if they achieve such a monopoly that it becomes advantageous to do so.

<comment><USER20> Apple already take 30% of the apps' revenues, and they're not expensive.

Are they going to increase their cut? Doubt it. Why would they? Apps are not what makes them money: devices are - and they make a lot more money from having a healthy app ecosystem than they do from squeezing every penny out of developers.

Of course, Apple's ways are mysterious and unpredictable. But they have so far shown no interest in increasing their cut of app revenues. Much like iTunes, they're happy to leverage this huge library of "media" to boost sales of devices.

<comment><USER21> >Are they going to increase their cut? Doubt it. Why would they?

They could increase their cut. But they could also just increase the price per app, by reducing competition (e.g. only allowing 1 app of each sort). They would be incentivised to do this, to make more profit, obviously.

Seeing as games are being discussed, Nintendo used to do this by increasing the manufacturing cost they charged to make the cartridges (afair, Nintendo had a stranglehold on the cart manufacture), and hence you got situations like where Street Fighter 2 on the SNES was crazily priced - don't remember exactly, but something like £60 in the UK.

>Much like iTunes, they're happy to leverage this huge library of "media" to boost sales of devices.

If they had a device monopoly, they would no longer need the apps to be cheap to boost device sales, which is my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The author seems to miss the point. The iPhone has had a massive impact on gaming, like it or not. The iPad will too. This is why the new Nintendo and Sony devices may be DOA.

I do think that giving Steve Jobs credit as a person is wrong, though. He didn't seem to care much for games. And according to the book, he was against the App Store originally.

<comment><USER23> Exactly. The hardcore PC/console gaming crowd is in for an unwelcome wake up call: the future of gaming is mobile. In fact, it isn't even limited to the future, it's already happening.

I think it's fair to say that devices like the iPhone and iPad will be seen as the originators of this revolution. So maybe that group of avid enthusiasts is a little more insightful than the author is willing to give them credit for.

<comment><USER24> I agree: mobile gaming is the wave of the future. But if you want to know who has affected gaming most since its inception, the answer's pretty much got to be Shigeru Miyamoto.

The problem with this poll is that it works just like "greatest movies of all time" polls. People have the attention span of mayflies.

<comment><USER22> Agree completely with you. And to my shame, I didn't read the poll question well enough. I had thought it was about what had the greatest impact in the last 15 years or so.

But given that the responses were:

      iPhone: 17%
      Wii: 7%
      Xbox Live: 3%
      PlayStation One: 3%
      Steam: 2%

All of those are relatively modern. I would easily put the original Nintendo and/or Gameboy before most of those. The poll question is terrible and the respondents have too short a perspective.

Then again, if you're an avid fan and/or professional, you ought to be polled on things looking forward. Much respect to the original game developers, but anyone who is in the industry today who is going to focus on the great accomplishments in the 8-bit era are going to find themselves in the same trouble as Nintendo's current revenue trend.

<comment><USER25> Nintendo DS units shipped: 149 million

Nintendo Wii units shipped: 89 million

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best- selling_game_conso...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best- selling_game_consoles))

As of March this year, Apple sold 100 million iPhones.

So let's put things in perspective, Nintendo is an absolutely amazing company in the gaming space and has outsold all their competitors (with the exception of Sony PS2) and has sold far more than Apple across their product lines. I am not saying mobile gaming isn't huge (And perhaps handhelds like GameBoy/DS/PSP should be given their credit here), but to give Apple and Steve Jobs credit for shaping the gaming industry more than the real titans of gaming who have actively shaped it for 20 years? Bullshit.

<comment><USER11> As of October this year, Apple sold 250 million iOS devices (That's iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads.)

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/04/250-million-ios-devices- sol...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/04/250-million-ios-devices-sold/)

<comment><USER19> How many of them bought iOS devices for gaming purpose only?

<comment><USER26> Probably close to zero. But the number who play games on the device is probably close to 250 million. I'm not sure what the point is.

<comment><USER27> You can't properly compare sales numbers between two products whose major purpose is quite different. Nintendo's products are for gaming only, they serve very little purpose otherwise. Every one of those was sold as a gaming unit. Most people bought their iPhones for purposes other than gaming. Sure, a large number, if not all, of iPhones users play games on their device but that's not a fair comparison since that wasn't always the reason for the sale. The fact that Nintendo has sold so many devices with one purpose as compared to the iPhone which has far more uses is the impressive part to me.

It's close to the same logic that a pirated game equates to a lost sale, which it does not.

<comment><USER26> I don't think the product's purpose is as relevant as how the product is actually used. If we want to take it to another extreme, I have an iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch as well as a Wii, Playstation and Xbox. Guess which three are used to play games every day and which have not been used for anything in over a year.

I don't really understand the piracy analogy.

<comment><USER27> What I meant by the piracy analogy is that you are assuming.

I'm not exactly comparing their purposes but the reasons people buy them. To do a proper comparison you would have to ask every single iOS device owner if they bought the thing for games, as the main reason for the purchase, to compare them with a device that is only good for gaming. You cannot assume to compare purchase numbers between two devices if people buy them for different reasons even if some features of the two products overlap.

It's the same comparison that people keep doing with PCs and consoles. Everybody buys a console for gaming (which is slowly changing, granted) while not everyone who buys a PC does so for gaming.

<comment><USER26> Mostly disagree. For comparison purposes how the device is actually used is much more indicative than what the buyer thought the primary purpose would be at purchase time.

In fact, I think that apple base turned 100-250 million folks into casual gamers is more influential than yet another console.

<comment><USER27> But it seems to me you are assuming again. You are assuming how they are using the device. With Nintendo's products you are not assuming, you know what they are using it for.

I don't think I'm getting my point across very well. I'm not disputing that a large number of people use their iOS devices for gaming, which is good.

I'm just saying that you cannot necessarily compare two devices on a 1-to-1 basis using sales numbers if the two devices are not comparable 1-to-1 in their usage. The iOS devices are versatile in nature and are suitable for multiple tasks. It's not proper to compare every single sale of an iOS device against every single sale of Nintendo's products. You can make estimates and guesses but I don't feel a 1-to-1 comparison can be made nor be fair.

To make a comparison like this I'd rather know the numbers of game titles sold per device. That comparison works for me because the purpose of buying the game is to play it, nothing else.

<comment><USER26> I specifically did not make a 1-to-1 relation on sales, instead stating "the number who play games on the device". I subsequently put up a range so large (100-250 million) that it'd be hard to call it an assumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >> Then to give Jobs the top honors over Gabe Newell (of Valve) and Shigeru Miyamoto (of Nintendo) is blasphemy, plain and simple.

The author is taking this all way too seriously. Who cares what a fan poll at a gaming conference says? I see this type of tunnelvision with video games/television/movie industry types all the time. Why do they think that their industry is so important? Oh my god, who gives a shit.

</comment><comment><USER29> Steve Jobs re-invented shareware through the app store. People are now willing to buy titles from independent game developers. But having said that, I still agree with the author that it didn't get that much impact as much as Miyamoto did to the gaming industry.

Maybe that's what you'll get when you ask people to vote for their opinions. The popular candidate and not exactly the right one will win.

</comment><comment><USER30> Modern Warfare 3 will probably make a billion dollars before the end of the year.

</comment><comment><USER31> Every time I read something by this writer on Forbes, I get the impression that it's an angry rant meant to up his hit count so he gets paid more. (He did the same thing with Google Plus a few months back, when he clearly made some comments that showed he didn't understand how the service worked.) If so, mission accomplished.

Now how about you give us some real insight, Paul Tassi, instead of another rant about something that makes you angry?

It's not that I don't think your argument has some merit, Paul. You're right. Steve Jobs probably gets too much credit for a medium he only had a passing interest in. But you had an opportunity to correct the record, rather than simply ranting about it. A little context goes a long way. As a blogger, it's easy to tell people what you don't like. It's much harder to bring your argument full-circle. If you can succeed at that, it makes your writing essential, rather than a pit stop on the reader's long trip through his Google News feed.

<comment><USER32> I went to the article looking for some statistic or a factual observation. I had thought to myself "oh it's Forbes, it must be something reputable."

I was, um, mistaken.

Take the below snippet, seemingly the only piece of information the article is pinned against.

"The 1,000 people surveyed are supposed to be avid fans and industry professionals, but they should all have their consoles and computers taken away after giving answers like these."

So it seems his entire article is based on the pretence that the combined thought of these 1,000 people is incorrect.. because he says so.

I don't think cantankerously written, for-hits-only articles belong on "reputable" sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I mostly agree with the points made in this article (I grew up on 8 and 16 bit Nintendo), but still I wonder if the majority of the folks at that conference are actually iOS game devs? Would not be surprised at all, the low barrier for entry and high potential for profitability compared to PC and console game dev seems much greater on iOS nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've been saying this for a year or two and I'll say it again: Apple is a huge player in the gaming market _already_.

The PSP Go and 3DS are niche products that absolutely won't reach the sales of their predecessors. This I guarantee you and you can blame the iPod Touch and the iPhone for that.

I see a future where the Apple TV becomes a low end console, much like the niche Nintendo currently fills, probably at the expense of Nintendo.

I see Nintendo becoming strictly a software house, much like Sega. Nintendo franchises like Zelda and Mario Bros are still valuable. Their hardware business is (IMHO doomed. Because of Apple.

I'm not a console gamer. I never was. PC games were always my thing and sadly PC gaming seems to be dying. Sure it's still big for FPS titles, MMORPGs and the like but my particular favourites (RPGs and turn-based strategy games) are almost nonexistent. Even my guilty pleasure of the GTA franchise seems doomed (GTA4 took 6+ months to come to PC, RDR din't come at all, I wouldn't be surprised if GTA5 doesn't either).

The console market Sony and MS fill is harder to predict. I do kinda think it's seen its peak. Consoles are coming out less often. Mobile gaming and Steam are decreasing the prices people expect to pay for games. The hardware race has resulted in top-tier titles having massive art budgets that I don't think are sustainable in this mobile gaming world.

Plus what you can already do with the iPad 2 (in terms of graphics) is pretty incredible. I hazard to think how good the iPad 3 will be.

By any objective measure Steve Jobs has already had a massive influence on the gaming industry.

<comment><USER35> >Their hardware business is (IMHO doomed. Because of Apple.

Their hardware business is doomed because of _convergence._ Standard, custom- built gaming machines will only last so long as having a single consistent target environment requires a custom-built gaming machine.

But personally, I don't really see what that has to do with gaming. Gaming is an art, and I still find games written for the Nintendo just as compelling as they were 20 years ago. All iOS really offers is a better distribution mechanism. And it's still somewhat limited in that you still need to have an expensive piece of locked-down hardware. It's a footnote compared to the first First Person Shooter, top-down RPG, 3D action game, Tower defense game.

It seems silly to talk about hardware when the really interesting stuff is new paradigms in games.

<comment><USER36> >Gaming is an art, and I still find games written for the Nintendo just as compelling as they were 20 years ago.

I agree. Nintendo, much like Apple, controlled the hardware and software which allowed them to create a compelling experience.

> All iOS really offers is a better distribution mechanism. And it's still > somewhat limited in that you still need to have an expensive piece of > locked-down hardware.

i think that mobile is the future of all computing and there will be a day when most are choosing tablets instead of computers. At that point, it will be considerably cheaper to just own a tablet than owning a computer, a console and possibly even a smartphone for some.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> My girlfriend is 27. She has never touched a console and doesn't own a personal computer. She absolutely loves Angry Birds and Tiny Wings on the iphone.

Whether or not Jobs should take credit for that is irrelevant. What's important is that a revolution is happening in video gaming and all smartphones and tabs, regardless of maker, are playing an absolutely HUGE part in it.

<comment><USER38> I was unaware that your girlfriend outweighed the preexisting gaming community.

It's a casual gaming revolution - see also facebook - not specifically an iOS gaming revolution.

<comment><USER37> That was anecdotal evidence of what I thought was the pretty clear and relevant point that casual gaming, from Bejeweled to Farmville to Angry Birds, is bringing video games to a host of people who previously refused to touch a controller.

These people may easily outnumber what you refer to as the "gaming community" and, for them, Jobs was the face of the device they play on most of the time. In short, the article sounds as though it was written by someone living under a rock and/or refusing to acknowledge the revolution afoot.

Given how everyone seemed to be focused on comparing video game industry legends to one another, I thought it was a point worth making. Judging by the downvotes, though, guess not. Oh well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Here's my rewrite of the headline:

Forbes Columnists' Influence Massively Self-Inflated

Mine even has the side benefit of being true.

</comment><comment><USER40> Wow, tons of great data this bozo used to support his argument.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is just the Recency Effect. Jobs has been in the media a lot because of his death, so people think of him more, much more than those of even a few years past.

If Bill Gates had died instead, the poll would have shown the same kind of effect, as he would have been in people's minds as they took the poll.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_position_effect>

</comment><comment><USER15> Mostly I agree with the article. But I'm noticing a new trend now with Steve Jobs. For the first weeks after his death, he was excessively glorified (deserved or undeserved is not for me to comment here) by the media and by the grand majority of commentators. Now that some time is past, the new trend seems to be...not _renegging_ on the earlier attitude so much as bringing to light why his innovations _aren't_ quite so universal, or that they _are_ "overstated" (again, while I agree with this article, I'd hardly call a lot of his contributions overstated). Perhaps I'm just being more selective in the posts I read, but has anyone else noticed this?</comment>


Ask HN: Why Mozilla was rejected in GSoC this year? - <AUTHOR>

Does it have to do something with Chrome-Firefox and Android-Firefox OS rivalry? <comment><USER2> I really hope this is not going to turn into a flame / paranoia fest. So here's my cool-headed, although speculative, answer:

* GSoC has had a tendency to rotate open source projects. Lots of new projects seem to have been added, and some others will have to go. * In general this year there seem to be a lot of science (bioinformatics, geospatial, etc) projects, more than before, and that may be due to a changing focus. * The Mozilla foundation is not a small organisation and could afford for internships themselves, in fact I believe they did just that in the last few years.

<comment><USER3> I agree with this. Someone on Reddit was wondering why Blender had not been chosen either for GSoC (as explained by Ton Roosendaal on Twitter[1]), and I don't think Blender has any rivalry with Google ;)

[1] [https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/572473379648888832](https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/572473379648888832)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would guess that this has to do with Mozilla taking Yahoo/Yandex/Baidu as the primary search engines in Firefox in relative countries[1]... But I'm no insider so I can't tell you anything for certain.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice- an...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and- innovation-on-the-web/)

<comment><USER5> I don't think this is the case. Google has rejected a number of higher profile open source projects this year, in addition to Mozilla.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure if this is because of some sort of rivalry, but from what I see many of the organisations that have been regularly selected have been rejected, although some of the golden ones like KDE, Fedora made it.

I don't think it would be for rivalry, it maybe just that they wanted focus more on getting more contributors to the new organisations that really need exposure and contributors. Also if it was rivalry would easily do it elsewhere and probably not at GSoC.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not just Mozilla, Melange isn't there this time too.

btw, [http://planet.mozilla.org](http://planet.mozilla.org) give a read

</comment><comment><USER8> It's way more than just Mozilla: [https://www.ostraining.com/blog/general/gsoc/](https://www.ostraining.com/blog/general/gsoc/)

"over 130 projects were dropped and over 80 new projects added"

</comment><comment><USER9> No idea, but it does seem the programme has been scaled back. Last year there were 190 organisations accepted, and this year only 137, the fewest since 2007.

</comment><comment><USER10> Of course it is not because of any rivalry as it used to accept Twitter which is their Google plus rival.

<comment><USER10> I think even twitter in not in the list this time.</comment></comment>


Audio- and Gaze-Driven Facial Animation of Codec Avatars - <AUTHOR> https://research.fb.com/videos/audio-and-gaze-driven-facial-animation-of-codec-avatars/ <comment><AUTHOR> PDF: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05023.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05023.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: Free Instant Linux Ubuntu VPS on Click of a Button - <AUTHOR> So, I have developed this web application (http://instantserver.tk) that provisions a linux virtual private server for developers. Please use  this app for any wild testing and let me know how I can improve this for you! <comment><AUTHOR> Credit: I got this idea from the original - [http://instantserver.io/](http://instantserver.io/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! I ran into some problems running instantserver but would like to get it back online sometime. Your version looks great, best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks FriedPickles!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am hitting some limit issues with VPS service provider. Until it is fixed, there might be additional wait time. Thanks for your understanding.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope for your sake that no one writes a script that clicks that button hundreds of times an hour..

<comment><AUTHOR> And the app shows the first created vps details for next 100 minutes ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> plaese srveur lunix vps ubuntu 14.04

</comment><comment><USER4> vps lunix ubuntu 14.04 bt64</comment>


Ask HN: Small coding projects - <AUTHOR> I'm a data scientist who wants to move to being more of a full stack developer. Is there an easy way to see projects that need some extra coding help and are relatively easy to get into? The goal is to learn Github / a software platform in a manageable way that isn't overwhelming and can help out. <comment><USER2> I find it's much easier to contribute to a new codebase than it is to a large, mature one. When a project is in alpha stages, it's usually mostly coded by one person, so you can clone it and easily understand the code just from a quick read. On the other hand, mature projects have many contributors and have evolved to an increased complexity due to many disparate abstraction layers, testing and build processes that need to account for the larger number of contributors.

I would recommend finding open source projects on Show HN and contributing to them early. This way you'll make a big impact without too much cognitive overhead, and you might even eventually become a core contributor.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can find a lot of open source projects that need help and have beginner level issues here: [https://github.com/yourfirstpr/yourfirstpr.github.io/issues](https://github.com/yourfirstpr/yourfirstpr.github.io/issues)

I would also recommend FreeCodeCamp([https://www.freecodecamp.org/](https://www.freecodecamp.org/)) which partners with charities that need developer help. FCC also has great tutorials that you may find helpful.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm also someone who is coming from an outside field who like to program. I've only had success contributing to codebases that I actually want to use for my own projects. Especially libraries that aren't quite finished for all features, but are still much further along than anything I could build on my own. Then when I run into one of those cases where the library isn't quite done/has bugs for my usecase, I try to contribute.

So my advice is to start by making your own project and look for libraries that will help you get there. Then when you find bugs in that library, you'll have a strong and direct motivation to fix the problem for your own sake. Then submit a pull request so others can benefit too.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/) is over, but they link to a search result of github issues that need help (usually beginner friendly). You can filter down by programming language

[https://github.com/search?q=label:hacktoberfest+state:open+t...](https://github.com/search?q=label:hacktoberfest+state:open+type:issue)

</comment><comment><USER6> Here is one idea based on your background: Stock trading robots, it is going to be fun to test trading ideas and who knows you might find an edge!

You only need a bit of stock market data to start...

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://datafordemocracy.org/](http://datafordemocracy.org/) has a bunch of datascience projects, but also they need general software engineering help.</comment>


Covid-19 Remote Work and Study Resources (Open Source) - <AUTHOR> https://hankidesign.github.io/COVID-19-Remote-Work-and-Study-Resources/ <comment><AUTHOR> Due to the COVID-19 situation many teachers, students and workers are facing a sudden need to work completely from home. This might prove to be a huge challenge for teachers who're not very technically adept and small businesses who don't have the budget to invest in collaboration tools or don't know enough about what's available and/or needed.

Many companies building these collaboration tools, distance learning services etc. are stepping up and offering their premium services for free to those affected by the situation. I wanted to do my part in helping aggregate this information into one repository.

If you know of more already free or exceptionally free services that would suit the list or great articles that would help people in the transition to fully remote work/studies/teaching, feel free to contribute!

I chose to publish this in the public domain with the CC0 1.0 Universal license so you can do pretty much anything you wish with the list that's already there!

Thank you for reading and I hope that you're safe, wherever you are.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you mitigate stress as a single-person business? - <AUTHOR> I went to the hospital with chest pain on Monday night. ECG and blood work checked out fine. BP was sky high, and still is higher than normal.
The doctor asked me about acid reflux, sleep deprivation, anxiety/stress.
My answers were: no, tons in the last couple weeks, no more than the next guy(?).
Was talking to a CPA friend the following day, and relaying the conversation with the doctor to my friend.
He said that he deals with a lot of self-employed folks, and he thinks we're more stressed in general. We're making all the decisions, where an employee has very few, if any, decisions to make.
It got me to thinking... okay, maybe there's a LOT more to this than I think. I don't want to go back to working for someone else, if I can help it. I'd like to grow my business, and take on contractors and/or employees, and get to a point where I can delegate.
How can I mitigate the stress? (which at this point, doesn't seem like much, but it obviously is)
How do you mitigate it?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> In my experience it's not the amount of decisions as much as amount of work, I've mitigated that by automating as much of my business as possible from invoicing to funneling customer communication from email and phone calls to slack. try and identify what parts of your business you are spending the most time on and figure out if there's a better way</comment>


A Man Is Not A Virgin - <AUTHOR> http://www.onelowerlight.com/writing/?p=7669

<comment><USER2> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.one...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.onelowerlight.com/writing/?p=7669)

</comment><comment><USER3> The author keeps saying "logical" before saying something that is completely illogical. The author also uses the word trope a lot...

</comment><comment><USER4> Makes me wonder if this guy has ever had a real, long term relationship.

To each his own, sex just seems like a fun activity you do with someone that you really like and have feelings for.

<comment><USER5> I think _To each his own_ is the point of the article. The problem isn't "having sex", the problem is not respecting others' personal decisions about it.

<comment><USER6> I think the point of the article is the way that popular media tries to define _man_ hood is detrimental to people of both genders in all stages of life.

I agree with that basic statement. However, I disagree with some of the conclusions the author draws in the second half of the article. Some are wrong (not all female teachers who have sex with students get a slap on the wrist: <http://www.wnd.com/2011/06/39783/>) or illogically formed (I don't see how his last two points follow logically).

Also, remember, before _40 Year Old Virgin_ came _Never Been Kissed_. The things that the author says don't _only_ apply to men.

<comment><USER5> That's probably more accurate.

And sure, some of the conclusions are true without actually following from the arguments. At least he has examples to illustrate his points.

These ideas might not have 100% coverage in our culture, but the rate is definitely high enough that, even if you never go out of your way to look for them, you will run into them often.

eta: about your examples: I think it's been getting _worse_ lately.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google founders had made pact to work together for 20 years - <AUTHOR> http://infotech.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2745770.cms <comment><USER2> If the Google founders have agreed to work together for the next 20 years ( [http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/18/news/companies/google.fortun...](http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/18/news/companies/google.fortune/index.htm) ) and 1/3 of the first 500 Google employees have left ( [http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with- millions/2100-...](http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with- millions/2100-1030_3-6226900.html) ) and 2200 Google employees vest and become millionaire this year and the share price has gone from US$700 to US$550 and falling then the founders could be last to switch off the lights.</comment>


Brain researchers warn that lack of sleep is a public health crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/go-to-bed-brain-researchers-warn-that-lack-of-sleep-is-a-public-health-crisis/2019/01/24/bbc61562-0a1b-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html <comment><USER2> Sleep is fascinating to study. So much to discover.

Awesome book: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

</comment><comment><USER3> True one. A good proper sleep relaxes your body and as well as your mind and also many other benefits too.</comment>


How to Meet Your Next Cofounder - <AUTHOR> http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/03/how-to-meet-your-next-cofounder.html

<comment><USER2> "The second biggest danger with going solo is the loss of motivation."

I found this to be true, a few weeks a go I mentioned my idea to an old friend of mine and he was sold.

I have found a cofonder and now things are back on track. I was lucky, the guy I'm now working with is my best friend from grad school. So I already knew I wouldn't have a problem with him.

I do think that having somebody else working with you makes a huge impact. Not only on the product itself but also on your mentality.

<comment><USER3> _"The second biggest danger with going solo is the loss of motivation."_

I agree with this... however, there are ways to get motivation other than adding a co-founder.

For example, I find that living in my parents' basement and having them ask me every few weeks when I'm going to start making money is very good motivation. :-)

<comment><USER4> ...better still, they should give you a deadline upon which they will throw you out (in a nice way, of course) or charge rent :-)

For most people (atleast that I have observed), becoming independent really focused them and helped raise thier game and productivity^.

Nothing is as motivating as neccessity?

^n.b. not applicable to Putnam winners ;-)

<comment><USER5> Being a Putnam winner doesn't automatically mean you're productive, just that you're damn smart ;-)

<comment><USER3> I think you're more right here than you realize.

The Putnam competition, in spite of being six hours long, is severely time limited: Each year, there are probably hundreds of people who could solve all 12 questions if only they had enough time, but only six people who manage to answer more than 8 or 9 questions within the time limit.

If you're going to solve Putnam questions in an average of 30 minutes or less (including carefully writing out the solutions) the only way to do it is by having flashes of insight. Working hard doesn't help, because there isn't enough time to work hard. Putnam winners are people who successfully apply Feynman's algorithm for problem solving: 1. Write down the problem. 2. Think hard. 3. Write down the answer. (Feynman, incidentally, was one of the first Putnam fellows.)

For a competition which is theoretically about mathematics, a shockingly large number of Putnam Fellows end up moving to a different field. I think this is the reason why: Mathematics is a very old field, where it's very hard to do anything without working hard. Putnam fellows by their nature tend to seek the instant gratification of finding simple and beautiful solutions to problems -- and so we're drawn away from mathematics and into more immature fields like computing.

Yes, Putnam fellows are smart -- but we're no more disposed towards hard work than anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great advice. I go to as many local startup meetings as I can. Besides being a great place to meet people, they're almost universally a lot of fun.

<comment><USER7> Any good ones in the NYC area?

<comment><USER8> <http://www.garysguide.org/events>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What if you're not looking for a technical co-founder? If I could find someone who (a) had a good idea of the Real Estate Technology landscape and (b) has relationships with local Brokers, I would drop everything and start my "next big thing" tomorrow.

<comment><USER10> "if only", "maybe i could", "well i would but"...

<comment><USER9> I'm being honest. While I'm hoping to meet anyone that resembles a co-founder for that idea, I'm already working to build a business in a different industry. I'm not waiting for "just the right time", I just have some ideas in my mental queue that necessitate competent industry partners, and some that don't.

<comment><USER11> Goto the real estate parties and meets and what not?

<comment><USER9> They can't afford parties anymore :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found my cofounder when he tried to hire me. :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> I was looking for someone interested / with background in both "social entrepreneurship" (/nonprofits) and "consumer internet startups", which isn't exactly a huge intersection... I ended up finding a match through younoodle.com (it's a "social network for startup types", as far as I can tell). Still looking though...

It'd be great if there were a better way to find people with X set of skills and Y set of passions.

</comment><comment><USER14> I met my cofounder at a Startup Weekend event here in Atlanta.

</comment><comment><USER11> Yes, a way to find a co-founder that doesn't involve university.

</comment><comment><USER15> >IS< stealth-mode really bullshit?

no one has convinced me yet :(

<comment><AUTHOR> My experience, while obviously not universally true, is that "release early, release often" is critical to web applications.

One big mistake we made at Powerset was to keep everything secret and fuel the hype machine. I think that in the end this was harmful to the company image. It would have been better to get the tool out in front of people, show them what we could do, and let them see the progress. That way you can get people behind you, cheering you on, instead of having them get bored with all the unproven claims you keep making.

Ideas are cheap. Implementations are what make or break a business.

<comment><USER15> so stealth mode until you have a product? or don't stealthmode at all, just come out and say "we're building THIS, get ready for the storm" ?

heh, i'm just afraid of saying we're going to build something, then having to say "woops, we changed our minds, building this other thing makes more sense to us, sorry about that thing before..."

<comment><USER4> I have exactly the same thoughts but also think stealth-mode _is_ bullshit.

Having just started on my first tech startup about a month ago, I am trying to go for the "be open and honest about everything" meets "release early, release often" approach on the basis that if the idea is crap, I would rather hear about it earlier and fail quickly (so I can change direction or reset and move on with the next idea).

I am also going with a hardware-based product and am still building the site (what you will see was put together yesterday afternoon as a quick draft as we work through the "presenting the idea" stage of things and refine and streamline the concept), which is very likely to change over the next month which is also a reason I haven't done a "Ask HN: Is my startup crap?" post.

"we're building this <http://www.httbox.com>, get ready for the storm^"

^hopefully.

<comment><USER16> I've been in this industry for many years.. there are a bunch of people throwing software onto a hushpc. They come and go every year.

The consumer marketplace for infrastructure hardware is fickle indeed.. the customers who could actually hook everything up with your box often fall into the 'experimenter' market.. they are putting their own boxes together.

The 'enthusiast' market for these devices is pretty good, but often it's like the 'audiophile' market in the 80's. No matter what you sell, it's never good enough. So even though they are willing to pay a premium, it only takes a couple of them with a ground hum problem to eat up all of your profits in technical support.

The 'rich guy' market is tough to access. They are happy with the DVR from their cable company.

But whatever market you get into you need fat margins on the hardware to have a chance of making it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. Its still early days yet (<1mth). I am having a go at building one device that can access digital, terrestrial, satellite, and iPTV from one device, with a simple interface and full recording fetures.

I expect to fail (being such a crowded market with big players with deep pockets) ;) but am interested to see how far I can go. It also has a few other features akin to what picwing is doing but for video. Especially nice is the "virtual living room" function that allows no-fuss video conferencing while sharing a video/home-movie.

The forums/feedback sections will be up on the weekend, so I'd really welcome any thoughts insights you may have.

Thanks :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sweden's 'Hannibal Lecter' cleared of all charges - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/sweden-europe-news

<comment><USER2> The article is misleading. He was not drugged by the police, and there was no force involved if my memory serves me correctly.

Thomas Quick as his name was at the time, was a man convicted for child molesting and armed robbery. The police then wanted to question him about other crimes.

He did confess to some crimes, and the investigators then started to press his doctors to give him more and more benzodiazepine (Valium and/or Xanax i think) when he asked for it. Presumably because they wanted to keep him happy, and the confessions to keep coming.

This so becomes a bad circle where he was "rewarded" wit more benzodiazepine for each confessions. Benzodiazepine are highly addictive, and some has claimed this got so bad that even other patients observing this practise wanted to confess crimes so they could get thus drugs to.

<comment><USER2> Bdw, I am not at all saying that dire mistakes were not made. However in my view it is more a case of incompetence, then there is a case of corruption, malice or deliberate misuse of force by the police.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sweden isn't alone in this; even Japan has issues with forced/false confessions.

I look forward to a day when confessions, and all eyewitness testimony for that matter, are inadmissible without corroborating, strong, forensic evidence in the courts of any modern democracy. They're all ripe for abuse.

We never admit eyewitness testimony (of which confessions are a variant) in science, why is it allowed in justice systems? If something happened, there should be evidence to that fact. The end!

<comment><USER4> If confessions were rendered inadmissible, what of Guilty pleas? They're a foundation of the western justice system

<comment><USER5> Without any strong collaborating evidence, they _probably should_ be inadmissible. Plenty of people confess to crimes they had nothing to do with; there are a lot of crazies out there.

 _" In 1666, Robert Hubert confessed to starting the Great Fire of London by throwing a fire bomb through a bakery window. It was proven during his trial that he had not been in the country until two days after the start of the fire, he was never at any point near the bakery in question, the bakery did not actually have windows, and he was crippled and unable to throw a bomb. Nevertheless, as a foreigner, a Frenchman, and a Catholic, Hubert was a perfect scapegoat. Ever maintaining his guilt, Hubert was brought to trial, found guilty, and duly executed by hanging."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_confession#Voluntary_fals...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_confession#Voluntary_false_confessions)

<comment><USER6> There's a fine line there to be sure. As a society we'd like to find the true culprit in every crime. Yet we'd also like to allow those caught and truly to be able to confess and save on the resources that requiring a full forensic case as well.

<comment><USER7> If you are happy to rely on a guilty plea, then the whole thing is ripe for abuse by those with money to just pay/threaten someone to do time for them knowing that the chance of investigation is then minimal. Which happens.

<comment><USER6> It's a balance between preventing that and not wasting resources preparing a full forensic etc. case for EVERY plea which could be used on other more questionable/difficult cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Issues like this are one of the reasons that (some) people get really worked up about giving the government more power. If there were literally no abuses like this, ever, many wouldn't care so much. But given that things like this do happen people are right to be skittish.

You have to wonder how many abuses go unreported and unresolved. It's scary to think about.

</comment><comment><USER9> There is a long article from GQ which gives a clearer picture of what happened:

[http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201308/thomas- qui...](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201308/thomas-quick-serial- killer-august-2013?printable=true)

</comment><comment><USER10> Good for them admitting their mistake like that. Certainly better than a certain case in my state.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Miranda should attach immediately upon any interaction with the police. You shouldn't be able to confess until you've had the benefit of legal counsel, regardless of whether you assert the right.

I recognize that sounds extreme, but I have seen so many force/falsified confessions during police investigations that I believe it has become the norm rather than the exception in many jurisdictions.

<comment><USER12> Swede here.

The problem in this case is not that Bergwall didn't have legal counsel. He had, and a "star" one at that. (Actually, the same lawyer that represents the women that Assange had sex with).

The problem is that his lawyer represented his intent rather than his innocence. When Bergwall stated that he did this or that to kill these people, and the lawyer represented this statement in court, there was no one in legal system with the intent to shoot down the claim that Bergwall was the murderer. It was not the prosecution's job; Bergwall himself argued that he was guilty; and his lawyer providing extenuating circumstances - more representing Bergwall's statements in legal language, than doing his utmost in getting him acquitted.

After all, Bergwall _wanted_ to take on these murders. They made him special, a target of much attention, and with that he got the drugs that he was after. It was not until a new head physician at the mental hospital were he was treated prevented prescription of the drugs Bergwall craved that he stopped confessing more and more murders.

Souce: [http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Quick-Making-Serial- ebook/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Quick-Making-Serial- ebook/dp/B00CD49LKQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375472499&sr=8-1&keywords=hannes+r%C3%A5stam)

This is the book that turned the tide. The author is a journalist that really made a difference for how this all ended.

<comment><USER11> Wow, that's a very unusual case. I suppose the lesson is that confessions should always be investigated thoroughly for corroborating evidence. If a person committed a crime, they should be able to give details that only the criminal would know, or point in the direction of physical evidence.

Obviously the police don't like to do that, because it negatively affects their ability to close the case.

I've been thinking a lot about how many of the problems with abuse by some police and prosecutors, (many are good honorable people), result from optimization on the wrong metrics.

Police are measured by clearing cases, and prosecutors by convictions and guilty pleas. Surely there's got to be a better way to score their performance that encourages more just outcomes.

<comment><USER12> > If a person committed a crime, they should be able to give details that only > the criminal would know, or point in the direction of physical evidence.

Yes! And Bergwall's testimony was often wrong. He guessed for example what was the weapon he must have used. But when he was wrong, he got to "think harder", make another guess, and over time (months or years) he could piece together hints from his interrogators and eventually come up with a somewhat "correct" story vs what secret evidence the police knew. Such as if murderer was using a blunt weapon in the head vs a knife in the abdomen.

It is surreal to read about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cases like this are why I stand against capital punishment.

</comment><comment><USER14> the real question is what now happens to all the people who were responsible in getting the false confessions?

I hate to say it, but if history repeats itself, the people responsible will either never face persecution or get a slap on the wrist.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, too long has passed and any misconduct in the investigations has been prescribed so noone will be prosecuted or even get a slap on the wrist. Most people involved have already retired as well after building their careers on the case.

However, on the bright side there will be investigations to see how the current system can be improved to reduce the chances of repeating it in the future. For example, in important cases there may be appointed a secondary prosecutor whose role is to be critical of the investigation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That's an incredibly hyperbolic and slanted headline. Believing any of that article will make you dumber not smarter.

<comment><USER17> How so? Let's go part by part.

>Swedish man drugged into confessing declared innocent

Swedish man: yes

drugged: yes

into: arguable

confessing: yes

declared innocent: well technically he was declared not guilty

How will the 'entire article' make me dumb?</comment></comment>


Maintaining Notepad is not a full-time job, but it's not an empty job either - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180521-00/?p=98795 <comment><USER2> > For example, did you know that you can type > [https://www.microsoft.com/](https://www.microsoft.com/) into Notepad's File > Open dialog?

Awesome!</comment>


Single line Node.js API tests with criteria query in MongoDB format - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mirek/node-json-criteria

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everybody, this is my first HN post. What do you think about this minimal- style of test writing. There's an example use case in the readme for testing JSON API calls using just mongodb like criterias.</comment>


Dynamic Linking - <AUTHOR> https://blog.stephenmarz.com/2020/06/22/dynamic-linking/ <comment><USER2> Speaking of this. Do someone here knows any way to open a DSO in Linux not by passing the path, but by using a file descriptor or fd?

I know FreeBSD has such a call, but not Linux, and the only place i've found this was an implementation in Android, in its specialized linker that will manage to do this, but by meddling directly with the elf headers within the file.

Why i cant use the one who just uses the path? I want to load from memory (without resorting to create the file in temp fs), and for this i would use the memfd_create().

Anyway, i just want to know if there are any way to do this in Linux without having to "manually" do this by using libelf, DT_HASH, etc..

(Also in case i need to resort to elf, i bet i will be forced to do dependency resolution by hand, which will be pretty nasty just to be able to have this feature)

<comment><USER3> Either way you probably don't want memfd_create() unless you're writing the binary into memory yourself for some reason; you can just mmap arbitrary file descriptors.

I think you'd be able to do something like dlopen("/proc/self/fd/4") where 4 is your open file descriptor, but I'm not 100% on that.

<comment><USER2> Actually i have access to a mmap'ed file that happen to have the DSO payload among other things. In practice i dont need memfd_create(), as passing the payload with the right offset within the mmaped file would do the trick.. But given its a file with much more data then just the DSO, by using something like memfd_create() i could make it easy for the OS, passing just the content of the DSO file.

Note that in my use case i will/can pass the file descriptors to the child process, so that's why memfd_create suited me well. But if you happen to know how i can just use the mmaped file, as long as i can point the exact offset to be readed, it will be much better, because it will be basically a zero-copy implementation of it.

(If memfd_create() could be created by passing the memory address, without the need to use a write() in the created fd, it would also be much less expensive)

Thank you for your tip, that is a really nice trick!

<comment><USER4> > If memfd_create() could be created by passing the memory address, without > the need to use a write() in the created fd

Thinking out loud, but vmsplice into a memfd (possibly through a pipe) _might_ allow you to populate the memfd without any copy.

<comment><USER2> Yes, if i create a memfd, populate it with with a reference from vmsplice, that maps to a mmaped file memory chunk, open it with dlopen through procfs in the child process (that i've passed through pipe) will make it happen without any copy.

This is what i've been looking for, as the child process is sandboxed and it's good to have a option where there's no need to access the filesystem to work some things out.

This is pretty good, thank you. I've passed through vmsplice here and there.. but as i didn't need to use it, i've completely forgot about its existence. So thank you for this good reminder of a great syscall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a kid, I always thought this was all mysterious. Demystifying it is always fun.

</comment><comment><USER6> More info, from the former glibc maintainer:

[https://akkadia.org/drepper/dsohowto.pdf](https://akkadia.org/drepper/dsohowto.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Came to link this. It is _very_ good, in-depth coverage of all things shared libraries. I believe all this stuff still applies today as it applied those 10 or so years ago when this was written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The first assembly listing is rather opaque.</comment>