Mac Pro - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ <comment><USER3> I love watching people moan about this yet unreleased product.

I think the new Mac Pro episode will resemble the iPad one - lots of "ohemgee it's like just a bigger ipod, lol, how stupid do they think we are, kthx?" reactions, when in fact this product will probably push a new paradigm shift in the way workstations are built i.e. moving away from the plastic pieces of shit ubiquitously sold now. Seriously, I dare you to look around a regular "PC customization" website e.g. [1]. Apart from Razer and maybe Alienware nobody has even tried to really innovate the workstation landscape. I remember when I was building one of my first desktops with my dad - _20 years ago_.

A final thought: Apple has a million flaws (mostly software and systems, grr), but they didn't get where they are for being stupid or for not understanding the market, so at least give them some fucking credit.

[1] [http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-500-gaming- pc/](http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-500-gaming-pc/)

<comment><USER4> Curiously, my first association was "jet engine", was amused to learn that to many it's a trash can.

Am I the only one whose breath was taken away by this new design? Power desktop seriously revisited for the first time since the 80's, anyone?

<comment><USER5> nah, dyson fans have used similar bases for years.

I kid, I kid.

Honestly though I do not care for an integrated "pro" machine. This is form over function. Fail a component and its off to the shop. Combined with, if I want to upgrade them I need to replace the unit.

If they are going to integrate everything then they need to drop the price. Integration implies lower costs as having all the support needed to drive user added cards and internal drives can be done away with.

Plus its not like I want to have an octopus of cables on my desk and moving storage to all external does that.

Benefits, perhaps driving the thunderbolt prices down and having new and interesting devices to connect to the system.

In the end integration means commodity, just expensive. Can't wait to see what they want for it, I figure on three thousand minimum, which would be a third too much for something so inflexible. Apple, meet Dyson

<comment><USER6> _This is form over function._

Exactly why I'm not taking it seriously. What does form do for a power desktop? Nothing. I put my desktop under my desk. I can't see it. I have to stoop to reach the power button.

I'm not going to say there's absolutely no use for form in _any_ desktop, but IMO it's practically the number one least important feature of a power desktop/workhorse.

<comment><USER7> To me this looks like an example of Apple's craftsmanship in depth where quality and elegance can be seen at multiple levels, from the case to the internal hardware to the OS and its APIs.

Certainly one can find flaws, but compared to a typical Windows machine Apple has more craftsmanship (in my opinion). Windows exhibits more of the "just get it done" utilitarian idea.

<comment><USER8> It amazes me that people are willing to pay twice as much for the fluff. I'm not convinced Apple Mac OS is twice as good as any other OS.

<comment><USER7> You may have a point. I did say "in my opinion". ;)

I'm could be jaded from working on Windows apps too long. (I worked on Windows stuff from the 3.1 era through to Windows 2000.)

<comment><USER8> Don't get me wrong - I like everything about the Mac Pro but you pay for your thrills. I can't afford to lay out that kind of scratch unnecessarily. Apple has done a nice job with the design, no doubt. Meanwhile, I have a high end Windows PC for much less money. The speed thrills me, so I don't need a Mac to get a thrill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Copywriting and product-debate aside, that's some pretty impressive frontend presentation. From what I can tell from the minified JS, they're using Require.JS for code organization, their own jQuery-like utility toolkit they call Apple Core, fully pre-rendered text everywhere, and javascript that plays and pauses two copies of the HTML5 video, one backwards and one forwards, shuffling their opacities for seamless transitions.

Interestingly, they don't need separate videos for each transition, because the video is streamed rather than pre-buffered in its entirety. Not that Apple really cares about its bandwidth costs here, but it's an interesting strategy.

The minified JS: [http://images.apple.com/v/mac- pro/home/a/scripts/macpro.rele...](http://images.apple.com/v/mac- pro/home/a/scripts/macpro.release.min.js)

And the raw video (download and play in QuickTime): [http://movies.apple.com/media/us/mac- pro/2013/96614028-695e-...](http://movies.apple.com/media/us/mac- pro/2013/96614028-695e-478a-8db8-0ad1c7b42925/video/macpro_main_desktop.mp4)

<comment><USER10> Posting minified JS is pretty useless. Open up Chrome inspector tools and use pretty print to actually read it:

[http://i.imgur.com/PHUaDSU.png](http://i.imgur.com/PHUaDSU.png)

<comment><USER9> Wow, I've done entire reverse-engineering projects (namely re-skinning Angry Birds Chrome, for one) squinting at minified JS and never knew that that was what that { } button did! Thanks!

<comment><USER11> There are so many tools for unminifying JS, why would you squint at it in the browser?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love this new device. I suspect I will buy one.

But it doesn't solve my "need a new mac pro" problem.

Right now my 2009 octo mac pro, with six displays attached, plays three roles:

\- it is my high end desktop workstation, with three primary high resolution (2560x1600) displays.

\- it is my HTPC, with one of the six monitors strung into another room entirely.

\- it is my office NAS, with four internal 3TB disks

So, three roles all rolled into one device. This is possible because I can expand it internally with 3.5" disks and pcie cards. In fact, my 3x gt120 cards only take up 3 of the 4 slots.

To duplicate this, I _think_ I need to:

a) add an external disk enclosure

b) drive my fourth display via HDMI

c) pray that 3x 4k displays leaves can coexist with 2x 2560x1600 displays as secondary displays, which seems unlikely

d) pray that the disk array doesn't cannibalize enough thunderbolt bandwidth to interfere with the displays

e) another external box for cd ripping and general optical disk usage

... and all the while, with a single physical CPU, and no ability to ever upgrade the graphics cards. Granted, my needs must not be complicated if I can live with gt120s in 2013, but it was _nice to know_ I could upgrade.

Oh, and I have upgraded my SSD boot device three times in the 4.5 years I've owned this system. That was nice.

So again, I actually really like this device - I think it is a very, very cool computer. But as a discriminating mac pro user who pushed the form factor to the limits, it is not at all what I need.

<comment> matthew-wegner Maybe build a Hackintosh? I've been running one for 18 months (coming off a Mac Pro when it became clear upgrades would be a long time coming). It's pretty great. If you're careful with hardware selection you can apply Apple's own software updates with zero issues.

See: [http://www.tonymacx86.com/351-building-customac-buyer-s- guid...](http://www.tonymacx86.com/351-building-customac-buyer-s-guide- may-2013.html)

<comment><USER13> Awesome. Thanks for the link. Would you be able to say with any reasonable certainty that it is primarily the motherboard that is key for building a Hackintosh? I want to build a Haswell Win7/OS X machine, and judging from this link and the other brief research that I've done, that if one sticks with Gigabyte for the motherboard you're more or less all set.

<comment><USER14> Correct. The motherboard is the key, followed by the WIFI adapter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a design asthetic I find it fairly interesting. By working toward a design managing the thermals in a way that allow for more heat removal while allowing it to not sound like a 747 on takeoff is good. I suspect your typical desktop machine will benefit from that kind of thinking.

Also for a long time Intel was trying to push all of the expansion boards outside the case with USB, and Apple seems close to achieving this with thunderbolt. Leaving the primary chassis as the system/holder for CPU+Memory+GPU with perhaps some boot media, and putting anything else outside.

I can't wait to see on in action to see how well this strategy works in practice vs in slideware.

<comment><USER16> Thunderbolt is actually a few PCIe 3 lanes (4 in the original incarnation) and a display port in a cable. This way, an external peripheral is not inferior to most on board alternatives in terms of throughput, and has not room for interesting things add size is no longer a constraint.

I am developing my first PCIe project and must say I am still shocked on how powerful and underutilized the bus is. Hope Thunderbolt solves this - peripherals could be much powerful than today, from SSDs and USB sticks to high bandwidth data acquisition tools.

<comment><USER17> "... to high bandwidth data acquisition tools...."

I see what you did there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This page is a fantastic example of great development skills used in a way that is utterly infuriating to use. I don't want it to animate when I use my scroll wheel. I want the page to scroll.

Off topic, but were this and the Air the only product announced? If so, I'm disappointed- I was hoping to pick up an updated Macbook Retina 13". Oh well.

<comment><USER19> I imagine they designed it for trackpads, not scroll wheel mice. It works pretty well on a trackpad.

<comment><USER20> Odd that they implemented a web site for a desktop PC for consumption via the input devices of a laptop, and not a... desktop PC.

<comment><USER21> Don't their mice have a trackpad built into the top now?

<comment><USER22> Yes, magic mouse is pretty much a trackpad

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Okay, we COULD just label the ports with regular high color contrast paint. Say, white paint on a black background or black paint on a white background. But that would be TOO EASY and the panel would then really 'pop' against our otherwise monolithic clean design. Which would be distracting."

"But during actual use the ports are going to be on the BACK of the device (so you won't see it) and will have random stuff plugged into some of the ports, which ALSO would disturb the pure clean lines of the thing, so who cares?"

"No, no, we've got to label this thing with black labels on a black background, so it blends in."

"How will people be able to see the labels?"

"Easy. We'll add LED backlighting!"

"How will people TURN ON the LED backlighting, without the button to do THAT destroying our perfect design?"

"Simple - there's no button for it - you just move the machine to turn on the backlight!"

"What if you want the backlight to STAY on for a while, longer than the default?"

"Just keep shaking the machine. Or duct-tape a vibrator to it."

"That's PERFECT!"

<comment><USER24> considering the labels are totally unnecessary, i don't see the problem. it's not like people are going to be plugging USB cables into the thunderbolt ports or the power cable into the HDMI port by accident.

<comment><USER25> A USB jack can fit into an RJ45.

Still, there is something of a problem in that sometimes people plug things in while the power is off, and computers are often kept tucked away in dim corners. Looking at the machine from an angle, it's not always obvious which connectors are where, especially if you're not a techy who could name ports in their sleep.

<comment><USER26> That sounds like a plea for LED illuminated ports... like the Mac Pro will have.

<comment><USER27> They can't make the proper port glow when you get the cable close to it?

<comment><USER28> My Dell U2410 has buttons that detect when your finger gets near them (they start lighting up) which is pretty slick. Maybe it's just a bit more expensive / harder to integrate and wasn't considered worth it. Not exactly sure how it works but I think it uses the same physical phenomenon as a theremin. Again it's mostly pointless, but it is pretty slick.

<comment><USER29> > Maybe it's just a bit more expensive / harder to integrate

And probably patent-protected by Dell and needing licensing cost, instead of coming up with something they could patent themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> OK, so it's not a Mac Pro. It's a Mac Mini Pro.

As long as it's not too expensive, it's exactly what a lot of prosumers might want (especially those who want to ditch their laptops for iPads and iPhones, and maybe a MBA for the road- a lot of people's MacBook Pros live on their desks). I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations (and at some point, studios will move the heavy lifting to some kind of local big-iron server).

I can see developers who want a slightly better machine buying it, and rich people, and photographers, and so on. If Thunderbolt expansions bring down the costs of upgrades (compared to buying the upgrades with Apple - not everyone likes to open their chassis) then it might be quite attractive.

<comment><USER31> "I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations"

Is this actually the case? I don't know anything about that segment of the computing industry, but I just assumed that FCP was the industry standard.

<comment><USER32> FCP was never the only solution in the pro video editing market. Avid has been the traditional choice since the mid-'90s, but FCP was encroaching.

Unfortunately the botched introduction of FCP X sent Apple back a decade in this market. FCP X was too different from 7, and it didn't even support many of the workflows that pros needed. Since users had to learn new software anyway, a lot of editors went to Avid or Adobe (Premiere is quite good nowadays).

<comment><USER33> You'd be surprised how many pro editors are using FCPX now. With the updates it's got it's better than FCP 7 was.

<comment><USER32> I'm not saying FCP X is bad today, but the 1.0 release was an undisputed flop.

A lot of people jumped ship to Avid and Adobe rather than wait for FCP X to eventually improve. Convincing them to take another look at FCP X won't be easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Personally I couldn't care less about the design, it would be sitting behind several large screens anyway and the thermal ideas sound interesting....

That said....

4 ram slots???? Really? 12 cores, 2 GPUs and I get 32GB of ram? Maybe 64GB if 16GB dimms in standard sizes become a thing? That kills it completely in my book.

<comment><USER35> That paucity of slots is what got me to thinking...

I was wondering if the idea would be to daisy chain these together via TB 2 and see one workstation with... say ...36 cores or whatever.

I'm trying to determine if that would be a possibility. In essence, is the Mac Pro a Thunderbolt 2 "processing" device? Or could it be made to be one?

If it were...

Man...

put me down for a couple of them. I mean you could potentially get a 48 core "workstation" in 1/2 the volume of the current Mac Pro.

<comment><USER36> Since they run on different boards, technically you'd set up two or three nodes and run them in a parallel supercomputing setup.

Would be expensive as hell, I'd reckon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Apple is doubling down on their segmentation here. They're clearly abandoning (I don't mean this in a pejorative sense) a mass appeal with this new iteration and targeting it specifically to 'actual' professionals: graphic designers, video editors, etc.

<comment><USER38> I don't see it that way at all. The Mac Pro has always been about the top 1% power users. The appeal was twofold: it was a bitchin'-fast machine you could stuff with as many cards and drives as you want, and it ran OS X.

This new design removes the former selling point. 12 core max (same as current)?? Four RAM slots (down from eight)?? 1/6th the volume (i.e. space to plug stuff in)??

This offers almost no advantage over a late model iMac with a Thunderbolt-to- PCIe breakout module (which is what many power users have been doing in the years since the last update).

<comment><USER39> >This offers almost no advantage over a late model iMac with a Thunderbolt-to- PCIe breakout module (which is what many power users have been doing in the years since the last update).

A few big advantages over the iMac: Xeons processors, so more cores & more cache; ECC RAM; and (two) workstation graphics cards. Six thunderbolt ports means up to 36 (!) PCIe peripherals by daisy chaining, which means a lot more expandability than the iMac or even the 2010 Mac Pro.

<comment><USER40> I suspect that a lot of people bought the Mac Pro despite the fact that it has Xeon processors, rather than because of it. They're a lot more expensive without a huge performance benefit for desktop or workstation applications.

The main advantages of Xeon were dual-socket support and support for oodles of RAM slots, and the new Mac Pro supports neither of these things.

<comment><USER26> I think you're omitting the Xeon's increased stability versus consumer grade architectures. Many Mac Pros are used to run non-stop, they need to be more dependable than other computers.

<comment><USER41> Does this really matter in 2013? Serious question. I could see ECC having been useful in 2000 in the midst of the megahertz race, but I'm not too convinced about today...

<comment><USER28> Check out [http://linux.die.net/man/1/edac- util](http://linux.die.net/man/1/edac-util) \+ [http://buttersideup.com/edacwiki/Main_Page](http://buttersideup.com/edacwiki/Main_Page) and look on some servers to see if they're seeing many correctable ECC errors. I've def. seen it happen on some Dell PERCs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> First thing I noticed was all the dark -- what, did someone turn off all the lights? Where's the white that has dominated Apple material for so long?

But hey, give Tim Cook some credit here. This is literally the first significant product release during his tenure as CEO where the major elements of the update weren't simply screen-size or resolution. I don't have a lot of confidence this is earth-shattering, but it will be interesting to see how this is received.

<comment><USER43> Classically, White has been consumer grade and black has been the professional grade in Apple design. See iPhoto vs Aperture, or iMovie vs Final Cut Pro. The Macbooks were all white, while the pros were (admittedly not black, but) metallic. I don't think it is that much of a change from what they've already projected out there.

<comment><USER44> This rule was left behind some time ago. Eg, Macbooks are also silver - <USER2> the Air. Obviously Iphones are both black and white, regardless of features. But who knows, maybe the new tower is a throwback to the old days?

<comment><USER45> Black seems to still remain Apple's 'pro' signature. Note that MBPs (and, interestingly, iMacs) have black framing around their screens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The last upgradable mac is now dead. I thought the whole idea of the pro was the ability to put in graphic and other specialty cards as needed for "Pro" use. This looks like another cute consumer PC. Maybe they'll sell it along side the HP's at Sam's Club.

<comment><USER47> I think the idea here is that, between plentiful Firewire 2 and Thunderbolt 2, you now have enough external bandwidth that you shouldn't need internal cards. When given the choice, I prefer this route, since it means I can transport my proprietary stuff to other machines, or even use them with laptops in a pinch.

That might not work for you, granted, but the amount of bandwidth available between all those ports (20 GB/s in the case of Thunderbolt 2) should be enough to cover most use-cases.

<comment><USER48> A correction: Thunderbolt 2 can go up to 20Gbits/s not 20GBytes/s. Thunderbolt uses a 4x PCI-E 2.0 connection.

Things like graphics cards use 16x PCI-E 3.0 at this point which is 128Gbits/s.

<comment><USER49> Actually, a 16x PCIe 3.0 slot can do ~128Gbit/s each way - ~256Gbit/s in total[1].

[1]: [http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/pcie3.0_faq/#EQ3](http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/pcie3.0_faq/#EQ3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'm amused by all the disparaging comments about this new design. Every time Apple launches an incredible product it is always immediately decried. I'll wait til these are on sale before judging them.

<comment><USER51> Disparaging remarks? What, do you have something against trash cans?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> When I clicked on that page and saw "The future of desktop computing.." and that trash can slide into view I actually thought it was supposed to be a metaphor.

<comment><USER53> They said they were abandoning skeuomorphism but they sure made the Mac Pro look like an actual waste bin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Some pictures coming out are extremely interesting.

This one seems to show the the "CPU board" with the single CPU, and RAM on each side... OK [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/proces...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/processor.jpg)

This one shows the two "GPU cards" \- notice the one on the right has a white connector, bottom middle, which is for the SSD. Otherwise, they are almost identical (I see slightly different components at the top) [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/graphi...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/graphics.jpg)

And this one shows the "GPU Card", now with an SSD in that connector.... [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/storag...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/storage.jpg)

Finally this one shows the three "cards", presumably with the power supply at the very bottom. [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/therma...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/06/thermal.jpg)

I think the big question here is how are the three "cards" joined together?

If they're using some kind of connector, I imagine that makes them "replaceable" if not "upgradable".

It also hints at the possibility of getting just one GPU card.

I wonder if one could have 2xCPU cards and 1xGPU card?

Interesting

<comment><USER55> -I think the big question here is how are the three "cards" joined together?

These days PCIx (and similar) extender cables are used commonly on server builds. I wouldn't be surprised if apple used some sort of equivalent ribbon to connect the graphics cards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is incredibly beautiful and I'm sure quite expensive, but I want one, even it makes no sense to have one. Good work Apple

<comment><USER57> Really? It looks like a funerary urn to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Certainties:

1\. Use of glue somewhere which knackers any chance of repairing it. Memory, disks and that is it.

2\. Proprietary fan which will get noisy after time and cost a fortune to replace. First step will be to put it on the floor so you can't hear it... leading to...

2a. Someone is going to put a half drank coffee cup in it and blow it up.

2b. Plume of hairballs every time a cat owner fires it up as it'll suck in every bit of crap off the floor (the dirtiest place in your house).

2c. Someone will whack their noggin on the desk while they're trying to plug their headphones into it.

Perhaps I'm bitter because my 2010 MBP blew up spectacularly, but I'm seeing a lot of visual design over sensible engineering in Apple recently.

The iMac is a sensible design over this. If only it wasn't such a bastard to get inside it.

I tend to use computers for years (typing this on a 7 year old Lenovo). I'd like the opportunity not to fill up a landfill after a couple of years.

<comment><USER59> Aren't all 2a,2b,2c all applicable to other machines though?

<comment><USER58> Based on the fact it looks like a bin, feeds air from underneath and has the headphone connector on the back, no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> The product descriptions seem just horribly written:

> Something that provides an extremely powerful argument against the status > quo.

> The new Mac Pro packs an unprecedented amount of power in an unthinkable > amount of space. A big reason we were able to do that is the ingenious > unified thermal core

> Not only does it feature a state-of-the-art AMD FirePro workstation-class > GPU with up to 6GB of dedicated VRAM — it features two of them.

> The new Mac Pro looks unlike any other computer. Because it is unlike any > other computer.

</comment><comment><USER61> Is someone seeing something more on this page than me?

I am using a the Rockmelt browser on a Mac Mini, and I am seeing only the trashcan thing...

The page has some secret trick or something to have more info???

<comment><USER62> Doesn't seem to work on some browsers. Not on the latest Firefox but works on Chrome and Safari.

<comment> mike-cardwell I'm using Firefox 21 on top of Debian Wheezy. Works fine for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> It's light on RAM slots and monitor connections.

Four ram slots? That maxes out at 64 Gig of RAM. What happened to the old 128 Gig?

Sorry, dropping $999 ea. on a single monitor, much less multiple monitors, is just stupid. The difference at the screen between a Thunderbolt display and a display costing half as much isn't enough to warrant the extra cost.

The former machine had a visually distinct box with tons of space inside for the video card of your choice and you could stuff drives in it for days, without relying on expensive external boxes that sucked up slots on the power strip.

It's probably the right design for someone, but not for people who want a serious workstation and not an art statement.

<comment><USER64> It has 6 Thunderbolt/Display Port (i.e. any display with $10 cable adapter) connections. How much more do you need?

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> It's disturbing to see so many people drooling over this hardware. Granted, it's tasty-looking, but:

\- [http://www.defectivebydesign.org/apple](http://www.defectivebydesign.org/apple)

\- [http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/01/20/apples-diabolical- plan...](http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/01/20/apples-diabolical-plan-to- screw-your-iphone/)

\- [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337939,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337939,00.asp)

Give some thought to the above before buying an Apple device, please.

<comment><USER66> These are critiques of Apple's other products and software, but none of them apply to this specific hardware. Are there specific criticisms of this Mac Pro hardware?

<comment><USER65> These are critiques of Apple. In buying a Mac Pro, you're lending financial support to a company that does the things spelled out in those articles.

<comment><USER67> I don't know why you're getting downvoted, this is an objective trend that you're pointing out and it's a legitimate basis to use for predicting the style of any future Apple device. A company's product launches aren't discrete probabilistic events like tosses of a coin -- they tend to follow patterns...

[Edit]: Man, I didn't even say I supported/cared about this manufacturing aspect (hint: I don't) and I'm already getting downvoted... Considering all the controversial things I've said on this site that hadn't earned me a negative score before, this doesn't exactly shed a positive light on Apple proponents. It's OK to not care about a certain aspect/political issue, but the guy's argument was a sound one, at least give him/her that much.

<comment><USER66> I think some people get tired of repeated comments by geek-liberal activists coming out of the woodwork to attack Apple, when, in reality, very few people share their particular perspective. "Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!"

<comment><USER65> Obligatory: [http://xkcd.com/743/](http://xkcd.com/743/)

In all seriousness, this is a real problem in IT. People see shiny new products, and focus on the shininess, not the ethics behind it.

E.g. reviews of new Android devices that so rarely investigate whether the manufacturer is abiding by the terms of the GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This concept reminds me of the old Silicon Graphics workstations. Some 15 years ago they were something I would dream of having on my desk. SGI was the symbol of performance and graphics and the computers looked very different from everything else.

Maybe this is also a tribute to Steve Jobs and NeXT. Think Different.

</comment><comment><USER69> Taking a look at the site and the walk around, it eases _most_ of my problems, but not all of them:

\- The RAM looks accessible enough that it can be changed/modified with ease.

\- That's true for the built-in drive as well, it looks like one of the "blade" type SSDs that comes in the rMBP. Even if its a slightly different form factor, I've got faith OWC will come up with solutions. Will be slightly miffed about losing a "No SSD, give me the cheapest mechanical drive" purchasing option, but there it is.

\- My real concern is the GPUs. With the new thermal profile and the walk around, those really don't look like off the shelf parts. I'm pretty sure you can't easily swap them. I'd prefer an nVidia option generally, and more importantly the FirePros will likely be optimized for graphics work, and terrible for gaming (yes, I do sometimes game on my Mac Pro) and not optimized for scientific computing, which would be my other use case.

It's _just enough_ to make me like the new Mac Pro, but also hesitate because of the GPU.

<comment><USER70> That's my only real complaint (without seeing the price) at the moment: the GPUs. I _really_ want/need an nVidia option.

<comment><USER69> That's where I'm at now. A FirePro is a graphic design GPU. I don't _want_ a graphic design GPU. That's not what I do. I certainly don't want to pay for two of them.

And at the prices the Mac Pro will go for, we're also talking about comparable systems with a Titan in them. I'd much prefer that GPU, except Apple's going with a bespoke design by the looks of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r Up to 3 4K displays at the same time? It seems Retina desktop monitors are on their way. I'm surprised they weren't announced at the same time.

<comment><USER12> My current mac pro has 6 displays attached, three of which are "high resolution" (2560x1600).

I _think_ that the 4k displays require 2x thunderbolt ? Or else why would there be a limitation of 3 ?

So all 6 TB ports used, and no ability to add a 4th display.

EDIT: well, I could add a 4th with HDMI, but it would be low resolution, and the 5th and 6th displays are impossible. Also, all 6 TB ports used up, so no further expansion is possible.

<comment><USER71> Thunderbolt can be daisy-chained just like USB, so you're not limited to just the 6 provided ports.

<comment><USER12> "Thunderbolt can be daisy-chained just like USB, so you're not limited to just the 6 provided ports."

Ok. Still trying to understand the "3" limitation on 4k displays. If it's a bandwidth issue, you'd think the number would be _4_ , since there are two cards.

And if it is bandwidth, then presumably 3 4k displays plugged in and ... even the empty TB ports become unusable since there is no more bandwidth available ?

I just want to plug in 6 monitors and am trying to figure out how :)

<comment><USER70> It's bandwidth of the HDMI interface (is my understanding), but even then, the max of a standalone AMD or nVidia graphics card is typically three displays. And these are 4K displays!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Hurrah! GPUs sealed directly into the machine. No more keeping old macs alive with extra GPUs. (the quadro 4000 and k5000 really helped the 2009 macpro)

It also appears to only have one CPU. From what the page says its only got one Memory controller, which as the "new"* Xeons have onboard memory controllers. So that seems a bit of a fail.

*as in the same Xeons that have been in the HP Z620/820 for the last 8 months

<comment><USER73> This Mac Pro will be using the Ivy Bridge-based Xeons, not the Sandy Bridge- based ones that are in the HP machines you refer to.

<comment><USER72> Indeed this appears to be the case.

The only thing appears to be going for this mac is that it has nice disk bandwidth.

The Z series workstation is going to be cheaper, and almost twice as fast+. (assuming one buys the correct fusionio card.) it also has the advantage of taking normal pci slot graphics cards, which can be upgraded later.

+owing to having a second CPU

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Reminds me of the Cube. But Thunderbolt and USB3 make this much, much more versatile...

</comment><comment><USER75> The design seems pretty ugly to me, but it is functional. It's essentially a wind tunnel with all the circuit boards placed against it.

<comment><USER76> It's a pure cylinder. How can a basic form be ugly?

I'm pretty impressed that they didn't slap a logo on the front.

<comment><USER77> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I'm a big fan of everything except less RAM capacity. Getting the disks out of the case makes a lot of sense -- 4 drives was never enough to be meaningful. A boot SSD and a big 8+ drive external RAID on TB2 seems a lot better (ideally with an SSD or more RAM to cache), and/or NAS/SAN.

Curious where it will be priced; if it's $1999 or less for a usable base config, it could be a default. Mini never really made a lot of sense as a desktop. It's depressing leaving an rMBP docked all the time.

<comment><USER79> Unfortunately, I think the CAD cards and Xeons might make it impossible to price at that level, unless the base config is severely pared down.

<comment><USER78> One low-end xeon (and one ati) is pretty low end. Xeons are not _that_ much of a premium at the lower levels. ECC RAM is worth it to me. (the question is where the low end is vs. Mac Mini; I'd consider a low end one as a HT box vs. a Mac Mini, even)

<comment><USER79> It sounds like people have them pegged as FirePro W9000s, which retail for >$1500, but that's probably the top option, with the lowest end being a much wimpier card. So you may be right.

(Also, I didn't realize they had ditched the dual-CPU approach, though that was probably a good decision)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> The New Mac Pro, the world's fastest trashcan introduced by the world's least usable web page.

More seriously, I think it's pretty cool, I like that the design has a _point_ , thermal management, rather than just having a weird shape to look all "designy". It's hard for me to accept that this is a pro machine though, very over integrated for that kind of role.

And also, for a company that's not supposed to be focused on specs, there's a lot of specs on that page (when it works).

</comment><comment><USER81> I've been using the same Mac Pro since 2008. I bought an ATI Radeon 6970 around a year or so ago and extended its life that much more. For most of my computer's life, its had a PCIe eSATA card and an external case. It works great still but its starting to show its age.

I can't say I'm too excited about a computer that's relegated to an much more expensive Mac Mini. Thunderbolt 2 is nice but its a poor substitute for internal drive bays and 16x PCIe.

<comment><USER82> > Thunderbolt 2 is nice but its a poor substitute for internal drive bays and > 16x PCIe.

Why, exactly? I don't know how many lanes will be in the Thunderbolt2 (haven't checked the specs), but I have a Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID storage (4 drives), which is _really_ fast. SSD sys drive + Thunderbolt storage = win in my books.

<comment><USER83> Agree (I have a Pegasus TB RAID also). Thunderbolt changes the calculus for system upgrades. Glad to see someone exploiting this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> The more I look at this design, the more I think it's absolutely brilliant. Increasingly we're seeing fantastically small form factors for mid-ranged desktop computers like the Intel NUC and the Mac Mini, yet high end workstations are still stuck in massive, ugly ATX towers.

This seems to elegantly solve the problem of squeezing components that tend to run very hot, into a relatively small space. The shared heat sync and cooling pipe is really clever.

<comment><USER85> that is because most people using high end workstations dont care about how it looks or how big it is.

<comment><USER84> While only some people may care about the size or design of their workstation, I suspect that nearly everyone cares about how noisy it is. The design of the Mac Pro should make it relatively quiet I would wager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> If you can't upgrade anything easily, it's bascially just a very fast Mac Mini.

</comment><comment><USER87> 1.0Gbps writes for the internal SSD sounds pretty good. Wonder what component provider they're using?

<comment><USER88> That's pretty standard for the PCIe type SSD cards. I've been watching them for a while I didn't know you could boot off them but it appeard that has changed

[Scan Components]([http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard- drives...](http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives- ssd/solid-state-drives-\(ssd-pcie\)-64gb-2tb))

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> My first reaction was, oh wow looks just like the NeXT cube, that's kinda a cool tribute to Jobs.

Then my second reaction was, oh man, it will sorta look like I have a trash bin on my desk. I wish they had made the dimensions a little different. I think this will be the "flop" model where they work out hardware kinks and the next one will be prettier/sleeker, so I'll hold out til then.

</comment><comment><USER90> So instead of a Cube we have a Cylinder. I'm sure it will look nice with a couple of large monitors and a Cintiq. The combination will still cost less than even a _small_ company car and will be able to handle most of the tasks people use workstations for!

</comment><comment><USER53> Mac Pro: The world's fastest trash can.

<comment><USER91> But if you put a dome on top, legs on the sides, and painted it blue and white...

<comment><USER92> Genius! I want one!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> I don't even care if it will be really great or not in the practice at the moment (even if I hope it will be great), but it is so reassuring and warm to see somebody trying new things...

</comment><comment><USER94> There's no way a cat could sleep on it.

</comment><comment><USER95> Would be interesting to see more GPU equipped machines designed for data processing instead of just processing graphics. ("just" not to minimize the value/importance of design, photography, and art, but "just" in that there's more to GPUs that design, photography, and art.) Form + function for matrix multiplication.

Though totally unrelated to the Mac Pro (other than it being a knockoff of MacBook Air) Dell has made an interesting push for data crunchers. Their recent-ish re-launch of an Ubuntu machine [0] that enables you to simulate and then push your environment up to the cloud is an interesting, if fairly niche product.

Could the Mac Pro, with it's specific audience, the Dell XPS, and maybe even the RasberryPi, be the beginning of a much more specialized desk/laptop computing movement in the face of iPads (errr... tablets) eating the general purpose, internet surfing computer market?

[0] [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd)

</comment><comment><USER96> They go on and on about the memory _bandwidth_ , but never mention what is to me the important number: the memory _capacity_. Anyone know?

<comment><USER97> 128 very expensive GB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> It took me embarrassingly long to figure out how that website worked. The text telling me to scroll took like 10-15 seconds to show up, so I kept exiting the page and looking at these comments to see if there was more than just a picture. Eventually I figured it out, but still had to scroll slowly and methodically through to see everything.

<comment><USER99> yeah, i felt like a bit of an idiot because i couldn't figure out how to go to the next slide. then i found that i could click the dots on the right side.

later, i accidentally scrolled and it took me to the next slide. i was all like, "ah, that's what they meant by scroll".

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Not to fork the discussion, but: I'm thinking of putting together a new (Linux) PC for my needs (which are mainly number-crunching, photo processing, etc.). How much of the tech in this Mac Pro is available today to build one? I'm not sure I've seen any PCIe SSDs, for example. How about Thunderbolt 2?

<comment><USER101> Just a couple months ago, we built a similarly specced 1TB SSD raid using an expensive controller and 4 256 GB drives for a multipass batch processing job that we do. It gets about 1GB/sec read and write performance and cost about $1k altogether. A controller that can max out the PCI bus is about $300 alone.

The major benefit we found is that the higher random access speeds allow us to multiplex our jobs without completely thrashing the old RAID array that we replaced.

But it sucks that there are no PCI solutions for what we needed. OCZ had a couple cards but they were out of date and enterprise priced.

I think what we really need is some kind of slot for internal flash the same way DIMMs are slotted, maybe even have the controller and flash chips physically separated for more fine grained upgrades or have the SSD controller embedded in the motherboard chipset.

The weird 9.5mm enclosure and sata cables that SSDs currently use is some kind awkward weening phase off of spinning platters that needs to go away. Even single SSDs are starting to saturate SATA3 and the SATA specs aren't keeping up.

Hopefully a new trend in workstations that look like the Mac Pro will come along the same way that many "Ultrabooks" look vaguely like MacBook Airs. At which point we'll hopefully get more sensible SSD and interconnect management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> The design is reminiscent of the 20th anniversary Macintosh.

[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=20th%20anniversary%...](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=20th%20anniversary%20macintosh&tbs=imgo:1&biw=1269&bih=1416&sei=fim2UYf7F9HUigLm2YDQCQ)

<comment><USER26> What you're looking at is the Bose subwoofer that came with the Spartacus, it's not the actual computer.

Interestingly enough, the subwoofer contains the computer's power supply.

[http://512pixels.net/2012/12/tam/](http://512pixels.net/2012/12/tam/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I actually think this is a "Pro" machine - just the definition of "Pro" has narrowed to someone who does visual design work (FirePros instead of a more general purpose/off-the-shelf solution that can be swapped out for something specialized) and has large enough storage needs that they've probably got an external drive enclosure or NAS already (only the SSD for internal storage).

Unfortunately, that narrower version doesn't fit me. But since "Scientists" weren't mentioned in the litany of users of the Mac Pro, and apple.com/science is a 404 page now (which was better than the Leopard-era page that came before it talking about the innovative Workgroup Cluster), I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

</comment><comment><USER103> "no computer has been built this way before"

Well technically water cooling provides a common thermal core.

</comment><comment><USER104> The design reminds me a bit of my "sunflower" iMac, which was a really nice machine.

</comment><comment><USER105> I look forward to all the R2D2 mods this will birth.

<comment><USER106> Agreed, it does look like R2D2.

It was as if Apple lured R2D2 to the dark side and released as the Mac Pro!

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> Apple developers don't use Pivot? Text is cut off left and right on a 1200x1920 screen.

<comment><USER108> I hate to answer a question with a question...but:

      Does Apple make a pivoting display?

<comment><USER73> And the obvious answer: Yes, they sell more pivoting displays than non- pivoting displays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> You can just see would-be entrepreneurs designing their trash can attachments right now.

</comment><comment><USER110> Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a "pro" computer with no wired ethernet?

Who on earth would discard stable gigabit internet for some flaky wifi with substantially lower performance?

Edit: Corrected as requested. Thanks.

<comment><USER111> If you scroll 'down' to the bit about expansion it says it has gigabit Ethernet.

<comment><USER110> I was looking at the IO bit, and due to the new horrible black on black labels, I was unable to see that there were actual ethernet ports there.

Completely unrelated ofcourse, but that's pretty telling about the black on black + led thingie they've gone for. It's not something to be taken too far.

Edit: I have my monitors in portrait mode. Setting a window to span several monitors and work in "landscape-mode", I can see ethernet is mentioned. On a portrait screen it falls outside the visible area of the viewport and there are no scrollbars.

Edit 2: By resizing the window, I see that the width of the viewport is adjusted based on the height of the visible viewport (w = 2*h). So on a portrait type display (tall) the width of everything is adjusted to be even bigger. This pushes most of the content (apart from the black tube) outside the visible viewport and off the screen.

Basically, this page was designed to only ever work in landscape and break doubly in portrait. And hence most of the details on the page were simply not available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> So instead of a Cube we have a Cylinder. I'm sure it will look nice with a couple of large monitors and a Cintiq. The combination will still cost less than even a _small_ company car.

</comment><comment><USER112> Awesome. I've been wanting to play League of Legends in 4k.

</comment><comment><USER113> All I see is a cylinder?

I've seen a lot of Star Trek lately. It would fit in right next to other alien spacecraft against the special effect space backdrop of The Original Series.

</comment><comment><USER114> Worst webpage of all-time.

LET ME SCROLL damn it

</comment><comment><USER115> The design looks so familiar, and it has been bugging me the whole day. Finally, I found it! The new Mac Pro designs reminded me of this DLINK Wireless Router

[http://thegadgetclub.net/wp- content/uploads/2012/12/d-link-c...](http://thegadgetclub.net/wp- content/uploads/2012/12/d-link-cloud-router-2500.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER116> The design is obviously polarizing and leaves many questions unanswered. But one surprising and promising development is that Cook said this would be a platform for "the next ten years." In the face of fears that Apple would abandon the "pro market", this is one of the most explicit forward-looking statements they've made in some time.

[minor edit for intent]

</comment><comment><USER117> The race to get the first donut-shaped accessory is on! And If I ever would want a non-customizable computer I'd get an macbook air

</comment><comment><USER118> It looks like a garbage bin.

<comment><USER119> I thought it looked like a car boot mounted sub-woofer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> Apple needs to design a really cool sticker sign that says "No smoking ashes! This is an extremely expensive computer!"

</comment><comment><USER121> I'm pretty bummed about the new Mac Pro, I really want / need my dev work station purchase this summer to have a Haswell generation CPU, plus NVidia Cuda support. Which this seems to lack.

(context, I'm doing a lot of Dev work on high peformance numerical algorithms, and the fewer machines i need to test all the different substrates, the better.)

</comment><comment><USER122> For the home user, this is fine, but one thing Apple forgot about (And they usually do) is the enterprise customer. If you're looking to replace your current setup of Mac Pros with these, how would you go about mounting these things in a rack?

</comment><comment><USER123> I wonder if you can use the center to play office basketball with the paper scraps. If it gets hot because of usage you may even have a fun little fire pit to use.

Regardless it looks cool and it may have issues but it will be a great computer, overpriced but great.

</comment><comment><USER124> No one is talking about the HTML on that page?! Seriously, what kind of geeks are you... ;)

</comment><comment><USER125> The thing I really like about my old Mac Pro is that I could crack it open and stick a couple old graphics cards in there and go crazy with media. I had 5 screens including a TV and a Wacom digitizer connected to mine.

This is a total miss for me.

</comment><comment><USER126> It will be very frustrating if they don't make a dual coy socket version. If you do iOS development and large compiled code bases, a mac pro is the best you have. Hackintoshes waste your time in other ways.

</comment><comment><USER127> As usual, the HN headline is misleading: it should read "Mac Mini Pro".

Oh wait, what?

</comment><comment><USER128> Flash storage on a PCI-ex bus? Nice. I wonder which GPUs they are cramming there.

The design is fantastic. I guess it has only one big fan on the top sucking the heat of everything, should be silent.

Now brace yourselves for the price...

</comment><comment><USER129> What is the height of this workstation ? I hope apple is not messing with the cardinal rule of making workstations tall enough that you can rest your legs on them when you lean back on the chair.

</comment><comment><USER130> Interesting design aesthetic. This still doesn't justify the price and Apple's going to be taking a hit now that so much of the entertainment industry has turned away from Final Cut.

</comment><comment><USER131> Nice design. I hope it's quiet (is the bottom air intake really sufficient?) Will it accommodate any standard parts (PCIe cards?) other than memory/drives?

Is the "one fan" concept patented?

<comment><USER132> They're going with external expansion options. There are enclosures you can buy for PCIe cards to plug them in to the Thunderbolt ports if you need to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER133> This edged design inspired many Japanese users as below: [http://togetter.com/li/516991](http://togetter.com/li/516991)

</comment><comment><USER134> I really don't care about the product itself, but I am always glad when Apple releases something new. It's really interesting to study the release process.

It's truly impressive being able to create such hype around a release. Funny enough, many Apple fan-boys are basically fanatics. The rational thing to do is of course to work against the corporations, in order to force them into improving and lowering the prices. But somehow Apple has managed to create a "personal army" of fan-boys, blindly defending their every move.

On a related note: I am really surprised they are going desktop, has not the last five years been about replacing it?

</comment><comment><USER135> How has nobody mentioned its size? I freaked out when I guesstimated 6.6 inches in diameter and 9.9 inches in height.

Size doesn't matter, but that's some astounding cramwork.

</comment><comment><USER136> Without expandability this product is for hipsters and the aesthete. If I am paying thousands of dollars for a computer I refuse to compromise on core functionality.

</comment><comment><USER137> Flash would have been the better option for the animation ;)

</comment><comment><USER128> Not liking the design...

It looks like they were peer pressured to make something bland, and now iOS looks too much apart from Mac OS. Throws away all learnability.

</comment><comment><USER138> Due to the shape of it, the power contained within its walls... Yes, I'd be very tempted to set the hostname to 'zpm'.

</comment><comment><USER139> If Apple can save the desktop, I will thank them.

</comment><comment><USER140> Finally, I have a replacement for my NeXT Cube!

They've clearly studied their core markets - Graphics and viz work. I'm in line to buy one.

</comment><comment><USER141> the iTrashcan looks fantastic.

iCan is super motivational, too.

<comment><USER142> iBin

</comment></comment><comment><USER143> I love it too... I will probably also buy one. :/ So much for cutting back on my tech spending. _grumblesmurf_

</comment><comment><USER144> Did apple finally make a responsive web page? I'm on my phone so I can't test how it looks on a desktop.

</comment><comment><USER145> Whoever buys one of these promise us you will pose an Obi Wan doll behind it flipping off the tractor beam switch.

</comment><comment><USER146> Ugly as shit. Completely useless for expansion. People will defend its ugliness and lack of expandability.

</comment><comment><USER147> Only 2 things that I don't like about it: 1) price, 2) can't upgrade.

Otherwise it's very impressive.

</comment><comment><USER148> Another astronomically expensive Mac Pro. This time hermetically sealed and unupgradable. Lovely.

<comment><USER149> What's the price?

<comment><USER150> It hasn't been announced, but xenon processors and PCI-E flash storage is typically much more expensive than the Core Processor line or SSD storage since they are almost exclusively marketed towards servers.

That said, disregarding the Apple tax I'm sure Apple gets pretty good deals on their hardware so it is possible that it will be at similar price point as the current line (which was typically regarded as over priced and outdated anyways)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER151> for a thousand bucks I would buy a new desk and monitor to make it the center piece of my new study in my house. instead Apple will want at least five thousand and expect it to be a business class workstation.

make this the Mac mini, you sell a gazillion.

</comment><comment><USER152> I like machines like I like my women, able to touch them all over.

Mac pro - still proprietary, no thanks

</comment><comment><USER153> This reminds me of Steve a bit... like the Next Cube 2013. Must be why it is black.

</comment><comment><USER154> How well will it play the new crop of game? Battlefield 4 etc? (serious question).

<comment><USER155> Ask EA, or the friendly folks at DICE

</comment></comment><comment><USER156> If it is a cylinder, won't it be easier to roll off a surface and fall down?

</comment><comment><USER157> I look forward to Apple literally rolling them out in the near future

</comment><comment><USER158> It's totally tubular.

The new OS is called mavericks ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks_(location)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks_\(location\)) ).

Did apple suddenly become a bunch of surfers?

</comment><comment><USER159> Next up, the iSphere.

<comment><USER87> I think iCone has precedence.

<comment><USER160> Yeah, but the iSphere would fit perfectly on top of the iCan.

<comment><USER161> iTorus. it could fit around an iCan, hold an iSphere or iCone. And think of all the Thunderbolt devices you can plug into a donut shape!

See you WWDC 2014!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER162> Is it me or does that look like something out of Tron?

</comment><comment><USER163> Price would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER108> The design is risky, one bad chip could ruin it.

</comment><comment><USER164> The new Mac Pro: approved by Dart Fener :P

</comment><comment><USER165> This is so awesome. Wow. Amazing design.

</comment><comment><USER166> Apple Urn

</comment><comment><USER167> The cube flopped.

Let's try a cylinder.

<comment><USER168> and then sphere? or a cone?

<comment><USER41> Hypercube. "No computer has been built this way before."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER169> Personally, I have been waiting a very long time for this. PC users need not read this. I love this company as they have revolutionized many things. Just the App Store alone gives me enough reason to be loyal forever. iOS... just beautiful. The Mac Pro... mind blown..</comment>


Is YC "Karma" hurting the relevancy of stories?  - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I keep seeing more stories that are not relevant to startup news (like this, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30270)> and users that will post 10 stories in a row that are pointless. Is the 'Karma' devaluing the YC news feature? I think it is a great resources and hate to see the stories become less and less relevant.

<comment><USER2> The example you state is both relevant AND has NO karma upvotes. How does this support your thesis?

<comment><AUTHOR> No karma up votes because it is not relevant.

<comment><USER2> If it has no karma, then how does it support your thesis that karma is hurting the quality of YC news?

<comment><AUTHOR> It goes back to members posting 7 stories at once just to gain karma points and pushing real stories off the limited new page. (that story linked to a group of stories submitted by the same person in a span of a couple minutes.)

<comment><USER3> I guess I am the "guilty" party in your complaint here. The reason I submit all in a row as I do is when I'm reading my daily news (typically in the morning) and see something relevant for YC, I submit it. This is why you'll get several from me in a row, especially since there aren't that many up at 5am or so posting. This is also typical of a few others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's pretty much the point of voting, only the relevant stories appear on the front page.

Good voting practices are probably more important than good posting practices. Unless, I suppose, the number of stories posted gets so large that people stop looking through the "new" page occasionally to vote up the good stuff.

If you want to be a good samaritan, you can routinely check the new stories to up-mod (sp?) the good stories.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is when some post 7 stories in a row and you only have 50 slots before you fall off the site, good stories don't even get a chance to collect votes.

<comment><USER5> Limit the number of new stories you can submit per day... the other stories you would have submitted will likely get posted by someone else if they're really worth the time.

<comment><USER6> That won't stop people who are trying to generate traffic; they'll just make more than one account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also a good point. Then moderate by IP address.

<comment><USER7> I've been writing web analytics software for the last couple of weeks, that tracks users statistics, etc. Safe to say that there is no foolproof way to track users who don't want to be tracked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can understand how this might eventually become an issue, but this is less unlikely because of the nature of YC (people here are trying to represent themselves well to the yc 'crew', and to others who they might work with one day). The size of the community is small enough that it is difficult to hide in the crowd.

If the community became much larger I think the most effective solution would be to require a minimum of X karma before you can submit. (To prevent 'gaming' you would have to couple this with preventing users with less than X karma from upvoting posts...)

As it is I think a exponential delay before posting (they would sit in a publication queue) would be reasonable, but probably unneeded.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes. My earlier reply to pg's question: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22499></comment>


The end of the level playing field - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2017/02/the-end-of-the-level-playing-field/ <comment><USER2> There isn't a new level playing field coming along anytime soon.

The internet was the pinnacle of a series of benign regulatory choices, clear and present dangers of older models being avoided, and lack of incumbent awareness, and adaptation.

This era has ended, we are in the end game, and how America fights and sets an example here, <despite> all odds, will influence how this resource gets used for generations.

This is not a fight you can give up.

<comment><USER3> I use to have this notion too, but keep in mind that the Internet was started as a military project. The fact that it ended up being commandeered by large conglomerates shouldn't really be surprising.

There are countries in Europe, the South Pacific, et. al. where carriers offer "free social" where they don't charge for Facebook and Twitter. Wikiepdia is offered for free by some African carriers; which allows them to also benefit from a lack of real network-neutrality.

When it comes to media and freedom vs industry, I think this video from the mid-2000s explains the situation best (in terms of network neutrality):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66PbSzwnLes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66PbSzwnLes)

<comment><USER4> It wasn't a military project any more than the radio or telephone were. Or railroads and highways.

<comment><USER5> Slightly off topic but wasn't the original purpose of the interstate system to be able to move war materiel around the country by land efficiently?

<comment><USER6> And to land bombers, if memory serves.

<comment><USER7> This was not a goal of the American Interstate system: [http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp](http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fred's a smart guy. I hope the end of the neutral internet hastens the rise of mesh networking.

If I want to order a pizza online, it really shouldn't have to go through the ISP gatekeepers, travel along a Level 3 trunk, be inspected by the NSA, and then be routed back down to the pizza joint 3 blocks from my house.

<comment><USER9> Mesh networking has theoretical limits that guarantee that normal internet will beat it by a mile.

<comment><USER10> This is not true. Any network topology, including the present-day Internet, can be considered a subset of a mesh network topology.

<comment><USER11> And it works because there is capacity where it is needed, and the network is deterministic with authoritative lookup services. Even if everyone had 100/100mbit and we use a mesh network with a relatively efficient topology, with say random walkers to find ressources, it will wouldn't scale well enough.

<comment> vertex-four A mesh network with an incentive system could provide incentive for building out infrastructure where it's needed, without our existing oligopolies over the last mile. In other words - if you were to pay each of the nodes your packets pass through, you'd have competition where absolutely anyone could hook into the network at any point and provide the necessary bandwidth and get paid for it, no permission necessary.

<comment><USER9> Thats the current internet with a twist, which means wires, which mean land rights, regulations and large telecom competition.

<comment> vertex-four The point is that your last mile can be a proper meshnet, and the backbone operates in real-time competition, and people wanting to compete on parts of the backbone are much more able to - and people wanting to compete in the last mile are able to as well. You could have someone pull fiber from the backbone to somewhere vaguely near you, and depend on the meshnet from there, or you could travel a few kilometers over meshnet hops, or some combination of the two depending on whether a packet relates to something user-interactive. It solves a problem - monopolies in Internet transport - it just doesn't handwave away basic understandings of physics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I still can't get excited about net neutrality, but maybe that's because I'm from a country (UK) where telco competition is strong enough - and number porting etc easy enough - that anything that's anticonsumer will get punished by the market.

<comment><USER13> The UK extensively regulates and censors Internet access. It's possible you can't get excited about it because you don't have a culture of a free Internet.

British providers have happily performed deep packet inspection in order to "prioritize" traffic with little to no resistance from the public. Britain just doesn't share this principle.

<comment><USER14> Yes and no. The market works in the UK. If you don't want a "hand holding" ISP that filters and DPIs your connection you have a range of good alternatives e.g. [http://aa.net.uk/](http://aa.net.uk/)

The shittiest providers in the UK are usually the vertically integrated players (Sky, Virgin, BT) that optimise their business around selling bundles to consumers (TV, mobile, net and movie subs).

Fortunately, thanks to local loop unbundling providing a relatively level playing field, there are lots of "net only" providers that focus on delivering a technically strong, unadulterated connection to the internet for consumers that value that.

Bonus: VOIP is also really easy in the UK. When I lived there, I ported my landline number to [http://www.voiptalk.org](http://www.voiptalk.org) (which I still maintain now), had a 4G unlocked SIM from Virgin with virtually unlimited data and an 18MBit ADSL connection from Andrews & Arnold. All monthly contracts, no tie in. Total cost was ~£50/month iirc. Worked beautifully and felt very "free" (as in freedom) to me.

<comment><USER15> If we accept that neutrality regulation is unnecessary in the UK due to the effectiveness of the market that exists here, we should remember that this market itself exists because of other forms of regulation which have been imposed, including: the ease with which customers can switch ISPs, publishing official figures of the frequency of complaints about ISPs, the incumbent telco being required to provide wholesale internet access (with price controls) which can be resold by any company who wish to set themselves up as an ISP.

It seems to me to have done reasonably well at encouraging suppliers to compete on price, and on customer service quality (provided you don't take the ISP's word for it).

It _hasn 't_ been great at hastening the widespread availability of > 20Mbit broadband, and that is probably in part because of a particular technological and financial internet access model becoming somewhat entrenched, due to the very same regulation.

I tend to be of the opinion that net neutrality is a useful tactic where a functioning competitive market doesn't exist, and is beyond hope of being made to exist. Outside of that, I'm much less certain of how valuable it is.

(I'm not going to address the whole UK internet censorship and data logging thing, because it's orthogonal to the structure of the market. And also because it's really fucking depressing.)

<comment><USER14> Yes, I'd argue that the UK's approach to regulation may as well be network neutrality by another name. It's looser than the FCC's interpretation but the desired end result (from a consumer perspective) is very similar.

Re: UK internet censorship and data logging - agree not connected to this debate (and, yes, it's fucking depressing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't get it. So is FCC just silently sneaking in anti net neutrality again? I thought they pulled that out after huge outcry. Were they just waiting for public to forget and move on?

<comment><USER17> It's not "sneaking in," Pai has been explicitly against net neutrality and consumer protections for his entire tenure. This was one of the things Americans decided last November: a free and open Internet is bad thing, and access to it should be controlled by the big multimedia companies.

Turns out, you get what you vote for.

<comment><USER18> I don't remember this issue coming up at all during the presidential election. Although, I'd wager even if it had, the outcome of the election would not have been altered in any significant way.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to realize Republicans are against regulations and favor big businesses over consumers. It was absolutely on my radar during the election, the Republican members of the commission have been exceedingly clear about their opposition to small businesses and consumer rights.

<comment><USER18> Sure, I just don't think we should make broad claims about the will of the people vs. consent to govern in broad way. To put another way, Americans may be happy to say they are against regulations, but yet still may favor a particular regulation if it was brought up in a poll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> SpaceX's low latency internet access won't come a moment too soon. Competition hasn't been possible but it could be.

Maybe Google can reconsider their decision to deproritize Google Fiber.

<comment><USER20> How feasible would it be to just crowd source something through maybe an organization like EFF or a collection of organizations? How many satellites would be required? Could they be rebuild so they cost less? What else would this entail? I know nothing of the subject so these are idiot questions I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Would this only effect up and coming telecom firms and high bandwidth services (video streaming, audio streaming, gaming, etc.), or also your every day SaaS startup?

Edit: how exactly would this have a negative impact on SnapChat?

Double edit: I think net neutrality is a good thing, and worth finding clear arguments to fight for.

Triple edit: Reasons I believe the net should be neutral...

1\. Consumers should be able to use any internet service they choose.

2\. Consumers should pay the same for data usage regardless of what the service is.

3\. Businesses should be able to provide their service for the same data usage cost as any other business.

<comment><USER22> If Facebook makes deals with cell phone carriers to have their traffic be free to the end user, it may incentivize SnapChat users to switch to Instagram for a comparable experience minus the data charges.

Luckily, most of the largest technology companies are incentivized in one way or another to keep net-neutrality as it is. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon literally sell cloud computing services to tons of companies large and small who could be negatively impacted. Apple wants new apps made in the App Store and would prefer these new apps hurt Facebook, Google, and Amazon in some way if possible. Facebook relies on third-party mobile applications and websites for collecting tons of data to feed back into their ad system. Google prefers an open web to index and serve search ads against.

I don't think the lines are as clear as Fred has drawn here. There are plausible reasons for major technology companies to come out in support of net neutrality that are in their own self-interest, not just good-will.

<comment><USER23> The opponents of net neutrality aren't those guys - it's AT&T, Verizon, Altice, Comcast, CenturyLink, Charter, TimeWarner, etc.

With net neutrality, they are essentially forced into a very low margin business of selling data pipes, where it's all very comoditized, and it's difficult to 'add value'.

Without net neutrality, they can pick and bundle services over the top and give them prioritised traffic on their network, so watching Comcast Video is prioritized, but watching Netflix buffers every 4 seconds. Offer subscribers a short term discount to try Comcast Video, and then watch as the money rolls in when everyone dumps Netflix and moves over to Comcast Video.

<comment><USER24> I can attest to this experience on Centurylink gigabit trying to stream Comcast's Xfinity Go, or streaming Netflix while on Comcast before they made the backroom peering deal. In the evenings, they would either run at the lowest quality, or buffer very often while running in potato vision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why are we giving up? Tech workers, startups, and VCs collectively control huge amounts of money and skilled labor. Organizing it all would obviously be a challenge, but fighting this is a solvable problem!

</comment><comment><USER26> Are there technical solutions here?

The client-server model of the WWW seems to tilt in favor of consolidation. What about something more akin to database replication for sharing information? Data moving around asynchronously, viewed at the users leisure, and synchronous actions are only needed sometimes (e.g. for buying things). Right now, a lot of synchronous things happen, requiring users' action and attention for little reason (but encouraged by the client/server model because you need to make a request).

It would certainly change things. "Engagement" might be harder to measure and monetize, so it might force us toward something more like micropayments. But micropayments might be more possible in such an environment as well. With little money on the line, it's easy to update a database record and move the real money around later (if that's even required -- you could imagine digital IOU records acting like currency).

And more importantly, I think it would reduce the need of companies like facebook and other consolidating forces (though perhaps not google search).

<comment><USER27> It's not a technical problem so I think the best thing would be figuring out ways to make it visible to the average user: e.g. imagine if Netflix could reliably show a "Comcast's network is throttling your movie" message.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There never was a level playing field? Narrative fallacy.

Occasionally technology produces moments where dynamic conditions allow for people to leverage large amounts of energy if they get lucky. But all those people participating on a "level playing field?" they are "cheating" as hard as they can at every step.

The perception that things were ever even is just that. A perception. Our ecosystem is not "even". Nature doesn't "know" what "fair" is.

<comment><USER29> I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.

The idea being presented—which I agree with—is that the nature of the Internet up until relatively recently was that any organisation could participate with equal access to any other – regardless of their size. That was a good thing, and is a really excellent tool for democratisation of a resource, because it removes essentially all barriers to entry. Any company could, for example, offer streaming audio or video services, and Internet users were free to purchase those which they think are worthwhile.

This changes when the Internet stops being a public communications network in principle.

<comment><USER28> Basically: the internet was never a level playingh field. It was always controlled by telecom and Big Gov. It wasn't designed to be equitable and has never been a laissez faire system of any sort. To participate you need capital, clout, and insider status.

My point is that the principle of an open Internet is a fallacy of narration, trying to fit a story to the situation for the purposes of journalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Big fan of Fred. But I am struggling to connect all the dots on the FCC statement and what the various companies responses will likely be and how long that will take?...

Basically, there's new people at FCC, where will we see the effect of new policy first and when?

Is my Verizon bill going to double? Is my phone going to give me mild but painful electric shocks if I don't click on any fucking Google AMP links? Fred, what is going to happen?

<comment><USER31> Your bill won't change. It's the companies that want to offer things on the internet that will have to pay a premium. The cable companies can now tax every little startup as well as big companies. It means only well funded companies will be able to offer things online.

<comment><USER32> > Your bill won't change.

 __yet __

wont be long at all before these monopolies start double dipping i.e. charging customers for netflix traffic (either via having it count towards a cap while hulu doesnt or some other method) while still charging netflix.

there's no business incentive for this not to happen because 90% of people have no choice, and when verizon and comcast both do it almost no one will have a choice

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how difficult it would be to stream data over Facebook video or messenger? With messenger I assume they'd rate-limit you, but video might be harder to stop.

</comment><comment><USER34> Fundamentally, net neutrality is when everyone's upload speed matches their download speed, there is no throttling, and it is enforced.

Otherwise individual creators or those who can not pay for preferential treatment are at a disadvantage to those who can, with the spoils going to the most predatory actors.

</comment><comment><USER35> May be Elon's satellite cluster will come and deliver the deathblow. Fast, cheap, anywhere, wireless.

<comment><USER36> To be fair, that's my only hope as well. There doesn't seem to be almost anyone on this miserable little planet who doesn't bend when they receive some very particular phone calls. It's disgusting and discouraging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "Neutral" just means using some QoS setting that someone thought was "fair".

It's heavily biased toward current protocols and their current uses, and is just as unfriendly to potentially groundbreaking tech as an "unfair" QoS.

While the alarmists predict that all google.com requests would be redirected to bing, I think the reality is likely to be far more like T-Mobile's recent controversial approach.

Some factual points to keep in mind:

\- There is a big difference between peak and average bandwidth, and it's very specific to the protocol what defines acceptable performance. This applies to every upstream provider, not just ISPs.

\- Bandwidth providers (ISPs, ISP's ISPs, etc.) are often in the business of speculating on demand. Simply put, this means that they preorder bandwidth that they expect to be adequate for the peak and average bandwidth demanded by their downstream nodes.

\- The characteristics of bandwidth demand are a function of the protocols in use and random variation. QoS is used to create a graceful fallback when there is not quite enough bandwidth to route all traffic instantly. Optimal QoS settings are a function of the protocols being used by downstream nodes. It is not guaranteed that every network congestion situation can be mitigated by QoS without a desegregation in service to someone downstream. This applies to ISPs as well as upstream providers.

\- So aside from the google => bing scenario everyone pretends is worrisome, in reality what would happen is that removing net neutrality would allow for bandwidth speculators (ISPs and everyone upstream) to make smarter longer-term deals which required less extra bandwidth. This is analogous to an improved financial instrument to make longer-term thinking (and longer-term deals) possible, with less uncertainty about demand, etc. For example, a startup could offer a 4K streaming service by negotiating a deal with ISPs to ensure high quality. See the next point for an example of why this matters.

\- Services with heavy demand such as youtube are not vulnerable to QoS (except for the google=>bing dystopia). Why7? Because there is extremely predictable demand. If you are an ISP and your upstream provider offers you discounted bandwidth for youtube only traffic, you can safely make that decision for the medium/long term because you know youtube is infrastructure and your customers are going to use it. This predictability creates the incentive for firms to add fiber links and capacity between youtube and ISPs so that customers get high quality video without slowdowns at peak times. Note that Youtube encouraged this competition between ISPs by having an ISP ratings page a few years back.

\- For services like Tor or BitTorrent, there may be increased fees for residential circuits that require those services, because they will opportunistically use up any available bandwidth. This doesn't really fit the residential pricing model that is arbitraged by ISPs, and is more akin to a business level circuit. If the protocols become more widespread then that will change, and it will be included in the profile of residential data.

In conclusion, net neutrality limits the ability of firms to offer long term deals. It's why we don't see things like $4.99/month youtube only data plans or $1.99/month email only plans. Sure you may think that all users should subsidize those running tor or bt nodes, but that's really more of an extreme position.

Also, it would probably be better for privacy if protocols like Tor and BT started to be more indistinguishable from regular residential traffic.

<comment><USER38> > "Neutral" just means using some QoS setting that someone thought was "fair".

No, it doesn't. The Open Internet Order doesn't dictate any particular "QoS setting".

> While the alarmists predict that all google.com requests would be redirected > to bing

No, they don't, they predict that prioritization of ISP-preferred (either first-party or because of payment to the ISP, often for exclusive preference in a category) will result in degradation of service to competing services and squeeze out competition, particularly for services like internet telephony and video streaming, where ISPs are often first-party providers.

No one, or nearly so, has predicted redirection of the type you describe; that's a strawman.

<comment><USER39> > prioritization of ISP-preferred (either first-party or because of payment to > the ISP, often for exclusive preference in a category) will result in > degradation of service to competing services

Currently the payment to ISP is conveniently handled by the CDN industry. They pay the ISP for the privilege to place a server rack or two in the ISP's data centers, and then charge customers for speedier delivery of their content to the subscribers of that particular ISP.

So what is the change that's being protested here?

<comment><USER37> This is a great point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Honestly I am not worried, I am pretty sure one or more carriers will attempt to capitalize on the restricted or limited offerings from other carriers to move the market in the right direction.

by offering bound services the carriers are only going to increase users appetite for more and they will have to open the gates as the carriers will not have access to exclusive content that requires a data connection. those that offer unfettered access will win subscribers to their cell service and those that do not will adapt or just take what they can get.

would I like to see a bit of pressure from the FCC, sure but I would like to see the market work. the carriers for the most part cannot deliver bandwidth reliably but this will push them to get better

</comment><comment><USER41> This is fearmongering at its greatest.

He goes from "Companies can pay for competitive advantage" and cites a S1 which is not backed by evidence, and jumps to the conclusion that the free net is over.

Somebody had some column inches left to fill or a click quota left unfulfilled.

<comment><USER42> > This is fearmongering at its greatest.

That's some pretty extreme hyperbole.

> He goes from "Companies can pay for competitive advantage" and cites a S1 > which is not backed by evidence, and jumps to the conclusion that the free > net is over.

The IPO story was merely illustrative. He's basing his argument on what he sees happening in the market today and the changing regulatory climate.

> Somebody had some column inches left to fill or a click quota left > unfulfilled.

He's not a journalist. He's a (very successful) VC and that is his blog.</comment></comment>


Better PostgreSQL backups using WAL archiving - <AUTHOR> http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/documentation/better-postgresql-backups-with-wal-archiving/

<comment><USER2> Thankfully the Heroku guys have open sourced WAL-E which manages all the tedious parts of setting this up and keeping it running.

<https://github.com/heroku/WAL-E></comment>


Fascism is back. Blame the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/21/fascism-is-back-blame-the-internet/ <comment><USER2> Or if you're able to pull your head out of the dirt, blame an elite class which cares little for the common person and pushes a tone-deaf agenda to the detriment of the masses.

The internet just allows people to communicate and air their grievances. It is a medium, not a source.</comment>


"Untethered" iPhone 4 Jailbreak Out Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2010/12/untethered-iphone-jailbreak-out-now.php <comment><USER2> While I'm all for jailbreaking iPhones, the untethered part still bothers me. I don't want people being able to get root access to my phone from a webpage. I still fully expect to see nefarious uses of this code. Apple needs to fix this hole once and for all. I'm fine with the inconvenience of tethering if it means I have a more secure phone.</comment>


Amazon Neptune Generally Available - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-neptune-generally-available/ <comment><USER2> Presumably built on top of blazegraph? Of course they've modified tinkerpop so there is an aws variant of Gremlin...

Any chance of seeing a spark connector for massive writes?</comment>


Willow Garage Founder Scott Hassan Aims to Build a Startup Village - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/start-ups/willow-garage-founder-scott-hassan-aims-to-build-a-startup-village#.VAnIMZ1rCfs.hackernews <comment><USER2> Did not a willow garage spinoff recently have to close after failing to work things out with Willow in the series A process?

This is a great idea, but Scott Hassan needs to show he is founder friendly; otherwise, watch out.

<comment><USER3> Don't you want to learn to founder like S.H.?

<comment><USER2> good point.</comment></comment></comment>


Software Sales is dead - <AUTHOR> http://blog.qwilr.com/death-resurrection-of-b2b-software-sales/ <comment><AUTHOR> As marketing takes over prospecting and lead gen, customer success takes over the renewals and account management. So where does that leave the traditional role of sales as closers? Something that's explored in the post. Looking forward to thoughts/feedback and disagreements :)</comment>