Mouse Box - <AUTHOR> http://mouse-box.com/#index_pl.html <comment><USER2> I think the text could use some work. First paragraph doesn't ever get around to clearly stating what the product is. It's an entire computer in a mouse, right? Say that in the first sentence. Here is the current first paragraph. Look at the blah blah blah, then finally, in the last sentence, a hint (but not a direct statement!) of what the product actually provides.

"At the beginning moving computers was a real challenge. The problem was not just their quite big weight, but also their size which made it difficult to put them in a right place even though it was possible to lift them. Computer portability has been improving along with developing a PC. However, it still isn't ideal as it is necessary to transport a lot of its parts – a monitor, a keyboard, a CPU and a mouse. The approach to computer design and appearance has been the same until today. We are introducing Mouse-Box, a computer different than ever before. An incredible combination of the two most important elements in a computer set – a computer and a mouse."

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly, they've probably invested a lot of time and money in this product, and it is wasted over the very poor presentation. For less than a $100, they could hire a copywriter to write a proper description.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I commend the team for the entrepreneur spirit but personally find the idea of showing off the ability to secretly do things which are against the policies of your workplace and presenting that as some sort of feature quite distasteful. From a visionary or marketing point of view I think it is petty and short sighted, and from a personal point of view my recommendation for anyone frustrated with the policies of their workplace is to invest their time on finding a better workplace rather than wasting it finding ways to be sneaky in the current one. As for the product, I can see some use cases that would make it marketable without resorting to advertising sneaky and morally questionable scenarios.

<comment><USER5> If you've never worked outside of Tech, I can understand why you would think that. If you have, then I apologize for the miscategorization, but I find this attitude prevalent in Tech in general.

Most BigCos have two fundamental rules: you can't use any non-approved software[0] and you're to be at your desk at all times, even when you have no work to do. Given those restrictions, this makes perfect sense (although, a stealth switch works better[1]).

Believe it or not, most companies outside of tech are very controlling of what their employees can and cannot do with their computers. As an example, my first job out of college was with a NY branch of a multinational swedish-owned corporation that made airplane engines. One day, a top ranking employee walked out of the office with all of their blueprints on a usb drive and gave it to their biggest competitor[2]. Ever since then, they've forbidden any kind of physical data transfer, going so far as to pull all the cd and dvd burners from all desktops and disabling the USB drives (as much as possible).

 _anyone frustrated with the policies of their workplace is to invest their time on finding a better workplace_

That's not an option for some. Not everybody works as a programmer. Aeronautical engineers, for example, have a limited number of employers. If you're not willing to relocate away from friends and family or you're not built for the city life, same thing.

[0]: Some even do network scans to check for unauthorized software programs on your hard drive [1]: [http://stealthswitch.com/](http://stealthswitch.com/) [2]: Yes, it's illegal, but I imagine he was paid enough ttraino risk it and even if he wasn't, it doesn't matter: once the blueprints are compromised, they can never be uncompromised.

<comment><USER4> Regarding working outside of Tech, In my pre-HiTech days I worked in a very large organisation where the all the practices you mentioned were strictly enforced. As your example has shown, these policies are in place for good reason. Having said that, I do think of them as taking the easiest solution instead of the best solution and find it morally analogous to using collective punishment on an entire population in order to deter a few bad apples.

I do realise this is the reality in many organisations (and, mind you, also inside the Tech industry) as it is much cheaper to implement. My own reaction was to stop working in a company that operates according to a philosophy I don't agree with and instead create an environment that operates from a philosophy I can relate to (basically one where people are trusted and do what is best for the company because that's what they love doing rather than out of fear of what will happen if they don't).

You say this is not an option for some, and you are right (though I think many people sell themselves short in terms of what they think they can do to start changing the situation) and I can imagine situations where you could argue that the "indecency" of breaking workplace policies is far less than the "indecency" of the policies that caused them in the first place.

However, all the above is a bit beside the point, as my main objection was from a marketing perspective. To take it to the extreme, if I manufacture freezers, I think you'll agree that mentioning in the advertising campaign that you can use them to make icicles which are the perfect murder weapon would not be very helpful to the public image of the company or product. If that is the major thing that product is suitable for, and there's a large target market then it becomes a moral discussion, but I don't think circumventing office policies is the main selling point of the device and therefore don't think mentioning it as the first feature is helpful.

Then again, I could be mistaken :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few things:

I hate wires coming out of my mice. I can tolerate the thin braided cables coming out of most high-end mice, but that's about it. With Mouse Box, I'd have display, USB, and a bunch of other stuff sticking out of the mouse making it much harder to move around and use.

The mouse itself looks unexceptional. It's not especially ergonomic (my Logitech MX Revolution looks much more comfortable to hold), and the button set is pretty limited. It's fine for basic use, but it would kind of defeat the point if I felt compelled to plug a mouse into my Mouse Box.

Mice wear out. Mine collect dust and scuffs on the bottom and sweat and dirt on the top. I guess the mouse itself could conceivably outlive the usefulness of the computing part, but it seems like a bad idea to put the computer in a consumable device.

The use cases seem a bit contrived. I might accept the projector one because clicking to advance through slides is something that people do, but surreptitiously using it at work by connecting it as a second input to the monitor sounds pretty far-fetched.

<comment><USER7> I had the same thought about the cables... the marketing images look like a lot of today's electronics which are full of cables (like chromecast and/or clones, etc) which look "beautiful" in paper but are choked with cables once you really want to use them.

I think it would be a better idea to have a _keyboard-box_ (PC inside a keyboard). You would have more space to work and it doesn't have to move due to its very nature.

A keyboard the size of the Apple wireless keyboard would be excellent ( [https://www.apple.com/keyboard/](https://www.apple.com/keyboard/) ).

<comment><USER8> That just brought back memories of some of the promo material that came with our Commodore 128 when I was a kid. One of the images showed a guy in a suit carrying his Commodore instead of a briefcase as he walked across some corporate campus. As a kid I thought it was so cool that someday you'd just carry your computer instead of some boring box full of papers.

Of course now we have Penny's "computer book" from Inspector Gadget so it's not quite as mindblowing as it was for 8-year-old me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am okay with the general concept(though I guess it would be a lot better to put a computer on a keyboard, or seriously, on a phone), but I think that claiming this is the future of computing is ridiculous, pretty much the only thing this seems to be good at is being able to procrastinate at work, and once people are aware that you can put a computer on a mouse, that goes away

<comment><USER10> yeah, why can't I plug my android phone into a large monitor and use it like a trackpad!

<comment><USER11> The Motorola Photon 4G had an entire Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux distro packed into the ROM image, and they sold a docking station for it that basically turned the phone into a full fledged computer when connected to an HDMI capable monitor. Its cousin, the Atrix, did the same thing using a laptop-style dock.

A company called Cybernet has been putting full computers in keyboards since at least the early 90s (think Commodore 64 but with x86 guts).

In other words, this Mouse-Box is evolutionary, not revolutionary. I like it, but I'm not blown away.

<comment><USER12> I owned one of those and I never knew that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you liked this, you might also like these other fantastic two-in-one gadgets!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hpq_spQnVM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hpq_spQnVM) (Letter Opener and Pencil Sharpener)

[http://www.designboom.com/technology/the-first-mobile- phone-...](http://www.designboom.com/technology/the-first-mobile-phone-with-a- cigarette-lighter/) (Mobile phone and Cigarette lighter)

[http://www.canon.co.uk/About_Us/Press_Centre/Press_Releases/...](http://www.canon.co.uk/About_Us/Press_Centre/Press_Releases/Consumer_News/Calculators/X_MARK_I_MOUSE.aspx) (Mouse and Calculator)

[http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/aft-icarta- st...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/aft-icarta-stereo-dock- for-ipod-and-bath-tissue-holder/) (iPod dock and Bath Tissue Holder)

<comment><USER14> Surely you have seen the combination phone/shaver/projector/voice translator/harmonica/coffee-maker

[http://www.pomegranatephone.com/](http://www.pomegranatephone.com/) (seems to be down)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e4X10hOh9o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e4X10hOh9o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everybody already carries a computer that powerful around with them continuously -- their phone. And that phone is powerful enough to run office applications, web browsers and video games.

Soon every monitor will be a docking station for both phones and laptops. A USB 3.1 type C connector will carry power, displayport and legacy USB.

The only remaining problem is software: iOS and Android aren't well suited for a keyboard+mouse+big screen interface. I bet that both Apple & Google are working on that.

Ubuntu obviously is.

<comment><USER16> Ubuntu even tried to make this concept real, but the effort did not reach its (ambitious) crowdfunding goal.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign"

Paul Graham

[http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html)

<comment><USER18> I agree with Paul, but there's a few caveats:

a) First, for something to be a "toy" it has to be fun. Putting a computer in my mouse is not fun; it's frankly rather boring.

b) It's only a good sign if you (the founder to which Paul is speaking) have a future in mind where your product scales from toy to appliance. There are fundamental problems with this product that prevent it from scaling in such a way. Display connectivity is a big one.

IMO, this whole concept is rendered obsolete by the "computer on a stick" form factor that a few big names have released. By plugging directly into the HDMI port on the display, the highest bandwidth link is physical, and peripherals connect wirelessly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just one thing I don't understand.

Ok, in the video, the dude's boss comes by and he switches his screen so his boss doesn't know his mouse is actually a PC and he's really browsing pr0n while at work.

Ok, I get that part.

But, then he goes into a meeting and connects his, seemingly innocent mouse, to the projector...

Game over dude.

How dumb is his boss?

Guess what happens the next time you are sitting at your desk playing with your... mouse?

Yeah. Not so slick now buddy are you?

<comment><USER20> If we're analyzing the video ad, it's worth mentioning the fact that people don't usually go to a coffee place with a monitor and keyboard.

<comment><USER21> also the way she walked into the coffee shop was pretty unnatural

<comment><USER22> What? That's how we all walk in Europe!

<comment><USER23> That's awesome and yet awful all at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand, they say "all you need is a screen". What about they keyboard. You need a wire, a screen, and a keyboard. This seems ridiculously impractical, i would rather carry a tablet or a laptop. Where, in normal circumstances, am I going to show up to a place that has a keyboard and a screen, but not a computer?

<comment><USER25> Work places where you'd normally dock a laptop, for example. But I'd rather carry a laptop, quite frankly. While the MouseBox would be far more portable, it would not offer anywhere near the same freedom as a laptop would, and it would be underpowered by necessity.

A further problem is that some people simply don't _like_ your average cheapo mouse, and some people prefer very light mice.

It's a weird concept.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, I'm very particular about mice. I don't really care about my keyboard, but my mouse has to be perfect. I have a Logitech Anywhere MX, and it's the best mouse I've ever had.

This mouse looks like the cheapo ones you see tech stores giving away on black Friday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cool, but its sorely lacking a _Use Cases_ part. Its like a RaspPi-class (computing power wise) PC with a mouse. Where would I use it?

Home PC? No, I want more power to play games.

Autonomous (like HTPC, IoT, etc)? I don't want a mouse.

Office? More power.

Mobility? It needs a monitor.

So what's the use case?

Edit: some additions and clarifications

<comment><USER28> This product solves a problem no one has! Fail fast and iterate fast!

Seriously, who the hell ever said, "Damn, as much as I love my iPad, the problem of an integrated touch screen and lack of mouse really annoy me! What I want is a PC and mouse without a screen!" Said no-one. Ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "An incredible combination of the two most important elements in a computer set – a computer and a mouse."

In a system, by definition (at least according to Ackoff), the value/function rises from the interaction/inter-operation of its parts/components. So, there are not 'most important' elements, all are equally required for the system to work (yes, you could use a computer w/out a mouse or a keyboard but that is a different system, like you could use a car without gas in the middle of the road as a very uncomfortable motel room).

Furthermore, the mobility argument breaks in two links:

\- To move your computer system (set) you'd need to move the kb and screen as well. How would I use the MouseBox on a plane flight? Laying on my couch? On the park? Laptop, tablet, phablet and smartphone are portable computer systems.

\- Nowadays mobility of the hardware elements of a computer system are secondary, what needs to move is data (OS, apps and files). Cloud emerges then. I can read/write email from anywhere on a different device. Paradoxically the software elements of the system are not moving per se, they live on a server, but being ubiquitous accessible they are "like" moving. This reminds me of that night ride in that car (with gas this time) and a full moon following me everywhere.

Your product is somewhat cool but IMHO it would have been much better to do the kb-trackpad-box, like this one but with a CPU: [http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Multi- Touch...](http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Keyboard-Multi-Touch- Touchpad/dp/B005DKZTMG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1421987140&sr=8-3&keywords=wireless+keyboard+and+mouse+combo;) and still it would under-perform other existing portable computing devices already mentioned b/c those come with a screen.

<comment><USER30> I'd suggest they make an entire computer that fit in the form factor of a keyboard, but theoretically we've already done that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II) ;-)

<comment><USER31> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64)

Also, more recently: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64x](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64x)

<comment><USER32> Alphasmart, [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> That's neat, but there aren't that many situations where I have access to a monitor and keyboard, but am missing a computer.

<comment><USER34> The idea is that there should be. This could be awesome for colleges... Stop buying physical machines and start having students buy their own "mice".

<comment><USER35> Awesome for the colleges, maybe, but not so much for the students onto whom they'd be pushing the cost.

<comment><USER36> > Awesome for the colleges, maybe, but not so much for the students onto whom > they'd be pushing the cost.

1\. This is a political problem, first and foremost.

2\. How much it costs depends on what the school does with its network. If it offers cloud storage as part of the tuition (to offset the cost of not having much storage on the little mice) and gives the more computationally-intensive majors access to a compute cluster for the price of tuition (same reason), it could be a nice little setup.

Students would always have most of their files on them all the time, the school could buy more keyboard-laptop pairs than it buys actual computers to reduce the pressure on the public labs, and the mice could be fairly cheap if bought in bulk and resold. (OK, I know, but in theory.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is hilarious and incredibly impractical. Unless the mouse part itself is stellar, there's almost no way this could supplant using a real computer/mouse - using a bad mouse makes using a computer awful IMO, and the likelihood of the actual mouse being very good is incredibly slim (not to mention how heavy it'll land up being)

<comment><USER38> To be fair on the heaviness point though, people add weight to their mice for wireless ones in the form of batteries, and for gaming ones actual literal weights. The raspberry pi is only 45 grams, so it is at least conceivable that this mouse will be a suitable _weight_. I do however totally agree that a first-time mouse making company probably won't do a great job of making a mouse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Cool. How much is it?

I'd totally get one if it was in my "fun but wasteful" price range. So for example something like a Raspberry Pi is an easy purchase, as is something like Intel's Compute Stick at $89. Really under $100 and it is an easy buy just for fun and because it is different/unique.

However I don't see a price and an order page, so I don't think this "Mouse Box" exists yet. I guess they're just testing the waters? For me price is a key part of this product's success.

It might have legitimate uses, like presentations, but realistically it is a novelty and people have a budget for novelty gadgets. So if they can hit the sub-$100 price point and appear on sites like ThinkGeek as something to show off to your friends/colleagues, they'll do pretty well.

If it is like $200-300 then frankly I can just plug my smartphone into HDMI and use a bluetooth mouse which costs under $30 for the same effect.

<comment><USER40> It appears to have 128 GB internal storage, which I believe would easily bump it over the $100 range.

I think the real limitation is not the price, however, but rather the operating system. Since its ARM based, it would probably have some sort of Debian distro installed as opposed to a more mainstream OS (Windows etc). I wonder if we'll see a revision with an x86 Atom processor or something in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is great. Being able to so easily take your whole computer with you is amazing.

I am a bit more into touch screens these days.

I would like to use a small SoC computer, something like the Mouse Box or one of the few existing fully capable Android smart watches, and plug it into a touch screen display.

Basically instead of a full tablet I want just a dumb display/touch input module that can easily interface with a separate small SoC computer.

A bit perhaps like project Ara but I don't want to use it just a phone and I am more focused on carrying the core around and plugging in different displays.

I guess I could get a Chromecast or something and plug my smart watch/small SoC HDMI into the cheapest tablet available and that would achieve basically the same thing, but it is a waste because I wouldn't be using the other parts of the tablet aside from the display and touch.

<comment><USER42> you want this

[http://www.amazon.com/Craig-Smart-Adapter-Mouse- CVD601/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Craig-Smart-Adapter-Mouse- CVD601/dp/B00BMLQPG4)

?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think it's a pretty cool idea.

Where I work, they supply flexible work locations with desks and cubes all configured with monitor, network/wi-fi, keyboard, mouse and Dell standard dock. I could see some enterprises like mine going for something like this. Except now they don't have to supply the dock, mouse or computer. If it has RDP support they could even supply corporately managed Windows desktops for people to remote into.

Day 1: Welcome to Synergydyne Corp. Here's your equipment.

 _hands new employee one of these_

Find an empty seat and get to work!

</comment><comment><USER44> My smartphone is more powerful than PCs several years ago and only slightly larger than a standard computer mouse, with the majority of its internal volume being the battery, so I'm not surprised this could be done.

It's not like the idea of putting the majority of the computing power in one of the peripherals is new either - many early home computers like the C64 and ZX did this with the keyboard, and early game "consoles" appeared with most of their circuitry located in the controller.

</comment><comment><USER45> I just want a computer stick form factor like the Chromecast. Maybe a couple of USB 3.1 reversible mini-connectors on it. Ideally I want to be able to choose my Bluetooth keyboards, mice, trackballs, microphone, some future version of the Leap Motion, a Myo, a Wacom tablet, etc.

</comment><comment><USER46> What OS does this run? Linux or Android? I guess you could put either of those on it, maybe also Windows RT for ARM.

I would perhaps consider this for a work desktop or a presentation box. Would be great for meeting rooms!

<comment><USER42> it doesnt run any os, it doesnt exist yet, its all renders and a cute marketing video.

<comment><USER22> Although on all the videos it's Ubuntu, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd end up with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r Could you imagine using this with all 3 connectors wired at the same time? I thought the trend was for wireless.

</comment><comment><USER47> my dad has been telling me he wanted a computer with a built-in projector and laser keyboard for at least 5 years, and I agreed. the challenge seems to be fitting all those things into one reasonably small space and it takes time for Moore's law to get us there...

</comment><comment><USER34> How much does this thing weigh? How heavy is an hdmi cord vs. usb?

</comment><comment><USER48> I love this idea and want one!

</comment><comment><USER42> Extremely stupid dick in a box idea :/. What exactly is the point of putting $40 Android hdmi stick in a mouse when you could use that stick and wireless mouse separately? Maybe its for people that love cables?

Its one of those 'Im hip young and talented with big ideas, lets get money first and think how to do it later', or rather 'lets get some cheap shit from china, repackage it and make tons of money'. Reminds me of Soap router (lets put android tablet in the router). Soap scam got >$300K combined out of crowd funding suckers, and delivered ... new car to founder and money to cover bankruptcy filled _between_ two campaigns.

[http://www.cepro.com/article/both_owners_of_indiegogo- funded...](http://www.cepro.com/article/both_owners_of_indiegogo- funded_soap_filed_for_bankruptcy_recently/K5)

This is this big computing revolution in a nutshell:

[http://www.amazon.com/Craig-Smart-Adapter-Mouse- CVD601/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Craig-Smart-Adapter-Mouse- CVD601/dp/B00BMLQPG4)

<comment><USER46> Mmmm haterade got electrolytes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Won't this become hot as fuck in my hand?

edit: I can see this being a fun vertical mouse RasPi project. But this?

<comment><USER50> Does your cellphone? Mine gets warm but never 'hot' at least to my touch.</comment></comment>


Wife Said No, Apple Said Yes - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2011/03/18/ipad-2-wife-says-no-but-apple-says-yes/ <comment><USER2> I actually had a similar interaction with Apple on a smaller scale. I had just ordered a magic mouse for my sister's fiancee for Christmas. I talked to my sister after purchasing it online and she told me that they were in an Apple store the day before and he had mentioned that he wanted a magic pad.

Shit.

So I called up Apple asking if I could return the magic mouse that I ordered online for the trackpad in a store because there wouldn't be enough time with Christmas fast approaching. The customer support guy put me on hold for a minute and then told me that in light of the Holiday Spirit they would send out a trackpad with express shipping free of charge. I could return the magic mouse if I wanted or keep both.

Fed Ex ended up dropping the ball on the express shipping, but still Apple stepped up and made my day! I ended up giving him the magic mouse for Christmas and then the trackpad a month later for his birthday.

<comment><USER3> Apple's service is, bar none, the best I've ever received from any technology company.

A couple of years ago my MacBook Pro was conking out - graphics tearing probably caused by bad VRAM.

I called them up, and having had a DVD drive and a latch fixed in the past, they informed me (voluntarily! without me asking for it!) that given the number of repairs done on this machine they'll just send me a new one instead of going through another round of repairs. This is also with ~2 minutes on hold, and talking directly to a human instead of navigating the touch-tone gauntlet.

They sent me a return shipment label to start the process - I told them that I really can't be without a machine for a whole week while they sent out the replacement. They didn't argue or be difficult, they just decided right then to ship me my new machine and I can ship back my old one at my leisure.

Did I mention I got a unibody MacBook Pro out of the deal despite being 2-3 generations out of date at that point? They replaced the MBP with the latest and greatest instead of sticking me with an old-gen refurb as is standard for hardware replacements.

That singular experience has made me an Apple laptop customer ever since.

The best part? My roommate at the time was dealing with a conked out Dell laptop, so were on the phone with our respective support lines simultaneously. Between dialing the number and finalizing the shipment details of the new laptop I took about 25 minutes end to end. He spent the next 7 hours arguing with Dell. On the other hand, after those 7 hours of pure customer service pain, they sent someone out that fixed the machine same-day... so his resolution was faster, but considerably more painful.

<comment><USER4> Amazon gave me great service when they had to do a warranty replacement for my Kindle. It took 2 minutes at 2:30am to convince the guy to send me the replacement. My wife being from Canada didn't believe such customer service even existed, but back in the UK I bought everything through Amazon and they were always great.

I did find out in the process that FedEx is as incompetent piece of shit as it was in the UK. The delivery guy left the package in the hallway to my apartment building and obviously forged the signature required as it was an international expedited and insured delivery.

<comment><USER5> Amazon is great for that, when I got my Kindle I was perhaps a bit too rough with it. It was the week after I had gotten it as a birthday present and I didn't have a case yet but I wanted to bring it with me for a train trip. I threw it in a bag with books, keys and other loose materials and the next time I tried to turn it on, the screen was completely broken.

I called up Amazon support and explained the situation to them, being completely honest about how rough I was with it. I was pretty confident they'd just say it was my fault and make me pay for repairs but instead they simply got my Amazon account details off me and sent a new one right away. I mailed the broken one off a few days later and didn't have to wait too long for the replacement despite being in Australia.

Great customer service.

<comment><USER6> This is to be predicted, as if you don't have a working Kindle you are not going to buy e-books for it, where they make most of their money on that product line. Companies that have high margins ("the Apple tax") or secondary markets (Amazon, and again Apple with iTunes) have good support because they a) can afford to have it and b) can't afford _not_ to have it: a lost customer is a loss of thousands of dollars of future profits; for most companies you can talk about thousands of dollars of _revenue_ , but the actual _profit_ to be lost from an ex-customer are so low as to make even hiring support staff untenable (most hardware companies), and when they are required the staff are often gulags with very very strict service/refund quotas (telecom companies).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now if he was smart, he would buy her a new pair of shoes, dress, new tie and shirt for himself and take her out with the money saved. That's what I call a good week.

<comment><USER8> What is it about hacker culture that places women on a pedestal and encourages fawning, obsequious devotion and sacrifice to them? Relationships should not be about master/slave dynamics, yet geeks seem to relish this dynamic more than I've seen in any other subculture.

The man in this article has already castrated himself for his wife; this +15 comment suggests that unquestioningly bending to the indomitable will of his wife was not enough?

What's next? Recommending cuckoldry as a solution to satisfying his wife's sexual needs?

<comment><USER9> > The man in this article has already castrated himself for his wife... What's > next? Recommending cuckoldry as a solution to satisfying his wife's sexual > needs?

 _Wow._

Um.

 _Daaaaamn._

Unresolved issues much?

Without knowing the couple in question, I could see any number of potential explanations that indicate a co-equal relationship. Let's enumerate some:

\- Trying to cut back on expenses and reduce debt, need to watch out for each other's impulsive spending

\- Saving for big vacation, remember?

\- Return it you oaf! (Your birthday is in a month and I already ordered you the best one)

\- Hey, uh, just lost my job. Sure we want to keep it? That $600 is a lot of bills

When you're sharing your life with someone else, finance is a team sport.

<comment><USER10> "${Partner} said no" is also more acceptable then "Decided I shouldn't have bought it, don't judge me".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My wife is buying my iPad (late Christmas gift) and she's encouraging me to junk my old XPS laptop for a new Mac Book Pro. I think I've got a keeper!

<comment><USER12> nope, you've just got an expensive one. that's standard issue. =)

<comment><USER13> Why was this upvoted over 90 times? This and its siblings are all pretty sexist comments.

<comment><USER14> Disclaimer: I love women. As a heterosexual male, I don't have much choice!

While these comments _are_ sexist, that doesn't necessarily make them incorrect.

<comment><USER15> The implication in those decrying the 'wives are expensive' comment is that they do not believe spouses in general are expensive. Anecdotally, I find that very hard to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there any reason to believe that this actually happened and isn't just an Apple employee feeding PR fluff to MacRumors? It's essentially unverifiable.

<comment><USER17> Agreed, there is no source link. There is 1 link to the "story" on macrumors and another to the forum discussion.

<comment><USER18> well, not having an external source link simply means this is the source. Whether or not you believe it or not is a separate issue.

disclaimer: I wrote the article, and I believe it likely to be true, but can't verify it for certain, unless the Apple VPs or guy who-got-iPad steps forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great customer service is some of the best advertising money can buy. It's something that's been known for years, but hasn't made its way into corporate culture for a long time. Kudos apple/newegg/amazon/all the other startups out there/etc who've been successful with these principles.

<comment><USER20> Clearly Zappos' famously awesome customer service isn't good or memorable enough to make the off-the-top-of-your-head list there. Interesting!

(They always keep saying "Whoa, Nellie! We upgraded you to express shipping free!" on my orders -- it was a delightful surprise the first time, but now I suspect it's standard..)

<comment><USER19> Only because I've never used (and only vaguely heard of) zappos. I'll give it a try, I need some new clothes anyway. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wife said "Sell it on eBay so we can pay our bills."

</comment><comment><USER22> The day after that the iPad comes back with a note on it: "Wife is a Linux kernel hacker and fully paid up member of the FSF."

<comment><USER23> Then why doesn't she attempt to hack it and install a different OS? It was given at Apple's expense.

<comment><USER22> Because the iPad doesn't have a real fucking keyboard[1], or a port to add one.

[1] - <http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/05/30/bye-apple>

<comment><USER24> Sure it does: [http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/04/24/ipad.has.nativ...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/04/24/ipad.has.native.usb.support.for.many.devices/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would love to have been in the room, when the execs heard about it and decided on the note, or to see the face of the guy when he received the iPad again.

Either way, great PR move Apple.

</comment><comment><USER26> Good to hear Apple is still going the extra mile.

There are lots of stories of people going into an Apple store with a product broken after it's warranty and still walking out the door with a brand new replacement.

You just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in the computer hardware business).

<comment><USER6> _You just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in the computer hardware business)._

...because most hardware companies are trying to compete for "price conscious customers" as commodity products, and therefore don't have any margin to spend on support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sounds like an urban legend to me, a la "Send standard 'we have no cockroaches' letter" or the "$400 red velvet cake recipe".

</comment><comment><USER28> People are actually returning their iPad 2s for reasons other than production defects? (If there were defects I am sure the blogs would be abuzz about it by now.) I know this one was Wife defect but the story says Apple is looking to see if there are any production defects.

I am pondering getting one and couldn't find one anywhere. To the people returning for refund of same amount - come over on eBay ;)

<comment><USER29> I have a Verizon model, which I'll be returning. It was the only one I could find. I ordered an AT&T model online at 6am EST on March 11. It's still in Hong Kong.

I can return this model up til this coming Saturday and get a free refund.

iPads have had huge problems with mass organized scalping, particularly here in New York. For many, it's their job to camp out all night and buy 2 iPads, fronted by a guy carrying a wad of $50k+ cash for a bunch of people in the line.

The scalpers want AT&T models first and foremost (the GSM 3G is internationally usable) and then Wifi-only. They aren't interested in Verizon, which I guess explains whY I found out.

I've considered eBaying it but I don't think Verizon models are as in high demand as the other two. Probably more hassle than it's worth.

<comment><USER30> It was so necessary to have an iPad 2 RIGHT NOW that you had to go run out and buy a model you didn't even want?

<comment><USER31> Interesting. I didn't even question this part :). 80% of people here make money off of software. If I was being funded by an iPad app it definitely would be _that_ important.

<comment><USER10> See, that's the first thing that occurred to me. Why can't you use an emulator OR an older iPad for development for a couple of weeks?

<comment><USER32> Emulators aren't 100%, I had a problem with an app that worked perfectly on the simulator, and crashed on the device. Also, if you are doing something with the new features, like the cameras, you will need a new device.

<comment><USER33> Also of note: there is no iPhone/iPad emulator, only a _simulator_. There's huge differences in performance, in addition to some rare bugs that only manifest themselves on either the simulator or the device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is very simple and very smart. It just "feels" like an Apple thing to do.

<comment><USER35> Apple is like the Old Testament God: on some days bestowing blessings, on other days razing the land.

<comment><USER36> As long as you worship no Androids above Apple, you should be OK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Does anyone know if Apple has any sort of employee empowerment policy?

At start-ups, it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) take much for the decision makers to hear from customers and respond in a way that "wow"s them, but I'd be curious to know what processes or mechanisms specifically a large company like Apple has in place to catch these kinds of opportunities.

<comment><USER38> The guys who did that are VPs, according to the article:

 _"It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it."_

<comment><USER37> Right, but I'm wondering HOW they found out about it. Was is just dumb luck that a particular go-getter found out about it and passed it up or do they have some kind of "pass interesting things up" policy and actively encourage it? It obviously wasn't the Veeps that were receiving the the returned iPad.

<comment><USER39> I actually can see it traveling pretty fast. District Manager calls Store Manager to find out how things are going. Store Manager does a "You gotta hear this return reason...". Or, the someone at the store calls corporate to find out what to code this return as. Never underestimate the number of stories that start "This guy gave returned it because....".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Supposing that it is true, Apple has paid a very small amount of money and received a (comparatively) very large amount of advertising. Why, they've been well placed on HN for quite a while now, for one thing.

</comment><comment><USER41> The post is obviously meant to be funny even if it's true. There is really no reason to overanalyze it...

</comment><comment><USER42> Disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER43> Dtb

</comment><comment><USER44> It's funny that there are people on this forum that believe husbands actually make decisions. A great quote from some random sitcom - "Marriage is all about compromise. My wife wanted a cat, I didn't want a cat, so we compromised and got a cat."

</comment><comment><USER45> sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become....

<comment><USER46> I hate to be "that guy" but from the guidelines:

"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"

If you don't think the article is noteworthy, flag it. It's really as simple as that.

<comment><USER47> That's a great policy. Ironically, I wish reddit had this in their reddiquette.</comment></comment></comment>


Vim Plug – A minimalist Vim plugin manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug/ <comment><USER2> See also pathogen [1] and vundle [2].

[1] [https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen](https://github.com/tpope/vim- pathogen)

[2] [https://github.com/gmarik/Vundle.vim](https://github.com/gmarik/Vundle.vim)

<comment><USER3> Yeah - why should a user switch over from Pathogen or Vundle? I'm not trying to be a jerk -- just suggesting that that explanation is probably worth giving.

<comment><USER4> The most obvious benefit I believe is its ability to update plugins in parallel. A GIF [1] shows that it managed to update 40 plugins in mere 4 seconds. The other notable point is that it allows you to load plugins on demand, which helps reducing the startup time greatly [2] if you happened to use many number of plugins. It also provides some other nice features that pathogen or vundle do not have while still being easy to use.

[1]: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/i/master/vim- plug...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/i/master/vim- plug/40-in-4.gif)

[2]: [http://junegunn.kr/images/vim-startup- time.png](http://junegunn.kr/images/vim-startup-time.png)

<comment><USER5> You can do that with pathogen very easily. See my vimfiles repo: [https://stealthis.ca/vimfiles.git/tree/bin/update](https://stealthis.ca/vimfiles.git/tree/bin/update)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is the use case for a Vim script manager? I've never understood what this offers over including a full .vim in your version-controlled dotfiles. With a script manager, you have to worry about repositories disappearing, Github being down, and also breaking changes (unless you want to track a SHA on each one).

With a simple .vim, your Vim configuration is a living, breathing thing, and you can easily modify any script you're using the moment you find a bug in it that interrupts your work: You own your vimfiles. When you manually upgrade a script, it's trivial to roll back to the last version that worked. I guess dotfiles are the last place I want to introduce needless indirection: They should represent my work environment at a point in time, precisely.

I can only see two benefits: The ability to try out new plugins quickly, and the ability to upgrade all of your plugins at once quickly. Are these worth sacrificing control over your editor config? This has puzzled me since the day tpope released Pathogen to much fanfare.

<comment><USER7> I did the whole single .vim in git before switching to a script manager and I consider it a huge improvement.

\- It's easier to install a new plugin, no more unzipping and copying files manually.

\- The files from different plugins don't get mixed up together anymore

\- which mean is also easier to remove one

\- and also no file name conflict.

\- If I have a bug somewhere it's easier to disable each plugins temporarily to find which one cause it.

\- Easier to update a plugin

\- My modification to my .vim don't get mixed up with the upstream updates from the plugins. If I want to modify a plugin I just fork it (and try to have my modification merged)

\- In fact I don't really have a .vim anymore, I put everything in my .vimrc which is a nicer to read centralized location. If some part become too big I just refactor it in a separate module that I install with the manager.

<comment><USER8> I don't get the benefits of a vim script manager vs using your distribution's package manager, which seems to cover most (it not all) of the above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is anything but minimalist.

Why do I need a slower plugin manager that requires editing .vimrc to enable/disable plugins, when a couple of simple shell commands is faster and less error prone?

      vimenable() { mv $VIM_DISABLED/$1 $VIM_BUNDLE }
      vimdisable() { mv $VIM_BUNDLE/$1 $VIM_DISABLED }
      vimupdate() { for p in $VIM_BUNDLE/*; do (cd $p; git pull); done }

The dependent plugin support is interesting but until all the plugins include a standard dependency spec, I have to do it manually anyway.

<comment><USER10> It's a single file. It works with or without the ruby-dependent parallel plugin installations and upgrades. It allows for plugins to be loaded only when they're needed (e.g. only for JS files). That's minimalist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is exactly what I've been looking for in a Vim plugin manager.

1\. Loading plugins as needed! I've been doing this manually in my Vim config, but this makes it way easier. 2\. Custom dir names for plugins! I think I opened up an issue on Vundle a few years ago asking for this (I think) but this has it out of the box. 3\. Install hooks! I can't even describe how happy this makes me.

I'll probably install this next time I'm at my Linux box.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just tested this, the parallel updates and installs are fantastic, however, I have "YouCompleteMe" as a plugin, and it consistently fails to install, and when it tries it seriously lags out. Vim will freeze for 4 or so minutes, and it fails with an error "fatal: destination path '~/.vim/plugged/YouCompleteMe' already exists and is not an empty directory"

Something strange there. Trying to resolve it, I don't doubt that there is maybe something I neglected to do, but that's not a black mark on me, vundle has no trouble with this, and doesn't complicate it either.

So cool project, young project, if I can resolve the issue I'll definitely be using it.

edit: Wait a minute, miiiight just be YouCompleteMe.

Doing more testing!

edit2: noooope, vim-plug installed YouCompleteMe in such a way as to mess up the repository. Manual installations work fine.

<comment><USER4> As I answered in the issue [1] the problem is likely caused by the task timeout. Maybe vim-plug should delete the repo directory if timeout occurs during the installation. A workaround at the moment is to increase `g:plug_timeout` so that it never times out.

[1]: [https://github.com/junegunn/vim- plug/issues/75#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/junegunn/vim- plug/issues/75#issuecomment-55513671)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm always curious about vim but hardly use it beyond git commit messages and modifying files on a server. I'd be interested in getting better, but have an easier time setting up Sublime (and don't really have the time during the week to experiment).

I checked out vim plug and it seems really great, but is there a vim package manager that works similar to the package manager you can get in sublime? One that searches through available packages and allows you to install them that way?

<comment><USER14> > similar to the package manager you can get in sublime? One that searches > through available packages

VAM[1] tries to. That is the only one I am aware of. But the list is managed manually, which in my opinion is always a bad idea.

I think the best hope for a MELPA-like vim plugin source is to use the vimawesome[2] API, but I'm not aware of any plugin manager that does so yet. vimawesome scrapes various sources and looks at publicly-available .vimrc files. This is a _technical_ solution rather than a "human vigilance" solution. People want to post their vimrcs, so take advantage of that rather than trying to curate a massive list. Passive/organic is usually better than active/centralized[3].

[1] [https://github.com/MarcWeber/vim-addon- manager](https://github.com/MarcWeber/vim-addon-manager)

[2] [http://vimawesome.com](http://vimawesome.com)

[3] I know some people still have a soft spot for Yahoo directory, but whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why not NeoBundle? It's easy to use, has lazy-plugin-loading, and everything you could ever want that Pathogen/vundle doesn't have.

[https://github.com/Shougo/neobundle.vim](https://github.com/Shougo/neobundle.vim)

You might say it's not sufficiently minimalistic, but the parent really isn't either and I'd say the lazy-loading implementation has to be a point in the favour of minimalism for NeoBundle

<comment><USER4> FYI, vim-plug also supports lazy-loading and the interface is pretty simple and concise [1].

NeoBundle obviously has more features, most notably supporting VCS' other than git, while vim-plug tries to be simpler and easier to setup and use (being a single file, no boilerplate code [2]). So they have different perspectives and I wouldn't argue that one is better than the other. It really depends on personal tastes.

[1]: [https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#on-demand-loading-of- pl...](https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#on-demand-loading-of-plugins)

[2]: [https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#example-a-small- sensibl...](https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#example-a-small-sensible-vim- configuration)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How does all these plugin managers deal with plugins which require _manual tasks_ to be performed during installation, like CommanT's and YCM's compillation?

Also, is there any way to create different sets of plugins for different install types and environments? I would like to have a "light" install, with only necessary stuff, and a "full" install with that plus everything else.

</comment><comment><USER10> I switched to vim-plug from Vundle a couple of weeks ago, and I'm in love. Lazy initialization and, if your vim is built with ruby, threaded plugin installations and upgrades. As a bonus, it's beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER2> pyed, you are hellbanned.

<comment><USER17> Isn't telling people that they're hellbanned against the whole point of hellbanning?

<comment><USER12> HN uses the tool indiscriminately without any form of communication, on the assumption that everyone who would dare violate a HN conduct rule simply can not be reasoned with.

There are some people who really can't be reasoned with, but it's not everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> looking good</comment>


The algorithm police is coming. Will it have teeth? - <AUTHOR> https://algorithmwatch.org/en/story/algorithm-police/ <comment><USER2> Why do I have a feeling that the way these laws will work will be to add some "academicaly derived, politcaly approved" bias to certain machine learning models to push the results in the "correct" direction?

<comment><USER3> That's an unnecessarily cyncial and contrarian view. It's 2020, regulating software and data is a thing (copyright, HIPAA, GDPR, etc). It's about time we get on to regulating software design. We wouldn't regulate drivers and not regulate car manufacturers.

<comment><USER4> And yet, we also wouldn't demand car manufacturers change how they build a car because races, sexes, or genders differentially purchase, say, lexuses vs hondas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While there's not much meat to the article, the topic of whether and how to police algorithmic decision-making is an interesting one.

On the one hand, biased resource allocation can be insidious and giving a free pass to any discrimination that's implemented within a black box labeled "algorithm" seems foolish.

On the other hand, none of the alternatives I see:

* banning a predefined list of analytical practices, * outlawing a list of input types that may be used, * second-guessing the quality of not-transparently-unjust logic to assign negligence, or * defining a "fair" outcome that's not to be deviated from

seem both administrable and sufficient, especially as the stakes go up and complexity necessary to improve decision outcomes becomes more complex (turn left-right-straight given a LIDAR image, predict likelihood to reject an organ given patient history and donor/patient DNA profiles).</comment>


San Diego Airbnb host accuses group of Marines of trashing her home - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/san-diego-airbnb-host-accuses-group-of-marines-of-trashing-her-home/509-4a3ff9d5-978a-4f55-977e-b45fe25a0946 <comment><USER2>
      the company said they would not cover the damage done to her neighbor's home

... which leaves the neighbor no alternative but to sue that _host_ (and her insurer). Stay classy, AirBnB.</comment>


AMD to Launch New Ryzen 3000 XT CPUs: Zen 2 with More MHz - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/15854/amd-ryzen-3000-xt-cpus-zen-2-more-mhz <comment><USER2> So, theres basically 3/4 bins of Zen 2 dies, each subdivided into 6 and 8 core variants.

At the very top, you have the Epyc/TR/3950x dies. This _may_ be actually two bins, with the absolute highest end Epycs getting the top 1% of dies.

Next you have A grade dies, that go into the 3800x and the 3600x, and the first die of the 3900x. After that, B grade dies, that go into the 3700x and 3600, and the second die of the 3900x.

The 3950x is the weird one because it _doesn 't_ use two A dies (the 3900x uses an A+B)... it uses two Epyc/TR grade dies.

Those new XTs? Seem to be miniature 3950xes: 6+6, 8, and 6 Epyc/TR grade dies. Everyone who wanted a 3950x, but didn't want/need 16 cores? Here you go.

Although, honestly, unless you _need_ a computer today, and as much as I love Zen 2, wait for Zen 3 as long as you can. Zen 3 uses 8 core CCXes, which eliminates the semi-NUMA split L3 latency issue.

That issue is incredibly mild, it isn't the cluster fuck that it was on Zen/Zen+, but it's enough that some especially badly optimized software (older games, mostly) is about as fast on a 3300x (single CCX quad core) as it is on the 3600 (dual 3 core CCxes), purely because of the ignorance of mem/cache locality.

That said, for a dumb desktop and PS4/XBOne-era gaming performance, the 3300X on a MSI B450 Max /w 16GB DDR4-3600 CL18 has exceptional value; just toss in a 1660 Super, and its a 1080p 60-120hz gaming king.

<comment><USER3> Is it actually worth it to wait for Zen 3? I've been doing research and have conflicting information

<comment><USER4> There is a motherboard shortage at the moment for Zen 2 CPUs so I would personally wait until at least that clears up.

<comment><USER5> There's a general shortage. I just built a workstation using a Ryzen 9 3900x and it was very hard to find a compatible, sanely priced, current design and with a good enough spec. I was doing research first and then trying to buy the motherboard but they would be out of stock. Had to change model 3 times before wising up and just going through available inventory and then research.

Then the board wouldn't POST :/ having a concrete issue to google for then surfaced tons of threads discussing the same or similar issues that hadn't come up when I was doing research before buying. It took me a few days to finally be able to make it boot- it was probably an acculturation of small silly things like the board being picky about which cable/slot you plug in the monitor, removing and installing again RAM even tho it was seemingly well placed before, etc.

BUT! I have now a nice beast running Pop_OS and I couldn't be happier. I hadn't had this feeling of noticing a performance gain in years of upgrading from MacBook to MacBook. I'm giggling of excitement just from thinking about working on that thing :)

<comment><USER6> What WiFi do you use with pop? I have a few USB ones I couldn't get to work

<comment><USER5> The motherboard has WiFi/Bluetooth built in. Didn't have to install any drivers, all hardware was working once I was able to boot

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _" The new 3000XT family of processors focuses mostly on boosting the turbo > frequency by 100-200 MHz for the same power."_

Except they've only done this for the high power 95W/105W models, not the 65W 3700X I actually care about, so "for the same power" isn't very exciting.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's exciting to see AMD challenge Intel in single core speed as well. For most folks, number of cores are far more important, but there are still plenty of applications that benefit tremendously from fast single core speed. Will these speed increases affect the server lines as well?

</comment><comment><USER9> So now there are new slightly faster processors for three Ryzen 3000 processors, two of them were always a bad deal so far and that won't change with a few MHz more. A "faster" 3900X is nice of course, the 3900X was already nice, but without the cooler this is effectively a big price increase for virtually no gain. All while making AMDs sku lineup more confusing. What an unnecessary release.

I hope that benchmarks prove me wrong here, but I doubt it.

<comment><USER10> You do not want to ever use the stock cooler on the 3900X, it does work but at the cost of high fan RPM cool it and you'll want to stab your ears out from the fans ramping up and down cyclically every 15 seconds from the aggressive PBO bumps that translate to immediate temperature spikes and CPU fan ramp ups. You want some of the larger heatsinks available like the Dark Rock Pro which can suck up the heat without needing to spin up fans.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, while AMD's stock coolers reviewed well on other CPUs, I went a few weeks with the wraith prism on a 3900x then decided it had to go.

Though if these are the same more efficient chiplet bins as the 3950x, maybe the prism would make more sense on a 3900xt. Given they're not including it though, I guess AMD didn't think so

<comment><USER12> Same. The stock fan on the 3900x was a bit noisy - spinning up and down all the time. Replaced it with a closed loop water cooler after a couple weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They'd already done this kind of things with the 'premium' epyc7371, a 7351 (16c 2.4GHz beating Xeon Gold 6130 for my workloads...) pushed at 3.xGHz? 13-18% perf increase on my workloads. More expensive but if you need the low- latency / high ipc (but no AVX512, well...) these AMD processors are beasts. Still love the 7551 too, for the price... And those were only Zen cores... Can't imagine Zen2/Zen3.

</comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know about motherboards? I was going to build a new AMD PC and nearly everything was out of stock. I look now, and I see just 7 <$200.

[https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007625%208000%204131%204814...](https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007625%208000%204131%204814%20601292786&ActiveSearchResult=True&LeftPriceRange=0%20200)

<comment><USER15> Yeah there's a shortage. They end the production run just before Chinese New Year and spin up a new one after. But then covid hit. And many people upgraded their gaming PCs during the lockdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Only worth it if there's a stock 2000Mhz FCLK imo, all other improvements are marginal.</comment>


Meet Springboard, a new kind of start-up incubator [UK centric] - <AUTHOR> http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/13/meet-springboard-a-new-kind-of-start-up-incubator/

<comment><USER2> Springboard page: <http://springboard.red-gate.com/>

And just to clarify the TC article: Red Gate are looking for _multiple teams_ of two to three people, not just one group.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do they get out of it?

<comment><USER4> \-- Early access to potential complementary products (and the teams that built them).

\-- Building an ecosystem (in a city with a lot of potential, both people talent and experienced angels/VCs)

But I know the guys involved, so I'm a little biased. They're awesome and have the absolute best of intentions.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, it was unclear from the website and the article. No free lunch and all that, so when I see something like "What do we want in return? NOTHING!", I get a little suspicious.

<comment><USER5> They can scout out potential recruits, and obtain ideas on how to improve their products. It's an HR and R&D cost.

-edit: also it's good advertising in just having the program, and as gratitude, people part of the program could advocate Redgate's products down the line (it's PR)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WhatsApp Encryption Security Flaws Could Allow Snoops to Slide into Group Chats - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-security-flaws-encryption-group-chats/ <comment><USER2> Here's how WhatsApp group messaging works: membership is maintained by the server. Clients of a group retrieve membership from the server, and clients encrypt all messages they send e2e to all group members.

If someone hacks the WhatsApp server, they can obviously alter the group membership. If they add themselves to the group:

1\. The attacker will not see any past messages to the group; those were e2e encrypted with keys the attacker doesn't have.

2\. All group members will see that the attacker has joined. There is no way to suppress this message.

Given the alternatives, I think that's a pretty reasonable design decision, and I think this headline pretty substantially mischaracterizes the situation. I think it would be better if the server didn't have metadata visibility into group membership, but that's a largely unsolved problem, and it's unrelated to confidentiality of group messages.

In contrast, Telegram does _no encryption at all_ for group messages, even though it advertises itself as an encrypted messenger, and even though Telegram users think that group chats are somehow secure. An attacker who compromises the Telegram server can, undetected, recover every message that was sent in the _past_ and receive all messages transmitted in the _future_ without anyone receiving any notification at all.

There's no way to publish an academic paper about that, though, because there's no "attack" to describe, because there's no encryption to begin with. Without a paper there will be no talks at conferences, which means there will be no inflammatory headlines like this one.

To me, this article reads as a better example of the problems with the security industry and the way security research is done today, because I think the lesson to anyone watching is clear: don't build security into your products, because that makes you a target for researchers, even if you make the right decisions, and regardless of whether their research is practically important or not. It's much more effective to be Telegram: just leave cryptography out of everything, except for your marketing.

<comment><USER3> > I think it would be better if the server didn't have metadata visibility > into group membership, but that's a largely unsolved problem, and it's > unrelated to confidentiality of group messages.

Nitpick: Signal solves this problem just fine¹, by treating messages to a group as simple pairwise messages, encrypted similarly to pairwise messages, and sent separately to each member of the group. Group management is all done through these e2e-encrypted messages.

¹Signal also has a group messaging bug in that the app doesn't check that someone is a member of a group before accepting their group management commands, but that is trivial to fix.

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing that moxie has a pretty good idea of how Signal works...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even if this is true, don't forget that in WhatsApp you don't get the message history when you join a group. Plus, everybody sees that someone joined. That doesn't take the problem away, but it makes the impact much smaller than it sounds.

<comment><USER6> "everybody sees that someone joined" i can see that xxx has joined. Is the message coming from server or client? If it is from the server, then the attacker could block that message right?

<comment><USER7> I have looked at such implementations but don't know you about whatsapp specifically: you will see the notification no matter what. This makes this attack not really an attack. Sure the servers can modify the participant list but everyone will see it and everyone will choose to write to the new group chat willingly.

When someone joins/leaves the group every participant generates and distribute a new key. So as a rogue participant, the keys you'll receive won't allow you to decrypt past messages.

PS: this article was posted before the speaker was even done with his talk. This is funny?

<comment><USER8> I don't see how you're arguing that this isn't an attack.

However, it's clear that the severity will depend on the particular group. A group of three friends will certainly notice when someone is added to the membership. A larger group of people who don't know each other personally but trust the administrator to administer membership will have to rely on the admin both noticing and taking action, and he may be hampered in doing so by the attacker.

<comment><USER7> It's just a UX failure more than an attack imo. If you're paranoid you will for sure see that someone has been added to the group. If you don't care well...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > They say that anyone who controls WhatsApp's servers could effortlessly > insert new people into an otherwise private group, even without the > permission of the administrator who ostensibly controls access to that > conversation.

Given that WhatsApp isn't open source and so on, controling the WhatsApp server, or controling some part of its code, or controling the signing keys, all can compromise the privacy and encryption.

This study shouldn't cause much surprise.

<comment><USER10> You can inspect the WhatsApp binary and prevent updates. Having to trust the server is a big deal.

<comment><USER11> And that's indeed the point of end-to-end encryption: that you don't have to trust the server.

<comment><USER12> You still trust the server, unless the encryption is done with code that wasn't delivered from the server. E2E prevents your content from being stolen in a data breach or from being accessed if the server was fine when you sent a message but compromised later.

<comment><USER11> Good point. The (variously named) security code should allow you to withdraw even that trust (assuming you verify the security code and the binary on your client...), right. Or does it? If the server knows the secret, it can invisibly MITM you, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So the problem is WhatsApp servers can add people to groups? I don't want to be a cynic but aren't groups per se stored on a centralised server? Or the definition of a group at least. So this isn't much of a surprise?

<comment><USER8> No. Cynic or not, I'm unsure why you're assuming the entire research results made no sense!

The administrator of a group should sign the "add member" messages, and group members should only believe that a member has joined if they have such a signed message authorizing the member. You are correct in so far as this is apparently not what happens at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hah! Meanwhile in Facebook group chats, anyone can add anyone, and they get to see the whole conversation history immediately and completely irrevocably (even if someone removes them later, they get to keep the history until their removal, and you can't delete Facebook messages either).

</comment><comment><USER15> Hmm, this is interesting. I would expect that members would at least have some sort of room key (or at least signed assertion) that they would need to send to a new member, to ensure that the server couldn't unilaterally add participants.

<comment><USER7> They don't but this can easily be fixed by having the admin send a special encrypted message to the group as proof that someone was added/removed.

<comment><USER15> A malicious server admin would probably be able to just intercept and stop that. I don't know how they do group encryption, but I imagine they either have a room key (although with forward secrecy that sounds unlikely) or they do 1:M sending. In any case, it sounds that, since the server doesn't have the group chat keys, they could just check for authorization from the admin (ie a signed message verifying that they're the ones adding the user) before adding a new user to the chat.

<comment><USER7> > A malicious server admin would probably be able to just intercept and stop > that

Which would stop anyone from being invited to the group

> or they do 1:M sending

That's what they do. When you join a group you generate a key that you distribute to all the other participants via a 1-on-1 encrypted session, you then use it to derive keys in a normal chaining-key thingy to encrypt messages to all other participants.

> they could just check for authorization from the admin

So you mean the admin would be in on it?

<comment><USER15> > Which would stop anyone from being invited to the group

No, just the malicious server adding the malicious user.

> So you mean the admin would be in on it?

I mean WhatsApp could patch this attack vector by requiring the new member to get a signed assertion from the group admin, proving to the other members that the group admin was the person who added the user.

<comment><USER7> > I mean WhatsApp could patch this attack vector by requiring the new member > to get a signed assertion from the group admin, proving to the other members > that the group admin was the person who added the user.

this is related to what I was talking about, except that in my scenario the admin distributes the proof

<comment><USER15> Ah okay, I think we're talking about the same thing then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a big nothing burger, you could practically infer the design from the fact that they supported encrypted group chats _at all_. Very sensible design IMO.

</comment><comment><USER17> WhatsApp has some decent decisions even after the complexity of being tied down to a single device at a time.

WhatsApp Web is essentially a hack where any message you send through the web app is _always_ routed through your phone (which is why it needs to be connected all the time).

Earlier you could not even view the media on the web client without first downloading it on your phone. But now it looks like they've hacked it further such that you can view the E2E encrypted message on the web app without downloading it to your phone. I guess it achieves this via shipping the decryption key to the web app (just for the current session) where it allows it to decrypt messages in the browser and using the phone just as a router of sorts. This is just speculation based on apparent behavior though.

</comment><comment><USER18> Potential solution: all participants will only start sending new messages to new participant/key if his "joined" message was signed by chat administrator (which they can verify). Server cannot fake this sig as it does not have administrator's key.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are using WhatsApp, make sure you deactivate your account if you change phone numbers. I recently got a new phone number and when I logged in, I assumed a non-deactivated profile previously attached to my new number.

</comment><comment><USER20> In case someone is wondering the unique group link is of length 22. Made of A-Z|a-z|0-9 . You can also refresh a link, there isn't any limit on number of refreshes it seems but won't be able to reach 62^22.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't get why people even consider using WhatsApp for secure messaging. Everybody knows it's owned by Facebook, and everybody knows how they operate.

<comment><USER22> > and everybody knows how they operate.

Yep! Painless to use, and truly cross platform. WhatsApp operates like a charm.

<comment><USER23> As much as I hate facebook, their social messaging products (IG, messenger, whatsapp) are top-notch, truly a cut above anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> how do other apps prevent this? short of everybody in the group manually adding the new participant's key, I don't see why this flaw can't be replicated in other chat apps

<comment><USER11> From looking at the paper [1], the basic mitigation seems to be that the group admin that adds someone to the group sends the "add this account to the group" message to all group members end-to-end encrypted.

In Signal, apparently some malicious users that are not a group member (such as a former group member) could add users to a group. In Threema and WhatsApp, a malicious server can add further users, but Threema has apparently fixed that already.

[1] [https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/713.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/713.pdf)

<comment><USER25> Not 100%. In Threema, a malicious server could replay an old add-this-user message after that user has been removed from the group to re-add it to the group. But it could never add new users (since add messages are encrypted by the admin). Also, the server can't tell group control messages from regular text messages, making this even harder. Replay protection has been added in the meantime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> interesting post! But only the idea is kind of creepy... Anyways, if someone new enters the group this person is usually not able to see all the previous posts...

<comment><USER27> "Usually"?

<comment><USER28> Not usually, it never allowed to see the message history.

<comment><USER26> yes you can never see the old messages

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The most interesting part of this (to me at least) is that even our 'secure' messaging systems rely entirely on trusted entities. I don't think Signal is immune to this problem either, as you still need to communicate with their servers. As a distributed trust system, WhatsApp and Signal are single points of failure.

Messaging is analogous to money in a lot of ways. Perhaps we'll see a good distributed peer to peer messaging protocol at some point in the future.

<comment><USER30> > Perhaps we'll see a good distributed peer to peer messaging protocol at some > point in the future.

The Matrix protocol is actually fairly promising, as long as you only use it for Matrix<->Matrix communication. Things fall to pieces when you try to bridge it with IRC.

It's certainly more user-friendly for non-tech. folks than, say, the awkward key exchange/setups of XMPP clients, but it's still a far cry from something like Signal in terms of 'ease of use'

<comment><USER31> > awkward key exchange/setups of XMPP clients

What do you mean by that? Conversations.im establishes e2e secure session without any fingerprint approving interaction whatsoever. Of course you can manually scan barcodes for paranoid mode but that's not necessary.

For me it's a perfect balance between convenience and security. Read more at [https://gultsch.de/trust.html](https://gultsch.de/trust.html)

<comment><USER30> Hmm, I'll check this out, thanks.

I was mainly speaking to previous experiences trying to set up Conversations on one device, Pidgin on another, there not being any good way to use a consistent key for my user on both, and trying to walk non-technical family members through that fiasco. This was about 2 years ago, maybe the situation has improved!

<comment><USER31> Keep in mind that Pidgin supporting many protocols means "lowest common denominator" in several cases. For OMEMO E2E I'd recommend Gajim or (still in alpha but promising) dino.im

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> That anybody uses these proprietary "chat apps" for anything baffles me.

<comment><USER33> What else are you supposed to use to communicate on a phone? Unauthenticated cleartext SMS?

<comment><USER32> Some chat system that isn't an "app", but rather, where the "app" is just an open source client for a documented, reasonably secure system.

EFF's recommendation list is being remade: [https://www.eff.org/secure- messaging-scorecard](https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard)

But the old one is still reachable from it.

WhatsApp is the one that got bought by facebook, which should be a red flag for those sensible.

<comment><USER34> >How to use WhatsApp on Android or iOS.

From the EFF page you have linked. :D

<comment><USER32> EFF recommending Facebook for IM?

I want my donations back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> _" If you build a system where everything comes down to trusting the server, you might as well dispense with all the complexity and forget about end-to-end encryption," says Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University who reviewed the Ruhr University researchers' work. "It's just a total screwup. There's no excuse."_

Someone was asking about blockchains. THIS is why you use blockchains. So you don't trust just the server. Actually _everything_ on the Web trusts the server. That's just how the Web was designed.

Now, one way to mitigate this - and also improve security in open source projects - is to implement a blockchain hosted by many organizations which can't all be compromised easily.

At Qbix, we are working on a drop-in data structure that would implement arbitrary business rules in a secure way. The nice thing is you don't need everyone to adopt it, for it to help you secure your network.

For example, some guy starts a group so he has all the access and privileges, and he uses them to invite others and assign privileges. Then he repudiates his own privileges in the group. Now everyone can verify and be SURE that everyone has the same privileges - rules are added for different types of Messages posted on the Stream and are are enforced by the blockchain.

That is how you do governance. It ain't easy but there can be packages made, of different governance types.

PS: However when you have end-to-end encryption, you don't need the blockchain to be hosted on servers. You can have the server relay messages between clients and enforce rules on the clients.

If you don't need consensus, sometimes you don't even need a blockchain! For example, with Reddit, you can just have an append-only Merkle Tree and have clients pass each other comments.

But what if you wanted to expand more comments? Do you have read permission? Do you have write permission?

One way to do it is on a per-thread basis. Each thread is owned by its OP. The rules are enforced by the OP and the messages are published by the OP. So then you trust the OP to be available (online) and accept and broadcast your reply etc.

But if you have MORE THAN ONE user involved in governance of a Stream (our terminology) then you need a blockchain. At the very least, to verify there are no malicious forks of a stream.

If you want to find out more you can look in my profile (about) and email me.

</comment><comment><USER36> This was a deliberate design decision by WhatsApp. I even remember going to a talk by a WhatsApp engineer when they announced end-to-end encryption and he spent a fair amount of time detailing the method WhatsApp had implemented to allow for adding new users to groups while allowing these new users to read old messages. So I'm pretty sure this has been known from the start. Don't use Facebook products if you care about real security.

<comment><USER28> Whatsapp never allowed new users to read message history. Never!</comment></comment>