Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisiselevator.com/infinitescroll/ <comment><USER3> > After spending hours scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or > Flipboard our mind feels tired. We feel intellectually bloated, and yet > completely unsatisfied. Why? Because there is more out there. What if I'm > missing out on something? What if there is some critical piece of knowledge > just three flicks of my finger upwards?

The author seems to be essentially describing an addiction, and suggesting that the compulsions can be ameliorated by placing arbitrary divisions in the consumption stream. I have to admit, it would be interesting to see if there's a difference in consumption behavior between infinite scroll schemes and manual "Next Page" navigation... maybe this has already been studied?

It would probably be overkill to force this on users ("sorry, we're taking away infinite scroll because some of you couldn't control yourselves") but I can see it being potentially useful as an _option_ in apps, available for those who find themselves in need of structure.

Anyway, I'm not entirely convinced it would solve addiction... after all, cigarettes come in discrete units, and we all know how that turned out.

<comment><USER4> From experience, I can confirm that there is a pretty massive subjective difference between scrolling through a book vs. reading it in page size chunks. When I scroll through something, especially if it is dense, I tend to be continually moving the page so that I keep the sentence I am reading in the middle of the screen. Since I often scan up and down around a point in the text to gain context and solidify the meaning this has led to less retention of knowledge when I scroll through as opposed to page through. There is probably more to it as well though, because I definitely feel that bloated feeling mentioned. What's more, I feel it even during short chapters, when the same amount of text read in paged form would not give me any trouble.

Not sure if this is replicated by others, but this may reveal something fundamental about how I interpret information in printed form.

<comment><USER5> I think you're not the only one. I feel sort of a sense of anxiety in that I have to keep scrolling while reading if I'm reading a book without discrete pages (infinite scrolling also becomes a distraction from the content). If the layout is reformatted as pages, I know when a page begins and ends and don't have that feeling any longer.

I'd never willingly implement or recommend infinite scrolling on a website or mobile app. If a client wants it, I would dissuade them at first with reasons against it, but if they insisted I would implement it reluctantly with a fallback to pagination.

<comment><USER4> Yes! There is this headlong sense of just rushing through the text - <USER2> sensation of speed and "flow" that doesn't really impart any understanding.

<comment><USER5> Yep. I understand where the logic comes from to implement them (don't have to click to see more content), but I think it comes at a cost.

It also helps that my browser implements a "fast forward" mechanism, where I can go to the next page in pagination without actually clicking a link. Just have to do a mouse gesture or click the arrow buttons on the mouse. If it were something more commonly used (unlikely to happen sadly) it would make browsing paginated content so much easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > You reach the end of the feed, and a loading animation appears. More news > loads. More pictures appear. You scroll again. The loading animation > appears. More content loads. You continue scrolling

Then your mobile browser starts to lag and _fucking crashes_ because it exhausted memory. Not to mention breaking the back button and the footer-at- the-end-of-the-rainbow issue. This thing has to die.

btw, Medium breaks text selection on mobile safari :/

<comment><USER7> that site isn't actually Medium. Just a look-alike

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I hate the most is when I'm using a scrollbar and the infinite scroll adds more content to the bottom of the page and suddenly the scrollbar jerks up because I'm now 30% down the page instead of 15% down the page--then it takes me a minute to find where I was before the infinite scroll event. Happens to me ALL THE TIME. F-ing annoying. A "load more" button with some kind of </comment><comment>---next page</comment><comment>--- line to delineate the new content would be preferable. The solution is to use the "Page Down" key but that's not always intuitive.

<comment><USER9> Oh yeah, this happens to me on Flickr all the time, when holding the scrollbar (talking desktop browsing here).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Before infinite scrolling, there was pagination, which also does not stop the user from digesting an entire database of content. Some infinity scrolling even requires a click; so, on those sites, it's the same amount of clicks to see more content as it is/was with pagination. I dont see infinite-scrolling being the cause of the problem.

I would suggest sites without filtering is the problem.

To get content that is a fixed length and consumable without overindulging, there needs to be a fixed amount of content that 1 person can digest. Otherwise, you just have this database/collection of content that 1 person cant quite possibly read in one sitting... regardless of if there is infinity scrolling, pagination, or some other way to navigate.

Newspapers, in a way, curate what they are going to display each day. It's like a filter in a way. All the content is filtered to show what can fit in X amount of pages.

Websites with this problem, if they want to solve the problem, need better filtering. That might not be the only solution, but i feel like it's a major contender in helping combat the problem of trying to figure out what to consume amongst limitless content consumption.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ugh, also I hate infinite scrolling when it crashes and makes me reload the page. Like on Facebook I would scroll down and down up to posts from months ago, then it would crash on me, or I accidentally click on some link, which brings me back all the way to the top when I try to get back on it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I disagree with this premise, that we necessarily need that "end" state in content consumption. As many things in the real world have an end state as (effectively) don't. I can finish a game of Risk, but I will never finish building relationships with my friends. I can finish a pile of tacos, but I will never finish seeking an understanding of my existence. I can finish re- watching all Star Trek series, but I cannot finish learning about the opinions and ideas of others.

Some activities just go on forever. We learn that certain activities have an end and others don't. The ones that don't we give attention to in a manner proportionate to their importance. In representing content streams as infinite, publishers are simply mimicking the interminable reality of that activity. Future generations will never have learned that there's a daily endpoint to what you can know about your friend's lives, current events, etc. What a silly proposition!

I (wildly) speculate the feeling that an end state is needed springs from weakness/inability in moderating one's impulses. The end state then is really just a crutch to force one to stop some obsessive activity.

[Edit: removed disparagement of Star Trek DS9.]

<comment><USER13> Yeah, this was more or less my reaction to this article too. Much before infinite scrolling in apps, there were libraries so overwhelming in sheer volume of content that lead Borges to conceive the universe in the form of "The Library of Babel".

Simply putting a stop to scrolling will not end the feeling of unsatisfaction, it will not end the fear of missing out. Infinite scrolling is the consequence, not the cause of our dissatisfaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The author postulates that infinite content scrolling in mobile apps causes "dissatisfaction" and "intellectual bloat" for the user, and concludes that developers should limit content.

An alternative explanation might focus on when and how discipline and self- restraint should be exercised, the ways in which content can be curated, or how and why one might take steps to learn about such things.

<comment><USER15> As developer we tend to think it's "never the fault of the user". We have to design around human proclivities or else we would be neurologists or something. I agree with the article that this is a problem that could be solved and should be solved.

Unfortunately I think the easiest answer is gamification, sure to create much gnashing of teeth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think there are some UX issues with infinite scroll, and probably some cognitive benefit to giving users a predictable end to use of a product, but I don't think many people ever completed a newspaper every day. To me, a daily copy of the Times is just as infinite as my Twitter feed.

<comment><USER17> I disagree. While nobody may read every single article in a paper, we can comfortably scan all of it and decide which ones are worth reading. That is what the author is referring to, not the act of literally reading everything in your infinite TL...which is what you allude to by saying "I don't think many people ever completed a newspaper every day."

<comment><USER16> I'll be honest, I've never been a newspaper guy, but do people really go through them front to back or just scan the front page and jump to the section (sports, movie show times, etc.) they're specifically interested in?

<comment><USER18> For me and my wife (before our son was born, of course!) we usually read about 50% of the daily newspaper (Publico) and just about 100% of the weekly one (Expresso).

We usually would take the newspaper to the beach or a cafe, spend a few hours there just reading the paper (trading sections every so often) and chatting a bit about what we were reading. It was as nice ritual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't like infinite scrolling either because there is seemingly no end, and no "landmarks" like page numbers that you can refer to to see how far you've gone.

<comment><USER20> They do not need to be mutually exclusive. A mobile app I maintain, for instance, appends each page as you scroll, but it also displays the page number of the content you are seeing and allows you to jump to specific pages.

<comment><USER21> Exactly. Additionally, it's very easy to implement a single-page-app-esque page button that simply hides one page to make room for another, then allows you to return to that page without loading any more data. Considering how rediculously easy that would be, I'd personally build it in as an option. I do realize though that it's trendy these days to simply omit all options and preferences in favor of keeping it simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I recently came across another issue with infinite scrolling, no access to a websites footer. I found myself annoyed by the issue when was trying to get the RSS feed from some websites which infinite scrolling on their blog posts. The infinite loading of the site actively prevented me from ever seeing the footer, which is where the RSS feed URL was, so I could not subscribe on my mobile (I knew it was in the footer as I could see it on desktop layout). Coupled with the equally annoying no-zoom meta tag I had no easy way to get the URL. Absolutely braindead.

</comment><comment><USER23> [http://xkcd.com/1309/](http://xkcd.com/1309/)

</comment><comment><USER24> What the OP is saying is that Twitter, Facebook, etc. have turned into soap operas.

Nothing wrong with a "never ending story" and there's a considerable clientele for that in older media too. The LoTR trilogies also have that similar feeling for me - I'm left with a bit of a craving after watching just one.

What is, perhaps, new is the immediacy of the never-endingness. One phone- screenful is all you get at a time.

</comment><comment><USER25> There are several ways of viewing information, and it would be better if users actually had the choice. This is common in desktop apps like Itunes, or even a file manager where you are given gallery, detail view, scrolling, thumbnails etc.

</comment><comment><USER26> _" A finite list of news. An Instagram feed that can be finished. A Twitter feed that ends."_

Isn't this confusing source and outcome? Even if your app (or website) adds an 'end' point, it would only be artificial. The news never ends. Instagram and Twitter never sleep. If you can't be your own gatekeeper (eg, by following a very small number of users on Twitter) then I doubt an artificial 'end' point from another gatekeeper will help you. Rather, I suspect, you'll simply add more apps to your daily reading list - an infinite number of finite apps to keep the infinite consumption option available.

<comment><USER27> The author got it backwards. Infinite scrolling of HISTORY is not a problem. Twitter feeds end at the TOP, not the bottom. You scroll down endlessly because you are bored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> the best is when you cannot get to to footer anymore because of infinite scrolling...that includes FB too...

<comment><USER29> The column to the right of your feed (where birthdays and events show up) also includes the same links as the footer. Click "More" to get to the Developers page, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "There is no reason why Facebook, Instagram or Twitter can't algorithmically determine which, say 20 posts are important to us, and give the option to only view those."

What could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER31> Facebook actually does that right now via EdgeRank. (unlike Twitter and Instagram which is strict chronological)

The results are not good.

<comment><USER32> I find it doesn't really do this on the mobile site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Content limited digests are actually very popular. [http://sidebar.io/2014/1/4](http://sidebar.io/2014/1/4) is one example but there are many many. It would be interesting to see how competitive they would be against the big mobile apps but at the very least it's an existing, confirmed, niche.

</comment><comment><USER33> Many of the complaints here can be solved via a good implementation of infinite scrolling.

The URL should auto-update to reflect the current state of the content that has been loaded onto the page (the only exceptions are when the content is highly dynamic and pagination becomes somewhat meaningless over even short time intervals).

Either manual invocation of the scrolling should be necessary (so access to the site footer is not restricted) or else the site footer should be re- designed so it is still accessible (Twitter, for instance, just puts an information box on the left with links that would normally be in the footer).

It is also very important that clicking on a link on the page and then going back should restore the full state of the page, including scrolling position, at least to the greatest extent possible.

Ideally a visual separator should be inserted between different pages of content. This helps the user maintain context of where they are in the content stream.

<comment><USER34> Or, it could just be different pages of content and the back button actually works in every instance and the scrolling position is automatically (and accurately) preserved by the browser. As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different items in your browser history, breaking proper back button functionality to fit the view of what a designer thinks are all the pages you visited while you, as a user, just scrolled a single page and think the back button should take you back to the site you just came from.

<comment><USER33> You're describing poor implementations of infinite scrolling. Like I mentioned, in most cases it's possible to avoid all the issues you just described. Whether this is done or not depends really on how much effort the programmer wants to put into it. Also, just to be clear, this:

> As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different > items in your browser history

is avoided with correct usage of the HTML5 history API. You can update the URL without inserting a bunch of extra pages into the browser's history.

<comment><USER34> I don't think I've ever seen an infinite scroll website implemented correctly. Nor have I ever seen one that works well on my phone. Which is probably why I generally never go back to infinite scroll websites aside from the social media biggies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What's worse, you're not even able to "replay" a whole night in a moderate Twitter feed.

Simply put, I follow ~30 medium-activity accounts, I go to bed and when I wake up, I can't reach the same point in the timeline again as over 800 tweets have been posted.

Please, for heavens sake, allow the addicted to read their _whole_ timeline. Thanks.

<comment><USER36> I would have the same problem and then prune my twitter follows down to something more manageable. Then I would slowly build up again and the same problem would occur. Now I just switched on mobile notifications for the follows who I really want to read everything they post, which has really just created another, smaller twitter feed.

What we really need is for the app to keep track of where you left off, cull the new posts into a separate page, giving you something easier to work with and catch up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Infinite scrolling (in a desktop browser) was why I stopped using Prismatic. The endlessness makes reading the news an uncomfortable, subtly stressful experience.

There's an expectation that curated content should be a high-quality subset of the whole internet, and providing an endless stream of content undermines that expectation.

</comment><comment><USER38> > That hollow sense of dissatisfaction needs to be replaced by the sense of > achievement which can only be found by finishing something. By reaching the > end.

Oh man, this is giving me a great idea! Content consumption needs to be _gamified_! Score points for actually reading an entire article. I could use something like that.

</comment><comment><USER39> Your facebook and twitter feeds aren't infinite, you subscribe to a limited number of other users. All the twitter clients that don't suck will show you your twitter feed starting from where you left off. When reading, you scroll towards the most recent tweeets, which is where your feed ends.

Obviously, as it is a live feed, it doesn't "end", but if your feed doesn't grow faster than you consume it, you will complete reading it in the same sense you complete reading your email inbox. It's a personal preference if you treat twitter like an email inbox (read everything) or like daytime tv/elevator music (a never ending stream of noise).

If you start browsing random tags on flickr, or randomly stumble through global twitter feeds of infinite depth, that is no difference from the streams of tv or radio that existed before too.

</comment><comment><USER40> So a satisfying green screen appears and the user congratulates herself -- she has finished reading all the tweets, all the news. But that's not possible, is it? Some tasks don't have a satisfying end. So introducing an arbitrarily created one just calls the whole task's meaning into question.

This idea was initially used well in Mailbox as some people do finish triaging their email. But even there completion congratulation had its problems. It was always quicker to leave mail in the inbox if it was needed later. That meant processing it just for the sake of 'completion' wasted time, and ruined the associated sense of satisfaction.

All that's not to say infinite scrolling is always perfect UX. If done without some signposts, or other way for the user to get oriented, infinite scroll can be terrible -- like infinite pagination.

</comment><comment><USER41> Well, it's not going to end. Right? I think the answer is we just have to know when to shut it off. Infinite scroll is a gift because we are going to have to rely on ourselves to know when to stop. Which could be a useful skill, given the oceans of information we haven't even seen yet.

</comment><comment><USER39> Yeah because in the past when I consumed media I used to listen to the radio until it went quiet.

</comment><comment><USER42> 'scroll sickness'

noun 1\. nausea caused by endless web content, esp. by Facebook, Flickr, Mobile Apps, News Feeds

2\. headache caused by intellectual bloat on consumption of too much content

3\. compulsive behavior caused by intense boredom and brain freeze

</comment><comment><USER43> >After spending hours scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Flipboard our mind feels tired. We feel intellectually bloated, and yet completely unsatisfied.

Standard reaction to an excess of intellectual carbs. Paginating that crap would be like individually wrapping each slice of that cake you bought for yourself - a misguided strategy to slow yourself down that you'll blow right through when you're sugar-crazy.

These services have no end because they have very little structured content at all.

</comment><comment><USER34> You can also add that it's impossible to reach the site's footer where we expect to find the more detailed navigation elements of a site (like easy access to Contact, About, etc) and that it breaks the back button when designers make up their mind that you just scrolled through 10 'pages' on their site and updated the URL 10 times, so when you click back to escape their overloaded site to the site you came from, you have to click it 10 times to get there.

<comment><USER44> Reaching the footer could be solved by floating the footer and scrolling the text from behind it. This of course causes problems with having less space onscreen for the content you probably care about, but it is solvable.

Perhaps it could be designed to rise into view if you move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen, or in mobile application, perhaps it is visible when scrolling but after a predetermined timeout, it lowers out of view.

Another possibility would be for it to show when you scroll back in the list, like the address bar does with Chrome on Android. It is a little less discoverable, especially since the direction the footer would move is counter- intuitive to the scrolling movement, but once that behavior is seen the first time, I'm willing to bet that it is easily recognized and understood how to bring it up again in the future.

This isn't really a problem with infinite scrolling, but it may be a problem with the implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Why adapt our apps and tools to fit our old mental functioning where information was scarce, instead of evolving to the reality where there is an excess of available information?

</comment><comment><USER46> There are other issues with infinite scrolling (such as not being able to re- find your place, etc), however dissatisfaction is not one I experience. Maybe it's because I don't usually finish things for the sake of finishing. I'm more inclined to keep reading something until I get bored or want to do something else. I usually don't make it to the bottom of the front page of Hacker News or all the way through about 3/4 of news articles.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think it's interesting Yahoo are attempting to address this with their News Digest app, following their acquisition of Summly. Founder Nick D'Aloisio said in a recent interview (can't find the link right now) that development of News Digest was lead by the idea that a physical newspaper or magazine has a very clear beginning and end, and that by reaching the end the reader could feel satisfaction.

</comment><comment><USER48> This post seems more based on emotion than anything factual or statistics.

Real Talk, when infinite scrolling is bad:

1)When it moves your page location up when loading more.

2)When it loses your location because you clicked on a link.

when infinite scrolling is good:

1) Not clicking load more or next.

Also, Facebook already tries to show you what's important and it already gets users panties in a bunch because they don't understand edgerank.

</comment><comment><USER49> I do agree with the author but As others pointed out the algos currently are not that good to find the top10/20 stories. And the question remains that if you limit users to 20, would they feel dissatisfied that there must be more and that they are missing out?

So is the onus on the mobile developer to solve or for the user to adjust their behavior?

</comment><comment><USER50> >This problem of endless dissatisfaction needs to be solved

Hmmm, I disagree. This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Adding pageloads by removing infinite scroll seems to me to be a clever way of putting more ads in, something I'm 100% against.

<comment><USER51> Yahoo's News Digest app has solved this so-called problem by only publishing 10 articles twice a day

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5284300/yahoos-sleek- news-d...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5284300/yahoos-sleek-news-digest- app-swims-against-the-stream)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> That is why I love [http://getpocket.com](http://getpocket.com). Collect articles you are interested in, read them in your down time, when you are done, hit the check mark and.... satisfaction, go to bed.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Really appreciate the commentary HN. I'm just getting started with Elevator (apologies for the still-in-progress site with a terrible Wordpress theme). Follow @thisiselevator for more.

<comment><USER53> Very nice use of Medium theme...

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> [http://danwin.com/2013/01/infinite-scroll-fail- etsy/](http://danwin.com/2013/01/infinite-scroll-fail-etsy/)

</comment><comment><USER55> There is no question infinite scrolling is a horribly stupid, resource intensive, and confusing ui. It's just dumb feature copying that made it so popular.

</comment><comment><USER56> The one thing that never stops boggle our minds is the infinite. Nobody wants finite things, and I don't believe finite things are genuinely good for us.

<comment><USER57> An infinite football match might get a tad tedious. An infinite movie? Hmmm, I feel like I have actually seen a few of those. A couple of books I've read also felt like that. Besides,if the football match was infinite, I'd never get to read the book. And if I did, I'd only get to read one book. What if its rubbish? Im stuck with it. Sex? Infinite sex? Im getting on now, Im not sure I'd survive that. How much space would there be if we had infinite life? Not just humans, but all the animals... and plants.

No, I think I like lots of things to be finite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> A little sensationalist. Choose the correct interaction pattern for the content you are presenting.

</comment><comment><USER59> excellent article on the topic: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/2013-t...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/2013-the- year-the-stream-crested/282202/)

</comment><comment><USER60> [http://xkcd.com/1309/](http://xkcd.com/1309/)

</comment><comment><USER61> Facebook newsfeed isn't infinite. It stops after ~150 posts.</comment>


Pope Francis Makes History by Becoming the First Pontiff to Write Code - <AUTHOR> https://digit.fyi/pope-francis-writes-code/ <comment><USER2> What's surprising is that the Holy Father committed straight to master during Lent.</comment>


Experiment with faster-than-light "spooky" quantum effect at 18km - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news137937526.html

<comment><AUTHOR> There's an old 1997 article that explains this kind of experiments and their possible applications in a bit more detail:

<http://www.cebaf.gov/news/internet/1997/spooky.html>

</comment><comment><USER2> I never got how this is supposed to be "spooky". To me it is common sense. To whit:

If a spin 1 particle (say, a photon) is "tweaked" by adding energy to it in some way, like say, being in the presence of a strong magnetic field, there is a chance it could briefly decay into two spin 1/2 particles (say an electron and an anti-electron). If the electron flies over to village A and is measured to have an "up" spin, and the anti-electron flies over to village B, if the electron had been measured to have an "up" spin in village A, why then naturally it should come as no surprise that the anti-electron in village B will be measured to have a "down" spin, due to conservation of spin laws. Spin 1 is decomposible into two spin 1/2 particles, so 1/2(electron) + 1/2(anti- electron)=1(photon). The spin can be up or down, not both, so if one particle has "up" spin, the other necessarily has "down" spin.

I have never understood why this is all supposed to be so "spooky". It is just simple common sense based on known conservation laws. Spin is conserved. If a spin 1 particle decays into two particles, and one is "up spin 1/2" then by necessity, not by any kind of "spookiness" but by basic necessity, the other particle will be "down spin 1/2".

Conservation laws are not "spooky". They are high school physics. So I really don't understand sensationalist articles like this, other than to try to get a "reaction" from the ill-informed.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is getting spookier with experiments where each photon, say, hits a semi- opaque mirror and chooses a path randomly. The Geneva experiment was doing precisely that:

 _You start with an ultraviolet photon and split it into two photons. One goes one way and the other goes another way, both to identical interferometers. Entering its own interferometer, each photon must make a random decision as to whether it will travel a long pathway through the device or a short one. Then you look for a correlation between the pathways taken by the photons in their respective interferometers._

 _If the timing between the photons is exactly adjusted, each twin seems to know what the other is doing and matches its choice of pathway to coincide with that of its distant partner._ (upd)

From <http://www.cebaf.gov/news/internet/1997/spooky.html></comment></comment>


Hosting the Olympics is a terrible investment - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hosting-the-olympics-is-a-terrible-investment/ <comment><USER2> Isn't this common knowledge? =)</comment>


System automatically converts 2-D video to 3-D - <AUTHOR> http://www.csail.mit.edu/node/2627 <comment><USER2> Original Paper: _Gradient-based 2D-to-3D Conversion for Soccer Video_

[https://people.mpi- inf.mpg.de/~pdidyk/papers/2D-to-3D/2D-to-...](https://people.mpi- inf.mpg.de/~pdidyk/papers/2D-to-3D/2D-to-3D.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Url changed from [http://phys.org/news/2015-11-automatically-d- video.html](http://phys.org/news/2015-11-automatically-d-video.html), which points to this.</comment>


The Right to a Nonconsensus Opinion - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@molson_hart/the-right-to-a-nonconsensus-opinion-806f12904440 <comment><USER2> >Self-censorship is reaching all-time highs across the globe. It is unpleasant, and by preventing free discussion, it is inhibiting progress. We need to stop it.

Don't see any evidence of this. I grew up in a small conservative town. Dying your hair the wrong colour, being gay or not showing up at church could have been a social death sentence.

Today expressing non-consensus opinions is easier than ever, because of social media. In the past there was no social media, so random people expressing opinions at all wasn't possible, so it's not a meaningful comparison.

Today there's much more freedom to express what one wants, of course, if people amass large audiences it's also easily possible to create a two-sided shitstorm. That has nothing to do with not being able to express opinions though.

Also writing non-discrimination into law because of opinions people express is in itself a serious overstep of government. Opinions (in contrast to race, sex and so on), are neither innate and often highly relevant when it comes to the job at hand or the fit on a team. No company should be forced to say, endure a civil war in the office because they can't fire someone with extreme political opinions who constantly stirs up cultural wars.

</comment><comment><USER3> This essay doesn't give any examples of someone expressing a non-consensus opinion and being fired.

Given the current political context, it's impossible for me to read that without thinking that it's an argument in support of letting people express racist, sexist, homophobic, and other vile statements without risking loss of employment.

(Eg, Amy Cooper - "New York 'Karen'" \- the white woman who wanted to use the police as a weapon against a black man who asked her to follow the leash laws, or Anthony Brennan III, the white man who attacked a group of young adults posting flyers on a bike trail about protests related to George Floyd; both were fired once their bigoted actions came to light.)

With that in mind, this essay comes across as cryptic support for bigotry.

To give an example of why there needs to be examples, the author writes "Positions that were, 10 years ago, mandatory are today fireable offenses." Homophobic expression which might have been acceptable 10 years ago and even mandatory [1] might now not be acceptable. Without examples, this essay comes across like the author is trying to give hidden support for homophobia.

But let's take it at face value.

The proposition is "We can fix this by making employment discrimination against non-consensus views illegal."

This would eviscerate civil rights laws which lead to workplace protections against hostile environments.

The consensus opinion is that black people, women, etc. should be able to have jobs. If every day at work I tell my black co-workers that they don't deserve to be there, simply because they are black, then under current US and state laws that can be seen as contributing to a hostile environment, and management is obliged to stop me.

This may include firing me or other types of employment discrimination.

I support those civil rights laws, so reject this proposition.

[1] Consider that federal support for gay marriage is only 5 years old.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was sympathetic with the thrust of this article right up until the proposed solution of making it illegal to fire people for having a non-consensus opinion. That strikes me as a cure that's worse than the disease.</comment>


Announcing Timescale Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://blog.timescale.com/timescale-cloud-first-fully-managed-time-series-database-service-runs-on-aws-gcp-azure/ <comment><USER2> I've been ingesting stock market trading data into MongoDB and using Metabase[1] to visualize it. It is essentially date, price, volume, ticker symbol, exchange. Around 400M documents so far.

Queries out of Metabase take upwards of 2-5 minutes to run even simple questions like:

       Plot the average price of Apple for the last 5 days grouping by minute.

Would Timescale Cloud be a better replacement in terms of performance? Is there a nice GUI visualization platform like Metabase for it?

[1] [https://metabase.com/](https://metabase.com/)

<comment><USER3> Hey I was wondering how you ingest stock market data. What source do you use, and do you use a connector, or did you write one yourself?

<comment><USER2> I use Alpaca[1], specifically the Node.js `websocket.onStockTrades` method and a bit of custom JavaScript code.

[1] [https://github.com/alpacahq/alpaca-trade-api- js](https://github.com/alpacahq/alpaca-trade-api-js)

<comment><USER4> Very cool! I haven't been able to find a more real-time data source yet. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Powered by Aiven" \+ nearly identical interface, so this is kind of a reselling arrangement? Aiven supports timescale on postgres, so what additional features does Timescale Cloud provide?

<comment><USER6> One main difference in these sorts of arrangements is vertically-integrated support.

If your Aiven database is having Timescale architecture problems, your support contact is someone working for Aiven who would need to turn around and reach out to Timescale about the bug (or suggest that you do so.)

If your Timescale Cloud database is having Timescale architecture problems, your support contact is someone working at Timescale who can just call over the guy who wrote the code with the bug in it.

(On the other hand, if your problem is with the Aiven backing cluster, it'll presumbly take slightly longer for Timescale Cloud to resolve, given that they'd have to bounce that forward.)

<comment><USER7> In this case we (Timescale) are your main line of support. Our job is for you to have a 100% positive experience on Timescale Cloud. The buck, as it were, stops with us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there any autoscaling or pay-for-what-you-use pricing? It's not 100% clear, but it looks you essentially choose the instance type you want when using Timescale Cloud.

I understand why you might not want to call that out specifically in these promotional materials, but it's an important consideration when choosing which managed DB to use and when evaluating cost.

What specifically does this mean in practice - "Grow, shrink and migrate your workloads between configurations and plans with ease."

<comment><USER4> It's more like pay-for-what-you use. You can check out the pricing calculator for more detail: [https://www.timescale.com/cloud- pricing](https://www.timescale.com/cloud-pricing)

Growing, shrinking, and migrating involve moving to a different instance type, so you have to select a different instance type. That being said, there is very very little downtime (on the order of 3-5 seconds while the DNS resolves)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the clarifications, that's helpful.

I wouldn't call it pay-for-what-you-use unless the pricing varies with your actual usage instead of changing when you change plans.

<comment><USER4> Interesting point of view - it's certainly always a bit hard to find the right verbage that everyone can understand, but hopefully this discussion clarified things!

<comment><USER9> Last time I used a traditional hosting provider, I could get a new bare metal server setup in under half an hour. I would hardly call them _" pay what you use"_ even though I could start and stop servers and change the plan I'm on and still be only two to three times slower than doing the same on AWS.

<comment><USER4> Certainly - I've been seeing a bunch of usage based pricing that price on a different metric (like metrics per second) etc.

Regardless, with Timescale Cloud, if you get a machine, you pay the price for that machine for as long as you use it. So I guess to avoid the confusion, we can call this just paying for the machine :)

<comment><USER9> By the way, I've recently started using TimescaleDB (past month or two) for processing cryptocurrency trading information and I'm liking it a lot so far. I love that I can use Postgres as normal, but have efficient time-based queries.

My first ever test query was to generate minutely OHLC+volume from time,price,quantity trades. It was pleasantly easy to do:

        select time_bucket('1 minutes', time) as minutely,
               max(price) as high,
               min(price) as low,
               first(price, time) as open,
               last(price, time) as close,
               sum(quantity) as volume
          from trades
        group by minutely
        order by minutely;

[https://gist.github.com/danielytics/e9b69933586e00732646e016...](https://gist.github.com/danielytics/e9b69933586e00732646e01657dde128)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is cool, is there a guide to migrate from influxDB? Mostly interested in the cost savings.

<comment><USER4> We haven't done a formal price comparison, since it's actually a bit hard to compare apples to apples since the two databases are architected differently. Definitely something we should consider doing! Thanks for the idea.

Migration wise, I would use Outflux for batch migration and Telegraf to support a live migration ([https://docs.timescale.com/v1.3/tutorials/outflux](https://docs.timescale.com/v1.3/tutorials/outflux)) and ([https://docs.timescale.com/v1.3/tutorials/telegraf-output- pl...](https://docs.timescale.com/v1.3/tutorials/telegraf-output-plugin)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems disingenuous to call it the first. AWS has it's own time series db. In terms of open source Apache druid had a managed cloud variant that imply.io runs.

<comment><USER7> It's the first multi-cloud.

AWS obviously just AWS.

Based on Imply Cloud website it looks like it too is just AWS.

Timescale Cloud gives you freedom to choose your own cloud provider, and lets you migrate between clouds with a few clicks.

I'm fairly certain we are the first to offer that, but I'm open to any counter examples.

<comment><USER12> Q: Regarding multi-cloud. Say if AWS has an outage will Timescale cloud fallback to use GCP or Azure?

Can something like this be provided? Not sure if the network latency between different cloud providers would allow doing a multi-master replication scheme.

<comment><USER4> You select the public cloud vendor you want your machine spun up on. So no, if AWS has a full outage, it won't fall back to a different cloud. Failover is done at an availability zone level.

Since TimescaleDB is also open-source, if you want that kind of replication scheme, you can always install on VMs across clouds. However, as you rightly pointed out, network latency is a definite concern and impacts the feasibility of RPO and RTO.

<comment><USER13> One thing to add:

The Timescale Cloud _does_ allow you to do is create asynchronous read replicas across different clouds and regions (with a couple clicks).

You can then "fork" a read replica (at any point in time) and make it a primary to start serving out of that cloud (again, with just a couple clicks).

That's not quite the same as auto-replication/failover between clouds, but getting pretty far there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> how does this compare to druid/imply.io ?

<comment><USER4> I think the quickest comparison is SQL vs NoSQL. We haven't done performance benchmarks against Druid yet, but do know of several users who have switched because they want to use PostgreSQL instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just announced today, here's the blog post: [https://blog.timescale.com/timescale-cloud-first-fully- manag...](https://blog.timescale.com/timescale-cloud-first-fully-managed-time- series-database-service-runs-on-aws-gcp-azure/)

<comment><USER16> That gives more background info so we've switched to it from [https://www.timescale.com/cloud](https://www.timescale.com/cloud). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why would I pay to use this open source software? It doesn't make sense to me.</comment>


Space Buckets, a Community of DIY LED Gardeners - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacebuckets.com <comment><USER3> Why the buckets? I grow tomatos, spices and onions in doors with just a regular indoor pot and a natural light source AKA a window.

Giving plants light for longer duration does increase their growth (tho normal LED's and house lamps aren't optimal for this, there are specialized growlights that produce wavelengths that are more desirable for plants Chlorophyll absorbs blue light the most which isn't emitted from most lights that are used for indoor lighting which emit yellow, red, and infra-red light the most), but for most growths a window will work just fine, even during the winter time unless you are really upnorth.

So what's the deal with these? seems that if you would take those buckets and use them as normal pots you will get pretty much the same thing with the advantage of it being pretty and greening up the place to boot.

<comment> pi-rat Searching YouTube it seems most of these are used for growing cannabis - <USER2> something you would normally put in your window (depending on local laws / neighbors).

<comment><USER4> Yup. The site linked to even has a separate page called 'smell', with all kinds of filter mechanisms. Definitely not to remove the smell of your strawberry plants :p

Beyond that, the economics of vegetables and such prevent lighting like this from being profitable. Consider that most people leave their grow lights on for around 16 hours per day on a 100W setup that produces about 25 tomatoes a month for example, which puts you at about 2.5kg which costs locally here about $5. Now just the lights alone for 16 hours a day for a month would be more than $7 on a 15c per kwh price.

The economics aren't bad, you can make it cost about the same as in the store, a little less or a little more, the economics just aren't great and given there's a whole bunch of time and effort, you'd only do this for fun, not to save money. The exception is when growing a crop that isn't $2 per kg but $10 per gram which is pot, so it's no surprise that 9/10 guys probably use this to grow weed. Besides there are much more fun systems around that can look awesome in your house if you just want to grow some veggies mostly on the power of the sun and merely supplemented by grow lights (for a few hours, in certain stages, or in winter), all kinds of hydroponics stuff that's a lot of fun as a DIY project to automate fully without hiding it all in a bucket. There was a tiny hype some time ago (windowfarming n all), but most of the urban farming is still soil based I find.

<comment><USER3> I don't think anyone grows stuff out of economics if you live in a city the cost of the soil, pots, seeds, and plant food alone make it highly uneconomical.

There's just something satisfying about being able to grow something even if it's unsustainable, I grow tomatoes and I probably buy more 50 times more tomatoes per month (usually buy a small box of vine/cherry tomatoes for nibbling every 1-2 days so that's about 8-10 pounds a week).

It's a hobby not homesteading, it's just a small ritual of having to move your plants to the window each morning from the more warmer spot they've spent the night in spraying some water on them while drinking your coffee and put some fresh herbs and spring onions on your omelette for breakfast.

It's not economical it's just relaxing and enjoyable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kudos for having an electrical safety page. But is not complete. Some of these installations appear to be both fire and shock hazards. 1\. even for flame- rated PC and ABS, the RTI is typically under 50C, so any long-term exposure to LED heat is a fire hazard. 2\. unless the power supply is Class II construction, the indicated wiring does not provide a reliable ground bond. GFI will not always help, as it depends on which version of the NEC for the building wiring. Best to choose a p/s certified IAW UL8750 (will bear the mark of an NRTL and a reference number) that is rated for Class II ops (will have the double insulation logo). If Class I construction required, never use wire nuts for ground lead connections - use terminals and double-crimped connectors. 3\. The power supply should be rated for end-use; that is, is should not be a 'component power supply'. UL refers to end-use stuff as 'Listed', and components as 'recognized'. There are other terms for other materials and eauipment, and the terms vary depending on the NRTL that issued the certification (CSA, TUVR, MET, UL, etc). 4\. wiring 'styles' (UL has a exhaustive database for this stuff) should be rated for the temperatures the insulation is exposed to, and be rated for the voltage and current that would be present during a fault condition. Recommend style 1015 wiring or better. Most residential PVC wiring probably not suitable for all uses described on these pages. 5\. EMI - most of the dimmiable units have poor EMC due to both conduction and radiated emissions. And the demonstrated wiring will probably exacerbate these emissions. Some power supplies that are rated as 'components' depend on the end-use installation to meet radiated limits (47CFR15 subpart B).

</comment><comment><USER6> Although this is clearly a cannabis-growers hobby, I think its pretty good that a lot of innovation is coming from this scene that can be applied to growers of other sustenance-providing plants .. would be good to see this scale with some Moores' Law or so, as the years go by.

<comment><USER7> Hydroponic growing is done at scale, but usually in greenhouses. Using only electrical light is too inefficient for regular foods, even with LEDs.

[https://www.google.de/maps/place/Almer%C3%ADa,+firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://www.google.de/maps/place/Almer%C3%ADa,+email@example.com,-2.7097443,31466m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0xd707601c35c6717:0xad1bf1bbb4e31675!6m1!1e1)

<comment><USER8> Wow, that Google Earth link is pretty interesting, thank you for that.

I was curious & had to look this place up: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almer%C3%ADa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almer%C3%ADa)

There isn't a ton on the Wikipedia entry about their agriculture, though this is the main excerpt:

 _"...spectacular economic growth due to tourism and intensive agriculture, with crops grown year-round in massive invernaderos"_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How cost effective is this space-bucketry? Right now tomatoes are $3.99/lb at WholeFoods. If I grew my own tomatoes, and my yield was, say, 5lbs, would the cost of growing them (electricity, nutrients, etc.) come out to be less than $20?

<comment><USER10> Most people are growing something which is a little more expensive per pound than $20

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea! Reminds me a bit of the sous-vide following.

I've never disabled javascript on a site before, but the browsing experience is greatly improved for doing so.

<comment> pi-rat Wow, that's just sad - after disabling javascript everything still works, just faster and without annoying animations / cut-screens.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm working on that :) The site is a constant work in progress, like a bucket.

Without Javascript you disable AJAX, basically. Its a good thing that it still works, but it needs to be faster overall.

<comment><USER11> Like I said, it's really interesting to see all this stuff.

I'll be honest, the AJAX doesn't add anything for me. My ideal webpage has zero movement except scrolling. Things which I would suggest you changed, if you aksed me:

\- loading images as you scroll. Let the browser do that. I'm probably going to look at all of them so I'd rather they load before I look rather than waiting for them.

\- simulating a loading bar when my browser already has that

\- breaking standard keyboard shortcuts (space and shift-space don't work)

\- having headings that should be static move around on page load (that's a CSS thing)

\- fading in and out on transitions

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the honest feedback! I appreciate it a lot.

I'm commited to AJAX for the site, I think it can work great after many iterations and tunings. The site has over 50% of mobile traffic and tries to feel like a webapp on those devices. It has been very interesting to see that percentage grow.

Animations in CSS are pretty hard to get right, I see what you mean. I'm not a fan of the fade either. I didn't know about the shortcuts, I'll definitely look into that.

Cheers from Argentina!

<comment><USER12> On mobile the visuals are quite nice. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, most of this isn't super accessible to beginners. I have no idea what 90% of that means:

 _This is my Space Bucket! I use 5M of 5050SMD LEDs and 4 CFL bulbs in a 4 way adapter. I use a combination of topping and hardcore LST to shape the plant and then specific defoliation to develop the canopy. Anything below the lighting spacer is removed as well as anything blocking light to budsites. When the plant reaches 40% of the planned height it gets flipped to flower._

[http://www.spacebuckets.com/u/bacon_flavored](http://www.spacebuckets.com/u/bacon_flavored)

Seems like a fun project, though. I wish that particular example included total cost.

<comment><USER14> This is a problem with hydroponics as a whole.

As soon as you get out of the set-and-forget solutions like the Aerogarden, there's very little in the way of introductory material out there. It's dive- in-and-Google-all-the-TLAs time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No bucket required. I purchased some LED grow lights from Amazon which were super cheap and work great. They produce very little heat, are unobtrusive and supplement my indoor plants for the winter.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why I wonder is it better than a normal pot setup?

I guess, perhaps just because it's cool is reason enough.

Are people breeding dwarf varieties?

<comment><USER17> control

control temperature, atmosphere, light containment</comment></comment>


Understanding Memory Usage in Docker Desktop on Mac - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZiQC1Tp9iH320K-uqVLyiJmk4DHJ3c4zgQetJiKYQM/edit <comment><USER2> > Activity Monitor in MacOS Mojave has a double-counting bug, causing it to > report double the actual memory allocated.

Ouch. Assuming this bug was introduced in Mojave, a basic regression test would have caught it.</comment>


Indeed, An Almost Entirely Bootstrapped Job Search Giant, Gets A Monster Exit - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Indeed-An-Almost-Entirely-Bootstrapped-Job-3892538.php

<comment><USER2> Bootstrapping (adj): a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help.

Not bootstrapping: $5M in VC.

There is no "partially bootstrapped," you either are or aren't. Can somebody update the headline?

<comment><USER3> _"They had bootstrapped the company, launched the service, and were well on their way. They didn't need our money. But eventually we convinced them to take it," USV's Fred Wilson writes._

Looks like the headline is based on this quote. Still doesn't make them bootstrapped, but it does seem like the $5M was just a safety net, not a requirement.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. Take GitHub for example. They just raised $100M in VC. That doesn't take away from the fact that they bootstrapped from April 2008 until July 2012.

Not bootstrapping is taking early Angel/VC funding in order to run the company.

<comment><USER3> True. Indeed actually does fit the definition given above, since they did not require the VC money to start and run the company. Sometimes I post faster than I think.

<comment><USER2> Except Indeed got the VC infusion in 2005, and only after that did they start becoming a recognizable player in the industry (if my personal experience in the industry isn't enough of a source for this, see [http://www.google.com/trends/?q=indeed.com&geo=usa&s...](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=indeed.com&geo=usa&sa=N))

<comment><USER3> From Fred Wilson's blog announcing the partnership[1]:

 _To Paul and Rony's credit, during that seven month courtship, they have built Indeed into the leader in the job search market. Their competitors will probably take exception to that comment, but our analysis of traffic, jobs indexed, and name recognition indicates that Indeed is the leader in pure job search._

They did not need the money to start and maintain the business. What their growth rate was before and after the investment is irrelevant; they were a sustainable business without the VC money. Sure, the infusion of money and intangibles gained from having Union Square Ventures as an investor helped propel their rise, and may well have been necessary to push it to a $1B valuation by today. However, it was not necessary for the business[2].

[1] <http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/08/indeed.html>

[2] Based on publicly-available information

<comment><USER2> > However, it was not necessary for the business

I don't think anyone is arguing that Indeed would still exist had the $5M not come around. The point is that the $5M helped Indeed purchase the traffic/partnerships necessary to make it the #1 job search site on the internet. And without that money, they couldn't have bought their way to their current size - and their current size is reasons 1, 2 and 3 they were acquired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, great story! That said, I really wouldn't say that getting a $5 million round is bootstrapping..

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow! Of all acquisitions to come out lately, this makes me most happy. Who needs seed money when you have the best product out there.

Congrats to Indeed and their whole team.

<comment><USER7> This is true but it also means you have to be prepared to finance yourself for quite some time. Not everyone can do that. Also, by the time these guys took money they did it to get experience, connections and sponsorship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like a major win for Fred Wilson. It is testament to the value he brings when a company doesn't need to raise money (and probably is not even looking) - but takes your money anyway.

</comment><comment><USER9> The author doesn't know the price.

      The acquisition price wasn't announced but you can bet it was for close to,
      if not more than, $1 billion

<comment><USER10> Ooh, let me put on my reporter hat: is there a publicly traded company involved? Yes? Then there should be _copious_ disclosures getting made here. Let's see, bought out by Recruit, that should have made the papers today here...

<http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120926-00000021-jij-int>

This is a blurb about Recruit (a Japanese company) making the acquisition, sourced to a NYT filing with the SEC. The NYT is a shareholder.

That filing should be public. Sure enough:

[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/71691/000119312512402...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/71691/000119312512402528/d415408d8k.htm)

 _On September 25, 2012, Indeed.com, a job listing aggregator, announced that it will be acquired by Recruit Co. Ltd. In connection with the transaction, The New York Times Company will sell all of its remaining interest in Indeed.com and expects to record an estimated after-tax gain of approximately $100 million in the fourth quarter of 2012._

Now let's play "Guess what percentage the NYT owned." My guess is "below 10%", on the basis that a) this makes sense for a three-way Series A round (Crunchbase) and b) I have the vague impression that if they owned more than ~10% that would be in their Annual Report next to the discussion of their other joint ventures and investments where they own e.g. 17.5% of a sports company. Indeed.com is mentioned in no annual report of the Times since 2005, and has also failed to appear in any SEC filing except when they liquidated a "minor portion" of their stake for $5.9 million back in 2011, so I'm assuming they've got a substantial stake but not enough to trigger reporting requirements.

Quick math suggests, yep, a billion bucks at the low end.

<comment><USER7> Excellent due diligence. If you just take the revenues and expenses and project them out a bit it's not hard to see $1B in value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is some really sloppy headline-writing right here. Not only is the company not bootstrapped, but in the context of job search, it seems to imply that Monster (the job listing website) was a party to the deal.

<comment><USER12> Agreed - I thought that Monster was the acquirer or somehow Monster was involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Since when does taking $5M in VC mean bootstrapped? Well, judging from the comments, it seems that many perceive bootstrapping only applies to the early stages of the company. But I find that hard to stomach as someone who is also bootstrapping a company. When you bootstrap, you use your own revenues to finance growth. Getting investors is an alternative to that strategy. I don't see how you can both bootstrap AND have investors.

Looking at it differently, maybe they didn't need the capital, but they took it. You don't just accidentally get $5M from Union Square... term sheets happen. Lawyers are involved. Cap tables are adjusted. That doesn't happen when you bootstrap. It happens when you use other people's money to finance growth. AKA not bootstrapping.

That being said, it seems they did this particularly intelligently and Union Square was a fabulous choice for everyone involved.

</comment><comment><USER13> Indeed is one of my business' main revenue streams, so I was relieved to see that they'll be kept as a wholly owned subsidiary. The rumor last night was that LinkedIn was going to buy Indeed, and that scared the crap out of me.

</comment><comment><USER14> Having used Indeed during tough times I am happy for their success. It's a great search engine and without it I'm certain that my job-searching productivity would not have been as high as it was back when I was looking - which is crucial when trying to pump out as many (good quality) applications as you can to increase your chances of an interview.

I love their product and it's still the first site I visit when I'm curious about what's available in different areas. Congrats to the team!

</comment><comment><USER15> The title is still misleading. Upon reading it, I was wondering why on Earth the SF Gate was writing about the value of Twitter's web UI toolkit...</comment>


Apple Computer entrepreneur's rise and fall [1985] - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/19/business/apple-computer-entrepreneur-s-rise-and-fall.html?pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> "While Mr. Jobs will have plenty of money and talented people from which to draw, the odds of his starting another company of the size and success of Apple are exceedingly thin. The computer business has become much more competitive than when Apple started and is not growing as fast. Moreover, few entrepreneurs have managed to strike gold twice. "

Hah. This whole article is fascinating</comment>


Volterra's principle: eradicating a pest may increase the population [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://aleph.straylight.co.uk/volterra.pdf

<comment><USER2> So if you start a company during this economy-intervention you want it to be a prey company and not a predator company?</comment>


Coke Engineers Its Orange Juice with an Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-31/coke-engineers-its-orange-juice-with-an-algorithm

<comment><USER2> When I was learning about process MRP in the 1980s, orange juice was a key example of the complexities. Some things never change. :)</comment>


Ask HN: What's the relationship between App Store Top Grossing Rank and Revenue? - <AUTHOR>

Apple publishes a top-grossing list ( http://www.appannie.com/top/united-states/ has pretty good data), and there is a some anecdotal data out there ( http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-hits-2-million-sales/ ), but there's very little transparency about what things are like outside of the top 10 grossing apps.  If you provide some data in the comments of this thread (or email them to me -- webwright @ gmail if you'd prefer to keep it out of the public eye), I'll send you spreadsheet of the data I've come up with (I've got about 10 data points so far-- would love to get more-- especially in the lower ranks to see how long the "tail" is). <comment><USER3> Disclaimers:

1\. All these data points are for the US APP STORE. When you see big numbers from taptaptap, etc, they are referring to worldwide numbers, which do not really help with rankings since rankings are different in each market. That said, USA is by far the biggest market, so most developers brag about US Store rankings.

2\. Rankings vary quite a bit depending on the season. For example, Christmas day sales are generally 3x normal, and it stays at about 1.5-2x for a few weeks afterwards. When new devices hit the market, there is also a surge in sales.

Data points from my own apps:

Overall:

#66 Top Paid Overall iPhone = ~ 1200 sales/day

#60 Top Grossing Overall iPhone: ~$2500/day

Sports Top Paid iPhone(Varies a TON depending on what sports season it is):

#25 = ~ 50 sales/day

#10 = ~ 100 sales / day

#5 = ~ 250 sales / day

#2 = ~ 500 sales / day

Sports Top Paid iPad:

#5 = ~ 150 sales / day

Data points from other developers apps who have shared their data with me:

#7 Overall Paid iPhone = ~ 16,000 sales / day

#10 Overall Paid iPhone = ~ 7,000 sales / day

#1 Overall Free iPad = ~ 40,000 downloads / day

#15 Overall Paid iPad = ~ 1,000 sales / day

<comment><AUTHOR> That is amazing data-- thanks. Are those at the .99 cent price point? Or higher?

(grats on the success, by the way)

<comment><USER3> My lowest priced paid app is 2.99, but it doesn't affect the figures in any way. Overall paid counts individual sales only. Top grossing factors in the price.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gotcha-- I saw "1200 sales/day" and assumed it meant you sold 1200 units. Is that $1200?

<comment><USER3> You're right it is 1200 sold units @ 2.99 * 70% = ~ $2500. That's why I split up paid and grossing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A top 30 application in Paid Utilities nets around $500/day in my experience. It doesn't even show up in the Top 200 Paid All.

[edit] - the app is $1.99.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pulling a random top 30 utilities app ( [http://www.appannie.com/icon-skins- builder-create/ranking/hi...](http://www.appannie.com/icon-skins-builder- create/ranking/history/#view=grossing-ranks) ) seems to indicate that that corrosponds to #460 or so on the global list. Interesting stuff!

<comment><USER5> Do you know how they're able to create a top 500 list? I thought the app store rankings only went to 200.

<comment><USER3> iTunes RSS feed + data interpolation between individual categories.

<comment><USER6> Can you share the iTunes feed? I'm looking for it =)

<comment><USER7> [http://www.google.com/webhp?q=itunes+rss&pws=0#sclient=p...](http://www.google.com/webhp?q=itunes+rss&pws=0#sclient=psy&q=itunes+rss) :)

<comment><USER6> Thanks so much. Seems like you can just replace xml with json to get the feed in JSON format. Handy ;)

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/rss/topgrossingipadapplications/l...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/rss/topgrossingipadapplications/limit=400/genre=6005/json)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Totally random data point that is way out of date now. On March 17th, 2009, it took about 1,750 sales per day (at $2.99 price point = $5,232 that one day) to reach #64 in the paid store. This post shows a bit more about the trajectory and the above information can help you understand where the peak was.

[http://enjoymentland.com/2009/04/21/locavores-first-month- in...](http://enjoymentland.com/2009/04/21/locavores-first-month-in-the-app- store/)

Hope that helps!

</comment><comment><USER9> My data points for a UK centric app in the sports section of the app store (iPhone & iPad combined) :

#25 = ~ 20 sales/day

#15 = ~ 30 sales/day

#5 = ~ 50 sales/day

#3 = ~ 75 sales/day

So wildly different to US in terms of numbers - which is probably in itself unsurprising but great to see some actual numbers.

One thing I have noticed is that sales in general in the UK have gone up quite dramatically since Christmas - before Christmas we were in the top 10 of the Sports section of the UK app store and seeing around 20 - 25 sales a day - <USER2> you would be likely to see around 40 sales a day.</comment>


Ask HN: List of (open) software licenses? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>I am currently researching possible licenses for a small project of mine and need a broad overview over what can be used. <comment><USER2> The FSF and opensource.org each maintain a long list of licenses.

A broad overview is nearly useless. It leads to the paradox of choice. What you want is either the GPL, LGPL, MIT, or Apache license.

Or, people have answered this very common question. A Google search for "which open source license should I use" \- including the quotes! - gives over 300 hits. One leads to [http://choosealicense.com/](http://choosealicense.com/) .</comment>


Ask HN: Have you transitioned from being a PM to engineering? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently a PM at a FAANG company, but I've always been curious about switching to engineering.  Now that I've been PMing for 7 years, I'm seriously considering making the leap.
I never set out to be a PM, but sort of fell into the role from being the most technically-minded account manager at the first startup I joined.  And while I don't have a CS degree, I've always been interested in engineering and have coded up various side projects for fun.
I see a lot of articles about people who've switched from engineering -> PM, but basically zero in the reverse direction.
If you've made the switch, I would love to hear about your experience.  How did you make the switch?  Has it been worth it?
Thank you for sharing. <comment><USER2> I think most people switch from dev to PM because that's generally how you move up the ladder and make more money. Management is where the money is at. There are other reasons too, like I would want to switch so I can be more architecture and business process focused and not need to constantly learn new languages. This might not be the case at some small companies or FAANG.

I know one person who made a similar switch to development. It wasn't a PM, but a business analyst position.

I think they had to get a CS degree at night school to make the transition official. I strongly recommend this in case you need to switch companies. Appling to a developer role without a related degree on your resume will likely get you dropped from the candidate pool during the OCR screening of your resume.

I didn't see them as being very technically talented. They were good at learning a procedure and executing it, but I felt they didn't have command of good architectural concepts. They made it to the level of tech lead though, so I guess I'm just the odd ball.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was a product manager at a cloud computing startup when I decided I would enjoy an IC role more. I applied to a grad school, got a phd in deep learning and now I'm an R&D engineer at a deep learning accelerator startup.</comment>


Show HN: A Twitter bot to make games using emojis for scripting - <AUTHOR> http://gdevbot.sparklinlabs.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> A couple weeks ago I got this nonsensical idea of making a bot to build games over Twitter. I tried to brush it aside but just thinking about it was too much fun. Making games over Twitter, why would you NOT want to do that?! So I built it.

It was a fun (if useless) endeavour. Basically you can create actors and attach stuff to them like imported images or scripts. Scripts are built using a very weird emoji-based scripting language that I invented, it's pretty fitting considering the limitations of the medium.

Source code is available over there if you want to check it out: [https://bitbucket.org/sparklinlabs/gdevbot/src](https://bitbucket.org/sparklinlabs/gdevbot/src)</comment>


How an Army of Ocean Farmers Are Starting an Economic Revolution - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.thpy0urbn <comment><USER2> Very cool idea, thanks for the post</comment>


Scala NLP - <AUTHOR> http://www.scalanlp.org/

<comment><USER2> Huh, I was wondering why I had a bunch of stars on github in the last few hours. (Sad there's no analytics for Github projects.)

I'm the lead author of ScalaNLP, and I'm happy to answer questions. It's mostly a scaffolding library for other systems. There's not much that works "out of the box."

I am currently working on releasing Epic (hopefully tomorrow), which is my parser/structured prediction framework, that will be a little more useful to non-specialists.

</comment><comment><USER3> I spent some time earlier this year exploring various NLP engines (Freeling, OpenNLP, DELPH-IN, LingPipe, UIMA, and a few others). Of them, FreeLing (<http://nlp.lsi.upc.edu/freeling/>) was far and away the technical leader for my needs:

      - Decent documentation
      - Relatively easy to compile and install
      - Working (and practical) example code
      - Easily configured
      - Extremely flexible design
      - Supports many written languages
      - Supports Java, C++, and has a simple client-server model
      - Good execution time (fast code)
      - Solid code base (no crashes in six months)

See also: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_language_proces...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_language_processing_toolkits)

<comment><USER4> Do you know of any that have a semantic role labeling feature? I've been looking for one for a while with no luck.

<comment><USER5> SENNA by Collobert + Weston do SRL. It's free for non-commercial use.

Hoifung Poon's unsupervised semantic parser can be used for SRL. It's available as open-source (I think?), but will require more work out of the box to get it working. Namely, you'll have to train it on your data, and convert semantic parses to SRL.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I also found this, which I think I'll try: <http://www.surdeanu.name/mihai/swirl/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those interested in this may also find Factorie interesting: <http://code.google.com/p/factorie/>

<comment><USER2> Factorie's a nice piece of work, I highly recommend it. The team at UMass has done a great job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can I plug our API? I'll plug our API: <https://www.repustate.com/docs>

As another commenter mentioned, freeling is great.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to store recipes? - <AUTHOR> Prompted by a recent post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738543), I wanted to store all my recipes, but I use OSX which isn't supported by the AnyMeal linked above.<p>Anyone got good recommendations for how they store their recipes? <comment><USER2> I use Paprika recipe manager 3 on windows, but I'm pretty sure they have an osx version as well. I find it's useful to make week menu's and have it make a grocery shopping list. But I'm sure others can do that too.

</comment><comment><USER3> I made my own recipe manager web app in Chicken Scheme (awful + SQLite). It was a nice exercise in CRUD and scraping, as I built importers for some large recipe websites. An update broke it, so I'm now rewriting it in Common Lisp (caveman2), learning the language as I go.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been testing the nimbus web clipper recently. I like the idea of a web clipper, since I find most recipes online these days. It's only been a couple weeks, but so far, so good. [https://nimbusweb.me/clipper.php](https://nimbusweb.me/clipper.php)

</comment><comment><USER5> Have not tried it but I've seen people of setting up an instance of [https://chowdown.io/](https://chowdown.io/) in a Raspberry Pi, you can access it from any device with a browser.

</comment><comment><USER6> I ask the person that knows the recipe to write it down on paper for me, I also try to make te recipe as soon as possible to keep it fresh in my mind, everything else I just google (duck) it when I want to make it.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://www.copymethat.com/](https://www.copymethat.com/) is the best tool hands down.

</comment><comment><USER8> Notion. Their browser plugin saves the page content + keeps the link. It's been really useful as I can find the recipes quickly on my mobile when cooking.

<comment><USER4> I tried the Notion plugin/clipper before Nimbus, but the Notion one failed on 2 out of the first 3 sites I attempted :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google Keep

It's simple, searchable and synchronised across devices. Recipes are a simple, text-based format. I don't need any fancy way to store them.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just use good ol' txt files. Sometimes paper.

<comment><USER11> I do the same thing. My wife has a notebook into which she's either hand- written, or glued things from newspapers.

I have ~/Org/food.org containing about 20 recipes, which I can export to PDF or HTML to make presentable. I never quite get round to printing out the PDF version, but I suspect I should.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cookbooks, in the cupboard above the stove. 3-ring binders included, to hold anything we've found and printed.</comment>


The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over - <AUTHOR> http://spacefellowship.com/2009/08/10/on-a-cosmological-timescale-the-earths-period-of-habitability-is-nearly-over/

<comment><USER2> Sensationalist headline. By period they mean in the order of billions of years.</comment>


Windows 10: The Next Chapter [video] - <AUTHOR> http://news.microsoft.com/windows10story/ <comment><USER3> I don't know, but this whole "I refuse to consider [product X] before I've even seen it" thing doesn't strike me as the sort of open-minded, objective attitude a good engineer should have. Great for Apple's bottom line, though.

I've gone back and forth between Mac and Windows boxes for years. I have a MacBook Pro and a Dell XPS 12 with Win8.1 and I use them interchangeably. They're both perfectly usable and both have their pros and cons.

I want to see what Microsoft has to offer--especially curious to see if they can leverage their desktop size to resuscitate their mobile platform.

<comment><USER4> Curious what you use as a Terminal replacement in Windows? I tried cygwin a few years ago and it was painful. Windows Powershell isn't standard enough for me.

<comment> vertex-four > Windows Powershell isn't standard enough for me.

Then Windows isn't standard enough for you. The traditional UNIX toolset _does not work_ on Windows - something as simple as chmod, or the concept of files being owned by users, works entirely differently. Things as simple as mv have entirely different semantics - there isn't a guaranteed atomic file rename function (well, actually, looks like one was implemented in Windows Vista... which doesn't work on network drives, including redirected folders which are used to map your home directory transparently to a network drive in many companies).

In administering Windows systems, practically nothing is implemented as text mangling, so text mangling isn't a core part of the system's interface.

Once you've thrown out all the stuff that works differently or can't be implemented reliably, you don't have a terrible amount left. If you want some subset of the GNU toolset for development, there's MSYS and a few other projects.

Or you could learn how to use a system that doesn't buy into the UNIX monoculture, which has been a detriment to operating system research and development for the past couple of decades.

<comment><USER5> > Or you could learn how to use a system that doesn't buy into the UNIX > monoculture

My first computer was a ZX Spectrum. It didn't run UNIX.

> which has been a detriment to operating system research and development for > the past couple of decades.

You're claiming that having access to free Operating Systems, with free tools and access to the source for them all has _stifled_ OS research? That claim appears nonsensical on the face of it. Care to expand?

<comment> vertex-four > Care to expand?

Certainly. It's not access to free OSes that's the problem - it's that both the major one and most of the minor ones are derivatives of either UNIX or the POSIX specification. (Haiku is the only semi-popular one which attempts to do something different.) There's little chance of stepping outside that box in any major way.

For example, a slowly-moving research project of mine is to build a fully functional OS that uses capabilities, per-application sandboxing, a generic object store instead of a filesystem, a built-in intra- and inter-computer RPC mechanism, standardised configuration (from the network admin level downwards), and a powerful Smalltalk-based GUI for managing all of this, on the idea that today's information workers need better ability to manage and script their system, including building new applications out of existing ones. The Linux ecosystem doesn't provide a meaningful, standardised interface for doing so for many office-y applications or complex formats.

While you could theoretically layer all this on top of POSIX (and in fact, that's the first implementation of my system), you are at the same time throwing away 99% of POSIX, and you are highly expected to maintain compatibility with apps for the system you're building on top of - <USER2> likely don't fit in with your system's design, and doesn't encourage the creation of applications for, or modification of existing applications to fit, your new system design.

This sort of greenfield R&D is what's been missing. Even universities are primarily stuck getting POSIX running on various kernel architectures, avoiding the topic of _OS_ design entirely. You could point towards Android as a counter-example, but that's not a desktop OS - its primary competitors were proprietary OSes made by the smartphone vendors, and it's still not really capable of being used as a primary OS.

<comment><USER5> > it's that both the major one and most of the minor ones are derivatives of > either UNIX or the POSIX specification.

How is that the problem? How does that stop you from doing anything?

> you are at the same time throwing away 99% of POSIX, and you are highly > expected to maintain compatibility with apps for the system you're building > on top of

Expected by whom? Who has any expectations for your own personal research project? I'd fully expect an experimental OS not to have any apps at all, besides basic utilities.

I'm not going to point to any OS as a counter example, because you haven't made clear how the existence of any other UNIX-like OS prevents you from doing anything. If you want to do "greenfield R&D" then go ahead. No-one is stopping you.

<comment> vertex-four It doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything, but the result is that non- POSIX OSes will never take off in any meaningful way, therefore research is close to worthless.

<comment><USER5> New POSIX OSes won't take off in a meaningful way either (whatever 'meaningful' means). It's nothing to do with it being POSIX or not, it's just difficult to get traction for a new OS. Linux faced exactly the same issue when it was released.

But why do you need it to take off in a meaningful way? Open Source software doesn't need a particular market share to keep going, it just needs a certain absolute number of people (which differs depending on the software). Is having a small committed core of users not enough for you? If your research is truly useful then that number will grow over time.

Unless you're talking about a commercial OS, in which case Microsoft is your obstacle, not POSIX. Good luck with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Free upgrades for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users -- wow, that's different from the Microsoft of old. Clearly they've decided that they've got enough in the coffers to be not as concerned about losing money in the short term to get some good PR.

<comment><USER7> When they say "free for the first year" is that "free to upgrade" during the first year it's available, or "free for one year" then you'll pay a subscription to continue using the operating system after that year?

<comment><USER8> Here is the slide from the Verge livecast [0]. It's followed with this quotation

"Once a device is upgraded to Windows 10, we'll be keeping it current for the supported lifetime for the device."

I'm not sure what they mean by "lifetime for the device", but I think it means you have a year to decide to upgrade to Windows 8, and then it'll be supported for as long as your device is working.

[0] [http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/191...](http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/19163/microsoft- windows-10-live-verge-_0221.jpg)

<comment><USER9> That was my interpretation as well, however, people who build their own computers should probably look in detail what the license entails as it may be like Windows 8 System Builder Edition. AFAIK, the System Builder Edition is bound to your computer's motherboard and any changes will make Windows unusable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone having trouble with the stream, you can watch it in VLC if you open network stream with the following URL: [http://msstudios- live2.wm.llnwd.net/msstudios_live2](http://msstudios- live2.wm.llnwd.net/msstudios_live2) It doesn't have the buffering issues that I see using the flash player.

<comment><USER11> I don't get any video from this for some reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Call me stubborn, but I just can't see going back to windows after switching to os x. People complain about bugs a lot lately, but I haven't experienced any. Windows just feels like an uphill battle to do everything I want to these days. I feel like a start button and multiple workspaces won't really change that.

However, I'm all for new tech so I want there to be room for everyone. I'm excited to see the future of windows.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. I recently started using Windows 7 Enterprise for work, and I'm surprised at how often I need to reboot to make things work or to avoid slowdowns. Granted, that's usually due to Adobe and Java hanging, but even killing those processes in task manager won't fix it. Maybe there's a better solution, but I just reboot.

I don't think I've ever had to reboot OS X for similar reasons.

<comment><USER14> I've been running on a Mac for the last 2 years, after 20'ish years of Windows work. At this point I'm 50/50\. There are things I HATE about both system.

* Window management in OSX is a complete joke (docking and sizing), I've lost all faith that Apple will ever get that right. * The shell and terminal support is better in OSX (yes, powershell is there, but not by default, and the standard DOS shell sucks) * I have to reboot both systems once a month to keep them working. Others disagree here, but I find OSX no more stable than Windows. * OSX Sound Drivers (WTF! -- I constantly lose sound support on my MacBook Pro) * Microsoft is much faster at fixing issues than Apple (I have a bunch of long standing OSX bugs that span multiple versions, and a couple of new ones with the current release) * I no longer feel the love for Apple hardware. Every iteration is made harder to upgrade than the last. * The Apple App Store is so much better than Microsoft's Store. * Safari is IE: they are both browsers you should only use to download a better browser.

<comment><USER15> >Safari is IE: they are both browsers you should only use to download a better browser.

Safari's great for battery life. I've switched from Chrome for that reason. Judging from the system-wide beachballs and frequent fan spin-ups for no obvious reason back when I used Firefox, I assume it would be even worse than Chrome.

Its developer tools aren't that different from Chrome's, either, and it's got a decent selection of plugins. I have Chrome installed and occasionally use it, but close it ASAP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know it will never happen but if I could have a native full featured bash or zsh environment on Windows I would switch back in a heartbeat. And no, Cygwin is not a replacement.

<comment><USER17> Can you tell me more about the native or full featured bash or zsh environment you're interested in? Do you want inbox bash/zsh? Do you want native coreutils? Do you want the full POSIX API layer? something else? Also, can you tell me about your workflow or what you envision it to be in this environment?

I ask because I work in the console space at Microsoft and am keen on understanding the features you're looking for and what scenarios you're attempting to satisfy.

We also have a user voice going where we've been fortunate enough to gather a lot of passionate feedback.

[https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command- prompt/cat...](https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command- prompt/category/87960-cmd)

<comment><USER18> I want what Cygwin gives me, for starters, so POSIX API (I think).

I don't want to have to relearn commands that I know work in *nix land, is the big point -- I don't want to have to remember to change the directions of my slashes, for example.

I'm not an expert, merely a user, in this space, so I can't really articulate precisely what it is I want in the best terms possible, but I can say I get a lot closer to where I want to be with Cygwin than I get with anything that comes native on Windows.

<comment><USER17> Good feedback. When you work in Cygwin, are you doing admin type tasks, web dev, writing console utilities, something else related to app dev?

<comment><USER18> In systems where I find myself in the shell, I tend to prefer the shell to everything except certain system configuration tasks (I like the shell for things like tweaking network settings, but dislike it for things like printer config, for example), and for actual software dev (IDEs still win for me).

Once I feel I can buy into the shell, I'll probably go all in. Until then, I _try_ to use Cygwin to avoid having to switch to a *nix box when I just want to use a simple admin utility or maybe test something out in the Python REPL, but otherwise I just tend to switch when I want to spend a work day on something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now it makes sense that Google just announced that they're stopping Glass from being sold retail. They did not want to have their device compared to the new product from MS. Actually I see this new device as more prone to success than the Glass. These devices are competing for the same markets: healthcare, education and entertainment. And here Glass is somewhat underpowered.

</comment><comment><USER20> Free update to Windows 10 for anyone running Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows Phone 8.1. Awesome.

<comment><USER21> Includes comprehensive always-on phone-home telemtrics. Twice as awesome.

<comment><USER22> Meaning Microsoft is collecting usage data from users of Windows 10?

<comment><USER23> That's been part of Windows (opt-in at least) for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> WMW format direct link. [http://msstudios- live2.wm.llnwd.net/msstudios_live2](http://msstudios- live2.wm.llnwd.net/msstudios_live2) NO buffering problems, but only around 360-480p. but better than no buffering if you have a problem with the buffering :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Windows Phone 10 apps seem less convenient than in Windows Phone 7. Some of the gestures gone, hamburger menus instead... And why are the app menu buttons on top instead of bottom?

I understand that they want to have the same codebase on all three screen sizes, but simple 'responsive' approach is not perfect.

The WP10 platforms needs to make the best of its advantages, not become the second android mess where every app has different UX philosophy. MS should provide gudelines for tailoring apps to WP, but srsly atm they need to fix these office apps before releasing them.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love that they are bringing something like Cortana to the desktop. Ever since I saw Her [1] I wanted something like that, something that takes away the need to look at my smartphone when I receive an email to know what's it about or who it's from. A smartwatch seems to be going in the right direction for that kind of things, but still, it's not the same as being reminded about the weather when you are on the point leaving the door instead of having to look up the weather yourself.

[1]: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I recently switched to Mac after two decades on Win simply because decent Win ultrabook costs 50% more than comparable MacBook Pro. In other words it's not only software problem that Microsoft is facing.

<comment><USER28> This is exactly my situation too. When it was time for a new laptop, the windows machines with nice screens were way more than a MacBook pro. So far I can't say I'm in love with it. I don't think it's as stable as my windows 7 computers are that I work on for my dayjob. (I can't even remember the last time I needed to reboot or froze up on my windows 7 boxes.)

<comment><USER16> HiDPi support is also a second class citizen on Windows. Many applications are still designed for 1080p and under, Linux is even worse. OS X seems to get it mostly right.

<comment><USER29> It's even worse if you have one normal resolution screen and one high. I want my primary screen to be the 1080p one (because that's where games run), so Windows renders things on the 4K screen at normal resolution and upscales them. It looks _baaad_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Original thread:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8922578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8922578)

</comment><comment><USER31> Holograms? Who did they buy that gave them that kind of traction. Seems like the corner that Oculus had been gunning for.

<comment><USER32> I think MS research has been working on this for years. I watched a video a while back about them doing this sort of thing in their labs.

<comment><USER33> I think Steven Bathiche has been doing this kind of stuff for a long time, indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm using Windows 10 tech preview as my main system and it's absolutely awesome, clean, responsive and fast. At least compared to Windows 7, 8.1, KDE, XP, Yosemite, Maverics, Gnome ... in order of descending utility.

<comment><USER35> Desktop environments aren't operating systems.

And utility? If I were to rank operating systems according to my own subjective assessment of utility, Windows would be top. Because I develop on .NET to earn a living.

I would still under no conditions argue that Windows is a better operating system than a unix-based OS.

C# is more useful to me than C++, Erlang or Go but that doesn't mean I think C# is better than these languages. The fork is not worse than the knife overall. It's better for picking things up but it's not very good for cutting.

Can't say I'm going to take the words of somebody using a tech preview OS as their daily driver seriously, either.

<comment><USER34> Heh. You were sort of right. They just broke it. :-) New build is just horrible. Java doesn't work and they've butchered start menu and task bar.

Fortunately they've left by mistake an option to roll back to previous build. Which I promptly used to restore my wonderful Windows 10. Then I just as promptly I disabled automatic updates.

Maybe in few months from now I'll try latest Windows 10 build in a VM to see if they backpedaled a bit from the insanity they've served in this last build.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I find it amusing how almost everybody in the audience runs a mac :)

</comment><comment><USER37> OT: I feel for this guy; the only people looking at him are the photographers.

I'm no fan of putting blame with the audience, but I'm glad not be presenting in his place...

</comment><comment><USER38> This is definitely an interesting announcement. I'm happy that they are offering free upgrades to all users 7.1 and up. I believe this is a really smart move.

</comment><comment><USER39> Having the video not watchable is a large fail for a company that's trying to sell infrastructure services.

</comment><comment><USER40> Seems to be quite a bit of buffering on my 100 meg connection, anyone else having issues watching this?

<comment><USER24> yeah, i have a whole lot that aswell, might be more people watching than anticipated

<comment><USER41> It's pretty much unwatchable for me at work as well, way too much buffering. Somebody on the Azure Media Services team is probably going to get an earful afterward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Did Microsoft hit the "jump the shark" moment with holograms?

<comment><USER43> Jump the shark? Seriously? This is probably the best thing I have seen them do in a decade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> MS Surface Hub could be fantastic in education.

</comment><comment><USER45> So far, everything looks like [https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2385/1895583251_f102d4324d.jpg](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2385/1895583251_f102d4324d.jpg)

But I hope they saved the best for the end.

<comment><USER45> ... well, it's over now and nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Impossible to watch, video stream always stutters

<comment><USER46> Nice, looks like some folks got offended by this comment. Wonder why:-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Wow, they added background images to Windows Phone.

</comment><comment><USER35> Yay, more crap for me to turn off.

</comment><comment><USER47> Kind of hard to overlook the fact the video is encoded using flash. Not real promising.</comment>