List of TechStars companies (6 out of the 10 are listed) - <AUTHOR> http://microsoftstartupzone.com/blogs/the_next_big_thing/archive/2007/07/13/techstars-in-boulder.aspx

<comment><USER2> Noticeably lacking are any business applications, which I think are the next big (profitable) thing in web 2.0 (I am a bit biased on this, but I think the time has arrived)

<comment><USER3> It's happening already, you just don't hear about it because enterprise software shops usually sell direct to their customers and don't care for publicity outside of their industry.

The curious thing is that this time, consumer companies seem to be leading enterprise companies in technology, and much of the bleeding-edge innovation happens in the consumer market. My boss remarked about this to me - in the past, enterprise tools have been far ahead of the consumer apps technologically. Software features that made it to home PCs in the mid-90s were available on enterprise workstations in the early 80s, and in some cases the consumer market _still_ hasn't caught up (take a look at early Lisp Machines for an example of what was possible then). Nowadays, it seems like Google and Yahoo have locked up many of the best developers, and the features that come out of Google/Yahoo!Finance often are _better_ than the equivalent features from, say, Bloomberg.

I'm not really sure what this means for the enterprise market. Probably not good.

<comment><USER2> Technological advance in general is a good thing, obviously :). The developers will follow the money as their investors will, and if the consumer market gets saturated and looses momentum while the business side starts picking up, with businesses willing to actually pay to use services, then the developers will follow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be fair, I didn't investigate ... but who needs 15k and office space to build a sticky note facebook app? Secondly, Didn't the facebook platform launch after the techstars deadline?

<comment><AUTHOR> I read somewhere that a few people totally changed their ideas after starting TechStars. This may be one of those companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not impressed. Is there an equivalent list of YC companies?

<comment><USER6> There may be an official list somewhere, but Wikipedia has a decent list: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator#Portfolio></comment></comment>


Putting a Bolder Face on Google  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/business/01marissa.html <comment><USER2> Minimalism rocks; I'm very much a fan of Mayer's design style. However, the one thing that I think could be improved for Google search results would be a simple bit of padding on the left border for the search results page; I firebugged the code for a mockup here: <http://zentu.net/snaps/googleeasyontheeyes>

:)

compare with: <http://zentu.net/snaps/googlenow>

P.S. I know this has little to nothing to do with the original article, but I've been wanting to point out this observation for awhile now. It's semi- related to the topic of design.

<comment><USER3> Straying even farther from the article, you could easily give yourself that view of Google with the Stylish add-on for Firefox and a line of CSS.

<comment><USER4> Oh wow, Stylish rocks, way easier to use than Greasemonkey (for someone that knows CSS at least). Thanks for the tip, I just stripped out ads and the right column of the nytimes.</comment></comment></comment>


"Nuclear War Survival Skills" – Cresson Kearney (1979) - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Survival-Skills-Cresson-Kearny/dp/1603220941/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1521469157&sr=8-4&keywords=cresson+h.+kearney <comment><AUTHOR> Amazon description: The book is written for the average person with the average items in a house or apartment. This is called EXPEDIENT CIVIL DEFENSE. You use what you have to protect and provide for yourself and family. Everything around you is a resource, you just have to understand how a bucket, a towel, rocks and clay can filter nuclear fallout out of water (it does!) and what everything else in your house or residence can do. That's why this book is good for any disaster, in any big disaster what is lost is the infrastructure that provides for us. Electricity, water, communications, sewage, transportation. This book show YOU HOW to cope and survive with what you have. This book can save your life.</comment>


Resources for creating a typeface - <AUTHOR> http://vilcins.lv/blog/2015/Resources-for-creating-a-typeface/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you know any other good ones, please share here in comments, i will add.</comment>


Google Chrome 75 will disable websites from detecting Incognito mode - <AUTHOR> https://www.digit.in/news/internet/google-chrome-75-will-disable-websites-from-detecting-incognito-mode-47518.html <comment><USER2> Me want this in Firefox Focus (my default mobile browser these days).

Maybe I'll check the road map / feature requests and see if there's any movement in this direction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder whether there's any real, tangible benefit of using incognito mode. Does it do anything more than clean your cookies after each session?

<comment><USER4> I use it all the time. The easiest example is when I am developing something and am logged in as Admin into web interface and then want to check how it works as a non-logged-in user. Or as multiple sequential logins. Sometimes it is faster to close and reopen incognito than logout/re-login.

Or check the newspaper article I don't want linked into whatever is normally tracking me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This.. in a way.. is Google cornering the market on surveillance

</comment><comment><USER6> I would be able to stream DRM content (e.g Netflix)?

</comment><comment><USER7> So can I now watch Netflix on incognito?

<comment><USER3> But... Why? To use netflix, you have to log in anyways; they track you regardless of incognito..?

<comment><USER4> Sure, but I may not want others (e.g. other analytics) to know that I am watching Netflix. Let it be in its own container.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> garrett-green Big, big fan of this update. Finally!

</comment><comment><USER8> Finally</comment>


Tinsel Shutting Down - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@operaqueenie/a-thousand-cuts-bbe0c0ba3af4 <comment><USER2> I was fine until I read the part where you seem to think that you failed because you were black and female.

You failed because hardware startups are ridiculously difficult for anyone and even more difficult to get finding, regardless of your race or gender.

<comment><USER3> She said it's hard because being "black, female, hardware founder (without previous experience in hardware), and soon after starting Tinsel… a baby. " \- where customer relationships are critical and she is part of an under- represented group, I can certainly see how being black and female (on top of being a new mother!) adds to the challenge.

However I didn't read anywhere that she was making this reason the startup failed: perhaps you could quote for me where that was explicit? My take was, hardware is hard and expensive. She says "when we look at brass tacks, it comes down to money in and money out."

Btw, Aniyia - if you're reading this I'm furious I didn't hear about Tinsel until now! I have a strong desire for a gold Tinsel, it made an immediate impression on me. Is there any chance of one lying around still, available for sale?</comment></comment>


Why you shouldn't write off Google+ just yet - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/why-you-shouldnt-write-off-google-just-yet/2012/07/20/gJQANHNQyW_story.html <comment><USER2> This article hit the nail on the head. It doesn't matter if G+ hasn't "beaten" Facebook yet (or ever). Google are clearly playing the long game here, and they have deep pockets... they will continue to integrate G+ into their other products, continue to iterate and improve and continue to grow G+.

There are some things G+ desperately needs to make it as useful as it could be, such as a complete API and support for OpenSocial apps. But I expect they'll get it all nailed over time.

<comment><USER3> And it really is creeping up on us! At work we have moved over from WebEx meetings to Google Hangouts, which we picked up because we moved our business email and calendar to Google Apps... It's kind of scary how dominant they are.

<comment><USER4> Out of interest have you tried Etherpad Lite? It has video conferencing from tokbox (only supports 4 people tho).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish people would stop comparing G+ and Facebook. Even though Google+ has a social network app, G+ is really the identity and behavior-tracking glue of a horizontally integrated system. I wouldn't be surprised if G+ the social network remained a niche product and was viewed as a failure, while G+ the identity and behavior aggregator became a shashing success.

<comment><USER6> I agree completely. The integration between G+ and all of the other Google apps - particularly on my android phone - is really, really slick. Great stuff. Even if I never posted on G+ I'd still like having it around just for the contact management it gives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's what I don't really get about google+: what's in it for me as a user? "Horizontal integration" makes a lot of sense for google, but as a user I get nothing from it. At best, it creeps me out a bit.

The entire reason I refuse to sign up for google+ is explicitly because google is behind it. I don't dislike the company (they're fine), I just don't want all of my stuff tied together in the way that google VP so gleefully describes.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 I wonder how the "employee bonuses tied to usage numbers" thing has worked out.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm trying to switch from G+ to FB and finding Facebook way too obtrusive. And that's annoying and even offending. Why am I getting tons of absolutely irrelevant "friend" suggestions, which mainly consist of unknown sexy girls? That's really cheap manipulation. And those offerings like "mark checkbox to send FB invitation to _all_ contacts in your mail service". Meh...

</comment><comment><USER9> G+ and Facebook are different things even though people do compare them.

I get different stuff in my g+ stream compared to facebook, they're targeting g+ for something more than just a social network, it is an integrator, yet another cool feature of the whole google ux.

</comment><comment><USER10> People are used to having a Facebook id. They go there to hang out with their friends or their old buddies. They're not used to needing to log in to search google, and I doubt they are going to want to. Google is increasingly making you need to have a google account to do stuff, but I find that it is making me use the services less and less. For instance, I use youtube less now.

Google+ may well be successful, but having learned my lesson with Facebook, I'm going the other way. I'm slowly shutting down all my gmail accounts and migrating it to my own domains and servers. My app engine app is going away, and my google apps accounts have migrated. Google docs etc, have been replaced with another solution.

Eventually, and pretty soon, I'll have no more google accounts.

<comment><USER11> I'm stuck with Google Mail, but I too am moving away slowly from Google. I hate how Google makes it difficult to have more than one account. Although this is mostly because my primary account is banned from YouTube (without explanation), and also from Google Play/Checkout/Wallet (failed debit card transaction??), and also from Google Checkout for Merchants (without explanation).

I hate being unable to buy Android apps :(

Edit: I just bought an email account from Namecheap.

<comment><USER12> In what way do you find Google makes it difficult to use multiple accounts at once? I've been blown away at how easy and comprehensive the multilogin support is, and am curious about how your experience was different.

<comment><USER11> YouTube makes it very difficult to use a different account to your main. I know other Google services are reasonable in this regard, though, but I don't really care about them.

<comment><USER13> How to turn on multiple accounts (account switching):

[https://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](https://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1721977)

<comment><USER11> Oh, YouTube finally supports it. It didn't before, thanks for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Google+? Is that the thing that spams my Google calendar and is only good for instant upload?</comment>


SIMD JavaScript Support Added To Firefox, Under Review For Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY0ODE

<comment><USER2> Source: [https://01.org/blogs/tlcounts/2014/bringing-simd- javascript](https://01.org/blogs/tlcounts/2014/bringing-simd-javascript)

Is this a competitor to asm.js?

<comment><AUTHOR> No it is not a competitor. In fact, it can be a nice addition to asm.js. asm.js compilers should be able to generate very efficient code from SIMD.js constructs.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the most used programming lang in remote work? - <AUTHOR> What are the most used technologies in remote work? What programming languages, etc?<p>Just curious about what remote workers use more often, and how different technologies/programming languages change our environment. <comment><USER2> It is hard for me to believe that there is a big difference between programming languages used by remotes as opposed to people in the office.

Myself I have mostly stuck to mainstream programming languages such as Java and Python with occasional use of C++, Scala, Bash and Perl scripts.

I know a systems programmer for Apple who writes C, technical writers, someone who writes Erlang and Elixir, also many people who do graphic design w/ Photoshop, Illustrator and similar tools.

If any technology matters to remote work it is the communication tools you use. In the last six months I have seen a big surge in people using Zoom and much less complaining from people that the tools don't work for them.</comment>


Rlwrap: A Readline Wrapper - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hanslub42/rlwrap <comment><USER2> Well it's not new or anything, I don't know what the catalyst for the post is. That said - it IS very handy. I use a lot it with the LuaJIT repl to allow for navigating previous commands with the up arrow/editing the current line etc.</comment>


The Real Reason why Programmers Dislike Databases - <AUTHOR> http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/09/real-reason-programmers-dislike.html

<comment><USER2> It appears you took down the linked post. I read it and thought it was good. Hard to follow until I became familiar with your other articles, and much shorter than those were, but still good. Please keep writing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because they return 404s? :-)</comment>


Ask HN: Will India Become Next Saudi Arabia with Thorium Reactor? - <AUTHOR> If Thorium reactors become reality will India become Saudi Arabia overnight? <comment><USER2> No. India is not an Islamic state. It may become the new US, though.</comment>


Seafloor Volcano Pulses May Alter Climate - <AUTHOR> http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3231 <comment><USER2> That is an awesome result. It is incredibly complex.

I have always been curious what causes the cycles of glaciation, humans emerged at the end of such a cycle, and I have always expected we (as a species) will see the start of the next one. But the mechanics have always been a mystery.

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly, its stuff like this that makes me wish we had a colony on Mars already. I always feel like we're moments away from destruction and we just barely make it out alive as a species.

<comment><USER4> Eh, even really bad doomsday scenarios still generally leave Earth more inhabitable than Mars.</comment></comment>


How we build microservices - <AUTHOR> https://blog.yourkarma.com/building-microservices-at-karma

<comment><USER2> "By just going ahead and building the app, we became familiar with the problem we were trying to solve, and the more familiar we were with the problem, the more obvious it was where we needed boundaries between aspects of the app. Every time we encountered something that clearly looked like it should be a separate piece, we turned it into a service."

THIS. This should be printed in 36-point font on every microservice article.

</comment><comment><USER3> "The biggest challenge with microservices is testing. With a regular web application, an end-to-end test is easy: just click somewhere on the website, and see what changes in the database."

I find this surprising. I would've thought having a more modular system would lend itself to easier testing. Have others had this same experience?

<comment><USER4> Every little piece is easy/easier to test, but testing end-to-end over multiple micro-apps is hard in my experience.

<comment> vertex-four Why is this? Is it simply a deployment issue - that it's hard to get all the pieces running together in a test environment?

<comment><USER5> In my experience even getting all the pieces installed in a testing environment is hard. Specially when you need to make sure that they are all wired correctly, with the correct version, with all their dependencies (maybe different kind of databases, queues, caching layers) and on top of that if services are written in different languages, that adds another level of complexity. Eventually when the system grows big enough and the team of people that needs a stable test environment grows big enough, it just becomes too expensive.

<comment><USER6> this is where docker and the ecosystem around it starts filling in the pieces.

also, it makes failures hurt less, and rollbacks much easier.

<comment><USER7> Docker answers half of the issues: deployment.

The other halves: distributed logging (how do you trace a 'transaction' that is being executed against multimachines/multiplaths?)

What about rolling releases? what about versioning?

What about service discovery (still immature field, look at how many products/tools out there trying to be THE service discovery choice).

<comment><USER8> We actually use syslog-ng + Loggly for distributed Loggly. We partially solve the transaction problem by slapping a request ID on every action that's initiated by a web request. We then carry this request ID from service to service, which gives us the ability to trace exceptions cross-service. It's obviously not the perfect solution, but it has helped us many times when debugging customer-facing 500 exceptions.

We solved the service discovery problem by simply using DNS. Every service runs behind an (internal) Elastic Load Balancer, and we let the load balancer configuration figure out which instance is up and which one is down. Again, not the perfect solution, but it works great for now and is very easy to setup/maintain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > We have an in-house tool we use called Fare which reads this configuration > and sets up the appropriate SQS and SNS queues.

Would love to see this released publicly. As stated in the post, there aren't a ton of (public) examples of microservice architectures, so everyone seems to be solving the same problems independently. It would be great if we could start pooling more of our resources together.

<comment><USER10> We will! There are however a couple of really nasty issues that we don't feel comfortable to release to the public yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been thinking a lot about SOA. Articles like this and Living Social's SOA blog posts series are a big help. But, I feel something is still missing. For example, no one talks about security of the various services. Are there any good books someone can recommend on SOA?

<comment><USER10> We have all services running inside a VPN (see one of our older posts: [https://blog.yourkarma.com/building-private-clouds-with- amaz...](https://blog.yourkarma.com/building-private-clouds-with-amazon-vpc)) and we also use HTTP Basic token auth that are configured upon deployment. Every app gets its own token, so we can trace which app does what.

<comment><USER11> I'd figured the services were on a private network (or at least the app is listening on an interface on a private network), but it is good someone confirmed it. Thanks for your insight on security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12>
        The shipment app listens to the messaging system, sees an
        order take place, looks at the details, and says, "Okay,
        I need to send two boxes to this person." Any other
        services interested in an order happening can do
        whatever they need to with the event in their own
        queues, and the store API doesn't need to worry about
        it.

I'm curious how you guarantee that all the systems that need to see an event, will actually see it, before it is removed from the event queue. I assume the shipment app, in your example, is responsible for removing the event from the queue. So, what if it removes it before the mailer app or the "make cash register sound" app, sees the event?

<comment><USER10> Each app gets their own queue. So there is a queue for the shipment app and for the mailer app. When an event is published to SNS, it gets added to both queues.

<comment><USER12> I see. So you never add a listener, without also modifying the emitter to send to an additional queue.

<comment><USER13> We don't change the emitter, the listener changes the SNS config. The emitter publishes to SQS under a certain topic. Listeners that interested in that topic subscribe to it by changing the SNS config, basically saying "give me a copy of those events too and put it onto my own queue". SNS copies the messages to every queue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The text makes it seem like they're using SQS for many things, but the diagram only shows it between Orders and Shipments. I guess everything else communicates through the database and HTTP requests?

Using SQS means you're either polling or long-polling with hangups every 20 seconds. This seems pretty shitty to me. Also how do you structure one of these services around polling or long-polling to get its info? It sounds like they're using Rails. Does Rails have something that makes this easy to do?

At first, reading this reminds me of the Blackboard pattern from The Pragmatic Programmer. This pattern seems like a neat way to separate an application into different agents.

<comment><USER10> We use SQS for basically everything that happens asynchronously to the main flow. So when a user signs up there are a bunch of things that need to happen straight away (create an account, give 100MB to every new user), these go via HTTP. The others (email, give the owner of a Karma an additional 100MB and a push notification) goes through SNS and SQS.

All these async things don't impact the main flow of the user, so it's no problem that it isn't instantaneous. We are running background processes that do this.

We only use Rails for our frontend applications, they don't contain any business logic. Our backend processes are usually Sinatra for HTTP requests, or custom daemons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the advantage for your situation of publishing to SNS which is in turn publishing to SQS vs. just publishing directly to SQS? Are you forking to multiple SQS queues?

<comment><USER10> Yup we are. There might be multiple applications interested in the event and they each get their own queue.

<comment><USER16> Have you looked into a "real" messaging queue for this, like RabbitMQ or another AMQP based system for this? Or are you bound to SNS/SQS for a particular reason?

<comment><USER17> "Real messaging" aside, this is an interesting question. It'd be great to hear from iain_hecker if they considered using RabbitMQ (or similar) and if yes, why SQS/SNS were chosen.

Also, I'd be interested to read more about how you handle authentication across web/mobile. Thank you for the blog post and for taking the time to answer questions here. :-)

<comment><USER13> We have considered stuff like RabbitMQ. They would be excellent solutions too and we are working on a part of our architecture with MQTT/protobuf (more on that later, I'm sure). We went with SNS/SQS because we don't have to build a cluster with that. Building clusters is hard and Amazon takes care of that. Since we were already using a bunch of AWS products, this was a nice fit and we're quite happy with it.

Authentication is a good idea for an article too. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there a difference between microservices and SOA? I've used architectures just like this in the past but never heard of "microservices" until recently.

<comment><USER19> AFAICT, "microservices" is exactly SOA in its original sense; my guess is the rename is because SOA has become so attached to particular XML-based implementations and standards (e.g., the WS-* series of standards).

<comment><USER10> This. Also SOA means STD in Dutch, so we don't want to use it that often ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Every time I cludge new functionality into an existing repo, I wish microservices were more generally acceptable.</comment>


More Google Webfonts that don't suck - <AUTHOR> http://sachagreif.com/more-google-webfonts-that-dont-suck/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd be curious to know if I'm the only one who hates Google Web Font's user interface (<http://www.google.com/webfonts>)?</comment>


19th century art depicting life in the year 2000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hexapolis.com/2015/11/20/late-19th-century-artworks-depict-futurism-in-the-year-2000/ <comment><AUTHOR> I tried hunting down the source of it - seems like this book called "Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000" is the source material for all these posts and has scans of the original postcards released at the Paris World Fair. Here is the book link [http://www.amazon.com/Futuredays-Nineteenth-Century- Vision-Y...](http://www.amazon.com/Futuredays-Nineteenth-Century-Vision- Year/dp/0805001204?tag=thepubdomrev-20)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Found another link with a few more of these illustrations [http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the- year...](http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the- year-2000-1899-1910/)

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a similar themed set of illustrations which are targeted towards Fashion trends in the future [http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/fashions-of-the- fu...](http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/fashions-of-the-future-as- imagined-in-1893/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> What again? Seriously, this shows up here every couple of months.

<comment><AUTHOR> well I could only find another listing of these postcards from 3 years ago - don't think that counts as "every couple of months"

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10328428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10328428) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10338018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10338018)</comment></comment></comment>


Romantic Love: The problem with Western cultures - <AUTHOR> http://www.nickyee.com/ponder/love.html <comment><USER2> _"LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient."_

-Ambrose Bierce

<comment><AUTHOR> I understood everything about this awesome quote, just not the last part about the physician...can you please elaborate on that?

<comment><USER3> If being in love is the disease, the physician is the one who tries to stop that from happening: interfere in someone's pursuit of love and you're likely going to face negative consequences!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Co-incidentally, I recently read the book referenced in the article:

[http://www.amazon.com/Love-Limerence-Experience- Being/dp/081...](http://www.amazon.com/Love-Limerence-Experience- Being/dp/0812862864/)

While it's short on prescriptions for actually overcoming limerence, I found it helpful in at least understanding the mechanisms driving my limerent feelings. If you want help coping with limerence, the tribes.com forum may be of some help (though a fair amount of it is simply people broadcasting their neuroses). I have found some nuggets of good advice however:

<http://tribes.tribe.net/limerence>

It's hard to say whether limerence is in and of itself a problem. Tennov takes a NPOV. Certainly, if you're supposed to be working and instead you're daydreaming about someone it's a problem. Like a lot of things, it lies on a spectrum from pleasurable to pathological or dangerous. Still, I would agree with the author's point that understanding the distinction between limerance and love can be helpful.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, non-native English speaker here... Never heard the term "limerence before". Seems to be a kinda-sorta synonym of "infatuation", no? Why everybody in this thread is using it instead of just "infatuation" -- some Internet meme that I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER6> It's not a real word. It was coined by the author of the book, and <http://www.google.com/search?q=limerence> makes clear that usage of it is limited to discussions based on the book.

It's a strange neologism, too, that doesn't sound right to my ear. What's the etymology? The only thing I can think of is _limen_ (threshold) as in _liminal_ and _subliminal_.

<comment><USER7> It seems there is no etymology: According to the creator, "I first used the term 'amorance' then changed it back to 'limerence'... It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever." <http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001708.php>

I also find myself feeling slightly uneasy when confronted by a word without etymology. Knowing it was consciously made up is somehow reassuring.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the info. I say she should have stuck with "amorance"!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. I've had some girlfriends who I was not strongly limerant about, and that always bugged me when I thought about it, to the point that I thought marriage was probably out of the question. This despite the fact that I really enjoyed being with them, and had "compassionate love" for them. I tried to remind myself that that was probably Disney talking, but it's as if it has been almost hard coded into my brain.

Best article I've read in months.

<comment><USER9> I feel like I've been hit by the other end of the spectrum. Girls have dumped me saying they only want to be friends, but then when I stop returning their calls they get really upset.

<comment><USER10> What do you mean? Some girls tried to play you and you responded (correctly) by cutting them off. What does this have to do with infatuation?

<comment><USER9> I'm suggesting that the reason they dumped me was that they felt the companionship love but not limerance. I guess I'm simply complaining that they need to feel limerance for it to be successful in their minds.

<comment><USER10> Ah, now I get it. Yes, every American girl I ever dated seemed to have this problem. Limerance is just a chemical thing so it can be hacked. Being charming but extremely mysterious seems to trigger it. I'm talking like "at the end of the first date she doesn't know my last name" kind of mysterious. Every question she asks is dodged, redirected or answered with an obvious joke.

Of course I wasn't interested in living this way so I married a European. :)

<comment><USER9> Sounds like you've been listening to David Deangelo.

<comment><USER10> Never heard of him before now. It did first hear the theory from some internet source, but from what I just read about Deangelo it's sounds a little different.

In any case, every time I tried it it seemed to work and every time I deviated the relationship ended. Hardly scientific proof but the source I read had spent years surveying women to arrive at his conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a fantastic article. How many people are aware of this distinction, and the idea that you have to be comfortable with who someone really is rather than your vision of them?

Hopefully it's rather high :-/

<comment><USER12> I had no clue until about a year and half ago. I had that intense limerence feeling, (with alll the irrationality walking in the sky when I saw her type of thing). It is intense. BUT when I was scrutinizing that person closely I knew that she was somebody that I knew wasn't right for me (in the long term anyways). So, something was wrong with my primitive instinct lying to me to be attracted to this person a lot, while the rational side was saying that this is not right, especially when scrutinizing/imagine the future.

I eventually found the term, and looked at it closely. Sadly I could describe my two other 'loves' of my life (or what I thought was the feeling of love then), as simple limerence.

:(

But I guess, the shattering of an illusion is a price you pay for maturing up.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, otherwise known as "disillusionment" I guess.

<comment><USER13> It's called growing up.

Real love is something that grows and the article would have done well to just use the word "crush" because that's what it is describing. Crushes can grow into love, but clearly don't have to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can we experience limerence with new projects? The project at hand becomes your whole new world.

I wonder if the reticular activating system has anything to do with it.

As I remember from the director's commentary track on some Almodovar film: Love isn't love unless there is reciprocity. (This was when some male character is stalkily going through the things in a woman's abode)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_activating_system>

<comment><USER15> "Limerence" specifically refers to infatuation with a person. "Cathexis" is a broader term which also applies to objects or ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good article, but it doesn't back up the title given to it here.

<comment><USER17> I am guessing the justification for the (admittedly editorialised) title lies in this extract:

 _The central paradox of limerence is that someone who is actively limerent feels like they are experiencing the most unique, rapturous experience in the world even though limerence seems to have fairly universal characteristics (at least in Western cultures, although it could be argued that traditional Asian cultures do understand limerence but don't use it as a basis for marriage)_

Of course it's not as simple as that. Even in the West there are many different, and complex, reasons that people chose to get married, and I am sure the same is the case in Asian cultures. But as a culture-wide generalisation, I guess there is some truth in it.

The thing I find peculiar sometimes in the West is not so much the fact that so much emphasis is placed on the limerence phase, but that the companionate phase is so... almost scorned. I am pretty sure that biologically and culturally the point of the former is to get us to the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting points and well-written. The title given is certainly misleading.

Quite honestly I don't think I've ever experienced this feeling. I have been the "limerent object" as a teenager, though. It felt simply horrible that someone was intrusively obsessing about me for years, seemingly with no regard for how I actually felt about it.

For a long time afterwards, I was convinced that "love" is a socially acceptable front for something entirely selfish which has nothing to do with communication or compassion.

<comment><USER19> Not trying to be nosy, but, what qualified as 'intrusively' obsessing? Would it still bother you if you were aware of the obsession but not subject to any intrusive actions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think it works like this:

You think you see something amazing. You really want that. You are a human, with a brain, which is flexible and adaptable. So if you don't get what you want, you adapt and try to make the best of it, rationalizing further and further from the truth. The mind, if resolved, can adapt and see the better parts of things. A monk who lives in a post-apocalytic world could, for example, really enjoy a blooming daisy. Same pattern.

But then other things come along. And finally you move on.

Re: _[oatmeal]...this is true love because it can be everlasting, but this is not the love script that we are bombarded with from every literary or entertainment form in our lives._

I would just say, in defense of fairy tales, that some nice morals are (a) it's good to be optimistic and (b) you should step up and _win_. It's good practice. Seems unrealistic or even unhealthy to promote such behavior sometimes. And there is a balance. But sometimes you should step up and win.

 _This is particularly because human infants cannot cling onto their mothers the way all primate infants can (a consequence of hairlessness and shorter arms)._

Awesome.

 _...the optimal middle area..._

What? That's wrong. Premature optimization. There's nothing wrong with more diversity, esp. regarding immune systems.

 _For as long as we project god-like idealizations onto our romantic partners and demand that they make us happy as the fairy tales describe, we will never truly love them as human beings._

Yeah, but clearly the qualities of steadfastness and adaptability in limerence can also be found in the qualities of steadfastness and adaptability in marriage. The difficult parts, in limerence and in marriage (though the latter I am just guessing about) are in those moments of honesty with yourself and reality.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been limerant twice in my life, I'm 21 and I can say both were so far the worst times of my life. The only cure is never seeing the person again or putting a bullet in your head. I can see how it can bring joy to those for which it is reciprocated, for me it sucks and I wish it never happens again.

<comment><USER22> Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.

<comment><USER10> The feeling is useless, sex is both much more fun and actually real. Personally I thought it was an awful thing that happened once and then you weren't susceptible to it anymore. I had no idea it could happen again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was with it until

"In the end, the basis of a stable relationship is founded on a love that emerges not in spite of but because of the other person's flaws and weaknesses, because ultimately it is our imperfections that make us human."

It seems more logical to me to love someone in spite of their flaws.

</comment><comment><USER23> Most useful thing I've read in years.

<comment><USER24> Indeed.

Nothing really related to Hacker News, but that's one of the reasons why I "love" the site... those great off topic articles that apply to almost everybody and that let you see that there is a world beyond bits and bytes.

<comment><USER23> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We are very attracted when we project on the other that which we repress or feel missing in ourselves, a part of our own un-developed, unaccepted or unknown true nature. Therefore the need to merge.

Best thing in this case is to see what that is in ourselves. Cherish the relationship, while knowing the other is not neccessarily what we project on them, but a catalyst for us to know ourselves better.

Same thing goes for intense hate by the way. It's all towards unowned features of ourselves, but we project it on the other when they have the slightest resemblence to it.

Like the old bard said: "There's so many different worlds / So many different suns / And we have just one world / But we live in different ones"

</comment><comment><USER26> Even the notion of being human is outdated. There were previous century views and now we're in a new era, with deeper understanding of what makes us up. We've gone from a blob of living matter, to a horrendously intricate biological machine.

<comment><USER27> That period stretched from a few centuries ago (Newtonian mechanics) to the first half of the 20th century. Now, I think, we're heading toward the understanding that "intricate biological machine" might not be the best of models, and that "blob of living matter" is worth revisiting.

The notion of world-as-machine is becoming dated I think, as a more organic understanding arises, both from the mixing of western and eastern ideas, as well as better physics.

<comment><USER28> Also, I'd observe that our machines have become more complicated. The complexity of the first car is nothing whatsoever next to the complexity of your cell phone. The more complicated our machines get, the more organic their behavior has been getting quite naturally. (Indeed, one of the most important things about building large systems is learning how to write code that works less "organically", lest the problems that organic machines tend to have overwhelm you, things like errant state propagation and such that cause weird, weird bugs five minutes after the trigger.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For those interested, I recommend a book that has similar ideas and completely changed my view of love: The Art of Loving, by Erich Fromm

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello everybody, I am the one who posted this article and it is because I have been trying to find an answer for so many troubling things for such a long time (wait to see my post on why I shared this)...among them is that this might be the reason to the 50% divorce rate in the United States. But before we go into that, I have a question for all of you: Can someone you have been limerent about, being nonrequited, dissapointed...basically having gone through the whole pain process...still be trusted and cared about? This is actually the main reason why I sought for an answer for so long.

<comment><USER30> When it comes to advice: Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it. And those who want it the most, like it the least. There's plenty of fish in the sea. Life's too short to waste it with people who can't/won't return your affections. Of course, if masochism is your thing, by all means go ahead and reopen that old wound, and bring on the pain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Except that the limerent one was her, and I am just trying to give advice of the very pain she taught me. Yeah, I admit, it is complicated.

<comment><USER10> The advice remains the same. You/she tried. It didn't work out. Move on to the next.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Rather than getting rid of 'limerent' feelings, is it possible to channel them into motivation for something else? For instance, Y loves unobtainable woman X, but sees there's no reason why X should want Y, therefore sets about a disciplined program of self-improvement and wealth/prospect/prestige- accumulation in the hope that X may one day be attracted.

It comes back to the universal problem of how to focus ones mind in order to become more productive.

<comment><USER31> > therefore sets about a disciplined program of self-improvement > and > wealth/prospect/prestige-accumulation in the hope that > X may one day be > attracted.

That's basically the plot of every mind-poisoning, B.S. movie fed to American (all Western?) youth.

So many men, especially young men, believe in this concept of winning over their love. Somehow he'll _make_ her love him (creepy overtones of misogyny). He'll _convince_ her that he's worth loving.

If you really like yourself, then that's good enough. If you're not happy with yourself, yeah, improve. But don't _ever_ think you need to improve _for_ someone else[1]. Anyone who actually responds to this is a manipulative jerk who will gradually up the stakes to watch you dance.

If X doesn't win over Y, he should consider whether he feels he needs to improve in any areas, pursue any changes, then see how things go when he bumps into Z, having forgotten about Y.

[1] - exception: unquestionably defective personality traits (alcoholism, gambling addiction, abusiveness) when you're in a long-term relationship and you both agree to work on it.

<comment><USER19> Personally I think the more 'poisonous' idea is that 'you are who you are' and that people don't respond to actual values/achievements. Who wants to be loved _in spite_ of what's good about them, of what they try to do.

The films you talk about usually show a very superficial process of improvement, typically involving dressing in cooler clothes, lots of silly shenanigans, taking on some new hobbies, and going places to 'hang out.' I'm talking about actual achievements, starting with getting yourself in shape and becoming more entertaining, but extending to meeting your academic potential, finding a good career, developing new skills, committing to side projects, establishing a network of admirable friends, broadening your horizons etc. Things that would serve X well regardless of whether they really do impress Y in the end. With the quality of life possible in the West on a meagre wage, it's tempting to coast through life achieving a fraction of your potential

<comment><USER31> > the more 'poisonous' idea is that 'you are who you are'

Er, are you talking about trashy movies? I don't really know any that tell you not to achieve things.

> The films you talk about usually show a very superficial process of > improvement

It seems to depend on the sex of the character. Females have to lose the glasses and wash their hair with conditioner. Men seem to have to prove themselves, learn stuff, go to ridiculous lengths of sacrifice thereby proving to the female lead that they're worthy, etc.

> it's tempting to coast through life achieving a fraction of your potential

It sounds to me like it's more tempting to waste your time obsessing on the pursuit of money and success in the eyes of others, rather than doing what makes you happy and brings you closer relationships.

<comment><USER19> I wasn't talking about movies - but the prevalent 'love is blind' idea (there are many ways of describing it). It's worse than the shallow 'get the girl' antics of movies IMO.

Also I think you imply a false dichotomy between 'the pursuit of money and success' and doing what makes you happy and brings you closer relationships.

<comment><USER31> > Also I think you imply a false dichotomy between 'the pursuit of money and > success'

You cut out the critical "in the eyes of others" part.

As for a "false dichotomy," spending your life trying to make more money and present the image of success is not a path to happiness. It's quite well documented that the best thing you can do for happiness is to improve your personal relationships. As for money, it doesn't lead to happiness. A lack of money leads to unhappiness, but you only need enough.

Anyway, I really think you're missing my points entirely. I'm not saying you shouldn't seek self improvement, and I'm not saying you shouldn't try to achieve things (which may or may not lead to riches). I'm saying do what you want to do _for yourself_ and focus on your relationships. Don't be led around by false ideals implanted in your psyche, and don't try to be "good enough" for others, as it will only make you unhappy.

<comment><USER19> I left out 'in the eyes of others' because I didn't want to have to bring up a second false dichotomy you were implying, namely between 'success in the eyes of others' and 'success in your own eyes.' I mean most people have pretty similar ideas about what constitutes success.

If you try to make the most of yourself and feel you've succeeded, and you are still not 'good enough' for someone else, then I don't think that would make you unhappy. At that point you'd probably peacefully accept that something wasn't to be and that you were not to blame. On the other hand, if you never fulfill your potential, if you never really give it a try, and are left wondering what might have been, that seems a surer root to unhappiness. Though it will creep up on you after years of just having 'enough' money and maintaining the same relationships.

Value isn't just the domain of money, it's also the domain of creativity and of personal qualities/virtues. Relationships, self esteem, etc, are not exempt from the concept, recognition and exchange of value. Although a lot of people talk like they are, which I think is at the bottom of this argument here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It is interesting that he can manage an essay of such length without mentioning Stendahl, whose _On Love_ isn't that hard to find--wasn't before Amazon, actually. One trusts that Ms.es Hatfield and Tennoy found room for him in the bibliography.

And what in the world might be the proposed derivation of "limerence"? Wikipedia offers no hint, though it does use the word "crystallization", which Stendahl I believe popularized in this context.

<comment><USER33> I'm thinking it comes from "liminal," which is a big concept in literature.

<comment><USER32> I was hoping it came from "limerick", a not-so-big concept in literature, but your guess sounds better than mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As you guys know, the website has been taken down due to excessive traffic...my apologies to Nick Yee, I contacted him to fix this problem.

Thank you,

Trend Guardian publisher

<comment><USER34> It's actually not your fault. My web host is moving the server hosting my domain and they've clearly messed up somehow. I'm in the midst of resolving this with them.

In the mean time, if you google "Love in Four Acts", Google has the article in its cache. Sorry for the inconvenience all.

Nick

<comment><AUTHOR> It got fixed, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Mirror?

</comment><comment><USER36> "The prince and princess merely change forms and show up on TV sitcoms, movies and fill the roles in novels, plays and even songs. The same story is being re-enacted over and over again for all ages."

I think if we recognize that human organism -the individual system called human body- is a programmable organism like a computer -and tv and movies program this organism- then we would be taking a step toward understanding this concept called -love-</comment>


Google to close Motorola smartphone factory in Texas - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27643474

<comment><USER2> Woah, talk about fickle..

        The future of manufacturing is going to be standard platforms with high
        customization around them. Common components and then customized wrappings,
        if you will. The reason is that consumers are pretty sophisticated and want
        their own thing but you can't build a phone for each and every person
        that's different. It's very difficult to achieve that…with a supply chain
        that's in Asia, even with modern jets. It has as much to do with time zones
        and culture and language. There's reasons why in a (creative)
        hyper-competitive industry you're going to end up with advanced
        manufacturing in the U.S. And this is a trend that we're beginning to see
        in many industries

— Eric Schmidt, 2013-08-02 [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2013/08/01...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2013/08/01/eric- schmidt-dennis-woodside-on-making-motox-in-us/2609785/)

<comment><USER3> You realize that Motorola has been sold to Lenovo, an asian company?

<comment><USER2> Yes thank you, I was reminded by the 4th sentence of the article. If you continue reading all the way to the 5th sentence, you'll discover that deal has not yet been finalized.

<comment><USER3> I doubt Lenovo would appreciate a contract in a market they're not necessarily interested in pursuing.

<comment><USER4> Lenovo definitely wants the brand recognition and distribution network of Motorola in US, but I don't see why they would want to keep the factory there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's been reported that Google senior management was never really committed to Motorola or the handset business[1]. The fact they took so long to launch a new flagship product (after first trying to use the IP arsenal against Apple while simultaneously winding down much of Motorola's other lines and businesses) and then selling the company mere months after the launch of it, seem to back this up circumstantially.

I will say this, The Moto X is a really solid product. The smart display, speech recognition capabilities and Moto Assist make it one of the nicest Android phones I've ever used for practical purposes. The Moto G and Moto E look to be really solid values as well.

The bad thing about this kind of corporate maneuvering here in the states is it makes the "American-made" angle they were playing for PR & political purposes seem manipulated and cynical. Maybe that's just not that important to most people though. I'm sure it was important to the people working there.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/motorolas-super-powered- googl...](http://www.businessinsider.com/motorolas-super-powered-google- phone-2014-3)

<comment><USER6> I got a Moto G and I really like it.

It was cheap enough that if it broke, I wouldn't be too upset. My rule is if I have to get insurance or if I am afraid of breaking it too much, then I can't afford it, and Moto G was in that range.

I've had it for about half a year. At no point in this time period, for example, have I thought "Gee I wish I had something more powerful". Granted this is the most powerful phone I've had, so maybe if I handled an iPhone I would be blown away, but so far so good, I am very happy with it.

<comment><USER7> Motorola still sells great phones. Android doesn't have high system requirements and computing power has dramatically increased, become cheaper, and more energy efficient in the past few years, it's not too difficult to build a long-lasting and great phones anymore, which is bad for phone manufacturers because they rely on people purchasing phones frequently.

Even though I'm very tempted to purchase a Moto G or E I can't help but to stick to the Nexus phones though. If HTC or Motorola would just sell phones without custom software and pre-installed applications and would have a 3 year update policy, only then would I purchase from them.

I have no problems installing custom ROMs to keep a phone up-to-date but I really shouldn't have to.

<comment><USER8> While this isn't a guarantee that you'll get updates, you can definitely get a moto g (and a pile of other phones) without any carrier customization now as a "play edition" phone[1].

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Moto_G_Google_...](https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Moto_G_Google_Play_edition_16GB?id=moto_g_16gb)

<comment><USER7> It's great to see Google doing these Play editions, I didn't realize that it was available for so many devices. [https://play.google.com/store/devices/collection/promotion_5...](https://play.google.com/store/devices/collection/promotion_50000c5_partner_us)

I'm going to get a Moto G, I was considering it a few days ago even though I don't really need a new phone (Nexus 4 has been dropped, thrown, and ran over a few times, put a screen protector on to hold the glass in place).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it Google closing this, or Lenovo, now that the sale has completed? It seems to me that the agenda has changed now that it's changed hands.

<comment><USER10> The deal will close later this year according to the WSJ. It's still owned by Google.

<comment><USER11> Which probably means Lenovo has no interest in buying the factory and Google will have no use for it after the sale

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Google's Motorola Mobility has said it will close its Fort Worth, Texas factory after its Moto X smartphone failed to appeal to consumers.

The facility - which is the only smartphone factory in the US - opened in May of last year.

At its peak, the factory employed 3,800 people, although now only 700 workers remain.

<comment><USER12> It's only been open a year and is already down to 700 workers from a peak of 3800?

<comment><USER13> Maybe most of the original ones were contractors.

<comment><USER14> Having read about this in a Fort Worth paper, apparently most of the current "employees" are contractors. I gained the impression that this was always the case.

P.S. Meaning, people employed by a third-party contracting company. You know the drill...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Moto X is a good phone. It was a huge disappointment when I heard about the price at launch. It could not compete on price with the Nexus line. Add that to the fact only AT&T customers get the moto customizer. Too bad, I live within a few miles of the factory.

<comment><USER16> > It was a huge disappointment when I heard about the price at launch. It > could not compete on price with the Nexus line.

Sigh. The nexus line is sold AT COST. If you expected a retail phone to compete against a phone that is not trying to make any money you will always be disappointed.

<comment><USER17> Well, the Moto X and the Nexus 5 are now indeed the same price.

Motorola did have several major glitches with the Moto X launch: price too high, quality control issues at the assembly plant, mediocre camera software, customization limited to AT&T contracts.

By the time they'd fixed those problems, they'd missed the boat. I bought my Moto X a few weeks ago and it's the best phone I've ever seen, but all the buzz has moved elsewhere.

I hope for their sake that Motorola get the launch of the forthcoming X+1 right, because they make a very strong line of phones and I'd love to see them succeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not really a smartphone factory though is it? It just assembles the custom casings.

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe if they wanted the launch to be a success they should've opened it up to more than one country and more than one carrier

</comment><comment><USER20> Technically users have a ton of influence on products but it doesn't seem very organized. Websites are usually limited to product information but it shouldn't be to hard to expand the info with production locations, political situation and wages. Profit distribution tells me a lot about a product. To support billionaires paying the lowest wages in the world could just be weird enough that one doesn't want to have any part in it.

I think a cool technical solution would be to increase the prices by an abuse scaled donation to a relevant aid organization. That way the end user doesn't have to investigate all the ins and outs of the geopolitical circus.

Comparing features is already hard enough.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Don't be evil."

<comment><USER22> What is evil about this?

<comment><USER23> Perhaps it would be better to ask an employee who 8 months ago may have started a family on the strength of a loud endorsement to move manufacturing back home. What's the real harm? Just a few empty promises, no laws broken and a mere 700 dashed spirits, but it's all worthwhile in pursuit of the dream - whatever it happens to be this quarter.

<comment><USER24> So they should do what the army does, and spend billions to produce tanks that end up somewhere in the desert because the army doesn't want them, and it may cause some job loss?

<comment><USER23> Of course not, that wouldn't be _good business_ , but we're not concerned with that here. The parent comment asks what is _evil_ about it, which is to ask whether it is _moral_ to spend millions on an advertising campaign that implies job security, and less than a year later turn those same jobs into a fire sale.

There is a huge continuum of possibilities for how the Motorola sale should play out, but when the reality is an extremely profitable corporation pulling the rug from under 700 low wage contractors with minimal notice, despite explicitly claiming the contrary less than a year previous, just setting fire to the building and walking away somehow strikes me as a particularly immoral outcome.

<comment><USER25> So they should instead do what?

<comment><USER5> It's too late to do anything about it now, but I also think it was in kind of in bad faith for Google management to play up this whole Motorola enterprise as "bringing back tech manufacturing jobs to the U.S." and Texas specifically with big press events replete with politicians and all of that stuff.

Business is business and perhaps folks who were encouraged by that kind of dog-and-pony show are rubes anyhow, but it feels very "un-Googly" for them to have gone that route PR-wise if they weren't seriously committed to it and it's pretty clear they weren't.

<comment><USER25> If Google had done nothing, would those jobs likely have remained in the US? If not, what is the complaint here?

<comment><USER5> The complaint is simply that Google repeatedly and intentionally signaled a big public commitment to creating tech manufacturing jobs and selling American-made cell phones and this couldn't have been their actual intention.

There's nothing else to do or say, really. Rightly or wrongly Google has an image of being different than most politicians and corporations and so that's why people are disappointed. I get why they did what they did, I just don't think they needed the political, PR head fake.

<comment><USER25> Isn't the obvious interpretation of what happened here that Google wanted to create tech manufacturing jobs in the US, spent an enormous amount of money trying to create tech manufacturing jobs in the US, and simply failed?

And, that being the case, it's very relevant to ask "what would have happened had Google not tried to do this?". From what I can tell, the answer is "those people who are losing their jobs due to this plant closure would have lost those jobs earlier."

<comment><USER5> Having closely followed the activities of Motorola and what Google's been doing with it post-acquisition, it's (now) obvious to me they were always trying to safely unwind it & protect the rest of their hardware partners[1]. The upside that they were hoping for was that the IP portfolio would be a good defensive weapon against Apple instead of an offensive one against other Android ODMs, but that didn't pan out. They were never expecting to be a major ODM themselves for the long haul.

You're right that the contractors working at that facility may have gotten their walking papers earlier had Google had not come around post-Nokia (it was a most recently a Nokia plant - not a Motorola one, IIRC), so there is that to be said.

Again, my complaint is that it's just terrible optics for Schmidt et. al, to have signaled a _commitment_ to growing U.S. manufacturing and then sold this enterprise not 2 full quarters from tepid launch of a toned-down flagship that didn't even get full support from the parent company's management.[2]

Additionally, Google did not really spend an "enormous" amount of money creating tech manufacturing jobs. They shrunk Motorola and phased out numerous lines and support for them and released thousands of Mobility workers before even launching the Moto X.

Yes, this might have happened anyway, but it's not like they were trying to grow the business organically. They were winding it down (and getting it ready for sale) while talking about growing it.

They were also able to take advantage of Motorola's losses to offset their own corporate tax liability and I'm sure they got manufacturing credits in Texas on that plant, which is why they had Gov. Rick Perry and all the cameras there and played up the whole "bringing back jobs" angle even though they were all temporary contractors.

[1] [http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/11/motorolas-sanjay- jha-o...](http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/11/motorolas-sanjay-jha-openly- admits-they-plan-to-collect-ip-royalties-from-other-android-makers/)

[2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/motorolas-super-powered- googl...](http://www.businessinsider.com/motorolas-super-powered-google- phone-2014-3)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


California Governor calls for home isolation for seniors, bars to close, etc - <AUTHOR> https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-gov-newsom-calls-for-home-isolation-for-all-seniors-bars-to-close-restaurants-to-limit-capacity <comment><USER2> I wonder if anyone has done a comparison of damage done by the economy grinding to a halt vs quarantine. I don't mean this in a snarky way. I just imagine a world where truck drivers stop making deliveries. At what point do more people die from lack of resources than the current pandemic?

<comment><USER3> The biggest uncertainty is how many people would die if the virus spreads unchecked. 20,000 Americans? 2 million Americans? Both are possible, but with two orders of magnitude difference in effect, it is nearly impossible to estimate things like net economic impact of doing nothing.

<comment><USER4> Yet they close NCAAA and NBA games while an airport like JFK still passes 2 million passengers a month, let alone transit centers such as Amtrak, greyhound, or local subway stations.

Even at a 2 - 4% mortality rate, the sheer panic over this is nonsense

<comment><USER5> People are now panicking about the panic and subsequent overreaction.

I must say in Seattle it's a little alarming to go to the store and to literally see no meat, no bread, no milk, no soap. And I've already had friends in hospitality lose their jobs.

I think the UK's keep calm and carry on approach is the right way - but it's hard to turn back from a panic.

<comment><USER6> UK approach is suicide, their health care system is going to break down magnificently under the pressure of swarm of sick people, or they are going to ask people to stay at home and pray once sick.

I don't see that works, people will riot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unless forced to close, the bars, restaurants, and businesses will stay open. Very few will voluntarily do the right thing.

<comment><USER8> They could be paid to close.

<comment><USER9> Not enough to make a difference. The government can't afford it.

<comment><USER10> Oh I don't know. They could stop spending trillions on wars around the world and spend it on looking after their own citizens instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seattle Hospitals don't have enough ECMO machines. One of the criteria they use for deciding who gets access is BMI. People with BMI > 25 don't get it. (Mine is 23. Phew!)

[https://twitter.com/scott_mintzer/status/1239290389963714562](https://twitter.com/scott_mintzer/status/1239290389963714562)

(unrolled) [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239290389963714562.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239290389963714562.html)

<comment><USER12> If you read the whole thread he himself says in the end that the situation is not portrayed accurately. So take this with a grain of salt to say the least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can see why he wants restaurants and bars to close. But why breweries?

<comment><USER14> Because they're likely brewpubs, effectively a bar that serves that brewery's beer.

<comment><USER15> They could probably just close the tasting rooms and sell beer to-go, and if they have distribution, to retailers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I went to every grocery store in town yesterday just to get the basics, and still came up short.

It was massive crowds of elderly people.

<comment><USER17> In California?

<comment><USER16> In Silicon Valley, no less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have noticed that in every online discussion on this topic in recent weeks, there is a group that continues to insist that the virus is a minor problem, no worse than the annual flu. I assume they are all fervent Trump supporters.</comment>


Why Meteor - <AUTHOR> http://www.meteorpedia.com/read/Why_Meteor <comment><USER2> I tried some stuff with Meteor a while back. I was very excited about the concept and really felt on board with the 'new way to write apps' stuff. It is pretty cool, but I was trying to implement a site where people could post stories and have an author badge appear on the page.

This requires joins. Mongo doesn't have joins, and Meteor doesn't even have fake joins, like Mongoose's 'populate'. There has been a lot written in the Meteor community about faking joins, as it is a persistent problem. First, I tried template helpers, but these are impossible to put into a nested template.

I looked at 5 different open source packages for serverside fake joins, but ended up doing a clientside solution (to get a feel for the 'basic' way to do things). This solution involved several functions on the clientside router, that would be called several times, with different data available each time. It is a convoluted thing to do, no matter the method.

Another thing I tried to do was purely clientside databinding, to populate the author badge in real time as the user fills a form. It's trivial to bind data to the database and have that update in realtime, but I wanted to hold off saving anything until the user hit the save button. Again, a simple task got weird. I ended up using an un-synced database collection, then saving to an identical, but synced collection.

I'm not writing off Meteor completely, but I ended up moving away from it. Node.js and a solid frontend framework have slightly more boilerplate, but are generally very flexible for whatever it is you want to do. In retrospect, one of the best things about Meteor is the one-line auth setup. This is usually a big pain, and it was nice to have it be so easy.

<comment><USER3> Along with my team, we built an enterprise app with meteor.js. Huge waste of resources.

I almost find that the single biggest barrier to fully investing in is Mongodb. The queries are hideous. But Meteor is heavily invested in Mongodb and I'm afraid this is what will kill it.

<comment><USER4> Meteor recently acquired FathomDB. Additionally SQL is on the cards too ([http://roadmap.meteor.com](http://roadmap.meteor.com)) they're not exactly heavily invested in MongoDB. If anything it looks like they're giving users the choice of what to use.

<comment><USER5> SQL is on the to-do cards since "Nov 2, 2012" ... and lot of the comments are requesting it as critical feature

<comment><USER3> If you've used other db like OrientDB, you can use SQL to query documents. Even if MongoDB added this I wouldn't rely on it, as there have been many deployments that couldn't scale properly due to MongoDB and ended up switching to another vendor. It already has the reputation of being snake oil salesman of the DB world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time I see a framework like this I ask myself: if I outgrew this, how difficult would it be to migrate away from it?

I'd love to hear if anyone has used meteor for something read and if they've had to deal with migrating to something else: how they've done it, and what issues they encountered.

For example, I love angular, but migrating away from angular after using it for one year would doubtless be a very painful process.

<comment><USER7> I moved from meteor to an angular+pusher solution. I rewrote the entire thing in about 3 weeks. Almost nothing was reusable.

The app is [http://anonquest.com/](http://anonquest.com/) It's a realtime story writing community. Be happy to answer questions.

<comment><USER8> Angular 2 changes everything

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This "production ready" "specially for beginners" marketing about Meteor really needs to stop. They completely changed the API from under my feet, that is NOT production ready (nor for beginners, I would argue).

Stay away from Meteor until they hit 1.0, unless you're ready for pain.

<comment><USER10> Could you elaborate on specifically which changes you weren't happy with? Just curious to hear what made things harder for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just don't get this meteor.js fad. Its not even a production ready framework and yet I am seeing webapps being designed using it, meetups being held about it and blogs being written about it as if it is a breakthrough in programming web. I feel people should cool down and think it through if its architecture is even worth having or not.

<comment><USER3> same with node.js I fail to understand why someone would want to deal with javascript callback chains on the server side to build simple websites. Even some clients are convinced that somehow their application will run faster.

Even front-end frameworks like Backbone.js doesn't make sense to me. I still find using jQuery more than adequate.

<comment><USER8> So what do you use to build simple websites on the backend?

There are bad programmers and bad programming practices for every language. If you see code that has 5 levels of nested callback chains, it's only because people don't know how to write code. Have you see chromium code? It's filled with callback in c++. All this is nothing new.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, so what do you use to avoid nested callback chains? Use a workaround library? This just seems like brute force. I don't think you are required to use asynchronous callbacks in C++ to do anything, while in Node.js you are almost guaranteed to doing this.

Why would you write a CRUD app using Node.js when you can accomplish this in multitude of other well established methods? LAMP, Java, Python etc.

Nothing wrong with experimenting but for real world needs, there's no clear answer as to why you would need Node.js to redo what you used to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Note that this is posted on the community wiki site hosted by one of the community members. The application running wiki is open-source: [https://github.com/meteorpedia/wiki](https://github.com/meteorpedia/wiki)

<comment><USER13> Yep, I wrote most of it way back in the day and then someone else took up the reigns, I don't think it's been updated in a long time. It's definitely not 0.9.4 compatible at this point.

I'm working on an alternative template engine for Meteor now based on django. Currently in a big branch that's moving slow since I'm pretty busy at my regular job.

[https://github.com/btipling/djanglets](https://github.com/btipling/djanglets)

<comment><USER4> I tried to update it/send a PR but there are a lot of packages in there that are missing so its very difficult to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We've been using our Meteor-based, multi-tenant CRM/talent-management app in production for several months now. It's called Exartu and is open source hosted on github.

We originally wrote the app using sql and signalR and as we've done with many of company's (Tempworks Software) products, but we switched in no small part for the real-time reactivity offered natively in Meteor and the productivity gains from its packaging system.

At one point we used Knockout for all our binding but switched when Meteor's Blaze matured. The speed and simplicity of the templating engine coupled with the fact that js is used both client and server side reduces the learning curve as we add devs to the project.

Contrary to many comments here, I've really enjoyed using mongodb and find it fast and eminently suitable for a problem domain like CRM that is constantly in transition.

Our biggest problem with Meteor was that as a new platform there were no enterprise level apps to model after. We made the app open source (github->Exartu) in hopes to change that, and we welcome critiques to it.

</comment><comment><USER15> The appealing parts of Meteor is a built in security against common web insecurities.

The unappealing part of Meteor is having to learn Mongo. Ok, this part is just me being too comfortable with SQL relational table databases, and being too lazy to take the time to learn the alternatives.

<comment><USER16> The most unappealing part about any framework that claims to get you 90% there is that the 10% left is always loads of painful bullshit trying to wedge what you need into a, usually overly opinionated, overly rigid "the framework way" pattern.

Don't get me wrong, these things are fantastic for MVP/prototyping but nothing that claims to be one size fits all comes without hidden debt.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you 100%. This is why I began just vouching for micro-frameworks. Even that comes with hidden debt in the form of plugins or modules written by it's communities but it's a step above the 'write a shopping cart website in 5 minutes' type of framework.

I'm very happy with Flask because it complete gets out of the way, it's up to you to deal with pesistence, models. You choose your own sins type of approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
      *By using browser storage instead of hijackable session cookies, CSRF attacks are impossible.*

Cool, but it makes way harder to scale up without websockets support for load balancing, since it uses SockJS, which requires sticky sessions.

<comment><USER18> It's totally possible to load balance websockets. You turn the web sockets into a dumb proxy that talks to your service. You could have a bunch of SockJS servers, with people connecting to different ones communicate with each other over the actual service. If you were building chat rooms you could assign rooms to specific servers, or you could tailor your service such that it works across a distributed system.

<comment><USER17> It's possible but what I meant (and failed to make clear) is that we can't actually avoid using cookies and scale up, since websockets connections aren't widely allowed on devices, calling for SockJS use and therefore, cookies adoption.

<comment><USER18> > websockets connections aren't widely allowed on devices

Like what devices don't allow websockets? Android chrome, Mobile Safari and Desktop Chrome and Firefox do and that's like almost everyone right there.

<comment><USER17> They aren't the ones who block it. Instead it's the infrastructure providers who do it. Cloudfare started supporting it only a few months ago. Many ISP's use proxies that disallows websockets connections.

Again, the point is: You can't claim you won't need cookies if you want to consider scaling up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What if I just wanted to use Meteor for the same reason as what I currently use something like Firebase for? I'd like to combine this tool with React/Flux for the single purpose of server-side database functionality... not the entire kitchen sink. The closest thing I've found to showing how this could be done is Pete Hunt's react-meteor-preso project: [https://github.com/petehunt/react- meteor-preso](https://github.com/petehunt/react-meteor-preso). This doesn't include Flex functionality, but it looks like a good start. It'd be awesome to have some more examples of this.

<comment><USER20> Take a look at [https://github.com/mondora/asteroid](https://github.com/mondora/asteroid) (I'm the main developer behind it). It exactly lets you use meteor as a self- hosted firebase.

<comment><USER19> This is exactly what I was looking for, now to see if it is as good as it sounds. Thanks! I'll be watching and trying it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One thing that scares me about meteor is performance and scalability. I'm afraid that if I build an app that takes off, I won't be able to afford the servers to keep the app running.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm using Meteor and React for a side project, and compared to a previous project where I used Backbone and node.js it really is a 10x productivity boost. Since this is a side project I can spend at most an hour a day on, it really is the difference between being able to finish or not.

</comment><comment><USER23> From the Tinder clone blog post linked in the first paragraph:

 _The days of natively developing apps in Java and Objective-C have an apparent end in sight._

I love Node.js and Javascript. I wish this was true, but I can't bring myself to believe it yet.

<comment><USER24> It's not. And, native apps are likely going to make even more ground. I realize this runs against popular opinion, that webapps are some sort of inevitable future to replace native apps almost in their entirety, but we will see.

<comment><USER3> You make a very good contrarian view and I agree.

I'm just realizing that we may not be innovating as we think we'd like. Basically, we found a way to force the browser to act like native desktop apps but without the security and power of native apps. In the process, generating a great amount of technical barrier and debt. Businesses will still use a java swing desktop app if they paid millions for it in the 90s. We'll still work on desktop IDE's to code our stuff.

Another discussion here would be how "mobile" is going to replace desktop apps. This is simply not true. Lot of important work goes on with a mouse and keyboard behind a monitor. I just don't buy reinventing the wheel. Sure it works for activities centered around the mobile phone mainly communication applications and social apps but i don't see how it can cause disruption.

I have a feeling one of these days, we'll see a major correction in how we perceive our point in time as being the best possible state and we'll see more or less the return of old ideas, the true and tested technologies get more attention they truly deserve.

<comment><USER25> Good point, valid opinion, etc. But incorrect, I think. I think it's more likely that we are going to see most metropolitan areas in the US finally get world-class data/communications infrastructure installed. It's starting to build momentum now, really. And then there will be no going back. You will then be unable to convince the vast majority of enterprise users that they should pay for proprietary Java + server installations when they can get radically better functionality and useability from client-side technology, and at a VERY steep discount. I really think the only thing currently preventing a tidal wave of JavaScript dominance in enterprise is the (weird) reality that the US is still so retrograde on high-speed internet.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it has anything to do with the speed of the internet, rather you won't see large companies who paid millions for infrastructure built on Oracle or SAP come off it anytime soon. The people that spend this much on money won't be sold on the wonders of Javascript, that's not how they make their purchase decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I really really want to use this one day, but it really depends on the answer to this perennial question: When is RDBMS support actually coming?

</comment><comment> chestnut-tree The linked site won't display anything with Javascript disabled. Yet, when Javascript is enabled, we don't get a "web app", all we get is a page of text that could easily be coded in HTML and CSS. Presumably, building this site in meteor makes things easier for the developer. Does it make things easy for all users of the site? Look at the source code of the page after it's loaded.

        ...
        <body>

        </body>
      </html>

What would a screen reader user hear? Is this site accessible? Does anyone really care?

Do sites like this point to a future where more and more web sites (not web apps) are built with Javascript frameworks? Is this a good thing? And can these sites acommodate all users? (Assuming they want to.)

<comment><USER27> I try to approach things differently: why do people disable javascript? Is it because of security? There are ways to disable javascript only from third parties, for example, or disable certain functions (e.g. prevent alerts (natively in Chrome, or browsers extensions).

Screen readers should be able to get the current state of the page, and not read from the 'source'.

I can see some advantages of using javascript e.g. less load for the server to render things, it just becomes a directory host.

<comment><USER28> So when would you trigger the screen reader? When there is "enough content" rendered by JS? For sure not the way to go. Just dump Meteor, use React, there at least you can truly reuse the code and have it render server side.</comment></comment></comment>


The Nebra sky disk - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk

<comment><USER2> Not really relevant, but when I clicked on this link, in my mind, I had understood 'Nebraska sky disk' and was curious about what those crazy corn huskers were up to...

<comment><USER3> Same thing happened to me, despite living a few hours' drive away from this Nebra archaeological site.</comment></comment>


Microsoft considers adding Python support to Excel - <AUTHOR> https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10549005-python-as-an-excel-scripting-language?tracking_code=b913bdc7dccd6834c47ef9323a7d59d6 <comment><USER2> Discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15927132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15927132).</comment>


Ask HN: How to get clients for my freelance site? - <AUTHOR>

So I created a basic page highlighting the services I am providing. I have posted on linkedin groups with relevant articles and discussion material. What other methods to drive leads to my website? http://appsonify.com is the site, any feedbacks or advice would be great.<p>My story of how I started this was while I was working as a backend developer for a local company, I realized how important it was to have a solid API. More so, when I began creating mobile applications based on the company's API, the API was the bread and butter, even though it was poorly done at the time. I want to offer a complete development service using the API first principles(api-first.com) but not sure how I can get clients on board with this and who to market to. <comment><USER2> Not exactly what you asked, but are you subscribed to patio11 mailing list? [https://training.kalzumeus.com/](https://training.kalzumeus.com/)

One example that may be useful for you: [https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...](https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1)

<comment><AUTHOR> it's still very good thank you!</comment></comment>


Show HN: A Joke Site Built Using Google AMP (Let the Comments Begin) - <AUTHOR> https://momsdadjokes.com/jokes/calculus <comment><AUTHOR> While AMP gets a lot of hate, the project offers some decent advantages for new / casual web developers:

1) Strong shove towards default best practices: \- using HTTPS (enabled by hosts that offer free LetsEncrypt certificate provisioning vs. milking newbies for money) \- Mobile first design perspective \- cleaner HTML; pushing CSS into the header \- Toolbar validation that spots many common errors

2) Good pre-packaged components enable at least B+ level designs without going too far from the tutorials</comment>


China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25356603 <comment><AUTHOR> Live coverage started.

Video: [http://english.cntv.cn/live/](http://english.cntv.cn/live/)

Text: [http://live.china.org.cn/2013/12/13/coming-soon- change-3-lan...](http://live.china.org.cn/2013/12/13/coming-soon- change-3-lands-on-the-moon/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Landing success. Congrats to China. Rover will be deployed from lander few hours (8 hrs?) later.

Landing video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnM-sJ- KbNg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnM-sJ-KbNg)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> CCTV live stream begins at 11:00 UTC. Landing scheduled for around 13:40 UTC, 14th Dec.

<comment><USER2> Do you have a link to a live stream?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet. Looks like 4 more hours to go for live stream to begin. I'm following this thread for updates:

[http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33511.0](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33511.0)

Edit:

Live stream will be at: [http://english.cntv.cn/live/](http://english.cntv.cn/live/)

Planetary Society blog: [http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily- lakdawalla/2013/1213091...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily- lakdawalla/2013/12130915-change-3-landing-tomorrow.html)

<comment><USER3> Stream is now live, landing should be around 13:40 UTC IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, let's hope they succeed!

<comment><USER2> Yep.

Hope people can put politics aside and appreciate another step forward for humanity and science.

Good luck to all involved!

<comment><USER5> I think another space race would be a good thing actually.

In fact I think it's how we should solve all our international disputes: First country to put a man on mars gets the South China Sea.

<comment><USER6> But... putting a man on Mars takes a good chunk of his life for no gain to anyone. Why not "first country to build a 700-foot traditional stone pyramid"? "First country to paint 30% of its land area blue"?

<comment><USER7> I'd be more excited about getting people to Mars, and so would presumably many other - and it'd provide much more advances and gains than building a pyramid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good to see someone heating up the space race again. Hope to see awesome retaliations from other agencies.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats to China. It was really exciting to see it live.

<comment><USER10> I can't wait until we have realtime streaming video feeds from other vehicles documenting other landings in progress.

Edit: Spelling and words.

<comment><USER11> We are getting there, seen as how MRO managed to snap a picture of Curiosity's descent.

Or how NASA tried to work with India (Chandrayaan-1 and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) to perform a bistatic radar experiment. I find the idea of two entirely diferent crafts operated by two countries and working together to be fascinating.</comment></comment></comment>


A List of 25 Principles of Adult Behavior by John Perry Barlow - <AUTHOR> https://kottke.org/18/02/a-list-of-25-principles-of-adult-behavior-by-john-perry-barlow <comment><USER2> Here's a quote of the original birthday message containing these principles, which John sent out back when he turned 30:

[https://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg08...](https://www.mail- email@example.com/msg08034.html)

IMO it's important that #2 reads "Say nothing behind another's back you'd be unwilling to say, _in exactly the same tone and language,_ to his face." The shortened form that's currently circulating doesn't carry the full meaning.</comment>


Next workplace social software: Try Free! - <AUTHOR> http://www.deputy.com Simplify your work world Engage your team Connect your people <comment><AUTHOR> This used to be a paid product and we recently made it free.</comment>


Amazon's UI/UX - <AUTHOR>

Why dont the Amazon redesign its site. I took a look at the wayback screen show of amazon from 2007 below http://wayback.archive.org/web/20070403101518/http://www.amazon.com/
I dont see any major changes in design from the current site.
Why do they stick to the same 2007ish design when every other company is redesigning for UX? <comment><USER2> Let's play "spot the 7 differences":

1) Old: "Tabs" on top

2) New: "Search box" on top (the old one has a small search box in the bottom)

3) Old: "Browse bar" on left

4) New: Bigger Images with "<" and ">" arrows to rotate them

5) New: "Try prime" link in logo

6) Old: Shop in Amazon stores (Target / Office Depot)

7) New: Big yellow button to "sign in" on bottom (the old one has a link on bottom "Where's My Stuff?", and a small link neat the top that is almost invidsible)

Don't let the white background fool you. Probably each on of these changes was A/B tested and they earned a few million dollars with each one of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean just 4 - 5 Major changes in last 7 Years? Can you check their "Add to cart" and "Whishlist" buttons.

It all looks so unpolished and old. You have got to admit that it looks oldish and they can do better at design.

I think they can make more of millions with a redesign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why is every other company redesigning for UX when Amazon sticks to the same 2007ish design successfully?

<comment><AUTHOR> No offense ,but probably Amazon is not brave enough to try something completely different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It definitely looks and feels quite a bit different now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it looks different , but too old. Compared to any ecommerce site</comment></comment>


Linux CLI apps should have a --json flag - <AUTHOR> https://thomashunter.name/posts/2012-06-06-linux-cli-apps-should-have-a-json-flag <comment><USER2> Not going to deny the weird satisfaction of grep && cut && tr && awk to extract the data we want but your recommendation is valid.

It would also be nice to accept json input when chain piping commands together.

Powershell solved this problem. That is structured output data.</comment>


Has "Founder" become a job title? - <AUTHOR> A ex-colleague working for a local startup mentioned to me that one of the three co-founders of the company had agreed to "step down" as a co-founder due to family commitments (not being able to put in the requisite hours). It made me wonder if I have missed a subtlety as to how the term is currently being used.<p>How would you define a "founder"? Is it literally, someone who was involved in founding a company or does it refer to a degree of commitment, risk, or other intangible asset. <comment><USER2> > Is it literally, someone who was involved in founding a company or does it > refer to a degree of commitment, risk, or other intangible asset.

There isn't really any specific moment when a company goes from un-founded to founded. Often this happens over a period of several years.

So while colloquially we say that a founder was there when the company was founded, in practice that's really a proxy for someone having done a substantial amount of work that was compensated in equity before the company was derisked. So e.g. if you own 40% of the company by the time the company raises a seed round then you're clearly a founder, regardless of whether or not your signature is on the articles of incorporation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Founder isn't a job title, it's simply a fact. CEO, CTO, etc.--those are job titles. Empirically, it seems like people who over-emphasize their role as "founder" don't make good founders.

</comment><comment> andrew-lucker Determining who are "founders" used to be as simple as looking at the articles of incorporation. Now we have language barriers and only grammar nazis would defend the original definition?</comment>