Can Watson save IBM? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dced8150-b300-11e5-8358-9a82b43f6b2f.html#axzz3xczqvLeH <comment><USER2> Watson of course is PR-ware, a sort of flux capacitor for selling seven figure consulting services.

IBM does truly deserve credit for making Linux a safe choice for corporate IT. Few people remember this, but believe me I sat in on IT focus groups in 2001-ish.

Every. Single. Person. In every single session in every city said "there's no way we could use it in production". In every group, there was one who added "... but if IBM..." (literally as a sentence fragment like that), then the whole room would agree out loud.

Spooky. And then IBM came out with a big Linux campaign and the rest is history. Anyway, that happened.

It doesn't make a business for IBM. But it was a good contribution. That too was a way for IBM to sell consulting services. Which is all they really are.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this reminder, we owe IBM a lot for their early Linux efforts.

I was pushing Linux into production, hard, for a very large company in the late 90s, with only limited success. It wasn't until 2001, because of IBM, when the nearly fanatical resistance to Linux started to fade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know that there is a lot of PR around Watson but it is not just PR. There is a genuine effort to put AI-related technologies in the hands of as many developers as possible. If you want to check for yourself what we are doing, please go to: [http://ibm.com/watsondevelopercloud](http://ibm.com/watsondevelopercloud).

We are trying to expose state-of-the-art technology in speech, dialog, text analytics, vision, machine translation, etc as a coherent platform. I am happy to answer (without any PR BS) any question you may have.

<comment><USER5> Ok, here is a question. I went to the site and tried the document conversion service. I gave it three very clean PDF files containing CS articles. In all cases, what I got in response was "The input document failed to be converted because An invalid XML character (Unicode: 0x0) was found in the element content of the document."

Tika is able to parse them without a glitch, and has been doing so for a few years at least.

So I tried with some sample HTML taken from the main italian news sites. In this cases, it parsed it, but returned some garbage HTML tags and no content. BoilerPipe or similar libraries are able to extract a clean body of the news in all cases.

How is that state of the art technology?

<comment><USER4> Thanks for giving it a try. I agree that particular test does not sound like state-of-the-art. But don't judge the whole package just based on one test of one API. It'd be great to have access to these files (you can email them to me at my YC ID @gmail.com). Best would even be to post your experience on our forum: [https://developer.ibm.com/answers/smartspace/watson/](https://developer.ibm.com/answers/smartspace/watson/). We are usually pretty responsive.

<comment><USER5> Sorry I was harsh. I tried the translation service and it work better.

Anyway, I don't remember exactly all the articles I tried, but two of them were

[https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/pubs/mst.pdf](https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/pubs/mst.pdf) [https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~condon/papers/chungcondon96.pdf](https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~condon/papers/chungcondon96.pdf)

while one news that failed to parse was

[http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2016/02/09/news/borse_9_fe...](http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2016/02/09/news/borse_9_febbraio-133008943/)

I tried other articles and news, but I do not recall each of them exactly

<comment><USER6> Hey pathsjs, sorry for the bad experience... Nevertheless, thanks for the feedback. TLDR: I pushed a fix for the bad character issue, and those PDFs should convert now.

The long version: It has to do with the underlying structure of the PDF; some of the characters in the above PDF have glyphs for display but don't actually map the characters to code points. So, when we pull out the text, they come through as invalid characters, which we should have filtered out. This is an issue we've seen with (all?) PDF viewers; the text you copy from a sentence isn't always what you expect... But, we're aware of that shortcoming and are looking at some ways to improve the quality.

In regard to the extra content in the news articles, we're not currently trying to do what BoilerPlate does. If you want to include or exclude specific content from a page, we have config options to do that via XPaths. Though, we're always open to ways of improving our services, and incorporating something like that would probably be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've asked many IBM employees to explain to me what Watson actually does (like for real, not the marketing BS that's on TV) that would make me want to buy it. Nobody could explain it. Literally some where just like "yeah, I think they're still trying to figure out how they can make a product out of it."

The Jeopardy thing was cool but since then it's turned into this mystery black box that will supposedly solve all your problems, but nobody's can seem to point to any real successes that would matter to a business. Honestly it seems mostly like marketing fluff built on some midly proprietary distributed computing technology.

<comment><USER4> You can check and use many things that Watson does by using trying and using our cloud services: [http://ibm.com/watsondevelopercloud](http://ibm.com/watsondevelopercloud). I know there is a lot of PR around Watson. But there are also real efforts and some state-of-the-art technology in speech, dialog, text analytics, vision, machine translation, etc. I am happy to answer any question you may have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The issue for me is does IBM need to be saved? Their business practices have continued to be patent laden and closed. If they went down the road in a more open nature I feel that they wouldn't be in the place they are.

<comment><USER9> The last 15 years of IBM has basically been open.

1) They're in the top 5 re: Linux contributors. (Guess who else is in there? Microsoft.)

2) They dropped their JVM (J9) for OpenJDK - again upstreaming their patches to the community.

3) Eclipse was founded by them in 2001 (later released into the public domain).

4) They released (at least part of) their ML system "SystemML" into the public domain as well, during the same month MS opened theirs and Google opened TensorFlow.

They aren't patent trolls in the sense of those Texas LLP's who lease a few hundred square feet and fire off scare-letters. They hold a lot of patents because they are one of the few companies that actually funds pure research. They make a ton of money by bilking banks/the feds/states who still run their RMV on AIX @ 2mill a year in support contracts, etc, who are vendor-locked in. A not insignificant amount of money goes to:

5) Post-docs from really smart uni's to publish theoretical comp sci work in more journals than you'd imagine, which guess what? is also public domain!

They're really not hurting the consumer at all. In fact, I honestly don't see how they could be MORE open.

\</comment></comment><comment>

[1] (And guess Who's not upstream'ing much at all but making billions off community written software? I'll give you a hint, its not Barnes & Noble! Even VMware donated back to FreeBSD. Support HN users who actually pay-it- forward[2] and use Tarsnap[3] instead of S3.)

[2] [https://www.freebsdnews.com/2015/02/25/donate-freebsd- founda...](https://www.freebsdnews.com/2015/02/25/donate-freebsd-foundation/)

[3] www.tarsnap.com . Not affiliated with Colin but he's been a long-time HNer who isn't a conglomerate, taking GPL/BSD software, slapping a pretty coat of paint on it and selling it for huge margins. Pay a few cents extra and support startups. Karma, guys. < /preachy hippie shit>

<comment><USER10> > 1) They're in the top 5 re: Linux contributors. (Guess who else is in there? > Microsoft.)

quantity and quality of contributions doesn't mean that they are the most useful contributions though

<comment><USER9> I really don't want to turn this into a Microsoft praise fest but similar to IBM, they've been a net-zero since about Ballmer era, and a net-positive since Satya took over. All of that Microsoft Research papers which silently go unnoticed in Silicon Valley (or published under the MSR, INRIA // MSR, Cambridge name and people don't do the math) but here's a few things MS has been responsible for

a: Asynchrony -- the async / await paradigm - if you use it in JavaScript it came from C#, which came from a MSR paper (or maybe a Microsoft Languages whitepaper.) A lot of the semantics took a very long time by very smart people to work out the execution logistics, and we get to reap the benefits.

b: Haskell -- paying SPJ's salary so he can work on Haskell full-time as a MSR Cambridge employee and implement a whole bevy of things like STM[1], the popularization of pure functions (immutable.js users, as well as CLJS)

c: Clojure -- if you use Clojure's STM, borrowed from work funded by Microsoft. For me, it's used every day in Datomic.

d: Verifiability -- a mind-blowingly large amount of formal verification stuff - ranging from the first formally verified OS + integrated language, to things like F*

e: Z3 -- no need to explain this if you're in any sort of reverse-engineering I'm sure your life has been made significantly easier since MS released this into the public domain

f: CoreCLR + the JS engine + their crossplatform 100% free IDE + opening up VS Community (which is about as as VS Professional)

g: Probably most importantly -- Well, just go here. [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/groups/rise/default.aspx](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/groups/rise/default.aspx). Basically 1 out of 4 things in there is already, or will be imminently, used by 'mainstream' languages after it moves out of the "only publishing grad students who eagerly wait for POPL every year" zone.

[1] I know STM comes from that '88 paper. I've read it. SPJ did too and brought it into the mainstream, so I give him credit.

IBM and Microsoft (and, presumably GoogleX but they havent been publishing) are one of the few corporations I'm aware of that dedicate more than a few resources to research-for-the-sake-of-research (n.b. MS has been doing this silently since 1991, and IIRC employ more than 100 staff just to produce work to the field of computer science further.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why don't they just have watson play a few more rounds of jeopardy and use the winnings to support the company.

<comment><USER12> This would actually make for decent television. Man vs. Machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Watson is no longer the system that won Jeopardy. It is a collection of technologies that have nothing to do with machine intelligence and some that do. What is clear is that by no means has IBM won the game against FB, Google or Baidu. In many cases they can't do it. They have invested too much into a specific technology framework.

But what I believe is that IBM will survive. Their ability to sell will win over technology.

</comment><comment><USER14> I feel Watson is very heavily marketing heavy. I've tried their APIs and their technology is very limited in functionality and accuracy. I have seen too many videos around "cognitive abilities" but their application at the moment from trial runs seems to be extremely crude.

</comment><comment><USER15> IBM will just need to focus on what they are good at. And Cloud Server / Softlayer just isn't one of them to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

No, Watson cannot save IBM.

</comment><comment> awinter-py with gorilla gone, is there hope for man?

</comment><comment><USER17> IBM is not a technology company - it is a technology holding company.

Watson has been around for a fair number of years; almost five years since the Jeopardy stunt. Aside from the story about Watson turning into a foul-mouthed asshole after being exposed to Urban Dictionary, I've not seen much that is particularly impressive out of it.</comment>


2nd Gen Asus Eee - New LCD Screen LED Backlit? - <AUTHOR>

I am simply looking for evidence as to whether the new 8.9in. LCD version of the Asus Eee will be LED back-lit like the first generation screens that are 7in Eees?
Please reply with any helpful links. :)
Best Links About the 2nd Gen Asus Eee I've Found So Far: (but still didn't answered my question...)
- http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=1048
 - http://blog.laptopmag.com/eee-pc-to-get-intels-diamondville-hard-drives-and-fashion-forward-style
 - http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16970/1103/ <comment><USER2> Usually, if we've got a question we'd like ask other Hacker News readers, we preface it with "Ask YC: " or "Ask HN:" That helps us distinguish between articles and discussions, thanks.

That said, we usually ask questions that you can't google.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The links are all running together. :(

There are three links here, separated by a dash "-".</comment>


Ask YC: Giving Clients a Premade Template - <AUTHOR>

I feel pretty strongly about this: it's wrong.
However I just nabbed a client who wants a two day turn around on a pretty detailed site (blog, forum, mailing list).  Sure it's possible to make something in two days, but it's not going to be functional, of quality and worth producing.
Matt here in the office kind of jokingly said "just give them a template".  At first we kind of made jokes about it but this is the only way it's going to get done.  Without going over budget, producing a site and configuring it for their business just wont happen in two days.
How do you feel about giving clients premade work? <comment><USER2> Why would that be wrong? Think about the client. What matters most to him? What is valuable to him? If he doesn't mind that someone else might be using that design (someone in his industry is extremely unlikely), I would absolutely do that. In fact I've done it already and it worked very well. Most clients want a good, solid design. They don't care where it comes from. I didn't have to lie to him, I told him I picked it off the Internet, and of course there were some modifications to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would tell the client that to meet time and budget constraints, you're going to have to use a template and customise it to their needs.

If they agree, there's nothing wrong about it, otherwise you can have a discussion about what's really possible in that time frame, and maybe slice and dice until the expectations are more realistic.

</comment><comment><USER4> Drupal devs deploy "premade", open-source code and templates all the time. Indeed, your client sounds like a typical member of Drupal's target market.</comment>


PHP framework comparison benchmarks - <AUTHOR> http://www.avnetlabs.com/php/php-framework-comparison-benchmarks

<comment><USER2> Second last sentence: "I do admit that considering my experience with CodeIgniter, I might have inadvertently set it up optimally without doing the same to the other two frameworks." I felt a little cheated reading that at the very end of the piece, might be better to put it near the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have to say I've become a huge Code Igniter fan over the past year. I didn't use to think much of PHP (I prefer Python), but CI really makes it feel a bit like a real language and they have the best user guide documentation that I've seen for a framework.

If you have to use PHP, I do recommend trying CI-- we've had good experiences with the performance, but that's really not why we toyed with it. Django/Python has been good to us, too, but I was shocked to find that a PHP framework could work out so nicely.

<comment><USER4> Seconded on CI but what I'm surprised about is that there are so many of these speed benchmarks amongst frameworks and what not. But no definite benchmarks on security. Which is a concern of mine in any web project that invovles PHP.

<comment><USER5> Security is only part of the frameworks job. It should definitely follow best practices and have functions to deal with security concerns. But its really the job of the programmer to make sure his/her code is secure. And I don't just mean sanitizing data. For example it's not the frameworks responsibility to make sure you don't put a sequential session ID in a cookie that could easily be hijacked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be interesting to see the Kohana framework (<http://kohanaphp.com>) compared, since it was originally a fork of CI, but includes a true ORM library.

<comment><USER7> +1 for Kohana. Their ORM is superb, and overall the speed of the framework is better than CodeIgniter. Also is developed by a community (as opposed to Ellislab)

<comment><USER6> Also fully PHP5 :)

<comment><USER4> I love Kohana's ORM lib. Another framework I've been impressed with is Akelos. It sports a very progressive tag library remiscient of RoR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They missed my own framework at <http://code.google.com/p/barebonesmvc-php/>

Pretty damn close to straight PHP I'm guessing. Am using for the webUI on an embedded device, manufactured by one fortune 100, for another.

In prior gig for a startup last Aug-Nov, they used Symfony and lost projects for 2 of the most heavily visited websites in the world. Home page took 10s if not 100s of thousands of function calls to render, I know cause I profiled them with XDebug after the fact. They laid off 1/3 of their workforce last week.

<comment><USER9> Could you elaborate on this? It sounds a bit far-fetched that Symfony (a PHP framework) would solely be responsible for losing a company 2 huge contracts and laying off 1/3 of their workforce. 10s of thousands of function calls for a home page? What did the home page do?

I personally have been very impressed by Symfony (version 1.1 was just released this week so it sounds like your experience was with version 1.0 or a beta version), the Symfony community, the IRC channel and the documentation (a full print version book which is really well-written with all of the contents available online for free as well). In the few benchmarks I've seen that actually bothered to include Symfony, it seems to measure up quite well.

Symfony powers Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Answers and at least some portion of Delicious, by the way.

(Sorry to jump in with a first post questioning what you've said, but I would like to understand better what your experience was in order to be aware of potential pitfalls that may be lurking around the bend for me.)

<comment><USER4> Impressive resume on Symfony. I think Symfony powers all of Delicious [http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2007/10/02/delicious- pre...](http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2007/10/02/delicious-preview- built-with-symfony)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find this to be strongly lacking in completeness. There are many different PHP frameworks, libraries, etc. The author decided to compare only 3. Comparing only 3 of anything in a field that is easily 10 times that is somewhat useless, and seems somewhat bias.

That said, I feel it necessary to put together an actual comprehensive test of all the leading frameworks and libraries across platforms. Let me get my WAPT fired up. I'll post the results sometime this month.

(disclaimer: I'm affiliated with NOLOH (<http://www.noloh.com>))

</comment><comment><USER11> CI is very barebones and minimalistic by default, which is what causes the nice benchmarking results. but it also means you might need to do some extra overhead work to get that little bit of functionality you need, or import the right library, as most things are turned off by default.

i'm a long time CI user and i like it more than cake/zend.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can't believe CakePHP is so slow. Probably they have used unstable version. I used cake in few projects and had no problems with speed.

<comment><USER13> CakePHP _is_ slow, sorry.

Speaking from experience here, having rewritten WordPress from scratch and tried a number of frameworks before just biting the bullet and writing my own.

PerformancePress: [http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/wordpress-performancepress- and...](http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/wordpress-performancepress-and- gsoc-2008/)

However, speed in web-scripting languages isn't the kind of thing you notice until it starts to give you trouble. Projects get started and finished, tested and deployed, and only after the real traffic starts coming in that the dismaying results turn up.... so while CakePHP may not feel slow, that doesn't mean it isn't so.

<comment><USER14> I think this is an unfair blanket statement. I think that every APPLICATION, forget framework-dependent or not, will have its bottlenecks.

I see so many size comparisons about which framework is faster than the other... People need to realize that a framework is nothing more than an application library. A smart developper will know how to use it to his/her advantage and will know how to identify bottlenecks and optimize them.

The point is to get your ideas into the wild fast. All you need for that is a development environment YOU'RE comfortable in, be it RoR, CakePHP, Code Igniter, Zend, whatever..

Once your idea is in the wild and generating traffic that breaks all your best optimization tricks, I'd hope that you have enough revenue or interest generated to then start rethinking the framework that it was built upon.

I think if you're rewriting frameworks and tools like wordpress from the get- go, you're missing the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What? No Qcodo?? <http://qcodo.com></comment>


Open Source Software used by Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/opensource/

<comment><USER2> To be honest, "OpenSource + Apple" is a huge, meaningless joke and all the downvoting on HN will not change that.

<comment><USER3> Why, because you say so?

<comment><USER4> Because using != supporting.

<comment><USER5> I'll tell the CUPS and WebKit teams no one is using their work and they should work on something else.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, CUPS... There was something... <https://lwn.net/Articles/485617/></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wherefore art thou Macintosh? - <AUTHOR> http://www.asymco.com/2016/11/02/wherefore-art-thou-macintosh/ <comment><USER2> Not that it really matters, but "wherefore" means "why", not "where". Juliet wasn't wondering where Romeo was, she was lamenting that he was born a Montague.

<comment> xkcd-sucks This is the shibboleth of having taken high school English

<comment><USER3> No it's not! There are _tons_ of places in Shakespeare where he uses _wherefore_ , and that one place in Romeo and Juliet is literally the only usage that's somewhat ambiguous.

> Beatrice: _Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?_ > ([http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html))

When your cousin faints, would anybody ask _where_ they have just fainted?

<comment><USER4> "Shibboleth" doesn't mean "mistake", it means "way to check whether someone belongs to a group". "The shibboleth of having taken high school English" means "you can tell if someone took high school English by whether they know/say this". (It also happens that if they know/say this, they are correct.)

<comment><USER3> I know that. It's still not a shibboleth: on the contrary, the meaning is so clear from the usage (except that one place in Romeo and Juliet), that any fluent speaker will recognize the meaning quickly even if they'd never seen it before. At best, it's a shibboleth for having watched any Shakespeare, but that's not what they meant to say.

There are many places in Shakespeare that are unreadable to a modern-English speaker without explanatory footnotes, but this isn't one of them.

<comment><USER5> I think you'll find that many, _many_ English-speakers think that Juliet is asking where Romeo is. Thus, knowing that she's asking why he's a Montague indicates that one is not one of those many people — it's a shibboleth for having had a minimally decent education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apple should make the Mac business a separate business unit (they could call it Apple Computer...). Then that unit can concentrate on making the best computers they can do. As it is now, the Macs is secondary in importance for Apple's management, and it also takes their attention away from their core phone business at times. Why not just spin it off? Apple can still own 100% of it, the important part to get a management that is completely focused on that business.

<comment><USER7> I think Apple's interest in the Mac is mainly as a platform for iOS development these days. I wonder if there will be a point when they will open up iOS development to other platforms and totally abandon the Mac.

<comment><USER8> Interesting take that I've heard elsewhere. What is this based on? If I understand what you're saying correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong), can we infer that most people who buy Macs are iOS devs?

<comment><USER7> I don't know if most people who buy Macs are iOS devs but I think for Apple they are the ones that count. As far as I understand most Apple profits come from iOS devices so that's probably what their focus is on. It used to be that Macs were for graphics people but they just don't deliver much in that area anymore.

<comment><USER8> There's no doubt that Apple makes significantly more revenue and profit from iPhone than from the Mac. However, I think Apple's interest in the Mac is much broader than just iOS devs. They of course have an interest in ensuring the iOS development experience is good. However, I think their market is much more the everyday computer _user_ , not developer. Admittedly I don't have numbers of how many iOS developers are out there. I'm sure it's less than 20% of the total number of Mac users.

Apple needs to make sure the iOS dev experience is good. I do think that they consider that a much greater audience counts as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This piece seemed kind of interesting and then lost me when it just lead to multi-pargraph heavy handed metaphor,

> But Apple's immune system was suppressed. It allowed a disruptor to emerge > from within. Apple gave birth to its future by suppressing the reaction to > that new seemingly parasitic organism. It took an immense willpower to allow > this to happen.

It's strange that they're criticizing Apple for successfully making a product, the iPhone, that can take off a lot of your PC work, browse/emails/basic things.

Clearly Apple is trying forge a distinctly Macbook Pro path for themselves without diving into phone/tablet territory. Until we have more reviews and impressions from the touch bar out in the wild it's a bit early to write off that effort.

<comment><USER10> >Until we have more reviews and impressions from the touch bar out in the wild it's a bit early to write off that effort.

Disagree. There is much we can surmise and deduce from what we already know.

It runs the WatchOS, which to me seems like a singularly bone-headed decision. Why on earth would they choose to segregate it from the laptop in such a fashion, and use the OS from one of their worst products, to boot? To me these things clearly indicate bad management or lack of vision at the helm.

<comment><USER9> It's short sighted to say "using something from their worst product is a terrible decision."

Reasons why it'd make sense to use that processor

* it's their lowest power chip with the capabilities

* it's already optimized for touch interactions

* it has security enclave built in, which is processor specific

* it allows for a secure separation between the touch id & the web cam from the processor

The last point especially resonates with me. So many web cams get hacked, and getting a wall between the internet and my webcam sounds like a good thing.

<comment><USER10> A company with as many resources as Apple could have integrated the secure enclave into their motherboard design rather than go for this half-baked solution of just slapping an i Watch into the laptop.

So much for Apple's vaunted innovation.

<comment><USER11> Have you ever considered that a company with world class processor and system on a chip expertise might understand this problem space and it's design trade offs better than you?

<comment><USER12> Have you ever considered that Apple can make mistake. iWatch analogy is correct, touch bar is the same idea for Mac as iWatch to iPhone. We know that iWatch is flop and there is not much enthusiasms for new Mac.

<comment><USER8> _" We know that iWatch is flop and there is not much enthusiasms for new Mac."_

What gives you this impression? Looking at the metrics available, it looks like the Apple Watch is doing well, as is the newest MacBook Pro.

 _" Apple Watch revenue totaled $6 billion in its first 12 months of availability."_[0]

 _" Apple Inc. sold twice as many Watches as iPhones in each device's debut year."_[1]

 _" And we are proud to tell you that so far our online store has had more orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before."_ \-- Phil Schiller [2]

 _" The new MacBook Pro has only been available for purchase for about six hours, but shipping estimates on the machine have already slipped from two to three weeks to three to four weeks,"_[3]

This last could be interpreted as Apple having drastically underestimated the stock they needed to have on hand, purposely limited stock so they could make these kinds of quotes, had supply chain issues that prevented them from having the stock they wanted, or didn't want to have large stock on hand, in preference to more JIT delivery.

Happy to be corrected if you have other information.

[0]: [http://bgr.com/2016/04/26/apple-watch-sales-vs- rolex/](http://bgr.com/2016/04/26/apple-watch-sales-vs-rolex/)

[1]: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-watch-with-sizable- sales-c...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-watch-with-sizable-sales-cant- shake-its-critics-1461524901)

[2]: [http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/02/phil-schiller-new- macboo...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/02/phil-schiller-new-macbook-pro- interview/)

[3]: [http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/27/macbook-pro-shipping- est...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/27/macbook-pro-shipping-estimates- begin-slipping/)

<comment><USER12> iWatch is not a flop why Apple do not publish sales figures[0], It fundamentaly flawed product like tablet with stylus :P Apple wanted to sell 50 milion of iWatches maybe 12-30mil was actually sold.

Sure that people are buying MacBook Pro after waiting for so many years..... Your reference from macrumors may be not most objective. Just on HackerNews there was multiple articles with less than enthusiastic views.

Apple became iPhone company, they relase new versions every year. Dell can release like 20 new laptops models but apple need 4 years to relase one ????

[0] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3152514/Apple...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3152514/Apple- Watch-FLOP-Sales-gadget-fallen-90-April-report-claims.html)

<comment><USER11> If selling 12-30 million watches at $250+ each is a flop, I would love to know what you consider a success.

<comment><USER12> It billions worth development and marketing effort to create market for wearable that failed. It is now clear that with current tech it is difficult to sell wearable devices that you need to charge every day by connecting cable to wall.

If Apple keep releasing new versions of Macs in last three years, put more effort in operating system they would make more money than on iWatch. Just look on sales of new MacBook...

Instead of focusing in core business like personal computers now they have platform that is widely inconsistent. They now lose PC market to Windows, iPhone is losing emerging markets and they are behind in innovation: VR, AR, AI...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "It remains indirect, a defining characteristic of the second wave. Indirect inputs are powerful and lend themselves to muscle memory with practice"

It's not indirectness that lends itself to muscle memory but rather staticness. To illustrate this, consider a keyboard that randomly switched between Dvorak and QWERTY. This keyboard would not lend itself to muscle memory at all, despite being as indirect as a normal keyboard.

I think the touchbar could be beneficial in the muscle memory sense if it remains static within an application. At that point it simply becomes a more easily looked up version of Fn key shortcuts (but with potentially poorer tactile feel).

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the article has some good points but I disagree on calling the keyboard an "indirect" input method wrt text. Until touchscreen keyboards _feel_ like a physical keyboard, I don't see them holding a torch when it comes to entering more than a few characters. There's a good reason you can connect a physical Bluetooth keyboard to the iDevices. And while a keyboard / touchscreen combination is certainly possible, it's also not as ergonomic as moving your hand just a little bit to reach a trackpad or mouse from the keyboard. Excitement about new tech is not a good long-term replacement for ergonomics.

</comment><comment><USER15> Without the mac there is no iPhone.

Before disagreeing, ask yourself what every single piece of iPhone software was written on.

Someone has to make the software and you ignore developers at your peril.

<comment><USER16> The developers agry at Apple aren't the ones doing iOS apps, rather the ones using a UNIX with pretty UI, which contribute zero to the amount of iPhone apps.

So it doesn't matter that Apple ignores them.

<comment><USER15> It does matter, just not in the short term.

As people leave the platform, the amount of revenue it makes the company diminishes.

As the revenue earned from Macs diminishes, its importance to the company diminishes and they put less resources towards it.

As its importance to the company diminishes and it gets less resources, the quality diminishes.

As the quality diminishes, they lose other developers also.

It's a slow decline that will take maybe 5-10 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _This is a leap forward and a big deal. For 32 years the UX model of the Mac has been two-handed typing with one handed gesturing. Now we have the option of two-handed indirect manipulation: one hand on the touchbar and one hand on the touchpad. Imagine you've been playing guitar with one hand for years and then someone lets you use your left hand. Holy cow._

I'm trying to keep an open mind here, and I'm really hoping people come with revolutionary input experiences, but at this point in time that paragraph sounds completely ludicrous to me.

</comment><comment><USER18> An article on the MBP hardware evolution with some vision and intellectual substance instead of ankle biting. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER19> The future is not touch. The future is mobile. Mobile is constrained to using touch interfaces, or even more precisely, mobile is constrained to using _touch interface on the active screen_ (as opposed to the touch interface of a trackpad or something). Mobile did not choose this, it was forced on it because there is no other choice. There's no room to put any other input devices on the phone itself, and nobody is going to carry around extra mice or something. (We could _barely_ get some people to use styluses that fit in the device itself.)

It's weird to hear people waxing poetic about touch nowadays, because now that we've all been using touch interfaces for several years, we all should be realizing that they aren't necessarily that awesome. We've all by now used a map app that, as nice as the touch interface was, just didn't quite gel in terms of whether we were zooming, panning, twisting, or trying to select a single location. We should all be able to observe that the act of using a touch interface also means that we must block the line-of-sight to that same interface, meaning both that the touch thing we are interacting with can't feed back in the most natural place to do so, and that touch interfaces must be very large to accommodate the lack of precision. We must all have dealt with the accidental dialing brought on by the touch interface that can't distinguish between fingers and buttocks, or the stray emails we deleted in the act of simply picking up our phone, or the accidental order placed when we tried to clean a drop of water or a speck of dust off the screen. And I don't care how good you are with that touch keyboard, you'd be better on something that could have custom-built haptic feedback, and ideally, haptic feedback you can "feel" without triggering inputs, too. Touch screens are still the best solution for mobile, but they are clearly not "all that".

From this point of view, where mobile is the future but touch just happens to be along for that ride, bodging touch on to a laptop isn't that impressive and there's no reason to believe it's the wave of the future. I've actually _got_ "touch" on my laptop, in the form of my trackpad, and for a 2D slab, I get rather a lot of distinct inputs out of it. Remember that everything I can use that for comfortably is one more opportunity that I don't need a "touchbar" for. (That's been my real criticism of the touchbar; it's not necessarily intrinsically a bad idea or fundamentally useless, it's that the list of things for which it is the _best solution_ is rather short. And I'm not saying it's _empty_... just _short_. In particular, it's much shorter than the list of things that it _could_ be used for, but for which it's not the best solution.)

Further, despite not particularly wanting it the laptop I'm typing this on has a full touchscreen. Mostly I remember this when I go to clean the screen of some bit of dust and my mouse cursor starts jumping around. I don't need it for much. Even when acquiring a button on the screen, the touchpad is faster than removing my hand from the keyboard and clicking. My touchpad already has several useful gestures, draining away the marginal utility of other touch interfaces. It's not that useful, even though it's sitting right in front of me. Now, it's not a 2-in-1, where I can at least see the use case, but, neither is the new Mac, right? It's just not _that_ useful. Not _useless_ , but not very useful.

It's not touch that's the future, it's mobile. The still-not-yet-mature-but- still-inevitable "mobile phone that docks to a desktop and provides its guts" will be a hybrid device, and the "touchiness" is irrelevant.

(Actually, now that I think of it this way, the Nintendo Switch may be the closest thing to a successful implementation of that I've seen in a while. Perhaps if that succeeds, it'll open the doors to computer versions of that idea.)

<comment><USER20> _Mobile is constrained to using touch interfaces_

Currently, but do you think this is the end game? Why not voice, gesture, eye tracking, or some as yet unachievable brain interface? The seemingly insurmountable defects you point out (lack of feedback without activation, hand obscuring the screen) would seem to imply that touch is never going to be the best universal interface.

 _My touchpad already has several useful gestures, draining away the marginal utility of other touch interfaces._

I'm surprised that I haven't seen built-in touchpads that integrate a screen, maybe modal between the displayed screen in miniature, a zoom of the cursor, and a menu space. Might it make more sense to integrate a display into the existing touch interface rather than adding a new (hard to reach) one? On the other hand, I've been surprised that my friends who use tablet interfaces for graphics work don't find the integrated screen approach ([http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-displays](http://www.wacom.com/en- us/products/pen-displays)) to be compelling.

<comment><USER21> Voice was my immediate thought too. While I hate the idea of it (people are already bad enough in confined public spaces) it is great for specific tasks at appropriate times "call John Doe" is far faster than navigating to his number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Three things that could have been better about this post:

1\. Too long.

2\. That graph with the unlabelled red line was really distracting; I had no idea what to make of it. Similarly, the "Percent of Time Spent" had the key cut off on the right for me, so I just saw: Deskt, Mobile, Mobile. Be sure to adjust your browser width to see how you post looks at different widths, and use good graphs.

3\. One thing that has to be helping Mac sales is this, yet it wasn't mentioned. IBM's had a lot of press about switching from Windows to macOS:

[https://9to5mac.com/2015/10/15/ibm-mac- support/](https://9to5mac.com/2015/10/15/ibm-mac-support/)

<comment><USER23> Yeah this guy is bad at his graphs

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> iPhone = notepad

iPad = clipboard

Mac = desk

</comment><comment><USER25> > capturing over 60% of the available PC hardware profits

These profits are not available, they are MADE. Mostly by Apple.</comment>


Cycle.js 0.7 "Diversity" released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cyclejs/core/releases/tag/v7.0.0 <comment><USER2> It's sad that Cycle.js isn't getting more attention here on HN. It's truly a novel paradigm - the idea that your app is part of this loop which is entirely reactive, and that's how you communicate with the outside world.

I'm not sure this paradigm has been used elsewhere. For sure reactive programming ideas have been used in Elm and other frameworks outside the JS world, but the idea of a "reactive loop" is really game-changing to me.

<comment><USER3> Let's cry all together.

<comment><USER4> I'm crying for different reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Cycle's core abstraction is your application as a pure function main() where inputs are read effects (sources) from the external world and outputs (sinks) are write effects to affect the external world. These side effects in the external world are managed by drivers: plugins that handle DOM effects, HTTP effects, etc._

Cyclejs home: [http://cycle.js.org/](http://cycle.js.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> <3</comment>


Show HN: A galery of the best Facebook pages - <AUTHOR> http://makebetterfanpages.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Feedback and of course page suggestions are very welcome!</comment>


The Sears catalog had an even bigger impact in 1900 than Amazon has had today - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/the-long-hard-unprecedented-fall-of-sears <comment><USER2> I think Sears _really_ dropped the ball in not putting its' catalog(s) online in 1995-1996 or so. They, at the time, were one of the only companies around with most of the infrastructure to handle that scenario... I think the K-Mart merger was probably a bad decision as well.

Even if they'd put the catalog online, and established a "cart" where you had to call to place the order, they could have done it well before CC processing online was common.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Somewhere I read an excellent writup about how their CEO dismissed e-commerce entirely at the time, saying no one would want to buy anything online... and that if they had gone they way, Amazon wouldn't have been able to move beyond books (remember when they were once just a bookstore!?). Instead, they doubled down, paving the way for Amazon to break in.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I actually recall a discussion with one of their very senior IT guys and being rebuffed that the web was a fad, and it'd go the way of Prodigy. If Sears had come in around 1996, they'd be the biggest retailer globally today by a large margin... they already had most of the infrastructure ready. I remember hearing on the news when they shut down their catalog dept, and thinking to myself, "dumbass."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really surprising how Sears isn't bigger than even Amazon with how they started with their catalog.

One of the downsides of not taking technology seriously. Though, there's a flipside to it too. Colecovision failed too during the video game crash.

Colecovision was made by Connecticut Leather Company.

So jumping into technology isn't always a sure bet either.

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazon just needs to sell DIY houses now.

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

<comment><USER6> It'd be interesting if Amazon (or even Sears) did sell a "DIY House Kit" system.

Imagine if the house came as a series of 3/4" plywood sheets, pre-marked with cut lines; you cut out the pieces, then they are assembled slot/tab style into a home using an instruction booklet (plus glue, nails, insulation, etc to complete). Almost like a flat-pack home delivered in a 40 foot container or a flatbed trailer.

That could be the "base model"; there could also be a model where you purchase a custom 4x8' bed CNC router table. Feed it "blank" 3/4" plywood sourced locally, and it cuts out the parts from plans "in the cloud" or in some other manner. Parts are assembled in the same manner.

Final level (?) might be an on-site crew to assemble it, if you don't have the skills or time to do so yourself.

Only thing you'd have to supply otherwise would be a foundation; this could potentially be concrete slab, or maybe wood or other material raised above ground on pylons cast from concrete or made of native materials (or, maybe it too could be included in the kit?).

Kinda pie-in-the-sky, but the concept of building such a house has been prototyped (first saw something like this in the book about the MIT Fab Lab), the software and hardware all exist; in theory you could DIY this whole solution if you wanted to today (you'd have to create your own custom home design, though - that's where it would be tough).

There'd also be the maze and potential rejection of homeowner's insurance for non-standard construction (similar to what people building straw-bale or rammed-earth houses face), or rejection for the same due to strict codes on construction allowances for the home site...

...which is probably why it hasn't been done yet.

<comment><USER7> You're basically describing the Sears kit homes. They were quite successful; it's a real shame Sears stopped making them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The benefit the Sears catalog brought America are basically identical to the ones Walmart did.</comment>


Interviews with makers of high-end mechanical keyboards - <AUTHOR> https://endgame.fyi <comment><USER2> I really wanted to be a keyboard snob but it just didn't stick.

Mushy keys give me tendinitis on the backs of my hands.

The cherry browns on my one keyboard were okay, but not worth twice an old school Microsoft natural. And people talk about the clacking bothering others but what about the clacking bothering _me_?

My dirty secret is that the most comfortable keyboard I've ever used is the Apple wired USB keyboard they discontinued. Especially for face-rolling computer games. Hours and hours with no fatigue.

I wish I'd started collecting them the moment they were discontinued. I only own three and have a habit of killing them with beverages every couple of years. I'm one accident from having a home keyboard and a work one and no backups.

I don't know why everyone wants keyboard with a long throw, like we are using typewriters. (Oddly though I'm the opposite for mice: give me a keyboard light as a feather and a mouse built like a neutron star)

<comment><USER3> > I don't know why everyone wants keyboard with a long throw, like we are > using typewriters.

I think it's just a sensation thing. It feels and sounds satisfying to press a mechanism and hear a thunk with each keystroke. I don't think there's any practical purpose.

<comment><USER4> Can't speak for others, but for me it's not a question of satisfaction and I absolutely hate loud keyboards (even if it's mine). The attraction for mechanical keys, for me, comes from the fact that I can type without having to press hard on the keys and without bottoming out. For me, the Cherry Brown and similar ("tactile bump, no click") are the best. They're tolerable noise-wise and have enough feedback.

Whenever I switch to my mac (2013 model) or work pc laptop (hp probook) I tend to miss a lot of keys because I don't press hard enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A clarification: these are interviews with people who assemble custom keyboards, I was expecting chats with the people who actually design and produce custom keyboards (like yuktsi, Rama, Wilba, ZealPC, etc...)

Still, very cool to see what people are building. I've just recently fallen down into the rabbit hole of custom keyboards, after my Apple Keyboard stopped working. As someone who spends almost half my life at a keyboard, I'm surprised it took this long for me to look into improving the tool I interact with most every day.

<comment><USER6> > A clarification: these are interviews with people who assemble custom > keyboards, I was expecting chats with the people who actually design and > produce custom keyboards (like yuktsi, Rama, Wilba, ZealPC, etc...)

At least one of them is with a board designer, the V4N4G0N one with Evan (formerly of TheVan Keyboards)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would love to use a custom built keyboard, but my RSI makes it so I can only type on a Kinesis Advantage for extended periods of time. I'm surprised more people don't use them, the traditional keyboard layout makes very little sense. It's crazy how much inertia many sub-optimal things have.

<comment><USER5> I'd really love to see more data on whether ergonomic keyboards actually work. From what I've read, it sounds like the results are mixed: I kind of want to try a split keyboard like the ergodox or Kinesis, but I feel I tend to cross- over a fair amount when typing, and I wonder if a split keyboard would be less efficient.

I also overthink a lot about the position of frequently used keys like Cmd/Ctrl/Alt (on a Mac for instance), and what the optimal placement would be, and I feel like there's very little data about this topic.

<comment><USER8> I find the motion of rotating the hands outward past the neutral position, such as to strike the enter key on a standard keyboard, to be extremely unnatural and the source of major RSI. I switched over to an ergodox ez out of necessity, and found that moving all frequently used keys to the thumb pads or to layers near the home row was extremely helpful. I think is because it eliminated those frequent outward flexes and ensured that the wrists remain almost always in a neutral position. I think the health benefits of keeping the wrists neutrally positioned while typing is uncontroversial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A few years ago I owned a WASD with cherry greens. Great switches, but otherwise a very standard keyboard. It died in an unfortunate encounter with a cup of coffee. As a replacement I got an Ergodox EZ to reduce hand strain. At the urging of my wife, who desperately wanted the clicks to stop, I got mine with brown equivalents to stop clicking. Browns are fine, but I really prefer greens or blues.

Fast forward a year and my wife got a new job with a generous WFH stipend, and she too wants a nice ergonomic keyboard with macros so she can do things faster. And wouldn't you freaking know it, she got her Kineses Freestyle with Cherry freaking blues.

(I can actually change the switches in my Ergodox, I just haven't gotten around to spending $50 on extra switches).

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the good things about remote working is not having to share an office with people who smash out features on mechanical keyboards as if they believe more decibels translate to better code.

<comment><USER11> But now, with so many conf calls, you get to hear the loud keyboards which are positioned just in front of the mic :-o

<comment><USER10> There's a really good gfx developer who live streams shader development who I stopped watching because of the keyboard noise. It's just _so_ annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My all time favorite is Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 from Microsoft. I can not tolerate small keyboards with many keys missing.

<comment><USER13> I am a fan too. But eventually the absence of an integrated pointing device was a deal breaker. If I have to use a mouse, the ergonomics of the keyboard are only part of the equation because I can't use a mouse in my lap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's the point of having many of the same keyboards which are practically identical? The layout is the same.

I totally understand ergonomic keyboards (I have Quefrency and Sinc for home and office), but clones of the same 60% Etc. layout with just different case maybe? Key caps are replaceable and if you get a kit with the switches you like, you have more or less seen it all.

<comment><USER15> Different appearance, different materials, different weights, different build quality, different keyboard features, and so on. For example, some of the keyboards have hot-swappable key switches. Some people just like to experiment with switches. And also the quality of a keyboard affects how the keys will sound. LED lighting or no LED lighting. There are also different types of layouts within 60%. Non-standard backspace keys, right shift keys, etc. As an example, one of the keyboards here features a Fn key to the right of the right Shift key.

Lastly, these are a form of self-expression mixed with personal comfort tastes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> None of these are ergonomic. I think that's missing the whole point of custom design, i.e., it misses the greatest opportunity to customize the functionality of a keyboard.

<comment><USER17> The same kinds of people who custom keyboards are the ones doing UI design for open source software

<comment><USER18> Lol not sure why but this is accurate. It's like aesthetics got disease and a tumor or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple standard chiclet keyboard is what I use. Problem with MK is how much travel a key has - it tires your fingers out v

</comment><comment><USER19> None of these keyboards have a numeric keypad; these are for fancy design and not for heavy use.

<comment><USER20> Many developers get along just fine with no numpad. We're not accountants.

<comment><USER18> Dev myself. Can't live without a numpad.

<comment><USER21> Also dev here. I miss the numpad maybe once a quarter but better ergonomics and posture make it worth it. Without a numpad I can keep the letter part of the keyboard right in front of me instead of slightly shifted to the left.

My keyboard is also programmable so CapsLock+WASD are my arrow keys and once you have that down, you will never want to go back.

<comment><USER8> Likewise, ortholinear programmable keyboard. Holding down one of the left hand home-row keys turns a numpad-sized chunk of keys under the right hand into a numpad.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A simple motherboard swap can make you a fraudster - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21058994

<comment><USER2> > That's important, he said, because the address on that component, the MAC > address, is logged along with an Internet Protocol (IP) address when a > computer goes online. Everything that connects to the net needs an IP > address so data can reach the right destination.

umm... no it wouldn't. assuming its set up like a normal household only their router would have their computers mac address...</comment>


Teen mastermind of Twitter hack was involved in fatal home invasion, say police - <AUTHOR> https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2020/08/04/tampa-teen-accused-in-twitter-hack-linked-to-deadly-home-invasion-records-show/ <comment><USER2> Nice cover story to gloss over what really happened.

17 year old will never be caught. His identity is entirely fictional.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously looking forward to this movie. Jessie Eisenberg maybe?

</comment><comment><USER4> He's not doing himself any favors by making that super creepy face for his mugshot...

<comment><USER5> He didn't.

Like many teenagers do, especially in this kind of situation, he was looking down, not making eye contact. The police then order him to look at the camera to get their mugshot. We can probably assume they didn't ask nicely.

It's to the advantage of police that they take (and release) the very worst possible mug shot of their perp when they can get reactions like yours.

<comment><USER6> lol it's not a beauty contest. if you line up for a picture, expect a picture to be taken. you don't get to pick the best shot out of ten.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had to click four times to close popups before I could read this article. What is the internet coming to?</comment>


In-flight entertainment: Bring your own - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/09/flight-entertainment

<comment><USER2> I know this has been brought up before, but I'd like to toss in my two cents.

For HN posts that link to paywalled articles, I would like to suggest a [paywall] tag be appended to the title.

This will indicate that for someone like me, who doesn't subscribe to The Economist, I would have better luck skipping the link itself and instead going straight to the HN comments, where (hopefully) a user with access to the full text will be kind enough to post a brief summary. (Presumably, the OP should have access, and I would like to gently suggest that it should be he or she who writes the summary.)

I would also like to suggest that if you notice a post with a [paywall] tag, and someone has gone to the trouble of summarizing it, you vote that person up even if you would ordinarily not take the trouble.

Finally, I would like to suggest that these summaries self-identify not as tl;dr (too long; didn't read) but te;dr (too expensive; didn't read).

<comment><USER3> Where is the paywall or has the link been changed? If I click on the link I'm able to read the article and I didn't subscribe/pay for anything...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> wish list: Oculus Rift with access to camera feed from outside the plane. talk about flying!

</comment><comment><USER5> Enter Captain Netflix! With the cable networks improving to compete with the online content providers (hulu, hboGo, etc), Streaming in-flight could be a Business Class feature.

<comment><USER6> How feasible would it be to put a netflix cache box on each airplane? What capacity is required?

<comment><USER7> Netflix costs 3 GB/Hr for HD[1].

Considering a movie is about 2 hrs, thats 6 GB/Movie. Say they have a "limited" library of 300 movies thats 1800 GB.

Considering a short tv show is about 20 mins, thats 1GB/ Episode. Say they have the latest 1000 episodes of all the latest shows, thats 1000 GB.

Considering a long tb show is about 40 mins, thats 2Gb/Episode. Say they have the latest 1000 episodes of all the latest shows thats 2000 GB.

This brings the total to 4800 GB, rounded up to about 5 TB. If they have complete copy of everything that's 10TB. 4 TB costs about $200 [2]. If you got 3, you spend $800. Even if you triple capacity, you're only spending $1800. Obviously there are other costs involved but I think it's definitely plausible and affordable. Probably also much cheaper to negotiate with Netflix on a per seat basis rather than content distributors separately. Only disadvantage is that you wont get "currently in theaters" movies which a lot of international airlines have.

[1] [https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87](https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87) [2] [http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600003489%20600217643&IsNodeId=1&name=4TB)

<comment><USER8> Can you stream different HD videos to 100 passengers at once from one storage device? (I don't know much about the performance of modern storage devices.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fine with me! Will save me the hassle of disabling the TVs on the seats of most flights so I can get some sleep.

<comment><USER10> By 'disabling', I hope you just mean 'turning off'.

<comment><USER9> Yes. Or in the case of some airlines, slowly turning the brightness down until the screen doesn't render anything (until the next announcement starts and I have to do it again).</comment></comment></comment>


What Does It Take to Climb Up the Ladder? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/what-does-it-take-to-climb-up-the-ladder.html <comment><USER2> Is it just me that chill? when I read things like:

> the expected returns to child investments by parents with > limited > resources and uncertain futures may be lower than > for more educated > parents with greater and more secure > investment capabilities.

Sure we live in a capitalist society, but treating my sons like an "investment opportunity" looks crazy.

<comment><USER3> The fact that you have an emotional attachment to your children is evidence of their value. Things that provide value are assets, and things that provide value over time are investments.

A common share of Google may give you financial value in return, whereas a child will give you emotional or psychological return. Technically, children should be classified as more of an investment than stock because they can go work and provide for you financially while still giving you emotional value. Stock can't really give you emotional value (other than pride).

<comment><USER2> This mixing of the meaning of "value" and the small subset of the meaning labeled as "monetary value" that is crazy.

<comment><USER4> Take a thing that you consider to have "value". How much money would I have to give you to convince you to give that thing up? That's it's "monetary value".

There's an old saying: Everyone has a price. I'm not convinced it's 100% true for everyone on every topic, but in general terms, it holds quite well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A question I'm interested in that is related to this topic: what are the limits to improving conditions through education? For example, if we improve chances for everyone we might end up with thousands more aspiring brain surgeons that will never have the opportunity to pursue their dream, simply because there's a limit to the amount of brain surgeries we will ever need to perform.

Isn't improving chances for all going to create misery for those that have their prospects raised, but whose ambition exceeds their talent? I'm reminded of an essay titled The Rise of the Meritocracy in which if I recall correctly a perfect meritocracy is depicted, and one of the problems is that the unsuccessful genuinely have no one to blame but themselves for their status and are even more miserable as a result!

<comment><USER6> It is an interesting question. Although, you do have to differentiate between learning skills and an actual education, which I take to be an improvement in critical thinking and general overall awareness.

I still think there would be interesting problems to solve, even in a perfectly educated society. I don't want to be a brain surgeon, or any surgeon, or anything really in the medical field. There is a theory that some people are "naturally inclined" to certain tasks and maybe we could realize that and have a society that allows everyone to specialize in that...

<comment><USER7> The problem is that natural inclination doesn't always line up with demand.

Many people may want to be a professional beer taster, but we don't need very many of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I didn't see error bars or distribution within each category on those graphs. Are these results significant enough to indicate these traits have more then a few % points impact on upward mobility chance?

</comment><comment><USER7> "the failure of government efforts to affect or slow down negative developments has left an opening for conservatives to argue that government interventions make things worse."

Why does the author dismiss the possibility that the argument has at least some truth to it?

For a variety of reasons, some which are due to government policy, the necessity of marriage has reduced dramatically.

That's good in many ways, such as reducing abusive situations. But it also means that people who could get married peacefully choose not to, to the detriment of their children.

</comment><comment><USER9> >Key characteristics for success: perseverance, industriousness, grit, resilience, curiosity, application, self-control, future orientation, self- discipline, impulse control, delay of gratification

Students may left to figure out successful habits on their own. I believe education could be improved by officially defining successful habits. It may sound silly to have Tony Robbins courses taught in school but something along those lines could have great benefits. As it stands today, parents are left to define successful habits and that is not happening for every child growing up.

</comment><comment><USER10> To summarize if you have a family with a mother and father who make a of money you will likely make a lot of money.

<comment><USER11> Well, yes, but that doesn't answer why.

I would suggest that some portion of intelligence has a hereditary factor, and (outside entertainment and professional sports) intelligence has a correlation with income levels.

<comment><USER12> Cultural capital is a thing as well, one of the big reasons rich people's kids get more successful is because they know people / they know how to behave with other rich people.

<comment><USER11> That is a thing, certainly. If you chose two kids with identical IQs/personalities, the child with wealthier parents would have an easier time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this measuring a causal relationship though? Correlation is not causation...

Maybe those kids from more wealthy/well-educated families are more persistent and tempered because their self-image aligns with society's looming popular image of what people /should/ be: wealthy, polymath millionaires.

<comment><USER7> This article is not a standard "character drives prosperity" piece. Did you read it? If so, I am missong your point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well the stats aren't talking at all about success but about persistance and self control

</comment><comment><USER15> > For college graduates, they argue, "marriage has become the commitment > device that supports intensive joint investments in children," a cooperative > "joint project of raising economically successful children."

This is a great article but this point kind of made me chuckle. "Has become?" It's always been that.

<comment><USER16> I got married while _in_ college, and generally recommend it.

For one thing, it made sense financially because the gov't stopped counting my parent's money (that I couldn't touch) when determining how much aid I received.

It was also nice just to have someone to help me out with things (eating decently, remembering to print homework, etc.)

And, of course, the usual benefits of being married...

<comment><USER17> > For one thing, it made sense financially because the gov't stopped counting > my parent's money (that I couldn't touch) when determining how much aid I > received.

Can confirm. If my (now) wife and I'd gotten married freshman year instead of waiting until junior year we'd have saved a hell of a lot of money.

> It was also nice just to have someone to help me out with things (eating > decently, remembering to print homework, etc.)

Works both ways. One person's ice-cream craving easily becomes both people eating ice cream, to pick an example. Or "I'm in a hurry and hitting Arby's, do you want me to bring you something?". Well, I didn't, but now I guess I do.

Much easier to eat healthy solo unless you marry someone with significantly healthier eating habits than yours, IMO. Even if they're just similar to yours there's a good chance you'll end up eating more junk for the above reason. And such habits can drift over the years.

<comment><USER18> Maybe HN readers are preternaturally mature for their ages, but marrying young for material benefits has a pretty bad track record in the military, where young soldiers do it in order to live off post.

<comment><USER18> Well, marrying young for material benefits and being in love. I have no problem with gaming the system for benefits, because marriage is unfortunately tied to so many benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm going to go off on a tangent here, and will happily accept downvotes, but I feel like venting for a bit.

I love the NYT. Years ago, when I got into it, I was blown away by Krugman, Kristof, Friedman (yes), and even David Brooks. They sounded sensible, nuanced, and _intelligent_.

A lof of that hasn't changed (except perhaps my opinion of Friedman!), but NYT's comment section is a cesspool. I'm as liberal as they come, but every NYT comment section is effectively blaming the right-wing regardless of the context of the article. When Brooks talks about values for example, or "social fabric", I think he does a good job of being reasonable, and if the article were from "anon" vs. Brooks, people would say "Yeah, sounds about right." Instead, all we get are "David, _your_ party caused this, blah blah blah".

Even in this article, there is a lot of data and lots of food for thought. And yet, the top comment starts out: _" Is the problem "single mothers" or is it the right-wingers who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality?"_

It's as if you only care about establishing what side the author belongs too, argument be damned.

<comment><USER20> This is the web today. I stopped reading comments on most articles long ago because it's always like you described. This does nobody any good. Actually, it does politicians good to keep us separated down the middle. We are at our weakest in this position.

<comment><USER5> I knew this reminded me something, it's Chomsky (I had to google it):

'The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.'

<comment><USER21> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) in REAL World

</comment><comment><USER23> Two feet and the desire to climb it.

<comment><USER24> >the desire to climb it

Isn't the article implying that even the very desire and will to climb it are significantly influenced by upbringing, income, etc?

So even if two feet and the desire were all you really needed, you'd still be at a disadvantage compared to people in different income brackets and more stable family status.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Taking one's hands out of one's pockets.</comment>


Recovered, almost: China's early patients unable to shed coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-patients-ins/recovered-almost-chinas-early-patients-unable-to-shed-coronavirus-idUSKCN2240HI <comment><USER2> Bad use of word 'shed' for the headline. If they are unable to shed the virus then it's a good thing.</comment>


Falcon Heavy Model – Flight 1 [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQt-9SSJ51c <comment><USER2> From what I can tell, this guy is working pretty much by himself (or he fails to give credit to others). If true, that's quite impressive.

There's a little more info on his site (with some index finger scrolling fatigue): [https://bps.space/falcon-heavy](https://bps.space/falcon-heavy)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a video of his landing program! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_hJ48LCXWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_hJ48LCXWs)

</comment><comment><USER4> He even resembles Elon Musk! :-)

<comment><USER5> Completely. If they were going to make a biopic on musk, this guy should play him...

That said, great video and impressive work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I find interesting about this is that in the RC and drone building and flying community, you have generally two categories of aircraft:

a) Aircraft that are designed to be a faithful scale model of a real thing, with all of the intricate modeling and painting work that goes into it. For example there's a person who built a model of an Antonov 225: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRI2y0cwHd0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRI2y0cwHd0)

You can find flying B-29 models, jet airliner models, etc.

and then

b) Aircraft that are designed for a dedicated purpose and look nothing like anything that exists in the 1:1 scale aviation world, such as the "Believer" foam first-person-video plane: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf4x5XhHvD4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf4x5XhHvD4)

where (b) includes other clean sheet of paper designs like Zipline's blood bank delivery drone, which has a recovery method not dissimilar to a Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeSCEalMOL8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeSCEalMOL8)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://bps.space/](https://bps.space/) has some additional details, including the flight computer that does thrust vectoring (on a model rocket!).

This makes me want to build model rockets again..

<comment><USER8> > _This makes me want to build model rockets again.._

If you need FOSS app for design & simulate model rockets -- use _OpenRocket_.[0,1,2]

There are many tutorials on YouTube.[3,4,5,6,7]

[0] [http://openrocket.info](http://openrocket.info)

[1] [https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket](https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket)

[2] [https://sourceforge.net/projects/openrocket](https://sourceforge.net/projects/openrocket)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCU8QRVkdYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCU8QRVkdYQ)

[4] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pp- mVTBd14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pp-mVTBd14)

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUaeJ7GV_WPTp26NIkg4rg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUaeJ7GV_WPTp26NIkg4rg)

[6] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egHbZUEr_Co](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egHbZUEr_Co)

[7] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeWSz41c1ic4pBmUIiZQsTQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeWSz41c1ic4pBmUIiZQsTQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really enjoyed the "cinematography" that went into this -- made it extra special. The little _boop_ comment in the middle of a very crucial detachment made me laugh pretty hard. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER10> Ikarus electric "rocket" \- Thrust-vectored flying ducted fan

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMeEh5OUaDs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMeEh5OUaDs)

</comment><comment><USER11> Someone once told me you're not supposed to make rockets with guidance control (in the US) because they are then missiles. Is that true? Is this guy in the US?

<comment><USER12> His flight systems are all attitude control, not guidance to a target. It's a silly distinction but apparently makes things OK. He's talked with state dept people a lot to be able to sell his kits internationally.

<comment><USER11> >> His flight systems are all attitude control, not guidance to a target. It's a silly distinction but apparently makes things OK.

I'm not sure how thrust vectoring is altitude control... I suppose it's OK to steer then so long as your "target" is the general direction _up_. I can see value in that.

<comment><USER13> attitude control, not altitude control. Thrust vectoring controls the attitude of the rocket. As in where the nose is pointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unless the video is greatly slowed down, this launches significantly slower than every model rocket I've ever seen.

<comment><USER14> The footage is hugely slowed down, hence the deep pitch of the rocket motor sounds (they are usually very 'hissy' at this size), and the slow speed of the sparks coming from the motors. Also if you listen closely when the rocket is descending and deploying parachutes you can hear the greatly-slowed-down sound of a DSLR shutter actuating repeatedly (ka-thunk-beep) as photos are taken of the descent.

<comment><USER6> To avoid disturbing others in the same room, I watched this at first with sound entirely off. Watching it again with the benefit of sound it's blindingly obvious that this is slowed down significantly... Facepalm time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be interesting if he could add GPS to Signal[1] boards. GPS would obviously provide lat/long, but also altitude.

[1] [https://bps.space/signal/](https://bps.space/signal/)

<comment><USER16> He's measuring altitude with the onboard Barometer. Adding GPS to this board would make it highly problematic from a legal standpoint.</comment></comment>