Near death, explained - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained/ <comment><USER2> One of the problems with NDE reports is that it is not clear exactly _when_ the experience occurred. While the patient's brain may not function at all during the medical procedure, it is far from certain that this is the time NDE is taking place. It is very possible that the whole experience occurs shortly before the brain loses function or shortly after it regains it.

Another problem is the memory of the witnesses, like in the "shoe incident" described in the article. It's been known that people who come to believe they are witnessing something extraordinary suffer from great amounts of confirmation bias and other memory-distorting psychological effects.

Finally, as always, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. NDE is a fascinating topic deserving rigorous scientific study – one that might shed light on some of the mind's mysteries – but in no way should a relatively small number of reports change our complete view of the mind-brain problem.

<comment><USER3> The shoe incident really confused me... maybe because I skim-read, but will read again when I'm off this flight and on a bigger screen than my blackberry.

I understand that memory of things will practically dead might be possible, and while the science goes over my head, I'm fine with that. Even "looking down on yourself" can be achieved with a.) science of still remembering something and b.) imagination

But figuring out something no-where near your body, like the shoe outside... short of a non-scientific explanation (e.g. religious), I really can't see how that could ever be possible.

<comment><USER2> Unless that's not quite what happened. A witness's memory can be deceiving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the position of the author can be seen in one sentence from the article:

"Materialistic scientists have proposed a number of physiological explanations to account for the various features of NDEs."

Obviously, the author doesn't consider himself a "materialistic scientist."

<comment><USER5> RationalWiki mentions the author of this piece: [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non- materialist_neuroscience#Ma...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non- materialist_neuroscience#Mario_Beauregard.27s_quantum_mind)

This doesn't change the fact that NDEs are an interesting phenomenon, and we're not quite sure what's going on with them. Still, I'll bet money that they're not going to tell us anything new about physics.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. RationalWiki also concludes:

"Non-materialist neuroscience has failed every single one of the categories. Its basic framework is unwieldy and does not provide any clear, specific, falsifiable predictions. What few tests might be imagined for it have all turned up evidence strongly against its basic predictions. It has failed to advance knowledge, create new hypotheses and definitely has not made clear how it will aid in helping us understand and treat brain injuries or illnesses. It has been a complete flop scientifically. So why the sudden surge in books and publications pushing it? _We are dealing with a political and religious movement just as we have dealt with in intelligent design and creationism._ "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > As we have seen, such a view fails to account for how NDErs can > experience—while their hearts are stopped—vivid and complex thoughts and > acquire veridical information about objects or events remote from their > bodies.

Having experimented with Lucid Dreaming... I'll call bullshit.

> NDE studies also suggest that after physical death, mind and consciousness > may continue in a transcendent level of reality that normally is not > accessible to our senses and awareness.

By definition, if the instrument that is failing is the one that is measuring (itself!), you're not going to get results that tell you anything at all.

I encourage everybody to try lucid dreaming, it's very instructive. After my experiences, I'm 100% certain that it is responsible for everything from alien abductions to NDEs.

It's a lot of fun, too! Not to mention a lot cheaper and safer than experimenting with street drugs, although usually, you have to pay for the difference with patience.

</comment><comment><USER7> AHem, read the criticism of this wikipedia article on one of the Authors of Proof of heaven:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Alexander_(author)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Alexander_\(author\))

No science behind it, etc..

It seems to me even reading about the critics that Neurology is a very young science with not all its Science Processes and Measure snot fully established yet..

</comment><comment><USER8> In which we learn that many have had veridical NDEs/OBEs corroborated by third parties, but nothing is actually _explained_. The reader is merely treated to a series of anecdotes that render little beyond providing room for suggesting there is continuity of experience, without the accompanying clarity an explanation ought to provide.

There is also little attempt made to veil an implicit contempt for 'materialistic scientists'.

</comment><comment><USER9> well, it's an interesting article, but there's no explanation as the title suggests.</comment>


Yossarian Lives – The Metaphorical Search Engine - <AUTHOR> http://yossarianlives.com/home

<comment><USER2> A metaphorical search engine sounds interesting but I am not going to sign up without more detailed example.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Brand new search by metapohrically

By what?</comment>


Scientifically-designed fasting diet lowers risks for major diseases - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/10483.html <comment><USER2> > "food products supplied by the nutrition company L-Nutra"

There you go, yet another attempt at making money on something you can do for free.

As I understand it, the benefits of fasting come from the energy liberated from not having to digest food, energy that can be spent on repairing the body (this is why animals don't eat when they're sick).

If you don't have medical problems that would prevent fasting, do 5 days of REAL fasting or one day a week or whatever feels right to you. Then you will understand that for western people "hunger" is more psychological than physical.

The longest fast I did was 2 weeks. I could have gone longer physically (no hunger sensation) but psychologically I needed to eat something. I do much shorter but more frequent fasts nowadays, it's easier on the willpower.

<comment><USER3> When you say "REAL fasting" what do you mean exactly?

<comment><USER2> I eat nothing AT ALL and just drink water enough to not be thirsty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Blogspam of

[http://news.usc.edu/116479/scientifically-designed- fasting-d...](http://news.usc.edu/116479/scientifically-designed-fasting-diet- lowers-risks-for-major-diseases/)

with author credit stripped.

Journal article:

[http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/377/eaai8700](http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/377/eaai8700)

Paper available there (paywalled)</comment>


How Gordon Moore Made "Moore's Law" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/how-gordon-moore-made-moore-s-law-a3e363681ff0 <comment><USER2> To me, the most fascinating detail: "There is no evidence that the article made a splash at the time. It may or may not have been widely read, but it was not especially cited or republished."</comment>


Apple Introduces Revamped Two-Factor Auth for iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/08/ios-9-el-capitan-two-factor-authentication/

<comment><AUTHOR> The process for enabling the current (opt-in) two-factor verification is described here: [https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14668?locale=en_US](https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14668?locale=en_US)</comment>


Ask HN: How to zoom through a dense book on coding? - <AUTHOR> Take a 350 page computer book on coding. Anyone found some good tips for tackling denser matters? I find myself losing motivation half-way through.. even if it is essential reading! <comment><USER3> People often mistake covering material for learning. You can zoom through material at any speed you like, but learning is building something in your head.

How fast you can build things in your head relates to what you've already built, what and how much you want to build onto it, inherent difficulty of each specific thing you want to build (easier to paint a large wall than build a small cabinet), your energy level, and some amount of natural talent.

As in any building project, you'll probably have more energy if you do it a bit at a time and either rest or alternate tasks. You might find it better to alternate reading the book and writing code. You might go more slowly through the book but still build the knowledge in your head faster, and the latter is the real job. You might also do better with an easier book. Again, it's how fast and well you build things in your head, not get through a book, that matters.

</comment><comment><USER4> I suggest treat each chapter as its own book.

Then if you get through one chapter, consider that a success. Decide if you need the next chapter.

Some academic books have a dependency graph that helps you decide what chapters you can skip.

There is no need to finish a book. A book is just 20 or so decent size blog posts!

</comment><comment><USER5> Use the book to prop up your monitor so that it's at eye level. If it's making you lose motivation then you're not ready to read it. I only read a computer book once I have ported a few bits of code in a familiar language to this language and read a bunch of code that other people have written. If I am still interested in the language at that point then chances are I'll be interested in all the dark corners a book will introduce me to. Then it doesn't feel like a chore to read the computer book.

Reading a dense computer book as an introduction to a language is quite low effort which is why it's popular imo. They are extremely detailed so you think that's all you'll need. It's extremely low effort to buy the book and then it's pretty low effort to casually leaf through it, thinking that you're actually learning something when you probably aren't.

</comment><comment><USER6> This works for me, but might not work for you.

I can't pick up and learn an entire how-to book. But I can use a how-to book to help me complete a project. Once the project is done, and I have an incomplete mental schema for how the new language/platform/framework/tool works, I'm ready to read the book.

At this point I can quickly sail through it, skipping the parts I already learned during the project, and then diving deep on the parts I didn't. The key is using the hands-on project as a reason to build up a filing system in your head. Then as you're reading, you know where -- and whether -- to file all the new information.

</comment><comment><USER7> Everyone has their own learning style. I found that coding books are quite boring for me too, but working on a practical project can be enjoyable and educational at the same time as you learn things along the way as a part of the journey.

</comment><comment><USER8> When encountering a seemingly difficult book, I ask myself two questions - <USER2> it the right book in the sequence of what I am striving to learn and do I have enough background knowledge to understand it.

When watching lectures on YouTube on software engineering, I note which books those presenters recommend. I also read works they previously wrote because the presentation tends to be an overview of their books.

The book may be essential reading, but it likely assumes prerequisite knowledge if it seems difficult.

For example, Strunk and White is an essential book for writing better in English. I had to read additional books to understand the assumed concepts.</comment>


Magazines Use Digital Editions to Ramp Up Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323706704578227880541302630.html <comment><USER2> For over-the-paywall viewing just search via google for "Magazines Use Digital Editions to Ramp Up Pricing"</comment>


Time-lapse map of unemployment rates by U.S. county during recession - <AUTHOR> http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

<comment><USER2> What's so great about the Dakotas? My guess is that there is a higher fraction of agriculture/rancher/self employed that simply scale back employment rather than the binary in or out of a job. "My small business is not doing very well" won't likely show up in unemployment statistics.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps unemployed Dakotans have been moving elsewhere?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A beautiful illustration of the extent to which choice and distribution of colour influences the interpretation of a graphic. The ominous rushing-in of the doom-and-gloom purples and greys was just about terrifying (ok, I exaggerate a little). Would this animation have had the same effect if scaled from e.g. blue to yellow?

<comment><USER5> Actually, yes. It'd just look like the country is on fire then. There've been similar charts (mostly for foreclosure rates or house prices, and for obesity) that use red->purple, green->red, and all other sorts of color combinations, and they all look similarly ominous.

The units are the real issue here. If they'd set the top bracket at 20%, this chart would be ho-hum. You'd have some splashes of color in Detroit, the Rust Belt, and Central California, and most of the country would be a moderate yellow or orange.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did we really need those jobs in the first place?

I don't mean whether each individual was benefiting from the income from his or her job. Collectively, were the jobs a net benefit or drag on the rest of us?

<comment><USER7> There was a NY times post here a little while ago showing the current unemployment rate broken down by age, gender, race, and education.

Unsurprisingly, the difference in education was enormous. It's not too large a logical jump to say that some of the existing unskilled jobs were waiting for automated replacement.

Well, that's one of two options I'm pondering. The other is that the economy's split into a very literate, "wired", and economically-stable educated class, and a second "unwired" and economically-unstable class. I don't want to say illiterate as much as doesn't-read-terribly-much: television news, product information from salespeople, etc. People who phone or walk in for customer service, use cash and other forms of nonelectronic payment, shop nearly exclusively at brick-and-mortar stores, etc. Essentially, an entire, nearly- closed economy of people who both want human interaction for business and work as the human actors for the businesses that hire them. If we look at the economy through this dichotomy, it appears only one of the two fell.

<comment><USER8> I've noticed that WalMart has cut back on floor and checkout personnel. If I can't find something, I find a floor staff person and problem solved. These days, I can walk half the store looking for an employee. Same is true for HomeDepot, McDonalds, Kroger.

These unskilled laborers were let go not because they didn't provide value, but because in lean times customers are willing to accept the inconvenience. They weren't and probably won't be replaced by automation. When the economy is strong again, customers will complain about such inconveniences and WalMart will be aggressively hiring again.

<comment><USER9> I find your abundance of faith disturbing. I've seen several stores that have search kiosks in the pharmacy to help you find items. It's only a matter of time until retail customer service goes the knowledge base style of online customer service.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure some will provide kiosks chasing after similar goals as with self- checkout. I don't think adoption will be complete during this down economic turn and it may be cheaper and more customer friendly to provide floor staff again once the economy improves. Sure this is mostly wishful thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is really interesting to watch how things were concentrated for the first 6 to 7 months of the recession, and then we fell off the cliff last fall. This chart is another great way of seeing how that happened: [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SsXzzDSUSqI/AAAAAAAAGf...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SsXzzDSUSqI/AAAAAAAAGfM/PWX-2daRZ0w/s1600-h/EmploymentJobLossesRecessions.jpg) (via [http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/10/october- economic-s...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/10/october-economic- summary-in-graphs.html))

</comment><comment><USER11> On behalf of my fellow Michiganders, I'd like to say, "Welcome".

</comment><comment><USER12> I know what I'll be thankful for this Thanks Giving - very unfortunate to see the extent of the economic blight so graphically.

Did we jump from 8.5 in September to 10.2 in October? That seems excessive.

</comment><comment><USER13> This paints a pretty stark picture. Has any else noticed an increase in unsolicited calls from head hunters and job offers? I am wondering if it's me or a leading indicator?

<comment><USER14> A good friend of mine is still looking for a job after graduating from college - and he's been suckered into scammy pyramid scheme interviews already.

Seems like the vermin come out to play when the economy is bad.

Funny/sad part is that he got this lead from a posting on my college's alumni jobs system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That was terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER16> not as detailed, but another timelapse flash visualization over a longer period of time - <http://tipstrategies.com/archive/geography-of-jobs/>

</comment><comment><USER17> Time to saddle up and head for Nebraska!

</comment><comment><USER18> Was this done with R?

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think this animation adds anything to out understanding of what has been happening: unemployment has increased everywhere, with about the same amount.

</comment><comment><USER20> What a mess!

</comment><comment><USER21> I misread 10% as 100%, oops.</comment>


Organizing your codebase for microservices - <AUTHOR> We have adopted the microservices architecture at Shippable and want to share some of the decisions we made along the way. The first was - how should code be organized? Mono repo with all services or one repository for each microservice?
http://blog.shippable.com/our-journey-to-microservices-and-a-mono-repository
Let me know what you think! <comment><USER2> What kind of cultural obstacles did you need to overcome with your dev team to make this transition? Did it feel disruptive or more natural? Any advice on getting everyone on board and productive quickly, or lessons you wish you had learned before embarking on this journey?</comment>


My Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/buro9/status/980349887006076928 <comment><USER2> I'm the author and linking to my tweets is a bad idea because they auto-delete after 14 days.

For future HN context, as the author I'm reproducing them here in full:

My @Sony "smart" TV has updated itself and tried to force me to use a new app from [https://samba.tv](https://samba.tv) and boy oh boy... this is worse than recent @facebook stuff.

From their own privacy policy: [https://samba.tv/legal/privacy- policy/](https://samba.tv/legal/privacy-policy/) … they track what you watch, when you watch it, your location, your interactions with other apps. And they share this with... well, everyone basically.

This information is then used to market to you within the TV and offer you a "hot list"... but it is also used to "Detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities and protect the rights, safety and property of Samba and others"

If you have a "Smart TV" from any brand and it's doing an update you will 100% want to disable Samba.

Samba is not a feature for you, it is a snitch in your living room, snitching on everything you watch on your TV, it's a feature for corporations only.

To disable Samba the soft way... don't agree to their T&Cs post OS upgrade.

To disable Samba the hard way... use Android system settings to disable the app.

This is a good time to say that if you own a "Smart TV" from any company you should run it on a different network than your NAS and other computers. And that all other devices best require passwords to connect to them.

Ideally you run a TV on a different VLAN.

And this is where I wish that dumb panels were all the rage, and that the only "smart" functionality was external to the display itself. But when @netflix and other content providers decline the use of their apps outside of integrated devices this is the hell we live in.

I really wish that @Google provided a TV box that was the full Android TV, but that was vanilla Google with the ability to install @netflix, @BBCiPlayer, @mubi as apps. That I could just plug this into any display panel, including dumb displays.

Perhaps @Google could even call it Pixel TV.

<comment><USER3> Solution: don't _ever_ purchase a smart TV.

Preferably, no one would _ever_ purchase a smart TV. When smart TV sales go to zero, the makers would get the message.

Sadly, too many folks don't know, or if they do know, they don't care.

<comment><USER2> Try it.

I did.

I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV.

The best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all.

<comment><USER4> The non-smart 4k tv's exist and can be found for relatively inexpensive prices. I just got one, an off brand Technicolor TC5580-UHD.

<comment><USER5> That particular model number is apparently exclusive to Shoppers Drug Mart (store-exclusive model numbers are a pretty common problem; in many cases the actual difference from a "standard" model is something trivial like a slightly different remote or bezel). There's an interesting forum thread about the overall product family / platform / whatever [1].

[https://forums.redflagdeals.com/rca-haier-avera-fluid- sylvan...](https://forums.redflagdeals.com/rca-haier-avera-fluid-sylvania- technicolor-proscan-49-55-65-uhd-4k-tv-owners-thread-2069609/)

<comment><USER4> Optimum points are really nice for stuff like this. Just hold onto them until something nice shows up. It would be very interesting if some details of the FW came out. Not going to reverse engineer my new TV but the service menu gives me the feels of something that is very customizable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The meme of "if you're not paying, you are the product" is, of course, true, but it doesn't acknowledge the host of cases when you _are_ the product _even if you 're paying_. This guy basically paid to be spied on.

<comment><USER7> Which is why this meme is a half-truth. Other examples include old-world companies like magazines and banks selling our data despite us paying for the service.

Even in areas other than privacy, my bank mistreats me far worse than Internet companies like Google and Twitter.

Not to mention that in a multi-sided ecosystem, Internet companies need to keep both users and advertisers happy, so even if you're not paying, your desires still factor into the decision.

To be clear, I didn't say this meme is a lie, just that it's a half-truth. It makes sense to some extent.

<comment><USER8> My bank (US Bank) had a Facebook script behind the login wall and was firing requests to Facebook while I was doing private banking.

<comment><USER9> You should write it up in a blog post or something. Given the climate around Facebook right now, it's not inconceivable that it could get enough attention that your bank stops doing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > From their own privacy policy: [https://samba.tv/legal/privacy- > policy/](https://samba.tv/legal/privacy-policy/) they track what you watch, > when you watch it, your location, your interactions with other apps. And > they share this with... well, everyone basically.

I wonder how the GDPR will affect companies like Samba's business model.

Also, isn't this effectively true of all internet connected TVs since they will never receive security patches and become part of the botnet of things?

<comment><USER11> GDPR will _hopefully_ make companies that do things like this really sweat. The EU doesn't seem to be fucking around with that one.

<comment><USER12> GDPR only increases engineering and compliance costs. It doesn't have any consumer-side impact since to a first approximation, zero consumers take advantage of data privacy laws.

<comment><USER13> > since to a first approximation, zero consumers take advantage of data > privacy laws.

That's where that nice multiplier of 250,000 gets going. See, even if to a first approximation zero consumers take advantage of these laws if it turns out that 'approximately zero' out of 100 million is say 10,000 you're _still_ fucked if you decide to play dumb.

So round off all you want, but keep in mind the multiplier.

<comment><USER12> No, because of that multiplier all companies are coming into compliance and it's costing all of them a lot of money. But it isn't going to affect their revenue or advertising business models at all because nobody uses the tool. I've done GDPR work at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. They had an existing (pre-GDPR) privacy tool that literally less than 100 people had ever used. This is a company with hundreds of millions of users.

<comment><USER13> So, you're saying 'it works and that's why we shouldn't use it'?

 _One_ company isn't a particularly solid sample.

For some contrast: I've looked at 9 companies since the beginning of the year and all of them took the GDPR serious enough that it made them re-evaluate their privacy, security and data life cycles. The interesting bit is that they would have _never_ done any of that if not for the GDPR, and that no matter what level of use the data privacy tools will see it doesn't matter because before they didn't have those tools and now they do.

Besides that the GDPR has _much_ wider scope than just allowing people access to their own data. Also, you should expect that as people become more aware of these things - and consumers _will_ be more aware - that such tools will see more use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This sort of crap makes me think a manufacturer should brand a dumb tv, and simply market: "it's just a high end tv without all the crap we know you hate and dont use anyways, also the CIA can't hack it"

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421326/smart-tv- hacking...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421326/smart-tv-hacking-cia- samsung-weeping-angel-vulnerability)

<comment><USER15> I am quite angry that my PS4 is full of ads. I paid money for that box.

What I want is a law that requires a product to clearly indicate if it has ads or not in the software, and it cannot change at any point in the product's life. So I know what the price tag actually is.

Edit: I want to be clear. I am not against advertising or the freedom for a manufacturer to decide that advertising is their business model. What I want is to protect consumers who pay for a product that slowly devolves into an advertising box. I am also not expecting my rush-designed law to prevent ads or give consumers more options. All it would do is make it clear to consumers what they're paying for.

Advertising is just another form of payment. Imagine if you bought a smart fridge and 3 years in it required a subscription to use the "smart" part of it. You would be furious.

<comment><USER16> The money you paid for your PS4 barely covers manufacturing costs.

<comment><USER17> And that's our problem... how?

Sony makes money off every video game sale; attempting to get more from ads is just greedy. And how they present the ads as another game a very dark pattern.

<comment><USER18> > _And that 's our problem... how?_

Isn't it obvious? That's the buyers problem because any time they "buy" something for less than it actually costs, they actually get an ad/app/service subsidized experience.

<comment><USER17> As I pointed out above Sony has, does, and will continue to make up the hardware subsidy by the markup and money they get on games. That is, there is no need for Sony to subsidize the platform further through ads.

This makes ads on the PS4 a product of greed alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would like to see a TV with the following attributes:

1\. 8 Inputs, with at least four HDMI and one HDMI accessible from the front panel. The remaining inputs would have at least two composite inputs. There would be no cable input since most cable companies, around here anyway, require a set-top box anyway.

2\. An optical audio output, for those who wish to hook up a proper audio system. Those who don't would get ok-ish built in speakers.

3\. An always-on power outlet or two, to make hooking up the obligatory set- top box, Apple TV, etc easier. It would also have two USB power outlets, which are also always on, which would make hooking up a Raspberry Pi, Chromecast, etc easier. This requirement is optional, but desirable.

The remote on the TV would have a button for each input, a power button, volume controls, and a couple of buttons to support the on-screen settings menu (things like picture adjustments, activate/deactivate/rename inputs, etc). The TV would respond to HDMI CEC controls from attached devices, but would have the option to ignore these on particular inputs.

In the end, the TV provides the appropriate infrastructure to hook up whatever devices meet my needs. It also doesn't try to solve problems that TV manufacturers aren't good at solving.

Why does nobody make a TV like this? Assuming this was price-competitive with a regular TV, I'd buy two.

EDIT: I found one that's pretty close[0].

[0] [https://www.costco.ca/Haier-49UG2500-49-in.-4K-LED- TV.produc...](https://www.costco.ca/Haier-49UG2500-49-in.-4K-LED- TV.product.100386052.html)

<comment> cup-of-tea What you're describing is a monitor. A big, good looking monitor. That's all I want too. The interface on my (non smart) TV is unbearably slow and I don't want to use it. Unbelievably, the interface on the last "smart" TV I tried, which costs 5x as much, is even slower. I cannot stand using tools that can't keep up with how fast I think.

<comment><USER19> Yes, exactly. Living room monitors need to become a thing.

<comment><USER20> They kind of are a thing, there's the LG 43UD79-B[1] which is a 43" UHD monitor. Not the biggest screen, but decently sized and it advertises a 5ms GTG response time which should be adquate for monitor like use.

[1] [http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-43UD79-B-4k-uhd-led- monitor](http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-43UD79-B-4k-uhd-led-monitor)

<comment><USER21> Be careful to check of those things support HDPC or whatever it's called. I have the Dell 42.5 inch monitor and it won't play 4k content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If this happens under EU jurisdiction, then you can deny the update and legally demand that the TV continues working. The manufacturer may not impose new rules after the selling contract.

Fuck this wild-west anarchistic behaviour of software companies. When we have legal protection, we can make use of it.

<comment><USER23> Also have a Sony Smart TV, and I live in the EU. After updating the TV, it asked me whether I wanted to enable Samba, and I simply declined. Seems to be disabled now.

<comment><USER24> Unfortunetly, it seems that the TV will still contact Samba.tv's servers regardless: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16728720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16728720)

The only way to be sure with untrustworthy devices like this is not to connect them to the network at all (i.e. use a separate device you can trust instead), or better yet, buy a dumb monitor instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Ideally you run a TV on a different VLAN.

Why let it 'run' on your network or the internet at all? I've never connected my newest TV to my WiFi, and can't ever foresee a reason to do so. All of the apps I want are running on a connected box I trust to maintain a degree of privacy that I'd never assume from Sony, Samsung, or the like.

It's not as if Netflix or Hulu actually force you to use the embedded TV apps.

<comment><USER26> I plug my "smart" TV into ethernet now and then to get firmware updates, then unplug it the rest of the time.

<comment><USER27> 2008: plug the TV into the power outlet and you're done

2018: your TV needs internet access because updates

What the hell happened? This is ridiculous.

<comment><USER28> 2008: Manufacturer finds a defect in the firmware code that causes excessive processor usage, thus causing the internal electronics to fail earlier than anticipated. No fix available.

2018: defect in firmware found. New version deployed to internet connected devices and lifespan extended.

Both of those are made up scenarios, but I would argue that there are legitimate reasons for devices to be connected to the internet. Along with a bunch of terrible reasons, of course.

<comment><USER29> > _lifespan extended_

Right. Sure. The manufacturer will spend time and money to extend the life of devices already purchased.

I would prefer not take the chance, and see what happens. If the TV dies early, so be it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> We are recent "cord-cutters" with a brand new Sony 4K, Android-enabled TV. On our other TVs, we have a Roku and an Amazon Firestick. We use the builtin Sony apps because they were (essentially) free and are the only way we currently have to get 4K content.

I noticed the Samba nonsense when I set up the TV and have declined to participate -- but guess what? The TV still regularly connects to the domain flingo.tv, which is Samba's old name. It also connects to other strange things, like playstation-related domains. (and what is ndmdhs.com?)

I've set our WAN router to block samba/flingo and few other things, but my wife is (rightfully) concerned that I'll disrupt the Android update process, so I'm being careful.

It would be useful for someone with the skill, time and tools to investigate what places these Internet TVs are contacting, aside from the actual video content providers. If someone is doing that, I'd love to hear what they find.

<comment><USER31> If you could provide some packet captures from the TV, analysis is pretty straightforward...

<comment><USER30> My WAN router only offers a short snapshot logging capability. I suppose I could look at using Wireshark or something, but I'm not too experienced in this area.

If I decide to go "deep techie" on this, I'd probably pursue an alternative DNS approach. "Pi-hole" looks very interesting in this regard. I wish I hadn't just gotten rid of my old laptop. (smile)

<comment><USER32> tcpdump is a cli program that can output a file that Wireshark can read. It's a matter of copying an invocation from somewhere and having room to store the dump (external storage recommended, it might be a lot of data).

<comment><USER30> Thanks, I'll look into that. I would like to have a longer snapshot of what the Sony TV is doing.

Something I forgot to mention in my original comment -- that darn TV is accessing the Internet even when it is (supposedly) turned off. It's hard not be cynical about this stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My parents' TV has various apps built in and one of them is Skype. They discontinued the Skype service so now _every single time the TV turns on_ it displays a stupid error message about "a problem with an app" that can't be uninstalled and that they never used.

Smart TVs are full of stuff like this. They need to go.

<comment><USER34> That's why I went with Roku TV. They are the only platform with a consistent track record of supporting old hardware. You also don't suffer from the single vendor lock-in of Tizen or WebOS or the wild west of Android.

<comment><USER35> if you are going to get a smart TV, definitely get a Roku TV. While the interface for controlling the settings is much better than any other TV, the remote app is nice and the private listening is awesome, the hardware is slower than AppleTV 4K, and it doesn't handle fast forward and rewind as well. The right half of the home screen is used for ads and the remote buttons for quickly going to other channels isn't customizable and you are stuck with whatever provider paid Roku for placement.

We have two Roku TVs and two other TVs with Roku sticks. We also have AppleTvs connected to each of the TVs - one 4K ATV and the rest 3rd Gen ATVs.

<comment><USER36> The ads are obnoxious and the way every "app"/service implements their own interface with quirky behavior (Does the "up" button show the timeline, pause, or take you back out to the episode/series selection screen?) is annoying.

Fortunately it's possible to fix the ads at least by blocking doubleclick and the roku ad/tracking domain at the router level. Doing this leaves a blank "empty poster" graphic instead of an ad, but doesn't seem to break anything else. Updates, search, and content all continue to work fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I just picked up a 55" TV, and the troubles I had explaining I did not want any "Smart" features was like explaining to morons that smoking is bad for you. The store had no commission on the sale, but the sales people, all of them, could not understand why I'd not want TV apps and Internet.

<comment><USER38> Is it even possible to buy a non-smart TV today (not counting PC monitors)? I bought my TV in 2015 and even then it seemed like most of the non-smart options were overpriced older models with worse image quality, etc.

<comment><USER39> You have to get commercial or hospitality versions made for hotels.

<comment><USER40> Sadly the panels used in such models are almost always crap compared to high- end consumer models. Even models which are supposedly identical to some consumer model are usually not identical. The software often lacks features such as Game Mode and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> On a similar note, Samsung updated a bunch of apps on my dad's s7 and pushed a bunch of notifications to him, trying to get him to join some Samsung rewards club and suspended use of his phone until he clicked next. He's 67 guys. The madness needs to stop.

<comment><USER42> I just got ahold of an S8 Edge and by god is it full of shite. I won't be buying any Samsung hardware, and I'll definitely recommend my friends/family don't; it might be the least user-friendly device I've ever used. The first 2 days you have to spend disabling so many things, or getting daft popups all over the place explaining things you don't care about.

<comment><USER43> "Crapware: Originally coined and reported by Marc Orchant on his ZDNet blog." [https://lifehacker.com/5749098/the-computer-attacks-youve- ne...](https://lifehacker.com/5749098/the-computer-attacks-youve-never-heard- of)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> > This information is then used to market to you within the TV and offer you a > "hot list"... but it is also used to "Detect, investigate and prevent > fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities and protect the rights, > safety and property of Samba and others"

This app pushes ads and tries to protect everybody except the user!

</comment><comment><USER45> You can't really buy a high quality TV anymore without having em try to shove extra garbage down your throat. I own an old Samsung TV, and it has terrible UX. Giving it a chance to connect to the internet was a horrible mistake. My TV is around +5 years old, and I don't see myself buying a new one any time soon.

During the last 2 or so years I've drastically changed the kinds of media I consume. Now my primary sources of entertainment are a mix of books and audiobooks. Last year I think I read somewhere between 200 and 300 books.

Books don't include any tracking bullshit. If you stick with digital you can at least buy DRM-free copies in a few online stores. But even cooler, we actually have tons of huge buildings all across the US, each with thousands of books, and you can grab any one you want and read it for free!

<comment><USER46> > Books don't include any tracking bullshit.

Most books aren't specially interesting. The history of the books that you borrow in the public library is registered with your library customer card, address and name. Some local libraries or universities will ask you to write your name in a card when you take the book and let the card in the shelf. Therefore anybody could read the names of the former five or ten people that borrow the book before, and how many days they have it.

The complete history for some "person of interest" shouldn't be much complicated to obtain for authorities. Maybe anybody borrowing a lot of controversial texts in a short time and a small village would trigger some alerts. Who knows. Let suppose that this is a library specialized in history and the book title written in the public card is "mein kampf", for example.

<comment> et-al I am not your librarian, but the American Library Association (ALA) seems to respect readers' privacy.

They pushed back on the Patriot Act:

[http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/federallegislation/theusa...](http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/federallegislation/theusapatriotact)

And have guidelines for librarians when law enforcement comes knocking:

[http://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy/lawenforcement](http://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy/lawenforcement)

Again, it will vary depending on your town and library.

<comment><USER46> Interesting stuff, thanks.

> or in response to some form of judicial process (subpoena, search warrant, > or other court order).

So basically, this info is available and can be used against you in a trial. Is a fake sense of privacy.

The main difference between public libraries and internet is that the former have much less controversial adult or political stuff but a lot of stablished literature touch taboo and very sensitive matter. Has this people read 'Lolita', 'the Catcher in the Rye' or took a look to 'The Capital' in the past?, has borrow a Quran recently? For how many days? How many times? Any attorney could easily use pseudoscience and cheap psychology to draw a line and build a relate leading to any conclusion of their interest with this info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I hope EU will push more laws, when you buy hardware like a smatphone,TV,PC all the extra crap on top should be opt-in not opt-out, I bought an ASUS cheap smartphone(new, unlocked no carrier contracts) and it has extra apps on top of the basic Android that I can only disable and not remove.

At startup there should be a prompt with suggested apps that they want the user to install, if the user selects an app to install it(after reading the description) then pull that app from the store.

<comment><USER48> you might like eelo.io and there are others in the works that are open-source and privacy-focused, but eelo looks promising :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "I really wish that @Google provided a TV box that was the full Android TV, but that was vanilla Google with the ability to install @netflix, @BBCiPlayer, @mubi as apps. That I could just plug this into any display panel, including dumb displays."

He is basically asking to be spied in a different way, just like his cellphone does.

<comment><USER50> While I'd love the option not to be spied on, If I don't have that option, I'd rather the spies be fewer and more competent.

The doomsday scenario is if we have tons of little pop-up 3rd party data collectors that fail at infosec and produce datasets that become public knowledge via leaks and can be cross-referenced for all eternity.

</comment></comment><comment> nv-vn AT&T does this on their Android phones pretty frequently. Missed my alarm the other day because they decided to push an update overnight and you need to input a password to boot into your phone after it restarts. I'm just waiting till the high profile lawsuit where someone can't call 9/11 because AT&T just forcibly turned their phone off.

</comment><comment><USER51> > Ideally you run a TV on a different VLAN.

Are these the depths to which we have sunk? I remember when a television was a thing that showed moving images using a cathode ray tube. The switch to liquid crystal displays was a genuine technological improvement. Now we need to treat our televisions as hostile surveillance devices because "ad tech" runs the world? I can't wait until our robot taxis drive diabetics to Krispy Kreme, then to Bob's Dialysis Center.

</comment><comment><USER52> This is, sadly, nothing new. See [0], Samsung also did something like this in 2016.

I was affected by this, I'm never getting a Samsung TV ever again.

[0] [http://adage.com/article/digital/samsung-smart-tv-update- for...](http://adage.com/article/digital/samsung-smart-tv-update-forces- ads/307246/)

<comment><USER14> I don't get why Samsung bothers too make great products that have shitty software.

My refrigerator shouldn't need to reboot. Or at one point get into an endless reboot cycle. This "smart" but mediocre age needs to go away

<comment><USER53> I've been looking at getting a new washing machine lately. One of the "hot new features" some new washing machines have is the ability to "download new washing programs via our app!".

Really? The 40+ different pre-programmed wash cycle options aren't enough and you expect to think of new washing machine routines over the next year or two? Its like ... DLC but for washing my clothes. Who thinks this is a good idea?

I wonder how much of that functionality will still work in 10-15 years when the machine is getting long in the tooth.

I can't wait for botnets made up of old internet connected washing machines. You know its just a matter of time before some Russian teenager takes down github using your grandma's washing machine.

<comment><USER54> You think botnets don't already include all these smart devices? We recently bought a new fridge and freezer with that functionality but there's no way they are getting hooked up to any network.

<comment><USER14> You can apparently request the source code for many of those devices. Ive done it for my Samsung fridge and got a reasonable response.

I scanned the code and don't find any egregious problems like hard coded passwords but I just assume the codebase is a complete shit show with flaws.

I will not connect those devices to my wifi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is the problem with putting logic into the TV. Keep it Unix-y. Do one thing, but do it right. A TV should be just a panel, nothing more.

A $50 player box does everything better than the built-in player hardware and software.

<comment><USER56> > A TV should be just a panel, nothing more.

Don't we have such things, called "monitors"?

<comment><USER49> Yup, that would be the ideal solution, but their prices skyrocket as soon as one goes above the "normal" office/gamer panel sizes. They're also probably built using better parts and better quality control. Economies of scale do the rest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I have a 4K 55" "dumb" TV. You typically need to look for the "Business" line of products to find them.

[http://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-display/displays- tv...](http://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-display/displays- tvs/commercial/lg-55UX340C)

The downsides are that it doesn't do HDR (that's typical for the pricepoint anyway, but I'm not sure they make their nicer lines as dumb-TVs "for business" if you wanted it). And it only has two HDMI inputs (which is fine for me, or I might get a separate splitter if I want to expand later).

The upsides: the TV just works, works fast, and never gets in my way. The remote-control is simple.

I'll avoid Smart TVs as long as I possibly can.

</comment><comment><USER58> Reliable internet basically turned tech companies into giant bait and switch factories. Things get swapped out from under you at will to force you to use certain apps, sign up for certain services, give over whatever data they want. Look at Microsoft switching out their terms of service for skype, xbox live, office, etc. Windows updates are more of the same. Cell phone apps are a prime target since they basically give a direct line to update whatever software a company wants on to your phone, now that you have invested in setting up and getting some particular software to work. All the solutions to problems get switched out to create more problems.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is an example of a strategic bind:

Google wants Android to be "cleaner," to better compete with Apple. This means no underhanded service modules or system extensions, and no intrusive or otherwise low quality privileged apps.

Android phones are inexpensive because Google doesn't make money directly from licensing the OS. Barriers to entry are low, competition is fierce, and hardware differentiation is only possible at the high end (e.g. vertically integrated OEMs like Samsung).

This means at the high end Samsung's product managers won't give up making Samsung phone differentiated through things like Bixby, which is a value- subtracted wart on Android, and at the low end, cheap OEMs won't stop taking payments from app makers who monetize by collecting user data.

Google has the power to reject OEM products that violate whatever standards Google chooses to impose on OEMs, but, as Microsoft learned decades ago, standing between a low margin OEM and a few extra dollars per unit is a difficult position. Once a product ships, policing updates is even harder.

If you are wondering "Why can't I get a 'clean' TV, phone, PC, etc?" This is why.

<comment><USER60> >as Microsoft learned decades ago, standing between a low margin OEM and a few extra dollars per unit is a difficult position. Once a product ships, policing updates is even harder.

What is this about? Afaik windows (desktop) and windows phone all get 5+ years of patches.

<comment><USER61> Presumably, it's about all the junk that OEMs install on Windows in exchange for a few cents or dollars per machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> You can easily buy a high quality dumb TV in 2018. I just did it last year. It took me ten minutes of research. I saved hundreds of dollars over and enjoy many more streaming features than the equivalent smart TV by hooking up an old laptop via HDMI.

Here it is: [https://www.walmart.com/ip/Samsung-43-class-fhd-1080p-led- tv...](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Samsung-43-class-fhd-1080p-led-tv- un43j5000/45161376)

<comment><USER63> We bought a dumb TV on sale for $175. 50 inch, too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Have boycotted Sony ever since their [rootkit DRM][1] in 2005.

Seems things have not changed much at the company.

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

<comment><USER65> Haven't bought A Sony product since they killed Bleem!, the Playstation 1 emulator for PC. That rootkit really hammered it in though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Slightly odd that the final tweet for the OP is a wish for Google to release a Pixel TV. I'm sure a Google TV wouldn't spy on you at all.

<comment><USER67> I can see OPs point. I'm slightly less concerned about Google than some scrappy little upstart still trying the "growth at any cost" thing.

I actually will probably trust Facebook again once they have been suitably thrashed over past deeds and have had time to reflect on what went wrong.

Both companies will eventually become privacy conscious by necessity and have the resources (hopefully) to enforce it internally.

If they don't then the next revelation or the one after that might be their death knell.

<comment><USER66> It's ironic that "growth at any cost" is now being used as a stick to beat scrappy little upstarts with - when that is literally Facebook's phrase.

What Facebook and Google lose in (pretty much entirely self-imposed, for now) regulations, they gain in the ability to index against all of your other activity, everywhere.

The scrappy startup has only one data point on you, and has to work with others to make it useful (which, with GDPR will be a lot harder to do).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> If you're curious what samba does with your data: [https://platform.samba.tv/audiences/connected-tv- ads/](https://platform.samba.tv/audiences/connected-tv-ads/)

I run two ctv ad camapigns partially using samba tv data.

</comment><comment><USER69> I haven't used many smart tvs but I find the software to feel lower quality than a dedicated game console or box.

Kinda feel like they are building in smart TV features just to say "me to". Plus some of the blu-ray players that came with Netflix and stuff aren't being updated anymore and then when the APIs are deprecated at some point. So then you have these boxes lose their originally functionality other than just playing disks.

Seems like displays last longer than the software.

</comment><comment><USER70> Rather than using the "smart" function of your TV you would be well advised to get a 'tiny form factor' computer (I use Zotac), perhaps running Ubuntu, so that you can get the 'smartness' under your own terms.

Otherwise you may find that your smart TV is tracking everything you do and listening to everything you say! (ala 2001 A Space Odyssey; "I'm sorry Dave I can't do that.")

</comment><comment><USER71> It's becoming almost necessary to have a wireless router that supports having a guest network where connected guests can't "talk to each other". The frustrating part is my Linksys has a captive portal rather than asking for password the traditional way, so I can't join some of my "smart" appliances to the guest network. This is somewhat irrelevant to the post, but I try to keep all the untrusted devices on a separate network. I don't want them talking to the devices I trust or learning from each other and becoming "smarter". It just stinks that it's getting harder to find dumb devices with a focused use - they all want to be tablets.

</comment><comment><USER72> It's pretty sad that even a "premium brand" like Sony does this.

Last year, Sony's privacy policy for their Digital Paper app (without which the Digital Paper device is useless) and Headphones Connect (not required for the headphones to function) claimed the content of the device the app was installed on as fair game for telemetry without opt out. That's not OK. The Headphones Connect privacy language seems to have been revised in January, but I'm still not installing the app.

Digital Paper is marketed to legal and medical professionals!

</comment><comment><USER73> It's funny sitting here on HN reading about this, with many HN readers outraged and disappointed that a company would do such anti-user stuff in their products. HN readers, quite a few of whom, are likely complicit software engineers at companies doing similar anti-user things.

You ask when these practices are going to end? They will not end while we quietly implement them! You look for who to blame? As a profession we need to look in the mirror.

These surveillance boxes masquerading as consumer electronics don't build themselves.

<comment><USER74> Software engineers aren't all clones. There are probably more who don't care about privacy than those who do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> One of the few bright sides of Sony's smart TVs is that since they run android, its not a big deal to connect to the TV via adb and delete whichever apps you don't want to run. the xdc forums have a pretty good starting point on things to get rid of:

[https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus- player/general/sony-a...](https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus- player/general/sony-android-tv-users-t3096901/page126)

</comment><comment><USER76> Yep, I used to use the Netflix app on my Sony TV (bravia W8) but after an update couple months ago it stopped working completely, Netflix just closes when I try to play anything. I actually have completely changed my opinion on OTA updates over the last few years - I don't want any updates. I want the software my phone/TV/car shipped with and I don't want to to change for the sake of updating, it's universally more pain than it's worth.

<comment><USER77> I agree, but things will still break with Netflix (or whoever) deprecates and then discontinues the API that they're using to access content.

<comment><USER78> Not if you consume Netflix through a media box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> You should know that every single Vizio tv has been doing this for years. But it's less nefarious than one may think and you can opt out.

Source: helped build it.

</comment><comment><USER80> Just don't plug your "smart" TV into the internet and all these problems go away. Seriously. Get a Roku or similar for any services you want.

</comment><comment><USER81> You are blocked from following @buro9 and viewing @buro9's Tweets. Learn more

Ha.

<comment><USER82> someone who deletes their tweets every 14 days also uses a blocklist, figures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> I got a Smart LG TV with my LG G5 years ago (for 'free' with the purchase of my phone) and I don't give it Wi-Fi credentials. I bought a Mi Box Android TV from WalMart instead and hook that up to the internet. I rather my TV be as dumb as possible so I can replace the device I use to access Netflix without having to throw out my whole TV. It doesn't have Android TV it has some LG thing but regardless I rather keep my TV dumb altogether.

I have no guarantee my TV wont spy on me through my wireless network tomorrow (if not today). I have no true guarantee that my TV wont become exploitable to some botnet either. I rather be able to take my Android TV device and unplug it and still be able to use my TV with a DVD player if it came down to my device being exploited somehow.

</comment><comment><USER84> I own two dumb Sony TVs and a really old Westinghouse that I gave to my mother. 1080 tvs and high enough resolution for me. I consider 2k and above to be excessive and unneeded (I even think the smooth motion of today's TVs take away from the programming and turn those garbage dsp things off). I enjoy TV shows and I prefer to keep things simple. I prefer a dumb TV, in fact if be happy with a monitor. Just give me an TV with a few inputs and I'm happy. I prefer to buy a low cost media player, currently older fire sticks. That's all I'll ever want or need. Don't need apps on a TV. In fact, I think the idea is absurd.

</comment><comment><USER85> Yet another reason not everything needs to be connected all the time. I don't need my fridge reminding me to get eggs or that the milk is out of date. Those things are readily apparent.

</comment><comment><USER86> I want to run an open source operating system such as Debian/Ubuntu on my next TV. By using open source software I know what the TV does and other can verify what it does. There is a lot of usable streaming apps(Netflix through Chrome, Amazon Prime, Spotify). Also mention that there is Kodi.

Please put open boot loader so one can load Open source software in TVs.

Another great feature is that the TV will continue to get security updates and longer from a software perspective. Longer lasting TV will be better for the environment.

</comment><comment><USER87> My interest in smart TVs ended almost instantly after I bought my first. I went to adjust the volume and there was an advertisement below the volume slider. Not an ad for Panasonic. Just a regular old banner ad for some random company. I disabled that "feature" in the settings then just disconnected the TV from the network entirely after discovering how terrible all the apps were.

I just use a Chromecast and Kodi on a NUC for everything now.

</comment><comment><USER88> Maybe over simplifying but could you filter the network traffic for the spying chatter and while letting it still get major updates? I'm assuming there would be a way to see what spy traffic is and then route the requests to a dead DNS host file.

I'll agree in advance you shouldn't have to secure yourself from inside the home network like this but I also assume there will be more and more smart devices exfiltrating data that you didn't really want.

</comment><comment><USER89> > run it on a different network than your NAS and other computers. And that > all other devices best require passwords to connect to them. Ideally you run > a TV on a different VLAN.

Very important. I used to have no password on any of my internal network devices, then changed to all the same pw. I need to put them all different, because threats seem more likely to come from internal "trusted" sources that we bring in

</comment><comment><USER90> Just when you think it might be time to forgive Sony for the rootkit they do something that shows that as a corporation hey have not learned anything.

</comment><comment><USER91> When a device or system is described as "smart", read "spy". See stallman.org/articles/what-mary-had.html.

I wouldn't allow anything "smart" in my home, and I urge you to do the same. As for Netflix, I refuse to let a company know what I watch, or tolerate DRM, or agree to a contract not to give, lend or share copies. See stallman.org/netflix.html.

</comment><comment><USER92> I don't know why people want to buy smart TV when you can plug your computer, over which you have much more control, into a large, dumb, monitor. Opaque operating systems, terrible UIs, security and privacy implications galore. The experience is like going back in time w/r/t using computers and software to enhance your experience.

</comment><comment><USER93> My "Smart" TV is a new 4K Samsung screen that I never connected to the WiFi connected to a Media PC running Xubuntu.

I don't trust the security on any networked device I don't have the source code for (and I don't really trust the media PC hardware either since its intel, not a fan of their security policies).

</comment><comment><USER94> How much more crap until Apple think enough is enough. They will make an Apple TV Set purely for themselves.

Why in 2018, we have "Smart TV" that requires so much settings and are not really anyway Smarter for most consumers. We then gives in so much privacy and information before we are allow to use it?

<comment><USER95> Apple is not the solution here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> I have a smart TV and have simply never connected it to the Internet. I see no reason to. I watch movies and play games on Xbox, watch TV through my cable box. Terrestrial TV works just fine without an Internet connection. Is there anything else I should be doing? Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER97> Since there doesn't exist a good panel without Smart TV capabilities, what I do is just don't give them access to the network. Everything runs through an Android Box connected to an HDMI or a PS4 when I want to use Netflix (I never managed to make it work on the Android box)

<comment><USER98> > Since there doesn't exist a good panel without Smart TV capabilities

Have a look at the Dell P4317Q, decent 4k 43" screen, less than 1k€.

I use it as a TV, very satisfied (and since it's got no tuner, I get to avoid the Irish TV tax (but IANAL) !)

Only caveat is no HDMI 2.0, you can only get 4k@60hz via DisplayPort so not fully compatible with ChromeCast 4k for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Maybe, if you buy a product from a company which they are capable of later updating (read: breaking), they should receive your money in installments as long as the product still works, and if they upload a change that breaks it, you're in your rights to stop paying.

</comment><comment><USER100> Netflix also tracks what you watch, most likely where as well (since the app is on so many devices).

<comment><USER74> I doubt they sell it to third parties, and they don't do third party advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> The software in "smart" TVs is awful. Always been, always will be. Don't use it. You could try and find a dumb panel, but you could also simply not use it.

Get an AppleTV or whatever, plug it in, problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER102> Looks like they have nepotism on the executive team, too. Sketchy.

<comment><USER103> Family members co-founding a company isn't nepotism.

<comment><USER102> Family members co-founding a company is a perfectly natural thing that sometimes happens, but that doesn't magically make it not nepotism, and a setup that over time will cause problems. It creates a company where anyone below knows that the opportunities for upward mobility are severely curtailed by the family interests that generally override company needs when push comes to shove.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> And this is what trouble me with the so-called "internet of things". No regulation, no standards, nobody cares.

How long until you TV or microweave oven is part of a botnet?

</comment><comment><USER105> Still have a CRT tube because I don't want a smart TV. Panels can last for ~10 years; the "smart" brains won't.

</comment><comment><USER106> I have a Samsung TV with built in apps and a suspicious privacy policy, so I plugged in a Roku and never use the built in apps.

<comment><USER107> I thought about this but I discovered that my Roku has the same things going on behind the scenes with respect to data "visibility", or, "sharing".

What they need to do is just to make the panel with no network features. I ended up simply disconnecting the tv panel from the net work and using a small pc to get to netflix. Crude, but effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> My smart TV does not have my wifi password. Only my microphone-free last generation media player gets that privilege.

</comment><comment><USER109> Misnomer of misnomers.

It's not an upgrade if you can't roll it back.

</comment><comment><USER110> LG TV's have been doing this for years...

<comment><USER110> Sorry, should have added a source: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/20/lg_smart_tv_data_co...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/20/lg_smart_tv_data_collection/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> to be honest, sony have a track record of doing this. bought a music CD or games? get a rootkit.

if you still buy sony products, I can't be sory for you.

<comment><USER112> Any good tv recommendation, if not Sony?

<comment><USER113> Not Samsung.

I've been reasonably happy with my Panasonic.

<comment><USER114> Panasonic Viera TVs used to have adverts in the EPG. It's an industry-wide shitshow

[http://gonedigital.net/wp- content/uploads/PanasonicEPG.jpg](http://gonedigital.net/wp- content/uploads/PanasonicEPG.jpg)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A contestant applies Game Theory in TV show - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/golden-balls-game-theory-2012-4

<comment><USER2> This is absolutely fantastic... incredibly crass gameshow but what a fantastic play. Worth watching right to the end.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/2012/04/20/golden-balls- ga...](http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/2012/04/20/golden-balls-game-theory- the-prisoners-dilemma-and-the-cold-rationality-of-human-behavior/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Quite well done. I think his tone and when he signals his strategy also helps how he plays the game.</comment>


Think Before You Return False - <AUTHOR> http://intraspirit.net/2011/02/think-before-you-return-false/

<comment><USER2> Here is another great in-depth explanation of what to use in place of return false, including stopImmediatePropagation() - [http://fuelyourcoding.com/jquery-events-stop-misusing- return...](http://fuelyourcoding.com/jquery-events-stop-misusing-return- false/)</comment>


Pacman in clojurescript - <AUTHOR> http://mjg123.github.com/pacman/pacman.html <comment><AUTHOR> Source is at <https://github.com/mjg123/pacman/tree/gh-pages>

There was a warning that my late-2010 MacBook Air running Chrome was "too slow", but I still found it playable.</comment>


Mozilla Web DNA survey shows the biggest pain points for web developers - <AUTHOR> https://sdtimes.com/webdev/mozilla-web-dna-survey-shows-the-biggest-pain-points-for-web-developers/ <comment><USER2> You can download the report from here:

[https://insights.developer.mozilla.org/](https://insights.developer.mozilla.org/)</comment>


The problem is with the (losing) teams that aren't copying - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/09/03/samsung-assessing

<comment><USER2> I'm sure Samsung making their stuff look very iPhone like contributed to their success, but they have plenty of other advantages. They make most of the internals of their phones (flash, CPUs, screens) themselves which gives them excellent margins compared to anyone buying those things from them. They have a globally known brand that was already doing well in other categories (I bought a Samsung TV 7 years ago). They are really good at the carrier relationships game. They jumped into large sized phones very early on.

Palm were never a contender, sorry. Their UI framework was basically just a tarted up web view, totally unsuited to developing rich native apps. Animations? Rich media framework? Robust data persistence layer? Nothing close to iOS.

Yes, we all know deep down that Google took one look at the iPhone and immediately pivoted Android into as close to a clone as they could get without it being too blatent. Samsung just didn't care about that and went the extra mile, and screw the consequences.

Microsoft's problems are different. They're just way, way too late and still catching up with a still rapidly moving target. It doesn't matter how similar or different their platform is to the iPhone or Android. They just have no mobile developer or consumer mindshare. Where are their premium mobile apps, like Apple have Garage band, Pages, etc? Touch Office looks to be a kludgy half way house hybrid mess. Maybe they can leverage their desktop strengths with Windows 8 Phone 8 (delete one of the 8s, who knows which one?), but they don't seem to be doing anything to actually make that happen.

<comment><USER3> _> They're just way, way too late and still catching up with a still rapidly moving target_

What do you cite as this rapid motion? The move to retina? Siri? Tweet sheet integration? Mindshare doesn't necessarily make for rapid motion of the platform, but I am interested in how you see it.

<comment><USER2> Apple are devoting huge dev resources to iOS. Check out the last slide 'and more' from their iOS 6 preview at the bottom of this article (1). Sure most of the low-hanging fruit and signature features are in place, but they're still making strong efforts to upgrade and expand capabilities such as accessability features for disabled users, improved localisation for overseas markets such as China, expanding iCloud's capabilities. A few years ago you could say that a competitor could pick a few major feature areas such as social network integration, navigation, cloud services, etc and beat Apple in those areas. Now that's just not possible. They have all the feature areas covered and are steadily deepening their feature sets in those areas. The only real way to differentiate against them now is in hardware.

(1)[http://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-6-our-complete- overvie...](http://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-6-our-complete-overview/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Utter nonsense. Nokia didn't provide a smartphone OS for years, and Palm OS, while supposedly nicely designed, apparently didn't perform very well in practice. Their problems were not not copying Apple.

<comment><USER5> Your examples do not contradict the thesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This brings up some interesting thoughts. What if the layout of the keys on touch-tone phones were copyrighted? What about keyboard layouts? What about the notion of a folding computer (laptop)?

I never quite thought about it like that before, but copyrights like this completely stifle future developments. Sorry, just showing up late to the party.

</comment><comment><USER7> So then Apple are now like the guys still in leather helmets that have been running exactly the same pass play for five years while the rest of the league has figured out you can actually run four or five different formations and pass all over the field?

But sure, let's keep pretenting this is about Samsung in particular and not Android in general.

<comment><USER8> > _So then Apple are now like the guys still in leather helmets that have been > running exactly the same pass play for five years_

No, they are the guys that created the whole game field as a massive market niche, coming from completely outside that market, and then 2 years later they jump started another market (tablets) that they pretty much own to this day.

Or, the guys that have another announcement on 9/12, with predictions for their biggest selling device ever, outselling previous models (that each outsold the previous anyway).

It's not like the fact that the other guys "run four or five different formations and pass all over the field" worked well for them in the smartphone/tablet market.

They used the same "four or five different formations and pass all over the field" in the PC market and it's now commoditized to death with minimal margins (ask Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc).

<comment><USER7> And the main distinguishing feature of that new 9/12 device? A form factor very close to Samsung's last two flagship models. And that new iPad mini everybody's so excited about? Copying a form factor that Samsung pioneered and Amazon and Google validated. Maybe next Apple will copy the Note?

So who exactly is copying whom here? Surely the physical size of a device is more defining and market-making than the bounce back behavior of a scroll view? Where are the cries for protection of Samsung's innovations?

<comment><USER8> >* And the main distinguishing feature of that new 9/12 device? A form factor very close to Samsung's last two flagship models.*

You mean "a bigger screen"?

Well, it could have had even less distinguishing factors and it would have been just fine in my books. They created that kind of design, it's not like they have to differentiate for the sake of differentiation. Incremental cpu/memory/storage/batter upgrades are OK too.

> _And that new iPad mini everybody's so excited about? Copying a form factor > that Samsung pioneered and Amazon and Google validated. Maybe next Apple > will copy the Note?_

They actually had prototypes in various sizes years before Samsung, Amazon or Google ever thought of going into the tablet space, or even the original iPad come out.

Plus, Apple created the mass market for tablets. Before the iPad it was a wasteland with few inhabitants.

Samsung taking the iPad and offering something similar in a smaller form factor is something original, really? And Apple making a smaller version of THEIR OWN PRODUCT is copying Samsung? That's some twisted logic.

> _So who exactly is copying whom here?_

Samsung.

They copied the iPod in a smaller form factor, and now Apple will offer a small form factor themselves. Should Apple preemptively put out all possible form factors at once, to not be considered a copycat? That's some twisted logic here.

It's not like Apple didn't already have a smaller form factor device that was similar. Remember when they called the iPad (mockingly) "a large iPhone"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem is that "The Inmates are Running the Asylum." Most techies would've scoffed at the MacBook Air, if it were described to them with specs, before it came out. Steve Jobs didn't have a reality distortion field. He lacked the one most of us have.

<comment><USER9> > Most techies would've scoffed at the MacBook Air, if it were described to > them with specs

Those "techies" probably couldn't use an Air anyway - not like you're going to be walking around your windowless server room too often, and you certainly wouldn't want to take work home with you. And macs can't even run Exchange Administrator!

Most programmers I know, however, were delighted. Raw specs have never been a good measure of a machine's usefulness, but the size and weight you can take straight to the bank. The air is a lifestyle computer at a time where a lot of programmers are beginning to think more about their lifestyle and realise it's cool to go outside and actually walk around and stuff. Maybe half the (web) programmers I know have them now.

Specs! I guess you can't ignore them, but in my experience the more people go on about "specs" the less productive use they turn out putting all those gigahertz to. In normal use the computer will spend 99.99% of its time waiting for the stupid slow user, and I never seem to need to compile Gentoo or compress bluray movies in a big hurry all that often. What I do like to do is put my air in my coat pocket and walk down to the café and do some work, and if your overclocked oil-cooled 12-core neon-lit Extreme Edition alien-head- logo-having AC-powered Gigantibox can't do that then it is basically a piece of useless junk to me. Good for games though, gotta say.

<comment><USER3> _> Most programmers I know, however, were delighted._

I agree with most of what you say. However, the inmates are still running the asylum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If the Apple persecution of Samsung succeeds, we should all be worried that next NFL teams will start patenting their strategies and suing each other.

<comment><USER11> I was surprised that Gruber completely ignored the possible penalty to copying, the resulting lawsuits. His football analogy doesn't really stand up because you can't patent the forward pass, or if you could the opposing team runs the risk of having their win vacated if they implement it too.

The lawsuit and Sumsung's (pending appeal) loss is such a huge elephant in the room that by not addressing it, and the similar fate that the other "losers" maybe trying to avoid, I don't think Gruber really said anything of real substance.

<comment><USER12> I think this article is interesting because of Gruber's role in the conversation as an Apple fan[atic]. Samsung has been criticized from the Apple side (and by Gruber in particular) for copying Apple's innovations -- the implication being that he thinks it's good that Apple won. But Gruber is acknowledging here that a healthy marketplace includes both innovation and copying of the best innovations, and that it's at least possible that the world is better with Samsung's copying than without it. So it's directly addressing the lawsuit by acknowledging that there's a downside to Apple winning. That's no big deal for me to admit, but kind of a big deal coming from him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How did you get a lowercase first letter in the title? I thought HN auto- capitalized submission titles.

<comment><USER14> Don't worry, I'm sure a mod will be along to change it to match the article any minute now anyways.

<comment><AUTHOR> good point. I guess I'll just put the quote here then:

"What if Apple is like a sports team that introduced a groundbreaking strategy. Something like introducing the forward pass to football. Is it wrong for another team to copy that strategy? What if the only other team that can win is the one team that most shamelessly copied that strategy? At some point you have to start thinking that the problem is with the (losing) teams that aren't copying. "</comment></comment></comment>


Remember ICQ? The Chat Pioneer Turned 20 This Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/tom-popomaronis/remember-icq-the-chat-pioneer-turned-20-this-year-and-lessons-learned-for-2017.html?cid=sf01001&sr_share=twitter <comment><USER2> Fuck no! IRC turned 23 this year (with a 4 year gestation period, so you could also count it 27 year old).

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459)

And before IRC, there were the real chat pioneers, cf. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#History)

Is that what you call Fake News? I call that just false, wrong and history rewriting!</comment>


On Von Rospach's 'Apple's 2016 in Review', and the AirPort and Mac Pro Lineups - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2017/01/von_rospach_apple_airport_mac_pro <comment><USER2> "Updates to the same basic design would make sense. An all-new design would make sense. Getting out of the Mac Pro game would make sense. Selling 1000-day old pro workstations at the same prices as in 2013 makes no sense. Whatever the explanation is, this situation is an unmitigated disaster."

You know it's bad when even Gruber can't find a way to give Apple the benefit of the doubt.</comment>


We present UberBOAT - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uber.com/UberBAT

<comment><USER2> Club Nautico did this years ago, in Florida at least. I am not sure if they are still in business.

</comment><comment><USER3> and where's UberROCKETS where I can offer rides on my private space ship??</comment>


Do You Really Need a Computer Science Degree in Today's Market? - <AUTHOR> https://insights.dice.com/2017/12/14/do-you-need-computer-science-degree-today-market/ <comment><USER2> Depends on what you're trying to do. Myself I've been in the IT industry since 1999 and have been mostly successful with a High School diploma. If you don't plan to move outside your country, I've found you can make a career out of it.</comment>


Almost half of US cellphone calls will be scams by next year, says report - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/almost-half-of-us-cell-phone-calls-will-be-scams-by-next-year-says-report/ <comment><USER2> Feels like I'm there already.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. The only way it seems to combat it is to block all calls that are not from numbers in my contact list. But then I end up with dozens of 2 second voicemails from random local numbers.

<comment><USER4> I've noticed that the number of "local number" scam calls I receive has dropped sharply (I live in NYC). A few months ago I'd sometimes get several a day, now it's maybe one every couple of weeks. Maybe as more people learn about the scam and it gets less effective, the scammers move on to other things.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Montage – 8 hand-picked playlists. 200 of YouTube's funniest videos - <AUTHOR> https://www.montage.watch/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! This is a prototype I threw together with a friend.

We hand crafted 8 playlists with 200 of YouTube's funniest videos.

We have 240p videos from way way back, sketch comedy, memes, skits, shorts and more.

We thought everyone could use a laugh right now.

Would really appreciate any feedback, especially about the content. Thanks so much!

</comment><comment><USER2> Love the idea of organizing different genres of YouTube videos like this. Makes browsing feel a bit more about quality and less about what has the most recent views

</comment><comment><USER3> Content's super diverse. Never would've expected the "meme" category to be an ancient archive of meme sources...

</comment><comment><USER4> Love this— what I needed this quarantine haha

</comment><comment><USER4> Hell yeah! What I needed during quarantine</comment>


Coinpunk is now in beta - <AUTHOR> http://coinpunk.org/beta.html

<comment><USER2> Kyle, you're kind of a badass. This could be an important project for Bitcoin usability. I'll be sending you some satoshis in the next few days for a bounty to hand out.</comment>


Why Average Latency Is a Terrible Way To Track Website Performance - <AUTHOR> http://mvolo.com/why-average-latency-is-a-terrible-way-to-track-website-performance-and-how-to-fix-it/

<comment><USER2> TL;DR: Average anything is a terrible way to track anything. (And median or mode are bad, too). Any single-scalar value that compresses information that is best expressed as a graph (or multiple graphs!) is immensely lossy to the point where arguably it obfuscates more than it makes clear.

Back when we had to live with sort of printing-press methods of displaying information (ie, where anything that wasn't pure text was very difficult to display), mean/median/mode numbers were a necessary evil. But if you're looking at a computer screen, there's really no reason to subject yourself to an abstraction that throws out 90% of your data.

<comment><USER3> > Average anything is a terrible way to track anything.

Came here to say exactly this. And averages are _especially_ insidious when used for data that doesn't have a symmetric distribution, like most latencies.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi Steve,

Author here. I think most people on HN would echo your sentinment about averages wholesale ... But I wanted to go a little deeper into selecting a better alternative for operational monitoring.

Its easy to say "averages are bad" but harder to say "use X instead", and explain why. We tried. Do you think we did it?

<comment><USER4> Well the title seems a bit childish (since obviously everybody on HN knows it's a terrible idea.) Why don't you change to post title to more appropriately reflect what you were trying to propose as an alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Michael Abrash talked about this in his black book of graphics programming.

WHen he was writing quake, they could trade off between lighting fast graphics (40fps+, on a 486) 99% of the time with the occasional horrible slowdown to less than 5fps. vs a steady frame rate that never changed much, but wasn't terribly fast.

Turns out people notice the occasional horrible lag much more than when things perform uniformly.

When tuning a performance critical service, focus on the outliers.

<comment><USER6> I think you should not ignore either. By default, think about 99%ile and 50%ile when tuning and optimizing. Depending on the context (e.g. games), even 99%ile might not be enough, or you might want to think about 99%ile _of what_? Frames? Scenes? Seconds of gameplay?

Also, back to the topic of the article at hand, I hope that their "T" is not really two seconds. That is already way too slow for most web purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One problem I have with this approach is that it requires you to pick a threshold after which the response is "too slow." This number can change a lot over the course of an application lifetime, and would be hard to pick objectively anyways.

Median latency -- perhaps with (the smoothing-effect of) a rolling median -- would be more robust to outliers without having to resort to hardcoding of "too slow" thresholds. It would still require the human to connect the dots (e.g. median latency of >200 is "too slow") but it's an improvement on mere average response time for reasons noted.

<comment><USER8> I agree with this. It's hard to gauge what is acceptable because it really depends on the application. So many other dependencies when dealing with latency and how it effects performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi, author here.

Unfortunately, you HAVE TO do it. If you do not set a threshold for what is acceptable, how do you determine whether or not your are providing an acceptable experience to your users?

No amount of aggregate metrics can help you answer this question unless you know whats acceptable, and what isnt - for each important set of URLs in your app.

I agree that its "hard" to do. In our own product (<https://www.leansentry.com>), we solve this problem by grouping urls, and using good defaults / making it easy to override the thresholds for users.

<comment><USER8> There so many moving parts that this could either be a great tool to analyze data or it could open up a can of worms which could lead down the road to network re-architecture. If this takes into account best effort or SLA based ISP, Network topology, QoS, Packet Prioritization, etc then I think it could be a useful tool. Without it it's just a tool that spits out pretty pictures. If your main selling point is data then it has to be more than just what latency can show.

<comment><AUTHOR> hi there,

The post is about selecting a top level metric for monitoring website performance. One a problem is indicated, you would definitely need to drill in to figure out what part of your app is affected, when, and what caused it.

LeanSentry (our own application monitoring product, <https://www.leansentry.com>) does this. However, describing this was outside the scope of my post (but you can see the demo of it on the website).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there's something to be said about keeping some key metrics super simple so that "everybody" can understand without having to refer to a formula or arbitrarily set thresholds. I've been using 99 and 90 percentile avg performance. It captures enough information in most cases and doesn't require any explanation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi edouard,

I completely agree! Keeping toplevel metrics SIMPLE is the key. Of course, simple but also not misleading you into any wrong beliefs.

While we liked the 95 percentile approach, we decided against it. Its still too focused on the actual response time itself, which we thought was less relevant than the number of users experiencing bad performance.

I think for us the bottom line was:

A) If you are having a site-wide performance issues, 95% percentile is a good metric.

B) However, if you have more isolated issues (we find this happens more often to more mature sites), satisfaction score is better.

Best, Mike

<comment><USER10> Im seeing a lot of "averages are bad" etc but I think you come closest to what I had in mind: there isnt anything inherently wrong with using simple metrics. The caveat is you just need to keep in mind and understand their limitations and where they fall down. I think a lot of people understand that using 99 or 95 percentiles and what not but just failed to lay the reasoning out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Posted this comment on the article, but thought it would be useful here as well:

Good points on why average latency is a bad metric, and while the idea behind Apdex was good, it never ended up being the right measure. The Apdex score still depends on a HiPPO (Highest Paid Person''s Opinion) to determine what T should be, and this can change over time.

At SOASTA (and previously at LogNormal), we borrowed the concept of LD50 (the median lethal dose) from biology. The LD50 value has the property of adapting to what your audience thinks rather than what your HIPPO thinks is a good experience.

We described the method at the Velocity conferences (Santa Clara and London) last year, and wrote it up in a blog post here: [http://www.lognormal.com/blog/2012/10/03/the-3.5s-dash- for-a...](http://www.lognormal.com/blog/2012/10/03/the-3.5s-dash-for- attention/#ld50)

Hope you find it interesting.

I should also mention that it's useful to apply some kind of smoothing to timeseries data (like latency over time). Holt-Winters double-exponential smoothing is particularly good at this. What it does is smooth out temporary glitches and show you when things turn unexpectedly bad. If you've ever received a page and said, "Oh yeah, that one... that goes away in 3 seconds. Happens every day.", then you'll find this useful. H-W D-E smoothing only shows you the ones that don't go away after 3 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought looking at the 99th (or other) percentile was pretty standard practice?

<comment><USER13> Depends on standard - within the clued-in performance community, yes, but there are major, major companies still pushing averages and that causes a lot of people, particularly those without much stats / engineering background, to expect it everywhere.

To use one example which is prevalent throughout marketing, advertising, etc. Google Analytics reports only averages – this makes the results unreliable enough that I'm now advising people to simply pretend that field does not exist as it's completely untrustworthy. Awhile back I blogged about an example where 3 samples out of 200K threw the average off by a full order of magnitude: [http://chris.improbable.org/2012/05/18/google-analytics- dece...](http://chris.improbable.org/2012/05/18/google-analytics-deceptive- site-speed-report/)

<comment><USER12> Very interesting, thank you. I especially like the replies from the Google analytics team, 8 months apart, that both acknowledge the issue and say they'll fix it...

<comment><USER13> Also that in addition to not having fixed it, accurate stats are apparently less of a priority than, say, a gigantic fixed-position toolbar. That's been disappointing…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I prefer histograms... [http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/5/23/averages- web-perfo...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/5/23/averages-web- performance-data-and-how-your-analytics-product.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> Searched the page for "standard deviation". Didn't find it. Hit the back button.

<comment><USER16> Standard deviation isn't the problem, skew is. Yes, skew will increase the standard deviation, but the heart of the issue here is how fat the right tail of the distribution is.

Standard deviation is often a useful metric, but it's at least as flawed as mean in skewed distributions because it doesn't treat either direction around the (already flawed) mean any differently.</comment></comment>


Announcing Kong: A server description and deployment testing tool (Django) - <AUTHOR> http://ericholscher.com/blog/2009/nov/17/announcing-kong-server-description-and-deployment-/

<comment><USER2> A very cool and useful tool though I hope the irony of a testing tool without tests isn't lost on Eric ;)

Will definitely keep an eye on this one.</comment>


Cosmo, the Hacker 'God' Who Fell to Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/cosmo-the-god-who-fell-to-earth/ <comment><USER2> Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4505003></comment>


SQLite: The art of keep it simple - <AUTHOR> http://www.jarchitect.com/Blog/?p=2392 <comment><USER2> The article is hard to read on mobile because of the nav bar overlaying the content.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yup. Expected to read this article from a simple site.</comment>