Ask HN: Does anyone else feel stupid reading Hacker News? - <AUTHOR> Reading other peoples comments and their knowledge on subjects, some I didn't even know existed makes me feel very unwise. I am saying this as a university student majoring in computer engineering with senior standing. <comment><USER2> Just this morning I met with a doctor who is well-published and widely respected in his subspecialty, and the first thing he told me was "I used to think I knew something about your condition, but I've long since learned I don't." while the practiced humility is (I think) a bit of an affect, it underscores the point: the higher you climb, the better you can see how far off the horizon is. Some people learn their neighborhood really well. Some learn a particular highway really well. Some cut a new road. They're all valid, all can provide a solid living.

You _are_ unwise. You're supposed to be, right out of school—its a peculiarity of this industry that we look at peers who are like five minutes more experienced and see someone presenting themselves as "senior". Humility is a good thing. It sounds like you're self-aware enough to have it, so take that and run with it and realize that your university degree provides you a solid foundation to start learning—its not the end state of the learned.

<comment><USER3> >Humility is a good thing.

Yes. But our culture does not value humility much. It values arrogance and over-confidence much more. Take a look at characters like Iron Man, or sit through some managerial or high level analyst interviews.

<comment><USER4> I don't know. I am sure there are plenty of organizations that value arrogance over humility, but I haven't been in any of them. The small companies I have been a part of value confidence, but also humility and honesty.

Not sure if you and I just run in different circles, but folks that are not impressed with blowhards are out there.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, at large companies (and government and monopolies or oligopolies) it's easier for arrogant people to excel.

I want to find some posts I've seen here on HN that show this attitude.

edit: arrogance is less prevalent amongst technical people, but you can see examples amongst management, traders (read Michael Lewis's books, especially Liar's Poker), salesmen, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar's_Poker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar's_Poker)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you ever come to a point where instead you feel as if you know something about everything, _that_ is when you should be worried.

A favorite saying I encountered during grad school:

<after finishing undergrad>: "I know everything!"

<after finishing Master's>: "I know nothing..."

<after finishing PhD>: "Nobody knows anything."

</comment><comment><USER7> Absolutely. I am almost in the same position as you. I am a college student majoring in Computer Science. I'm going to be a senior this coming fall but I have only recently switched to CS from Pre-Med so I have a long way to go, particularly from an academic perspective. I've been programming for almost 9 years as a hobby yet I still feel like I have lightyears to go. Even worse, I have nothing to show for those past 9 years. The one thing I'm absolutely sure I have, however, is the passion to continue learning.

When I first joined HN about 6 months ago I couldn't comprehend 80% of the material. I remember browsing through and thinking it all looked like Assembly code. It felt great to be surrounded by such brilliant minds, which is why I kept coming back, but I did feel like a lost puppy. Now, months later, I don't yet consider myself knowledgable enough to be posting comments (this is probably my 5th comment), necessarily, but it feels great to now be able to follow at least 50% of the content. This is the result of two things: a, Browsing HN pretty much daily and b, Programming more, focusing on the things I don't already know.

There aren't many lessons to be learned in your comfort zone. Good luck!

<comment><USER8> I've been programming for 17 years (started as a kid), and I also don't understand a lot of what's on HN. The simple fact is that CS is too broad for you to have expert knowledge of every area, and HN is full of articles that are deep dives to pique the interest of specialists.

There was a thread a while back about this exact topic, and someone mentioned that John Carmack doesn't know SQL or anything about relational databases. True masters are rarely generalists.

<comment><USER9> _" I often feel bad that I have zero experience with relational databases. Big gap in my skill sets." ~ John Carmack_

[https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/457916010234777600](https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/457916010234777600)

How can someone accomplish so much and not know anything about SQL/RDBMS. Pretty surprising though.

<comment><USER8> I'd argue that a lot of his success was directly related to not knowing anything about SQL/RDBMS because they were not required by his specialty.

Instead of spending time learning SQL, which he'd never use while creating a game, he only learned and practiced the skills he used for games. It's incidental that a lot of those skills are fairly universal and low-level, which gives us the false impression that Carmack is a generalist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People here tend to limit their comments to areas where they have relatively more knowledge or experience. What you see on HN is tiny slices of thousands of people. Tech is a big place and it's growing fast, there's always more to learn.

<comment><USER11> > "People here tend to limit their comments to areas where they have > relatively more knowledge or experience."

Speak for yourself, what do you do? Personally, I'll read anything that looks interesting, regardless of whether it's something I may be able to comment on.

<comment><USER12> Reread the comment you replied to. He/She is talking specifically about the act of commenting.

<comment><USER11> True, my mistake, misread the comment, sorry about that sp332.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please do not confuse stupidity with ignorance. Albert Einstein was ignorant when he was born. He did not know anything. He was smart and quickly learned much more than many people will ever know.

My first computer program compiled and ran in the summer of 1967. I have spent most of my life since then learning about computers. There is far more information than I can ever hope to learn. New languages crop up nearly every day. I only know about a dozen well enough to write a respectable program in them. I frequrntly get on HN (Hacker News)and find articles about "New release of Zarbodog" and I sometimes click through to see whatI am missing (I've never heard of Zarbodog). Often the article tells about speed improvements, space savings, interoperability with some API but never actually states what Zarbodog is. A well-written article will start off with a sentence or two which tell what it is (hardware, software, website), what OS (Operating System) it is for, what language it is in (or compatible with), and what it is useful for. I see a lot of ACRONYM(Abbreviated Capitalized Randomly Ordered Names Yielding Madness) usage which is not explained upon first usage. This is also a good practice. If your failure to understand the titles or articles stems from lack of background, it is no sign of stupidity. You may never have enough background knowledge to fully understand all of the articles. "Knowledge is being aware that you're on a one-way street; wisdom is knowing to look both ways before crossing it." \- old saying

</comment><comment><USER14> Sometimes, when I read the state-of-the-art cs articles, can't hardly understand anything.

But then there's the "lol startup ruby app lol javascript framework!" type articles that convinces me to stay in the deep end of the pool, even if it feels like drowning.

</comment><comment><USER15> No I don't feel stupid. Here is why:

There is always someone who is smarter and more knowledgeable than you. What matters is that HN provides easy access to those smart minds and I love it.

There may be people who are not as knowledgeable as you. In that case, I love teaching them what I know.

</comment><comment><USER16> You may be nearing the end of your time in school, but your education is really only beginning. Most of what you're going to learn will be picked up over the course of your working career. In a few short years, you'll know much more than you do today, and if HN is still around, you'll be impressing people here with your knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER17> YES, yes a thousand times yes! I read stuff on here to try to keep up-to-date on new things... but frequently it doesn't work because I can't even understand the _vocabulary_.

Then I'll even try to look up the meaning of an unfamiliar term, but the definition itself uses 5 other terms that I also don't know. So I'll go look up those 5 terms, but by then I'm three levels deep and sure as hell not any closer to the original topic I was trying to learn about.

Yeah man, HN has taught me that I'm straight-up useless! Shew...

<comment><USER18> Thumbs up to capital YES. :)

If one has the patience to go 3 levels deep every time he/she faces some strange vocabulary, then with each unfamiliar post here, that person will get to witness dozens of new technology which in the end may help him/her to find the right one to scratch beyond the surface.

Hacker News, imho, is one of the places where hard consumption is beneficial for the reader as long as he/she stays sceptical which is a rare occasion in other common social media sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not really, when I started reading HN about 2 years ago I realized there was a lot I needed to catch up on, but since then I feel like I've gotten up to speed on the topics I need / want to care about, and I'm glad to ignore people talking expertly about things I have no interest in (like web frameworks).

Also the more you post here the more you realize how many doofuses there are here (not naming names). If you see someone posting something that makes you think they're smart, start digging thru their post history and see if they're (a) actually smart, (b) just sound smart, or (c) might be smart in this one narrow focused area but have really dumb thoughts about other things.

</comment><comment><USER20> The world is bigger than you thought, but you're still in school, the sensation will pass. In a few years you'll have a better grasp on the breadth of topics you still do not understand.

There will come a day where conversation on HN is no longer humbling, but recognizable as running in circles on topics that have become within your wheelhouse. With any luck you'll be able to differentiate between the handful of knowledgeable people here well-versed in domains you didn't pursue and the people talking out of their ass.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been a software developer for nearly 11 years. That feeling is why I keep coming back to HN. And only lately did I realize that thankfully that feeling will never end.

</comment><comment><USER22> When the Internet starts making you feel bad, turn it off and go for a 3-5 hour long walk. Don't forget your water bottle.

</comment><comment><USER23> Discard fears of comparison immediately: nobody is judging you. You already recognize areas in which you still have learning to do - that is perhaps the hardest step.

Think about the area you have identified. Chiefly, is it worth learning? Would you find it stimulating or useful? Channel your decision in to confident curiosity, and your curiosity in to learning.

One day, if you keep going, you can confidently launch in to this sort of broad, deep, out-of-context learning routinely and without stress or great difficulty.

Just remember: life's too short to try to learn everything. Some people love being the expert at something, others prefer a more distant, 'renaissance man' or talented generalist approach. _There is no single path_ , just be confident building your own.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is actually one of the major reasons I read HN. Not so I can make myself feel stupid, per se; but to get better insights into things I don't experience in my offline life (job, friends, etc..) Just make sure you don't get caught up in feeling like your stupid. It's counterproductive, we all have different backgrounds and experiences. Some people here have highly specialized backgrounds but are completely oblivious to other areas. Some have 30 years experience in a field, some are brand new. I just try to learn more in my skillset and compare myself to myself only, incrementally getting better (at least thats the goal)

</comment><comment><USER25> Be sure to read some of the other comments for balance. In particular, the ones where people mistake their aptitude for copypasta language-du-jour for a deep understanding of subjects in which they have zero training or experience.

</comment><comment><USER26> I see most articles as a constant reminder that I really should be _doing_ and _creating_, as a lot of those people do, rather than be reading stuff on sites like Hacker News...

</comment><comment><USER27> Not stupid as such, because I know a bit about a few things, but I certainly consider myself in the lowest 20% smarts-wise around here.

And that's fine, actually. I've been exposed to a great amount of things that, had I not been here, I would never had seen.

Being in the lowest 20%, or at least my self-perception of that, means there's a whole lot I can do to improve and rise up the scale, as and when or if I choose to.

</comment><comment><USER28> Stay focused on doing.

Don't spend too much time reading about other people doing.

Spend your time learning and not being entertained.

You'll be just fine.

</comment><comment><USER29> No, it doesn't make me feel stupid... it makes me feel undisciplined and lazy.

</comment><comment><USER30> Stupid, Lost, Depressed !

</comment><comment><USER31> "The ancient oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing." (political phun not intended)

</comment><comment><USER32> I 100% agree - I'm only a college sophomore though, so I at least have time, but the pedigree difference between me and the average HN reader is astounding.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's exactly why I come here: to improve. _Life_ starts at the end of your confort zone.

</comment><comment><USER34> Remember that ability to write about things isn't the same as knowledge or understanding.

</comment><comment><USER35> 'You know, everybody's ignorant, just on different subjects.' \- Will Rogers

</comment><comment><USER36> Just be humble in knowing that the technology landscape today is vast and ever-expanding.

</comment><comment><USER37> A clique celebrating itself. Don't feel intimidated.

</comment><comment><USER38> Look up "Imposter syndrome". Most of us have it.

</comment><comment><USER39> Three things:

1\. Startup Culture is "meme"-able (see [https://archive.is/UZ5Wp](https://archive.is/UZ5Wp))

2\. Political Correctness trolls / beta male white knights (the jackals)

3\. The normal deficiencies that come with any karma based system, "circle jerk".

That said, I get away with truths here that'd never fly on reddit. Ranked by freedom of thought (Worst -> Best):

DevShed Forums -> StackOverflow (Unconstructive) -> Reddit (Paoist) -> Reddit (Pre-Pao) -> HN -> /g/

/g/'s huge benefit is anonymity and karma-less system. You get used to ignoring the cruft. The problem is it's the ultimate extreme end of the spectrum.</comment>


Don't use MongoDB - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/3619146

<comment><USER2> From the last time this was posted[1] there was a significant amount of discussion and some decent rebuttals[2] of this post.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3202081>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3202959>, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3202181>

</comment><comment><USER3> Ignore mariuz.

He is a developer for some Firebird (another open source DB) add-on. So he is just spreading FUD in order to get people to care about a database that frankly nobody does care about.

The fact is that this article is nearly a year old and MongoDB has moved very quickly to address most issues thanks in no part to their recent $42 million VC investment round.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you worried about competitors copying your client-side JavaScript code? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Copy my SPA JS code?

Oh please. You have no idea the hell you have brought upon yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> About 99.99999999999% of people don't want anything to do with your code, your site, your work, or any project you will ever do. Someone illicitly copying your work sounds more like a goal than a problem cause of how popular it needs to be first.

<comment><USER4> You are 100% correct about this. I have become much more trustworthy in describing to a few of my developer friends what my plans for any program I write are. My fears used to be that they would steal the idea and go make fortunes. What I found is that is untrue. Most of them don't care enough or have time to figure out my "exact idea" and write a program to do it. I have yet to see any of them ever attempt to steal an idea I have told them. Instead, I usually confide in them to understand: "Do you think this is a good idea? Should I even bother?"

They have never steered me wrong. There are projects they have loved and said, "I would love to see it when you're finished. I would love to test it out!" There are also other projects where: "It's not worth it to work on that." "I don't really see that as a demand or useful to anyone but you."

99% of the time they are giving me solid and sound advice. I think the 1% that remains is: Miscommunication. They misunderstand what I am after or I just didn't explain it right.

As to answer the original question: Honestly, if my code is that good... awesome. But I likely got that code from some sample library that can be found anywhere on the Internet. If the code is good and it helps someone out, than why not? I've tried to view source on sites for something cool that someone's website was doing. Sometimes I can get the script, but often times, it is usually a combination of javascript and some PHP scripts working together, so it is not always easy to just grab the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nah. Even client side UI is just that... A UI. It's trivial to copy a UI anyways by just taking screenshots.

If more substantial parts of our apps were client side, like if we sold an online image editor, I would be very afraid.

However I have doubts as to how much more vulnerable to copying JS is than anything else. People have been pirating compiled apps just as long and they don't seem any less prolific

</comment><comment><USER6> This happened at FarmLogs once. Our bug tracker started getting some really weird exceptions due to a Chinese company reverse engineering our app with the frontend code, which had our API key in it. We didn't really mind; it was just funny.

</comment><comment><USER7> Definitely not. Honestly I'm not worried about people seeing the backend code either. I'm sure there are exceptions but it's been my experience that the data is by far the most valuable asset for web/sass applications.

</comment><comment><USER8> Having worked on legacy corporate code...I find it is often easier to just observe products and reverse engineer them, rather than try to understand/extend existing code. I would generally prefer to reverse engineer+rebuild. Existing code isn't always great code, it may not even be correct code.

And if your code really is that good and so unique that someone might want to steal it, perhaps you should try to extract it and product-ify it. Possibly as an open source project.

</comment><comment><USER9> A little bit, yes. But it's a given now that client-side JS is open source, and many have got used to this. I've seen developers try to obfuscate their code using obscure packing utilities, and abusing eval(), but such code is trivial to de-obfuscate/unpack, and doing so only makes me want to see the code _more_ since you've something to hide.

</comment><comment><USER10> Obfuscation works. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough that it's substantially harder to copy/reuse than to do whatever the alternative is (rewrite, buy, etc).

<comment><USER11> Js is obfuscated as a language feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would a serious competitor ever risk being sued by copying your code verbatim? Would copying just parts of your likely obfuscated codebase and trying to integrate it into their own codebase be more difficult than reverse engineering it?

I don't think it's something to worry about. Someone that is smart enough to steal and use your code is smart enough to use a legal alternative.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes, well, to some degree. The best you can do is minify it.

I'm more concerned with competitors copying designs, and witty UX concepts than actual JS code. This you can put obstacles in front of by making some things only available post-purchase, or by "demo only" if the customer is undecided.

</comment><comment><USER14> Absolutely no because It has not alternative choice. Any code can reverse- engineering, any languages.

</comment><comment><USER15> Only to the point where I don't put sensitive information in it. I can see theirs, they can see mine. Meh.

</comment><comment><USER16> couldn't care less

</comment><comment><USER17> No, I don't like to live my life in paranoia. Also anyone that was sufficiently motivated could just implement it themselves anyways.

</comment><comment><USER18> No.</comment>


Why a Grape Turns into a Fireball in the Microwave - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/why-a-grape-turns-into-a-fireball-in-a-microwave/ <comment><USER2> Summary of Video:

In a microwave oven, resonance between two grapes can ionize the air, creating plasma. The wavelength of 2.45GHz microwaves = 12cm, but the grape's refractive index of ~10 slows down the wave 10x, decreasing the wavelength to about 1.2cm...about the size of a grape. This causes resonance at the center of each grape, just like you can hear "boomy" bass in certain parts of a room.

When two grapes touch, this creates a mode (or standing wave) between them, which builds up enough energy to ionize the air, allowing electrons to flow. If you look at the plasma spectrum, you can see spikes for the sodium (Na) and potassium (K) ions in the grapes.

SCIENCE, BIATCH!

<comment><USER3> The EM wave should just bounce around inside the grape because of total internal reflection and the high refractive index, right? Is this what is being termed as "resonance"?

<comment><USER4> Let's just call it raisinance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Veritasium video also from today: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrtk- pyP0I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrtk-pyP0I)

<comment><USER6> I think this is a better explanation than the linked article (and some pictures in the video help a lot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Add a drinking glass: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYusDh0Sw3U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYusDh0Sw3U)

<comment><USER8> We used to do this with incandescent bulbs. I was never quite sure if it was safe (is it?!), but the microwave itself always seemed to survive ok.

Generally the bulb would explode, we presumed due to the heat causing internal pressure. Though at one point a bulb got really hot and melted a sort of bubble on the side. It seemed to provide enough space for the heated air so it never exploded and we could use it again and again.

<comment><USER9> You can make plasma with a partially evacuated sealed bottle, it's basially how plasma chambers work and it's a handy way to get plasma if you're stuck.

You can use different gases in the bottle for different plasmas.

<comment><USER10> > it's a handy way to get plasma if you're stuck.

I'm finding it hard to imagine a situation where I desperately need to make plasma but I'll file this one away just in case. ;)

<comment><USER9> I've seen it used to treat cured PDMS elastomer and glass slides for bonding microfluidic devices (aligns OH groups to the surface to achieve a covalent bond between the PDMS and glass). Our plasma chamber was destroyed by a student so I used a corona discharge tool, or a cattle prod as it's better known. Was tempted to buy a cheap microwave tho...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this bad for my microwave?

More importantly, would this be bad for... someone else's microwave at a party?

<comment><USER12> It can be added to the list of things to do with other people microwaves.

1) Lead pencil drawing on paper (ideally a circle) in the microwave.

2) Incandescent light bulb in the microwave.

3) CD in the microwave.

4) Grape!

<comment><USER13> Peppermint Patties are cool in a microwave. Only nuke them for a few seconds. The inside expands and ruptures through the top of the patty. My sister learned of this from her third graders (of course) who called them "alien eggs". And the hot peppermint and chocolate result is quite tasty!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love the physics in this article. Who knew a lowly grape is an epic plasma generator!

<comment><USER14> You are in a car going 60mph with a balloon in the car. You slam on the gas, which way does the balloon go? (No really, get a balloon and do it, it will freak out everyone in the car).

<comment><USER15> Assuming a helium balloon, it moves back toward the rear.

<comment><USER16> It does the opposite, in fact.

When you accelerate, the gas in your car behaves like a fluid, piling up in the rear of the vehicle. Helium balloons climb up the density gradient of air, essentially seeking the lowest density point.

That area of low density is at the front of the car as you accelerate. So, the balloon moves forward as you accelerate.

<comment><USER17> Is the gas density gradient really so significant that it allows a balloon to move towards the front of the car? Any way we can add some calculations to this?

<comment><USER18> The density gradient is not really that important. You could do this with a car filled with water and a cork instead of a balloon, and the effect would be the same, even though the density gradient in water would be pretty darn close to zero.

What matters is that the direction of the buoyant force is precisely opposite the direction of the overall force acting on the fluid (because that's what keeps the hypothetical fluid that your balloon displaces from moving due to said overall force). Importantly, this overall force needs to be measured in the reference frame of the fluid, which in this case is accelerating.

OK, so let's draw out a force diagram on the air inside the car. There's a force upward from the floor, exactly balanced by the force of gravity down. There's similarly a force from the back of the car , which is what's accelerating the air, from the point of view of a non-accelerating observer. From the point of view of an observer in the car, however, the air is _not_ accelerating, but the force from the back of the car is still there. So there must be a force backwards on the air, to balance the force of the back of the car. You can call it "inertial force" or "gravity" (in the general- relativistic sense) but the upshot is the same: the overall force on the air is down and backwards, so the buoyant force is up and forward, along the same line. For a helium balloon the buoyant force is stronger than "gravity", so it goes up and forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wherever I saw this idea originally (I think it may have been the TV show Braniac) cut one grape in half so there was just a little sliver left connecting the halves which gives a really nice arc between them.

I later reckoned a cherry tomato would probably do the same thing and it definitely does. I remember at the time thinking the grape gave a whitish-blue arc where the tomato gave an orangey-red one but not sure whether I was imagining that.

Probably two of the safest microwave tricks to do, as it is just food after all, but the CD one is definitely worth the temporary smell of burnt plastic.

<comment><USER20> Possibly more potassium in the tomato? Potassium having a purple flame and plama. [http://www.webmineral.com/help/FlameTest.shtml](http://www.webmineral.com/help/FlameTest.shtml)

However, your eye/brain is seeing energy in a bunch of spectral bands, and making a decision as to what colour to call it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I read an article last year about ball lightning which suggested that it is caused by spherical resonance microwave cavity. Something analogous to the grape?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning#Microwave_cavit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning#Microwave_cavity_hypothesis)

</comment><comment><USER22> Outline:

[https://outline.com/eHJzua](https://outline.com/eHJzua)

</comment><comment><USER23> > They could conceivably shrink these rules to a smaller scale, to create > similar hotspots in nanoparticles, for example. Scientists use heated > nanoparticles to make very precise sensors or to facilitate chemical > reactions, says Bianucci.

This might have applications for really bad-ass cancer treatments. Build nano- particles that have this strange property, that will be consumed by cancer cells but not by healthy cells (note: this is the hard part). Then explode the cancer cells via microwaves!

I'm certain there are an incredible number of flaws in this plan.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone know how to access the paper? My university has subscription for PNAS, but I can't open the pnas.org links found on Google.

</comment><comment><USER25> _Maybe they could try raisins._

Aww, man, the dude _just_ said that is has to be "watery enough". Pay attention to what you're typing, Wired.

<comment><USER26> Maybe a prune? Those are approximately grape sized, and usually more wet than a raisin.

<comment><USER27> it has to have good amount of potassium and sodium, if that's the case, it might work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The paper seems like a perfect candidate for the Ig Nobel award ([https://www.improbable.com/ig/](https://www.improbable.com/ig/))

</comment><comment><USER29> I had just brought this effect up in conversation at a party two nights ago and suddenly it is all over the internet again. It is nice read about the physics this time around.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm wondering how they will update the microwave manuals.

</comment><comment><USER31> I still believe the microwave oven was invented way ahead of its time. We were superheating food with intense electromagnetic radiation before we figured out Velcro.

</comment><comment><USER32> I tried the whole grape thing. Very sticky. Very little "plasma" evident. All I got was the thin bridge of skin acting like a filament in a lamp (briefly).

</comment><comment><USER33> If you don't want to wade through five paragraphs of senseless drivel to get to the point:

Their conclusions: The grape is less like an antenna and more like a trombone, though for microwaves instead of sound. When you play a trombone, you push vibrating air into it. The trombone will only sustain vibrations of a particular wavelength—the musical note you hear—depending on where you've positioned the slide. Only certain wavelengths, known as standing waves, fit perfectly inside the trombone. As vibrating air of various wavelengths enter the trombone, the standing waves add constructively, while other wavelengths cancel each other out. In other words, the trombone amplifies the standing waves and mutes all others.

The grape, incidentally, is the perfect size for amplifying the microwaves that your kitchen machine radiates. The appliance pushes microwaves into the two grape halves, where the waves bounce around and add constructively to focus the energy to a spot on the skin. Both grape halves happen to focus the energy to the same tiny point. That intense energy jostles the atoms and molecules at that spot, heating them up so much that they can no longer hold onto their electrons, which turns them into a plasma—and boom, fireball.

tl;dr: constructive EM wave interference from the grape seed.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm gonna go put some grapes in the microwave, THEN read this article

</comment><comment><USER35> So can we make fusion with high powered microwaves and grapes? Heh.

<comment><USER36> Glad I'm not the only one who was giggling wondering if this could be applicable to fusion research. Put the deuterium into little standing-wave- sized pellets?

<comment><USER37> I thought the same. I am really glad of founding your comments for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> in the things i didnt know but now i have to try category...

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm not sure I understand the distinction the article tries to draw between an antenna and a resonating trombone. Anybody have a link to the actual paper?

<comment><USER40> I found that annoying, since the resonance of EM waves in an antenna is not only a perfectly fine analogy to sound waves resonating in the trombone, it's _literally what 's happening_ in the grape, unless I'm missing something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Coming soon to a Macgyver reboot near you.</comment>


Blizzard DMCAs "Show HN: HTML5 Version of Starcraft" from Sept 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2015-10-02-Blizzard.md <comment><USER2> It seems fair, the project was based around "an HTML5 version of Starcraft", and it was using direct assets from the game.

If they changed the in-game assets and said "an HTML5 RTS, similar to Starcraft" I don't think Blizzard would have raised any alarms.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious to what "source code" they claimed ownership under.

</comment><comment><USER4> Which is what multiple commenters said would happen, in the original thread.</comment>


Bitcoin is 100 times More Powerful than Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-100-times-powerful-google/

<comment><USER2> Rather flawed argument, when you consider that it's comparing general purpose servers to highly specialized asic/fpga miners. I have no doubt that if google really wanted to, they could roll out the same kind of specialized mining hardware and dominate the blockchain, they just have no reason to. Consider, specialized hardware can get up to 1,000 MHash/s/$, which means an investment of $1000 would get you 1,000,000 MHash/s.

Now let's look at google's datacenter expenditure. They spent something like $11 billion of datacenter expenses in 2014, and even considering that part of that is non-server related expenses(real estate and building infrastructure), let's see what happens when we punch $5 billion into hashing hardware. I get a value of around 5,000 PetaHashes/s, which would absolutely swamp the network, as it's only sitting at 35PH/s. Also, consider that that's just their expenditure for 1 year, not the total they've put into their datacenters.

In conclusion, comparing cpus capable of general purpose computation to specialized hardware that can only do one thing is useless. After all, how many search querys per second can the blockchain handle?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right on, on your argument, we simply can't compare semi-general purpose servers to highly specialized machines.</comment></comment>


Language Workbench Competition 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theenterprisearchitect.eu/archive/2011/05/26/language-workbench-competition-2011

<comment><AUTHOR> In 2005 Martin Fowler first coined the term Language Workbench, to describe a new class of software development tools, designed to build software through a rich environment of multiple, integrated, Domain Specific Languages. Two weeks ago, the first Language Workbench Competition was held. This article gives an overview of the 10 tools demonstrated at this competition.</comment>


What to Expect in CockroachDB 1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/coming-soon-what-to-expect-in-cockroachdb-1-0/ <comment><USER2> The company decided to remove direct access to their transactional key-value store and force interactions through the SQL layer. From this comment in the FAQ, it looks like the overhead for some mutations is small: [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/frequently-asked- question...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/frequently-asked- questions.html#can-i-use-cockroachdb-as-a-key-value-store)

Do range queries on a simple table also translate to underlying key-value range queries with minimal overhead?

<comment><USER3> Yes. (I work there too)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any newer Jepsen test since this one: [https://jepsen.io/analyses/cockroachdb- beta-20160829](https://jepsen.io/analyses/cockroachdb-beta-20160829)

Also, how's the performance nowadays?

<comment><USER5> I noticed that the question on performance was ignored, but I think it's worth noting that FoundationDB died on exactly the same beach. [1] I'm not extremely familiar with the CockroachDB architecture (other than "it's kinda like the F1/Spanner/Bigtable stack"), but I suspect that there are some commonalities. For example, CockroachDB's Bigtable-style two-level range indexing means you could run into exactly this problem:

> FDB-SQL stores metadata in the KV store itself. This is great from a > distributed correctness point-of-view. It's also great from a simplicity > point-of-view. If I trust the underlying system to be safe and consistent, > then my metadata is also safe and consistent. But now I need to do a ton of > reads before I run my SQL to know how to run my SQL. Where's my data, for > example?

[1] [https://www.voltdb.com/blog/2015/04/01/foundationdbs- lesson-...](https://www.voltdb.com/blog/2015/04/01/foundationdbs-lesson-fast- key-value-store-not-enough/)

<comment><USER6> (Cockroach Labs co-founder here)

CockroachDB also stores SQL metadata inside of the KV store, but that metadata is also gossiped around the cluster (i.e. it is replicated to every node) so that SQL execution almost never has to read it from the KV store. Handling changes to this SQL metadata is challenging and required a design [1] that is unable to take advantage of the easy correctness of simply doing reads from the KV store on every operation.

[1] [https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/blob/master/docs/RF...](https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/blob/master/docs/RFCS/table_descriptor_lease.md)

<comment><USER5> I see -- so how _is_ performance? I see that there are no published numbers for e.g. TPC-C or YCSB.

(For the record -- in case I seem to be especially pessimistic -- I'm actually extremely hopeful that CRDB will actually make scaling OLTP applications significantly easier for everyone. It's just that this probably shouldn't be FDB all over again.)

<comment><USER6> Performance is "ok". CockroachDB 1.0 won't be winning benchmarks, but that was never the goal. We have seen near linear scaling from 3-64 nodes on a uniformly random write workload. And the new distributed SQL execution engine has shown O(num-nodes-in-cluster) speedup on some queries. But none of this has been wrapped up into published numbers, so take it with a grain of salt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> CockroachDB supports the PostgreSQL wire protocol, but does it support JSONB and GIN indexes?

<comment><USER3> Not yet. On the roadmap though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> CockroachDB is an exciting development and we fit right into the underserved use-case of multi-regional databases. If it had JSON columns we would put it into production today.

Google's Spanner is pretty great too but also missing any json columns and too locked into GCP. We're also looking at using a JanusGraph on top of ScyllaDB to get better querying ability with strong multi-region access.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am a database newbie, what are it's pros and cons over postgres?

<comment><USER3> [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/cockroachdb-in- comparison...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/cockroachdb-in- comparison.html)

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Best database name ever

</comment><comment><USER5> What happened to the post?

</comment><comment><USER10> What a perfect time to rename it to something reasonable

<comment><USER2> Just about every news item on HN related to cockroachdb has had this comment up at the top. We get it. (I do NOT work for the company.) Some people don't like the name. I'm sure the company has heard it over and over. Yet they haven't changed it.

At some point, these people who constantly protest the name should realize they've been heard and let the discussion focus on something other than their pet peeve that has nothing to do with the underlying tech. Yes, we realize you have a problem with the name. We realized it a dozen news items ago. But since this is HackerNews, you'd think other aspects -- distributed transactions and the approach they took, the fact that this is in Go (!) and the benchmarks on it, the single executable that incorporates the C++ RocksDB embedded leveldb, etc, etc -- would take top billing.

<comment><USER11> It gives a major insight on how the developers don't take community feedback seriously, or at all.

This is an issue of basic hygiene of marketing. The name is obnoxious.

It is like being a great developer and showing up in a interview looking/ dressed like a homeless person. Yes, we get it, you can be all talented and such, but people will have a visceral response to the lack of basic hygiene and not want to associate with that person.

In this case it is yet another database.

<comment><USER2> It would be a sad day if creative people were forced to consider every person who may find their work or title objectionable. The Pixar film "Ratatouille" was a wonderful script but some people could not get over the fact that a rat was a chef preparing food. The screenwriters had the option of changing a fairly significant feature of their film to appease these critics or just say that some people won't watch it. I'm glad they chose the latter. If you really need a distributed database that supports transactions and don't evaluate CockroachDB because of the name, I think that's more on you than on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is .net core a second class citizen? Why dont you care c# clients (npgsql)

<comment><USER13> .Net wasn't a priority due to our very limited resources. We will be expanding the number of drivers and ORMs greatly over the next while.

That being said, I tested npgsql a few days ago and it worked perfectly. Nothing too extensive, just created a db, 2 tables, inserted some data and did a join. So please give it a shot and if it doesn't work, file issues and we'll address them.

(disclosure: I work at cockroach labs)

<comment><USER12> Thank you. Also this page needs an update [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/install-client- drivers.ht...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/install-client-drivers.html)</comment></comment></comment>


"Australia Tax" is real: Infrastructure and Communications report - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/the-australia-tax-is-real-geo-blocking-to-stop-7000018644/ <comment><USER2> This is particularly telling...

"In relation to games, for example, the committee has not received any evidence which explains why it is almost invariably cheaper for Australian gamers to purchase and ship physical media from the United Kingdom to Australia than it is to purchase a digital copy of the same game."

<comment><USER3> A while back, the Australian dollar was about US 60c. I would suggest this was the basis for which software was pegged against. When the exchange rate changed, the priced stayed fixed because it maintained status quo for the locals. Over time, it became the norm for others to follow suit. It's actually quite simple: if you think it's too expensive or loaded pricing, don't buy it.

<comment><USER4> I live at university accommodation in Australia which houses a large proportion of international exchange students. Every one of them, from France, the UK, Canada, Sweden, the US etc. has been shocked by the prices here. Some of them have even said that if they had known how expensive it was, they wouldn't have come.

(This is in general, not just software.)

<comment><USER5> I'm in Australia from the UK and yes, the prices can be ridiculously high. I have my own version of the McDonald's index, the bread index. In supermarkets in the UK quality organic whole meal fresh bake is £1.10 which is about $1.80 AU. A loaf of white junk bread in Australia costs over $4.00. And so it is with lots of things.

So many rent seekers.

<comment><USER6> In the American south where cost of living is known to be low, I can get store brand white bread for $0.99 (~$1.06 AUD). I can get fancy pants processed bread that is brown with lots of labels like "NATURAL" for $3.00. Store-fresh bread is $2 - $4 at grocery stores.

I can't imagine junk white costing $4. That's outrageous, but then again, maybe it's like that in some American regions with a crazy cost of living.

<comment><USER7> My sister migrated to regional Australia and it's hella expensive.

Bananas in Arizona are $0.57/lb and they were $12/k when I lived there. Apparently there was a banana shortage at the time but the usual price was still 4-5x what I would normally pay.

Clothing is also very expensive. Every time my sister comes back to the states she brings two gigantic duffel bags and stocks up on clothing.

The prices on anything else you want/need to buy like electronics, computers, cars, or bicycles are insane compared to the USA. Or even Japan, which isn't a country known for bargain prices.

I do think there is a bit of frontier pricing happening. Everything seemed cheaper in Melbourne than her town.

That said, she gets paid $95K for a part time job with full benefits. She had a similar job in the states that was full time and it paid $34,000 with minimal benefits.

<comment><USER8> "That said, she gets paid $95K for a part time job with full benefits. She had a similar job in the states that was full time and it paid $34,000 with minimal benefits."

And there you have it.

If you want to live in a society with high pay, good benefits, free Medicare, compulsory pension contributed to by your employer, etc -- then be prepared to pay.

Also, there is nothing stopping you from importing cheap clothing, goods, books, whatever from overseas.

<comment><USER2> Not everyone in Australia has the ability to earn $95K. There are the rare exceptions where you can get an unskilled mining job in a remote area, but that's every bogan's dream. Actually landing such a job is another matter.

That said, the minimum wage at $16.37/hr is much hire than other countries. In Melbourne at least, you'd probably gobble that up pretty quickly on living expenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Finally! There is widespread anger amongst Australians about geo blocking and market segmentation practices. It's also why content and software is widely pirated.

<comment><USER10> There's a culture of piracy here that's pretty interesting; people bring entire TB hard drives and small NAS devices into work to share entire collections among each other. (This has abated somewhat now that internet prices aren't so extortionate.)

<comment><USER11> That culture is down to several factors:

* price

* availability

* quality of our TV Networks

<comment><USER9> The third point effects the second point. Our TV networks are absolutely crap. They only ever develop reality TV shows, the bottom of the barrel being "Celebrity Splash" (z-grade celebrities dived into a pool); they never show series in order, they interrupt series with something irrelevant, and they show a LOT of ads. Their news is even more atrocious.

Its a badly kept secret that their overall audiences have been shrinking, which is why they only ever give ratings in terms of percentages. A large percentage of a shrinking market is ok, until of course the market gets below a certain size.

Note this does not include the ABC, which is government funded. That network takes risks, always shows series in order, and even has a great streaming service.

<comment><USER4> The ABC and SBS are great channels. Very high quality content (I don't bother anything else on Aussie TV)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've just returned to the UK after living in Western Australia for 3 years. I'm a runner and was absolutely shocked at the markup on running shoes.

Many high street shops selling shoes for $200 + dollars when you could get them for $80 dollars delivered to Australia from the UK, by buying online.

I have no idea why people would shop these high street stores.

<comment><USER9> _I have no idea why people would shop these high street stores._

Warranty.

<comment><USER13> Well, in EU&UK the online stores have all the same warranty requirements as high street and some extra; so that shouldn't be the reason.

<comment><USER14> In the EU you have better rights if you buy online than in a shop. If you buy online, you can get a refund within 7 days, even if you just changed your mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> a) Australians have very high incomes and "CUBs" continue to happily pay for their over priced gizmos. For all his whining about unfair competition Gery Hervey isn't exactly suffering.

b) ALP and Liberal govs have happily voted for measures that entrenched regional distribution monopolies (FTA, draconian copyright regimes, criminalisation of DRM circumvention)

note: in the early days of the Howard government parallel importing of media was legalised, this had a dramatically positive impact on pricing for consumers.

<comment><USER16> > draconian copyright regimes

What are you refering to?

<comment><USER15> DRM aside... not an expert by any measure but the tight restrictions on "format-shifting" and limitations of "fair dealing" (as apposed to the broader rights granted under "fair use") come to mind.

interestingly (according to wiki) the act specifically allows "circumvention of region coding." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modchip#Legality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modchip#Legality) but modchips are still pretty much illegal... thanks FTA... (just fou d this article which lays out a pretty interesting history [http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/02/mods-vs-lockers-region- cod...](http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/02/mods-vs-lockers-region-coding-and- the-legal-dilemma/)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's not really a tax - it's Econ 101 price discrimination. which works as long as it can't be easily debased by arbitrage.

Australians have very high standards of living and the prices reflect that. This is just supply and demand and I don't see a problem with that.

<comment><USER18> The phrase 'Australia Tax' is in quote marks because we all know it is not a tax. It is an economic phenomena caused by all the factors listed in the article.

Those factors have combined to make it very noticeable that there is a non free market operating.

It's very Australian to refer to something by a nickname and that is what's happening here.

<comment><USER19> But there is a free market happening. Free markets are defined by the absence of regulation and government intervention.

Adobe are using their market power in a free market to do price segmentation across national boundaries. If you try to regulate that (which you can't in practice anyway) the price of Photoshop will go up everywhere.

<comment><USER20> But it is a double standard. The RRP is up to %50 higher, but at the same time there are restriction on parallel importation that price cuts the RRP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Back in the day I used to buy games imported from australia to the UK (n64, gameboy) because they had PAL tvs yet were on the japanese release schedule. Me and my brother had completed pokemon several times over before any of our friends in school had even heard of it. Obviously this all changed at some point...

</comment><comment><USER22> The inquiry recommends bypassing geo-blocks, which is quite telling.

<comment><USER11> Unless your an american with their head up the 'free markets' arse

<comment> ryan-allen Haha, arse. Spoken like a true Aussie.

For some people the 'don't buy' is one thing, but if you need Photoshop, there is no competition. There is no other choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There s a nuclear option that Australia (or other countries) could use. Declare copyrighted goods that are too expensive lose copyright. That film that you won't sell for the same price as the USA? it's now public domain, a local market of people pressing DVDs will spring up.

<comment><USER23> You have to mod your console to play burned games. In the case of the xbox, they change their checking techniques every year and you would have to upgrade accordingly.

<comment><USER14> Then make pirating the XBox legal. Make the term "XBox" be not a trademark.

I _know_ it's a nuclear option and will never be done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What is wrong about market segmentation? Every product finds it price at the crossing of supply and demand. With incremental costs of delivering digital content approaching zero, supply is almost out of the equation. So naturally on a market with higher purchasing power and higher overall price level (and Australia is a costly place to be), prices will be higher, what's wrong about it?

<comment><USER19> Nothing is wrong with it. There's no basic human entitlement to a cheap copy of Adobe Photoshop, so the ethical dimension here is extremely limited, and I'm disappointed to see you're being downvoted for making a very salient point.

I have no sympathy for those of my fellow Australians who think they have some valid complaint that the price of digital assets is "too high".

Australians simply do have a higher willingness to pay, and lower price elasticity of demand, for a whole host of economic reasons. Companies charge the price that maximises their returns, and this means price segmentation wherever it is legal.

Moreover it is, of course, also impossible to legislate against: the same laws would effectively peg the Australian dollar. This is just political grandstanding; nothing will change.

<comment><USER25> > _Moreover it is, of course, also impossible to legislate against: the same > laws would effectively peg the Australian dollar._

I don't get to say this often on HN: what utter rot.

When parallel importation of CDs and movies was abolished, the dollar didn't give a damn.

When region encoding was dropped on us via the AUSFTA Chapter 17, the dollar nary stirred.

The AUD is a small rowboat that navigates between the Scyalla of Chinese iron ore demand and the Charybdis of Ben Bernanke's public nut-scratching.

<comment><USER19> Irrelevant. You simply cannot frame laws that will be effective at preventing the transborder price segmentation of digital assets without anything less stringent than pegging the currency, or at least the price level.

<comment><USER25> Do you have hot and cold running nonsense where you live?

Selling to Australians takes place in Australian dollars and the transactions are cleared by Australian banks. This makes them pretty easy to get a legal grip on.

And you will also find that the large companies who are doing most of the price discrimination have local subsidiaries which can be dragged into court without too much fuss. If they try something like yanking funds to avoid court judgements, they're violating various laws and privileges and our government can and would be able to seek enforcement from courts in the USA.

People think that trading across boundaries gives you magical immunity from national laws. It doesn't. Where you have a nexus with a country, you can be enforced against through that nexus. Where the laws are similar, brother courts will typically reciprocally enforce them.

<comment><USER19> If you allow parallel importation then you are in most cases obviating the need for a local subsidiary. Service? Sales? Support? Not a problem. Just contract it out.

And the Australian government is not going to take legal action in the US to _create_ border import tariffs.

I continue to be astounded by all the self-righteous outraged people here demanding cheaper Photoshop and cheaper Steam games like it was some basic human right.

<comment><USER25> > _If you allow parallel importation then you are in most cases obviating the > need for a local subsidiary. Service? Sales? Support? Not a problem. Just > contract it out._

That is not the observed and observable outcome of parallel importation in other goods.

> _And the Australian government is not going to take legal action in the US > to create border import tariffs._

Your terminology is incorrect. It's not a tariff. Making geo-segmentation harder or illegal is not a tax on imported goods.

> _I continue to be astounded by all the self-righteous outraged people here > demanding cheaper Photoshop and cheaper Steam games like it was some basic > human right._

I'm likewise astounded that people think Australia's quite utilitarian, transactional political culture is going cleave to any particular ideological position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Of course it is. I've worked in sales in Consumer Electronics and boxed Software for about 7 years now, and I know the actual cost prices of most things. It's good to have proper confirmation, at least.</comment>


Microsoft to Cut 2,850 More Jobs in Exit from Phone Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-28/microsoft-to-cut-2-850-more-jobs-in-exit-from-phone-business <comment><USER2> The best part, Nokia gets shafted in all of this. Nokia got dragged along in this clown show and we lose out on getting great hardware. Not to mention the software side of things that drowned as Nokia got torpedoed. Here's hoping they can rise from the ashes again. Maybe their spin off services like here maps are a sign of life.

Edit: Maybe I speak from a position of ignorance about the industry. But I also remember thinking how greatly awesome it would have been if I could run Android on the new Lumia hardware. I also remember the fact that Nokia was worth 30 bn before the new ceo, ex microsoft employee, came in and within years it was left worth 9 bn; pop culture facts I suppose.

<comment><USER3> Nokia's software was garbage before and after Microsoft.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but their hardware was always great and their software could have been Android.

Look at HTC. What do they do besides great hardware? In the early days of Android, they were the go-to vendor for a close-to-stock Android experience. That could have been Nokia.

Now HTC is making the best VR headset and has a fairly bright future.

<comment><USER5> > Look at HTC. What do they do besides great hardware?

I'm looking at HTC - what I see is a company that did great with Android for a short while, then got chewed up as Apple and Samsung ran away with the high end of the market while the Chinese manufacturers gobbled up the bottom end. All the "Nokia should've gone with Android!" comments I see around the internet never try to explain how they think Nokia would've fared any better than HTC (or Sony, or Motorola).

> Now HTC is making the best VR headset and has a fairly bright future.

You and I see HTC's future very differently. The Vive is the thread they're hanging by, and as soon as Valve doesn't need them anymore, it's going to be over ([http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/07/can-we-stop- pretend...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/07/can-we-stop-pretending- htc-has-a-future-in-vr/))

<comment><USER6> I don't know about HTC Androids, but I've had about 3 Motorola phones and they've been both expensive and low quality. That's not a winning combination, irregardless of what your competition does.

For example I'm typing this on a Nexus 6 1st gen. A phone that when I bought it, I had to replace it in warranty because the color temperature of the screen was uneven and extremely annoying. And I paid at the time the price for a high end phone and got a subpar camera, a screen that doesn't have the contrast of other phones in its generation and a design that feels cheap and bulky. Well, at least it has stock Android on it. I got basically fooled in buying it, thinking it is a Nexus.

And I could say similar things about Sony. And about LG for that matter. For instance LG had big hits in LG G3 and in Nexus 4 & 5\. My wife wanted an LG G5, but apparently it gets overheated, with the customer rep telling us they've had multiple returns. So she went with the Galaxy S7 Edge, because it was the safe choice.

Here's the big problem: if we are talking about exceptional hardware, none of these companies produce good products consistently. Do you know who does that? Apple and Samsung. And back in the day Nokia as well.

<comment><USER7> What do you even mean you got fooled in buying it thinking it is a Nexus? The Nexus 6 had an OK camera previously the Nexus line up had terrible cameras. [http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6-Google-s- lates...](http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6-Google-s-latest- handset-storms-in-to-the-DxOMark-Mobile-top-10)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm amazed MS have dont this with before a genuine attempt at phone that docks and becomes your PVC.

Microsoft are so well placed to create and distribute what is bound to become a popular from factor. This would work on so many levels. The light-weight basic consumer that doesn't need a gaming/ or other high power rig at home. Developing countries where people can't afford a laptop and high-end phone could now get a phone plus a screen/keyboard at home. And the biggest sell is at the enterprise level. Companies could issue phones only and have a heap of docking stations. It wouldn't suit everyone but many would.

Time to re-visit Ubuntu Touch and see how they are getting along I guess.

<comment><USER9> I have often wondered why MS hasn't been able to grab a significant chunk of the smartphone market by courting enterprise. Most people don't care about all the apps that are available to Android and Apple on their work phones and you would think being able to run the same operating system across all of your companies PCs and smartphones would be a major draw.

<comment><USER10> > _Most people don 't care about all the apps that are available to Android > and Apple on their work phones_

You can see this clearly reflected in RIM...err...Blackberry's bottom line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Steve Ballmer's infamous remarks on competition with Apple, after the iPhone announcement in 2007:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U)

"Let's take phones first. Right now, we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling zero phones a year. In six months, they'll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the marketplace, and, let's see."

Times change.

<comment><USER12> And he was right, they had to substantially lower the price almost immediately.

<comment><USER13> And also lacked a keyboard. I mean how do you check your email without a keyboard?!?

<comment><USER14> I understand why people reacted the way they did.

Honestly, when iPhone first came out it was pretty much a toy. No apps? Even dumbphones could run J2ME stuff!

It's only when iPhones got the App Store that things got serious.

But anyone who didn't see the danger of that "toy" running actual apps, or didn't see the need to revamp their user interface to beat, ended up losing.

<comment><USER15> By "reacted the way they did" you mean "bought all of them as they hit the shelves"?

Apple captured 20% of the smartphone market the first quarter the iPhone was released, outselling Nokia, Palm, and Motorola _combined_.

Nobody was seemingly all that upset they couldn't play yet another crappy J2ME version of "snake" that took 45 seconds to load. Roughly 0% of consumers knew what the hell J2ME even was. They did, however, see a cell phone with an actual web browser instead of some low-res, Javascriptless WAP disappointment. Not to mention a YouTube client and a decent camera plus photo app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Six years ago Microsoft held a funeral for the iPhone, saying that they would have 80% market share and iPhone would have 2%. The main problem is arrogance.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-iphone- funeral-2010...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-iphone- funeral-2010-9)

<comment><USER17> When Bill Gates was at the helm he skated a fine line of legalities in order to build a sustained monopoly. The ecosystem continued to evolve as his priorities shifted away from Microsoft and none of his replacements were able to adapt as dynamically as Bill did.

Ballmer is the pinnacle example of this arrogance without evidence attitude. It's like the ghost of corporate Bill Gates will guide and give luck no matter how stupid the decision they make.

It's sad because Microsoft could've evolved gracefully into a behemoth larger than Apple and Google, if only there had been an ounce of humility after Bill Gates left.

<comment><USER18> As it stands Microsoft has basically become a staple commodity. Like proctor & gamble peddling soap products Microsoft peddles products for small/medium corporations. Xbox is the only thing keeping a foothold in the consumer space anymore. But they continue to make predictable money at it.

<comment><USER19> Despite the way it seems living in San Francisco, Apple's market share on desktop is under 10% (via browsing statistics). And Linux and Chrome OS have nearly an order of magnitude less market share.

Windows is still, for all intents and purposes, completely dominant.

<comment><USER20> Yeah and half of all humans on the planet will own a smart phone within the next 5 years. That's an order of magnitude more than will _ever_ own a desktop/laptop. 1/3 or so will be iOS devices, around 1.5 billion and will represent 90% of all profit available. iOS commands a huge lead in enterprise sales, 75-80% in the US market.

Apple skated to where the puck was going, not where it already was. Microsoft was too busy servicing the cash cow (and fomenting internal politics) to allow any disruptions. They had already lost the next great battle the day the iPhone was released.

Google's Android only survived because they pulled the mother of all pivots the day of the iPhone announcement and immediately poured all their efforts into copying iOS. (Remember: Android started life as a Blackberry clone!) None of this is controversial - the original Android team members have confirmed it in multiple interviews over the years.

What Microsoft is doing now is extremely smart. They know they lost the mobile war and are moving on to the next battlefield: Cloud services. They're milking Windows on the desktop as they make the transition but it's just a smoke screen to buy time. Open sourcing technology, supporting Linux, etc are all moves designed to get them customers for Azure. They'll now happily sell you SQL Server for Linux licenses, or a subscription for Office on iPad.

<comment><USER21> Well, if we're talking about the long game, let's continue following that puck :)

As smartphones become more and more popular, they reach further and further down towards groups of people who can't afford iOS devices (unless you're counting second hand devices). I don't really see Apple's % of the market ever going up.

As the market matures and the hardware reaches "good enough" levels, the overwhelming majority of smartphones used will be the equivalent of the "beige boxes" of old (from the PC world). On top of that, the app competition is becoming so cutthroat that app prices will probably continue to go down (per app).

So, long story short: Apple will probably never enjoy a bigger share of the smartphone market than it did in the past and most of the competition will be around hardware and software with razor thin margins.

Meanwhile, more and more people from developing countries will start working in companies which use overwhelmingly... Windows desktops and associated software.

They will also use and pay for various services, some of which, as you noted, will be hosted on... Azure.

Microsoft's main cash cows will never dry up. Companies want/are willing/are able to pay for software.

I think that the longer term threat for Microsoft is Amazon, not Apple.

<comment><USER22> If you're working on any cloud software backend, windows is probably your third choice for development environment, and I see it really unlikely to change.

I see office software being commoditized instead. Then even the business guys can move off windows. If only google had some motivation improving docs. Maybe that hits another cultural wall. An engineering driven company can't produce tools for creating beautiful content.

<comment><USER21> Loaded content: how much software have you seen commoditized? Especially end- user facing, professional and very complex content production software.

<comment><USER22> As an example, at least for graph production, Excel seems to be the common software. It's pretty hard to get decent looking stuff compared to some old fashioned software that were used to create graphs earlier before that.

There used to be specialists doing the graphs for various printed materials. Now it's all made by the marketers, consultants or number crunchers themselves. Of course the quality has been so bad ever since that happened, but nobody seems to care. Even designers don't really understand much about graphs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's sad if this happens, because I bought a used two year old Windows Phone, and it's more pleasant to use than any phone on the market today. And given that it gets updates the same day as desktop PCs, and doesn't wait for any manufacturer or carrier approvals, is probably one of the most secure.

On my carrier, Verizon, we have almost no choices. There's iPhone, there's three dozen identical Android phones with different brand names, and a couple two year old Windows Phones. Not a lot of choice in the market now, and certainly not going to get any better if Microsoft exits.

<comment><USER24> Also a Windows phone user, and I totally agree.

It's sort of amazing how nice it is to use. Super fast startup time, super fast performance, very smooth user experience. Great camera. Not many apps, but that's not a big deal for me.

I truly believe a lot of people would switch if they spent a week on one, but that is never gonna happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't care about Microsoft, but it's a real shame what happened to Nokia. The phones were rugged, feature packed and were willing to sacrifice form in order to gain function. They had thick, chunky phones just so the battery life would be awesome.

<comment><USER26> Jolla is the only thing that's left of that Nokia.

<comment><USER27> Not the only! Yota2 phone with second e-ink screen on the back of the phone is engineered by former nokians.

<comment><USER28> It's a really cool idea, the design is a big letdown for me though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A long time coming. Microsoft failed to capitalize on smartphones before Apple and Google and now they're paying the price.

That's their perennial problem. They had an app market, smartphones, tablets... before the above, but they couldn't figure out how to sell them.

They could have been Apple.

<comment><USER30> >They could have been Apple.

Not really. What we called apps/smartphones/tablets before the iPhone/iPad was not really the same thing.

<comment><USER31> Did you ever use .net compact framework? It was actually decent from a functionality standpoint (especially coming from a J2ME background). While it was way better than what was out there, it was designed for corp usage. It didn't have the design flare required to be a mass consumer product.

<comment><USER32> The UI toolkit was awful, lot's of fixed positioning makes supporting different resolutions and aspect ratios almost impossible.

<comment><USER33> So... just like iOS?

<comment><USER32> I haven't done anything with iOS so I don't know if it's been resolved yet. But for a long time iOS had the advantage of only running on a single device. I believe the iPad had the same aspect ratio and could simply upscale the UI at first too.

<comment><USER33> Yeah these days it's all fine after they got AutoLayout working, but developers got lulled into "there's just one device size" that threes was a minor panic when they expanded the line (and now with iPad multitasking you need to handle basically any size)

<comment><USER31> At the outset, there were a few devices with generally consistent screen sizes ... the compaq ipaq was very popular for instance .. so not too bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Branding them "Windows" phones was the kiss of death. Almost every adult has had terrible experiences with Windows. The young view Windows as something their grandparents used.

Calling it anything else would have been better.Even "Electric Candy" phones would have been more attractive than "Windows" phones.

I understand that the phones were reasonably decent.

<comment><USER35> They also tried (to some degree) your suggestion. Remember Microsoft Kin? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin)

| Kin was a short-lived mobile phone line from Microsoft designed for users of social networking. Microsoft described the phones' target demographic as men and women between ages 15 and 30.

<comment><USER36> I actually thought that was a cool idea when it came out but I always did wonder what the purpose was if I wanted to do more. I was pretty focused on getting a Blackberry ( _shudders_ ) at the time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Actually, Nokia Software was awesome. It was their usability and UX that was dog awful. A lot of SW features that are around today have been around for a decade with Nokia. They had a plan, to move over to Meego, which won awards.. but was torpedoed by Elop.

Elop destroyed Nokia, they had the best distribution network and supply chains. Linking up with Elop instantly killed that and destroyed any goodwill they had with operators and carriers who would have continued to back Nokia. Unfortunately carriers are anti-Microsoft...

<comment><USER38> > Nokia Software was awesome

Symbian, their bread and butter, was awful from beginning to end. The burning platform memo from Elop was entirely right.

Microsoft could have been a strong 3 player but they kept rebooting their platform ever 6 months.

<comment><USER39> Not from beginning, as the beginnings of Symbian was EPOC which was great.

<comment><USER38> EPOC was designed for far less capable hardware than even pre-iPhone smartphones. It allowed for a lot of capability on those early Psion devices. But in modern hardware it was too fiddly and too alien (non-standard C++).

Microsoft always understood the consequences of Moore's law. Palm killed them early on because Windows Mobile was just too much OS for those early devices. But as hardware improved, Palm was left with a less capable OS and Microsoft was ready. What they weren't ready for was Apple porting their desktop OS to mobile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Nokia went from the biggest cell phone maker in the world to being gone in less than 10 years. Tech is pretty unforgiving.

<comment><USER41> In 2006, if you were to make the prediction that Nokia, a company generating 41B in global sales, would be gone in a decade, you'd be downvoted to oblivion.

<comment><USER42> Gone from the cell phone business, sure, but certainly not gone as a company. Big in telco equipment. After acquiring Alcatel-Lucent, I note that Nokia now has roughly the same amount of employees as Microsoft...

<comment><USER43> And closed most of their European units moving them to cheaper countries....

That is what makes me angry at them, not whatever they did later with Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I guess now my Windows Phone SWAG flashlight that I got when working there is now a collectors edition.

I remember when we all saw the iPhone. A lot of us knew we were in trouble when the execs kept going on about how only "enterprise customers" need a smartphone, and how it's about selling Microsoft Exchange...

</comment><comment><USER45> I really wish the WP7 idea was fully executed, it seemed like they abandoned the Metro idea midway. I feel like Metro (errr... ModernUI?) was a design language that needed and still needs and all or nothing commitment otherwise it ends up looking like Windows 8, a bit childish. The lack of commitment to the design language and awful app adoption really killed it. Disappointing to watch.

</comment><comment><USER46> Article says Android and iOS have 84% and 15% respectively of the market. It's still hard to sink in the fact of how strong a duopoly the mobile market is. All of WP, Blackberry, Ubuntu, Sailfish, Tizen, and probably more, all share the same 1%!

<comment><USER47> It's the lack of an app market. Why by hardware that only supports a fraction of the software? Yes, most apps are crap, but for most app developers, anything after Apple and Android are an afterthought.

<comment><USER23> The chicken and egg problem: Developers won't support your platform unless you have enough users. Users won't buy your platform unless you have enough apps. More than once companies including Microsoft have tried to break this issue by outright buying developers, but the monopoly effect is way too strong.

A third party platform will fundamentally need to beat Android so badly on platform features directly that app developers rush to it, users get excited about it. The hype has to be real. Maybe that's HoloLens for Microsoft, maybe it's someone else. But the admittedly incremental benefits Windows Mobile has over Android aren't enough to break that monopoly power. Nothing about Tizen, Ubuntu, Sailfish, etc. gets people talking about the cool amazing future of technology.

<comment><USER47> It will have to be a new platform. VR is the likely next candidate. But I don't think we will see widespread adoption until the units are self contained.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm a long time Linux and Mac user, but over the past few years I've viewed Microsoft as more of an ally... and a company that has so much potential to do new and awesome things, but they just don't seem to know where to go. They seem to be missing an opportunity to make a pretty great ecosystem with the Xbox, Skype, Windows Phone, and Windows 10.

I've played with the Windows Phone at a new retail store and really liked it. I'm almost wondering if they had gone for the retail stores earlier on if the tide might have gone their way just a little bit more.

</comment><comment><USER49> When did they Exit from the Phone Business? Did that actually happen? I think Microsoft Stores still showcase Windows Phones?

<comment><USER50> They announced it back in May [1], but there was speculation that they were exiting the phone business late last year. I think they still make 2 flagship phones, but they aren't competing with iPhone/iOS or (10,000+ phones)/Android anymore.

[1] - [http://www.macrumors.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-calls-time- con...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-calls-time-consumer- phone-business/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Nadella has been cleaning up Ballmer's poop. That will make Microsoft stronger some day.

</comment><comment><USER52> the day after the intern event with Seattle Center rented out for a private concert...

<comment> steve-howard You realize they do that every summer and it's part of their recruitment pipeline?</comment></comment>


What Problem is Silverlight Trying to Solve? - <AUTHOR> http://www.flashcomguru.com/index.cfm/2008/5/27/why-silverlight <comment><USER2> _What Problem is Silverlight Trying to Solve?_

It's trying to solve the "someone else's product is more popular than ours" problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure they're trying, pragmatically, to solve the problem of providing the self-contained .NET development experience to the effort of creating web animation and RIA. Market share is part of it, but they've always succeeded in having a committed developer base by providing fairly comprehensive tools that make everything feel somewhat like Visual Basic (which they do remarkably well).

I would argue that such an approach is what makes me very queasy around ASP.NET, but that's another story.

</comment><comment><USER4> The "Windows is becoming less relevent" problem

<comment><USER5> You got there before I could.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO it's just a case of MS being late to the party (again).

Personally, I think it's good for Flash to have some competition, and I like the fact that Silverlight includes support for Ruby, C#, and F# for code- behind programming.

I also agree with the Windows is becoming less relevant part.</comment>


People-tracking wristbands tested to enforce lockdown in Bulgaria - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52409893 <comment><USER2> I could maybe, I guess, giving these to people temporarily if they actually test positive and are legally required to stay at home AND there was a problem with compliance with that order. But assigning them to broad swaths of the population would be completely unacceptable. The way that stuff like this is just being casually proposed and accepted is really alarming to me.

<comment><USER3> They assign tracking wristbands to everyone entering Hong Kong.

I had one.

Mine was just a paper band with a QR code on it - it was implied it had some form of RFID chip in it, although it was clear it didn't.

The new ones are a larger grey box that straps on to your wrist - I'm not convinced this isn't a panopticon too, but have yet to see any firm evidence either way.

While I know the risks, I'm partly for it - the methods here have worked.

Yes, yes, I know it's a slippery slope, hence the use of the word "partly"

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you take it off?

<comment><USER3> Only with scissors - from what I've seen online the newer larger grey ones are removable, but it's possible you can't put them back on after removing them - don't know for sure.

Edit: upon entering HK you are put in to mandatory quarantine for two weeks - it's during this period the wrist bands are used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I assumed this would be for people who test positive for infection and are on a two week quarantine. But this is apparently for the general public? That seems like a gargantuan overreach and completely unnecessary. Lockdowns are certainly imperfect and there are plenty of bad actors, but they are still very effective despite the flaws. If it ain't broke, don't fix it with compulsory government tracking of all citizens.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is a point when something makes sense. And there is a point where something becomes "slightly unsettling".

<comment><USER6> Or "majorly unsettling" in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the reason for using it, because Bulgaria population has lower cell phone use? In a very practical sense, cell phone seems like the most logical piece of hardware government would use here.

For the record, I hate it. And I hate that Poland's Comarch is adding to this growing panopticon.

<comment><USER8> Your cellphone often sits in your pocket. It's not visible, and even when it is, they can't tell if you have a medical tracking app installed.

A wristband is always on you, visible, can survive weeks without charge (if they use bluetooth LE and don't have a display) and is impossible to hide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Each every single counrty in this world had the chance to close the boarder early. They all failed. And things like that should be the solution now? Seriously? Even with the wristband people transfer the virus. So it's totaly useless.

<comment><USER10> Here in Germany, the government called Corona "a trick by the political right" to "achieve border closing". We only closed borders way after every country around us did. Because ideology is more important than human lives, apparently.

<comment><USER11> At least post a source for such a claim. M understanding is that they managed. to act _relatively_ good, given the information and circumstances.

<comment><USER10> It was in the newspapers in February and first half of March.

The "big switch" was 14to 15 of March. The MSN here ran a fake story about Trump wanting to buy some German pharma company (all large newspapers retracted the story around March 17), but it was enough to get people sufficiently distracted to completely change their previous policy.

It was pretty interesting to watch how it was orchestered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What can I, as a techy person, do to fight off these blatant attacks to freedom, before things get messy?

<comment><USER13> Well the most obvious solution is to find flaws, compromise them and publicise it. There is nothing better to fix a government's policies than bad publicity.

<comment><USER14> Good joke!

<comment><USER13> Yeah that was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I'm glad someone noticed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not everyone owns a smartphone, how can they enforce this? High tech fascism is a double-edged sword, this is certainly a good time to be a hacker.

<comment><USER16> Get ready for your government-issued (mandatory) smart phone.

<comment><USER13> It'll be more like _" you need to use this app to manage your government account - look it's easy!"_ marketing and lack of investment in other methods of accessing government services.

Eventually you'll be unable to function without the app and the smartphone and be left with no choice.

This is already happening in the UK as a lot of services are fairly difficult to use if you don't go via [https://gov.uk](https://gov.uk).

<comment><USER17> gov.uk actually has very reasonable UX guidelines:

[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design- principles](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles)

 _The people who most need our services are often the people who find them hardest to use. Let's think about those people from the start._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> .. and now Californians you understand why us rednecks like our guns so much XD

</comment><comment><USER19> Welcome to 1984.

<comment><USER20> It's a 71 year old book. The omniscience of the state has vastly expanded further than anything George Orwell imagines, no matter which age you happened to become aware of it. Time for a new colloquialism.

<comment><USER21> ... welcome to _That Hideous Strength?_ [http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/](http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell/)

<comment><USER22> > For in essence it is a crime story, and the miraculous happenings, though > they grow more frequent towards the end, are not integral to it.

LOL! This person completely missed the point of the book.

<comment><USER21> ("this person" is Orwell)

<comment><USER22> I didn't notice that. That's cool and I'm glad to hear he liked my favorite novel. Still, he's quite wrong about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks AKA house arrest enforced by ankle monitors

</comment><comment><USER23> Without debating the pros and cons of religion... Isn't there something in Revelations like this?

</comment><comment><USER14> A global pandemic is truly perfect for a modern government:

\- Good chance to kill off the filthy undesirables (economic deadweights such as those who dare to be ill or elderly people)

\- Easy to roll out mass increases of police powers and surveillance without any real opposition

\- Fuck it, you can basically do what you want and sycophants will still go "now is not the time to critique, we need to be united"

Modern liberal democracies have been absolutely gasping for the chance to roll out some of these measures. Expect to see a "productive work time tracker" soon!

<comment><USER24> That's something I've noticed as well, and the worst part is how willing people are to turn on their neighbors. I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen comments along the lines of "screw your freedoms, millions of people will die if you don't give up your rights". People calling the police on hairstylist neighbors who are trying to do house calls because they can't pay their rent otherwise, etc. Not to mention the whole "prove that you're an essential employee, otherwise you'll get fined for leaving your house" that is the exact opposite of innocent until proven guilty.

<comment><USER25> It's the same sort of mentality that got Americans with Japanese heritage tossed into camps during WWII. Collectivism is really, really bad for individual liberty and nothing drives collectivism like a crisis. People get scared, and scared people do bad things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't see anything positive about this at all. Not one thing.

<comment><USER26> I think it's bound to happen with how the world is. But a removable wristband seems better than tracking phones or even the rumored chip implants.

<comment><USER8> That's still not comforting. People can see if you're wearing your wristband or not; unlike a phone.

This disease has leaders treating human beings like we're gears in a machine; or machines that can be turned on and off. >25million unemployed Americans who are burning through months of savings, with unpaid bills and rent and mortgage due, begs to differ.

Humanity cannot be turned off an put in storage. Maybe in the EU there is relief and good social welfare systems. In a lot of the world, there isn't. And then the media blasts protestors as right wing gun waving people who want haircuts. Some of them might be sure, but some of them have also been in food bank lines for hours and are wondering how they are going to survive without an income for another month.

We are suffering form two diseases. The first one is the virus killing people. The second one is ever measure without forethought leading to the suffering of the poor, increasing poverty and eroding our basic civil liberties.

This disease has shown our leaders don't see us as people. They claim they care about our lives, but they only really care that people are alive.

<comment><USER27> Taiwan, South Korea and New Zealand have all had effective responses to the pandemic that haven't required lockdowns. It's just that the West doesnt believe in survival masks and didn't make them, and can't figure out how to find and isolate cases.

<comment><USER8> I know personally that's not true about NZ. My ex is immune compromised and they have "Levels" there (L0, L1, etc.) and she most likely won't be able to leave her place for another two months.

Another kiwi I worked with sent me a video of walking through an empty Wellington. It's a small nation, 4 million people, plus ACC (health care) and solid unemployment for all, so it's much easier for them to cope. It's also easier for them to close the country, as it is a set of islands. The friend who did that walk said it was still Orwellian though.

<comment><USER27> They are about to have complete elimination of the virus.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dell: New XPS 13 Developer Edition with Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-9350-laptop-ubuntu/pd?oc=cax13ubuntus2104&model_id=xps-13-9350-laptop-ubuntu&l=en&s=bsd <comment><USER2> Pitching a machine with 8GB of ram and 256GB drive for development is just not serious. We are not 2006. We need at least double that for "don't make me think or slow me down" comfortable workflow.

A modern development requires too much open virtual machines, browser windows, ide's and build-chains to be able to fit into 8GB.

</comment><comment><USER3> My only issue with the Thinkpad x220 is the screen resolution. Fix that, keep the keyboard and buttons that one uses with the trackpoint, and I will never buy another laptop again.</comment>


Ask HN: Randomly kicked off Facebook. Do they really review? - Be-The-Water

My girlfriend was recently kicked off of Facebook. The reason Facebook gave was that they had determined that her account was a fraudulent one, that is what she saw after logging in. She clicked on an appeal button and just wrote that she is who she says she is. A few days later, she received the following email.
> Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:10:35 -0800 > To: @hotmail.com > From: firstname.lastname@example.com > Subject: Re: Disabled Account Appeal-ID Request >
> Hi, >
> Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited, as is maintaining multiple profiles on the site. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final. >
> Thanks for your understanding, >
> The Facebook Team
Of course my response, not being a Facebook user was congratulations its not that Facebook does not want you its that real life wants you back :-). She of course would rather stay a user since she is a second grade teacher at a progressive school and had most of her superiors, friends, family and students as friends on her account. (Just to vouch for her I know they all could verify that she used her actual name, she definitely did not have another account or was interested in having one.)
I guess the remedy is to just use another email address, although I don't know if her name has been targeted now. But it made me wonder with 500 million users and 2000 employees, I am sure an algorithm determines fraudulent accounts and would they really review this stuff manually? My guess would be not. Wondering if anyone knows? <comment><AUTHOR> Apparently there was a bug in the FB code on the day their new mail product was released.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/facebook- deactivati...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/facebook-deactivation- bug_n_784871.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Facebook don't appear to review automated deletions manually unless somebody complains.

It's a tough situation. The "What you can do" section of <http://www.talesfromthe.net/blog/?p=28> is a couple years old, but it describes a few techniques that worked at the time. there are also some discussions at <http://getsatisfaction.com/facebook> that might be useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a friend who was recently banned for a couple of days. She said that "a bug that randomly affected some female users" was to blame, so maybe that's it. The best advice I can give is to try firstname.lastname@example.com

Also, this video might make you feel better. You are not alone: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=110aaTzdlno>

</comment><comment><USER4> I think your hunch is correct: Create a new e-mail and just sign up again. They probably won't catch it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I found this:

[http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-user-accounts- accidental...](http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-user-accounts-accidentally- disabled-being-restored-2010-11)

<comment> Be-The-Water Interesting, thanks.

It's a good thing they developed a non-delete model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been banned by HN twice, no appeal, no explanation, in fact you don't even know because you can still log in and post comments. The first time it took me a couple of weeks of "how come no-one replies to my posts any more" before I thought anything was wrong.

The first one - I have no idea why - I guess the -4 (which I still think is a valid comment)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=skwiddor> \- 100+ karma

Ok so next time round I'll be more careful, got 400+ karma

Then one day you slip in a joke and you're toast

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=wendroid></comment>