Microsoft is Dead (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html <comment><USER2> The most common form of Microsoft-hate usually centers around how a company of such gargantuan size makes such gargantuan fuck-ups. But this is to be expected of companies of gargantuan size, and is certainly not limited to Microsoft alone (although recently they've had more than their fair share).

My qualm with Microsoft is all the little things that they let slip through. Little things like having a control panel with 100 different links with nondescript names. Is it really possible that not a single person at Microsoft tried changing a setting on their Windows machine and realized how difficult it was to even find the setting? Were they so entrenched in the Microsoft way of doing things that they were accustomed to a shitty user experience? Or did the aesthetically minded engineer have his voice drowned out by the bureaucracy?

If the higher-ups were yelling down the food chain, "build an Apple-killing UI!", I can see how they would settle on what became the app-centric look of Windows 8. But blatantly idiotic decisions around the little things like control panels, choosing wireless connections, and the sheer difficulty of navigation, make me realize that somewhere at Microsoft something is really fucked up.

<comment><USER3> Here's a good story about the shutdown menu in Vista, and how it came to be:

Original rant by Joel Spolsky: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html)

Answer from the guy working on the shutdown menu: [http://moishelettvin.blogspot.no/2006/11/windows-shutdown- cr...](http://moishelettvin.blogspot.no/2006/11/windows-shutdown- crapfest.html)

Another response from the guy that implemented the OSX shutdown menu: [http://arno.org/arnotify/2006/11/the-design-of-the-mac- os-x-...](http://arno.org/arnotify/2006/11/the-design-of-the-mac-os-x- shutdown-feature/)

<comment><USER4> It's simply astonishing that the "Vista shut down menu" meme continues to come up after all this time, and that the wrong lessons continue to be drawn.

Between Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft changed exactly one thing. They replaced the two icons with a single text label that said "Shut down."

Nothing else changed. There was still a fly-out menu. There were still half-a- dozen options that users vaguely understood. They still had strange labels like "Hibernate" and "Sleep." There was still a "Log out" option. There was still a "Lock" option.

Turns out, none of that was the problem. The problem was that _people didn 't understand what the power icon did._ Replace the icon with text that said "Shut down", and suddenly they knew what it did, and started clicking on it. They stopped opening the fly-out menu, and the "Paradox of Choice" went away.

The lesson is _not_ that you should stop offering choices to your users! You can offer simplicity _and_ choice at the same time. Just stop replacing text labels with confusing icons.

Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 had a "Shut down" text label. Windows XP had both an icon and text. Windows Vista had an icon but no text. Windows 7 went back to just text. The only design that caused confusion was Windows Vista.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the main problem wasn't the options, but I do think that some of options are were unnecessary (the distinction between hibernate and sleep, for instance).

The real lesson is that design by comittee over years trying to reach a compromise will often result in terrible design decisions. It wouldn't even have been a problem if they had kept the icon, if it just did what people expected it to! (shutdown, not sleep as was the default). And now we have Windows 8, where they've hidden the shutdown menu inside Settings.

<comment><USER4> I agree that the default was wrong in Windows Vista. I disagree that an icon would've been OK -- as Joel Spolsky pointed out, he had no idea what the icon would do. That's why he opened the fly-out menu, and that's why a lot of users opened the fly-out menu. Where they got confused.

I just found it frustrating that the tech press echo chamber ganged up on the fly-out menu, when _that wasn 't even the problem._ The fact that Microsoft eliminated the complaints with just one button in Windows 7 shows exactly where the actual problem was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's really interesting how in 2007, I believed (as did pg, seemingly) that the web would eventually overtake desktop software.

Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software.

That so much code ships directly to mobile devices says a lot about the power of centralized app stores and truly sandboxed installations where one app can't trash the entire system. We've come a long way.

<comment><USER6> The critical characteristic of the desktop here isn't its use of native code. It's more the local filesystem. Many mobile apps use network data. From this perspective they have more in common with web apps than with desktop software.

Despite this, I'm inclined to agree that the web is threatened. The desktop may be defined by local files but the web wasn't defined by remote ones. It was more about the culture. More about anyone-can-publish. To me, that's the baby at risk in the mobile bathwater.

That, and any aspect of personal computing that can't be performed on a phone. Which is most of them. I'll stick with the hemorrhoids and circadian disruption, thanks.

My wife and I were talking about this the other night: It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the first place. It's too abstract (dare I say difficult?). So the mobile revolution is really about the unwashed masses computing for the first time. Perhaps that's why mobile apps and operating systems eerily remind me of soap operas and reality TV.

<comment><USER7> > It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it > for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the > first place.

Totally agree. For most everyday scenarios, using Windows is like flying a Boeing 737 for your daily commute: it's a huge overkill, requiring way too much setting up and maintenance and when you incidentally touches one switch the whole thing stops working.

Windows 8 didn't take off because what MSFT did was in addition to all the panels of the 737, they put an iPad in the cabin. For those familiar with Windows that's no big deal: this is why we see people shrug off all the Win 8 hate, saying "it's just Windows 7 plus touching interface". But for those had trouble coping with Windows in the first place, it's now doubly confusing.

<comment><USER8> I dig this analogy. Since moving my folks over to iPads, I get emails from them daily, photos shared with me and zero distressed support calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is an insightful piece but nothing annoys me more than sensationalism. Its click bait and I am annoyed I got sucked into reading it and annoyed that I feel compelled to waste time commenting.

Anyway, if it isn't obvious, the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead. Microsoft clearly isn't dead it just isn't the biggest player on the internet, and isn't really a player in the start up space.

<comment><USER10> > the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead

How? The author clearly doesn't mean "out of business" when he says "dead". He means that what Microsoft once was, or what it represented, is dead. The idea once conveyed by the word "Microsoft" is dead. It's not sensationalist clickbait, it's a metaphor.

<comment><USER11> Well he may mean that, but that's not what comes to mind when most people think of the word "dead." And picking that particular word to use as liberally as he does comes across as overly dramatic.

<comment><USER10> I suspect this article may have been written for an audience with a collectively higher level of reading comprehension than what you describe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I tend to think the exact opposite to the "Microsoft is Dead". I'm nobody important (well not a PG anyway), just a consumer and a developer. And if anybody cares, I'm quite excited by Microsoft at the moment.

As both a developer and a consumer, I have a complaint against Google. It's going in every direction. Google has no stable, coherent, ecosystem on which you can build your products. You don't know where they are going between Android and Chrome OS. Or between DART and javascript. Or Java and Go. Microsoft is _trying_ to attack exactly that by trying to create, brick by brick, a coherent software ecosystem. Coherent from a development, design and user experience point of view. This direction makes sense to me. I'm just not buying at the moment as the quality and experience is just not there yet. But I could buy.

Also I just watched Nadella speaking, and he says he wants to address the separation between consumer and business software. I think that's pretty cool. If you couple that with the fact more and more people work from home, or remotely, and the fact we have more and more devices around for both work and private usage, that begins to make sense.

You could argue that we are tired of Microsoft trying. But they are moving all their products together, and it takes more time, obviously. And some skills in the execution. Hence Nadella's new role. Well that's my interpretation anyway.

Now imagine he succeeds to make all these products marginally better. Microsoft doesn't need much, it's almost there. This could become an Apple- like come-back before even being gone.

</comment><comment><USER13> Pretty terrible title considering Xbox 360 had taken off in 2006. Not one mention of Xbox in the whole post, indicating how much PG is out of touch. Xbox took gaming to next level, especially online gaming and managed to build a great ecosystem for games.

The younger ones, in the last line, are all actually playing on Xbox. Microsoft has greater identification among younger people as brand than say, Apple given their decade long presence in console and PC gaming.

<comment><USER14> > _Pretty terrible title considering Xbox 360 had taken off in 2006. Not one > mention of Xbox in the whole post, indicating how much PG is out of touch._

Yes, clearly he's not a 17-something gamer.

He also focused on things that matter. In Microsoft's bottom lime, the Xbox is marginal at best. For ages it has not even be profitable.

Every gamer could as well only use an Xbox, and it still wouldn't matter much for the kind of discussion we're having about Microsoft.

To put it in another way. Gaming (put together): not much of an industry, compared to IT/mobile sales.

<comment><USER15> >To put it in another way. Gaming (put together): not much of an industry, compared to IT/mobile sales.

Why are you comparing gaming to IT/mobile? It should be compared to other entertainment industries. It has already surpassed Hollywood in terms of revenue in the US ($17bil vs $9bil in 2011). Having a dominant product in the gaming industry begets a _lot_ of influence.

Worldwide, The VG industry generates around $70 billion in revenue (excluding mobile gaming). In comparison the movie industry - (all countries combined, not just hollywood releases) generates around 120 billion.

>Every gamer could as well only use an Xbox, and it still wouldn't matter much for the kind of discussion we're having about Microsoft.

Please explain what you mean..

<comment><USER14> > _Why are you comparing gaming to IT /mobile? It should be compared to other > entertainment industries._

Because we're discussing a company, Microsoft, that has most of its business and revenues in the IT/mobile space and a small part of it in gaming. And I want to see if the gaming market is as large and important as the main market the company is involved in.

> _Please explain what you mean.._

I mean that even if Microsoft was the most succesful and relevant gaming company in the world, it would still not mean its relevant in the IT space.

And MS's relevance in the IT space (compared to the nineties) is what Paul Graham's post we're discussing is all about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Paul Graham isn't saying that MSFT isn't a viable, powerful business, just that it no longer has the potential to use technology to change the world.

As a dominant monopolist, MSFT had little incentive to change the world, and as a large, mature company, it is much more likely to be reactive to change than to be the source of change.

There more interesting question to me now is, "Is Apple 'dead'?" Apple has similarly been reacting to change, rather than driving it since the iPad (yes, others may view this differently). Will they be able to create something new and revolutionary? Or will that be left to new, scrappy "startups"?

<comment><USER17> Microsoft is Dead! LONG LIVE MICROSOFT!

Apple is Dead! LONG LIVE APPLE!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a good thing Microsoft is "dead" so now when appropriate we can use MS tech without having to endure the critics.

As far as evil goes, to me, Google is much more scaring than MS.

<comment><USER19> I think you mean "Google is much more scary than MS". The gerund doesn't make a lot of sense in this context.

For bonus fluency points, it reads better if you say "I fear Google much more than MS".

I apologize if feedback on your English was unwanted.

\---

On another note, I generally agree. Google has a lot more scope for evil than Microsoft does. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish applies to what appeared to some Google properties too (eg Reader).

<comment><USER18> Oh well I wrote "scary" at first then I thought "no it must be 'scaring'".

No need for apology when you give me a chance to improve my English.

Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 2007 - $51.12 billion

2013 - $77.85 billion

I'd love to die like that.

<comment><USER21> People were saying that about BlackBerry right up until a few years ago. Where are the true mobile versions of Office or Outlook? When will Windows 8+ become anything other than a painful mess for ordinary users? Will anyone ever ship a Metro app anyone cares about?

The old Microsoft isn't part of the computing platform of the future, mobile and services, but the server division is. For the division Nadella is from, their competition aren't Apple or Yahoo or even Google, it's Rackspace and AWS. For them Apple etc are customers and allies. The old Microsoft is dead in the water, but can a new Microsoft fully emerge from its shadow to take a valuable place in the future of the computing industry?

<comment><USER22> Do they need a mobile version, really? I wouldn't use it at work, and we all seem to get along with the native versions just fine. It's the corporate clientele that pays the big bucks for these products, and I'm not aware of them clamoring for a mobile version.

(PS, I've only actually worked at startups which have grown into larger companies. At no time did I or anyone else I was aware of feel the need for mobile Excel.)

<comment><USER23> That's true. Although the parent is right that everyone hates Windows 8+ and nobody cares about Metro apps in truth, the big money is made in the enterprise space. Windows Server, SQL Server and Exchange are huge. People think that everyone could install a Linux box and migrate but it isn't that easy. Give a Windows admin a Linux box and see how dumbfounded he will be.

The iPad made a splash in the consumer world and perhaps in the BYOD world a bit but you don't really see people doing real work on them or ditching their desktops to use them. Great for consuming, not for creating (unless you enjoy struggling). I think as long as Microsoft caters to the enterprise market and move away from attempting to force a mobile UI on a desktop, things will go swimmingly for them.

Having said that, Windows 8 on a Surface is a joy to use! Just not on a desktop without having to fling your mouse all over the place to get things to appear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _" One of the reasons "Web 2.0" has such an air of euphoria about it is the feeling, conscious or not, that this era of monopoly may finally be over."_

While it seems that there is no longer the complete monopoly that Microsoft had, the new monopoly that Google has is functionally similar. While not fully there yet, they are heading towards near-complete lock-in to Google services. Web 2.0 may have raised the bar for monopoly (or lowered the bar for competition), it definitely didn't do away with it altogether.

</comment><comment><USER25> I predicted Apple's death some months after Steve Jobs died. Why? Two things (both of them decisions of the CEO): Plastic iPhones and the iPad mini (both products Jobs had resisted) and the more damning fact that for the first time a dividend of a serious size was paid ([http://investor.apple.com/dividends.cfm](http://investor.apple.com/dividends.cfm)). Jobs was adamant about growing the warchest. His assumption was that if a stockholder thought his/her investment was better placed elsewhere, stock could be sold and reinvested. The act of paying a dividend states that the board thinks the investor can do better elsewhere with that money.

Apple is no longer hungry, nor foolish.

<comment><USER26> The first iPad mini was introduced on 2012-10-23. Steve Jobs died on 2011-10-05. It's certain that Steve both knew about the iPad mini and supported its development. Apple's hardware development takes time and does not shift on a dime.

"Apple is no longer hungry, nor foolish" is such a facile statement that means absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER25> I was actually rephrasing my point, using the quote. Sheding money as dividends means Apple is not hungry. Having no visionary guide to quell the aversion of risk, Apple is no longer foolish. I'm a bit embarrassed having to explain it.

<comment><USER26> Their war chest will remain strategically as big as it needs to be. The amount of cash they have is ridiculous.

And while an Icahn sized stock buy back is probably too much, their current buy back makes all the sense in the world. The stock is tremendously undervalued.

You can't say it more eloquently than Warren Buffet: "If you could buy dollar bills for 80 cents, it's a very good thing to do." [1]

[Disclosure: I am long AAPL.]

1: [http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/04/apple-warren- buffett-...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/04/apple-warren-buffett- cash/)

<comment><USER27> Not to mention most of that cash is overseas, and it would be extremely costly to pull in onshore. They actually took a loan to pay out the dividends as it would be cheaper than paying the tax required to onshore their overseas monies.

I expect if all that money was in the US they would be spending it on something else. There are only so many fancy stores with expensive glass you can build overseas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Microsoft as the concept of an all powerful dominating IT company is dead, and nothing has or will replace it. The company itself is still doing fine- they still make roughly twice the profit _google_ did last financial year.

<comment><USER29> Is that just net profit, or does it account for growth? Net profit is not always a good metric for a large company's performance, as there are a lot of incentives to keep that number down and invest money back into the business (such as taxes). Amazon, for example, almost always operates near or at a loss from a quarterly or yearly perspective, but makes huge growth as business.

<comment><USER30> This Ballmer slide from a few months ago compares Microsoft financials to some of the other big players.

[https://twitter.com/janettu/status/380824535714377728](https://twitter.com/janettu/status/380824535714377728)

Pretty interesting: they are still big, and they are arguably much more diversified than any other the other big players.

<comment><USER31> "and they are arguably much more diversified than any other the other big players"

"Diversified"...that's the keyword here and I guess the key to their continued success at putting money in the bank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Microsoft wanted to destroy the web, and they lost.

They tried to destroy linux, and they lost.

They tried to destroy apple, and they lost.

They tried to destroy android, and they lost.

That's why we, web, linux, apple, android fans hate microsoft with a passion.

While they succeeded in destroying so many other companies and technologies, we were there and we fought those fights.

We never forget.

<comment><USER33> But seriously, aren't all competitors just trying to destroy each other?

<comment><USER34> You're right of course, but the tactics they used (especially against oss/linux and the web) pissed off a lot of people.

If destroying meant: making yet a better product and marginalizing the competition (with the product or through marketing) it would be business as usual, but it seems microsoft didn't understand that their embrace-extend- extinguish method would backfire in the internet age.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> tl;dr

PG thinks the web/startup scene == the world. 7 years proved he's wrong.

<comment><USER36> It's almost as if he had a stake in the web/startup scene or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why can't people just acknowledge these things are cyclical?

You love something, then everyone loves it, then it's not as cool and special, then people start to hate it, then they tear it down and find something else to love. Microsoft has completed that cycle and is now potentially going to be loved again, whereas Apple is nearing the end of their cycle and is started to be hated.

</comment><comment><USER38> IMO Microsoft is still one of the scariest companies when it comes to the gaming industry. I'm overjoyed to see tricklets of sanity rise up (the PC market)through Valves efforts, but MS is still a very big, very scary beast in AAA gaming.

<comment><USER39> My guess is that Valve is being watched by every other game maker. I wonder what is being said behind closed doors in meetings with a lot of suits. If Valve is successful, I don't think they will be alone for long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The most amazing thing about this essay is that even the smartest people amongst us (Paul Graham) can be bigoted and see things as black and white when they are grey.

Microsoft has done some well documented evil things but imagine if IBM had won the OS wars? Talk about locked down and monopolistic! And has the ascendance of Apple and Google been uniformly good? I think not - we are in less control over our software and our data than when Microsoft was in charge.

It kinda seems crazy stupid to not invite a company that makes $24B in income a year to your demo day. But then again, Microsoft has never been a company that is bamboozled by Nest Labs-style startup overvaluation bullshit, and maybe you knew that.

</comment><comment><USER41> Microsoft is lumbering and beurocratic but they do actually ship a lot of code and support the developer community. Xbox is also very successful obviously. Windows 8 was a huge flop in most people's opinion due to terrible user interface, despite the welcome creation of a Windows app store.

They still have a lot of momentum behind them because of all the PC applications that only work with Windows.

It's an interesting reality that Apple has their OS locked "officially" with their own hardware. In that respect, Microsoft seems more open to hardware competition. (IMO)

<comment><USER23> The strange thing is that with Windows XP, you could go online and search for software from within it. You could "get software" from within XP (somewhere in the Control Panel I think?)

Perhaps it didn't take off due to the lack of wide-ranging Internet connectivity at the time. But they did at least attempt an online shop/store at the time. But everyone forgets this.

<comment><USER41> Ah, I think I know what you're talking about. Was this where their games like "Motocross Madness" were available for trial or purchase? I see the convenience of a nice searchable, organized app store but the decision to bifurcate Windows 8 into two completely separate desktop environments and then hide all the useful controls off of the screen (in corners) seems completely asinine. There's probably keyboard shortcuts that make navigation easier but there needs to be a good GUI for those users who are used to using their PC that way.

<comment><USER23> Precisely. Windows-C for the charm etc. isn't obvious. It isn't even obvious what this charm thing is either, or why I need to move the cursor over to the edge of the screen.

This will completely confuse most Windows users who are used to clicking on things that they see, not magically waving the cursor around to make things appear and then clicking on non-obvious vague silhouette-style icons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Sometimes I wonder if people who write this stuff actually understand how businesses operate.

Microsoft is dead because of competition? How does that even make sense? Like I've said many times before, competition actually makes a company and their products better, not make them die. MS has had to turn their huge ship around and its a slow process.

Sure, they're making baby steps and getting there, but the hatred for them is beyond what I've seen for other companies. It's not just that they dominated and killed a bunch of competition in the 80's and 90's. Even now with the new products they're bringing to market, people are still hazing them and won't let them get off the mat.

It's almost fashionable these days to hate MS. They can't do mobile like Android and Apple, they can't do cloud stuff like Amazon and Salesforce. .Net is dead, everybody loves Ruby. MS can't do anything right, blah, blah, blah.

Nobody wants to see the small victories, they just want to pile on enough dirt and hope they go away.

</comment><comment><USER42> > _Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the > same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or > Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not > only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers > uses Microsoft 's anyway._

Well, Apple's laptops, like their whole hardware range, look really nice and well made. My Toshiba Satellite is dusty, covered in bagel crumbs and stinks of roll-ups. I would be really embarrassed turning up in a public arena with a pig ugly piece of kit that looks like it has been used in a sewer.

Windows is still used by many businesses in the UK. That is the main reason I still have it on my laptop, most CV's are only accepted as .doc/.docx/.txt files.

The desktop no longer matters? Hell, the CLI is still alive and kicking. I find Vim works better in tty than in xterm.

</comment><comment><USER43> So are these the same thoughts the hacker community will have with Apple's iOS in the future (there'll inevitably be some missteps)? Or even OSX for that matter? I fail to see why in-principle the community that is so vocal about FOSS gives them a pass.

<comment><USER44> Stallman doesn't. Apple did open source WebKit, which made the browser experience good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> 'Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck. '

right on the spot.

</comment><comment><USER46> I guess they don't see themselves as the community sees an all round and productive IT company. They had and do still have an abundance of market penetration (considering the business world in Europe and Asia and so on). They couldn't (maybe didn't) kill the desktop by replacing it with surface. They really could have, and the whole business world may be on tablets today, but they didn't do it. (and please don't tell me that the business world are on tablets today, tablets are still accessories to laptop and desktop computers)

I understand if anybody says "hey! MS is not a company as you or others would prescribe to be and you don't get what surface is and what it is for!" Maybe that's true. But they had lots of chances of coming back as a competitive, innovative actor and they keep grounding their chances with products like Windows 8. Last month, may father, who is an author and do not get along well with any computer called me and said: "I just could not work with this Windows 8." To note, he barely learned to cope with the old fashioned windows interface. Loading a considerable amount of cognitive load to consumers upon whom your market penetration depends does not seem like good idea. It at least is not "innovation".

We will see what the concept will be like in 5 to 10 years or so, when the planned obsolescence time of the currently available MS running hardware (and software for that matter) comes. But to replace things like Word, Excel? Quite possible, but difficult. When those can be replaced, I think we will see whether the company stands over a house of cards or not.

</comment><comment><USER47> _" no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway."_

That was a false statement in 2007 and is still today. I'm the evidence, if no one else. And I don't think I'm alone, although it _does_ puzzle me when I see Microsoft evangelists at conferences holding speeches from Apple computers.

<comment><USER48> I do think Windows will become pretty irrelevant over the next 5 years, as Android and iOS get owned by _billions_ of people. However, I agree that right now and for the past few years, there's a very strong bias towards Apple computers in Silicon Valley and in media offices, and they might think "Apple is everywhere", even though it's not.

<comment><USER49> If Apple keeps curling up in their luxury niche it will be iOS that's going to be irrelevant in 5 years.

And Microsoft will start to decline if they don't go after SAP's and Oracle's enterprise applications business before their server-side stuff becomes a low cost cloud based commodity.

I think both Apple and Microsoft are going down. Linux will rule the server side and the client side in the shape of Android/Chrome OS.

<comment><USER44> Sounds bleak

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I don't think they are dead. Just look at design. WP7 brought forward the flat style. First everybody laughed at it. Now it's the new hip. iOS got converted into flat. Lots of websites are being redesigned for flat. How many examples of flat design would there be if MS didn't have any mindshare?

</comment><comment><USER51> A lot of start ups are making OSs, browsers, web servers, email clients or servers, productivity suites, game consoles,document servers. Nope. Sorry, still avoiding Microsoft's territory. And if Google or Apple gets kicked in the balls from the justice department they would become low key as well.

</comment><comment><USER52> Its a natural tendency of the system for proprietary efforts to grow in power and centralize. We need a more evolved paradigm because there is a fundamental antagonism between business (in its current form) and technology.

One of the things that is starting to force this evolution is the growing realization that we must move from a server-based internet to a distributed data-based internet.

We need to popularize new or better ways of achieving cohesion while maintaining decoupling, diversity, and freedom to evolve different solutions.

I think there are a lot of ideas but the newest and best ideas for fundamental structural changes are not well known or tested. We need to test some radical changes to societal structures.

</comment><comment><USER53> this sounded like pandering then, it sounds like pandering now. he's in business, of course he's got a solid marketer in him!

</comment><comment><USER54> It would not be optimal for Microsoft to die. And it is kinda sad that DEC and Sun are no more. I liked that [http://altavista.digital.com](http://altavista.digital.com). It was good.

<comment><USER55> That is not the definition of death that the article uses. He argues that Microsoft died as a monopolist, as the bully of the schoolyard. DEC and Sun never had that position to lose. IBM did, but now I keep paraphrasing the article. Read it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Funny how the links to the footnotes in the article are intercepted by the numbered list near the bottom. You'd think somebody would have caught that bug by now.

The first time through, I thought they _were_ the footnotes, and, oddly enough, they sort-of made sense. Especially the 2nd one, which came off as a strange joke (as in "We better make sure Microsoft doesn't catch the Apple bug").

</comment><comment><USER57> From my experience, girls liked Barry Manilow in the mid-to-late '70s ... he was hard to compete against in middle school.

</comment><comment><USER58> Wow, reading an article saying that MSFT is dead, with this line, "And of course Apple has Microsoft on the run in music too, with TV and phones on the way."

ON THE WAY. This article is before the iPhone came to dominate. Wow, did Microsoft miss that boat.

</comment><comment><USER59> Ehhh Microsoft still has a lot of talent they are just plagued with entrenched bureaucracy.

<comment><USER60> And, what do you imagine will solve the problem of entrenched bureaucracy? Given that bureaucracy tends to expand itself as a primary feature...saying a company is "just plagued" with it, is a pretty damning statement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> At the time this was written, it seemed as if Microsoft was __dying __, so calling it dead might be a "safe" prediction.

However, even a dying wounded can get intensive care and get back to life...

</comment><comment><USER62> Keywords:

\- Web \- Google, Apple \- Startup

Insight: Web: Infrastruture (Cloud) + Apps (HTML&co, Native) Are Apple & Goog better than MS @this ?

</comment><comment><USER63> Oh my. I remember reading this when it first came out in 2007. Does that make me an old fart?

</comment><comment><USER64> Good news for Satya Nadella to start with

<comment><USER65> Do you enjoy your life-style of reading news delayed by 7 years?

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Is this still a news for anyone?)

</comment><comment><USER67> why every time something new good happens some old sh8 must pop-up?

</comment><comment><USER68> Huh, sir, are you a prophet?

This is clearly amazing :D

</comment><comment><USER69> C# and .net killed MS. The same virus killed Sun and will kill oracle. Technologies that try to isolate the coder from the machine by creating a funnelled dumbed-down common interface are inherently flawed because the HW evolves faster than the software.

<comment><USER70> You are seriously saying somehow that languages which abstract away hardware details are bad?

"Assembly? Bad! you should know the instructions op codes."

"C? Bad! you should know assembly! What are you trying to do? Write an operating system that is portable beyond the PDP architecture?"

"Java? Bad! You should manage your own memory! And the STL should be good enough for anyone."

Abstraction, by reducing complexity or making assumptions, allows developers to work faster or do more. Does this have negative side effects? Sure (see Joel's leaky abstractions article), but the benefits out weight the costs by several orders of magnitude. My evidence? The entire computer industry for the last 74 years.

<comment><USER69> Sorry I did not formulate my though properly. Let's try this:

Companies that try to use a language/platform combination to isolate the coder from the machine by creating a funnelled dumbed-down common interface and executing environment are pursuing a loose-loose path.

1\. the HW evolves faster than the software 2\. the coder wants to hack the most out of the hardware 3\. the OpenSource community is a paradigm shift for software companies, you can't put the cat back in the bag.

Cheers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> (sorry if I sound like a phony or worse suckup when I say this, but) PG is one of the smartest, ahead-of-his-times guy of our generation!

<comment><USER35> Yes you do, but nevermind, you're just like the vast majority of commenters here.

Btw thanks for your contribution, very interesting.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which states loosely or don't enforce non-compete agreements? - <AUTHOR> Which states are similar to California in terms of how they don't enforce non-compete agreements?  If there's not many, which states are close to California? <comment><USER2> There are no other states that so broadly consider non-competes void.</comment>


Australian metadata retention changes explained - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/metadata-retention-changes-explained-20151011-gk6m7p.html <comment><AUTHOR> What could possibly go wrong?

How soon till the worlds hackers start releasing details of Australian citizens digital activities?

It's such a relief to know that I am now safer.

</comment><comment><USER2> Relevant: Majority of ISPs not ready for metadata laws that come into force today

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-13/majority-of-isps- not-r...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-13/majority-of-isps-not-ready-to- start-collecting-metadata/6847370)

>but 84 per cent say they are not ready and will not be collecting metadata on time.

>A majority of ISPs, about 61 per cent, are requesting exemptions or variations from parts of the legislation, for example, the requirement to encrypt retained metadata

Cool, so the data isn't going to be encrypted

</comment><comment><USER3> I may be in the minority here, but I see the law as having a positive. By actually legislating this instead of having it occur clandestinely, the true intentions are clear to those that otherwise might not have known (i.e. the non-technical masses). I can only hope that the US follows Australia and Germany in making a clear statement about this metadata collection, for better or worse, to increase the market for client side encryption and anonymity.

<comment><USER4> I think that makes the unfounded assumption that they don't go any further than the legislation would allow anyway.</comment></comment>


Bitcoin Is Not as Secure, Unregulated, or Lucrative as You Might Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/05/lets-cut-through-the-bitcoin-hype/ <comment><USER2> This is an opinion piece. Which is to say don't go in expecting to either learn something new or even to expect a single coherent theme to emerge.

It is just a bunch of random pieces of information spliced in with random pieces of information specifically about bitcoins, throw in a link-baity title, and that is this article.

<comment><USER3> Also it's an opinion piece because I don't work for Wired.

<comment><USER4> Dont take anything here personally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > A pallet of $100 bills that disappears in Iraq is a socialized loss against > everyone who holds dollars.

What? That was tax money. Further, a true destruction of those bills would not be a loss, it would be a gain to everyone else with dollars.

<comment><USER3> (Author here)

It disappears in Iraq. What, you think they're gonna burn it for warmth? Those bucks are coming back.

<comment><USER6> OK, but doesn't that make it neutral rather than a loss against people who hold dollars?

(I am an admirer of your work and writing BTW.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >After all, the internet runs on a foundation of buggy technologies, and it survives.

How the Internet is buggy?

<comment><USER8> No IP protocol level security (that is widely adopted, IPsec) a top down distribution of addresses. Tacked on mutant growth to fix systemic issues (DNS, NAT, etc). HTML-internet specifically, html is a document markup used for applications and javascript is a browser extension language turned Internet assembly.

Maybe more than anything, people abuse what the Internet is for. Hospitals running their patient records over devices on the public Internet (that are almost certainly full of exploitable security holes on some port, which is probably an Internet "bug" in how easy it is to just barrage all the ports on a machine to find some exploitable application if they aren't proactive with managing the security).

<comment><USER2> Can you go into more detail on why you feel HTML is broken?

I would have agreed with you back when IE 6 was still a "thing." But these days with strict XHTML, CSS, for appearance/layout, and JS for logic we seem to actually be at a very good place for moving forward.

I'd even go as far as to say that XHTML/CSS and JS do a better job separating responsibilities than many programming frameworks I've used do.

Do I think they're perfect? No. In fact I hate typeless languages like JS. But it is "good enough."

<comment><USER9> Everything is good enough. An evolutionary biology professor said this once, and it struck me as deep wisdom:

"life doesn't work perfectly, it just works."

You could say life works better than dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Bitcoin's got its issues. But it is not competing with perfection.

Possibly the most salient and eloquent quote I've ever heard regarding bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER11> This article is as incoherent as it gets. Money is 'buggy'!? Seriously!!?

<comment><USER3> If you have a technology (Money) and it doesn't work, it's buggy. You've never had your credit card declined?

<comment><USER11> So what is not buggy in this world ?

I can write about anything and call it buggy. Monsoons are buggy since don't arrive on time. Nile is buggy because it floods. Electricity is buggy because it has shock risk. Water is buggy because it can harbor mosquitoes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > There's only a few parties that turn bitcoin (which teleports) into dollars > (which buy stuff).

They are unnecessary if vendors directly accept bitcoin, at which point you can have your wallet, you can be connected to arbitrary nodes in the network, and you can spend the money from that wallet in transactions with any other wallet and verify against only ~8 nodes in the network to verify with reasonable certainty.

> It's all fiat.

This is very true, and a lot of people ignore it. Props to the article for making a deal of it. Gold is not worth a thousandth its current market value if people didn't treat it as a scarce shiny valuable and instead treated it as a good conductor or flaky metal.

<comment> daniel-cussen > Gold is not worth a thousandth its current market value if people didn't > treat it as a scarce shiny valuable and instead treated it as a good > conductor or flaky metal.

That's a stretch. If it were not valuable monetarily, its price would be similar to other difficult-to-extract, heavy metals with a long list of unique properties, like Iridium or Rhenium, neither monetary, and both around $400 an ounce.

<comment><USER3> What's the global supply differential of Gold to Iridium?

<comment><USER12> I would also object to gold being difficult to extract.

Gold is relatively scarce, but about 3-10 times more common in the crust (by ppm on Wikipedia) than Iridium, Rhodium or Rhenium. Production of gold was 55 times higher than Rhenium. I don't know if this because of demand or difficulty of extraction. Rhenium is priced at $142/Troy ounce.

<comment> daniel-cussen The $400 figure was the last time I checked--it's a very illiquid market and I remember publicly accessible prices being delayed by months. But rhenium is extracted as a molybdenum impurity, itself an impurity in copper. Most (90%) of it comes from Chile, and the price reflects supply and demand, really. I don't know what the supply elasticity is like, but I suppose suppliers could buy back old copper or molybdenum to purify it if the price warranted it. And because it's an exotic metal, none of the production is artisanal. Gold, on the other hand, has about 25% artisanal production, because mankind has been mining it for thousands of years and the extraction process is simple and well known.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Makes me think of Wired's cover story "The Web is Dead".

<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/>

</comment><comment> UVB-76 Anyone who thinks Bitcoin is the future of money is insane.

<comment><USER14> Suppose I say that I think that bitcoin is the future of currency in the same way that the Benz Patent Motorwagen was the future of personal transportation?

<comment> UVB-76 Bitcoin has no place in the future of currency.

The future of currency is digital, but it's not peer-to-peer. It's just an international organisation with a big centralised database. You might not like it, but watch it unfold.

<comment><USER15> A single point of failure for a global currency sounds like an awful idea to me. A federated model, in which each main node has to go through a rigorous appraisal before it joins its peers, and they continuously "trust but verify" each other, is a much more palatable option.

<comment> UVB-76 Centralisation is the endgame. All transactions will be logged, and all will be instantly reversible in the unlikely event of some kind of security breach.

Money laundering will be impossible, and there'll be no incentive to hack other people's accounts because all thefts will be reversible (even if the thief then went on to transfer said currency to third parties)

<comment><USER15> The question is, who gets the key to the vault? Who can say a transaction was fraudulent? Who will you give the authority to freeze all your digital assets, pending further investigation? Amazon? Google? Paypal?

<comment> UVB-76 A non-governmental international organisation à la the United Nations or the World Bank.

Of course, we're talking about the long-term here. In the next 5-10 years similar systems will be implemented by individual nations. International cooperation will take much longer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Aussie judge wants to see live BitTorrent demo - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Judge-wants-to-see-live-BitTorrent-demo/0,130061791,339298909,00.htm

<comment><USER2> iiNet is pretty much the fall guy for this issue, as a vast array of other ISPs provide a similar "look the other way" service and are never publicly called out for it. It's more so the fact that every time iiNet undermines the Government's wishes, they make a media circus out of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Requests latest Tarantino film as "my wife insisted we choose _Twilight_ last weekend".</comment>


Show HN: MailRipper – Inbound email ripping for developers with email pain - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN - This is our MVP.
https://www.mailripper.com
Questions for you:
Is this something your company might pay to use?
Do you have any feedback, thoughts or comments for us? - we'd love to hear what you think.
thanks <comment><USER2> It's not clear what pain you're solving, or what you system does. I think it has something to do with converting the format of my email, but I'm not sure how that help me.

I'm also not sure why I'd want to give up the flexibility of using my own email address for one on a domain I don't control. Also, if this is a valid pain point, I highly doubt that software engineers would feel this pain any more than a dozen other professional classes. Would accountants not have this pain?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I guess my question to you is are you a developer who has had to write code to process emails? If yes, then you'd understand the pain of trying to cleanly extract and deal with all the intricacies and complexity of getting data consistently and cleanly out of those emails. Especially if you are processing attachments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure the pain you're trying to solve is real or at the right junction. I process data from all sources daily, and many are email attachments. Just extracting the attachments is not difficult. Then my BI process will unzip if necessary and process the files. There are different connectors for different file types: HTML, PDF, CSV, Excel, etc.. I think processing the files should be at a latter stage, not during the extract phase.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [https://www.mailripper.com](https://www.mailripper.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> How is this diferrent from [http://www.mailgun.com](http://www.mailgun.com) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> MailRipper extracts attachments, extracts the text from those attachments and converts the document attachments to PDF. Also MailRipper doesn't require any programming, MailGun does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool. Could this be turned into an email API? A user emails mailripper which pings a server with the info?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Can you suggest to me what use case you'd have in mind? I'm guessing you'd drop the email and extracted text into a database for full text search?

<comment><USER5> Not exactly sure, but its interesting to think about

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> really like how you implemented the try it out/demo on your landing page.

</comment><comment><USER7> It didn't work for the demo

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. It appears a couple of the inbound processing tasks weren't running. I suspect it's because I did some late configuration of supervisor and really I should have had them in autostart, which I didn't for uninteresting reasons. SHould be working now, but if not please do email email@example.com and I'll check it out. thanks for your patience, it's the very earliest release.</comment></comment>


TechCrunch Hackathon Tickets Notifier - <AUTHOR> http://tchackathonticketsnotifier.appspot.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> In case you missed securing a hackathon ticket the first time, this app notifies you as soon as the tickets are available.</comment>


Coinbase bans the accounts of Gab and its founder - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1081255271429681153 <comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of gab by any stretch, but I find it deeply disturbing that payment processors can unilaterally withdraw service like this.

<comment><USER3> I keep seeing this sentiment in similar threads (i.e. Cloudflare, Twitter, etc...). Gab has a right to free speech and association. Does Coinbase not enjoy the same right?

Until a service becomes so widespread and essential as to be declared a public good/utility, this looks like 'business is business' IMO.

<comment><USER2> Well you can't accept hard currency on the internet, so payment processors are kind of essential.

Also business is business only gets you so far. What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black?

<comment><USER4> >What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black?

in the analog world countries provide civil rights protections for day to day commerce for this type of situation, in the digital world it's unlikely to ever matter that you are black, unless you state so in the first place.

The question itself shines light on the important difference here. Gab is not discriminated because of some natural feature about them, they are discriminated against because they _act_ like unsavoury people that nobody wants to be associated with.

Nope, being black is not the same as being a troll or a fascist on the internet. People have the right to not be associated with you if you present yourself in a manner that alienates other customers or is simply incompatible with our values at large.

<comment><USER5> What if it was socialists, union organizers, or environmentalists getting discriminated against? Will we also tell them to stop _acting_ in a way that makes businesses not want to be associated with them?

You said 'incompatible with _our_ values', but it's not 'us' that make these decisions by voting or something, it's a handful of corporations.

<comment><USER4> Well personal disclosure I'm pretty staunchly left so I'm not going to lie, I think It'd be pretty bad of a business to discriminate against those groups but I think at least the case can be made that those groups have the potential to disrupt the platform and everybody else on it through their political activity, so I think the owner has some legitimate discretion.

I do agree that there should be basic protections on private platforms for speech, especially if people are threatened to be excluded based on ethnic or religious or apolitical identity. But I think it would be absurd to say, if a company could not shut down a threatening or violent, or otherwise outside of the norm organisation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it interesting the process that seems to have taken place here. There is quite clearly no monopoly on payment systems on the internet. There's bank transfer, visa, western union, paypal, a million different bitcoin exchanges.

So for Gab to not have access to funds either one of two things can be true. 1: There is a large conspiracy of banking organisations to stifle Gab for reasons we can speculate about. 2: Each of these organisations have seen Gab and made individual decisions about whether they want to associate themselves with Gab.

What boggles my mind is how many people think that it must be 1.

<comment><USER7> Gab has been rejected from 18 banks.

So closer to 1.

<comment><USER8> Can you prove, or at least find _some_ evidence of conspiracy? Gab is an unpopular service, and doing business with them would become news and risk their other customers, so it's not too surprising that payment processors and banks choose to not to business with them.

I think it's less conspiracy and more defensive business strategy.

I wish payment processing and banking were more anonymous, and I'm very interested in projects like GNU Taler[1] that seek to find privacy conscious ways of doing transactions online. However, if they can't even find a bank to do business with them (or start one themselves), they're kind of screwed.

\- [1] [http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/](http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Operation Choke Point still lives. It isn't Coinbase's fault though, arguably.</comment>


Ask HN: "my" project has been implemented in 2005 - should I continue? - <AUTHOR>

I do programming for fun, after my $dayjob. I've had this great idea for a website that shows you which book form a logical series (for example the seven "Harry Potter"), so that you can look up the sequels to a book.
A while back a found a site which has been doing that for a while [1], but that was OK - I didn't like that site's layout and search function, and their license allowed it for me to just import their data.
But this week I found another site which does the same thing [2], and they do it really well. Moreover they have been doing that since 2006, have 8 employees and 1 mio signed-up users. But most importantly they already have a huge data set. Quite a head start. They have also implemented some ideas I've had for getting some revenue (organizing your own library online, freemium model).
Compare that with what I currently have [3], I've worked on that for about half a year now in my not-so-copious free time.
So I'm pretty demotivated right now. I wouldn't mind competing with another site if I thought I did it better than they do, but currently I don't think so. The only thing I do better is presenting translations (though I don't have too much data for that yet), but I don't think that'll be a major selling point.
So, what should I do? Should I just chuck out what I have now and turn to a differnt project? Or compete nonetheless? Or maybe focus on the German market (I live in Germany)?
I want to build something that people are happy to use and find useful, if it turns out profitable in the end that would be nice, but that's not my main priority.
[1] http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?7167
[2] http://www.librarything.com/series/Harry+Potter [3] http://quelology.org/t/9684
P.S. yes, I know, I should have searched for other sites more carefully when I started. Classical market research fail. <comment><USER2> LibraryThing is intended to be useful for cataloging one's own collection, less so for finding new books. It's been around since 2006, yes, but it hasn't had big changes since the first year or so. I became a lifetime member not long after the site started and I've seen a few bugs for over a year.

You're starting from a very different point, to make it easy for people who know one book to learn of the series and translations. Watch Patrick McKenzie's talks on SEO and scalable content generation. Even with LT and Delicious Monster (the other big personal library software), you can get a significant amount of traffic. Make an attractive page and get the SEO right and you could have a great steady income in affiliate fees for a low time investment.

(Hell, if you get totally discouraged and decided to drop it, email me. Maybe I'll build it in my Copious Free Time. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is always room for a competiter. Just b/c there was Rhapsoday, et al, didnt' stop Pandora (and the flood of other online music sites).

People dislike a site (or company) for many reasons - poor search, navigation, layout, bugs, etc.

Again, just because there is Honda, doesn't mean there isn't room for Toyota and Hyundai, etc.

I'm constantly looking for alternatives to existing software/sites. Unless you have a competitor like Amazon, I think you should go ahead and do what you _want_ to do.

If you have a great interest in this idea, follow it through. At worst you make it open source. If you are interested anymore, dump it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you and everybody else for your opinions and encouragement.

I've decided to continue working on the site for now, and see how it goes. Maybe if I do a bit of advertising and my visitor numbers start to increase, my motivation also increases.

<comment><USER2> Cool. You don't have an email address in your profile, but I do in mine - please drop me a line when you have any news, I'm curious about the idea. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it's something that you're spending your free time on, make sure it's something that you want to do. If you think you can make your product better, or even just simpler, I would keep ploddign along. If the other one is the one that you would rather use, then find something new.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not related, but could you reformat you text so reading it would be easier.

<comment><USER6> _I reformatted it_

I do programming for fun, after my $dayjob. I've had this great idea for a website that shows you which book form a logical series (for example the seven "Harry Potter"), so that you can look up the sequels to a book.

A while back a found a site which has been doing that for a while [1], but that was OK - I didn't like that site's layout and search function, and their license allowed it for me to just import their data.

But this week I found another site which does the same thing [2], and they do it really well. Moreover they have been doing that since 2006, have 8 employees and 1 mio signed-up users. But most importantly they already have a huge data set. Quite a head start. They have also implemented some ideas I've had for getting some revenue (organizing your own library online, freemium model).

Compare that with what I currently have [3], I've worked on that for about half a year now in my not-so-copious free time.

So I'm pretty demotivated right now. I wouldn't mind competing with another site if I thought I did it better than they do, but currently I don't think so. The only thing I do better is presenting translations (though I don't have too much data for that yet), but I don't think that'll be a major selling point.

So, what should I do? Should I just chuck out what I have now and turn to a differnt project? Or compete nonetheless? Or maybe focus on the German market (I live in Germany)?

I want to build something that people are happy to use and find useful, if it turns out profitable in the end that would be nice, but that's not my main priority.

[1] <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?7167>

[2] <http://www.librarything.com/series/Harry+Potter>

[3] <http://quelology.org/t/9684>

P.S. yes, I know, I should have searched for other sites more carefully when I started. Classical market research fail.

<comment><USER7> You shouldn't look at this as a negative. For worthwhile spaces there's always room for more competitors. Finding other people doing similar things should validate your idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'll break from the crowd and tell you not to do it. First because I wouldn't personally find it useful. Second because this space is very crowded with people vying for affiliate revenue and you will have a long and slow crawl to any organic visibility, and third because the lack of progress/activity among the sites that you list suggests there is very little in the way of revenue anyway.

Do something you really care about and that solves a problem for someone. Finding sequels to books is not a problem I think anyone has.

</comment><comment><USER9> Many of the most successful apps were not the first ones in their category. They didn't invent a new market but improved existing ideas and somehow became more popular than the original ones

</comment><comment><USER10> I would pivot, use the existing codebase to form something slightly different (or completely different, depending on the state of the code).

I'd say you can't compete directly with librarything.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do it better. ;D</comment>


Show HN: Ritzy – Submit housing requests for Real Estate agents to see - <AUTHOR> https://ritzy.app <comment><USER2> Great idea. I'm working on a real estate idea myself that is not a million miles from this idea. Will be interested to hear how far you get with this. My suggestion would be to start off by focusing on one country or region. I would have a lot more confidence in such a product myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. we are focusing on the US market. we are thinking on how to attract both customers and agents. if you have any ideas on how to achieve that i would be very thankful. best regards and good luck.

<comment><USER3> Teaming up with Instagram influencers for the customer side would probably help</comment></comment></comment>


Sony developing authenticating power outlets: pay-to-charge on the way?  - <AUTHOR> http://theverge.com/2012/2/14/2796971/sony-authenticating-power-outlets-charge-nfc

<comment><USER2> Pay to charge outlets? Sounds like the perfect bit for this generation's Woz to chafe at.</comment>


Facebook email is live - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=19030 I fail to see any threads on this (am I blind?) so I will just start one. <comment><USER2> Why on earth would you trust Facebook with your e-mails?

<comment><USER3> Because they are all a bunch of "dumb fucks" to use the words of the founder of Facebook

<comment><USER4> No, you've got it wrong. He was referring to _us_.

<comment><USER3> Yeah - I was responding to "how can one trust facebook with email" -- because the users who would trust facebook are "dumb fucks" according to facebook's founder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Owning your @facebook.com address makes it easier for friends and family who are not on Facebook yet to connect with you_

Hmmm... I'm quite sure that facebook will still "own your @facebook.com" address.

</comment><comment><USER6> ...since about 3 months.

</comment><comment><USER7> The combination of Facebook's blatant disregard for privacy and American authorities' wide access to snoop means that I won't be using Facebook email.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have Facebook email for a while, and I find it incredibly hideous. I have already "trusted" Facebook to more things than I wanted, and I guess I'd hold on to my gmail which is at least operated by another company that is less evi... uh never mind.

<comment><USER7> Why not just pay for an IMAP account at a provider that doesn't invade your privacy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> And has been for months. See the announcement here, which originally went up in November.

<https://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=452288242130>

</comment><comment><USER10> Will Facebook notification emails be sent to Facebook email accounts? Delicious.

<comment><USER11> Why? That doesn't make any sense. Email notifications are to remind you to come to Facebook to check out the content. If you view your email by coming to Facebook, you're already going to have seen the notification. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER12> <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=recursion>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While this is a great move from Facebook from 'getting everyone on our platform' POV I find it hideous and disgusting.

The interface is crap. It offers no folders/labels, no outside contacts (not sure?) and is a lock in system. Not only that, it doesn't bring anything new to email.

Value added? None. Just more lock-in, propriety, FBI-friendly BS.

I can't wait for Diaspora to be stable and public. Long live FOSS and the revolution!

EDIT: Yes can send email but will include your profile info. Gee thanks! Just what I wanted! Also Spam?

Also note that my post is intentionally agressive, I hate the 'Facebook attitude'.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've had this since a week after it's announcement like November I think. I like that chat is integrated with messages but I don't use it like an email account.

</comment><comment><USER15> I still don't have the new Facebook messages... :-/

<comment><USER16> Have you already claimed a facebook.com/username? I thought the same, but it seems like my firstname.lastname@example.com was already setup for me. Try sending yourself an email to @facebook.com (ideally from the email coupled to your FB account).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's been months since this launched. I've had this for a quite a while myself.

</comment><comment><USER18> LIES! I don't have the link and I can't email an email address.</comment>


Show HN: hnpc – Highlight New/Updated Posts & New Comments (User Script) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michaelschade/hnpc

<comment><AUTHOR> You can install it by grabbing the user script: [https://raw.github.com/michaelschade/hnpc/master/src/hnpc.us...](https://raw.github.com/michaelschade/hnpc/master/src/hnpc.user.js)

Here are two pictures showing it in action:

* [https://github.com/michaelschade/hnpc/raw/master/examples/po...](https://github.com/michaelschade/hnpc/raw/master/examples/posts.png)

* [https://github.com/michaelschade/hnpc/raw/master/examples/co...](https://github.com/michaelschade/hnpc/raw/master/examples/comments.png)

This uses a browser's Web Storage, so all information is stored locally.

</comment><comment><USER2> In a related vein, <http://hnnotify.com> provides comment reply email notifications if you want to know when someone replies to you on HN (Disclaimer: I am the author)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, that's pretty slick. Just signed up to check it out, thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER2> Thanks Michael, here's a test message!

<comment><AUTHOR> Works wonderfully–very nice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice script - very useful. I made it into an Opera extension:

<https://addons.opera.com/en/addons/extensions/details/hnpc>

<comment><AUTHOR> Sweet! I've updated the README to note the existence of your extension.

Thanks for the contribution!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You might be also interested in the Google Chrome extension

<https://github.com/wuzhe/social-hotness>

Preview:

[https://github.com/wuzhe/social- hotness/raw/master/screensho...](https://github.com/wuzhe/social- hotness/raw/master/screenshots/yc_1.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't seem to get the extension to work (package not valid). It looks neat, though.

Detecting and highlighting new comments was my original functionality, and I added the post list highlighting as an after-thought when I couldn't find something similar through a quick search.

Thanks for sharing it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for pointing out the problem, I'll look into this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote one of these as well as a Chrome extension a few months ago.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kikfikaiccdaabdilg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kikfikaiccdaabdilgpbcceionekdegl)

Additionally, it will highlight edited comments in grey or any color of your choosing (simply md5's the comment text and checks to see if it's changed next time you load the page).

<comment><USER6> I've done it to: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fpndmkcfggkffpablcooicmihgcgalil) :)</comment></comment>


Collection Of Puzzles For Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/ITProfessionals/EthicsIT/collection-of-puzzles-for-programmers

<comment><USER2> Always fun to see more people doing things like this!

See also Project Euler for LOTS of inspiration: <http://projecteuler.net/>

I see these puzzles as part of grand tradition that includes sangaku (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangaku>) and Martin Gardner, among others.

<comment><USER3> The main difference between these and Project Euler is that these are far more "programming" challenges, whereas Project Euler often boils down to brute forcing a solution once you've figured out the one or two mathematical tricks to reducing the problem space.

<comment><USER2> Googling for regular expressions puzzle turns up a few more of a slightly different but related flavor.

It would be fun to develop a taxonomy and categorize the different recreational challenges that people find amusing, basing the categories on the type of "aha" and skillset required to solve it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool! If anyone likes these they should check out <http://projecteuler.net/> as well.</comment>


Why are some of the ugliest sites on the Web also the most popular? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/02/17/why-are-some-of-the-ugliest-sites-on-the-web-also-the-most-popular/ <comment><USER2> Simple on any screen. Links are obvious. Actions are obvious. Loads quickly on slow connections. Forward/back loads are quick. I don't have time or interest on burning cellular data on bloated websites that take lots of scrolling to view information.

Plus, users who were users pre-web understand and appreciate simple design. We don't need buttons to understand where to click.

</comment><comment><USER3> My design preferences seem to be diametrically opposed to whatever is the contemporary sensibility, then. I don't like the modern, padded, grey-rather- than-jet-black text style at all. High information density is a feature, not a bug. If I designed a site, it'd probably look something like HN, assuming I styled it at all.

A lot of websites now seem to be designed by a "vertical stack of big blocks" model, probably because the need to support mobile resolutions makes any multi-column design (for navigation purposes, etc.) near-unworkable. But despite the idea of "responsive design", and that websites should adapt to the screen, there's been a very noticable degradation in design in this regard from the perspective of someone who always uses a desktop browser. Either the tools available for responsive design (media queries, etc.) are insufficient, or little effort is now expended on offering a superior experience on desktop. So we get the 'stack of blocks' design. Use of fonts which are rather oversized is also common.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't seem that puzzling to me. If a site is very valuable to its users then they probably don't care too much what it looks like. And I suspect that teams working on producing something extremely valuable or useful probably put its appearance pretty far down the to-do list.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks only matter for vary small amount of time after that its all about "does it get the job done".

</comment><comment><USER6> ITS ALL ABOUT CONTENT</comment>


Ask HN: Liberal Arts or Engineering College for CS? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, this is a debate older than any of us here, but I couldn't find much relevant to my case.
I was recently accepted off the waitlist to the brand-new CS program at a prestigious liberal arts college on the west coast. Before that, I enrolled at a top 20 or so CS program at a state school near me that's renowned for its engineering programs. In principle the core curriculum seems relatively the same: intro to programming (both use OOP constructs), algorithms and data structures, concurrent programming (LA uses Go, while state school uses Java), programming languages, etc. The liberal arts college has no general education requirements beyond a credit minimum, while the state school has extensive, arguably annoying, general education requirements to be fulfilled by (from what I can tell) courses that would have little value in my education. Moreover, the state school has more CS course offerings, but I worry that I won't get to take many of the higher-level courses that interest me due to the gen ed requirements.
Obviously the state school would win in terms of industry reputation, but the liberal arts college has a considerably better reputation within higher education from what I can tell (many students go on to get PhDs, and those who do go to top-tier institutions; the same cannot be said for the state school) I'm interested in attaining further higher education, but don't want to be screwed if I decide against it.
On the economic front, the LA college is about $10k more per year than the state school (I'm an out-of-state student,) but my generous parents are willing to cover the difference.
Sorry to ramble, this acceptance has really turned my plan for the next four years on its head. WWHND? <comment><USER2> Leaving schools and reputations aside what you're really asking is whether you should pursue an engineering curriculum or a liberal arts curriculum? As you might expect the answer depends on your goals, desires and interests. Regardless of which you choose you should be thinking of double-majoring, so you may let your decision for your second major help guide you.

Having said that, engineering would be a good route to pursue if you were interested in embedded systems, manufacturing and industrial control systems, avionics, etc. Those fields demand a high level of engineering rigor and an engineering background would definitely be helpful. Mechanical or electrical engineering would be good double major candidates.

If you're more interested in AI, graphics, algorithm analysis and the more traditional CS fare then perhaps the liberal arts school would be the better way to go. An obvious second major would be mathematics. A non-obvious second major would be philosophy, perhaps even psychology.

To me the key deciding factor is your second major and which school would be best for that second major.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your comment; it has proven very useful in my decision. I didn't really consider a second major, and though I'm not sure one would be very feasible at the liberal arts school, but the rationale still helps. I'm interested in the more mathy, formal side of CS, so to the liberal arts school I shall go!</comment></comment>


Why I Hope to Die at 75 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I don't. I want to live for as long as I can, feeling constant pain, seeing new technology unfold and be extremely grumpy. I want to be there and help out my grandchildren with the wisdom of a lifetime. I want my grandchildren to take care of me and learn to be grateful for their youth.

75 is not that old, both of my grandmas are around/past that age and they are strong and clever as ever.

<comment><USER3> > feeling constant pain

Do you currently live with pain?

<comment><USER4> I was going to point this out, as well. There is a certain level of physical pain where your ability to focus on anything external to the pain is severely diminished. Having recently spent time with people in end of life situations, I have to say that the urge to "fight on" is definitely championed more often by those who are far removed from the day-to-day details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The use of any specific number of years is, to me, arbitrary. Essentially this argument comes down to hoping to die before old age really sets in. I think for anyone who aspires to this mindset, it's better described as "I hope to live as long as my body will let me enjoy life, and not a moment shorter or longer."

Having seen every member of the last two generations of my family die while I was in my 20's and 30's, I find myself hoping I live as long as that mindset dictates. I also hope that lasts until I'm far older than 75.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if the author would have picked 47 as his number had he lived in 1900. It seems he's content with the advances that have increased life expectancy since then but feels it somehow inappropriate to shoot past 75.

As a counter-example, Frank Lloyd Wright was productive up to his final year at 92:

[http://www.planetclaire.org/fllw/works.html](http://www.planetclaire.org/fllw/works.html)

<comment><USER7> In 1900, a 60-year old white male, like the author, could expect to live to about 75, versus about 80 today. Medical advances over the last century have largely addressed death in childhood or middle age. Vaccinations and antibiotics are probably responsible for most of the increase in life expectancy. I don't think technologies that prevent early death are at odds with the author's argument.

<comment><USER5> I would say that scientific advances would definitely play into the argument. Suppose that modern investments into "reversing aging" pay off to the tune of adding twenty years to the average healthy lifespan, regardless of how many years it takes until we get there (i.e. 20 more years of healthy life, on average). A like-minded author in 21XX would almost certainly say he/she wishes to die at 95.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but that's a different argument than the one 'zdean made about life expectancy in 1900.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Happiness peaks at the age of 85.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384327/Happiness-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384327/Happiness- decreases-age-peaks-past-50--85-happiest-year.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> I tell this to my friends, I am much younger but none the less there is a time when everything is awesome and fun and after that its just pain and no reason to struggle and try to keep hanging on. Its like a date that is not working and you are just trying to make it happen to no avail. Enjoy youth, have fun, love and cherish and when the music stops - its time to turn off the lights...

</comment><comment><USER10> _> By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life._

The author seems to reach this by asserting that the things he _currently_ values will not be possible when his health declines. How does he know that these values won't change by the time he's 70? The things we value constantly change. As kids, we value playing games, eating candy, making friends, etc. These values change as we become young adults, and seem to change throughout different stages of life.

The things the author seems to _currently_ value can be found here:

 _> It (old age) robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us._

Not all people value creativity, and ability to contribute to society equally though. The author seems to be defined by his work and ability to keep up the image as a highly-functional, productive, independent member of society. If this is how you define yourself, then of course old age looks like a loss.

 _> Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible._

People do this to live a higher quality life too, and the benefits are short- term. Ironically, not doing these things can arguably "rob us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world", something the author seems to value more than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER11> This guy for some reason posits that by 75, meaningful life is over. He says:

> _living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, > then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but > is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to > contribute to work, society, the world._

This makes sense, but I don't see why 75 is the age. One can become the described above shadow of oneself earlier, or can still be interested in life and actively contributing past this age.

It would be best to say "I plan to die when I feel old, decrepit, and useless, or right before it". Well, so do I. But I also hope that both medicine and my actions will keep pushing the age when this is going to happen.

<comment><USER12> Age doesn't determine anything. It is just a number. Health is what determines longevity and that is what everyone wants in abundance. Otherwise, I'm with you. I want to keep using this mind and body as long as modern science will let me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who's job involved visiting nursing homes in a past life, I don't understand the desire for general life extension. Most of these elderly folks were full of tubes and pills (at the cost to taxpayers of $7k per month).

This is no way to live. We as a society should focus less on "life extension" and more on living healthy lives and curing disease in general. Old age is not a disease. What's wrong with living and dying with dignity?

<comment><USER14> > As someone who's job involved visiting nursing homes in a past life, I don't > understand the desire for general life extension. Most of these elderly > folks were full of tubes and pills (at the cost to taxpayers of $7k per > month).

"Elderly folks _in nursing homes_ " are not a representative sample of people in their age range. There is a pretty significant selection bias there.

> We as a society should focus less on "life extension" and more on living > healthy lives and curing disease in general.

Most focus on "life extension" is on curing diseases of aging and repairing or presenting progressive damage that results in decreased quality of life and, ultimately, death, so I don't think the goals you prefer are actually much _different_ than what focus on "life extension" already means in practice.

> What's wrong with living and dying with dignity?

Nothing. Lots of us would just prefer more of the former, and doing the latter later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The rebuttal to this is life-extension, but I have to say that's not something I'm looking forward to. First, a future with people living dramatically longer is going to be one with fewer kids, at least at equilibrium population levels. Second, it will slow-down social change and innovation. Even if scientific advancements can help people retain their creativity, anyone at 80 is going to be burdened by decades of assumptions. Imagine if the generation that stood behind George Wallace when he said, in his inauguration speech, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," were still the core of our body politic.

There is no higher social benefit to life extension, at least none that I can see. It's a uniquely individualist/selfish technology.

<comment><USER15> Please don't be offended, but your vision is very limited. Like early sci-fi limited. If everything goes well you might end up being a distributed mind having multiple avatars across different planets. Your kids could be not just randomly generated gene sequences, but something better. If that fish crawled out of the water, we can overcome life-extension consequences.

<comment><USER7> To me sort of thing is like arguing about whether the Flash could beat up Superman. Not very interesting because it's totally speculative and unconstrained. I'm talking about the near-term future: it's 2115 and advances in telomere recycling have allowed us to survive to 200, but we're still stuck on this rock.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think what this boils down to is an unwillingness to deal with hardship. It feels more and more like Americans are starting to avoid pain at all costs.

<comment><USER11> Not only personal hardship: feeling that you are a _burden_ to your relatives sucks, and it sucks for the relatives, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> eh... I'll be impressed when he writes the same article at age 74.</comment>


California Cities Are Trying to Kill an Important Location Privacy Bill – EFF - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/five-california-cities-are-trying-kill-important-location-privacy-bill <comment><AUTHOR> I can absolutely see why transportation authorities like LADOT want this data. Heck, I can see why the public at large would want this data! There are a lot of ways that data could improve urban management.

And nowadays, we have the technology to unlock that value without violating peoples privacy. Using GAN's, an e-scooter company could turn over data that is exactly as useful to the public and the real dataset, except it's not about real users. It's about a shadow universe of people who behave just like real people, but aren't.

NVIDIA's [https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/](https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/) is probably the best known example of this technique, but transportation data would be a fantastic application.</comment>