Human-Centered AI: Building Trust, Democracy and Human Rights by Design - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/stanfords-gdpi/human-centered-ai-building-trust-democracy-and-human-rights-by-design-2fc14a0b48af <comment> d--b This is not specific to AI, this should apply to capitalism as a whole. AI is just a tool. It's the value system that needs to be addressed. Data-driven capitalism usually has one objective: maximize profit.

Take youtube recommendation engine for instance. I am an engineer and I am really interested in a lot of stuff, physics, arts, economy, you name it. But on youtube I don't get recommendation for Feynman's lectures on Physics, or guided visits of the Louvre collection, I get shit like: "what happens if you throw a ton of dry ice in a pool" or "the sharpest knife made of cardboard" or "10 unforgettable goals".

This is pushing addictive crap on me, because the objective function of the recommendation engine literally is: maximize the time people spend watching stuff. Why? Because of ad revenues!

What culture needs to curb is capitalism. AI will follow.

<comment><USER2> > the objective function ... is: maximize the time people spend watching stuff

Sure, but the real problem is _how well it works._ Humans eagerly eat it up because their behavioral heuristics aren't adapted and get gamed. Humans want it and enjoy it and can't get enough, even though it sucks up their time without tangible benefit.

Reducing the problem to "capitalism" is like saying the only problem humans have with opioids is that the Sacklers get filthy rich and therefore humanity would be fine if only everybody could get the stuff for free at a friendly neighborhood government drug outlet.

<comment><USER3> That's not the most outlandish idea though is it? Plenty of people argue that if there were more living wage paying jobs, better universal healthcare, and legalized drugs then the opioid crisis wouldn't be as huge, or even exist as it currently does. That being said I agree that

> is like saying the __only __problem

capitalism cannot be the only thing to blame, but separating out the correlations versus the side effects of capitalism is a huge academic discussion in it's own right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> RE: the idea of "human centered AI"

I am quite saddened by this view of "human-centered AI". I read the linked piece by Fei-Fei Li [0], which this talk is essentially based around. The three goals mentioned seem extremely limited and immature. Additionally, I think human-centered AI should not be based around goals, but rather, axioms / laws -- agreed on and debated by humans.

The goals are immature because they are extremely broad, ripe for misuse. They are attempting to describe some end result, which, I am not really sure is necessarily a good approach for the concept of "human centered AI". For example:

* How does _enhance human capability, not replace it_ protect against discrimination of humans who don't have access to AI from the humans who have "enhanced capabilities" due to "human-centered AI"? If the answer is "get AI capability to all humans", then isn't it extremely important for the first goal to be "get equal opportunity of access to AI capability to all humans"?

* Fei-Fei Li says _No amount of ingenuity, however, will fully eliminate the threat of job displacement. Addressing this concern is the third goal of human-centered A.I.: ensuring that the development of this technology is guided, at each step, by concern for its effect on humans._ Why should human-centered AI not be a precursor to a post-job world for humans?

* Donahoe paraphrases Fei-Fei Li's first goal: _Goal 1 — making AI more human-like in its intelligence — is essentially a technological task._ Does human-centered AI _need_ to have human like intelligence? For now, I am unconvinced.

YouAreGreat mentioned: _Sure, but the real problem is how well it works. Humans eagerly eat it up because their behavioral heuristics aren 't adapted and get gamed. Humans want it and enjoy it and can't get enough, even though it sucks up their time without tangible benefit._

And they are absolutely right. Things like slavery also worked _really well_ for a lot of people for _thousands of years_. Many generated lucrative profits off of that practice and it struck at some core human failing in how we looked at each other. It took deep philosophical works, wars and strict enforcements to alleviate those problems (and we still haven't complete 'solved' it I guess).

Maximizing an objective function based on some human desire is a horrible paradigm for human-centered AI, and the three goals listed by Fei-Fei Li don't seem to address this fundamental issue. As an alternative take (maybe others can chime in), I think a human-centered AI should be built around the great philosophical developments of our world. Things like equality of opportunity should be baked in as an axiom for developing human-centered AI (perhaps _this_ should be part of the objective function). No discrimination based on protected classes [1] should be a at the foundation of whatever system the 'human-centered AI' constitutes. (These are examples, maybe there are better core principles).

RE: Ethics

Donahoe says:

> A key theme we will emphasize today is that human-centered AI will require > new thinking about democratic accountability for data-driven machine-based > governance decisions, as well as richer development of the concepts of > algorithmic scrutability and interpretability for governance actors.

This is incomprehensible to me. Can someone actually explain what she is talking about here?

I am glad she says that the third ethics point is of their primary focus. But I don't see what solutions are provided to manage / enforce that point. Is it left to the benevolence of the "AI engineers"? She paraphrases:

> They use slightly different terminology but all revolve around some > variation of the concept that AI should incorporate "human values," > reinforce "human dignity, or benefit human beings and humanity. To date, > most of these initiatives remain at a relatively high level of abstraction, > so it's hard to know what they might actually require in practice.

I'm glad there is some discussion going on about this. I'll have to look into the linked websites at a later date.

> In a parallel way, the roots of today's human-centered AI movement reach > back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafted in the aftermath > of World War II, and to the body of international human rights law developed > in the 70 years since.

It is well attested that these human rights declarations have a strong western bias. I am personally fine with that. But what about other societies that don't agree with the declarations? There will need to be international treaties and policies, similar to nuclear policies, that keep everyone on board. But this can get messy, fast.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/opinion/artificial- intell...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/opinion/artificial-intelligence- human.html)

[1] Fortunately, this is an issue that is being heavily looked at. A lot of papers at ML conferences tend to focus on this issue.

<comment><USER5> I'm of the unpopular (but realistic) opinion that people can talk all they want about how AI should be used, but it's not going to be up to them to decide.

Corporations and military will do what they want (in private if needed) .

<comment><USER6> At least Maven project proved they might not be able to do privately if tech workers stand against it.</comment></comment></comment>


A movie changed one man's vision (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120719-awoken-from-a-2d-world <comment><USER2> Personal anecdote: I was born with astigmatism, hypermetropia with over 3 diopters difference between eyes, a slight esotropia, which was partially corrected by training, and have developed amblyopia as the result of all that.

Naturally, I didn't even know about stereo vision, everything was flat and that didn't bother me.

But when I was about 20 years old, my friend showed me Virtual Boy. After looking into the headset I immediately sensed the depth and was blown away with it.

Even after I took off the headset, depth perception didn't go away ever since. It only became much stronger when I started wearing contact lenses.

Sorry for possible grammar mistakes, I haven't yet experienced anything like Virtual Boy but for English, which is not my first language.

<comment><USER3> People advertise contact lenses as a fashion thing. "No ugly glasses." But the biggest benefit of contact lenses is IMO "no pincushion/barrel distortion". Especially if you need different correction for each eye, it can make a big difference. I think a lot of people who wear glasses don't know you can avoid the distortion with contact lenses.

<comment><USER4> Glasses have saved my sight in an eye twice. Once was avoidable stupidity (kids are dumb), once was unavoidable. I see them as protective as much as for vision now. I don't want contacts.

<comment><USER5> One other seriously negative thing about contacts is that unless you are fastidious about cleaning or disposing them you risk eye infections, which could potentially be very serious.

I used to wear disposable lenses, but out of lazyness and frugality, I'd leave them in longer than I should have and suffered multiple eye infections. Fortunately, no serious harm resulted from them, but I recognized the risk and eventually switched back to wearing glasses. Since then I've never had to worry about that stuff ever again.

<comment><USER6> I've used hard (gas-permeable) lenses for 35 years without problems, but then I take them out every night and clean them. It's not nearly as difficult to keep them clean as it is with soft/disposable ones.

<comment><USER7> That is probably because you're using something like ClearCare which is a buffered hydrogen peroxide (with some other stuff) and a case that acts as a catalyst. The peroxide sterilizes your contacts, the catalyst slowly converts all the hydrogen peroxide to water. It takes at least 6 hours and you have to change the case out with every new bottle every month or so or else you get hydrogen peroxide in your eyes, which even in small amounts is really awful. I use to use the stuff by choice because it helped my eyes feel more comfortable vs the other contact lens solutions (except for the days I was lazy and didn't change out the cases or over wore my lenses past the X amount of days before disposal). I had soft contacts, that's why it was a choice, but I'm pretty sure hard contacts require the use of this type of cleaning method. Now I use dailies because they're more comfortable even though they're crazy expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've always been curious if stereoblind people are typically better at drawing than people with normal stereo vision. I'm stereoblind, and I always seemed to be better than most of my peers at drawing, and my hypothesis is that since there are no stereo cues from a flat piece of paper (or rather, what stereo cues there are are "wrong" if you're attempting to draw a 3D scene), the stereoblind person is not going to be bothered by (nor attempt to (incorrectly) render) discrepancies in stereo cues between what they're drawing and what they're seeing.

<comment><USER9> My sister is a fantastic photographer. She has an incredible ability to look at the entire 3D world around her and discover these little pieces of it that make for an excellent two-dimensional image.

She is also famously clumsy, always tripping, dropping things, bumping into stuff, aiming poorly, etc.

I've often wondered if poor stereo vision is the cause of both of those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have normal stereo vision, but I remember struggling for many hours to see random dot autostereograms (e.g. Magic Eye images). And then suddenly I saw the 3D image, and after that I never had trouble seeing them again. I've heard many anecdotes of similar experiences. Maybe there's a similar kind of learning in this case.

<comment><USER9> A large part of the struggle you experience with these is that you force your eye to do two clashing operations that usually proceed in sync. Among the signals our eyes use to detect depth are:

* Accommodation: Our lenses are flexible. We unconsciously contract the ciliary muscles in our eyes to change the shape of the lens so that it focuses light at different distances. It's very similar to adjusting the focus ring on a camera or binoculars.

* Convergence: As an object moves closer to you, in order for the object to stay centered on the fovea of each eye, your eyes need to turn inwards. To look at something really close, you go cross-eyed. When looking at something far away, your eyes are parallel.

Both of those involve muscular control that also give feedback to your brain. So you can unconsciously feel how much your lenses are accommodating and your eyeballs are converging. Typically, those signals are in sync with each other.

Autostereograms break that. To get the effect, you need to look "through" the picture. When you do, each eye isn't actually centering the same part of the picture on its fovea. That way, each eye gets a slightly different image, and the differences between those two cause a parallax effect that we perceive as depth.

The problem is that as far as accommodation is concerned, the picture is close. The lenses really do need to focus on the picture itself to resolve a sharp image. But for convergence, your eyes need to be closer to parallel as if you were training your eyes on something past the picture.

Now your brain can tell these two things are out of sync and it gets very confused. Some people seem to have an easier time decoupling these things than others do. It ends up a feeling a little like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Like many of the 5-10% of the population living with stereoblindness"

What? 5-10% of those with stereoblindness or 5-10% of the general population suffer with this?

<comment><USER11> 5-10% of people are stereoblind

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Small thread from 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9993921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9993921)

</comment><comment><USER13> > Like many of the 5-10% of the population living with stereoblindness,

I would have called BS on this, but seems legit, just lacking a bit on nuance

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934608/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934608/)

"It is widely thought that about 5% of the population have a lazy eye and lack stereo vision, so it is often supposed that most of the population (95%) have good stereo abilities. We show that this is not the case; 68% have good to excellent stereo (the haves) and 32% have moderate to poor stereo (the have- nots). Why so many people lack good 3-D stereo vision is unclear but it is likely to be neural and reversible."</comment>


Ask HN: What Advice would you give your 100 year old self? - <AUTHOR>

Imagine you somehow make it to your 100th birthday. What advice would you give? Perhaps we can all learn from this :-) <comment><USER2> Don't listen to the young idiot. Rather, invent a time machine to send him back a good advice or two.</comment>


Formspring: Change Your Password - <AUTHOR> http://blog.formspring.me/2012/07/urgent-change-your-formspring-password/

<comment><USER2> Since it's not specified in the main post, from the page comments:

> We were storing password as a salted sha256 hash and have upgraded to using > BCrypt now.</comment>


Front-end Job Interview Questions - <AUTHOR> http://darcyclarke.me/development/front-end-job-interview-questions/ A list of questions for Front-end Developers in Job Interviews <comment><USER2>
      If you jumped on a project and they used tabs and you used spaces, what would you do?

      issue :retab! command

Nice. So if you invite me into your home you wouldn't mind if I start to rearrange the furniture?

If you get onto some else's project or you start working on an existing code base, the polite thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the formatting conventions of that project rather than reformatting everything the way you like it.

To me, programmers who can adapt to an existing code base without getting anal retentive about tabs and spaces and what not, is to me a sign of a mature programmer.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      Can you describe the difference between progressive enhancement and graceful degredation?
      Bonus points for the answer "no one can"

Not quite -- the former is the technique and the latter is the objective. Semantics :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Having a sense of humour means bonus points</comment></comment>


Square in San Francisco's Chronicle Building - <AUTHOR> http://www.californiahomedesign.com/blog/chd-office-space-square-san-franciscos-chronicle-building

<comment><USER2> Looks cold and uncomfortable.</comment>


RailsBricks - Create Rails apps faster using smart generators for common tasks. - <AUTHOR> http://www.railsbricks.net/?utm_source=rubyweekly&utm_medium=email

<comment><USER2> Look forward to giving this a spin. Has anyone tried it out yet?

<comment><USER3> It bricked my app.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can you make me not feel like a robot? - <AUTHOR> I've been using Tor to read HN.
Each time I open Tor HN asks me to prove I'm legit by solving a CAPTCHA. No biggie, that's a small price to pay to read your favorite website.
Once you start clicking on stuff to read on HN though, you get more CAPTCHAs. Not from HN but probably from Cloudflare, like CAPTCHAs from medium.com. You even get them from jobsites under /jobs.
The irony of it all is the CAPTCHA asks you to check a box that reads "I'm not a robot."
What's the way forward? Does permanently having privacy equal permanently acting like a robot? <comment><USER2> Yes, or emulator normal behavior of many people. You could obtain relatively similar privacy by buying VPSes or VPN services with ZeroCoin/Bitcoin/whatever else you have that might be sufficiently private and then using those. The IP would be unique and not from Tor exits, the transactions would be irreversible so the providers don't mind that you're from onionland for fraud reasons. Once you've got the VPN or VPS, access it only over Tor. The risk now is that while your VPS purchase is relatively anonymous, you're now psuedonymous with your new VPS IP and your actions can be associated, just not all the way back to you. Depends on what your use case is whether this is acceptable or not. But it'll get you past captchas.

</comment><comment><USER3> I follow two rules when faced with CAPTCHA while browsing through Tor:-

1) Don't solve CAPTCHA

2) Ignore the site and move on if it isn't reachable after asking Tor Browser to select a new circuit a few times.

To follow these rules is to protest (in a small way), but it might be better to email the site operators with one's concerns in the case of a favourite site.

<comment><USER4> But if there were no CAPTCHAs, presumably the site you want to visit would not exist (DDOS) or would be in such a state that you would not want to visit anyway (spam).

<comment><USER3> Is the only difference between DDOS or spammer requests and those from people who value privacy and anonymity that the latter are able to solve a CAPTCHA? Or could could Cloudflare et al do a much better job?</comment></comment></comment>


Remdesivir for severe Covid-19: A randomised double-blind placebo-control trial [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31022-9.pdf <comment><USER2> _Background_ No specific antiviral drug has been proven effective for treatment of patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Remdesivir (GS-5734), a nucleoside analogue prodrug, has inhibitory effects on pathogenic animal and human coronaviruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro, and inhibits Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, SARS-CoV-1, and SARS-CoV-2 replication in animal models.

 _Methods_ We did a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial at ten hospitals in Hubei, China. Eligible patients were adults (aged ≥18 years) admitted to hospital with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, with an interval from symptom onset to enrolment of 12 days or less, oxygen saturation of 94% or less on room air or a ratio of arterial oxygen partial pressure to fractional inspired oxygen of 300 mm Hg or less, and radiologically confirmed pneumonia. Patients were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to intravenous remdesivir (200 mg on day 1 followed by 100 mg on days 2–10 in single daily infusions) or the same volume of placebo infusions for 10 days. Patients were permitted concomitant use of lopinavir–ritonavir, interferons, and corticosteroids. The primary endpoint was time to clinical improvement up to day 28, defined as the time (in days) from randomisation to the point of a decline of two levels on a six-point ordinal scale of clinical status (from 1=discharged to 6=death) or discharged alive from hospital, whichever came first. Primary analysis was done in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population and safety analysis was done in all patients who started their assigned treatment. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04257656.

 _Findings_ Between Feb 6, 2020, and March 12, 2020, 237 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to a treatment group (158 to remdesivir and 79 to placebo); one patient in the placebo group who withdrew after randomisation was not included in the ITT population. Remdesivir use was not associated with a difference in time to clinical improvement (hazard ratio 1·23 [95% CI 0·87–1·75]). Although not statistically significant, patients receiving remdesivir had a numerically faster time to clinical improvement than those receiving placebo among patients with symptom duration of 10 days or less (hazard ratio 1·52 [0·95–2·43]). Adverse events were reported in 102 (66%) of 155 remdesivir recipients versus 50 (64%) of 78 placebo recipients. Remdesivir was stopped early because of adverse events in 18 (12%) patients versus four (5%) patients who stopped placebo early.

 _Interpretation_ In this study of adult patients admitted to hospital for severe COVID-19, remdesivir was not associated with statistically significant clinical benefits. However, the numerical reduction in time to clinical improvement in those treated earlier requires confirmation in larger studies. Funding Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Emergency Project of COVID-19, National Key Research and Development Program of China, the Beijing Science and Technology Project.

<comment><USER3> This is one of the studies which were stopped due to low enrollment, so the statistical power is just not there.

The NIAID study's preliminary results (shared a couple of weeks ago) showed a 30% reduction in recovery time in people treated with remedisivir. That one had 800+ people enrolled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr: double-blind study on 237 _hospitalised_ patients finds no statistically significant effect on recovery chance for remdesivir, a drug that works on some other coronaviruses. Possible effect on those treated earlier, but effect not significant enough to be sure.</comment>


Which Emoji Scissors Close? - <AUTHOR> https://wh0.github.io/2020/01/02/scissors.html <comment><USER2> I really enjoyed this. It is very similar to "Please, enough with the dead butterflies!" [0] I'd like to see a list of everything like this. Similar to Awesome falsehood [1] but not quite.

0: [https://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead- butterflies...](https://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead-butterflies/) ( HN 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14460013) HN 2: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21788356](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21788356) )

1: [https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome- falsehood](https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood)

<comment><USER3> Yes!!! I live for these completely pointless obsessions into a topic.

<comment><USER2> Profile checks out. todays.pointless.click looks good :D I started [https://furious.engineering/](https://furious.engineering/) to add random stuff, but so far there's only one which shows the spanish equivalent of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

I think these ones could be added to awesome-falsehoods. I'd love a list that was more centered on this idea, but for now awesome-falsehoods would probably be the best place for it. Maybe a _design_ or _visual_ category?

<comment><USER3> I had hoped that the internet, beyond the 90s, would be a place where almost everyone has a webpage like ours populated with whatever it is the individual decided was noteworthy.

To an extent it's come true in a small subset. But discovery is the hard part. Right now discovery leads you to social media pages full of, for the most part, a low budget substitute for air.

<comment><USER4> I track homemade weblogs and pages - there's actually a lot still going if you know where to look. [https://kickscondor.com](https://kickscondor.com)

Thank you for your links, I'll cover them soon in my next 'href hunt'.

<comment><USER5> I too love your website thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Along those lines, horse emojis judged by a horse enthusiast: [https://twitter.com/jelenawoehr/status/1191872816372600832?l...](https://twitter.com/jelenawoehr/status/1191872816372600832?lang=en)

<comment><USER7> > OpenMojij 12.0

> Believe it or not, this horse's lack of eyes may not limit athletic > performance. Many blind horses do well under saddle. However, the missing > right hindlimb will severely limit potential for soundness even as a > companion. Discuss euthanasia with vet. -20/10

Nice

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> [0] is a twitter thread in a similar vein about train emojis.

[0]: [https://twitter.com/BisTheFairy/status/1192557730709622790](https://twitter.com/BisTheFairy/status/1192557730709622790)

<comment><USER9> Interesting how almost everyone goes for a 4-4-0 style train with the American-style balloon smokestack. It's funny that this is called "wild west" because it's rather anachronistic for that design. In the 1870s and onward, railroads are buying 4-6-0 trains instead of 4-4-0 trains. And the balloon shape is a feature of wood-burning locomotives (which produce a lot more embers and sparks than coal does). The Great Plains and Great Basin being rather devoid of trees, western railroads generally favored coal-burning designs, and so used much lower-profile smokestacks. The stereotypical "wild west" design is therefore closer to what you'd see in 1850s Ohio than 1870s Oklahoma.

<comment><USER10> I know very little about the 1800s outside of European warfare. Was railway technology really advancing so rapidly in the United States that missing the mark by a mere 20 years and a few hundred miles counts as an anachronism?

<comment><USER9> Would a Minié rifle be an anachronism in the Franco-Prussian War, only 20 years and a few hundred miles from the Second War of Italian Independence? (Yes, the Austrians discovered that they were outdated compared to the Prussian guns, and so the French retooled to the chassepot rifles instead.)

It's not so much the fact that the technology was wildly obsolete as it is the fact that there are distinct visual styles that are localized to particular places in certain eras. If you know what those are, seeing people get it wrong can be quite jarring. Imagine a scene supposedly set in Ancient Rome where one character shows up in Prussian court dress.

<comment><USER11> But your statement is about purchases, rather than common use. Just because 4-6-0 locomotives were being purchased then, it certainly doesn't follow that you wouldn't see any 4-4-0 locomotives in 1870, does it? Especially since 4-4-0s were still being built in the US as late as 1893 according to Wikipedia [1].

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-4-0#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-4-0#United_States)

<comment><USER12> Also "wild west era" is pretty vague to start with and can be considered to cover almost whole 19th century. So the specific situation at 1870s might not be even all that relevant

<comment><USER13> Even parts of the 20th century as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of "Artist Asks People to Draw a Bicycle from Memory and Renders the Results" [https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to- draw...](https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw-bicycle- from-memory-and-renders-results/)

<comment><USER15> In the MONA museum in Tasmania, they have real life versions of the "renders". It was amazing to see the inoperable bicycles in front of me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> An entomologist rates ant emojis: [https://curlicuecal.tumblr.com/post/175362924100/an- entomolo...](https://curlicuecal.tumblr.com/post/175362924100/an-entomologist- rates-ant-emojis)

<comment><USER17> These are so weird. It is strange to me that complaints about number of legs or the google ant's weird closer-middle leg passing under the closer-front leg are eschewed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Even if you don't care about scissor physics, read the article for the A-level file pun, which is fully worth the price of admission.

<comment><USER19> I missed the pun initially because I associate that icon (U+1F4C1) with a folder, not with a file. :(

<comment><USER20> Are folders not a type of file? Or is it that files are types of folders? Hmm...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This reminds me of how someone filed a bug against a quick illustration I did of some cogs on my website because the cogs don't actually turn: [https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/issues/2949](https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/issues/2949)

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone remember how Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, chimed in on the debate regarding Google's Burger emoji?

[https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status/924487551372615680](https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status/924487551372615680)

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't know wh0 this person is but they do good marketing - the "last post is either ..." is genius.

<comment><USER24> Well, I hoped to read a similarly opinionated piece on transporting convex objects on a camel :(

But then I went through a bunch more posts, including one on how SVG renderers mix in background color _before_ figuring out the mixed colors of objects—which seems obviously wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Goes to show that humor is a great tool to speak of _important_ things! :D

Also, funny that Apple should fail at skeuomorphism. [whistling face]

 _This post was sponsored by the text-emoticon resistance._

</comment><comment><USER26> > The handles on these collide very close to the hinge, so they barely close > at all. If you could file those parts down, you could close them a lot more:

> But you couldn't, because [edit: file emoji that HN strips out :( ] is the > only file you can get in emoji, so this altered version doesn't count.

</comment><comment><USER27> Inspired by this, I have written a similar post regarding the "parachute" emoji [1].

[1] [https://darekkay.com/blog/parachute- emoji/](https://darekkay.com/blog/parachute-emoji/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Why does Facebook have 3 sets of emojis?

<comment><USER29> Different groups working on different projects, lack of communication and global company vision or even internal competition leads to wasting money producing the same thing multiple times.

Basically the "Not Invented Here" syndrome, at the company level.

<comment><USER30> You could actually end up wasting more money if you get "alignment". Thats why things take a shit ton of time for the most part.

<comment><USER31> Move fast and duplicate things.

<comment><USER32> Move fast and don't deduplicate things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I just adore that someone went the lengths to write such an article and someone else posted this on HN. So geeky and cool at the same time! :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Unicode scissors emoji originate from two sources, and they both contribute to this plethora of non-closing scissors.

First, Unicode scissors character (U+2702) originates from ITC Zapf Dingbats series 100 [1]. As a result they have, unlike most Unicode characters, pretty much standardized reference glyphs. And scissors glyphs do not completely close too there.

Second, the original emojis were implemented in limited space (say, 16 by 16 pixels) and the design was constrained. In some platforms (especially SoftBank) they were animated instead, and indeed there were some reference emojis that close only in the animation [2].

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

[2] [https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji- list.html#2702](https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html#2702)

</comment><comment><USER35> On the other hand, there is no danger of stepping over a design copyrighted by scissor makers if your scissors do not close.

<comment><USER36> Makers of non closing scissors might sue you if their business is not running well lately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Now do, "what human figures in Renaissance paintings would not be absolute monstrosities in the Real World"

</comment><comment><USER38> I'd never even realised that scissors could be right or left-handed, and now that I do, I checked all the (physical) scissors I have, and it turns out I have one left-handed pair and the other three are right-handed. I never used one after the other, so didn't notice the difference.

<comment><USER39> I don't really find that the way it's hinged make any big difference. So I've never used that to consider if a scissor is left or right handed.

The problem is when it's not symmetrical. For instance the Fiskars [0], is impossible to get the thumb through when using the left hand.

[0]: [https://imgur.com/a/bN3XkHp](https://imgur.com/a/bN3XkHp)

<comment><USER40> It depends a lot on how much slop there is in the hinge. Your grip should pull the blades together; if you use the scissors with the wrong hand it pulls the blades apart. The shape of the grips is just for comfort, the geometry of the blades is the true handedness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> There can only be one #1. Joypixels or LG?

<comment> GuB-42 Depends if you are lefty or righty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> So, not only LG is the only manufacturer of more or less usable smartphones up to this point, but it is the single place that employs that only (as it seems) graphic designer on the planet Earth that can actually draw a scissors? Huh. It's a pity their advertising department sucks.

</comment><comment><USER43> These are special scissors that have internal gears that allow them to be closed, even though it doesn't seem like they can be closed. The advantage is that you don't need to move the handles that much, and you train your hand to become stronger.

</comment><comment><USER44> The latest responses to the grand unsolved question of "Which Emoji Scissors Close?"

> Designers: What were the design teams behind these scissor emojis thinking? > Some of the designs break made important design principles these 'scissors' > should be redesigned by an AI. Dieter Rams would call this another level of > wrongness.

> HNers: Look at the intricate detail with all the designers from different > companies attempting to create an emoji for a pair of open and closed > scissors. Wow!, great analysis, so cool!

> Everyone: It's a scissors emoji.

> Me: Who cares? They are scissors emojis. Even if the designers can't create > one closed so what, do a redraw later?

I'd side with the everyone else crowd here, since the change will be so tiny that this storm in a tea cup will be a thing of the past.

</comment><comment><USER45> I appreciate the "My last post was about either Wire toothbrushes or Rasterization of coincident edges" bit at the end of the articles.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is super amusing but also isn't this like "which emoji faces have an anatomically correct bone structure?" Or "which floppy icons could be actual floppies?"

</comment><comment><USER47> This was cutting it close my best waste of time all day. :P

</comment><comment><USER48> This analysis assumes only 2 dimensions! I think the handles should be able to overlap somewhat. Some handles in real life do!

"Critique" aside, I adore this site!

<comment><USER49> It's very unusual to find scissors in real life where the handles overlap, so I think it makes sense to assume they don't.

Read the last few oddballs, they are indeed expected to overlap.

<comment><USER48> I just did now! And came back to comment how I had not read to the end! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Note that scissors cut well when kept partially closed (instead of repeatedly fully opening and closing)

</comment><comment><USER51> What a nice century we live in that we have time for describing and discussing these kind of problems. :)

</comment><comment><USER52> Interesting and entertaining article, I enjoyed reading it. Now I want a _" Which Emoji Weapons Shoot Real Bullets"_. I'm only half joking as many emoji sets transitioned from the depiction of real weapons to some form of toy, like a colorful water pistol. It would be interesting to find out who started it and when the others followed.

<comment><USER53> Apple started it. For a time, a text like this:

> Let's meet at the park [pistol emoji]

Would have have very different meanings between platforms.

Eventually, all platforms followed Apple and switched to the water pistol. (The ones that still show real pistols are obsolete fonts.)

[https://emojipedia.org/pistol](https://emojipedia.org/pistol)

At this point, Apple gets to decide what emojis look like, not the Unicode Consortium.

<comment><USER54> Apple spearheaded this but you could imagine Facebook spearheading it and everybody else following.

Honestly the original gun emoji was simply a bad idea because it makes it hard to make apps that are age-rated for small children when there's a fricking gun in the system keyboard.

<comment><USER55> I don't understand how "there's a fricking gun in the system keyboard" => "hard to make apps that are age-rated for small children". It's just a tiny picture of a gun, hidden in a pile of hundreds of emojis at that. Where's the problem?

<comment><USER56> It was quite literally leftist virtue signalling. A way for those companies to say "I support gun control".

<comment><USER57> I support gun control but do not support the censorship in emojis. So I don't know about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> take more adderal - you can't

</comment><comment><USER59> this is important

<comment><USER60> Absolutly! First world problems are really important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I realize this opinion is likely to be unpopular, but this industry wastes so much time and energy on such irrelevant things.

<comment><USER62> Are you talking about the article? Because the people creating the emojis clearly didn't spend a lot of time checking that the scissors would actually work, which it seems like you'd approve of.

The article itself isn't so much "the industry" as a blogger just trying to write something amusing.

<comment><USER63> You know what he means dude.

<comment><USER62> I honestly don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> his is very funny scissors</comment>


How to Bullet Journal - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm15cmYU0IM <comment><USER2> I used a Bullet Journal for a couple months a few years ago. I ended up moving away from it, for a couple reasons:

\- It didn't suit my note-taking instincts: most things that I think are worthy of writing down are either much longer than one sentence (notes from a meeting, say) or much more numerous such that they would drown out the todos and events.

\- It was difficult to generate a view of "okay, what needs to be done _today?_ "

\- It felt frustratingly analog: things like running monthly migrations and building up a table of contents was one of those moments where I was just like _Ugh, can 't I have an app do this?_

These are largely quibbles with my own personal habits and tendencies, rather than flaws with the system itself. I'm happy with my replacement approach -- Todoist with daily Bullet Journal-esque notes that get migrated at the end of the day -- but it's still lacking with regards to retrospective.

That being said, Bullet Journals were the first step in getting me to seriously consider how I retain information and organize my tasks, so I'm forever grateful of them for that!

<comment><USER3> I definitely have the same amazement that you have to monthly migrate things. I am curious if manually doing it encourages some behavior, though.

In particular, I have found backlogs to be a common source of neglected shit.

<comment><USER2> Yup. I think the process of periodically going through all your stuff and deciding whether or not it's still worth holding onto is a valuable one, but the actual mechanics of doing so in the Bullet Journal fashion felt cumbersome (especially when you're trying to collate stuff.) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm about a month in to Bullet Journaling and I'm really liking it for a number of reasons.

First, it's a piece of paper that's always there. No waiting for apps to load, no Internet lag time; it's always there.

Secondly, I can organize as I choose. I like note taking apps for desktop/mobile, but the hardest thing for me is being able to organize and write notes as _I_ chose, not as the program dictates. If I decide I don' like a certain way of organization, nothing's stopping me from changing it.

Thirdly, I've seen a huge increase in completion of tasks, since they actually get written down somewhere! I used to use reminders on my phone, but unless I set a notification (a reminder for the reminder?), it got neglected and never finished. Also, I could never get myself into the habit of checking my reminders list every day. I'm sure that reminders or other to-do list apps work very well for other people, but for me personally, I never found the to- do list apps to work very well.

As for migration, I think it's actually been really useful for my workflow. I'm the type of person who doesn't like to see outstanding tasks, so my goal for every day is to _not_ migrate tasks. Also, migration keeps all those tasks fresh in your mind, which I've found to be very helpful.

All that said, I'll have to see what I think about it in a few months and whether my perspective on it has changed.

</comment><comment><USER5> The idea is very good. And it was good in a short term (6 months), but after a while its get too time consuming and cumbersome. The analog thing is not that easy to manage for me that I'm always in front to a PC. Adding tasks is also a problem sometime for me. I ended up having a stick note on the desktop and list the things i've to do there. I think that it didn't work for me beacuse I don't have tasks that I can fill in. I just do things that pops in. However, since I've the black bullet journal I may start using it again.

PS: I supported their kickstarter campain

</comment><comment><USER6> I've used the system, and I like it, but I find that carrying around pend and paper is a burden. Especially when I have my smart phone on me 24/7\. I use Wunderlist instead. It has it's faults, but it does most of what I need it to.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't do the monthly outlook, because it never was useful to me at all. I'm not much of a calendar event planner type person. Any event I had to remember a long way off I just put in my calendar app to remind me a few days beforehand.

One thing I do love is I keep lists on books I want to read in the future. I also keep lists of things like software, tools, and libs that look possibly important in the future that I may use, but not right now.

Edit: I've used bullet journaling for over 3, or 4 years now.

</comment><comment><USER8> Looked into Bullet, but not the style I wanted. I needed more of a journal of what was done and information around that being driven from collaboration tech (Smartsheet, Wunderlist, etc.) vs. what I needed to do. I think Bullet is great for the individual, but everything around teams or groups needs to be run in a tech solution.

</comment><comment><USER9> Spent a good 3 months bullet journaling. For me, like all systems, it becomes a burden over time. When you start to get anxiety about creating the process to be more productive, then something is wrong.

I tend to write better when it doesn't constantly feel like a chore, but I understand the need for a system to get started. What I come to realize is that I don't need a system, but rather just disciple. Discipline is tough when you are trying to create a system that isn't so burdensome.

Chaos still seems to work the best.

<comment><USER10> I agree completely. Cultivating the discipline to maintain a daily journal is the hardest part. Could I suggest that you check out [https://www.60secondseveryday.com](https://www.60secondseveryday.com)?

It's the fastest way of daily journaling - you make a 60 second phone call every night to answer the question "What do you want to remember about today?". From there, it gets transcribed, archived, and it's all searchable as well.

Disclaimer: I came up with the service after having a need for it myself

<comment><USER11> Cool! Which STT library/service are you using? How are you finding the error rate?

<comment><USER10> Glad you like it! Have you had a chance to try it out yet?

Currently I'm using Google's Speech API. Based on my tests, they have the best transcription results by far.

I experimented with a few others (IBM, for one) and found that while the coding was easier (because they allow a wider variety of audio file formats), the results weren't as accurate. Google, on the other hand, is fairly picky about what types of files can be processed - this is also probably what makes them more accurate. So in the background, there's a fair bit of audio transcoding that goes on before transcription.

What do you mean by error rate?

<comment><USER11> I haven't tried it out yet.

By error rate I mean Word Error Rate (WER): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_error_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_error_rate)

<comment><USER10> I can't give you an exact number because the audio/transcripts for users are completely hidden from human eyes/ears.

Based on my own personal experience however, I would say I've gotten around 85% accuracy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NameCheap is More Popular Than GoDaddy Among HackerNews Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.leandomainsearch.com/blog/28-namecheap-is-the-most-popular-registrar-for-hackernews-users <comment><USER2> I would imagine chlamydia is more popular than GoDaddy among Hacker News users...

<comment><USER3> Doesn't that entail having sex? I'd check your figures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> News just in: HackerNews users read HackerNews and avoid companies with bad business practises. Pretty much everyone I know with a GoDaddy domain shifted them over the last 18 months, even if it cost them more, as they didn't want to take the chance of sticking with GoDaddy too much longer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Disclosure: I work at GoDaddy and I still don't own any domains with them. I find that I can get better rates from other places (like Namecheap).

However, I do use their DNS control panel (dns.godaddy.com). You can put in any external domain (no need to transfer). Their DNS manager supports almost every type of record including AAAA and TXT. It's much better than the DNS managers I've used in the past.

I would point out, however, that GoDaddy's focus is on small businesses that (generally) aren't tech savvy and want to buy a domain with email and a hosting account. Those of us that are more tech savvy are more likely to find better prices for various products at different places rather than paying the extra for the convenience of getting it all in one place.

GoDaddy offers a lot of products I didn't even know existing before I started working here, like Online Storage.

<comment><USER6> I guess this would be a good place to ask. I remember a while ago using a DNS provider that actually let you edit your zone file in a textarea, but I can't for the life of me remember which one it was. Does anyone know?

<comment><USER5> GoDaddy's has a "Bulk Edit" feature and an "Import/Export" feature that may do what you're looking for, though I haven't used either myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GoDaddy is definitely cheaper than Dreamhost...but I prefer the latter...because by the time I've figured out how to do something simple in GoDaddy, I've wasted much more money (converting my hourly-rate-to-dollars) than if I had just done the setup in Dreamhost...

Of course, that setup-cost would go down if I used GD all the time. However, my brief experience with them is that they nickel and dime you for a lot of things...is this still the case? For example, private-registration (obscuring your WHOIS by having it be under something like "Dreamhost Services") cost $9.99 a year...DH offers domains for $9.99 and private-registration is the default.

Also, I hate feeling like I'm logging onto an adult site when I'm just trying to configure DNS. I know sex sells but GD is just shameless.

<comment><USER8> Money isn't really an issue for me as we're talking a couple dollars of difference. Ignoring Godaddy's politics, I would still not use them because their web interface is not only terrible its also user hostile. Its all upsells and ads.

I'd put up with this crap for a free service, but when you're a commodity then you better add some non-negative value to your service.

Jesus, how did GD get so big anyway? Are horny geeks this gullible?

<comment><USER5> (GoDaddy employee) There's a huge internal push right now to significantly simplify the website.

For example, there was an email was used to send out with new accounts that had tons of ads and coupons. No one clicked on it. We're working on a new simple one with one button and small 20% off coupon at the bottom. Conversions went from 0% to 28%.

<comment><USER9> Nice. You guys should check out Name.com as a good example of UI/UX design for a domain site. It's one of the most soothing on the Internet. Sometimes I log in when I don't even have anything to do there, just to enjoy the UX.

<comment><USER10> Maybe it's just me, but having a bunch of strangers staring at me on the landing page was a pretty poor user experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think a ton of people switched during the whole SOPA thing, besides the bad services. You know what, this reminds of that South Park episode where that big box retailer moves in, grows so big, everyone burns it down to the ground and sings kumbaya together, and starts supporting a local retailer instead. The local retailer becomes so successful that it grows and grows until it's as big and evil as the old big box retailer. Then they all burn it down again and sing kumbaya again. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if one day namecheap also eventually turned rotten in eyes of the HN crowd. I'm not predicting that it will happen, I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised.

<comment><USER12> There is a significant difference in that Go Daddy has specifically engaged in bad business practices, whereas namecheap appear to care about not doing that, so it's not so much about size as behaviour.

<comment><USER13> I think he was implying that there is a correlation between size and evilness and that if namecheap grows too large, it could potentially turn evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I moved everything off Dotster to Gandi this summer. While good business practices were a major factor in my vendor selection process, I also had important technical reasons for choosing Gandi - namely, they supported IPv6 and DNSSEC as well as complete XML-RPC API. Gandi also has done an excellent job translating their user interfaces and documentation into the languages I and my clients use. Other vendors (NameCheap and EasyDNS included, to pick the top two vendors mentioned on Hacker News during the SOPA/PIPA debates) are English-only and only offer modern DNS features in beta (or charge more for the same).

</comment><comment><USER15> I recently talked to a potential client about a major project that started out as an internal discussion about how to get off GoDaddy. I think there were GoDaddy whois results showing up in Google that they thought presented them in a bad light.

<comment><USER16> How does a whois record matter to a company? Do customers look that up? And why would NameCheap being the vendor matter at all? Is something like Lycos better?

<comment><USER17> Right. It's hard to imagine anyone clueful enough to do a whois who wasn't also aware that the registrar is a commodity service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really expected name.com to be on that list. Is there something I don't know about them?

<comment><AUTHOR> 27 people who chose _None of the above_ said they use Name.com which puts them at about 1.7% of the total.

I probably should add them to the registrar list -- thanks for bringing it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One thing GoDaddy does have is rock solid documentation. We recently had a client I had to walk through to make a DNS change. I pretty much read him the steps verbatim from GoDaddy's documentation as we are on the phone and it was spot on.

<comment><USER20> If you have a half decent UI you shouldn't need to read through documentation to make a basic change like that.

<comment><USER19> Are you suggesting my non-tech client(a surgeon) should just know how to change his DNS?

<comment><USER20> If he knows what DNS is, it should be trivial to change it. That someone who is technical has to read through documentation to make a basic change like that is pretty silly...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised even that many still use GoDaddy, truth be told. Though of course some domain purchases can last for many years.

<comment><USER22> Their use of algorithmic prices means that you can sometimes get domains on GoDaddy for cheaper than other registrars. Price is something that is hard to argue against.

<comment><USER23> Unless it's changed in the last few years, GoDaddy's administration panel is so atrocious that even MySpace would be embarrassed to release it. If you're as frugal with your time and sanity as you are with your money, GoDaddy is far from an obvious choice.

<comment><USER11> It's honestly the biggest reason I changed. It's so hard to do anything. Half the time I ended up just calling their tech support, which is not toll free, last time I experienced it.

<comment><USER5> Wow people still use land lines with long distance charges these days? I can't remember the last time I paid for "long distance". I use ObiTalk with Google Voice for free home phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> To echo the sentiment above. I use NameCheap, and am very happy with them. Easy to use, and they leave me alone. I will never use nor recommend GoDaddy ever again for their SOPA support, bad business practices in general, tasteless ads (not even offensive, just bad), Bob Parsons, and horrible product.

With plenty of competitors out there, most offering similar prices and better services, I don't see any reason to use GoDaddy.

But it is curious that 27% still use it. I'm guessing those people are just too lazy to switch.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you are a domainer, with hundreds/thousands of domains, GoDaddy is hard to beat. Price is a big part of it. Also, most people you sell domains to also have GoDaddy accounts which makes it very easy to push domains to them.

If you don't have a lot of domains it is easier to use other registrars, and most HN users are concerned only with their few projects.

</comment><comment><USER26> I use NameTerrific after I saw them here, they're pretty great. They have DNS snippets you can include in your configuration, they accept BitCoin (not that I use it, but still), and their home page _actually shows you a list of your domains_! None of the other registrars I tried does this (any more).

</comment><comment><USER27> Switched over to <http://iwantmyname.com>

So happy to get away from GD

<comment><USER28> Are they an accredited registrar? I was under the impression they were just a reseller.

<comment><USER29> They're accredited for 80+ TLD. They also have nice, user-friendly business practices:

<https://iwantmyname.com/about>

I love iwantmyname, I buy all my .io names from there.

<comment><USER28> Thanks. Can you point me to their company name on ICANN's list?

<http://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accredited-list.html>

<comment><USER30> We are not an ICANN accredited registrar but it's something we might consider in the future. Lots of registrars started out as resellers (or still are for ccTLDs, e.g. eNom, Netsol going through a German registrar) so this is not an uncommon thing.

Most of our TLDs are registered through 1API which is a pure wholesale registrar and we're having a very close business relationship with them. I can promise you if there ever is an issue on the registrar/registry relationship part of the business, we will be able to solve it faster than many ICANN registrars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What are some recommended registrars if one wants to minimize exposure to USA regulators? I had previously heard Gandi, but more recently have heard the company now operates through a US subsidiary. I'm looking to register a .is domain.

<comment><USER32> All gTLD registrations are subject to U.S. law. Its an artifact of the structure of the market and technology.

If you want a reasonably safe registration, pick a domain in a country-code TLD with laws you like and registry directly with the registry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Seems to me that godaddy often has lower prices on domains - sure their tools and customer service are poor - but once you point the nameservers at route53 you never have to login to godaddy again! 1 thing I have always liked about godaddy is their donations option at checkout. You can round up to the nearest dollar and donate the extra few cents to the charity of your choosing. More sites should have this as an option.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have domains on both, namecheap doesn't cover everything, and do find namecheap a lot cleaner and easier to use and more trouble free. Although honestly, last domain I registered, I just did through my hosting company, DreamHost, for minimal fuss. I trust them to have a clean panel just the same as namecheap, but am logged into them all the time anyway for other things.

</comment><comment><USER35> I switched to namecheap after the sopa deal and because of godaddy's aggressive email campaigns and ugly ui. I have 12 domains with them and i'm very happy - they don't spam my email, managing my domains is easy and most importantly, they don't go behind my back and deal with government tools to take away the one piece of freedom i have left.

</comment><comment><USER36> I also heard they don't shoot elephants.

</comment><comment><USER37> Give Badger.com a try!

<comment><USER38> Wow, trial admin is a good idea. If the actual admin panel is as fast as that demo is, I'm impressed.

<comment><USER37> We mocked out the API layer to achieve the demo so it'll be slightly slower when it has to make real requests to our API. That said, the live version is quite snappy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I use a small local registrar named Namesilo.com. I've been very happy. The best part is "No Upselling".

<comment><USER40> Checked it. Doesn't seem to support Dynamic DNS. I needed one to maintain my home servers. But looks very good and honest site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This analysis, but for hosting provider (although most will belong in cloud) would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm using name.com for years without any trouble. Don't know why it wasn't taken into account.

</comment><comment><USER43> I thought we were boycotting them? I can't remember why or for how long but someone told me not to use them so I haven't since. Might have been Reddit though too.

<comment><USER17> It was because of the SOPA issue. However, they backed off on that pretty fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Both suck. Use DynaDot (<http://www.dynadot.com/>)

They're also on the ICANN Accredited Registrar list.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have transferred most of my domains to hover.com and I love it. name cheap is great too though. oh how I despise GD.

</comment><comment><USER46> I moved to NameCheap after 1) The SOPA ordeal and 2) I noticed GoDaddy made me want to destroy something beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER16> They do have amazingly cheap SSLs, I picked up a few wildcard SSLs for <$40/year on Cyber Monday

</comment><comment><USER47> surprised dnsimple.com isn't there....they rock - especially if you are using heroku...

<comment> g-garron I have just started transferring my domains to dnsimple. I love how they configured my google apps with one click.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I buy all my domains on there. Good service, but it's not the cheapest.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think they all suck. We need a open solution to DNS.

<comment><USER32> Umm.

I think you mean we need an open solution to domain registration.

DNS is one of the oldest open Internet protocols.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> How is this news?

</comment><comment><USER51> You don't say</comment>


Corsera video interaction technology. - <AUTHOR>

During a Coursera video, there is a part which requires a user/viewer to answer a topic related question.
What is the name of the technology that allows users to interact with the video in such a way?<p>Thanks. <comment><USER2> Html5....

Specifically they are hiding the video, showing dom elements for the interaction, check the result via Javascript/Ajax, and put the video back on.</comment>


The subscription-pocalypse - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/12/the-subscription-pocalypse-is-about-to-hit/ <comment><USER3> Does this guy know that before the internet most people paid money to subscribe to newspapers and magazines?

"The growth of the subscription model has been one of the biggest developments in online journalism in the past few years ... The subscription model makes a lot of sense for publishers. The advertising-based model that supported the industry for 100 years doesn't work in a digital world where ..."

No, the subscription model has been the basis for the industry for the past 100 years.

He goes on:

"You can't expect people to subscribe to their local paper (which is vital to democracy, we tell them) AND The New York Times and the Washington Post (because Democracy Dies in the Dark) AND Netflix AND Hulu AND HBO Go AND The Athletic AND ESPN Plus AND their favorite podcast on Patreon AND …"

Yet people were subscribed to a daily paper, 1 or 2 monthly magazines and a cable package with added charges for sports channels.

<comment><USER4> You have a good point but I feel overwhelmed with subscriptions today. Between personal and business I have easily got 40 or more _paid_ subscriptions. It's not just media but software too. Mac apps, iPhone apps, web apps. They're hard to cancel and easy to forget (until I check my bank statements). And they dip into my bank account with no renewal confirmation or approval. And they'll happily self-renew for the next year without being used once in the last year.

Of course I signed up to and pre-authorised all of this, and forgot to cancel when I stopped using them, so it's 100% my own fault. But something doesn't feel right about it.

<comment><USER5> > But something doesn't feel right about it.

Why did you suscribe in the first place? The best way to avoid paying is to not register.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The subscription-everything model is something that has really bothered me for a while.

As a person that doesn't do things "regularly" I don't want to be stuck paying per-month for certain things. More importantly, is that some of these things I will use so infrequently, and that you can't "keep" after you've paid your subscription, they become cost-ineffective.

I have video streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Now TV, Crunchyroll), email, back-up storage, software licenses, music, coffee, gym membership... the list goes on.

When I got married, I subscribed to Photoshop CC to create something as a gift for my wife, I used it once, and was then stuck in a 1 year contract, I missed the renewal and got stuck in another year contract. I ended that as soon as I could, but having had no need to use it up until that point, I'd paid for 2 years worth of CC (~£200) to use it once, and now the subscription was done, I couldn't use it again.

I have an IDE I use 3-4 times a year, but I have to pay monthly subscription with a minimum 1 year contract. After that year you fall back not to the version you're on, but the version before it.

More and more services are moving to this model, with no alternative model for those like myself that don't need, nor want to use something every week, or every month, or even every year.

There is a point where I have to draw the line at adding more monthly subscriptions to my outgoings.

I don't mind this model for some things, consumables, such as coffee, fine, Netflix, which I use frequently, fine, but this only suits my usage, and others probably have other things in that list they use frequently.

This model might be working for a lot of companies right now, but there must be people like myself that will happily pay X for some software/thing I get to keep and use indefinitely (within reason) and are simply not buying at all because the pricing model doesn't work for us.

<comment><USER7> >When I got married, I subscribed to Photoshop CC to create something as a gift for my wife, I used it once, and was then stuck in a 1 year contract,

To be fair in your situation I would have a hard time justifying the one-time purchase price if they still offered it. Back when they had this business model Photoshop CS6 cost about $700, there are cheaper alternatives for a one- time use unless you absolutely required Photoshop and piracy wasn't an option.

But more generally I feel your pain. I prefer the model where you get updates as long as you pay for the license but if you stop you get to keep whatever version you're currently using as-is. Photoshop on the other hand becomes unusable if you stop paying for the subscription.

>I don't mind this model for some things, consumables, such as coffee, fine, Netflix, which I use frequently, fine, but this only suits my usage, and others probably have other things in that list they use frequently.

I actually wouldn't like that for coffee because my usage is not always the same. Sometimes I have guests and I need more, sometimes I'm on vacations and I use less.

I think the subscription model works best for things that are constantly moving and require constant updates and maintenance. Netflix's catalogue is always changing so it makes sense to pay a subscription. Some software is updated constantly and it makes sense to pay to always have the latest version. Often you also get support which might be absolutely necessary with some expensive professional software.

For applications like Photoshop that arguably don't need to be updated that aggressively it seems more like a scam to get more money in the long run without having to come up with meaningful new features to motivate the users to buy newer versions. Just purchase a Photoshop license and pay forever and ever.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely, there are many companies whose pricing model is designed to maximise the money they make from you without being what I'd call "fair". That's their prerogative though, they're a business after all.

As for the coffee, I buy it for at work, so it's just me, and I know I'll be at work every day, again, a model that suits me. My "home coffee" I buy as and when, and don't use a subscription model, because it's a different requirement. I guess this is one case of a single person needing two separate pricing models for the same product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Twitch/youtube/patreon subscription model is the future.

Why subscribe to several newspapers (where you don't care for 90% of the content), if you could subscribe to the exact 13 authors that write about stuff you like, and never miss any of their articles, and never need to look through 30 pages of crap to find that?

I'm seeing a lot of business models that would never work without twitch - <USER2> guy that's streaming pen&paper RPG sessions. He's not even streaming in English, but in Polish (much smaller audience). And he earns very good money (it helps he's awesome at storytelling :) ).

Another guy earns a living by streaming his commentary on interesting starcraft matches.

Another streams coding his game (but he's not doing it full-time).

The best thing is - if the community is in the sweet spot (like 100-1000 people) - you can interact with the people in chat, and it's not fake interaction like on TV or in radio - when you write something you know the "celebrity" will read it and likely respond to it. It makes the audience much more engaged than with traditional media.

Every niche hobby is now a marketable skill if you have a little charisma and a lot of time. There should be something like that, but for text.

<comment><USER9> > Why subscribe to several newspapers (where you don't care for 90% of the > content), if you could subscribe to the exact 13 authors that write about > stuff you like, and never miss any of their articles, and never need to look > through 30 pages of crap to find that?

Because looking through 30 pages confronts me with topics and perspectives I wouldn't have selected otherwise. Which enhances my perception. A well written op-ed to which I disagree is among the best things a paper can deliver as it challenges my view.

<comment><USER10> I certainly agree that it's beneficial to the consumer, but... I subscribe to the local paper which shares my political view, and I only read one of the opposing papers whenever I get a chance. I appreciate the same aspects as you do, it just doesn't seem likely I'll spend actual money subscribing to the other paper, when that would in fact be equal to financing a political movement I disagree with. I bet others feel the same.

What GP writes about, though, reads more like the future of entertainment, not news. I don't see the harm in that, as long as there are ways to get recommended other stuff than what you watch every day.

One side effect of this narrowing of channels is, I seem to have fewer and fewer cultural references in common with my more senior colleagues who still watch broadcast TV.

Them: Did you watch the game last night? Me: Do you mean CS GO Katowice qualifiers or the big DOTA tournament?

<comment><USER9> > I only read one of the opposing papers whenever I get a chance.

A point to this is that a "good" paper also publishes op-eds from "the other side" And sometimes those are really well written, really trying to convince you instead of just preaching the choir.

The thing I saw often pre-Internet was that people had a local paper, a national paper and maybe a weekly magazine/paper.

I myself currently am subscribed (as in paying, my RSS Reader has lots more) a local epaper and a national weekly printed paper. The later is nice (except I often disagree with many views stated) as it lives outside the fast breaking news cycle of the inline world and by being paper I really look through it (unless I spend too much time elsewhere ...) page by page instead of quickly scrolling through my RSS feed or quickly scanning over news sites.

> What GP writes about, though, reads more like the future of entertainment, > not news.

Yes, the amount of ways to spend leisure time increased a lot. The amount of media one can consume is incredible, which leads to ...

> , I seem to have fewer and fewer cultural references in common with my more > senior colleagues who still watch broadcast TV.

... less of a common experience. The big TV events, the big news, ... it becomes all a more unique experience. Even with TV shows "everybody" watches: In the morning, after an episode of some show was released there is this one guy in the office "oh please don't spoil, I haven't watched that episode, yet" in the past there was this guy "oh damn, I missed it, please tell me what happens, so I can follow along next week"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think that the point he'd like to make (a bit clumsily, IMHO) is that we should NOT rely on SUBSCRIPTIONS only. We need more micropayments for single- shot buys.

When I was younger (but then, I'm from Europe), me and my parents subscribed to almost nothing, EXCEPT what we really and totally bought every single time - that was one (1) comic book magazine that I was buying every single week.

Newspapers? Sometimes my parents would read it at the local bar, sometimes at a friend's, sometimes at work, sometimes we would buy it, I'd say 2-3 times a week. But then: WE COULD CHANGE the newspaper every time! And, we DID switch what we bought, cycling between 2-3 newspaper we liked, so we had a kind of 360-degree view on what was happening.

Subscriptions prevent that kind of behaviour.

<comment><USER12> Big agree.

Micropayments turn the model upside down: the newspaper subscribes to a micropayment service, and web browsers have a whitelist of sites and prices they're willing to pay, by pageview, by word, etc.

Everyone gets paid, malware and ads are not necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have wanted, for a while now, for news sites to get together and figure out some shared form of monetization - pay a single rate, and get access NYT, Huffpo, bloomberg, etc., maybe with an option to pay more depending how much or on which sites I read the article.

Or a single site where I could access and manage subscriptions to multiple sites. I WANT to subscribe to newspapers/new sites, but I don't want to be subscribed to 5 different subscription schemes and juggling that.

<comment><USER14> In The Netherlands some start-up is trying that business model and they also recently became active in the USA [0].

\---

[0]: [https://launch.blendle.com](https://launch.blendle.com)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, I just signed up for the beta - it looks genuinly intriguing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > How many news organizations or writers or blogs or podcasts do you pay for > every month?

Honestly, zero. There's just too much great free content. If a podcast I like to listen to or a blog I follow dies because they don't earn enough from it, fine, that'll free up the time to follow something else.

And I say it as someone who has their own blog and podcast and doesn't expect to be paid for it. The fact that someone spends their time listening to what I have to say is a sufficient reward for me.

</comment><comment><USER16> For streaming video this was for the most part not such an issue due to Netflix, but as we're seeing more streaming services launch, this is going to become a problem again. There's CBS All Access if you want to watch Star Trek. Disney & Apple are launching their own streaming services. Want to watch the Lord of the Rings TV show, I guess you'll need to get Amazon. Then there's still HBO and services like that. I predict we'll see pirating ticking back up after it fell in recent years.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you think newspaper subs are bad try looking at some specialist software. Maintenance costs for software like Ansys and Matlab are insane and can run into the tens of thousands a year. The situation with Ansys has gotten so bad many research groups are moving to OpenFOAM and Python and I doubt they'll be back once they figure out how much more powerful their new tools are.

We're seeing something similar with Adobe. Their Creative Cloud suite is now subscription based and ends up costing much more than buying the older software did for a perpetual licence (but a drop in the ocean compared to the above). Everyone seems to hate it. There aren't even enough new features to warrant updating from your old CS6 license other than the required 64-bit support (several components of their management software still aren't even 64 bit).

The only good thing is that their team licence is pretty permissive if you're not a heavy user, we were able to share three license across a larger team, the sales guy even suggested it.

Now we're seeing developers like Serif come out with apps like Affinity Photo and Designer to challenge Photoshop and Illustrator with exceptionally polished desktop and iPad apps with a once off purchase per OS. The apps are performant and can do 99% of what Adobe can. With a _full_ version of Photoshop coming to iPad it'll be interesting how users respond. Adobe don't have a great track record on iOS not that their desktop backend is much better. In fact I'd say that the standard set by Photoshop and Illustrator in terms of primary features and UX over the years has become relatively easy to replicate on modern devices, even with web apps, that Adobe have painted themselves into a technical debt corner with their awful backend (compare raw performance of Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro X).

Then there's the video streaming fragmentation. Now I need Netflix, Amazon and HBO subs to watch the shows I want to see, if they're even available in my country and I also need to pay for a VPN. There's no way I can afford that so if I'm selfish I'll just torrent the ones not on my preferred platform. Unless these services introduce some form of syndication where popular shows appear on competitors platforms after a period of exclusivity then they'll burn what ground they have taken from piracy.

<comment><USER18> Adobe software was expensive before they introduced subscriptions. There were always cheaper alternatives available but Adobe had lock-in through their file formats and product familiarity.

In many ways I can see the products are better because of subscriptions. It takes away the need to pile on new features in order to justify selling upgrades. Instead they can focus on retaining existing users by fixing bugs and annoyances and adding real improvements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree there's a limit, but why 2019 specifically? How do we know it hasn't plateaued already, or that it won't only do so in 2025? Is there any data on it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe it has something to do with the layoffs at Gannett, HuffPost and BuzzFeed, although they don't get mentioned in that article.

Further reference: [https://twitter.com/JeremyLittau/status/1088503510184927233](https://twitter.com/JeremyLittau/status/1088503510184927233)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think the solution from a consumer perspective is per article 1-click micro- transactions.

It needs to be easy, seamless and not require a new account for each site.

"Click to pay 10¢ with NewsBuyer to read this article". Boom done.

<comment><USER21> This would be ok if the articles were worth a 10c read, but I feel like with the majority of articles being of low quality, paying for an article would be a gamble that rarely pays off and I'd "just stop trying".

<comment><USER22> Companies could use the popular below the fold design to unlock the article for 10c. This way you can read the first paragraph or two to decide if it's worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've also become completely overwhelmed by the amount of "set and forget" auto-recurring subscriptions that exist now, and it's simply led to me opting out of almost all of them. It's not even the monetary amounts, which tend to be fairly small, but more the cognitive load of keeping track of payment dates, amounts, and (especially) cancellation terms. I just can't be bothered to deal with it all, so I don't. If I was to put a number on it, I'd say five monthly subscriptions is as many as I'd be prepared to have at any one time. That would have to cover everything—news, entertainment, charitable donations, and so on.

For video streaming, for instance, I subscribe to Netflix only. If something isn't on Netflix, I just won't see it, and I can live with that. I already have access to more than I can watch anyway. Should I find something better, I'll stop my Netflix subscription before switching to the new thing.

If the service is harder to cancel than it is to subscribe, I'll pass irrespective of how good it looks (no, I'm not prepared to call you on the phone to cancel when subscribing took three clicks). I won't subscribe to software at all. Let me buy it outright. If it's a monthly subscription or nothing, I'll pick nothing.

Perhaps I'm showing my age by saying this, but I'd be more interested in subscribing to your magazine or service if you send me an annual invoice, which I'll happily pay in one explicitly non-recurring payment, like a bank transfer. Then after a year or whatever the subscription period is, I'll make a decision about whether it's still worth it to me. If I'm considering actually subscribing to something, it won't be on a whim, and I'll already know whether or not I like it enough to pay, so signing up for an extended period is fine. Same with charities. Let me send you money once a year, and don't pressure me into signing up to a monthly payment plan, and I'll be much more prepared to do so.

<comment><USER24> > It's not even the monetary amounts, which tend to be fairly small, but more > the cognitive load of keeping track of payment dates, amounts, and > (especially) cancellation terms. I just can't be bothered to deal with it > all, so I don't. If I was to put a number on it, I'd say five monthly > subscriptions is as many as I'd be prepared to have at any one time. That > would have to cover everything—news, entertainment, charitable donations, > and so on.

I know what you mean. I create a calendar event every single time I subscribe to something that is recurring so that I can cancel if I want to, a few days from the end of the subscription.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have online/digital subscriptions for the New York Times ($48/year) the Washington Post ($19/year) and The Guardian (€60/year). Totally worth it for me.

<comment><USER20> Do you feel your money was well spent on the guardian's fabrication about Manafort visiting Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy?

<comment><USER25> Or the NYT posting opeds full of unchecked lies? Journalists and editors will make mistakes. The question is not about that one story, it's about the sum of what it delivers IMHO. And in that regard The Guardian still wins my support.

<comment><USER20> Just ribbing you btw.

Serious question, would you prefer being able to support quality reporters / reporting at these publications and not pay for the lies and fabrications? If you could do that (versus having to pay an all encompassing subscription).

<comment><USER25> No. I wouldn't want to directly support certain journalists. It creates the real problem of "writing to please your audience" and moving the focus from reporting to serving the patrons. The best journalists are not necessarily nice people, in my experience. They should focus on the story, not waste time on optimising their social reputation. They should be protected by their editors and the institution they work for from exactly this kind of influence. IMHO.

Also it is hard to go undercover for an important story when you have to make sure you grow your audience at the same time.

<comment><USER20> Fair. But you and I would pay for "not nice, but brutally honest journalism". I bet a lot of other would too. Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" is historical proof of that.

There's no reason a the authors couldn't write under pseudonyms, or publish as a collective. You still buy the articles one by one as you see fit.

<comment><USER26> Very difficult to maintain a pseudonym _and_ publish articles with quotes from named sources in, avoiding the Manafort fiasco.

The Economist manages the collective byline thing fairly well, but it's almost unique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The dynamic explained here isn't some cliff we are collectively approaching as the article seems to say. Instead, it's been a drag on people's willingness to sign up for subscription services and likelihood to churn off of them all along.

</comment><comment><USER28> Subscriptions will see declines across platforms because of fatigue and people realizing that they're not really using the subscriptions or deriving adequate value from those.

I only bother about subscriptions if it's for visual media (selectively) or for online backups. Everything else is what I use only occasionally, and don't see the value in getting stuck paying for those. As the article hints at, services that aren't niche or highly focused on one topic (it closely related set of topics) or voice will not find many takers.

For software, I like having a free trial and then paying once and deciding when I want to upgrade, at what price/discount, etc. I believe it's up to the developer to provide adequate value to tempt people to upgrade, and then leave it to them to decide. Most app subscriptions make sense for those who create a lot more monetary value with the use of the apps. That's a small percentage of the population.

Subscriptions to news sites don't make much sense when what I read all the time is highly selective and through news aggregation sites (not Facebook!) or applications (like an RSS reader).

I personally can't wait for a bigger and wider backlash against subscriptions, since every producer or developer seems intent on pushing that as the only option to users.

</comment><comment><USER29> Current news syndication model is outdated and will change in next 10-20 years.

Current model:

Newspapers & media platforms use syndication. They get most of their news syndicated from others journals and media. The editor chooses what to print or publish.

Future model:

Newspapers & media platforms use syndication. They get most of their news syndicated from others journals and media. It's the reader who decides what he reads from the syndicated news.

In the future you have an account in your favorite content news syndication service/newspaper/platform and pay flat monthly subscription fee by default. You can surf in the internet and read anything you want. Every month the service you subscribed distributes payments from the syndicated media according to what you read. There are different levels of payments. Some content is more expensive than other. You can also sponsor, tip etc. Some pay more because they consume more expensive content or more content.

ps. The same model will work for movies, games etc. You can watch HBO movies from Netflix and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, this problem is exactly what my startup is trying to solve. (Not sure if I'm allowed link to it here.)

A huge issue here is that there's no way to pay tiny amounts for one-off content. Like, it's impossible to charge 10¢ to your credit card.

So publishers resort to ads or subscriptions or obnoxious bundling schemes to get over the fee thresholds for credit cards.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a good thread to read that might give some more backstory: [https://twitter.com/JeremyLittau/status/1088503510184927233](https://twitter.com/JeremyLittau/status/1088503510184927233)

<comment><USER24> Thank you so much for bringing this into perspective. Especially the part where only 10-15% of revenue came from subscriptions. That really puts things into perspective in terms of free news articles!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It seems ridiculous to subscribe to, say, ten publications since you cannot realistically keep up with them all. However for me things changed when I started looking at this as a form of charity.

I subscribe to a number of publications that I only read every now and then, but that I find important or sympathetic. A free and healthy press that stimulates debate is worth my money even if I am not part of the core audience. This is money that I would otherwise spend on other laudable things like disaster relief or coral reefs, i.e. altruistic money without any immediate personal ROI.

</comment><comment><USER33> What seems like an obvious solution is to decentralize the ad market again. Especially news papers should be able to sell ads to buisenesses directly, as they have in the past.

<comment><USER34> changing the ad market will not fix the problem, the problem is the papers existed quite well when they had a captive audience.

that is no longer true so many publications are finding that they only were prosperous not because of their content but because they were the only game in town.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> What we need is a meta subscription service where you pay for a certain amount of articles available from dozens of participating magazines and news outlets. If you consume too many articles you need to pay a bit more.

The content creators are missing out by refusing to license their content to a services like this.

</comment><comment><USER36> I almost expected a little popup to appear mid-article that said "Whoa, slow down there fella. You've read four free articles this month. All you need to do to get subscribed is give us your email and payment info."

</comment><comment><USER37> Something like coil.com might be a viable alternative. At the moment I don't subscribe to news sites because of this issue. If I could pay upfront and then split it by usage I would definitely go for it

</comment><comment><USER38> Subscription implies advantages for unbundling - you get more from a Patreon linked to a preferred author, than from the NYT.

</comment><comment><USER39> > How many things are you subscribed to?

Zero.

Am I the only one?

</comment><comment><USER40> I wish tv and news was pay as you go. Not $4.99 an episode or $1.00 / article but $.25 / episode and $.10 / article. Bitcoin is a perfect medium for this but whenever people try to do this they price it irrationally.

</comment><comment><USER41> This post is light on new information. Why would I trust a sports writer to predict an imminent and dramatic behaviour change? I'm not trying to be shitty to sports writers, but there's nothing to suggest that this guy has done any research or has any background in consumer spending behaviour.

That all said, I think that it's much more interesting than "consumers have a finite spending limit". The first mistake is in believing that there's such a thing as "consumers". In reality, you have a population and an infinite number of slices within it. Some of those slices will be able to afford a huge number of services while others can afford none.

With the obvious stated, the next filter gets more interesting: at what point does an option become more convenient than alternatives? For example, people had no choice but to buy CDs until MP3s came along. Massive libraries of MP3s were common until streaming services offered a legal, frictionless option for a flat monthly fee. For a huge number of people, Spotify wins. And while you can keep clearing cookies, at some point you want to read Forbes, WP, NYT, etc stories enough that you decide paying is easier than circumventing paywalls, based on how much you value your time.

Finally, there's also a long list of other dimensions that influence subscriptions today: I'm a Canadian with a NYT subscription because I hate paywalls but mostly because I genuinely want to vote with my dollars to support quality news. This isn't so different from backing a Kickstarter project or a Patreon.

The blend of these services and likely other ones that don't exist yet give the population the opportunity to truly personalize their consumption if they wish to take it.

What I wish is that there was a consolidated location where I could manage all of my subscriptions to everything, period. Right now, every subscription is managed in a silo. This sucks. A more generalized payment mechanism would allow me to subscribe to the NYT, pay a small fee to unblock a single article and share it with my friends or even pay to sponsor a single writer... all from the same interface.

A guy can dream.

<comment><USER42> That's because it's not intended as a post that aims to explain new things so much as predict their impact in the coming year. Harvard's Neiman Lab does an annual list of predictions. This is just one of the predictions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I expected this to be about box subscriptions.

</comment><comment><USER44> tl;dr "people have a lot of subscriptions so they might start unsubscribing"</comment>


Blocking via an unsolvable CAPTCHA - <AUTHOR> https://patents.google.com/patent/US9407661B2/en <comment><USER2> I'm curious to know why and how you would enforce a patent like that if competition was using the same technique. Am I missing the point entirely? Is it just a mean to say "I got the idea first!"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, seems like that.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Space Explorer Chat Bot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stojanovic/space-explorer-bot <comment><USER2> In the future do you think it's worth using an AIaaS platforms like wit.ai, LUIS, or API.ai so users can talk to the bot versus selecting a button?</comment>


Spoof on Pixar lamp animation replaced with NSA camera - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55D-ybnYQSs&feature=youtu.be

<comment><USER2> It's too bad folks at the NSA will be high-fiving each other over the cool new mascot someone made for them.</comment>


Ask HN: Has Y Combinator ever accepted a Non-Tech Company? - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I am wondering if Y-Combinator has ever accepted a non-tech company into its program? Seeing that its for Start-ups I am wondering if they are only going after Tech Start-ups or is any type of company welcome? <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how many non-tech companies have been accepted, but here's what they say about it:

 _Though we fund all types of startups, we're especially interested in web/mobile applications. We've been thinking about that problem longer than anyone else, and by now can visualize much of the space of possibilities._

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I would like to get into Y-Combinator more for the Network than anything.</comment></comment>


Casio Used a Copyright Claim to Wipe a Calculator Mod Off the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgx88y/casio-used-a-copyright-claim-to-wipe-this-calculator-mod-off-the-internet <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23282607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23282607)</comment>


Stanford Professor as Much to Blame for Theranos Downfall as Elizabeth Holmes - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/07/elizabeth_holmes_shouldn_t_be_the_only_person_we_blame_for_theranos_downfall.html <comment><USER2> Currently, the posted title does not match the title of the article: _Theranos' Downfall Isn't Just Elizabeth Holmes' Fault_</comment>