Warner Bros Settles FTC Charges It Failed to Disclose It Paid Online Influencers - <AUTHOR> https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/07/warner-bros-settles-ftc-charges-it-failed-adequately-disclose-it <comment><USER2> >"Instead, according to the complaint, Warner Bros. instructed influencers to place the disclosures in the description box appearing below the video. Because Warner Bros. also required other information to be placed in that box, the vast majority of sponsorship disclosures appeared "below the fold," visible only if consumers clicked on the "Show More" button in the description box. In addition, when influencers posted YouTube videos on Facebook or Twitter, the posting did not include the "Show More" button, making it even less likely that consumers would see the sponsorship disclosures."

So a disclosure in the notes box below a video is not enough. I wonder what this will mean for the guys from CSGOLotto [0] who are caught up in a seemingly worse controversy of non disclosure and more.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8fU2QG- lV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8fU2QG-lV0)

<comment><USER3> The HN title misquotes the actual FTC site's title. The FTC title says it "failed to adquately disclose", not that it "failed to disclose". Omitting the word adequately changes the meaning substantially. In fact, WB did disclose the payment but it was the manner in which they disclosed it that the FTC objected to -- not the failure to disclose it.

<comment><USER4> Discloser requires more than posting a footnote in a random small town newspaper readership 12. You must clearly communicate to the recipient and failure to adequately disclose is failure to disclose.

<comment><USER5> Actually, several laws for notification can be fulfilled by "posting a footnote in a small town newspaper readership 12". Its quite an amazing thing seeing the small things in the local paper of record.

<comment><USER6> Are you talking about the announcements typically required for public hearings? Because relating such announcements to disclosure is kind of strange. Disclosure is additional information about the message being conveyed, typically relating some bias that the recipient should be aware of before making decisions. Announcements, on the other hand, are precursors to the thing that actually matters, which is the hearing.

<comment><USER5> I'm talking about more than public hearings, there are many disclosure laws that require using the paper of record for a county or other area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Warner Bros. is barred from failing to make such disclosures in the future

So were they not "barred from failing to make" these mandatory disclosures previously?

I wonder what the world would be like if the laws people had to follow had this same pattern of "You broke the rules? Well your punishment is that you now have to really actually follow the rules next time."

<comment><USER8> They were barred before - I think this language means next time they are caught, it'll hopefully be much worse.

<comment><USER9> So a slap on the wrist...

<comment><USER10> A slap on the wrist is appropriate here. There were apparently 5.5 million views of sponsored content. The total value of that commerce is a few thousand dollars in AdSense revenue.

<comment><USER11> The calculation (admittedly a difficult one) should not be based on the amount of AdSense revenue generated, but the revenue generated by the number of people who bought the game based on Youtube_Personality's recommendation. Shadows of Mordor cost $60 at launch. Let's say just 20,000 people went out and bought the game as a result. Suddenly, the value of that fraudulent promotion is $1,200,000.

<comment><USER12> _Shadows of Mordor cost $60 at launch. Let 's say just 20,000 people went out and bought the game as a result. Suddenly, the value of that fraudulent promotion is $120,000._

20,000 x 60 = $1,200,000

<comment><USER11> Missed a zero. Thanks for the correction!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately this doesn't include what kind of fine WB has to pay, that will come out later. I hope it's stiff. This kind of deception has to cost more than it benefits the company if they are going to be deterred from it.

Unfortunately at the moment this kind of thing is going on constantly, and even when there are disclosures that it's sponsored "reviews" the disclaimers are usually as subtle as possible.

Video games became the biggest entertainment industry in the last 20 years and as a result a lot of greedy people with no moral compass have flooded into it to cash in.

<comment><USER14> > I hope it's stiff.

I doubt it's more than a few million dollars if that. I wonder why the FTC even had to settle for this. Warner was clearly in the wrong. Government agencies are way too quick to settle these days. Sure, a trial would be much harder, but also much more effective in stopping corporate illegal activities in the future. Cheap settlements are just the cost of doing business and I doubt they serve as any deterrent at all.

<comment><USER15> Typically speaking, a federal regulatory body's enforcement calculus follows this procedure:

1\. How big is the target company?

2\. How scary are its lawyers?

3\. Do we expect the company to put up a fight?

4\. Is the fight worth it? (e.g., Are there important precedents at stake? Can we make an example of the company in question?)

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the desire to pursue the fight in court fizzles out at Step 4. (And sometimes there's an ancillary Step 4a: "How many other battles are we fighting right now?")

I'm not being glib here; I'm just being cynical, but realistic. This is pretty much how my friends at various agencies have described it to me. It doesn't seem too farfetched, if perhaps a bit simplified.

<comment><USER16> If only the DEA was so limited in its resources that it had to come to that sort of calculus. We'd have a lot less people who committed victimless crimes in prison.

<comment><USER17> They do, it's just that most of the people put away for drug crimes don't have deep pockets and good legal council.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting fact, this is the first public reference to Pewdie Pie in an FTC action, but the FTC commissioner referred to him during a keynote speech back in 2015. [https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/804731/150928nadaspeech.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola)

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone know where to report violations like this? I've seen many in the past, and I've tried using the FTC report a violation tool, but none of the categories seem to hit this. Too bad, because crowdsourcing the detection of these violations would make the FTC's job a lot easier!

<comment><USER21> This is how the business of online promotion works. I had a first-in-its-niche company that was copied by spammers and seriously outcompeted with this kind of under-the-table promotion, which I had, to that point, refused to perform myself. And my company hurt substantially because of it (though it was ultimately destroyed by a legal threat from a Fortune 100); went from the only provider to third or fourth place, despite indisputable superiority to the spammy, pump-and-dump competitors.

The reality of online promotion is that if you want to win, you have to play the game. That means paying for placement in link rings and astroturfing hard. It means ignoring official advice from all platform providers as disinformation. Critical to the survival of any company is amassing a large multi-million dollar war chest before a lawsuit comes knocking, because the lawyers will be taking their pound of flesh, especially if you're going against a corporate bully that is more than happy to spend tens of millions of dollars just to teach you that they're not to be defied by the peons. Doesn't matter what the law _actually_ says, only big companies can afford to fight.

This all being the case, I seriously doubt the FTC will make a real dent in undisclosed promotion, no matter how aggressive they get. Undisclosed promotion probably makes up 30% of the content on the web.

This case is likely as simple as FTC going after WB mostly because they knew they could get some good revenue out of them.

<comment><USER22> > It means ignoring official advice from all platform providers as > disinformation.

This is a painful and revealing comment, and your post certainly isn't the only place I've seen it. The standard wisdom is that advice from platforms is either meaningless, or a guide to exactly how far you can go down their "not recommended" paths without catching a ban.

I'm not sure that there's any decent answer to this; all the evidence suggests that for some markets dishonesty and misleading promotion are the best possible tactics. What good are corporate ethics if the first person to act unethically will outperform all honest competitors?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone really trust online game reviews? Game media is corrupt to the bone and the first thing I think when I see a positive review is that it was bought. Besides, the culture of game media is often far, far away from true gamer culture. That's why I often just watch raw gameplay footage, then I can make up my mind myself. I think this is a non-issue.

 _"Consumers have the right to know if reviewers are providing their own opinions or paid sales pitches,"_

I think consumers should start to learn to think for themselves and stop relying on the state, bans and fines.

<comment><USER24> > Does anyone really trust online game reviews?

It depends on what you mean by "trust", and "game reviews".

I have varying levels of trust for different individuals, which you can factor into how much you take what they're saying at face value.

I don't think the concept of a game review is particularly helpful: they are all subjective opinion pieces. They could be essays (game reviews), rants or opinion pieces (what TB does say), raw gameplay (lets plays) or live interactive exploration of the title (Twitch).

You can combine those various streams, along with "lesser" (read "easier") user generated content like Reddit threads and what-not, to help you come to some kind of conclusion before a purchase.

> the first thing I think when I see a positive review is that it was bought

I feel for you, that can't be a nice way to think about things. I'm not sure where you're getting that kind of cynicism from honestly, but if the issue is as widespread as you say I feel like there is a pretty good expose in that.

> Besides, the culture of game media is often far, far away from true gamer > culture.

That's a really odd statement. I'm not sure what "true gamer culture" is, but there is a good chance I come from a completely different country to you, have a completely different background and life experiences to you. Except I play video games. I'm not sure declaring some "true gamerness" test and segregating people who fit your expectations and those that don't is particularly healthy.

I think especially these days many people play games, to varying levels, on varying platforms. Games are not holy relics to be cherished by the anointed few, they are pieces of culture to be enjoyed (or not I suppose, if they're junk) by everyone.

> I think consumers should start to learn to think for themselves and stop > relying on the state, bans and fines.

I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive ideas. People should think for themselves, obviously. But since basically every opinion you've ever had is based on the media you read / experienced it in, trying to push media toward being a cultural experience and not an advertisement is important too.

Especially in a world where everyone is hyper critical and distrustful of media (especially media that contains opinions they don't agree with), it's a boon to promote yourself as a game reviewer / critic / lets player who is not corrupted by the almighty dollar.

<comment><USER23> _That 's a really odd statement. I'm not sure what "true gamer culture" is, but there is a good chance I come from a completely different country to you, have a completely different background and life experiences to you. Except I play video games._

Not sure if you're serious or trolling here. As true gamer culture I describe people with a real appreciation for games (should be obvious). People who actually play and enjoy games (or create and mod them). Not people who are faking it for money, not people who are trying to push agendas onto gamers, just plain old gamers. And trust me, these are surprisingly rare in game media. You can call it unhealthy, the truth is often unhealthy. You can choose to remain ignorant about it, and patronize people like me. The fact is: Go out and ask kids, go and ask the people who play the most. They don't give a damn about game media and they are not involved in it at all. They just play their games.

<comment><USER24> > Not sure if you're serious or trolling here.

I'm completely serious. I genuinely don't understand how you can pick some arbitrary rules and decide that the "other people" are not "true xyzers" and thus are invalid.

> As true gamer culture I describe people with a real appreciation for games > (should be obvious). People who actually play and enjoy games (or create and > mod them).

Great, I know lots of those people! I'm one of those people! Honestly, I don't really know anyone who doesn't enjoy games (who plays them that is).

> Not people who are faking it for money,

Great! Imagine if there were laws to make sure those people had to disclose when, why and how they were making money associated with games!

> not people who are trying to push agendas onto gamers

I'm trying really hard not to project the rest of the internet on to you, because I don't know you, and I'm sure you're a lovely person. It sounds though, like you're upset with certain "social" complaints that some people have had with games lately, i.e. being upset about women being over sexualised in games, or what not.

With that in mind: I agree with a reasonable amount of that commentary. Does that make me not a "true" gamer? What is your yardstick here? More importantly, why does your opinion on who a "true gamer" is matter?

> And trust me, these are surprisingly rare in game media

I don't see it. And I don't see how you can see it either honestly. I feel like if the entire games media scene was bought and paid for by game companies someone would have actually written about it. This stuff generally gets reported on pretty well when it happens (see: Jeff Gerstman being fired for giving a low score to Kayne & Lynch, the Warner Bros issue we're talking about right now, etc). There are always people looking to expose something to make a name for themselves, and if anything like this actually existed someone would have done just that. And no, I don't count KIA / whatever ramblings.

It sounds more like a bunch of people are saying things you don't agree with, and so you've decided they aren't "true gamers" so you can brush off what they're saying without having to really think about it.

> You can call it unhealthy, the truth is often unhealthy. You can choose to > remain ignorant about it, and patronize people like me. The fact is: Go out > and ask kids, go and ask the people who play the most. They don't give a > damn about game media and they are not involved in it at all. They just play > their games.

I'm not "choosing to remain ignorant", I'm disagreeing with you and what you're saying. Hopefully politely, apologies if it's not coming off that way.

<comment><USER23> _It sounds though, like you 're upset with certain "social" complaints that some people have had with games lately, i.e. being upset about women being over sexualised in games, or what not._

If you mean with "social" anti-social complaints like hating and bullying white males [0] and the like, then yes! I oppose everything that resembles stuff like that all day every day and do not consider anyone who does not condemn this a true gamer. Because what they do is no longer about games, they just use game media as a vessel to spread their poison into the fun-loving gamer community.

 _Great! Imagine if there were laws to make sure those people had to disclose when, why and how they were making money associated with games!_

No, I don't want to solve everything with laws. I don't want to be babysat by the state. The community should just shun the the dishonest people, foster a positive culture of honesty and build proper review facilities. We don't need the state for that. In fact, I'd argue we need anything but the state for this.

 _It sounds more like a bunch of people are saying things you don 't agree with, and so you've decided they aren't "true gamers" so you can brush off what they're saying without having to really think about it._

Oh, yeah, totally, how did you know? I have many tiny little boxes with labels in my brain, and every time someone says something I don't like, I put them into one and lock it firmly shut so I never have to think about it again. I have no shred of intellectual integrity inside me and thrive on ignorance. Me making a distinction between true gamers and those who have hijacked some of its media for hateful messages is a manifestation of my hate for reality.

[0] [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_t...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Are the receivers of the money liable for any penalties? Seems like they should be equally liable, if not more so.

</comment><comment><USER26> This seems like an overreach of the government's power more than anything. And if anyone is to blame, it seems like the responsibility should be on the Youtube creator to do the disclosure and not Warner Bros(so they should fine "PewDiePie" rather than Warner Bros), since they ultimately broadcast the noncompliant material.

It seems like this happens in the newspapers all the time. I'm actually unfamiliar with the FTCA. I reread pg's essay[1] and I guess the main difference with sponsored content in the newspapers is that the reporters don't directly benefit from the sponsored content. I don't know - there's an awful lot of sponsored content on news sites nowadays, and I always imagined the reporters did it for the money.

Is it actually illegal to take money to publish sponsored content in a newspaper without providing a notice of this?

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment><USER27> The rule isn't that it's illegal to take money. The rule is that "unfair or deceptive acts or practices" are illegal with respect to advertising. Obviously that's a very broad stroke, so there are guidelines[1] put out by the FTC which give examples of what is considered fair and what's deceptive. In particular the disclosure should be part of the ad, not located somewhere else that a party might not have access to (e.g. YouTube videos are often embedded. You won't see the description box in that case, and will have no indication that you're watching paid content.) It's WB's product; they're the one's who needed to make sure their paid ads were compliant. Kjellberg/PewDiePie is based in Sweden, so the FTC guidelines don't concern him except insofar as he's doing commerce in the US.

[1] [https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain- language/bu...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain- language/bus41-dot-com-disclosures-information-about-online-advertising.pdf)

<comment><USER28> > Kjellberg/PewDiePie is based in Sweden, so the FTC guidelines don't concern > him except insofar as he's doing commerce in the US

FWIW he resides in Brighton, England.</comment></comment></comment>


Learn To Build - <AUTHOR> http://benton.io/tech/2014/03/28/learn-to-build.html <comment><USER2> I always suggest starting with Why:

Me: "Why do you want to learn to code?"

Them: "Because I want to build X, or I want to modify Y, or I'd like to learn how to do Z but it seems like I need to know how to code first." (This is the ideal answer but in reality it's usually not the one I get. "Uh, I donno... because it looks cool or fun or I can get a really good job," is the more common answer.)

If someone doesn't know _why_ they want to learn something, they will be more likely to give up as soon as the learning gets tough.

By the time I was 12 I had spent 4 or 5 years playing with computers, taking them apart, building them, and spending _lots_ of time playing games.

One day I asked my dad, "how do they _make_ those games on the computer that I've been playing for the past few years?" I wanted to know _how_ so that I could tinker and build my own games too. My dad was a technical writer at the time and the only programming language he knew of was a language called BASIC (this was the early 1990s) and suggested that I pick up a book the next time we were at the book store. (That led me from QBASIC -> Visual Basic -> PHP, of which I'm currently most proficient. I wish he had told me "C" or "C++"; my life would've taken a much different route.)

When I started digging into Python a few years ago, it was because I wanted to build a script that connected two APIs and manipulated some XML. I knew through the grapevine that Python was a good language for that, so I dug in. It got tough, but I had a _goal_ in mind. There was something tangible that I was working towards, a light at the end of the tunnel that I could keep aiming for no matter how long it took me.

I cannot understate the importance of knowing _why_ you're doing something, especially when you're learning a new skill. (I think this applies more to adults than to children.)

<comment><USER3> > _That led me from QBASIC - > Visual Basic -> PHP, of which I'm currently > most proficient. I wish he had told me "C" or "C++"; my life would've taken > a much different route._

I started with QBASIC as well. I was 12 years old in Japan in the late 90's, and I distinctly remember searching through stores for a C++ book in English. Never found one, and haven't used the language to this day - although I have worked with C.

I occasionally fantasize about what it would have been like to tackle such a comparatively complex language earlier in my journey. However, who knows how things would have turned out. C++ is by all appearances quite an intimidating beast even for diligent adults. Not inconceivable that it could have discouraged a kid who was approaching it solo.

QBASIC is _fun_. As a result, my earliest memories of programming are incredibly positive. That alone is worth quite a bit, and has had a significant impact on my life.

<comment><USER2> I never considered that perspective, that the difficulty (and dare I say, ugliness) of the language might've discouraged me early on. A prior job in Cambridge, MA paid for me to take any course I wanted at Harvard Extension School (a branch of the esteemed Harvard school) and I picked an intro C programming class. I learned a lot, but mostly I learned how challenging it was and how annoying programming in C could get (i.e., how easily I could become discouraged).

I've always assumed that my difficulty becoming proficient with C/C++ was due to the fact that my brain started learning on BASIC, which wasn't nearly as "close to the machine" as C is. What I loved about that C programming class was how much I was learning about how the physical hardware worked (e.g., pointers; most people in the class seemed to hate pointers but I loved them).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Open source projects might seem like a good place to look since the code is > readily available, but be wary as they are also known to be heavily > gatekeeped and often getting started is more difficult than it should be.

This is certainly true for some projects, and as a beginner I'd steer clear from them. To pile onto the generalizations with another one, I've found that a project is FAR more likely to accept contributions (or even discuss ideas with outsiders) if it has some kind of mechanism for accepting pull requests (be it on GitHub or elsewhere).

What's that you say? Send a patch? To your mailing list? And then we'll talk? No thanks, I'll lend my support elsewhere... (Not always true, of course, but it should sound familiar to some of us.)

</comment><comment><USER5> This resonates very strongly with me. In the past, I've tried to get motivated to "learn programming" multiple times, mostly because you just hear everyone say it. But without any sort of meaningful end goal, each attempt sort of fell through. I would hit a roadblock and fail to get motivated to crush it.

But just six months ago I actually had a need to build a website to make company training materials available to our remote offices, and with that end- goal in mind I was able to learn things bottom-up. The ability to place my learning in a greater context certainly motivated me a hell of a lot more than "OK, next up is loops in JavaScript... _yawn_ " Not to mention the ability to use what I built to advance my career.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it's often easier to start with scripts, automating manual tasks. Jumping into a big, complicated program is difficult. Even just compiling from source might not be easy. Existing code and its requirements are extra things you need to grapple with on top of just getting your own code correct.

There are many computer-related tasks done manually simply because nobody who understands the task also understands how to code. If you know some manual tasks, building scripts to do them automatically is probably much simpler.

It's not glamorous writing VB macros or PowerShell scripts, but there's lots of low-hanging fruit that can be plucked by beginners with simple tools.

That said, with the exception of choice of first project, I think I agree entirely. The important thing is seeing the world around you as something that you can take action to improve. Coding software is one simple (but powerful) tool to do so.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm really passionate about coding so I love doing it again and again, but I don't think this argument is helping a lot:

> You do it all again. You learn to iterate. You learn that nothing is ever > finished, and everything can be improved.

Building software is like any realisation in any domain: you don't keep doing it because you have to, you keep doing it because you enjoy it, and you enjoy the results you've made.

By saying what I quoted, you kinda mean that "No matter how hard you try, it won't be enough". That's a very harsh thing to say to people who aren't even passionated by the field but just want to get a grip on it.

Other than that, I think this post is very interesting, even for coders: we should remember that coding is a tool to build stuff, not a goal in itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't have to be negative, but I can see how easy it is to read "You do it all again" and think it's discouraging.

The intention is not to say "No matter how hard you try, it won't be enough." It's to say "Once you build one thing, there's still a whole bunch of other things to build and improve!"

That's an incredibly motivating concept to me, that software is forever changing around us and we can just keep choosing to latch ourselves onto various bits and pieces and run with those changes. But perhaps others like the comfort of checking skills off a list and calling them done and then moving on to a different discipline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I keep recommending this method but I honestly think this is the best way to approach coding for the newbie.

1) Figure out what you want to learn first.

2) Get some reference books, cheat cheats etc. join StackExchange and a couple of channels on IRC.

3) Spend some money on a subscription for Lynda.com and take on e of the courses there.

4) Instead of diving into the coding watch the course without doing any code. Just suck in the terminology, see what the results are, get an undertanding about how things in the beginning will be used later on.

5) Now watch the course again but this time start doing what they ask you to.

6) Create your own version of what they just showed you how to build (ex. a CMS system)

</comment><comment><USER9> Also here are a couple more good classic resources to learn from: [http://tryruby.org/levels/1/challenges/0](http://tryruby.org/levels/1/challenges/0) and [https://www.codementor.io/](https://www.codementor.io/)

<comment><USER10> Any tips how to teach people OOP?

I tried it with the codecademy stuff and everything worked fine, but when I tried a simple project the students didn't understand the difference between a method and a function (where does "this" come from? etc.)

Most people are rather fast in doing procedural stuff. Using APIs to load and save stuff. Reading inputs, writing outputs etc. Most of the functional things they get right pretty quick. But the more abstract things, like objects, encapsulation don't come to them easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm also a self-taught engineer and, when I was starting, the best way I found to learn how to code was to first figure out what I wanted to build. For instance, at the time I new HTML, but not much about server side programming or databases. I decided I wanted to build a dynamic website with user registration, login and posts on a wall. Then, I split that "project" up in small pieces and tried to figure out how to do each one of them. When I knew what I wanted and the pieces I had to build it was easier to search for resources to read. I believe this way it becomes easier to associate what you learn from the programming language with what they are used for.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been saying this for a few months now. Although I love what the learn2code movement is trying to do, what people really want is to learn how to build things.

To facilitate this, we started Major League Hacking ([http://mlh.io](http://mlh.io)), the NCAA of Hackathons. Since it's inception last year, we've had over 10,000 students take part in MLH Hackathons.

A large number of those students had never built something before. Many didn't even code when they arrived. Once you show someone what they can build, it becomes infinitely easier to convince them to learn2code.</comment>


Google Glass future clouded as some early believers lose faith - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-google-glass-insight-idUSKCN0IY18E20141114 <comment><USER2> Google needed to do either of two things: make the software good enough to be acceptable, or provide source code so that people could fix the issues bothering them themselves. They did neither of those things. Instead, they took the open-source Android operating system, made a closed-source fork, and proceeded to go around breaking APIs to stop regular Android software from working.

When I got Glass in November 2013 (XE11), I could run an ssh client on it and use it with a Bluetooth keyboard, along with lots of other Android software. A month later (XE12), they somehow managed to break the dialog box API. And XE11 was configured with the most aggressive auto-updater you'll ever see, so you couldn't stay back. Four months after that, they released the brick-half-the- fleet update (XE16). (That happened because Glass was configured with no swap, all their users had 1GB memory devices, but all their internal testers had 2GB memory devices. The updater would run out of memory mid-update and die, leaving an unbootable system.) As a side effect, that update also flashes a hidden firmware so XE11 won't boot anymore. Also, it strips out everything related to bluetooth keyboard support. Also, it disables touchpad gestures for Android apps.

Also, the terms of service for the Glass SDK are incompatible with the GPL, ban charging for Glass sofware, and ban advertising in Glass software, so there's basically no third-party software and none coming.

Oh, and it sends all your photos to Google (can't disable auto-backup even by rooting and messing with internals). And if you pair it with a phone, it copies any text messages stored on that phone, and sends those to Google.

This is very sad, because the hardware itself is excellent, and it (almost) does something that I really really wanted. XE11 worked well enough that I invested considerable time and energy into it, and I ended up walking away feeling like Google was constantly sabotaging my efforts.

Meanwhile the pace of actually-useful updates is utterly glacial; there clearly aren't enough developers working on it to have any hope of fixing the outstanding issues. So yeah, I've given up hope on Glass. I'll revisit it if they open the source code or announce new management with someone who understands software at the helm.

<comment><USER3> I hadn't considered that use case. How nice would it be to have a terminal in one eye where you could sit in any position with a keyboard on your lap and never need a desk?

Now I want a terminal strapped to my face.

<comment><USER4> that's (sadly) what I keep envisioning an occulus for.

not for convenience, simply to shut out the rest of the world. full screen mode on steroids.

<comment><USER5> The mention of steroids seems spot on. I'd imagine using the Oculus for long time spans and/or demanding tasks would have so many side effects, like severe eye-strain, lack of resolution of the environment, lack of reactivity to external inputs, and so much more.

<comment><USER6> In the future, we all (developers / engineers) go to work by getting out of bed and strapping on a helmet to join our team in a virtual office environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was part of the first batch of Glass Explorers to receive the device in early 2013. I was extremely optimistic about Glass before getting one of my own, but it only took a couple of months for that optimism to fade, and I've only worn them two or three times in the past year.

As others have pointed out, the cost of using Glass is high, and I'm not just talking about the monetary cost. There's a social cost as well, as lots of people will stop you in public to have a conversation about Glass. Most of them are just curious, but I've encountered my fair share of people who are judgement or even overtly hostile. (I live in SF, which is a fairly forward- thinking city, so I imagine it was worse for people in other areas.)

Based on my experiences, it seems that when you merely possess technology, people tend to acknowledge and refer to it distinctly. However, when you _wear_ technology, people increasingly conflate _you_ and your _character_ with the technology itself. The difference between walking around with a phone in your hand and walking around wearing Glass is the difference between carrying a tube of paint and painting your face green.

In my opinion this was predictable and Google should have anticipated it. (This is why studying psychology is important.) They should've focused on giving early Explorers an "excuse" to wear Glass, but they did the opposite. Ideally, we could've presented ourselves by saying, "I'm wearing this because I'm a tester. Want to try them on?" Instead, more often than not, conversations would begin with the other party saying, "So you paid $1500 for these?" That's not a great starting point in any way, shape, or form.

I've heard that things were similar when headphones first started catching on for mainstream use. The difference is that headphones were worth the cost. By contrast, the incremental improvements that Glass makes over a smartphone aren't worth the social/physical costs of wearing something on your face.

<comment><USER8> _> it seems that when you merely possess technology, people tend to acknowledge and refer to it distinctly. However, when you wear technology, people increasingly conflate you and your character with the technology itself._

This is because things you choose to wear are fashion choices, and the whole reason people choose one fashion over another is to make a statement about who they are.

In this respect, Glass is no different than regular glasses; all regular glasses serve the same functional purpose of correcting impaired vision, but a pair of (say) Warby Parkers also make a particular statement about the personality of the person wearing them.

The chasm Glass has fallen into is that the fashion meaning of a particular thing is decided collectively by the culture, not by the people who created it. And the culture has collectively decided that the fashion statement Glass makes is "I am a turbo nerd."

<comment><USER9> I think the friction is because the statement is much worse than "I am a turbo nerd."

Glass (rightfully or not) has come to stand for both useless trinkets for the tech-wealthy _and_ pervasive surveillance of the masses by a large corporation, so wearing it really comes off as saying "I have more money than you _and_ I'm going to use it to let Google record videos of you too!"

A camera-less Google Glass at a lower pricepoint would simply say "I am a turbo nerd" and would probably be much more acceptable.

<comment><USER10> I tried taping over the camera in my Glass, because I don't use that feature at all, and I don't want anyone to think I'm using it. It turns out that there's also an ambient light sensor in there that adjusts the brightness, so you can't see anything if you do that.

So my Glass goes unused, because I don't feel comfortable wearing it anywhere.

<comment><USER11> >I don't want anyone to think I'm using it.

Moot now if you're not using it, but you know, even if your tape was as big as a golf ball, as a passerby I'm not going to know or think that your camera is covered, because I avoid looking anywhere near the things. And for all I know it could be a hardware hacked version with the camera hole elsewhere. So your goal was not being achieved. And it still might be recording audio. If you're wearing it, I have to take your word for it. If you're not, I don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have low vision. The Glass is a wonderful tool for me. The heads-up navigation that helps me walk around in areas I don't know well is great. I can't read the street signs very well and having the audio tell me and help me "see" them better is great.

I think this tool has a lot of potential to make people's lives better.

But instead, people crap all over it and stigmatize it. And that's why I can't really wear it much anymore. I find it useful, but people call me a "glasshole" \- especially other developers.

Fact: If you look different, people will make fun of you. Apparently that isn't something you outgrow as an adult.

<comment><USER13> It's not because you "look different".

You're pointing a video camera in people's faces without asking. That's very rude.

<comment><USER12> I'm pointing a camera at you when I read the messages on my phone too. After all, the camera on the back is facing you. Doesn't mean I'm using the camera.

The "camera in my face" is just an excuse. You're _actually_ being recorded by other things. Anyone who takes the time to learn about Glass would know that the battery would last about 10 seconds if I had the damn camera on :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem with Glass is first and foremost the price. All else would be forgiven if they priced it at $100. Think about this: the problem is that only a few people have it and they were "lucky" to pay $1,500 for it. Do you remember the kind of hate the original iPhone got when it cost $600 and up? Glass is almost 3x more expensive, pricing it right where most people cannot have it, yet don't like for others to have it either.

Now, I am not saying that this comes down to the sandbox "that's my toy" mentality. No, I am saying that the majority of people who are perpetuating the bad stigma associated with Glass have never used it themselves because it's simply inaccessible to them. Problems like "I can take a picture of you without knowing it" would be addressed much quicker if a larger slice of the population was using/misusing the device.

The secondary problem, the one that's much harder to fix, is that Glass provides no practical benefits. It's not giving you much extra information, it's not enhancing your life. If it showed me part numbers as I look under the hood of my car, or alerted me to lower prices at a different store as I look at a price tag, that'd be one thing. But its current tech is too limited. The "magic" is just not there. I don't care that I can capture an image of what I'm looking at currently, I can already do that. What I cannot do is quickly identify the type of timing belt in front of me, etc.

<comment><USER15> The worst part of the price is how incredibly unjustifiable it is relative to the hardware.

$100 is probably lower than they can go without using an Amazon Kindle style ad subsidy program but with relatively standard electronics margins they should be able to sell this for about $200.

Even with Appleesque margins they could sell it for less than $400. $1500 is just redonkulous.

<comment><USER14> It occurs to me that if a company like Amazon could sell a competing device for like $300, they would. My guess is that nobody but Google currently sees a market for this type of product.

<comment><USER16> Google probably data mines all of the pictures and video from all users for commercially relevant information. Probably why they make users sign that horrible EULA -- to try to separate themselves from potential thorny legal challenges of users illegally gathering said commercial information (mostly unwittingly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I always thought "face Segway" was the perfect name for Glass.

As soon as it looks like normal glasses I'll consider trying it. Or even better, contact lenses.

<comment><USER18> Funny, I told my friends who got into Glass early on that it will go way of the Segway, to be used for things like museum tours and not much else.

Always be weary of things that are hyped to be the next big thing. The real next big thing won't need any hype. I can't trust the judgement of someone who got into Glass early anymore.

<comment><USER19> Like the iPad: "oh, look, an iPod resized, worthless..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was really excited about Glass back when it came out. I bought one as a college student to develop on, and it helped me make connections that got me to where I am today, however I was a little disappointed with all the stigma that grew around it. It makes me feel like the true intentions of the Glass project was a social experiment by Google to introduce something quite controversial and see how it fared in the current social/technology climate in America. I could never bring myself to wear it in public due to the animosity and perpetuating "Glasshole" mentality. I recently sold it on eBay after living in its box for a few months.

<comment><USER21> > the true intentions of the Glass project was a social experiment by Google > to introduce something quite controversial and see how it fared in the > current social/technology climate in America.

Honestly I think the true intentions of Google Glass were exactly what they claimed to be. It's really a testament to the problems of letting engineers make decisions on consumer technology. The social problems of Glass were obvious as soon as they were exposed to real users, so the question is, how on earth did they manage to spend so much money and time developing the product without doing the slightest bit of user research beforehand? I mean really. I know Google has money to burn, but this is just ridiculous.

<comment><USER22> If the social problem of Glass were its only challenge, the product still could have launched properly. But that's only the beginning of the Glass troubles. I mean, they were demoing prototypes over two years ago and they still don't have a real product?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> From what I've heard through the bushes, Glass is going under a major redesign (hardware/software) from the ground up.

<comment><USER24> I'd like to know more, if you know more. Especially about software. Is Google Wear going to change a lot?

<comment><USER25> I heard through the trees that they are going full suppository.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Paul Graham already explained why Glass won't be successful: [http://www.paulgraham.com/segway.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/segway.html)

The answer: you look and sound like an insufferable tool when you wear one.

</comment><comment><USER22> You know what's a great idea? A wearable bluetooth screen attached to glasses that lets you have always-visible time and GPS information and notifications fed from your phone.

You know what's a bad idea? Everything else they did with Glass.

Seriously, just kill the Glass project and hand the brand over to their wearables division to figure out how to get something actually to market.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've always thought that glass didn't stand a chance in the consumer market; battery technology just isn't anywhere close to where it needs to be in order to make Glass a practical personal accessory. The last thing the consumer wants is _another_ battery meter to manage, especially one that is inconvenient to charge because it's supposed to sit on your face all day.

<comment><USER28> I'm a little bit disappointed that it isn't going to make the enterprise. I work in a science lab, and it would be awesome to have it racked by the door so that I put it on as soon as I get in and I can verbally take notes, video, and photographs, seamlessly throughout the day, and then re-rack it at the end of the day.

Because it's all a matter of work, this also avoids most of the sticky issues of privacy, etc.

<comment><USER29> Hmm. Not really. But privacy still comes into data management and storage. Where you back up to and when and what protocal it uses, when you are recording/taking pictures of whose work in what room. I might be allowed to take all the pictures I like of my work, but I might not have permission to do the same of my co-workers. Or a picture of my coworker eating a sandwich in the wrong place in a lab, might open up a univeristy/lab to a lawsuit.

For example I think not everyone would like anyone in their lab (including vistors) being able to record their work without permission.

Not being able to adapt the code to ensure that these will be followed without people needing to think about it, is a weakness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's obviously not consumer ready but Google has been saying that all along, I don't know why everyone acts like it's already failed when they clearly state this isn't ready for primetime yet.

<comment><USER31> You get exactly one chance at making a first impression. Google botched this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Remember the Segway?

[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/segway.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/segway.html)

<comment><USER33> Like Glass, Segway is likely just too early a generation of its technology.

In a decade or two, Segways will probably form an important link of the autonomous transportation system.

<comment><USER34> Driverless Segways?

<comment><USER33> Seems like an obvious step to me, particularly given that they are otherwise suited for limited, controlled areas and operational speeds.

<comment><USER35> I don't think that "driverless" segways have much of a niche in most versions of a driverless future.

The potential for segways or at least segway-like-transportation-vehicles are, it seems to me, in a rail-dominated world. The fundamental problem with rail infrastructure is that rail only takes you to stations, and that stations are expensive (along several axes) but since you can't take your car on the train, you're limited to a very small radius around the station. Segways would extend that radius dramatically, making a functional rail infrastructure de facto cheaper.

Most versions of "driverless cars" futures destroy rail-based infrastructure. They take all the advantages of rail and give them to the (already more popular) cars. At that point, your car can drop you off right next to your destination (and then go park itself elsewhere if necessary), so why do you need a segway?

The versions of "driverless cars" that don't destroy rail-based infrastructure, I think, make "driverless segways" unlikely as well.

<comment><USER33> See my comment above, but the idea would be that you build your architecture, from the building to the town/city level, around the more efficient segway- sized form factor as opposed to the bulkier car-sized form factor that's better suited for distance travel.

<comment><USER35> Predictions based on, "First, we'll completely redo our architecture from the ground up" are likely false.

It seems like you have a (pleasant!) vision in mind, but not like you've taken a lot of time with the practicalities of it or how we get from here to there.

So, first: the size of cars isn't principally about distance travel. Cars are built for speed (as soon as you're doing about 20mph, wind in your face becomes annoying for most people most of the time, and noise becomes high, and safety becomes an issue), for protection from the weather, and for cargo storage. Driverless cars may well become a little smaller, but there are plenty of reasons they'll stay fundamentally cars, not segways.

Second: you can't build your architecture from the building to the city around segways. We already have cities. We can change them incrementally, but redoing them from scratch is just too expensive (again, on a number of axes) to contemplate. And incremental changes aren't going to go your way. People will get the driverless cars that work with how the cities work TODAY, and then those people will become a constituency for incremental changes to the city that will make the city MORE car-oriented, not less.

Seriously, the full-featured, relatively cheap driverless car future is one in which public transit declines drastically in importance. It is absolutely not one in which people restructure their cities around transit.

<comment><USER33> Speed, weather, and cargo storage are mostly about transportation over...distances. For most shorter hops you need none of those things. Hence my statement.

Of course existing cities wouldn't be rebuilt from scratch. But cities change _all the time_.

Driverless cars certainly are better suited for the way cities are today. But as it becomes obvious that there are alternatives that don't require as much wasted real estate as cars use, and that crucially don't give up the personal freedom that cars provide, cities can and will adapt to that.

The city of 2035 will likely be moving down that kind of path, whatever the exact details look like. New development will be designed for it from the ground up.

This is just how transformation happens.

<comment><USER35> Speed (at the ranges that we are talking about) is important at the distances that we are talking about. Weather and cargo storage are totally distance- independent.

But let's take a step back. We're imagining the sort of default rosy driverless-vehicle future, right? Driverless cars can be made that are fully autonomous, at least as safe as human drivers in essentially all conditions, and not terrifyingly expensive.

We agree that in that case the driverless car is strictly more attractive to riders than the drivered-cars of today are, right? So if the value that a person today puts on having a car is A, and the value that future person puts on having a future car is B, then B > A? Indeed, B is much greater than A?

And we also agree that today, cities are pretty car-oriented? So A is large ENOUGH that cities pander to it to a large degree? And there's a positive feedback cycle here where when cities pander to cars, that makes cars actually more valuable compared to the competition.

Now what you're saying is that when we replace A with B, where B >>> A, cities will (eventually) pander to cars less. Why?

The thing that you suggest is that cars waste real estate. Which, certainly, they do. I do note in passing that driverless cars might waste less real estate (for example, they could be sent to more distant and more inconvenient parking structures, or the utilization of people / car could go up with a rides-for-hire model). But whatever, at the very least the real estate efficiency of driverless cars is no worse than the real estate efficiency of regular cars.

So meanwhile, today, the rail + maybe something like segway model has value X. We agree that X < A, right? That in America at least cars provide more value than transit, and so people get cars, and so cities pander to cars. Now you seem to be envisioning that in the driverless future, rail + segways have value Y, and Y is not only > X, it's also > A, and in fact > B. Why? What is it about driverless segways that is so great? Unlike driverless cars, they don't seem like they provide much value for their users (you aren't going to read a book while your driverless segway takes you to your destination, and though maybe they'd be a little better when drunk).

And, further, we're saying that driverless segways are that awesome even if they have to reverse some inertia of cities currently being designed kind of "against" them, and indeed, even if they have to reverse yet more inertia because the FIRST thing that happens in our driverless future is people buy driverless cars and become a constituency for even more city-pandering-to- cars.

I don't see it. Maybe if it takes a long time to get to driverless cars, because right now I think that the car domination of the world is getting a bit milder. Maybe if the current trend continues for a few decades, and then cities have become more hostile to cars, driverless or otherwise, the increased value of cars won't be enough that it will get over the inertia.

But if we get good driverless cars in the next decade or fifteen years? In- city rail is just going to die in almost all cities. And once it's dead, it will be dead for a long, long time.

<comment><USER33> You're kinda taking the "faster horses" side of things, if you know what I mean.

You're comparing the real estate efficiency of cars to driverless cars, which is not what I'm doing. I'm comparing the RE efficiency of cars to segways, and segways win that hands-down, no comparison.

The other benefit is psychological. You transform a development from being centered around cars to being centered around people. Even a person on a segway is a person. A person in a car is a car. This, I would maintain, is the larger benefit to average citizen. It's a more desirable experience.

Developers win with more usable real estate, citizens win with a much more pleasant scale and experience.

The segways would be for intra-area transportation, the driverless cars for inter-area.

The bigger assumption you're making is that people will "have" cars, and I'm not sure that will be the case. For me, that's the biggest unknown about transportation in the next couple of decades. Will people own cars, or will they merely use cars from a large pool of cars (either civic or corporately owned)?

Uber, for example, is starting to promote the idea of not owning a car at all to young people. They've been doing a good job of hyping the convenience of that lifestyle, and a limited set of people have bought into it already. I also recently noticed they're starting to play a prestige angle with black SUVs and so on. They're actively playing that up, which fills the other need personal cars currently serve.

Uber's endgame is very clearly a fleet of autonomous cars, and some cities are making very early sounds about building their own fleets.

I don't know how that's going to shake out. There are powerful forces pushing both ways.

But, if personal car ownership does become a thing of the past, a lot of the pressure you imagine for city development to have an even greater universal (as opposed to limited areas) accommodation for cars goes away.

The other major unknown is if cities simply become less desirable in 20-30 years. Given increasing automation, the nature of work may change to a degree that some of the economic incentives for city living decrease. That trend, if it even builds at all, will be slower to develop, but potentially even more powerful.

<comment><USER35> You're misunderstanding my comparison.

I'm saying, "real segways are more space efficient than real cars. Despite that, people prefer cars to segways (by a gigantic margin)." So from there, I get to, "future segways will be more space efficient than future cars, but I don't see that turning people towards future segways -- because we can already tell that people don't value space highly enough to make them want segways, and it's going to be pretty much the same comparison in the future."

Here's another bit of pseudo math: real cars >>> real segways. Driverless cars >>> real cars. Driverless segways ~= real segways. Thus driverless cars >>>>> driverless segways.

I'm not taking a stance on the ownership model of cars, either. I don't know if in a driverless car world people would own them or rent them for hours or days at a time or rent them for the duration of a single ride. I'm just saying that people will USE them a lot. And regardless of who owns the car, if everyone USES the driverless cars a lot, then cities will be built around cars.

And cities that are built around cars are hostile to segways, driverless or otherwise.

You say this intriguing thing: "The segways would be for intra-area transportation, the driverless cars for inter-area."

I think that my fundamental point is that that doesn't seem true. If driverless cars are highly available to people, I think they'll just use the driverless cars end-to-end. Your driverless car trip will put you at the doorstep of wherever you're going. At that point you don't need a segway.

Segways are for when your inter-area transportation CAN'T get you the last mile of where you're going -- that is, they're for rail. And rail, I think, is dead if we get driverless cars soon.

<comment><USER33> > You say this intriguing thing: "The segways would be for intra-area > transportation, the driverless cars for inter-area."

Yeah, this is the root of our disagreement. As I see it, the reason this doesn't happen now is a matter of convenience. As things stand now, there's the friction of transitioning from car to segway. In a fully automated world, I see that friction largely disappearing. You get out of the car, it goes away. The segway is waiting for you. It delivers you and goes away itself. There's very little friction.

It's true this only makes sense in certain kinds of living situations. Suburbs seem unlikely to go this way (though there was a brief trend last decade to more pedestrian-y suburban town center development). But for urban areas, this kind of development increases what people like about urban living, and decreases what they don't like. I don't think people know they want it, but I also don't think it's something they've been given much to consider. When they have, like 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica, it's been hugely popular. Segways would allow you to scale that up considerably, and expand it beyond retail and entertainment, possibly to an entire city center.

We're in agreement about the future of passenger rail. It looks bleak decades down the line. Interestingly, Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles said much the same just a few months ago. He wondered in public if it made much sense to keep building massive rail projects given that automated cars were coming.

[http://laist.com/2014/09/30/mayor_garcetti_wants_to_turn_wes...](http://laist.com/2014/09/30/mayor_garcetti_wants_to_turn_westwo.php) "How do you spend billions of dollars on fixed rail when we might not own cars in this city in a decade or a decade and a half?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> As someone in the AR space, even I wouldn't use glass, BUT it has been amazing for getting the word out about what AR is and that has been invaluable. Instead of having to explain to people what AR is, all I have to say is "You know google glass?" and they immediately get it.

I think there are a couple of big problems with glass:

1\. It doesn't do AR substantively, which is the breakthrough feature, instead its basically just a semi-transparent floating screen

2\. Its got a photo taking camera on it*

3\. Interacting with it is cumbersome/clunky

To do 1 effectively, it needs to be full field of view or at least the bulk of the FOV, which is a major issue with lenses that close to the eye and why I think they acquired Magic Leap.

2 is a fairly simple fix but would need a whole new re-branding and google may have burned this bridge already.

3 is really a tough thing to figure out but I think could be done with CV gestures that aren't physical touch based, but rather view orientation based. So for example if you look down, you immediately get your apps displayed and you can use your hand to select/type in a similar form function as people do now with phones.

*I make the distinction about photo taking because if the camera was only used for CV/tracking on device and had no "photo taking" feature, people would be less worried about it. And yes I am aware that images are still taken, its the distinction in what is happening by default that the public in general cares about.

<comment><USER33> To me the fact that it doesn't really do AR is the major problem. It only does what my phone does, with a slightly more convenient interface. It really needed a whole new set of features and benefits, not just somewhat improved versions of the existing mobile ones.

<comment><USER37> It's very much a prototype project. The primary benefit is not so much in the product itself but rather that it makes the new concept viable and ready to exploit.

It's not that different from the first iPhone, which was really just a touch screen media player with a phone antenna.

<comment><USER33> True enough. And I realize we're a ways off from full AR, just for hardware reasons. But some token gestures in that direction would have helped. Something to show the promise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I have a pair, and while I haven't had much time to experiment with it yet, the little bit I have done, I think they got several things right.

1) The 'viewport' is out of sight if you're not looking up and to the right. This gives it the non-intrusive aspect that allows someone to wear it while engaging in everyday activities.

2) The 'pairing' with another Android device I think allows the developer to leave heavy computation / work off of the small Glass device to conserve battery.

3) The form-factor. I think it's very lightweight, and again non-intrusive aspect that doesn't make it a burden to those who don't already wear glasses.

I haven't dug in deeply recently, but originally I had the sense that there's not enough integration with popular 3rd party apps. Engagement from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. would probably help with adoption, though the pricepoint is definitely something I see most people struggling with. Perhaps tight integration with things like Google Apps might make it appealing to small or larger but agile businesses.

I think this could be both a consumer and business play in terms of adoption, though I think the path to business adoption may be more straightforward in terms of the kinds of apps that would need to be developed.

I can imagine alot of really interesting things might start happening once Google has made Tango available for mass adoption.

      https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/#project

Let's hope they don't shut the door on this too quickly. The idea is so new and different that it could take some time before folks really sink their teeth into how it can be used where there's real value to the consumer / business who is going to make the investment.

</comment><comment><USER29> They could have fixed the privacy issues by simply making a loud noise and flash if you took a picture. That would bring it in line with european/japanese/chinese laws against creepers. The fact they never fixed that, made it seem like a "creeper product". Who wants to be seen like that? Who would buy ? Very limited number.

<comment><USER39> I wonder if the camera is actually needed. They made it the key feature in the advertisements, but anecdotally it appears people are not using it. So why not remove it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm a bit of a google fan boy and even I have no interest in buying one. I think glass is a bit ahead of its time and something (if not a new version of glass) will eventually take its place. The chances of people becoming less connected in the future than we are today are very low in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER41> Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. When I saw first glass I thought using a prostheses as a dream object was not such a good idea.

Glass jumped stations to reach the head, a point still in premature interaction with a long distance of motion travel of the hands to control it. The head is like in another planet to be reached compared to a watch even a cellphone.

Google went all-in directly to the head when the way to go was wrist, arm, shoulder, neck and then head. In any of the cases the glass experience provided Google with rich information about wearable and its adoption.

I am not sure if Brin will compromise his figure that much in the future with early developed technologies. Even should have been discouraging as leader, but was not his fault since he believed.

Glass was and is a great lesson for the industry.

</comment><comment><USER42> So Glass has been available to developers for close to two years, there's still no release date, and it's a surprise that no one wants to develop for it? At this rate, it's unlikely it will ever be released to consumers and even if it is, that's the assumption anyone investing time and money into developing apps for it should be thinking about. All other issues aside--and from the comments here there are quite a few--investing in Glass is essentially a horrific idea outside of possible niche commercial markets. By extension at this point, so would releasing Glass to consumers without software. Yet another bungled google product poised to join the deadpool before release.

</comment><comment><USER43> For consumers the device is not ready but I would wager that a fair amount of value could be gained from using it in an enterprise context. All sorts of jobs get easier if you have access to data hands free - surgeons being the most obvious case.

</comment><comment><USER44> I got Glass in April 2013. I realized that I used Google Glass to solve two problems:

1) Taking pictures and video of my day. 2) Telling the time.

The notifications features were not useful to me and being seen in public with the device on was embarrassing. I ended up deciding to make my own version of Glass (called Lambda Hat) that was more discrete and solved the first problem above and left the second to my cellphone.

</comment><comment><USER45> I recently ran into Ivy Ross. I asked her why she was not wearing glass. She said that she's prepping for a shift. I don't know what exactly she was eluding to; but I feel optimistic abut the future of glass.

</comment><comment><USER46> a lot of people get contact lenses and lasik to get rid of glasses.

the only really accepted form of glasses is sunglasses, because hiding your eyes is a nice feeling. people can't read you. our brain aims for the eyes to read emotion.

genius idea to pick that spot of the body to interfere with tech.

<comment><USER31> That's exactly why I really dislike sunglasses and am not usually impressed with people wearing them where none are needed (as in, when the sun is shining directly into your eyes). Sunglasses are creepy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I think Google is betting more on "Magic Leap" than Glass. If "Magic Leap" is successful then I don't think Google will continue investing in Glass.

</comment><comment><USER48> Google Glass is a lot like Apple Watch. The cost is too steep to risk becoming the next bluetooth earpiece d-bag. Plus, glass gets pretty boring after 20-30 minutes of use.

</comment><comment><USER49> Perhaps it will be the Netwon to Google's iPad?

</comment><comment><USER50> The fact is, users can engage in activity with Google spyglass which puts them at a legal liability. They can unwittingly engage in commerce, violating rules of commerce of parties they record. This makes spyglass userbase a ripe new target for lawsuits.

Record traffic in an out of a retail business? Congratulations, your analyzing commercial activity. Better watch what you do with that footage, there are rules for that.

Record something that ends up being controversial and potentially costs someone business? Congratulations, you can count on being taken to court over that.

Record something innocent and then accuse or hint that someone is doing something criminal and posted it online? Well if you didn't specifically hand over the footage of the deed in question to the authorities, then you could very likely be hit with a defamation suit.

You're just one big market for bored lawyers as a spyglass luser.

<comment><USER16> I KNOW! Federal criminal law basically applies commercial rules to an individual natural person's behavior. Google glass users are blissfully unaware of how many opportunities they have to unwittingly fall afoul of that and become another notch in a bored, shysty federal prosecutor's belt. Hell, look what happened to Swartz. Great example of how AUSAs go after low hanging fruit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> NOBODY wants Google SPYGlass!

</comment><comment><USER50> The plain fact is, you can get glasses with cameras built in as COTS hardware. They don't have the garish google spyglass design, they don't cost a fortune, and they don't compromise the USERS privacy.

</comment><comment><USER51> Then again, Google also recently invested in Magic Leap.

<comment><USER51> Oh, downvotes. That's interesting :-)

The Magic Leap technology uses lightfields as the starting point to seamlessly blend virtual and augmented reality together. Those guys have a significantly larger scope of vision than the Google Glasses. Not surprised folks within Google are getting bored of it. The pivots from Glasses by third party developers are a red herring. Why keep developing Glasses when there is someone who is way further along?</comment></comment>


Mezzanine 1.1 and Cartridge 0.5 (Django CMS and Ecommerce platforms) released - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/group/django-users/browse_thread/thread/e7f55c29b203e75e

<comment><USER3> Can someone tell me about their experiences with it?

<comment><USER4> I'm using both on Tindie.com (an Etsy for homemade tech) and love them. I looked at the other Django ecommerce platforms, and they are honestly no where near Cartridge/Mezzanine interms of usability and ease for the administrator. Satchmo is the best known Django ecommerce platform. It has a lot more functionality out of the box (shipping & payment modules come already integrated), however apart from that, it is a headache.

If you are looking for something that has the basics down (cart, product details, customizable payment system), Cartridge and Mezzanine are the way to go IMO

<comment><USER5> Do check out LFS - Lightning Fast Store, eCommerce Solution on Django - <USER2> Full front end too(jQuery)

Its one of the best Django solutions I've come across.

I've worked with other bigger bloated eCommerce solutions - Magento, Opencart, Zencart. But LFS is seriously fast. Clean, well written code and stable.

I'm also using LFS here[1] for a furniture shop.

[1] <http://www.livinstyleindia.com/> (Its been a week since the site went Live)

<comment><USER6> The site title is still LFS. Also the blog menu item is highlghted most of the time. Also the stars need to be transparent.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, there are lot many things to fix. :)

<comment><USER7> On the plus side, the model on the home page is smokin'.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Famicom Party: Making NES Games in Assembly - <AUTHOR> https://book.famicom.party/ <comment><USER2> > Use your distribution's package manager to install WINE (e.g. apt-get > install wine), then launch NES Screen Tool from the command line as above > under "Mac"

This is something that I find rather off-putting about NESdev. It's very Windows-centric. I'm not used to GNU/Linux being treated as a second-class dev citizen, so I've started a small contribution towards fixing this. I've got a NES tile viewer that I hope will soon be a tile editor, written in PyQt for cross-platform aspirations:

[https://hg.sr.ht/~jordigh/Tilerswift/](https://hg.sr.ht/~jordigh/Tilerswift/)

Development has stalled, but I intend to get back to it.

<comment><USER3> Good news, there's a project that ported NES Screen Tool to cross-platform Qt, called "NESTool":

[https://github.com/jpwhiting/nestool](https://github.com/jpwhiting/nestool)

I made Mac and Windows builds, but I'm not sure yet how best to pre-compile a Linux version that works across distributions - any advice would be appreciated. I assume users can install Qt on their own, so I don't need to do static linking, but I'm not sure what needs to happen beyond that.

I'm in the process of updating the parts of the book that are already there to use it instead of NES Screen Tool. Looking at a few replacements for FamiTracker as well, so no one will need to use WINE to do NES development.

<comment><USER2> Personally, I'm happy building from source, especially for niche software. Just give me a working CMake or Qt .pro file and I can figure out the rest. I in fact rather dislike pre-built binaries. I don't trust them to work well and I don't trust them to work for a long time if they happen to rely on libraries that one day change (even the most statically compiled of static binaries still usually rely on libc).

And if your software ever gets popular enough, I expect one day my distribution will just package it for me. I'm happy with this arrangement. Source for niche software, apt/rpm for well-established software.

For my own Qt project, I decided to use PyQt so I could leverage fbs for distribution for Windows where they're not used to source code (Mac can rely on homebrew, as far as I'm concerned):

[https://build-system.fman.io/](https://build-system.fman.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks like a really nice introduction. And it looks like there's not too much to learn before writing basic programs for the NES (I could be wrong). A simple environment with static hardware makes it less intimidating to jump into.

Back in high school I started getting into Z80 programming on the TI-86 calculator. It was a great platform for learning. It wasn't too complicated to start making simple programs (you could even code directly on the calculator if you didn't mind inputting everything in Hex.) And it was an easy step to start doing graphics. This reminds me of that kind platform.

Sometimes I dream about getting back into ASM for fun. But I have so many other, more practical, things I'd like to learn (I'm not in software development). This is temping, though.

<comment><USER5> > And it looks like there's not too much to learn before writing basic > programs for the NES (I could be wrong).

You're not! The whole thing is very easy to pick up, and there's a lot more documentation nowadays than it used to be.

It's also possible to write useful programs in C, rather than ASM, if you're into that. neslib ( [https://github.com/clbr/neslib](https://github.com/clbr/neslib) ) does pretty much everything you need. cc65 ( [https://cc65.github.io/](https://cc65.github.io/) ) is a little quirky but definitely usable.

<comment><USER6> > It's also possible to write useful programs in C, rather than ASM, if you're > into that.

Have you done much of this? I looked into it a while back and it seemed like the style of C required was very much its own flavor. I'd been wanting to get some experience with Assembly, so I've been (slowly) coming up to speed with that instead.

<comment><USER5> > Have you done much of this?

I'm about 30% through such a project right now, and I have written C code for 6502-family CPUs in the past, although not specifically for the NES. I wouldn't say it's a lot of it, the way I wrote "a lot" of C code for x86, PPC or ARM, but I did definitely did use it to write more than trivial/one-off programs.

> I looked into it a while back and it seemed like the style of C required was > very much its own flavor.

As far as cc65 goes, I think it's (mostly?) ANSI-compliant. There are a couple of quirks that you need to be aware of due to the underlying processor, but that's true of any machine. For example, the 6502 lacks native arithmetic instructions for 16- and 32-bit operands, so the compiler won't generate the same kind of code for adding uint8_t operands and adding uint16_t operands.

Then, of course, each compiler has its own quirks :). cc65 doesn't do micro- optimizations, for example, so a lot of the things that we're taking for granted in gcc or clang don't happen automatically in cc65. But that's also true of pretty much any compiler, or, well, at least it used to be true back in the day.

But if you look at the code... it's pretty typical C, I've definitely seen worse. It's possible to write cleaner compilers targeting a much wider subset of C for 6502 than, say, for the 8051. I have absolutely no fond memories about programming that damn thing, in neither ASM, Pascal or C :). Some programmers are a little too inventive for their own good and hide a lot of stuff behind all sorts of macros and whatnot but you can definitely write the kind of C code that would be merged into the Linux kernel if it had a 6502 port.

I don't have any numbers but a lot, if not most of the current crop of indie/retro games aren't written in ASM anymore, at least not on platforms with decent C compilers (NES, SNES, Amiga...). Some games (platformers, side- scrollers) have a sufficiently regular structure that you can write them in Assembly without cursing the day you were born. But games that are less linear than that, or that require even the dumbest autonomous AI that's just a branching instruction smarter than "fire at every 3 seconds, use special ability if player_health < 10", are pretty painful to build without higher- level abstractions. It's definitely possible, it's just that debugging high- level problems ("why is this enemy not switching from offensive to defensive spells when its health drops below 50") in a low-level language is generally above the motivation threshold for things you do on your own time.

Either way, though, knowing your way around Assembly is a good idea. First, touching _some_ assembly code every once in a while is unavoidable. If you're writing games for old enough consoles, NES included, you do occasionally have to touch bootstrap code, and that's all LDA, CRN, HCF and ACDC. Second, most (cross) compilers that you can run today, whether modern or vintage and ran in an emulator, are orders of magnitude worse than gcc, clang or MS C/C++. The fact that compilers orders of magnitude worse than those can still be used to write entire programs is testament to just how good modern compilers are. But useful though they may be, they will still occasionally spit out really bad code, and while knowing enough Assembly to outdo the compiler isn't necessarily required, knowing enough to figure out when the compiler does something dumb and speculate on how to change your code to set it straight is really useful.

FWIW, I learned 6502 assembly first and I am, or I used to be, pretty good at it. Back when I first became interested in this topic, around 2002 or so, there weren't any good compilers available for free (cc65 was around but, as far as I remember, its support for the C64, which is what I cared for back then, wasn't exactly stellar. But I may be wrong, it's been a long time). But the tooling we have today is good enough that I rarely need to _write_ any.

<comment><USER6> I'm a novice C programmer at best, so (warranted or not) that bit of flavor was enough to give me pause. I thought if I was going to make an investment in learning something new, that it might as well be something that I'd already been wanting to learn and would be useful elsewhere.

I totally agree with you that just because you _can_ write complex games in Assembly, that doesn't mean you should. I wasn't knocking using C to write NES games at all and won't claim to even begin to know how to address that scenario you laid out.

Anyways, your answer was interesting, informative and full of what sounds like hard won wisdom. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. If you're up to sharing the details, I'd be interested in checking out your games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Famicom had educational games in East Asia I know Thailand has several Famicom clones with keyboards and joysticks to play educational games on it. Each one costs like $35USD and hooks up to a PAL TV.

The Commodore 64 had an advantage over the Famicom in that it could use cassettes and floppy disks to store the games on and could have them in BASIC or assembly.

<comment><USER8> The Famicom had a floppy disk drive too. I've got one and a few games on floppy like Zelda.

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

<comment><USER9> Anyone who ever wondered why Excite Bike had that awesome track designer but no way to save tracks across restarts, it was intended to work with the FDS and on the Japanese version you could save them to a disk, if you had the peripheral. Learning that some years ago solved a minor mystery from my childhood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've often wondered why the software industry as a whole is so biased towards automotive and factory metaphors eg Toyota JIT manufacturing and nobody ever talks about the quality and joie de vivre of early video game software teams

<comment><USER6> I think this is what you're alluding to, but it is shocking how small some of the NES teams mentioned in this book are! The teams that made Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers were comprised of ~five people and only one or two of them were programmers.

<comment><USER10> Yes the teams were tiny and well dressed and working at the cutting edge of technology of the day building everything from the level of assembly

I'm telling you these are the people to emulate not the factory practices at the other Japanese company

Perhaps if building hardware it can be considered but the whole Toyota model is more about building a management structure around something that really doesn't need one

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The biggest pain in the bum with early consoles like the NES is all the cartridge hardware you have to muck about with. I'm sure most of you reading this already know but the gist of it is that NES cartridges had their own special chips inside them that were there to improve the abilities of the NES over time.

Stuff like better scanline interrupts and Japan only sound chips (Due to changes to the cartridge port in the west) which you'll probably know about if you decided to listen to Castlevania 2/3's soundtrack on Youtube and found it different to what you remembered. The most common feature was to turn the character rom into a pseudo or even proper RAM so you could use way more graphics and tons of nifty techniques that made stuff better.

Anyway, from a quick sift through this looks like a good site and far nicer than a lot of console development sites. (Sorry coranac, your site is a goldmine but the tiny font against that background gives me a headache)

</comment><comment><USER12> News article from 2009 on the project to turn cheap street NES clones into educational computers.

[https://www.wired.com/2009/03/12-computers- ba/](https://www.wired.com/2009/03/12-computers-ba/)

</comment><comment><USER13> this looks nice but after going thru the first part, I just noticed that the book is not only unfinished but also seems like the author may not be paying attention to it anymore... last blog post is over a year ago. Too bad.

</comment><comment><USER14> "HN" dearly needs such books, about assembler coding for all kinds of hardware.

<comment><USER15> Absolutely. Imagine if they were to learn how to do something else than webdev.</comment></comment>


Corporate Venture Capital (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/07/corporate-ventu.html This is an older one, but Fred mentioned in his current update that it still holds true for his views on Google's new VC arm. <comment><AUTHOR> This is an older one, but Fred mentioned in his current update that it still holds true for his views on Google's new VC arm.</comment>


New Experimental Private Browsing and Add-Ons Features in Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/08/14/new-experimental-private-browsing-and-add-ons-features-ready-for-pre-beta-testing-in-firefox/

<comment><AUTHOR> Tracking protection has been in FirefoxDeveloperEdition for a while, even in non-private mode: [https://i.imgur.com/CzmSGZN.png](https://i.imgur.com/CzmSGZN.png)

However, I noticed there is a browser.trackingprotection.gethashURL setting in about:config set to [https://tracking.services.mozilla.com/gethash?client=SAFEBRO...](https://tracking.services.mozilla.com/gethash?client=SAFEBROWSING_ID&appver=%VERSION%&pver=2.2)

Apparently tracking protection uses the same mechanism as safe browsing, which ironically has some privacy or tracking issues.

There's more info about tracking protection in this blog post: [https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/11/12/quantifying- the-effects-of-firefoxs-tracking-protection/)</comment>


What's that Boston/Cambridge gathering, and is it today or yesterday? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Today.

<http://www.webinnovatorsgroup.com/></comment>


Series circuit - 3 LEDs - Anyone care to explain how this works? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTvDjhImwo <comment><AUTHOR> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzDTZuFJYX4> Mind Blown

<comment><USER2> hah there was a recent interview with teller from penn and teller in which he says that people consider what he does magic, simply because no one would ever even consider putting the effort and time to learn the skills required for tricks except for those who are truly willing to commit to it.

I guess this applies to this trick as well.</comment></comment>


A 1980s Quantum Link to a Modern-Day Mutiny - <AUTHOR> http://paleotronic.com/2018/07/01/a-1980s-quantum-link-to-a-modern-day-mutiny/ <comment><USER2> See also: _The Lessons of Lucasfilm 's Habitat_

[http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html](http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html)</comment>


The Limits of Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/classes/2015/09/take_a_wittgenstein_class_he_explains_the_problems_of_translating_language.single.html

<comment><USER2> It is quite striking to me that the decentralised, statistical, emergent treatment of meaning in PI fits so well with neural-networks and connectionism[1] whereas Fodor's "Language of Thought Hypothesis" and other opposing views seem wedded to "top-down" cognitive approaches.

Given the ability of neural nets to produce "modeling functionality" (like playing Breakout as though there was a model of the game somewhere in the AI) without requiring the actual model implementation, Ockham seems to favour Wittgenstein over Fodor &co. (despite the excellent qualities of the Fodor fog parody linked in the article[2].)

As PI is often at pains to show, however, our own naive thinking tends to assume that the modeling function of language is in virtue of some fundamental metaphysical relation with reality, so that when Wittgenstein wrote:

      "There must surely be a further, different connexion
      between my talk and N, for otherwise I should still not
      have meant HIM."

      Certainly such a connexion exists. Only not as you
      imagine it: namely by means of a mental mechanism.

he now seems to me to be aiming squarely at our inner cognitivist.

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

2: [http://garbage.world/fodor/](http://garbage.world/fodor/)

3: PI: #689

<comment><USER3> >decentralised, statistical, emergent

How do any of these buzzwords apply to anything that Wittgenstein says in PI?

>Ockham seems to favour Wittgenstein over Fodor &co

Fodor &co have _arguments_ for their position. The simplest explanation isn't the best explanation if it's wrong. And in any case, there's no obvious sense in which connectionist architectures are simpler than classical ones.

<comment><USER2> > buzzwords

Ok, so apologies for that - the point I was trying to make is that PI's view of "meaning is use" is consonant with some quite recent and popular (and therefore buzzword-prone) ideas about AI and psychology.

Right at the start of PI, the "Augustinian picture" of meaning is set out: "words in language name objects - sentences are combinations of such names" a picture where "every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands." And so (later, #81) we "think that if anyone utters a sentence, and _means_ or _understands_ it, he is operating a calculus according to definite rules." This is the view of language which PI aims to - sorry, buzzword incoming - disrupt.

By contrast, PI puts the case that there is no central unifying model applicable to all instances of language use, rather: "I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all - but that they are related to one another in many different ways, and it is because of this relationship, or these relationships that we call them all language." (PI #65)

There follows a discussion of vagueness. In the Augustinian picture where the meaning of a word is an object, and a calculus of these objects is performed, it is difficult to avoid the consequence that meanings are exact. PI uses the example of defining the word "game": "How should we explain to someone what a game is? I imagine that we should describe _games_ to him, and we might add: "This _and similar things_ are called 'games'". And do we know any more about it ourselves? [...] But this is not ignorance. We do not know the boundaries because none have been drawn. [...] we can draw a boundary - for a special purpose. Does it take that to make the concept usable? Not at all! [...] One might say that the concept 'game' is a concept with blurred edges."

So much for "decentralised" and "statistical". As far as "emergent" goes, I think even with the large variance in readings of PI it's uncontroversial to say that it seeks to ground meaning and understanding in relation to "customs" or social practices rather than in some variety of metaphysical correspondence between language and reality required by different variations of the Augustinian picture. In this sense, meaning emerges from the use of words relative to these cultural forms.

Connectionism, as an investigative paradigm, (oops, buzzword!) is simpler (I believe) in that it doesn't require the identification of an actual realised model (or "mental mechanism") such as a neural encoding of a "language of thought" or cognitive frames, etc., in the brain - it "just" requires that a bunch of simple elements can result in complex rule-following behaviour without needing to explicitly encode the rules. Hopefully the quotes above will go some way to indicate how this programme is philosophically somewhat in tune with PI.

(Indeed the extensive sections on samples and teaching language games are eerily reminiscent of descriptions of training neural nets, now that I think of it... "How do I explain the meaning of 'regular', 'uniform', 'same' [...] if a person has not yet got the _concepts_? I shall teach him to use the words by means of _examples_ and by _practice_ \- And when I do this I do not communicate less to him than I know myself." (PI #208))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book I've never managed to get past the first page. It's _really_ hard to read - Wittgenstein actually numbered all the _paragraphs_ so they can be discussed individually it's so dense. I'd still recommend picking up a copy though, because there's a foreword by Bertrand Russell that's really worthwhile reading.

<comment><USER5> > Wittgenstein actually numbered all the paragraphs so they can be discussed > individually it's so dense.

I'm not sure that this is indicative of particular density of the TLP, though; I believe that it is common practice in text-heavy scholarly works. (I can't cite any examples off the top of my head, so it's possible that my vague recollection is leading me astray.)

<comment><USER4> In twenty years of reading philosophy books it's the only one I've encountered that does it.

<comment><USER6> The Ethics?

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10155251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10155251)

</comment><comment><USER8> An interpretation of the limits of language aided by Finnegans Wake:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/what- ma...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/what-make- finnegans-wake/)</comment>


Letter of Recommendation: Blind Contour Drawing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-blind-contour-drawing.html

<comment><USER2> There is a great book on drawing [http://www.drawright.com/](http://www.drawright.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaïdes. This book sets out some extensive lesson plans, but you can tailor them to your own time allowances.</comment>


SF cafeteria ban proposal dismissed (but only narrrowly) - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/New-version-of-SF-corporate-cafeteria-ban-swatted-13672338.php?src=hp_totn <comment><AUTHOR> It's initiatives like this that make me really discouraged about distributed government among equal (read "no") responsibility city supervisors and a largely symbolic mayor.

These supervisors are basically posing for the camera and headlines, and never put forward solutions that do anything but tinker around the edges or placate their own district for a few months. Of course I'm specifically thinking about housing. But also in this case, how ridiculous is it to propose that thousands of workers have to go use local restaurants by banning alternatives? What kind of public policy professionals are these?

What can be done about this kind of Bay Area government idiocy?</comment>


Structure: Add some basic structure to your client-side JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://jimmycuadra.github.com/structure

<comment><USER2> I've been looking for something like this for a while. It's "just enough".</comment>


Show HN: A GitHub App that helps you split pull requests - <AUTHOR> http://splitity.com <comment><USER2> Interesting. I can definitely see a use case for this not when the PR is too large, but when you did something that the rest of the team needs quickly (i.e. I'm suggesting marketing it differently). For example, we've had a situation where we're in standup and someone says "has anyone seen this issue?" and another developer is like "oh yea I fixed that in my branch, I'll split it out so it can be merged separately". That's where your tool comes in.

The "PR is too large" angle is a developer practice problem that you shouldn't try to solve with a bandaid, especially considering the larger the PR the more complex splitting it will be even with a tool to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the feedback.

You make a great point. It should be less about splitting large pull requests but rather allowing for the ability to easily make your pull requests more atomic so that changes can be merged quicker when needed.

A lot of times unnecessarily large pull requests are preventable, and prevention of the problem is more ideal than having a solution to it. (I do think there are some situations where it may be unavoidable in having a large PR such as doing something experimental but this tool isn't exactly fit for it yet)

Will revise the copy</comment></comment>


From science fiction to reality – sonic tractor beam invented - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uos-fsf102215.php <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463175)</comment>


Use Outlook as a Google Reader Replacement - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5992435/use-outlook-as-a-google-reader-replacement

<comment><USER2> You can also use Thunderbird (Account Settings/Add Other Account) or Firefox (click an RSS link, choose Live Bookmarks, Subscribe Now).</comment>