MacBook Pro Repair Extension Program for Video Issues - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/ca/support/macbookpro-videoissues/ <comment><USER2> I had this model, and the graphic issues started to appear during the last summer. After having acknowledged the situation [1] (Apple doesn't officially admit there is a problem, and chances are that I will have to pay for a new logic board since I am out of warranty), I went to an Apple Store in the UK for a diagnostic.

I was about to pay for the new logic board, and the person confirmed to me that in case of a recall happening in the future, I would be refunded by Apple. Nice surprise when he asked me where I bought it: since I ordered it on the Apple website, even if it was on the french Apple Store website, they proposed me to replace it using the UK warranty, which is 6 years (!) instead of 1 year in France [2] (I didn't take the Apple Care).

A few hours after having my computer back, the exact same graphic issues started again. I went back to the Apple Store, and they changed it again. Everything was working fine…

Until two months later, when the sound chip just died: no errors in OS X, but no sound at all (from speakers, microphone or jack plug). I went back to the Apple Store, and they changed the logic board again (it wasn't a problem because all replacements are covered by warranty).

A few days later, the graphic issues started again. I went back to the Apple Store. Since they changed the logic board three times already, they proposed me to replace the MBP by a brand new one: the latest and high-end model (since they have to replace it with an equivalent), and I even received an external drive since the new models don't have one, and despite having said that I don't need it.

I think I have been really lucky: I just wanted to repair it so I could sell it and buy a new model. I ended up with the latest model without paying anything except a few hours spent at the Apple Store.

Lessons learned:

\- Buy your Apple computer from Apple if you can.

\- You have a 6 years warranty in the UK.

[1] [http://www.mbp2011.com/](http://www.mbp2011.com/)

[2] [http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory- warranty/](http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/)

Edit: the legal warranty is 2 years in France, not 1 year.

<comment><USER3> > \- You have a 6 years warranty in the UK.

It's worth remembering this, however it's not always 6 years. There's no fixed time, but 6 years for electrical goods is a fairly good point.

This all comes down to the sales of goods act, which means good must be "fit for purpose". If an expensive laptop breaks after 4 years, then you can argue it wasn't fit for purpose and therefore must be fixed or replaced (or a _full_ refund issued). As long as you haven't caused the problem through misuse, you're covered.

> since I ordered it on the Apple website, even if it was on the french Apple > Store website, they proposed me to replace it using the UK warranty

If you'd ordered it through someone else, you would have to have gone through them instead (it's up to the seller to sort out, not the manufacturer).

This is a very powerful piece of consumer law, and it's a shame it's not as well known as it should be.

> \- Buy your Apple computer from Apple if you can.

Unless you'd bought it from another person rather than a business, you should have received the same treatment. This isn't Apple being nice, this is them fulfilling their legal obligations.

<comment><USER4> > If an expensive laptop breaks after 4 years, then you can argue it wasn't > fit for purpose and therefore must be fixed or replaced (or a full refund > issued). As long as you haven't caused the problem through misuse, you're > covered.

My understanding is that under the Sale of Goods Act you are entitled to a partial refund [1], which reflects the use that you got out of the product. For example, if a laptop broke after 4 years, and 6 years was a reasonable lifespan, that suggests a 1/3 refund.

I believe that the new EU directive entitles you for a full refund for the 2 years of the warranty. In this regard, it's a stronger protection than the UK Sale of Goods act. In other regards, the Sale of Goods act is stronger (5 years to make a claim in Scotland, 6 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland).

> Unless you'd bought it from another person rather than a business, you > should have received the same treatment. This isn't Apple being nice, this > is them fulfilling their legal obligations.

Some retailers might be quicker to fulfil their obligations than others, so that's worth considering when choosing where to buy the product. My recent experience at the Apple store after buying from the Apple website was pretty positive.

edit: re-reading your post, I realise that you already pointed out that your rights are against the retailer, not the manufacturer.

[1] [http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/sale-of- go...](http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/sale-of-goods- act#link-4)

<comment><USER3> > My understanding is that under the Sale of Goods Act you are entitled to a > partial refund

You are entirely correct, I'd misunderstood things and possibly got confused with a shorter timeframe (if it's very early on, you're entitled to a full refund). Thanks for the correction, I'll update my post to point out the error. (edit - oh, I'm now unable to edit the post :( )

> I believe that the new EU directive entitles you for a full refund for the 2 > years of the warranty. In this regard, it's a stronger protection than the > UK Sale of Goods act.

Very interesting to know, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well I had one of those 2011 MBPs that failed in this way...this was after my warranty expired and clearly before this repair was issued. They told me it would cost me like $350 or $400 or something to replace the motherboard on the thing. Ended up buying a new MBP and selling the bricked one for $100.

There was an enormous thread spanning several years on the apple support forums, so it's a good thing they waited until 4 years later to address this problem...

<comment><USER6> My MBP had this fault and was out of warranty (I'd taken too long to take it in). They replaced the logic board and screen free of charge. I think the amount shown on the zeroed invoice was close to $1k.

Same Apple Store, my wife showed that her iPhone with cracked screen had dust in the camera, assured them the dust predated the screen smashing and they gave her a new phone.

I suspect newly opened Apple stores are granted a budget to go above and beyond in order to build local reputation.

<comment><USER7> My local Apple store, however (Eplehuset in Bergen, Norway) flagrantly violates Norwegian warranty law unless you show up multiple times, cite the specific chapter of the law they are violating and then threaten legal action. So it's clearly not a global policy.

<comment><USER8> But Eplehuset are just authorized resellers, not Apple's stores. We also have Humac and Eplehuset in Denmark (however, Humac just bought all Eplehuset's stores), and that's the same story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately, I have a Mid 2010 MBP that is not covered under this warranty extension.

It crashes/restarts all the time with a GPU panic that is caused by the nVidia card, and triggered by the OS. It never crashed with Snow Leopard (the stock OS for my model), but ever since I upgraded, it crashes consistently (Mountain Lion & Mavericks).

I use gfxCardStatus to force the computer to use the intel graphics card. This allows me to work without random restarts.

<comment><USER10> Same. It makes an otherwise totally fine computer worthless. There was a recall for this problem too ([http://support.apple.com/en- ca/HT203554](http://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT203554)), but it already ended.

<comment><USER11> Yes. I had the same problem and Apple did a free out-of-warranty logic board replacement for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have given up on buying laptops with dGPUs - Post Sandy Bridge Intel's GPU is more than what a non-gaming machine needs and I certainly don't need the battery loss and added heat.

(These dGPU related repair issues seems like the are an Apple only thing though - my work laptop has a Nvidia GPU and it is running most of the times due to sleep/wake issues - no other problems in the past 4 years. Haven't heard of any other manufacturers having similar issues recently either.)

<comment><USER13> I believe the root of the problem, lead-free soldering joints, was common to all portables of that time

<comment><USER14> Nvidia and AMD GPUs probably generate more heat than Intel chips and so have likely been more badly affected. Has there been some breakthrough in the alloy used for solder that makes this less of an issue now? Also interesting that I've never heard of this issue with desktop GPUs, which get insanely hot. My guess is the solder pads are bigger and more widely spaced?

<comment><USER15> I'm not aware of any major breakthroughs in the past few years, but lead-free solder alloys are an active research area right now. Here's a SANDIA report from 2012 that has some context and some cool micrographs; you can find lots more by searching the web for tin whisker growth in lead-free solders.

(edit: pdf warning) [http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access- control.cgi/2012/12051...](http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access- control.cgi/2012/120519.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, well. Just as with the iMessage switching from iPhone issues, it seems that sometimes it takes a class action lawsuit to get results from Apple: [http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/28/apple-class-action- lawsuit-201...](http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/28/apple-class-action- lawsuit-2011-macbook-pro-gpu-graphics-issues/)

Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure my wife is owed a reimbursement over this.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have worked on 6 units of 2011 MacBook Pro that had this issues. Two of them were repaired out-of-warranty, which cost $210+tax for parts and $100 for labor.

I talked to AppleCare rep a few hours ago and Apple will refund me the repair cost.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wonder if they will still reimburse me. They only noted "Computer will not turn on and there are no signs of power" for the repair, since I didn't take it in until the logic board died (did reboot randomly, and random colours on the screen).

17 Days later I had another repair on the new part for "Mac shuts down unexpectedly during use with battery".

Think my bill was around $600-$800 for the logic board replacement.

<comment><USER19> They keep a more extensive internal work log regarding your repair than what is listed on your invoice, so if you call there's a good chance they can look through your history and see whether they identified it as a graphics issue.

<comment><USER18> sadly the senior support support guy told me since it doesn't clearly state "graphic problems or random reboots" there's a good chance his request will be denied.

Didn't take it in during those problem since it "worked" and was out of warranty, but did when that last reboot wouldn't 'reboot'.

Lesson learned :S

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Late 2011 Macbook Pro here, and I had to get my logic board replaced twice. Thankfully, it was still under Apple Care, but had it not been I definitely would not have paid for the repair TWICE and would have ended up selling the bricked laptop like others did.

Given that virtually everyone would have taken their MBP to an Apple Store (even those who decided to not get the repairs), Apple has a list of most people who experienced this issue.

If they want to maintain their reputation for quality, it would be wise to find a way to reimburse people who they can confirm (with said previous apple store appointments for this issue). They don't need to reimburse everyone, but they could definitely find a way to rebuild some trust here.

<comment><USER21> I don't really think this damaged their reputation, even in the slightest way. I had never heard of the problem, and it seems that even the people that suffered it went ahead and bought another mac: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9079010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9079010)

<comment><USER22> I downvoted you because you simply can't draw that conclusion just based on the evidence of one anecdotal account from an affected user and from your own ignorance of the problem. Of _course_ this has damaged their reputation in the minds of some affected users.

<comment><USER20> I absolutely agree. Having to bring my laptop in on a yearly basis to get it fixed due to this issue definitely lowered my expectation of hardware quality in Macs. I will absolutely still be buying another Mac, but that is primarily because of the operating system and ergonomic design principles -- all of which make me a much more productive developer.

Because Apple bundles everything (and refuses to unbundle the OS from the hardware in any way), you are likely right that the effect will be minimal because the benefits of all the goods (bundled together) outweighs the costs (and consumers have no choice -- if they want any part of the bundle, they must buy all of it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is great news, even though it's frustrating that they took so long to "do the right thing."

Last year my 2011 MBP failed literally the day before its extended AppleCare expired. Had it failed a day later, I'd have been in some trouble.

<comment><USER24> Mine failed literally the day after the AppleCare expired and thankfully the guy let me get it repaired as if it were under AppleCare. My understanding is that the store managers actually get a fair amount of leeway on this. Were that not the case, I would have had to think hard about spending $350 on a repair for a computer that was no longer my primary.

<comment><USER23> I'm glad they took care of you! I'm curious: had you bought the extended AppleCare?

Reason I ask is because the general consensus seems to be that they cut you a lot more slack if you've paid for the 3-year warranty, even if it's expired.

That's been my experience, but... I'm not rich enough to buy two identical MBPs (one without extended coverage) and use one as a proper control sample. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a 2010 MBP that experienced system restarts from a Apple-known video issue and they fixed it out of warranty (required complete motherboard replacement). They should extend this to the 2010 models as well.

<comment><USER25> EDIT: (this was 2 years ago)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm curious to know why is this a hardware fix. The problems on my mid-2012 mbp only started after the upgrade to Yosemite, and this seems to be the case from many reports on forums out there.

<comment><USER27> Apparently the MBP runs super hot, weakening the solder links to the discrete GPU.

The problem is that there seems to be a design defect either in the chassis, logic board or both. Replacing the logic board basically just resets you to day one. If you're a heavy user, you'll soon encounter the same issue, which is why a lot of people -- myself included -- have had the problem recur.

While I'll be taking advantage of the fix (I can't even boot my Macbook Pro, even the post screen is messed up), I'm hoping they've actually made a fix to the logic board design as opposed to giving me a replacement logic board with the same problematic design.

<comment><USER28> Ah, that would explain why it happened twice to me! To be fair, the replaced logic board lasted about a year.

This is doubly good news for me, because it makes it sound like my early 2011 MBP is likely to be covered, and I can reasonably hope the fix will last longer than a year, as my main development work has been moved to a mid-2014 MBPR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have never seen the visual glitches, however I have had my computer restart spontaneously and upon reboot would state "A graphics problem has been detected". I called Apple Care several times about this, and filed tickets on bugreporter.apple.com but made no progress. Glad they're finally getting around to fixing this.

My model is: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)

</comment><comment><USER30> Great news! Been struggling with this for a long time and thought I was the only one!

[https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/709328/geforce- driv...](https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/709328/geforce- drivers/nvidia-windows-kernel-mode-driver-335-23-stopped-responding-and-was- recovered-successfully/post/4211491/#4211491)

</comment><comment><USER31> Just last month I finally sold my 15" MBP (early 2011) for $500 after whining on reddit, and having no chance of repair, except the apple auth. guy said, I need to change motherboard.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2ka0h0/yosemite_cripp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2ka0h0/yosemite_crippled_my_mbp_2011_early_switched_back/)

Also I voted this. [http://www.change.org/p/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix- all-20...](http://www.change.org/p/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix- all-2011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure)

I wish I had not sold it. :/ because for $500 I could only get the HP pavilion :/ as a replacement., you know that alone is the most terrible fact about this whole episode. that Had to use a HP lappy. :/

If I were apple CEO, I would be sending a personally signed, apologizing note to each of these customers, with a bag carrying a new MBP.

In my case it took 45% of my fortune to buy that machine. :/

<comment><USER32> I had the same exact model, except I bought mine Refurb'd from Apple with Applecare so it was going to run out this March. Rather than risk having a brick I sold it on Craigslist for $850. This is after having the logic board and hard-drive replaced twice by Apple a few years earlier.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you paid Apple, maybe ask for a refund anyway. They have a record of your service/transaction, and it's not like the computer is required, just ID and perhaps a credit card statement or the like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As someone who's owned a lot of cheap but reliable laptops, are those of you with MacBook Pros commonly needing to return to an Apple Store after purchasing for service? In my mind I've been on the verge of giving a MBP a shot a few times because my associates are always going on about how great the hardware and build quality is, but then I read about an issue like this and see what feels like a billion people chiming in about how "yeah mine does that too" and change my mind.

Perhaps this is a case of brand loyalty (e.g. "I'd rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford"). I acknowledge that of course the horror stories will come out in the comments for a thread about a common failure, and that a very popular brand is likely to have more people to comment, positively or negatively. I guess I'm just concerned I'll splurge on a top-end MBP and end up with something less reliable than a $450 Toshiba that refused to die.

<comment><USER34> I don't know how much a few anecdotes matter, but to answer your question, no. My MacBook from 2009 is running perfectly fine today. I used it quite heavily throughout college and always keep it on sleep mode so it's been running pretty much continuously for years. I did replace the hard-drive with an SSD, but I still use the original as a small portable drive.

After giving that MacBook to my dad, I upgraded to a 13" Retina MacBook Pro, which is amazing. I used it for a few months before selling it to my brother and switching to the late 2013 15" one. Both laptops are running great and there are no screen issues.

And for what it's worth, I had a positive experience when I needed to bring the 15" into the Apple store. I had stupidly used a cheap wireless mouse with a plastic USB connector and a piece of plastic got stuck in the USB port. Apple removed it free of charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I had a similar problem with a Macbook from around 2009. The graphics became defective right after the 3 year Apple Care expired. This was a known motherboard issue with extended coverage, but I didn't know, so I went out and bought a new Macbook.

What I would like to know is, why doesn't Apple inform the owners of affected hardware? It's not like they don't know, since they have everything they'd need for that in their customer database (Apple ID and contact info, Macbook serial numbers).

I suspect they happily leave the onus on the consumer to discover that their out of warranty hardware has a serial defect who's repair is covered. I've seen this behavior with other manufacturers (Onkyo). I think that we need better laws to force the manufacturers to contact their customers, similar to safety recalls in the automobile space.

<comment><USER36> Personally I go to the Apple Store even if I know I am out of warranty because they will lay out all of the options you have. Sometimes they offer free services because of recalls

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro that has this problem.

I called Apple this morning and they told me that I'd have to bring it in to an Apple store. The page on Apple.com offers a postage paid "Mail In Service" option if you are in the US but the customer service rep didn't know anything about that.

</comment><comment><USER38> I have an early 2011 and have had this problem twice. The latest time I was working in SF and didn't think they would replace the logic board again for free, it being three years out of warranty. They did, which suggests to me that internally Apple has been aware of this problem for quite some time. This program gives me relief because I can see the problem happening again.

If I remember correctly the store said it was due to loose connections between the logic board and the discrete graphics. It originally manifested as lockups as soon as the discrete GPU kicked in. For anyone else seeing this problem, I was able to manage that using a tool called gfxCardStatus which disables the discrete GPU.

I'm pleased that Apple is doing the right thing by their customers and offering to reimburse historical repairs.

<comment> X-Istence I had a 2007 MacBook Pro, it had the original round of Nvidia issues. I got one from a friend in 2013. Originally I was going to use it as a parts machine because I wanted the CD drive, but instead I realised it may have the Nvidia issues. I brought it into Apple and it popped for the issue, so they sent it off, I got it back and it was fully functional again. No charge.

To this day it still works without issues :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have an Early 2011 Mac Book Pro which has had the motherboard replaced twice because of this issue. The first one was 3 years out of warranty so I had to pay $700 (Aus). The second time it happened only 6 months after the first motherboard replacement. I'm currently on the phone with their support to get my money back hopefully. Although it has been 28 minutes waiting so far... Perhaps I'm not the only one calling Apple tonight.

Edit: ok all sorted out. Refund is in the mail ;) Turns out I was the first one to call them apparently so they weren't sure how to process it. I ended up getting transferred to someone that sounded UK'ish with a nice 80's phone time delay. Woohoo Nice present for the weekend me thinks!!

</comment><comment><USER40> They are way too late with this.

I imagine that most people who experienced this failure have gotten their device repaired out of pocket or moved on to a different laptop. I got mine repaired by some dude on eBay and it only worked for about a month after that, that $150 is gone. But at least I can finally have a usable MacBook Pro to possibly sell, as opposed to just a really expensive paperweight.

However, I would like to know if they've actually fixed the fundamental design flaw that caused this problem to begin with. If they're merely going to replace the faulty parts for free with the exact same part, then it won't do much but give you an extension on the life of your advice until the same thing happens again.

</comment><comment><USER41> Damn it, I just new it was the GPU! So glad I held on to it! Its been in a couple of time and they offered to change the MB for too much money. I've tried different RAM, different SSDs. Its an old 2011 17" with the AMD GPU. Made my appointment already!

</comment><comment><USER42> Oh nice. My 2001 anti-glare MBP has been flickering when trying to display purple for some reason. Visiting getbootstrap.com puts scan lines across the screen. I was thinking it might be the display, but now I'm thinking it's the GPU.

</comment><comment><USER43> Where do you stand if you have an Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro that has a faulty GPU but is long out of warranty?

Even with this extension program, you aren't any better off since you would still have to pay for the repair according to Apple's website?

I guess this is where your statutory rights come into play if you live in the UK (like I am) since these entitle you to the free repair or replacement of the defective goods up to six years after purchase.

[http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory- warranty/](http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/)

<comment><USER44> The second paragraph says "Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will repair affected MacBook Pro systems, free of charge."

<comment><USER43> Thanks! I misread the text at the bottom of the page (due to tiredness). You're right though, the repair would be free of charge.

"This worldwide Apple program does not extend the standard warranty coverage of the MacBook Pro."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> In the last 6 months, I've had my 15" late 2011 model MBP repaired three times for this exact problem. After the first failure, they haven't charged again for the subsequent motherboard replacements. I guess so many are failing all at once that they couldn't ignore the problem anymore.

Interestingly, the first time I had it repaired, I was charged $550 by a third-party "repair" shop who told me up front that it the motherboard needed to be replaced, then took it to Apple and payed them $330 to fix it. Caveat emptor.

<comment><USER46> Yeah the standard flat rate fee for motherboard related issues from Apple is just about $300. With this in mind it's usually a better idea to take them to Apple then use third party shops. I've had the exact same issue happen to me on Apple laptops all the way back to my 2008 Macbook Pro and eventually Apple made the same extension for that model as they are with these newer models. After a few years the video chipset seems to have connection issues that may or may not be solved with a reflow attempt (baking the logic board in the oven)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm delighted they're finally doing this. I've a 2011 Macbook Pro sitting on a shelf for the last year because the graphics went haywire and eventually it wouldn't start at all.

</comment><comment> Dorian-Marie Yep, happens to me too, random freezing is especially annoying.

Also, random weird black screen flickering, and grey/old-TV-like screen glitches are just ugly but not really a problem.

</comment><comment><USER48> The occasional screen freeze with Macbook Pro late 2013 model here. Too bad its not covered by this program. Oh well, have to restart it manually here and there.

<comment><USER49> It would be nice of Apple to disclose exactly what has been causing the problem on older models, and to explain in detail what lucky accidental change they made to their manufacturing process in late 2013 which supposedly fixed a problem they implicitly claim they were unaware existed until now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Has anyone else had issues with Macbook Air having marks on the screen which won't come off? These look like tiny scratches, but are in a line and roughly where the screen touches the top of the trackpad when closed.

I've had it with both the 11" and 13" models of the current design. Apple replaced the screen on both, but the same happened and then my warranty expired.

<comment><USER51> Yes, same issue on retina Macbook Pro 15, bought 2013. Apple refused to repair the screen. It is clearly that the scratches match the structure of the keyboard. Previous model does not have this issue and is used identically. I bought the laptop in Japan and requested repair in Czech Republic. Apple refused my claims because "international" warranty is only for 1 year (I asked for repair after 2 years). The result? Screen is not repaired and difficult to use unless completely dark. This issue is quite common and It would be nice if Apple change its policy in this case as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This happened to my early 2011 15" MacBook Pro sometime mid-2013. Apple repaired it for a $300 flat-fee via their "Repair Depot" option and luckily I haven't had the issue happen again yet (but it did come back with some extra scratches and a 3 month warranty, I think? - can't remember now.)

Hopefully the refund process isn't too difficult.

<comment><USER53> I had the same issue happen to me about a month ago, and also paid the flat $300 fee. I called Apple Support yesterday, and explained to them my situation and their current program. The employee that was helping me put me on hold a few times and eventually had me talk to his 'Senior Supervisor'. I then had to re-explain what was going on, and to my surprise, this was the first time the 'Senior Supervisor' heard of the Video Card warranty/program. He asked for my serial number and called my back to 'look into it'. About 25 minutes later, he explained the refund process to me. It will take about 4 weeks total, and you will have the option to get refunded via check or bank deposit (you'll need to give them routing number etc. if you choose this route).

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I am experiencing some similar issues with my 15" mid2012 rMBP.

Whenever I work on some canvas/webgl game, after some refreshing in the browser (reproducible with Safari and Chrome) the entire screen freezes, without any chance for recover and I have to power it down, manually.

Has anyone had this problem and do you know if it qualifies for the Repair Extension Program?

<comment><USER55> I've definitely experienced (and still do) this. After a bit of digging I found this thread: [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6602046?start=105&tstar...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6602046?start=105&tstart=0) which points to "discrete GPU and/or the switching to and from it".

Not sure if it's the same issue, but worth inquiring for sure :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Hoping this covers my issues with an early 2013 retina - the system crashes whenever I let it use the discrete graphics, and it's got to the point that I can't let it sleep or power down or it's touch and go whether it comes back. I currently use a combination of NoSleep, gfxCardStatus and blind hope to keep it going.

</comment><comment><USER57> Just taken my 15" 2011 MBP in - as luck would have it I had a 0930 appointment. Even tho the replacement programme doesn't start here in the UK until the 27th Feb, they were happy to do a gratis repair "under consumer law". Without me having to shout at all. "You'll beat the rush!" said the guy.

</comment><comment><USER58> I have applecare for my 15 MBP w/retina (THANKFULLY), and I can attest that I've had to have Apple replaced the logic board twice. Both times, the screen's backlight would just go out.

Great to hear Apple is doing this, but then disappointing that it's even an issue for a $2k+ laptop.

</comment><comment><USER59> I don't have a 'video issue' as explained here, but I do have a problem with my my 'iSight' camera frequently not being recognized by Facetime (or anywhere else). The issue goes away upon rebooting.

Any ideas? It's a 2012 edition MacBook Pro with Retina Display 15"

<comment><USER60> I have that with my MacBook Air - instead of rebooting, try running this in your terminal:

sudo killall VDCAssistant

Works for me every time.

<comment><USER59> Thanks, will try it out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Great, my girlfriend just sold hers last week for 100€ after enduring a year of the video card crashing.

<comment><USER62> Same thing basically happened to me - I _just_ bought a new rMBP in lieu of throwing good money after bad on a logic board repair. Literally, I'm days out of the return period.

Thankfully I still have the bricked 2011 MBP, so I'll get it fixed and keep it as a backup machine I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Nice. This problem started happening more than a year ago on my early 2011. I just had it sitting collecting dust as I got the 2013 version. Last week I decided to take it to get repaired... and now they announce this. Hopefully this will save me the $300 repair.

</comment><comment><USER64> I have a mid-2010 13" MBP (wrong year, wrong size) that's doing stuff that sounds like their listed symptoms. Not sure if it's just randomly going bad or if they haven't determined for certain that other models are affected as well.

<comment><USER65> Have the same model with the NV graphics, and have had occasional video glitching since I bought it refurbished. Crashes were rare until Yosemite, and perhaps my DP port is getting funky. I've wondered if these are also semi- defective, but it hasn't been well publicized. In any case I've gotten a ton of mileage out of it.

<comment><USER66> It would be interesting to see what Yosemite is doing with the GPU. If you could download and install Quartz Debug, you can get it to flash areas that are drawn with accelerated graphics in comparison to CPU drawn graphics. It would make an interesting comparison with Mavericks and previous.

Interestingly, the one change they did make in Xcode 6 was that the build progress bar at the top of the screen is now drawn in software - it used to be the only thing in the entire IDE that was GPU accelerated!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I've had this for quite a while now, went through 2 motherboard replacements one after the other for this exact defect. It's good to know that they'll still change it for another couple of years in case things go sideways.

</comment><comment><USER68> Consider me another Macbook Pro owner (late 2011) that had this issue. I've now gone through two logic boards. Luckily, the second was covered under the warranty of the first replacement.

Has anyone here been contacted by Apple for Reimbursement yet?

<comment><USER53> The program 'officially' started today. I called them yesterday for my reimbursement, check my other reply explaining the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'm on my 3rd logic board with my early-2011 15". To Apple's credit they covered it every time. I'm confused though.. does this news mean if it happens again, they'll cover it? And if so, for how much longer?

<comment><USER70> > And if so, for how much longer?

Apple stores stop stocking parts and offering any support 5 years after the model date. After that the only thing they will do is offer to clean your screen. If they have parts you can still mail it into Apple, or else you can look for parts at a third-party supplier, but that's about it. Not entirely clear what will happen in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Nice, as of this morning, I couldn't get video out of my mid-2012 rMBP after about 20 GPU Panics I've reported over the last week. I imagine they must have thousands of them coming in as they start to fail.

</comment><comment><USER72> I've got a 2011 Macbook Pro, and sometimes video refuses to play, but I always assume it's because I've got way too much stuff open, and it's low on memory.

<comment><USER22> If you have this problem, you definitely know about it. Complete system lockups, glitches all over the screen, you name it. It's not just a simple software error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Does anyone have a link on how to diagnose whether your machine exhibits this crash? everything that I can find that was available has been removed by Apple or expired.

</comment><comment> o0-0o My rMBP has had choppy, crap video the whole time I've had it. Had one replaced for free, and going to get this one replaced as well (or try).

</comment><comment><USER74> Huh, I was having all these issues after upgrading to Yosemite but 10.10.2 seems to have fixed it. Wonder if this is still worth looking into?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, at least now you have until early 2016 if anything does come up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> THANKS FOR POSTING THIS.

I was affected and had a repair done. Looks like they're reimbursing customers for past repairs for this issue. Woop!

</comment><comment><USER76> i got a retina mbp 13" , i'm having all sort of problems , random logouts .. black screens with the computer on etc. started to happen 2 months after upgrading to yosemite. I'm seriously considering buying a normal laptop and install linux on it .. i love macs but it is affecting my productivity.

<comment><USER77> It's a lemon... Apple is somewhat better quality-wise, but not perfect. Personally, if you have the funds, I'd get another one and bring in the old one for diagnosis. System logs (accessible via the Console app) often show kernel panics and other stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> My Late 2013 rMBP restarts randomly all the time. Should I go to Apple and ask for a replacement?

<comment><USER79> You should. I have the late 2013 model that I got in Jan'14 and I ran into the random restarts, freeze ups. This happened last week and I was out of warranty, they made me pay for the repair and I just picked it up yesterday. This is good news for me but I think regardless, this issue does show up sometime during the lifetime of the product. I would recommend getting it checked out.

<comment><USER79> Well...looks like I missed the fine details, my model is not covered. wth

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Just checked, mine is late 2013, shewww...

</comment><comment><USER81> This is why I like Apple. Issues are inevitable, but to stay put with customers in tough times and provide free service shows their class!

<comment><USER82> Note that this has been a "known issue" for a long time for a bunch of high end $2000+ products and they have only announced this after _years_ since the incident happened. Not so classy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Support fail.</comment>


The decline of the GPL  and what to do about it - <AUTHOR> http://fosdem-fontana.rhcloud.com/#1

<comment><AUTHOR> Commentary at El Reg ...

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/07/gnu_gpl_forked/></comment>


Google End-to-End: Any update? - <AUTHOR> It's been a year since Google posted this update[1] on their end-to-end project and a month since the last commit.[2]
Yahoo announced a forked end-to-end extension in March[3] and while commits have been more frequent[4], they haven't released either.
Does anyone have any update on these?
[1] https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/12/an-update-to-end-to-end.html
[2] https://github.com/google/end-to-end/commits/master
[3] http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/113708033335/user-focused-security-end-to-end-encryption
[4] https://github.com/yahoo/end-to-end/commits/master <comment><USER2> Just a guess, but it could be that interest in the standard has died down a little bit as an updated OpenPGP RFC is in progress.

Anecdote time: In the summer of 2014 I got a bad case of Mononucleosis and decided to implement OpenPGP from scratch. By modern standards, OpenPGP is fairly horrible and as soon as I got an excuse to postpone this project (the new RFC) I did so. :)</comment>


Ask HN: How you manage your to-do list? Are you happy with it? - <AUTHOR>

Yesterday I created an Ask HN post where I asked HN community to share its thoughts on one of Paul Graham's frighteningly ambitious startup ideas "Replacing Email" in which he cosiders his inbox as a disastrously bad "todo list" and email as the way things get into it. Here is the link - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4228402
Reading the comments I realized there are two contrasting opinions; two groups of people - one that considers email as a to-do list and other who thinks it is just a communication protocol that is wrongly used by some people as a to-do list.
I would like to know from HN community, how do you actually manage your to-do list? Are you happy with it? If not, why? <comment><USER2> I write my to-dos in a plain text file. I try to avoid writing down actions; I prefer deliverables because it's clearer when you actually have achieved something. I prefix to-do items with a character if the status changes immediately after the change. Here are the prefixes I use:

No prefix: This item was written down but hasn't started @ in progress: I started working on it, the item is with me. # finished > means this item is currently with someone else. It works as a reminder to chase someone after some time. x means canceled / decided not to do d means on hold because dependent on something else ! prioritized for today

I have items grouped with the first line being a heading for the group. I write notes or status if relevant after a to-do item and a comma. If things are crazy I will start notes with today's date. That's specially useful when there is a lot of back and forth on something. Daily, I'll copy yesterdays list and past it above. I remove the items that are done or canceled. The system is all home grown, arcane and works for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I manage to-dos using <https://www.cosapien.com> It also manages what other people have committed to-do for me, with built-in quality control.

<comment><USER3> ... i forgot to add -- it is also useful to me because it integrates to do with our meeting minutes

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've recently thrown my hat in with Things, with the Beta now supporting Cloud syncing. I'm a minimalist, GTD-leaning sorta guy and this fits perfectly with my workflow.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use my calendar as a to-do list. Works for me. Block out time to do tasks - not just meetings. That way it forces me to bucket time for stuff to get done.

</comment><comment><USER6> for my primary project, i keep a list of items on a physical whiteboard. i pace around a lot when thinking, so an app would never be as intimate to use.

for everything else, i use a text file with items formatted like:

      [X] add feature
      [ ] fix bug

neither approach is ideal, but i have no major complaints.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use Toodledo.com and give my tasks tags and priorities so that I can sort and filter them. It works really well for me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use calendar and Clear app for iphone. Also not to much time ago I installed Any.do app to try it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Workflowy. And yes.

<comment><USER10> I used workflowy for a long time and I think it's brilliant, but now I need to keep up with complex tasks, so I'm using tiddlywiki - that allows me to link between tasks, and make notes of relevant things to my tasks</comment></comment>


Declaring C String Constants - <AUTHOR> https://eklitzke.org/declaring-c-string-constants-the-right-way <comment><USER2> There's a big mistake here:

      // Bogus function, just to see how arguments are passed.
      void bogus();

      // Invoke bogus using ptr.
      void do_ptr() { bogus(&ptr, ptr); }

      // Invoke bogus using arr.
      void do_arr() { bogus(&arr, arr); }

"&ptr" and "&arr" are not the same. &ptr gives you a pointer to a pointer (char * *), but &arr just gives you a pointer to the array data. That's why the code is different.

This would normally show up as a compilation error, since &ptr and &arr have different types. It's disguised here by the variadic bogus() function.

(I didn't know that no-arg functions in C are implicitly variadic! That's bizarre. I would have expected modern compilers to disable that by default, but I can't get Clang to warn me about it even with -Wall.)

<comment><USER3> Additionally, he keeps talking about dereferencing the pointer, which I don't think is right. The pointer never gets deferenced in the code shown.

I'm not an x86 guru, but I think that "movq ptr(%rip), %rsi" is different because ptr needs to be moved from relative to the instruction pointer (because it is on the stack, as a non-const variable).

<comment><USER4> It's a global variable, it's not on the stack. It's in the data section.

$arr is copying the address of "arr", so it must use an immediate move (possibly 64-bit). It could also use RIP-relative with the "lea" (load effective address) instruction.

$ptr(%rip) is accessing memory, so it uses RIP-relative addressing with the "mov" instruction.

<comment><USER5> > It's a global variable, it's not on the stack. It's in the data section.

And because it's a const, it's in the .rodata section... (read-only) Playing too liberally with the data often leads to a SEGV (as it should).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interestingly, we get

            .LC0:
                    .string "Lorem ipsum"
            [...]
                    movl    $.LC0, %esi
                    movl    $ptr2, %edi
                    xorl    %eax, %eax
                    jmp     bogus

for the same experiment done with a const pointer to const data,

            const char * const ptr2 = "Lorem ipsum";

(Incidentally, this kind of thing is why I prefer to write 'char const STAR const' rather than 'const char STAR const', and 'char const STAR' rather than 'const char STAR'; it systematically places the 'const's.)

(PS. HN really doesn't work well for trying to write either unicode or ascii star characters.)

<comment><USER7>
      char const * const ptr2 = "Lorem ipsum";

Edit: Said exact same thing as parent but formatted differently. Sorry. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> All this talk about do_ptr being slower because it copies from main memory is misleading. Yes, it's slower, because it's _doing something different_ than what do_arr does. It's not just a slower version of doing the same thing. So trying to compare do_ptr and do_arr makes no sense. And the whole thesis of this piece, that declaring string constants as arrays is better, has no supporting evidence. You know what's better? Don't dereference a pointer if you don't need to. That's it.

<comment><USER9> Wasn't that sort of the point or using arrays instead of pointers? There is less dereferencing to get to the data, so you need to dereference fewer pointers.

I would like to see more empirical measurement in articles like this. There has to be a reason both compiler decided to emit that pointer based code, surely there is some advantage.

<comment><USER8> > _Wasn 't that sort of the point or using arrays instead of pointers? There > is less dereferencing to get to the data, so you need to dereference fewer > pointers._

No, and that's why the article is confusing. It makes it seem like that's true but it's really not.

If you remove everything else and just look at passing the pointer itself, the fundamental difference between the pointer version and the array version is the pointer version isn't constant, and therefore has one level of indirection. This is because you can reassign to the `ptr` variable. But the array is constant, you can't reassign `ary`. All you really have to do here is put `const` on the `ptr` variable and suddenly you get the exact same code. Or in other words,

      const char * const ptr = "Foo";

behaves the same way as

      const char ary[] = "Foo";

And the only practical difference between the two at this point is how the sizeof() operator works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Or you could just #define STR "Lorem Ipsum" and be sure that it's going to be efficient.

<comment><USER11> This is a joke, right?

<comment><USER12> Why would it be a joke? Using `#define` for a string constant is perfectly reasonable for C code, IMO I'd argue it's the idiomatic and best way to do it. String constants that are `#define`d can take advantage of C's automatic string-literal concatenation, allowing you to avoid lots of unnecessary string operations in some cases. If you declare it as a pointer or array instead, then you can't do that.

<comment><USER13> > Why would it be a joke?

A certain influential segment of the C and C++ development community, the kind that tends to worship "best practices" and "consistency", has been preaching for years that C preprocessor macros are evil, even in cases where they allow for much clearer code.

I'm not sure these people were born with the ability to experience joy.

<comment><USER14> The biggest problem with C macros is that they are too opaque. The compilation stack will complain about code that is different from what you have, and leave you with little hint about what in your code is generating the broken code. It's also confusing when debugging.

That said, yes they can lead to large gains so when they are worth it, go for them. Just mention in the documentation that they are macros, in big letters.

<comment><USER5> > Just mention in the documentation that they are macros, in big letters.

The macros themselves are usually in BIG_LETTERS already... that generally gives it away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As others have noted, this is a little bizarre as the two functions are doing different things; one being less performant than the other is not really surprising. That said, there can be advantages to using array syntax rather than pointers for strings (even when also declaring the pointer to be constant), e.g. the compiler "knows" the array "pointer" is non-null:

      extern const char arr[];

      void do_arr() {
        if (arr) {
          dummy();
        }
      }

allows the compiler to optimize out the conditional: [https://godbolt.org/g/FwBeWx](https://godbolt.org/g/FwBeWx).

</comment><comment><USER16> Other comments have already deconstructed much of the article, but I'll add this. The primary factor will be your CPU architecture. Can you put the string in the same cacheline as the code or an adjacent cacheline? If so, awesome. However, if you have a microcontroller with a harvard architecture, such as a cortex M3, it's may be better to put your strings in data memory rather than code memory. The processor can simultaneously load your string and the next instructions via the two memory ports.

</comment><comment><USER17> The author took the time to write a blog post, but not trying the code for anything else than that bogus() function. Had they done that, they would have realized their mistake.

</comment><comment><USER18> Arrays and pointers are not the same in C, nor have they ever been. The difference is more than that of mere syntax choices for equivalent concepts.

In the pointer version of the code, the pointer is reassignable. Only the data it references can't be modified, the pointer can. To prevent the pointer from being modified, the declaration should have been:

const char * const ptr = "Lorem ipsum";

With the array version, there is no pointer to be modified and so no need or ability to have a second const.

</comment><comment><USER19> Another difference: if you use sizeof, the pointer version gives you the size of a pointer, but the array version gives you the actual number of bytes in the string.

</comment><comment><USER20> While I do enjoy this sort of analysis, I feel the decision to choose one method over another should be based on benchmarks (preferably with more than one size of string.) After benchmarking, then do an analysis of the assembly code.

Guessing about pipelining, memory access times, and the effect of generated code size is much less valuable than real measurements.

<comment><USER21> Beyond this,

      &ptr

and

      &arr

are different types! The signature for

      bogus(arr, &arr)

is something like

      void bogus(const char* arg1, const char (*arg2)[12])

While they do point to the same data, it's pretty rare to actually want to declare a

      const char (*)[N]

as a function argument - template magic code excepted, you don't gain much over a

      char *

and it's not the same as a

      char**

The two lines do different things, so of course they will generate different code. What do you know, the one that actually lets you do useful things is a few bytes longer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I find funny is that through all this he never actually mentioned the fact that sizeof() a string constant _includes the NUL character at the end_.

This has bitten me more times than I care to admit.

Nowadays, I almost always use the array form and actually declare my strings character by character so that I _see_ the NUL if I actually meant to use it.

</comment><comment> mark-r I wonder how the results would have differed if those were automatic variables instead of static? That's a much more real-world situation. You wouldn't be able to ignore the overhead of re-initializing the array, since it would be occurring at run time instead of compile time.

</comment><comment><USER22> Any programming language that needs an entire blog post about how to declare string constants "the right way" is a programming language that needs to disappear.

<comment><USER23> Any poster that needs to post comments about how any language requiring real understanding needs to disappear needs to disappear.

<comment><USER24> Haha, real understanding. Any language which requires a standard of 700 pages should be seem suspicious. And any language, which lead to thousands of vulnerabilities needs to disappear.</comment></comment></comment>


Mozilla and Firefox could be about to change the VPN and privacy market - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/mozilla-and-firefox-could-be-about-to-change-the-vpn-and-privacy-market-forever <comment><USER2> > Firefox Send allows you to share large files securely (but not store them). > The caveat being that you need to have a Firefox account to use all of the > above ...

There's no requirement for a Firefox account, for Send. And it works well via Tor, with no CAPTCHA bullshit.

<comment><USER3> I cannot express how much I love this service. Firefox Send is flat out the best way to send files securely over the internet by giving someone a URL (and optionally a password).

<comment><USER4> I use it all the time for its convenience and simplicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an aside, Firefox for Android is great for power users because it has extensions. It's much closer to feature-parity with desktop browsers than Chrome is, and offers more significant advantages over Chrome on Android than desktop as a result.

<comment><USER6> Yes! Firefox for Android is one of the primary reasons I haven't switched to an iPhone.

(There is a Firefox for iOS, but it's basically a skin on Safari because of Apple's restrictions.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish Mozilla would get into the email service market. I could really go for a reasonably-priced, ad-free, Gmail-sized, bring-your-own-domain email service.

<comment><USER8> ... thunderbird?

(I'm aware they're no longer maintaining it(?) but it's posed as a genuine option.)

<comment><USER9> Not only they're maintaining it again, but the number of developers assigned as been increased!

However, they intent the community picks its development up, eventually.

However, for now, thunderbird is being developed by Mozilla again, afaik

(i guess they understood there was the need for an e-mail client and that thunderbird was in a good place for competing.)

I, honestly, see KDE's Kontact as the ONLY decent OS alternative. Too bad it's not of easy install & support on windows... It would be a great e-mail client...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It'd be interesting to see 'super private browsing mode' which has Tor integration be shipped with Firefox. Making Tor easier to use and more accessible for normal people is a huge win for privacy.

<comment><USER11> I know it isn't Firefox, but Brave is a Chromium-based browser that has Tor built-in with their 'Private Tabs'. It is a really nice privacy focused browser. Everything good about Chrome, without everything bad about Google.

<comment><USER12> > Everything good about Chrome, without everything bad about Google.

Except, of course, its use of the chromium engine, which is something I think we should fight against. So, basically, one of the biggest anti-features of Chrome from Google.

Not to speak about Brave's business model, around basic attention tokens (my attention is not available, sorry). This is incompatible with privacy. Brave is an ad company! It may be in a nice phase where ads are opt in but it may not be like that forever.

The obvious browser closest to Firefox including Tor is Tor browser, based on Firefox, provided by the Tor project itself.

<comment><USER13> The only added value that's important is respecting users rights online and privacy. Brave is as bad as any of them, and being Eich's new business venture doesn't inspire any trust none what so ever.

<comment><USER12> > being Eich's new business venture doesn't inspire any trust none what so > ever.

Why?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you're using Firefox go to about:config and set media.autoplay.allow-muted to false.

Blocks all of those pesky autoplay videos!

<comment><USER15> This is a default feature as of the latest version.

<comment><USER14> The default feature is to mute autoplay videos that _have_ audio, so you need to enable this to prevent all autoplay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I already use Thunderbird with the ProtonMail bridge and ProtonVPN on my phone and computers (combined with my self rolled VPNs).

I would welcome FireFox into the mix, they'd do quite well together -- plus maybe they can make the bridge unnecessary (which IMO is the most annoying part of ProtonMail).

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if they're seeing an opportunity here to ride on other people's advertising - with so many VPN providers sponsoring content creators heavily on YouTube, maybe the public will actually know the term and understand the idea of the feature without Mozilla having to do much work.

</comment><comment><USER18> >However the surprise announcement throws in more questions that it answers

Does anyone know what announcement they're talking about? There's no link.

</comment><comment><USER19> What is the redacted company that might own Proton?

<comment><USER20> Tesonet.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17254113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17254113)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The should buy DuckDuckGo.

</comment><comment><USER22> Isn't this what Opera already does for free?

<comment><USER23> Opera had been acquired by a Chinese company and after that the browser went full on telemetry and IIRC same privacy policy works for their "VPN" too.</comment></comment>


Surface Studio - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/surface-studio <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12797207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12797207).</comment>


Show HN: Built RealTime Search for Google Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://apoorv.quora.com/Weekend-Hack-Real-Time-Search-in-Google-Chrome

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your upvotes, would love to get your feedback on the usability or design of this extension.</comment>


How the CNN Holographic Interview System Works - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5076663/how-the-cnn-holographic-interview-system-works <comment><USER2> While I'm sure it's tricky to send and crunch that much data in real-time, it ended up looking really bad. Amateur hour. There was a giant blue fringe around her the whole time. The Star Trek "beam in" effect to start the interview didn't help.

To top it off it was nothing like a hologram--it was all virtual. Wolf was just looking at a TV monitor off set like he would with any other remote interview.

<comment><USER3> I just kept thinking: _"help us Obama-Wan, you're our only hope!"_

And it sorta made it palatable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Televised news has officially jumped the shark. This, if anything shows how mainstream and traditional media is becoming more and more irrelevant as the Internet produces better, more relevant, and more focused news stories as a single outlet.

It's less impressive that this was done (as since the Matrix 360 camera angles have been thrown in more Michael Bayesque movies ever imagined), and more impressive that someone had the ability to sell this to a producer as a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> CNN officially out-gimmicked the other news stations. No small task.

</comment><comment><USER6> I just assumed that Wolf Blitzer was an evil Sith Lord and could make it work with the force.

In fact, I still believe this.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here I thought it worked by giving anchors a break while some time was killed.</comment>


Between You, Me, and Google: Problems with Gmail's "Confidential Mode" - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/07/between-you-me-and-google-problems-gmails-confidential-mode <comment><USER2> "Making a commercial product that bypasses IRM is a potential felony, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense".

But Gmail works in a _web browser_ that already provides everything you need to edit out the print/copy protection CSS & JS code: [https://grokprivacy.wordpress.com/2018/06/24/archiving- self-...](https://grokprivacy.wordpress.com/2018/06/24/archiving-self- destructing-gmail-with-firefox/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If the EFF's points in this article are accurate, I would agree that the naming of such features will lead many to believe they are getting more privacy and security than the reality of the situation.

If there are any google people here, I would be very curious to hear your take on this article.</comment>


Scrum Is Not an Agile Software Development Framework - <AUTHOR> https://ronjeffries.com/articles/018-01ff/scrum-not-asd-1/ <comment><USER2> Favorite quote from a co-worker "Scrum is waterfall framework dressed in Agile clothing."</comment>


Yahoo's Chairman Is Out Because Marissa Mayer Was Not His First Choice For CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-chairman-fred-amoroso-is-out-because-marissa-mayer-was-not-his-first-choice-for-ceo-2013-4?op=1

<comment><USER2> I think he's leaving because when he started in May 2012, he said, "I'm going to step down in May, 2013".

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that was pretty Business Insider-worthy reporting then :(

<comment><USER3> I've said it in the past, we need to block Business Insider links from HN.

<comment><USER4> Concur, upvoted. There seems to be a deliberate effort to push a BusinessInsider presence onto HN, far beyond its actual value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why isn't this article titled "Yahoo's Chariman thought to be the person who convinced Yahoo to enter into a disastrous patent lawsuit against Facebook last year is out"?

It's sad to see how much slack she's getting in comparison to male CEOs.

</comment><comment><USER6> Whether Marissa Mayer was a good choice for CEO or not, the stock market has spoken, with YHOO more than doubled from the low point.

<comment><USER4> It would be a mistake to link the rise to Mayer without specific evidence, given that the market has been rising overall.</comment></comment>


Opaque and sky high bills are breaking Americans, and our health care system - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/16357790/health-care-prices-problem <comment><USER3> Price transparency is the number 1 hurdle facing American healthcare. How are you supposed to fix a cost problem if you don't know what anything costs? Worse yet, how can there be a market for a service if there are no prices??? Less than 10% of healthcare expenditures are emergencies, that leaves a lot of room for shopping around.

I'm also really glad that people are starting to realize that Obamacare had critical conceptual failures. There was nothing in the ACA that tackled healthcare costs, it was only concerned with spreading healthcare costs. Affordable healthcare is not the same thing as affordable health insurance. The Democrats are certain that they already know the right answer, lack of data be damned. The Republican leadership on the other hand doesn't really grok yet that there is a problem (or rather currently they think that Obamacare is the problem, when in truth Obamacare is neither the problem or the solution).

<comment><USER4> Price transparency is basically a red herring.

Prices are largely set by the CMS (medicare and medicaid) and sometimes insurance companies will pay a little bit on top sometimes depending on their clout and competition from other providers / insurers. The hospital counters with the "master charge" sheet which is overinflated fiction. Then they have a giant song and dance negotiating prices / threatening to pull their patients etc... But the bulk of their revenue comes from medicaid/medicare patients so prices basically round down to those reimbursement rates.

Then the ACA keeps costs down by having doctors focus on quality rather than quantity. If patients are readmitted they get dinged on their medicare reimbursement rate. There are also other provisions in there as well to regulate reimbursement rates as well.

The ACA also reduced health care induced bankruptcies. You still may have high premiums but those were addressed by subsidies in many cases. Taking on people with pre-existing conditions was also addressed by subsidies. The expectation is that as these people get healthier, the whole system will eventually converge to a steady state where cost is mostly regulated by the CMS.

If insurers don't want to play ball then the government should just let people buy into medicaid. We already pay medicaid and medicare taxes anyway.

<comment><USER5> > But the bulk of their revenue comes from medicaid/medicare patients so > prices basically round down to those reimbursement rates.

This is totally wrong. Private insurers reimburse several times what Medicare does. In fact, they're literally required by law to pay more.

Medicare prices are so low that providers can't sustain themselves on Medicare reimbursements alone; the government provides a special subsidy to providers who see a lot of Medicare patients because otherwise they'd operate at a loss.

<comment><USER4> >This is totally wrong. Private insurers reimburse several times what Medicare does. In fact, they're literally required by law to pay more.

That's not true.

[http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/21/news/economy/medicare- doctor...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/21/news/economy/medicare- doctors/index.html)

And check out table 1 in [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5375010/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5375010/)

<comment><USER5> > That's not true. [http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/21/news/economy/medicare- > doctor...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/21/news/economy/medicare-doctor..). > And check out table 1 in > [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5375010/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5375010/)

Both of the links you provide corroborate what I said. Mass-market media tends to do a terrible job with reporting nuanced details like the medical billing process (or computer security), but even this watered-down CNN overview notes:

> The differences can be stark. Private insurers allow an average of $1,226 > for low-back disc surgery, while Medicare will only permit $654, for > instance. And the gap can grow wider depending on where the patient is. In > New York, insurers allow $1,352 for a gall bladder removal, compared to $580 > for Medicare. Some services are more comparable. For office visits by > established patients, for instance, Medicare will allow 92% of what insurers > do.

As for Table 1 in the paper you linked, _every single city_ listed there receives less from Medicare than the black-box FAIR estimates. In the case of San Francisco, Medicare basically pays 33% of what the private insurers are estimated to pay.

And that's just tracking Level 3 office visits, which is where the Medicare shortfall is generally the _smallest_ (generalized and routine care).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem is US health care providers are immune to true competition:

1\. They often enjoy state-sanctioned monopolies in the form of overly restrictive licensing laws. They're basically unions that enshrine certain false assumptions about what form of training is necessary to accomplish tasks.

2\. They don't even have to be held to any cost agreements.

How can you have competition or any kind of viable health care economy when no one actually knows the price of a service until it is set by the provider after the fact, and there is no way of offering an alternative means of offering the service?

It's absurd. I don't even understand how most of this is legal. The price should be set beforehand, or at least there should be an estimate on request, and the final price should be with in a small fraction of that estimate, and licensing should be dramatically loosened or eliminated, to allow providers who are competent but have alternate educational paths (e.g., optometrists expanding their practice, or psychologists prescribing, or nurses or pharmacists increasing their role).

<comment><USER7> There is a downside to pricing being front-and-center. It encourages the patient to make a judgement call on what procedure to undertake based more on cost than on need. Since they are not qualified to assess need they rely on cost more than they probably should. The result may be poor short-term decisions which leads to health complications down the line.

Healthcare is a service like none other. The consumer is not knowledgeable about the details and trusts a third party (doctor). They often buy the service when they are not in the best frame of mind. They may not have the ability to exercise choice in location or provider in an emergency situation. All these factors make it hard for consumers to make a rational decision when it comes to healthcare services. Since these factors are unlikely to change I don't think we should rely on a traditional market-based approach where competition will solve all ills.

More important than transparent pricing is a singular price for a procedure regardless of if the patient has insurance or not. That alone will solve many problems.

<comment><USER8> But then again, the opposite of this is they're also not equipped to make a judgement for non-critical operations or and they also are provided with absolutely no information as to the costs they're about to undertake for procedures that otherwise would be in their right frame of mind, and they have poor ability to understand how their insurance will work each time they undergo a procedure, whether it's a routine check or a critical procedure. Already prior to the affordable care act people were performing their own medical procedures since they could not get medical coverage due to pre- existing conditions, making equally bad decisions because they had no means to determine how costly a procedure would be and they still lacked the ability to know whether or not a procedure was required.

The information asymmetry is bad for many reasons, as I do appreciate what you're saying that we really don't want people self-diagnosing; but at the same time, should we really have people going into debt just to get a minor biopsy done? My last biopsy cost $6300 when it was all said and done and insurance refused to pay any of it on the basis that it was "unnecessary", never-ending that three separate doctors were extremely concerned as they had no idea what a lesion on my leg was and they were fearful it was cancerous. I'm not really sure how that can be deemed unnecessary; even from a straight cost perspective, $6300 out of their pocket now means saving potentially hundreds of thousands on costs later.

I live abroad and my work colleagues are continually flabbergasted when I explain how health care and insurance works in the US - they cannot fathom the idea of paying for a service that can just decide not to hold up their end of the bargain for whatever reason, or that the answer to the simple question "Let's say I break my leg - how much can I expect to pay to get it fixed?" is "I really can't say, it depends on a lot of things." Here, they're used to pretty dead set figures; an X-Ray is this much, a cast is this much, each follow up visit is $X, and this is all provided ahead of time so that they know the total cost up front.

So yeah, I do get what you're saying - we don't want people just going to WebMD and thinking they have SuperCancer. But the alternative is people terrified of the potential costs and having absolutely no idea what they're getting billed for or why, and an Insurance system that just dictates prices to them.

<comment><USER7> Agreed that cost transparency is good. Better is what your non-US friends are saying: "an X-ray is this much" regardless of where you get the service and if you have insurance or not.

ps: hope your biopsy was ok. Must be a very stressful thing to go to, and then have to deal with payment issues after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was recently billed $6500 for an MRI. I ended up being completely fine, but I'm really annoyed with what happened. An MRI is typically $500, but I went to UCLA's radiology facility because I was referred there by a UCLA specialist at a clinic. The $6000 was a hospital fee that was tacked on because the radiology facility is located on hospital grounds. The explanation/itemization from UCLA is that it's because hospital equipment was used, but it wasn't any different from equipment at any other radiology center.

My insurance paid most of it ($4000ish) and I'm "only" responsible for around $500, but I'm extremely soured by the experience. I've had major surgeries that cost around that much. An MRI anywhere else would have cost me $50 total. I feel completely bilked by UCLA and I wish I could avoid giving them any more money, but I don't have very many choices around their campus when it comes to accepting my insurance.

It makes me never want to set foot in a hospital again unless I'm literally dying.

<comment><USER10> Something similar happened to me, except my insurance company helped me dodge a bullet. My doctor is at Stanford so when an MRI was recommended, they just scheduled me at their facility for an MRI in a couple of weeks.

Well, a couple of days after my initial visit, my insurance company had someone call me and say "hey, just so you know, we authorized your MRI at Stanford, and we will cover it to the tune of 90%, but the price is higher than most in your area, so we want to make you aware of more affordable options." I'm a pretty stubborn person, and I hate feeling like my insurance company is trying to screw me, so I thanked him for his time and declined.

Then, after a few minutes, I started coming to my senses. Yes, I have good insurance. Yes, they'll pay. That said, should I really have a $5000 MRI instead of a $750 one? Yeah, I can afford the $500 copay, but do I really want to? I'm used to just taking whatever services are recommended, but this time I went ahead and cancelled the Stanford MRI and took the $750 one instead. Saved myself some money, saved my insurance company a lot of money, and sent all of those dollars to a provider giving me a service at a reasonable cost.

(sort of related, my wife was recently in an accident where she went to the Stanford ER and was in the hospital for almost a week, plus some surgery. We accidentally gave the wrong insurance info so of course I got an Explanation of Benefits from my insurance company a few weeks later, saying "you owe your provider: $200,000" which is quite a funny thing to receive. Maybe it it was $20k it would be stressful, but once it hits the hundreds of thousands you realize you're not going to pay for it anyway. Amusingly, I think it didn't even include the surgery, or at least not the anesthesia, so I'm quite sure the true cost was north of $300 or $400k, and wouldn't be surprised if it broke a half million dollars after followups)

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I wish my insurance had called me :(

I can easily afford the $500 and I'm really grateful for that, but I feel like I was taken advantage of.

How much did you pay in the end for Stanford ER?

<comment><USER10> I have no idea what Stanford cost. It was not on my insurance, it was on my wife (she was double covered at the time, it was a mistake to submit to my insurance rather than hers-- I didn't get the concept of primary=your insurance, secondary=someone else's insurance).

So I've never seen the EOB for her insurance and supposedly we owe $0. I've never seen a bill, and I called Stanford to confirm there was once a balance for a visit on or about that date, and that the balance is now $0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lack of transparent pricing is a huge issue with US health care.

I dispute almost every bill I get. Prices get reduced or insurance agrees to pay more in almost every case. They are banking on people just paying.

<comment><USER12> How does one dispute a bill? On what basis can we say that this bill should have been $X instead of $Y? I'd love to start doing this but I don't know how.

<comment><USER13> First step is to ask for an itemized bill, usually comes out to be a couple pages in a hospital. Then check for anything that looks wrong or charged wrong. 90% of medical bills contain at least one error. There are also advocacy companies that will do this for you, a solid investment if you're paying 10k+.

<comment><USER12> "Check for anything that looks wrong or charged wrong." Could you clarify against which should I check? The original problem is that no price is published in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The "free market" is just a terrible solution to providing health care. There are some cases where it can work, but as a general solution it doesn't. Roads are the same way. Does a private, market solution (toll roads) work sometimes? Sure. Could we build our entire network of roads using tolls. Of course not.

In a way this is a bit of a cop out because no one can/will up end the entire system.One thought experiment I like to run is what happens to prices if we use to government to subsidize supply of services? Provide free schooling and other government benefits for people willing to train to become medical workers. Take the rural dentist crisis. IMO the government should be training people who live in those communities to become dentists for free.

We have limited examples in places like Cuba. I'm not saying that full on socialism is a magic bullet, but I think smartly applied it works better for markets like healthcare.

<comment><USER15> Yes, I believe competition can exist, but the time for competition is the 'market' setting the proper price for a procedure (in something like a dutch auction contract).

A single payer system can (and should) still have competition. Not when someone in need of services is going to a doctor, but when the single "insurance plan" is deciding which local doctors to contract with at a given rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The only real way to drive down prices is competition.

I honestly don't understand why we can't make the military's medical system available as such a source of competition; if government waste is so rampant and procurement so expensive, surely private companies can easily beat them on price if they are also in the market.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sometimes doctors do good work, sometimes the medical-industrial complex makes work for itself. When insurance is paying the bills, no one has to care about effectiveness or costs.

Elisabeth Rosenthal recently published _An American Sickness_. These lines from _Insurance policy: How an industry shifted from protecting patients to seeking profit_ [0] concisely summarize the medical industry's current business model:

>> The very idea of health insurance is in some ways the original sin that catalyzed the evolution of today's medical-industrial complex.

>> The people who founded the Blue Cross Association in Texas nearly a century ago had no idea how their innovation would spin out of control. They intended it to help the sick. And, in the beginning, it did.

>> A hundred years ago medical treatments were basic, cheap and not terribly effective. Often run by religious charities, hospitals were places where people mostly went to die. "Care," such as it was, was delivered at dispensaries by doctors or quacks for minimal fees.

[0] [http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-health- insurance-...](http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-health-insurance- changed-from-protecting-patients-to-seeking-profit.html)

Court-ordered psychiatry is the biggest racket of all because the doctors (who think they know what they're doing) don't have to get their patients' informed consent [1] before hurting them.

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

edit: 'racket' above changed to 'business model'

<comment><USER17> I would love for someone to explain how keeping the pricing information away from me, for weeks or months equates "Informed Consent"?

Because if I would have known the price, I would have chosen not to "consume" the services. I would love to see a lawsuit based on this very area, with complete lack of informed consent with regards to cost and health benefit.

Because the way it's currently handled is like if I went into a Walmart, loaded up with lots of stuff, and walked out the door. Then 3 months later, I get letters saying I owe X*$1,000 on threat of all sorts of things (garnishment, lawsuit, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Serious question: can anyone point me to some good stories where someone just told these hospitals to fuck off when they try to charge hundreds of dollars for a band-aid or an aspirin? I suspect that would be my response. What happens? Do they just wreck your credit by turning you over to a collection agency?

Another question: Can they be sued for price gouging? I'd love to see them legally justify before the court some of this garbage pricing that varies by tens of thousands of percent between providers for commodity items like saline, bandages, and generic drugs.

When I read some of these horror stories, I suspect that I would declare bankruptcy out of principal were I to have this misfortune to get hit with one of these bills. The whole health care industry in this country has become a cancer on society. What's the hidden cost of the stress and anxiety this causes in our day to day lives. When an ER visit can financially ruin you for years, how much better is this than living without modern health care at all?

<comment><USER13> As a matter of fact, most patients don't pay their medical bills, hospitals only collect about 20% of Patient A/R.

The reason the ER facilities charge is so high is that people abuse the ER and threaten the lives of people who actually need saving. The ER can't legally turn people away and asking them to pay a bill is pretty fruitless, especially for underbanked Americans. Meanwhile, the hospitals jack up the charges to offset the losses on the aforementioned patients.

Taxpayers subsidize these losses in addition to paying for health insurance.

<comment><USER19> I think you massively overestimate the costs of ER care for the uninsured that do not pay their bills. Charity costs are around 2.3% of operating expenses for your average non-profit hospital. 2.3% loss is not how you end up with bills that are 6, 10, or 15 times inflated.

Poor people in the ER isn't what is driving health care or hospital costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Imagine you go to get an oil change for your car. You ask how much it will cost and hear back that it's $20. So you get the oil change, pay the bill, and go on your merry way.

One week later, you get a $30 for environment remediation.

And other week later, and you get a $15 bill for an engine-rev specialist and another $2 bill for an oil plug specialist.

One month later you get a statement (not a bill !) from your car maker that the $187 cost is partially paid by them. You don't know why, and still aren't sure how much you owe. So you ignore all the bills and continue on your merry way.

60 more days later you get a letter from a debt collector. You have not paid $103 in oil change bills, and you have two weeks to do so or your credit score will be impacted.

Nervous, you call them up, and a very rude woman tells them you better pay the bill or else!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is healthcare in America.

</comment><comment><USER21> The number one thing that should be done is to require medical providers to post public prices and their billing to be detailed enough to tell what the charges are for. I have seen bills "Lab services: $12000". How is a patient to tell if this is legitimate or not?

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised that HMOs haven't become more of a thing. I.e., systems where the insurance and care are combined in one private system. It seems like HMOs should be politically acceptable to all sides, and are akin to a privatized single payer system. HMOs would seem to address the pricing issue.

<comment><USER23> I thought this was tried in the 90s. Everyone hated HMOs because of the byzantine restrictions they placed on care without lowering costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm in the healthcare industry, so I try my best to pay attention to it through news and blogs and such, though I don't claim to be an expert in the field.

My impression is that price transparency is the least of the healthcare industry's problems. On aggregate, Medicare pays out about 25% of what the hospital or physician asks for, and private insurances apparently about 50%. The pricing for the uninsured is the initial price that hospitals/physicians set to get the maximum they can out of different insurance companies, and are not meant to be the charge for uninsured patients. There's been studies talking about how price transparency doesn't change physician behavior in hospitals that tried it out. Some patients report trying to compare prices for procedures across physicians and hospitals, but didn't get the quality of treatment due to picking the cheapest one.

Instead, the #1 concern you hear about all the time is EHR (electronic health records). It's the #1 reason physicians give for feeling burned out, according to some surveys. The popular opinion on electronic healthcare records seem to be that they're glorified cash registers for keeping track of claims data to bill insurance, but doesn't contain much clinically relevant data - <USER2> example, I hear physicians complaining online about how they can find when a patient went to an ER and through what means, but they have trouble finding what clinical reasons the patient went to the ER for. Granted, apparently a few percentage of physicians think that their EHR contain clinically relevant data, but most EHR systems that people are using right now aren't that sophisticated, usually due to cost and to the stupid time it would take to update to the new system and train people to use it properly. Word is that it takes years for a practitioner to learn how to use the EHR system (EPIC, Cerner, etc.). Different hospitals use different systems, which makes interoperability impossible, since there aren't good standards for recording EHRs, or they're over-complicated, or something according to people who develop EHRs. I also hear hospital C-level people talking about how expensive EHR systems are - one hospital reported upgrading to a new one cost about half a billion dollars, which was a third of their net patient revenue. Independent physicians are opting for direct primary care models (where you directly pay the physician some monthly fee, circumventing insurance) or to be employed by larger hospitals or physician groups, because the federal government requires that you try to implement some level of EHR, which is too expensive for independent physicians that can't afford hiring IT people on top of everyone else. Some surverys say that physicians spend half their time on looking at / putting data into EHRs, which can be twice as much time as they spend on seeing patients face-to-face.

Health insurance billing being extremely complicated doesn't help, either. You have to learn CPT/ICD-9/ICD-10 codes to bill correctly and get reimbursed, and it's so complicated that apparently some people get paid ~$40,000 a year just to convert diagnoses/procedures to CPT/ICD-9/ICD-10 codes. Hospitals/physicians end up needing to pay for those jobs as well, on top of IT people for maitaining/upgrading EHRs. In fact, there's a lot of consultation groups out there that advise you on how to bill insurance / submit required documents for Medicare / set up EHR.

There's a lot of other administrative overhead costs that contribute to healthcare costs seems to need higher priority, to me.</comment>


Where's my Google Global Payments (GPay) Solution? - <AUTHOR>

Through clenched teeth, I have often pondered the question of why no one has really solved the problems of global eCommerce.  And before you say it, PayPal is not a solution. Also, don't talk to me about rumors (http://www.google-stories.com/2007/09/03/un-systeme-de-paiement-mobile-nomme-gpay/).  What I want is an honest-to-goodness eCommerce-equivalent of the Internet itself, where money moves as freely as data, where international transactions appear as if they are local, where micropayments just work, where I am not being tracked like a criminal for moving my own hard-earned cash, and where the Banking System we inherited from Feudal times has finally been defenestrated.  In short, where the friggin-hell is my GPay solution?? <comment><USER2> 1\. The world is a virtual blizzard of jurisdictions. Almost all of them regulate banking rather severely. Their requirements are often mutually unsatisfiable, and when they are not they are merely onerous. (Data privacy in Switzerland + Know Your Customer in US = Infinite Fun!)

2\. Banks would rather strongly prefer not being disintermediated and will work to stop you from doing it.

3\. If you have any issues in your model at all, you will be turned into an infinitely scalable money tree, if for no other reason than you are now the weakest link in the international system which has, after all, had since feudal times to learn (ineffectively, inefficiently, imperfectly, and a hundred thousand times better than you) how to deal with fraud.

4\. Oh, massive incentive to fraud plus strict anonymity go together like puppies and blenders.

5\. The banking system, which IS ancient and IS decrepit and IS frequently inept, is also getting better. I can move money from any ATM in Japan to my account in the United States in under four hours for $50. [Edit to add: and if I were a Mexican immigrant in the US this would be $3.] That is fifty times more than it should be, but it is also absolutely amazing, isn't it? Paypal is similarly a really long way from perfect but it is a short step from Good Enough For Most Purposes.

6\. Micropayments are a solution in desperate search of a problem they solve well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google Checkout?</comment>


"Estimated loss of global revenue due to blocked ads during 2015 was $21.8B" [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/2015_report-the_cost_of_ad_blocking.pdf <comment><USER2> "Estimated money saved due to time that would have been wasted by ads: $1T"</comment>


Distributed Actors in Java and Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://blog.paralleluniverse.co/post/56519815799/distributed-actors-in-java-and-clojure <comment><USER3> Why should I pick this over Akka's incredibly performant and battle tested actors?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actors are just a part of Quasar. There's a lot more you can do with true lightweight threads. Stay tuned for more posts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This probably came out at the exact wrong time for Clojure. At the moment all the attention is on core.async. It'd have to offer something quite special to supplant it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't supplant core.async -- it extends it. Pulsar includes a compatible implementation of the core.async API ([http://puniverse.github.io/pulsar/manual/async.html](http://puniverse.github.io/pulsar/manual/async.html)).

We like core.async because it can be used in ClojureScript, but Quasar/Pulsar can be used by any JVM language. You can use the Pulsar implementation of core.async to communicate with Java or Ruby code. Plus, it's much more performant than core.async when there's a lot of interaction between go blocks. It also works in a cluster.

So, core.async for the browser, and Pulsar's compatible core.async for the JVM. core.async is also just a small part of Pulsar (Quasar/Pulsar have what we call fiber-blocking IO, a full Erlang-like actor system and more[1]). We promise to keep our core.async implementation fully compatible with the API, so you don't have to change APIs if you don't want to.

[1] One of the most exciting differences is that Pulsar fibers (each go block runs in a fiber) are not limited to a single Clojure expression. This means that you can run a complete ring handler inside a go block.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. But a library author still needs to choose between one and the other and you can't inter operate between the two (correct me if I'm wrong). I wonder if now might not be a good time to talk to the Clojure core guys and see if there's a way to make this pluggable.

My ideal would be to have a situation like Jetlang, in which the app owner could mix and match policy. It'd be nice to be able to use Akka as well...

<comment><USER5> I believe that core.async leverages Clojure Protocols to enable you to use whatever back end implementation you like. The Quasar guys just implemented those protocols.

<comment><USER6> not true at all. Quasar uses byte code manipulation, core.async uses Clojure macros to pre-process code. The Quasar code is a re-implementation of the client end api, not the underlying protocols.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. Pulsar re-implements core.async on top of its own lightweight threads. Nevertheless, we aim to make it so that any code written using core.async could easily use Pulsar instead.

We implemented core.async because we saw it could be easily done, but Pulsar's goals are broader. Frameworks like Akka give you actors, core.async gives you go blocks and channels, and Scala's async gives you async blocks and futures. In Quasar/Pulsar these are all special cases of lightweight threads. Once you can run 100Ks or 1M threads on a single machine, all sorts of possibilities are open to you.

<comment><USER4> I understand that you have wider ambitions, but on this point I think you're misunderstanding how libraries are used (something that is sadly common in library authors). If libraries were only ever used by applications, your solution would work: you just swap one namespace for another. A slight pain, but nothing too outrageous.

The problem is, give it six months and there will be many libraries that themselves use core.async. The application developer then either can't use those libraries or has to fork them herself. This just isn't going to happen, so everyone ends up with the default implementation.

Thinking about it, it might be possible to write a lein plugin that intercepts load-library and puts in your own implementation. That might actually work. That or engage the clojure.core team and get some redesign on core.async so that it's pluggable at an application layer.

Please don't take this as blind criticism. Quasar looks really interesting and I'd like to see app developers be able to easily use it from Clojure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we've though about that. What we'll probably do is provide a "core.async" namespace. All you'll have to do is replace the name of the dependency in the leiningen project file.

Keep in mind, though, that Clojure, while our favorite language, is still quite small (adoption wise) compared to other JVM languages. Java and Ruby are at least as prominent on our roadmap.

BTW, love your username.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Initially when I read the title my mind jumped to assume that you were doing actors distributed across multiple machines, i.e. one actor spread out, possibly in some fault-tolerant, eventually consistent way, in a cluster. But this actually means local actors, accessible across a network, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. It's just actors on different machines talking to one another - <USER2> like in Erlang.</comment></comment>