Ask HN: Is it important to have sharp math knowledge for deep learning? - <AUTHOR> So I've been learning deep learning from Andrew Ng courses and it's great. I actually remember a lot of algebra and calculus, as I used to be a TA in uni, but almost 10 years have already passed and I'm not that sharp anymore. For instance, I have to frequently review how to transpose a matrix, review derivate tables etc.
Is it worth to really review everything and do people that do deep learning professionally have always amazing knowledge about math, or is it normal to dig it up when you need it?
I could buy some books and go through them, but I'm not sure if it's worth the time given that I can invest on learning all the ML/DL things I don't know, which are many. <comment><USER2> Depends, itll probably help to get hired. If you are in a highly applied position, probably better to know different network architectures, and why they work in specific ways. For instance, Restnet versus VGG16, what was the innovation? Which optimizer might be better for the two? When to slow learning rate, when to speed it up? Theres an art to tuning and getting neural networks to work that goes beyond mathematical understanding. But some positions may require their employees to understand the archaic math behind machine learning, down PCA and its relationship to eigenvectors, methods of non differentiable optimization, etc

</comment><comment><USER3> My honest advice. If you don't already have a really good understanding of the math I recommend you focus on the more applied stuff (like everything coding sleeve mentioned). I fear many of the roles that actually would require you to review the math might be looking for PhDs or similar.

You probably should at least know how to do the basic stuff in numpy or whatever though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alright, that I can do. I meant more, that there is a big difference between knowing everything by heart and comprehend everything easily and having to look it up and stare at some formula a bit. Math is a rabbit hole, like, you can do integrals, then line integrals, triple integrals and it goes on.

For me it isn't also very clear until where it is useful to learn math.

I'm also more on the practical/software engineering side, so I don't even have intentions of doing research. I just want to follow the most up to date methods.</comment></comment>


Dropbox Etiquette - <AUTHOR> http://prolost.com/dishes

<comment><USER2> This is true for many values of "Dropbox" -- "Sharepoint", "NFS mount", etc.

The _real_ trick, IMO, is getting everyone to buy in to an organizational system that doesn't require a ton of bookkeeping. Any shared file system that requires users to act in a cooperative manner is bound to fail -- tragedy of the commons, and all.

The trick I've used before to some degree of success is to set up a system that _doesn't_ require cooperation. Hand each user their own folder, and tell them that they can structure it however they'd like, and that they can share it out with no one or anyone.

There's pain up front, but IMO it's better to spread the pain around early than realize your shared file system has 2.4 terabytes of files dating back to 2003, some of which are business critical and others are personal photos from the bosses secretary four secretaries ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> Long ago, I moved all of my top level folders I'm sharing into a folder simply called "Shares"

This had no effect on the users I've shared with, but did a great deal to keep things organized on my end.</comment>


Open Source Seed Initiative - <AUTHOR> http://osseeds.org/ <comment><USER2> Damn, i thought this was going to be a seed investment initiative for open source projects. I was wrong.</comment>


We don't need a thinner iPhone if that means killing the headphone jack - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/30/9820416/apple-rumors-headphone-jack-lightning-port-iphone?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> Apple made the last iPod shuffle so small that it was a bad design. The super tiny design couldn't be operated easily when running and it was hard to press the buttons. The "next track" button was moved so close to the headphone jack that my fingers couldn't actually get in there to click it (the headphone jack used to be on the other side of the device).

They trimmed a few millimeters off the edge of the device so that the clip used to clip it to your clothing could no longer be operated easily. My fingers kept slipping off the clip when trying to operate it.

The previous model iPod shuffle was, I think, one of the finest designed consumer electronics ever - it didn't need anything changed. But Apple just had to go make it smaller.

Apple seems to have come to believe that smaller is better when in fact there is an optimal size and any smaller is detrimental to usability. Apple doesn't understand the concept of "the right size", all it wants to do is stroke its own ego by making things smaller.

I miss that old iPod shuffle design. I would have kept buying them buy they are no longer available, and I'm not going to buy the crappy new useless super tiny design.

<comment><USER3> Apple briefly made a Shuffle even smaller - no on-device controls. That didn't last long, and the Shuffle returned to it's current size.

(Small size remains a problem. I've lost 3 Shuffles and a Nano in my house. The Touch disappeared for 6 months too, reappearing in the bed frame.)

<comment><USER2> I felt like no-one at Apple had bothered to wear a shuffle and go for a run. So much for the greatest usability team on earth.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean? I think the clip-on shuffle is fantastic for exercise.

Edit: Thanks, I didn't realize there were multiple clip-on models

<comment><USER2> I agree. Yes there were two models - one with an awesome clip that worked beautifully, the other with a reduced size clip that was a nightmare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand the desire to get ever thinner. I truly don't. I never ever hear anyone saying their iPhone is too thick. What I hear is that the 5S had the best design of all iPhones to date. I also hear that people would not mind a couple millimeters thicker if it meant a larger battery.

Who is Apple listening to? Are there people out there who think the iPhone should be thinner? (That was a rhetorical question. Of course there's someone reading this that is going to say yes. I get that. But I don't believe for a moment that most iPhone users want a thinner phone.)

<comment><USER4>
        I don't understand the desire to get ever thinner. I truly don't. I never ever hear anyone saying their iPhone is too thick.

This is my experience as well. I have heard people complaining about battery, screen size, and/or durability but never thickness.

To me (an adult male) there are only really two sizes of portable objects: things that fit comfortably in my pants pocket and things that don't. The iPhone has passed that test for years and years now and making it thinner will make no difference to me.

<comment><USER6> I have a 6S which is a nice phone, but the size of an iPhone 4S was perfect for fitting in your pocket, and you could easily use it with one-hand.

I can't one-hand my 6S.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whats being overlooked in most of the comments here is that Apple is killing off the only non-licensed hardware input that their iDevices had since the beginning, and the one without which a number of companies, including Square would probably not exist.

Im not sure about this day in age, but as someone working on hardware adapter feeding a stream of data into the iPhone in 2009 and 2010, the cost of getting into an MFI(or whatever the licensing term for hardware/bluetooth interoperability with iDevices was) was cost prohibitive and largely NDA-d out for smaller startups. So we went with the audio input just like Square did.

Unless something has changed in Apple's attitude to licensing and interoperability, the door has just been shut close for companies trying to innovate with other hardware products interacting with iDevices.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you, but still feel the need to point out that Bluetooth LE (as opposed to "Classic Bluetooth") is, as far as I understand, allowed to be used by any developer without going through MFi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you want to develop a new connector, just use fucking MagSafe. Watertight phones without a way for water to enter, easier cleaning because no dirt in your pants can sneak into the connector, and if you trip on your headphone wire (or the cat plays with it), the phone won't go down with the headphones.

<comment><USER10> Why is there even a question over this? Combined with an adapter for existing headphones this is the solution.

<comment><USER9> Because Apple owns a patent on any MagSafe technology. I do hope it expires soon...

<comment><USER10> Does the patent cover any use of magnets in an accessory on power cable?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hey Apple when you start making my life more complicated (gotta carry around a lightning to headphone adapter) it's time I stop upgrading.

<comment><USER12> If that were truly the case you would have stopped upgrading 5 years ago

<comment><USER13> If only there was evidence that a lot of units of a different kind of phone get sold and that the proportion of the market they carry has grown over the last 5 years...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Product manager meeting at Apple: x: Guys, Tim told me we have to expand our ecosystem asap. y: Yea right.. I mean we have already evaluated a few ideas last time but im not sure if we truly understand our customers. x: Why would that matter? y: Maybe it would then be easier to find things that could expand our ecosystem. x: No (y), it doesn't work that way. Look at those unicorn startups with ultra short feedback loops - they are their customers' slaves and you should have read that in our book. We are innovators, we know what our customers want before them. y: Oh yea that was in the book sorry. I just think that we did not come up with promising ideas yet. x: Let's see.. where do we have the biggest margins? y: Beats! x: Thats right! We just have to find a way to integrate them into our ecosystem. ......

<comment><USER15> Ah! You caught the hook. Apple can get away with removing the 3.5mm by packaging the iPhone 7 with (likely Beats) wearables.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I figure thinness is secondary. The headphone jack is not controlled by Apple and Apple demands control. It now owns a headphone manufacturer that manufactures devices at very high markups, so why would it continue to permit competition on its devices with other companies? The adapter will cost enough and be inconvenient enough that it will prevent 3rd party manufacturing of headphones.

You say bluetooth, but that requires another battery and is much more expensive to make that a pair of earbuds. Also Apple is now a top tier member of the Bluetooth SIG, which controls the bluetooth standard and trademarks. Expect your Extend phase for bluetooth soon. I personally expect nothing less from the anti-standards anti-interoperability Apple.

</comment><comment><USER17> "... famously killed both optical and floppy drives with no remorse — doing things that upset people in the name of progress isn't new for the company."

The difference with floppies and optical drives was that many people were using alternative delivery and storage methods already. Many of us welcomed fewer moving parts in our computers. That doesn't apply here.

</comment><comment><USER18> Phones have been plenty small enough for some time. If there's spare space, stick more battery in it rather than making the phone smaller.

<comment><USER19> not gonna happen with every reviewer oo-ing and aah-ing about the phone being 0.1mm thinner and leaving the battery to a back page where it says that it lasted them all day therefore it's fine.

Look at Samsung having to get rid of replaceable batteries (very user friendly and environmental) and move to glued/sealed phone because every single time a new phone came out the reviewers complained about how it didn't feel "premium" enough due to the plastic back (which personally I think is a lot more user- friendly than glass anyways)

If the market continues to reward style over substance, that is what we will get, people will keep grumbling about the too-low battery life but will still upgrade every year or two to the latest-and-greatest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If Apple switches to USB-C for the iPhone and friends, then this would make sense, because with USB-C EarPods they could replace the headphone jack on the MacBook with a second USB-C port.

<comment><USER21> Ash port durbatulûk, ash port gimbatul, ash port thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Look, I'm not on some big high-horse about audio quality in the modern era (cough Pono cough), so I really don't see any reason to be upset with Apple deciding "thinner" is an improvement by way of ditching support for a widely used industry standard. We're talking about consumer electronics, an industry where (subjectively speaking) over-priced, under-performing headphones like Beats command significant status and market share. iDevices are nice-to-have items, and after having several, I can honestly say I care less about upgrading for 'features' and more about build quality concerns (having various buttons giving out across different models, etc) so I'm really comfortable viewing Apple products as expensive yet disposable items. _Shrug_

Oh, and anybody who is surprised by such a mentality might want to refresh a few historical examples. CD-Rom drives, gone. Final Cut? Turned into consumer- class software. Now they have a high-priced laptop with a single connector which really doesn't make sense for live performers and professionals. It's kind of how the company does business, so yeah I buy this rumor somewhat.

<comment><USER20> Apple dropped the Ethernet port from the MacBook Pro because it was too big, and the MacBook Air couldn't have an HDMI port for the same reason. But they replaced both of those with WiFi and Mini DisplayPort (now Thunderbolt).

<comment><USER23> They didn't "replace" the Ethernet with WiFi. The WiFi was always there.

The Ethernet port was for people who _needed_ to plug into an Ethernet socket. If you still have that need, WiFi doesn't replace that. So now you're in a situation where you _need_ to plug in an external adapter every single time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The next headphone connector standard is Bluetooth. No messy cables, great quality, and good battery life (I get 20+ hours with my headphones). I don't get all the fuss. Just make it thinner already.

</comment><comment><USER25> How does the author go from "Apple shouldn't get rid of the perfectly fine headphone jack" to "The truth is we need a new standard for headphones, and we haven't figured out what that is yet."?

<comment><USER26> Author also fails to explain _why_ the 3.5mm standard "needs" to be replaced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought it crazy to make the iPad Air 2 so thin. But now that I have one I see the benefit. Just reducing the effort required to pick the thing up is a big benefit.

I rarely use corded headphones and would not miss the jack.

<comment><USER20> I really appreciate that I can relatively easily pick up my MacBook Air. But it still requires quite a bit of effort. The MacBook dropped all ports bar two so it could be lighter and thinner, and while that bothers some people, I'd love a laptop that lightweight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Apple is reportedly planning on shipping EarPods that connect through the Lighting port with the next iPhone"

Good proofreading Verge. Also blanket statements like "no one is clamoring for a thinner iPhone".

I look forward to iPhone removing the headphone jack, making a thinner, lighter phone, and also propelling forward the market demand for bluetooth headphones. I love my Jaybirds, but there needs to be more players in the market.

I mean, it would also be great if it also shipped with a lightning -> 3.5mm adapter, but there is almost no chance of that happening. You can buy one for 40$.

<comment><USER13> I look forward to more people joining me outside the ecosystem of iPhone, so I think we are aligned.

Apple is systematically strangling the ecosystem to force their short-term prosperity. Their price setting, app store review model, NDA on developers (the fearful silence devs are forced into) and their increasingly bad mobile UI are things worth killing.

So I hope Apple continues to isolate their ecosystem, because while the upshot is you can make more money selling the entire ecosystem (or licensing it), the downside is that it gets easier and easier for people to start ignoring you.

<comment><USER29> I'm with you on the price setting and App Store stuff, but it was my impression that they had gotten much better about the NDA issue over the last couple of years.

I would love to see the 3.5mm jack disappear though. I have mixed feelings about consolidating on Lightning though considering that it'd mean the end of auxiliary in car trips for those of us not BT enabled. Regardless of how you feel about the quest for thinness, the headphone jack is unreasonably wide, and something thinner would make it easier to get other components in there, as well as opening it up for other control methods beyond the simple clicker found on many headphones without the need for any hackery to do it.

I think it'd be inevitable that they would then license it rather than making it an open hardware spec, which would be a crying shame though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not that I'm advocating doing away with wired earphones completely, but I'd just like to mention how _ridiculously_ inexpensive passable bluetooth earphones have become. "Bluedio N2" stereo bluetooth IEMs (incl mic/remote)... _SUB-$10!_ Delivered! From China!

No, the sound quality is not as good as my wired Etymotics, but being unattached to the phone is often preferable. These things are head and shoulders the best bang/buck I've ever had in consumer electronics. Stockpiled 3 pairs.

<comment><USER31> Word. My Qy8 IEMs from some no-name Chinese electronics company were $25 shipped and sound just as good as Jaybirds! I was shocked that they've gotten this good now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, there was a time when phones didn't have headphone jacks, but could play music and would often ship with proprietary shitty earphones, and everyone had their standard (same as for chargers). And I'm pretty sure people just used to use mp3 players more rather than buying adapters.

But somehow everything went the standardization way, so why on earth would this (alleged) Apple's move be considered progress, I have no idea.

Also don't really see why 3.5mm jack "needs to be replaced". MicroUSB is worse imo.

</comment><comment><USER33> You know, I have my original iPhone3GS with the original charging cable. This ancient cable is in perfect shape.

Meanwhile, my much younger iPhone5, I've gone through 3 Lightening cables and of the 3, 2 have fully blown out. They are complete crap.

The iPhone5 headphone cables are okay-ish and better quality compared to the Lightening cable.

Get rid of the stupid crappy made Lightening and keep the headphone jack. Figure out why the Lightening cables are such crap and fix them!

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm fine with ditching the headphone jack for lightning. Whatever. I use the stock EarPods anyway, and an adapter won't be the end of the world. High end headphones are already stupidly bulky for mobile usage and an adapter won't make it worse. And headphone manufacturers will probably start shipping with adapters like they already do with multiple earbud sizes if there is a lightning/usb-c split anyway.

What I do have a problem with is thinness for thinness' sake. I upgraded from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 6—skipping the 4S, 5 and 5S—and noticed no improvement in battery life! We're talking brand new day-one battery performance comparable to a busted 2 year old phone. I can't go a whole day without needing to recharge my 6. I can't believe Apple hasn't gotten into the battery bank game yet since I now own several of them and can't live without them.

Stopping me making phones thinner. Make the battery bigger!

<comment><USER27> You need the Plus. It can last two days on a charge, and will last a day even if you're doing battery burners like GPS. Now there's the best of both worlds: for small, get the 6; for big and battery, get the Plus. Some folks like small and don't want their phone fattened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Possible alternate explanation: maybe Apple is promoting Lightning headphones not because they want to eliminate the headphone jack, but because they intend to start pushing some kind of smart functionality to headphones and audio devices.

That's pure speculation. No clue what that functionality might be. What if they were leveraging the processing power of the iPhone to achieve some kind of adaptive noise canceling on any headphones? I don't know.

I do know this: this isn't like dropping the floppy drive or optical drives on Macs. By the time those were dropped, hardly anybody was using those features on their Macs. But a casual glance around any plane or public transit tells you that a lot people use their headphone jacks all the time.

<comment><USER20> EarPod cameras?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcPhMqLPuvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcPhMqLPuvQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is solving a problem that nobody has, and replacing it with an obvious set of real problems.

Who wants to buy expensive certified headphones or wireless in all cases? Headphones are pure commodity -- they can be had for $3.

I wouldn't buy another iOS device if this happens.

</comment><comment><USER36> As long as there's an adapter that provides a headphone jack, I don't see a problem in removing the onboard headphone jack.

The bigger problem lies with the use of Lightning to begin with, rather than a standard like USB type-C. That would solve the power problem: adapters exist to split out power and other ports from a single type-C port. It would also solve the "only works with" problem, since normal USB headphones would work, or analog-over-type-C devices; that, unfortunately, makes it far less likely to happen on an iDevice.

I look forward to incredibly thin Android devices with nothing except type-C, though.

<comment><USER37> _As long as there 's an adapter that provides a headphone jack, I don't see a problem in removing the onboard headphone jack._

Well, you have to keep track of an adapter, which you can easily lose or forget to bring with you.

<comment><USER38> Or you could just attach it to the end of your headphones, and store it with them. That would cover the bulk of the cases, except people that need to plug into multiple AV outputs throughout the day.

<comment><USER39> What do you do if you need to charge your phone but also want to listen to some music at the same time? Another special adapter that allows you to plug in both?

<comment><USER40> Bluetooth headphones, or wireless charging would both solve this issue

<comment><USER39> 1) Audio over bluetooth offers mediocre sound quality at best. It's really not ideal.

2) So....I'm on my bed, 3% of battery left, and I want to watch something on YT on my phone. Right now, I simply connect the power cable to it + my headphones. With wireless charging I can't be watching anything because the phone has to stay on the charging cradle. Or if I connect the cable, then I can't connect headphones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > How could you charge your phone and listen to music simultaneously?

The _could_ have things like existing microUSB-to-HDMI adapters for mobile devices, where the adapter also has a charging-only microUSB port.

Or it could use wireless charging.

Or Apple, who is great at optimizing for what they perceive to be the most common use case and selling it as all people need, might just consider simultaneous charging and headphone use as an unimportant niche case.

</comment><comment><USER42> I am no fan of Apple's phones, last I used being an iPhone 2. But this argument is nonsense to my mind. I cannot remember the last time I used the headphone adapter on my phone. It was probably at least two phone upgrades ago, making it an early generation Android device (I have since dumped Android for Windows).

Modern mobile headphones, speakers, and automobiles attach to the device via Bluetooth. If am doing high-fidelity listening using good headphones, I'm not playing the audio from my phone anyway; I am at home with my proper audio equipment. I don't know anyone who uses the headphone port on their phone.

That said, I _agree_ that I'm not clamoring for an ultra-thin device, principally because I don't find it particularly easy to hold a super thin phone. I'm not ruling out the possibility that an ultra-thin device could be designed that is easy to hold, but of all the problems I have with mobile computing, _thickness_ is not in my top 50 complaints. In fact, subjective or apparent fragility is more a concern than thickness, and reducing thickness will inevitably (I feel) increase apparent fragility.

<comment><USER4> I don't think your experience is representative. The wired headphone business is booming.

         If am doing high-fidelity listening using good headphones, I'm not playing the audio from my phone anyway; I am at home with my proper audio equipment.

Audio quality over headphones is typically a thing that Apple does really well. Objectively measured, the iPhone's DAC and headphone amp are darn good: [http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-6-plus.htm#measureme...](http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-6-plus.htm#measurements)

The built-in amp may be lacking in power if you're using hard-to-drive headphones.

        Bluetooth [...] high-fidelity

I've read that Bluetooth headphones that support the AAC codec sound great (theoretically this can avoid transcoding if your music is AAC) although they're few and far between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Apple will make millions for licensing MFA lightning to 3.5mm adapters. The only reason I would want something like this is if the lightning port was more like magsafe, magnetic. Break away headphone jack? Yes please.

<comment><USER13> Apple has billions. Why are they going to pick a fight with everyone to make millions?

<comment><USER4> Yes. Of every possible reason to eliminate the headphone jack, the idea that a $200bil company wants to make a few extra _million_ dollars is literally the only reason I'd conclusively rule out.

It would take a $2bil product to even change their revenue by 1%. They're not going to make a big strategic move for a few million.

<comment><USER43> They make more on peripherals than the Mac or Software. [http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Screen- shot...](http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Screen- shot-2011-01-25-at-1-25-11.33.04-AM.png)

<comment><USER4> No, you're reading that wrong. That's a stacked graph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> i have a solution for a headset which would work with a thinner iPhone, Mac, Macbook and so on. It's already a standard and its called bluetooth.

[http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MKLD2AM/A/beats-by-dr- dre-...](http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MKLD2AM/A/beats-by-dr-dre- solo2-wireless-headphones-gold?fnode=7a)

</comment><comment><USER45> Apple is planning on going in the headphone business?

<comment><USER46> They already are; they own Beats.

<comment><USER45> I should have looked it up first, but I'm surprised that so much time elapsed between the 2 actions. Maybe some other reason is the root cause of this decision then (some people use this port for other purposes for example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Still bitter about killing off the 3.5" floppy, huh? I for one would like a thinner iPhone eventually. It's ridiculous to think that the thickness of the legacy headphone jack is such a sacred cow that it should limit all future hardware designs.

<comment><USER48> Pretty sure that "universal interoperability of a still-useful interface with a 100+ year legacy" was the sacred cow, balanced against the "usefulness" of paper-thin, flimsy, low-mAh-speculated phones. Not its size.

<comment><USER47> I love the stereo minijack, too. But as the author concludes "The truth is we need a new standard for headphones, and we haven't figured out what that is yet. The shift from 3.5mm to whatever the next standard may be will be painful..."

And yet, the first step will require a first step. Apple could take it, and catch hell for it, but hopefully a better future standard would be the result.

<comment><USER48> I don't hold out any hope that Apple will be the harbinger of an open, interoperable format.

I think other comments here have the right idea: they want to remove the last uncontrolled, competitive port on their device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It's alright, you can just use an iPod.

...

Oops.

</comment><comment><USER50> But... bluetooth exists!

<comment><USER51> Genius. I can carry batteries on my ears. Oh, that sounds heavenly. /sarcasm.

<comment><USER50> I've had bluetooth headphones for 18 months, they get 13 hours of battery life and I charge them about once a week. It's really not an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Non issue.

One word - adapter.

<comment><USER52> on adapter vs thicker phone, I'd much rather choose thicker phone.

<comment><USER10> I would take a thicker phone with a longer battery life over a thinner phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Like the floppy disk, we will be thanking Apple for killing the headphone jack in 5 years.

Sure, it will be a bit of a pain in the mean time, but worth it in the long run.

<comment><USER52> All it will do is create yet-another-strandard.gif. The recording, performance, and production industry isn't throwing away wired headphone jacks any time soon, and is not swayed by apple trends -- and neither are audiophiles, but they're a smaller market driver. For the most part, it will lead to more fragmentation and higher markups on proprietary devices.

Frankly, I don't see the pain with the headphone jack. It's raw sound delivered in the simplest possible circuits. I don't understand what we gain by complicating the transport of soundwaves, as it's certainly not quality. I wish historic search was easier, because this whole "apple is getting rid of the headphone jack" gets repeated and squashed year after year.

<comment><USER53> _The recording, performance, and production industry isn 't throwing away wired headphone jacks any time soon and is not swayed by apple trends_

Yeah, Apple is not an influential company in this field at all, and not a trend setter in general.

 _…and neither are audiophiles…_

I'm sure audiophiles would hate the demise of an analog format in favor of a purely digital one.

<comment><USER52> >I'm sure audiophiles would hate the demise of an analog format in favor of a purely digital one.

Are you being sarcastic?

<comment><USER53> Yes

<comment><USER52> Audiophiles are strange people. I wouldn't be too sure on them preferring digital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> _How could you charge your phone and listen to music simultaneously?_

There could be two lighting ports. After all, there is currently a lighting port and a 3.5mm jack, so why would replacing the jack with a lightning port be out of the question?

 _But what if I want to play music at a party?_

Use Bluetooth.

 _But my current set of headphones won 't work!_

Get a new pair. Think that's ridiculous? Most people buy new headphones pretty often, it's not that hard to imagine that in a year's time when the iPhone 7 comes out that people who don't currently have Bluetooth headphones (which would work anyway) or a lighting port compatible set of headphones that aren't satisfied with the set that ship with the iPhone (probably not an overwhelming percentage) wouldn't buy a new set.

<comment><USER55> Bluetooth is tolerably good but a headphone jack works so much better if you're listening on headphones IMO

Not to mention that most companies making medium-to-high end headphones are not even dealing with bluetooth.

<comment><USER13> Can I just be honest for a second?

No one actually cares about the "I want to DJ at a party!" usecase that badly. Those people that do will carry the right cables, like they already probably have to.

Seriously, pretending that's an important use case is what lead Google to invent the Nexus Q and no one cared about that even though it was a stunning device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> _" We need a new standard for headphones, and we haven't figured out what that is yet."_

Bluetooth stereo headsets have been available for years. It's time for the all-wireless phone - wireless charging, wireless everything else. Waterproof, too.

Are people still using iDweebs with their silly white wires?

<comment><USER57> I want to see wireless waterproof :D</comment></comment>


The Emperor's New Kind of Clothes - A review of NKS - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/review/RUGSCP3XBNBUV/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1579550088&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=

<comment><USER2> And the companion review <http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/> kind of completes the cycle.</comment>


UPS sends brokerage fees bill to wrong customer - <AUTHOR> http://upsscam.blogspot.ca

<comment><USER2> This isn't exactly about the article, but I think it's a little unfair to call this a "UPS Scam" (cf. domain name.) It's a customer-service slip-up, and they probably already issued the charge by the time the invoice was received.

Writing about this prior to calling back or even waiting to see if the chargeback went through seems like a kneejerk reaction, and it's made all the more inflammatory by calling it a scam.

(If it does happen to be a scam, it might be the least-effective one in the history of corporate scams: UPS is now CAD44.60 more in the green than it was before they took that payment. That's enough to buy, I don't know, a new blanket?)</comment>


Ask HN: Kubernetes vs. Nomad vs. Mesos vs ... - <AUTHOR> What do you guys use? What are the pros and cons regarding features, stability and production readiness? <comment><USER2> I use Docker in production with Docker Compose for containers orchestration. Each service has its own Git repo with a compose file describing the orchestration. Swarm for distributed services and managing multiple servers.

Everything is a container and could be scaled, destroyed, restarted in a very simple way.

Machine creation is automated with Terraform and Ansible for provisioning, no matter the provider.

<comment><USER3> Had you tried hyper.sh? All you need is the compose file, no more terraform and ansible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I run a small 4 node mesos cluster. So far it's been great, took a day or two to setup and has been running for about a year now with little to no maintenance. (I should probably update). I launch long running services through Marathon and crons with Chronos. I use haproxy for service discovery and load balancing. It's mostly used for data processing, but does serve data to a production web environment (~40k req / day).

The things I like the most about mesos is that it is light weight and removes a like of the friction in deploying new services. So I can test out a new idea without a big investment or f*ing around with the giant monolith. I found container based approaches too resource intensive for my budget.

</comment><comment><USER5> I assume the topic is Docker orchestration to automatically start/stop/restart/kill/roll upgrade/canary/bluegreen the servers.

If you are on AWS, use auto scaling groups. It achieves more than these software, it works and it's stable. (Bonus: you don't need docker at all).

If you are on GCE, use Google Container Engine (i.e. their kubernetes). That's the only [sane] way to have kubernetes running in production.

I'm planning a blog post about all that later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't get why everybody talks about "cloud" and AWS/CGE, it seems you guys ignore the fact that many companies still maintain their own infrastructure or they lease them from other companies smaller than Amazon or Google!

<comment><USER5> Because we need it of course! Either we got GCE/AWS or we gotta recreate it on bare metal with VmWare :D

If you're a [very] small company with limited resources (and limited needs?) to the point of living on a cheap featureless hosting provider, you should forget about Kubernetes and Mesos. They're hell to setup, don't waste your time with that.

What's the scale of your operations? How many servers? How much budget for hardware? How many applications? How many devs? How many ops? Maybe open another question, with more details. More people will catch up if you're lucky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This link might help you to decide which container orchestrator/scheduler to use:

[https://twitter.com/nivertech/status/777556214767124481](https://twitter.com/nivertech/status/777556214767124481)</comment>


NodeQuery is a realtime server-side DOM API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tblobaum/nodeQuery <comment><USER2> Are there examples of this paradigm for another framework or in another language?

We think of js as being of paramount importance in web development because it's the only way to interact with the DOM, so we've mostly come to terms with it and its flaws (which are manifold, even though I happen to think it's a nice language in lots of ways). But if we put all DOM manipulation on the server-side with a very thin client-side javascript communication and manipulation layer, this isn't necessary.

You could write your entire application in Ruby, Haskell, Forth, whatever floats your boat, against a standardized, cross-browser, and improved DOM.

This is powerful and intriguing.

<comment><USER3> I could be wrong but I think ICEfaces [1] for Java does something like this. I remember seeing a presentation on it at a Rails vs Django vs Java "debate" a few years ago.

It may not be quite the same thing, and I can't really parse the website very well for how it really works. I do remember it holds a copy of the DOM server side then manipulates it over HTTP.

So if you want it in Java, there's that.

[1]<http://www.icefaces.org/main/home/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would you want to add 100-500ms of latency to every single DOM manipulation? Realtime means I click on something and something else happens, immediately, not a 1/2 second later.

All this to just save having to load jQuery in the client? Not sure I get the advantage.

<comment><USER2> You still have to load jQuery through the client. What it does is expose RPC.

So in your situation I'd believe what you'd see is the server sending the command to attach event handlers to the elements you're clicking before you start interacting with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This appears to solve a major problem with web apps - exposing your entire front-end code to everyone. Very exciting.

Is it production ready? (Edit: Duh, says "beta")

</comment><comment><USER6> can somebody provide a real-world example where you'd want to manipulate the DOM from the server?

I'm not sure I really see the benefit of this. Not to say it isn't cool, just wondering where it would be useful over client-side DOM.

My understanding of node is that the benefit is in the lack of thread locking, not specifically that it runs javascript.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of reasons why you might want to use jquery directly from the server. Some off the top of my head...

-You can keep your application code hidden from prying eyes

-You only serve up ~120kb of javascript to the client no matter how intense your application is

-You can get better response times for realtime games and apps since what your user is doing is tightly coupled with what actually needs to react (the server).

-You can write 3,000,000 or 10 lines of application logic and it will not affect the speed of the client's device.

One flaw is (potentially) in coming up with a new way to cache redundant requests properly.

<comment><USER7> I think points 1 and 2 are pretty strong. I've always felt reluctant about having your entire code base available to whoever opens the JS file. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

The real strength is reducing the transfer size. You're only sending what's needed by the client. Nice stuff, if it works as-advertised.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also noteworthy is the new ability to treat the DOM as a resource from the server point of view. Extracting information and rendering view partials in realtime as well as placing event listeners for the DOM on the server can help get things done quite a bit faster. This is especially true since you can now work with the DOM near the scope of other server-side only resources making it easier to create prototypes and apps that have a high level of user interaction with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Initial reaction: issuing server-side calls to manipulate client-side DOM is a gross violation of the principles of separation of logic/duties. Why is this desirable?

<comment><USER9> This allows the client-server to communicate lower level interaction details in realtime. Seems quite be useful for realtime multiuser apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is limiting this to be jQuery/Zepto specific? Is it possible to write a generic server-side remote control so that other libraries can be used?

</comment><comment><USER11> Thank you for this. jsDom was the only other server side DOM implementation, and it's garbage (buggy).

<comment><USER12> This is not a server side DOM. It's an rpc system that acts like a jquery remote control.

<comment><USER13> That's an awesome summary - they should use it on the site.</comment></comment></comment>