How To Actually Win A Fist Fight - <AUTHOR> http://blog.joethepeacock.com/2008/01/how-to-acutally-win-fist-fight.php?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> Great advice for a boxing or MMA match. For barfights:

A) Don't.

B) Swing first, while the guy's still jawing at you and before he thinks you'll actually do it. Don't threaten to punch someone or step outside, just punch them. A sucker punch is by far the best way to hit someone square in the jaw.

C) Keep hitting him. Contrary to the article, there's one great time to kick someone in a fight, it's while they're down.

D) Again, seriously, don't.

<comment><USER3> E] Pick up a chair and break it on their skull, kick them in the groin, gouge eyes, go for the throat, stomp head, whatever it takes to make them go down and stay down.

You could be seriously hurt/killed in a fight, so don't give the other guy the opportunity to do it to you. If you're not willing to go that far, you shouldn't be fighting.

If you can cause them to realize that this is not a game and you're not two kids slapping each other, and that this is a situation that could

1] get them killed

and

2] be avoided

they might give it a second thought.

<comment><USER4> Which action movie did you just walk in from? If you progress from bar fight to attempted murder like this what happens is people pull you off the guy, the police come, you get arrested. That's if you're lucky.

<comment><USER3> I guess we live in different places and people from different places approach things differently. I don't get in fights any more because I don't particularly feel like being hospitalized again, and some of my acquaintances are dead.

If I have a choice, I walk away. But if I stay, the reason must be good enough for me to go hard instead of going home.

The only place I've ever seen a fight broken up was at school, and even then, rarely. Teachers don't want to get hurt over nothing. So much for "people pull you off the guy".

My point was just that, you can technically be killed with a single hit. Don't approach fights like you will be fine. Don't assume people will pull the guy off you. Your life is at risk regardless of how mundane it may seem. Take it seriously.

While I'm lecturing, take driving your car seriously too. Flying down the road in a metal box surrounded by people who aren't paying attention isn't safe either. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always think its funny when a bunch of nerds start talking about how to win a fight. I say that as a nerd who got beat up and pushed around a lot in elementary up through high school. Once I could afford it I made it a point to study self defense, not so that I could fight, but so I at least had the confidence to know how to handle myself.

Learning to fight for its own sake is dumb if your plan is to do it outside of a structured sporting event. Keep in mind I don't mean self defense. Most people won't get into a fight unless they feel extremely confident about winning. That could mean they are much bigger, well trained, armed, have lots of friends, etc. If you don't know how to defend yourself, you probably won't figure it out in the time it takes someone to punch you. The best defense is to know when to get out.

Just had a big confrontation with someone at a bar? The time to leave is NOW (before he comes back with friends, a bottle to the back of the head, finds you stumbling out drunk, etc). During that confrontation? Keep your hands up and the other person away from you - pretty much the same stance as if you were going to throw a punch but with your hands open. Don't turn your back to someone who is aggressive - back away slowly.

If worse comes to worse you won't remember any techniques you read here or elsewhere unless you've practiced them A LOT. Just try and remember that while there are no rules you shouldn't try to escalate a fight any more than you need to in order to get away. What I mean by this is if someone shoves you, just walk away. IF you throw a punch then they throw a punch, etc. You hit a guy and he goes down? Great, now leave. Start kicking him now and maybe his 2 or 3 friends decide it's a good time to jump in instead of helping their friend up. Don't escalate a situation unnecessarily.

If you want more than this - go take Krav Maga classes for a year or two - then you'll at least (hopefully) be able to throw a decent punch without hurting yourself.

</comment><comment><USER6> My wife went to high school with a big, nice guy who got in a fight in his senior year. He connected to the other guy's jaw. The other guy fell, hit his head, and later died. A manslaughter charge was the least of his problems; the guilt was worse.

Turn the other cheek. Avoid sustained eye contact with drunk men in bars. Drive courteously.

<comment><USER7> That kind of fluke thing could have just have easily have happened to the 'nice guy', and he would be the dead one right now. Its not clear who in your story was the aggressor, but there is no shame in defending yourself. And of course, violence is always the last option.

<comment><USER6> Pure self-defense, sure, no legal guilt and no public shame. Privately, who knows? They were both 'nice guys' BTW.

<comment><USER8> How can the other guy be a 'nice guy' if it was pure self-defense? Was he just having a rotten day?

<comment><USER6> The first sentence of my reply was in the hypothetical world posed by the previous message. As to the actual fight, I don't know who started the fight, or who had pure motives. The judgement of 'nice' is more to indicate that we are not talking about 'badass' guys who made a habit of fighting.

<comment><USER8> I understand. It's a good point. There aren't really any evil people. Just stupid decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This post talks a lot about stance and how to throw a punch, and it does mention grappling but if you're talking about your standard bar fight then I think grappling is where everything happens. How often have you seen a bar fight where two people circled each other, jabbing and feinting like a boxing match? More often than not they grapple messily, go to the ground, flail around some more at each other, and then their friends break them up.

I wrestled (scholastic wrestling) in high school and college, and that experience has helped me tremendously in whatever bar scuffles I've ended up with. If anyone did want actual advice on how to win a bar fight, the first thing I'd suggest is they take lessons in something like freestyle wrestling or judo. If you can handle yourself in close quarters, you can negate a lot of what a bigger or stronger opponent could do.

One more thing, since I see some people advocating "just knock him out with a 2x4 while he's still jawing at you" -- as I almost learned the hard way in college, if you throw the first punch, that's assault. It's very tempting when some idiot is jawing at you to just end things before they start, but then he could call the cops and press charges and you'll have a huge legal hassle to deal with for the next year. Once he swings at you, retaliation is self- defense and it's fair game.

</comment><comment><USER10> You're probably going to forget everything you read in this article in a month unless you review it on a regular basis, and if you're going to go to that much effort, you might as well sign up for a real class and get some experience throwing another person's body around!

If you don't want to spend time learning and practicing fighting techniques, but you're worried about how you'll fare in a fight, add this to the long list of reasons to keep yourself strong and well-conditioned. Technique is a strength multiplier, and you don't have any technique. An experienced fighter is a wonder of efficency and minimal effort; you won't be. It's amazing how fast you can get tired in a situation where you're going all out (and it's a bad idea to work any less hard than the other guy -- that's another strategy that's only for people who practice and have real skill!)

<comment><USER11> _It's amazing how fast you can get tired in a situation where you're going all out_

This is a point that gets overlooked far too often. I have seen plenty of people in peak physical fitness run out of steam after 2 to 3 minutes.

What most people forget is that as well as physical exertion your body releases a massive amount of adrenaline the second a punch is thrown and that wipes you out. It's called an adrenaline dump and it honestly feels like your legs have turned to jelly and you feel like you have zero power behind your punches.

Moral of the story; hit hard and be accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1) Don't use a fist. I recommend the shotgun, but if you've got enough distance, you might as well use the rocket launcher.

2) Watch lots of MMA fights. They perfectly model brawls. If it ever happens that two people gang up on you, call the referee and make sure the cameraman sees your outrage.

3) If you repeatedly get beat up, I recommend getting a fighter level. Yes, you might miss out on caster progression, but you can't really enjoy your Meteor Swarm while curled up on the tavern floor.

4) Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A

<comment><USER13> start

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is highly relevant to this thread: <http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/violence_geeks.htm>

Premise: "There is a phenomenon out there that I call "Violence Geeks." They are a group of individuals who are fixated on the 'idea' of violence.' At the same time, they are terrified of being victims of actual violence. They are an ugly blend of anger, aggressiveness, self-loathing, fear and paranoia. On the plus side, their fear keeps them in check. On the negative side, they are a case of mens rea addressed "To whom it may concern.""

I'm posting this because I used to fall squarely into that category myself. Several years and a few reality checks later, I don't.

But if you read that headline and thought "wow, I must read that" then I'd also have a serious read of the Violence Geeks article and try to work out whether it applies, even in part, to you.

In addition, look at the following causes of death in the USA: <http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html> (note that AFAICT deaths due to firearms includes negligent discharges & suicides.) You'll note that that table doesn't include 'violence done by strangers.'

If you enjoy martial arts, shooting, etc. in and of themselves, then go right ahead and train. Otherwise, you are probably acting irrationally by investing a lot of time and money in training.

<comment><USER15> I am glad you posted this. Most of the site should be required reading for you if you give any thought to self defense. Particularly "How NOT to get shot" and "What is Self-Defense."

Possibly the most important point it makes is how easy it is to go too far and become the aggressor once you are in a violent conflict. Or to inflame that conflict to begin with.

"The real problem is that -- once the emotions have died down -- you may have to face the fact that your actions and words were part of the creation and escalation of the situation. And they might have been an overreaction on your part."

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this hacker news, or a crappy men's lifestyle magazine board?

I mean, really?

<comment><USER17> Agreed. I like this post but HN is not the place for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I apologise. I was uhmming and ahhing about whether or not to post it. I felt that whether or not it's genuinely a HN-type discussion, particularly the on- topicness of it.

As penance for those that didn't like the first post, I've posted some Erlang tutorials here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1912062>

In the end I went for it for two reasons. Firstly I'd say it's arguably on- topic at the moment, given that the top comments still have comments from the other thread. I think a couple of weeks from now and it wouldn't be, but while it's fresh in people's minds who participated in the original discussion, I felt it was a well written piece that gave some good advice (and perhaps some not so good advice for all situations).

More importantly, from <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> I read this:

If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

The discussions on the original thread talked a lot about what people would/did do, but a lot of people didn't seem to understand the risks as an adult. I felt that people would enjoy this, but that some wouldn't.

So I apologise to those that don't like it for posting it - I understand entirely where you're coming from, but I posted it for those that took part in the previous discussion. Hopefully it'll run it's course and we can all go back to talking about Erlang again.

<comment><USER6> Relax. Men of any sort cannot resist the topic. And if they could, the story would simply disappear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My advice:

A)Don't anger people deliberately/don't fight

B)Don't think (harder than you'd imagine). Thinking leads to calculating, which leads to hesitation, even in the best. In fact good fighters become great by going on instinct rather than conscious decisions.

C)Go _bleeping_ crazy. He's trying to inflict real harm on you- looking cool/honorable is for movies. Go for the eyes, nose and groin; that's actually Bruce Lee 101 -- fast, and to the critical areas. Become an animal. Disable (psychologically or physically) them as quickly as possible.

D)Run away. Fast. No one comes to a bar alone, and there will likely be "vigilantes" anyway. High tail it ASAP, and throw come courtesy cash to the bar/host.

E)If you're losing from the beginning in any way, you're not going to pull a comeback. This isn't Rocky. Break away and get out ASAP. See D.

<comment><USER19> > C)Go bleeping crazy. He's trying to inflict real harm on you- looking > cool/honorable is for movies. Go for the eyes, nose and groin; that's > actually Bruce Lee 101 -- fast, and to the critical areas. Become an animal. > Disable (psychologically or physically) them as quickly as possible.

I'd like to note, I got out of several fights in highschool by simply laughing when I got hit. It disconcerts people when you act unexpectedly.

Also;

F) If there's no way out, grab a weapon. In the movies, getting hit over the head with a beer bottle is nothing more than an inconvenience, however in reality it'll either give a concussion or, as happened recently in my area, cause multiple fractures to the skull.

When you're in a fight, assume they're trying to kill you. Respond accordingly. If you almost kill someone, who cares as long as you didn't start the fight. Don't get caught, don't leave a business card. If the cops come, you get a lawyer and claim self defense. At least you're alive and okay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a guy who's been training boxing for a year or so I can safely say his guard stance makes no sense. Not even in Irish boxing, which is basically what a barfight is.

Your strong arm should be your back arm, that way you can rotate your whole body when you punch and put a lot more weight into it.

<comment><USER19> > his guard stance makes no sense

Yeah, who the hell does he think he is, Rocky?!

How can you train for boxing for a year and not know how a southpaw stands? I would seriously consider changing where your training, because any competitive fight against a southpaw and you'll be slaughtered if you're not trained for it. Given that 10% of people are lefties, it won't be many fights before you face one.

If you're not trained for a southpaw, you're not trained. The rules, the tactics, _everything_ is pointless. You watch for hits from the wrong side, you throw hits to the wrong side, you block wrong, you dodge wrong.

<comment><USER20> Yes, a southpaw stands differently. However even a southpaw has strong- arm==back-arm, it's just the other arm.

The article doesn't describe a southpaw, it describes a rightie standing as if they were a southpaw (which they aren't)

And no I haven't had the opportunity to actually spar with a southpaw, I'm sure it's gonna be fun though :)

<comment><USER21> It's not fun. It sucks a great deal. Some people get the hang of it better than others, but generally speaking, it's a very awkward (and painful) learning curve.

<comment><USER20> Let me rephrase: it would be fun in a training environment, not in a competitive environment.

<comment><USER19> A southpaw is more than twice as likely to win a fight (or at least 1/2 as likely to lose based on the stats), perhaps it would be better to learn to fight southpaw than learn to fight _a_ southpaw.

I was looking for the stats earlier, sorry I didn't post them. Here's the abstract on it: <http://bjsportmed.com/content/43/2/142.abstract>

> Results: Left-handed boxers had been involved in 75–800 fights (mean 120.6), > with 5–79 lost (mean 19.32). A similar evaluation was made for the right- > handed boxers. The right-handed boxers had been involved in 50–820 fights > (mean 127. 8), with 23–78 lost (mean 42.25). Left-handed boxers were found > to be more successful than right-handed ones. The difference between them > was found to be significant (p<0.01).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> >Get on your side or belly

I'm going to say that this guy is a fraud.

exposing the back of your head is the absolute _worst_ thing you could do.

You're 100% better off eating 100 punches right in the face. This guy is an idiot.

</comment><comment><USER14> Also check out this manual: <http://www.tsroadmap.com/early/tough.pdf>

It's a manual for hand-to-hand combat, as taught to British Commandos & other special forces during WWII.

Something to bear in mind: if you strike someone, he might die.

I read of a chap who hit someone in a bar fight; that someone fell over, struck his head on a counter-top and died later that night. The person who threw the punch was aiming for a career in law enforcement; that dream ended for him that night.

Of course this goes both ways, which is why you should take _any_ threat of physical violence _very_ seriously.

<comment><USER23> That goes to show that if anybody lays their hand on you in a threatening manner in places like bars, you have the duty to protect yourself and those you care for around you.

Just be prepared TO take a life of someone else who is ready to do the same to you. Or better yet, learn to mitigate these situations by not pubcrawling.

<comment><USER14> Gabe Suarez (don't know him personally, haven't trained with him, just read some of his stuff) was always fond of telling people to avoid the 'three stupids'.

Don't hang out with stupid people. Don't do stupid things. Don't go to stupid places.

Do that, wear a seatbelt (or a helmet if you ride) & you're 99.99% of the way to a safe life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Last time I had a physical confrontation at a bar, the first thing the guy did is make sure I could see a handgun behind his belt. Needless to say I walked away immediately.

Avoid this crap at all costs. Not worth dying over.

</comment><comment><USER25> You never "win".

Having been in a hospital due to an accident, I would never want to put anyone else in there.

And if I was put there by someone else, I would probably have been obsessed with getting back at them.

So to "win" actually just means to "shift trauma around for a while".

I mean, just look at how popular this article is at the moment. There is a lot of latent resentment from being on the receiving end of violence. If you're on the end that's dishing it out, you're just putting other people where you used to be. And you know how that feels.

Also keep in mind that reading an article on fighting makes you about as good at fighting as reading an article on surgery makes you a surgeon. You're liable to make things even worse. If you REALLY want to know how to fight, practice some martial art that takes streetfighting seriously. It's remarkably easy to lose an eye or a testicle.

Additionally, you can't afford to trade 1-for-1 with a drunken asshole. It's like defensive driving -- some people are set on eventually making themselves smoking corpses in a burning wreck, so it's better to get out of the asshole's way than be that other party in the burning wreck.

Getting away from a bad situation IS self-defense.

</comment><comment><USER7> This kind of article is just irresponsible. It is going to give you a false sense of confidence and you will just end up getting hurt, or worse.

If you are really interested in learning how to defend yourself, you really should seek professional instruction.

And some of the information in the article is just flat out wrong, particularly where he talks about fighting multiple opponents.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you want to read a book on how your body will react to conflict situations, I highly recommend this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison- Martia...](http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Violence-Comparison-Martial- Training/dp/1594391181)

It's not a book about fighting. It's about how your bodies mental and physical senses react to violent situations.

</comment><comment><USER27> Best advice I've ever heard:

"End the fight as fast as possible."

This isn't the movies. There are no "cool moves". If you have never done it before, striking another person is emotionally difficult. Your biggest problems are fear, self-doubt and above all, hesitation. Make each blow count. If you swing, do it with the intention of ending the fight with the one hit. Most likely your first swing will be half-strength as your mind deals with the shock of the situation, your own moral issues, fear etc. Either run away or end the fight as fast as possible.

Ps.. I've never been in a fight. Never been bullied. Don't go to bars and don't drink. So what do I know. But this has always seemed liked the best advice.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Given the discussion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1895057> I thought I'd post this in the hope it may be useful to some of the participants.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just like anything, if you want to be good at something then you practice.

<comment><USER29> 10,000 hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> there is no 100% algorithm. From my experience:

\- 3 guys, i'm sober and scared as sh!t, trying to not let them close in, finally see a chance and put all my fear into mavashi gari into the jaw of the central guy, the leader. I'm fortunate enough to get him knocked down, the others 2 stop attacking me.

\- 7 guys, i'm absolutely drunk and have no doubts that i would easily take them on. Quickly closing in, delivering a straight right to one (this one is down), a jab to another (stepped back). Next moment the punches and kicks of the rest of the team reach me. It just blows me away, something gets into my legs from behind and i'm down. The kicks continue and continue without interruption. Assume fetal position ...

<comment><USER31> Totally tangential question--in American English the transliteration is "mawashi-geri". Does V sound as W in Russian?

<comment><USER30> there is only one character in Russian, which would mark either "V" style sound - "veterany" or "W" - "dvor". In most cases direct transliteration from Russian to English uses "V" character for that Russian character, even though it may sound more like "W".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Actually, "Don't Fight" shouldn't be the first thing. The first thing is "Avoid places where people are looking for fights".

</comment><comment><USER33> This is stupid. Just buy a taser or pepper spray if you _really_ think you need it (you probably don't).</comment>


An Interview with Michael Arrington - <AUTHOR> http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2008/02/29/An-Interview-With-Michael-Arrington

<comment><USER2> "[Lloyd Grove]: What do you think of [Nick Denton]?

[Michael Arrington]: I think he's a total dick."</comment>


Hyperloop: Not so fast - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.mathworks.com/seth/2013/11/22/hyperloop-not-so-fast/ <comment><USER2> NASA engineers have also released an optimization framework for the Hyperloop concept as well. It's completely open-source and written in Python. Docs here: [http://openmdao-plugins.github.io/Hyperloop/](http://openmdao- plugins.github.io/Hyperloop/)

Their baseline optimization focuses on 5 subsystems: Compressor Cycle Analysis, Pod Geometry, Tube Flow Limitations, Tube Wall Temperature, and Mission Analysis

Initial results indicate that the concept is still very viable. However, due to very tight coupling between the tube and vehicle size, the tube size will need to be around twice as large as originally proposed by the Tesla/SpaceX team to reach the proposed speeds.

Feel free to download the entire analysis and play with it yourself, without purchasing several expensive toolboxes from MATLAB!

<comment><USER3> As one of the authors of this work, I would like to add that our goal was to provide an open source foundation for modeling the hyperloop system. Our initial work focused on the pod itself, but we want to expand it to include trajectory analysis as well as cost modeling.

<comment><USER4> Hi Justin, do you have an email to reach you or some body else at the team?

<comment><USER3> you can reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember hearing an interview with a civil engineer about why highways have all these "unnecessary" curves in them. Why can't engineers build highways that are more direct and straight?

After going on a bit about requirements for different kinds of terrain, the kind of strata the road needs to go on etc. and how those were difficult and expensive to surmount (so curves were often chosen to deal with it instead of a more expensive solution). He lamented that the _most_ difficult and expensive aspect of new road construction was right of way through existing developments and other properties. Most of the curves we experience on highways are apparently the result of somebody, or a block of people, simply not wanting to give up their land.

<comment><USER6> Fatigue, boredom, and monotony are a factor, too. I watched an episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel [0] which gave interesting details about the highway system. They mentioned something they called "highway hypnosis" [1], a trance-like state which they wanted to avoid. There's been some discussion of whether this phenomenon is to blame for the train derailment in New York about a month ago [2].

 _Most of the curves we experience on highways are apparently the result of somebody, or a block of people, simply not wanting to give up their land._

Nor should they have to, if they don't want to (or disagree on the price).

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

[0] [http://www.history.com/shows/modern- marvels/episodes/season-...](http://www.history.com/shows/modern- marvels/episodes/season-3) ... see "Paving America" for the episode

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

[2] [http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/05/deadly-new-york- train-d...](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/05/deadly-new-york-train- derailment-could-be-case-highway-hypnosis/)

<comment><USER7> >Nor should they have to, if they don't want to (or disagree on the price).

This is a real issue in many places now; when building a transportation system the government should be able to pay you whatever the house is valued and give you no saying on that, why? because the mobility of millions is more important than your emotional attachment to the house.

<comment><USER8> I don't know how it actually works, but I would hope if the government uses its right to force you to sell your land, which the US (and likely others) does have under eminent domain, that they would pay above market price. Market price would cover the cost of you purchasing an equivelent home, it would not compensate you for moving expenses, time, possible lost wages, ETC.

<comment><USER9> The government's "market prices" and the real value of a property are two totally different things. There is downward pressure to keep the government assessments low due to property taxes. Where I live, for example, the prices are generally off by a good -10% to -20%. Then you have to add interest, closing costs, escrow, and establishment of utilities on top of that.

You also have to factor mobility into the equation. If I own property that I'm using for a special purpose (let's use an extreme example of a hazardous chemical disposal company), and I'm told to relocate for the "market price" of my property, then I'm stuck paying tons of money and dealing with regulatory hell in whatever I choose as my new jurisdiction to do this. This would quite literally put me out of business due to the insanely high cost of relocating everything.

Also, you have the legal roadblocks that often come up (this is the more common reason property can't be acquired). For example, the property might be owned by a trust, which was granted it's powers through a will. Since it's a trust, the beneficiaries are unknown. The person who maintains the trust isn't returning your calls. Who do you write the check to? You can't just take it from the trust, it doesn't work that way (for good reason, without getting into specifics). There are ways to go about it, but the legal proceedings can take years. We're actually dealing with this exact problem now trying to expand an intersection in my local town.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just buying the land/structure and moving the occupants. More often than not, there's a reason why this is difficult.

<comment><USER10> It seems like the price of the various measures that avoid invoking eminent domain ends up being so extraordinarily high (hundred-million-dollar bridge trusses and the like), I do not quite understand why offering market plus 100% or something isn't a solution. Not an extortionate rate, but one sufficient to make it a financially favored course of action for all involved landowners. Eminent domain is for the irrational holdouts, not for "offering pennies on the dollar" as opponents say, or for getting just-slightly-submarket-prices.

<comment><USER8> The problem is that the only people who can say how much money is necessary is the landowners themselves. However, they have an incentive to lie if doing so would allow them to get a higher price. Additionally, different landowners would value their own land at a significantly different rate relative to the market. For example, if you live in a custom built house, with a treehouse that your kids built themselves, that is within walking distance to the school and your place of work, you would need significantly more compensation them most people to move out of your house. I don't see any solution other than letting cases where an agreement cannot be reached go to court.

<comment><USER10> There are three people are well-placed to say how much money is 'market value':

1) The owners themselves, by self-declaring asset values for taxation purposes (on pain of having them vulnerable to eminent domain seizure if they under- declare)

2) Independent assessors who do value assessment for property tax purposes already

3) The sellers that granted the owners possession for a certain value

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Passengers are much more sensitive to vertical acceleration than horizontal. Repeated 1g swings from -0.5 to 0.5 g would make this thing a vomit comet. Would be interesting to see this analysis done with normal limits for high speed rail design, instead of Elon's chosen 0.5g limit.

Edit: HS2 in Britain, for instance, is being designed with a maximum of around 0.01g vertical acceleration. If Elon's has figured out how to get passengers to handle 50x that much, he could save them a lot of money.

<comment><USER12> Vertical acceleration refers to acceleration in the direction of the tracks, right?

Some other figures I could find:

Shinkansen: 2.6 km/h/s = 0.07g

ICE (German HSR): 0.5 m/s2 = 0.05g

S-Bahn (metro transport): 1 m/s2 = 0.1g

Makes sense that metro transport has higher acceleration, as high speed rail spends a lot of time "cruising" at certain speeds, while metro transport is basically always either accelerating or decelerating. I'd guess subways also feature relatively high g-forces.

Also interesting: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28accelera...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28acceleration%29)

<comment><USER13> Vertical as in up-down. You're much more comfortable accelerating forwards- backwards or left-right.

<comment><USER14> Then change the orientation of the seats? Without a reference frame you can't tell.

<comment><USER15> Gravity?

<comment><USER16> Include that in the calculations. There's a certain absolute sideways g-force (decreasable by slowing or straightening), and a certain absolute downwards gravity. These add up to a single total force. So long as the magnitude is at least 1g, there exists a seat orientation such that the passenger feels 1g toward the seat and something on the back.

How much you can spin the seat without _those_ movements causing problems is an open question.

Airplanes are an encouraging precedent. They often make quite sharp turns at extremely high velocity, but tilt into them such that there's almost no perceived lateral acceleration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Despite the headline, which I'm going to assume was added by an editor, the article is positive about the hyperloop prospects.

<comment><USER18> It's a pun, not actually a 'negative' headline.

<comment><USER19> To me, it's read as both a pun and a negative headline. I'm surprised others don't see it that way as well

<comment><USER20> "not so fast" is generally a nice way of telling someone to stop and consider what they are doing because they are about to do something unwise. I do believe you are correct to take the headline as negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe someone can convince China to develop the technology. They already have 6,200 miles of high-speed rail, on their way to 10,000 miles.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- speed_rail_in_China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China)

Their Shanghai Maglev only cost $1.2 billion.

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

China is clearly interested in building a 21st century transportation infrastructure. Beijing to Shangai is 800 miles. Perfect for 700 mph hyperloop.

<comment><USER22> Shanghai does not have the prevailing wages CA has.

<comment><USER23> Shanghai is extremely wealthy... even if you don't account for the accounting tricks played by china with their currency. Have you ever been? It's like being transported into the future.

Apparently 20-30% cheaper than places in CA for most things, but to buy an apartment it's more expensive.

Wages are 75% or so cheaper in Shanghai, but purchasing power is 66.36% lower too... [http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=China&city1=Oakland%2C+CA&city2=Shanghai)

<comment><USER24> _" Shanghai is extremely wealthy..."_

Seriously? The mean household income is US$4,700/year [0] (nominal conversion). Your link claims it's $12,000/year for an individual, but if you investigate further, that's the mean of the high-income expats _who visited that English-language website about international costs of living_ and filled out a survey. The very existence of this large expat population skews the mean; I'd guess "typical", median wages are a lot lower than $4,700.

[0] " _Average annual income for a family in 2012 was 13,000 renminbi, or about $2,100. When broken down by geography, the survey results showed that the average amount in Shanghai, a huge coastal city, was just over 29,000 renminbi, or $4,700, while the average in Gansu Province, far from the coast in northwest China, was 11,400 renminbi, or just under $2,000. Average family income in urban areas was about $2,600, while it was $1,600 in rural areas._ "

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/world/asia/survey-in- china...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/world/asia/survey-in-china-shows- wide-income-gap.html)

<comment><USER25> Being wealthy isn't just about income, it's about what you can do with your income.

<comment><USER26> $13000 "brut" in Shanghai is approx $20000 PPP according to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita)

Income of $5000 would be approx $7700 PPP. Not exactly extremely wealthy by developed countries standard...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another article of the blog is about the modelisation of the Hyperloop vehicule (+environment): [http://blogs.mathworks.com/seth/2013/11/07/hyperloop- model-a...](http://blogs.mathworks.com/seth/2013/11/07/hyperloop-model- architecture-we-want-your-feedback/) It can be read as an introduction to Model Based Design. It shows for instance the interest of handling variants to test either different hardware concepts or different level of representativity.

</comment><comment><USER27> Personally I'm still worried about the claustrophobia issues. And I'm not even really claustrophobic.

There's just something about being in a small seat in a concrete tube with no exit for 100's of miles that really freaks me out.

<comment><USER28> Are you afraid to fly? An aluminum tube with no exit for thousands of miles and a much longer time in the seat.

<comment><USER29> Planes have windows and the ability to get up and walk around to some extent. Likely makes a difference for most claustrophobics.

<comment><USER30> Does the design of Hyperloop make it impossible to walk around?

In terms of no windows, sounds similar to the Channel Tunnel. You're typically in the tunnel for close to 30 minutes.

<comment><USER31> Yes, in the passenger version you can't even stand up.

You would probably have a huge interactive flat screen in front of you to ease the tension.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Article assumes that the hyperloop can/would follow existing highways. Considering the cost of diverting traffic during construction, it seems unlikely you could build it for anything close to the advertised $6 billion while following existing highways.

Also, the structure would need to be tall (or short) enough to bypass highway bridges and overpasses...

<comment><USER33> The Hyperloop design paper states that it would be along existing highways.

<comment><USER32> I missed that! Thank you.

<comment><USER34> Did you change your original comment because this thread makes no sense.

<comment><USER32> I did not change anything. I was nitpicking about something implied in the linked article, without realizing it was in Musk's original spec/budget.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A fun article and exercise but a bit suspect since the only image of a difficult turn is not one the hyperloop is actually scheduled to take (the design document linked shows the route continuing straight along HWY 238 at that point). But the next turn north along 880 looks tricky (it looks like there might be some room at the school, cemetery and empty lots to smooth it out a bit).

</comment><comment><USER36> My only objection to Hyperloop is that it's so damned _ugly_. What ought to be an inspirational feat of engineering looks, under the proposed pillar design, like an elevated oil pipeline. I can't imagine anyone wanting to look at it, let alone having it blight their property.

It's a shame they haven't proposed a graceful cable-stayed structure.

</comment><comment><USER37> This reminds me of the Red Bull X1 out of GT5. I remember going round a hairpin at 250km/h, that's bound to snap your neck.</comment>


Logos 'n' Stuff - <AUTHOR> http://blog.adambell.me/2012/05/logos-n-stuff.html

<comment><USER2> Adobe logo: <http://psdesignzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Adobe.jpg>

(Where on your site, other than this blog post, is your "A" logo?)</comment>


Treat Open Source Like a Startup - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/open-source-marketing-with-velocityjs/

<comment><USER2> Open source is no different than any project or business. Marketing matters. Design matters. Name / Brand matters.

We (engineers) do ourselves a disservice by dismissing the 'soft' parts of gaining mindshare.

There are a bunch of image loaders on Android. My personal technical preference may be Android-Universal-Image-Loader, but it sure is a heck of a lot easier to tell people to download Picasso. And when they google 'Android Picasso', they are going to land on Square's awesome landing page for it. It's not a coincidence that it has become one of the most popular options.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately, the motto: "if you build it, they will come" mentality loved by engineers/developers, who love creating and hate selling, is not a thing.</comment>


The AI Guru Behind Amazon, Uber, and Unity Explains What AI Really Is - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/40491906/danny-lange-interview-what-ai-is-and-isnt <comment> 10-6 "I understand that a machine could kill people. But will a machine want to kill people? That seems to go back to that philosophical notion of consciousness."

This is exactly the issue with a lot of journalists and people talking about AI/ML. There is no WANT or DESIRES from the programs, there is no self- awareness where the programs ask themselves if what they are doing is right or wrong. They are doing exactly what they were programmed to do.

With his example of adversarial networks, one network is learning to detect fake news and other other is generating fake news--they are working towards their reward functions and optimizing the weights to reach the goal. It's math, that's all it is. It's so silly to bring up consciousness, desires, awareness, fears, etc. in these AI programs.

<comment><USER2> Don't you think that

> they are working towards their reward functions and optimizing the weights > to reach the goal

applies to the human mind too ? Consciousness, when you think about it, might simply be a layer of indirection that any sufficiently complex network is capable of, if you give it a notion of time and events.

Certainly it's not super hard to make reinforcement learning "bots" that certainly appear as conscious as small animals are.

<comment> 10-6 that statement I made _may_ apply to the human mind and our thoughts, but it also may not some would argue: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind#C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind#Criticism)

So if someone were to disagree with the view of CTOM, then they can argue that no, consciousness must be something else.

<comment><USER2> CTOM's suffer from the Russel Teapot problem. All of them suppose magical stuff is there. Of course none of it can be found in any inspection of the actual brain ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ok, I took the bait, who is this AI Guru? His name is Danny Lange, who has published his latest paper in 1999, which means ages ago in AI time. Keep it real! This kind of hype is not worth it.

<comment><USER4> Independent of knowing who he is and how "famous" he is, I'm only looking at the one thing I got from/about him: This interview. What I see is a very, _very_ shallow article, both questions as well as the answers. Elevator music comes to my mind, not a symphony.

That doesn't say anything about his abilities, but I'm not here to judge the person but the article.

I think trying to find out "who he is" and his accomplishments is actually bad: Let's just concentrate on the article. It doesn't get better or worse if I were to know anything more about the guy. Everything that we are here to talk about is there - I really don't understand some of the comments where people try to discuss the _person_ instead of the content. Neither attacking the person or elevating him are of any help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Or he could have just said "massive linear algebra"

<comment><AUTHOR> lol reminds me of that xkcd about Douglas Hofstadter

[https://www.xkcd.com/917/](https://www.xkcd.com/917/)

<comment><USER6> Surely it must have also reminded you of this xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1838/](https://xkcd.com/1838/)

<comment><USER5> I hope these don't get downvoted due to merely being humorous, but having taken Andrew Ng's online Stanford class in ML, the takeaway for me was indeed "this is just linear algebra at a massive scale" (fortunately, I enjoy linear algebra!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's laughable that this guy is called AI Guru. Does anyone in the AI/ML community recognize him? What has he technically achieved in AI? Other than jumping ships and giving broad AI talks (Elon-Musk-broad) to PR?

<comment><USER3> I checked him and there's nothing much to show in the latest 18 years.

<comment><USER7> And his papers 18 years ago have nothing to do with AI.

I briefly worked with his team at Amazon and know that he knew almost nothing about AI or ML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> General artificial intelligence is inherently impossible, so why discuss its ramifications?

No algorithm can create more information than is put into it, yet the hallmark of human intelligence is the ability to create new information. The two are inherently different beasts.

<comment><USER9> >the hallmark of human intelligence is the ability to create new information.

What's an example of this "new information" human intelligence creates?

<comment><USER8> An example I gave to the other commentator is humans can derive principles of play in these games that AIs are currently dominating. AIs have a very different method of playing, which amounts to memorizing a near perfect tactical response table.

It seems like from a limited number of examples of A implying B, humans can infer that A always implies B, and can from there figure out A' implies C which is more favorable.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure that's new information. It's utilizing inferences.

Basically, humans are much better at stereotyping / categorizing objects than machines currently are. But that could change (and is changing).

Watson, for instance, seems pretty good at making inferences.

<comment><USER8> In general, inference requires the creation of new information, in a Kolmogorov complexity sense. I.e. perfect inference uses Solmonoff induction, and Solomonoff induction is only possible with the ability to enumerate all elegant programs. But infinite Kolmogorov complexity is necessary to enumerate all elegant programs.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to code using the C programming language in Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/learn-c-in-mac-os-x-3639920/ <comment><USER2> GD ads everywhere, don't click.</comment>


The Facebook detox that will make you happier - <AUTHOR> http://www.west-info.eu/the-facebook-detox-that-will-make-you-happier/

<comment><USER2> I cut my Facebook cold turkey. There were a few interesting side negative results along with the positive ones.

Notably off the top of my head

* People felt hurt because it appeared to them that I had blocked them. Several got in contact via SMS to find out what was wrong and why I did that.

* Facebook is used way more for event planning than I had realized. You lose invites to Halloween parties, work parties (that folks are comfortable emailing at work), etc. Additionally some coworkers are hurt because they think you de-friended them as well.

* The world is harder and harder to live without Facebook because more and more new things simply require Facebook. Probably once a month I run into a new app or website that requires Facebook for various reasons. (The good sites will offer a Google+ link too, but that's more rare)</comment>


Wikipedia with better readability - <AUTHOR> https://thebetter.wiki/en/ <comment><USER2> This: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I use two windows. I split my screen vertically.

It would be nice if content reflowed to fit my borders, with a bit of whitespace.

Here's a screenshot. [https://imgur.com/a/I0hnF](https://imgur.com/a/I0hnF)

The more readable wikipedia requires horizontal scrolling. (But also note YouTube includes too much whitespace, making the video small. This is a recent, annoying, change that I haven't created a tampermonkey rule for yet.)

</comment><comment><USER4> You may want to add some spacing between the body text and the right sidebar. Right now, they run right up against each other.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is no spacing between the info box and the main text, this decreases readability for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> * -5: Bad (or no) use of white space

* -60: Serif font on screen

* -40: Sharp, plain, distracting boxes instead of whitespace

* -80: Huge margins on a desktop site

* -8816: Loaded with Javascript

Yes, that's under -9000!

<comment><USER7> > Serif font on screen

Serif fonts work very nicely with sufficiently high DPI, or if they are designed to withstand low DPI like e.g. Georgia. Is there any way for a website to know if it's running on a high-DPI screen?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Font seems too big. Information density is low per viewport

</comment><comment><USER9> Title is a lie. Just like the cake was a lie.

</comment><comment><USER10> Images are un-clickable, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER11> white page with js off => zero readability</comment>


Dnscrypt-proxy 2 – A flexible DNS proxy with support for encrypted DNS protocols - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DNSCrypt/dnscrypt-proxy <comment><USER2> This post came at a right time for me. I already run a custom DNS server on premises and setting up dnscrypt-proxy took less than 5 minutes. It's good to see how encrypted DNS has evolved in the last year or so.

It was actually the post "Big ISPs aren't happy about Google's plans for encrypted DNS" [1] which made me think that I will tackle this issue now, even though I was already thinking about this for months.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21124900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21124900)

</comment><comment><USER3> And to run your own encrypted DNS server: [https://github.com/jedisct1/encrypted-dns- server](https://github.com/jedisct1/encrypted-dns-server)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a (former) user. It's bloated. Extremely bloated.

Fortunately, openbsd added DoH support to their recursive resolver, allowing me to get rid of dnscrypt-proxy.

<comment><USER5> Can you elaborate a bit? I'm not really a fan of go, but not all go projects are automatically bad. Is it slow, a memory hog, ...?

<comment><USER4> >slow or memory hog.

Both. It'll easily use several hundred mb of ram and, if you use its cache feature (enabled by default) and hit the cache while measuring the latency, you'll see it takes about 10x the time to respond compared to pdnsd's cache.

Therefore, when I used it, I put pdnsd in front.

<comment><USER4> Forgot: Also very high CPU usage. Hundreds of hours after a few weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use this as a local dns resolver in combination with a blacklist and a whitelist to do DNS-level ad/tracker blocking. Works pretty well.

I see people here are using some DNS switchers in macos, but you can also configure an extra 'location' in your networking configuration. My default location uses the dnscrypt-proxy server I run locally and another uses CloudFlare, for the rare occasions where things break. I haven't had anything break really, but sometimes you want to test certain things and it is useful to be able to switch quickly.

<comment><USER7> I have mine configured on my router:

[https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Linux_Router_with_VPN_on_a...](https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Linux_Router_with_VPN_on_a_Raspberry_Pi#Unbound_DNS_forwarder_with_dnscrypt)

My DHCP server hands out the router's IP as a DNS server, then that DNS server forwards through the VPN to my VPN provider's DNS server, or to my DNSCrypt servers.

The good thing about it is it works on every host no matter what platform, configuration, application without any installed software.

When I am out and about I just use a VPN on my phone and use the accepted DNS server pushed to me (which is an internal one to my VPN provider).

<comment><USER6> Cool. I am still looking into setting up a Pi-hole in order to block things on all devices. I haven't had the time though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I looked into this but Go on a little OpenWrt router seemed… silly.

If you're interested in something lightweight for OpenWrt give this a try:

[https://openwrt.org/docs/guide- user/services/dns/doh_dnsmasq...](https://openwrt.org/docs/guide- user/services/dns/doh_dnsmasq_https-dns-proxy)

<comment><USER9> >I looked into this but Go on a little OpenWrt router seemed… silly.

Why? Go compiles to distributable binaries, Go binaries do not depend on Go to run. You wouldn't need to actually install Go on the router

<comment><USER8> From their own documentation [1]

> The dnscrypt-proxy file is quite large, but can be compressed for a massive > reduction of its size, from ~12 Mb down to ~2 Mb.

Routers typically have 8-16 Mb of storage. Even 2 Mb is a bit much but even if the size doesn't bother you the memory usage is still relatively extreme when compared to the link I shared.

[1] [https://github.com/dnscrypt/dnscrypt- proxy/wiki/Installation...](https://github.com/dnscrypt/dnscrypt- proxy/wiki/Installation-on-OpenWRT)

<comment><USER9> Sure that's fair, not really specific to Go though

<comment><USER10> Go specifically makes a bunch of choices that lead to (somewhat, it's by no means extreme) larger executables. Which is fine, but means it's not the best choice for the specific usecase of targeting tiny devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wanted to setup a local dns (pdnsd) with dnscrypt but I lack knowledge on how to be sure everything is coupled the way it should.

<comment><USER3> You can adds DNSCrypt support to pdnsd, simply by installing [https://github.com/jedisct1/encrypted-dns- server](https://github.com/jedisct1/encrypted-dns-server) \- In `upstream_addr`, instead of `22.214.171.124:53`, just put the IP and port of your pdnsd server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I run [https://github.com/m13253/dns-over- https](https://github.com/m13253/dns-over-https) on my EdgeOS based router. It was trivial to cross-compile the doh-client binary. I have doh-client listen on localhost:5353, then I point dnsmasq at doh-client. Works great, and gives me the full flexibility and caching of dnsmasq. e.g. There's a few domains that I don't send over doh.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is it just me or has this DNSCrypt project been doing things without any prior announcement?

Last month or so, the main GitHub repo for DNSCrypt randomly got deleted. It wasn't until several days later, the author posted a tweet saying he/she are not supporting it anymore.

Now it has seemingly been resurrected...after I have already configured my server to use a new project called getdns (and stubby).

<comment><USER14> Stubby is kind of limited. It has no cache, and I can't find a way to avoid resolving a list of my own domains via a specified resolver, so it's not that great for privacy.

<comment><USER14> Though I like getdns C API, I'll probably use it in one of my projects.</comment></comment></comment>


Android and Chrome = Andromeda; merged OS reportedly coming to the Pixel 3 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/android-chrome-andromeda-merged-os-reportedly-coming-to-the-pixel-3/ <comment><USER2> the most commonly used application + the most commonly used OS.

</comment><comment><USER3> yay, surely combining the worlds shittiest operating systems will be a good thing.

<comment> dugite-code > yay, surely combining the worlds shittiest operating systems will be a good > thing.

Might I ask why you think they are shittty?</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley Takes a Right Turn - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/opinion/silicon-valley-takes-a-right-turn.html <comment><USER2> Is there a measurable increase in right-wing thought in public in Silicon Valley?

Donations, particularly PAC donations, are too tied up in tactical considerations to be evidence, in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure how it is now but I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more conservative in the future. Demographically rich old white men in isolated communities tend to be conservative.

<comment><USER4> Demographically, Silicon Valley is becoming less white</comment></comment></comment>


Moving on from iPad "office productivity" apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/3836678176 <comment><USER2> The potential for "productivity" is what I envisioned it as being when it first came out (and was resoundingly downvoted for on various social news sites, including this one, I believe): One handed work.

If you ever see someone with their laptop open in one hand and (optionally) carrying their AC adapter with the other, heading off to a meeting room, that's what iPad is for.

If you see a doctor walking in to the office, greeting you, then turning their back to you to clack something into a desktop facing the wall, that's what an iPad is for.

If you see a delivery person or home-service person (plumber, contractor, arborist, lawn mower) or even a cop sit in their car for several minutes as you look at them wondering what the hell they are doing in there for so long, that's what an iPad is for.

When you see a realtor have their laptop setup and using some clunky interface to hook into as you gather around leaning over a kitchen island to see some number or other, that's what an iPad is for.

It's not for coding sessions or writing novels or anything crazy like that. It's for plugging into a projector to do a presentation; it's for handing to you to sign after it's been used to swipe your credit card for a purchase, or when you receive a delivery; it's for your doctor showing you a test result without you getting out of your chair or bed.

Give it a few years, then it'll look less like a toy and more like the Jetsons.

<comment><USER3> Funny thing about the market, it gets to tell you where the sweet spot is, not the other way around. Your scenarios presume that the iPad's mobility will trump the disadvantages of the small screen size to the point it will replace existing solutions with bigger screens. I'm not convinced that's the case. For example, when I visit the doctor or dentist, I don't go to an "office", I go to an examining or operating room. You know, places where they like nice big displays so everyone there can see the details of the x-ray pics? Those rooms are already networked and they stay put day after day, so mobility is not a desperate need.

Some of your examples seem contrived, like the office meeting where someone is dragging their power brick -- as if the iPad was the only device with a battery that lasts all day (and that the office worker didn't just unplug their laptop at their desk, where it had been freshly charged).

Police in their cars don't need a smaller display, and when they're out of the car they don't need yet another thing dangling from their belts. Delivery drivers already have solutions that are designed for their specific application and I suspect playing movies as well isn't a high priority at FedEx HQ's IT planning meetings. Etc, etc.

<comment><USER2> "You know, places where they like nice big displays so everyone there can see the details of the x-ray pics?"

Where is this place you go? Because doctor's offices either have desktop workstations or a lightbox to throw up X-Rays (or will just show you print- outs). With an iPad they can just pinch out to zoom in. YC and Start fund seems to dig the idea of doctor's using iPads, seeing as how Dr Chrono got funded.

"Some of your examples seem contrived, like the office meeting where someone is dragging their power brick"

It's not contrived because I saw that constantly at the office I worked in (before I started working from home).

"Police in their cars don't need a smaller display"

The ones I've seen in cruisers have 10" display bog-standard notebooks (some I believe still use DSTN screens, which are ancient as hell).

"Delivery drivers already have solutions that are designed for their specific application"

Right, as if that gigantic gizmo with 1000 buttons and a tiny monochrome resistive pressure-pen screen UPS drivers carry for signature confirmation is the end-all technology for delivery drivers.

<comment><USER3> The last three "offices" I've been to have been an oral surgeon, a dentist, and the pet hospital. In all cases light boxes have been replaced with electronic storage and big LCD displays. The oral surgeon worked with printouts of the x-rays, however, as they were easy to mark up, show to patients, and store in a file folder.

It's probable the doctors involved had desks and PCs, but as a patient/client I didn't see their office. I saw them in examining rooms and operating rooms -- places where an iPad simply makes no sense.

We could argue hypotheticals all day and it wouldn't change anything. I'll believe your examples when I see them in the real world.

<comment><USER2> "We could argue hypotheticals all day and it wouldn't change anything. I'll believe your examples when I see them in the real world."

There's alot of evidence out there that it is being used for business[1]. And, even more pilot rollouts in disparate industries. It's still a really young technology in its current "slate form factor + simple OS + simple native/web apps" incarnation, but already iPad is starting to eat away at netbook market/mindshare.

[1] [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9182498/iPad_lures_bu...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9182498/iPad_lures_business_users_in_law_medicine_and_other_fields)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think Apple was really trying to pitch office applications on the iPad as an example of what you _would_ do with it, but to be an example of what you _could_. As if to say: "Don't think of this as just a toy, just a gadget, just a big iPod--think of this as a personal computer."

In that sense I think Apple's message is the same this year as it was last year. Consider Garage Band. It's not about the five bucks. It's not even really about selling more iPads (though it will undoubtedly help). It's really about demonstrating the absence of certain perceived limitations about what a "giant iPod" can do.

I think that's what Apple's overall strategy with its apps is: to keep pounding away at perceived limitations of the platform, both in functionality and performance, with vivid real-world demonstrations of what's possible. Consider that all five paid applications that Apple has demoed at the iPad events are content creation applications, striking squarely at the persistent criticism of it as a "consumption" device.

Maybe next year we'll see Xcode.

<comment><USER5> I tend to agree with the blog author, that Apple didn't yet found the sweet spot for the iPad's usage. Everyone is different, and for some people (who maybe mostly interacted with other websites), iPad can even replace a laptop.

If I can speak from my experience, I still see iOS as mostly a gaming and entertainment platform. You mention that with Garage Band, Apple removed some perceived limitations about the platform - yes, I agree, but so what, for many it is still an entertainment application.

To sum it up, until now I am not that impressed with what App Store offers - they are just a handful of useful applications there, drowning in a sea of games/entertainment/kill-time apps. We are still far away from that so-called "post-PC era".

<comment><USER4> I think the popularity of games/entertainment/killing time apps on the iPad is more a reflection of the popularity of those tasks on personal computers in general. For most people this is all they do with a laptop at home, and it's not infrequently a part of what they do at work, too.

There are people who feel the iPad does each of those things inadequately (as with productivity apps), but the point is to demonstrate that _it_ can do those things, whether _you_ do or not. To show that it's not (say) a web- browsing device that can't game or a media player that can't browse the web or an e-reader that can't edit HD video. It can't do everything for everybody, but I think they're trying to expand the capabilities into doing almost everything for almost anybody (as a PC does) rather than seeking a sweet spot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anecdotal evidence: the iPad has completely replaced the laptop for my girlfriend. She hasn't opened up her laptop in months. She uses it mostly for email, for editing and sending presentations and documents via Keynote/Numbers/Pages/Dropbox, and for interacting with the numerous websites which she needs to deal with.

Since she spends a lot of her days on the move and doesn't like to work at a desk, the iPad has been a godsend for her. Before, she used to have to carry her craptop around and plug it in all the time to get power. Now, she just carries her iPad, and usually doesn't even bother to take the power supply with her, because the battery lasts so long. And she can use it on the bus, on the tube, etc.

<comment><USER7> Same with my wife who is a home health speech therapist. I got her an iPad for xmas and she hasn't opened her laptop since. It is convenient to take with her in the car, she can keep a large calendar of appointments and jot notes on her patients, logs all of her hours and does invoicing, can use it as a big map to find her patients' houses, has large visual references of medications and anatomy, and patients can easily do activities on it.

Then she gets home and kicks back on the couch or in bed and reads some message boards, watches some YouTube or Netflix videos, or plays some casual games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article doesn't go far enough: the iPad is the temporary hack bridge between technologies. The major function of the iPad I have seen among people who are not making hardware accessories has been as a social bridge so they can get work done in a place/time when pulling out a whole laptop would be weird, awkward or rude. For example: if you're having a lunch meeting and the other person is late, pulling out a whole laptop rubs in how late they were because you had time to "set up and settle into a device" instead of "messing about on your iPad" which is socially closer to messing about on your phone, and we hold no stigma against for a waiting person.

Having a sister 10 years younger than me (14) has taught me that younger generations are not use to our protocols and therefore hold no squeamishness about breaking the conventions of them. For example, if you have her (or her peer's) attention you know this because she has removed one phone(MP3 player) earbud to listen to you. She doesn't see continuing to use the technology as a potential distraction/rudeness, and in many senses resents the older generations (teachers/parents) for demanding her absolute attention for every trivial thing.

The iPad is our bridge from dropping in and out of the internet in the real world all the time, because a full drop is seen as rude, but her generation won't really care about that. They'll just drop in and out as they please, which is why I suspect that they'll have little use for the iPad, except as the training bridge for dinosaurs like us.

<comment><USER9> Temporary hack before what? Back to laptops, or forward to neural interfaces?

<comment><USER8> I've never seen us go "back" to any technology in anything other than aesthetics which seem to cycle. If I knew what was coming next though, I'd probably go build it. I bet it is exciting, technically currently difficult, and will make a lot of money.

Neural interfaces seem a little too far forward though, it seems like you'd need another generation to have that be socially "normal," and that they'll need their own cultural bridge technology. There must be something between an iPad and neural interfaces which lets us casually and continuously wander in and out of the internet.

<comment><USER10> >There must be something between an iPad and neural interfaces

Probably something wearable: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/03/wearable- computing...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/03/wearable-computing- expert-now-apple-prototype-scientist.ars)

My guess:

a pair of glasses (in which you can see a screen--or transparency for augmented reality) with full voice control. Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad optional for productivity usage. Can also control via iPhone or iPad.

<comment><USER11> I've been saying for a while that I think the "next thing" is high-powered cellphones acting as a computing device (providing storage, connectivity, and processing power), with several different types of devices acting as dumb terminals.

If you're at home or at work, your keyboard and monitor auto-connect to your cellphone to provide a full-sized screen. If you're on the go, you use your cellphone as-is, or you use an eyepiece or tablet as an alternate display. Ideally, the main apps you use would provide appropriate user interfaces for each situation.

<comment><USER12> I think you're basically correct, but the docking devices are likely to be more than dumb terminals in some cases. At work that cellphone may plug into another device which provides additional, higher-speed processor cores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm looking forward to the further convergence of iOS and OS X.

As the owner of a mid-2010 Macbook Pro and a first-gen iPad, I think the new Macbook Air, which is a significant step in that direction, could replace both devices for me.

The iPad cannot be used for productivity work (coding, writing, even longer emails), but my 15" MBP is relatively clunky, especially for the type of consumption activities that the iPad excels at (i.e. reading on the couch, watching a TV episode, etc.) I wish I could have the best of both worlds.

The new iPad version of Garage Band really captures this: in some ways it's better than the Logic Pro I have on my laptop; I can play keys on it, I can trigger drums with my fingers, etc., but it's painfully underpowered (in terms of CPU, memory, I/O, etc.) to comfortably record a serious track on it (despite what Gorillaz accomplished).

I'm waiting for a Macbook Air with a full touch screen, and a new OS that fully combines the simplicity and interactivity of iOS with the power and breadth of OSX.

<comment><USER14> > I'm waiting for a Macbook Air with a full touch screen

You're in for a long wait then. Jobs said laptops with touch screens is total bullshit when talking at the new air launch.

<comment><USER15> Admittedly, Jobs has said many things that end up happening. That the switch on the side of the iPad would not be controllable (which it is now) is just one recent example. So anything can happen!

<comment><USER14> There is a world of difference between Apple changing their minds on a switch and Jobs saying that they've done extensive user testing on touchscreens on regular computers and that it turned out to be worthless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "the iPad hasn't "killed" the laptop at all"

Pundits keep missing the point. Tablets aren't about replacing desktops or laptops, they're about "anywhere, anytime, always on".

C'mon, people, it's a half inch thick and 24 ounces. There is no keyboard, and the bluetooth keyboard is more a makeshift hack than solution.

Mine paid for itself in a month by giving me the ability to work anywhere anytime - not work well as I would with a desktop, but work at all in the little 5-15 minute gaps, regardless of where I was.

In addition, it enhances personal life for the same reason: books, movies, email, games, internet, news, etc all in the same ubiquitous tiny sliver of a package.

Gonna do real work? Get a desktop.

Office apps are available not to replace the desktop, but to let you do basic work anywhere anytime.

And a notebook is a desktop pared down to it's barerest compromise to achieve portabiliy. Give up a bit more functionality and you get a tablet.

</comment><comment><USER17> The iPad's success is getting me away from a desk for the first time in 15 years.

I will absolutely use my primary computer with its giant display for development, complex games, video encoding and photo work. I will absolutely continue to bring my new MacBook Pro to client sites.

But for everything else I will be slouching in my lounge chair with my iPad. Even typing out responses such as this one I'm typing at about 80-90% of the speed of a physical keyboard. Most of my leisure computing activities are browsing, Twitter, the occasional IM and email -- and I absolutely prefer the iPad for those activities over my MacBook Pro or my development workstation.

I've used a computer for 30 minutes since Friday. I haven't had a need to. With work that changes, and that's fine. But for play, this is without question my preferred device. _Especially_ since I seem to be getting 15-18 hours of usability from a charge since the screen only needs to be at about 30% brightness to be easy to read.

<comment><USER3> I think your examples hit on a key point -- iPad use cases are decided by individuals, not by organizations.

I occasionally watch a CNBC trading show ("Fast Money"). The four traders at the desk used to have live market feeds delivered to laptops that sat on the desk, and those were replaced with iPads on stands last year. Now some of those traders have their laptops back in addition to the iPads, presumably because when you're looking at charts and numbers, bigger _is_ better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Honestly iWork didn't work on the iPad the first time around because the performance wasn't there. I found Numbers and Pages too choppy for anything other than basic editing tasks.

Secondly lots of office apps are based on traditional paradigms and metaphors related to printed documents. I think the key insight will be to create a new document type that makes more sense for tablet consumption, and maybe this new document will lead to a new kind of office app less reliant on the keyboard and mouse.

</comment><comment><USER9> While generally a reasonable point of view, which I'm not really contradicting there are a couple of points worth mentioning:

1\. Eliminating the keyboard dock makes sense just because the Bluetooth keyboard is _a much better solution_. I just put my iPad on a book stand when I use it, but Apple's regular dock would do as a stand. I don't use the keyboard that much - really only when I have a long email to write, or some text to write that I want to capture while it's in my head, but when I do it's vital.

2\. Pages and numbers are actually quite popular on the App Store. Maybe that's because people haven't figured out that they aren't going to use them but I'm not so sure. I don't have a computer at home anymore, and occasionally I need to print letters (e.g. To the bank, to landlords, etc.). For this kind of light usage, Pages and an AirPrint printer work very well. For _domestic_ use that's really all most people need. But without pages or an equivalent I simply wouldn't be able to do this.

So a less sweeping view is that doing light office tasks is actually very important for the iPad to be viable. It's just that it's solved now and the keyboard dock isn't needed.

<comment><USER19> But I don't use Pages (etc.), and none of the other iPad owners I know do either. What Marco seem to be wondering about is the killer functionality that _absolutely everyone_ will be using the iPad for.

However, I think we've already found it: the web.

Maybe that's not the only thing the iPad will come to pass as the definitive device for. But it's certainly off to a good start.

<comment><USER9> Do you have a computer for those other things?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I just see it as another gaming console.

Whenever I think about buying one, this is why it comes to mind. I think it would be fun to play games on.

I really don't see the harm in marketing it as a game console. MS has XBox, Apple has iPad. Seems legitimate to me.

All I use my Galaxy Tab for is games. Except maybe to check a website from time to time.

<comment><USER21> I think they may be scared of the Amiga effect. The Amiga was a fabulous productivity and general purpose computer, but died the slow death it did because it was generally seen by consumers as a fancy video game console.

Competitors swept in, played down the "kiddy" game aspect of their systems and played up the productivity aspect and demolished the Amiga in the market place.

Extending a system perceived as a "gaming system" into other tasks has been extremely hard. Despite being decent TV-top web browsers for a while, dedicated gaming consoles have never really found a role outside of gaming for example. At one time, the PS2 had enough peripherals and such for it to turn it into a fully fledged general computing device, but it never took off as such since it's just a game console.

In Japan, theres a similar problem with pre-PC computers like the MSX, PC-88 or the X68000, all great general purpose computer, all viewed as game consoles, all dead dead dead.

(yes there are plenty of other reasons for the death of the Amiga, but the general consumer's view that it was a gaming device definitely played part in that)

<comment><USER12> That's really not the reason that the Amiga failed. It was more due to lack of compatibility with the leading platforms, tight coupling to broadcast television video standards, and a shocking level of incompetence in Commodore management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Different tools for different scales, and places.

While on tour, Damon Albarn created an entire Gorillaz album on his iPad: <http://thefall.gorillaz.com/>

For a lot of people, the iPad has ended up being an awesome platform for $2 games. And that's valid too. We like to play. Sometimes we play by making cool stuff. It's not as if the iPad is the first general-purpose computing device to have a mix of "useful" stuff and games; how many Apple IIs were bought with the intent of balancing one's budget?

</comment><comment><USER23> The iPad was never meant to "kill" the laptop. From the very introduction, Jobs said it was to fill the role between the smartphone and the laptop. The iWork apps are consistently top sellers in the App Store. Apple didn't create iMovie and GarageBand because they are moving away from office apps, they made them because they already have office apps. So they didn't make an iPad 2 keyboard dock; it's probably because it wasn't a good seller. Most everyone I know uses the Bluetooth keyboard. I find it a bit of a leap that the missing keyboard dock means Apple is moving on from office apps.

</comment><comment><USER24> My ipad hasn't replaced my laptop (I got an Macbook Air 11 for that) what it _has_ replaced is all the other crap I used to carry around when travelling - books, media, stuff I did on my phone but is much nicer on a big screen, music making tools (actually I couldn't do this on the move prior to the ipad). I recently completed a two day trip abroad with my Tom Bihn satchell , ipad , laptop, wires and a couple of clean shirts (ironed using the 'hot shower' classic)

</comment><comment><USER25> From my time as a volunteer high school tech support helper, I remember the first year that Dell shipped us laptops without the external floppy drives. This was annoying to many of the old-timers who had established techniques around booting from a floppy.

We got over it.

We don't understand touchscreens well enough yet. We are using an old metaphor (the keyboard) and porting it completely literally. We might never replace the keyboard fully, but surely there is room to innovate.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd agree, but with two caveats:

1\. I still dont like laptops that much either

2\. iPad makes a _great_ productivity device in a _supplementary_ role. It substitutes for reference books and documentation. And it's better to switch to the iPad if you want to read a long article. And there's those little single-purpose apps for doing things like regular expressions, drawings, recordings.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think they just need to fix the keyboard. Trying to have a straight keyboard of that size just does not fit with people's hands.

Split it up into two 30 degree rotated sections in horizontal mode and two thumbpads in vertical mode and it'll make typing a helluva lot easier.

</comment><comment><USER28> _why the iPad is truly exciting: we can see that it has great potential, and while we don't quite know its nature yet, we're pretty sure that it's huge._

We can begin to see what this potential is already. The key is the form factor and the input. (I mean, what else _is_ there to the iPad? The whole point of the design is to reduce it to that point.)

The form factor is about personal consumption of information and about interpersonal sharing of information. It's about handling data and content in a way which is immediate, as if the app _were_ your content and your're handling your content directly -- not that there's an app between you and your content.

Focus on these two aspects, and there's a good chance that your app will be revolutionary and disruptive.

</comment><comment><USER29> The Ipad's Achilles heel is that it doesn't lend itself well enough to Enterprise, and it can't serve two masters, design-wise. In the same way the Blackberry got popular for enterprise use, I think even a slightly clunkier device which fit right into the standard Windows enterprise and gave IT departments a lot of control, business apps, and integration with their infrastructure would do very well. Closer to what the IPad would be if it was instead just a PC in a different form factor. Where is the Dell Ipad?

<comment><USER30> I'd like to hear your thoughts on how the iPad doesn't lend itself well enough to Enterprise.

I have nothing specific in mind that disputes your assertion, but the linked article below says this, which sounds meaningful - "80% of Fortune 100 testing/deploying, 366 documented mass rollouts."

I'm also hearing that Microsoft views the iPad as a potentially disruptive force in the enterprise, though that is second hand.

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/sybase/ipad-2-will-continue- enterp...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/sybase/ipad-2-will-continue-enterprise- invasion-despite-delivering-zilch-for-them/956)

<comment><USER29> Sure, they are deploying them, but only because nothing really fits the bill better, and often because their users beg them for them as toys. My wife has a director-level title at a large biotech. Some of this comes from her experiences. Here is where it falls short:

Most large businesses have a variety of native windows apps they rely on. The ipad works well as a web browser, but misses all of these. Companies have large investments in these programs, and having them inaccessible is a liability for the ipad. As an example, I have seen business units literally "powered" by excel spreadsheets and VBA. The iPad can't deal with things like this.

Standard native file access. How do I open a config file with "notepad" in the iPad? How do I browse to the file? What app opens it?

Windows permissions. The iPad can't work with Windows file system permissions, so it is a second class device on Windows-based networks, if you want to access files, it does not play well with your carefully created Windows permissions, so those access rules and group policies are lost on it.

The iPad is not a part of the standard microsoft security apparatus, so it is "special" in this regard. It won't get Windows updates, security bulletins, etc in the same way. It needs special attention from IT, and carries separate and perhaps unknown security risks.

Since the iPad is oriented toward finger-touch, stylus apps don't work well, so note taking apps don't work well.

The app store is consumer and game oriented, something businesses would specifically like to avoid on their devices, generally. Because of the app store approval process, and low price point expectations "Enterprise" business apps are loathe to move to it and risk a heavy investment that could be arbitrarily destroyed.

The iPad's success in the Enterprise is really a result of a failure of imagination and execution by Apple's competitors.</comment></comment></comment>


A new immigration stream is coming for Ontario tech workers, but is it necessary - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ontario-immigrant-nominee-program-tech-sector-stream-1.5111508 <comment><USER2> Ontario/Toronto already has a lot of folks who are under employed and under payed in Technology. Hence the drain brain to the Valley and USA. I know so many Canadians who are in the US working for companies like AMZN, Facebook, Google, CSCO, etc that couldn't find meaningful work/salaries in Toronto. If these folks are bright enough to work for the top of the tech pyramid in the US, why couldn't they find a job in Toronto?

This is companies looking for cheap labour, plain and simple.</comment>