Visa to Pay Restaurants to Stop Taking Cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-takes-war-on-cash-to-restaurants-1499853601?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> I'm curious how this would work in a sit-down resturant, if the server doesn't explicitly state this (or require payment) prior to ordering.

Once the food is ordered and consumed, you are then presented with a check. This is now a debt.

Vendors certainly are not required to accept cash during a transaction, but you are absolutely required to accept cash if someone is settling a debt.

Might be an interesting case at some point.

This is simply ignoring Visa trying to enact their merchant discount tax on every transaction within the US economy though. This road (lack of anonymous and free means of payment) ends in tears.

<comment><USER3> > This is now a debt.

This exactly. That's why I always pay cash, incl. tips. A charge on a credit card is essentially a loan from the Credit Card Company at the agreed upon interest rate. So I'm not comfortable taking out a loan to pay for my food -- granted you don't pay any interest if you pay your bills in full on time, but still it just feels wrong.

I also pay cash because I want the wait staff to get the entire tip amount I leave -- usually generous around 25% to 30% minimum. Because I was told by several waiters (mostly at Indian / Pakistani restaurants here in San Francisco) that if the tip is left on the card, that they never see it ever * .

[ * A waiter friend at Dosa on Fillmore told me this is illegal and that I should report it. Who do I report it to? And will they really take action? In a couple of Indian restaurants in downtown, the wait staff doesn't get the cash tip either. 1 waiter friend discouraged me from leaving any tip because they don't get a single penny. I tried to insert some cash in his pocket and he got scared. I think the owners forbid them from taking any cash from customers even if it's tip ]

<comment><USER4> There is also the option of having a Visa Debit Card and just pay from your own deposit account. Is that uncommon in the US?

<comment><USER5> It's not that common in the US, because most financial advisors strongly recommend against it. If someone steals your debit card, they can clean out your bank account. You will probably get the money back, but you will be broke in the mean time. If you pay with a credit card and it gets stolen, the debt is frozen while they clean up the mess.

This is because: a. Almost all US merchants take all VISA or MC branded cards, while in Europe many vendors will only take debit cards because of lower fees.

b. The USA doesn't have chip-and-PIN, so it's laughably easy to use a stolen bank card. At least now with EMV and signature, someone has to actually go through the trouble of stealing your card instead of just cloning it. But there are still a ton of merchants that are just using mag swipe ...

<comment><USER6> I would think many, possibly most urban dwellers in the US are using debit cards to pay for food, coffees, etc. And chip-and-pin rollout has been going on for the last two years, most US cardholders now have chipped cards, but maybe half of merchants have updated their POSes to support dipping instead of swiping.

<comment><USER5> That's chip and signature, not chip and PIN. If you get physical possession of someone's card, you can scribble whatever you want on the receipt and you are good to go.

Europe uses chip and PIN, where you have to enter a numeric code at the time of each transaction that is used to unlock the card. So, you need PIN and card, the traditional what you have / what you know.

A lot of European banks even issue EMV readers that connect to your PC for online shopping and banking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I dealt with this issue as a young boy when trying to pay for some candy at the local bodega with a large sack of pennies. The clerk simply refused my business.

I was outraged and asked some lawyers in my family to look into it. Turns out the business had no obligation to accept the transaction. "Legal Tender" means that the currency may be legally used as currency, not that it must be accepted when offered/tendered.

<comment><USER8> There is a difference between accepting a purchase transaction offered and accepting payment for a debt which has been occurred. The former is a matter of whether a contract is formed at immediately fulfilled and the latter of whether an existing contract is violated in a manner that the State will concern itself with.

Restaurants sometimes operate in the former mode (fast-food and fast-casual) and sometimes in the latter (full table service).

<comment><USER7> I've never thought of it that way before in terms of a contract. Very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let's hope visa doesn't convince society that getting rid of cash is the future. Not only would that be a terrible blow to privacy, it would entrench the need to pay Visa or another credit card company 2% of every transaction.

<comment><USER10> Nah, let Visa destroy themselves with terrible business decisions. If they successfully eliminate cash then the logical step is to create a nationalized payment processor.

<comment><USER8> Exactly; when banknotes displace coin as the main payment mechanism, it wasn't long till government extended their monopoly to banknotes.

So, yeah, I can see VISA inadvertently hastening the day when everyone pays with their Federal Reserve Card.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This won't fly. Lot of mom'n'pops restaurants prefer cash so they can under- report their income and save on tax. In fact, quite a few restaurants that I've been to in San Francisco take only cash.

Ex: Udipi on Valencia near Dosa has a big board at door and at counter that says in caps "CASH ONLY"

<comment><USER8> > Lot of mom'n'pops restaurants prefer cash so they can under-report their > income and save on tax.

Or just avoid paying the private tax on card processing.

<comment><USER11> Plenty of chinese takeaways in the UK that only accept cash. The one near me doesn't put it in the till, it's taken to the back, and asking for a receipt infuriates them. There's plenty of reasons to take cash only over and above CC charges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wouldn't this have the effect of preventing many minorities from dining at certain restaurants? E.g.:

[http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/race-age- gender-...](http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/race-age-gender- statistics.php)

<comment><USER8> That's actually a reason some restaurants might sign up for it; it's racial discrimination they can get away with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't it illegal for a merchant to refuse US currency in the US?

<comment><USER14> At the point of sale, no. For a debt, yes.

If you go to a store or a fast-food restaurant where you pay before being able to take the goods, then they can legally refuse to accept cash.

But at a full service restaurant, once your food has been delivered to you and you have eaten it, your bill to the restaurant is considered a debt. They legally MUST take cash in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a retail merchant, I'd never want to intentionally restrict accepted payment methods. It's bound to lose you some sales, period. I don't think $10,000 would even be worth it for a food business.

I'm more used to encountering the opposite - establishments that, sometimes unexpectedly, only accept cash. If an ATM of my bank isn't nearby, usually the only option is to use a 3rd party ATM, which incurs fees that usually total 10-30%.

The one time I've found t difficult to have only cash and not a credit card is when driving in remote areas at night. You may encounter gas stations that are closed, but have pumps on for card transactions, but no way to pay with cash.

</comment><comment><USER16> I guess this move would be outright illegal in at least some countries. Cash is legal tender, nearly everywhere. In some countries that means if you're selling something to someone in person, you have to accept it as a payment method.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is becoming increasingly common in the UK. A lot of popup stores only take card (contactless).

I very rarely see people using cash these days - so it's a lot of hassle to collect and process cash for a small % of customers that do use it.

<comment><USER18> Bristol Pounds!

<comment><USER11> Haha. I live near there in Cheltenham and have read quite a bit about the BP. Do people actually use it, what's the acceptance rate, and is it a good thing?

<comment><USER18> Well from what I heard, it helps keep money circulating within the economy. When you pay someone in BP you are in a sense investing in Bristol's continued vibrancy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Adding a cash handling charge to any cash users would remove the incentive to use cash. In Europe and Canada chip and pin reduced the use of cash significantly. Contactless and mobile payment options like Apple Pay is the next nail in the coffin.

Merchant's like it (not have to transfer large sums of cash to the back, significantly reduced risk of fraud), Government's like it (easier to ensure that the correct tax is being paid on transactions) and Consumers like it (don't have to carry cash).

The US is significantly behind in this area which is why credit cards getting cloned and used at physical stores is still an issue.

</comment><comment><USER20> Aren't restaurants already paying visa by way of transaction fees? Unless the amount visa is giving back is > the amount in transaction fees, what is the incentive?

<comment><USER5> Cash has costs too. You have to track it, it gets stolen, you have to write out deposit slips and drive it to the bank every night. Banks also charge for treasury services, I.e. Processing your cash deposits and keeping you stocked with coins and small bills.

I've never seen a full accounting, but I wouldn't be surprised if a fully cash-free business actually had better overall costs, even with the card fee taken into account.

<comment><USER21> Ler's make a practical example. We are talking here of (smallish) restaurants.

You get 4,000 dollars in cash, after having prepared and sold in your restaurant 100 meals at 40 US$ each on average.

Visa (or other card processor+ all the fees) will get (example taken from here): [https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/brc/demystifying- credi...](https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/brc/demystifying-credit-card- processor-fees)

3%+0.25 US$/transaction.

That is 0.03 _4000+0.25_ 100=120+25=145 dollars

If you have cash and while driving home you deposit the money at the bank you have 4,000 US$, if you go all Visa you have 3,855 dollars.

You get 155 dollars for spending 10 minutes more on the way home.

Even if you manage to get half of that rate, you get 75 dollars for 10 minutes.

Before, you probably worked (once detracted costs) for 10% net of the 4,000 dollars i.e. 400 dollars for 8 to 10 hours of (hard) work or 40-50 dollars per hour (and the average small restaurant cook/owner rarely can make that much).

<comment><AUTHOR> > If you have cash and while driving home you deposit the money at the bank > you have 4,000 US$

This is an ideal world calculation that also assumes the owner working in and out every day, no hired managers, no shift workers, no sick or vacation time for the owner.

How are you making sure you have enough coins and dollar bills to cover change? How is the cost calculation impacted if a rogue employee steals, a robber demands all cash, or if sketchy customer passes a counterfeit bill?

<comment><USER21> >This is an ideal world calculation that also assumes the owner working in and out every day, no hired managers, no shift workers, no sick or vacation time for the owner. The ideal part is only in the "average" income of 4,000 US$ each day, the model is that of a typical small restaurant.

>How are you making sure you have enough coins and dollar bills to cover change? Exactly how it has been done, for the past roguhly 5,000 years money has been in use.

>How is the cost calculation impacted if a rogue employee steals, a robber demands all cash, or if sketchy customer passes a counterfeit bill? They are called enterprise risks, they date back to before the money was even invented. You fire the rogue employer, you have a robbery - maybe - once in 30 or 40 years of activity, you get one, maybe two counterfeit 50 dollar bills a year.

What I wanted to show is only that the 2-3% a credit card transaction costs easily represents in small activities 20% of the net (before taxes) income the activity produces for the owner/worker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From what I can tell, Visa is offering an essay contest food establishments can enter on why their store would benefit from going cashless. Then they "pledge" to go cashless and get the money. Hard to say for sure when the site for it says "details coming" and every article is using the same press release.

So, an ad campaign saying "credit cards are better than cash."

</comment><comment><USER23> Ugh the libertarian in me just died a little inside.

</comment><comment><USER24> So that shady servers can take away your card, copy the numbers including the 3 digit extra "security" code and then use it to buy things online with it.

At least if restaurants had those portable scanner machine like they do in other countries, but they don't here in US usually.

</comment><comment> oval-atom VISA would have to make it worth while to compensate for unreported cash sales.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't like this idea one bit. We have a digital cash solution (crypto- currency) but there are too many hurdles to implement it (USA probably doesn't want to give up their de-facto status as the world's reserve currency and...it's ability to change it's value with the flip of a switch [i.e. Fed's recent QE programs]).

I'm not sure how society will grapple with this (cashless society) but I hope we simplify crypto to make it as simple as cash.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the cost of a single BTC transaction in today's dollars?

<comment><USER25> Too much, imho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Some people just hate privacy and not depending on 3rd party companies, huh?

</comment><comment><USER27> From the small snippet of the article I can actually read without the paywall, it looks like Visa is not offering to pay restaurants--it's offering to upgrade their payment systems for them (which have some dollar value).

I'd love to know: 1. Why on Earth a restaurant would willingly turn down a customer who has cash in hand and is willing to pay, and 2. How on Earth Visa is going to verify that the restaurant doesn't take cash.

For 1. many restaurants I've been to love cash and give you the stink eye when you pull out a card (because fees). The incentives seem to not make sense. For 2. is Visa actually going to send spies into restaurants and have them offer cash and see if the owner bites? I don't know this just all seems like crazy- land.

<comment><AUTHOR> > 1\. Why on Earth a restaurant would willingly turn down a customer who has > cash in hand and is willing to pay

There's a risk of employees stealing cash, a risk of being robbed, the cost to store and bank the cash (purchasing the safe, depositing the cash in the bank account, making sure the restaurant has the right coins and bills to make change), the risk of accepting counterfeited cash. Those risks and costs widely among the restaurants, of course.

From the article: "Michael Ryan, the co-owner and co-founder, said he never ordered cash drawers or a safe. By not having to count cash, visit a bank or order change, Mr. Ryan estimates, the manager on duty saves about 23 hours a week."

<comment><USER21> >From the article: "Michael Ryan, the co-owner and co-founder, said he never ordered cash drawers or a safe. By not having to count cash, visit a bank or order change, Mr. Ryan estimates, the manager on duty saves about 23 hours a week."

Still from the article: "Some merchants have already stopped taking cash. New York City-based 2nd City, a Filipino taqueria, hasn't accepted cash since it opened its doors in 2016."

The owner and co-founder has seemingly more than a whopping whole year of experience in the field.

How much does he pay in transaction fees per week in order to save the (calculated/estimated) 23 hours of work?

As a testimonial, I would like to have someone who managed a restaurant for 10-20 years and then in 2016 decided to go "no cash".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Paywall removed [https://outline.com/6gJU6n](https://outline.com/6gJU6n)

</comment><comment><USER29> Please stop linking to pay walled articles.</comment>


Are Apps The Future of Book Publishing?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/03/30/are-apps-the-future-of-book-publishing/ <comment><USER2> Better question: how will the agency model work with apps, since they need ongoing support and maintenance?

22 years after the release of Photoshop, I'm sure Windsor and Newton (artist's paint) are doing just fine. And will continue to do well long after I die.

Note: I've spent a while working with major publishers and their mobile apps. It's like stepping into a time warp; most still haven't figured out the internet yet.

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on your note a bit? That sounds really interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are these publishers planning on selling only 2-3 books per customer? I've got hundreds of books on my Kindle. No way would I load up my phone or iPad with that many apps.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think if apps becomes the default platform for mobile reading then something is broken. There are no standards, each book has to take up a slot on my phone and if I no longer want a book but want it stored on my device.

</comment><comment><USER6> No.</comment>


It's Time to Destoy the Billable Hour - <AUTHOR> http://walkercorporatelaw.com/lawyers/its-time-to-destroy-the-billable-hour/ <comment><USER2> The fundamental economic problem of the legal profession is this: a good lawyer can make a snap judgment that saves a company many millions of dollars. But for whatever reason, people get really ticked off at this kind of conversation:

"So, should we sign this agreement with our supplier, or not?"

"Well, I know the answer, and I'll tell you for five million dollars. Keep in mind that answering this right will save you fifty million dollars."

"Fuck you."

So instead of charging the market price for insight, they charge way, _way_ above the market price for research, high-end secretarial work, etc. This is less efficient in terms of wealth generated per hour, but more efficient in terms of capturing the wealth generated by knowing the law.

</comment><comment><USER3> the issue i was trying to raise is why the hell are entrepreneurs paying their law firms by the hour. it just rewards inefficiency, overstaffing and padding.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm being a bit naive here, but... if you can't trust your lawyers, shouldn't you find some new lawyers?

I would hope that a lawyer interested in a long and mutually profitable relationship with a client would forgo the potential short-term profits he could reap by padding his bills.</comment></comment>


Profit from Free Publicity with These 5 Steps from Joel Kessel - <AUTHOR> http://sidepreneurmagazine.com/1893/joel-kessel/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here are Joel's 5 Steps:

1\. Remember to plan and prepare. What's your action plan? What are your goals? What are you trying to do? Do that planning and preparation.

2\. Clarify your story or message.

3\. Create a message map to help you stay consistent with how you're communicating. Having a message map will help you In conversations like this. It will help as you're preparing presentations, sending e-mails, or writing blog copy. Clarifying your story and your message really is critical.

4\. Assemble the right materials. Do you have a press kit in place? Do you have a nice professional bio? Do you have a fact sheet on your company, product or service? Have those materials ready. Then, when a reporter says, "Can you send me more information?" You can answer, "Here it is." Reach out to the media to book interviews and other opportunities. If you have prepared for opportunities, doors will open.

5\. Leverage your results. Use media placements to fuel your marketing efforts.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommend an honest, decent recruiter in NYC? - <AUTHOR>

Could anyone recommend a good recruiter in NYC, i.e. not a sleazy ratbag.
I need to find a Java gig at a faceless megacorp to pay the bills.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> <http://hackruiter.com></comment>


Hiding from /usr/bin/cat - <AUTHOR> https://ura.d3npa.dev/posts/hiding-from-cats.md <comment><USER2> The glowing text is awful for readability. My eyes automatically try to escape from looking at the text.

<comment><USER3> and on top of that there's no RSS/Atom, I won't even visit a blog more than the once I am linked to it if those things don't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> cf ANSI control code 'viruses' in BBS software. Terminals do so many wonderful things, which of those did we _want_ them to do?</comment>


Blake Griffin's startup: 12society - <AUTHOR> http://www.12society.com/

<comment><USER2> A couple thoughts:

This is a neat idea, I think the price is right, but:

Are there categories of "stuff" that I can reject? What if i am not ever interested in cologne picked by these guys.

I do NOT think they should be including things like gift cards. I am paying you $40 per month for these guys to pick great stuff and a best buy gift card is on there? WTF. Unless that gift card is worth more than my $40 bucks - thats a hassle to convert my subscription fee to a gift card that I then have to spend time and energy converting into stuff, without the ability to convert it back to cash! Thats retarded. (I have a $100 best buy gift card in my wallet I have had for 8 months because I cant think of anything to spend it on that I absolutely need and that is <$100)

Aside from these guys having a ton of money, what am I getting by subscribing to receiving their picks, they have money - most are young, what sort of taste do they have? Am I not just subscribing to a selection of stuff picked by an army of assistants and paying some % premium to have these guys celebrity tied to the service?

How much time are they spending actually evaluating this stuff? Do they get 5 minutes a week with the assistant to say "Tim, pick one pair of socks from these 5 pairs"

Or do they all get the stuff they pick and are using it and then say "yeah these are great socks!"

Otherwise, a hell of a twist on the idea of endorsements.

<comment><USER3> These are helpful questions. Let's address them one by one.

Question: Are there categories of "stuff" that I can reject?

Answer: While 12Society doesn't allow for individual items to be returned or exchanged, we are highly focused on keeping subscribers satisfied and excited about the contents of each box. We do this in two ways: 1\. Each box contains a wide variety of premium products. Our Style Board is intent on making the product selection in each box as unique and diverse as possible. While you may like a certain product more than another, every item is vetted and curated and the collection of products is carefully constructed. Each box is guaranteed to retail for $125+, as well, so even if you do prefer some products to others, the great value of the box as a whole makes it a great bargain regardless of individual preferences you have. 2\. Every month, 12Society will learn more about your specific tastes and style preferences, and will begin to customize the box you receive accordingly. Through recurring Style Profile Questionnaires (new subscribers fill one out at sign up, for example) and requested feedback on every item a member receives, the 12Society team will soon customize the product offering in each box to match the preferences of each respective member. You may enjoy technology more than fashion, or identify more closely with either Blake Griffin or Nick Cannon, and we will use this developed knowledge to personalize your 12Society box.

In addition, if you are ever unsatisfied with a particular box, we take pride in our hassle-free return policy. No gimmicks or fine print - simply return the box in its entirety to our team and we will provide a full refund and even cover the return shipping.

Question: Will I receive gift-cards in the box?

Answer: 12Society is not a gift card company. The style board takes great pride in providing 12Society members with actual products that they themselves find joy in. That said, there may be an occasion where a gift card may provide for an increased level of customization or personal service, and may be worthwhile in those situations. Regardless, you can rest assured that you will never receive a product that doesn't have significant monetary or pragmatic value.

Question: What am I getting by subscribing to receiving their picks?

Answer: The 12Society Style Board is comprised of some of the world's preeminent athletes, musicians, and Hollywood stars. While some may be young, they unquestionably lead very unique lifestyles, and are all tastemakers and trendsetters within their respective verticals and professions. They will give you not just an inside look into items that they use and love on a day to day basis, but they will actually share that item with you so that you can experience it for yourself.

It is an innovative business model, and helps eliminate some of the barriers that separate you from the athletes and artists you admire.

In regards to the quality of the products included in the box, as we mentioned earlier, each box is guaranteed to contain at least $125 of retail value. Our Co-Founders (Michael, Tim, Nasir, Blake, Kevin and Nick), are all extremely motivated and excited to create a platform through which they can connect and interact with their fans. They are entrepreneurs in the truest sense, and are the decision makers of the company. In terms of time spent "evaluating" and sourcing - these are products that the style board actually uses and enjoys, so there is not necessarily need to spend time evaluating different products as these are already items that our co-founders use.

Feel free to shoot any additional questions to info [at] 12society.com!

<comment><USER2> Great, thanks.

WRT the giftcards, I'd suggest you remove the best buy gift card from the example images on your site if I'll never receive a gift card, as this is where my question came from.

Also, in my review of the site, I missed the "guaranteed . value of $125" I'll take a look again, but that is an important piece of info that I totally missed in my review.</comment></comment></comment>


Dating apps need women. Advertisers need diversity. The AI solution: Fake people - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/07/dating-apps-need-women-advertisers-need-diversity-ai-companies-offer-solution-fake-people/ <comment><USER2> I had a cynical thought about opening a dating app where I will use styleganv2 to generate natural looking pictures, GPT2 for bio and throw in some lstm with generic conversation structure, apply it to create lot of female users. Since male users on dating apps are used to not getting replies or hear back often, they probably won't realize they just swiped a fake profile. Sometime, the bot will start a conversation and ghost it before you can find out and probably hire real people to reply humanely for boost so the user has incentive and illusion of dating app and boost working.

Then I went to bed and forgot about it because that's not what a good person should be thinking of.

<comment><USER3> Japan already has fake dogs (Sony Aibo), in this Matrixified future, why not commercialize fake emotional connections?

<comment><USER4> I wonder where are we going as a human race? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t8fyiiQVZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t8fyiiQVZ0)

This is creepy.

<comment><USER3> I interacted with an Aibo in a Sony showroom in Tokyo, it wowed me at first but it didn't react to things I tried (like shaking my hand), so I realized all I was doing was wondering how to interact with it (i.e. feed it the proper input to generate the output I wanted). So I saw it as just a program, and I thought after a day I'd probably get bored with it. I'm glad I didn't get attached to this simulacrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Along the way, the AI creates an army of what Braun calls "monsters": Nightmarish faces pocked with inhuman deformities and surreal mutations."

"The company refers to these mutated creations as "monsters.""

Given that some of these deformities exist in real life, calling them "monsters" really gives an idea of what this dehumanizing-as-a-business does to dehumanize the minds of the creators.

<comment><USER6> Chill out, I'm one of them, I don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Actually, creepygirl isn't the worst girlfriend I ever had...</comment>


Show HN: My fiction podcast about GPT-3 incorporating HN discussions - I-M-S https://programaudioseries.com/14-more-parrot-than-predator/ <comment> I-M-S Being the author of The Program, a fiction podcast described by fans as "a love child of Black Mirror and NPR", I've been following news around GPT-3 very closely.

So I decided to make an episode depicting a fictionalized origin story of GPT-3. The twist is that I incorporated actual text generated by GPT-3 to tell the narrative (even the episode title has been generated by it!)

To this end, I used four excellent articles and wonderful HN discussions that ensued as sources of inspiration and insight. Some of the comments have made it into the episode almost verbatim (of course, all have been properly credited in the show's references).

I'm talking about:

[https://tinkeredthinking.com/index.php?id=841](https://tinkeredthinking.com/index.php?id=841) \- discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923799)

[https://www.gwern.net/newsletter/2020/05#gpt-3](https://www.gwern.net/newsletter/2020/05#gpt-3) \- discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623845)

[https://lacker.io/ai/2020/07/06/giving-gpt-3-a-turing- test.h...](https://lacker.io/ai/2020/07/06/giving-gpt-3-a-turing-test.html) \- discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23887637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23887637)

[https://arr.am/2020/07/25/gpt-3-uncertainty- prompts](https://arr.am/2020/07/25/gpt-3-uncertainty-prompts) \- discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989215)

Additionally, I partnered up with a startup called Narration Box to synthesize the computer voice of GPT-3, which I connected with back when I originally unveiled The Program on HN (you might be glad to hear the show recently passed 100,000 downloads).

This community has been nothing but good to me so I thought you might be interested to check out the latest work of whimsy it inspired. You can find the episode in question at the URL above or in your favourite podcast app (search for "The Program audio series" (full title) and find the latest episode).

Comments / feedback welcome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great article. I don't know what is more disturbing there -- not knowing what parts of MOD's own answers were generated by GPT-3, or (if) what parts of "human" interactions came from it, or if the whole thing is generated by it with minimal editing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The Program is so freaking amazing. Huge fan.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's great and has only gotten better with more episodes

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would mind on demand be used for personalized ads?

<comment> I-M-S Isn't that the fate of all new tech - to sell you something? :)</comment></comment>


The Final Nail In The Windows Coffin - <AUTHOR> http://www.etherealbits.com/2013/05/the-final-nail-in-the-windows-coffin/ <comment><USER2> I remember stories like this from previous Windows releases.

The narrative goes something like this:

1\. Geek decides to install/upgrade to newest version of Windows for some reason.

2\. Geek encounters many technical roadbumps in doing so.

3\. Geek discovers that once installed, newest version of Windows has $major_user_interface_drawback (no start button / is slow / looks designed for children / etc).

4\. Geek concludes that the masses will reject this version of Windows (and perhaps adopt $Linux_distro_of_choice instead).

This fails to account for:

a. The increased likelihood that a geek's PC (-v- a non-geek's PC) will encounter problems upgrading Windows due to

a.i. having another OS installed (dual booting);

a.ii. having relatively esoteric hardware installed.

b. The vast number of Windows installs out there; and thus the relatively high number of failed installs/upgrades that can occur based on a low failure rate.

c. As geeks we are relatively likely to hear about problems other geeks are having.

Tldr: this is not the sort of anecdotal evidence that will persuade me Windows is dying.

(Am I saying that there are no problems with Windows 8? Or that Windows is categorically NOT dying and NOT being superseded? No. But the linked blog post is not terribly relevant to that debate.)

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems that in the end the install was performed on a system where no Ubuntu disks were present (Ubuntu disk was removed). If true, the whole dualboot discussion is moot. Personally I also encountered registration hell. After some time trying to get it working I just quit on windows and installed Fedora without dual boot on the new system. No windows (XP) traces were left. And everyone (at least in my home) lived happily ever after.</comment>


Best and Worst US Cities for Data Centers - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193401105&pgno=1&queryText= <comment><AUTHOR> Spurred by a previous post about managed servers.</comment>


We need more, not less democracy - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZHOgWeg8T0 <comment><AUTHOR> Journalist and researcher for the Tor project, Jacob Appelbaum talks about technology, freedom and resisting surveillance at the World Forum for Democracy.</comment>


Ask HN: Can community owned marketplace/exchange/protocol exist? Are there any? - <AUTHOR>

Problem: On a daily basis, people all over the world use various marketplaces on the Internet to exchange, buy or sell different things. From jobs to houses, everything is being traded online. There are companies which are competing to create their own marketplaces, but the more I use these, the more I feel there should be a common/better way.
Current situation: Each marketplace has its own UI, app, API, rules to go through very similar "kinds" of information. And there are yet different ones for each geography although most of the information maintains very similar properties.
Each job site or house rental site or car sharing site or others have their own format. And then we have aggregators who make their own UI, app, API...
Thus my question: Could there not be a common standard protocol to share demands or supply information? People who want add listings contribute together to bear the cost to maintain the information storage, search, retrieval. The cost per person or company would literally be pennies, since the population is very large. It could be P2P too, I am not particularly sure how to maintain this. But I want to understand if I am the only one seeing this issue. <comment><USER2> Depending on how cynical one is, you might view the real estate multiple listing service (MLS) as "community owned", at least from a game theoretic standpoint.

It is not a monolithic organization. There are actually 850 regional MLSs in the US. In some sense this is a P2P walled-garden marketplace. However, there is downward pressure from the national realtors association to standardize on things like listing formatting, so it is not entirely self-organizing.

I think owning the marketplace is valuable. Similar to various open source initiatives, once the free marketplace gets to a certain size, someone like Red Hat will come in, fork it, and set themselves up as gatekeepers. The resting dynamic of the system is a feudal kingdom.

My 2c

</comment><comment><USER3> You're not the only one. The OASIS attempt at a standard was called XDI, specifically the Link Contracts portion of XDI. It failed to achieve traction, in large part due to political opposition. If you want to talk more about this, and possibly another go at a standard, please tweet @BillBarnhill. I am working on something myself that attempts to take some of the core concepts I introduced to XDI (I was a co-chair for a long time) and apply them in a more de-centralized and async way, called ADDI (Async Data Discovery and Interchange).

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a fallacy to think markets exist only to connect buyers and sellers. Another giant consideration is mitigating counter party risk. This is a very complicated & risky problem. Solving it therefore requires incentives. Those incentives frequently push towards capturing transactions rather than making them open.</comment>


Show HN: Super-simple company signup with Google/Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.flowdock.com/organizations/new

<comment><USER2> What is it? That isn't clear to me at first or even second glance. It's nice that you provide information such as "do I need to make a long term commitment?" but first make it clear a commitment to WHAT?

Edit: I see, you linked to the signup page. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do.

<comment><USER3> As far as I can tell, it's just a new signup form for an existing company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I stared at your frontpage for a good 3 minutes (great design, by the way), and I still have _no_ idea what it is that you are offering. What exactly is "Flowdock"?

</comment><comment><USER5> You really need to work on your website content. The design is very nice, but after TRYING to figure out what it does (which most people wont do) I really don't have a clue. Your about page is a bunch of marketing speak which doesn't mean anything and the home page isn't much better. What can you do for me and what is my problem that you are trying to solve? The tour gets close, so move much of that to the home page and try again. I really like how the site _looks_ but I don't know what it does... sorry.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is an awesome implementation of what can be a tricky concept.

Out of curiosity, what percentage of users use their Google accounts? Facebook accounts? Have you noticed any trends in terms of "serious" users (e.g. higher plans, more likely to convert to paid users) using a Flowdock account vs. their Facebook or Google?

I've always thought that Facebook/Google sign in worked well for free sites or "lightweight" sites (e.g. ones my entire business doesn't depend upon), but I'm curious how many people use them effectively with a site like this that's more "vital".

<comment><USER7> We rolled out the FB/Google signup/login today, so we don't have any numbers about the usage yet. We'll need to do a blog post about that when we have some hard data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice. When I go for the "Flowdock" option, have the focus on the First Name textbox.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, that's a good point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are you showing us the sign up form or the application (flowdock.com)? I don't understand what FlowDock.com is (tho I do know that you have a 30 day free trial).

<comment><USER7> Yes, just wanted to share the new signup form that supports Google/Facebook and also lets you specify your company.

If you want to know more about Flowdock, the most advanced team messenger, it's better to check out the front page: <http://www.flowdock.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> When happens when someone signs up with google, but then later tries to log in with facebook?

<comment><USER7> They get a message saying that this FB user is not associated with a Flowdock user, please log in to pair it to an existing account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are we supposed to be evaluating the super-simple signup?</comment>


Google could have caught swine flu early - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/google-could-have-caught-swine-flu-early/

<comment><USER2> Bad headline, Wired. Should read, " _detected_ swine flu", instead of "caught swine flu".

<comment><USER3> It's obviously intentional word play, although I would agree if you thought it wasn't very clever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was watching a show about a computer system that monitors the Internet and other traditional media and shows what words and phrases (all languages) are rising through the chatter. It could have been for the NSA or Wall Street, I forget, but it's very interesting to see how all that supposedly random noise can be sifted to show new trends.

<comment><USER5> Though not realtime, Google's own Zeitgeist and Trends do that. For anything of that sort to be realtime it would have to do Deep Packet Inspection at every ISP, or maybe just at a few _very_ fat pipes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be nice to see some actual data rather than just that graph. If you look at the graph your eye is drawn to the dramatic upswing in the 2009 line, but is all of that upswing before media reports? It's unclear from the presentation.

Also, if you look at the data from previous years there's also an upswing in a similar timeframe.

What's needed is some concrete analysis of the data so that you can see if there was a detectable deviation from the norm prior to media reports. Unfortunately, Google has not released the historical data for Mexico (they've released it for the US only).</comment>


Content-aware image resize library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/esimov/caire <comment> rudi-c Happy to see this here! Seam carving is one of those neat little algorithms that hit a sweet spot, being a sum of a few moderately complex algorithms, comes from a readable paper, and gives very satisfying result. I had a lot of fun implementing it in undergrad.

One thing that I always wondered is how Photoshop managed to make it so fast that you can resize in real-time. If n is the width or height of the image, then the dynamic programming part is O(n^2) and needs to be recomputed after every seam removed. Since every seam is a single pixel wide, resizing the image by a non-trivial amount (say half) is O(n^3). There are other papers that remove multiple seams at a time but the quality isn't as good. GPU acceleration perhaps?

Another thing I learned while testing seam carving extensively is that it works nicely in certain scenes/situations, but tends to break down most of the time. The two most common scenarios are: 1) lines that are off by the horizontal by more than a few degrees get cutoff 2) objects loose their proportions and even when the manipulation is not directly obvious, it tends to feel off (in the uncanny valley sense).

I expect some interesting work to use deep learning for content-aware resizing, since neural nets could theoretically be more semantically and holistically aware of objects in the image.

<comment><USER2> Well, there is this paper called _" Real-time content-aware image resizing"_, maybe that describes the method you are curious about?

> _In this paper, we present a more efficient algorithm for seam based > content-aware image resizing, which searches seams through establishing the > matching relation between adjacent rows or columns. We give a linear > algorithm to find the optimal matches within a weighted bipartite graph > composed of the pixels in adjacent rows or columns._

[https://web.archive.org/web/20110707030836/http://vmcl.xjtu....](https://web.archive.org/web/20110707030836/http://vmcl.xjtu.edu.cn/Real- Time%20Content- Aware%20Image%20Resizing.files/real_time_content_aware_image_resizing.pdf)

<comment> rudi-c That's the one I implemented -- with a bit of low-level hackery, it could run fast enough to resize at ~5-8 fps on mobile back in 2013. But the result didn't look great on most images if you resized by more than ~15%. The technique works by calculating the "importance" field of the image once, and all the seams upfront. Then you can just number the seams from 1-n and remove the first m seams when you resize the image by m. The runtime is then O(n^2) instead of O(n^3). In contrast, with regular seam carving, you'd often update the "importance" field every time you remove a seam. The result is that the seams that get removed are less likely to introduce artifacts. I think it's a similar problem as the forward energy v.s. backward energy problem discussed elsewhere in the thread, but worse.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, then I don't know. Still, they mustn't have stood still since then and come up with new tricks.

I wonder if you could do a kind of quad-tree version where you hone in on the precise seam and minimise recalculations to bubbling new energy up the tree. That might also give a way to weigh global-to-local structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just saying, but GIMP had this for years with Liquid Rescale plugin (I think before even Photoshop): [http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/](http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/)

<comment><USER4> Neither GIMP nor Photoshop are libraries ("just sayin'"). It sounds like there were other previous libraries: that would be more relevant of a callback.

[http://liblqr.wikidot.com/](http://liblqr.wikidot.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember first seeing content aware image scaling at Adobe MAX in Barcelona I think it was. We were completely dumbfounded by what was surely magic happening on stage. When they showed removing objects we just lost it, jaws on the floor and all. That was a fun conference.

<comment><USER6> I'm the author of this library. The algorithm permits to remove an object from the image, only it needs somehow to be localized. After localization it can be applied to that area a higher energy map, which means that part will be avoided by the seam carver. I will implement a face detection algorithm to automatically exclude faces to get not altered by the carver.

<comment><USER7> There are a few interesting things to explore in that field, with different twists:

[https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/opencv/SmartThumbnail](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/opencv/SmartThumbnail)

[https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/infrastruc...](https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/infrastructure/2018/Smart- Auto-Cropping-of-Images.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote a GUI for another seam carving library back in 2009[1], and it looks like although in archive mode, you can still access the source as well as the windows / mac binaries. Just tested it and it still works!

Not as fancy as photoshop I'm sure, but does have the ability to paint a mask of regions to keep / remove to aid the algorithm and get the desired result. Multi-threaded too!

[1] [https://code.google.com/archive/p/seam-carving- gui/](https://code.google.com/archive/p/seam-carving-gui/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that. I used it way back when(mid 2010) to make it look like a a 30' cliff jump was a 60' one. Really impressed my friends with it.

<comment><USER10> High praise indeed - you know the software is good when you can use it to lie to your friends.

<comment><USER9> Now that this thread is essentially tially dead, I can let out my little secret - I'm not the bad boy you think I am. I told them thw truth eventually -about 30 seconds after showing them the doctored one. I hope this doesn't change your opinion of me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Came for the "seam carving"... okay.

Didn't expect image expanding... was blown away.

Mix in temporal energy plus a ML objects DB, put that in a chip, and turn decades of 4:3 TV into widescreen!

<comment><USER12> I'm already quite interested in resizing wide images to square images for Convolutional Neural Networks training

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I actually also implemented seam carving in JS a while ago with a live demo in the browser [http://davidalbertoadler.com/projects/seam-carving- js/](http://davidalbertoadler.com/projects/seam-carving-js/) [https://github.com/mfbx9da4/seam-carving- js](https://github.com/mfbx9da4/seam-carving-js)

</comment><comment><USER14> Would this still be covered under the original patent until 2029 [1]?

[1] [https://www.google.com/patents/US8213745](https://www.google.com/patents/US8213745)

<comment><USER15> That patent was filed in 2009, and appears to be a copy of a 2007 paper [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.570...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.570.6321&rep=rep1&type=pdf) with no novel contributions, and no overlap in authorship.

<comment><USER16> This one has one of the original authors and was filed in 2008: [https://www.google.com/patents/US8280191](https://www.google.com/patents/US8280191) not sure about differences in claims. IANAPA

<comment><USER2>
         2008: Original Assignee	Abode Systems Incorporated

         2009: Original Assignee	Eastman Kodak Company

Perhaps the Kodak patent covers a hardware-implementation for their cameras?

<comment><USER17> _Eastman_ Kodak manufactures and distributes cinema film. The camera division is the _other_ Kodak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Seam carving is fascinating, and especially the first version of the algorithm really really simple to implement. However, that algorithm introduces certain artefacts - the boat in this picture[0] makes it pretty obvious.

The cause of these artefacts are mainly that the original algorithm did not look at energy that was _introduced_ by removing a seam: each time this happens, the pixels adjacent to this seam become neighbours, which creates a new energy gradient. So sometimes removing the least-energy seam would produce a net _increase_ in energy.

The original authors of the seam carving paper realised this[1], which lead to the obvious fix for it: instead of only looking at the current energy of a picture, and removing the least-energy seam, look how much of a net energy difference the removal of a seam would make, aka "forward energy".

A few years later another paper came out that used "forward gradient difference maps" which supposedly work even better, but to be honest the formulas described in that paper are too complex for me to understand[2]. Conceptually though, I think they just extended the original energy function (a simple Sobel operator[3]) with a few other ones that include orientation and others:

> _The energy function measures the curvature inconsistency between the pixels > that become adjacent after seam removal, and involves the difference of > gradient orientation and magnitude of the pixels. Our objective is to > minimize the differences induced by the removed seam, and the optimization > is performed by dynamic programming based on multiple cumulative energy > maps, each of which corresponds to the seam pattern associated with a pixel. > The proposed technique preserves straight lines and regular shapes better > than the original and improved seam carving, and can be easily combined with > other types of energy functions within the seam carving framework_

With that in mind, it shouldn't be that complicated to come up with more improvements to seam-carving: just stack on different energy functions (either forward or current energy), and compute the ideal seam based on the (weighted) sum of them.

[0] [https://user- images.githubusercontent.com/883386/35498498-3c...](https://user- images.githubusercontent.com/883386/35498498-3c0f182c-04d7-11e8-9af8-695bc071e0f1.jpg)

[1] [http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~avidan/papers/vidret.pdf](http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~avidan/papers/vidret.pdf)

[2] [http://cvlab.postech.ac.kr/~hyeonwoonoh/acmmm2012.pdf](http://cvlab.postech.ac.kr/~hyeonwoonoh/acmmm2012.pdf)

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

<comment><USER18> Seam carving is also slow and doesn't work well for stretching images beyond around 50%. Moreover, computing optimal sequence of carving steps using dynamic programming for large images is not practical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks really interesting. I'd love to see an animated version that shrinks from large to small.

<comment><USER20> I wrote a version of this in javascript with a live demo you can play with at [https://alexander.soto.io/seam-carving](https://alexander.soto.io/seam- carving)

<comment><USER21> Your JavaScript version is very easy to use, and I'm so glad I can upload my own images instead of just using examples!

The algorithm itself looks like it needs face (and body) detection to be really useful, though.

Example: My girlfriend and I on holiday in Australia.

Original:

[http://peterburk.free.fr/seamCarving/lighthouse.jpg](http://peterburk.free.fr/seamCarving/lighthouse.jpg)

Shrunk:

[http://peterburk.free.fr/seamCarving/lighthouse_seamCarving....](http://peterburk.free.fr/seamCarving/lighthouse_seamCarving.jpg)

<comment><USER22> In all fairness, the read me says "Todo: face detection"

<comment><USER21> That's true, and I agree with the author!

It will be more complicated than it seems, though, because I just tried the GUI version from gabeiscoding above, and got the following result:

[http://peterburk.free.fr/seamCarving/lighthouse_seamCarvingG...](http://peterburk.free.fr/seamCarving/lighthouse_seamCarvingGUI.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am always blown away by this stuff, but it still applies some distortion to the image in a way that feels slightly unnatural.

It's similar to the effect that changing focal length on a camera has. eg. Wider angle lenses seem to squish far away objects and enlarge closer objects. However, this affects the entire image in a consistent way whereas changing focal length does not.

I wonder if this could be used to simulate focal length changes?

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice implementation. Like face detection also text-detection would be nice, to avoid distorting / aliasing text (like in advertisements).

</comment><comment><USER25> How well can it remove objects from images? Can it remove an object in a cluttered environment? I'm thinking of image augmentation for deep CNN's. Normally, augmentation can help with invariability to small rotations, translations and flips, but if we could remove objects from images, it might be useful for creating many examples from one image, for image based reasoning.

<comment><USER6> The algorithm has the ability to remove image parts based on the energy level of each object calculated by a simple sobel operator. So in order to remove an object you have to either localize the object and give a higher energy value or to train a CNN to localize some specific object type, then again increase the energy value. Right now i'm working to implement the face detection part. So if anyone is interested in extending the library even further and to integrate a CNN, it's more than welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Surprisingly, imagemagick already supports this.

<comment><USER27> Link: [http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/resize/#liquid- rescale](http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/resize/#liquid-rescale). Seems like it was added as an experimental feature in v6.3.8-4. It requires compiling with the option `--with-liblqr`.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not to downplay the cool factor of a new implementation, Liquid Rescale (long- time GIMP plugin) also has protective masks, which prevent or delay the laying of seams in some parts of the image. Caire seems to intend to do a more automagical subset of that, with the "Face detection" todo, but the better short term solution is to accept masks directly.

[http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/en:examples](http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/en:examples)

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks cool, will check out soon. I remember I created an image resize web application using seam carving during college for my software engineering project as I was fascinated by the algorithm. Not sure if in working state currently. [https://github.com/pixation/pixation](https://github.com/pixation/pixation)

</comment><comment><USER30> Loosely tangental; can anyone recommend an image library management system they've had success with? Looking for uploading, thumb-nailing, search metadata, access levels and ideally some on-the-fly transformations like Cloudinary offer

<comment><USER31> I would suggest having a look at Uploadcare, [https://stackshare.io/uploadcare/how-uploadcare-built-a- stac...](https://stackshare.io/uploadcare/how-uploadcare-built-a-stack-that- handles-350m-file-api-requests-per-day) (though I am biased as a CEO)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is anyone aware of applying a similar technique to computer models ie: fake parametric design?

</comment><comment><USER32> Could we use any direction for pixel removal, rather than only vertical or horizontal ?

<comment><USER33> Just run the algorithm twice?

<comment><USER34> Better yet, scale the image proportionally down to the largest of the two target sides, then run the algorithm once in the direction that needs to shrink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It looks promising, but the current result isn't great. Use cases for something like this is very specific... perhaps mass conversion of thousands of photos from 4:3 into 16:9...

</comment><comment><USER36> is this still the best approach to this problem? I would think that a GAN or similar would be better for keeping the correct features for things like faces etc.

</comment><comment><USER37> Time to write an iOS app and make millions?

</comment><comment><USER38> I think they had this in Photoshop circa 1999, or I def. remember seeing a demo of it by Adobe around that time.

Anyways, neat! Nice contribution.

<comment><USER39> It was much more recent than that. Content Aware Fill was introduced in Photoshop CS5 which was released in 2010. Perhaps you were thinking of the Spot Healing Brush of Photoshop which is somewhat similar but much more manual and limited.

<comment><USER38> I distinctly remember the tech being demo'd in 1999-2000. Huge amounts of "wow's" being echo'd in the auditorium. This was around when PS 4.5/5 was out. I guess it was a feature to be slated for PS 6?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Seam carving is cool and has a lot of potential, especially for certain kinds of images. I can't wait until we see something like it in pro photo editors like Affinity Photo.

<comment><USER18> Photoshop has it for ages; even bought the original research.</comment></comment>


HAKMEM - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAKMEM

<comment><USER2> Hacker's Delight builds upon HAKMEM, cataloguing all kinds of bit-twiddling tricks. It's not the kind of book you'll use every day*, but it's a great reference for your bookshelf.

<http://www.hackersdelight.org/>

If you do use it every day, I'd love to know where you work.

<comment><USER3> Hardly ever use it, but we have, for example, used the tricks to count the number of set bits found in Hacker's Delight :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alan Mycroft has given some C interpretations of HAKMEM examples at <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~am21/hakmemc.html>.

</comment><comment><USER5> This piece is quite charming: "If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error, some fascist pig with a read-only mind is trying to enforce machine independence." (Item 154)

</comment><comment><USER6> Some of these are pretty hardcore...</comment>


Oxt: the new word that will make your life slightly simpler, forever - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5901883/oxt-new-word-weekend

<comment><USER2> Didn't they just invent a new synonym for "second"?

i.e. Take the second left. Do you want to go out on the second weekend from now?</comment>


What Doctors can do about the severe cases - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21176783/coronavirus-covid-19-deaths-china-treatment-cytokine-storm-syndrome <comment><AUTHOR> From everything we have seen, it seems to me that an overly active immune response is responsible for the really tough cases with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and the body going into a cytokine storm. It may be that this, rather than the virus itself, causes patients to be put on ventilators.

The immunosuppressant medications I have seen which can bring this down are used for rheumatoid arthritis. Corticosteroids have a wide ranging immunosuppressive effect but the CDC advises against them, to give the body a chance to fight. I think in the early stages that's true but if the body starts a cytokine storm we need to bring it down a notch.

Perhaps the key lies in immunosuppressive drugs to keep the immune response within a certain level?

Can experts on here chime in?</comment>


Matt Maroon: Demo Day - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/?p=263

<comment><USER2> Enough with the tantalizing teases: when will we finally get to know what the current YC companies are actually doing??

<comment><USER3> Seriously guys Tichy has a point here. I am a big fan of YC startups ( even though we did not make it this time and sure will next one), but telling us about the night before and the day after is not really "feeding one's intellectual curiosity". So please let's try to stay around The "Hacker News" theme until we change it to something broader. PS:"Matt, this is not personal at all. We just want to know what's for diner"

<comment><USER4> Put yourself in their shoes. If you had a choice between making people happy on a web forum and doing what you think is best for your StartUp, which would you choose?

There are cases where StealthMode makes sense, right? Without knowing what they're doing, it'd be hard to give a good reason why they shouldn't be in StealthMode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Drunk dudes whizzing on trees, a couple shots before the meeting, "strap on some plums" t-shirts. Apparently even Y-Combinator can't escape the inevitable consequence of nerds turning into frat boys as soon as they get a little money...

<comment><USER6> From what I've read on his blog, it seems like Matt was never really a nerd to start with. His startup seems to be involved with sports somehow from what I can gather?

I've said it earlier and I'll say it again - not all hackers and tech entrepreneurs are 'nerds' by the stereotypical definition.

<comment><USER7> Putting together comments from Matt's blog and the Demo day article from Fred Wilson (?), I think they must be the ones doing fantasy sports betting. Also fits with Matt's background.</comment></comment></comment>


An alternative education system - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@semicolon_sucks/an-alternative-education-system-2e8092c5031f

<comment><AUTHOR> This is just the first draft of my plan. I'm not sure if it is the right approach. I really need some feedback from you guys.</comment>


Dispute with Web Design Company - <AUTHOR>

To give a quick synopsis of what is going on, I hired a "legitimate" web design company to put together a very custom website for my first entrepreneurial venture. Without giving too much detail about the idea, I wanted to have them design an interactive map for the downtown area that I live in to bring the character and life of that area online.
After a great deal of research into what kind of programmer to use, local or foreign, freelancer or a company, I decided to use a local firm that I was referred to by a student of the company's owner. He is a professor at the university in town as well. He was extremely enthusiastic and seemingly knowledgeable about what I was going for. The price tag was around 10k with 2k required up front and the rest to be paid after the project was completed. The estimated time to complete the project was 8 weeks. A mobile version was to be included.
I agreed to the conditions and paid the 2k and letting him know I had to have it done by July (This was late February).
Fast forward to last week, 15 weeks in and the project was nowhere near completion. I let him know last Wednesday, the 15th, in a respectful manner that I was not pleased with the progress nor some some of the work they had done. We had originally agreed to use a different graphic designer but he used one in house that was cheaper. I receive no response so I emailed him again Monday mid-day to reiterate what I had said Wednesday. Keep in mind I was never rude in any way. His response later that afternoon appalled me.
He stated that I was clearly dissatisfied with their product and that unfortunately our relationship was irreparable. He then went on to describe that according to their term's of service there was no refund for deposits but he would be "kind" and give me half back ($1000) along with the map design that I expressed my discontent with and a dictionary for the database but no actual code. He attached a contract his attorney had drawn up and that was that.
Now I am a month and a half away from deadline, I have formed an LLC, and met with an accountant as well as several other businesses to set this venture up. I am losing half of my deposit. It will be very difficult to have this completed in time starting from scratch.
The legal loophole he used to bail on me is that they offer no warranties, expressed or implied, in their terms of service for their products or services. I just never imagined something like this would happen. I have tried contacting him and he is very short using only legal jargon and says he wishes me the best while maintaining he is doing me a favor. I am pretty sure he just doesn't have time because he is a professor and a PhD student finishing in December.
Is there anything I can do about this? Any advice is appreciated. This is a learning process and all I can do is view it that way but it is nonetheless extremely frustrating and unethical in my opinion. <comment><USER2> Unless your contract outlined what would happen if it all crashed and burned, you're out $1k + the time and effort spent. I doubt it's even worth going after him for any kind of monetary compensation for the time he wasted. It's unethical sure, but you'll run into the same thing from time to time with "legitimate" web development companies as well.

Next time, make sure you outline or have them outline deliverable portions of the project. The deposit starts the project, but you need to see X within Y amount of time. if it's all good, continue, otherwise address the problems and define the next project deliverable. You might even need to incorporate payments after certain deliverables to keep everyone happy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, and you are right about setting and sticking to measurable goals. Like I said this is a first time learning experience. Good news is I pushed further and got my entire deposit back today. So I've lost time but that's all. Could've been worse.

<comment><USER3> If you are looking for a new web designer, email me at email@example.com and I'll let you know if I can help you out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Despite the "no refund for deposits" clause, you are entitled to your full money back. It doesn't matter that they offer no warranties, express or implied, either.

You may have to go to small claims court to get it. Or you may have to get an attorney to get it (Tough to do, I know).

Just know he is feeding you BS and you will have to assert yourself to get it.

What state are you in?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am in Alabama. I let him know how unethical I, and many others in our community, would feel his business practices were had he kept the money. He promptly returned my email within an hour letting me know he would return the entire amount.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't take any kind of recourse (legal or otherwise) and just consider yourself lucky to be only out $1,000. That they only ask for 20% upfront seems like an amateur hour move to me. I knew how this story ended right away after reading that.</comment>


Ask HN: How can a web app operate on user-held data? - <AUTHOR> How can I reduce the need for gathering data from the user and storing it on the backend?
For example, let's say an app that I'm building is based around birthday/gift reminders, and depends on users adding important dates of their important people.
It would be nice to increase trust by not actually collecting the information, but leaving it on the user side instead.  Is this possible?  Is it worth it to the user to bother?
Perhaps if the data is user-side, that could require an algorithm that runs user-side.  However, why would anyone want to run untrusted algorithms locally?
Just interested in hearing any ideas out there. <comment><USER2> You could pull this off quite easily with your browser's localStorage. Besides a few solvable technical problems, your biggest (most potentially app killing) problem will be at the user level.

This will primarily be a communications problem because very few users will understand localStorage. People will lose data and constantly enter data on the 'wrong' device/browser. They will tell you that your app is broken because they spent three hours entering all this data on their sister's computer and now she's five hours away where the data is of no use to them. At some point, you will receive a technical support request from someone who is reasonably informed that applauds your commitment to security, but asks you to build "some kind of database" so that user can use the data on all their devices.

As far as running algorithms on the client, honestly, modern browsers are pretty safe. If you run something complicated, be sure to test it out on a range of machines with both healthy and badly bogged down browsers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, so the localStorage data needs to be portable. But I guess that would require a trusted intermediary / proxy of some sort.

<comment><USER2> If you could figure out a way to explain that to users, you could be onto something big. I think there are enough people who care about privacy, but not enough to take a major usability hit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem with storing data locally is that users expect data to sync when using a web app. You could solve the syncing by storing the users data in the server but encrypted so that only the user can read it. The simplest scheme would be to let users enter a pass phrase. This passphdase is used to encrypt all data sent to the server and decrypt data from the server. The user would never share the passphrase with the server. The server can thus never read the encrypted data. ProtonMail uses roughly this kind of scheme but with public- private keys. [https://protonmail.com/security- details](https://protonmail.com/security-details)

I think this solution could fit you, but crypto can be difficult to get right and the devil is in the details. And for heaven's sake don't use my comment as a starting point for your implementation.

</comment><comment><USER4> LocalStorage or IndexedDB on the client-side, with Javascript. The "untrusted" aspect is not a significant concern, since both browser JS and these APIs are sandboxed and can't escape a single file associated with the website. CPU usage and disk storage can be a concern, but most non-abusive sites won't be anywhere close to hitting levels where the user cares.

The biggest problem is that _a lot_ of the algorithms that made the web successful can't be run on just one person's data. There's a reason why webapps replaced desktop apps, and that reason isn't _just_ that you only need a single UI with no installation and aren't vulnerable to all the Windows worms that were going around in the early 2000s. If you try to compete with leading webapps you quickly realize the extent to which collecting all that data actually helps them build better products.

<comment><USER5> > If you try to compete with leading webapps you quickly realize the extent to > which collecting all that data actually helps them build better products.

I have an extremely difficult time believing this.

Having worked on platforms that use data from millions of users and probably billions of interactions to create features that no one uses. It would seem that even with all of the data that Amazon has been collecting from all of us, the best they can do is show you ads for the exact thing you just bought.

Windows was running in nearly every home long before they were collecting data about everything you did (some people would probably argue Windows has gotten worse since then). Most of my adult life online has been collected and cataloged and machine learned and statistically regressed by now and wielding all this data ads companies have managed to show me ads I've clicked on almost dozens of times.

Sure having more data can be helpful but I don't think it's a requirement. I also think that people can sometimes fool themselves in to thinking that without collecting every scrap from each user and without millions of users to collect from that we can't build great software.

<comment><USER4> I used to work on Google Search. I now work on my own startup, which uses ElasticSearch. In many cases, they use the exact same algorithms and data structures, or can easily be fine-tuned to be equivalent. Nevertheless, stock ElasticSearch results are _much, much worse_ , because you start with zero data. To say nothing of not having Suggest, Refinements, universal results, good spell-correction, disambiguation, etc.

I also use DDG when I'm in Tor Browser, and it always strikes me how much worse the results are when I try to do technical searches there.

I've still got my music collection in MP3 form on my hard disk, and it's only an iTunes click away. Nevertheless, when I listen to music, it's all on YouTube now, because YouTube can actually recommend stuff that a.) I like b.) is of a similar genre and c.) I haven't heard before.

I rely on GMail's spam filtering for E-mail to be useful; when I've tried to go back to Yahoo Mail or (heaven forbid) running my own server, the result is just unusable.

You're welcome to try founding a startup that operates as a desktop app and collects zero data from users. With improvements in developer tools and payment systems, most of the ideas from the late 1990s that required millions in venture capital financing could be done by a single motivated dev in a few months. Good luck getting users to adopt your software, though, regardless of how privacy-conscious they say they are.

<comment><USER5> Search and recommendation services are definitely an example of things that do actually benefit greatly from more data. If you're building something like that then you will almost definitely benefit form more data. However, it might still be possible to generate music recommendations for a user based only on their usage patterns in their local music player. I'm not an expert in that area but I imagine it could be done.

> Good luck getting users to adopt your software, though, regardless of how > privacy-conscious they say they are.

It would probably be difficult mostly because we have trained users that an app isn't useful unless you can sync it to all your devices. We are always going on about how much better things are once you can connect them to everything else on the planet. We've sold users on the idea that they need to be connected all them time and we need to know everything that they do so we can "improve their experience" which for most things means "show you ads."

I'm not knocking webapps in general. I make them all the time. Some of my favorite things are webapps. I'm writing this comment on a webapp. I just also believe that not everything needs to be a webapp and have a constant connection to some server telling it about everything I'm doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> RemoteStorage set out to provide exactly this: [https://remotestorage.io/](https://remotestorage.io/)

Basically, it provides you with a simple API to store data in a location your user provides (and trusts). This might be in their local network, but could be Dropbox as well.

Haven't checked it out for a while, though...

</comment><comment><USER7> As documented here ([http://offlinefirst.org/sync/](http://offlinefirst.org/sync/)) there are two relatively easy options to achieve this:

1) Using Firebase, which is closed source (and owned by Google)

2) Combining CouchDB with PouchDB (which can be considered "CouchDB for the browser"), which are both open source.

Both allow saving data in the browser, and both can be configured to sync data saved in the browser with a server backend when needed.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have been thinking about the same and my thinking has been trying to leverage Google Drive, Dropbox for the user to store the data, this way they would own it all, but it seems weirdly complicated since you would have to support multiple and you would not earn any money or you would still have to store user data.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is the premise of Blockstack [https://blockstack.org](https://blockstack.org). It allows users to select their own datastore. I haven't used it so I can't say how good it is but probably worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is actually a topic that has interested me for a while. A couple months ago I wrote a program which was intended to be run locally on users' machines and interacted with via an embedded JSON API and web app. I realized I could (theoretically) point a domain, e.g. app.myapp.com, to 127.0.0.1 and then instruct the user to

1\. install program

2\. browse to app.myapp.com to use it

That led me to start thinking about applying this to a "hybrid" application which is hosted but which stores user data locally using a "sidecar" app. (I was thinking about larger, more complex web applications where I might not want to store 100% of user data in e.g. local storage or cookies) You might have the following DNS records:

1\. app.myapp.com -> <hosted app>

2\. api.myapp.com -> <hosted api>

3\. user-data.myapp.com -> 127.0.0.1

Create a basic application which runs an HTTP API for retrieving/updating locally-stored user data. When a user signs up, let them know that their data is stored locally and they'll need to install an application.

When your application needs to interact with constantly updating data (e.g. weather, finance, etc.), make requests to api.myapp.com for that data. When it needs to interact with user data, it makes requests to user-data.myapp.com which resolves to the user's local machine.

Obviously there's a number of things which aren't great (or that I haven't fully thought out):

\- If the local API runs on port 80, it would require that the user isn't running anything else on that port. Also, the application would need privileges to bind to 80. If it isn't running on port 80 (preferable), how do we pick a port which avoids collisions with ports used by other applications and how do we enable the user to communicate the port their local API is running on to the web app.

\- Securing user data from malicious apps - you'd want to make sure that only your application (and the user) can access the user's data. The same-origin policy would "prevent" any web application from talking to the local API, so you'd need to enable CORS for whichever domain is hosting your web app. CORS would help with this situation, but I don't think it would 100% solve it - there's still vulnerabilities like DNS rebinding that you'd have to consider.

\- Securing user data from data loss - if e.g. a user's disk died or their laptop was stolen and they didn't maintain their own backups, they'd lose their data

\- Sync between devices - e.g. if a user signs up for a service which stores their user data locally on their computer via something like this, how would it work if they opened the app on their iPhone?

\- "Moving fast without breaking things" \- if you make changes to the hosted and local apps which breaks compatibility with the current versions and requires the user to update, how do we force the user to upgrade their local app without it becoming a nuisance? This could be solved with an app which maintains backwards compatibility and slowly deprecates APIs, allowing users months between requiring updates to the local application. You could also just write an incredibly generic local API which doesn't require updates often.

Some of these are problems which existed before but which users' didn't need to think about because developers managed them - e.g. securing user data from data loss. Others are introduced specifically because of this architecture - e.g. syncing user data, increasing complexity, etc.

For the average user who may not care _that_ much about the privacy of their data, some of these trade-offs and increased complexity might not make sense.

If anyone has any further thoughts about this approach or why it's a terrible idea, I'd love to chat more! Email in my profile.</comment>


Shake to Undo (for Mac OS X) - <AUTHOR> http://www.natestedman.com/post/shake-to-undo-for-mac-os-x/

<comment><USER2> Oh my. The internet is a strange place. Digging up things weeks after they were made in an hour, sent jokingly to a few close friends, and mostly forgotten, and throwing them all over Twitter and the Apple blagoblag.

<comment><USER2> My only disappointment is that they didn't report on Shell of Disapproval instead, which is a program that I actually use daily.

<http://i.imgur.com/qjPSR.png>

<https://github.com/NateStedman/shell-of-disapproval>

<comment><USER3> I like it, but my tastes prefer something a little more subtle: <https://gist.github.com/1199925>

<comment><USER4> my favorite part is the "optional confirmation overlay"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me or is Shake to Undo one of the worst features of iOS on the iPad? You are happily typing an email on the train and then you screw up and delete a bunch of text. To undo it, you have to pick the iPad up off your lap or off the table and shake it pretty damn hard.

You end up looking like an absolute maniac.

<comment><USER6> Few people know this, but you don't have to pick it up off your lap to trigger the redo action. There's a redo key on the #+= page of the iPad's keyboard.

I know that this isn't particularly great design on Apple's part because it's not intuitive or easily discoverable, but once you know it it's quite handy and better than nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Funny joke and all, but it got me thinking. Why not some sort of gesture for undo like a multi finger scribble (similar to 'rubbing something out' with an eraser)?

Then I tried a bit harder & thought why not just use cmd-Z ;)

<comment><USER8> Hmm. Shake to undo, drop to delete? :-)

<comment><USER9> Hi five to save :P

<comment><USER10> Throw to share ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know if this will work with my 27" iMac? ;-)

Joking aside, the shake-to-undo gesture in iOS is one of the worst things about the platform. It's either not sensitive enough or too sensitive, and either way makes you look a bit odd

<comment><USER11> _It's either not sensitive enough or too sensitive, and either way makes you look a bit odd_

Plus it makes you lose eye- and finger-contact with the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just hope this doesn't inspire people to really shake the macbooks so hard to cause a disk problem or any other hardware issue.

I advise you add a disclaimer for this? ;)

<comment><USER13> That's actually why the sensor is in there in the first place: to let the hard disk shut off if it detects that the laptop is falling.

<comment><USER14> It actually makes the HD parks the heads out of the platters in a really mean way. It's better than having heads collide with the platters but it's a wear sensitive operation designed as an emergency countermeasure. Doing it repeatedly on purpose is certainly a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am guessing this is a nice little joke, BUT...

If the sensitivity was just right, and it only measured a shake like smacking the monitor on the side, it might actually make a nice UX.

Think of typing away at this message and then deciding, "never-mind", and reaching up with your right hand and smacking the screen on the edge. Could be a very natural feeling undo.

<comment><USER16> I'm pretty sure there was a virtual desktop manager for OS X around 10.3 or 10.4 that, in one fork, supported smacking each side of the laptop to cycle left or right. I also recall being able to use the ambient light sensors under the speaker grills for the same thing: Cover one with your hand, and the desktops move that way.

It was pretty fantastic.

<comment><USER17> Yep! Here's some instructions on how it was done. The underlying app, ScreenKnock, still works on Lion.

Instructions: [http://maketecheasier.com/smack-your-mac-to-switch- spaces/20...](http://maketecheasier.com/smack-your-mac-to-switch- spaces/2009/04/05)

ScreenKnock: <http://welcometochrisworld.com/2008/10/02/screen-knock/>

<comment><USER18> Thanks for linking that, really neat. I just ran it, and after configuring to use command-arrows to switch spaces, it works really well on my MacBook.

In fact, rather than hitting the side of the screen, just a gentle tilt to the left or right is enough to switch spaces. The dynamic feels really good.

<comment><USER15> Ah ha! Yes, I knew it must have been a residual memory and not my own idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While the idea is interesting, this is probably not something I would use on a laptop. Picking up and shaking a laptop while it's open and running goes against all my "protect fragile and expensive equipment" instincts. Tablets and phones are normally held in one's hands anyway, and weigh much less and are better balanced.

<comment><USER20> Agreed, with pure solid state though its not as big of a deal. But I remember having to manually park hard drive heads before moving desktops. Shaking anything that spins activates my spidey sense that I will cause head crashes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Now you can spill your coffee and erase your work at the same time!

<comment><USER8> My issue is that the two have always been connected. :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> While a pretty funny article, I disagree with the underlying message that Apple is making Lion too similar to iOS in ways that decrease its functionality.

For me, launchpad has been perfect for organizing my apps because just clicking the applications folder presents me with too many unrelated options. For example, my second launchpad window is only apps I've downloaded, so it's obvious to me how I would launch Starcraft or Braid as opposed to TextEdit.

<comment><USER23> Launchpad may be useful (though between Stacks and Quicksilver, I don't need it), but there are other areas where Apple made changes that they shouldn't have, even by their own standards. For example, the new full-screen mode nice on a small screen, but is detrimental to anyone who has multiple monitors, and Apple didn't even ensure that the transition animates smoothly with their own apps. Mission Control is at least an understandable attempt to integrate Spaces and Expose, but the new layout mode for Expose that lets windows overlap by more than 80% is a pretty big sacrifice that doesn't seem entirely necessary. They also removed several features that were mostly harmless or completely harmless to noobs, but useful for power users (eg. the mode-switch button on Finder windows, or the ability to browse a PDF in two-page mode with continuous scrolling on.) Simplification is good, but there's no reason to remove features that don't get in the way or make things cluttered.

I don't mind Apple experimenting and iterating with their UI, but it feels like with 10.7 they took things too far and were too single-minded about it. On the other hand, I've only been using OS X since 10.3, so I missed out on all the early roughness, and almost all of their changes from 10.4-10.6 turned out to be for the better.

<comment><USER24> I'm actually a big fan of the full screen mode. I spend about half my time on a 13" screen, and the other half on 22.

I actually like the auto sort mode for fullscreen/desktops as well, which surprised even me. But I like being a swipe or two away from my browser or email or vm.

That said, I am frustrated that I can't bend the rules a little and bring a terminal up on another app's fullscreen. Many times I'm following an example and have to take whatever browser I'm using out of fullscreen. Dterm helps a little.

I like launchpad, but I don't use it much. It does a good job of staying out of the way.

I do miss the old expose, and mission control's reduced expose is not adequate to replace the old. I almost never need the single app expose, if anything I wish they had dropped that and kept the 10.6 expose as well as mission control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Didn't the old iMacs have a "shake to shutdown" feature? Or was that just some weird configuration I had at the place I worked?

I can't recall the number of times I adjusted the position of the monitor only to find the computer shutting down...

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice one. :-) Very soon, I'll be playing games that needs me to shake my Mac violently, twist, turn and sometimes requiring me to flap the screen repeatedly to ward off the lazer guns of attacking Stormtroopers.

</comment><comment><USER27> Windows should have a similar feature. "Throw on the ground to fix BSOD"

<comment><USER28> Linux's would be "Toss machine at nearest dev for assistance."

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It doesn't seem to work on my 2010 MBA... perhaps due to the SSD?

<comment><USER30> Yeah—the new Airs don't have Sudden Motion Sensors. Which makes sense, since there's no hard drive to stop, but it breaks all the clever hacks that used the accelerometer.

<comment><USER31> It's not really a clever hack, just an undocumented IOKit device.

`ioreg | grep Motion`

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The twisting motion illustrated is more dangerous to hard drives than a simple up and down or side to side shake; the heads are being pushed into the gyroscopic platters. [citation needed]

</comment><comment><USER33> Finally! My least favourite feature on iOS, available on the Mac!

<comment><USER25> Bringing features from a cut down mobile OS released in 2008 to a full blown desktop OS with 20+ years of UX development behind it was the best idea we've ever had!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> _"Mission Control removes the confusing grid that previously plagued Spaces. Where a user with four spaces could previously end up on any of the other three with a single keystroke, he or she is now presented with a much less confusing choice between one or two."_

I _liked_ the ability to traverse a 2x2 grid of Spaces with a single keyboard stroke. Now, if I set up four screens with the new Mission Control in Lion, I have to press the right arrow four times to move from screen one --> four. The result is I only use two screens at most, meaning they get quite cluttered.

<comment><USER35> You can still jump directly to a numbered space by pressing "control" and any number key. This is default behavior as far as I know, but I might have switched a setting for it.

For consistent behavior, disable "Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use" in the mission control system preferences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ugh, it's not sensitive enough. I don't know how sensitive the HD shock sensor needs to be though... but I wish I could just tap the edge of my monitor.

<comment><USER37> That would be a fun feature for passing colleagues to make use of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Meh. Punch to Undo!

</comment><comment><USER39> AppleCare should sponsor this product.

</comment><comment><USER40> What if you have a SSD installed?

</comment><comment><USER41> it's like an etch a sketch :)

</comment><comment><USER42> Is this a joke? I'm really, really confused.

<comment><USER43> I'm pretty sure it's a joke

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> There's another library called smslib which does a totally unrelated thing - send sms. <http://smslib.org/></comment>