Has Google wasted $12bn on a dud patent poker-chip? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/15/google_motorola_the_poker_chip_that_cant_be_redeemed/

<comment><USER2> "Google didn't take IP seriously, bidding silly numbers (such as pi billion dollars) for the Nortel patents."

Why does everyone keep rehashing this statement that was asinine the first time? How do the specific digits of their bids say anything about Google's stance towards IP? Pi billion is over 141 million more serious of a bid than the 3 billion that I guess would have made everyone more comfortable.

<comment><USER3> "Google was bidding with numbers that were not even numbers," one of the sources said. "It became clear that they were bidding with the distance between the earth and the sun. One was the sum of a famous mathematical constant, and then when it got to $3 billion, they bid pi," the source said, adding the bid was $3.14159 billion. "Either they were supremely confident or they were bored."

Google thought they were playing a game, lost, and has been crying about it ever since.

<comment><USER4> > bidding with numbers that were not even numbers

What does this even mean?

<comment><USER5> That the numbers were not small multiples of large powers of ten.

<comment><USER6> I heard that's illegal in seven states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While the register portrays Google's moves as blundering, Dan Lyon's take is the exact opposite. I suspect it may be a while before we know which is true, although I want to lean towards Dan's view:

[http://realdanlyons.com/blog/2011/08/15/suck-on-it- applesoft...](http://realdanlyons.com/blog/2011/08/15/suck-on-it-applesoft/)

<comment><USER8> I've never once read a register article and felt enlightened -- I've mentally compartmentalized them as a place to ignore.

Did I get the wrong impression, and they can in fact be a useful source of new & commentary?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hindsight is 20/20, but Google would have been a lot better off purchasing Sun and all of its patents than Motorola at a $5 billion premium.

<comment><USER10> I don't think buying Sun would have protected Android from Apple/Microsoft/Nokia/etc., just as buying Motorola won't protect it from Oracle. If anything, buying both may have made sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Now that Google has sunk $12.5B into the patent system, I fear the fight against software patents has lost it's most powerful ally.

<comment><USER12> I think it's more the case that Google has to fight both sides of this: acquire patents for defense in the short term, lobby congress for patent reform in the long term.

I think long long-term, the friction of the patent system goes against Google's incentives. Google isn't a hardware company (even though they just bought one). They sell search ads, and their complements are hardware, software, everything between consumers and search ads. If patents in general are a tax on innovation, that's bad for Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I fear the essence of this story is true, that Google doesn't have a coherent strategy with regard to this fight, and its certainly out of their comfort zone, so this does feel more like someone flailing.

That being said, Google has a really deep pool of expertise in a lot of areas in house and if they can come up with a reasonable way to surface that expertise I would expect them to come up with a solid response.

<comment><USER14> The more I learn about Android and the way in which Google pursued mobile, the more I believe that Google never had a long term strategy, merely tactics aimed at being the first iPhone competitor - or rather they had a strategy to provide mobile services but the iPhone made their interface obsolete.

Their decisions regarding Android appear to have been made based on a corporate culture oriented toward trade secrets over patents, and their assumptions regarding IP appear to have been biased by that corporate culture - i.e. there's some viability to a clean room approach to copyright and trade secrets, there is not one for patents.

Google's "damn the torpedoes approach" got them into the marketplace quickly, but the mines are all still in the water and so is their fleet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> first of all the nokia payment was not a one-off deal, as apple will continue paying royalties to nokia each fiscal year, for as long as they use the patents. clearly this reporter doesnt know what the facts are.

</comment><comment><USER16> FTFA: "Android is a copycat platform. The APIs copy Java, and the UI copies Apple's iPhone." too true to read!

<comment><USER17> El Reg should've thrown in something about '... and the kernel from Linux' in there as well, to complete the troll.

<comment><USER18> Seriously.

Google culturally is very pro-Java, and decided to bring that to their new mobile platform, without the legacy baggage of J2ME. It was an engineering decision as much as it was against licensing Sun IP, maybe in light of how poorly J2ME ever did as a development platform.

Android was in development since 2005 and the major post-iPhone change that happened was a larger screen and virtual keyboard, which is what every modern phone has.

There are companies which have blazed trails and Google has not blazed many with its products; but they bring something equally as important to customers as innovation: competition and choice.</comment></comment></comment>


Linode's 4 hour test drive - <AUTHOR> https://manager.linode.com/session/signup

<comment><USER2> On a mobile, not about to test anything, assuming this is a free 4 hours of linode? Maybe give me a link at the bottom. I haven't seen you guys around here in awhile and I seriously considered switching over after the slicehost nonsense but rackspace is doing just fine for my needs and I'm too lazy to move everything now based on how cool I think you are.</comment>


How We Have Attempted to Recover from Google Panda - <AUTHOR> http://ericbjorndahl.tumblr.com/post/6603914556/how-we-have-attempted-to-recover-from-google-panda

<comment><USER2> I've run The Online Slang Dictionary (<http://onlineslangdictionary.com/>) since 1996. On April 11, the date of one of the Panda updates, traffic from Google dropped 20%. Between April 11 and a month ago, I made the following changes:

* Correct spelling, grammar, and capitalization errors

* Where spelling "errors" are legitimate "slang terms", link to the definition pages for those slang terms (gonna, wanna, ain't, dat's, etc.)

* Remove unnecessary extra punctuation, e.g. example sentences ending in "???" or "!!!"

* Checked keywords on top landing pages for searches like "slang", "slang dictionary", "slang thesaurus"

* Remove unnecessary extra spaces in the middle of sentences

* Use complete sentences even where completely unnecessary

* Restructure entire /definition+of/word+goes+here directory structure to be /meaning-of/word-goes-here, since people search for "meaning of" more frequently than "definition of", and since Google seems to have stopped treating + as a word separator in some cases.

* Reworked meta descriptions and page titles

* Removed meta keywords. I know Google doesn't use them, but maybe they treat them as a negative indicator of site quality? Who knows?

* Completely re-designed site's front page

* Switched from Google Custom Search Engine to a custom search implementation, because I think I can provide better results, improve the user experience, and reduce search exit rate

* Delay-load Twitter widget to reduce page load time

* Use rel="canonical" on every page on the site, since Google is indexing the IP address of the site and showing it separately in SERPs

* Removed <priority> nodes from the sitemap, just in case Google knows better

* Fixed the "HTML suggestions" on GWT, such as short meta descriptions and duplicate meta descriptions

* Excluded directories via robots.txt like /word-of-the-day/, since the words of the day are already spidered elsewhere on the site, in case Google is giving me a duplicate content penalty of some kind

I've also made plenty more changes in the past month, but I haven't written up a list yet.

Sine the Panda update, I've seen no improvement in traffic from Google to my site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Walter - Thanks for posting your site and describing the changes you've made as well. It's interesting that you've focused on spelling/grammar errors (despite it being a slang site), and still haven't noticed any improvements.

We have a lot of members from around the world, who may not have English as their first language. We've thought about correcting some spelling/grammar programatically, but since we have a UGC site, and each review is tied to a real person, it seems disingenuous to rewrite someone else's words.

I recently read an article about how Zappos uses Mechanical Turk to correct grammar and spelling in user reviews ([http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110428/02453114067/zappos...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110428/02453114067/zappos- uses-mechanical-turk-to-correct-spellinggrammar-errors-reviews-it-increases- sales.shtml)), and one of the comments that stood out to me was:

"Grammar, punctuation and style are part of how we decide if a review is credible. For Zappos to artificially inflate the credibility of reviews by changing those qualities is a form of fraud IMO."

I don't know if I'd call it fraud, but it certainly artificially inflates the credibility of reviews, and that's something (in addition to the rewriting someone else's thoughts part) we don't feel comfortable doing.

(For your site, since it's a dictionary, seems like a better fix and I'm surprised that it hasn't yielded any improvements)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Because of the lucrative nature of affiliate payments and commissions in the travel industry, one of the biggest sources of what Google considered bad content was sites linking to hotels.

Look at this page: [<http://www.travbuddy.com/hotels>]. All those links to "Hawaii Hotels" and "New York Hotels" look exactly like an old-school linkfarm.

Ask yourself this: if you're Google, and somebody is typing in "Hawaii Hotels" to do a search, is your Hawaii Hotels page really something they want as a top result? I don't think it is. Your content is not really "canonical" for Hawaii Hotels, it's just a page that lists a few reviews you've managed to collect.

It's all speculation on my part, since I have no inside information, but essentially, I think you're sort of poisoning your own reputation at Google with all those links.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Joel - Thanks for the feedback, that's really helpful and you do make a lot of valid points, especially about travel affiliates. We definitely aren't trying to rank for "Hawaii Hotels". Those links are intended as a sitemap to help people find our review pages, many of which I believe we do have valuable, original content.

As a concrete example following the Hawaii theme, we used to rank pretty well when someone searched for "Hale Koa Hotel" (a hotel in Hawaii).

Here is our page on it:

<http://www.travbuddy.com/Hale-Koa-Hotel-v189806>

It's got a few detailed reviews and candid photos from active members of the site. Certainly not perfect, but I think it's helpful and that it provides a different perspective. Right now it's ranked #55 on my browser, and here is a sampling of the sites that rank above it:

#9 [http://old.armymwr.com/portal/travel/recreationcenters/hale_...](http://old.armymwr.com/portal/travel/recreationcenters/hale_koa_hotel.html) (a site that just links to info from the official page)

#11 <http://www.frommers.com/destinations/oahu/H42763.html> (A trusted brand but limited original information about the hotel and no photos)

#14 <http://www.dollar.com/Locations/gen.aspx?locationId=HNLC02> (no content at all)

#15 [http://www.gohawaii.com/listing/Dining/90173401_HaleKoaHotel...](http://www.gohawaii.com/listing/Dining/90173401_HaleKoaHotelDinnerShow?mIslandId=oahu) (no original information)

#17 [http://www.wedhawaii.com/hawaii-wedding- locations/oahu/halek...](http://www.wedhawaii.com/hawaii-wedding- locations/oahu/halekoahotel.html) (a wedding photo album site, but no specific information about the hotel)

#20 [http://hotelandtravelindex.travelweekly.com/Destinations/Hon...](http://hotelandtravelindex.travelweekly.com/Destinations/Honolulu/Hotels/Hale- Koa-Hotel-Military-Only-p1437225) (no original information)

#21 [http://gohawaii.about.com/library/gallery/blwaikiki_hotels_4...](http://gohawaii.about.com/library/gallery/blwaikiki_hotels_4.htm) (1 photo, nothing else)

#25 [http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united- states/hawaii/hono...](http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united- states/hawaii/honolulu/hale-koa-hotel-military-only-hotel-detail-075094/) (hardly any information)

#28 [http://www.maplandia.com/united-states/car- rental/honolulu-h...](http://www.maplandia.com/united-states/car- rental/honolulu-hale-koa-hotel-car-rental/)

...

I'm not arguing we should be #1, or even #10, but we're certainly better than many of the sites between #1 and #55, and we've seen this pattern repeat itself for most of the hotels and pages we have original and unique content for. While we certainly don't have as many hotel reviews as TripAdvisor, we do have more quality reviews than most other sites, and we have to start somewhere :)

I guess a better question would be, if we have 75,000 reviews, what is the best way of internally linking to them within our site WITHOUT looking like a link farm? We're just trying to put our best content forward, so any suggestions would be appreciated!

<comment><USER4> Outside of Panda, in terms of your goals for your business: do you really want to be in the business of arbitraging existing travel brands like Hale Koa Hotel and charging them (Hale Koa Hotel) money for customers who already knew of them? That strikes me as not a great place to be in life, for a lot of reasons. For one: what does Google need you for in that scenario? (Answer: nothing after they debut Google Travel and give it 80% of the non-ad real estate on the search page.) For another, you're in perpetual competition to be in the top ~10 of the 1,000 sites who are adding equally little value, and your best answer on why you should be there is guaranteed to be "OK so we're meh-tastic but come on we're 2% better than our meh-tastic competition doing the exact same thing we do."

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Patrick - Our goal isn't to charge money to customers who already know about existing brands, but to provide first-hand information ABOUT that brand that customers wouldn't otherwise learn from other sites (including the brand itself).

We've been focused on hotels in this specific example, but the same argument could be applied to any travel destination. If you're planning a trip somewhere, would you only want to get information from the official tourist bureau and the hotels themselves, or would it also be beneficial to see candid reviews, blogs, and photos, and interact directly with other travelers who have been to the same place? I would argue that the value provided by that information is worth a lot more than 2%.

The average traveler researches 2-5 sites before booking. and a large % of them are motivated by a desire to read reviews (<http://www.phocuswright.com/library/fyi/427>). Clearly there is some value provided there, and if we can provide relevant and unique information that leads to a sale, or profit off the sharing of such information through unobtrusive advertisements, then I don't see any problem with that.

And if we can provide more useful information than our competition (many of those sites listed above have almost no original information at all), then I also see no problem with ranking higher in the search results.

That's not to say we are 100% there yet for every destination, but I believe we do have a ton of valuable information, and our goal is to get to 100%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> hi, the funny thing is: all big travel sites lost [http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tripadvisor.com%2C+exped...](http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tripadvisor.com%2C+expedia.com%2C+travbuddy.com%2C+lonelyplanet.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

i did not hear from a single big travel site that won in the so called google panda update.

and to be honest, i understand it

the spammiest verticals are not only PPP (pills, porn, poker), it's PPPIT (pills, porn, poker, insurances, travel). i worked in poker, i worked in travel, i did insurances and yeah from an SEO perspective they are all very disgusting verticals.

and from what it looks like: the whole travel segment got a hit. so yeah, you can try to get out of "panda" but then you should realize that "panda" is nothing you can get out of. it's not a "penalty", it's a new set of rules. try what works, try what doesn't and then iterate. so simple.

and from what i see: [http://tools.pingdom.com/?url=http://www.travbuddy.com/Hotel...](http://tools.pingdom.com/?url=http://www.travbuddy.com/Hotels- Am-Walde- Hahnenklee-v390237&treeview=0&column=objectID&order=1&type=0&save=true)

you root HTML already takes 900ms to get delivered, then you load about 162 additional dependencies. ... i would work on speed.

<comment><USER6> Hope you don't mind if I ask you here, I can't find your email. I saw on your twitter feed you recommended two great non-obvious resources for SEO - In the Plex and schema.org. An other resources (sites/books/etc.) you can recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I run a large site that was unexpectedly affected by Google's "Panda" update. There has been a lot of talk on the subject, but most of it is FUD, and I haven't seen many large sites lay everything out for discussion. This is the first post (of many planned ones) about our experience with Google's "Panda" update.

Hopefully it will generate some good discussion from those facing a similar situation, and help some other people out.

</comment><comment><USER7> The site should 410 removed pages insted of 404ing... 404 just means "not here anymore" and google will wait to remove it from their index until they have revisited the page a few more times over days/weeks.

A 410 on the other hand indicates that this page has been intentionally removed, and google tends to act quicker on those.

<comment><USER7> Alternatively, they could 301 the removed pages to the most relevant parent page if that would be a better user experience for those few who did navigate to them. (in my experience 301ed pages also get removed from the index faster than 404s)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's helpful information as well. I didn't know about the 410. We used to 301 some pages, but ran into duplicate content issues where Google would continually spider old 301'd URLs (even when there were no longer links pointing to the original bad URL).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Google's intention with search, to return exactly the most relevant information for any query, seems a bit like the strive for a grand unified theory of physics. It's a noble ambition, but there are going to be a lot of mistakes and missteps along the way; it's probably going to take an awful long time to arrive there, if it ever happens; and when we do get there a lot of people are going to be upset by it. I really appreciate that you've stepped forward with both information about the effects of the changes and what you've done to remedy the situation. I'm keen to see your followup posts, and I will be keen to see what future changes Google implements and how they improve things for you, me, and everyone.

But as time has shown, holding out hope for Google to do anything _specifically_ helpful has been a disappointment in so many instances I've lost count.

</comment><comment><USER9> An observation based on mentions of "low quality" in Amit Singhal's blog post at [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more- guid...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on- building-high-quality.html) \-- you mention that you have no-indexed thin content pages, but is it possible that if Google sees that the volume of "noindex" pages is high compared to the overall volume of pages on the site, that Google still views your site as overall of "low-quality" (relative to the other sites it indexes for the same keywords)?

Rather than noindex pages, I am thinking using robots.txt to prevent access to these pages might be better -- Google can't perhaps then tell what to make of these pages you've hidden via robots.txt. Just thinking...not really an expert on this.

<comment><USER10> I think that makes a lot of sense and worth a shot. Might be worth removing (many) more pages until your rankings come back to see as a test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this is all nonsense. Google's work should be to separate good content from bad content. Now, they are inverting the relationship and saying that web masters should be responsible to handle that information to them.

This is wrong in several levels. First, Google starts to dictate what is acceptable or not in their index, using tools like webmaster central and all the "semantic web" talk -- Why should I care?

Second, it creates the incentives and the opportunity for bad guys to do well. If you need to do all this overhaul of a web site, the only people willing to do the work will be the very same ones that created content farms in the first place. After all, they are the ones that make big buckets from Google, not the after hours hobbyist that maintains a single web site.

<comment><USER12> Google is in a tough position. If they keep their algorithms secret, they are accused of not being transparent. If they reveal their algorithms, they get gamed by spammers. If they reveal only vague hints and guidelines, they are accused of manipulating content. And if they don't use ever more elaborate algorithms, they get overrun with spam.

By becoming defacto ruler of the internet, Google has put themselves in a position of outrageous power and responsibility. They are fighting a vicious war with spammers and content farms and the rest of the web is caught in the crossfire.

Personally, I agree with you that Google should not be telling people how to run their sites. They should never have said a word about how their algorithm works, or even what it's named, when it's updated, etc. They should tell people "just make great web sites, searching them is our problem".

<comment><USER11> I agree with that. But Google is weakening its position by creating these extra semantic levels that only benefit people that are making a lot of money in this game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What still confuses me is the duplicate content issue. Doesn't it make sense to make some information reachable in different ways?

For example in a typical blog, the same text can be found via direkt link, latest articles, categories... How does one make that go away - and should it be done?

<comment><USER14> Canonical URL. When you reach the page via tag list or category, have it rel=canonical the article URL instead of tag or category URL.

[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-y...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify- your-canonical.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great. I work for a blog network that got hit similarly hard by both Panda updates, and we've done a lot of the same stuff (removing and/or de- indexing short/no page view content, improving our site map and linking system), but scrapers continue to be our biggest issue, especially the ones we don't syndicate to. These can rank higher than us in Google as well, and we continue to try to find a way to flag them or submit removal requests without having to do each one manually.

This is a great write up though, it's good to see that others are trying the same things as we are.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi Eric,

Have you tried approaching Google to discuss it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Jerry - I don't know anyone who works in search quality at Google, and they have said a few times that they aren't going to make any manual exceptions. I've filed a "reconsideration request" with Google, and only got a boilerplate response saying our site has "no manual penalties". Unfortunately, any spam report, reconsideration request, or communication via the Webmaster Tools interface seemingly goes to a black hole. I wouldn't even know who to contact or how to contact them.

I can understand why they can't reveal too much about their algorithm, but at the same time if they want to build a "healthier web ecosystem" I think they have to do a better job of communicating with legitimate webmasters (this is going to be the subject of a future post). There is so much uncertainty out there that I think even legitimate site owners are afraid to speak out for fear of being punished, when instead they should be working together with Google to help improve things. It's like the attitude is: if you're doing well, don't say anything or you might draw Google's scrutiny (especially because you're probably doing something shady), and if you are doing badly don't say anything either because Google will just punish you more (because they have not told you why you have been punished in the first place). So instead people are driven to anonymous postings on random forums where wild misinformation spreads.

The intent of this post wasn't to focus on why our particular site wasn't ranking well anymore in Google, but to try to see if there were other website owners out there who feel comfortable coming out with their stories, and to share anything they may have learned. Again, there is so little real information coming from Google that most people I know have just been grasping at straws, so it would be great to hear other people's stories. I recently read about another seemingly legit site with lots of good content punished ([http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=...](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=1981eab5c6140e68&hl=en)), so there must be more of them out there.

<comment><USER17> They've admitted that there's al algorithm then also sites can be manually 'reviewed'... layman's terms... yeah they made exceptions and got called out hardcore with this last panda release on it and at least they 'claim' that they're working on fixing it. search google for panda site slap. you'll see lists of all the big ones that went down...

<comment><USER18> Matt Cutts has already confirmed that there won't be any manual changes. [http://followmattcutts.com/2011/05/25/matt-cutts-confirms- no...](http://followmattcutts.com/2011/05/25/matt-cutts-confirms-no-manual- exceptions-in-panda-algorithm/)

<comment><USER16> And Matt refers to this blog post by Amit Singhal to give the official word on what Panda does. [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more- guid...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on- building-high-quality.html)

That link answers one of my question about Eric's article, which is why TravBuddy took the steps they did take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to talk to you a bit about your site. Please send me an email, I don't see an obvious contact form on your blog.... johng a t forum foundry d o t com</comment>


Investigating Implausible Bloomberg Supermicro Stories - <AUTHOR> https://www.servethehome.com/investigating-implausible-bloomberg-supermicro-stories/ <comment><USER2> > The point is, to combine even less powerful elements of each into a package > with the functionality Bloomberg describes, it would require amazingly small > lithography techniques. I have yet to find someone able to say that adding > processing power, signaling interfaces, networking (even a MAC), and memory/ > storage onto a package this size is even possible and I have asked folks in > the valley that do this at major companies.

Meanwhile at the NSA, in 2008: "Not only can we do that, we'll throw in a high frequency radio as well for beating air gaps, and it will only cost you 10k! Oh, and we'll fit it _INSIDE_ an ethernet port."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog#/media/File:NS...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog#/media/File:NSA_FIREWALK.jpg)

I'm sure the 2018 series is even smaller and even cheaper...

<comment><USER3> OK, but Bloomberg said some Chinese spy chips were the size of tiny signal couplers. That "ethernet port" is actually a dual-stacked Ethernet/USB port measuring over 1 cubic inch in volume - it is hardly "small". 2008 NSA's "TRINITY" microcontroller, which forms the basis for most of their designs, is a bit smaller than a US penny, which isn't exactly "signal coupler" tiny.

I can't guess at what 2018 NSA might have, nor can I guess at what 2018 PLA might have, but I think it's hard to jump immediately to believing this.

<comment><USER4> With FEL lithography and enormous budgets most of the Bloomberg claims seem quite possible.

<comment><USER5> Why should someone attack a quit low priority target like Apple or Amazon with such sophisticated technology? It would make more sense to aim at say the White House or the Pentagon or something like that.

<comment><USER6> According to the Bloomberg article, Amazon learned of this when they did a security check on Elemental, a company they wanted to buy. Elemental's video processing devices with supermicro boards are present on US navy warships, for example.

And Amazon also runs the GovCloud. And are the leading vendor in the race for Pentagon's cloud contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This response appears to be grasping at straws to try and prove that the described chip doesn't and couldn't exist. It reads like FUD.

I find this article to be much more convincing [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomber...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomberg/)

It points out that 6 pins is enough to intercept and inject code into the SPI bus between the Baseboard Management Controller and it's bootflash.

Once you have code running on the BMC, you can use it's capabilities to call home (via either the BMC's nic or the main nic, depending on how well the network firewalls are locked down) and then modify or simply read the main system's memory.

I don't want to claim that Bloomberg is right about the attack happening, just that the attack is surprisingly plausible.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention if you pulled this off, it's likely you have many other hacks in place too.. such as defeating firewalls and the local network config.

They're also taking bloomberg verbatim, when they likely have technical details incorrect. That doesn't mean the gist is wrong (which may or may not be, I have no idea, I just think a lot of this article's arguments are on weak foundation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a former spook with absolutely no knowledge about this incident, the whole thing sounds like:

* The Chinese supply chain interdiction / implant installation is real

* Those companies ARE aware of such events

* Those companies DID report it to USGOV

* The investigation is classified and Bloomberg didn't know or doesn't care

* The government is doing its traditional "Deny, disavow, do not acknowledge" etc.

* The companies were probably threatened with legal action / gag order preventing them from acknowledging the event

When I started working for DOD, one of the things in training was that you were always to say "I can neither confirm nor deny X". Eventually they realized that this statement itself is revealing, and suggested you just STFU.

The whole thing sounds incredibly plausible, and nooooooooobody was supposed to know about it.

<comment><USER10> The fact that Apple and Amazon are willing to go on the record adamantly denying it is more than just a gag order. That's a serious breach of both SEC rules and public trust if it turns out they're lying.

<comment><USER11> Does freedom of speech guarantee that they can't be coerced into punlic denial? Does a national security letter / other forms of government oversight override this?

(It absolutely shouldn't in a democracy, but there are plenty of things that shouldn't happen in democracies that have been happening lately)

<comment><USER12> Freedom of speech doesn't supersede securities fraud.

<comment><USER13> NSL probably does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is an interesting piece, which may be correct on some points. But it gets off to a pretty rocky start, building its case around overly aggressive claims directed at uncharitable (some might say crabbed) readings of the Bloomberg piece.

> That first part starting with "telling the device…" is nonsensical.

A fairer statement, in light of the article's own explanation, would have been "assumes that the BMC is networked in an insecure way unusual (perhaps even unheard of) at large sophisticated tech companies, or a network compromised in such a way to bypass blocked egress routes."

In other words: no. The statement is perfectly sensical, and probably even true of many networks. The author simply doubts whether this could be possible in what he regards as a properly configured (and not otherwise compromised) network.

> The next inaccuracy to this paragraph is the line describing BMCs as "giving > them access to the most sensitive code even on machines that have crashed or > are turned off." That is not how this technology works.

But the author then goes on to explain how BMCs could indeed be used to power on machines that were previously powered off, potentially allowing access to sensitive data. (Presuming that the machine is also compromised in other ways, presumably by downloading malicious code).

</comment><comment><USER15> > Baseboard management controllers or BMCs are active on crashed or turned off > servers. They allow one to, for example, power cycle servers remotely...This > line from the Bloomberg is technically inaccurate because a powered off > server's storage with its sensitive code has no power and cannot be > accessed. We have discussed two patently false technical details in the > Bloomberg article.

Er... couldn't a hypothetical backdoor BMC chip... turn the server back on? And then off again when it's done?

<comment><USER16> Since I couldn't flash my own OS in to the BMC components, where I work those ports and the 'combo' bmc+normal ports are not used on public facing networks.

A BMC really should be just a fully open minicomputer. Ideally there'd be a slot for something like a Raspberry PI to be used as an add-on BMC card.

<comment><USER17> I'd really like there to be more servers which support OpenBMC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > That first part starting with "telling the device…" is nonsensical. If you > are in the industry or read our Basic BMC and IPMI Management Security > Practices piece, you would know that this is false.

Based on my experience in the industry, I'd say this isn't quite accurate.

Yes, the author is correct in his assertion that BMCs are typically provisioned on private networks that are only accessible to outside users via a VPN. He is also correct that you cannot "tell" the BMC to do anything without access to that private network.

However, the author assumes that the operator has disabled egress connectivity on the private network setup for OOB BMC access. In reality, that happens less often than you'd think. Many firewalls by default do not block egress requests and without egress filtering, the BMC can still make outbound requests to the public world. A compromised BMC could easily "phone home" and receive instructions from a command and control server.

<comment><USER19> I've worked in a dozen or so Fortune 500 companies IT departments and I've never seen any incompetent enough to connect a BMC/management network to any type of Internet connected firewall, router, or egress gateway.

I've seen many that use flat management networks, which is a bad security practice, but connecting it to the Internet would require a new level of stupidity.

<comment><USER20> Sure, I've always segregated BMC dedicated ports to a non-connected network. But the BMC can also talk on the regular ethernet ports whenever it feels like it.

<comment><USER21> It can usually only vampire onto the first ethernet port. Depends on the motherboard, whether both ports are e.g. Intel, or one Intel, the other something else. Also, usually only 1000base-T not 10G.

<comment><USER22> I'm sure even 10baseT is more than enough to phone home.

<comment><USER21> The 1000base-T ports are often not connected to the production network, only the 10G.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >> Since the implants were small, the amount of code they contained was small as well. But they were capable of doing two very important things: _telling the device to communicate with one of several anonymous computers elsewhere on the internet that were loaded with more complex code_ ; and preparing the _device's operating system to accept this new code_. The illicit chips could do all this because they were connected to the _baseboard management controller_ , a kind of superchip that administrators use to remotely log in to problematic servers, _giving them access to the most sensitive code even on machines that have crashed or are turned off._ (Source: Bloomberg with emphasis added to highlight key points for discussion)

> That first part starting with "telling the device…" is nonsensical. If you > are in the industry or read our Basic BMC and IPMI Management Security > Practices piece, you would know that this is false.

This is not a very well-written article. How does this website's "best practices" document refute Bloomberg's story? The obvious problem is that not all organizations follow best practices, including many that you'd assume would, and those that do don't always follow them consistently. More subtly, if the BMC is subverted, you can't rely on to follow its normal programming or configuration: even if you have a segregated management network with no network access, the subverted BMC isn't required to use it and can use the "shared port" instead.

When you're dealing with subverted hardware or software, _you have to throw out most of your assumptions about how those things work_ that were formed in normal cases. It's clear that the authors of this article did not do that.

<comment><USER24> exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, Bloomberg has not done so.

The article raises a fair number of solid criticisms regarding BCP to eliminate the described vulnerability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This whole thing reeks. The only company that could be hurt by this is Supermicro and it's a small company, it reached 2B back in 2015 and has only declined since. This matters because if this is a con fueled by an SMCI short then such a short position would need to be so big it would draw the attention of SEC. Something this big, it's not worth for anything less than hundred(s) of millions and then you are sitting on a short position of like what, ten, twenty percent of the entire market cap of SMCI? This makes no sense.

<comment><USER26> The problem with this idea is that SMCI was delisted for not filing basic paperwork with the SEC, and the delisting occurred before the Bloomberg piece was released. [0]

[0] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/22/supermicro_facing_n...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/22/supermicro_facing_nasdaq_delisting/)

<comment><USER25> [https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/supermicro- announc...](https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/supermicro-announces- suspension-of-trading-of-common-stock-on-nasdaq-and-its-intention-to- appeal-2018-08-23)

Right.

So then the SMCI short can be ruled out. What else could fuel this madness?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The story would not exist if not plausible. Even the many of the experts who dismiss the story say it is plausible.

I get that it is extrordinary, and requiring extrordinary proof as a result. However, extraordinary is not at all the same as implausible. There are examples of similar attacks in the wild, no matter how many orgs argue they are not affected.

</comment><comment><USER28> I gave up when I got to the section on munufacturability. The idea that a package this size isn't big enough to house a large amount of digital logic is just wrong.

</comment><comment><USER29> So it seems to me that it is possible the original Bloomberg article may not be true, or at least has gotten details considerably wrong.

In any event, I have a couple questions.

1\. Is it possible that some kind of small chip could subvert there boot process of the BMC?

2\. Can the BMC subvert the host system in some useful way that would be hard to detect? I'm thinking about altered microcode loaded at CPU powerup.

3\. Can the altered microcode be used to subvert the host complex remotely? This could be something like a Spectre or Rowhammer attack.

<comment><USER30> 1\. Yes

2\. Highly Unlikely, but can't be entirely disproven from what I've seen.

3\. See #2

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "Bloomberg's report describes an attack that is not possible at the companies listed in the article."

</comment><comment><USER32> > Bloomberg's report describes an attack that is not possible at the companies > listed in the article.

Assumptions. This article is full of them.

</comment><comment><USER33> Frankly, I'm not going to read this article or evaluate its claims.

But it's interesting. Apple (mainly) and Amazon and a few others seems to have successfully turned the narrative to the question of whether or not Bloomberg got played.

At that point it seems like Bloomberg has to put forward something a lot more concrete than "X anonymous sources told us so" or lose all credibility. (Or they can retract, though at this point, after multiple double-downs, it would would take a wholesale editorial clearout and significant time to return to credibility.)

<comment><USER34> If they could show us a compromised motherboard; and maybe even the Chinese tiny chip?</comment></comment>


Could Our Farms Become the World's Great Untapped Carbon Sink? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nrdc.org/stories/could-our-farms-become-worlds-great-untapped-carbon-sink <comment><USER2> So, in round figures, this technique widely used could remove about 4bn tons of CO2 per year vs. the current global output (but no long increasing) of 32bn tons. (the article switches from hectares to acres so look out for that if you're following along with your pencil)</comment>


Bees solve complex "traveling salesman" problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.rhul.ac.uk/aboutus/newsandevents/news/newsarticles/bee.aspx

<comment><USER2> Also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1833774>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831271>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830232>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1829211> <\- This one has comments

</comment><comment><USER3> Bit more context here, as well: [http://quippd.com/show/4530/Bees_can_effectively_approximate...](http://quippd.com/show/4530/Bees_can_effectively_approximate_a_solution_to_the_travelling_salesman_problem)</comment>


AMD Is Exploring A Very Interesting, More-Open Linux Driver Strategy - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_catalyst_kernel&num=1

<comment><USER2> The driver is secret because "secret sauce" performance enhancements, which puts the entire burden on AMD when the community wants to get things working. Meanwhile, they note the open source driver has a lack of people working on it.... probably because the closed source one is the only really useful driver and the open source one is futile.

Sounds like a good reason to keep it hidden to me. Didn't want to buy a Radeon anyways. Nothing about this 'idea' sounds like Linus will approve either. I'm not a fan of Nvidia or AMDs approaches right now, they're both half-assed and embarrassing.</comment>


Linode RAM upgrades now available for Freemont datacenter - <AUTHOR> https://blog.linode.com/2013/05/17/fremont-upgrades/

<comment><USER2> Love Linode, but Fremont is like the Billy Baldwin of Linode datacenters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I was going to give Linode another week to put something out about the Freemont upgrade before I switched to a different datacenter, am very glad they finally announced it. Hopefully this new location will work out better than the first.</comment></comment>


Useful JavaScript Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/08/50-extremely-useful-javascript-tools/

<comment><USER2> Every time one of these stories appears, my hopes are lifted for a split second thinking that maybe it's data structures or scoping tricks or standard library functions, in the vein of Crockford's "The Good Parts". And every time, I know within a split second of looking at the page that it's yet another collection of garish web doodads I'll never use.

Just thought you'd like to know.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also check out <http://www.jsconf2009.com> where JavaScript developers will be rallying to discuss how to use JavaScript to build cutting edge mobile, desktop, server, and web applications. If you have any interest in deep JS tech, you should be there.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I fire my underperforming employee? - <AUTHOR> I own a small software company.  Most of the team is great, producing high quality work, clearly working toward the success of the business, etc. One is much more average. He has a decent amount of domain knowledge, but isn't progressing. His abilities and production seem similar now to several years ago, whereas former junior employees have surpassed him.  And unlike other members of the team, he is often not reliable. Work slips through the cracks, or consistently takes much longer than it should.
We have had discussions regarding organizational techniques and that sort of thing, to help stay on task and avoid leaving people hanging.  Some of these have had some degree of impact, but the general lack of performance compared to everyone else on the team persists.  He's not terrible, and he does do decent work at times.  He even takes initiative and has some good ideas, but it's often in the form of getting sidetracked on something relatively unimportant while critical tasks wait.  And sometimes it seems very much like days are going by without him working on anything at all.  (I certainly realize it is possible to spend a long time working out an algorithm or debugging or whatever, with little to show for it. This is different.)
I'm considering letting him go.  But I'm torn for a few reasons.  He has been with us for a long time now, and there hasn't been any particular egregious thing that seems to warrant that step now in particular.  He's also a nice guy, so I would hate to do it.  Plus, I'm concerned about the potential effect on team morale (although I'm sure some other developers have noticed the disparity as well).
I'm honestly not sure whether I'm just letting my desire not to hurt the guy color my judgement, and objectively I should clearly let him go, or if it's totally the other way around, and it's only my sociopath CEO side suggesting firing a loyal employee for not being exceptional.  What would you do? <comment><USER2> Have you talked to others on your team about this? Perhaps they find him useful in ways that are not directly apparent to you (also if he is helping others it could be slowing progress on his own tasks).

If your team feels similarly though, I think the next move would be to inform this person that you are considering downsizing the team and there may not be room to keep him around. If he was just being lax from a false sense of security due to his tenure maybe this will inspire him to be more productive. At the least it will give him time to prepare for a possible firing.

This must be one of the worst parts of being the boss - having to fire a nice guy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't talked to others directly about letting him go, since that doesn't seem appropriate or fair. I do know though that people have had to wait on him for things longer than they should, and follow up with him more than should be necessary. So while he does have useful knowledge and insights, I feel like he may be holding others back as much as helping them.

I'm not sure that (essentially) the threat of firing would be the best motivating measure. If I've made the decision it seems more fair to just do it (along with a good severance).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you very very profitable? Does everyone really like him?

This situation is compounded by the fact that you are a small group and there's nothing gravely wrong with him.

I know most people feel differently but the only way I'm keeping such an employee is if the money is dripping from the ceiling and everyone loves having him around.

Otherwise I'm sorry msn, it's nothing personal, but times are tough and we have to downsize now.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are comfortably profitable, but I wouldn't say "very very". That's part of what makes this tricky. If I did let him go, I would want to hire someone else in his place, and would probably end up paying them somewhat more too. So I can't really frame it like we have no choice. (Could lie of course, but I don't want to do that, especially since he'll likely notice when we hire someone new.)

<comment><USER3> Hmm interesting, yeah I guess life isn't usually very clear cut!

I've been fired before by asshole bosses who pushed me to work extremely hard, deliver excellent results (which I did), and then fired me anyway, you know?

Someone's feelings will have to get hurt- his, or your wallet's.

If nobody will miss him, I would just say to him that there's a lot of change and replanning happening at the business and you need to free up resources for other more crucial positions. Absolutely nothing personal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suggest letting the bloke know he's not up to par with your expectations, and then see if his performance gets better. And if it doesn't you can fire him without feeling too bad.</comment>


Letterpress Deconstructed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2012/11/letterpress-deconstructed.html <comment><USER2> I was hoping for more analysis of the game mechanics, rather than the UI.

I love how letterpress is really a territory game disguised as a word game. Instead of rolling a dice like you do in Risk, you find words to form your attacks. Rather than trying to pick up words with obscure letters, or lengthy words, you try to capture strategic tiles and expand your controlled area. Once you cover a large area of dark blue tiles, you choke out your opponent's ability to score points, and the game slowly snowballs further in your favor. It's really fascinating.

<comment><USER3> Yeah it also has an interesting aspect where the loser can win all of the sudden. It makes it a little more exciting. To win you have to plan carefully. If you leave the wrong set of black tiles on the board, you can get surprised.

Also I like how you can attack and defend simultaneously. If the opponent goes first, then they'll stake out a corner. And then I will attack their corner and stake out my own corner simulataneously, as long as there's a big enough word on the board.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The app and its website both play the mystery card. No mention of who made it and where it came from, but I found this Mashable piece that provides a bit more background."

This seemed bizarre to me, so I went looking. There's like half a dozen places on the website with background:

It's in the FAQ: <http://www.atebits.com/support/faq/what-is-atebits/>

The News page: <http://www.atebits.com/news/> ("atebits 2.0 October 15, 2012 In 2007 I left Apple...")

The Contact page: <http://www.atebits.com/contact/> ("Follow us on Twitter at @atebits and @lorenb.")

The Press Kit: <http://www.atebits.com/contact/press/atebits-presskit.zip> (Contains an about.txt that's exactly what it says.)

All of these are one or two clicks away (except the press kit, which is 3). Loren's not exactly bragging about his background on the front page, but if you're going to say he's secret and mysterious, at least take the time out of your day click a link or two.

<comment><USER5> Thanks pflats for pointing this out. I changed the post and added a note with a link to this comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The wait spinner rotates anti clockwise once every 8 turns, not randomly. The "Zoom into game" part is very much a replicate of the photo app behavior. Also it's very hard to tell Loren implemented his own scroll view in OpenGL, apparently he did a really good job: <https://twitter.com/lorenb/status/261336421888036865>

<comment><USER5> Excellent point. Corrected and added [3].

<comment><USER7> You should remove the word "randomly" from that sentence, since it's anything but random.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The UI of this game is so impressive that it appears to be nothing special on first blush. Everything just fits and works like it should. It's a beautiful example of the near invisibility of some types of good design.

<comment><USER9> This is a pretty good talk on how to make such a simple UI be fun. Letterpress does a lot of it...

[http://indiegames.com/2012/10/video_is_your_game_juicy_enoug...](http://indiegames.com/2012/10/video_is_your_game_juicy_enoug.html)

Also, multitouch! Even most jigsaw puzzle games on iOS are inexplicably limited to a single finger. This attention to detail is amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the biggest drawback is the lack of a ranking score. Almost every random internet player has been absolutely clueless about the rules of the game, not to mention the tactics. From a quick look at the GameKit docs, that seems to be a limitation of using (only) GameCenter to find players.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nope this is not UIKit, Loren stated that the whole UI is implemented in OpenGL

<comment><USER11> More from the interview with Loren Brichter:

> LB: It's all custom. The whole game is actually written in OpenGL with my > own animation system and a bunch of other neat things.

[http://www.macstories.net/featured/a-conversation-with- loren...](http://www.macstories.net/featured/a-conversation-with-loren- brichter/)

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I didn't realize this. I've updated the sentence in the article with a reference to your comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My friends stopped this game when we realized that in a relatively even matchup, the first player will win about 85 percent of the time. Going second is just so much of a huge disadvantage. The first player can surround 2 or more spaces easily leaving player 2 always playing catchup and defense. I'd like to see a future version that fixes this. Also, sometimes a game can get stuck in the endgame with both players playing chicken, not selecting any of the last few letters. Both situations are less than awesome game dynamics that need to be addressed.

</comment><comment><USER13> Loren made the game because he wanted a simple word game to play with his wife.

Hear more from him firsthand on the first episode of debug: <http://www.zenandtech.tv/debug/debug-1-brichter-letterpress/>

</comment><comment><USER14> There are two subtle aspect of the game. Both based on simplicity. First the actual rules of the game. Just like angry birds almost anyone can pick it up and start playing from the word go. The other is about the platform (read iOS) that helps you treat a simple action like flicking a tile such a joy.

I was so intrigued by the first part that I actually cloned the app so I could use it on non iOS platform. But the beauty of the app just could not be reecreated. It was just a hack and made in two days with not much thought into the ui. FYI, the clone is at <http://letter-press.herokuapp.com>

</comment><comment><USER15> So well made that the author thought it was piggy backed on UIKit. :-) all compliments.

</comment><comment><USER16> Visually, it reminds me quite a bit of an Android game called Gyro. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.submachine....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.submachine.gyro)</comment>


Is Pushdo screwing you? Details of the botnet - <AUTHOR> http://www.distilnetworks.com/is-pushdo-screwing-you-details-of-the-botnet/

<comment><USER2> This is how to remove it if your computer is infected: [http://www.iss.net/security_center/reference/vuln/Trojan.Pus...](http://www.iss.net/security_center/reference/vuln/Trojan.Pushdo_Variants.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how much money, time and resources this botnet has cost companies over the years? It seems whenever progress is made to shut them down, they build it even larger than before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Over 6 years and 100,000's of thousands of computers infected, my guess is a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok so if its identifying as an anything besides windows compare TTL in the packet to windows default if its different something is up

</comment><comment><USER5> Highest proliferation in emerging countries - Interesting to see where the US fell in those rankings.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems random, what is the mission of the bot and who is behind it or is this for rent?</comment>


News API – A JSON API for live news and blog headlines - <AUTHOR> https://newsapi.org/ <comment><USER2> This looks interesting. Curious what the imagined use case for this might be? My first thoughts ran towards data analysis. But would love to hear any other perspectives.</comment>


How to USE ELASTICSEARCH FOR NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND TEXT MINING–PART 1 - <AUTHOR> http://dataconomy.com/2016/12/use-elasticsearch-nlp-text-mining%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Apart-1/?utm_content=bufferfa48e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> PLEASE DON'T SHOUT IN TITLES!</comment>


Being 'Indistractable' - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/being-indistractable-will-be-the-skill-of-the-future-a07780cf36f4 <comment><USER2> In my opinion, based on my personal observations, reading and listening to smart people of the past and present, the most important skill, even meta- skill, for every time and epoch is self-discipline - the ability to do things you need to do tolerating discomfort and suffering. Suffer now to thrive later.

The epoch one lives in and their social position will dictate critical skills an individual requires to survive and move up - be it martial prowess, persuasion, focus. People with strong discipline can grow those skills quicker and farther.

A good inspirational example for me was in David Goggins' book "Can't Hurt Me", where he vividly describes his inner fight against his mind that always wants comfort now; he shares that the main reason he tortures himself with physical challenges is not to become physically strong, but to grow an armored mind, one that is prepared for real life struggles.

<comment><USER3> Self discipline is one of the psychology things which might not actually be a thing though. Often cited in this sort of discussion is the "marshmallow test" which has been found to be BS. Maybe there's something to willpower, but the discussion is stinky right now because of the replication issues. Same for "flow" which is another smell this article and related discussions have.

I find that I can be incredibly self disciplined when I setup my environment so that I don't have to fight myself. How do I fight distractions from my phone when I'm out with friends? I don't bring my phone. And yet somehow I always manage to meet with people at the time and place we decide on. I know not everyone can do this, I'm just using it as an example.

A feeling of a lack of self discipline is a symptom, much like procrastination. It's a mess of things all clumped together like a rats nest of wires. Everyone has their answer to procrastination (the book is in progress!) but beating procrastination isn't a skill because it isn't the root problem. Much like a headache could mean that you are going to die from cancer or you might just need some rest. If you feel you have procrastination problems, it's because something broke upstream and now you are blaming it on procrastination.

ETA: Herding my own actions is about preparation and personal story telling. If I setup a clear path for the next day and get good sleep, then it will work. If I get a bad night of sleep and I'm unorganized, then it's going to be a disaster and I'm going to complain about procrastination. If I see a cake which looks good and I have a weak reason not to eat it, I'm going to eat the thing. If I manage to convince myself to join the cult of low-carbs, then I wouldn't be caught dead with a piece of cake. If I'm working with people who are laid back, then I become laid back. If I'm working with people who are ultra-competitive, then I become competitive. It's all about pouring the kool- aid and then convincing myself to drink it. ;)

<comment><USER4> The root of the problem is not enough caffeine. I don't have the energy to discipline myself until I have enough of it. I tried quitting caffeine. It resulted in three months of staying in bed.

It's just too easy to play music and read stuff all day when you don't have the energy to get out of bed.

<comment><USER2> A usual advice here on HN is to check on ADHD with a good doctor. You can decide then if you want to jump on medications, but I can share that it improves the lives of many people.

<comment><USER5> Medications can help temporarily, but then tolerance appears and you need to up the dose. I think they are mostly helpful in the range of a few months up to a year, as a crutch to help someone sort their life out (professionally and/or academically), and also in terms of setting up efficient organizational techniques, developing helpful practices for focusing (meditation, exercising, diet). It helped me a lot in this way, I was then able to quit ADHD meds while retaining a much improved focus ability.

<comment><USER6> I'll throw my own anecdote into the ring here. As a person who's been on ADHD meds for 20+ years I've noticed that although tolerance does build up, it doesn't build up to the point that medication is ineffective, just less effective. Also, fairly short periods of no medication (a few days) can go a long way towards resetting tolerance to a meaningful degree. Despite being on these medications for decades, being on or off them continues to be huge factory in my day-to-day ability to execute tasks of any kind.

<comment><USER2> In your experience, do ADHD meds improve your brain functioning in a long term? I heard that amphetamine can stimulate and heal some deficiencies in the brain of people with ADHD. Did you notice something like that considering your 20+ years of med.

<comment><USER7> I'm 36, got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 25 or so. I took meds when I first got diagnosed but hated them and went off after a couple of weeks. Since then, I've never taken any amphetamines for ADHD.

I've also noticed an increase in functioning and ability to succeed and manage the symptoms of ADHD as time has gone on. I'm less inclined to think it's the drugs and more leaning towards it being the person learning to manage their symptoms more effectively as they get older.

You sort of just learn to live with how your brain works and processes things. No idea if uppers help that process or not. It wasn't necessary for me.

<comment><USER6> > I'm 36, got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 25 or so.

I was diagnosed at 7, and am currently 30.

> I'm less inclined to think it's the drugs and more leaning towards it being > the person learning to manage their symptoms more effectively as they get > older.

Why do you say that if you were only ever on those drugs for a couple of weeks? Moreover, while your ADHD wasn't severe enough that your life wasn't negatively impacted in a significant way by not medicating it, why do you think that experience is likely to align with others' experiences? What if others stay on those drugs because the quality of life impact is greater than the downsides of those drugs?

I don't enjoy taking drugs for ADHD. I take them because my ability to be a functioning and productive member of society is greatly impacted if I don't. Perhaps I could learn to live without them, but that's not something that would happen in a day, or a week, or even a month or more, and during that time my ability to perform at my job and take care of my own well-being would go out the window.

> No idea if uppers help that process or not.

My understanding of the neurological underpinnings of ADHD (or at least some varieties of it) is that it is caused by poor operation of the "executive function" system of the brain. This is the system that allocates cognitive resources to tasks and the difficulty encountered by those with ADHD getting and staying on task is due to the system failing to allocate the necessary resources. So stimulants work because they ramp up that system. Note that the "hyper-focus" that many with ADHD experience is also a result of poor performing executive function in that it is an over-allocation of cognitive resources.

Do note that what I've written is a medical knowledge informed, but ultimately still layperson, understanding of the brain.

> You sort of just learn to live with how your brain works and processes > things.

I agree in the sense that you can learn to accept any chronic condition, including its detrimental effects. However I see that as giving up, at least as far as my own quality of life is concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anybody feel like these kinds of posts over-rationalize life? I feel like these complex logical guides can be replaced with a simple "put your phone away while spending time with your daughter". Life should be simpler than having to think about all this stuff so hard. Life shouldn't be an optimization of resources problem.

<comment><USER9> Part of the problem that I realized after hearing the author promotin this book in a podcast is that many people not only want to solve problems but also put their own spin/branding on it, even if it's not actually much different from existing solutions.

But that slight difference in the new solution being promoted taps into our brains just in the right ways that it makes existing solutions seem inferior, thus the productive porn.

<comment><USER10> > Part of the problem that I realized after hearing the author promotin this > book in a podcast is that many people not only want to solve problems but > also put their own spin/branding on it, even if it's not actually much > different from existing solutions.

Yes, but they also have to do it in order to have a branding. You cannot "non- brand." Take for example Microsoft. Thy wrote a version of CP/M and called it PC-DOS. So what? Would it have been better to call it MS-CP/M?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This made me think of "focus" from Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" where individuals are converted to narrow their entire life down to a particular subject area so that they can be used as components in distributed systems.

Edit: One of the reasons for requiring this kind of approach is that they don't have "real" AI for reasons that would only be apparent if you have read the earlier novel.

<comment><USER12> Literally, weaponized autism.

<comment><USER11> I seem to remember that there is a discussion at the end of the book where characters discuss whether focus is worth it as a tool for society and perhaps even something that individuals would choose willingly.

I suspect if focus was available as a medical procedure there are people who would choose it - not something that you would be able to regret.

Edit: Greg Egan's excellent _Quarantine_ also has the protagonist using "neural mods" to prime him into a state where he was a more effective policeman - but at least they could be turned on/off rather than being semi- permanent like focus.

<comment><USER13> > "I suspect if focus was available as a _medical people_ "

What does this mean?

<comment><USER11> Apologies - I wasn't focusing enough on my comment and wrote nonsense! ;-) Fixed now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Gets distracted. Thinks long and hard about distraction. Has an insight on how not to get distracted. Writes a book about it. Writes a blog post to market the book. Future book reviews complain that you could have just read the blog post.

Some of this seems to be a rehash of GTD. Sometimes your distractions are something which you really need to do. Write it down so that you can feel at ease forgetting about it again. Then when you are doing your GTD thing, you can take care of your list.

The rest just doesn't sit easy for me. It seems like he's over-rationalizing a certain slice of life and it feels strange, like a bad aesthetic.

There's work time and then there's personal time. In each case, distraction is okay, it's just that you need to herd the distractions so that you are seeing more of X distractions and less of Y. A client walking in the door may be a valuable distraction. Getting a FB notification while working may be a costly distraction.

Personal time is also all about the right distractions. Interesting things are distractions. In the author's example, the child asking a question is a distraction. We can argue semantics, maybe an interesting thing which captures your attention is called something other than a distraction, but it's still the same thing. Your brain is pointed in one direction and something comes along to redirect that attention to something else.

This is just more productivity porn. Schedule fun time. Look, it's fun time on my calendar. I will enjoy it. I'm having fun... for 20 minutes.

<comment><USER14> "Sometimes your distractions are something which you really need to do"

The key is to be able to determine the validity of the distraction, without getting distracted, meaning without even diverting your mind a bit to think about the distraction. I don't think you can. You need to context switch a bit, examine what the distraction is and then switch back. Easier said than done. It leads to a trail of IFTTTs since every distraction has it's own context and lifespan. If someone has ways of accomplishing this, I'm all ears.

<comment><USER3> I'm getting into personal anecdote territory which I hate because it likely only works for me, but here I go...

When I'm working in front of my computer, I manage this stream by keeping a log of what I'm doing in an editor. When I step into something, I make a quick note of what I'm about to do. I may annotate it with what I DID rather than what I'm about to do. It's fully shooting from the hip. The point of it is that I can always bring it up and see the last thing my brain was on and the stream leading up to that point. I call that section "stream."

I'll add other "sections" for other items I need to take down. Maybe I think of a todo, then I'll make a section for "Todo" and maybe even multiple lists for multiple projects. This document is only meant for things which collect in my head as I'm trying to do this other thing. It's not meant to be storage space for project management.

The starting of a disaster day is finding myself getting bogged down in reading a pile of browser tabs in the morning during my "putter" time. In that case I'll open a blank editor tab to start the "stream" and create a section for reading. I'll jot down the items which interest me the most, bookmark those items, then clear all tabs. I'll NEVER get back to reading those things, but I took care of the problem in my head and then I get back to "streaming."

It's all about one of the core GTD ideas of clearing your space and writing things down to comfort your brain. The main stream section then keeps me on task. I have also trained myself that this is the most important rule and if I don't have this document open in an editor, then I'm asking for trouble.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And yet, here we are, posting comments on HN.

By the way is not being able to hear your daughter screaming for attention because you're deeply focused on your phone being distracted, or not?

Sounds like laser focusing to me. Which means that it's not a matter of being 'indistractable', but one of prioritising what's worth your attention.

On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like 'indistractable', but that's personal taste.

<comment><USER16> > On a side note, I don't like when people make up words like > 'indistractable', but that's personal taste.

It's likely that the success of this book will rely entirely on this word. After all, Cal Newport wrote recently on the same subject, so I'm not sure what this book brings new, other than the catchy/annoying word.

<comment><USER15> I loved Cal Newport's book. It's insightful, and full of takeaways, drawing from years of writing about the topic on his blog. While reading it, I was constantly looking on the Internet for the references and pieces of research that he was mentioning, the kind of reading you are meant to do when you are doing research on a certain topic, and him being a researcher has that kind of style that for the interested reader is full of depth.

On the other hand, you have an annoying, made up word and the work of someone whose sole purpose at work is, and I quote, "help tech companies build products to keep you clicking".

Now if I skip the mumble jumble of #likes4likes that you usually find on Amazon five star reviews, I can find a 3 star review that weighs the pros and cons. Pros: He knows a lot about distraction. Which makes sense; he does that for a living. Cons: the solutions.

> Make a contract with yourself, he says. Make a money contract. If you fail > to keep the contract you have to set fire to a hundred dollar bill.

That's it.

I'm choosing Cal Newport's "Deep Work" every single time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Eliminate all notifications from your phone with a 1-second 'empty' .mp3

I set this empty.mp3 as my notification (android) for emails, texts, applications, etc etc. The only thing that makes a sound in my phone is phone- calls and alarms. Eliminate the "top bar" notifications too. If you want to find out about emails, open the app. To find out about instant messages, open the app.

For me this has been absolutely great. I don't have social media installed (reddit, facebook, twitter, etc), so that helps.

Yet the phone doesn't "suck me into it". I hope somebody finds this useful!

</comment><comment><USER18> When I'm doing something that's both interesting and challenging I can happily ignore literally everything else until I'm done. I think most people are very similar; phones and games and Slack messages are only a distraction if you're just not that into what you're supposed to be doing. If it happens a lot you might need to address _that_ problem.

<comment><USER19> This sounds similar to what people on the spectrum of autism or adhd call "hyper-focus". The problem with hyper-focus is that you rarely have control over it. It's heavily skewed towards the interesting part, not what you need to be doing or how challenging it is. You'll often see absurd levels of complexity for the sake of making it challenging, only to support working on something interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's ironic that the author who introduced a ton of tech people to psychologically manipulative product design with his book "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" is now selling the solution to the problem that he helped create.

Here's how he described his last book:

\---

How do successful companies create products people can't put down?

Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?

Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the "Hook Model" \-- a four steps process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive "hook cycles," these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back over and over again, without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.

Hooked is based on Eyal's years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a startup founder – not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, startup founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior.

\---

To top it off he's trying to growth hack his new book by putting a branded red "do not disturb" sign in the book, that he expects you to put up on your desk for all of your stressed out colleagues in your open office to see. ([https://youtu.be/XVbH_TkJW9s?t=906](https://youtu.be/XVbH_TkJW9s?t=906))

<comment><USER21> In fact he notes this "irony" in the first paragraph of the linked article!

> or over a decade, I've helped tech companies build products to keep you > clicking. In fact, I wrote the book on it. Hooked: How to Build Habit- > Forming Products, which came out in 2014, was written to help companies > build healthy habits in their customers, like regularly going to the gym and > eating right. But in the process of researching the book, I found that some > products drew some people in too much. Including me.

<comment><USER20> He always claims it's for "healthy habits" but we all know that it's mostly used for gaming, social media and marketing products. It's equivalent to Juul claiming that they're selling a product to treat smoking addiction.

Here's his bio from the book:

\---

Nir Eyal spent years in the video gaming and advertising industries where he learned, applied, and at times rejected, techniques described in Hooked to motivate and influence users. He has taught courses on applied consumer psychology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and at Fortune 500 companies.

\---

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am a master at being 'indistractable' \- my brain-CPU does not support interrupts.

P.S my manager calls me 'uncooperative'.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just skimming the post, it seems to be highly convergent with what is used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)[1], or more generally of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

The article doesn't seem to point to such a connection, but people interested with the topic might like to have a look at these well documented methodologies. Analyzes and critics of these methods and their claimed results are also widely available.

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

</comment><comment><USER24> See also: Cal Newport's Deep Work [0]

[0] [http://www.calnewport.com/books/deep- work/](http://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Right now, I am being distracted by reading the comments to this blog post on HN...

</comment><comment><USER26> As someone with attention defecit disorder, I can only applaud the further development of attention-as-a-skill, be it by introspection (e.g. meditation) or technological (e.g. parmacological) enhancement!

</comment><comment><USER27> I hope not. Many people in open-space offices with smart phones have attention span of a chipmunk. That makes it possible for remote workers to compete :-)

</comment><comment><USER28> I think this would be the single most important differentiator for wealth creation. The world would be divided between creators and consumers. The consumers are increasingly trained for only consuming with a singular goal of generating wealth for the creators.

<comment><USER29> I'd say that title goes to intelligence, which can't be trained so people are going to consistently have either a lot or a little their whole working life. Technology is progressively taking away the ability of low IQ people to do anything productive at all and giving it to a shrinking pool of people smart enough to do the remaining not-yet-automated things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Off topic to the article, because I can't read it. I blocked Medium's annoying pop-up and now there is no way for me to click somewhere to open the article. Ah well, I'll just see this as a step towards being indistractable by medium articles.

</comment><comment><USER31> weird, he literally wrote the book about making websites and apps addictive through grabbing as much attention as possible. now he's got a book on how to avoid getting distracted by those sites/apps

<comment><USER32> Meh, people are allowed to change their minds about things they've done once they've seen the effects of their prior work. At the start of this post he uses that as evidence that he's qualified to write this book; I don't disagree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I know it's off-topic, but fuck Medium. No, I don't want to join. From now on, I will not click links to Medium!

(I'm tired of deleting their stupid cookies just to read a goddamned blog post.)

</comment><comment><USER34> TLDR: a guy can't just turn off his phone for a couple of hours and creates a whole new philosophy out of it.

<comment><USER35> While shamelessly self plugging his book.

<comment><USER36> Don't let that distract you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I was distracted by this headline. now.

</comment><comment><USER38> :closes HN tab:

</comment><comment><USER39> Is "indistractable" a proper word?

<comment><USER40> what's a proper word?

<comment><USER39> A word recognized in the English lexicon

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The Pomodoro Technique has helped me a lot staying focused on my work and studies. Sure, it's not a silver bullet solution to manage distractions but it's a good starting point.

<comment><USER42> This. The Pomodoro Technique has revolutionized my life. I set it for 30 minutes and tell myself "You just need to make a little progress on task X for 30 minutes... You can do it!"

What very often happens, however, is that since I have focused so well during that period, I actually end up _completing_ the task, usually with a few minutes to spare. Feels a bit ridiculous, but, at least in my case (anecdotal, for sure), just giving my brain the 'peace' in knowing that it will only have to focus deeply for 30 minutes seems to help it immensely. Human beings are so strange.</comment></comment>


Google Maps Adds Elevation Profiles To Bike Routes - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/google-maps-adds-elevation-profiles-to-bike-routes-to-help-you-avoid-those-steep-hills/ <comment><USER2> What's neat here is how clean their elevation data seems to be. Having spent a long time trying to work with various dataset like the NASA SRTM and USGS files, I quickly came to realize how hard it is to clean up this data. Looking at this feature I tried out a couple of things that would have tripped up a naive implementation and Google Maps seems to have dodged the most obvious pitfalls. For example a bike route that crosses a freeway in a trench correctly shows the route without discontinuities. It also seems like Google are getting around some of the problems just by being intentionally vague and blurry. If you make a route short enough it will just say "mostly flat" instead of trying to draw a misleadingly detailed profile.

<comment><USER3> They're almost certainly using barometer data from Android devices to help know elevations and differences between roads. The barometers can measure altitude differences as small as ~0.5m - it's pretty amazing.

<comment><USER2> That's interesting. What kind of datastream do you get from that sensor? Something that has a useful ∆Z over short intervals but essentially no absolute accuracy?

<comment><USER3> You can check it out yourself if you like - I provide a live feed of barometric data from Android sensors at [http://pressurenet.io/](http://pressurenet.io/). The data I collect is polled every 10 minutes, and while the exact pressure is often nearly useless due to noise, trends in the data are very clear. I'm looking specifically at the weather, so over periods of ~6 hours we get really really clear trend lines.

When a device moves rapidly in a short period of time, you know that the sensor data will be reflecting the altitude changes and not the weather changes. Moving the device from my feet to my head shows a clear change of ~.5mb typically.

<comment><USER4> Didn't you also have issues with pressure differences inside, outside and between buildings in dense metro areas?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heh, Google is catching up. I want to highly recommend [https://www.komoot.de/plan](https://www.komoot.de/plan) for hike or bike planning. It's fundamentally based on OSM and very very nice.

<comment><USER6> Google simply doesn't have the data in the UK, it has probably a tenth of the footpath and cyclepath routes compared to OSM, let alone all the information about surfaces, unofficial paths etc.

Share the recommendation for komoot, although it's quite new, and a bit buggy.

OSMAnd is also useful, not so polished, but you get a lot of power over the way you use the map, for instance searching for attractions, pubs, cycle parking, etc along the way, and it's completely offline.

<comment><USER7> Also in the UK: [http://cycle.travel/map](http://cycle.travel/map) (disclaimer - my site)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Url changed from [http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/16/5724652/google-adds- elevat...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/16/5724652/google-adds-elevation- data-to-bike-routes), which points to this one.

</comment><comment><USER9> As someone who really enjoys cycling I have been surprised at how bad mapping and routing applications are, google maps have large portions of the world that are unavailable offline, its impossible (or hard to find out how_ to save routes offline, regularly sends me down dual carriageways and motorways. Open cycle routes loses your position every time you rotate the device and generally lacks quality.

Am I missing something? with the amount of effort gone into OSM I dont really understand why there isnt a top quality app to display and use all that data.

<comment><USER10> Try Komoot:

[https://www.komoot.de/plan](https://www.komoot.de/plan)

(I've never used the app, just pointing you at the router)

<comment><USER11> And the router is good - in Europe at least, where Openstreetmap data is excellent !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think they must be using sensor data from GMaps. Yesterday I mapped a ride that said mostly flat. It was not after riding it with Google Maps giving me directions while on the route. Today it shows an incline of 504ft. Same destination, same origin just two different days.

</comment><comment><USER13> Six years ago, I spent an hour learning to drive manual transmission in my friends car. I did not get very good in that hour.

Then I went and bought a manual transmission car of my own. The drive back home from the dealer was one hell of a trip. I learned very quickly how tricky it is to get a car moving when you're stopped on a hill.

So I totally could have used this back then. :)

<comment><USER14> Oh man. I learned to drive in my parents' automatic mid-sixties Impala, so when when I bought my first car - a yellow 1969 Toyota Corolla - I wanted an automatic. The salesman said, "You know, this is just a two-speed automatic, and it doesn't perform very well. I really think you'd be happier with the stick shift." I told him I didn't know how to drive a stick shift and he said, "That's no problem, I'll teach you."

So we drove a few lurchy blocks around San Francisco - yes, San Francisco, the city of seven hills. Ah, if it were only seven!

After a while he said, "Doing great, drive me back to the dealership and you're on your own."

I knew my way home, but I couldn't remember where the hills were.

I could have used elevation data that day...

"...sweat beading upon his brow, he might recount that Damp Morning when he drove his Manual Transmission up the Impossible Grade, and was forced to stop, just below the top! In frantic pantomime, he'll pull the emergency brake and disengage the clutch. Crane his neck to peer anxiously at the car sniffing his downhill bumper. Bulge his eyes. Gun the engine. Pop the clutch. Release the brakes. Lay down some rubber with a piercing squeal. Float his steed slowly onto the flat. Wave the smoke from his eyes. Pump his arms in brief celebration. And finally, grouse about that sadistic driving instructor who got him into the pickle in the first place. What a jerk!"

[http://www.datapointed.net/2009/11/the-steeps-of-san- francis...](http://www.datapointed.net/2009/11/the-steeps-of-san-francisco/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What bike routes need is some indication as to whether a given cycle route is actually any good. 'Traffic levels' for bikes is what I want. Some of the proper routes with little blue signs are great for ten year old's but no good if you are on a reasonable commute.

I followed Google Maps suggested bike route and the ones provided by Transport for London for several weeks before I figured out that I should use the main road in certain sections. Plenty of other cyclists were on the main road going roughly the same direction. The 'cyclist' route had me going on quieter roads that were just not that good. I would find myself going against the main flow of the traffic at junctions and having to navigate a lot more of them, never with the lights in my favour. Plus the distance was longer.

Why is nobody on Strava on this road? Is probably the best way to decide if a bike route is any good.

<comment><USER16> Well, at least Strava now has a global heatmap: [http://labs.strava.com/heatmap](http://labs.strava.com/heatmap). Makes it easier to avoid roads less travelled, I guess.

Regarding the data quality: At least in Germany the ADFC maintains its own cycle path network which also contains metadata about road surface, motor traffic and such things. This is also one of the sources Google licensed for their bike stuff in Maps (although back when they introduced it they had a very hard time matching up their two or three different data sets and there were lots of errors where junctions wouldn't connect, etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use google maps bicycling directions every day on my bike trip across the US and just saw this the other day.. that plus street view to see how good shoulders + road conditions are can be very cool tools for planning a bike trip.

Sadly in west Texas good shoulders tend to be covered in chipseal resulting in days/weeks of much vibration.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've heard Google is working on "street view" for trails. It is a backpack. My guess is they've done this with Bike trails too.

<comment><USER19> They have the backpack... but the elevation is much easier to get from Ingress players :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Doesn't seem to recognize bridges - [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40.7104202,-73.9608626/40.71...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/40.7104202,-73.9608626/40.7181556,-email@example.com,-73.9910309,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m4!4m3!1m0!1m0!3e1) is considered "mostly flat".

</comment><comment><USER21> Needs some tuning of the mostly flat definition. When a route contains roads where you're looking at several 100s of meters > 10%, it is not considered mostly flat by the average cyclist. On the contrary.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a really nifty addition, I can't wait until it shows up in the mobile app. I recently went on a very hilly bike ride and it was neat to find out exactly how steep/high the hills were.

</comment><comment><USER23> Now if only they'd put terrain mode back.

<comment><USER10> It's accessible if you put 'terrain' in the search box (and I see a text button for it).

I couldn't get it to work together with a bike route.

<comment><USER2> The link disappears if you're zoomed in too closely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> YES! Thank god. I've been waiting for this for years!!!

</comment><comment><USER25> Oooh...too bad google is so committed to online-only, I'd love this feature but I'm too cheap for a data-plan.

<comment><USER2> I Google Maps even capable of routing when offline? I don't see why having the height data would be useful if it can't start routing anyway.

<comment><USER26> Yes, it is. If you start the route when you're still online, you can proceed offline the rest of your trip.

<comment><USER22> ... So no, you can't.

<comment><USER26> I think I misunderstood the question. No, it can't start a route offline, but it can route you through it as you go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > To Help You Avoid Those Steep Hills

But, but ..... what if you like those steep hills, what then?

<comment><USER28> Obviously the article was not written by a cyclist! The feature is really great for us with limited time.</comment></comment>


Plex VR - <AUTHOR> https://www.plex.tv/features/vr/ <comment><USER2> Has Plex added Google Home/Assistant support yet? Here is a thread with hundreds of posts asking about it which the developers are ignoring in favor of adding News feeds, VR and tons of other things that do not have demand:

[http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/244317/google-home- integrat...](http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/244317/google-home-integration- status/)

Strange company that Plex. I've cancelled my PlexPass because of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this looks great! Does anyone have experience with it first hand? This might be what pushes me over the edge to finally pick up the Daydream View.</comment>