Stereo Separation, Subwoofers, and Headphones (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://alienryderflex.com/stereo_separation/ <comment><USER2> Thousands of dollars on speakers and a clean listening environment with one sweet spot. Or a few hundred on headphones and an amp.

I know which I picked. The author doesn't include listening environment in the analysis. It is insightful to point out that the degree of separation provided by headphones is extreme and there is a conflict there between how audio is mastered and how it is delivered. Not sure how much of that can be fixed at the point of delivery.

When I seriously did multiplayer FPS gaming I always used headphones. The original Unreal engine had excellent spatial positioning, but didn't seem to implement much in the way of occlusion. Felt good being accused of using a radar.

<comment><USER3> While I love my headphone listening (I have become addicted to the Grado sound), if I ever go back to being a homeowner I'm going down the route of linear array speakers. The whole room is the sweet spot. It's really creepy / fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nitpick: often we refer to "omnidirectional" bass because, given that subwoofers are usually much smaller than bass wavelengths (around 16 ft at 60 Hz), they have an omnidirectional radiating pattern.

Live sound is usually highly artifical, with the heavy use of compression, EQ, effects, and a very exagerrated bass. For instance, all reverb is usually digital, because instruments and singers have to be close-miked to avoid feedback. Also, past a certain venue size, it's better to mike guitar amplifiers rather than make them louder or add more of them, since their radiation pattern gets very narrow at high frequencies, resulting in a "pick to the forehead" effect for the people standing directly on-axis and a muffled sound for the rest of the audience.

<comment><USER5> My brain's probably just not working correctly today, but:

> Also, past a certain venue size, it's better to mike guitar amplifiers > rather than make them louder or add more of them...

By "guitar amplifiers" do you mean "loudspeakers being fed the signal from a guitar and amp"? Also, I assume that miking the amps would let you feed that signal into your master sound system where you could mix it and distribute it across the venue's loudspeakers as required? (Whereas adding _more_ amps would just mean more speakers on stage?)

<comment><USER6> uhh.. yes. You don't normally hook the guitar amp directly up to the loudspeakers of the venue because the speaker cabinet hooked to an amp imparts almost as much tone and color as the amp itself. (if you've ever used headphones hooked directly up to a guitar amp, it's quite painful and harsh because of this)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author doesn't really address one of the most important mechanisms that human ears use to determine direction: the delay between a sound wave reaching the "near" and "far" ear.

You can try this with headphones, by playing an identical recording in both ears, but delaying one by about 1 millisecond (I set this up back in college on my BeBox).

You'll perceive the sound as coming entirely from the non-delayed ear, at least until you take that side of the headphones off, at which point you can once again perceive that it's also playing in the delayed ear.

</comment><comment><USER8> Certain recordings seem to have too much stereo separation on headphones and they sound unnatural (this effect is discussed in the article). There are a variety of analog and digital methods for adding in a small amount of "crossfeed"[1] to reduce this effect and make headphone listening more comfortable.

[1]

</comment><comment><USER9> > To make a truly "natural" live recording, it might be necessary to use two > microphones mounted on opposite sides of a roundish, human-head-sized, > sound-dampening object.

Not exactly, you will want 3d-modeled earlobes as only the reflections, delays and echos caused by them allow proper omnidirectional (front-behind) hearing.

edit: also, sound-dampening the head, e.g. making it out of foam, will diminish a natural reception as a part of our sound reception is that soundwaves from one ear get transmitted by our head bones and "material", as well as through vibration via the ground and the bones of the legs. A truly natural recording is very difficult.

<comment><USER10> Such a thing already exists and is commercially available from several manufacturers. Dummy heads are used primarily in acoustic test facilities, but have seen some use for specialised binaural recordings.

The problem with binaural recording is that the resulting stereo field sounds highly unnatural when replayed on loudspeakers. The overwhelming majority of modern recordings and mixes are a compromise between stereo and binaural playback.

[https://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=...](https://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=ku100_description) [http://www.bksv.com/Products/transducers/ear- simulators/head...](http://www.bksv.com/Products/transducers/ear- simulators/head-and-torso/hats-type-4128c?tab=overview)</comment></comment>


Leaked Nvidia TITAN V Benchmarks Show Volta GPU Demolishing All Competitors - <AUTHOR> https://hothardware.com/news/leaked-nvidia-titan-v-benchmarks-volta-gpu-demolishing-competitors#disqus_thread <comment><USER2> Demolishing sounds a bit strong. It is measurably better, but is likely also to be more expensive and competing against other future designs when finally released.

</comment><comment><USER3> I want one for games!</comment>


Detecting Tor Communication in Network Traffic - <AUTHOR> http://www.netresec.com/?page=Blog&month=2013-04&post=Detecting-TOR-Communication-in-Network-Traffic

<comment><USER2> A few years ago, I wrote a client (tortunnel) that connects directly to Tor exit nodes and pretends to be a full circuit, allowing you to use Tor exit nodes as one hop proxies. I'm sure that things have changed since then, but I got to know the protocol while writing that, and my recollection was that Tor traffic would be easy to detect:

1) Most people aren't using bridge nodes, and are instead connecting to Tor nodes publicly listed in the consensus. No DPI necessary.

2) Tor clients/servers used to signal their intent by including "special" cipher suite combinations in the TLS handshake. IIRC, they later switched to doing a "normal" looking TLS handshake with an immediate TLS renegotiation once the outer handshake was complete. That's a very distinctive traffic pattern.

3) All writes were translated into cells that were padded to 512 bytes. So by design, all Tor traffic looks the same.

4) The circuits were much longer lived than a standard TLS connection.

My sense was that Tor was originally designed to use TLS for innocuous egress filtering compatibility, rather than for explicit censorship resistance.

<comment><USER3> Yes, at the moment points 1 and 3 are enough to distinguish Tor traffic from other HTTPS traffic. They're working on a few solutions though:

<https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports.html.en>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Meh, there's a reasonably large amount of research on disguising Tor traffic nowadays. Two recent interesting papers were StegoTorus [1], which conceals Tor traffic via steganography in a way robust to the above statistical analysis, and -- more exotically -- SkypeMorph [2], which obfuscates Tor traffic to mimic Skype traffic.

[1] <http://www.owlfolio.org/media/2010/05/stegotorus.pdf>

[2] <http://www.cypherpunks.ca/~iang/pubs/skypemorph-ccs.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER5> I find it interesting that the article uses the term "TOR" even though the Tor FAQ clearly states the following:

 _Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor is not spelled "TOR". Only the first letter is capitalized. In fact, we can usually spot people who haven't read any of our website (and have instead learned everything they know about Tor from news articles) by the fact that they spell it wrong._

<comment><USER6> They're just not doing it right, that's all. Few are. Nothing interesting about it.

<comment><USER5> Had the author used "Tor" instead of "TOR," I wouldn't be wondering what else they may have done wrong.

<comment><USER7> Kind of like the story about Van Halen and brown M&M's?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> tl;dr: TOR traffic looks like https, but can be detected via traffic analysis. There is more info on how traffic analysis can chip away at TOR users' anonymity in this paper: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland05torta.pdf>

<comment><USER9> That's a rather old paper though, it's 8 years old and I could have sworn that it was shown to not be effective in detecting current TOR traffic. From what I understand, you have to have massive traffic shaping capabilities to even begin to "chip away", just not a viable nor efficient solution as it takes huge resources. They're not going to devote that amount of time and money just to shut down a few nefarious drug resellers or other places.

<comment><USER8> Good call, I didn't notice that. Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> TL;DR: Tor is a peer-to-peer anonymity system providing TCP-like connections over SSL/TLS on TCP port 443.

Anonymity can be used for good. It can be used for evil. A botnet has been seen utilizing Tor.

There's a program called "Caploader" with a checkbox labeled "Identify protocols". Checking the box can identify traffic speaking the current vanilla Tor protocol.

</comment><comment> X-Istence What specifically about TOR's TLS stream allows it to be identified as TOR traffic? The article simply says to load pcap files into the tool ...

Makes me feel like reading the article was a waste of time. I want technical details.

<comment><USER11> Exactly, there's nothing really useful in this article.

For 900 EUR, however, you can buy yourself a copy of their tool.

<comment><USER12> 100% agree about the uselessness of the article.

If I were to take a stab in the dark about how the tool is doing it, though - based on their "statistical" analysis comment, my guess is they're measuring sustained traffic levels / TCP connection duration. Your average encrypted web session won't look anything similar to a command-and-control bot calling home over Tor to some irc server (which is their example usage for the tool). Possibly including "known" Tor node IP addresses, as well.

In addition, there was that Ethopian DPI filtering project against Tor that happened last summer (<https://blog.torproject.org/blog/update-censorship- ethiopia>), with the Tor Project thinking they'd somehow fingerprinted some aspect of their TLS handshake. Maybe this knowledge is spreading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suppose this points out a social function that malicious software can fill.

The discovery of methods to identify TOR traffic in the pursuit of reigning in malicious software, should encourage the TOR network to become less easily detectable before authoritarian governments manage to shut it down more effectively.

<comment><USER10> Seems unlikely that the antimalware scene is driving the Tor detection research. China seems to be putting the lots of effort behind it for censorship purposes.

See: How Governments have tried to Block Tor <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ>

<comment><USER13> I was partly responding to my own irritation with the underlying premise of the article. If Tor is being used maliciously to deliver or receive an encrypted payload on your computer or network, it isn't a problem caused by Tor. Furthermore, Tor has an enormous social benefit.

In other words, my first reaction was that it is harmful to attack the technology, but realized that is a silly argument for obscurity. Publishing a vulnerability, and more people publicly searching for vulnerabilities is a good thing, since authoritarian actors will just exploit what they find without any disclosure.</comment></comment></comment>


Head of Google+ Vic Gundotra: I was asked not to tweet again... by my boss - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/12/07/vic-gundotra-two-turkeys-tweet/

<comment><AUTHOR> If Vic had continued to use Twitter in a personal capacity and was somehow punished for it, wouldn't that fall foul of employment laws? Where do we draw the line between work and personal life? Maybe it's time for employees to be branded like cattle, after a hefty payment of course, so we can at least be done with this nonsense.</comment>


Ask HN: What can you recommend to Read for future startup founder? - <AUTHOR>

I think it's good to read about some Tips&Tricks, before you start new company.
Business side, everything that can be useful to find partners, customers, raise funds.
Maybe you can suggest some books or read list. <comment><USER2> Cribbed from an older answer of mine, to a different question[1], but pretty much my "recommended reading list".

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5591319#up_5591574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5591319#up_5591574)

0\. _The Four Steps to the Epiphany_ \- it's not strictly about "marketing" in and of itself, but it certainly touches on elements of marketing, and should be required reading for any startup founder, IMO.

1\. _Crossing the Chasm_ by Geoffrey Moore (more marketing strategy / product strategy than marketing tactics, but a valuable read)

2\. Lookup the current textbook for "Marketing 101" (or it's equivalent) at a nearby college. Go buy the book and read it, even if you don't take the class. If you have time and money, take the class.

3\. _The Ultimate Sales Machine_ by Chet Holmes. I'm deep into studying Chet's approach now, and his book has some great stuff on it. If you can, get hold of his videos from the program he did with Anthony Robbins titled "Ultimate Business Mastery System." You can safely skip the Tony Robbins part, but Chet delivers some good stuff.

4\. _In Search of Stupidity_ by Merrill Rick Chapman.

5\. _Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind_ by Al Ries, Jack Trout and Philip Kotler

6\. _The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!_ by Al Ries and Jack Trout

7\. _Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis_ by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

8\. _The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding_ by Al Ries and Laura Ries

9\. _Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition_ by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

10\. _Successful Business Research: Straight to the Numbers You Need - Fast!_ by Rhonda Abrams. This is good for learning about how to find the numbers you'll want to use to put together a first cut of a marketing plan. Think your "target market" is "screw, nut and bolt manufacturers in the southeast with more than 500 employees"? Then you need to know how many of those even exist, before you know if the market is even theoretically worth pursuing. Think your market is "adolescent girls in Massachusetts?" Then you might want population demographics and birth rates, etc. This is a good basic, (and cheap) book with some good pointers on how to get started on that kind of market research.

11\. _Marketing High Technology_ by William H. Davidow

12\. _How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit_ by Guy Kawasaki

13\. I'm a big Seth Godin fan, I'd say read anything and everything by him. _The Purple Cow_ stands out in my memory as a particularly good one. _Permission Marketing_ is good as well.

14\. _The Cluetrain Manifesto_

Also, I don't have any specific titles handy (I'm out of town consulting right now, unfortunately, so I can't even walk into the other room and check), but just go to a good used book store near you (if you have one) and find a couple of cheap used textbooks on "marketing research" and "marketing strategy". The exact title won't matter, you just want something you can read through and get the high level stuff. You're not trying to become an MBA, just to learn the language and the broad brush stroke overview of what goes on.

Some more suggestions in another old thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com:2227/item?id=7939794](https://news.ycombinator.com:2227/item?id=7939794)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, good read and advices

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's useful for future founders to know there will be mountains of struggle, pitfalls, tragedies, tons of errors. The James Dyson story has got it all> [http://www.amazon.com/Against-Odds-Autobiography-Business- Ic...](http://www.amazon.com/Against-Odds-Autobiography-Business- Icons/product- reviews/1587990148/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_4?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFourStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending)

</comment><comment><USER4> The Startup Manual - will get you started. ([http://www.amazon.com/The- Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup- Owners-Manual-Step-By- Step/dp/0984999302/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405628584&sr=8-1&keywords=the+startup+manual))

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, were looking for something like that

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's my list: [http://digitalmind.io/post/best-startup- books](http://digitalmind.io/post/best-startup-books)</comment>


Gaug.es for Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1054-gaug-es-for-android

<comment><USER2> _"Gaug.es for Android is built on top of the awesome Gaug.es API as well as several great projects for Android development that are also available on GitHub:_

 _JakeWharton/ActionBarSherlock for a consistent, great looking header across all Android platforms._

 _JakeWharton/Android-ViewPagerIndicator for being able to swipe between content, traffic, and referrer pages._

 _JakeWharton/NineOldAndroids for the AirTraffic view animations._

 _jayway/android-maven-plugin for building the app and running the integration and unit tests."_

A fine demonstration for how important Jake Wharton's work is for the Android community. If you want to use modern Android design patterns across older platform versions, it is hard ignore his projects.

<comment><USER3> His work also highlights the lack of support given by Google for backwards compatibility. Stuff like action bar (one of the biggest new UI changes in 3.0+) backwards compatibility is essential if you design your app around the new patterns and guidelines. Their official recommendations for having an action bar in 2.3 and below are:

1\. Reimplement almost the whole action bar on 2.3 and below by building on top of their "ActionBarCompat" example which is very minimal and only supports menu items - if developers take this approach, there's going to be a lot of inconsistent action bars out there.

2\. Just forget the action bar on older versions of Android ([http://android- developers.blogspot.com/2012/01/say-goodbye-t...](http://android- developers.blogspot.com/2012/01/say-goodbye-to-menu-button.html)), which is terrible advice - you can't just pretend that it never existed when the whole app is designed around it. Thankfully they don't believe this themselves since all their apps have some sort of action bar implementation on older versions too.</comment></comment>


Show HN: 100- xyz Lets wifi guests land directly on your webpages - 100-xyz The YC W19 is just an optimistic joke :-)
We, http://www.100-xyz.com are in the process of launching our product.
Our product is a small hardware (a Raspberry pi) programmed to be a captive portal and a local web server. Here's how it works: 1) User visits a business and joins its wifi 2) User is alerted that log in is required 3) User clicks and lands on the local web server which has wifi owners web pages, along with a log in for internet section.
Use cases: Restaurant - client lands on the menu and can place order. Waiter can take the order. Salon - client lands on different styles. Can choose those she likes and discuss with hair dresser. Household - neighbours can see what the owner is up to and leave messages, things to sell, activity partners etc.
Looking for folks to try it out.  You would need a Raspberry pi with a minimum 16GB SD card.  We can supply you with a system image that you can burn and run.  Please contact if interested.
I am quite new to Hacker News.  If this posting or parts of it are not within guidelines (which Ive read), the higher powers can edit/delete.
Thanks <comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, Launch HNs are for YC startups _after_ they've been accepted (best of luck!). How about a Show HN instead? [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> How can I try this? tks

<comment> 100-xyz Sorry for the late reply. Still getting used to the weird design of this site :-)

Couple of options to try: 1) Pledge at our upcoming kickstarter: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/100-xyz/298281515?ref=5...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/100-xyz/298281515?ref=578000&token=e80d409c)

2) If you have your own Raspberry Pi, you can participate in our beta (we are getting ready to close it soon). You can download our image, burn it to an SD card and run it. For more info, you can contact me at leisenming AT protonmail DOT com</comment></comment>


Impyla: a new Python client for Impala - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudera.com/blog/2014/04/a-new-python-client-for-impala/

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool! Note: if you're looking for something similar for ruby, we use the java libraries from jruby. It is seamless and we haven't had any issues (besides bugs from Impala itself).</comment>


Ask HN: What do/don't you like in job interviews? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I'm maker of Worfor (https://worfor.com). I'm working on optimization hiring process right now. I know how stressful and useless can be tech interviews sometimes. I'm trying to resolve this problem. Sometimes you can't avoid this step of hiring process because you should know you are hiring right person. But in most cases interviewers ask a lot of questions which will not related to your future job. Right now this process depends on whom you get as an interviewer but I want to optimize it as much as possible. I guess better way to do it - ask community. So here my few questions: What do you like and what you don't like in tech interviews? What do your prefer to do instead of tech interviews, algorithmic tasks, etc. Also It will be good if you share your experience, opinion or any feedback. <comment><USER2> I'm going through this now...I've had the same interview half a dozen times where I get asked the same question: "we have your resume/CV but give us an overview of your background and qualifications." Maybe let people record a prepared statement and interviewers can watch that first. And then the basic tech questions asked over the phone (what is a promise, what does the spread operator do), they should use a recognized online skills assessment. And then they all want a programming puzzle. Again, an online puzzle should be done once under timed conditions and then multiple companies can see it. So with the video, test results and puzzle out of the way, there's less you need to say on the phone.

<comment><AUTHOR> So it would be better if you pass different programming puzzles and did basic tech interview once per 3 month (for example). And companies based on your results will invite you for 2 interviews. Something like: 1) Welcome interview, where you can ask any questions about company and they can ask any questions about your personality. 2) More detailed tech interview that related to your future job?

It will save time for you because you will not answer for any basic tech questions 5 times per day. You did it only once per 3 month for example. Is it good option?

<comment><USER2> That would be better than the current process.</comment></comment></comment>


Unlocking VR's true potential by focusing on UX - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/this-place/unlocking-vr-s-true-potential-with-ux-5c31d7367fe <comment><USER2> This guy did his master's project on this subject, and put together this pretty great video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id86HeV- Vb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id86HeV-Vb8)

This is the first time I've heard of different zones, like the Main Content Zone, Peripheral Zone, etc.

Also the 3d renderings are extremely good at explaining the content.

<comment><AUTHOR> That video has a lot of great interaction pattern examples. Will definitely have to spend some time going through Mike Alger's thesis. Looks like a very valuable resource. Thanks :)</comment></comment>


Best Twitter Threads Compiled - <AUTHOR> https://best-threads.carrd.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> I have started to compile the best tweet threads/tweetathons here. Let me know if you like the concept and think this could be interesting.</comment>


If You Want to Fix Policing, Listen to the Pragmatists - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/2020/09/03/if-you-want-to-fix-policing-listen-to-the-pragmatists/ <comment><USER2> There are a lot of good points in this article, but few of them really seem to cut to the core of the problem. For the record, here's the high level of their proposals:

> abolish qualified immunity (page 18), bust the police unions (page 22), > better regulate the use of police force (page 25), rethink crisis response > (page 28), end the drug war (page 32), release body cam footage (page 35), > stop overpolicing (page 37), and restrict asset forfeiture (page 40).

While all of these should be done, none of them solve the systemic issue. Qualified immunity? Definitely should be abolished but many of the issues around policing are not civil issues, they're criminal issues. A civil remedy for a criminal problem is insulting at best. Regulate the use of Police force? Who's going to enforce it consistently? I think we all see the pattern here. The problem with policing is that there's no mechanism to enforce the law against police and most of the proposals listed in this article only address the issue tangentially at best.

Here are more serious proposals.

Abolish the difference between prosecutors and public defenders. All city attorneys are required to play defense and offense. Ensure that they are judged on both sides of their performance. This is intended to disrupt the inappropriately chummy relationship between DA's and the police. DA's will be a lot less forgiving of police shenanigans if it hurts them.

Police oversight boards can not contain active or recently retired law enforcement officials. The Seattle Office of Police Accountability is an example of what not to do. They have 9 active duty police sergeants who perform most, if not all, of their investigations. Since they're active duty, their promotion and pay depends on their superiors in the police department. That's a non trivial conflict of interest.

One of the major missions of the FBI should be enforcement of the law against law enforcement employees. Federal law enforcement was a major player in rooting some of the issues in the Baltimore police department. We need more of that.

Police must be required to promptly file criminal complaints against colleagues who commit crimes. Civilians are forbidden from concealing crimes, they same must be true of the police.</comment>


YouTube shows kids how to commit suicide - chupa-chups https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/25/tech/youtube-suicide-videos-trnd/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is not good, but not as bad as it could be. The examples they provided are the most painful and least effective ways to terminate one's self. That should deter at least some kids from trying or completing it.

Is the flagging system on YT not working?

</comment><comment><USER2> At this point it seems clear that media exposed to kids needs to be manually curated.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't mind finding out who created and posted the videos..</comment>


How Do We Get Young Women Interested In Computer Scientists? - <AUTHOR> http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/how-do-we-get-young-women-interested-computer-scie-355

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's a much better question than how to get them interested in computer science. If there are nurses, it's because they're interested in doctors.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will add that the article was clearly a parody on an Onion-affiliated website. I thought that was obvious.</comment></comment>


Things Kids Say These Days - <AUTHOR>

A teacher friend told me about a conservation she had with a pupil. The kid told her that he'll get an iPhone laptop and that his family already has an iPhone monitor. It's not hard to guess that he means MacBook and iMac. Is this the point where the iPhone brand is starting to overshadow the Mac brand? <comment><USER2> My theory would be that people of all ages who don't know much about computers will always say slightly odd things about computers. I think this is the same phenomenon as when people say that their OS is Dell, or that they user Internet when they mean a web browser.</comment>


How many different 800x600 pictures possible? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/h12eq/how_many_different_800x600_pictures_possible/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if could it be possible to design an Image Processing algorithm with some sort of genetic programming / neural network to separate intelligible images from noise... Nonetheless it is quite interesting to think about a brute force attack on pictures, a nice aproach to steganography!!</comment>


Myth #3: Rails forces you to use Prototype - <AUTHOR> http://www.loudthinking.com/posts/32-myth-3-rails-forces-you-to-use-prototype

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thinks that DHH has become a bit more civil since Merb has started to get some momentum?

It's easy to have a "f__k you if you don't like my choices" attitude when you're the only real game in town. Suddenly a player comes out of nowhere saying "hey, you can make your own choices!" and everything changes.

These myth posts -- which I really appreciate -- seem to me to be a reaction to Merb hitting version 1.0 and people starting to take it as a serious, light weight alternative to Rails. And one day Merb will become heavy and bloated with a million features and we'll see the rise of another framework. Wash. Rise. Repeat.

<comment><USER3> " ... serious, light weight alternative to Rails. "

These have existed for 5 years now. What makes Merb of interest is that it is a cleaner Rails.</comment></comment>


Cuil has disappeared from view - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/The-sad-tale-Cuil-far/story.aspx?guid={4814DBD8-BCC5-4E3C-8902-EDC107773452}

<comment><USER2> What did these guys do to earn so much press? Ok I get it, ex Googlers taking on the behemoth. David vs Goliath. But jesus, let's move on to other more interesting and more promising websites. And I'm not posting this as a criticism of posting the story on HN, I mean that the other sites should not be writing about them anymore. Bleh.

<comment><USER3> It does have some interesting lessons in there of how not to do things. Startups would do well to read and analyze all the countless mistakes cuil made.

I think it's still being written about because it was such an epic failure of mammoth proportions.

They did some things right, they got a ton of buzz, tons of visitors, but they totally messed up their chance. Unlikely they'll be given another one. (Unless they rebrand at least)

<comment><USER4> I think that their main problem was lack of availability once the buzz reached its highest pitch. I could understand less-than-impressive search results, since that could be an ongoing thing. However, a search engine crashing the way someone's blog folds under the weight of Digg/Reddit/HN effect is unacceptable in my eyes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The piece is all "he said, she said", by outsiders. Not much info on what's going on inside, or current results. So I bravely typed cuil.com (no link, either), and checked it out (and I alone have escaped to tell thee ;-).

Not bad. I tried today's pet search ('Schopenhauer ladder', since you ask), and the first page results are different but not much worse than Google's in quality. Cuil does have a splog at #3. Fewer pages listed (370 vs. 18000), but that may not be worth much.

Other observations: no page cache, means no word highlighting to help find the target in bigger pages. No ads in sight ("Hi, Adsense? I'd like to enroll my site ..."). The design is a little overdone; maybe some will find the 99% black front page, combined with modern glossy screens, helpful as a mirror for the soul (or just a mirror).

</comment><comment><USER6> Cuil was an interesting idea killed by hype.

Instead of being a google killer where everybody was picking on their defects, try a humble start then go step by step pushed by users who like the service and would like to contribute to improve its defects.

Hope we learn from their mistakes.

Be humble.</comment>


"Why Iowa Doesn't Suck" (Compared to Microsoft, 1997.) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ijmc.com/archives/1997/December/13December1997.html

<comment><USER2> This is a great anecdote, but not for the reasons she thinks: >He worried for weeks about the meeting, and when the day arrived he even drove home at lunch (an hour-long journey) to make sure he looked just right. Midway through the presentation, the manager stopped him and asked coolly, "Why are you showing this to me?"</comment>


OnePlus One – $299 CyanogenMod 'killer' smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://oneplus.net/one <comment><USER2> The single thing that really stands out for me in the pricing:

        16G $299
        64G $349

$50 for 64G of high quality flash memory at retail price actually sounds reasonable!

<comment><USER3> It is nice, but it is 48GB (64-16).

<comment><USER2> True enough. Meanwhile Apple will charge you $200 for the same upgrade.

(Yes, I know the Apple price isn't really about the flash, it's about segmented the user base into 'will pay (lots) more' and 'willing to compromise on the storage to get the cheaper deal'. The net result is much the same for the end user though.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A startup smartphone manufacturer and a community-developed fork of an open source operating system. Such things legends are made of.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wikipedia says the company was founded just a few months ago, in December. Even with using "commodity" components, I wouldn't have thought that 4-5 months was enough time to go all the way through a design cycle for something like a phone. The founder used to work for Oppo, is Oppo manufacturing these? Edit: according to the Engadget review/article, these are being built by Oppo.

<comment><USER6> It's basically an Oppo (founder worked there) Find 7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For everyone thinking "What's the catch?" the catch is, you can't buy it.

They are doing 100x 'invite-only' purchases during April, and I haven't seen anything explaining more availability than that.

<comment><USER8> So the "catch" is that they only have a hundred to sell over the next week? That doesn't seem like much of a catch, it sounds like marketing.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, and it looks like they're not actually _selling_ them - they're giving them away if you smash your old phone!

<comment><USER10> This seems incredibly wasteful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish it was available in non-huge form factor, like this one, at most [http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_mini-5505.php](http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_mini-5505.php)

<comment><USER12> I quite like the bigger screen, if they were going for multiple devices it'd be great if they'd make a smaller one too but, since they need to focus, I'm glad they went for a larger one. In addition since they're trying to feature compete at a lower price point it makes sense for them to go for the bigger one first.

P.S. does anyone know how they can afford to sell it for so cheap? just looking at the specs I find it hard to understand.

<comment><USER11> Too huge for the hand and pocket, IMO, as well as virtually all modern phones. Really, is there such a big difference between a 5" and 4"? It's a phone, first and foremost, a thing that has to be easily handled and pocketed.

I bought my first smartphone recently, was initially going for a used Nexus 4, since it's on the smaller side of what is considered the usual today, got nice specs and software directly from Google. But when I looked at HTC One mini in the store, I knew I would regret if I buy any other phone, since it's not just ok, but kinda nice; probably the best design you can get short of buying an iPhone (not that it's impossible, but I get a feeling that the competitors are hardly trying). Even though I'm not a fan of Sense UI, and there's no Cyanogen support. I'd like it to be even smaller still (maybe 4.0" instead of 4.3 screen, it shouldn't be a notable difference), but you can't get that with modern phones.

An evidence that current phones are too big is the existence of this: [http://www.htc.com/us/accessories/htc-mini- plus/](http://www.htc.com/us/accessories/htc-mini-plus/) Get a second, smaller, phone for your phone, so that you won't have to pull out your huge phone each time you need to make or receive a call!

<comment><USER13> The Moto X is almost exactly the same size as the HTC One mini, and only slightly larger than the iPhone 5S. It has a larger screen that either, due to not have an absurdly large bezel on all sides.

[http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple- iPhone-5s,Motoro...](http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple- iPhone-5s,Motorola-Moto-X/phones/7710,7885#/phones/size/Apple- iPhone-5s,Motorola-Moto-X,HTC-One-mini/phones/7710,7885,7702)

<comment><USER14> I find it quite a bit easier to reach across the width of the iPhone's screen than the Moto X. It's the difference between comfortable and not comfortable for me. I wish there was a high-spec Android phone with the screen size and dimensions of the iPhone.

<comment><USER15> The Sony Z1 Compact is as close as you can get today. Only slightly larger than an iPhone and with comparable specs to the high end android phones.

<comment><USER14> The dimensions of the Z1 Compact are almost identical to those of the Moto X. Most importantly to my one-handed use concern, it's only narrower by 400 μm. The iPhone 5/5s is almost 7mm narrower than the Moto X.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> and I wondering why takes an eternity to load this site: [http://cl.ly/V9dZ/fail_one.png](http://cl.ly/V9dZ/fail_one.png)

<comment><USER17> Welcome to the world of ecommerce software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The OnePlus site seems to be reduced to a crawl. Engadget has a reasonable review here though: [http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/23/oneplus-one-launch- ceo-pe...](http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/23/oneplus-one-launch-ceo-pete-lau- interview/)

<comment><USER19> That review makes it sound like an amazing phone. Chinese companies that understand product quality like this should have other handset manufacturers scared. It sounds like they're taking their design to almost Apple levels of obsession.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What binary blobs are required for it to operate? I want a phone that doesn't require nonfree firmware in order for the 802.11 wireless chip to operate.

<comment><USER21> I believe the 'standard' two, 3D graphics and the LTE radio. I've seen efforts to create an open source graphics driver for Adreno (the GPU) but not the radio. Once you've got both of those you can build a phone for Stallman with all the code available for inspection. Maybe the Ettus guys could help with that.

<comment><USER13> There's quite a bit of proprietary software in a smartphone beyond just the GPU and modem driver. The entire baseband firmware is another (closed) operating system to contend with.

<comment><USER21> I tend to bundle the baseband blob and the modem blob as "the radio" but agree that is an over simplification.

<comment><USER22> A big simplification indeed. Replacing the modem bit should actually be pretty easy, it's just the interface glue. Replacing the baseband is much harder as that implements all the wireless protocols needed for GSM/3G/LTE. Since the baseband tends to run on an independent processor capable of accessing all main memory it's kind of scary what could be there. Even if the hardware design is better and the baseband is behind some form of MMU it is still capable of sending your location and all your traffic to an attacker. That together with the fact that most Android phones don't get any meaningful upgrades makes Android a minefield when it comes to security.

<comment><USER23> > Even if the hardware design is better and the baseband is behind some form > of MMU it is still capable of sending your location and all your traffic to > an attacker.

We could just consider baseband to be on the untrusted side of the network. Without access to anything but the restricted communication channels the worst things it could do is perform some calculations to eat your battery.

Network operator already knows (or may discover) your rough location and has access to your traffic anyway. So, just make sure private traffic's well encrypted and authenticated, and develop the hardware to be capable of provably powering down the whole baseband module when you want it to be off (location privacy). Problem solved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What exactly makes this a killer? I'm having a hard time seeing it. It just looks liked any one of a dozen similar Android phones, with more power/memory/horsepower?

Calling something a killer by itself does not a killer make.

<comment><USER25> Basically, you get 90% of the features of the best Android smartphones at half the price.

<comment><USER26> The Nexus 5 is only $350. This phone is nominally cheaper, but I wouldn't say 'killer'. I will think about getting it next time I purchase a phone though (I use a Nexus 5 now).

<comment><USER27> This has a much bigger battery than the N5, which addresses one of the N5's key weaknesses.

<comment><USER28> I have a Sony Xperia Z1, which has a 3000mAh battery, and while the battery life is pretty good, it doesn't really last a whole day. So I don't know about that 3100mAh with the 5.5" screen.

<comment><USER29> I have a Sony Xperia Z1 as well and the battery lasts over 3 days. Make sure to enable the stamina mode [http://developer.sonymobile.com/2013/11/26/power- management-...](http://developer.sonymobile.com/2013/11/26/power-management- explained-sony-xperia-z1-and-xperia-z-ultra/) it actually works pretty well.

<comment><USER28> I have stamina mode activated most of the time but I will check out the tips. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Am I the only one that cringes each time i see the promise "over a day's worth of battery life."

We used to have 2 weeks of battery life on any normal mobile phone.

<comment><USER31> You can still get 2 weeks of battery life. Get a Nokia 1100.

It's a trade-off, mate. You're standing at a Lamborghini showroom and saying, "Man, does anyone else here remember when cars used to give us 21 kilometres to the litre?"

<comment><USER32> No one says that. Either you say it strangely: "50mpg" or you say it correctly: "5L/100km". If you use imperial units, you must invert every fraction in your life as punishment.

<comment><USER33> "In countries using the metric system fuel economy is stated in kilometres per litre (km/L)"

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

<comment><USER34> Believe me: absolutely _nobody_ uses km/l, ever.

<comment><USER35> km/L appears to be standard in Malaysia: [http://paultan.org/2014/02/26/driven-mitsubishi- attrage-21-k...](http://paultan.org/2014/02/26/driven-mitsubishi- attrage-21-kml-claims-put-test/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> As always in hardware, established volume manufacturers are going to have a huge edge on any newcomer. Companies like Samsung and Apple have an astonishing vertical range in their manufacturing process, with their own IP cores / custom processors / custom operating systems / custom antenna design / custom case design. You can't just go out and beat all that at once, and offer the same product but cheaper.

I find the comments who say "omg it's not cheap why should I buy this" a bit condescending. You can't be any cheaper than the big companies, or else you'll have to beat them at what they're good at. If you can, you're an established player, good on you, but you most likely don't belong on HN.

As always in startup terms, you have to find your individual edge. This will always be a small gadget type of thing initially (as with most web startups), hoping to attain more traction down the line, enabling you to extend your product step by step. I _really_ liked the Jolla phone with its I2C interface and the "second half" concept. Sweet stuff. Unique to the market, catering to the small production volumes they would be confronted with, and most importantly attracting just the right crowd of producers. If Seth Godin's Tribe Marketing rings a bell with you, then this is it.

Oneplus One, or Oppo for short, brings none of this to the table. They have a good high-volume manufacturing process, and have been selling single quantities on aliexpress for a long time. They seem good, but they had nothing unique going for them whatsoever. They used to be the archetypal me-too chinese manufacturer that tries to make a difference by striving for spec high scores (more megapixels! yay!), but neccessarily failing to deliver in other regards.

They have been looking for their edge for some time now, first with that rotatable camera gadget instead of a separate front camera, which at least got them some attention. Alas, there was a reason all other products came with two separate cameras, one being distinct usage scenarios for the two cameras and another being the rather complex case design. So at the end of the day, their design was just a stunt to demonstrate their manufacturing capabilities, and also their ability to justify large investments into injection molds. Impressive, but not attractive to me.

So their next attempt is a tacked on piece of open source software. Of course, these two companies are looking for a match here, with cyanogenmod having no clear business process but a distinctive product, and Oppo having everything else. It still feels like a cheap concept, and evidently they are centering their sales pitch around price. This always feels like a warning sign to me, indicative of a low emphasis on R&D. (Especially when compared to Samsung and Apple, who pump out a remarkable _lot_ of innovative stuff even though they are market leaders.)

So, yeah. Personally I'll be using my second-hand Samsung Note 2 for the time being, and as soon as I feel adventurous I'll try out the Jolla. I'll be watching Oppo, but I could be more excited tbh, and I certainly don't buy into their newly-acquired startup flair. Open Source software just doesn't give you street cred like that anymore.

<comment><USER3> 349 without contract is really cheap. Why do you say is not? Is the same as the LG Nexus 5.

<comment><USER37> I was thinking the same, and I have the LG Nexus 5. Most current gen smart phones without contract are more like $600.

<comment><USER38> Which is pretty outrageous, given it typically costs an OEM approx $200-$260 to manufacturer a phone.

The Galaxy S5 costs Samsung something like $246 to manufacturer. It sells for $649 off-contract. Pretty big margins for somebody in that pipeline.

<comment><USER39> Doesn't Samsung spend the most out of all mobile makers on marketing? I would assume they're also paying additional costs for Google Services, patent licenses and other things, which also cut into the actual margin.

<comment><USER40> That's the part people seem to forget. Software can be expensive because they are paying for several licenses (and for the hardware too) as well us paying several devs, managers, etc. to produce the software that runs on the phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> In the features section where they compare their camera vs. that of another smartphone, they're doing some shady stuff.

The two pictures are identical! They've photoshopped the original to look shittier, and passed it off as being taken by another smartphone.

link: [http://imgur.com/VG8AUg3](http://imgur.com/VG8AUg3)

<comment><USER42> It's not photoshopped, it's just cropped to show you their wide angle vs a typical camera. Quoting the website, directly beside the picture you've linked: "The extra-wide 80º viewing angle captures more area than other phones so your pictures will include more background without distortion. "

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Looks great, but when oh when oh when will there be a version with a hardware keyboard? I program on my smart phone. I can do that damn fast with a hardware keyboard. Touchscreen keyboards aren't feasible.

<comment><USER44> What about using a bluetooth keyboard?

<comment><USER43> Too clumsy, too big, battery, blah. I want to whip it out of my pocket on the subway...

<comment><USER45> What phone are you using currently?

<comment><USER43> Relay 4G

<comment><USER46> Samsung Galaxy S Relay? That seemed to be it from googling but 'relay 4g phone' wasn't as definitive as I'd've liked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Can't wait for the QWERTY version :)

<comment><USER48> I just bought a used LG g2 to escape the disaster that is the Droid 4, but I would happily spend another 3-400 on a phone with a physical keyboard. On screen keyboards, like gel-cap keyboards, work well enough, but I would love a premium option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> No SD card? I'm out.

If they added that, I would get one, the price is amazing - although I'd flash a default CM image over it to get rid of that metro theme they've added.

<comment><USER50> My must have these days is wireless charging (Qi). It is so convenient being able to just place the device down and have charging immediately happen. Also fantastic for use in the car cradles so you don't have to connect power each time.

<comment><USER51> Also, usb power can eventually stop working/work intermittently. But for most devices, you can add it after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Seems to be a good device, but if there is no wireless charging I am out. It is one of those things that once you have you cannot go back. But the price point, the implicit promise of updates forever from CM team, and the fact that Google is moving to closed-source with key apps that used to be OS, does make this a very attractive phone. I hope there will be OnePlus Two.

<comment><USER53> > but if there is no wireless charging I am out.

Pretty much. It seems like it's such a trivial feature that it shouldn't matter, but dear god it is convenient. Can never go back after 1 year with the palm pre a few years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This reminds me of the galaxy s1 and s2. Its pretty damn competitive, and its half the price of the others.

I bought the s2 for 400 on release day and it was awesome enough. Nowadays the s5 is 6-700 on release day.

if they deliver what they show - im probably getting one of these oneplus - not a S5 or even an xperia Z2 - thanks but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER55> > _will receive updates for at least 2 years_

I had my phone for over 3 years now and aside from some tiny screen scratches everything is great. Why can't any manufacturers _really_ stand behind their products and support them for something like 5 years?

<comment><USER56> Greed.

Even google with all the money and more interest in acquiring users joined the greed bandwagon by removing Sd card slots and doing things in software to ensure device obsolency ever couple years.

<comment><USER57> Google's removal of SD card has nothing to do with making device useless ever few years. It has everything to do with their cloud strategy. Google wants everything in the cloud. If your information is in the cloud, they can possible get access to it to better understand you so they can target more relevant ads. If your information is on the cloud, you will also have to spend more time online. That's why google devices, phones, tablet, chromebooks don't have removeable storage.

<comment><USER58> I would never buy a new phone unless it has an SD slot or perhaps 64GB of storage. How useful is the cloud when you're literally above a cloud in a plane? That's mostly when I use my phone for music playback.

<comment><USER50> You can use Google Music. It will cache content while on wifi for playback when you have no connectivity. This is done somewhat intelligently and you can also explicitly request content be downloaded.

<comment><USER56> with a ttl to delete it if you dont connect soon

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Great specs, but I prefer the Moto G model. Other than its camera, everything is superb for a pro-user who doesn't play games. Battery life is great, screen is awesome, 1GB RAM is more than sufficient. Best of all, it's the price that I love.

</comment><comment><USER60> Very nice, better hardware than Google Nexus 5 [1] at better price, though larger, slightly thicker and heavier.

[http://www.google.com/nexus/5/](http://www.google.com/nexus/5/)

</comment><comment><USER61> The price is actually higher than some of the cheap smartphones from Asia. What interested me is that CyanogenMod is now an OS of a 'killer' smartphone.

</comment><comment><USER62> I have used cm before and would trust them enough to buy a product like this. But the phone is too big though. My 4" moto g is perfect.

</comment><comment><USER63> arrrrr.... I wanna get one, so I just lookup their site, but it says I need to get invitation to buy because their limited stock. [http://support.oneplus.net/hc/en- us/articles/201866890-Why-d...](http://support.oneplus.net/hc/en- us/articles/201866890-Why-do-I-need-an-invite-to-buy-a-OnePlus-One-)

</comment><comment><USER64> the video on the homepage is pretty bad. I dont want to look at some guy making sketches of the design, i want to see the phone. Also, isnt software a big sell for this Cynagen? I've never installed the Mod before -- can the video show me how the insides of the phone are supposed to look like? pretty please?

</comment><comment><USER65> Seems really odd using "Never Settle" given how much AMD has been pushing that slogan for their GPUs.

</comment><comment><USER66> Why would anyone choose the on-screen keys if you've already sacrificed the space for dedicated keys?

</comment><comment><USER67> What's up with the mailing list. I am very excited about this phone, would like the email updates.

</comment><comment><USER68> I think the website is down. Is it available to buy? Can it be shipped to europe?

<comment><USER69> It is only available on invitation IIRC. I don't know when you we can expect this phone in stores, like physical stores. Those invitations were given out on the forums and to people who where interested/had interest in the Nexus 5.

<comment><USER17> No physical stores, no resellers. They say it's too expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Can you recommend a low-cost voice/data carrier in the US for this phone?

<comment><USER33> [http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans](http://prepaid- phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans)

Near the bottom there's a $30/month plan with 5gb LTE data, unlimited text, and 100 voice minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Are OnePlus offering any guarantee of OS updates with their products?

</comment><comment><USER11> What is the availability of OnePlus One for non-US users?

</comment><comment><USER72> Does it have unlocked bootloader and root?

<comment><USER15> Latest I've read is that the bootloader will be locked and phone won't be rooted out of the box. However bootloader will easily be unlockable and rooting the phone is supported and won't affect warranties.

<comment><USER73> this is the approach that google takes with the nexus devices and is really the only reasonably secure approach (for the consumer)

<comment><USER74> Woah, are you saying that you can root a google nexus phone without voiding the warranty? I assumed you weren't allowed to do that, would be great if you can.

<comment><USER75> Yeah, you can. And at least on the newer Nexus phones, you can even re-lock them without any trace of it ever being unlocked.

<comment><USER73> yup. you just reflash the stock rom, then relock the bootloader, and it's like new

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> What carriers is it incompatible with?

</comment><comment><USER77> Does it have an appstore ?

<comment><USER78> Other than Google Play Store, you can use FDroid. Firefox Marketplace also provides Apps: the offer is very tiny at the moment, but will likely grow in near future.

[https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/) [https://marketplace.firefox.com/](https://marketplace.firefox.com/)

<comment><USER79> You can also get the Amazon app store. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/android](http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/android)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Is any tablet that can makes calls a phone? Technically yes I guess, but it's still weird to call it that.

</comment><comment><USER81> Amusing to view that link right after reading the "Sell me this pen" link [http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on- business/internationa...](http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on- business/international-business/sell-me-this-pen-the-real-answer-to-the-wolf- of-wall-streets-challenge/article17946810/?service=mobile)

The CyanogenMod page tells me nothing. "Killer phone"? meh. Address my needs; if it's not smaller than an iPhone and can migrate me from that ecosystem, forget it. Otherwise, it's just a list of specs.

</comment><comment><USER82> Forgive me for being slightly snobby (and maybe too tangential), but I always find it completely off-putting when people try to be "hip" and put the $ sign after a number (as in 1$ here; they're also internally inconsistent).

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on the matter, especially if you think I'm misinterpreting the motivation behind it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_symbol#Usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_symbol#Usage)

edit: Muphry's Law, and trying hard not to ask why people are downvoting my curiosity (but failing)

<comment><USER83> > internally inconsistent

You mean, "internally consistent"? As in "How much is it?" "One dollar." -> "1$". That's how the (spoken) language works.

<comment><USER82> No, I mean internally inconsistent. I had to point out that I meant it in the case of the button that said "1$" but not the rest of the website, where it said "$299" or whatever. Site down.</comment></comment></comment>


Android is imploding, and there's nothing that can be done to stop it - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/android-is-imploding-and-theres-nothing-that-can-be-done-to-stop-it/ <comment><USER2> Click bait. I think Android is doing fine, Google seems to be on a great path with N and a more solid OS to use daily than my iOS device currently (but I'm sure apple has some tricks coming)

Also, they didn't downplay tablet features in N, they added stuff like split screen which is a HUGE improvement.

Ahh modern journalism. You'll never believe what he typed! Click the headline to find out... ;)

<comment><USER3> > [...] they added stuff like split screen which is a HUGE improvement.

A great step to catch up with desktops from two decades ago. Good job, Google!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Eh, OK, I'll be the contrarian here and side with the article. The headline is definitely clickbaity however the article, while devoid of strong evidence is basically true.

Nexus phones are supposed to be the gold standard of android, and yet, I've never been satisfied with any Nexus device (I've had 3x HTC G1s, 1x Nexus one, 2x Nexus S, 2x Galaxy Nexus, 4x Nexus 4, 4x Nexus 5, 2x Nexus 6, and no 6P so far) due to battery life issues, camera issues, operating system issues (most Android versions have felt like a beta usually right up until the next version is released) compatibility issues with carrier (things like - no visual voicemail, no VoLTE) issues with accessories (my August smart lock & Kinsa thermometer barely work on android for example, but work perfectly on iPhone), performance issues (the nexus 6 is slowest phone I've ever used, with a custom kernel and encryption turned off) with all that said, they're still better than any of the non nexus phones I've used.

I believe that OEM are simply not incentivized to build good devices. The OS is "free" the hardware is made for rock bottom prices in China, few want to spend $600+ on a device with few benefits over a $200 device - how can anyone expect OEMs to put time and effort into a device with razor thin margins in a market that's already saturated?

<comment><USER5> Kind of off-topic, but why have you had so many phones? In the last 6 years I've had 1x Galaxy Nexus, 1x HTC One M8, 1x iPhone 6, and 1x Galaxy S7.

Of all the phones, I liked the iPhone the least. The only thing it excelled in was compatibility with external devices, including my car, MacBook, etc.

<comment><USER4> As a mobile dev and tinkerer I buy lots of tech to test ideas and see the state of tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disagree. Argument is every vendor is racing to the bottom and vendors are getting squeezed out. Fine. Race-to-bottom didn't seem to hurt the PC industry. Plus, cheap Android phones in the developing world.

(Agree that it's clickbait.)

<comment><USER7> Race to the bottom absolutely screwed the PC industry. It's why laptops stagnated so heavily for years.

<comment><USER8> I see no stagnation, there's a growing spectrum of models from the lowest cost chromebook to insanely powerful gaming and video production optimized units. There is a large midrange that is just good enough for use and little need for higher performance that seems stable with not much market pressure to shift away from the "i5" sweet spot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Extremely biased, awfully researched post. If you look at his recent stories he is on an apple hype train. Nothing against apple, but this guy has blurred and biased judgment.

<comment><USER10> He has always been a shill. It used to be for Microsoft and now it is for Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The headline is pretty click-baity, the article outlines that Android OEMs are struggling and going the way of the PC OEMs a decade ago.

While this is true, there are still PC OEMs now, and there is no evidence of the Android ecosystem collapsing (besides of a claim in the article that people rather want iPhones running Android).

</comment><comment><USER12> >customers don't really want innovation

>Android consumers want an iPhone or iPad that runs Android

>And what about the Android malware toxic hellste

After these kinds of statements how can anyone take this article seriously

</comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr

Mobile boom is slowing down, phone makers have to satisfy themselves with selling less phones, because humans aren't reproducing fast enough/don't buy a phone for another hand.

</comment><comment><USER14> The ammount of shilling is just riddiculous. I'm triggered. There are so many things wrong with iPhones that even if it was given to me for free I would just get rid of it. Sure, Android is kinda crappy sometimes, but what isn't right now? And the PC wasteland? 300 million PCs sold in 2015. THE END IS NIGH!</comment>


Should Women Give Up the Power That Comes with Being Objectified? - <AUTHOR> http://ricemedia.co/should-women-give-up-the-power-that-comes-with-being-objectified/ <comment><USER2> I am happy to read an article like this because it's very rare to see a woman admitting that many (but not all) women actually exploit sexism to their own advantage, and that she did too, on some occasions.

I think this is one good way towards progress in this sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> >And if you think this isn't accurate, just think about how a rich, single, old, but ugly man would fare far better romantically than a rich, single, old, but ugly woman.

And speaking of the whole article more generally - Isn't all of this because of basic evolutionary psychology, and intuitively fairly obvious? Roughly speaking men seek beauty wrt neoteny and fertility, whereas women are more forgiving about appearances so long as men have status and can provide for a family. This isn't a new phenomenon, and even pervades many cultural mythologies.

<comment><USER4> It seems that when you try to talk about evolutionary psychology in relation to gender inequality outside HN it usually doesn't go so well. Still trying to articulate exactly why that is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll come at this from a different angle. In my 20s up until my mid 30s, I was a part time fitness instructor and surrounded by other fitness enthusiasts. We, both male and female _loved_ the attention we got. We would run races with our shirts off (guys) and the women would run with clothes showing off their midriffs and post the pictures to Facebook. We would all go out in a group wearing things that we knew showed off our bodies.

We thought we worked hard for it, why not show it off?

When I went to interview for classes, I made it my mission to wear something that would show off all the time I spent in the gym and I know I got classes based on the fact that I didn't "look and act like a typical fitness instructor" \- I was muscular, young, and came across more like a drill seargent than Richard Simmons.

I've met plenty of women and quite a few men who like the attention.

Even though I'm nowhere near in shape I was back then, when wearing regular professional clothes, I still have people asking me about my workout regimen. I never once hated the attention.

</comment><comment><USER6> As I was reading the beginning of this article to my wife, she said that it might be a problem for a percentage of women who are nice looking, but might not be as true for more ordinary looking ones (not to mention the perhaps less gifted)

As I find her beautiful, she's very shy and don't have the same point of view on herself, so doesn't see her as a potentially objectified person. I guess there's a part, maybe not that little, of women who feel the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> While I am happy about the new women's movement which allows every member of the society to acknowledge the fact that equality still has not been achieved in many aspects of life, my main concern has been how the common narratives puts 100 % of the burden and request for behavioural change collectively on men. This text does a good job pointing out how collectively, women have and often still are endorsing the type of culture which then leads to unwelcome and problematic behaviour of some men. It indeed would be strange if women wouldn't be subject to the same dynamics of evolutionary & cultural programming as men.

As far as I see it, everyone has to change, improve & question their biases so that a culture is created in which men feel neither safe nor the need to become predators and harrasers.

</comment><comment><USER8> They know the power that comes with doing this yet men never cry foul or sexist when they observe this. Feminists will react wholly different.

</comment><comment><USER9> According to this reasearch, [http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf](http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71503.pdf) it goes far beyond "objectification". (Access to) sex is a commodity that women naturally posses, and men want.

</comment><comment><USER10> The article makes some interesting points. I disagree with the notion that men are always easily fooled though. I'm usually aware when someone is flirting with me, but not truly interested.

<comment><USER11> Also, I think men will often play dumb and go along with the objectification, either because they want to actually get with the woman, or just for fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Flagged because it doesn't fit the HN WAW narrative?

</comment><comment><USER13> "Why have women never tried to manipulate me?"</comment>


What should colleges teach? - <AUTHOR> http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/what-should-colleges-teach/

<comment><USER2> There is something seriously wrong with our society. I think it is a much deeper problem than what we are acknowledging with the decline of newspapers, education, politics, and currency.

It is our vision of the future. Our vision of the future is wrong. At one point, we believed if you worked hard and produced something of value that you would be rewarded. This was true in a world where life could be substantially _improved_.

However, in our world -- the western world, life is sufficiently good. There are no consumer pains to speak of. We are sedated by television. We are fed by grocery stores. We are medicated with little pills, to cure our ills, our wills, and operate our mills.

Our problem is: We have no purpose.

We have no purpose on earth. We have no problems to solve. We have no problems we care about. We have no problems. Life is _too_ good. There is no struggle. There is no ill.

There is only desire left. Desire for power. Desire for monetary gain. Desire for resource control. Those who do not desire this power, this control, this money are being squashed by an increasingly relative few who do.

And there is ever less and less for them to take. Ever less and less for them to control and gain and everyone is just kind of fed up with it.

<comment><USER3> So, you are saying that because 'life is sufficiently good', we have no problems, and thus, no purpose. I would agree with what you are saying, assuming the absence of one major variable: interaction with the minds and hearts around us.

My belief is that we do not have purpose _a priori_ , and that life is void, but through living - interacting with others, expressing emotions, and seeing a larger scope of the world around us - _we can create our own purpose_.

We are curious by nature; we tinker, play, and slave away at discovering connections between the entitites around us. As we grow, this fundamental desire does not wane; it grows. It grows as we grow. One day, we will find one such connection that will bring us joy, happiness. This is our _true calling_. It is because of this true calling that we find our purpose. Our true calling is our purpose.

Of course, not _everyone_ can find it... So, let me try a second argument:

Why are we happy when a spouse gives birth? Why are we worried if a dear friend or companion is ill? Why do we shed tears at a loved one's wake? We feel because we developed a connection with the people around us. That is our purpose. If we cannot find a purpose within ourselves (above argument), we find purpose in preserving the life and happiness of the ones most dear to us (this argument).

If a person does not fall into either category, then that person truly _doesn't_ have a purpose. <sarcasm>That is what depression and absurdism/nihilism is for.</sarcasm>

Also, I agree that people _do_ have a intrinsic avarice. :-)

<comment><USER4> "My belief is that we do not have purpose _a priori_ , and that life is void,"

You mean _intrinsically_ , maybe _before knowledge_. _A priori_ doesn't make sense in this context.

"Why are we happy when a spouse gives birth? Why are we worried if a dear friend or companion is ill? Why do we shed tears at a loved one's wake? We feel because we developed a connection with the people around us. That is our purpose. If we cannot find a purpose within ourselves (above argument), we find purpose in preserving the life and happiness of the ones most dear to us (this argument)."

Why are we happy when an enemy is killed? Why are we worried if a dear follows us in the dark? Why do we shed tears at a foe's triumph? We feel because we developed a hatred toward the people around us. That is our purpose. If we cannot find a purpose within ourselves (above argument), we find purpose in hating those whom we most hate (this argument).

<comment><USER3> Regarding the 'a priori' thing, you're right. Oops. I was trying to sound cool.

Your version of the argument works too, though pessimistic. Some people live their lives to hate other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting piece. I am inclined to ask, should we have a core curriculum?

This is anecodotal only, but when I was an undergrad I felt like many of the classes I took where of no benefit, but they were required. Now that I am working on my masters degree, I am tightly focused on my field (and a tiny handful of electives in one other very tightly connected field) and every class is relevant.

There may be a value in maintaining a broad based core curriculum, but then it seems there is also value in a tighter focus and it may at least in some cases make sense to permit students to narrow in on that tigther focus earlier.

Of course, that tight focus should never be too confining. I changed majors twice before finding one I was happy with, and even while working on my masters the idea of switching has come up.

<comment><USER6> In the UK, you might get to do one or two courses outside your field if you really want to and they're basically relevant, but what you "major" in is all you study. No-one makes engineers take classes in creative writing f'rinstance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It baffles me that supporting a rigorous traditional curriculum would be associated with a capitalist political and economic outlook. The only thing that I can think of is that the connotations of "traditional" or "rigorous" are unappealing to the left because of their deployments in class struggle, generally on the side of the powerful. Unfortunately, we may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater...

</comment><comment><USER8> I think curriculum's are too segregated. Let's get brains from mathematical sciences, engineering, biochemistry and biology (etc) together, and have them come up with their own interesting project.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ye have sown the wind, Mr. Fish...</comment>


How I got shit done in 25% less time by using Time Blocking - <AUTHOR> http://blog.focusplanner.co/2016/01/15/how-i-got-sht-done-in-25-less-time-by-using-time-blocking/ <comment><USER2> > Completely remove Facebook desktop notifications > Close all your social > accounts and extra windows

Are we talking about work productivity here? Well of course you don't browse SMN!</comment>