RIM CEO: We want to be the number three platform on the market - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidauthority.com/rim-blackberry-10-third-place-117948/

<comment><USER2> RIM is spending a lot of time designing an OS that will appeal to everyone. I think they are going to find its going to be used by no one.

Even here in Canada they are losing core enterprise customers left and right. Without these core supporters, RIM isn't long for this world.

And while I've got the conch, what kind of strategy is "We want to be #3"? I've written about RIM's bad strategy extensively on my blog, and this feels like just another in a series of mis-steps. None of their staff are going to be inspired by Thorsten's lack of conviction and worse, its going to spook whatever remaining customers and developers they have. No one wants to be on a sinking platform, and shooting for number 3 isn't going to give anyone any confidence that RIM will be around in a year.

My vote still goes to RIM getting out of the OS business, becoming an Android licensee, designing some killer handsets that focus on enterprise customers and separately, spinning Blackberry Mail and Messenger into standalone apps that put RIM onto as many handsets as possible.

This will never happen of course. RIM, as I understand it, is still organized around carrier sales. They don't have a user focus, and it would be hard for this leopard to change its spots and get out of the business of catering to carriers. (IMO, this is the real magic of the Apple story - getting a user- centric handset into the market in a real way without pandering to the carriers.)

<comment><USER3> _"RIM is spending a lot of time designing an OS that will appeal to everyone. I think they are going to find its going to be used by no one."_

Absolutely.

They should not be chasing the consumer, iOS-esque market. Some would say they've lost it, but I'd actually challenge that they never had it. Blackberry has always been an enterprise and small business solution. Historically, unless my numbers are way off, most consumers didn't own smartphones in the Blackberry Era. By and large, those who owned Blackberries were either using company-issued Blackberries, or had used company-issued Blackberries and purchased personal ones on the side. Kids and casual consumers had Motorola RAZRs and other non-smart phones.

The critical implication here is that the Blackberry did _not_ open the floodgates of mass, consumer smartphone adoption. The iPhone did (and lately, the iPhone and Android have been).

In the years of Blackberry's dominance over the smartphone market, the smartphone market was comparatively small and concentrated. And, very important, it was use-case-specific (email). This was differentiated from the predominant mass-consumer use case (SMS). So there was a clear and safe divide between the two segments.

RIM was making a fortune in those days, but then it assumed that it needed to follow suit when the iPhone launched. And it's been all downhill from there.

Meanwhile, there are still a fair number of enterprise and small business owners and CTOs who prefer Blackberry to iOS/Android for business, and who buy Blackberry for their businesses. That number is dwindling rapidly, as you point out, the more Blackberries start to resemble half-hearted iPhones. But it's still a very lucrative niche that RIM can purpose-build for. I would bet, however, as you seem to, that RIM fails to capture it.

So what _can_ RIM do to stay relevant in enterprise? For one thing, don't shy away from the keyboard. Embrace it. It's a point of clear differentiation, and though the cool kids will scoff at it, many business executives still prefer it for email. They might always prefer it. Second, develop more robust enterprise software. Blackberry should be able to handle spreadsheets, Powerpoint, word processing, data visualization(!!!), cross-device integration (printers, etc.), and other key enterprise solutions in a way that iPhone and Android don't.

This is not going to be easy. And it'll be especially difficult, in as much as many of the standard enterprise software solutions are offered by Microsoft, a competitor. Nobody's going to use a RIM-only spreadsheet program that doesn't integrate with Excel, for instance.

<comment><USER4> The problem though, is that owning the consumer market gives iOS and Android a tremendous advantage in terms of revenue, app selection and mindshare. That robust enterprise software is, in many cases, already there for iOS with apps such as iWork.

There will always be a market for keyboard devices or other niches, but I don't think that market is anywhere big enough to sustain RIM at its present size. I think sales of Android devices with keyboards show that.

<comment><USER3> You're probably right, and if I were a betting man, I'd throw my chips on your side of the fence here. That said, doubling down on enterprise certainly seems like a better path forward for RIM than being a mass market iOS also-ran.

The other big issue RIM has -- and it may be a fatal issue -- is that Blackberry is just a device; it's not a platform. Not really. The big names (and startups/indies) in enterprise solutions aren't designing for it, or at least not exclusively. There isn't a total RIM solution that _includes_ the Blackberry ecosystem as a unifying hub. Instead, there's just the Blackberry device itself, and the device is currently in a sorry state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If he had said "we're aiming to be #1 in 2 years", he'd look completely out- of-touch with reality - employees deflate due to a clearly unattainable goal, investors get concerned about an unrealistic strategy, etc etc.

Picking an achievable goal vs. promising an unachievable one is better for morale of everyone involved IMO.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Still, it might have been stronger to frame the conversation in terms of resegementation. "For users who want X we will have the best phone, and this will mean that we can grow and build as the third largest platform."

<comment><USER5> Good point about re-segmentation. They have to define the category in which they compete such that they are #1 (classic '22 Immutable Laws of Marketing').

Part of the problem in the "we're aiming for #3" statement is that it's not clear what is being measured. Profits/margin? Product leadership? Handsets shipped?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _Android powered 68% of the phones that shipped that quarter. Apple's iOS > platform ran on 17%. Those two numbers add up to 85%, so setting your goal > to become the "number three platform" means you're targeting 15% of the > market._

That's... not true. Trying to be #3 doesn't mean you say "OK, we won't get any customers from the first two, so all we have left are that 15%" it just means you don't think you can take enough of their customers to overtake them.

And to people saying it's bad for company moral... it really isn't. Very few companies can be #1 or #2 in their industry, and for everyone to think otherwise is more often than not just delusional.

<comment><USER8> > Very few companies can be #1 or #2 in their industry

Most industries aren't in winner-take-all markets with huge network effects.

<comment><USER9> > winner-take-all markets with huge network effects

I'm not sure what that statement means. It is not winner takes all, with your logic there is only room for 1? Mobile is a growing market, if you think there is no room for competition your betting either Apple or Android will be the only platform.

<comment><USER10> He means the network effects (in this case, the App stores) create a situation of huge dominance of one player over the others. Apple was headed to that position, but what happened was a whole new market of low-end smartphones opened up, witch Android ate up. So you can think of it as a winner-takes-all in the high end and another in the low. Of course competition should and will happen (I have hopes on FirefoxOS), but in these markets the new player usually storms in with domino network effects and pulls dominance to his side. Technology is either you're rocketing up or dying a painful death, it's rarely a healthy sustained competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The difference between the Blackberry my work gives me and my personal iPod touch is staggering.

      * Web browser is pathetic.
      * Pandora and Tunein apps are wonky. They stall for no reason, and turn on after you pause them.
      * Kindle app is a pale imitation.
      * Facebook app is so bad, you're better off using the mobile facebook on the web browser.

The only thing I _like_ about my Blackberry is the physical keyboard and the email/text/bbm environment. It's clean, functional, and the best of breed... for 2005.

RIM might be a big player on the international scene for a cheap smartphone (especially if they do i18n right) but they're not going to recapture the iPhone/Droid market without a major overhaul.

<comment><USER12> The RIM service/backbone is as you say there email/bbm enviroment and why they have not tried pushing those services out onto other platforms like iOS and Android and WM7-8 is too me one of the biggest mistakes RIM has made in the past 6 years. Competing is after all more than about going head on upon all fronts, especialy when there skills and niche were in area's were they could of competed per service upon those platforms and be earning alot more on the service front than they are now and have kept the company at the forfront of peoples minds publicly as well as fiscaly. They could of also made more money by selling dedicated box's for corporate companies instead of offering software than ran upon others as the only option, a whole area of expansion they missed out upon and another area were they could of made great grounds and added another foothold into company affairs. I do wonder that if RIM had released nothing new over the past 6 years if they would be any worse of than they are now and that in itself is perhaps the most worrying aspect about were they are now. Maybe now they plan to attain a position which is were they already currently are from what I can tell, then perhaps things can start looking up. They will survive, but in what form over time is upto them. They may start becoming a cheap option for Facebook to move into other mobile revenues and that in itself for most Blackberry users would probably be recieved by mixed feelings.

In a World were a qwerty keyboard is needed RIM do the job, but we live in a World that has moved on from the calculator device mentality and today a pocket calculator has to make phone clalls organise the shopping and take the picture for the front cover of Times magazine and if it does not then the fact that it can still add and subtract and the like is completely ignored. But RIM had and still have the opertunity to move there great email system as a application onto other platforms and flourish nomater how well there handsets sell and how small there margins upon those handsets get. There reliance upon there own handsets to sell there services is one they need to break away from and whilst it is late in the day they still have that opertunity, how much of a risk would it be for them to take it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there anyone else that thinks that RIM could be the number one Andriod seller if they incorporated their security and track pad in to a phone which otherwise looks like a Galaxy?

I would buy that in a heart beat, and many corporations which haven't opened up their security for iProducts would find their employees extremely receptive to that device. They could be the #1 Andriod seller which would be quit a nice position for them compared to today.

</comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunate the way it was said. Jobs said something similar but it sounds so different:

"Apple's market share is bigger than BMW's or Mercedes's or Porsche's in the automotive market. What's wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?"

Where the BMW/Mercedes could have been RIM's analogy to something in the enterprise world.

</comment><comment><USER15> In which case they need to have launched this product yesterday. Really they should have a product on the market now considering Windows Phone 8 has had their couple of years in the troff where they've been building the product, the app ecosystem and carrier deals (As Android had to do) and are now really pushing the OS with carriers like HTC and Nokia bringing out great hardware.

If they want to compete, sometime next year is not good enough in my opinion. If they can build something compelling they'll be 4th if they just kept their current customers on board with a new OS.

Blackberry already has touchscreen phones and the people using Blackberry's seem to avoid them because they want to stay in that age with the physical keyboards and classic handsets, if they do switch to QNX will people switch to iOS or Android?

<comment><USER16> That's an interesting perspective, but I don't think windowsphone (any incarnation of it) has enough going for it to make number 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If iOS has 17% of the market, having 12-15% is not something to be ashamed of. It still represents billions upon billions of business every year.

Sometimes its better to set realistic but achievable goals than to aim for the sky and flop.

</comment><comment><USER18> Good luck to them but I just can't see this happening.

1) I worked with their app store previously. It was a nightmare so I see hurdles building this asset.

2) The mobile environment is being increasing linked to the desktop/home environments and other on cloud services for the best experience and they don't have a great foothold here.

3) The business sector has largely let them go now. A few years back they could have used this as a strong launching platform but this advantage has gone.

On the other hand the interface looked cool and they could trump everything if this is coupled with reasonable hardware.

<comment><USER19> >I worked with their app store previously. It was a nightmare so I see hurdles building this asse

We've published an app on the Playbook market and the experience was on par with anything else out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> RIM's management fails to see they don't sell phones. They sell enterprise communication. Or they used to, before BYOD happened.

Never confuse the boxes being moved with your business.

Either they embrace BYOD and convert themselves into mostly a software/services company (maybe with a full-stack hardware/sopftware option), or they risk becoming a cautionary tale.

</comment><comment><USER21> Nothing gets a team motivated like aspiring to be the #3 player in a market, right? Pragmatic perhaps but this messaging would seem to be pretty demotivating.

<comment><USER22> I wonder if it's a culture thing. I had an American boss a few years ago who loved to call meetings and give 'inspiring' speeches a long the lines of: "Who here wants to be bigger than Microsoft? Who here wants to beat Microsoft? If we really work on hard this we can take on Microsoft at their own game! And Win! So Go Team Go And Let's Kick Ass!!!"

The end result was a room full of people scratching their heads and thinking "wow that was stupid", and being generally demotivated because they'd just been set and obviously impossible task by a boss who obviously had no clue. Had he given a speech along the lines of "we have a really unique and interesting product here with strong potential of craving out a significant piece of the market in a small but growing niche" people would probably have left the meeting thinking "yea, we can really make that happen" and been much more inspired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> RIM still has quite a bit in cash reserves. Traditionally the haven't listened to their users since they've been on top. They had the rug pulled out beneath them and hopefully are starting to listen. I'm interested to see if BB10 can really make a splash. I think aiming for #3 is a achievable goal. If they become a true #3, I wouldn't be surprised if some loyal customers coming back if BB10 works.

</comment><comment><USER23> Reach for the stars, RIM. Reach for the stars!

<comment><USER24> "We're number three! We're number three!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> RIM need to go open and utilise the crowd if they have any chance of keeping up with Google and Apple.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Guys? Guys?! Hey...c'mon, I was just kidding ... #9 is totally cool too! ... .. . Guys?"

</comment><comment><USER25> I keep expecting Dell or HP to buy RIM and merge with Yahoo and Opera.

</comment><comment><USER27> RIM is already #3 in US from a platform standpoint. All they need to do is stay there. Also, the BYOD trend may be strong, but RIM made some interesting enterprise features for BB10 that the others don't have. Unless the others quickly replicate those, I could see RIM have a shot in enterprise at least, again.

<comment><USER12> Those who migrated from RIM waited a few years for RIM to catch up, how long do you think they will wait for there new choice to catch up.

RIM realy needed/needs to get a application version of its email service out on androids/iOS as it is there services/key elements that make there platform and if they do that then they will still make money nomater what platform there services are run upon. Devices and services are two seperate markets that intertwine and they need to embrace the competition and leverage what they do best and upon those platforms before it is too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why not number one?

<comment><USER4> Why not number one plus? <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20065265-17.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm rooting for either one of BlackberryOS, FirefoxOS, Jolla or Tizen to be the #3 mobile ecosystem.</comment>


Golang, GraphQL and Vue.js Demo App - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zohararad/bee-gorm-graphql <comment><AUTHOR> The application uses Beego framework, with Gorm instead of Beego's ORM, which I hope people will find useful.

It also demos how to integrate a GraphQL Golang backend with a Vue.js + Vuex frontend.

Hope people will find this useful.</comment>


Gender discrimination in tech industry - <AUTHOR> Share your thoughts if you could find gender discrimination in your industry like only a male could do this job and a female couldn't do it.<p>Do you really find the reasons on your faith is valid? <comment><USER2> Largely a myth, yet some people really seem to wish for it to be true. I'd say discrimination in tech is no bigger than in other job markets.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've never heard anyone in the tech industry say that.

<comment><AUTHOR> But I've seen people rejecting female candidates for the role of a software developer in interviews during college campus drives - since they require only male candidates for their role.</comment></comment>


The SimCity Planning Commission Handbook - <AUTHOR> http://archive.vg/blog/retro-book-look-the-simcity-planning-commission-handbook-publ-1990 <comment><USER3> I plaid a lot to SimCity when I was a kid but, having been raised in a European city, I always thought that my cities in the game could never look like a "real" city.

About 15 years after, I found myself in a plane about to land in LA for the first time, with my face pressed to the window and thinking to myself: "LA is like the f __* SimCity!! "

<comment><USER4> Which part of Europe? A lot of cities in Italy (and most of Europe) were Roman encampments ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castra)) and they have a very square, ordinary layout I have always found boring.

I have always been fascinated by other cities when a road starts to curve or a square pops out of nowhere. Walking through London is much more interesting than it was in Milan.

<comment><USER5> which cities in Italy/Europe you consider to have a very square, ordinary layout?

Off the top of my head I cannot think of a single city with a square structure, or where castrum and decuman still exist[0].

[0] i.e. Manchester [https://www.google.hu/maps/place/Manchester,+email@example.com,-...](https://www.google.hu/maps/place/Manchester,+email@example.com,-2.2449683,15.01z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x487a4d4c5226f5db:0xd9be143804fe6baa?hl=en) does not look square at all, even though the "-chester" part derives from "castrum" and there is something resembling a cross in part of it.

<comment><USER6> Piacenza has the roman squared city center intact in layout[1], lots of other small towns as well, but the fact is the old town parts are likely too small to actually matter when you look at the whole city layout - hard to notice from just looking at the urban map!

then you have places like Turin that were built with a ruler [2]

[https://www.google.it/maps/place/Via+Camillo+Benso+Cavour,+3...](https://www.google.it/maps/place/Via+Camillo+Benso+Cavour,+37,+email@example.com,9.696712,17z/data=!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x4780dd5d846b46f9:0x51f69c98ad5dd080!2sVia+Borghetto,+29121+Piacenza+PC!3b1!3m1!1s0x4780dd5ee54fc553:0x64d649c17a854eba!6m1!1e1)

[https://www.google.it/maps/place/Turin,+Metropolitan+City+of...](https://www.google.it/maps/place/Turin,+firstname.lastname@example.com,7.6696611,14.75z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47886d0cc3ed5cdf:0x405e67d473c94e0)

edit: some more samples, with cardo/decumano marked when known

naples [https://www.google.it/maps/place/Naples,+Metropolitan+City+o...](https://www.google.it/maps/place/Naples,+email@example.com,14.247351,18.25z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x133b084f6a6c7e99:0x3df52cc13b78191d)

parma (barely visible, linked plaza was the old forum) [https://www.google.it/maps/place/Piazza+Giuseppe+Garibaldi,+...](https://www.google.it/maps/place/Piazza+Giuseppe+Garibaldi,+1,+firstname.lastname@example.com,10.3284871,18.85z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47806ae658e227e1:0xd4ef6bcbe7faf4ea)

verona [https://www.google.it/maps/place/Via+Rosa,+7,+37121+Verona+V...](https://www.google.it/maps/place/Via+Rosa,+7,+email@example.com,10.9968018,17.75z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x477f5f4958041e89:0x9f4341065220e9ac)

firenze, you can even see the old walls

[https://www.google.it/maps/place/Piazza+della+Repubblica,+10...](https://www.google.it/maps/place/Piazza+della+Repubblica,+10,+firstname.lastname@example.com,11.2541992,17.75z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x132a54019458448f:0x346f9c6ac1205f60)

<comment><USER5> you are probably right, the old town parts probably get lost in the largest map.

But as far as I know naples is not even a roman city, so I don't know what is going on there :)

<comment><USER6> my bad, I mixed up generic squared block in cities (turin, naples) with old roman squared blocks arrangements that survived today (the others)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We could argue that modern town planning is in fact infected with a Sim City spirit (or Sim City captured that existing spirit): artificial separation between "commercial" and "residential areas" with miles and miles of separation between them, and car-centric in the extreme.

The Sim City world is one where you have to ask permission for everything. Development is prohibited by law unless the benevolent town planner opens up an area with little colored rectangles. But you can only build one type of building and can't mix & match because the top-down view of the planner blurs out the complexity at the ground level.

Sim City does have a redeeming feature, favoring urban density. Traditional planning is more aligned with creating loose, low-density, detached abodes, with great separation and height restriction and far away from any semblance of economic activity: shops, factories and commercial space.

Having to support an infrastructure (necessarily a car infrastructure) in these forms is tremendously inefficient and can be considered as a great cost on societies that found out about planning before most cities got established (early 20th century).

<comment><USER8> The 'modern town planning' you talk about is so called Euclidan zoning (named so from the town of Euclid in US where it was supposedly first introduced - <USER2> a way to segregate rich from poor in an indirect way). Not all areas/countries use such laws. Some time ago this link hit the front page of HN: [http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese- zoning.html](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html) \- it is really an interesting read (other articels on the site as well)

<comment><USER9> If you're interested in the history of this sort of thing Lewis Mumford's 'The City In History' is a fantastic read. Brilliantly researched and presented in a very non-dry way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, I wish they had something like this for the more modern SimCities. I was playing SimCity 3 or 4 and built a road going to a beach and to this day haven't figured out why no-one drove on it.

It's hard to play a game that approximates reality enough that instruction manuals aren't provided, but differs just slightly enough to foil expectations.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be great if future versions of SimCity and Cities:Skylines would embed more direct urban planning lessons in their games. This way players would learn what makes a city work properly.

A problem is that most peoples' only knowledge of urban planning comes from looking around at their own town, and unfortunately most towns in North America are incredibly poorly designed. A SimCity player that bases their city on a typical North American one will often wind up with a dysfunctional and gridlocked town, just like real life.

<comment><USER11> Cities: Skylines is an absolutely amazing game, but yeah, I wish there was more lessons. I keep discovering new things that I can do with it that, honestly, should have been taught to me early on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks to this book, I actually received college credit for playing SimCity. (Or actually for writing a paper about the simulator, which was a cinch because the way to 'beat' the game was to build an elitist suburb.)

</comment><comment><USER13> I have fond memories of the Simcity 2000 manual as well... I ended up reading the whole thing obsessively while waiting for a new computer that had the minimum specs. (VESA BIOS extensions.)

<comment><USER14> _(VESA BIOS extensions.)_

Was your video card not supported by _univbe.exe_?

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

<comment><USER15> "UniVBE (short for Universal VESA BIOS Extensions) is a software driver that allows DOS applications written to the VESA BIOS standard to run on almost any display device made in the last 15 years or so."

I wonder which 15 years this is referring to (i.e. ending what year)

<comment><USER14> _I wonder which 15 years this is referring to (i.e. ending what year)_

That line is in the very first revision of the page, from 2006:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UniVBE&oldid=4989...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UniVBE&oldid=49897111)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting article. I was interested in views on the newer simcities and found these articles interesting:

[http://planyourcity.net/2013/09/20/sim-city-through-the- eyes...](http://planyourcity.net/2013/09/20/sim-city-through-the-eyes-of-a- city-planner/)

\- this city planer concludes that there are a lot of options and the mechanics are interesting but it oversimplifies things and gives the player god-like powers

[http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681515/using-the-new-sim- city-6-...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681515/using-the-new-sim-city-6-urban- planners-battle-for-bragging-rights)

-this was a "tournament" between various urban think tanks and journalists and points out how all of them took the short term benefits with casinos, oil and sewage over sustainable livable cities that they advocate.

[http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/31/36](http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/31/36) \- this a scientific article compares the rules in Simcity Societies to the work of controversial urban theorist Richard Florida

</comment><comment><USER17> I think one point that doesn't really make sense to me is the strict separation of R/C/I zones and the land plot pricing curve for them. Surely nowadays nobody wants to live exactly in the city center? And it makes no sense to put industrial zones in the city center either. Most rich people obviously live in suburbs and downtown areas are not very safe in any sense.

Also the strict separation of industry being external-orientated and commerce being internal-oriented seems way too simplistic and childish. Surely many industrial products also sell to the city itself, and many commerces are nationwide even international ones? Unless you restrict the definition of "commerce" to "things like local restaurants".

I'd say the notions of the game are maybe a kind of too old, and seriously any of these "reality simulation" games for extremely complex systems are bound to miss the reality by some distance. The same goes for Football Manager etc. Playing them for fun is OK, but taking them too seriously is bound to disappoint and frustrate you to no end.

</comment><comment><USER18> I love how dense some older games were. I still like the original Victoria by Paradox Studios, though that might be because I never quite have the video card to play Victoria II.

Anyone remember SimEarth? Loved that stuff.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's some more SimCity documentation and reference material: [https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/tree/master/Micropol...](https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/tree/master/MicropolisCore/documentation)

And various SimCity source code: [https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis](https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis)

</comment><comment><USER20> Damn, the one really cheap used copy on Amazon Marketplace is gone now… I was thinking about buying it two hours ago.

But then again, I already have more books on my "to read" stack than I could possibly read 2015/2016\. And it's not exactly a necessary book.

</comment><comment><USER21> Related: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc- TqpU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU)</comment>


How to turn off Amber Alerts on an iPhone - <AUTHOR>

I just got an very annoying Amber Alert on my iPhone. Here's how I turned them off:
Open Settings
Select Notifications
Scroll down to bottom
Set Amber Alerts to Off <comment><USER2> ? we need eyes on yet here you are, not wanting to know..... get your shit together....or someone will beg to turn an amber alert off when your child is taken. grow up. its there for a reason.

<comment><USER3> You presume that AMBER alerts are effective.

Read, for example, [http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/abducted/?page=full)

The "reason" could well be that it makes people feel good by doing something, even though that something isn't really effective. How do you know it's not just a form of theater?

What is the false alert rate and how do you define a "false" alert? For example, the guidelines recommend that "The child must be at risk of serious injury or death" before an alert is sent, but "many law enforcement agencies have not used [it] as a criterion, resulting in many parental abductions triggering an Amber Alert, where the child is not known or assumed to be at risk of serious injury or death." If that happens, is it a true alert or a false alert? Note that including this population of abductions is going to increase the apparent success rate of the AMBER alert, because even without AMBER alerts those children are usually found.

Are the current alert guidelines appropriate or should they be broadened or narrowed? Is Skylar's Law ("immediate public announcements when any child is reported missing and in danger, regardless of whether the child is believed to have been kidnapped") more appropriate? Should AMBER alerts go out at 4am and wake people up, so there are "more eyes"?

These are hard questions. I believe these sorts of broadcast notifications are not useful. Convince me otherwise.

<comment><USER4> If you look at tls's comment history it looks like he's a troll/flamer, best not to feed him. I'm surprised his account hasn't been hellbanned yet.

<comment><USER3> What I got from the history is that there wasn't enough signal to be as definite as you suggest.</comment></comment></comment></comment>