The world in 1975 (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ranprieur.com/misc/1975.html <comment><USER2> >Radio stations played a great variety of really good new music.

Please. The lack of variety in the public sphere is exactly what led to the "underground" music scenes. In the 70's the new unheard music was punk and the like.

When I left for college in '79 it was an absolutely jaw-dropping, exciting experience to find an entire music store filled with this "alternative" music that no one played (outside of college stations, which played anything. Even then, some of the college stations still played Top 40. What was the point of that?)

>Most Americans had never heard of espresso.

True, although if you were paying attention to the movie, "Shaft" ordered espresso. I noticed this but still didn't understand what it was supposed to be.

>Doomsayers were worried about something they called the "greenhouse effect".

To be fair, early in the 70's it seemed to some researchers that the historical trend was downward and we were headed into a new ice age. This was widely reported. Later on more work was done to get better global temperature proxies and it was decided that the trend was upwards.

<comment><USER3> So compare it to present-day Top 40 radio. There is no contest.

There really was a great variety of good music. Check the Top 100 lists through the decade. There was a lot of utter dreck as well. Even that might have been at least somewhat interesting.

Punk wasn't exactly evenly distributed. The only reason I knew about it then at all was from people writing about it, which made it appear to be an artifact of journalism.

<comment><USER4> Also, in 1975, punk was just getting started, and it wasn't yet clear that radio was not gonna play the Ramones.

I remember hearing "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the radio for the first time, and thinking they'd never play it again, 'cause it was just too weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >There were no digital watches. And wind-up watches were cheap.

LED digital watches arrived at my school in 1974/75\. LCD watches arrived about a year later.

>Headphones were giant things you used in the basement to listen to Pink Floyd.

I had a pair of 424s in 1975. They sounded pretty good.

[http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/sennheiser- hd-414...](http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/sennheiser- hd-414-and-424/)

>There was no portable way to listen to music except transistor radios.

Like a lot of people, I had a battery/mains cassette player/recorder. It wasn't an iPod, but it would have done the job. It's more accurate to say there was no tradition of personal music players. In-car players were very common.

>Cashiers punched in all the prices by hand, but it was only a little bit slower.

It was horrendously slow. And every single individual item had to have its own price sticker - which often fell off, holding everyone up.

It's interesting how many of these simply haven't been checked or researched, just patched together to create an "It was better in the old days' narrative.

I don't remember it being better. I remember it being very different. Many things now - smoking bans, health awareness, the public Internet - are huge improvements.

<comment><USER6> Regarding of the speed of cashiers: ALDI is the only store where actual tests showed that the speed has gone _down_ since the introduction of scanners — but all prices of all products had to be known by all cashiers, and there was always only one product of each type.

<comment><USER7> I have a feeling that inventory control, price accuracy and the ease of training cashiers are considered reasonable trade-offs for how long it takes to ring customers.

<comment><USER6> Well, the cashiers memorized the EAN, the barcode.

Even today they often type the barcode faster in than it can be recognized.

For inventory control and price accuracy you get the same advantages as with barcode, but you can be faster and work without a barcode reader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "There was no pizza delivery. Even supermarkets had much less pre-made food, so people had to at least try to cook."

Eau contraire, in 1976 I was delivering J&B's pizza to save up for college.

And our freezer was filled with TV dinners. We had 'TV Trays'. Today, we have trays for our notebook computers: [http://www.aliexpress.com/popular/notebook- computer-stands.h...](http://www.aliexpress.com/popular/notebook-computer- stands.html)

<comment><USER9> Nitpick of the day: it's au contraire, eau is just water, au is roughly at the. ;)

<comment><USER8> Thanks! Haha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In '75, Vietnam had finished. I remember asking my Dad was this the war that'd been going since I was little? Man no longer went to the moon. Woodstock was Snoopys friend.

Towns were more compact. There were no traffic lights in my town, no traffic lights until you hit the inner suburbs. Shops had limited hours. 9-5 weekdays, 9-12 Saturday. Except banks. They opened 10-5 and were closed weekends. No Sunday shopping existed. Everything was cash only. Supermarkets hardly existed. Towns had grocery stores, big towns had markets. You got up early on Saturday and shopped for the week in the limited hours available.

Food had to be prepared. There were no fast food outlets. Fast food was limited to fish fingers and frozen vegetables. I could never imagine bread being a dollar a loaf. Milk came in bottles. Milk, bread and the paper were delivered to the house.

News arrived by radio, newspapers then TV. Newspapers printed several times a day. TV was limited to four channels and black and white. Radio was AM. There were a lot of stations but only a few rock stations. Lots of 50's and 60's music on the air. Vinyl was king. 45's were less popular than LP's. 78's was old music. Stereo was affordable.

Cars got smaller, a lot smaller due to the oil shocks. Petrol contained lead. Most families had one car, maybe a second smaller car. Divorce was a new word. More women were moving into full time or part time work. Finance was restricted. Most people aspired to buy a house. Housing and land was affordable. Asbestos was deemed safe to use as building materials.

The difference between the fit and unfit was less. A lot more people smoked. Drinking was institutional. Fat people hardly existed. Diabeties was an old people disease. Kids died in droves on the road. The road toll was more than double what it is now. Men retired at 65 and died soon after.

It was a lot colder and a lot wetter and greener in the winter time. University was free. The library was the place to find out new ideas in books. Calculators started appearing. I heard about time-sharing for the first time. A scientist I knew worked with computers. His username was "Stout".

<comment><USER11> Where? Much of this stuff you describe was true in the mid-60s where I lived (suburban MN), but not in 75.

>Woodstock was Snoopys friend.

And a famous '69 music festival.

In 75 my parents had credit cards (as did all of their friends). We shopped at a supermarket and shopping malls. We ate tons of pre-packaged food like TV dinners and spaghetti O's - far more than people do today. Fast food was MacDonalds, BK, etc. Milk came in cartons from the supermarket.

Newspaper once a day. TV had been color for many years and we got at least a dozen channels. Radio was FM for music AM for news/sports. 8 track tapes and cassettes were everywhere. Most people had touch-tone phones.

University was not free. I had been programming computers at school (junior high) for several years via dial-up time sharing.

I guess changes come to different parts of the country at very different rates.

<comment><USER10> _" Where? Much of this stuff you describe was true in the mid-60s where I lived (suburban MN), but not in 75."_

Aus. In a lot of ways the US was far more advanced than the rest of the world in '75\. You can see that in the every day technology. There's another cause, I lived right on the outer fringes of Melbourne [0] and to give you an idea how small, most of the kids I went to school were delivered by one of two local doctors. [1] The thing that strikes me re-reading my post, then yours is how shockingly fast the Australian caught up and passed the US in a lot of ways.

As a kid the US sounded like a large and interesting place. Somewhere you might be aspire to move too. Now? not a chance. Aus has mostly free medical care and education, little gun violence, less advertising, advanced technology [2] and I'm asking myself, _" what the hell happened in the US from '75 to now to make it as it is now?"_

Btw, this isn't a criticism of the people of the US. What caused the structural tangle of politics, violence and religion that makes the country a place to avoid?

 _" And a famous '69 music festival."_

Duh, where do you think Shultz got the name? The point I'm making is the concert here was better known by a weekly comic strip than the music on the radio. Certainly available on LP though.

[0] Remember _" Melbourne is the artichoke end of the world"_ ~ [http://goonmail.customer.netspace.net.au/](http://goonmail.customer.netspace.net.au/)

[1] [http://seldomlogical.com/profile/](http://seldomlogical.com/profile/)

[2] Unaffordable housing, world #2 obesity rate, higher working hours, some political instability.

<comment><USER12> >What caused the structural tangle of politics, violence and religion that makes the country a place to avoid?

I'd say the cause is largely availability heuristic. You could Google it, but with Australian Internet speeds that might take several days.

<comment><USER10> _" availability heuristic"_, not a bad stab, yes Internet is slow today.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A discussion from 2009: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=503640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=503640).

</comment><comment><USER14> Mostly on base -- but no mention of the exit from Saigon? 1975 was the year the '60s ended.

Also, in 1975, one heard a lot more about 'the coming ice age' than global warming. The concept had a brief reprise in the 80s with 'the Cold and the Dark' (Nuclear Winter).

</comment><comment><USER15> > To fly on an airplane, you just had to walk through a metal detector, and if > someone was there to meet you or say goodbye, they could go all the way to > the gate without a ticket.

Also, you could meet somebody for lunch at the terminal during a layover or have a meeting right in the terminal at a restaurant. I had a boss before 9/11 that had direct reports all over the country. He would sometimes fly out and have lunch with one of his reports at a restaurant in the terminal and fly right back out. None of this is practical now with the security hassles.

<comment><USER16>
        None of this is practical now with the security hassles

In North America with TSA, absolutely. When I need to do a stopover in one of the efficient airports in Central or Northern Europe, I often go out to arrivals area (even if it involves going through passport control) and then back through departures. This way I can spend time doing some shopping for brands I don't have at home. CPH and ZRH are very good for that, CGN less so, ARN is not worth the hassle. Security in the departure area is always incomparably better than the same in America and with a layover of 1.5-2 hours you can do it at almost a leisurely pace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Also, there population of earth was 50% less (3.8 bill according to my quick search). Everywhere you go there would be 50% less people. Imagine that.

<comment><USER18> Not really. Some places would be completely undeveloped while others would have been about the same size or even larger (think of industrial mid west cities).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I read it with an eye to what got worse, since most things got better. The thing that truly leapt out to me was how awful pop music and the radio are today. There is good music, but nowhere near a radio. You really have to dig in obscure places for it. Pop is with very few exceptions loudness enhanced vapid junk that all sounds the same and that and oldies are all the radio will play.

Only a bit of actual inspired music has broken through in the past decade... basically m83 and a bit of decent hip hop. Compare this to the early 90s, the last time popular music was decent. There were literally dozens of amazing new bands and several whole new styles in a span of 5 years. That was I suppose before the marketers took over and figured out how to endlessly push junk.

I don't always cheer for disruption, but boy would I celebrate the total ruin of that industry. What a joke.

</comment><comment><USER20> >Tapping a phone was difficult, both technically and legally, and you could safely assume your phone calls and letters were private.

Wait, couldn't you just listen in on someone's line from the telephone box outside their house?

<comment><USER21> Depending on the exchange, in the UK, I think the "operator" may have been able to listen in too?

Crossed lines were a thing I think [in movies they were!] - induced signals in a different line that allowed you to hear someone else's call?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> >To fly on an airplane, you just had to walk through a metal detector, and if someone was there to meet you or say goodbye, they could go all the way to the gate without a ticket. >If a flight was longer than a couple hours, you got a free meal, sometimes two, and it wasn't bad.

Still largely true in Australia.

</comment><comment><USER23> I still don't get the whole 9 to 6 thing. 9 to 5 seems more reasonable (considering past norms. I don't believe were productive 8 hours a day sttaight). I think, at the very least the song lyrics should change, or better yet, we go back to past norms.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is not a very good article. inaccuracies aside it is also not well written and I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be. Misremembering the past isn't really an end unto itself in my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER25> > There were no DVD's or even VCR's -- movies could only be seen in theaters, > or older movies on TV. You could also buy a super 8mm film version, probably > not the entire film though.

<comment><USER26> We did have video tape recorders, though. Setting up and running them for classes was part of my college work-study job around 1971-72. The units I operated were made by Ampex and were about the size of a suitcase. They used a wide tape which had to be threaded onto the take-up reel, similar to an audio reel-to-reel tape recorder. The tape head had to be cleaned with alcohol between each use, and there was a tracking control which you often adjusted to avoid getting a stripe across the picture.

<comment><USER27> Not only that, but there were definitely VCRs in 1975. In particular, the Sony U-Matic was released in 1971, and Betamax dates to 1975 (with a November release in the US). Of course, the early VCRs were either used in educational or industrial environments, or else were toys for the rich.

There are plenty of other nits to pick with this article, as well. Pong wasn't the only video game, even if it was by far the most common (and yes, pinball dominated the arcades then). Dynamic range compression on LPs was certainly a thing, but producers didn't go overboard with it back then the way they do now.

Still, it's funny how some things never change (like media fearmongering).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Pretend you are shopping for Christmas...

[http://www.wishbookweb.com/](http://www.wishbookweb.com/)

</comment><comment><USER29> > You payed by cash or check

You can still do this using a debit card. I'm not 100% sure how your credit is affected if you never get a credit card though. I know there are other ways to build up credit. Also, credit cards make products more expensive, there's probably a transaction fee for debit cards too.

> There were no ATM's. To get cash out of your account, you went to a bank > teller, and there was no fee.

But you could only get money out of your own bank? You can now get an account at many banks/credit unions that waive atm transaction fees.

> Only rich people had credit cards. If you had debts, a credit card was > harder to get.

100% agree that we need to bring this back. If you don't have good credit, 760+ you shouldn't be allowed to have a credit card with high interest rates.

> Nobody went into debt for college. You either saved money in advance or > worked your way through.

Why is college so much more expensive now? Even online/"low cost" programs.

> There was no pizza delivery. Even supermarkets had much less pre-made food, > so people had to at least try to cook.

Really, no pizza delivery?! Well I guess with oil shortages that's believable.

> The work week was five hours shorter. You can still see this in the old > phrase "nine to five." People actually did work nine to five, with a paid > hour for lunch.

There are many people who work multiple jobs to make ends meet and the vast majority aren't doing what they want.

> Tapping a phone was difficult, both technically and legally, and you could > safely assume your phone calls and letters were private.

:(

> Everybody was afraid of "crime" (illegal acts by people of lower social > class) and "terrorism" (political violence outside a state monopoly).

Yup, more of that now even though we're safer now than at any other time in history.

> Doomsayers were worried about something they called the "greenhouse effect". > They said if we didn't reduce our carbon emissions soon, the world would > heat up and we would have ecological disasters.

Not just doomsayers, but looks like oil companies knew about it too but decided to keep it hidden.

> There was an oil shortage, and people responded by driving less, in more > fuel-efficient cars.

I saw the first Hummer H2 I'd seen in years a few weeks ago costco pump in the bay area when oil prices were ~$2.15/gallon. It all boils down to economics.

<comment><USER15> >> You payed by cash or check > You can still do this using a debit card.

His point wasn't debit versus credit. It was that one had to have the actual paper cash or a checkbook handy when stopping at the store. It's a lot more convenient now.

<comment><USER30> I still remember my mother using a credit card (probably ~1980) and the cashier pulled out a phone-book-sized list of known stolen CC numbers. I told my mom "I hope she finds it in the book" (not knowing its purpose) and she replied "I hope she doesn't".

Anyway, even credit cards were slower then.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, I remember the express lines in the 80s often were "cash only" since check and credit were so much slower than cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Great trip down memory lane. Thanks!!</comment>


Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-21/amazon-sells-out-of-echo-speakers-in-midst-of-holiday-rush <comment><USER2> Clearly, people love these things. I have a few friends who own it and say it's an amazing product; and commenters on HN have expressed their enthusiasm for it as well.

There is a question that's been bothering me for years now, to which I still don't have an answer, which is: does modern technology suck just for me, or am I just less tolerant of defects than most people are?

I am currently typing this from a 2016 macbook that for some reason won't keep disconnecting from my WiFi router. Last week, iOS decided to randomly delete all of my saved locations in the Maps app. I've never had stable, fast internet anywhere I've lived in the US in the past 8 years - every few days or so, shit just doesn't work for a bit. I've owned things like a Nest or Philips Hue in the past, and they randomly reset to factory mode or desync'd from my phone . Half the time I try to play my PS4, some stupid patch fails to download, or PSN is down, etc.

The more things like the Amazon Echo I would have in my house, the more irritating my daily life would be - because I don't want to deal with the 5% of the time where I have to repeat my request 5 times for it to tell me the weather, or the connection to the Amazon server is lost and I can't play any music. This 5% of the time across dozens of devices results in being annoyed 100% of the time.

All of this is why I mainly use a record player to listen to music at home (no DRM, no problem with servers being down or albums removed remotely), really like my GameCube for video games (put a disk in and play, no patches to download), still exclusively buy paper books, am fine with dumb light switches, and so on.

If you think this entire thing is ridiculous, I fully agree - I make my living contributing to this industry! But either people are living through these same annoyances as I am and they're fine with it (in which case please teach me your secrets), or somehow I'm getting a worse experience with technology than 99.9% of the population (I guess statistically such a person must exist, and it is me).

<comment><USER3> A lot of technology is pretty flaky. I think you have a couple of issues however:

1\. You have sucky Internet. Bad Internet is going to cause numerous issues. From what I've heard it's hard to get a really good Internet connection in the US. But in many places in the world, great Internet connections are available at low cost.

Bad Internet means devices are going to have issues with firmware updates. Things will be more flaky in general, data will be lost part way through transfer and you'll hit issues with devices not robust to this more often.

2\. There's no reason why your macbook should keep disconnecting from Wifi. Perhaps you live somewhere with a lot of RF noise? Or you have a cheap/crappy router? Again, this is an issue which many people don't face. Mostly Wifi just works.

<comment><USER4> > 2\. There's no reason why your macbook should keep disconnecting from Wifi. > Perhaps you live somewhere with a lot of RF noise? Or you have a > cheap/crappy router? Again, this is an issue which many people don't face. > Mostly Wifi just works.

I've went through tons of routers, and on those routers all available firmwares (dd-wrt. open-wrt, tomato, etc).

I've been using an Asus RT-AC87U for the last couple of years now, on Merlins firmware (slightly altered stock). I want to say it's great, but really it's just the least sucky router [0] I've had.

Wifi has never mostly worked. At least I've never experienced it. With a wifi dongle on my desktop PC I could go for a few weeks without issue, but I often find at least one (random) phone to be disconnecting at times when I'm trying to access something locally on my network. I never have to reboot the router at least, but have to manually reconnect devices when issues occur, and of course it breaks any connections I had.

I installed a wired network in our house just this week, for the devices I care about the most.

I have never been on or even heard of a wifi network that always works. I imagine that any such suggestion is a statement of minimizing the time when it fails, which is great, but it has never been on par with wired in reliability. I would be very happy if it did, but I won't hold my breath.

[0] Nitpick: We're talking about the AP part of the router, the router part is quite stable and I've had no wired issues.

<comment><USER5> > I have never been on or even heard of a wifi network that always works.

Years ago I had this problem and bought an Apple router. My wifi has always 'just worked' ever since. There was an entire thread of people on here on HN saying the same thing when Apple decided to stop making them. Wifi, like cell, is very anecdotal because of things out of your control.

<comment><USER4> I've had Apple routers as well. While above average, and not requiring restarts, it wasn't better than other premium (consumer grade) routers I've had. Of course, anecdata, but just for clarification:

Are you saying you never have any wifi issues? Even every other month?

I think the OP question touched on problems existing, but small enough for many to "accept them" as status quo, and him/her questioning if he/she was the only one bothered by them. I am one of those people too. Thus my question of whether or not you actually have no problems, or simply "no problems requiring intervention, other than waiting/reconnecting".

<comment><USER6> We have a decent wifi router and it's been running for over a year now with no issues.

Our internet has gone down (Uverse fiber), but that's outside of our home and there's little we can do about it.

My phone - a Nexus 5X - is probably the flakiest bit of tech that I have. I reboot it every 10 days or so. The next worst is the AT&T DVRs. They are terribly designed, painful to use, and have bugs.

Most of the tech in my house (Canon printer, QNAP raid box, Hikvision cameras, PS4, Roku, Wii-U, Onkyo receiver, Samsung and Toshiba televisions, iPads, iPhones, Samsung Tablet, Thinkpad, MacBook, gaming PC, Kindles, etc...) have basically no recurring problems. We've had brown outs where the power goes down but not off that made me have to go reboot everything, but other than that, no real problems. Our VitaMix blender does blow one breaker, but that's not really a tech issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> what are people actually using these for? i'm legitimately curious about the use cases for this. if you have an android phone or iphone or smartwatch, you already can "Hey Siri/Google" whatever you want, including playing music. is it for light switches? Hey Siri/Google already does this, no? also, how many people have 50$ wifi connected bulbs? and isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just physically flipping the switch? (they're usually located right where you need them) is it for shopping? this seems like still a rare use case. is it to check the weather? that's already on your phone/wrist/computer/tv/window. is it to look up facts? again, siri/cortana/heygoogle does this.

it's possible that i'm not the target demographic, that i'm the only person who doesnt have literally everything in their home futuristically connected (locks, lights, windows, curtains, vacuums, etc) -- and that this is actually solving a huge problem for a lot of people. but that seems unlikely -- i live in a relatively tech-infested city (SF) and almost nobody i know has those things.

maybe i'm too old (27) to "get it"? get off my lawn??

<comment><USER5> > what are people actually using these for?

Off the top of my head from last night while cooking dinner:

* "hey google, add olive oil to the grocery list"

* "hey google, set a timer for 15 minutes for rice"

* "hey google, play some Christmas music"

* "hey google, how much time is left on the rice"

I could have fumbled with pulling out my iphone for all of these, but I would have had to stop prepping dinner, wash my hands, and then mess with the phone. Instead, it just fits in the flow of what I am doing.

<comment><USER8> I believe from iPhone 6S and above, there's an option to just say "Hey, Siri" to activate Siri without having to touch the phone, so you can basically do the same thing with iPhones.

<comment><USER5> There is, but my phone is either in my pocket or not right next to me. Google Home works fine across the room, and ties directly into Google Music. I can also tell it to cast to my better speakers if that's what I want it to do. Siri also has a weird way of doing multiple timers: [http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2014/01/timers-and- reminder...](http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2014/01/timers-and-reminders/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Have had an echo since launch and the Google Home for a month. The Echo basically uses commands. There is some flexibility but not inference like the Google Home.

So with the echo you sometimes have to do a quick Google search to get the name of the song so you can tell the Echo.

The Google Home does not require the extra step. With the Google Home I am starting to use a condensed English. So I will say "play sting Gwen bottle"

The Google home will launch Sting and Gwen Stefani playing message in the bottle. But the Google Home will also turn on the TV, set the correct input and then start playing.

The Echo is older but for my family use cases the Google Home is far more useful.

This was before the new capibilities just added to the Google Home

<comment><USER10> I've been eyeing these and had a question about a use case like this. Is it easy to utilize multiple media sources for this, like Plex and/or Spotify? Can you tell Alexa or Google Home which to use?

<comment><USER11> If google home uses the same tech as google now, I've told my phone to specifically play songs on spotify before as opposed to play music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not quite.. I ordered a second Echo Dot for my mom last Thursday (the 15th). It was originally scheduled to ship on the 30th, but shipped early on the 19th and she got it today.

She's not very technically oriented (iPad is about as complicated as she wants to get), but absolutely LOVES the Dot. I bought her first one for her birthday back in October, and she called me on my birthday three weeks after that and had it sing "Happy Birthday" to me over the phone. She'd had it for all of a week before she told me "I need another one of these for the other end of the house.."

<comment> newspaper-shill What does your mom use it for? I'm strongly considering getting one for my own parents.

<comment><USER12> Playing music, weather, shopping lists...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have noticed that Amazon (and Amazon merchants) seem to be unprepared for this holiday season. Amazon was always my go-to place for "oh shit I need a Christmas present at it's December 20th".

I went online to buy a few things this weekend and almost every item I looked up was marked "Back in stock on Dec XX" where XX was somewhere in the range of 24th to 30th.

So I'm not surprised that this extends to Amazon's own products. It's a shame, as one of the main reasons to shop on Amazon is to know you can get almost anything with no notice.

<comment><USER14> Could be a sign for the current economic environment. Ecommerce took really off in the last decade or so. The recovery after the crisis in '08 took long and while consumption was ok, it was never extremely good.

Current numbers, especially in the US, look very promising. Growth isn't where it has been in the past, but employment is very strong and so is spending. Wage growth will have a large effect on spending for gifts, especially for earners with low wages.

Maybe that's why Amazon was so surprised this year. They anticipated their growth number to what they sold last year and didn't account for the extra boost.

Of course that's just speculation, but it would fit well. And would explain why I don't see this effect on Amazon UK at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Fascinating.

Don't take my comment the wrong way -- I'm not begrudging anyone on their spending habits or how they use their disposable income, but I genuinely have several items or activities that I'd rather spend that $140 current sale price on.

Or, to rephrase, the idea of voice controlling music in my house appeals to me, but not at this price point? For what it's worth, the sibling products are also awkwardly priced for me: the cheapest Tap (edit/correction: Dot) has a terrible speaker while the mid-range Tap isn't hands-free.

I'd be truly curious how people actually use the Echo: how much of it is music playing, how much of it is checking the weather, or witty banter, or re- ordering a household item. Is it more of a utility device? Is it more of an entertainment device? Is it some clever hybrid thereof?

<comment><USER16> If the price point is the only issue, I'm pretty sure the Echo Dot does the same thing for $40. My concern is that voice controlling the music might not be worth sending out recordings of everything said in my house.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't record everything said in your house. It only listens to the wake word, and then records. Source: I worked on some of the low level audio functionality.

<comment><USER18> These comments about the NSA listening to you through these get annoying enough to me, I hate to think how annoying they must be to you when you built the damn thing.

<comment><USER19> Is there any reason an Echo couldn't be updated to add 24/7 listening? Just because someone built a part of it doesn't mean they know how it works now

<comment><USER18> They could do the same thing to your computer or phone or even any speaker you have; why are we freaking out about this except for the fact that it's being sold as a microphone?

Why don't we freak out that Chrome could be listening to all our audio? I guess you could make an argument that far-field mics make it different, but I have a lot of conversations near my laptop and phone.

As tekromancr mentioned; it would be pretty obvious if these changes were made, especially on a wide-ranging basis, so that only really leaves this potential capability being used in a targeted manner, at which point Mossad is after you specifically and you're gonna get Mosadded. ([https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf))

Having said that, I would be interested in a 3rd party maintained registry of updates for all software so that it would at the very least be noticeable if updates were being abused for this purpose, similar to the way certificate transparency works for SSL/TLS certs.

<comment><USER19> > They could do the same thing to your computer or phone or even any speaker > you have...

Absolutely. That's why I don't really let stuff auto-update, use as much FOSS stuff as I can, etc. Just because someone can push a malicious update to $product_a doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that they can do it to $product_b. I fail to see the logic here.

> Why don't we freak out that Chrome could be listening to all our audio?

I do. And that's why I don't use Chrome. Just because you don't seem to be worried doesn't mean other people don't worry about it.

> ...it would be pretty obvious if these changes were made, especially on a > wide-ranging basis...

Maybe, but I'm not worried _just_ about wide-ranging basis, but a narrow- ranging basis as well.

<comment><USER18> > I fail to see the logic here.

Most people are not concerned about Chrome, iOS or Android auto-updating; I'm sure you can see that you're an outlier here.

FOSS software might not have automatic updates, but if you do any sort of update where you don't verify the blob you got is the same one as everyone else you have exactly the same problem.

I largely expect that unless you get super paranoid about this (and hey, we're on HN, so that's a possibility), you're not really going to stop a sophisticated government adversary. And at the point where you're on a specifically targeted list, they will probably not limit themselves to the digital world.

I also think that expecting this level of privacy where the government cannot figure out what you're doing is a historical anomaly; most people who avoided telephones because the government could be listening are generally considered crazy people.

Does the government target people in a violation of their civil rights? Yes, but you probably know if you're doing something the government doesn't like, and it does not seem sensible to argue that people should become experts in technology and then give up a lot of benefits to avoid a risk that is not real for them.

<comment><USER19> > Most people are not concerned about Chrome, iOS or Android auto-updating; > I'm sure you can see that you're an outlier here.

Sure, but I don't see how that invalidates my point. Some people are concerned about privacy, some people aren't. That doesn't mean the original software couldn't be updated with malicious code.

> FOSS software might not have automatic updates, but if you do any sort of > update where you don't verify the blob you got is the same one as everyone > else you have exactly the same problem.

I'd disagree. Having the _ability_ to verify it has kept a lot of people from pushing a lot of bad code because they know they could be caught.

> you're not really going to stop a sophisticated government adversary.

I'd agree, but just because I can't _really_ stop someone from breaking into my house doesn't mean I'm OK with putting a key under my doormatt.

> I also think that expecting this level of privacy where the government > cannot figure out what you're doing is a historical anomaly

There's a _huge_ difference between being able to figure out, and recording everything for later use.

> most people who avoided telephones because the government could be listening > are generally considered crazy people.

lolno. Movies have often had a trope about talking in person because "someone could be listening" for a long time. Audiences understand this quite well and go along with the story. And it doesn't have to be the government. When party- lines were common, people knew you had to be careful, or the town gossip could get all the juicy details. The Public has long known that someone could be listening. The difference now is that a lot of actors are trying to _always_ be listening.

> it does not seem sensible to argue that people should become experts in > technology and then give up a lot of benefits to avoid a risk that is not > real for them.

I'm not really sure where I said that. If I did, I'd like you to point it out. I just think people should be able to educate themselves and decide for themselves if that trade-off is worth it.

I'm not saying people _shouldn 't_ make the tradeoff, but pretending that "It's OK, the Echo could never be used maliciously because some guy on HN said he wrote the software and it doesn't do that" is naive at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think ultimately google home and amazon echo will walk a separate path. Amazon will focus on what they do best--selling stuff, and Google will focus on what they do best--providing information.

Of course they will be a big overlap (like how it is now), but smart companies tend to play to their strengths than to play by their enemy's rules.

<comment><USER21> But why would I want a $100 voice-interfaced device just to sell me stuff? Not challenging your prediction. Questioning Amazon's game plan if that's indeed the path they're setting out on.

In fact, their current ad campaign clearly shows the "buy stuff" use case. From ordering pizzas to buying roses to requesting an Uber. But it also features users asking Alexa for their calendar itinerary, or the caloric content of hot wings.

<comment><USER22> In the last year they've also been creating several Alexa (Echo Devices) exclusive sales. Meaning you have to order on an Echo device to get the same price. I suspect we'll see more of that in the coming year.

Amazon.com has already become a site where if you aren't a prime member then you may have well not use it. Since almost all sales are prime exclusive, shipping is now crazy expensive without prime, and almost all new features are prime too.

I suspect in the coming year or two the "cost of entry" will be both a prime membership AND an Alexa enabled device. Without both you'll miss out on a lot of the site's benefit and prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I see this "artificial supply constraint" hype-mobile getting played up a lot by consumer electronics marketing.

It's pretty easy to get the factories in Shenzhen to crank out a couple extra to meet demand (it USED to be a lot harder).

I call BS.

<comment><USER14> The manufacturing process is likely still several days as it involves more than one factory in the process. Plus shipping to the US (1-2 days) you'll end up at probably around a week in the best case. And that only if there's enough cargo capacity to add 100k units on that route (don't know how busy they are in these weeks). I'd guess it's realistically closer to 2 weeks from decision until it's in the warehouse.

It seems to me that the Echo is what amazon pushes most at the moment. They want to be in every house. I don't think they make much by selling it, it's mostly to bind people to amazon (prime and buying through the device). It doesn't make sense to constraint supply in that case. Constraining supply is used for expensive items to suggest that they're sought after. Don't think Echo fits in that category.

<comment><USER23> Even with that lead time, you know ahead-of-time when you're about to run out of supply in 2016. There's just no excuse.

That said, I just don't see too many people buying Echo. Another distracting device that tries to get you to buy more stuff on Amazon is just not something I think people want, and the speech recognition works flaky at best, even in a quiet room (my Amazon engineer buddy has one). It's just like Siri.

I had to go brick-and-mortar to get a flash drive in under an hour the other weekend. At Silicon Valley's Best Buy in SF, the in-store Echo demo had a few passersby press the Demo button, and then as soon as it started talking, they looked confused and walked away. Not a good sign.

It does make a lot of sense: When something actually isn't selling so well, running a marketing campaign saying "we've sold out" is a great psychological hack to temporarily drive up demand.

<comment><USER24> I'm here in Chicago and it's really sold out. Nothing at any of the major retailers within 50 miles of my location.

Google Home also seems to be completely gone at every store I've visited in the last few days. That includes places like Target, who usually have their shit together when it comes to inventory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> FWIW, there's stock in the Amazon UK store, and Amazon are advertising via a front page banner.

Echo: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GAGVC9K/](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GAGVC9K/)

Echo Dot: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01DFKBG5Y/](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01DFKBG5Y/)

Delivery to UK addresses only, but if you befriend a UK HN-er who's willing to be a patsy, I'm sure that won't be too much of a hurdle.

</comment><comment><USER26> Having a hot mic in my house that there is data to servers that I don't control really doesn't appeal to me. Although I know my Android phone is essentially the same thing, I'm actively looking to replace my version of Android with something different soon as I can.

<comment><USER27> And at least with an Android phone it's typically possible to root/wipe and install a custom OS that's completely separated from Google/whoever. There's usually still a few binary blob drivers, and you have to have some trust that the hardware itself isn't malicious, but at least you can be confidant that it's not dependent on/subservient to some online service that's out of your control.

I'm not terribly interested in any home automation/assistant system that _requires_ an always on connection to some external server.

<comment><USER19> Agreed. I don't like closed-source stuff, but I'd still absolutely use an Echo if it didn't require cloud connectivity. At least then I'd be able to prevent it from reaching outside.

Unfortunately all of the FOSS voice-recognition stuff I've tried has been hacky at best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I found the idea that it could be always listening to you creepy at first...but if you think about it your mobile phone, landline phone, computer microphone and more could be hijacked to always listen to you as well so there isn't much difference.

<comment><USER19> "I thought leaving my door key under my matt was a bad idea, but then I realized that if someone wanted into my house, they could just break my window!"

I'm not saying your making the wrong decision, it's a trade-off that everyone needs to make individually. If your happy with your Echo, great! But just because someone has one attack-vector on you doesn't mean you should dismiss new attack vectors.

<comment><USER29> You should be more worried about using npm. How do you know that when you install 100 of different dependencies, there isn't one that is turning on your mic and listening to your conversations?

The Echo is an unlikely device to be compromised and recording everything you say, because it's pretty locked down and definitely not a general purpose computer.

<comment><USER19> (I don't use npm, but I do use other repos) The difference between an Echo and repo-code is that repo-code is open-source. I can verify it's running what it's running. AFAIK, there's no way to do that with the Echo.

> it's pretty locked down

source? AFAIK you can't verify what it's doing, so it doesn't matter how well it's locked down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was given one as a gift, but I can't bring myself to plug it in.

The device sends sound to their servers to process what you are saying. They probably aren't sending _all_ the sound, but if they aren't, I can't be bothered to keep up to date on if they change that policy.

Is it unreasonable to assume that the NSA is logging (or will eventually be logging) everything sent over the Internet with this device around?

<comment><USER31> If you're seriously worried about the NSA logging things - I'd be more concerned with the device you carry on your person every day, with a microphone, two cameras, a GPS device, 24 hour battery, and probably 10x the processing power of the Alexa.

It seriously is no worse than OK Google or Siri and you should seriously be more worried about your cell phone.

<comment><USER32> The device I carry day-to-day needs to be specifically compromised. With voice assistants using an internet service, only that internet service needs to be compromised. For bulk surveilance, I think it's far more likely for the Echo servers to be attacked than my smartphone.

<comment><USER33> Amazon says that only after you say the hotword it transmits voice to servers.

<comment><USER34> Well then we can definitely trust them.

<comment><USER33> If they lie about this in general(and enable blanket surveillance), it would be relatively easy to detect , and hurt Amazon's brand.

<comment><USER35> How? If you say "by analysing the amount of data it transmits when not in use", then not really - they could record it locally and then sneak it alongside a normal request.

<comment><USER19> I don't know how Echo's update, but they potentially could also sneak in an update that does listen 24/7, then a couple days later push an update that turns that off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was in a Bed Bath and Beyond today and there was people looking for the Echo. All models were sold out, they put a sign saying they didn't have any more Echos.

</comment><comment><USER37> People here are really missing the point with these things asking, "why should I care?"

It should be clear to the HN crowd. One day, ambient voice technology is going to be everywhere. In your car. In the supermarket. Everywhere. The Amazon Echo is an early example of it. That it's connected to the largest goods distribution network has the potential to enhance modern living in an obvious way.

It's so typical with new technology to see a bunch of naysayers and ho-hum attitudes until one day it hits mainstream and everyone is like, "oh yeah, I knew it all along"

<comment><USER38> I've had this stuff in my cars, phones and now laptop (siri and cortana) for years and I've never found it to be a smooth execution to the point that I just don't use it. My BMW has a horrible manual system for entering addresses into its navi (spin wheel to letters), you'd think the voice system would be an easy resolution but it's even clunkier.

I bought 2 dots last night, one to plug into my Sonos and one to use as an alarm clock. Let's see if I use them at all beyond that.

edit: I canceled the dots and bought a Google Home and a dot to compare. Mostly because I use Google Music.

<comment><USER37> It's early. Think beyond the current capabilities and project 10 or 20 years from now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How many were sold? 20K? 200K? 2M?

<comment><USER40> The story mentioned 5M since 2014

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I was hoping to see a review of them here. I almost bought an Echo, or a Tap, but then I read the audio wasn't great. I wanted something to play music well and it sounded as if it didn't. I would love to know whether or not their audio quality or Google Home's, were worth it. Otherwise I guess I'll buy a decent quality amp for my Airport Express or something, which seems to cost about as much.

<comment><USER42> I know Google put significant effort and takes serious pride in the audio quality of the Home, so while I haven't heard it myself it is probably worth a try.

<comment><USER43> I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. Passable enough that I don't immediately Chromecast to another set of $$$ speakers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I had one for two weeks and sent it back. The requirement to summon an app before asking your question is clumsy and really takes the "magic" out of the experience. I'm waiting for the Google Home to be available.

Critically lacking in both ecosystems, is the ability to handle multiple user profiles so that it can recognise who is asking the question and tailor the answer to that users schedule, travel etc.

<comment><USER45> > The requirement to summon an app before asking your question is clumsy and > really takes the "magic" out of the experience. I'm waiting for the Google > Home to be available.

TBH, GH is just a large speaker for your smartphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I was excited about Echo when my co-worker introduced it to me a month ago, but then realize I'd have to write a Lambda function, set up this and that, and the fact I'd have to write out the exact command, I shrugged a bit and lost my interest. Now that AWS has Rekognition, Polly, and Greengrass, I am more excited to find out how to integrate them (although sure Google's Vision API and Voice API already exist for a while now).

</comment><comment><USER47> Why do I love the Echo? It was stupid easy to put up a Skill to control my house, my way. Skills are open to do whatever you can code up. They need to talk to a secure endpoint, but with Lets Encrypt handing out SSL like candy, what is your excuse? Since my Skill is custom to my house, it isn't open to the public - I'll just be "testing" it for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER48> FWIW, they still have them in stock at the Amazon Bookstore (in Seattle). My sister in North Carolina was trying desperately to find one for a gift, so I popped in there. They're also on sale, a discount of about ~$40. They seemed to be aware of the shortage and saw this a good way to get people to check out the store.

</comment><comment><USER49> Its worth noting that you can build a Echo yourself, for example: [http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Raspberry-Pi- Powered...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Raspberry-Pi-Powered- Amazon-Echo/?ALLSTEPS)

With blacjack, and hookers...

</comment><comment><USER50> The greatest part about the echo is that I can create my own skills for my own echo without having to publish my skills to skill store.

This allows me to build the Alexa that I want to build which is really awesome IMO.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is surprising. How does it compare to siri and the android equivalent? For me Siri doesn't get me more than half the time, while google gets me most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER52> My amazon dot and Rpi3 enabled kodi are next (literally) to each other, yet communication needs to leave the house for them to talk to each other...sort it out amazon!

<comment><USER53> I wrote a skill for this that has a ton of features: [https://github.com/m0ngr31/kodi-alexa](https://github.com/m0ngr31/kodi-alexa)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I think this years re:invent was a big factor to the supply as well. Everyone who attended was given one.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure. Guess only a few thousand people attended? As it's on the front page of Amazon for a while, they probably sold a few million of those now. I know quite a few people here (UK) who got one, it seems very popular at the lower price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Had huge problems with my MacBook and with a zoom wifi cable modem and a dlink ac router. Connection to xfinity wifi was better. Then we moved and I got fiber with their commercial wifi router and things have been stable. Less APS around. At work we have Cisco access points which were stable when not misconfigured.

</comment><comment><USER56> I want a thing like this with one single difference: I don't want to talk to it.

<comment><USER14> In that case you can just buy a smartphone or laptop?

<comment><USER56> I was unclear: I want an "integration hub" that controls sonos/hue etc with a massive corporation polishing it, instead of the usual suspects of home automation crapware.

I'm happy to use it from an app rather than with voice

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Considering the ambiguity of "Sold Out", maybe the original headline, "Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush", would be better?

<comment><USER58> I got what you meant, and that was my first thought too.

The main reason I haven't bought an Echo (and am looking into self-hosted solutions instead) is the privacy concern.

<comment><USER59> Well, according to Amazon nothing is sent to their server unless Alexa is awake (after saying the magic 'Alexa' keyword).

<comment><USER19> And we all know Amazon would never lie, and that the Echo could never be compromised...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> B</comment>


Jóhann Jóhannsson Dies at 48 - <AUTHOR> http://variety.com/2018/film/news/johann-johannsson-dead-dies-theory-of-everything-sicario-1202694567/ <comment><USER2> Oh crap. His IBM 1401 is a favourite of mine, I had recommended it on a thread here about making computer busses make sounds audible on radios just weeks ago. I was listening to Fordlandia on my latest long haul flight just days ago.I'm saddened by this.</comment>


Ask HN: Hackintosh vs Mac Mini - <AUTHOR> I would like to have a desktop running OSX.
I already have a MBA and the main reason for liking Macs is OSX, machine build quality and the trackpad. As the latter two are not relevant to desktops, I have considered a PC running OSX.
I'm not too interested in having to do too much sysadmin on it - how are Hackintosh systems and can anyone recommend one? <comment><USER2> As an ex-hackintosh user, and current Mac user -- instead of dealing with Hackintosh main problems (kernel panic and finding suitable drivers,...), I recommend you buy a Mac Mini. Or you can build your own desktop with customized hardware that suitable with your hackintosh version. But be carefully, it still headache and you will give up your right to update your Mac OS in the future... (because the risk of the drivers)

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on how much computing power and expansion ability you need. If a Mac Mini has enough for your needs then it's hard to beat the ease of just buying one of those. OTOH, I built a Hackintosh because I wanted lots of CPU, drive bays, etc., and an equivalently spec'd Mac Pro would have cost more than twice as much. (This was before the current trash can version of the Mac Pro came out — not sure what the price differential is now.)

Getting my Hackintosh up and running was a breeze. Assembled it in an hour, installed OS X, everything ran perfectly. I have had _zero_ problems upgrading from OS X 10.8 to 10.9 and 10.10. It's _slightly_ more involved than just clicking the upgrade button in the app store, but not too bad (i.e., it'll take you about an hour to create a bootable installer on a thumb drive, etc.). Point version upgrades (e.g., from 10.10.4 to 10.10.5) are not an issue — you can just upgrade through the app store as usual.

You do have to wait a few weeks for the Hackintosh community to work out the kinks for new major versions of OS X, e.g., I don't think you can upgrade to El Capitan right now unless you're really brave, instead you'll have to wait a month or two. (That hasn't bothered me, since I'd never consider upgrading a Mac to a .0 release anyway.)

I'm not planning to build a Hackintosh again -- my next desktop will either be a standard Mac Pro or retina iMac -- but it's really not a headache at all to build and maintain a Hackintosh, if that's what you want to do.

<comment><USER4> _> e.g., I don't think you can upgrade to El Capitan right now unless you're really brave, instead you'll have to wait a month or two._

This.

If you're patient enough to wait a month or two for the community to figure out what is safe to upgrade, then it may work. Otherwise, be prepared to spend hours/days dealing with kernel panic, without sound, and having to fiddle with .kext to make it boot again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to have a Hackintosh a few years ago, and decided it wasn't worth it. The maintenance cost troubleshooting drivers and dealing with crashes at every system update is simply too high, and will offset any advantages you get by using your own hardware.

I ended opting for a kvm, so I can easily switch between my linux desktop, and my mba/mbp, and still leverage desktop/keyboard/mouse. Works like a charm.

</comment><comment><USER5> "I'm not too interested in having to do too much sysadmin on it"

Buy a Mac. Or just buy a MiniDP-DVI adapter for your MBA.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is build quality not relevant for desktop machines?</comment>


Nortel Announces the Winning Bidder of Its Patent Portfolio - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nortel-announces-the-winning-bidder-of-its-patent-portfolio-for-a-purchase-price-of-us45-billion-2011-06-30

<comment><USER2> Bad news for Google.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it's not bad that a consortium of companies with competing interests bought em.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No love for google? Nevermind, can someone explain just how important these patents are, or else, how wrong can things go if the consortium decides to do evil things with them?

<comment><USER4> They are fundamental to the operation of GSM / CDMA networks. Patent portfolio's like these in the mobile arena are pretty well only trumped by Qualcomm's, TI's, and probably Motorola's.

My opinion though is that the actual interaction to the cell network is not solely done by android, but by the chipset on the phone mostly. They could sue Google I'm sure, but I bet people like Motorola and Qualcomm would have something to say about that to protect Google and Androids chip purchasing wallet.</comment></comment>


Implementing Google Safe Browsing server-side to sanitize untrusted input - <AUTHOR> http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2012/03/04/google-safe-browsing/ <comment><USER2> Interesting idea. There are some extra challenges when the scanning is not done live.

Does Etsy accept url shorteners? Including some that allow editing? Is it feasible to rewrite the content to have the redirected URLs?

<comment><USER3> We "unroll" redirects as much as possible so that we can check the URL at the end.

<comment><USER2> In the sense of following them, or rewriting them as well?

<comment><USER3> We follow them on the server side and check the final URL we get to against the GSB database. We don't modify the user-generated content.

<comment><USER4> I assume you check each step of the unrolling? Otherwise a malicious site could easily do:

       if (is_etsy_ip()) header('Location: http://www.google.com/') && die();

<comment><USER3> Well, generally following the redirects is actually somewhat redundant. The idea of GSB is that URLs that lead to bad things would all be identified and added to the database.

Customising attacks for a given site specifically adds complexity and cost to the attack, which is really the aim for all of this sort of work. Everything you can do to drive up the cost of the attack makes you a less inviting target.

It would be a mistake to think that usb4ugc (or tools like it) would protect everyone all the time. It's never a replacement for vigilance and education on the user-side, just a useful extra line of defense.

<comment><USER4> It's not really redundant. Legitimate users use redirectors like bit.ly all the time, so you can't blacklist them. If you're leaving such a big hole in your system then spammers will work around it in next to no time.

Etsy are big enough that it is worth the spammers time to do so. Once you get reach a certain size you can't just say "the user should be careful". Scammers and spammers will hammer at you because they know the numbers make it worth the effort. Users won't understand what's happening; they will have a bad experience and they will blame your product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Privacy implications?

<comment><USER3> The privacy risk for GSB in general is that you are sharing URLs with a (trusted) third party. That's most acute with the REST API, but most implementations (including gsb4ugc) cache a local copy of the lookup tables and so don't actually send URLs to Google. There is still a very occasional need to send a link to Google for validation, but in the server-side case the only context Google has for the request is the IP address of the server, which minimizes privacy risks as much as possible.</comment></comment>


Bootstrapping a Type System (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2010/10/29/bootstrapping-a-type-system/ <comment><USER2> For those of you don't know, Bob Nystrom is the developer of Wren (wren.io), and previous to it he developed Magpie (the language he's discussing), and Finch ([http://finch.stuffwithstuff.com/](http://finch.stuffwithstuff.com/)). He's pretty impressive as far as language development goes.

<comment><USER3> I don't know about _impressive_ , but I'm definitely profuse. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've read a few of this guys blog posts and they are generally fairly interesting. This one a little less so, but I had a good chuckle from the line about why he implemented generics in magpie. "Magpie has generics because I'm firmly of the opinion that a type system without generics is about as useful as a language with functions but no parameters." Let the go programmers pour hate upon this blog post

<comment><USER5> You can obviously write a code generator for all the functions you need once you write an AI good enough: by eliminating extraneous features like generics, Go leaves you free to actually solve problems that _matter_.

(/s)

Edit: I won't speak about the obvious, but anyone going back in my post history and concluding "Haskell Evangelism Strikeforce with an axe to grind" with a smirk is probably mistaken. There are well-designed languages whose goals may not perfectly align with mine (hello C/Elm/Clojure) and then there are some whose confusing inconsistency of design is, well ... confusing.

<comment><USER6> Funny enough, I think you've actually hit the nail on hm the head about what makes go programmers so irritating, that they think the go spec has somehow taken into account "the right way" for every possible problem. It's so obnoxious.

Problems that actually matter is such a good indicator that someone has no idea what they're talking about.

Formalization and proofing is what MATTERS. If you ain't got that, you're basically just guessing

<comment><USER7> > Formalization and proofing is what MATTERS. If you ain't got that, you're > basically just guessing

And that's what makes Haskell evangelists intolerable. (Even if Haskell isn't your favourite language).

Go has it's place.

C has it too, especially on devices with > 32kb memory.

I adore Scheme and it's spec, it's expressiveness, and flexibility. Doesn't mean I think it's the best language for running a game engine, though it has been done.

We all have reasons we like our languages, and what they can be, and what they're good for.

But no language is the be-all, and end-all, of languages. There are always trade-offs. It just can't be helped.

Awk is amazing at dealing with small bits of information, quickly. It's a full language, that has been used to write some large programs... But it isn't as well suited to that. As a scripting language however, it's great.

Python is my go-to for prototyping. It can be a tad inconsistent, and more verbose than my tastes, and weaker typing than I'd like, but it works well enough.

Can't we all just get along?

<comment><USER8> > C has it too, especially on devices with > 32kb memory.

Can I assume you mean, devices with < 32kb memory? Or is there another language you would use on devices with such as small amount of memory instead of C?

<comment><USER9> The local assembler? Fortran? Forth?

Personally I would prefer C. But I can see arguments for each of the above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I followed this blog for a long time. The whole journey of creating the Magpie language is fantastic. Most of what I know as a senior dev comes from trying to really understand his posts.</comment>


A Different Kind of Multiplication - <AUTHOR> http://www.phy6.org/outreach/edu/roman.htm

<comment><USER3> The author claims, apparently confidently, that the Romans used this method but had no idea why it worked. It's not clear how he knows this.

I dare say _most_ people who used it didn't know why it works, but then probably most people today don't know why long multiplication works. Barring good evidence to the contrary, I bet that whoever thought the method up had a pretty good idea of why it worked.

Of course it's possible that the Romans just stole the idea from the Egyptians. Or that someone thought up the method and then went to his grave without ever explaining it to anyone else, and that no one else tried to understand it. But I don't believe the author knows.

Incidentally, you can understand the method without having heard of the binary system. For instance, here's how I might explain it to an ancient Roman who happened to speak English. I might start by putting together a rectangle with, say, 10 rows of 4 stones.

If you double one number and halve the other, without any remainder, then the product of the numbers remains the same. (Rearrange the rectangle to be 5 rows of 8.)

On the other hand, if the number you're halving is odd, there is a remainder and the product of the numbers has decreased -- by exactly the value of the other number. (Rearrange the rectangle again: 2 rows of 16, with a "half-row" of 8 left over.)

As you keep doing this, the product stays the same every time you halve an even number (rearrange again: 1 row of 32) but when you halve an odd number you always lose some, as we did a moment ago. At the very end you end up with 1 times something, and of course _that_ product is easy to do.

Now the product of the original numbers is just your final 1-times-something product, plus the bits you lost along the way. We're done.

(It's more elegant mathematically to make zero-times-something the base case, but probably harder to explain.)

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I have often noticed a tendency among professionals who should know better, to presume that ancient peoples were somehow less intelligent than we are, and less capable of applying their minds to complicated and even abstract problems. It is just plain not true, and there is so much anthropological evidence to demonstrate this fallacy that it is idiotic that it is still repeated.

In this case, it is an especially bad assumption, given that he is talking about a system of mathematics that significantly post-dates the great Greek mathematicians. If Archimedes could invent a method to solve problems today solved by integral calculus, 2000 years before Newton, and implemented Riemann sums in his methods, I hardly think that this little trick confounded explanation at the time it was used, particularly since it works with ANY system of notation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is also known as Russian peasant multiplication.

</comment><comment><USER6> On a slightly different note, someone noticed that this same article was posted to reddit four years ago and today. Browse the comments and draw your own conclusions about the broadening of a community.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/duplicates/78ud/learn_to_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/duplicates/78ud/learn_to_multiply_the_ancient_roman_way/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Contrary to the claim of the article, my understanding is that the Romans actually did their calculations using the abacus. Furthermore the fall of the abacus went hand in hand with the adoption of Arabic numerals.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article is flatly wrong. Some early Romans may well have used so-called 'Roman numbers,' which retained some common use among the masses throughout the years; but any Roman of real education, particularly a Roman geometer or mathematician, of an era after around 100 BC would've used the more convenient and refined Greek numerals, which were base-10 just like our own, and which were in fact a bit more complex than our numbers in that they used separate characters for the tens and hundreds slots. In fact, the Greek system of numerals predates the Roman by hundreds of years. [See here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals>]

This belief that Arabic numerals were the first base-ten system of numbers, that our own modern methods are vastly superior to the methods of the past, or that, as the author of this article puts it, "the Romans did not know anything about the binary system," is silly misinformation. And for what it's worth, Apollonius of Perga's treatise "On Conic Sections" is probably the most complex and beautiful mathematical treatise I know of before or since - <USER2> yes, that's counting everything from the modern era.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here's another way, called Mayan Multiplication: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA0VLbPGorI>

</comment><comment><USER10> Why did Roman numeral notation change in the middle ages?

<comment><USER11> Fibonnaci and his _Liber abaci_ , written after he encountered the superior Indo-Arabic system. See <http://pass.maths.org.uk/issue3/fibonacci/index.html>

<comment><USER3> I don't think the question you're answering ("why were Roman numerals replaced by Arabic?") is the same as the one that was being asked ("why did people using Roman numerals switch from IIII to IV?").

I think the answer to that latter question is unknown.

<comment><USER11> Ah. I completely misunderstood the question, having just finished reading _The Man Who Loved Only Numbers_ , which had a brief digression on Fibonnaci's evangelism of Arabic numerals to the Pisan mercantile class. Mea culpa.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: FortyQ – Answering any question in forty-two minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.fortyq.com <comment><USER2> I checked one of [your samples]([https://ankuj3.wixsite.com/website-5/q-founder- us](https://ankuj3.wixsite.com/website-5/q-founder-us)),

> Q. We are 2 co-founders and directors of a company. There is a valuation of > 8M and we finished the seed round. However we cannot agree on how to move > forward. We are considering dissolving the company. My co-founder has told > me that if I decide to dissolve , he will agree , then re-incorporate > without me. Is this legal? If yes, How do I prevent this from happening?

, and it looks like this question was just posted to reddit [here]([https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/ecaxx2/disso...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/ecaxx2/dissolving_a_company_as_cofounders/)), with [this response]([https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/ecaxx2/disso...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/ecaxx2/dissolving_a_company_as_cofounders/fba67vy/)) then given back as the answer.

So is the idea to ask questions for people on other Q&A sites like reddit or StackExchange?

<comment><USER3> And the third sample is taken directly from StackOverflow...

<comment><AUTHOR> The SO source in question is one that I have answered, and not copied from any random source off the internet.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't give you the right to copy and paste the question without following the licensing at SO, [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24611/is-it- legal-t...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24611/is-it-legal-to- copy-stack-overflow-questions-and-answers/24618) .

You are missing the attribution part from [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/3.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

And you intend to be taken seriously as a site that will answer legal questions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Point noted. I will change the question for one that we answered on our website, there are numerous examples:

[http://helplicit.com/](http://helplicit.com/)

Again the idea was and is to demonstrate diversity. Appreciate you pointing that out though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Small tip, the url isn't masked and shows it's a WIX site. This doesn't mean it's inherently bad but it seems less professional for a site that accepts payment so you may want to mask the domain to show "fortyq.com".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that tip! I couldn't get the redirect with masking to work in time, but cleaning it up as we speak :)

<comment><USER6> In time for what?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well we had a launch deadline in mind and DNS updating would have taken an additional 48 hours, so we went ahead and launched it anyway.

<comment><USER7> Move fast and break thing! Good stuff, things don't need to be perfect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Appreciate the encouragement :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Give an unsolved maths question. ;)

<comment><USER9> What is your agency's policy for answering Newcomb's problem?

<comment><USER10> I just read about Newcomb's problem due to your comment. Maybe I'm being stupid but I don't think there's any paradox. Let's change it so that the first box contains only a tiiiiiny little speck of gold and nothing else, and you'll see.

For this demonstration, you get to play repeatedly.

Let's make you too smart for your own good. You start off with the strategy I think is stupid and wrong. So: each time you play, you select both boxes on the (stupid, wrong) theory that selecting both strictly dominates selecting just one. Of course, each time, there's nothing in the second box because your choice has been predicted.

After playing several hundred times and amassing a tiny little mound of gold flakes you think about whether you even know any shops where you can convert it, and you didn't even bring a zip lock bag with you, what are you going to do, go home with golddust in your pockets? You think about the hours of time that you've spent. Finally you wisen up and say fuck it, this time time I'll just select the one box.

Since your choice has been predicted, you _finally_ get the million dollars, and you realize you were pretty dumb for wasting several hours on a few specks of gold.

You keep playing, selecting just the one box, and keep getting a million dollars each time. After you have more cash than you can drive home, you thank God for all your cash and go home.

This proves that the choice is simple and there is no paradox or contradiction. With my approach, do you see any paradox?

<comment><USER9> I share a similar view, that testing whether the examiner is lying is itself worthwhile. But while the analysis has several interpretations this question may pose the agency a small problem. They are answering a paid user and therefore have technically already opened box number 2. They cannot therefore lay claim to box 1, only dodge the question, lie, or accept their fate.

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry, I completely missed that you were relating it to the agency's problem.

I thought you were just giving any paradox as an example of a difficult problem, and could have given any.

I don't quite follow the analogy with this agency's policies, could you make it a bit more clear? What are the "boxes" in this case?

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting take on this whole scheme of things, thanks for taking the time. I'd add that we're qualifying the question before accepting payment i.e. if its out of scope, we politely decline.

On a side note, aren't we already doing the same when we go to white collar practitioners like doctors and lawyers for advice? I mean you pay the service irrespective of whether we like the advice or not. With FortyQ, we're giving you a way out of that with refunds.

<comment><USER9> Glad to hear that. The Freemium solution is certainly a simple one, but I didn't feel it was appropos. Personally I'd have to start writing a day ahead to have a chance at formalizing my question before the time limit. Expert advice does benefit from codified standards but it's hopefully dissimilar in that the question I brought features a double bind; It doesn't have a 'winning' answer. There are tons of regular answers, so an expert would just tell you not to fall for it. Education against them is one of the few ways I acknowledge of their constructive use, and I'd guess logicallee still won't be satisfied with my breakdown. I do what I can.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your point regarding a double bind, and it is something we see a lot in blogs I guess with conflicting viewpoints? Its true that there is a significant effort involved in formulating the question properly, but it also ensures getting a chiseled answer. Something we noted as well with paid questions: the amount of detail provided improves dramatically.

One thing that I have noticed working legal questions in the past weeks is that people more lost than they were when given all possible viewpoints and given the possibility to choose. More often than not they are looking for someone to tell them what to do. Makes sense though if you think about it.

Not sure I entirely got the 'Education against them.. ' point, could you elaborate?

<comment><USER9> Against the use of double binds. To me they are an indicator of hostile intent, although as demonstrated here and in the practice of law, adversarial interactions can be constructive. This abstraction is incredibly beautiful, but typical examples are not necessarily nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do double binds automatically come in though, when you allow people of disparate backgrounds and experiences a platform to express opinion?

Could be constructive though as far as law is concerned.

What typical examples would you refer to?

<comment><USER9> They could, though I think much of that can be mitigated with effort. I believe the textbook example is domestic abuse, but I worry that the scope also coincides with fallout from poisoned well attacks and tribalistic recruitment efforts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So what qualifies the folks answering the questions to answer them?

<comment><USER12> PhD in Googleology.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point, though I'd add that information is free and knowledge isn't. If it were the case, student loans would be coming down instead of spiraling to record highs.

<comment><USER13> Not the best example though - student loans are used for getting a pedigree and personal contacts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably, in which case i'd end it at "information is free and knowledge isn't" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, thanks for all the comments and questions. The past day has been supercharged by more demand than we can handle.

We're thus looking to collaborate with ninjas in various domains who can help answering questions. Please reach out to us via the website if it is of interest to you, and we'd be happy to chat.

The vision? Join us in building the world's biggest curated knowledge base, 42 minutes at a time :)

</comment><comment><USER14> Google Answers [1] reloaded?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and no. 'Yes' as in there are answers, and 'No' as in referring to the questions we've answered in the past, we are directed towards contextual questions.

E.g. I've a bug in my code right now and it needs to get into production right away.

Hope that helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It has the same logo as airbnb and skiplagged

<comment><AUTHOR> It's to demonstrate the idea that we'd like to answer with a few notches of g as boost :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can God create a lift she herself cannot stone?

<comment><USER16> Totally, man, totally. You don't have buttermilk in the fridge, do you?

<comment><USER17> You forgot to charge 4.20 for your answer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why 420? Pot related?...

<comment><USER19> Probably another reference to "42" but 42 cents would be too cheap.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're looking to charge 10 cents per minute of work done, and are setting ourselves standards to take less than the amount of time it takes to answer the ultimate question :)

<comment><USER20> $6/hr. is less than minimum wage. Are you outsourcing to slaves?

<comment><AUTHOR> Afraid its too soon to answer that one, we're just testing a hypothesis atm :)

<comment><USER7> Yeah just make it up on volume.

<comment><AUTHOR> That indeed is one way to go!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > We answer any question in 42 minutes flat, for $ 4,20.

The most confusing pricing I've ever seen. Is it $420 (outrageous and thousand separator placed wrong)? Or is it $4.20 with the comma as decimal separator as seen in some non-English-speaking European countries (but why would you use that convention with USD)?

<comment><USER22> In Britain it's normal to separate pounds from pence with a comma, at least in handwriting. In handwriting people also use a dash. A dot just isn't visible enough. If you do use a dot then it should be a proper decimal point (£1·50), not a full stop. Typewriters are the work of the devil.

EDIT: It looks like I'm wrong about the comma used to separate pounds from pence: that's not normal in Britain. (What about '='? I think I've seen that in handwriting, but I can't say for sure in which country.)

<comment><USER23> _Never_ seen a comma used in Britain, during my almost sixty years as a native. It's usually £1.50 (and yes, a central dot not a period unless typed), occasionally £1-50 which is most commonly seen on shop and handwritten market signs.

Pre decimal was almost always a '-' when there are pounds, a / (more like a super long apostrophe) when under 240p. So £5-2-6 for £5, 2 shillings and sixpence, 7/6 for seven and sixpence. Less common was £5 6s 2d, or slashes £2/19/2 3⁄4d, but there were a _lot_ of conventions for written Lsd, with nary a comma among 'em. :)

Edit: to your edit, = was common (seems much less so now) for whole pounds, and in the pre-decimal era too, e.g. £1/==, or simply £1==. Also pre decimal whole shillings: 5/=, sometimes 5/-. In the days we still wrote cheques when it was for whole pounds it was common to _fill_ the remainder of the figures box with two lines, essentially =====, after the £250 or whatever numerals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Constructive feedback: I'm not giving any money, no way no chance, to a website that can't line up its elements or put a bit of padding in its CSS†.

This might be a great idea (I'm not sure), but basic layout is table stakes before I even think about what you're selling.

It's an attention to detail thing. If you can't see the obvious problems with your own home page, what hope do I have that I'll actually get $4.20 worth of value from you?

(† Speaking of which, I closed my 20 year old eBay account today.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi thanks for the feedback, sincerely appreciate it! Have to agree that it is pretty bare bones at the moment, and been haphazardly done in a few hours as I was too impatient to test it out lol. It will be chiseled in the days to come.

I'd add that we wouldn't disappoint on the product, which is the quality of the answer baked in 42 minutes. And of course we're happy refunding in case we do :)

<comment><USER24> > I was too impatient to test it out lol

And you want me to give you money? C'mon.

<comment><USER25> he's asking for 4.20$ so it's ok to be a bit lazy :D .. 4.10 or 4.30 and i'd expect him to know CSS and to be able to tell me what ISA quantum computers use :O</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it OK to ask co-workers for my performance review? - <AUTHOR> Last year I got my first lead developer position. Since then I got my performance review from main manager and that went great but I still wonder if staff that I am working with is as happy with me as management is.<p>Is it OK to ask my subordinates for my performance review? <comment><USER2> Interesting question. What you ask for is a '360 feedback' which is usually a smart way to get rid of people without being the predator ('the team is not happy with you...').

</comment><comment><USER3> > but I still wonder if staff that I am working with is as happy with me as > management is.

Imagine your boss asking for the same feedback-- how would you respond? Probably with something safe, non-ego bruising.

Relative to employee happiness-- Marshall Goldsmith offers brilliant advice on improving employee engagement > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInGemfSBZU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInGemfSBZU)</comment>


Newspaper outraged after FBI create[ed] fake Seattle Times page to nab suspect - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/newspaper-outraged-as-fbi-creates-fake-seattle-times-page-to-nab-suspect/

<comment><USER2> So the FBI spoofed one specific individual with a phishing attack using a fake Seattle Times link? That's a big Meh in my book.

<comment><USER3> Care to elaborate?

The individual in question is a minor, the act damages the reputation of a legitimate news organization (a business, which by the way, lives and dies on public trust and the notion of truth), the ruse was aided by the US Attorney's Office.

It's not a PRISM leak by any stretch of the imagination but surly this registers a little above "meh" on your apathy-o-meter.

<comment><USER2> I don't see any constitutional prohibition on sting operations against a crime suspect who's a minor. I disagree that it damages the reputation of the Seattle Times - not least because this information has been public for ~3 years, during which time you might have expected some measurable impact if that fear was well-grounded.

Law enforcement is well known to carry out undercover investigations during which law enforcement officers pretend to be someone else, or mislead people about their real intention. A classic example is offering a a suspect a drink out of apparent courtesy, with the real intention being to harvest the suspect's fingerprints/DNA from the drinking vessel. As long as the deception does not involve an inducement to illegal activity then I don't really have a problem with it. Deception as an investigative tool has long been considered acceptable by the courts as long as it does not 'shock the conscience' or involve a violation of the penal code. [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8766034093838378...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8766034093838378014&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr) (Frazier v. Cupp, 1969)

As an analogy, suppose you had a phone number for a criminal suspect. Would it be OK to call and say 'Hi, I work for the Seattle Times and I'd like to offer our newspaper free for two weeks, are you interested?' (this is a popular sales pitch with my local newspapers). If the person says yes and gives out an address and police start staking out that location (and delivering a copy of the newspaper every day), I don't think any court would have a problem with that.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure Law Enforcement Agencies have apprehended suspects with a similar scheme. "Hey, come down to our car dealership, you've won a new car!"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Javalin 2.0 – A Kotlin/Java web framework - tipsy- https://javalin.io/news/javalin-2.0.0-stable.html <comment> tipsy- Happy Monday Hackernews!

Last November I released my first serious open source project, Javalin. Since then the project has gained ~400 commits, ~25 contributors, and ~150 forks. ~200 issues have been closed and ~100 PRs have been merged.

Hackernews was very important to gaining early traction, and although I doubt most people seeing this post will remember the post from last year, I just want to say thank you.

If you're interested in contributing, please head over to [https://github.com/tipsy/javalin](https://github.com/tipsy/javalin) or [https://gitter.im/javlin-io/general](https://gitter.im/javlin-io/general)

If you want to stay up to date, you can follow the project on Twitter: [https://twitter.com/javalin_io](https://twitter.com/javalin_io)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've kept an eye on this project for a little while, I'd like to use it for the backend of my next side project.

It looks pretty easy to get started with, I am looking forward to it.

<comment> tipsy- Happy to hear it!</comment></comment>


How we made our iPad demo video on the cheap - <AUTHOR> http://blog.anideo.com/how-we-made-our-ipad-demo

<comment><USER3> In my experience, glare was the most difficult thing to address in making a live iPad demo video. The black plastic sheet with a hole in it they came up with here is an ingenious solution.

Many app videos (including my own) just end up screencasting the simulator. I originally avoided that since it seemed like a cop-out, but then I noticed it in a lot of other app demo videos.

Live demos are also tricky if you have pets, though: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIG6rPvfKnw>

<comment><AUTHOR> i noticed your focus is constantly adjusting, what camera you used. This is the exact problem with iphone built-in camera app.

it's easy to record video in a dark room but requiring white background in how case is a different story.

anyway...it's a cat video!

<comment><USER3> The camera focus, the light balance, the difficulty of interacting with the iPad from the side - the cat was the last straw. I just went with an edited screencast instead: <http://remembary.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> for screencast on simulator, i suggest using this instead of the cursor. atleast making it more real <http://wonderwarp.com/phonefinger/>

<comment><USER3> I tried doing my own finger cursor and it ended up just looking creepy - <USER2> you couldn't really see taps. I'll take a serious look at this one though. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Using a finger image will always look creepy cause it is lifeless, kinda like holding a chicken leg and pointing with it. We learned this firsthand with this unsuccessful demo video here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV4VGrn_Nuo>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a pointer. I would have invested just a tad more in the audio. It sounds like you are speaking from a tiny closet, while what you want is to sound like you are speaking from a large open room.

I would recommend even the cheapest condenser microphone.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely. The way to get that sound would be to eliminate all echo. I've seen people recommend doing the recording under a pile of blankets on your bed.

Secondly, the music sounds really cheesy. It is not made to be used as background music, since it disturbs too much. You (op) noticed this, which is why you turned down the volume to make the speaker easier to hear. I'd say thats very backwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you dont mind my saying, while technically the iPad video is quite good in terms of quality due to the setup and a good write-up, i think you could have more effectiveness if you work on your voiceover skills or find someone that can make it sound more appealing.

Also, i'd shorten the video down to showing the highlights of _what_ your app can do, rather than _how_ to do it - at least if you're intention is a marketing message anyhow.

<comment><USER8> I helped make the video, and let me say it's super hard to get the tone of your pitch right.

We probably should get people who have experience doing voiceovers, but then again, this was a post about how to do this on the cheap.

Could you explain what you mean when you say "make it sound more appealing"? Were we not excited enough =P

<comment><USER9> The voice over was written as a description of the app features instead of from the perspective of a user. It sounded like text ripped from your help file. I don't need to be told that I can pinch to zoom in, because I can see that. Instead I want to know I can "watch my videos in crisp full screen playback".

Focus on what your users will get out of it. Emotions are important. Words like "intuitive" aren't. You don't "integrate with social services" you "share your favorite videos with your Facebook friends".

<comment><USER8> Thanks, great feedback. It seems super obvious now, but at the time it clearly wasn't.

Demonstrates how important the story and specifically the tone of the story can be in defining the entire process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A 30 day free trial of adobe after effects and a $20 template tweaked to your needs, along with $30 for professional voiceover, would have moved you to something that would be very close to what apple does.

And would probably have got you there a lot quicker.

[http://videohive.net/searches?sort_by=sales&type=files&#...
http://www.provoiceusa.com/cheap-voice-overs.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> this is great, especially the voice over service. Didn't know this exists on the cheap side. Any other video template source like videohive?

<comment><USER10> i know that revostock also has stock footage and templates.

audiojungle is good for background music. A tad pricy, but not too bad considering the quality. (tim mcmorris in particular has an incredible list of upbeat tracks that work well for corporate presentations, app demos, etc. )

<http://www.revostock.com/>

<http://audiojungle.net>

<http://audiojungle.net/user/timmcmorris/portfolio>

One other quick tip if you are just starting out in this. Put your script together first. Have the voice over work completed until you are happy, then tweak the video templates to match the voice over work.

If you try it in reverse order it will end in frustration and a much lower quality product.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what we mentioned in our post too. But before we realised, it's kind of too late. We shot the footage first and then tried to 'describe' the parts. We probably will have to do another one soon, given all the comments about the audio stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd like to add that it's possible to lock focus and exposure (not sure if also white balance) by tapping and holding on any spot in the "viewfinder".

Also, see the full frame in the internal camera.app, just double tap the screen and it will zoom out of the cropped mode. (while still only using a middle part of the sensor, though, apparently to allow for the anti-shake to function).

<comment><AUTHOR> We didn't read the iPhone manual that's why. However, the one feature of the app we picked that is really useful is lock focus in one place and lock the exposure in another place (two different area). Also the app allows locking of White Balance as well. Is it possible to do this with native camera app?

<comment><USER11> I just tested this at home with a few different light sources, and yes, it does lock all three - focus, aperture, white balance. But all in the one spot you tap-held.

Afaik, all the apps that have a two-spot way of selecting focus and aperture/white balance are faking it somewhat, since there is no official API to control the camera that way. Of course, most of the time the results are quite ok.

The usual method using just the built-in camera.app would be to first lock on to some spot thats both in the right distance and has the right brightness to achieve the correct look, and then just frame the scene by moving the iPhone in the recording position.

But I don't know how often I wished for more flexible ways to setup the camera manually :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My poor mans rig would be green paper covering the screen, then load in the directly recorded video stream using green-screening in post production. It would give a perfect clarity image.

I guess the sides of the ipad screen would still reflect, so it'd look a little "off" unless your fingers are kept perfectly between the camera and ipad at all times...but that could be achieved.

<comment><USER13> It would be pretty complicated to make the demo (swipe, touch, navigate your app) with the screen covered in green, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER12> Good point...

Okay, we'll pre record the video, play that on a screen and simulate the touches/swipes on the green screened ipad with your fingers as best as possible. It doesn't have to be perfect, just get the positioning right, then the timing can be done in post.

Remember to remove hands completely from frame after every action to help with this.

You could even prerecord various swipes, touches and taps, then cut them together as you need...

one more: how about recording it in almost complete darkness to avoid reflection, then adding the background in later? or green screen the background in an almost dark room?

The key point in all this is the device is kept completely stationary. Making it super easy to change things in post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd try green background instead of white and remove it in post, that way all shadows can be removed easily.</comment>


Crowdsourcing instead of ratings agencies - <AUTHOR> http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MK08Dj05.html

<comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr The author illustrates the corruption of the ratings agencies in the recent financial situation through anecdotes and statistics, leading up to his proposal to replace the function of ratings agencies with what amounts to crowdsourcing (although he does not use that word).</comment>