Show HN: London Feels – Sentiment-analysis of Londoners Tweets on a Map - <AUTHOR> http://london.feels.website <comment><USER3> I once did a map of the UK using sentiment analysis of the text of geotagged Flickr photos, hoping to find the areas which were more happier than others. Turned out there was no geographical pattern from that data.

Geographical analysis tools should be used in these types of analyses, apart from just looking at blobs on a map. I used k-means based cluster analysis to find groups of happy and sad areas but again the groups turned out to be nothing conclusive.

The web GIS company I ended up working for used sentiment analysis of tweets by aggregated them into regions, so as to find positive and negative areas during a specific timeframe (for example, US elections). The regions had demographics which could be used statistically, and in general some interesting patterns were observed.

<comment><USER4> What sort of accuracy did you have in your sentiment analysis algorithms? I'm curious because I find the error rate in such algorithms is typically higher than any sort of variance you are seeking, which causes significant problems in terms of any sort of pattern recognition.

When you're using things as short as Tweets, and as broad as "general sentiment", you're probably making accuracy even worse, to the point that simpler demographic analysis or bag-of-words clustering (i.e., cluster areas by diction rather than by sentiment) yields more reliable results, even for sentiment.

<comment><USER3> Accuracy was pretty bad in sentiment analysis. Especially how people talk on tweets. Loads of false positives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN.

I've built a map that takes a geofenced stream of tweets and runs AFINN-111 sentiment analysis on them, and then displays them in real time on a map of London.

Negative sentiments are displayed as Red tweets, happy tweets are Blue.

The whole thing is built on node.js using node-tweet-stream, node-sentiment and socket.io. The frontend map is leaflet with stamen design's Toner tiles.

It's quite fun to watch, especially when there's a football match or a concert. If you click on the "follow tweets" checkbox, new tweets pop up as they arrive, although currently that makes the map pan north.

Thanks!

Dario.

<comment><USER5> Very nice. It also gives me the impression that people in the West End are certainly more angry (or have free time to be angry on twitter) during office hours than those in the City.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool but before clicking on some dots I was wondering why everyone feels the same. The colors are not ideal for red/green colorblind people (is it blue and purple?)

Maybe include a feature to select the colors for happy/sad/average with a button to return to defaults?

Black for sad, light grey for neutral, something like a medium bright green for happy would be my picks.

<comment><AUTHOR> cool idea - i tried to pick perceptually separate colours and thought blue and red would work, but turns it's confusing for some people. I might add "colorblind" mode and use your colour range.

<comment><USER7> "colorblind mode" is an antipattern. Using more contrasting colors and using other distinguishing features such as shape and texture benefits all users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool! Hey, that's very funny....

We did the same with Tweets and Surfing. [http://devwax.herokuapp.com/](http://devwax.herokuapp.com/) from the meetup: [http://www.meetup.com/DevWax/](http://www.meetup.com/DevWax/). It was all done in a weekend with some drinking and surfing, so it's a bit rough. The trouble with surfing was that the locations are very disparate and hard to guess. Fun to have a go at though...

Are you in London? (We are)

<comment><AUTHOR> hey sweet orthographic projection! Yeah, i'm in London.

I'm only using tweets on which users chose to publish their locaiton, so it isn't all of the tweets, but a good chunk of them.

<comment><USER3> Given that most people tweet close to home, that most people work close to home, you can get the home location of the user from their profile, and geocode it to assign a location to the tweet.

This approach only works when aggregating tweets for a larger area. E.g. comparing 10,000 tweets each in UK county, or perhaps for cities.

For even larger areas (think regions / countries) you could look through the user bios, or previous tweets to pull out any names or locations and do some analysis to work out which broader region they are in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could perhaps be more accurately retitled 'London claims to feel on social media' map. There's a lot of literature examining how people present themselves in such venues and how it's often an intentional communication (even if subconscious) to create a certain impression.

</comment><comment><USER10> Neat site. As others have pointed out, the sentiment analysis is off in many cases. I'd be quite impressed if you managed to correctly classify this one, though: [http://i.imgur.com/wmWUitu.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/wmWUitu.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice site, although it does have issues with the analysis as outlined by others here.

One suggestion I would have is some sort of filtering based on the content of the tweets. This tweet returned "feeling good":

"New post featuring: @NewLookPRTeam @nextofficial @Matalan @hmunitedkingdom @uoeurope @Accessorize @ASOS [http://t.co/nGsFj306xT](http://t.co/nGsFj306xT) #fbloggers"

This one returned "feeling average":

"@dannykobe17 @DanielRacheter @Khuds_ @shangambling @Umar_Wilshere19 @_mikenewell_ @BlueKay10 is that ollie?"

Whereas there's absolutely no real sentiment to derive from this sort of thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! that's definitely a good idea, how would you go about doing this? counting @mentions vs "tokens"/workds and setting a threshold ratio to remove tweets?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good job, expect I find colors pretty unintuitive - why red means negative? It's color definitly connected with love, anger, war etc. So blue is for cold or maybe not showing emotions. I would definitely rethink that. And senitment analysis not always work - get a tweet rated as "sweet" ended with ":(".

<comment><AUTHOR> well, i have to say the mapping of colours to concepts is highly cultural, so in some places it means anger, or war, or love or joy.

I chose red and blue because they're quite perceptually separated, so it's easy to point them out on the map.

<comment><USER13> I personally feel like the colors shouldn't affect color blind individuals (e.g. light blue and orange). But great job overall!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for the feedback, I'll change the "bad" colour to orange - <USER2> be easy enough to do!

<comment><USER13> Very cool, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some of these are unintentionally hilarious without context. Here's a real gem: [https://imgur.com/c7Ly6Qm](https://imgur.com/c7Ly6Qm)

All in all, though, impressive. Sure some are misclassified but it seems like a significant majority are not, including a lot of the hard ones. Good work!

</comment><comment><USER15> I always have a look at CityDashboard : [http://citydashboard.org/london/](http://citydashboard.org/london/)

It's got a bit more than just twitter feelz. Mostly Boris Bike usage rate :D

</comment><comment><USER16> Clicked through ~20 of them and the analysis was completely off in most cases.

<comment><USER17> Yep, although in some cases understandably. One tweet listed as 'Not good' had the text 'Killed it! 🔫' and a location given as a comedy club. I'm assuming someone had had a good gig, but I'm not surprised a classifier algorithm got that wrong.

<comment><USER18> Some cases are just difficult, but the overall accuracy could probably be improved considerably if the sentiment analyzer were calibrated for the domain. AFINN (linked above) is calibrated from newspaper articles, which almost certainly have a different distribution of word/sentiment correlations than Tweets do. It's not hard for me to imagine that "killed" is a better predictor of negative sentiment when classifying news articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cool idea. Unfortunately I've yet to see sentiment analysis even really come close to providing any useful insights. It's just not accurate enough on 140 character tweets.

<comment><USER11> >It's just not accurate enough on 140 character tweets.

I would disagree but apply the caveat that there has to be heavy filtering of what is being analysed to derive anything of value from it.

A tweet like:

""@BarkhamTaylor: #beatcameronathisowngame @aliceehoughton" let's get it trending #adrian"

Has no value for sentiment analysis, yet is lumped in with the rest of them, while something like:

"Sunny day in London :) @ Green Park [http://t.co/S71RQR2luU"](http://t.co/S71RQR2luU")

Clearly has value regarding sentiment analysis. The current problem being that all of the junk gets marked as "average" or similar because sentiment can't be derived from it, which in the overall set skews things greatly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yeah, the the realisation of it is nice enough to look at, but the sentiment analysis (as always for these kinds of things) is pretty wonky.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, i realised that - but node-sentiment was pretty quick to implement and gives alright results, so it's a bit of a tradeoff. Do you know of more accurate sentiment analysis services?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The dots all look exactly the same to me. I'm colorblind, which I'm sure is the reason for this.

</comment><comment><USER22> A legend for what the colors mean would be extremely helpful.

</comment><comment><USER23> Please make one for Manchester!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! should be really easy.

i want to do also nyc and sf.</comment></comment>


You commit three felonies a day - <AUTHOR> http://kottke.org/13/06/you-commit-three-felonies-a-day <comment><USER2> As a person coming from a former soviet republic, I am very familiar with the saying "show me a man, and I will show you the crime he is guilty of" \- which basically meant that if KGB wanted to charge you with something, they always could find a paragraph for you, because there were so many and so vaguely defined. As an outsider, to me it seems that the USA is not a "free" country and I honestly don't see any difference between what the US and Russian governments are doing to journalists and people who disagree with them.

Edit: Oh, and we already had massive surveillance back then. If you wanted to travel out of your town - you had to register that fact with the nearest police department. Wanted to travel abroad - had to apply for a passport, which was only issued for a strict number of days and had to be returned upon return. If you were placing a phone call, it would always start with a warning "This call is being monitored. This call is being monitored". The post office would open your parcels and letters. There was book censorship on a massive scale. What the US government is doing has already happened. "Those who don't remember history are bound to live through it again".

<comment><USER3> "US...are doing to journalists"

The US government, _still_ maintains a pretty strong protection of journalists. They will go after the leakers themselves, but rarely even attempt to make a journalist reveal a source, let alone prosecute the journalist directly for revealing secret information.

In fact, I say _still_ , but this tendency has actually grown stronger over the last 50 years. It has, in my not-very-researched-opinion, grown stronger due to public pressures and effective civil disobedience. So, that heartens me. All governments screw-up, but some are screw _ed_ -up, I still don't think the US is one of the screwed-up - relative to the rest of the world and history - a LOT I wish they would do better.

<comment><USER4> Recent DOJ opinion (that a court gave warrant for) that an AP author was party to a crime while (/because of) trying to avoid surveillance.

<comment><USER5> I'm not familiar with this opinion. Do you have a source?

<comment><USER6> I think parent^ poster was referring to this:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/700577-051413-letter...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/700577-051413-letter- to-g-pruitt.html)

A reporter was being investigated for having access to classified information, and the toll records (what number called or was called, and for how long the call lasted) were subpoenaed.

[Via [http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/14/4331108/attorney- general-d...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/14/4331108/attorney-general- defends-surveillance-of-ap-reporter-phone-calls) ]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From Atlas Shrugged:

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. [...] There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

<comment><USER8> Since posting this quote is apparently now a thing that happens in practically every HN thread, I will take the opportunity to repost this reply:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5708196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5708196)

<comment><USER7> Not sure what your rant against Rand has to to with the quote in this context? Whenever someone uses "alea iacta est" to make a point, it's usually not the case to discuss Julius Caesar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And the felony history never goes away now.

Just think, a child who gets their first smartphone today, will have their entire phone history recorded until death. Their geolocation saved. Their email saved. All their financial transactions. All their friends and family will be known. Every intercontact in society. Where they shop, eat, etc. Who they date.

I mean why would the NSA ever delete it? They can just get taxpayers to fund more and more storage.

I am also starting to wonder about the new requirement to digitize all medical records and how many contractors will have access to that as well and when all the databases will be allowed to intersect in the name of "security".

But I suspect the NSA doesn't know how many guns you own. That alone is somehow seen as a violation of your rights.

<comment><USER10> I work with a Muslim from Yemen at an investment bank. He's as American as anyone I know but be recently got a gun permit and got a visit from the FBI about a week later. They wanted to know if he felt threatened, if there were problems at his Mosque, why he wanted a gun, if there was anyone at his Mosque who used hate speech, etc.

Something tells me he government knows if you have a gun.

<comment><USER9> Hmm, well "muslim" isn't a nationality, it's a religion almost as big as christianity. is he an American citizen?

Because otherwise that is profiling. They don't show up and ask others if there is any problems at their church or anyone using hate speech about the government at the church.

<comment><USER11> almost as big?

check your data.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html](http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html)

<comment><USER13> That link says that Christianity is 40% larger than Islam, so it _is_ significantly larger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "If you would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

<comment><USER15> Cardinal Richelieu, if I'm not mistaken.

<comment><USER16> Attributed to, but disputed in its authenticity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anyone who's had their company try to get rid of them is keenly aware of this on a micro scale.

Its amazing how many weird rules and regulations you can suddenly find yourself afoul of once somebody high up enough has it in for you ... apparently this is true on a macro level (country/government) too.

</comment><comment><USER18> I read that book when it came out. The title is sensationalist garbage -- the book shows how some people get snared by some fairly stupid federal laws and have their lives messed up by willfully malicious prosecution, which isn't good, of course, but nowhere does the author demonstrate how an average person commits three felonies in a YEAR, or in a LIFETIME, let alone in a day.

<comment><USER19> Have you ever not paid sales tax to your state, on an item you purchased tax- free online? That's felony tax evasion when the amount is high enough; varies by state.

<comment><USER20> Slight nit-pick; you need to pay use tax, not sales tax. Sales tax would be an illegal state regulation of interstate commerce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There was a soviet saying - "Give me a person, I'll find you an article/a paragraph". Meaning - for any person, finding a law that the person breaks is just a matter of time and resources.

It's interesting to see Americans discover this...

<comment><USER22> It's not new to Americans either, despite how stupid we're considered by the rest of the world. There's been news articles noting the same issues with the complexity of the legal code since even before 9/11.

Any student of the law has undoubtedly been aware for decades prior, when they had to research volume after volume of legal decisions and statutory code to establish what precedent (if any) to use in helping decide a later case, and what laws (if any) applied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not so convinced Nacchio is an innocent victim. And I also find it rich that a former telecom CEO guilty of numerous financial crimes is being held up as an example of targeted political persecution using frivolous laws. Insider trading is not the type of crime you commit unknowingly. Has anyone even refuted his guilt convincingly? That is a serious crime and also one with a clear paper trail. If he did it, there would have been no need to frame him for defying the NSA; the SEC would have got him soon enough anyway.

<comment><USER24> Insider trading is only a crime when people want to find you guilty of a crime. That's why congresscritters are not prosecutable for insider trading. Insider trading is the entire point of trading, you wouldn't make any money if everyone had the same information.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps those with the right type of political power/influence are able to shield their trading activity from SEC scrutiny. But trying to use this guy as an example of the "You commit three felonies a day" argument? Really?

Do we all commit three felonies a day unknowingly? Maybe. But the suggestion that tens of millions of dollars in insider trading falls into that category, is flat-out demented.

<comment><USER24> No, you're missing the point. It's not about obscuring anything from SEC scrutiny. The SEC sees everything that is going on. You don't even have to have used insider knowledge to be tagged with insider trading; the SEC says that it's enough to have had access to insider information to be guilty of insider trading. It does nothing about it because it would render Wall Street moot. Insider trading is so vaguely defined and broadly applied that it is a rule meant to be broken so they have something to blackmail you over when they decide they want to shove you around over something else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So what are those three felonies?

<comment><USER26> Silverglate talks about a number of cases, some of which have been addressed either before the book was written or after, but the overall problem is still out there.

For example, see the honest services fraud charges against Jeff Skilling (of Enron fame), on the idea that anything dishonest any corporate executive might do would be depriving the corporation of honest services. Now the Supreme Court reversed Skilling's conviction on the grounds that this was just too vague and that honest services fraud was limited to kickback schemes and the like.

However consider many more:

Lori Drew was prosecuted for unauthorized access to computer servers for violating the terms of service of MySpace (iirc). The subsequent directed verdict of acquittal (after the jury convicted) however did not really eliminate the possibility of ToS violations turning into federal felonies. This was not covered in the book but it is worth noting.

Many of the examples in the books are profession-related. Silverglate goes into detail on the Hurwitz narcotics case where a doctor who operated in line with emerging best practices for chronic pain management was tried and convicted of drug trafficking on the grounds that he had statistical knowledge of the likelihood that at patients might resell the drugs on the street. Hurwitz's conviction was later vacated, but they tried him and convicted him again of a smaller set of charges.

He goes also into medical billing disputes (I have family members who have been on the losing side of these regarding the government and can attest that these are still significant issues).

Another case he does not cover is the Joe Naccio case (covered in the link).

Another case he does not cover was that of my mother's uncle, who they accused of purjury for claiming never to have been a Communist, when their evidence of his lying was that he was legally representing the Communist Party USA and others as a lawyer. They lost that case but came back one tax issue after another until they found something to stick.

There are cases after cases to those of us who follow these things. It is a systemic problem.

Keep in mind that under some of these theories of law, checking Hacker News from work when you should be working is a federal felony, and if not honest services fraud, certainly something they could try you with for wire fraud (it is financial in that you are billing your employer for your time!). Moreover if you check a site for non-work purposes which has a note in the ToS which says that unlawful use is prohibited, then you have committed felony computer trespass (because you "accessed" their servers in excess of authorization provided by the ToS in pursuit of criminal or tortuous ends).

TL;DR: What felonies you commit are unimportant. If they want to, they will find something.

<comment><USER27> No, I want to know what felonies I commit.

<comment><USER28> Maybe one of these:

* Illegal downloads.

* Forwarding a corporate email.

* Some weird term of service in one of the dozen "I read and accept these terms" check-boxes you clicked.

<comment><USER29> How would "forwarding a corporate email" be charged as a felony?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sometimes I get a whiff of nostalgia from posts like this. As if everything was great back in the good old days, where the police weren't able to hassle you, when laws were fair and simple.

Of course that was only if you were a white anglo cis straight christian. Anyone who didn't fit that was able to be prosecuted/killed/oppressed/jailed. But if we pretend those people don't exist, then everything was great in the past.

<comment><USER31> > _Sometimes I get a whiff of nostalgia from posts like this. As if everything > was great back in the good old days, where the police weren 't able to > hassle you, when laws were fair and simple._

People keep repeating this reasoning. I can't understand why.

"Everything" doesn't have to have been "better in the old days", and nobody, except strawmen, argue that.

But SOME aspects of the old days, e.g pertaining to LESS fucking SURVEILLANCE, were. That's enough to be angry about and want to reverse course on that particular front.

> _Of course that was only if you were a white anglo cis straight christian._

Which is totally beside the point.

Did somebody argue here that slavery was good? No, people just argue that modern surveillance (and legal-code-overload) is bad.

Not to mention that surveillance today is bad for everyone: "white anglo cis straight christians", homosexuals, blacks, and what have you.

We should not mix up orthogonal issues.

<comment><USER32> > But SOME aspects of the old days, e.g pertaining to LESS fucking > SURVEILLANCE, were. That's enough to be angry about and want to reverse > course on that particular front.

> Did somebody argue here that slavery was good? No, people just argue that > modern surveillance (and legal-code-overload) is bad.

Which is true but a little myopic. Until the Warren court decided that wiretapping required a warrant, law enforcement could surveil your communications at any time for any reason. For the individual the legal situation is much better now, in spite of the obvious erosions of protection and regressions, than they were "back in the day."

<comment><USER31> > _Which is true but a little myopic. Until the Warren court decided that > wiretapping required a warrant, law enforcement could surveil your > communications at any time for any reason._

Only they couldn't do 1/100 of what they can now. Even wiretapping a single person required a few days work, people listening, unwieldy tape machines to record and replay it, etc. No AVR with stop words, not automatic routing, no DSP etc.

Not to mention that people didn't share 1/100 of what they do now over then snail mail and telephone.

Pragmatically, logistically, and by the norms of the era, only few people were eavesdropped on. Communists, politicians, industrialists, journalists, etc. Now it's everybody.

> _For the individual the legal situation is much better now, in spite of the > obvious erosions of protection and regressions, than they were "back in the > day."_

How is it better? The individual can be crashed now under the Patriot Act, various child porn laws, and whatever they can come up with. That a few laws also pay lip service to individual privacy I wouldn't count much on.

<comment><USER32> > Only they couldn't do 1/100 of what they can now.

Again, true but rather beside the point. I want the limits on intrusive government power to be constitutional, not technological.

> How is it better?

There's a lot that can be said about this, but short answer: a lot of the things they're doing are (thanks to the Warren court era's findings regarding civil liberties which I mentioned) actually unconstitutional under the law. There's a reason why they keep these programs so secret and it's not that they don't want "the terrorists" to know that we can listen to their phone conversations. It's because they know they are, to be generous, pushing the envelope of what is legal.

I see a lot of hopelessness regarding these topics right now but there shouldn't be. If people keep shining light on these secret programs, there will be reform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> By the way you can start to read the book here:

[http://books.google.com/books?id=9Au2t9ZOtnAC&printsec=front...](http://books.google.com/books?id=9Au2t9ZOtnAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Or find it in your local library:

[http://www.worldcat.org/title/three-felonies-a-day-how- the-f...](http://www.worldcat.org/title/three-felonies-a-day-how-the-feds- target-the-innocent)

</comment><comment><USER33> Not new, such has been the case for most of human history.

An honest man is most able to live in the US without being harassed or condemned, more so than at any other time in history.

I'm not saying we're done, or that it can't still be bad because it's better than it was, but it's worth remembering that this isn't a solved problem that we're just "too stupid/lazy/greedy/corrupt" to fix. I'd even go so far as to argue that it's human nature to build governments where this is true, and it will never _not_ be true.

A critical part of our justice system is the discretion of those who enforce, legislate, and interpret our laws. You can't pretend like laws exist outside of human (read: flawed) implementation, and I feel that this is more severely perpetrated by those in STEM fields because they're used to the rigor that comes with such disciplines whereas the law is a fluid and changing beast.

</comment><comment><USER34> Compared to the 300 things I could get sued for daily, I think I'm probably doing just fine odds wise.

</comment><comment><USER35> A state that monitors without limits is dangerous for several reasons. Mainly because those who watch may or may not alter its ethics, for example, for personal gain. Someone with access to data can fuck another. A typical example would be a company, which is surveilled and they know all their movements, communications, contracts and any possible information that a government can sell to competitors or people who pay for this information.

Amen to these problems will also be those, as noted in this article, the issue of being "possible guilty" all the time is just plainly sick.

</comment><comment><USER36> Other than refusing to consent to letting the NSA wiretap your customers, what 'innocent' actions can be viewed as felonies? I didn't see any specific examples which applied to everyday life in the article.

</comment><comment><USER37> See also

Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime

[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2203713](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2203713)

</comment><comment><USER38> Many people have software that isn't totally licensed.

</comment><comment><USER39> So what are the three felonies a day that I supposedly commit? Article is quite short on details.

</comment><comment><USER40> ...while I don't find this implausible, must the only provided example be a CEO?

</comment><comment><USER41> This is why "nothing to hide" argument is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is the USA now a tyranny?</comment>


iOS game with $99 in-app purchases. - <AUTHOR> http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/04/24/iphone-garbage-super-monster-bros-by-adventure-time-pocket-free-games

<comment><AUTHOR> Watch out for this this game if you have children. They might run up a bill if you have your account open to downloads without a password. Turn off in-app purchases if you want to try it out.</comment>


Debunking the Software Patent Myths (1992) - <AUTHOR> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/int-prop/heckel-debunking.html <comment><USER2> If almost everyone working in a field that is to be 'protected' by patents, is passionately opposed to them, and the almost sole defenders are lawyers and multinationals... well, I think that tells you all you need to know on whether patents for that field are a good idea.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you scrape? - <AUTHOR> Do you scrape anything?
If so, what and for what purpose?
What software or service do you prefer? <comment><USER2> Writing your own may take some time but it's definitely worth it.

I use Python + AsyncIO + lxml. If you're are new to this and don't have time to learn new things, I suggest you try import.io

</comment><comment><USER3> Write your own. For me, it's the most efficient (and you will learn a lot).

</comment><comment><USER4> Absolutely, the web is such a horrid place that scraping is a necessity.

<comment><AUTHOR> You scrape as an alternative to browsing in some cases? That's interesting, is it to avoid advertising / tracking / poor UI / something else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Nokogiri. It is a ruby library for parsing XML/HTML</comment>


First Nations urban development project to challenge NIMBY Vancouver - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-squamish-nations-planned-development-on-reserve-land-in-vancouver/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are two pretty interesting things going on here. Firstly, if this goes through, it's going to force a bunch of people in Vancouver to reconcile some of their values in a way that's going to be pretty uncomfortable for them. Well to do urban-dwelling Vancouverites often hold the value publicly that reconciliation with First Nations and their right to self determination is very important, but they also really really don't like the idea of any developments changing the character of their neighborhood, despite the housing crisis we've been in for years.

Secondly, since the Squamish Nation doesn't need to follow a bunch of the typical city rules, they can do away with things like required parking spaces, and build more pedestrian space between towers with smaller footprints, and be open that they don't expect people living here will own cars. If the project and neighbourhood are successful, it could prove to be a pretty interesting counter point to the broadly successful development policies of the city that seem at risk of keeping up with the densification of the region.</comment>


Are you solving a NASA problem or a LEGO problem? - <AUTHOR> http://nateberkopec.com/post/10043183328/nasa-problems-and-lego-problems <comment><USER2> I don't really see the point of this article. It's not the difficulty of your solution--it's the quality of your solution and whether it resonates with customers. I've seen some very profitable startups solving "LEGO" problems in elegant and interesting ways. Meanwhile, any competitive advantage you think you built solving "NASA" problems with complex technology is fleeting at best.

<comment><USER3> Isnt that the point of the article? Dont think your idea is the most complex and that no one else will be able to copy you. If you're solving a lego problem stick to the lego but try to solve it the best you can cause people will come and its gonna be easy to copy most of your solution

<comment><AUTHOR> That was exactly the point I was trying to make. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It always seemed to me that the prevalence of LEGO problem startups, or in other words endless companies doing endless variations of "cat picture sharing webapps", was a reason to discount the total effect a startup can have on humanity and a reason why you should go work for BigCorp. We all more or less agree that NASA problems are more beneficial to humanity than LEGO problems, but in terms of money gained, both options are equally viable. Microsoft started as a LEGO problem, Google started as a LEGO problem, Facebook started as a LEGO problem. Now they're gigantic corporations that can see and manage and fund NASA problems, or buy up and piece together enough LEGO problem startups, who individually were doing NASA problem R&D possibly without realizing it.

<comment><USER5> I don't think you can classy what Google did as a LEGO problem. At the time they started, indexing the web and comming up with pagerank was a hugely complex thing to do. And you can see how it impacted their future direction as a company that seems intent on attacking larger world problems. Microsoft did not get huge deal. Sure writing a BASIC interpreter wasn't something super complex but that isn't what made them successful in the end.

When I look at company like Dropbox, I don't really see a lego problem since building the infrastructure for what they are doing isn't easy. But it's not stopping people from competing with them as this article claims it would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> NASA has competitors. The competitive landscape is dynamic, and solving a difficult problem only gives you a head start. A head start is a great thing, it has founded incredible businesses, and it is enormous fun to be the best.

It's sad, because whatever exceeded customer expectations today (so that they think it's incredible, magic, they can't believe it, how did you do that man) won't work tomorrow, when their pesky expectations have habituated to it. "New" is intrinsically time-sensitive. What have you done lately?

Here's Joel essay _Where there's muck, there's brass_ <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/12/06.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> What if it was made out of an erector set? Then after that you moved to a hand crafted duct tape garage prototype? Then to a small scale SLA prototype to model it's characteristics. Then maybe a scale replica using CNCed parts?

Burt Rutan used to build small scale models of his concept planes and mount them to the roof of his car to test their aerodynamics. Last time I checked he managed to turn that "Lego" project into a manned space vehicle.

</comment><comment><USER8> Even if you're solving 'NASA problems', competitors will come.

It would have been better to give us some idea of WHY we need to know what scale of problems we're solving, and what kind of problems we'll have if we don't know.

<comment><USER9> In fact, if you're solving "NASA problems", being the first solver even has some potentially crippling disadvantages—nimble competitors can learn from your public mistakes and build off your public successes, all for a _lot less time and money_ than it took you.

Solving a problem can be a lot easier the second time—what had been a tortuously long and painful process for you is often significantly easier for a competitor who had the benefit of watching.

You'll also also have this issue if you're the first to solve an easy problem, but I believe it's less exaggerated.

<comment><USER10> This is true for some things. For example, UI design can be a long and difficult process for the first mover but easy for competitors who can just lift the design. However, it's not so easy to lift, say, the design of a distributed file system from its public interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are a couple of possible points in this article. One is bemoaning the quality of the problems (not the solution) attacked by startups. Is the startup curing cancer? Or enabling a more advanced form of ironic hipsterism? Of course curing cancer is more important. That doesn't mean Lolcats fails to make the world a better place.

Another is that people in startups are delusional in thinking they are solving difficult problems. Maybe, but they are taking risks and it seems innocuous and may be even helpful to be slightly delusional on that point.

Finally the metaphor of a moon mission is telling. Landing on the moon, was hard, but it didn't create a sustainable business around space flight. In fact by some measures space flight went backward for some time. In the 90's I was at Draper Laboratories and remember a literal rocket scientist saying it would take more than 10 years to put a man on the moon again. (He was saying this while complaining about milspec components.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in Brooklyn, so this could in fact by advanced hipsterism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think that a lot of folks get really caught up in competition. Big deal. Competition drives innovation. If there is a market, competitors will come regardless. I'd almost argue that competition can validate a market.

I believe that if businesses focused more on customer service and solving one or two key problems really well, then they'll have a higher likelihood of succeeding.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you find yourself coming up with a NASA-style solution, that's a pretty good indicator something is going horribly wrong. NASA-style architectures are non-modular, highly complex, non-reusable, bureaucratic, inefficient, difficult to test, high maintenance, and high risk solutions.

<comment><USER14> > NASA-style architectures are non-modular, highly complex, non-reusable, > bureaucratic, inefficient, difficult to test, high maintenance, and high > risk solutions.

Source?

<comment><USER15> History.

<comment><USER14> Right, but, given the amount of incredibly useful products and discoveries that have come out of NASA's "inefficient, non-modular, non-reusable, difficult-to-test" architectures (see: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/50-years-50-giant-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/50-years-50-giant- leaps-how-nasa-rocked-our-world-879377.html)), I think such a broad statement about the way NASA works deserves a little more qualification than a witty one-word answer, don't you?

<comment><USER15> A lot of the alleged NASA spinoffs are vastly overrated or incorrectly attributed to NASA. Overall the spinoff benefits do not justify the enormous cost of, especially, NASA manned spaceflight and thus aren't a good argument for its continued existence. Trying to justify hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses with hand-held vacuum cleaners and better golf balls is patently ridiculous.

The only good argument is the direct one: it's something we want to do and something we should do for its own reasons and merits. Personally I believe that to be the strongest argument and also a perfectly adequate argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've seen this posed as Twitter vs. Hoverboard, without denigrating the Twitter side.

[http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2011/07/a-twitter-a- hoverboar...](http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2011/07/a-twitter-a-hoverboard- or-something-in-between/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Why are people so afraid of competitors ? For me this article is what make so many projects fail, they try too much. Sometimes, you just need to solve simple things to make people's life a little better.

It isn't about the competitors, it's about who come first with a viable solution.

PS: You not a scientist, you are not NASA, you will never be, you will never have the need to develop anything close to a space rocket in your life. And if you do, don't start a startup for god sake, do something more valuable to the human kind, please use you knowledge for much more important things.

</comment><comment><USER18> False dichotomy much? There are plenty of problems that lie in between LEGO problems and NASA problems. I'll call them "Wright brothers problems" -- i.e. the kind of problems that can be solved by two guys in a garage over a period of a few years. I'd say the development of Pagerank actually falls into this category, since it was originally Larry Page's thesis topic, which he developed with Sergei Brin, then brought to fruition at a small scale at Stanford, then (finally!) at full scale with the founding and development of Google.

</comment><comment><USER19> I agree with the message that you need something substantial to survive and prosper. Unlike 70s and prior, market and community of innovators at this age openly exchange their small yet fully specialized ideas. The result of which is the complex eco-system. I would rather compare the space exploration with current state with the internet, instead of few big firms working with their million-man hours, we have the swarm of innovators all over the world producing and exchanging their accomplishments of "LEGO" missions.

</comment><comment><USER20> Tackling a NASA-scale problem would (most likely) require NASA-scale funding. Ping me when somebody finds an investor that is this rich/foolish.

I admire the notion, but I actually think the scale of the problem is irrelevant. There are some really "small" problems (that are hard, but could be solved by one person), throughout mathematics and computer science that could have profound impacts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Eeeehh...I'm not so sure about that. Palantir, Dropbox, and Heroku are all examples of startups that solved massive technical issues (mostly with redundancy/stability) that keeps their competition at bay. Would _you_ want to recode Dropbox? Would you like to take a stab at one-upping Palantir's massive effort in the next gen of financial intelligence?

Hm, I think I need to go back to the drawing board with this post. There's something good here but I didn't quite get it across.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It isn't a big deal when you are solving a LEGO problem and think you have a NASA problem. The big deal is when you are trying to solve a NASA problem, and you think it is a LEGO problem. The first leads to an inflated sense of self worth, the second leads to untold suffering and failure.

</comment><comment><USER22> Weird, he does LEGO in capitals like the company wants, but still uses an S to make it plural.

Also, his numbers seem to be off, both for years and number of missions.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, no clue where those numbers come from. The better estimate would be about 8 years and on the order of 20 manned missions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> NASA took $1000 from every American, and paid scientists to put 12 people on the moon. If you think about it, it is as pointless as the pyramids. LEGO on the other hand stimulates the creativity and entertains kids for billions of hours. LEGO solves a real problem, NASA solves non-problems. I am all for NASA and working on hard problems just to show they can be solved, but any startup working on NASA problems is destined to be a commercial failure.

<comment><USER24> Can you provide a link for that dollar amount? At its peak in 1966, NASA was 4.4% of the federal budget. That's 5.9 billion dollars for that year. The population of the United States was 196 million at the time. This puts the cost of NASA at $30 (1966 dollars) per person. That's a lot a bang for the buck!

Source: <http://www.infoplease.com/year/1966.html> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA>

<comment><USER24> A quick follow up, from those same sites you can work out that NASA costs Americans about $55/yr per person today. Not bad, maybe others would like to buy a video game instead. I however enjoy the pretty pictures from around the solar system.

<comment><USER25> Just imagine if the average American spent as much on space as they do on their car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> But my paycheck comes from NASA...

</comment><comment><USER27> If I can achieve FU money by solving a LEGO problem rather than a NASA problem, then I'll do it. There will always be NASA problems to solve later. Solve the money problem first.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm an algoholic, not in the SEO sense pls, gimme something NASA-big to solve then ;)</comment>


John Gruber and friends launch Vesper note capture app - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/06/daring-fireballs-john-gruber-and-friends-launch-vesper-note-capture-app/

<comment><USER2> Thinking that sync is optional is a really weird thing that seems to linger in the Apple world.

You know the old William Gibson line that cyberspace is the place where telephone conversations happen? Not in the hardware at either end, but in the "space between"? Computing has moved there too.

Work used to happen on a device and then was transferred to other devices, either manually (floppies, email) or later automatically (sync, dropbox). Thanks to the web, mobile devices and lots of data, that's changed: Google Apps led the way, but Evernote etc all let you do your work in the _space between_ devices.

Nowadays, putting the device first over the data (or ignoring other devices entirely, like this app does) is like putting the phone first over the call: beautiful, elegant hardware, refined way to dial, custom typeface for the numbers ... but you can't call anyone with it.

Apple in particular makes this mistake repeatedly. Photostream is device- first, so you have to work out what the hell is where and work out what you want to download to which machine. iTunes Match is device-first, so you're forever downloading and deleting tracks to make space on a particular device. Me.com tries to keep the sync truth on one of your devices, so conflicts abound. Notifications appear on all devices and often have to be dismissed individually on each of them. They see the world through the device first.

I suppose it's obvious why it happens -- they're a hardware company, and they grew up in a pre-networked world -- but I think misunderstanding this is one key reason they're seen as "bad at services" in comparison to Google, which is instinctively and entirely in "the space between devices".

As for this app, why would I ever want to be trapped in a single place again? They might as well have made it for an SE/30.

<comment><USER3> I find sync that requires an account a negative factor. There are many notes I wouldn't want to share with Google.

Also as soon as you offer sync you need to have a conflict resolution approach and there is no way to always resolve in a clean way without user intervention.

<comment><USER4> The time for punting on sync because it's too hard or inconvenient can't last indefinitely in the industry...

<comment><USER3> It isn't just hard or inconvenient it is impossible (to do losslessly without human intervention). I take data loss very seriously and I also take privacy issues seriously so even if it was easy and convenient to implement a state of the art solution it still wouldn't be a no-brainer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure I'm understanding the point of this tool. It looks trendy, but it takes notes. No syncing. I mean, this is the guy that wrote NetNewsWire. Wouldn't an app like this be doable in a weekend?

I honestly want to find something new that the app does that is supposed to change my workflow, but there is just nothing. A cynical part of me feels like this exists (especially with the $5 price tag) just to ride the fame coattails of Gruber+Simmons+Wiskus.

I don't condemn them for taking the opportunity of their current notoriety. I'm coming off of week 4 of an app launch that completely failed to garner any reviews or growth, so it does really hurt to see reviews of this app that are nearly 4,000 words long: [http://www.macstories.net/reviews/vesper-review- collect-your...](http://www.macstories.net/reviews/vesper-review-collect-your- thoughts/)

<comment><USER6> _Wouldn't an app like this be doable in a weekend?_

Paul Graham, I know you can hear me, and I know this is possible because I know a thing or two about the Javascripts, and so I'm telling you now: the site's banner should strobe clown colors for 5 minutes every time news.arc sees this string.

<comment><USER7> Think of all the strings that cold be extended out to as well. If there's any justice in the world this will be at least an option.

<comment><USER4> Topical clownstrobe proposal: "nothing to hide"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Features: I'm all for simplicity, in the right circumstances. I use Clear from Realmac Software because when I'm creating to-do lists, speed is the most important thing to me. However, when I'm writing notes, accessibility is probably the most important thing for me and that means sync, I'd also bet this is the case for many people, hence the popularity of things like Evernote and Google Keep. The absence of sync from Vesper seems like a massive oversight, and makes me wonder if it's on the cards for a future version, or perhaps for a working iCloud? In addition to sync, I would have thought it would have Markdown support, even if it was transparent to the user in some way and

Price: The price doesn't hugely concern me here. If I find an app truly useful, then $5 is a small price to pay, and I support developers making a bit of a stand on this and charging premium prices for premium products. The feature set isn't one that interests me because of the lack of sync, so whether it was $5 or $1 wouldn't really make a difference for me.

Design: 'flat design' is nice when done well, but detracts from usability when done badly in my opinion. If you have a non-flat design, unless it's hugely over-the-top, I don't think it detracts from the usability. (sidenote, what's the correct terminology for the opposite of 'flat design'? It's certainly not skeumorphic) Lots of Microsoft's 'metro' styling does flat design well, using varying font sizes and typographic and visual hints to provide context to controls, whereas Visual Studio has gone too far and removed far to many visual cues which results in a less usable interface in my experience.

I feel that Vesper goes to far. As there is so little to the app it's hard to justify it being 'less usable', but I do think the interface to be a long way from correctly executed flat design. I think other apps and designs are far closer to how flat design should be.

Another interesting thing to note is the animation on transitioning to a new note. Federico Vittici made a GIF of it (<http://bit.ly/15EEKkP>) for his review (<http://bit.ly/11Hkz16>). Federico points out that it makes the interface feel a lot faster to the user, but I don't think it's the right thing to do. Firstly, as I said above, I don't think speed should be a priority for things like this, after all, the amount of time for a 0.5s transition is minuscule to the amount of time spent composing the note. But also it breaks the well known metaphor of the UI stack in iOS. The back button still indicates that it will move to the screen on the left, however the screen hasn't really moved in the user's mind. It's not a crucial point, but it's one of those 'papercuts' (<http://askubuntu.com/questions/1006/what-is-a- paper-cut>) that I would expect a team such as the one behind this app to have addressed.

I wrote more than I planned to, so I might turn this into a blog post. Would be interested to know peoples thoughts on it first though.

<comment><USER9> Concerning the sync I think they're waiting to see if Apple plans to fix iCloud (with CoreData) in iOS 7 or if they must look for another way to do the sync. At least this is what I would do, we're very near WWDC I think it was wise to wait to see how it goes. Although I think what's more debatable was the decision to release the app now and not to wait few weeks or even september. Personally I would have tried (if as I think it's for them a side project) to wait the release of iOS 7 (and maybe require iOS 7) and add the sync functionality in version 1.0.

<comment><USER10> Why wait? They'll start getting users (and feedback) now and once they get sync, they'll get another press release out of it. Apple didn't wait until they could do LTE right to release iPhone 4s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, that explains why he linked to that "A $5 app isn't expensive" post from Daring Fireball yesterday.

[http://www.macworld.com/article/2032847/a-5-app-isnt- expensi...](http://www.macworld.com/article/2032847/a-5-app-isnt-expensive- customers-need-to-help-fix-the-app-store-economy.html)

<comment><USER6> Or, it's the other way around, and the pricing philosophy he's had all along influenced his decision on how to price this:

<http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/pinprick>

(Where by "or" I mean "no").

<comment><USER11> I'm saying it's not a coincidence he linked to that two month old article the day before he released a $5 app. Prime the pump, in a sense.

<comment><USER12> In that sense, he's been priming the pump since 2008.

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/11/16/finnell-app- stor...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/11/16/finnell-app-store- pricing)

<comment><USER13> Nice catch. My cynic alarm was squawking but its simmered down now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It appears to me by purchasing this app, you are trading the features of existing products for a slick design. I'm particularly impressed with how they have spun the lack of features as a feature ("simple and elegant", "imposes no system")

For me, inability to coexist with Notational Velocity is a dealbreaker.

<comment><USER6> Isn't that a little bit like saying that by buying a Moleskin notebook, you're trading the features of existing products like Trapper Keepers?

<comment><USER14> This might be stretching the metaphor a little, but in college I'd take a five-section notebook over a Moleskin any day because of the nifty little pockets that I could keep problem sets and syllabi in.

Similarly, an iOS notes app that doesn't have websync just seems unhelpful for me. The only time I need to record a piece of data and I don't have access to my laptop/paper are usually when I need to remember something for later: and that "later" involves me using my laptop.

(Advantage of note apps vs. note books: the former lends themselves much more to iteration.)

<comment><USER6> So this is easy: the kind of person who prefers a five-section notebook to a Moleskine is not the target audience for this application. Just like those apps that appeal to people who track their jogging times are not targeted towards me, unless they also have pig fat and whiskey features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What exactly is the point of this? I mean, what does this app do that's new or exciting or hell, even better than any existing app does? Not to take anything away from the people who made this, but if someone else had made such a simplistic app, with next to no features, and put it out, I doubt anyone would have given it the time of day.

This is app.net all over again.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here is Gruber's review of Simplenote from 2009: <http://daringfireball.net/2009/07/simplenote>

<comment><USER17> "But I noted three significant shortcomings:

        1. Syncing"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It looks nice. I will give it that, but $5 bucks seems a little much for a notes app that can't sync across platforms as far as I can tell... not even iCloud.

Evernote, Springpad, Simplenote, and even Google Keep for iOS (when it is finally release) have syncing from the get go.

<comment><USER19> It seems to be very similar to Day One, which also costs $5 and is quite popular

<comment><USER20> Day One looks really exciting, but the reviews are really up in arms about a lack of encryption. Does anyone know more about this supposed issue?

<comment><USER18> Lack of encryption and lack of Google Drive support have held me back from using this as well. Let me know if you find out anything more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish this existed on OS X, and not just iOS, a platform where I'm never particularly interested in taking notes.

What would be especially nice would be if iOS Vesper was a satellite of a desktop Vesper, so that my photos and location information would automatically get pulled into my notes.

<comment><USER21> Day One does this.

It's a journal app, but it has the same features as Vesper, but with sync, a desktop app, and a calendar view of your posts. In my eyes it also has a very similar interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> When will the Android version be released?

<comment><USER23> Never. It's Gruber.

<comment><USER24> Honest question - what is it with these Apple fanatics not wanting to write any software ever for Android, Windows, Linux or anything not Apple? Is it just spite?

<comment><USER3> I would prefer not to write software for Android or Windows because I don't want to support Google or Microsoft if I can help it[1]. Google is too powerful and has too much data and I really don't trust them. Microsoft while reasonably well behaved recently (maybe because they have lacked the power not to be) have a long history of dubious practices and unfairly squashing competition.

Linux, Blackberry, Firefox OS, I would be happy developing for if they had worthwhile market share.

[1] Note that this isn't an absolute and if the market conditions dictated it I would swallow this preference and live work with them but while there is a choice I would prefer not to. If I had a mega-hit on iOS I may port it to cash in, while I put non-zero dollar value on avoiding Google/MS it isn't unlimited either.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the response. So it is an ethics thing with you. Personally the idea of supporting Apple over Google is alien to me, but is interesting reading other people's perspectives.

<comment><USER3> I meant to include that I don't think that Apple are saints either. However their business model is largely making stuff people want and selling it with an upfront price rather than you (and the data trail you leave) being the product to be sold to advertisers. Google's scale and data collection creep me out already without adding more to it by using an Android phone, and therefore I don't want to encourage others to do things that I wouldn't do.

But as I said its a preference rather than a hard black and white line for me, major corporations have their own interests at heart not customers/users where they conflict.

<comment><USER24> I can see the logic in that point of view. For me the big thing is lock-in. Google let me transition off their services easily, and I can also use their products on a wide range of hardware. Microsoft is somewhat "open" in this respect, but less so. Apple actively push their customers into using software and services that only work on their hardware. Jobs and Gates both categorised their fight as Closed against Open, and personally I have a really hard time supporting Closed, even when Open means letting companies use my data to sell me ads.

I dont write native apps, so I dont know if push came to shove if I would avoid writing apps for iOS or not.

<comment><USER3> I don't feel more locked in to iOS than I would be to Android. If I changed device I would lose apps, including purchased ones but little else.

Yes the services are only available on their hardware but hardware choice is far from the biggest issue with this sort of freedom, ability to leave the supplier entirely is the power I want and precisely because they offer less (or at least I use less) than the full Google ecosystem I have a lower barrier to exit.

I use iCloud only with some apps that support it and the photostream functionality but I have all my photos offline too. I don't buy DRMed media so could transfer my music elsewhere. I don't use Apple or Google mail services, but pay for a separate IMAP provider. I have some documents in Pages but they could be exported as a different format and there doesn't seem to be difference in lock in to Word or even Google Docs.

Regarding open vs. closed I prefer open too. I like open source and have a Linux server. However I don't see Google as that much more open than Apple. Both release large amounts of Open Source software (LLVM, Webkit if you struggle to think of Apple examples) but only in areas where it benefits them. Open has reduced benefits where a single corporate interest has full control of the direction of the project.

<comment><USER24> > hardware choice is far from the biggest issue with this sort of freedom

This might be why we differ. To me it's a huge issue - that I can continue to buy from a range of hardware manufacturers, and install my own OS and software. My computers all have Linux + Windows 8, and my phones have always had custom ROMs on there. I get that not everyone needs that, but Apple stopping me from installing OS X on my laptop, which is perfectly capable of running it, just strikes me as "evil".

If you go out of your way to avoid Apple services that lock you in, then I suppose that you could be reasonably free to exit. But on an iOS device you can't get out of using default apps like Apple Maps, and services like FaceTime and iMessage encourage people to connect with their family and friends through a system which is almost unique in only working on one manufacturer's hardware/OS (the only other example is BBM, which I also avoid).

> I don't see Google as that much more open than Apple

I see them as much more open than Apple, probably because it is in their best interest to be. Google's continuing existence is based on people's ability to use their services from any platform. They are trying to make hardware and operating systems less relevant by moving everything onto the internet. In order to do this, they need everything to be interoperable, and they do that through openness. Apple's business on the other hand is about getting people into their walled garden and keeping them there. Microsoft did that to an extent with trying to lock everyone into Windows, but in my view Apple are a million times worse, as they are trying to lock people into their OS and their hardware - and in many cases their software as well (eg. Maps and other default applications).

With respect to Android, you can use it without using a single Google service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Bought it and played around with it a bit. Very nice interface. The app has a very nice initial feel.

However besides the ability to send an email or text, the data appears to only stay the app. There is no DropBox or other syncing options. So it will not replace SimpleNote/nvAlt for me.

Interesting, I expected this to support Markdown. But I do like the simple and automated formatting that is provided.

<comment><USER25> The fact, that they named the app after the First Bond Girl could indicate that this is a first of group of apps. So maybe the sync'ing features will be coming in later releases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unless I'm missing something, this is a direct competitor to Evernote, yes?

I think I get it - Evernote has always been a bit of a mess IMHO and while it's the best of what existed, it seemed overly complicated and cluttered. This appears to be a measured (and flat) response to that.

<comment><USER27> I don't see anything about Vesper syncing to the cloud, so there's no way it could ever compete with Evernote for me. My notes have not been tied to any one particular device for several years thanks to EN, and there's no way I'm giving that up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What an awesome position to be launching an app from, in terms of marketing!

</comment><comment><USER8> I find the choice of name interesting. I realise it's a Bond reference, but the first impression I got was of an unreliable old moped, not the image I think the developers would want to associate with.

<comment><USER29> That would be a "Vespa".

<comment><USER30> Which are, ironically enough, rather reliable despite their old age.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cool. Gruber just invented Google Keep.

<comment><USER32> For reference, here were his thoughts on Google Keep a few months ago:

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/21/keep>

<comment><USER24> Considering that Google are amazingly good at giving you your data back, and allowing you to transition off to other services, his comment is about the most stupid and self-defeating thing he could possibly say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> that's a very pretty translation of iOS design principles into a flat UI. makes me wonder in Gruber & friends have seen a sneak peek at the rumoured new flat iOS.

<comment><USER34> Ugh. I hope not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Ugh... another note-taking app. How does this non-innovation make frontpage news at Techmeme and other places? I don't get it.

Make an app that takes notes FOR me, automatically, without me having to even think about it, and I'll pay $5 for that. Seriously, we've been making note- taking apps since the dawn of the text editor. It's a solved problem. Move along.

</comment><comment><USER36> People who complain about the $5 price tag: How many coffees do you buy per day?

Now, I don't drink coffee (dry eyes issues) and I'm not an app store shopaholic. However, if there is something of interest, I'm not going to complain about the lack of x and y and the high price.

The price is already too low.

</comment><comment><USER37> No voice dictation. No syncing. More expensive than the free notes app. Lame.

</comment><comment><USER38> Am I the only one who thinks flat design looks boring and generic?

</comment><comment><USER39> is it just me or did a lot of chimney commenters just shrug away the inadequacies of this app by predicting things based on nothing at all?

</comment><comment><USER40> So?

<comment><USER41> Chill out bro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Interesting name. <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define+vesper>

<comment><USER25> Given Gruber's love of all things Bond, I respect that the name comes from the first Bond girl (and great cocktail) Vesper Lynd.

Edit: Ah, their company's name is "Q Branch" which is the division that provides all of Bond's gadgets.

<comment><USER11> That's playing a dangerous game, using multiple references to an existing property.

Imagine someone creating "Imperial Studios" that released their new "Luke" and "Darth" apps.</comment></comment></comment>


How Engineering Salaries Across the U.S. Stack Up - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/10/how-engineering-salaries-in-the-bay-area-stack-up/ <comment><USER2> After visiting another developer friend in San Francisco last summer I concluded that it would be very difficult for me to move to the Bay Area and maintain the overall cost and quality of living that I currently have in NYC. It seems to me that these kinds of analyses invariably either use or are significantly skewed by the Manhattan cost of living. But my personal (and admittedly inexhaustive) conclusion was that NYC provides much better possibilities of having a low cost of living while remaining reasonably close to Manhattan than it appeared was possible in the Bay Area.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> > While it's easy for job seekers to get stars in their eyes over the salaries > in San Francisco, when you adjust for cost of living, an engineer's salary > goes further in every city in our analysis with the exception of New York.

> Bottom line: No matter where you want to work, engineers that start their > careers in San Francisco have a higher earning potential once they move to > other job markets.

An interesting conclusion from the linked pdf.</comment>


Children's screen time has little effect on sleep, says study - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46109023 <comment><USER2> I have spent the last year building sleep tech and I have read 100's of papers on the subject, been to conferences and spent lots of time with academics and experts on the subject of sleep. Screen time matters massively. It _really matters_ for children and every single piece of evidence, bar this poorly written study (two questions), say so. It's a real issue for adults too, and blue light issue aside, the disturbance of your wind down routine is a massive health issue that needs to be adressed. It affects not only how you fall asleep (the marker for which people judge sleep quality) but also staying asleep and the quality of it (a far more important measure).

(Also if anyone is building sleep apps/tech I'm looking for work)

<comment><USER3> If you've stumbled in your reading upon any hints on what to do with a two year old that barely sleeps more than 6 hours a day (including naptime) i'd kill for it.

We're having a neurologist appointment coming up because of it, but I can't shake the feeling we're just the worst parents. :/

We've taken away all screens from him a month ago, but he won't stop waking up at night, trying to breastfeed as much as possible and not falling asleep before 1 AM.

<comment><USER4> My sister-in-law only needed 4 hours of sleep a day growing up. Very frustrating for my in-laws. She is in her late 40's now. All this to say, its probably not something you are doing to your son. He might just be that way! :)

<comment><USER2> This is not strictly accurate. There is some daily mail science about "super humans" who need less than 7-8 hours. And while some people survive like this, your body needs sleep for 7-8 no exceptions. Deep sleep (as important as light sleep) only occurs during long uninterrupted phases. During those phases your body does some amazing things. Amongst other things the production of things like cancer fighting cells and repairing all the physical and mental streses of the day. While not fully understood exactly what, we know the why and lots of good studies prove the correlation between regular quality sleep and better mental and physical well being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night. The end result: sleep-deprived or poorly rested kids who have essentially given themselves a mini case of jet lag"

It doesn't seem like a huge problem that teens are getting ~30 minutes less sleep per nights because of technology. Staring at screens is now a major part of our lives and that probably won't change any time soon. I do think we need to consider what time class starts for teenagers who need a solid 8-9 hours of sleep per night. When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen.

<comment><USER6> >When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen.

In my region they've shifted school start times later to accommodate teens who have late after-school activities. The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need. The shift for our local teenagers resulted in even earlier start time for elementary and middle school aged kids. Bus schedules also shifted which required me to wake my young kids even earlier (5:30 AM). Thankfully my work is flexible enough that I can drive them, which gives them an extra 30-45 min of time each morning - other parents not so lucky.

<comment><USER7> What's your source on "younger children need more sleep"?

Our teen definitely needs much more than his younger sibling. But it seems to be more individual based on my very low n observations, the eldest needed more sleep when he was the age his younger sibling is.

I'd expect there to be a sex-based characteristic to sleep needs to?

<comment><USER6> I didn't cite my sources because I thought it was common knowledge (my bad). I found this after 1 search query: [http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316](http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316)

Two more in case you need some more:

[https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep- children#1](https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1)

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for- babies...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies-kids- and-teens/)

<comment><USER7> The reason I wanted your source was to see the detail - like ranges, breadth of studies, etc..

Many people assume a lot of things that when investigated turn out to be false.

Often assertions don't match their backing: for example you said " The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need."

However that's not what your first study says. It gives broad ranges, so it concedes that younger children can need less sleep than older children, it's not tied in a simple way to age.

You perhaps meant "on average", which is quite reasonable, and having the source you based you statement on can lead one to assume you were being brief rather than errant.

FWIW those sources look like you quickly googled it; and so weren't really relying on any particular sources.

TL;DR your source supports my observation and contradicts your claim as written.

<comment><USER8> For parents wondering what the right amount is, the right amount is simply how many hours your children _wants_ to sleep. People on a schedule just don't oversleep. The research only really matters if you have medical concerns about your child, for example, you can't get them on any schedule, they're sleepy when they seem to be getting enough sleep, or there's some other issue.

Make your schedule malleable for your kids and within a few days you'll pretty much know exactly how much sleep they need.

<comment><USER6> > how many hours your children wants to sleep

For my kids the trouble is "when" they want this sleep. My oldest goes to bed "early" and rises early. My youngest could stay up until 2-3 AM and sleep until noon (as she did this summer).

<comment><USER2> This may depend on their chronotype. When we were cave people some of us evolved to stay up later and guard the camp from predators, some of us got up early to hunt. You need to try and support that where possible, but not to overindulge it. If they are staying up until 2:00am to play computer games it may just be because their brain is more sensitive to light and it's actually that that's keeping them awake.

<comment> Fire-Dragon-DoL Ah damn that explains why i'm so awake from midnight to 4 am... My chronotype is definitely not a morning one,

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Note that the study is self reported figure on sleep duration; quality of sleep is not measured.

There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced REM/restful sleep

<comment><USER10> >There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced REM/restful sleep

The only decent study I know of about blue light and sleep, was done before the LEDs in phones/tablets/kindles even existed. Which means they were using more traditional light sources that were likely putting out an order of magnitude more luminosity.

Everything that suggests tablets/phones/kindles interferes with sleep are woo- woo blogs trying to affiliate link sell you orange safety glasses and similar nonsense.

If these devices ARE affecting sleep, it's likely the level of mental stimulation they are providing and the fact that when most people get into bed, they don't shut their mind off and instead start thinking about how Sally post pictures of her 13th fancy meal in her 13th country this month and how John's abs pop way more than theirs and it's just not fair because they count their macros and train and train and just can't get abs like that or they're mad that SniperLulz127 fragged them 4 times this evening in Overwatch Fortress 7 Call of Defeated Zombies.

<comment><USER11> Comnputer light (which is white, including more blue than other light sources in a home) does interfere with sleep more than normal indoor bedroom lighting (which is usually red), but it does not cause blindness during the daytime.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25535358](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25535358)

This shouldn't be suprising or controversial -- compare the color fo your idoor light to the color of the outdoor light at different times of day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I went to a camp for a month and had no access to computers and phones. I can vouch that I slept much better during that month than any other time. And every time I tested by not having electronics around my pillow I sleep better. I am not a kid and this is just one data point, but it would take a lot to convince me that screen time doesn't affect sleep. In my experience at least, it has an effect and not a good one.

<comment><USER13> it could very well that what you did to replace that screen time was what affected your sleep and not the actual lack of screen time: more excercise, more reading, etc. I think screen time on its own is not the issue, it's what other things you do/do not. Everything in excess is (very likely) going to produce a negative effect.

<comment><USER7> That seems like a "pedestrians don't die 'crossing the road without looking', they die getting hit by cars" type distinction. The removal of 'crossing the road without looking' is still the solution.

<comment><USER13> Sure. but the argument I (poorly) made was that screen time on its own might not be the only thing affecting sleep time/quality. Think about it this way: if you keep the same amount of screen time, but also do the other things (time playing outside, reading books/comics, playing with in person with friends, etc) then you would prob get the same quality sleep. The thing is that people tend to use screen time as a replacement of those activities. That's IMHO the biggest problem.

As a parent of a 2.5yo toddler, I'm not restricting screen time to my son at all, because I want him to get used to them: screens and computers will inevitably be in his life. But I also make sure to play board games with him, read books and let him have actual play time outside in the park with other kids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is based off a study as reported by parents of teens "caregiver estimates", not the teens themselves or something potentially even more accurate like Fitbit data.

Just because a parent counts their kid as asleep because they're in their room with the lights off doesn't mean they actually are. From personal observation, I randomly see phone screens floating around in the dark while I'm getting up to go to the restroom in the middle of the night all the time.

Parents are also less likely to report in ways that make their kids out to be addicts, or themselves out to be bad parents. And there may be a correlation between excessive digital-lives for youths and neglectful parenting. Not to mention that "teens" are generally one of the hardest demographics to study because it's pretty much impossible to get a good control group as it's essentially their first time exercising freedom from control in general.

And yeah, 8.5 hours average for teens seems like prima facie BS. Kids wouldn't be "jet-lagged" if they slept that much. I think I was sleeping between 5-7 hours a night depending on how late I was up with friends or on the net when I was a teen (early thirties now).

I'm not saying one way or another as to whether or not screen time for youth is a problem or should be a topic of concern, but this article seems like nonsense.

<comment><USER14> Also, reading the study further: despite the fact that the author of the article may have been paraphrasing a statement in the abstract conclusion, the study seems to mostly undermine that premise as it shows an inverse relationship between screen time and sleep.

[https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31384-2/fulltext...](https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476\(18\)31384-2/fulltext#s0045)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's next? "Children's diet has little effect on their health, says study"?

How do they publish things like this with a straight face? This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you? We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study empirically.

Please run an experiment on yourself and make up your mind.

<comment><USER16> > This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you?

Certainly in terms of short-term variations in quantity of screen time having little effect, and much smaller than other factors, on sleep time it matches my current experience with my son. Not that I give that experience much weight in general predictions.

> We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study > empirically.

I think you've confused "empirically" with "anecdotally". N=1 testing has, in the best case, very large error bars in predicting broad population generalities. (And , in most cases, makes it very hard to isolate confounding factors.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a lot of room for error in this study - I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this.

</comment><comment><USER18> Everything has little effect on sleep for children XD

</comment><comment><USER19> SEE MOM! I TOLD YOU!

</comment><comment><USER20> But it does has an effect on nearsightedness.

Since the seventies nearsightedness has become an epedemic because we are reading more and more.

So it does not only apply to screen time but more general: reading time.

<comment><USER21> Nearsighted apparently relates to lack of UV exposure. It's time spend inside often in school that's the issue.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/)

<comment><USER22> That's also what I thought, but for some reason I got downvoted for it :)</comment></comment></comment>


Goto Fail, Heartbleed, and Unit Testing Culture - <AUTHOR> https://martinfowler.com/articles/testing-culture.html <comment><USER2> Are there any tools that you can just run on binaries to find unreachable code?

<comment><USER3> (I'm no mathematician/logician/expert but) wouldn't that be akin to solving the Halting Problem for that binary? You could simulate it, I suppose, but you'd have to simulate every possible input (presumably "loads") and possibly the entire state of the machine as well (if it interacts with the outside world to any great extent.)

Simplest plan is probably to simulate the binary and throw a combination of valid and fuzzed inputs to get an idea of which paths are taken; then you -might- be able to figure out what combination of inputs and events could lead to the bits you've not hit already.

<comment><USER2> These things exist for languages like C. In my imagination, completely unbased in real experience, it would not be too much harder to do for ASM. Just look at the comparisons, calls and jumps.

<comment><USER3> > These things exist for languages like C.

Isn't that at the compiler level rather than binary though? It's definitely a lot easier when you're compiling, yes!

<comment><USER2> It is at the compiler level, but there is no reason that the same methods cannot be applied to binaries. Here's a paper I found from 2004 on static analysis of x86 executables: [http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bgogul/Research/Papers/cc04.pdf](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bgogul/Research/Papers/cc04.pdf).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>