Firms envision ways for New York to absorb 9M residents - <AUTHOR> http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20161030/REAL_ESTATE/161029841/12-firms-envision-ways-for-new-york-to-absorb-9-million-residents <comment><USER2> Why not better connect NYC with Upstate, Central and Western New York, and shed some of the development pressure there?

If there were a true high speed rail connection to smaller, much lower cost metros it might make them more attractive as branch office/commuter cities.

Amtrak as it is now frequently takes 8-9+ hours to get to across the state to Buffalo. Much slower than driving the Thruway. Intercity Amtrak service is poor due to:

* Ancient rails

* Large stretches of single track

* Passenger rail deferring to freight

* Reduced speeds due to degraded bridges and track beds, and outdated signaling

A modern, dedicated track for passenger rail could be fit mostly in the existing right of way. This alone would greatly improve service.

In the past few years New York State investigated several options for statewide rail improvements, and unfortunately ruled out any true high speed options. But even the most expensive improvements under consideration at $15 billion are cheaper than projects in NYC such as the Second Avenue subway (estimated completion at $17 billion for 8.5 miles!)

[https://www.dot.ny.gov/content/delivery/Main- Projects/S93751...](https://www.dot.ny.gov/content/delivery/Main- Projects/S93751-Home/S93751--Repository/ECHSR_Public_Hearing_Brochure.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_high- speed_rail#Proje...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_high- speed_rail#Projects)

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

<comment><USER3> As a former upstate NY resident, I'm all in favor of improved rail throughout the state, but as a current NYC resident I'm skeptical. My major question is: will adding better rail service to Western NY actually result in reduced development pressure in NYC?

The estimates in the first link you provided pegs travel time at 6 hours from NYC to Niagara Falls. Albany is already less than 3 hours on the Amtrak from NYC, but is still failing to "shed development pressure" from NYC. It's a chicken-and-egg problem: how do you convince jobs to move upstate without people, and how do you convince people to move upstate without jobs? Adding a train isn't enough unless it's quick enough to be a daily commute. There are other ways to entice residents but, at least in Albany's case, restrictive zoning and land use laws get in the way.

In the 1950s, the US federal government decided to go all-in on highways for medium and long distance travel. It would be costly to attempt to switch back to long distance rail now and would have a deep impact on American life. The reasons rail is so desirable in an urban context doesn't often translate to a medium or long distance route.

> even the most expensive improvements under consideration at $15 billion are > cheaper than projects in NYC such as the Second Avenue subway (estimated > completion at $17 billion for 8.5 miles!)

Sure, but in terms of how many people would be served by the 2nd Ave subway vs a long distance cross-state route (200k/day on the 2nd Ave subway vs 4m/year on the train line), it seems less absurd to invest that magnitude of funding on the subway.

<comment><USER4> Forget Western NY - there's no passenger rail service whatsoever on the entire West side of the Hudson River from NYC to Albany.

Newburgh, Kingston, and New Paltz are all ghosts of their former selves (there used to be a train, Newburgh was the first city in the US with electric lights, etc.) instead of thriving. And they really could thrive - not in a farmers-market-and-smorgasburg way, but in a Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill way. Except better, b/c they would have public transport between each other and a major metropolis.

<comment><USER5> Even closer than that, aside from Jersey City and Hoboken nothing on the west side of the Hudson has a direct rail connection. Extending the 7 line to Weehawken would help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wimpy proposals. In 1924, there was a proposal to fill in the East River, diverting the water to the Hudson. Now that was thinking big.

The article has one of those conceptual drawings of super-lightweight monorail structures. There's nothing wrong with monorails; lots of cities in Asia have them. But the rail is far more bulky than that drawing. Here's a real suspended monorail, in Chiba.[1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR0QXyYG3Yo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR0QXyYG3Yo)

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it just me or do these all seem terrible? New transit + zoning can lead development to new areas. Add subways from queens to Manhattan and things will change dramatically, without focusing on mostly cosmetic changes.

Want real changes? Extend that all the way to Manhasset.

<comment><USER3> This is what multiple items on the list already suggest.

Relating to the first proposal, from Gensler, there already exists a proposal called the Triboro RX[0] to add transit along existing freight rail lines that run from the Bronx through Maspeth and Bushwick, ending up in Bay Ridge.

This sort of project, if implemented well, would bring people and development to these areas. Unfortunately, it's difficult to obtain money for a prospective project such as the RX that wouldn't immediately benefit existing NYC residents. One could make a case that residents of transit-starved Maspeth would appreciate the new train line, but they also might be politically opposed, as it would bring upheaval and development to the neighborhood.

Aecom's proposal also suggests new transit: that 1 train extension could make a big difference. Red Hook has always been transit-starved, but, as with Maspeth, I can see grassroots opposition to the community upheaval that would result from a 1 train extension.

Perkins + Will's proposal to rezone the Newtown Creek industrial zone would meet more of the residential need in the Bushwick area, but the transit in that region is not yet sufficient to meet a huge influx of new residents: the L and the M are already heavily loaded. The bus network would prove less useful than expected for interesting historical reasons: NYC's bus network exists along legacy streetcar routes that abruptly terminate along borough borders (for what I imagine were political regions prior to borough unification in 1898), and this section of Bushwick lies along the Brooklyn/Queens border. So, the bus lines in the area don't always make sense or take you where you need to go.

Some of the other ideas don't really relate to handling an influx of 9M residents, but are in the Robert Moses vein of improvements (i.e. leveraging existing yet overlooked details creatively to benefit the public), particularly the "under highway" public space and the "subway stations as public plazas" ideas.

The Javits Center and schoolyards ideas are kind-of silly, and the suspended tram line, while a cool idea, wouldn't be worth the money.

[0]: [http://library.rpa.org/interactive/the- triboro/](http://library.rpa.org/interactive/the-triboro/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> San Francisco needs to re-orient its processes to include this sort of urbanization desperately.

</comment><comment><USER9> _> The city has not completed projects on the scale of Robert Moses since his tenure._

Good. I think we all learned our lesson from Robert Moses the first time around...

 _> It's time for New York to think big again._

No! Think small, local, and build from a bottom-up design.

<comment><USER10> > _Think small, local, and build from a bottom-up design_

What does this mean, practically?

<comment><USER11> Can't speak for OP, but I take it to mean what Jane Jacobs was a proponent of, and what has been the opposite of modern American urban planning until now.

The general trend in American urban planning has been highly prescriptivist and precise. Suburbs often have bylaws that prevent "too many" businesses of a particular sort in an area. It's based on a very centrally-planned vision for cities where you get your groceries from _there_ , your haircuts _there_ , and entertain yourself at _that_ entertainment complex.

Using a place against its original planner's precisely envisioned purpose is verboten. No, you can't have another supermarket in the neighborhood. No, there is already another coffee shop too close to this proposed one. No, you can't repurpose this land for a playground, because the children are _supposed_ to play over there.

Urban areas experience it too - if you've worked in a modern American downtown you've no doubt walked by the countless plazas that are deserted. Benches and tables that looked real good on the architectural renderings but are severely disused. Big office buildings fronted by "public space" that not even its own tenants use regularly.

This has been especially severe in public housing projects - they were designed with idyllic parkland and courtyards, which their designers envisioned as isolated utopias, but ultimately ended up being deserted, dangerous, and hotbeds of crime, because they were never where people wanted to be, and was just void space.

The opposite of this is something that resembles more of the free market - mixed use, relaxed zoning, so that the community can decide the amenities and businesses it needs. Maybe there _should_ be a second supermarket, maybe that empty lot _could_ be a playground.

The struggle between top-down prescriptivist and bottom-up market-like urban planning is a huge one. In many ways Americans crave the efficiency, character, and benefits of living in the bottom-up neighborhood, but also crave the precise, reliable, and ordered nature of top-down cities.

<comment><USER12> I mean if you want no zoning you can live in Houston or something.

<comment><USER11> Ahah, that's why I said "market-like" \- the bottom-up urban planning approach has properties that are _like_ free markets, but isn't an actual free market. Zoning still needs to be a thing.

An actual "free market" \- i.e., little to no zoning whatsoever - would likely be rather unpleasant. Sorry Houston.

In this school of thought the ideal urban planner sketches out the broad strokes while allowing natural forces to fill in the spaces, but of course, there is considerable disagreement over what exactly the broad strokes entail.

<comment><USER13> The only real problem in Houston is that it's taken too long to get mass transit going. The lack of zoning isn't really a problem. It's that it takes _forever_ to do anything to ease traffic. I wish we'd do like Brazil and get BRT systems so that they could be built progressively and start reaping benefits immediately. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit)

<comment><USER14> The lack of zoning is a _massive_ problem. That combined with the cheap surrounding land is why there are essentially no livable neighborhoods in Houston in the sense that Jacobs was talking about.

Houston is a great example of what you get with unbridled suburban sprawl. Much of the city isn't dense enough to justify real mass transit, which is part of the problem you are seeing. It's a great example of how to keep land prices low and automobile miles high, but not much else from a city planning point of view.

<comment><USER11> I think sprawl and zoning are orthogonal issues honestly - the problem with terrible suburban neighborhoods are largely caused by the same things as terrible urban neighborhoods: the top-down master-plan philosophy of urban planning.

If anything onerous suburban zoning tends to be far more painful than onerous urban zoning.

The lack of livability is the result of overly restrictive zoning. Instead of putting supermarkets and movie theaters where people _want_ them, they go where planners have deemed The Proper Place. Most suburbs are characterized but this, and it turns out top-down planners aren't actually very good at foreseeing what residents want, and what will create the greatest quality of life for them.

Agree with all the points about sprawl and toxic car-centric lifestyles, but _even in its own context_ , these neighborhoods are still failures.

I've personally never lived in Houston, but there's almost no major city in America where you can find actually _lax_ zoning. In almost all places it's all incredibly restrictive - if anything urban areas tend to be a bit more lax (they at least _entertain_ the idea of mixed-use development). Overplanning is the disease, and both urban and suburban places can manifest it.

<comment><USER12> If people wanted to live right next to a movie theater they probably wouldn't move to the suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yeah, let's invest a bunch of money in this city that's going to be underwater in ~50 years.

I imagine it'd work to just build upstate a ways instead of focus so much energy on the parts of the city directly facing the water.

<comment><USER5> No matter what you think will happen with global warming, there is a 0% chance we're going to let NYC go underwater.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Never been to NY, but I think they should focus more on stemming the impact from global warming than anything else... New York is estimated to be completely underwater in less than 80 years. If that happens they might want to look to Vienna for ideas on transportation, as boats will be the only mode available.

<comment><USER7> Huge stretches of the Netherlands are below sea level, for some of the most expensive real estate in the world it's not going to be an issue. Further NYC is higher than you might think: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/new- york-city-sea-l...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/new-york-city- sea-level-rise_n_6700320.html)</comment></comment>


Springer Nature open access agreement and Elsevier update - <AUTHOR> https://evcp.berkeley.edu/news/springer-nature-open-access-agreement-and-elsevier-update <comment><USER3> The worst part of this has not been mentioned:

>While broad-based open access publishing in the most well-known Nature subscription journals is not initially included, the deal commits Springer Nature and UC to a Nature open science pilot in 2021 and to the development of plans for a transformative agreement for all of the Nature journals to be implemented in 2022.

So for now this does seem not include Nature and likely neither the field specific Nature... (physics, photonics, materials...) journals. Which are the ones that are clearly interesting. This seems very similar to the typical deals from Elsevier, Springer... to include only sell bundles of journals with their high profile journals with lots of journals that nobody wants. Just in this case it's we include open access on all these journals that nobody cares about, but not in the view journals that everyone cares about.

</comment><comment><USER4> Generally this sounds like good progress!

>Under the agreement, all articles with a UC corresponding author published in more than 2,700 of Springer Nature's journals will be open access by default, with the UC Libraries paying a portion of the open access fee on behalf of all authors. Authors without available research funds for the remainder of the publishing fee can request that the Library cover the entire amount. Authors may also choose to opt out of open access publishing if they wish.

However, this seems to be severely limiting. So basically all research projects have to redirect funds to cover part of the "open access fees" or they have the dubious option to "opt out". The library only being willing to pay on case-by-case base means that there will be hidden disincentives in place.

Essentially that means that projects that are not willing to pay money to SpringerNature will be at a disadvantage.

I wonder which mechanisms were implemented to prevent them from arbitrarily increasing open access fees? This is conspicuously absent from the article.

<comment><USER5> > So basically all research projects have to redirect funds to cover part of > the "open access fees"

Yes, the cost of publishing results, as well as review, editing, etc, should be incorporated into the research budget (researchers can of course choose other means of sharing their findings than through publication). In an open access model, the publishing costs are offset by money saved in not paying for access to other articles the research project needs. I would hope that opting out means that projects have to pay fees on articles they'd otherwise get for free through this agreement, rather than riding on everyone else doing their bit.

One would imagine the fee schedule is set in the agreement UCB reached with Springer (presumably the agreement will be published at some point...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Under the agreement, all articles with a UC corresponding author published > in more than 2,700 of Springer Nature's journals will be open access by > default, with the UC Libraries paying a portion of the open access fee on > behalf of all authors.

So, only the most widely-distributed papers will be "open access", and then only if the authors cough up an "open access fee"? Doesn't sound very open to me.

<comment><USER7> Compared to the current state across nearly all academic fields, that is leaps and bounds more open.

Outside of narrow fields, it was often the case that you would need to cough up an amount in the thousands to publish as open-access.

Check out Elsevier's own page ([https://www.elsevier.com/about/open- science/open-access](https://www.elsevier.com/about/open-science/open-access)) where they list a price between $150 USD and $6000 USD depending on journal and article. On that page you can find a pricing sheet where out of 2340 journals they list, only 83 have an open-access fee of less than $1000 USD.

Springer Nature's fees seem similar, so hopefully this agreement brings down the cost as well.

The whole of academic publishing is a mess, and really needs large universities pushing the open access agenda. In a perfect world, academic journals would be run by non-profit entities and exist solely for the betterment of academia, but sadly large publishers like Elsevier turn billions in profit each year, lining their pockets with money leeched out of grants and universities.

<comment><USER6> > Outside of narrow fields, it was often the case that you would need to cough > up an amount in the thousands to publish as open-access.

Itself a tremendous affront to the public, which funds most research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does Elsevier offer any value from the prices they charge? Or are they just an e-gatekeeper to an object store full of PDFs?

<comment><USER9> 1\. Not in my experience. 2. Basically.

The sad thing about #2 is that said object stores could archive digital artifacts such as code and data sets, and they could provide an open API for the development of improved tools and user interfaces, but legacy publishers like Elsevier don't seem to be interested in such improvements. Technical societies (ACM, IEEE) don't seem to be much better.

</comment></comment><comment> g-b-r Has any university/group of researches ever tried to put up a not-for-profit peer review system, that doesn't hide huge profits behind the excuse of paying the reviewers/editors/cleaning lady?

<comment><USER10> MIT has its own publisher initiative that suits modern science - online, interactive, and open-source. PubPub[1][2] is closer to something like Authorea[3] and Overleaf[4]. It also includes the peer-reviewing features. UC just should have joined the project instead of wasting money with Springer. They seem lack the brave of the MIT management.

[1] [https://www.pubpub.org/](https://www.pubpub.org/)

[2] [https://github.com/pubpub](https://github.com/pubpub)

[3] [https://authorea.com/](https://authorea.com/)

[4] [https://www.overleaf.com/](https://www.overleaf.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is it that gives the publishers leverage in this negotiation?

<comment><USER12> Some journals they publish are associated with a "prestige" factor so academics don't want to stop publishing there. "What makes a journal prestigious" has the same answer to the question, what "makes a university prestigious " \- history. "Prestige" is tied to visibility and chances to obtain more funding for research, so there is a lot of incentive for academics to continue down this path.

It's theoretically possible that academics collectively decide that closed- access journals are off limits and start over with a new set of open access journals - but I suppose they are rather doing what they can (or relying on university administrations) to push for publishers to change this "exploitative" economic model (where the public essentially pays twice - <USER2> to do the research and then second to have access to read it).

While academics define themselves by innovation, there is a very strong adherence to establishment and institutions (like the traditional peer- reviewed publishing model, though there are good arguments for this as evidenced by problems caused by unpeer-reviewed preprints that have hastily made their way into public discourse during coronavirus). The hope is that academics don't have to throw away a method for signaling publication quality (or rather, perceived potential for impact) that has pretty been a part of the entire history of modern science. Whether it's a true mark of quality or not is a different matter; the most prestigious journals also have the highest retraction rates.

In Europe, funding agencies have begun requiring publication in open access journals as a stipulation for receiving funding, and this has driven journal publishers to provide an option for authors to pay for the publication (which is paid out of grant funding). However, this is not still not pervasive because there are still many funding sources that don't require it. Publication fees for authors are quite steep (around $3k per article; a productive lab may publish something on the order of 10 per year), and if the grant doesn't specify that they would cover open access publication fees then researchers tend to squeeze everything toward covering costs to do the research (equipment, personnel, travel to meet up with collaborators or other researchers).

<comment><USER7> In plenty of cases, administration may require academics to publish in journals considered "prestigious". Before a shakeup at my undergrad, that was the case. If you published in something the Chair didn't think was of merit, it would reflect negatively on a researcher/professor, and could (unofficially) count against you or set you back in working towards tenure.

I once spoke to someone at a conference on the subject of publishing (maybe some 6 years ago) who told me about a journal coup where a large majority of the editors and staff for a journal quit and started their own journal which was well received in the field and quickly becoming the journal of record. I can't quite remember what field it was, but I think it may have been related to neurology (non-human IIRC, as the individual had just given a presentation on cuttlefish cognition).

<comment><USER12> True - I mentioned the possibility for more funding but promotions is another thing. Part of the problem is that academic research is so specialized that it's often difficult to assess the quality of the research articles themselves - that and the sheer number of academics pumping out papers now - this makes prestige indicators indispensible for other researchers and administrators to make quick judgements about the quality of their researchers and also communicate this percieved quality externally (for university ranking, attract donors, etc.).

Anyway, for a close community of researchers on a specific topic, it's possible that they can make such agreement (to start over with another journal) - but in general it would be quite difficult to coordinate such a consensus in a larger community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The MIT approach looks like a winning strategy to me.

</comment><comment><USER13> What is it that gives the publishers leverage in this negotiation?</comment>


How Marissa Mayer fell asleep and kept ad executives waiting for hours - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/23/how-marissa-mayer-fell-asleep-and-kept-ad-executives-waiting-for-hours/?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_tech <comment><USER2> Seen on Twitter, sounds about right to me:

RT @cjc "Male Executive Late to Meeting" \-- headline you'd never see

<comment><USER3> If it was a CEO of a large company in major need of ad money, and had blown a meeting with ad executives, yes, you'd very much see a headline about it.

Actually, one of the oldest lores of IT is the famous story of a male executive (Gary Kildall of Digital Research) failing to appear on a meeting with IBM executives who would have made his company the supplier of the OS for the IBM PC.

Plus, it's not like tons of profile pieces on Meyer, epspecially on her Google days, weren't written precicely because she is a woman in tech.

<comment><USER4> If it has to do with the PC, it's decades past "the oldest lores of IT" :-P

<comment><USER3> Well, the IT industry. Not much of an industry before then. I think their market cap in toto was below the Peeble watch today :-)

<comment><USER4> A smaller industry, to be sure, but an industry (and a fairly important one) - albeit entirely B2B. DEC was founded in 1957 (PDP-1 in 1959, PDP-11 in 1970), and of course IBM was founded in 1911 from three companies each of which made things that were arguably "information technology" although I've no trouble with drawing the line somewhere substantially later than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What else do you expect from someone who claims to work 14 hours a day?

I don't work nearly that much and I dozed off in my coding chair three times today ...

</comment><comment><USER6> Dude, fuck Mondelez. Me and others at the company I worked for at the time won their "hackathon" (against Salesforce and Google) which was supposed to turn into additional contract work, but they waffled for a while and then ditched us. Yahoo probably wouldn't have gotten anything out of them anyways.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like at pattern for Mayer. And seems to be a pattern with some powerful people (ex. Bill Clonton is regularly described as "always late") - I guess because they can get away with it so often it becomes a habit.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-has-a-bad- habit...](http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-has-a-bad-habit-of- being-late-all-the-time-2013-1)

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems like a normal case of jet lag. 6000 miles east, +9 hour time difference between San Francisco and Cannes. When the sleep wall hits, it hits hard.

</comment><comment><USER9> she needs to get fired, yahoo is just atrophying under her watch</comment>


Easy mouse gesture recognition - <AUTHOR> http://www.bytearray.org/?p=91

<comment><AUTHOR> And the demo here: <http://www.foxaweb.com/demos/mousegesture/GestureDemo.swf>

Nice to see something so easy to program working so well</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to manage your passwords? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN!
I've been using Dashlane for a while now, but am not entirely happy with its ease of use/stability. What do you guys use to manage your passwords?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I've used KeePass synced through OneDrive for a few years now. Getting a password out used to be pretty tedious as my master password is on the longer side, but I've found a couple apps that let me quickly sign in with my fingerprint which has significantly improved my outlook on this setup.

If anyone wants to try them, those apps are Keepass2Android Password Safe [1] for Android, and KeePassReader [2] for Windows 10 (also lets you sign in by looking at your camera). I have no affiliation with them beyond being a happy user.

[1]: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=keepass2androi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=keepass2android.keepass2android)

[2]: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/store/p/keepassreader/9nblgg...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/store/p/keepassreader/9nblggh4s820)

</comment><comment><USER3> Enpass is pretty nice. Simple, good mobile support, cross platform, and inexpensive.

[https://www.enpass.io](https://www.enpass.io)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use keypass from my flash drive. The database file is synced to my server through my batch process. I plug in my flash drive, enter my master password and i then have access to my database.

<comment><USER5> I used this some time ago and had a problem with cross-platform access and database corruption with copying it. Have you seen any issues with that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Chrome and macOS keychains are pretty nice without requiring extras.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like 1password. Was using it on iPhone for 2 ish years and finally signed up for the monthly billing this weekend and installed the desktop version. No complaints so far.

</comment><comment><USER8> I avoided password managers as long as possible but I tried 1Password for some reason and now I cannot dream of not having it around.

</comment><comment><USER9> LastPass</comment>


Chrome Lite - Lynx style rendering in chrome :) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chromium.org/2011/04/taking-chrome-to-lite-speeds.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, I actually kind of like this.

I was lucky enough to be around KU when Lynx was released in the early 1990's. I was introduced to the greatest procrastination tool ever invented, the Internet, my freshman year (1992) at KU.

</comment><comment><USER3> Slightly off-topic but why is Lynx so much popular than Elinks? Elinks gives you the same experience, but has tabs.</comment>


OnSwipe - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/06/26/onswipe.html <comment><USER2> Fucking _crimony_ do I hate OnSwipe. _Loathe it_. It's just such a waste. It looks stupid, its scrolling feels wrong and it presents everyone's content identically. It solves absolutely zero problems, creates new ones and is impossible to escape. (I have fantasized about creating a proxy at home to strip out its bullshit.)

The irony here being that the iPad is perfect for displaying very nearly _everything_ on the web just as it already is. WordPress blogs look excellent on the iPad without any of this nonsense.

OnSwipe has become a perfect tool for preventing me from viewing content I'd otherwise happily read. This is a latter-day Expert Sexchange.

edit: ...odd, instant karma drop that affected everything I said on this page but this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2700241>

Learn from criticism, folks, don't downvote it because it doesn't agree with your world view. It's how we all grow.

</comment><comment><USER3> What everyone should keep in mind here is that, at its core, OnSwipe is trying to be an ad network. See [http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/06/21/an-inside- look-at-ons...](http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/06/21/an-inside-look-at- onswipes-plan-to-rewrite-the-world-of-tablet-advertising/).

Also see <http://blog.onswipe.com/news/the-road-ahead>, written by OnSwipe's founder:

"Mary Meeker estimates that 50 billion dollars of traditional media spend needs to shift online. Our belief is that it's in a holding pattern and can't. There's a disconnect between award winning beautiful ads found in print and tasteless spam ads that litter the web. We think touch enabled devices can let this change by providing advertising people actually enjoy with the best of the web layered on- mobile, local, social, and more. The touch enabled web can let us create ads publishers want alongside their content, advertisers get returns for, and most importantly, that users will enjoy."

<Start sarcasm>

Who wouldn't enjoy viewing award-winning print-like beautiful ads while browsing websites on the iPad ?

</End Sarcasm>

If you read the entire blog post above, it is quite obvious that the people behind OnSwipe don't really have a coherent understanding of publishing, advertising or digital, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that their product is an atrocity.

The product itself is little more than a trojan horse that OnSwipe uses to insert itself between stupid publishers and users so that it can extract value from content it didn't create and didn't add value to.

The good news is that this model inevitably fails and has since the late 1990s. There's no lock in for OnSwipe's partners, and once they realize that the ad revenue they were promised never materializes and their users hate the OnSwipe experience, they'll move on to the next company offering them a free bridge.

<comment><USER4> _If you read the entire blog post above, it is quite obvious that the people behind OnSwipe don't really have a coherent understanding of publishing, advertising or digital, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that their product is an atrocity._

But onswipe doesn't happen on its own - someone integrates it in to the website. None of those people understand publishing either? It very well may be the case, and I think onswipe's problematic, but I don't think "they don't understand publishing" is necessarily a good charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I haven't yet hit OnSwipe on the iPad, but I experience similar frustration with WordPress's mobile theme on the iPhone. The text is harder to read than the 'normal' web site, and the text isn't zoomable, so there's no way to fix other than find the 'switch to normal version' button at the very bottom... every time.

When making a mobile version of content: first, do no harm!

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm getting more and more annoyed by it on iPad. Besides the bad scrolling and the frequent failure of the option to view the standard site, it also frequently crashes the browser due to I'd guess excess memory use.

Do the individual WP blog owners actually chose to use it, or is it something WP foists on them?

<comment><USER7> We here you and the new framework from Slate.com, Geek.com,etc. is going to be ported to WP. The biggest problem is the junk intertial scrolling we had to go with. That's gone. Check out the new framework and my guess is that you'll be very very pleasantly surprised.

<comment><USER2> Look, every interaction I've ever had with your product has been awful. Simply repugnant. Now, we all have a mission, and I don't begrudge you yours, and maybe making these obnoxious web wrappers will turn out to be the next big Amazon. I am wrong about so many things every day, it would shock me not at all to find out this is one more.

All I'm saying is this: You have a whole page full of comments here where people are talking about how much they don't like to use your product. Please create a global opt out for such folks, as has been described in a different thread. It really would improve my browsing experience on the iPad. I'm uncomfortable being in a position where I have to plead with someone to de- degrade my browsing experience, but here it is.

<comment><USER7> We think there's something new that can be done with the web on tablets. It's not for everyone.

That's a really reasonable piece of feedback and it makes enough sense to implement it on the WP.com version. Some people don't like it, a lot do, but that doesn't matter. Even if it's one person, they should have a choice. If you want to drop more in depth feedback, email me: firstname.lastname@example.com

I will say, your comment above was way more effective than rude explicative ridden ones here and on Twitter. I understand you're upset, but keep in mind a lot of people have spent a lot of hard work on the product. I don't say this because it's my company. I'd say it if it was someone elses. We all work hard to make stuff and even if you absolutely hate it, a simple straight forward comment will go a long way and is way more human.

<comment><USER2> > a lot of people have spent a lot of hard work on the product.

I gotta tell you: this doesn't matter to me even a little bit.

Here's why.

We live in a world of results. Right now, you guys – I'm sorry this isn't positive – are making something that's frustrating, bad to use, unattractive and inescapable. The "view real, non-broken site" button often _doesn't work._ So somewhere, someone is fucking up my iPad and there's just nothing I can do about it.

You don't get to just come in and screw up the web for me without my having some strong feelings, dude, it's as simple as that. So if you want to shove a layer of non-useful junk into my way, you're going to need to acknowledge that there are user experience implications that require thorough thought.

If you ignore that you will incur the brand penalties associated with making people unhappy. And with a unanimous page of negative comments here, you're well on that road. This is a community that can't agree on _anything_ , so I'd take this feedback very seriously.

If I make shit, I expect people to call me on it so I can make it better. How hard I've worked on it is irrelevant.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely agree that people should be called out. It's about how you call someone out, not whether you do or not.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, you're definitely right. Understand, though, that I view OnSwipe like malware, so I didn't expect anyone associated with it to either see what I had to say or care. Even at that, you've created something so frustrating to me that even being face-to-face would not have stayed my impassioned rage, here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hadn't run across OnSwipe yet on my iPad, but I went to slate.com and saw it. Not impressed and definitely not the browsing experience I want on my iPad. At least they put a link on the bottom to go to the normal desktop version. That should be the default, and someone should have to choose to go to the "enhanced" version.

Or, just make a native app for your website. People that want that kind of experience will seek it out. Most people just want the web, not a simplified version of it.

It'd also be great if OnSwipe had a global "opt out" so that your browser would _never_ get the dumbed down version if you set some flag telling them to go away.

<comment><USER2> > It'd also be great if OnSwipe had a global "opt out" so that your browser > would _never_ get the dumbed down version if you set some flag telling them > to go away.

This is the only humane option. There should be a way to escape this scourge.

<comment><USER8> I think OnSwipe is in for a lot of acrimony without this, especially from tech savvy users who might otherwise be promoters in some spaces. They'd have an easy defense of "if you don't like it, click this button and you're done". As it is, almost all stories are going to have 90% complaining about how much people dislike it (like this post).

<comment><USER7> That button is there and has always existed there.

For Wordpress, that might be a great idea of making it a global opt-out. I'm actually going to suggest that to the team there and on ours.

<comment><USER9> We have a native app that is similar in that it makes extensive use of css transforms to animate content on the iPad (Zite, btw. I believe it is smoother and less crashy than the OnSwipe pages I have seen).

The biggest issue we've come across is limiting the total screen area (in pixels) of elements having "-webkit-transform: translate3d(0,0,0);" (this is the declaration you use to force the browser to use 3d acceleration to animate this element). Once it goes beyond a certain size, there isn't enough memory on the iPad to handle it and you get jerky animation and crashes.

This will help:

[http://mir.aculo.us/2011/02/08/visualizing-webkits- hardware-...](http://mir.aculo.us/2011/02/08/visualizing-webkits-hardware- acceleration/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I didn't like OnSwipe when I first saw it show up on a WP.com blog, and I still don't like it. It breaks a lot of functionality in MobileSafari, and half of the time the "View Standard Site" link at the bottom doesn't work.

It still feels like a cheap knockoff of Flipboard, and I don't need a Flipboard knockoff for every blog I read on my iPad. The iPad display is big enough not to need a special layout, and finding a poorly-implemented one like this just frustrates me.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm excited by OnSwipe's potential and I'm optimistic they're going to get it right eventually. For me, the biggest problem has been that OnSwipe makes no attempt to handle URLs correctly. URLs from the desktop version redirect to the TOC on iPad. When you visit articles on the iPad, the URL bar is not updated, so you can't even bookmark or share what you're looking at. Once they get this right, I think a lot of the grief expressed on HN will fade away.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think this market is looking for a competitor. OnSwipe is like the minimal thing you can do for mobile viewing of content.

There is such a huge room for improvement:

1\. making content more readable. Right now the readability is still about the same as visiting a regular site.

2\. Faster - I cant help but feel that everytime I go to an onswipe site, safari-ipad starts becoming immesely slow.

3\. Easier to browse content - Onswipe shows like 4 posts on eage page and you have to flip through a bunch of pages if you want to get an overiew of the blog, its frequecy and content covered.

4\. variety of look/feel - Every onswipe blog looks and feels the same. I for one hate this. I think its just easier for my brain to classify information if it also has a certain type of look.

Onswipe is the market pioneer and they are gonna make mistakes.

In anycase I think this space should be able to easily support at least 3-4 different companies.

<comment><USER13> Wow. This is actually useful feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem is, people think they have to adapt for non-pc devices (read: mobile). The rub is, the mobile browsers are _good_.

Build a clean and fast site. You'll be fine.

<comment><USER15> Are you sure mobile browsers are good at viewing desktop-aimed content?

I'm considering auto-resizing (fluid) for simple content like cssgrid.net because some placements will break or look weird. Would this be a problem for mobile browsers?

<comment><USER14> Quite. Mobile Webkit-based browsers were a joy to use long before we had responsive design. I'm not saying responsive design is a bad thing, though I'm not on the bandwagon because mobile browsers handle most websites with aplomb.

OnSwipe is definitely not responsive design -- it's changing the behavior of a site for specific a devices which already have wonderful natural web UX interactions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From Jason's recent tweet:

"...were doing way more than iOS. The criticism on HN is from a small disconnected minority."

Disconnect minority??

[http://twitter.com/#!/JasonLBaptiste/statuses/85387519486726...](http://twitter.com/#!/JasonLBaptiste/statuses/85387519486726144)

<comment><USER2> It's like when the Experts Exchange guys talk, and they sound like exactly what you would expect based on the product they make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is the first I've ever heard of OnSwipe. I went to onswipe.com to see what the fuss was about, and couldn't find anything that gave me a clear idea as to what it actually looks like. That content might be on the "onswipe for..." pages, but they don't even render for me; all I get is the word "cover" on a little swoopy thing in one corner and a gear icon in another corner (FireFox 5.0 on Win7). I eventually gave up and used google to find a video comparison.

It does not instill confidence in a product intended to make content beautiful and readable when _using onswipe.com itself is an exercise in frustration_.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think OnSwipe on my iPad is an awful experience. I would do away with it wherever I see it, if I could. I am sorry the developers' feelings may be hurt but a bad UI/UX is bad regardless of the effort.

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe the problem isn't so much OnSwipe so much as WordPress itself? Once upon a time what made WordPress cool was its simplicity — easy to install, easy to run, easy to add stuff to, etc. These days I cringe at the thought of doing an upgrade — it's as if they lost focus once they got into the hosting biz. Why make a great product when you can sell VIP service instead? It feels like everything I hated about Movable Type back in the day.

Maybe OnSwipe is a sign that there's room to replace WordPress in the marketplace?

<comment><USER20> OnSwipe is only on WordPress.com, not WordPress, and WP.com is only one hosting service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm late to the party, but I also dislike OnSwipe. The scrolling is terrible, I can't zoom at all and sometimes it crashes Safari. Even worse, the 'standard site' link on the WordPress theme is at the bottom of the page. It should be at the top.

Hopefully someone will create an 'unswipe' bookmarklet that we can use to disable it on sites that don't have an opt-out. Add me to the list of people that would like a global opt-out.

If your site uses OnSwipe and I can't disable it, I'll find content somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER22> I went to Geek.com with Safari and changed my user agent to iPad.

Watch the infinite redirects ensue. I sure hope the real iPad users aren't seeing that.

</comment><comment><USER23> How do I even test OnSwipe?

<comment><USER24> I think it's enabled on every wordpress.COM blog by default.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Trip Planner – A tool for planning a trip itinerary using Google Maps - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adl1995/trip-planner <comment><USER2> I have to say, being able to add all the places to a list accessible from Google Maps is really key since it's one of my main tools while on a trip. I'm curious though -- what got you to choose exporting to Google My Maps vs. a Google Maps saved places place list?

For Wanderlog ([https://wanderlog.com](https://wanderlog.com)), we ended up exporting to Saved Places instead of Google My Maps. My Maps lets you do advanced things like create regions and polygons, but when using it on the Google Maps app, it seems strictly worse:

1\. You have to explicitly turn on the My Maps layer, rather than the pins always showing, for it to show up on the app, and

2\. When you tap on one of the My Maps pins, it doesn't show the underlying place's associated details (e.g., rating, etc.) which makes it a bit harder to go back to the source of the info.

It's definitely nicer to build on top of Saved Places, which also seems more actively maintained by Google. Did you have any reason in mind to use My Maps rather than the Saved Places?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do use Saved Places but only for storing bus terminals, Airbnbs addresses, etc. Google My Maps has the advantage of grouping places by a column (e.g. rating, reviews) and modifying icons based on the place type (which I frequently use). It also doesn't clutter the maps with landmarks (they only show up when the map is selected).

1\. For me all layers are enabled by default when I load a map on the Maps application

2\. I agree that this is quite annoying. The workaround I found was to add the missing information in the CSV file which then shows up in My Maps

Having said that, there are still tons of features missing from My Maps, e.g. each layer can have a limited number of places and there's no API to import the CSV file programmatically. There's a pretty hectic list of feature requests here: [https://issuetracker.google.com/issues?q=google%20my%20maps%...](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues?q=google%20my%20maps%20type:feature_request)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The first paragraph from the readme is a better description:

> This tool filters Google Maps places based on an input query and exports > them to a CSV file.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why a CLI tool instead of a GUI? This sort of thing seems like a poor use-case for a CLI experience.

<comment><USER5> Probably because the author wrote this for themselves and did not need a UI, but then thought that sharing it would be cool.

<comment><USER6> Why _wouldn 't_ you need a UI? What makes a UI too bloated?

<comment><USER7> A UI is more work, and a CLI can be piped into all sorts of personal projects/workflows. I sure would like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://wanderlog.com](https://wanderlog.com) (formerly TravelChime - YC W19) is pretty great too. I used it over the summer to plan a family visit and it was very useful.

</comment><comment><USER9> Neat project! If anyone's interested in more of a full-featured web app for travel planning, I've been working on developing [https://www.naverator.com/](https://www.naverator.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Maybe it would be useful if your app allows importing itinerary from CSV files (I'm guessing each item is added manually for now).

<comment><USER9> You're right, it is all manual for now. I do like the idea of some sort of import, but it's intended for a more general audience. I'm not sure my mom would figure out how to create and then import a CSV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice! Traveling can be overwhelming. This is another great tool folks can use to help prep for their trip [since it's a CLI your market will naturally be developer focused]. I built [https://trrip.co](https://trrip.co) \- much less about search and google maps, and much more about sorting itinerary in a chronological way. Both can coexist!

</comment><comment><USER11> I got this error when running it :

File "fetch.py", line 25 place_raw = requests.get(f'[https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?plac...](https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?placeid={place_id}&key={API_KEY}')) ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax

<comment><USER12> What version of python are you using?

<comment><USER11> I use now python 3.6 but got this error :

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'wikipedia'

(I installed requirements)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's odd. What output do you get from 'pip install wikipedia'?

<comment><USER13> You do you, but if you're giving python support in HN comments, you might be here for a while!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember the time where you could plan your route on Google Maps and save it to your maps. Obviously they removed that feature circa 2012 because it was too useful.

</comment><comment><USER15> It'd be cool if the tool could also figure out the shortest path between the attractions returned to optimize the trip!

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely! I'm now thinking of adding a 'radius' parameter which only returns places within a certain region.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really enjoy this. I've also been interested in a tool that allows full itinerary planning on the command line.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd built out a similar tool that pulled in the Google Photos / Panoramio photos along a route / path, within a certain distance to find interesting things along your way.

It got nuked when Panoramio died - would be interested in Open-Sourcing it if anyone wanted to pick up the project..

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like a neat idea! I would be very interested in checking it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice tool! Could also be used for data science ;)

[https://dokomaps.com](https://dokomaps.com) is a more human and user friendly alternative were locals create their own map, add comment and categories and share them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Very cool! love the simplicity ... A UI based tool that I have found very useful [https://maps.sygic.com/](https://maps.sygic.com/)

<comment><USER20> Sygic is awesome! Used it to plan a trip to Japan and South Korea and it highlighted a bunch of cool attractions that I would have never known about otherwise</comment></comment>


UNCOL: Universal Computer Oriented Language (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.osdata.com/topic/language/uncol.htm <comment><USER2> Isn't this almost what LLVM is doing - creating a common instruction set for language designers to target and which compiles to a large amount of machines? Sry if it is stupid question. I'm interested in programming language design but are still very much learning the ropes. I might have misunderstood the real problem LLVM or this wants to solve.

<comment><USER3> It's the same idea, yes. Although, the specification of UNCOL is... a little odd. It has a bunch of cells (referenced by address); instructions refer to a previous instruction, and an address for their arguments---so like a stack machine, but the second argument is always a pointer. Or ... some such thing. The one paper I read spends 80% of its effort defining the representation of _text_.

<comment><USER4> > The one paper I read spends 80% of its effort defining the representation of > _text_.

These days, an equivalent effort would incorporate Unicode and UTF-8 by reference, which together amount to much more verbiage, especially Unicode. Back then, text standards weren't quite so mature, and it's possible nothing existing at the time really solved their problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of my fonder memories of graduate school is looking up one of the original UNCOL citations. When I went looking for the 1958 paper that everyone kept citing, in the dustier portions of the stacks, it wasn't there. I think someone had mistyped the cite to Strong et al in an earlier paper and the broken citation had been copied from paper to paper (possibly without ever reading the original).</comment>


Show HN: Doge As A Service - <AUTHOR> http://doge.in/

<comment><USER2> It's the As-A-Service revolution! Soon we'll have Service-as-a-Service!</comment>


'Fuck Crime:' Inside Ring's Quest to Become Law Enforcement's Best Friend - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjw9e8/inside-rings-quest-to-become-law-enforcements-best-friend <comment><USER2> "a company that has hosted at least one company party where employees wore "FUCK CRIME" shirts and racist costumes of Native and indigenous Americans"

I'm...wondering if this is implying those are equally offensive? Also, what the difference is between "Native" and "indigenous".

</comment><comment><USER3> >IN MACHINE LEARNING WE TRUST

This is utterly terrifying

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I can tell nobody has reported on the "neighborhood portal" offered to police yet, looking at how this works along with the bizarre, giddy culture around how empowering this is for law enforcement is just disturbing.</comment></comment>


Business of Books - Panel Discussion: "The Book on Google" - <AUTHOR> http://www.booktv.org/Program/11546/Panel+Discussion+The+Book+on+Google.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> To summarize an interesting bit from the video; here are a few transcribed slides about: The Three "Google Editions" Revenue Models

1) _Direct Sales from gBooks_

Users access eBooks online via Google Account ("the download disappears").

2) _Distributor & Technology Partner_

Retail partnerships; merchandising partnerships; support for online retailers & ebook device manufacturers.

3) _Distributor & Technology Partner to Publisher websites_

Facilitate ebook sales direct from publisher websites (i.e. turning publishers into retailers).</comment>


Capstone, a Tablet for Thinking - <AUTHOR> https://www.inkandswitch.com/capstone-manuscript.html <comment><USER2> Ink&Switch have 6 papers out on their site in the last 9 months. Each is a thorough review of an interaction style through a product they develop. Since they are an independent research lab their papers are much more approachable and fun than other, say, CHI or UIST papers I've read. These papers come off the back of 2+ years of research. Each of the individuals on the team have awesome backgrounds and Ink&Switch serves as a great starting point to do some backwards internet research if you want to see some wonderful design work. I look forward to anything else they will put out, I've skimmed each paper and thoroughly read 2.

As to Capstone itself, it seems to me a wonderfully simple tablet interface. After rolling it around my head for a while I can't believe we ever ended up with grids of icons and widgets as the "desktop" of modern touch based devices. This nestable 2D canvas scheme (don't miss the jump links, no you aren't "trapped" by this scheme) feels intuitive and affords much power to the user that they can be fine to ignore or learn at their own pace. I find that reading these papers has influenced my desire for breadcrumbs on my tiling wm laptop setup in a way I can't currently figure out but I am making small progress.

I've long been interested in OneNote. None of the other major note software systems have seemed as good. I still, however, use vim and paper. This seems like a tool that could blow OneNote out of the water. A user could build OneNote's UI in Capstone in what looks like a little bit of minor fiddling. If OneNote is a modern take on paper, Capstone is a modern take on screens.

<comment><USER2> By "screens" over "paper" I mean dynamism, transformation and computing power. Paper cannot execute, and paper simulation on computers takes no advantage of their digital environment. "Screens" however know where they live and open up capabilities to their users that reflect the device's actual power. I have shells on my desktop, I do not have shells on my OneNote. Capstone gives me a shell again. Why would I ever give it away, and use OneNote without the power and ability I expect everywhere else on my computer?

I would like a better word to sum up this idea than "screen" vs "paper" so please drop me some recommendations.

<comment><USER3> Paper = "spatial interface" in the original/most literal way the term was intended. The data is materialized into one point in space, and can only be accessed by going to that point in space. This was the original idea behind the early unification between saving files in a file-manager, and "iconifying" document-displaying windows: a file was just a hibernated window, and a window was a 1:1 representation of some particular file.

Screens = "views" or "data bindings" in the SQL or MVC sense, or "projections" in relational algebra. There's data somewhere, and then, separately, you have a _view_ into that data: a distinct, live object through which you interact with the data, which can have a UX optimized for a given use-case, distinct from the "objective" UX suited to directly displaying the data.

Capstone is sort of a spatial interface _of_ view objects (rather than a spacial interface of literal documents, or a database-representation of view objects), which is novel.

<comment><USER2> Dang, I like your perspective. Thanks for sharing.

I want to explain digital displays in a name that exposes the idea of dynamic use. Of reading/writing/drawing while simultaneously affording computational ability, execution and simulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previously, from Ink & Switch:

 _Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud_ (190 comments), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478)

 _Slow software_ (260 comments), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170)

 _Muse: designing a studio for ideas_ (18 comments), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19816189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19816189)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've struggled for years to articulate my ideas and express things clearly, 'specially when it comes to challenging technical problems. One day, I randomly bought a tiny 12" x 5" whiteboard while I was at the dollar store, with the intention of using it to keep a physical todo list.

I eventually reached for it while in the heat of a challenging debugging session with some colleagues, and was surprised with how much it helped me solve the problem at hand. It quickly stopped being a todo-list after this incident. Turned out my inability to articulate things effectively was not because I was stupid, but because I am a predominantly visual thinker.

The fact people are working on tools like this excites the hell out of me!

<comment><USER4> Could you share a little about the difference between the small whiteboard and a letter-sized paper notebook?

<comment><USER5> Paper in my experience can get messy real quick. Example - When drawing a diagram of some process it is common for me to want to tweak and reconfigure things to arrive at a solution. With paper, it requires you either erase, scratch out, or re draw the diagram with your desired changes on another page.

What I love about marker boards is the ability to freely draft and modify on the fly without worry. When I want to commit ideas to "storage", paper works best :)

<comment><USER6> I agree 100%! Though I prefer to store things digitally. I feel so liberated no longer having so many scratch pieces of paper around that may contain an important note or solution to a problem. I remember working through a calculus book and having about half a foot's worth of paper (notes, attempts at solving problems, rewritten solutions to problems, etc) that eventually fell victim to entropy and was absolutely useless for anything but that I kept around out of fear of forgetting all of it. At least now it's all in one box. Maybe I'll burn it this winter as kindling - or would that be too derivative? :^)

These days, anything short term -> whiteboard, anything refined and meaningful enough for reusing later -> PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Still not as good as Microsoft's "Courier" concept from a decade ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp- MdI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI)

<comment><USER8> Interesting, thanks for sharing. Did this project reach a dead end?

<comment><USER9> according to a 2011 cnet (1) article it was months away from release but "Courier was cancelled because the product didn't clearly align with the company's Windows and Office franchises"

1: [https://www.cnet.com/news/the-inside-story-of-how- microsoft-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft- killed-its-courier-tablet/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nothing has come close to Microsoft's One Note for me when it comes to note taking apps. The combination of One Note and an iPad with the pencil is particularly powerful.

<comment><USER11> I could never pick up the fundamentals concept of OneNote. What's the deal with it?

<comment><USER12> Depends on how you use it. 1. OCD level organisation required? One note has got you covered. Books and tabs and what not. With tagging. 2. Want to toss everything in and forget about it? OneNote does the job. Windows and iOS supported. Plays well with my handwriting. Rest of platforms haven't checked.

<comment><USER13> > With tagging.

Actually, tagging is one of the things OneNote should do better.

It doesn't support hashtags out of the box so tagging means selecting from a list of predefined tags.

One of the things that really annoys me about OneNote (I'm a big fan of it though.)

<comment><USER14> Yes! When I first got into OneNote (2007 version?) I put a lot of effort into using and customising tags but quickly hit limits. Even if other features never updated, an overhaul of the tags system could drastically increase OneNote's usability.

It always felt odd that the same app that reliably converted my handwriting to text a decade ago had a small, fixed number of tag slots and no ability to import icons. I remember thinking "well surely this was a v1, they'll improve it in later versions" but no, not even the tiniest change.

<comment><USER13> I'll add two more things:

\- internal links doesn't work on mobile.

\- local shared folder mode doesn't work in later versions. This was brilliant for places that has restrictions on what they can upload to the cloud. OneNote could often replace internal wikis for smaller companies (in some areas it was even better) but now that becomes less viable as OneNote for desktop gets older.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Muse[1] is their[2] more recent similar effort.

[1] [https://www.inkandswitch.com/muse-studio-for- ideas.html](https://www.inkandswitch.com/muse-studio-for-ideas.html) [2] [https://www.inkandswitch.com/](https://www.inkandswitch.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I have been using a Boogie Board Sync for a couple of years (the original, haven't tried the latest).

It syncs with dropbox and allows automated filing into one of four types with a stroke of the stylus.

Best note taking implement I've ever used - and I used paper for years. This replaced it. I use it to teach my children new ideas, note everything down, test theories. Give it a shot.

</comment><comment><USER17> My workplace uses Bluescape [1] in a similar way, with a focus on multi-user collaboration. We mainly use it on dedicated touch-TVs (like a digital posterboard + whiteboard), rather than on tablets, but the thinking is the same.

[1] [https://www.bluescape.com/](https://www.bluescape.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Conspicuously missing from the "existing tools" section, and (as I read through the page) a troubling indicator of outcomes: index cards, well beyond "spread on a dessktop" scale.

Denis Diderot, Linnaeus, Dewey, John McFee, and numerous others have used this method.

Niklaus Luhmann's Zettelkasten ([https://zettelkasten.de/posts/zettelkasten- improves-thinking...](https://zettelkasten.de/posts/zettelkasten-improves- thinking-writing/)) and POIC -- pile of index cards ([http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/cluster/](http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/cluster/) and [https://unclutterer.com/2014/06/17/the-pile-of-index- cards-p...](https://unclutterer.com/2014/06/17/the-pile-of-index-cards-poic- system/)) -- are two models that help impose a structure on chaos. Hypercard was an attemp to map index cards to computeers, and influenced both the World Wide Web and Wiki, though digitisation both adds to and subtracts from the original physical manifestation.

My own card collection is approaching 10,000 cards, at roughly 1,500 per box, and where a card can hold about 500 characters, roughly 100 words (some do, many have fewer).

(Having read, _and_ viewed the demo.)

... what's incredibly frustrating for me is trying to convey the _scale_ of information gathering for research, as well as types.

I'm working with my own thoughts, experiences, Web references, and published works (both books and papers, as well as other forms). The quantities I'm working with are typical of academic researchers and writers whom I admire, whose bibliographies and notes may run 100 pages or more (and are often a substantial part of a book's real value).

Some earlier descriptions:

PoIC: Pile of Index Cards [https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/u4dgr0tkxk4tk9npuvex5a](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/u4dgr0tkxk4tk9npuvex5a)

Organising and planning research [https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/fj5rzi8zmouyrmvg8yzzva](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/fj5rzi8zmouyrmvg8yzzva)

What I keep seeing are systems that work at toy levels (a handful of items, occasionally a few dozen, rarely hundreds of items). And nothing in Capstone's collateral communicates anything differently. My console file and email tools can (and do) work with thousands and tens of thousands of items, though providing sufficient context, both static and dynamic metadata, is a challenge.

Email does slightly better by way of (searchable) headers -- From, To, Date, and Subject, but cruicially; In-reply-to and References. These are elements email inherited from early-20th-century office communications filing systems, with the referrence chain actually _predating_ most other fields. _Where a message fits_ within a discussion stream is often far more important than _what it says_. "We kill people based on metadata" as former CIA and NSA director General Michael Hayden said ([https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/05/10/we-kill-people- base...](https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/05/10/we-kill-people-based- metadata/)).

(JoAnne Yates and James Beniger are among the few who've studied this field, a surprisingly interesting (to me) exploration of group communications and decisionmaking.)

A simple tool to view documents (in various formats; PDF, ePub, Mobi, djview, and sanitised, standardised HTML), look up metadata, and add this conveniently, would be a huge win. I suspect copyright concerns are a major hinderance.

For both thoughts and published works, context matters, though it's very poorly supported by existing tools, and is almost always tedious to add and verify. Dublin Core metadata is a good start ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core)). My principle Android eDoc reader, Pocketbook Reader, lacks even an 'author" field, and requires multiple steps and clicks to edit, correct, or verify information. (I've ... tried reporting this -- it also lacks a useful issues- reporting mechanism.) Another tool, Pocket Reader (entirely different, now owned by Mozilla) has ben a hot mess for years, though there's been a recent update I need to explore. My observation that it gets worse the more you use it remains distressingly accurate ([https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_it_gets_worse_the_more_you_use_it/)).

(Reddit itself was something of a tool, though it's ultimately failed the test.)

What Capstone most lacks is a keyboard. I'm pecking this comment out with a stylus on an Android tablet for which I'd prchased a defective-from-the-start Logitech keyboard. Though compromised, operating near my 90 WPM typing speed, _when needed_ is ten times faster than touch input (and increases screen space by a third to half). There is no available similar replacement keyboard -- the field apparently believes in constraining peripherals not only by mamufacturer and form factor, but to specific models and variants. A small bit of standardisation would go far.

See: Tablets and Keyboards [https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq)

Tablets are useful for their portability and consumption. After four years of constant use, and for almost wholly self-imposed limitations by vendors, litle else.

Capstone seems to follow this trend.

<comment><USER6> Just to be clear, you actively maintain a collection (database?) of 10,000 index cards, spread throughout various boxes? Out of curiosity, why do you not store these digitally instead?

<comment><USER18> Yes.

Largely addressed in text and links above.

Index cards are close at hand, flexible, and low friction.

<comment><USER18> ... and substantially future-proofed.

<comment><USER6> This is only slightly more future-proof than keeping text files on a computer. So slight, I'd argue the difference doesn't even matter. I don't see the advantages to this behavior over storing them digitally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love this line of questioning existing computer interface paradigms, it's not done enough.

There is a lot of good stuff about this prototype (except it being built on the web stack - what??), I'm sure some people will find a minimal UI version of Prezi useful.

For me, I wish iPad had more control (customisable keyboard shortcuts for nearly everything) - not less. I am also really interested new physical devices for interacting with computers. I bought a Bluetooth footpedal for instance - I find it really useful to do certain simple things while freeing up my hands to do others (play guitar, draw, type, whatever)

Has anyone tried [https://www.tapwithus.com/](https://www.tapwithus.com/) ? Looks awesome

</comment><comment><USER15> I liked, but also not. Here is some not.

Suffix all my comments with "But yes, this was understandable in a research prototype".

Novice vs expert. The design seemed more oriented towards novice use, than the stated audience of creative professionals.

Short-term use vs ergonomics. Long-term intensive expert use prioritizes ergonomics. So while "toss off edge" to delete is useful fun, adding a "scribble out"-like alternative that avoids giant arm motion would be nice. And traversing to "toggle ink/erase" was ick. This felt an impoverished UI vocabulary, compared to what many creative professionals are familiar with.

User|content vs user|tooling|content. Experts "wear" tooling to interact with content, so tooling information is a legitimate use of UI display. There seemed a story here of user interacting directly with content, which combined with UI minimalism, degraded the tooling experience.

Content vs representation|content. Similar argument.

Hierarchy vs graph. I do realize some people like hierarchical organization - mind maps and such. I find it crippling. But it does avoid the challenge of doing dynamic graph layout while preserving user spatial orientation.

A metaphor of a zoomable static pin-board with almost no tooling... might be a sweetspot for some. But it seems limiting. Prezi with web capture and minimal tablet UI, seems still Prezi, and niche.

Tablet tech. Note the severe constraints of using current tablet tech. Cue "understandable in a research prototype". They mention exploring dials and buttons and pressure. But there's also tilt, and rotation, and 3D position from optical tracking. They mention tablet being distinct from phone and keyboard, and deemphasize text, when a keyboard could simultaneously be a multitouch/stylus tablet (with optical tracking, and a "slice of a ping-pong ball" to slide over keys).

Research vs future. This was UX research, and may well have been useful for the community of which it was part. But... just don't confuse this with what the future looks like. AR is coming.

And there seemed some unfamiliarity with related work and current tech (yes, pen holders are a thing; yes, OCR is a thing; ...). Which for research can be fine, or not, but is something for you to bear in mind.

I enjoyed the appendices page: [https://www.inkandswitch.com/capstone- manuscript-appendices....](https://www.inkandswitch.com/capstone-manuscript- appendices.html) My takeaway is they got burned by the painful state of web/ink/gestures on android, and the degree of domain experience needed to not-entirely-lose there. Which truncated their intended exploration. The concept of an android tablet as a node/electron machine for inking... sigh. For non-trivial multitouch and inking, I regrettably don't know of _any_ hardware/OS/drivers/apis/libraries stack where "it just works" isn't a joke. Maybe some native iOS?

</comment><comment><USER20> Emacs org-mode because.

</comment><comment><USER21> So it's a specialized iPad.

</comment><comment><USER22> An inspiring team doing interesting work. But see previous

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Capstone,+a+Tablet+for+Thinkin...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Capstone,+a+Tablet+for+Thinking)

<comment><USER23> "See previous" is only really helpful if there's previous discussion.</comment></comment>


Hong Kong Protestors Take over Universities and Financial District - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/protests-take-over-hong-kong-universities-business-district-11573551681?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Yeah this POV is totally backwards. HKPF attempted to arrest students in university dorms, and HK protestors stopped them. HKPF fired over 2500 rounds of tear gas, enough to kill birds flying overhead. Disappointing to see such a CCP-friendly skew from a venerable American journalism outfit (maybe that's being too generous these days though).

<comment><USER3> Dude it's not so straight. First our universities aren't somehow in an ephemeral plane absent of any police jurisdiction, second it seems the number of petrol bombs (I heard 400) was enormous pointing to some large capacity being built up there (I remind you they are more lethal than tear gas round) and third this standoff produce 0 positive effect in retrospect.

I'm all for opposing our communist overlords, but they might not be convinced to listen if we hurl molotov and cry at birds rather than show a reasonable front, which is what ended the extradition law in the first place.

<comment><USER2> > First our universities aren't somehow in an ephemeral plane absent of any > police jurisdiction

Right but you need a warrant, which the police did not have and never got, because they weren't there to arrest anyone in particular, because they had no cause, because this is a terror tactic.

> second it seems the number of petrol bombs (I heard 400) was enormous > pointing to some large capacity being built up there

It's real easy to build a molotov, especially if you have a bunch of protestors working in an assembly line. Which is fortunate, because that's probably the only thing that kept the cops from arresting scores of innocent students to be beaten and raped in jail.

People have the right to defend themselves. HKPF are genuinely a threat to Hongkongers and have lost all legitimacy. It's a true tragedy, but the time for excuses and apologists is past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This headline is completely misleading. Those who "took over" the universities are the students who actually LIVE there. And those who "took over" the financial district are people who work there: they just protest downstairs during their lunch time.

You don't take over your home or office because you f*king own it.

</comment><comment><USER5> The bigger news is the police attacked an university in Hong Kong. Thousands of rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets were fired.

<comment><USER6> Wow, HK police, backed from Chinese gov, is desperate to attach an university! WTF are they thinking? Why provoke students in campus... No idea what's going on.

PS: I am shocked by this activity. Even during the communism revolution, the government has left the university intact. The HK policy lost their mind...

<comment><USER7> HK police are PLA soldiers.

<comment><USER8> Exactly this. There was a video released yesterday on the HK subreddit showing what seemed to be a special unit of "police" who bore no badges or any identification past riot shields emblazoned with "police" at the university. These dudes looked huge compared to everyone else there.

<comment><USER9> China uses the same "Ministry of Interior Armed Forces" system as Soviet Union did. They are kept separate from PLA so that they can be the thugs without contaminating real army, and the popular opinion follows on this.

So I suspect it's all interior forces, not PLA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My understanding is that the HK Internet exchange for Hong Kong is hosted at the university. Would taking that down black out Hong Kong?

<comment><USER10> Presumably cables go into and out of the exchange and could be disrupted at a number of easier to access points. Others say they want to install surveillance hardware but if the Chinese government had that kind of hardware lying around wouldn't they have installed it before the protests?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> May I suggest your guys to take a look this interview "Will violence kill Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement? | Conflict Zone" over YouTube? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9nNeO0yWyk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9nNeO0yWyk)

</comment><comment><USER12> These protests show the pros and cons of colonialism. Con, in that Hong Kong's differences from the mainland are the fuel for this deadly conflict. Pro, in that these differences are behind this island becoming one of the most productive spots on Earth. The flourishing of these people would likely not have happened had Britain not leased it for 99 years. Even if China obliterates the difference, it has been irreversibly infected by the ideologies of the colonist.

What would the world look like if we could dial back the level of colonialism over the last 2k years? Hong Kong makes a case for such cross-pollination as a human accelerant.

</comment><comment><USER13> Still incredibly pessimistic that Hong Kongers could somehow win a war for independence... or that anything short of that could win a future of safety for these "protestors"

Just last night I felt guilty for buying something made in China but still did it again... and there certainly wasn't an alternative made anywhere else on the shelf

<comment><USER14> > wasn't an alternative made anywhere else on the shelf

was it a needed thing or a wanted thing? if the former, consider making it yourself & selling it as a not-from-china product

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If we did any of this in the US, we would all be shot.</comment>


Uber's Achilles' Heel - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jtwald/uber-s-achilles-heel-6ffcc896481c#.bjq53v4j3 <comment><USER2> The author makes some really good points.

It's kind of hard to think of what value Uber could really bring to the car industry in the scenario he outlines. Google and others are far ahead on autonomous driving tech. A ride hailing app itself isn't very hard to build.

One path where they might succeed is if the design and functionality needed for an autonomous fleet car is radically different from that of a car today. Existing manufacturers would likely be slow to adapt. If Uber started manufacturing cars themselves, and did it in a way that tapped into these new desires, then perhaps they could create by the best rider experience and capture a premium while competitors whithered. Still that seems like a long shot.</comment>


Revisiting an old treatment for infectious disease: Fresh air - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/04/opinion/revisiting-an-old-treatment-infectious-disease-fresh-air/ <comment><USER2> Fresh air and sunlight are great!

It's too bad that scolds are arresting people for getting outside. Everyone should get more exercise.</comment>


How To Tell A Story - <AUTHOR> http://seantells.net/2009/03/22/how-to-tell-a-story/

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't seen many links on pitching or creating a story. The best story is demonstrating. But at some point before a product you have to tell a story of what you want to build.</comment>


Tricking the Uncertainty Principle - <AUTHOR> http://www.caltech.edu/content/tricking-uncertainty-principle

<comment><USER2> There's also been some interesting prior work involving optics: [http://phys.org/news/2012-09-scientists-renowned- uncertainty...](http://phys.org/news/2012-09-scientists-renowned-uncertainty- principle.html)</comment>


Solving Maxwell's Equations to Improve Wifi Reception - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/03/hack_your_wi_fi_in_an_android_app_electromagnetic_waves_finally_do_something.html

<comment><USER2> Sounds like a good project for a graduate level computational electromagnetics course. The method used in this app is FDTD, which is pretty easy to understand and implement compared to other methods for solving Maxwell's equations numerically[1].

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

</comment><comment><USER3> How is this different from NEC? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_Electromagnetics_Code](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_Electromagnetics_Code)

Well here you go: [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=5...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=598258)</comment>


Micosoft moving Windows desktop to cloud - <AUTHOR> https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/840108/Program-Manager-2 <comment><USER2> Many businesses are already doing this with AWS. I don't use Azure but I am sure they have a identical offering.

Don't think you can go full dumb terminal / thin client yet. Plenty of people around me can't get internet over 3mbps.

One we have bandwidth all over the US and other nations, then maybe they could talk about killing the thick client.

Nothing in that job posting supports the title.

</comment><comment><USER3> This job listing doesn't say this. Other providers already offer Windows cloud offerings; only make sense they would as well. They also offer Office, Windows Server, and SQL Server as cloud offerings, and still sell plenty of licenses for on-premise installs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if title is entirely accurate, just because they are planning a desktop as a service project/potential offering. Why would that assume that traditional local Windows would go away?

<comment><USER5> Because all you'd need is something that booted into a RDP client. And you don't need full Windows for that - probably just an improved Windows RT running on a low-power ARM device.

<comment><USER6> You can already connect to an Azure virtual Windows desktop from any RDP client.</comment></comment></comment>


How to start a startup when having a family - <AUTHOR> https://blog.omnirocket.com/2015/02/04/start-startup-family/

<comment><USER2> I like the comment about getting better at "quickly disconnecting" from work #noteToSelf

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, though it is easier said than done. Some people recommend meditating, but it is something I haven't had time to do yet. The best thing I have found to help quickly disconnecting is to exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really nice comments about how to do a startup when you've got a family.</comment>


400+ High School Students Attend 24 Hour Hackathon - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hackersunder20.com/post/79114649894/hshacks-summary-24-hours-of-insanity

<comment><USER2> Is it actually good to be encouraging hackathons at progressively younger ages? I believe we generally agree here that hackathons are not good for generating maintainable code or encouraging best practices, and teaching high schoolers to pull long hours and not follow good practices is tantamount to teaching them how to burn out of programming later.

<comment><USER3> It's one of those things that gets people into coding. It may not be a viable learning strategy, but it's enough to get someone hooked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's really hard to make understand to high school students the benefits of programming. They often lose interrest after few minutes because they thing that's really trivial when they start reading few lines of code. You guyz made a great job by convincing them

</comment><comment><USER5> Was there today. Can confirm, great hacks, great people. As a highschool student this was the highlight of my month.

</comment><comment><USER6> We need to have more hackathons for high school students!

<comment><USER3> Definitely, check out www.sohacks.com!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's Fantastic! Keep Up the AWESOME WORK GUYS!

<comment><USER3> Thanks! We love HS hackathons!</comment></comment>