Ask HN: Do you find reading increasingly challenging? - <AUTHOR> I was a good reader throughout my childhood, youth and academic years. Lately, and after a couple of decades, it's becoming increasingly challenging to focus, consume and finish books. I'm becoming the modern age illiterate. I'm usually squeezed for time - but even if I find some, I don't pick up where I left.<p>Does anyone encountering the same challenge? Any ideas/tips that could help overcome the cycle? Do you think it's caused by modern information overload, distraction addiction, or perhaps dealing with short cryptographic lines of code? <comment><USER3> I'm worried about our attention spans as humans. Mine has certainly gone down. When I was a kid and the internet was less popular and showy, I used to read long-form articles and message boards and do actual _reading_. Now there's so much content out there it seems to be genuinely hard to not just look for the next "quick fix" in the form of a funny or insightful comment. Reading even a 20 minute article doesn't seem to be the norm anymore.

God only knows how bad this is going to be for kids that are now growing up with youtube.

<comment><USER4> I don't see what's wrong with the trend of encouraging people not to use 5000 words when 50 would do.

Not that these kinds of forums correct it: people will still link long arguments that they are unable or unwilling to summarize in their own words.

<comment><USER5> > I don't see what's wrong with the trend of encouraging people not to use > 5000 words when 50 would do.

 _If_ 50 would do. That's rarely the case.

Most of the time short articles aren't the result of distilling hundreds of hours of wisdom down to an easily digestible few hundred words.

Instead they are the result of dropping all consideration of context and pushing a simplistic view. Or rushing junk out the door.

An article goes from:

"Given our specific set of circumstances (industry, team size, project size, project makeup, technology stack, turnover, strategic direction, short term goals etc) X is great. We considered alternatives Y and Z but discarded them because of A, B, and C. We ran into issues D and E and were able to do F and G to work around them. We later found we had missed risk H in our analysis but we were lucky enough that it didn't come up.

To:

"X is great. We used it to increase our productivity by 10%."

<comment><USER4> I think we're in agreement, in that I would love for articles to look like the first example you gave. In practice, though, they're more like:

[long anecdote about someone using not-X that mixes in numerous other factors and is vague on what caused what]

[long description about meeting with a subject of the story that painstakingly details their hair, their clothing style, their mannerisms, and the general appearance of the venues]

[much more confusing presentation of the paragraph you just gave]

Also, when people link the article or recommends it, they will tend to give either no summary, or a clickbait(ier) version of your second example, like, "The miracle of X".

<comment><USER6> I.e. just about every article on New Yorker that I've clicked the link for. Ugh, I can't stand that writing style. Please just tell me the relevant information. They should save their justification for all the money they spent on creative writing classes for their short stories that no one will ever read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find that the kind of people who are "squeezed for time" are always "squeezed for time". You make time for the things you need to make time for, just like everyone else.

That nonsense aside, I was doing what you're doing until I learned an important lesson. I found that I will not gain anything of value by reading quickly and inattentively. If I am spending my time skimming articles, forum posts, stack overflow, without doing something like taking notes, I'm just teaching my brain that most information is useless to me. The sooner I learned that lesson, the sooner I was back to reading books.

<comment><USER8> I agree with this and have been trying to put it in practice myself.

Like OP, I was an avid reader during my school years and noticed that I wasn't doing it as much the past couple of years. I realized most of the time that I could spend reading books I was spending reading articles from my RSS feeds, but many times just to get a sense of completion (like an Inbox Zero for my RSS feeds), which meant I didn't really let them sink in or wasn't doing any thinking of my own about them.

Realizing that it provided very little value, if any, I decided that I had to stop that and go back to reading only when I have the time to do so at my own pace, and only things that I _really_ wanted to read, not that I felt I had to read for bogus reasons.

Going back to OP's question, I do think that information overload is partly to blame here. At least for me, it's taking a conscious effort to put this in practice and ignore a lot of the information that comes my way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think it's because you're squeezed for time, but more that you're sense of time has changed.

You're probably used to extracting information you want in a very short period of time via sites like StackOverflow or Wikipedia or whatever. If you're like me, when you encounter something that isn't going to give you the gold quickly, you probably move on to something that will.

You're used to the quick turnaround, so when something takes longer it makes you feel like you're squeezed for time.

For example, I have plenty of physical programming books. A lot of the time I know that the answer I seek is in one of those books. Sometimes I even know which book and the location in that book. But guess what? I still go to StackOverflow first because it's quicker and someone will have already summarized the book. I'm so used to getting information quickly, that actually having to look for it is unthinkable. It _feels_ like I don't have enough time to read the book myself, but that's really not true at all.

<comment><USER10> Agree that everyone's sense of time is changing. I struggle with this - <USER2> can't keep myself from speed-reading/skimming longer form text.

I do think this is problematic, and not all good. A great deal of knowledge still requires significant length of text to convey -- sure, the retrieval cost for any individual limited concept on the internet is much lower, but you're not going to develop a rich understanding of, as a hyperbolic example, the history of China, from one article or from Wikipedia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Get a Kindle.

I started reading again when it became a lot more convenient, thanks to the kindle.

I think I finished reading all the Wheel of Time books because of the convenience of the kindle (it gets boring around book eight, before a well deserved end).

Paper books are heavy and expensive.

It doesn't work for all books, as it is not a good PDF reader, but for anything that's more text than graphics or layout, it's a huge improvement.

<comment><USER12> I read a lot of books I've previously put down (Anna Karenina, GoT Series, Ian Banks' Culture Series) because I started reading on my phone (Nexus 5).

If you get the font size right, it's not bad. The advantage of the phone is that it's always in my pocket, so if I've got a couple of minutes of waiting time, I can just pull out my phone from my pocket.

<comment><USER13> The problem with reading on phones is there is always some notification which will find its way in to the phone. I tried it myself but not spend more than 15 mins getting back to the notifications.

I think kindle is a much better way to address the issue.

<comment><USER12> Phone is definitely not for everyone, but Androids (no idea about iOS) have a Do Not Disturb function that silences notifs that aren't alarms for a certain amount of time that's ideal for this use-case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No, I don't have any trouble reading (I'm 42).

I think your comment about "squeezed for time" probably explains it. You're probably slightly stressed or burned out through working too long hours. All the evidence suggests that working too many hours is detrimental to productivity, and your inability to focus seems to be proof that your productivity is suffering.

Try relaxing more and reducing your working hours.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is certainly possible that you have lost the ability to focus, but why not try this much more straightforward explanation first: you didn't like the last couple of books you've read, which is why had trouble finishing them. It is absolutely not uncommon to go from "ugh, I'm not in the mood for this book" to "hmm, this story just doesn't seem to be going anywhere" to "well I could've written something twice as good as this" before hitting on a book that aligns with what you're interested in reading at that very moment. Try to read something different. Follow recommendations from other people. Don't read something because you feel you have to.

<comment><USER16> The question is, why is OP finding books much less satisfying than when they were younger while , say, my mother continues to enjoy books?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My experience is that my motivation for consuming books is cyclic. Part of it is due to other interests and commitments...I read almost nothing for pleasure during grad school and then spent what felt like every non-working moment reading for the next year. Then there have been two periods where I read _The Economist_ cover to cover _every_ week. The first was two years the second was one...well almost or maybe most of one.

That sort of hits on the other major reason for cyclic reading. My tastes and interests change. Sometimes the right book comes along at the wrong time...and sometimes the same right book comes along twice, by which I mean that one of the interesting things about getting older is that rereading books is not rereading the _same_ book. The greater narrative of which it is a part has changed as I have changed.

One of the other features of getting older is that _not_ finishing a book doesn't bother me anymore. I'm ok if a book doesn't speak to me or stops speaking to me. I enjoy finishing books, but don't see not doing so as quite the moral failing I once did. Maybe I'll come back. Maybe it wasn't that good. Maybe it's overdue. Reading for pleasure is supposed to be pleasurable and the suffering of a hard book or long book or a challenging book has to be worth it, and making it worth it is the _author 's_ responsibility, not mine.

Anyway, not having time is the biggest constraint, e.g. currently the time slot that I had been using to read is being used to journal. It's a tradeoff.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER18> I did two things: 1) Create (initially, force) a routine: everytime, read for 30~60 minutes before you sleep. Do that even if it is late and you're tired.

2) Try to use small moments of free time. As an example, if I have more than 30 minutes of free time, I read some pages of a book.

If you stop to think about it, you are probably going to remember recurring moments in which you had 30~ minutes of free time. Instead of using it to read Hacker News or browse Facebook, read something. Commuting is a great example.

</comment><comment><USER19> I set up an alarm clock for "detox" every day. I turn off my computer, silence the mobile phone and do nothing but read for hour or two. Resist any temptation to check email.

I've enjoyed this article that was recently on HN [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/addicted- to...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/addicted-to- distraction.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I am in the same boat as the OP. Loved reading when I was younger, everything from newspapers to novels.

What I find myself doing now with most long-form Web or mobile content, as well as printed magazines and newspapers, is skimming to get the basic facts or quotes and then moving on. I just don't have the time or attention to stay focused anymore.

As for books (fiction and nonfiction), I find myself skimming when I using the Kindle. The Kindle Fire is even worse because of the easy access to other distractions. For printed books I can focus but I have found my threshold for abandoning a book is much lower. I did this recently with a novel by an author I used to love; I just felt the characters in the new novel were wooden and I noticed some basic editing errors. I returned the book to the library after about 40 or 50 pages.

As for the reasons behind this: I am not a programmer so for me the issue is not related to dealing with short lines of code. I think it is a combination of information overload, easy access to screens, and training our minds (through exposure to text messages, tweets, online updates, short video clips, etc.) to prefer condensed communication.

The trend makes me uncomfortable, but on the other hand, I also see it as part of the evolution of media and society. If we look back through history, we can see how other new media had a similar impact. Newspapers, film, and television changed styles of writing and peoples' preferences for reading materials and storytelling. Then, as now, there was great discomfort in the way media and storytelling evolved. A 1961 speech by the then-chairman of the FCC called television a "vast wasteland." If you go further back, there was negative reaction to the introduction of radio, the use of photos in newspapers, and even opera, which was seen by 17th-century British intellectuals as "chromatic torture." There has been a lot of thoughtful expository writing about this; if you are interested (and can manage to read an entire book) I recommend checking out Mitchell Stephens "The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word" (1) and Walter Ong's "Orality and Literacy" (2). They are somewhat dated now, but I think they really documented important transitions from antiquity to the end of the 20th century.

1\. [https://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/rise%20of%20the%20image...](https://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/rise%20of%20the%20image%20page.htm)

2\. [http://www.amazon.com/Orality-Literacy-Anniversary- Edition-A...](http://www.amazon.com/Orality-Literacy-Anniversary-Edition- Accents/dp/0415538386)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is the subject of Nicholas Carr's _The Shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brains_.

In a nutshell, he argues that our brain gets better at things that we do a lot, and worse at things we used to do a lot but now do a lot less. Reading is not different from any other activity in that sense.

And many people nowadays don't read many long, hard books anymore, and instead quickly skim short articles and then switch to the next.

So we get better at quickly getting bits of information from short articles, and worse at staying focused for an hour on the same demanding text.

I find it hard to argue with.

</comment><comment><USER22> I too had not read much in 2014; physical books. This year I decided to read physical books and have been able to read quite a few.

I would suggest reading some books from 'A Very Short Introduction' series. Each topic is written by an expert in that field; and is about 130-150 pages. I have read books on Marx, Foucault, The History of Life. Next up is Metaphysics; followed by Logic, Planets and Fractals. I am enjoying reading these in a cafe!

</comment><comment><USER23> I am sometimes genuinely busy and have trouble finishing articles and what not that I would like to finish because of that. But a lot of the trouble I had with reading was health related. I have serious respiratory problems and reading paper anything causes me problems. I now do almost all my reading online and I expect to go the kindle route for books at some point in the future. I am healthier these days and I can occasionally pick up a paper book and read it, but I do better using an electronic device.

You might look into taking a few supplements or improving the quality of your diet. We tend to become deficient in certain things as we get older and this can reduce our ability to focus. Reversing the deficiencies I suffered has helped me get my brain back, at least somewhat. It's not like I can calculate math problems faster than you can type them into a calculator these days like I once could, but I do function better than I did when I was really ill.

Walk more, eat better, consider switching to a kindle reader. Perhaps it is health related, as it largely was for me.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER24> I made a conscious decision a few months ago to decrease the number of online articles I read. I realized that I wasn't finishing most of them (and most people don't) and if I wasn't learning any relevant to me then they were basically trivia.

I've concentrated more on slimming down my book shelves by getting to all of those books that I always wanted to. I'm finding them more illuminating and enjoyable than any short article. I find them more likely to change my viewpoint than any catchy article could because someone dedicated months, if not years, to put their work out there.

As far as finding time, unless you're busy from when you wake up into when your head is back on the pillow you can find time for what you feel is important enough. For me I've cut scrolling through articles and social media for something more substantial.

<comment><USER25> Regarding slimming down the personal library, the method I developed was to get rid of anything I wouldn't recommend to someone else. That really helped me separate the wheat from the chaff.

For finding time to read, I go through lulls when I try to read before I go to bed since I almost never can finish a chapter before falling asleep. Instead, I started carving out time in the afternoons on weekends when I often have a couple open hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I never liked reading books cover to cover and still don't. But I find that _new_ (or different to the usual) quiet environments make it a lot easier to concentrate. For me the public library is one of those places. I put my phone on silent and can read for few hours at a time. I can even read more when I sit in the bathroom, than I do on my regular chair at my desk.

It works the same for me with sleeping. Whenever I start being uncomfortable on my bed, I switch to sofa for a while.

</comment><comment><USER27> So it would not be a good idea to wait for someone to just summerize this on medium?

Jokes apart ; attention span going down is certainly a concern but do you think we all are getting way more lazier? Shortcuts, one line stack overflow answers, instant results and 2 min quick fix tutorials are not just killing attention spans but also making us lazy and bad developers.

</comment><comment><USER28> Also, it's frustrating in any leisure activity where I'm actively 'consuming' media, I find myself 'project managing' that consumption - what I mean is, for video games, I can only play 3 games at any given time and I can't add any from my queue into the rotation until I've finished one.

</comment><comment><USER29> Kind of, though in my case it's more that the internet and video games simply grab my attention more than books. I mean, if I have nothing else to do, I can read fine, but if it's between that and say, Super Smash Bros... well, I'm probably not gonna be able to focus on the book.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am 24 and became like this from age 18 until recently. I felt like an old man. In my case it was caused by undiagnosed Celiac Disease. You may get value from looking into CD, Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity, or other food intolerances or allergies.

</comment><comment><USER31> Did you spend too much time on your phone? When many people have nothing to do, they just check cell phones. It's not good.

If you want to read, read paper books or read on kindle. Don't read on your phone.

</comment><comment><USER32> Yes.

I have a hard time finishing articles and, even, comments.

It's a very bad situation.

</comment><comment><USER33> No, I still by paper books and then share them with network. I block time for reading. I don't read stories. Biz books, code books only.

</comment><comment><USER28> I spend my leisure time on other things - mostly if not exclusively gaming - because I do so much reading professionally.

</comment><comment><USER34> I only skimmed through these responses. same.

</comment><comment><USER35> Yes definitely. I am become deliterised.

</comment><comment><USER36> Yes because of Netflix :(

</comment><comment><USER37> No.</comment>


This State Gained the Most Tech Jobs Last Year - <AUTHOR> http://insights.dice.com/2016/03/23/this-state-gained-the-most-tech-jobs-last-year/ <comment> ni-hil This title is pure clickbait.</comment>


MIPS Strikes Back: 64-bit Warrior I6400 Arrives - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/8457/mips-strikes-back-64bit-warrior-i6400-architecture-arrives <comment><USER2> Will Imagination actually publish specs so that Linux is able to implement anything without reverse engineering? The history of binary blobs on PowerVR is not encouraging.

<comment><USER3> I don't imagine* things would ever be as bad as "linux not being able to run", but Imagination are indeed going to have to seriously rethink their hacker- friendliness if they want to get anywhere in this market.

* pun acknowledged

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> MIPS hasn't gone anywhere. You can get PIC32 chips and boards based on them for various projects include the Open Source TenTec 506 Rebel radio.

While there's more tools and chips for ARM on small systems, I still prefer MIPS due to lower complexity/insanity of the tool chain.

It's hard to get any of the large system boards and multiprocessor chips without being an OEM.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if you saw this MIPS-based dev board being announced [http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr-developers/new-mips- creator-c...](http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr-developers/new-mips-creator- ci20-development-board-for-linux-and-android-debuts)

<comment><USER4> It's currently unobtainium, it can't be purchased.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Strange. He talked about that fact that MIPS has been lacking compatibility for Java apps on Android...but completely disregarded the fact that Android L will compile apps natively on MIPS, just like on ARM.

<comment><USER7> He's talking about something different. While dalvik's going away and apps will soon be compiled with native code, Android apps can already bundle native code in with the app through Java's Native Interface API. Such code is architecture specific, and usually only available for devices running under ARM, with occasional support for x86 processors. Additionally, some native code would only be available for specific architectures; Firefox mobile won't run on older phones because it requires an FPU, which wasn't guaranteed until ARMv7.

<comment><USER5> For legacy, native non-MIPS code, we rely on binary translation.

<comment><USER8> Given I'd expect most JNI code on Android devices are supporting games, I doubt emulation is going to be a big winner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it is an interesting strategy, creating what is essentially an alternative to ARM/Mali as a single license SKU. There are rumors floating around that this chip is in a soon to be unveiled Chromebook. I take those with a large grain of salt since every hardware vendor seems to say "This is in the next gen (Google/Apple) device!"

Would love to see additional competition here, but Imagination has not been very forthcoming in the past on specs, so maybe Surface material rather than Android/Linux material.

</comment><comment><USER10> Amusing headline considering MIPS chips (R4000 etc) were the first 64-bit CPUs outside supercomputers in the early 90s.

<comment><USER11> I thought it was the DEC Alpha which was the first commercial 64-bit CPU?

<comment><USER12> There were 64-bit _CPUs_ long before there were 64-bit _microprocessors_. I don't know what the first was, but the IBM 7030 was a 64-bit machine in 1961. (My first computing job, as a co-op, involved testing a UNIX emulation environment for the 64-bit Control Data 180 series, in 1985.)

<comment><USER10> Well, Alpha and MIPS (and some supers before them) had 64 bit addressing to handle more than 4 GB of address space. The 7030 had just a handful of memory and no vm, through it did have a 64 bit word size. ARM and x86 have been able to handle 64 bit numbers without anyone claiming they're 64 bit.

<comment><USER12> Okay. The Cyber 180 for instance had 48-bit addressing.

<comment><USER10> The CDC 180 sounds pretty interesting from the WP article, and, I agree, 64-bit. So not just supers then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
        Imagination's executives have also stated they are prepared to offer aggressive IP bundling discounts

My mind boggles at attempting to enumerate the number of issues implicit in that simple statement.

</comment><comment><USER14> From the article: "Keep in mind that these processors use different instruction sets (ISAs) so DMIPS are not directly comparable."

But DMIPS doesn't refer to million instructions per second, but to the relative performance for a standard benchmark relative to a VAX 11/780 (which is considered to run at 1 MIPS). So any differences in instruction sets are already accounted for.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhrystone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhrystone)

<comment><USER15> You're assuming that that benchmark reflects real-world performance, but that assumption is not necessarily correct, especially given the age of the benchmark - I would be very surprised if the most commonly used instructions / etc have not shifted since 1988.

Also, the page you linked has a number of other concerns about said benchmark.

<comment><USER14> We are in violent agreement here. My point was just to note that the author apparently did not understand the difference between Dhrystone MIPS and "real" MIPS. He probably also did not understand that Dhrystone is an ancient benchmark that should not be used anymore.

But that's what you get when don't do your own benchmarks but copy/paste numbers from marketing material...

<comment><USER5> Yes, I think that he might not be familiar with how DMIPS works (or what it is).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > When Imagination Technologies acquired MIPS Technologies in 2012 for $100 > million

Pretty depressing that a pioneering company like MIPS was sold for such a relatively small sum.

<comment><USER17> SGI sold for $25 million. [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/once- mighty-sgi-sol...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/once-mighty-sgi- sold-to-rackable-for-25-million/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's kind of neat is that you can put a downright _silly_ amount of MIPS cores on something. Octeon, for example, with like 48 cores:

[http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON_MIPS64.html](http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON_MIPS64.html)

<comment><USER12> Xeon Phi currently ship with 57–61 cores (roughly P54C + AVX-512, IIRC). (Disclaimer: I once worked for Intel.) CPU cores are not a very big part of the die on most contemporary devices.

<comment><USER19> Question (since you seem to know about the Phi) is the Phi x86_64 (and its extensions), or is it as black boxed every other GPU like device?

<comment><USER20> It's basically a large number of in-order P5- (or Atom-) derived cores with 4-way SMT and beefed up SIMD capabilities (two 512-bit units per core).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pin repositories to your GitHub profile - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2191-pin-repositories-to-your-github-profile <comment><USER2> I got excited thinking this was a fix to the main index page (when logged in) since that is so onerously terrible, but alas it is not.

I regularly contribute to a handful (like 3) different repos, and occasionally a few more (maybe 2 or 3 more). I have to manually type in the repo name every time because the main feed is so useless when you're in an organization. We have 100+ repos, so that main feed is a bunch of things I don't care about, and the sidebar list is some random list of repos I have contributed to.

Main page should prominently show me links to my most recently contributed-to repos and my open PRs, but it is so worthless and generic that I get annoyed when I accidentally don't go directly to the repo I need.

And don't get me started on the organization main page, what a stupidly pointless page.

</rant>

<comment><USER3> From the main page, even listing the repos of one of your organizations is hard. Most of the time I just go to a repo in the "repositories you contribue to" sidebar and then click on the name of the team. Not sure if there's another way with as many (or fewer) clicks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They got rid of the second column of repositories you've contributed to. Not that it's a big thing to me but it makes the layout look weird.

edit: realized they merged the two columns.. yeah i hope they go back and split it up again.

<comment><USER5> I hope they revert this; the columns visualized decidedly different metrics (personal projects vs community contribution) and each was useful in its own right. Pinning each section separately would have made more sense.

<comment><USER6> Ditto—I feel like this is more optimized for the use case where people don't have 'personal' repos and want to give more weight to contributions to other projects.

But what it does (imo) is make it look like someone who's only ever submitted one patch to any project be able to put that project as one of their primary 'pinned' projects. So now it's harder for people to tell if something like whether I am a primary contributor to the `ansible/ansible` project, or if I'm just sticking it in my pinned list for vanity reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's unfortunate that they removed the second column. The clear distinction between "projects I started" and "projects I help with" was wonderful. And it only fits half as many now. Being able to pin repositories is nice, but not worth the loss of the columns for me.

<comment><USER8> Not really. For instance, in my profile [1] I started two somewhat popular projects, however since I started them as independent "organizations" (as should be the case in this situation) they were in "projects I help with". It totally made it look like it was a one-time off contribution, while it's not the case.

[1] [https://github.com/franciscop/](https://github.com/franciscop/)

<comment><USER9> I can make a one-time off contribution to a big project (I did actually, with React) and pin it to the top. With the two columns, it didn't show up because I have more contributions in other projects. Both sides have their pros and cons.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but when it says "Projects contributed to" as a different section from "Popular repositories" it looks like the contributed ones are NOT your own.

When it says "Pinned projects" it doesn't mean "My Repositories" nor "Contributed to", it just means I chose to show them. If I choose to show them it means that:

1\. I contributed a lot to it so I want to show it. 2\. I want show a project as mine when I just did a small contribution. This is easy to caught.

So you have a choice of showing your work vs trying to cheat, while in the old one it was just everything mixed. I for one welcome to be able to choose and think in total is a positive change, but I understand some people worry that other people "cheat".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm quite disappointed that they nixed the second column.

\- Two columns meant more information to show off and to glean about someone else.

\- Two columns forced people to have short descriptions for their projects, just like commit titles.

Would it have been that hard to just make it "pin 10 repos" or "pin 5 personal + 5 external"?

</comment><comment><USER11> Tried it, now my profile page 404s when logged out. Did they change some other "privacy" related settings?

(Also not a big fan of reducing the display from 10 to 5 repos, but what can you do...)

<comment><USER12> Same here. Seeing people on Twitter saying the same.

Edit (21:55Z): And it's working again for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is something I've wanted for a while and I think it's a good improvement. The loss of the two columns sucks though, because I have more than 5 projects that I'd really like to showcase. I'm very active in open source.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't know how I feel about these past few changes. Github is trying to compete more and more with LinkedIn. My user page is now becoming a resume, complete with summary and carefully chosen projects. Where does this end?

<comment><USER15> Adding a short bio section + link curation =/= becoming the bloated mess of spam, useless business drivel and shotgun-style recruiter messages that LinkedIn is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome! I had this problem that my side-project (a vagrant box for Go development in vim) got more stars than my main and favorite project (thing written in Go). This will fix that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Cue people pinning React or any other popular library because they submitted an issue or fixed a typo once.

<comment><USER17> It was shown on their profiles even without pinning.

<comment><USER9> Yeah but if they contribute more to other stuff it replaces one time only repos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is the logic for which repositories show up in the available list? I tend to create opensource projects with their own organization. I see some repositories within these organizations present, some not - even when I'm the primary contributor. Very strange.

</comment><comment><USER19> This new update sucks, I much prefer the previous layout.

</comment><comment><USER20> interesting how they 'fix' problems people don't care about, and don't fix problems people do care about.</comment>


Chinese venture funding in U.S. startups has slowed under new regulatory regime - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-china-regulation-insight/chinese-tech-investors-flee-silicon-valley-as-trump-tightens-scrutiny-idUSKCN1P10CB <comment><USER2> > _Chinese venture funding in U.S. startups has slowed to a trickle, Reuters > interviews with more than 35 industry players show_

Garbage article based on a small sample of anecdotes. In that spirit, I'll add one.

I work with international investors. Chinese interest in American technology companies continues to rise. If I were to characterise recent shifts resulting from politics, it's one from controlling interests to minority interests and one from funds to direct investments. My guess is this Reuters author only spoke to VCs and M&A bankers.

(Counterfactual: China's biggest cheque writers were historically state-owned companies and mainland-listed companies buying earnings. The former is being politically checked. The latter lost steam when the Chinese stock market tanked. But neither is a major direct source of investment for early- or growth-stage companies, nor even the funds that invest in them.)

<comment><USER3> I don't think the question is whether chinese are interested in investing in US technology companies but rather whether they are allowed to. Several countries within the EU are also working on rules which will make it much harder for Chines investors to acquire access to technology IP or important infrastructure companies.

Other than that I agree the article is poorly researched.

<comment><USER2> > _Several countries within the EU are also working on rules which will make > it much harder for Chines investors to acquire access to technology IP or > important infrastructure companies_

Many private companies resist disclosing even financials to their investors [1].

Venture investing is characterised by non-controlling interests. The restrictions you describe limit controlling investments. Those investments count as technology investments. But not as "venture funding in...startups."

[1] [https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1G62NK)

<comment><USER4> The new Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act has bought minority investments into the scope of CFIUS reviews.

<comment><USER2> > _Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act has bought minority > investments into the scope of CFIUS reviews_

Not all minority investments. Simply ones "in a critical technology company that gives the foreign entity:

\- access to any material non-public technical information of the company;

\- membership or observer rights on the company's board or equivalent governing body; _or_

\- any involvement in substantive decision-making of the company, other than through voting of shares" [1].

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/17/a-new-foreign- investment-b...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/17/a-new-foreign-investment- bill-will-impact-venture-capital-and-the-u-s-startup-ecosystem/)

<comment><USER3> "\- access to any material non-public technical information of the company;"

wouldn't that cover more or less any relevant investment in a startup?

<comment><USER2> No. Many private companies routinely disclose much less to investors [1].

Technical information rights go beyond standard and statutory investor information rights, and are typically reserved for strategic investors, knowledgeable lead investors and board members.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palantir-technologies- law...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palantir-technologies-lawsuit- idUSKCN1G62NK)

<comment><USER3> I am not so sure that's correct in reality. Maybe technically but not in reality especially not for small startups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having spent the last few weeks in Beijing, I can't help but think that any reasonable trade compromise should essentially require that China get rid of its Great Firewall. When you block and throttle essentially any foreign digital product and service in this day and age you are not practicing free trade. Tariffs / IP protections / dumping / FDI restrictions are all important but so long as the Firewall is in place international community should block China from selling any digital and physical goods. WTO rules should be updated to forbid digital blocking and throttling.

<comment><USER6> strange thing is that it is often ignored in trade negotiations.

<comment><USER7> The firewall and aggressive social repression in general is a red line for China, much like their claims of owning Taiwan and the inevitability of annexation. The dictatorship that runs China - both the remaining old party system and the new system run by Xi - can't exist without the firewall, it's off limits accordingly.

China won't come to the table if you put the firewall in the list of things to be negotiated, that's why it so rarely comes up. For them what that means is, they'd rather suffer any external consequences in trade & economy, and the domestic suffering that passes on to the people, than give up their reign.

<comment><USER8> The firewall will disappear when China has a strong enough propaganda machine that can counter the western propaganda machine (think Hollywood & BBC). China has been working on it for a few years. Shouldn't take too long. Maybe a decade or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Everyone wants improvement but hate change. I for one welcome this stance and although I fear it won't help much as this is about technology and technology > the policy but hopefully the consequences of this will have some illuminating outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been tracking venture investment in biotech and Chinese investment was pretty steady through all of 2018, though they began leading fewer deals and doing more follow on investments

Anecdotally, there's a big healthcare conference in SF this week, and several of the Chinese investors we planned on meeting canceled their trips

<comment><USER10> What data are you using? Was there a change after the CFIUS rules went into affect on Nov 10th?

<comment><USER9> I'm using data I collected myself. No guarantee that it's comprehensive but it seems not far off the data collected by Pitchbook per this report [0]

Don't have the data in front of me but I think the change happened a bit before november

[0] [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/silicon-valley- bank...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/silicon-valley- banks-2019-healthcare-report-reveals-record-venture-investment-in-the-us-and- europe-300773638.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if this will accelerate Chinese Investment in EU Startups?

<comment><USER12> Not in France. I just read that they are working on blocking foreign investment in key tech like AI, crypto, etc.

<comment><USER13> > _key tech like AI, crypto_

Crypto is not a key tech.

<comment><USER14> And it never will be. I don't understand why so many people on Hn are obsessed with this utter garbage what crypto means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Only 3 billion? Thats chump change in SV.

<comment><USER16> Indeed. $140B in 6 years

[https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/global-tech- hubs/](https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/global-tech-hubs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I guess the US are against free markets

<comment><USER18> China is notorious for requiring "joint ventures" and other rediculous hoops to invest in China. The US wants free markets to go both ways.

This is just like the trade tarrifs, some pressure to convince China to play by the same rules as other developed countries when it comes to trade and IP

<comment><USER17> This is whataboutism. The US is restricting the free market - regardless of what any other country does.

<comment><USER18> It's only restricting foreign investments from certain countries like China that don't play by the rules. It's like banning someone from your store because they steal stuff.

The "free market" isn't anarchy, it's essentially a bunch of bilateral trade agreements

<comment><USER17> Nonsense. The US is restricting trade. Frankly, I'd like to see WTO step in here.

<comment><USER19> WTO will have little to say on the matter in the same way that it had little to say on the restrictions on trade China has enforced for its domestic market for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another case where the US is shooting itself in the foot. Chinese money will now invest in local Chinese startups, which are growing very quickly, and in other countries other than the US.</comment>


The PC isn't dead - <AUTHOR> http://dendory.net/blog.php?id=5087558c

<comment><USER2> I sort of touched on this in a HN thread a few days ago [1]. I don't think that mobile devices are successfully replacing conventional PCs, more so replacing objects and knickknacks that were single function devices. For instance, my wife uses an ipad to read books because she can take her whole library with her wherever she goes and download new books while sitting on the train. I use an app that turns my phones flash into a torch when I'm looking for something in the dark. My ~2 year old nephew uses a drum and piano app on an ipad to play instruments, and animated book-like apps for entertainment. Buying these objects now would be for almost purely ornamental reasons. Little things that we use each day whether for utility or entertainment are being supplanted by multi-function mobile devices because 1. We take them wherever we go and 2. Touch screens/GUIs are excellent for emulating objects.

The power of the app, I think, is in emulating small things – not replacing dedicated, powerful tools.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4681135>

<comment><USER3> Spot on. I believe in the long run smartphones are going to replace a huge part of what are now separate devices or utilities. Yet the pc might be the only prevailing device because some functionalities cannot be emulated on a smartphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone please tell Microsoft this. They're trying to compete in everyone else's market, while kind of forgetting about the one they dominate.

Developers wanted a linker for .Net; they never got one. Viable market penetration of any given version of the .NET framework always lagged several years between the latest available. They've churned through multiple desktop development technologies in the past decade, and winforms, the only one that will meet the needs of most the market (XP -> 8), is no longer being updated. And, Visual Studio 2012 doesn't even have a built-in project deployment tool for desktop apps, instead relying on WiX or outside vendors. I realize that Microsoft can't tread water forever, but if the PC desktop does die, part of the blame will lay at Microsoft's own feet.

</comment><comment><USER5> Steve Jobs at D8: 'PCs are going to be like trucks'

Yep. Not dead, not by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly not as ubiquitous as other devices.

[http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2010/06/02/steve-jobs- at...](http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2010/06/02/steve-jobs-at-d8-pcs- are-going-to-be-like-trucks/)

<comment><USER6> The problem with every analogy is that it's always a simplifying (hence flawed) method of reasoning. Especially here, where it is easy to remark that there are not only two kind of motorized vehicles but a wide range of them. From small city cars to full size SUVs, going through family cars, luxury cars, sports cars, sedans, motorcycles and scooters, three wheeled cars...

Tablets are great for small, specialized tasks. They are great because they are lightweight, have good battery life and can be manipulated simply.

However I can't help but think that they are not fit for every job, just like a small city car isn't something you want of you have a spouse and three children. Multitasking, for example, isn't practical on a tablet : I have yet to see a tablet that allows me to chat with video or text while doing research on the web or browsing my mail, for example. And doing these tasks simultaneously isn't some kind of niche or power user activity. I could find countless simple things which are as of today only doable on tablet by going through much pain. Moreover, I think that one of the biggest advantages of tablets is that because they're somewhat more intuitive, they can reach a wider audience, notably people who are less computer- _literate_. But making technology accessible to our elders or less educated people is a good thing, but let's not forget that the next generations are born in technology and will be more accustomed to using it in its various forms, including the more "complex" PCs (which they will most likely have to use for their work anyway).

All in all, tablets and PC will both evolve, and the gap between them will be filled in. We are already seeing bigger screen, keyboards, more powerful CPUs / GPUs on tablets (which is exactly what the core i3 MS tablet will be), and on the other hand, lowered power consumption CPUs, better battery lives, weight reductions and smaller, touch-sensitive screens on PCs (again, there are a lot of products more or less matching that description).

I don't think the PC will die anytime soon.

<comment><USER7> Argument subverted. "PCs are no longer a growing market, and the PC market will begin to shrink" != "PCs are dead." Ya, home PCs are not being replaced as much anymore because we are using our iPads more on the couch or in bed, so maybe I can replace that laptop every 4 years instead of every 2, and when was the last time anyone turned on that desktop. And at work...they seem to be replacing PCs left often also, so the PC market is definitely going through some big "adjustments."

I'm completely computer literate and use my iPad exclusively when at home; I have stacks of laptops that don't get any use anymore. Its just more convenient to use for what I do at home, I will not be replacing my home PCs for a very very long time. And...kids today will grow up using mostly iPads and facebook, they won't experience the joys of a BASIC command prompt like we did. Given the proliferation of canned content, they are unlikely to get their hands really dirty with flexible/configurable computing until they reach college!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been arguing a variation of this for a while: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/desktop-pcs- arent-g...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/desktop-pcs-arent-going- anywhere-despite-the-growth-of-phones-and-tablets%E2%80%94because-theyre- cheap/) . The basic issue is simple: PCs are really, really cheap, and cheap is good.

<comment><USER9> But will PCs _stay_ cheap?

If more and more people find it simpler and easier to satisfy their computing needs with devices like smartphones and tablets, there could easily come a point where economies of scale start working against PCs, accelerating a decline into a niche "producer" device.

Personally, I think hybrid devices are likely to prevent that because they'll be a better fit for the many users who primarily consume but still occasionally produce, but that's a separate argument.

<comment><USER10> As long as Google exists, commodity hardware has a place on a massive scale that can somewhat eclipse any decline in consumer sales by how datacenters are using this stuff in massive deployments for server farms.

Also consider the ingredients of the modern PC. The chipsets and motherboards are Intel / AMD, and Intel won't slow down since it basically owns business workstations. AMD is kind of stuck. The motherboard makers already have entire product lines of extremely niche products (see the x79 chipset) and sata disks / DDR memory are used in mobile devices, just at different form factors. They still need wireless / usb controllers, maybe the cases get more expensive?

Point is, the two markets are very tightly coupled, and there is a diverse enough pc component market that consumer demand dropping doesn't phase it _too_ much. Worst case scenario is less R&D goes into high end parts since there is less demand for them, which is already happening (look at Ivy Bridge, barely upped performance but cut power consumption a ton).

<comment><USER6> I think you are exaggerating Google's impact on commodity hardware — or even the impact of the whole data-center-on-commodity-hardware trend. Estimates put Google's server count around the million mark [1].

Worldwide PC sales are estimated about 320 millions, _per year_ , and more than 1.5 billions PC are estimated to be in use currently [2].

[1] [http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/05/14/whos-...](http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/05/14/whos- got-the-most-web-servers/) [2] [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044465780457804...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444657804578048981461803220.html) and <http://www.etforecasts.com/products/ES_pcww1203.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A few weeks ago I would have largely agreed with the post, but recently I had a bubble-bursting experience.

I'm currently in the middle of running an "Arduino for Beginners" workshop series at our local hackerspace. We have 25 attendees, 24 of them are brand new to the hackerspace. All the attendees are technically literate and interested, but only one or two are programmers or heavily into technology. Everyone brings their own laptop.

The first hour of the first session was almost entirely spent with everyone setting up their laptop with the Arduino software. At least 3 of the attendees took closer to two hours, both with weird Windows problems and driver issues and random slowdowns, unexpected software alerts, etc. One took more than the workshop's 3 hours to get running smoothly, her laptop finally deciding it needed to install many dozen security updates.

All four of the people whose Windows computers caused them such slowdowns told me "I barely ever turn this on any more, I just use my iPad/tablet and phone at home."

This is purely anecdotal and it's a small sample size, could easily be non- representative. But it did make me think, if I wasn't a geek and a hobby programmer/tinkerer then I'd pretty much just do email & web browsing at home, occasionally update/print my resume or write a small flyer. Would I need a PC? Why would I bother to own one, especially if PC maintenance was of no interest to me?

<comment><USER8> >But it did make me think, if I wasn't a total geek and a hobby programmer/tinkerer then I'd pretty much just do email & web browsing at home, occasionally update/print my resume or write a small flyer. Would I need a PC? Why would I bother to own one, especially if PC maintenance was of no interest to me?

I think this embodies a larger distinction: Are you mostly a consumer or a producer? The line isn't firm, but for someone who mostly consumes, a tablet or equivalent makes total sense for the reasons you enumerate.

For almost anyone who produces or aspires to produce, however, I don't think that laptop/laptop-with-docking-stations/desktop-style machines are going anywhere, for the reasons that are being articulated throughout this thread. I especially like the guy with four monitors. Personally, I only have two, but one is very large, and even then I'd like to imagine that it's not the size, but how you use it.[1]

Again, I don't think this distinction is hard and fast, so the person who just wrote their own operating system, followed by a 1,000 page fantasy novel, on their iPad can reframe the comment they're about to make. But I do think the distinction serves a useful purpose in talking about where things are going.

[1]Technology porn photos, for interested parties: [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk- writin...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk-writing- space-post/) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Finally, let's look at something that may seem more like average people would do

Yes, let's.

>I hate on-screen keyboards, all of them, and type much slower on them than on a full size keyboard.

Same here - but we're both a lot faster than average people on a keyboard.

>And if you compare working with a mouse versus working with a touch screen, again there's no comparison of speed.

Actually I find a touch screen much faster for most things. Has the author tried it enough?

>Finally, my PC has a 19'' display, why go down to a 10'' or 4'' one?

Why not? It's not like you get more pixels on the 19" these days. Given two same-resolution screens, I'll take the more portable one please.

>As for the cloud, I used Google Docs, but personally find it extremely lacking. If you ever try to use a template, you quickly find out how broken their system is. The templates they offer break all over the place.

"Average people" don't even know what a template is.

> ask any accountant or book author who tried to use online spreadsheets or > word processors to do heavy duty work what they thought of it.

I wrote a novel in google docs. It was great. I especially liked the part where one of the computers I was using broke halfway through and it made no difference to me at all.

<comment><USER13> _Actually I find a touch screen much faster for most things. Has the author tried it enough?_

No, increase your mouse sensitivity I can't physically move my hand as fast as I move the mouse because the full screen is only 1 inch travel distance on my mouse. Most of this is from playing games but high DPI mice on a good surface are vary precise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think at every workplace, where PCs aren't the main thing workers interact with while working, but rather only assist them, tablets will eventually replace PCs (for example hospitals, schools, workshops or retail). But if the work consists of mainly interacting with a PC, tablets are by design inferior and won't replace the PC.

</comment><comment><USER15> The end game that I see, is that your tablet is your PC. We've had dockable laptops forever - a dockable tablet that hooks up with your wireless mouse and keyboard and your 27" monitor at home, and when you need to go you just pull it out and have all your stuff with you, I think only a small step away.

Sure, the hardware isn't quite there yet (especially if you want to be able to use it for gaming - gaming PCs are still monsters), but I think that's where PCs are headed, and where Microsoft thinks they're going also. It explains the surface, and Windows 8 perfectly - and if I (and they) are right, it gives them a huge head start.

</comment><comment><USER16> The "PC is dead" line is usually referring to general consumers. Obviously it doesn't apply to power users (which are a very small %). For content creators, a PC is still a necessity. For content consumers, mobile or tablets are suffice.

The only argument OP makes that applies to general consumers is gaming, and that can be moved to a console.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly the type of argument that doesn't hold. "tablets will suffice" Why should someone go for something that will be inferior, and simply suffice? "move to the console" Why would I want to play on a 7 year old console, which means lower graphic games? Your definition of general consumers actually applies to a very small amount, people who never do anything that could, in some way, be better off on a larger display, full sized keyboard, and more processor power.

<comment><USER2> > Why would I want to play on a 7 year old console, which means lower graphic > games?

I think that's the reason why I love consoles - I haven't had to upgrade my gaming machine since 2006. And looking at the games I've enjoyed in the last 12 months - Skyrim and MW3 (for purely multiplayer funsies) I don't feel like I've missed anything having an ancient machine.

And don't think I haven't logged many hours playing either. A console doesn't mean I'm just casually playing games - I take a deep delight in sitting down on my couch with a beer, dog by my side, and blapping annoying teenagers online whenever I get the chance.

<comment><USER17> >And looking at the games I've enjoyed in the last 12 months - Skyrim and MW3 (for purely multiplayer funsies) I don't feel like I've missed anything having an ancient machine.

As a PC gamer this is what pisses me off. You aren't missing anything because publishers won't write games that don't run on consoles. The graphics and CPU power on my desktop dwarfs a console, but it's all wasted power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Also, I've got used to my 4 monitors... not sure I could give those up yet.

<comment><USER19> What if the monitors themselves were computers of a sort and they could be linked together in an arbitrary fashion, sharing resources transparently?

You're thinking of a PC as some box you plug things in to, but in the future that could be as antiquated as the old mainframe.

<comment><USER18> Now that would be sweet, or instead of my 4 monitors, I had the wall, and I could scale, expand, place various screens in different placements. This effectively is how we use multiple monitors now, at least I do. That would solve it... although still need a way to hide certain browsers, tabs, etc.

<comment><USER20> The joke back in the 80s was that what we really wanted was to buy 4x8 sheets of monitor at the store and cut and panel as needed. Then one day my brother said that he simply wanted a can of monitor paint ...

For an interesting short animated science fiction film that gives you a glimpse of ubiquitous computer displays check out _Pale Cocoon_ :

<http://www.crunchyroll.com/pale-cocoon/episode-1-ova-1-20698>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Web based productivity is only good for very simple tasks

There are some very nice LaTeX editors found online and they aren't that bad.

</comment><comment><USER22> Wait... 1) Who said PC is dead? 2) Who cares?

</comment><comment><USER23> > _And if you compare working with a mouse versus working with a touch screen, > again there's no comparison of speed._

If you're comparing touchscreens on the desktop with mice on the desktop, this is certainly true. But touchscreen input on a tablet device holds up pretty well against a mouse on a desktop. Maybe beats it.

<comment><USER24> For what tasks? Call someone on Skype? Maybe. Change the order of two paragraphs in a text, browsing hn or reddit? No way in hell

<comment><USER25> Exactly. I've tried selecting text on an iPad, and it's not easy. Maybe you can perfect rolling your finger to do it, with practice, but it's not as intuitive as a mouse _for precise selection_. Fingers are too big. Actually, just having cursor keys on an iPad would be an improvement.

However... game console controllers are also not as good as a mouse, and yet they now drive game sales and development.

<comment><USER26> > game console controllers are also not as good as a mouse

I guess you mean for FPS, only ? For platform games, for fighting games, these controllers are perfectly adequate. The reason why console FPS have become more popular on consoles than on PCs is simply associated to market share of console hardware, big budget exclusive titles (Halo, Killzone, Gears of War) and is not even remotely linked to how good the controls are.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup, mobile marketing app - <AUTHOR>

We just launch our web app, I hope you'll like it. ma.rs is a marketing platform. It is a web tool for creating, managing, publishing and analyzing mobile campaigns.
It allows you to create (engaging) mobile experience without any programing skills, using simple intuitive drag and drop interface.
With QR codes, created mobile sites (campaigns) can be used as a landing page for mobile advertising or as a complementary ad space with printed or any other old advertising media (TV, billboards, newspapers).
Looking forward to your comments. Thanks
App's url http://ma.rs <comment><USER2> This looks promising. A lot of people post "Review my startup" threads here and most look pretty half-assed. This does not. In fact, it looks like you've put a lot of effort into making your startup look very professional.

I don't have a lot to critique about the actual business, but hopefully I can give you some constructive criticism.

On the pricing/signup page I noticed that the background image you're using for the pricing table is gigantic -- 122kb ([http://static.ma.rs/application_assets/site/images/prices_bg...](http://static.ma.rs/application_assets/site/images/prices_bg.png) 122kb). I'm on a fairly fast connection here (16mbits/down) and it took a noticeable amount of time to load. I'm assuming that it's a 24bit png, but since you're using a white background behind it you won't need the alpha layer and it seems like (based on the colors used in the image) that you could get away with an 8bit png and have it look just fine.

Also on the pricing page, "limited" and "full" don't tell me much about what I'll be getting. Maybe have the ability to mouse over that text and get a little description of what you mean?

I'll append any additional thoughts to this comment as I check it out, but so far you have a really great looking startup on your hands. Not to mention a kick ass domain name -- good score.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://ma.rs/> clickable

lipsum text present in some pages... I've seen that negatively impact almost everything except design sites.

the bottom of each page seems a little low contrast to me - in some cases, unreadable. Your logo in the bottom bar appears to be transparent, but, expecting a white background which looks odd on my browser.

As far as the idea goes, I like it. I think you've hit on a very good product and should be able to get the online marketers working with you. You might want to have a 'why would I do this' video that would explain to your target audience why they would use a QR code and what it is. Getting this in front of the right people, and, having it understood by those people is going to be the key. While the actual deployment will be left to someone probably more savvy, you have to sell the businessman (or businesswoman) that may not be as technically literate, why he would do this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice site, but there seems to be a few little rendering issues for me (Chrome on Linux-see here: <http://min.us/mvbopEU> )

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys, thanks a lot for a very good, constructive criticism and suggestions!</comment>


How to build your own content curation pipeline - <AUTHOR> https://jacobobryant.com/post/2019/pipeline/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've recently started working on a general-purpose recommender system that uses Atom/RSS feeds as the main data source. So now I'm trying to make it easier for people to generate those feeds, hence this article.</comment>


The disturbing YouTube videos that are tricking children - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39381889 <comment><USER2> Posted earlier in the day, 12+ comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13965249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13965249)</comment>


OCaml 4.08 - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/ <comment><USER2> This release adds "binding operators," which make functors, applicatives, and monads more convenient to use. The "binding operators" are like OCaml's version of Haskell's do-notation, but IMO even better. In Haskell's do- notation, each binding in the form of `pat <\- expr; next` desugars to monadic bind, with an extension to use applicatives instead where possible, but with OCaml's binding operators, there are three separate operators for functors, applicatives, and monads.

The 4.08.0 release also adds the Fun, Option, and Result modules to the standard library.

<comment><USER3> What's better? Is the idea that there are 3 separate operators better, or did the reason why not come through in the post?

<comment><USER2> I meant that there being three separate operators makes OCaml's design better than Haskell's. (Of course, this is just my personal opinion.)

<comment><USER3> Well, the reason I'm confused is that Haskell has different binding operators too. Applicatives can't use >>=.

<comment><USER2> I meant Haskell's do-notation sugar - it only works for monads (or applicatives, assuming ApplicativeDo and absence of dependencies on intermediate results). OCaml's new "binding operators" let you define your own variations of `let` and `and`, which resemble do-notation and therefore have the same cognitive convenience. Then, you can define `let` for functors, etc. You can basically have `let` sugar for any operation that takes a function as the second argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It doesn't get said very much but the ML ecosystem is full, complete, and very much production quality. It is a shame that there are not many projects or companies that make use of all that it has to offer.

<comment><USER5> I'm always surprised that F# didn't take off. It's a great language and in addition to the strenghts of ML you have the .net ecosystem and Microsoft behind it.

<comment><USER6> Jet uses F# almost exclusively

[https://github.com/jet](https://github.com/jet)

[https://link.medium.com/spjuV2aAwX](https://link.medium.com/spjuV2aAwX)

<comment><USER7> Jet might not exist for much longer.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-jet-com/jetcom- fa...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-jet-com/jetcom-falls-by- wayside-as-walmart-focuses-on-its-website-online-grocery-idUSKCN1TD2PS)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not entirely convinced that the let operators were a good idea. What's wrong with the ppx rewriter notation (let%bind = ...)? That's, after all, what it's for: provide custom extensions to the language syntax.

Quality of life improvements in the standard library are maybe the biggest deal for me (since I don't use any stdlib replacement like Batteries or Base). Stuff like the Int, Bool, Option, etc. modules, or filter_map... It's mind boggling how they've only been added now (but good thing they were).

</comment><comment><USER9> This is great, but I'm still waiting for multicore support, and a mature GUI library.

<comment><USER10> I wonder how come people working in PL research aren't more interested in concurrency. Typeclass, monads, etcs are great but they still haven't reach the point were everyday people could expect to write proved safe program ( unless the code base is extremely small and you're using special software such as Coq), and while they make programs more concise and expressives, i think concurrency remains the elephant in the room.

Rust is the first PL i've heard in a long time that tries to actually do something in that area since erlang ( that opted for strict message passing and let it crash philosophy, but gave you the tool to deal with that approach).

Is it because it's too « down to earth » for PL purist, or is it simply because they don't have the mathematical or logical tools to deal with the problem ?

<comment><USER11> Quite a lot of things have been tried since Erlang (1986). Concurrency has been a fairly well funded sector of compiler and PL research to the point of starving other arguably more important areas.

Wp has a list at [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concurrent_and_paral...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concurrent_and_parallel_programming_languages)

Futhark is one of the more interesting recent parallel languages IMO since GPU languages were in such a lull for a while. Too bad everyone is stuck with emitting opencl or going vendor specific though.

<comment><USER9> > Concurrency has been a fairly well funded sector of compiler and PL research > to the point of starving other arguably more important areas.

Concurrency is enormously important in a world where instruction speed has saturated. Many problems are highly data-coupled, so you can't just separate these problems into loose tasks that you connect with a slow message pipe.

Of course, if you're just writing a web server or a chat server, then you might be lucky and you can get away with it. But please don't assume this holds for everybody.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but it's "just" speed of execution, while for most things the bottleneck of making something possible is correctness and ease of developing while keeping complexity in check. So yes it's important but still mostly less important than some others :)

Tensorflow is interesting in this respect. Leveraging a lot of parallelism and using a parallel pl under the good, while presenting itself as a dev friendly Python lib on the surface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a Haskeller, but it's great to see OCaml improving significantly with every release. It's a win for typed functional programming in general.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Many error messages were improved."

A few months ago someone on HN mentioned that error messages would be greatly improved in this release, which would make learning OCaml much easier.

Does anyone have more details on this?

<comment><USER14> There were a handful of concomitant improvements:

* The printing of error message has been improved to display the code source responsible of the error outside of the REPL.

* Some probable beginner errors (like discarding a non-applied function with `ignore`) now raises a warning.

* Type name captures should not happen anymore in error messages: no more `val x: int` is not included in `val x: int` where `int` refers silentiously to different types.

* A handful of typing errors has been fixed to speak to users and not the compiler developers (no more "unexpected existentials" for instance).

* Some compiler internal change to make it much easier to use the typing context when explaining a type error. This is not used much yet, but I hope to improve the scope related type errors in the next versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If they had Unicode support and multicore support in the language I'd be a lot more interested.. hopefully in five or ten years we'll get there.

</comment><comment><USER16> anyone know a good ide for ocaml? something with tab complete and jump to definition?

<comment><USER17> While not a traditional IDE, Merlin [1] combined with vim/emacs/vscode is really good (autocompletion, jump to definition, type lookup and more). Merlin also gained support for language server protocol recently so that could be an option for any editor/IDE that has a language server client.

[1] [https://github.com/ocaml/merlin.git](https://github.com/ocaml/merlin.git)

EDIT: I'd also like to point out OCamlformat ([https://github.com/ocaml- ppx/ocamlformat](https://github.com/ocaml-ppx/ocamlformat)). It works really well in my experience and makes it really easy to perform automatic code formatting, and can be used in CI to check that changed conform to the formatting style a project prefers.

<comment><USER18> Merlin is very good. Wish something like this was available for haskell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone have any links to examples or docs for how the "binding operators" work?

<comment><USER14> There is a dry technical description at [http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml-4.08/manual046.ht...](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml-4.08/manual046.html) . And a more illustrative description at [https://jobjo.github.io/2019/04/24/ocaml-has-some-new- shiny-...](https://jobjo.github.io/2019/04/24/ocaml-has-some-new-shiny- syntax.html) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Getting a 404 here: You can find more details at [https://ocaml.org/releases/4.08.0.html](https://ocaml.org/releases/4.08.0.html)

<comment><USER21> That's a 404 for me as well. This works:

[https://github.com/damiendoligez/ocaml.org/blob/add- release-...](https://github.com/damiendoligez/ocaml.org/blob/add- release-4.08.0/site/releases/4.08.0.md)

<comment><USER20> Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Peter Thiel's Very Negative – And Very Useful – Advice for Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239420

<comment><USER2> > competition will ALWAYS be there

Yup, that is VC catechism. But, let's see:

What competition did Xerox have for their model 914 copier? Gee, someone else had a license to print money?

What competition did IBM have for their line System 360? Another license to print money.

What competition did Boeing have for their 707? It dominated transportation between the US and Europe, drove out of that business both steamships and piston powered airplanes. And, it was a license to print money.

What competition did HP have for their HP-35 scientific calculator? Elegant and powerful beyond belief, especially for the time. Some of the best STEM people in the world nearly worshiped the thing. Price no object. License to print money.

What competition did IBM have for their DB2 relational database system with SQL? You want to use network, hierarchical? Gotta be kidding. Maybe if you pay your database application developers 10 cents a hour and want projects to run a few years instead of a few weeks.

For the first IBM magnet disk storage system? Otherwise you want, what, punched cards?

The US have for A-bombs starting in 1945? A big tragedy is what the US lost taking Iwo Jima and Okinawa when just two B-29s from Tinian were all that was needed.

The US have for the proximity fuse during WWII?

The US have for the SR-71 -- Mach 3+, 80,000+ feet, 2000+ miles without refueling? One never got shot down.

The US have for Aegis phased array radar? Aim the thing nearly instantly, just electronically, and track some huge number of targets all from just one radar.

The US have for Keyhole, basically a Hubble but aimed at the earth and before Hubble?

The US have for the first atomic powered submarines?

The US have for GPS, the first Navy version and the first USAF version?

The US have for the Abrams tank, shoot 2 miles, at night, through fog, while moving against a Russian tank with range 1 mile that needed a clear day and had to stop to fire. Which tank do you want to be in?

The US had for the F-117 -- fly through the Baghdad anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft missiles for the whole of Gulf War I without a single scratch.

The US have for the B-2?

> Your back will always be against the wall, it'll never be perfect, and > please don't ever expect an overnight success story the day that you > launch.It'll be a long dreadful process, ...

Ah, guess that somehow the Lockheed Skunk Works never understood that lesson. Instead, Kelly Johnson showed up in DC with a pile of papers, outlined the SR-71, got the project approved, built the thing, and essentially everything went as planned. Same for essentially all the projects I listed.

My conclusion: Poor Peter has spent far too much time with poor projects.

Peter, here is a simple lesson for you: Go to a golf course that has a par 3 whole and for a year or so get the list of players who made a hole in one. Then notice that really expert players are only a small fraction of the list. So, you want to conclude that being an expert player is not important in making a hole in one? Sorry, Peter: Mostly the list has poor players who got lucky, but there were so many more poor players than expert ones that lucky poor players dominated the list. So you conclude that actually planning and intending to make a hole in one is pointless.

For the projects I listed, each was like a hole in one that was planned, really better than making a hole in one, where the project leaders, _called their shot_ in advance. They didn't just get lucky. Indeed, such US DoD projects have much higher _batting average_ than Silicon Valley.

Peter, you've just got to take a two hour course on "STEM Project Planning 101". For a reading list, read about each of the projects above.

Want to get the ROI of your fund up, way up? Well, go only with projects like the SR-71 -- a STEM project with a powerful, valuable result, with essentially no competition, and that can be executed with high reliability from the initial plans just on paper.

Of course, to do this, you'd have to be ready, willing, able, and eager to read and understand technical project plans, and you'd have to give up on your idea that college dropouts are the best STEM project leaders.

And you'd have to give up on your criterion of flying cars -- any competent STEM project leader could tell you that the energy, power, control, and cost required are way too high. And, safety would be a disaster.

Thankfully for US national security, the US DoD follows ideas on projects much better than yours.

Peter, for STEM, SV is a grand disaster; everyone on Sand Hill Road should be ashamed. If they had any comprehension of just how incompetent they are, then they would be just humiliated.

Instead, got a bunch of lawyers, MBAs, history majors, stock market analysts, _biz dev_ marketers, etc. Hopeless.

The problem sponsors at NIH, NSF, and DARPA can evaluate projects just on paper. Apparently there is not a single VC in SV that can do that.

Peter, net, your advice just sucks. For better advice, draw from the magnificent, unchallenged, unique world-class, grand successes of the US DoD for the past 70 years or so.

Peter, go back to school and get a good Ph.D. in a STEM field, do some serious projects, and then revise your advice. In the meanwhile you are just your wasting time, effort, and money and that of anyone following your advice. You should be ashamed. At first I was really shocked at the grand incompetence of SV. Now I just laugh, but it's getting to be no longer funny.

There is hardly a single IT VC in SV that could get job in a serious and competent STEM project for the US DoD. Total bummer.

The US DoD has done fantastic things -- e.g., won Gulf War I with more injuries from R&R, e.g., softball, than from enemy action. Meanwhile SV IT VC ROI just sucks:

[http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital- returns.html...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital- returns.html#disqus_thread)</comment>


Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber's Drivers - <AUTHOR> http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4892 <comment><AUTHOR> Full article (PDF): [http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/download/4892/1739](http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/download/4892/1739)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the author's musings on Uber/Lyft etc. [https://medium.com/uber- screeds](https://medium.com/uber-screeds)</comment>


Prototype Framework Tutorial - <AUTHOR> http://www.tutorialspoint.com/prototype/index.htm <comment><USER2> compare [http://www.tutorialspoint.com/prototype/prototype_hash_proce...](http://www.tutorialspoint.com/prototype/prototype_hash_processing.htm)

to <http://www.prototypejs.org/api/hash>

Why wouldn't you just read the (awesome) docs?

<comment><USER3> If you read the official docs, TutorialsPoint won't be making any money from ad revenue.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Podcast/RSS feed processor recombines missing entries using archive.org - <AUTHOR> http://backfeed.strangecode.com

<comment><USER2> Nice project, this looks really interesting. I think google reader did the same thing before it was shut down.

ps I have my own podcast related project at [https://pdcst.ninja](https://pdcst.ninja)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting project. Are you aware that some feeds support pagination?

For example '?page=2'

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never seen a feed with pagination. Do you know an example? And do you know a feed eater that can interact with pagination?

If a paginated feed were given to Backfeed it would basically de-paginate it to a single, large feed.</comment></comment>


"Stealing Money from Customers to Reroute into Projects we Believe in." - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, what do you think of our strategy? The quote is one way we think about what we are doing right now at Social Printshop. I thought it was a good idea to tell our customers directly, so i explained everything to a mashable reporter and some of my thoughts were covered in a somewhat popular article last week. The response has been mixed, in terms of feedback via email etc.,  but overall I support the idea of honesty and full disclosure and I wanted to open up more of a discussion here on HN.
I am generally against consumerism, and hesitant to fully embrace capitalism, but I saw the creation of a start-up as a great way to raise capital to address issues of sustainability, social justice, and the many conflicts deeply embedded in our culture.
Before you start doling out heavy handed criticism, I propose that you would think a bit about how you are (or are not) addressing contemporary social/political conflicts with your start-up. <comment><USER2> Interesting... I haven't read the Mashable article, so I don't have all the context to fully appreciate this. But I can say that I don't advocate stealing! Not sure if that was a metaphor or what, but I wouldn't want to steal a dime from a customer.

However, I do have some political issues that are near and dear to my heart; hence my run for Lt. Governor of NC in 2008. But, realistically, I don't want to be a politician and it's near impossible to get elected as a 3rd party candidate anyway. And since I _am_ an unabashed fan of Capitalism, my thinking these days is to launch a startup, try to acquire significant wealth, and then spend that wealth supporting the causes I believe in. Of course I want to do some good along the way, and one way to do that is contributing to Open Source Software (which is something I believe in very strongly as well). So all of our code is freely available, licensed under the APLv2.

If the startup ever gets off the ground and we reach a point where it's practical, I'd also like to arrange some (hopefully) mutually beneficial ways to help poor people in rural areas as well, mainly through education. Having grown up dirt poor in a rural area myself, I'm a big believer in the power of education to help people raise themselves up. So going back and arranging for free classes on technology topics, entrepreneurship, etc., would be something I hope to do someday. As you can probably tell, I am big on the "teach a person to fish" vs "give them a fish" thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wasn't familiar the story but after Google + skimming it: Don't use the word stealing, its not accurate. You are providing a service+product that some people find valuable and they are paying you for it.

I honestly don't see the controversy unless there's more that I'm missing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> oh and here is the link to the article i references. pretty poorly written and topical, but i like the title and some aspects + discussion of ego. <http://on.mash.to/hl2ddT>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> shoot i should have also made it clear that i am not talking about literally stealing. Obviously we would not do that.</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone trained GAN on larger resolution images? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone been able to train GAN on larger resolution images like 640x480 <comment><USER2> [https://research.nvidia.com/publication/2017-10_Progressive-...](https://research.nvidia.com/publication/2017-10_Progressive- Growing-of)

> This both speeds the training up and greatly stabilizes it, allowing us to > produce images of unprecedented quality, e.g., CelebA images at 1024²</comment>


Show HN: How Do I Look?  – An early alpha demo of facial beauty meter - <AUTHOR> http://www.how-do-i-look.com <comment><USER2> I would recommend the ability to browse other photos and understand what you're outputting, as [noted below] people are going to be very suspicious of uploading their own photo, or just won't care enough to upload a fake photo.

<comment><USER3> Sam from GoT is a solid 7.3!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is done with the pictures we upload? Are they stored or discarded afterwards?

<comment><USER5> great question, I was thinking same thing. not sure I would trust any answer provided, because you know they've anticipated this question and most likely will respond with boilerplate response.</comment></comment>