Watson now brings cognitive speech capabilities to developers - <AUTHOR> https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/02/09/ibm-watson-now-brings-cognitive-speech-capabilities-developers/

<comment><USER2> Hmm ... I along with a couple of my friends spent the last two days at the DeveloperWeek hackathon trying to explore Watson's capabilites. IBM's PaaS solution is called BlueMix and all of Watson's capabilities are available as Services for you to use.

We tried using the "tradeoff Analytics" service for the project - and I must say , the tools and help available around it, the API and its documentation is pretty bad , convoluted and unusable. This is true too other services available through watson too.

We looked into IoT ( Internet of things ) as well . And once again , ran into a ton of dead ends without being able to proceed. The API documentation and examples just suck . If you are used to playing around with well documented APIs / Tools / Languages - this is going to be frustrating.

If the OP is the person who actually wrote the article , please please please go back to Watson Dev Cloud or BlueMix and try it out your services and APIs an a consumer.

<comment><USER3> We really appreciate the comments and will try to fix the problems. To be honest, sometimes developers can't see even the most obvious flaws in documentation. If you can highlight even one incomprehensible point it would help a lot to accelerate the revision process.

<comment><USER4> Overall the BlueMix and Watson documentation is very green and fair to call alpha-stage. This problem tends to all directions, although if a specific example would be helpful, trying to discover what load balancing options exist within BlueMix was something I tried and failed to learn last week.

For a Watson-specific example, at least a few months ago it was the case that putting together a full-featured client implementation for Q&A required poking around several obscure webpages and then plenty of runtime experimentation on top.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In 1999 IBM released a free version of ViaVoice ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ViaVoice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ViaVoice)). IBM sold ViaVoice in 2003 and all distribution functions passed to ScanSoft, now called Nuance ([http://www-01.ibm.com/software/pervasive/viavoice.html](http://www-01.ibm.com/software/pervasive/viavoice.html)). Does IBM still own the whole stack, or is it based on Nuance code?

Are there plans to open up parts of the older voice technology and contribute it e.g. to CMU Sphinx?

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I missed the question at the bottom. We were very proud of ViaVoice at the time but to make an obvious point, the technology has moved on a lot over the past ten or so years...

<comment><USER5> The old ViaVoice can't compete with Watson Voice & Nuance but would be a good alternative to existing open source voice technology that is years behind. It's highly unlikely that IBM would release such tech, nevertheless it would be appreciated.

<comment><USER3> We are flattered by the interest and will look into it; obviously given no one has looked at this for years, it is not a likely possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The ability to create your own models is very important to use this, as your existing ones do a bad job of processing my normal speech. To test I just tried reading a few simple phrases and the error rate is pretty high. The Web Speech API did a great job with the same phrases [https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/demos/speech.html](https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/demos/speech.html)

<comment><USER7> Just to rule out a known issue with some laptop built-in microphones (e.g. [https://developer.ibm.com/answers/questions/174176/speech- to...](https://developer.ibm.com/answers/questions/174176/speech-to-text- audio-problems/?smartspace=watson) ) - could you let us know if you tried with an external close-talking microphone, and if that mattered at all?

<comment><USER6> It seemed a bit better with my bose headset, but still was quite lacking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Live demos that you can play with:

Speech to Text: [https://speech-to-text-demo.mybluemix.net](https://speech-to- text-demo.mybluemix.net)

Text to Speech: [http://text-to-speech-demo.mybluemix.net](http://text-to- speech-demo.mybluemix.net)

<comment><USER9> The speech synthesis is impressive. It's still clearly a computer, but the prosody is a step up from Google and Bing. I threw some random comments I've written at the English Female voice model. It seems capable of contrasting clauses via rising and falling (and handles patterns like "On the other hand, ..." and "She was either ..., or .... when ..." well), makes little dramatic pauses after noun clusters to allow the listener to catch up, inserted a little mental comma into stuff like "greater than x [,] half the time", put emphasis on an "and" after a comma ("[...] something I still haven't gotten used, and am not sure I want to") etc., lots of traits of an aware speaker. Heck, I almost felt like it picked up speed and layered in an ounce of incredulity when it was reading a rant I wrote, but it might just be good enough that I can project into it on that one.

<comment><USER10> I copy pasted your paragraph into the TTS. I like it very much, but it might just be on the level of Alex from Mac OS.

> it might just be good enough that I can <project> into it on that one.

Funny. It doesn't stress <project> as a verb, but as a noun, making the whole phrase mean something else.

Alex has a list of words like that too: live (to live) and live (live concert), progress (also verb and substantive), record, suspect and a bunch of other words that have multiple pronunciations based on the surrounding words (they are called homophones).

They should add homophone disambiguation - probably solvable with a classifier based on features extracted from surrounding words and POS tagging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone used Bluemix past the 30-day trial? It looks like you get 375 GB- hours. That sounds like quite a lot of time. It sounds like as a developer I can mess around with their beta services and not worry about paying anything.

<comment><USER2> You should give it a try . I have a 30-day trial account and spun up a couple of services. Well the UI is cool , and there are a lot of templates ( boiler plates ) that you could use to get you app up and running. But you might struggle with respect to documentation depending on what services you use. A lot Watson stuff is in Beta ( you could see it when you login to Bluemix) - and you might have troubles with them.

<comment><USER3> Beta is certainly beta but if you find problems we will try to fix them as quickly as we can. Real users of technologies tend to find issues with the technology much faster than the actual developers...

<comment><USER12> The ASR seems to be a bit immature, but the TTS sounds very nice. Any plans to add more voices?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It looks like IBM is getting serious about Watson, but still not serious enough. To create an ecosystem and incentivize developers to work through all the issues, IBM should probably create an investment fund for startups who build their products based on Watson. Any such plans?

<comment><USER13> They do have an investment fund for Watson products / startups -- [http://www.tefunds.com/](http://www.tefunds.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> There is some thing else I would like to point out as well , IBM folks on this thread can answer the question. This is regarding the "user modeling service" of Watson. I spoke to a couple of IBM folks and asked what are some of the coolest Apps they had seen that was built using Watson - and someone mentioned the following MSNBC article . It's Watson perception about the State of the Union Speech .What the user modelling service does - is to take text as input and sentiment analyze it ( and give outputs around it)

[http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-supercomputer-sees-the- state-...](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-supercomputer-sees-the-state-the- union)

What the folks @ MSNBC did was to pass the last 10 SOTU speeches to Watson and collate the results over a graph.

But, Here is why I have trouble believing Watson's perception. Try passing the following input to Watson - (or any other gibberish)

"jkldsjglkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdfskg dfsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgljsdfgk;gjldfg dgkjldfgdhfgkjdfhjg fkldskf;ksdlf;ksdlfks jkdhfkhsdjkfhksdhj ljfsdjfhdsjkfjskdhfkjsdhf sdfkls;dkfl; dkfl;sd;fsk roweruoweuroiweuroiwe uweoruweoruweo ruweuro kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfdsl gjfdlkg fd jkldsjglkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdfskg dfsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgljsdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfdslgjfdlkg fd jkldsjglkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdfskg dfsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgljsdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfdsl gjfdlkg fd jkldsjg lkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjg dfskg dfsgj df gfgd flg;dfg g;fkglj sdfg kjgs fgjk ldfsj gs klfgjfds lgjfdlkg fd jkldsjg lkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjg dfskg fsgj df gf gdflg;dfg g;fkglj sdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfd slgjfdlkg fd jkldsjglk fdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdf skg fsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgl jsdfg kjgsfgjk ldfsjgs klfgjfdslgjfdlkg fd jkldsjg lkfdsj dfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdfskg dfsgj f gfgd flg;dfg g;fkgljsdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs

fkldskf;ksdlf;ksdlfks jkdhfkhsdjkfhksdhj ljfsdjfhdsjkfjskdhfkjsdhf sdfkls;dkfl; dkfl;sd;fsk roweruoweuroiweuroiwe uweoruweoruweo ruweuro kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfdsl gjfdlkg fd jkldsjglkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdfskg dfsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgljsdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfdslgjfdlkg fd jkldsjglkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdfskg dfsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgljsdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfdsl gjfdlkg fd jkldsjg lkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjg dfskg dfsgj df gfgd flg;dfg g;fkglj sdfg kjgs fgjk ldfsj gs klfgjfds lgjfdlkg fd jkldsjg lkfdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjg dfskg fsgj df gf gdflg;dfg g;fkglj sdfg kjgsfgjkldfsjgs klfgjfd slgjfdlkg fd jkldsjglk fdsjgdfls kg;jsf g dsfg fdg jsdfjgdf skg fsgj df gfgdflg;dfg g;fkgl jsdfg kjgsfgjk ....

=====

And Watson rates it as the following.

Big 5

Openness100% Adventurousness100% Artistic interests2% Emotionality1% Imagination100% Intellect100% Authority-challenging100% Conscientiousness93% Achievement striving94% Cautiousness57% Dutifulness1% Orderliness1% Self- discipline81% Self-efficacy3% Extraversion1% Activity level1% Assertiveness1% Cheerfulness1% Excitement-seeking2% Outgoing1% Gregariousness1% Agreeableness1% Altruism1% Cooperation1% Modesty1% Uncompromising1% Sympathy1% Trust1% Emotional range11% Fiery1% Prone to worry10% Melancholy34% Immoderation24% Self-consciousness6% Susceptible to stress9%

Needs

Challenge61% Closeness84% Curiosity51% Excitement66% Harmony65% Ideal54% Liberty75% Love23% Practicality86% Self-expression25% Stability60% Structure57%

Values

Conservation78% Openness to change5% Hedonism15% Self-enhancement76% Self- transcendence11%

</comment><comment>==

Its plain gibberish , and you still get some results. I tried passing other text transliterated to English and Watson still gives results like this. I would expect it to atleast call it out as gibberish-text.

<comment><USER14> Sorry for the slow response, it's been internet years 8-)

We have an update coming for User Modeling (to be announced soon). After that update, such a gibberish post will return an error.

User Modeling is based on word counting. Users should ensure that their input is actually from a human and intelligible. The service looks for certain words in the input, and will reject input that doesn't have enough of those words for the service to estimate characteristics. In the upcoming release, the documentation will explain how this works and what the relevant words are.

Also, we will provide a measurement of how accurate our results are based on the number of words that are in the input. This should allow users to understand the reliability of the results in the context of their application (e.g. a casual movie recommender app might be ok with very low confidence, while an application that makes more critical recommendations might require higher confidence).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> By cognitive speech, do they mean 'understanding' the natural language? Can somebody please explain how is it different from other solutions?

</comment><comment><USER16> What are the plans to release native versions of the api that can be plugged into iOS and Android apps.

<comment><USER3> It's an obvious extension of what we put out; keep watching the Watson Developer Cloud announcements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most developers I work with already have quite good cognitive speech abilities...</comment>


Startup School Online: Registration and Deals - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/startup-school-online-registration-and-deals/ <comment><USER2> Do you (generic you) think this could scale with something like a franchise model?

Consider: there is a local Startup School "Dojo" where a number of founders come together to watch the lectures.

Instead of passing through all the questions, they try to solve the problems themselves and then escalate some common problems to office hours.

I am just trying to think of ways that you -- or anyone -- could spread the startup gospel to all 50,000 and eventually more.

Someone might say: You can always start your own study group. Response: True, but you want feedback from people who have gone through a few successful startup cycles. Ycombinator has credibility.

<comment><USER3> I think it's hard. With YC, the ongoing benefit from the founders' end is really the network. I think a franchise type model would really dilute that, and you'd end up with the "real" YC and everything else.

To provide an example, consider law schools and the ABA versus medical schools and the AAMC:

There are many ABA-accredited law schools, from which a degree will allow you to sit for the bar exam in a given state. The "real" law schools (let's say the Top 14 for now, with full disclosure that I attended a much shittier law school) provide a very similar education to everyone else even down through Tier 4. The network gets you hired into the big firms with greater ease from HLS and the rest of the Top 14. Everyone else has the same law license (provided they pass the bar), but the opportunities are markedly different for most. And before any fellow Tier 3/4'ers want to flame me for this, come on, you 100% know it's true. I think I've done pretty well, but I also stopped practicing law to do it.

Now, an AAMC-accredited education, on the other hand, provides a lot more parity out of the gate when it comes to opportunity. Med school slots roughly match up with the number of residency slots in a given year, and more or less everyone matches. Not everyone gets to do Ortho/Plastic, but that has more to do with how well you did in med school, versus which med school you attended. The school itself still factors for some specialties, but not nearly to the degree that it would in law. You can be a pretty average med student and still walk out with a residency, license and reasonably good income.

YC is more like #2.

<comment><USER2> Let's say I agree with you that there is a lot of value in the network and the brand.

The question remains: is there any residual value left in the advice and the "training"?

Or, more importantly, is there _significant_ value in the advice?

Because if the answer to that question is affirmative, then even if I agree with you, it is a worthy pursuit.

Note that value in advice is context sensitive. What might be amazing, valuable advice in 2009 may be standard stuff that you can get off many different courses in 2019.

But while there are many places where you can learn to put the customer first and do some prototyping, there are a limited number of places you can learn what is happening now. ("Sure, in 2011 you could get funding by showing your user studies, but not an investor expects the product to be smart enough to learn the user's preferences on the fly" or whatever).

<comment><USER3> The advice is probably valuable, but YC (and countless others) make the advice pretty available already if you're willing to analyze what's already written and recorded and synthesize their advice with your own facts. I say that to mean it's out there, but not with any kind of hand-holding, but I would also wonder how a decentralized/franchised type of YC would really accomplish that.

Beyond that, these sorts of things exist in many cities, they're just not called YC. I'm not against it or anything, I just think that what you're proposing exists in some form already, just without the brand. If YC could add to that experience on a larger scale, it's a great idea. Not trying to talk you out of it or anything.

<comment><USER2> I don't know if I can do it, but I will say:

1\. I am in a tiny out-of-the-way place, and nothing remotely like this exists here (hint: there are three meetup groups, two of which are defunct, and one of which caters to moms who want to meet with kids).

2\. It doesn't have to be YC. Who else can do this kind of thing? Onemonth.com? Udacity? They don't seem to be as current as Ycombinator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seriously interested in this. Was looking over the partner benefits and noticed the Clerky bit mentioned access to the fundraising beta for people who use Clerky for incorporating. So ... if someone already did the work a month ago to incorporate, and was chosen, they'd lose access to that service?

<comment><USER5> There's more legal legwork than just incorporating. Contracts, Terms of Use, etc.

<comment><USER4> I realize that. Doesn't actually answer my question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 10:1 (I'm guessing) sounds like pretty a high contention ratio for a MOOC. I'd be fascinated to see how this compares with the ratios for YC proper (as well as others like the Fellowships).

[Edit note: I misread the post originally, and got 50:1, which I found more surprising.]

<comment><USER7> Where are you getting that ratio from? We've had about 50k sign ups, and hope to serve at least several thousand in the Founder Track.

<comment><USER6> Oops - I misread "several thousand" as "about a thousand". Comment now corrected. The ratio is a bit less eye-popping now, but I bet it's still high by MOOC standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One clarification: is the Startup Founder track form out now or will it be published later on. By the text of the blog, it sounds like it's all ready to go - but no link to such a form can be found.

</comment><comment><USER9> It is a bit of a shame that Heroku couldn't come to the table and provide something. I'm currently torn between using them or AWS for a project

<comment><USER10> You can use Convox [https://convox.com](https://convox.com) to easily (almost as easy as Heroku) manage deployments on AWS

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are [difficult to scale] software developmemt services companies encouraged to apply? I see YC as a product oriented accelerator.

</comment><comment><USER12> Will the next "batch" be ~6 months, or a year later?

<comment><USER7> Most likely next year.</comment></comment>


The Forbidden iFixit Samsung Galaxy Fold Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20190425075411/https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Fold+Teardown/122600 <comment><USER2> It wasn't "forbidden". Don't editorialize in the headline.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Samsung asked iFixit to remove this teardown. Now everyone wants to read it. Classic Streisand.

[https://ifixit.org/blog/16189/about-our-galaxy-fold- teardown...](https://ifixit.org/blog/16189/about-our-galaxy-fold-teardown/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an archived copy of a teardown that Samsung asked iFixit to remove. The teardown suggests that the tradeoffs necessary to support the range of motion across the hinge led to increased ingress points for particulates along the edge of the screen and the spine.</comment>


Ask HN: What to do when your side project is more fun than your job? - <AUTHOR> I'm now so immersed in a side project that my real job feels like drudgery. There's very little chance I can get management to endorse the project because it's too far from my actual job. How can u maintain the momentum without totally checking out at work? <comment><USER2> Keep your job, and keep the fun for yourself :

Obligatory explanation [https://dilbert.com/strip/2016-08-07](https://dilbert.com/strip/2016-08-07)

<comment><USER3> The explanation is wrong though. The employer pays you a fraction of the value your labor produces for them. Being enjoyable or not has nothing to do with it. You'd get paid for doing a valuable thing you could enjoy doing the same way nobody is going to pay you for doing something you don't enjoy that has no value for anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might be worthwhile to spend a little time figuring out what it is that you find compelling about your side project and looking for a job that will bring you that.

Is it that you're learning new things in your side project but stagnating in your job? Maybe you find the industry or subject matter more compelling? Maybe you're getting positive feedback from the side project (even if not from other people, just in the form of dopamine hits for each bit of progress) in a way you currently can't from your job? Or maybe it's just that you're working on it by choice — and if you quit your job and work on the side project full time that will feel like a slog too?

Software developers are in demand. A new job may satisfy many of these reasons. Or you might be able to get your boss to allow you to work on things you'd find more satisfying. By in order to do that, you need to know what satisfying actually is to you.

</comment><comment><USER5> Depending on your situation, the other answers in this thread may help. Assuming they're not viable for you, you could try reframing the situation. You now have something to look forward to on your off time that can be used to help during difficult times at work. Also, working on a project that you like all the time could maybe make it less appealing over time, similar to over- listening to a song. Maybe you haven't realised it but the immersion you have could be because you have breaks in between sessions for work.

</comment><comment><USER6> You've realized the motivational power of having control over your time. Work towards financial independence and you can spend as much time as you want on things you enjoy.

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- si...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

Your day job now has a deeper purpose: financing your freedom.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Take 1 month break"

I had the similar situation, I was so immersed on one of the side project that I couldn't sleep at nights thinking about the future prospects for this project. I could no longer focus on my employer's work. At the same time, I did not have enough conviction to pursue the side project full time without salary.

I told my boss everything honestly. We discussed that it would be better for the company and myself that I take 1 month break from job and work on the side project; then decide whether to pursue the side project or the job with full focus.

I got the momentum in the project, so I chose to pursue this project full time and left the company. Couldn't have been possible without an understanding boss and an honest conversation.

<comment><USER8> How did it work out? Were you able to spin the project into a job? Did it stay fun?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having something to be excited about when you leave work in the afternoon is a positive thing.

</comment><comment><USER10> I monetized my side project which can now cover about 30-40% of my monthly costs + I went into freelancing so I would now change company / project every 4 to 12 months, so it never gets boring too long (if it starts to get boring and the project doesn't need me, I don't extend the contract and look for a new project).

I think being a contract freelancer also helped me detach emotionally from work; I do work, they pay me, it's a simple transaction. Unless you own a stake in the company, it's the same for employees. My side project works a lot with environmental non governmental organizations, but my freelance work has sent me to e.g. online shop for luxury jewelry, or a big retailer or several agencies working for global Fortune 500 type companies.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you are in a situation where you can quit your job for a couple of months, do it! Find a new job while you dive into your project. Just did it and detailed it here: [https://www.towardssoftware.com](https://www.towardssoftware.com)

</comment><comment><USER12> Switch to a more fun and interesting job whose skills can be also used in the side project

</comment><comment><USER13> If you can monetize it and find enough customers, congrats you found yourself a good business idea that might be worthwhile pursuing.

If you can't, congrats you found yourself a hobby you enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER14> If the side project is something that can be a real product/service and/or company, as well as monetized, then pursue it. However, maintain your real job (even if it becomes mundane as a result of excitement from side project) until side project becomes viable enough to replace current job, good luck.

</comment><comment><USER15> I quit my job, last year to work full time on my side project. I think it was a great idea. I'm not yet profitable, or even close. Hopefully I will make it to profitable soon, but even if I don't I think it will be a great portfolio piece for my next job interviews.

</comment><comment><USER16> Focus primeraly on your job, unless your sideproject is capable to support you financially. If you project has some traction, try taking mini vacation of month and work fulltime on it to achieve initial milestones.

</comment><comment><USER17> Make your side project profitable enough to pay your bills.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm in LOVE with my side project, OneFiftyOne (onefiftyone.run). It gives me intense satisfaction, and I get to take part in politics on the ground floor and feel like I'm really making a difference and having an influence.

That being said, I'm currently at exactly $350 MRR. I'm a young (25) newlywed with no parental financial support and my wife is a student.

I'm trying to get into an accelerator (just applied to my local TechStars) to help give me a runway that I don't have to have a full-time job. That's plan A. Regardless of plan A's success, though, I'm working my ass off to get it more profitable to be able to support my wife and I.

<comment><USER19> I may misunderstand something here. How does this help OP?

<comment><USER20> It plugs his project and adds extra words to be relevant. This happens quite often in hn threads.</comment></comment></comment>


Color matching for web, iPhone and iPad development - <AUTHOR> http://bjango.com/articles/photoshop/ <comment><USER2> I've always found color management both fascinating and impenetrable.

It's been predicted that there is a new wave of devices with enhanced saturation (there is a name for it - I forget), so this will only grow in importance!

I have two monitors from different brands. Even capturing a screenshot in them yields colors that are not quite the same (maybe due to one of them being slightly aging and being calibrated?).

Any good intro on this area?

<comment><USER3> It's not the screenshot that's different - the underlying rgb values are device-independent – but rather, it looks different on every display.

Calibration is the only answer, but really, other than color critical applications, such as press matching, color matching is not as important as it may seem. Every device will display colors a bit differently. This isn't really a problem, since our eyes naturally correct for small differences, ie. you won't see the difference unless you see them side by side.

The color gamut for all monitors is a function of their luminance (ie. how bright they are), plus edge enhancements that push some chroma values further. These devices will actually suffer from color management, since trying to maintain device independent color will actually inhibit edge colors.

<comment><USER4> It is conceivable that the operating system used to capture the screen shot included the monitor's color profile in the image, and that profile then somehow incorrectly applied by whatever viewing software was used to display the images.</comment></comment></comment>


To ECC or Not to ECC - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codinghorror.com/to-ecc-or-not-to-ecc/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10598629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10598629)

<comment><USER3> I see your comment as "13 hours ago".

The page it points to is "5 hours ago".

If I didn't know it was Arc forward-dating posts as part of its 2nd-chance system I'd be REALLY confused.

:P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I stopped at the picture.

I just learned that Google's first ever servers had USB. USB 1.1, but USB.

(Along with serial, joystick/MIDI and parallel.)

Somehow that resonates in a weird kind of way.</comment>


1 In 5 New Yorkers May Have Had Covid-19, Antibody Tests Suggest - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-antibodies-test-ny.html <comment><AUTHOR> Governor: [https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1253352837255438338](https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1253352837255438338)</comment>


MIT Student Startup Acquired by Readyforce - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/readyforce-acquires-mit-based-umeqo-access-mit-talent-college-event-management-platform-1751668.htm

<comment><USER2> Wow! Thats really good. Readyforce is becoming better day by day</comment>


Critical issues in digital contract tracing - <AUTHOR> https://hunch.net/?p=13762603 <comment><USER2> >> The primary thrust of contract tracing needs to be manual, as that is what has worked in countries (like South Korea) which suppressed large outbreaks.

This post didn't explain what that meant, so I was curious how they are doing things, here's a New Yorker article on what's happening there:

[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/seouls-radical- expe...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/seouls-radical-experiment- in-digital-contact-tracing)

<comment><USER3> Here's another good explanation of what some of the issues are:

[https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2020/04/12/contact- traci...](https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2020/04/12/contact-tracing-in- the-real-world/)

The problem of trolling seems important to solve.</comment></comment>


Education RCTs Since 2002: How Many Found Positive Effects? - <AUTHOR> http://coalition4evidence.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/IES-Commissioned-RCTs-positive-vs-weak-or-null-findings-7-2013.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Excerpts: [https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/eYiX4nam...](https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/eYiX4namZmb)</comment>


Rise of the Robot Security Guards - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532431/rise-of-the-robot-security-guards/

<comment><USER2> You have 20 seconds to comply:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzlt7IbTp6M)</comment>


My simplistic view on bitcoins, a revenge of the nerds - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/ddfb822278c3

<comment><USER2> Is arithmetic difficult?

> About 0,000001% of the world population is currently interested in bitcoins.

This is about 70 people. So author can't even be bother to make up a better number.

> Getting a bitcoin into your virtual wallet, which looks like > "1PKkR3aXmSGNwwwqJu5ph4UcY1xaesumjr" is actually pretty complex. It's not > user-friendly at all.

coinbase.com is easy.

> If we want 0,1% of the world (700 million people)

More bad math.</comment>


Xbox 360 Emulation is here on the PC. The story of Xenia - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qN62ts4aUQ <comment><USER2> Another channel, BSOD Gaming[0], frequently puts up videos of new emulator builds.

I was blown away when cemu came out and could play BOTW very close to release. I was even more blown away when Microsoft got 360 games emulated on the One.

Then there's RPCS3 for emulating PS3, and Yuzu doing Switch games.

None of these are perfect, but still, very impressive.

[https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCex2B-k- ZIJhcjRdlYUz4MQ](https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCex2B-k-ZIJhcjRdlYUz4MQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would seriously love being able to play Xbox 360 games on my PC. I really miss Crackdown. :(

Why can't Microsoft just work on this? Expand console games to PC too. Ugh.</comment>


Best Credit Card Processing? (recurring payments) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> There was an _excellent_ discussion on the subject two months ago and I bookmarked it. Unfortunately it reports "Invalid Operator" error when I try to use that bookmark now.

We're looking to hook up a credit card processing to our app. As cheaply and secure as possible :) We're running a subscription-based service therefore a solid recurring billing is a must-have.

Suggestions? Feedback on whoever you're using? Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Try substituting "item" for the operator name. I think "comment" got renamed to "item" or something, and broke URLs in the process.

<comment><USER3> comments -> item

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am using PayPal's PayFlowPro. They were acquired by PayPal from Verisign, I believe. It has an XML API and a url string type of API. The API contains a very convenient methodology for handling subscription payments, which is why we use them. I was not really into storing credit card information, so the recurring payment is very handy. Very good reporting API as well.

<comment><USER5> Was the API clear and easy to use? Did you have any trouble with documentation. I have used PayPal but in a more traditional sense, processing single payments. They provide a url where you can verify the buyer. Sometimes their service calls your cgi/script over and over with "complete" status but in fact it isn't. Are there any such quirks with PayFlowPro?

<comment><USER4> Yes, you can't really think of PayFloPro as PayPal. It is an actual merchant account. You obtain full credit card authorizations and can run reports to reconcile things through the API. The only thing to be mindful of is that the libraries they provide for using the APIs are pretty much either C or Java (I want to say PHP also, but I am not 100%). If you do not use the libraries I am pretty sure you can use URL strings to pass data back and forth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cybersource. They have a small business section: [http://www.cybersource.com/products_and_services/small_busin...](http://www.cybersource.com/products_and_services/small_business_edition/referral/1138/)

I have used them very successfully in the past. They have an API in various languages that is really easy to implement. For recurring billing, store the card encrypted and bill whenever.

<comment><USER7> We use CyberSource too. It's pretty good (on a relative basis).

The big gotcha for us is that the reporting API (to get data on existing subscriptions/transactions) leaves a lot to be desired.

<comment><USER8> I've used cybersource in past, but not for subscription. Do you guys save the credit card info on your servers for subscription, or does cybersource save it for you?

<comment><USER6> I haven't used it, but they seem to have a Recurring Billing service: [http://www.cybersource.com/resources/collateral/Resource_Cen...](http://www.cybersource.com/resources/collateral/Resource_Center/product_briefs/Recurring_Billing_Datasheet_101403v2.pdf)

I always figured that you want to maintain your own transaction records anyway for internal accounting and metrics. If you do that then you really have 90% of the work already done for a basic recurring billing system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've used Authorize.net in the past - worked great.</comment>


Show HN: YinYang, a usable live programming language - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/liveprogramming.aspx?iedz00 <comment><USER2> Loving that concept of the @ symbol. Sadly I don't see that scaling to enterprise large applications, where you have little clues about what's calling your library with what values.

As opposed to telling us that 2 + 2 will indeed produce 4, research money should be spent on separating pure code from state, I/O, etc. in languages like C#. That would be a huge advancement forward and cutting down the cost of bugs around the globe.

This is cool though.

<comment><AUTHOR> My previous live programming language [1] focused on separating out state, but it was not very scalable from an expressiveness standpoint. I'm of the opinion today that state exists and we should deal with it in place as opposed to trying to factor it out. The approach I'm working on (with a programming model I call Glitch) seems very promising, but the proof will have to be in the pudding. Stay tuned!

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=1793...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=179365)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for your response. And I'm agreeing with you that state should be dealt with and not pushed out. I'm not advocating some harsher functional programming designs.

What I meant was there needs to be constructs that guarantees that "this is going to be pure" and that "state can live here, not there".

D-lang has a start I believe, with a "pure" keyword.

I find that, as an enterprise developer working on large code base, most of my time is chasing bugs of silly null pointer exceptions and objects that are in unexpected state causing issues. Separating the grok of the code from the state eventually helps. And sadly there is little research spent in there, which is direct value to developers.

Increasing the quantity of pure code (and enforcing it) per class will reduce costly bugs.

I am amazed with what you can do though. I've had my shot at designing a language and miserably failed multiple times... But this why I'm raving about it... You may be able to solve this global problem that I never could.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if we factor state into a monad and/or pass it in as a parameter, imperative updates still exist and must be dealt with! Try writing a type checker or even a parser with pure functions, and you get to a point where you are passing in your state from the top anyways (either as a monad or explicitly). Many interesting computations simply aren't pure.

> Separating the grok of the code from the state eventually helps. And sadly > there is little research spent in there, which is direct value to > developers.

I would argue that there is plenty of research in this direction in the functional programming community. This is what monads seem to be about, at any rate. The problem is that developers don't want to adopt these solutions because they are way too inconvenient or even unworkable from an expressiveness standpoint. So maybe we should look for a better way to temper state without throwing it into a ghetto...

> I am amazed with what you can do though. I've had my shot at designing a > language and miserably failed multiple times... But this why I'm raving > about it... You may be able to solve this global problem that I never could.

We will see; I went through my purity stage relatively early and am being extremely pragmatic these days. The secret sauce in my current approach is to have state, but limit how it can be updated: operations in Glitch must be undoable and commutatively ordered, which are huge restrictions but the result is very compelling (re-execution is possible AND re-execution can occur in arbitrary orders).

<comment><USER2> Glad we're on the same page. I think.

So state would be dealt with in a similar approach than the command pattern?

Sounds exciting.

I guess where I come from is the scare when a pure function gets littered with impurity much later on, and all we have to warn us is a unit test. No matter how big the comment is above the method, nothing stops a developer from sticking a global variable in it, and it's out the window.

This forces code reviews to be lengthy, etc. If on the other hand we had a @pure section and @everything_else section, I feel this would make things easier to reason about... We could also measure the % of pure vs non-pure code, as code quality. All of this in an object oriented language of course. I'm no fan of Haskell.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might want to check out Koka [1], which includes an effect system to separate pure and effectful computation. I believe there is also a demo of it online [2].

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/koka/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/koka/)

[2] [http://www.rise4fun.com/koka/tutorial](http://www.rise4fun.com/koka/tutorial)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am glad to see this finally coming to fruition, I've been interested in this guy's work ever since this post about the type inference engine: [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4660](http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/4660)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to talk more about type inference soon (before the end of this year anyways), as this is the other cool thing about YinYang! You can see a bit of this type inference going on in the video clips, but it is not closed to finished yet.

<comment><USER3> Can't wait!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been looking at whether it's possible to implement Edit and Continue in javascript. Your Glitch paper is very interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any language can support edit and continue, its more a matter of your debugger than programming model. Live programming goes beyond edit and continue in that your program execution is repaired retroactively with respect to edits made.

I am planning to port Glitch and my entire language stack over to Javascript eventually, if just to provide someway of releasing a prototype to the public. Right now, everything is done in C#/WPF, which is an awesome environment, but means Windows only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a live code editor in Javascript. It's pretty cool...

[http://www.mrdoob.com/projects/htmleditor/](http://www.mrdoob.com/projects/htmleditor/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Very cool. I'm hoping we can do similar things in the Wolfram Language.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, looks like Pharo can do all of this for a while. [http://pharo- project.org](http://pharo-project.org)

Type inference is an object of interest: [http://gsoc2013.esug.org/projects/type-inference- tools](http://gsoc2013.esug.org/projects/type-inference-tools) and here are some results : [http://concretetypeinference.blogspot.be](http://concretetypeinference.blogspot.be)

The posts are pretty nice to read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Smalltalk only supports fix and continue (changing code while programming is running), but you still have to manually re-execute your changed code unless you are editing objects directly (in which case, those changes must be saved in an image). Did the Pharo folks add anything more responsive over this?

Comparisons to Smalltalk as well as REPLs are discussed in the essay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> All these live demo applications (like [http://livecoding.io/](http://livecoding.io/)) are interesting and may be useful for teaching the basics of a language, but I don't see them being used at anything bigger than small demos.

A real innovation would be finding a practical use for this type of technology (or a spin of it) in large-scale projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> I basically agree, but live programming is not live coding. Live coding is about programming while the program is actively running (we can argue if performance is involved in live coding or not). Live programming, on the other hand, is about creating a live feedback loop between the programmer and artifact being programmed with the aim of making development easier.

Scalability will take some time to achieve, but I think we will get there with some hard work.

<comment><USER9> Isn't this already achieved with a REPL? I mean other than GUI programming, which something like this would be useful in the same spirit as a REPL.

<comment><AUTHOR> A REPL provides no code editing experience, you can at best just add code progressively one line at time and advance (never rewind) execution.

<comment> fsck--off I'm not quite sure what you mean. By "rewind execution" do you mean something similar to Interlisp's "undo" function?

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/interlisp-...](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/interlisp-d/3100186-Interlisp_Oct83.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sort of. But if my reading of the manual is correct, interlisp only allows for manual undo and replay; YinYang traces dependencies and repairs program executions automatically after every keystroke. Not sure what is limiting the interlisp environment from doing the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is sort of possible with any language, in the sense of unit testing. You can even setup a file watcher to run your unit tests automatically whenever the code changes, and some IDEs save the file while being edited, only when the syntax is correct. In effect, you get real time testing of your code that tests the logic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Continuous execution and testing is useful, but its just not good enough. You want to also provide programmers with a decent debugging experience as well, which doesn't happen in a continuous testing framework (something is broken, but what?).

<comment><USER10> Unit tests each have an assertion message that states what's wrong, and the frameworks should each print the line # & stack trace. My IDE parses that output & highlights the errors in my code too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lovely but nothing very new. Does your IDE also allows you to poke around local variables and the call stack while changing code in realtime?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This very much reminds me of Chris Granger's LightTable.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's definitely mentioned in the essay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this can be done as "a preview mode" in Python too.

<comment><USER13> With static type inference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Scala IDE already does this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote the original version of Test Pad for the Scala IDE; and no it doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Something that would be cool is a purely functional programming language with an interpreter and editor that can give feedback on the execution of the code as rewrites. If "purely" starts to ring alarm bells for you, I guess you could let this interactive editing be 'purely functional', with the output of the editor as side effects, while having a separate mode of execution that is compiled (you might want to actually compile the code instead of running it interpreted, anyway) which is truly pure.</comment>


Snips AIR: an open source, private, blockchain-based alternative to Amazon Echo - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/271650312 <comment><USER2> I've always wanted a trustless, decentralized, proof-of-work-based alternative to proprietary devices like Alexa and Google Home.

Oh, wait, I didn't. What I've wanted is some nice open hardware with a good ML model for recognizing speech. I don't know what a blockchain is doing here.

<comment><AUTHOR> And I do invite you to try out our voice platform, running 100% on-device on Raspberry Pi 3 or equivalent (and soon MCUs). We're on par with Amazon, Google et al. in terms of performance:

\- [https://makers.snips.ai/](https://makers.snips.ai/)

\- [https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu](https://github.com/snipsco/snips- nlu)

\- [https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source- priv...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-private-by- design-alternative-to-dialogflow-amazon-lex-and-other-nlu-a95dbe16f4a1)

<comment><USER2> Oh I know, I've tried it and that's why I like what you guys have been doing. The missing piece of the puzzle is a decent hardware kit, but putting a blockchain on any of this is completely unnecessary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree that we need decent, open hardware, and that's why we're set on building it :) This will take some time, but in the mean time, we've launched a "Maker Kit" ([https://makers.snips.ai/kit/](https://makers.snips.ai/kit/)) so that everyone can get started building voice assistants for their home that don't listen in.

The blockchain is a key ingredient in what we are trying to build, that is, 100% private AI assistants. We will detail this in our upcoming white paper.

<comment><USER2> Oh I'm sure that a blockchain is a key ingredient, I'm just not sure why _your_ blockchain is a key ingredient. There are thousands of other coins you can use here instead of fragmenting the space even more and spending development effort on yet another blockchain.

I know that the goal of your blockchain is "cash in on that sweet sweet ICO hype", I just wish you either didn't or that you were more upfront about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi everyone!

I am a co-founder at Snips. This is a new product we are working on, which is due for next year

You can read more about it here [https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-air-a- private-by-design-op...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-air-a-private-by- design-open-source-decentralized-voice-assistant-a31e27fb799b)

We will be publishing our whitepaper in the coming weeks, and are welcoming any feedback!

Cheers

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I am co-founder of Snips ([https://www.snips.ai](https://www.snips.ai)), and happy to share a big announcement with you: in the end of 2019, we will start shipping Snips AIR ([https://air.snips.ai](https://air.snips.ai)), the first open source, private by design voice assistant running on the blockchain! If you want to learn more, we are hosting a livestream Q&A session tomorrow Wednesday, May 30th at 6pm CET, with my co-founder, Rand Hindi. Let us know you'll be there by filling this form: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd8n6ER5OrSBH_w5kwp...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd8n6ER5OrSBH_w5kwpeByK70yxTrWKRpMNPcx- C__TeAqasQ/viewform), and we will send the link to the livestream prior to the event.

<comment><USER4> Wait what? I upvoted your previous announcement a few days ago but I didn't dig in.

Why is this blockchain based? This sounds incongruous.

<comment><USER5> I came to ask the same thing, I don't understand what part of the core offering (voice assistant) requires the block chain. I can see how you might be able to shoehorn it in there, but it doesn't seem very practical or useful for customers. There's also very little about its use on the website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi bluehatbrit. We will publish our whitepaper in a few weeks, which will thoroughly detail the usecases for our blockchain, and how it fits in our roadmap of building 100% private voice assistants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is just another token scam.

<comment><USER3> I can guarantee it is not! We are a VC backed, 60 people AI team from Europe, having worked on AI for a few years. This is a new product we are launching next year

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "[…] Download features from the OpenSkillStore, based on the blockchain"

I wonder, does it work with a contract on a public blockchain like ethereum or does it run on Snips's own blockchain?

If so is there a white / yellow paper we can dig into?

<comment><USER3> Hey! We are publishing the whitepaper in a few weeks. We use a blockchain in a number of places, both on the consumer side for the skills marketplace, and on the developer side for federated learning.</comment></comment>


GoPro Camera Maker Cuts Jobs Again in Search of Profit - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/gopro-camera-maker-cuts-jobs-again-in-search-of-profitability <comment><USER2> I bought a GoPro recently, and I was confused why GoPro had so many apps instead of just 1 app.

GoPro Capture

GoPro Quik

GoPro Studio

I see why they're laying off on the software side. Those three apps should be condensed into one. (Quik and Studio particularly should be the same, they're both editing software)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would love an indestructible GoPro branded smartphone with a long lasting battery and good camera. Am I the only one?</comment>


Googling "Show HN" returns HN's startups as results (not HN posts) - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22show+hn%22

<comment><AUTHOR> It's non-intuitive to me because I expected it to return news.ycombinator.com pages, rather than the projects themselves. It's actually a bit of a handy shortcut.

<comment><USER2> Google probably associates the keywords on the HN post title with the link that it's leading to (which includes "Show HN").

That's why they tell you to create meaningful links instead of "click here".

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, <http://www.google.com/search?q=%22review+my+startup%22></comment>


RocketSkates R8 giveaway campaign on SproutUp - <AUTHOR> http://www.sproutup.co/product/rocketskates-r8 <comment><USER2> A "giveaway campaign" does not count as a Show HN. Please read the rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

</comment><comment><USER3> Your testimonials seem to be mostly people offering to promote your product.</comment>


How to Choose the Perfect Technology Partner for Your Agency (6 Tips) - <AUTHOR> https://www.robosoftin.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-perfect-technology-partner/ <comment><AUTHOR> Did you ever get screwed over in a tech partnership? This cool article talks about the mistakes you should avoid, how to detect a legitimate tech partner and what great tech partners will talk to you about. Really visual article. Loved it!</comment>


Why Node.js Beats Java and .Net for Web, Mobile, and IoT Apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoworld.com/article/2975233/javascript/why-node-js-beats-java-net-for-web-mobile-iot-apps.html <comment><AUTHOR> I totally disagree with this article.

<comment><USER2> While I work with Node.js a lot, and love it, I have to say this is not a very even handed article.

Feels like the team the writer was working on had some cultural issues around particular languages.

I have personally worked in companies where I've seen Java devs switch between Java and .Net languages without so much as a single whinge.

Overall a very biased piece of work IMHO.</comment></comment>


Overrated: Bully's R Rating Should Mean the End of the MPAA - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/overrated-bully-s-r-rating-should-mean-the-end-of-the-mpaa2/

<comment><USER2> For those interesting in peeling back another layer of the onion on the odd world of the MPAA, definitely watch This Film Is Not Yet Rated: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated>

<comment><USER3> That documentary showed pretty well that the MPAA is harsher on films with gay themes, but it wasn't convincing in other areas. There's a good reason that sexual content is more likely to lead to a stricter rating than violent content: parents believe their kids are more likely to emulate the sexual content. When I was a teenager, I, for one, copied a lot more sex moves from films I'd seen than I did karate moves.

<comment><USER4> Except the movie is about the line between an R and an NC-17 rating. Kids under 17 are not supposed to be allowed into an R rated movie without an adult. On the other hand, NC-17 rated movies are not shown in most movie theaters. So by giving a movie an NC-17 for, for instance, depicting a woman receiving oral sex (like Blue Valentine), the MPAA is effectively limiting what movies _adults_ can see, rather than protecting children.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If Harvey believes so strongly in the film, that everyone should see it, especially teenagers, he should just release it for free on youtube. Teenagers aren't going to spend their own money to see this and if their parents take them, the R rating isn't an issue anyway.

<comment><USER6> The problem is that he wanted to show it in classrooms.

Most teenagers aren't going to bother to go watch a documentary on their own time (speaking as a teenager, most of my peers probably wouldn't).

Also, not everyone is going hear about this movie. If it is shown in classrooms, way more kids will get to watch it.

Edit: Here's the relevant quote: "That's a problem for producer Harvey Weinstein, who had lobbied for a PG-13 label so he could tour the film in middle and high schools"

<comment><USER7> In other words, to get to the classroom, an official PG-13 is easier than an official R-rated and quasi-unrated path.

This is not a technology problem. It's cultural. MPAA and consumers included.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The MPAA's reign rests on the financial fears of filmmakers, but if big Hollywood producers refuse to play along, it would become bad business for movie theaters to not show unrated films

The MPAA rating system only exists at all because the government threatened to get involved otherwise. Presumably that might still happen.

And anyway there are a whole lot of people out there who wouldn't let their kids see unrated movies. The filmmakers can't just decide to boycott the ratings system if too much of the audience expects films to be rated. Those financial fears are well founded.

</comment><comment><USER9> The worst case was still when Once: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/> received an R-rating.

<comment><USER10> Looks like Once has 24 f-bombs. Why is the R rating shocking?

<comment><USER11> That's significantly less than the average high school student probably hears in a day.

<comment><USER12> (Time to burn some karma for going against the grain..)

On the other hand, I find movies with constant foul language tedious to watch. I'm happy that movie producers have a financial incentive to really think about whether language really adds to the story or is being thrown in because it is easier to have an actor say f*ck than to have her actually, you know, act out her character's emotions.

Yes, the MPAA is prudish and has gotten more prudish over the years (there is no way the original Exorcist would be rated R today). I also think ratings could be made more objective (but some subjectiveness will remain). Finally, the MPAA shouldn't be the ones doing the rating, simply because of the conflicts of interest involved.

<comment><USER13> It really depends on the movie. I see your point about it sometimes being a lazy way to cover up for poor acting, or just to go for shock value, but consider "Die Hard" - the word "fuck" (and variations on it) is used 50 times, mostly by John McClane. I think that helps contribute to the atmosphere of his being a regular guy who's in way over his head, doing his best to survive in an impossible situation.

Either way though, I don't think it should be the ratings agency's job to enforce artistic quality. Either movies that lazily use profanity will fail on their own lack of merit, or they'll succeed; in which case I would argue that the public is getting what it's asking for.

Side note: I think it's poor form to lead a comment with "I know this will get downvoted" or "time to burn some karma" etc. It comes off as a pretty annoying attempt to psychologically manipulate readers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Then why not censor those words and get your PG-13 rating? You really think kids won't know what the words were, anyhow? And if they don't, isn't that the goal anyhow... To get them not to behave and talk like bullies?

I don't agree with the rating, but my response to it would not be to declare that the MPAA should be destroyed. I'd work within the system to get my message out there. Threatening them won't make them change their rating. If anything, it should strengthen their resolve. It wasn't an arbitrary decision. It's backed up by many other decisions, and even written in their rules.

<comment><USER4> Weinstein has run into problems with the MPAA so many times, he probably is on a hair trigger with them. The MPAA is a prudish censor and deserves to be destroyed.

That being said, what you suggest is probably what will happen if they lose this fight: they will make a bleeped version to be shown in schools.

<comment><USER15> I agree, and I find it kind of funny that this movie is having troubles where it is: Weinstein's productions--including most (all?) of Kevin Smith's movies, for example--are often running up against the R/NC-17 divide (largely because of _language_!) instead of the PG-13/R divide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker highlighting the hypocritical nature of the MPAA <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDzblNKjsO0>

</comment><comment><USER17> A tough situation but based on the info in the article, I have to side with the MPAA on this one. They say the R rating is due to the language used and the counter-argument is that high-schoolers are the ones using this language so it should be PG-13. Doesn't make sense since this assumes that all teenagers speak like the 'bullies' depicted in the film.

I would hope that the producers can come up with a solution to have the film rated PG-13 since it will definitely be more widely seen by the target audience in that case. If editing the most offensive cases out is not an option perhaps bleeping them out a-la "The Osbournes" would appease the MPAA. (unrelated but I personally found the censored version of The Osbournes to be much funnier than the uncensored version)

<comment><USER18> is it just me, or should teachers not be permitted to ask for parental permission to watch the film if they feel like its of benefit to the class? i hope the us education system doesnt just blanket prohibit anything with an r rating u nder Ny circumstances.

<comment><USER17> Speaking from personal experience of having watched Schindler's List in a high-school history class, it certainly is possible to see 'R' rated films in US schools if the teacher wants to show them. Not sure if that's specific to the state (VA) though and I have to believe it would be shown more if it was PG-13.

(incidentally, I'm glad we watched it and I think it was important to give perspective but I can see how some parents might have objected considering the brutality of the subject matter. I still remember the shock of seeing that red coat in that pile of bodies...)

<comment><USER3> You can see R movies as long as there are no Mormons in your class. Poor Mormons... I bet none of their friends called them for at least a month after the big movie-watching week at the end of each school year.

<comment><USER19> How is that their fault?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ratings are obsolete. The internet does not come with a rating system. Almost every literate American kid has access to the internet. This is not a recent occurrence, this is something that began nearly _20_ years ago. The difference is now instead of using a desktop computer with a slow dial-up connection, its a broadband mobile phone in their pocket.

Lets admit what ratings really are. They are not tools for parents, they are tools to market movies to parents. And, to market movies to kids too.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can't they just bleep out the swearing?

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't think you'll find it hard for the Hacker News crowd to be against the MPAA, or for alternative methods of distribution.

<comment><USER23> I think it's what they call "preaching to the choir".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Independent filmmakers should embrace the Louis CK model and charge a small amount of money, ie. $5, and have it distributed to people directly. I can't imagine they would make a lot of money through movie theatres anyway. If they start the movie with the idea of distributing it that way, maybe they can control the costs at the beginning, and make a cost-effective, but compelling video that people are willing to pay for.

<comment><USER6> Like, the article said, the reason this R rating is damaging is that the filmmaker wanted to show this movie in schools.

"That's a problem for producer Harvey Weinstein, who had lobbied for a PG-13 label so he could tour the film in middle and high schools"</comment></comment>


Telcos gear up to fight Facebook over how you log into websites - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2017/03/30/facebook-login-gsma-mobile-connect/#Hjyc0Y3eygqQ <comment><USER2> I almost want the Mobile Connect to happen so that people become much more away of SS7 hacking.</comment>


Can America Still Innovate? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/222836 <comment><USER2> Obviously Newsweek can't.

They run this story twice per business cycle, and have been since the 1970s.

<comment><USER3> Given that most of the data they cite is from after 2000, I think it would have been quite prescient of them to write the article in the 1970s.

<comment><USER4> They find new data. There's an industry that produces it, and it's quite innovative in finding new sources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes.

But as a percentage of innovation worldwide, not as much as historically.

The US has done a great job of teaching other nations how to execute, which is to say, how to set up an environment within which motivated people can be rewarded for being successful.

Perhaps not ironically, some of those other countries have learned the negative lessons within such a system (for example, a lack of financial regulation and oversight), and have done more work to mitigate the negative impact than the US has.

The key for the US will be to see if it too can learn from its own mistakes, and from the success of others.

</comment><comment><USER6> Bit overstated, but he raises good points. I'd highly recommend Zakaria's book, "The Post-American World". Really a great book.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would agree that the tax system needs an overhaul. Though a lot about these GDP type measures are ridiculous- based on what??

</comment><comment><USER8> In the Corporate Patent State, innovation is illegal.

<comment><USER9> You should have said "copyright state". Remember, writing a computer program that allows someone to copy their legally-purchased DVD to their legally- purchased portable video player is a crime in the US. Needless to say, the only innovation in that sector comes from entities outside the US.</comment></comment>


Mr. Robot Season 4 Teaser - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gymO16LQybQ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually surprised to see these negative comments... I didn't realize it grew out of favour with its audience so much.

They slowed down in season two and it had an overall pretty different tone, but they laid the groundwork for some amazing storytelling in season three where things really just fell in place together.

<comment><USER2> I think a lot of it has to do with the original audience being largely composed of the "burn capitalism to the ground" types of folks, who still feel that way, whilst the series itself is showing the negative ramifications of those actions.

Folks want to live in a fantasy where they save the world that they feel so much pain in, and they can't stomach the idea that their pain is a product of their own mind rather than the world in which they reside where so many others are happily living their lives.

<comment><USER3> That's not right either.

The economy, and people's place in the whole pecking order, isn't under anyone's control, really. People who are on the losing end want to change the system; sometimes their pattern-recognition sees conspiracies, or lets them believe in stories about how the system is oppressing them, but their responses don't necessarily lead to a better system.

That doesn't mean that they were wrong, that the system couldn't be better. Just that the stories that they used to make sense of the world didn't give them good tools to improve things. Most economic and social stories are like this - they become viral by being simple enough for a lot of people to understand, but fundamentally the whole system has feedback loops and second and third order effects dominate when people try to change the system.

There aren't any simple solutions, but simple solutions helped by simple stories are getting a lot of traction these days, on both left and right ends of the political spectrum.

Don't underestimate the power of self-delusion in justifying one's own position, if you think you're doing well. It's easy to start thinking that poor people deserve to be poor as a coping mechanism for the guilt you might otherwise feel.

<comment><USER2> I don't mind the people who want to make the world a better place.

I mind the people who want to do so without regard for the consequences and collateral damage of their actions, which can hurt those they think they're trying to help.

I mind the radicals. They are dangerous. They don't have a sane mindset. Worse than them though are the ones like them who don't care about making the world a better place, but rather simply want to see the world burn, because they are angry. These are the people that manipulate good causes towards not so good ends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The show had potential but I lost interest. The big revelation about the main character was not executed well. The writers were terrible and from the outside it looked like they just picked the hottest topics from the weekly tech news blogs.

<comment><USER5> I agree, they lean far too heavily on the fight club tropes - which sucks because the characters worked really well without that unnecessary twist. After the first season it seems like the tech / hacker details were just shoe- horned in after the fact.

Not to mention the awkward alexa product placement...

..but ofc I'll still end up watching it

<comment><USER4> The characters were great without the twist. Some shows need a twist to make the characters compelling but not here. I need to finish season 3 and I'll still end up watching 4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I _loved_ the first season. The last two episodes blew my mind.

The second season was dull and the third I had to force myself to finish just to be a completionist. Don't think I can watch another season, sadly.

<comment><USER7> Loved first season, gave up after two episodes of season two never went back, too many good books and tv shows to waste time on something I don't enjoy.

It just fell of a cliff quality wise.

<comment><USER8> Same. Death Love and robots, mind hunter, kingdom, and so on. Why would I waste my time watching this. I'm surprised it is still a thing.

<comment><USER7> The only season 4 I care about soon is The Expanse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lost interest after season 1. Season 2 got weird, and way waaaaayyy tooooo sloooow.

</comment><comment><USER6> I chose to watch Mr. Robot over Halt and Catch Fire (I limit my time watching TV!) but I see a lot of negative comments here about Mr. Robot (and I partially agree).

So did I make the wrong choice?

<comment><USER10> Neither of them are fantastic but I find Halt and Catch Fire has more nostalgia value and better characters.

<comment><USER11> It did go downhill rather quickly, though. The first season was awesome, and the second was watchable. Only momentum kept me watching to the end of the third.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Huh I thought the show had been cancelled. I guess it just paused so that Rami Malek could make Bohemian Rhapsody.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why was this flagged? I re-read the FAQ and news guidelines and the only thing I see that I did wrong is I didn't put "[video]" in the title.</comment>


Adult Fast-Food Diets Tied to Too Much TV as Teen - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/30/AR2009013001835.html <comment><USER2> "The connection? Too much time spent watching ads for fast food"

Occam's razor suggests a simpler explanation: the kind of people who watch a lot of TV also like fast food.

<comment><USER3> Any explanation must answer the "why". Their explanation says that they like fast food _because_ they are exposed to more advertising, and we know advertising tends to work pretty well.

You propose a mere correlation, but don't say why that correlation exists or what causes it.

<comment><USER4> They're mistaking correlation with causation.

Here's the basic breakdown: Teenagers who spend 5 hours watching TV aren't spending that time exercising... FACT.

You'd also be surprised that watching TV actually increases mental activity, and I'd hazard a $100 bet that those kids are also playing video games and such. All of these boost mental activity, which increases the brains demand for glucose (even though it doesn't use up nearly as much as it makes us take in).

Could it be that these teenagers are eating sugary foods because their body demands it?

Those teenagers _not_ spending 5 hours a day watching TV are likely getting much more exercise, which means they're spending less time using mental skills and thus their brains are likely demanding less glucose than the non- exercising teens.

Advertising works extremely well... when I'm trying to decide between PS3 and Xbox, Pepsi and Coke (to some degree), etc. However I see _lots_ of advertisements for pregnancy tests, pantyhose and lots of other products that as a man I'm simply not interested in.

Edit: Occam's Razor stipulates the simplest explanation is often the correct one. If I spent 5+ hours a day not exercising, I'm likely to be over weight. In one week I managed to eat 4 big macs, 4 large fries, 4 large cokes and a ton of other crap foods and I _lost_ weight. I work construction and despite eating up to 4000 calories in a day I still lose weight, because I do a shit load of exercise. I love junk food, however if I worked in an office I'd be seriously overweight.

Well technically I am seriously overweight, however that's because the BMI is a load of crap. Put it this way, overweight people are usually at risk of fast pulse (tachycardia) and high blood pressure, my doctor was concerned because I was bradycardic, my rest pulse got down to 47 at one point, however I'm good because I wasn't suffering from lethargy, I mean working 12 hour days isn't exactly the norm for someone with bradycardia. Thankfully I also have perfect blood pressure even though I'm like a 31 on the BMI scale (morbidly obese).

<comment><USER5> _You'd also be surprised that watching TV actually increases mental activity_

I bet it increases it in the occipital cortex, where primary visual processing is going on; this doesn't mean it's doing anything for these kids' cognitive capabilities. Do you have a citation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There seems to be a preponderance of these types of tenuous studies in social science. Somewhere, I'm certain there is a procedure for generic, shifty research that looks something like this:

1\. Think up a hypothesis steeped in your own prejudices, eg. fat people watch too much tv as kids

2\. Construct an experiment that doesn't control for any of the MILLIONS of other possible causes

3\. Discover correlations in experimental results. Conclude that hypothesis is true based on correlations.

4\. Issue a press release and make some tangential recommendations, eg. better parenting is needed

</comment><comment><USER7> Almost certainly high time preference rather than what the study claims to show.</comment>


Moving from Common-Sense Knowledge About UEFI to Dumping UEFI Firmware - <AUTHOR> https://labs.sentinelone.com/moving-from-common-sense-knowledge-about-uefi-to-actually-dumping-uefi-firmware/ <comment><USER2> UEFI Firmware Engineer here. Always happy to see the domain get a bit more mainstream exposure. The part of this article that stuck out to me was the off-hand comment about the number of people who could raise their hand that have experience with UEFI firmware. It is an incredibly small industry with some huge players. You go to firmware conferences sponsored by Intel, ARM, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, among others and it's the same few hundred people just switching companies.

<comment> non-entity I've tried to get in UEFI development before but it was such a pain. Specifically, trying to read the edk2 docs was a pain as they seem to not be updated (the most accessible docs were referencing rather old Ububtu and gcc versions and I was even finding references to Visual Studio 2003). I also managed to find a bug in the project scaffolding tool they provide but I couldn't find a way to report bugs and I didn't bother fixing a submitting a PR because the last commit was 8 years old and there wasn't a sign that anyone else had ever done so.

> You go to firmware conferences sponsored by Intel, ARM, IBM, Microsoft, > Apple, among others and it's the same few hundred people just switching > companies.

Can't speak specifically to UEFI firware stuffm, but my experience with similar domains (that have a small number of really smart, but primarily professional members) is that they don't tend to be very "welcoming" to beginners.

<comment><USER2> Yeah the docs have been a sort of pain for quite a few folks. We had some new team members join our team and revealed how much of our process is focused on being next to someone to ask questions while you're trying to figure out how to make your project boot. Part of the problem comes from the fact that until fairly recently, UEFI didn't have a great emulated platform so you could build stuff but unless you had the exact hardware (that often comes with NDA code that can be hard to get a hold of), tutorials are not very helpful/rewarding.

Yah, lots of communities have established rules and even as a relative newcomer myself, getting something into EDK2 is a long and somewhat arduous process. They don't accept PRs, it's all over mailing lists.

[https://microsoft.github.io/mu](https://microsoft.github.io/mu) if you're curious about

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >"The first in a series of posts for researchers on how to emulate, debug and fuzz UEFI modules, we begin with a refresher on how to dump SPI flash memory."

[...]

>"Because of the low-level nature of the infection, LoJax had a rather unique degree of persistence: it could survive OS reinstallation, hard-drive replacement, and most other techniques IT personnel typically use to clean infected machines.

To be able to perform the infection, LoJax first had to dump the contents of the UEFI firmware, patch it with its malicious payload, and then flash it back. Based on this description, it is quite clear that

 _we can acquire our own firmware simply by following the path LoJax delineated for us_.

(PDS: And clean it, if it is present...)

Below is the relevant excerpt from section 4 of the whitepaper, outlining the process:

"The tool's … task is to retrieve the BIOS region base address on the SPI flash memory as well as its size. This information is contained in the SPI Host Interface register "BIOS Flash Primary Region". All SPI Host Interface registers are memory-mapped in the Root Complex Register Block (RCRB) whose base address can be retrieved by reading the correct PCI Configuration Register. ReWriter_read obtains this address by using RwDrv IOCTL 0x22840 and reading the correct offset (0xF0 in our case). Once the BIOS region base address and size are known, the dump tool reads the relevant content of the SPI flash memory and writes it to a file on disk.""</comment>


Apple SIM - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2014/10/16/apple-sim/

<comment><USER2> This needs to become a thing everywhere.</comment>


The value of typing - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/content/value-typing

<comment><USER2> I thought this was going to be another rant about strong vs. weak typing.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not quite, apologies! I should work on my title writing skills.

I was reading the piece posted here earlier about the /. interview with Kent Pitman, he said he started out in some other languages, amongst which was BASIC, and it got me thinking about how I started out with computers.

That's what prompted me to write that bit.

Imagine playing two player 'snake' on 6 led segment displays and a tiny little calculator keyboard :)

We've sure come a long way since the days of the KIM-1, trs80, coco/dragon, apple II, beeb, c64 and all those other great little machines.</comment></comment>


Life gets better after 50: why age tends to work in favour of happiness - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/05/happiness-curve-life-gets-better-after-50-jonathan-rauch <comment><USER2> >Around 50, the fog began to lift, despite the death of both his parents, the loss of his magazine job and the failure of a startup venture.

Or perhaps because of, the big change when you hit your fifties is a lot of responsibilities disappear, your kids grow up and leave home, parents who may have become dependent start falling off their perch, your career is probably past its peak. There is just a lot less to worry about.

<comment><USER3> Except now most every one is having kids later, and older folks are living longer. It's currently Life gets better after 60, and that number is just going to continue to be pushed up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not bad. But people who worry will always find another magnet for their anxiety. Now mine is health (still good but can't say the same for some of my peers) and employment / retirement (they are beginning to fuse as a concept.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't wait to hit my 50s. Sorry, Sally. Teenagers are tough!</comment>


Microsoft loses control over Windows Tiles - <AUTHOR> https://www.golem.de/news/subdomain-takeover-microsoft-loses-control-over-windows-tiles-1904-140717.html <comment><USER2> I've been using classic shell to completely ban tiles from my windows experience, it does a good job of returning the interface to more or less windows 7 familiarity.

h̶t̶t̶p̶:̶/̶/̶w̶w̶w̶.̶c̶l̶a̶s̶s̶i̶c̶s̶h̶e̶l̶l̶.̶n̶e̶t̶/̶

I'd be keen to know if anyone else has used this or some other approach to de- candy-ify their desktop.

Edit: thanks so much for the feedback everyone, the hive mind at its best! I learned from the cementers below that classic shell has been abandoned and then forked to a community project here:

[https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu](https://github.com/Open- Shell/Open-Shell-Menu)

<comment><USER3> The best thing I have found on both Windows 10 and Android to improve usability is to go into the accessibility or ease of access settings and disable animations. This makes both systems so much snappier and responsive.

On Windows it makes the Start menu fast and comfortable - instead of having some things slide in from one direction and others from another direction, the Start menu just _appears_ instantly. I used to use Start10, but after disabling animation and deleting the tiles I don't need, I'm just as happy with the Windows native Start menu. I mostly just use the type-and-search rather than clicking on icons, so the less fanfare the Start menu presents, the better.

A couple of other settings I like in Windows 10 are also in the ease of access settings under the cursor and pointer section. I changed the cursor thickness to 3 for my high-DPI displays, and found a nice solid black mouse pointer there too - much easier to see than the default white one.

Whatever OS you are on, take a look through the accessibility settings. That is where they hide a lot of the good stuff.

<comment><USER4> Great tip. The animations never bothered me much, but upon turning it and transparency off, things are so much snappier. I have absolutely no need for them on my work machine.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I'm probably a glut, but I can't help but like the transparency features even when working.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The host that should deliver the XML files - > notifications.buildmypinnedsite.com - only showed an error message from > Microsoft's cloud service Azure.

Why is this not hosted on microsoft.com, or something that is clearly tied to them such as microsoftusercontent.com?

<comment><USER6> Well, Microsoft often uses suspicious looking URLs for their services. E.g. Office/OneDrive connects to hosts like "oneclient.sfx.ms" and "auth.gfx.ms". So as a user you have to trust these domains and you also have to trust the domain management of the island of Montserrat.

<comment><USER7> This horrible domain shell-game is really annoying if you have to manage a DNS filter of any kind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Um, let the bidding begin?

I'll bid $200 for the domain. I'm sure there are some windows 8 machines that will never receive the patch. I don't have any nefarious plans besides perhaps setting each tile to rick roll.

Ok, on second thought, in our society I am sure this would put my ass in jail. I suppose it could be considered impersonating the companies behind the tiles, damaging their brands, damaging the Windows brand, running up users network bandwidth, stealing user's computer resources, and then the liability of an actual nefarious hacker using it as a vector to attack or spam obscene advertisements. (Which is kind of what happens when you visit a webpage in 2019 without an ad blocker, but it is O.K. in that case.)

<comment><USER9> He doesn't have control over the domain. It just so happens it points to Azure domain records. He then claimed "control" of the "hosting portion" on Azure on the app service as whatever was there before was gone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> windows 10 start menu is a complete joke it never finds anything within the apps area of my start menu

<comment><USER11> yeah i've noticed i tend to start ignoring windows native explorer functionality and build my own mindspace for apps and stuff. i didn't notice until i bought a macbook and realized i could just search apps with finder when i thought of them instead of the path occupying valuable space in my mind.

think the functionality broke because of them trying to include cortana results in the search. it's completely garbage now

<comment><USER12> On MacOS, I recommend Alfred as a free upgrade over Spotlight.

<comment><USER11> i thought alfred was paid and closedsource?

<comment><USER13> There's a free (as in beer, not speech) app that does quite a lot, and a paid upgrade that's largely about customizing it. The potential customizations from the 'power pack' seemed quite extensive, but I haven't personally played with it much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very deadpan explanation, almost like it's not a big deal. I like it.

<comment><USER15> Its a German website - I would expect that ;)

<comment><USER16> As a German I did actually get an impression of urgency / severity the way this was written. Not everyone understands how Germans communicate as I am reminded of every day for the past 14 years in the US.

<comment><USER17> Please share some insights about German-US communication incompatibilities from this experience, I'm curious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So if you want to advertise to a decent amount of people, you can take over that subdomain now. since ms doesn't care to fix it, i guess it's even sanctioned?

</comment><comment><USER18> I would suppose that you could do similar attacks if someone used AWS S3 as a static site backend, then deleted the bucket, since S3 bucket names are global across all AWS accounts. It would be very difficult to find a target, since it seems as though people tend to leave S3 buckets around forever (see the recent "Facebook" leak that was caused by a defunct company leaving public S3 buckets around w/PII).

</comment><comment><USER19> The ability to create Live Tiles for websites, including automatically based on RSS feeds, was a great feature that was a shame it wasn't hosted for long enough that people realized it existed.

I used it to host a couple simple "widgets" such as a NaNoWriMo word counter that would keep NaNoWriMo statistics front and center on a live tile. Doing it via a bit of XML hosted on a webpage, and a couple API endpoints that generated a bit more XML on demand, was supremely easy. It made it simple to write "pull" notifications.

I'd may see how tough it is to rewrite it with "push" Azure Functions eventually, but the raw simplicity of doing it as "pull" website was really easy.

<comment><USER20> You're still looking at the issue from a developer standpoint.

From a client side, all tiles are generally needless clutter.

Even a large amount of savvy tile developers won't resolve the problem of the general mess they create by existing.

The newer desktops that have start menus without tiles finally feels like a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER19> I hugely disagree, my love of tiles came from being a user first. The tiles were great as a user. Much less clutter than the equivalent widgets and notifications systems on other platforms. With good working tiles, arranged to personal preference, the Notification Area in the Action Center on Windows is a redundant mess by comparison.

Tiles gave an opportunity to see a lot of information at a glance, in a much less obtrusive manner than popup push notifications that get swept into a notification drawer.

The problem with Tiles wasn't even lack of developers building good Tiles. The problem was Microsoft compromising the vision on them and weakening the Start Screen to appease people that wouldn't adapt to change. (It was also maybe Microsoft not making it easier to set Tiles on Win32 applications, which could have been enabled much sooner.)

(I will mourn the Tiles if they go away entirely. Just as I mourn the Charms as being good ideas not fit for this world.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anybody remember RSS based backgrounds of Windows Vista? I think that URLs of a lot of them are now unoccupied as well.

<comment><USER22> No, but I loved the "Active Desktop" of Windows 98.

<comment><USER23> The very mention of Active Desktop makes me think of the sound of a 90s era hard drive working very hard because of so much swapping. The feature wasn't kind on the hardware of the day.

<comment><USER24> I remember calls to the ISP I worked for, complaining that the computer would try to dial the modem every time the computer booted, so we had to teach the user how to disable that crap.

<comment><USER14> I worked for an ISP - we used to set the customers start page to the ISP homepage. Then the CEO suggested we put an autoreload on the homepage, so the modem would reconnect or keep connection open, so more minutes would be racked up. My first exercise in saying no for ethical reasons. This seems so insignificant today... the second was turning down a job to handle outsourcing of medical records. I said, with the technology you are proposing, there's just no way we can secure those records. Fun to think of sometimes in today's break-things-and-move-fast-culture. (Late 90s, both occurrences.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Got a German cookie warning with English content. Strange.

<comment><USER26> It's a german site, the english article is just an exception. They have on average one english article per year, so they don't bother adapting their site for other languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> In the nearly four years since its release, I have yet to see a headline that makes me feel better about Windows 10 or happier that I'm stuck using it on my laptop. I see at least one headline a week that makes me glad I stuck to Windows 7 on my primary desktop.

<comment><USER28> There are improvments, but none that I can associate to the UI, which I still think is a massive regression.

Being able to copy paste from the console. SMB3 (i.e. offering encryption if properly configured). Virtualization was a major leap forward in windows 8/windows server 2012. Http2 support in IIS.

<comment><USER27> What truly turned me off of Windows 10 was something small but very symbolic. On past versions of windows, if you want a shortcut to, say, Notepad on the desktop, you open the start menu, begin typing the name, and when it pops up in the list you click and drag it onto the desktop. You can also right click it and hit "send to desktop (create shortcut)."

Windows 10 can't do either of those things. If you try to click and drag a Start menu search result it does nothing. Right clicking only gives you the option to add it to the start menu or task bar. So, if you want a desktop shortcut, you have to add it to the start menu, drag it off the start menu onto the desktop, and then delete it off the start menu.

<comment><USER29> I experienced this problem as well, and is very disheartening. So many basic operations from good Windows version are either missing or very hard to discover on Windows 10. There was absolutely no _good_ thought put into its UI choices.</comment></comment></comment></comment>