The Future of Interaction - <AUTHOR> https://furbo.org/2019/05/28/the-future-of-interaction/ <comment><USER2> This title put me into one mindset, which was not at all the right one for the article. At least, I don't think so. I think there exists interaction outside of the Apple ecosystem.

First, I think you probably have to have read and understood this prerequisite article about Marzipan - [https://blog.iconfactory.com/2019/05/what-to-expect- from-mar...](https://blog.iconfactory.com/2019/05/what-to-expect-from- marzipan/)

Then, you probably have to live, breathe and dream within the Apple ecosystem.

Then you can read this article about plans and musings about what might come to pass, particularly with Apple's plans to enter augmented reality (AR).

I would suggest that we will not correctly predict the "future" of interaction until it becomes the present, but I do think thoughtful attempts to create great new experiences through technology are interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's probably more accurate to call this article "the future of UI/UX development on Apple platforms."

That said, I enjoyed the read. I think that HTML + CSS has always been a nice way to lay out and design a screen, even though there are real limits to what you can do in a browser versus native software.

The idea of future Apple platforms having something a bit like CSS with media queries to define how views should display - and more interestingly, behave - across multiple platforms, is pretty neat.

<comment><USER4> Didn't we already try this and find the results to be kind of... meh? I suppose if Apple makes their own version of WPF and UWP, people will jump on it and decide it's great now, but I'm pretty pessimistic that you can scale the same UI/UX across real computers, tablets, phones, TVs, gaming systems, etc etc without getting a subpar common-denominator experience.</comment></comment>


Volumetric Particle Flow - <AUTHOR> http://david.li/flow/ <comment><USER2> There is also a follow-up demo by the same author called Disintegration, with skinned animated mesh driving particles:

[http://david.li/disintegration/](http://david.li/disintegration/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks reminiscent of a fairlight demo from 2009 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezltebzdgjI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezltebzdgjI)

<comment><USER4> They did two much more impressive demos[1][2] with this technology, including drawing complex geometry using only point sprites, on DX9(no compute shaders). It's remarkable that those five year old demos could easily do flows, shading and blending on milions of particles in real time, while this JS version starts dropping frames at 262K.

[1] Agenda Circling Forth [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w7Gh7WBjw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w7Gh7WBjw)

[2] Ceasefire [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grqb1aIa_4s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grqb1aIa_4s)

<comment><USER5> As cool as those are, I've always found Numb Res to be the most impressive:

[http://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/numb- res/](http://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/numb-res/)

( [http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=56900](http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=56900) )

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

Subtle presentation a great effect, but this bit from the demo's nfo is kind of insane:

        3d smoothed particle hydrodynamics with a fully-featured solver,
        supporting surface tension, viscosity and collisions with arbitrary meshes.

        rendering as metaballs converted to triangle meshes with marching cubes.

        simulating around 250,000 - 1 million particles per frame and generating & rendering
        several million vertices per frame during triangulation.

        except we wanted to do it in realtime. on a consumer gpu. on vanilla directx 9.
        no cuda/compute, no geometry shaders. (they'd probably be too slow anyway.)

        with everything else youd expect from a modern demo going on around it and on top.
        the best possible lighting, depth of field, post-process antialiasing.

        twice. (for stereoscopic 3d.)
        with style.

<comment><USER6> The page also shows that sometimes what you think is hard is easy and what you overlook is the really difficult bit:

> The problem with SPH in realtime is it's really really hard. The simple > explanation of the algorithm is: "take all the particles near my particle > and perform some force exchange between them".

At this point I was expecting a long discussion on all the clever tricks they have found to calculate the force exchange between thousands of particles in a snap. And instead...

> The force exchange is easy; the "all the particles near my particle" is a > bitch. On GPU it's even more of a bitch; and in 3D it becomes an order of > magnitude more of a bitch.

> [...]

> The problem is simply the neighbourhood search. You end up with a variable > amount of fast-moving particles affecting each particle, where it's hard to > pick an upper bound – so the spatial database is hard to construct. If you > solve the neighbourhood search, you can solve SPH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really cool. Is there a reason it looks a bit out of focus, even with millions of particles? Some kind of blurring effect, maybe?

</comment><comment><USER8> Using Safari, which isn't supported, but I wanted to say kudos to the author for adding a video for unsupported browsers. That was definitely a neat feature that many WebGL demos overlook!

<comment><USER9> Safari is supported, you just have to enable WebGL. I am using it just fine with Safari 7.

</comment></comment><comment> matt-attack How is it that there's (what appears to be) c source code in there:

[https://github.com/dli/flow/blob/master/flow.js](https://github.com/dli/flow/blob/master/flow.js)

<comment><USER4> That is GLSL, the language pixel, vertex (and other) shaders are written in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've no idea what all you folks are using, but in my hands (linux amd64 i5 8Gb debian/jessie) this is a very impressive website in that it straight-out crashes firefox/iceweasel (31.1), stymies firefox nightly (35.0a1), and leaves google-chrome (37.0.2062) declaring that it couldn't be loaded. (just a theory: i'm running nouveau on my nvidia, as the last blob wouldn't compile)

<comment><USER11> Surprisingly, Firefox performs better than Chrome for me.

i7, 20GB RAM, Quadro K2000M, Fedora 19, latest stable of both Firefox and Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have no idea in what is going on or what this is about, but adding the Video for unsupported browsers is a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER13> Really wish there was convention to annotate link titles that immediately bog the CPU.

<comment><USER14> I made the mistake of hitting the 1m button.. Bad decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think it's about time I jump on the js bandwagon then.

<comment><USER16> This has really nothing to do with js. I could mechanically translate the demo to Haskell or Python and it would perform equally well, as all the heavy computations are done on the graphics card and those are given in a C like but implicitely parallel shader language. All this really demonstrates that the webgl bindings to opengl have minimal overhead. One thing that is impressive, how you can trivially and more or less declaratively define a user interface using the browser rendering engine, whereas a similar user interface in a simple opengl demo would have to be very primitive or use a third party library. This makes such webgl demos much nicer to interact with compared to a similar demo written in c, but the actual code is nearly the same, since it is mainly library calls to opengl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool! Smooth as silk at 524K on my GeForce GTX 650 Ti and Chrome 37. 1M makes it a bit choppy, but still pleasant.

</comment><comment><USER18> I see only some sphere with a spot. What is going on there?

</comment><comment><USER19> Very smooth - running on Safari 7 on an i5 and a 660ti

</comment><comment><USER20> Works, but my MBA 2013 i5 shooted up to 98C. :o

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks like blood in a vein on the default xD

</comment><comment><USER22> No source code commenting? No problem.

</comment><comment><USER23> It crashes my browser

</comment><comment><USER24> Awesome demo :-).

</comment><comment><USER25> great stuff. nice job!</comment>


Show HN: Glassbreakers – A peer mentorship community for women - <AUTHOR> https://www.glassbreakers.co/

<comment><AUTHOR> Glassbreakers launched today for women in technology - what industry do you think they should explore next? Film?</comment>


Guido van Rossum talks about Python 3, tomorrow, University of Amsterdam - <AUTHOR> http://uvaguido.eventbrite.com/

<comment><USER2> From the Event Details:

Eager to get your package into the standard library?

That one is open for interpretation.

<comment><USER3> What do you mean? If you are interested in getting a package into the standard library, Guido is certainly qualified to explain the process. What other interpretations are there?

<comment><USER4> He might be referring to the saying "The standard library is where packages go to die a slow death." Other than that, I have no idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad it is on such short notice, would have really loved to come by.

<comment><USER6> Looks like it'll cover similar ground to his Europython keynote (which I think was a rehash of his Pycon talk), a video of which you can see here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwbEEzl3bL4>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He was here in Zurich, Switzerland last week as well. Good event.</comment>


Zynga Analytics at its Peak - <AUTHOR> http://blog.amplitude.com/2015/06/24/zynga-analytics-at-its-peak/

<comment><USER2> Really interesting deep-dive into Zynga's data strategy - thanks.

There seems to be conflicting advice in the analytics world about (a) capturing all data from the start and (b) being very deliberate and thoughtful on using data in the early stages. I've seen that capturing too much can get very overwhelming and obviously if you don't capture enough then it can be problematic later when you need it.

Do you have any thoughts / guidance on how a new startup should begin its data / analytics function?</comment>


30 Images in 30 Days My Journey to Learn Photoshop - <AUTHOR> http://30images30days.com/the-project/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just thought I'd give this a share here, I've been a lurker for about 3 years now. This project was one that I wanted to tackle for a long time, learning how to make images. I work for an agency with a lot of talented designers, so I had a lot of really great help. My motivation to do this came as a result of the fact that I do a lot of side projects and don't want to rely on other people for every little thing (like banners, etc).

Hope you enjoy and don't flame me too bad I am still a beginner!</comment>


Starbucks starts letting you pay with Square Wallet today - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/08/starbucks-square-wallet/

<comment><USER2> "If you're the type of person that happily pays $4 for a coffee-like beverage"

I don't know what Tom Cheredar thinks makes a coffee drink only coffee- _like_ , but it doesn't seem like a good idea to start your article with what appears to be a veiled insult.</comment>


Show HN: Set with Friends, an online community and multiplayer card game - <AUTHOR> https://setwithfriends.com/?from=hn_v2.0 <comment><AUTHOR> Set with Friends is a web implementation of a real-time pattern matching card game called Set. Last year at a summer program ([https://sparc- camp.org/](https://sparc-camp.org/)), I wondered how I could bridge the 3000 mile gap between some of the friends I had made after we parted ways. My answer was something I think many of you can relate to: playing games and working on hobby projects :)

Originally, this site started off as just a simple way to play Set. Over the past few months, my teammate Cynthia and I have been working on a major overhaul of the entire site, emphasizing the community, by allowing users to meet each other and start friendly games with other users who happen to be online. We're also uncompromising on giving mobile users a great experience.

We appreciate any feedback or suggestions about this website and our new approach!</comment>


Has Microsoft just bought Unix? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/11/novell-acquired-by-attachmate-sells-some-assets-to-microsoft.ars

<comment><USER2> The article raises, but does not answer, the question in the title given here on HN. The article does provide a useful precis of the the history and implications of Novell's purchase by Attachmate, and it provides the simple answer "no", in that the Unix copyrights are not now the legal possession of Microsoft. Microsoft has acquired patents in the deal, but there is no clarity on what that means for Unix, nor is it clear what use Attachmate will make of the copyrights it now owns (aside from continuing operation of the Novell business for the immediate future).</comment>


Urgent: Need suggestion on MacBook air - <AUTHOR>

Hi I'm trying to buy a MacBook air. Short on time so I am posting where I have gotten quick feedback and there are lots of Mac users here. Apologize if it's not the place for this.
Deciding between GIga hertz vs memory (not sure how that impacts performance) Option 1) 1.6 GHZ with 4 gb memory
Vs
Option 2) 2.13ghz with 2 gb memory
Will be using it for mild web photoshop, light movie edits for YouTube and lots of web programming <comment><USER2> IMO, Always go for more memory.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So gigabett doesnt matter much?

</comment><comment><USER3> 2gb would be painful for photoshop. 4gb is the way to go.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the biggest problem you've had this week? - <AUTHOR> I am asking about your biggest problem this week as a way to make answering the question a bit easier.
Thinking of specific problems or annoyances from the last week is a nice way to limit the scope and be sure to return something that was recently affecting me. Please feel free to expand on this and put down any sort of list of problems you have. It would also be interesting to see what solutions to those problems you have tried.
I've been re-arranging my thinking more and more around "solving problems." I know this isn't revolutionary but I've been attempting to be less theoretical and more action oriented around this mindset. I would like to start pulling in other's experiences and opinions.
Here's a small, unordered list some of my top tier problems:
- PROBLEM: Good salary, low savings. - FAILED SOLUTIONS: budgets using google sheets, mint, recently started working with a financial advisor
- PROBLEM: 41 years old, no spouse or children but greatly desire starting a family. - FAILED SOLUTIONS: Had a few long term relationships. Other times I have tried spending time "working on myself" to become a better partner. Searched for potential partners
- PROBLEM: overweight - FAILED SOLUTIONS: I'm a bit of a yo-yo with this. I've tried various diets like paleo and also intermittent fasting.
- PROBLEM: I work at a well paying job but always longing to start my own company. - FAILED SOLUTIONS: I took a year just learning to build websites and tried to raise funding. Have built several products on nights and weekends since then, none of gotten significant traction.
I would love to hear others list some of their "top problems." Doing this had a two fold effect on me, one was helping to focus down on possible solutions that I may build a product around. But there was also a process of having to "admit" some of these things to myself. I think that was a good experience. <comment><USER2> Exported VM from XS6.5 on opteron hosts, importing into XCP-ng on EPYC hosts. VM not only fails to boot/BSoDs, but crashes the entire host as well. Ouch.</comment>


iTunes "HACKED"!!!! - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2014/11/21/exclusive-the-iphone-6s-a8-chip-can-play-4k-video/

<comment><USER2> Misleading title is misleading.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, this discovery was made while 'hacking' around with iTunes database. So it kind really means that itunes was hacked.

<comment><USER3> t.i.l looking around is now hacking.

<comment><AUTHOR> couldn't understand your point. more info please :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style - <AUTHOR> http://wastedhumanity.com/9bZkp7q19f0

<comment><USER2> It's only "wasted" if you got no value out of it. If you thought it was entertaining (which, presumably people who watched it many times did) then it's no more of a waste than time spent listening to The Beatles or Beethoven, relative merits aside.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate the arrogance and pretence of this site as a concept. I'm far more productive than pretty much anyone I know, but I also need downtime to recharge.

<comment><USER4> It's not about productivity. Humanity could spend these 14,526 years listening to J.S. Bach, a genius whose talent found no match in the human history and yet dedicated as much as humanly possible of his life to music.

<comment><USER5> I love Bach; love, love, _love_ Bach. Both of Gould's recordings of Goldberg variations, plus the Kimiko Ishizaka recording from the Open Goldberg Variations project (early backer).

That said, Gagnam style brought a smile to my face and added a bounce to my step; there's room for many things in culture and not all time is wasted, even "downtime". I'm sure Bach took breaks too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spent, not wasted.

If you think Pop culture is a _waste_ , then why not calculate 90%+ of YouTube multiple by # of views, time people spent in front of the television since its existence, as well as movies, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Computer games, etc.

In fact, most of the time and bandwidth being spent on "The Internet" is a waste - according to this theory.

</comment><comment><USER7> From 3/07/12 - Nearly 6 Million Years of World of Warcraft Healthy for Players' Brains

By one analyst's calculation, the 11 million or so registered users of the online role-playing fantasy World of Warcraft collectively have spent as much time playing the game since its introduction in 2004 as humanity spent evolving as a species-about 50 billion hours of game time, which adds up to about 5.9 million years.

[http://kotaku.com/5891421/nearly-6-million-years-of-world- of...](http://kotaku.com/5891421/nearly-6-million-years-of-world-of-wacraft- healthy-for-players-brains)

<comment><USER5> Huh. This started ringing some bells, and sure enough, there was a previous HN thread on similar topic:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4624090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4624090)

TLDR my response: don't be so judgmental.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That also means that some bad people spent less time doing bad things because of Gangnam Style.

</comment><comment><USER9> Assuming a 80 year life span, and 5 billion humans, that is only .00001% of their life span. I hope we do better with the rest?

</comment><comment> T-hawk Well, this analysis simplistically does length times views, deliberately ignoring the fact that hardly all Youtube "views" go for the full duration. Youtube has analytics that will show an average watching duration of 1-2 minutes for most music videos.

And of course there's opportunity "cost". Presumably a fair fraction of that 14,000 years just replaced watching other Internet videos or other inanity instead. It's not like we'd reclaim 14,000 years of productivity by never having had Gangnam.

And people multitask, watching a video in one window while doing something else. Or just play it in the background for the music, not even watching the video. We wouldn't count every Winamp or iTunes play of the song as the same wasted time.

</comment><comment><USER10> These are kind of false comparisons. It's comparing _man-years_ spent watching Gangnam Style against _years_ spent building the Taj Mahal. There's a huge difference. Divide the number of years given by the population of planet Earth to get the number of years the entirety of humanity wasted on Gangnam Style (it's something like 0.00000207 years - off by 11 orders of magnitude). Or multiply the number of people who built the Taj Mahal by the number of years they spent building it to get the number of man-years they spent. I'd guess around 1,000 people built the Taj Mahal. That's 21,000 man-years, even more than was spent watching Gangnam Style.

Of course, if you added all the numbers for all the stupid youtube videos, memes, worthless news articles, facebook posts, etc. together, then you'd probably get something terribly depressing. My guess is some tiny fraction of humanity actually sustains the rest of the species. They are the (much less than) 1%.

</comment><comment><USER11> And now a little more discussing it ;)

<comment><USER12> I came here to say the same thing, so it seems we're both guilty of it as well.

<comment><USER11> I didn't even read his article... , already spent to much time on Gagnam Style ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I didn't see it!

People are also amazed when I tell them I haven't seen Avatar, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I guess I'm just different than most people.

<comment><USER14> Yea, but you're the same as all the other people who feel the need to point out they have no tv and didn't see Star Wars.

<comment><USER13> I haven't seen Star Wars (and neither did any of my friends) but I own 3 TVs. I watch a shitload of TV shows.

<comment><USER15> This article (and the phenomenon it descibes) is likely why the GP mentioned people who don't have TVs: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man- constantly-mention...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly- mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/)

So if you want to determine how much time you have 'wasted' related to the video, add up the time spent saying how you haven't seen it.

Edit: There is no anger involved, other than maybe a little at being called angry. :) It is just pointing out an aspect of the human condition. (I stopped watching TV for a few years around the time this article came out and this article gave me some extra self awareness.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The world is all about trivialities today and escapism (let's not face reality). Especially in the West. Young men and women (in general) don't really mature until their mid 30s and some never do.

We have an entire generation of people distracted every 30 seconds by fart apps, juvenile videos and self-photos in the bathroom. We need more engineers, doctors and lawyers and serious thinkers.

Maybe I'm just getting older, but that's my honest opinion.

<comment><USER17> You have a terribly misinformed honest opinion. Maybe you should go out more?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The Empire State Building took only two years to build.

Um, the site is counting man-hours for YouTube videos, but I know there was more than just one guy working on the Empire State Building.

According to Wikipedia, there were 3,400 workers on the project, so the correct comparison would be 14,526 years to 6,800 years. And I bet I had a lot more fun adding my 15 minutes to Gangnam Style than I'd have adding 15 minutes to build the Empire State Building.

</comment><comment><USER19> they're entitled to their opinion thats its 'wasted'. but really. wise enough to decide for other people how their time is best spent? is time spent being entertained wasted? or is time being entertained by gangnam style wasted but say, time reading 'in search of lost time' not?

</comment><comment><USER20> Today I went to the loo, it took... say 90 seconds.

I'm betting that everyone on Earth went to the loo today, and also averaged 90 seconds.

Humanity wasted 19,889 years shitting today.

It took only 21 years to build the Taj Mahal in India!

What a waste.

<comment><USER21> I spend longer than 90 seconds to pinch a loaf. I also tend to daydream while I'm perched on the porcelain throne, often about data structures.

While we're on the subject, you might find this article entertaining: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> a bit arrogant as other people point it out but also makes a wrong comparison! WW1 lasted six years but the time wasted was much more, multiply it by the number of people involved (the soldiers alone were 68 millions) and the time spent on reconstruction and you got a much higher value, in the order of hundred of millions years.

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe, but what is the effect of singing, dancing, and laughter on humans?

Not to mention building cultural bridges...

</comment><comment><USER24> Time enjoyed is not time wasted.

After all, what is the point of the time we have, other than to enjoy it?

</comment><comment><USER25> cute, but also assumes no multitasking.

</comment><comment><USER26> We may have increased productivity thereafter. I know I did! ;)

</comment><comment><USER27> man years is more appropriate

</comment><comment><USER28> The comparison to completion time of the Empire State Building, the Great Pyramid of Giza, etc, are dishonest. Those weren't completed by a single individual, so it doesn't make sense to compare it to all time spent by each person watching the video.

<comment><USER29> I was thinking the same thing. First one I saw was for the Eiffel Tower, which took __300 people __2 years, so that should actually show as 600 years, not 2.

<comment><USER30> Not to mention the time required to design it, the time spent by workers to collect the raw materials used to build it, the time spent in factories to produce a finished metal product that could be used in construction, etc.

Attempting to calculate the man-hours that went into almost any project of scale is absurd. There are far too many factors to consider.</comment></comment></comment>


Where to look for Python developers? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a collaborative filtering startup and looking for a partner/developer who has experience in building scalable high-performance websites in Python. The geographic location doesn't matter as we are willing to work and collaborate online.<p>Where should I look for him/her? Any ideas... <comment><USER2> This might be a start: <http://www.python.org/community/jobs/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Where are you? And what are you trying to filter?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. We are working on a new trust-based collaborative filtering algorithm and looking to apply it to domains like Search and News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting, which startup?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am working on a startup called 'Yadster'. We are trying to build new collaborative filtering algorithms (like those based on trust/reputation) are trying to apply them to applications like Search and News. We have a basic prototype working, but a lot still needs to be done... :)</comment></comment>


Rohinni: Paper-thin LED lighting - <AUTHOR> http://www.rohinni.com <comment><USER2> Nth Degree Technologies invented this product. [http://www.nthdegreetech.com/](http://www.nthdegreetech.com/)

Here is one relevant patent: [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8846457.html](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8846457.html)

Here is an album of various pictures taken earlier this fall (2014), and also just a minute ago with two pieces I had around the house: [http://imgur.com/a/nBB5r](http://imgur.com/a/nBB5r)

The technology is several things: it is real, it is sufficiently bright to stand up to daylight conditions, and it is mass-producible. It has raised interest from various industry sectors.

Lastly, this technology is not the work of Rohinni. They bought some pieces from Nth Degree, and what their business plan is, who knows. They did not invent it, legally cannot produce it, and it is doubtful they have the the technical knowhow to do so anyway.

In short, Rohinni is taking credit for a product they did not make.

<comment><USER3> > Lastly, this technology is not the work of Rohinni. They bought some pieces > from Nth Degree, and what their business plan is, who knows. They did not > invent it, legally cannot produce it, and it is doubtful they have the the > technical knowhow to do so anyway.

Well, these seem like some pretty definite claims that should be easy to back up with evidence?

<comment><USER4> I'd say they are rather extraordinary claims, given the differences between the Nth Degree prototypes and the Rohinni prototype shown on the website.

Nth Degree's product honestly looks far more plausible, given its unusual characteristics (speckled luminance distribution, blue cast, restriction to clearly separated strips). It's considerably harder to find Rohinni's compromise-free prototype credible, with its consistent, diffuse, apparently- broad-spectrum light. But that just makes it even harder to believe an accusation that they ordered a few Nth Degree strips and went to town with them.

<comment><USER5> I've only seen pictures, but it seems plausible to be able to take Nth degree strips and add some kind of thin diffusion film over the surface, to remove the speckled look. Certain materials can also absorb blue and re-radiate multi-spectrum light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nothing about this seems plausible to me. I do research on LED technologies though I can't speak about this specifically because they don't seem to have released any technical details whatsoever, but that's part of what makes me so skeptical. The panels they present are so bright, so uniform (both in colour and intensity), so thin and flexible–and they claim they'll be able to mass produce them too? Whatever they've got, I'd be very surprised if they manage to scale it, let alone for it to be "in the wild around the middle of 2015". I'd be very happy to be proven wrong of course!

I think in cases like this photoshop mockups (assuming that's what they are) can do more harm than good for setting expectations that might not be realistic.

<comment><USER7> My guess is they've simply using the backlights of LCD panels: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiejNAUwcQ8#t=34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiejNAUwcQ8#t=34)

They can scatter light and are deceptively thin. Coupling with (maybe) some fibre cables and you've pretty much got what they're offering. I'd doubt they're actually offering a unique product that illuminates the product as advertised.

<comment><USER8> LCD panels don't have a paper thin backlight, they are lit from the sides of the display and the light is refracted and diffused trough a thin layer of plastic, this is why all LCD's have light bleed to some degree since the diffusion is not uniform throughout the surface of the display. This technology seems to be completely different and the LED's are infused evenly throughout the material rather than being simply located at the edges. The diodes they use also seem to be very different than commercially available LED's both in terms of their size(several orders of magnitude smaller) and resisting/allowing deformation without functional issues. As it's currently shown this technology is much more similar to OLED and other internally illuminating displays rather than to LCD's, or traditional LED array displays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm always suspicious of LED room lights when they don't state the price upfront. They've been pretty price in the past, but the cost is dropping quickly. Some quick Googling found [http://www.environmentallights.com/led- light-panels/ultra-th...](http://www.environmentallights.com/led-light- panels/ultra-thin-led-light-panels.html) which has 24" x 24" 17W panel for $250. That panel outputs 3000 lux == 3k lumens / sq meter = 1.1k lumens for 4 sq ft. This is the same as a 75W incandescent bulb. A standard 13W LED bulb is $16 for the same amount of light.

So the price needs to drop by about 1-2 orders of magnitude before these become practical for most people.

</comment><comment><USER10> OLED Lighting is LED 2.0. LG [1] is already pushing this into production.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeoJEog1XYE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeoJEog1XYE)

</comment><comment><USER11> For a glowing-surface product you can get right now, check out electroluminescent paint.

[http://lumilor.com/](http://lumilor.com/)

[http://www.litcoat.com/](http://www.litcoat.com/)

<comment><USER12> Aha! this looks promising, I've been looking for something similar for a while. I want to make this [http://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/electronics/tron- case/](http://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/electronics/tron-case/) much neater.

At the moment its held on with tape, and its not long lasting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why are they talking about this and not taking over the backlight market for LCD displays? That market wants flat light sources right now and will pay for them. Because, maybe, this doesn't really work?

</comment><comment><USER14> and why not show off Tron suits? Considering the price of light tapes this might be appealing if its cheap enough to fiddle with.

I would like to see it on clothing, particularly bicycle and motorcycle gear. Might be awesome for safety persons too (first responders)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that's one of the applications the two inventors have in mind (outdoor clothing).

Came across their early announcement beginning of this year ([http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_6c1e49d6-8f2...](http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_6c1e49d6-8f2e-5e67-a6d2-88abd2c33d92.html)) - now it seems they are getting ready to deliver / having every day use applications on the market in the next 6 months (by 3rd party industry members).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's something to be said in favor of light emitted from a point, like an HID bulb, or along a line like an incandescent light bulb. The advantages of points and lines is ease of constructing lenses and optics to put the light where you want. This is a problem for LEDs where the light is emitted on a plane, or multiple parallel lines, or space-filling curves depending on the semiconductor process used. What would be some advantages of a planar light like these, if they existed?

<comment><USER16> Light from large sources is "softer", meaning the shadows are not as harsh. This is why you see photographers use soft boxes or umbrellas, or videographers using light panels.

Indoor lighting is usually more appealing, and more functional, from a large source, as well.

Imagine being in a dark room with only one, small light source, and trying to do some sort of fine motor work. If the room is evenly lit, from a large source, it's easy to see what you're doing. But if there's just one small source, you end up casting a shadow on what you're trying to work on, making it much more difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Fascinating piece of tech if they actually manage to deliver on it. It'd be amazing if there was some more information on it though, the only stuff I can find is them explaining that it's LEDs mixed with ink between two conductive layers and an additional protective layer. Then a lot of fancy mockups that don't tell me anything about the tech they're selling.

Even if this vastly underdelivers, it might do away with the inverters needed for el-wire/panels which would be neat.

<comment><USER18> > It'd be amazing if there was some more information on it though

I suspect that there is little information on it, either because they are not entirely solid on the information themsilves, or that they do not want to risk letting others make similar products before they have a chance to hit market, or some combination of the two.

I hope it is the latter, as that would mean it is a lot more likely this will ever come to market.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, a video of it in action would be incredible though. The single picture of it isn't quite convincing yet. Reading through articles on it it appears they're on the first iteration of the design though, which appearently suffers from problems with uniform lighting they're hoping to resolve in the comming months, so that might be the reason they're not showing any more proof of their claims.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This will be really cool when it's a real thing. Right now it seems to be limited to very small scale samples and Photoshopped mockups.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is one of three HN links on the front page that uses this new fad where the landing consists of nothing but a full screen image, no content and a less than obvious notification that you should scroll down to see something actually useful. Stahp.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> some more editorial information at: [http://www.fastcolabs.com/3038890/rohinnis-lightpaper-is- inc...](http://www.fastcolabs.com/3038890/rohinnis-lightpaper-is-incredibly- thin-and-printable)

</comment><comment><USER4> One thing I've disliked about the current crop of thin, high-PPI LCD screens is the unavoidable unevenness in backlighting caused by their thin, hard-to- make-optically-perfect diffusers. Even the Retina Display on the MacBook Pro isn't immune from it.

Though Rohinni doesn't visualize it in their applications section, Lightpaper looks like it could enable diffuser-less, razor-thin LCD displays with potentially far greater luminance uniformity than current backlight solutions.

<comment><USER15> These would be much worse. They're essentially an array of tiny LEDs and a consequence of the distribution of LED forward voltages will mean that some of the LEDs are going to hog current and others will get less. This will lead to bright spots, and the human eye is actually very sensitive to this. You get the same problem with OLED displays and people have complained a lot about the visible noise on OLED phones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

<comment><USER21> Usually what you do to solve that problem is chain a bunch of LEDs together in series and then those groups together in parallel. If your process technology is +- 5% then chaining 5 LEDs in a row will even out your average error to +-1% instead. Which makes a big difference. Of course, if they don't do that then you're right that there can be problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hello my name is Alexander and I am the founder of a French information site for 3D printing. It happens that I wrote an article on "lightpaper" ( [http://www.priximprimante3d.com/led/](http://www.priximprimante3d.com/led/) ) and wanted to know if the process used to manufacture this device is similar to that used to manufacture OLED.

</comment><comment><USER23> Given that an LED can act "in reverse", as photovoltaic source, what would be the efficiency of this as a solar cell? Any ideas?

<comment><USER24> Short answer: no. I just wrote a long diatribe attempting to explain why using my very limited knowledge of semiconductor physics, but realized I couldn't do so without making some substantial guesses.

So instead, I'll offer some (probably fallacious, but likely still correct in its conclusion) logical deduction -- If this was likely to be a good photovoltaic source, the inverse would also likely be true. That is, that good photovoltaic sources would emit heaps of light when a current was applied.

In short, LEDs are semi conductors optimized to have a very specific direct energy band gap which produces photons in the visible light spectrum. This causes the semiconductor to shed excess electrons as visible light energy.

Photodiodes (used for PV arrays) are similar, but optimized for a completely different goal. They attempt to maximize the size of their depletion region. I don't know that the energy band gap is as important, though I'd imagine the narrower the better. Either way, this is done to maximize the likelihood that an incident photon will excite one of the molecules in that region of the diode, thereby freeing up an electron and causing it to flow around the circuit.

<comment><USER25> We just replied with very similar responses!

FYI solar cells would not make good light sources since the most common ones (silicon based) are indirect band gap. For LEDs (and lasers) a direct band gap material is required.

You are correct about the depletion region needing to be large for solar cells, but narrower is not necessarily better. This is because if you make the band gap super narrow (say 0.5eV) and most of your energy comes in as much higher energy photons (1eV+) you are discarding all of the energy besides that 0.5eV from those photons. The band gap is tuned to get the highest responsivity at wavelengths where the most energy is coming in if it is tuned at all.

<comment><USER24> So in the case of a narrow band gap, where does the excess energy go? I'd guess it must be shed as a lower energy photon?

<comment><USER25> Nope! In very rare cases it can generate multiple electron hole pairs the photon if it has enough energy to do that. Almost all of the time however it will generate a _phonon_ (aka heat) rather than a photon with the extra energy. A phonon is a wave in matter rather than electromagnetism (photon).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This paper (2012) shows that it is possible to create LEDs by printing zinc oxide and a conducting polymer on paper: [http://liu.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:515790/FULLTEXT01](http://liu.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:515790/FULLTEXT01)

Maybe it's derived from this technique?

</comment><comment><USER27> Trying to find it, but does anyone know the battery life of it? Or does it have to have a constant source of power?

<comment><USER28> It's not powered internally. You apply it to a surface and power it like you would a normal LED.

<comment><USER27> Makes sense now, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> That photo of the team is hilarious.As if the men wore masks to wind up the woman.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd be a lot more interested in this if the photos of their office showed their product actually being used in the spaces.

</comment><comment><USER31> Anyone have an idea as to the lumens per sqft?

<comment><USER32> Since they aren't saying, it's doubtful they do better than current OLED panels, which framkly are pitifully dim.

<comment><USER33> How do those compare to a standard drop-ceiling Fluorescent fixture?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Where can I buy a sample of this?

<comment><USER35> From the FastCo link [1] in another comment:

"Consumers should start to see Lightpaper in the wild around the middle of 2015. But Rohinni won't be aiming at the home hobbyist market until after it takes hold in the commercial and industrial space."

Bummer!

1: [http://www.fastcolabs.com/3038890/rohinnis-lightpaper-is- inc...](http://www.fastcolabs.com/3038890/rohinnis-lightpaper-is-incredibly- thin-and-printable)

<comment><USER36> An unenlightened plan, for a category like this where it's not immediately obvious what can be done with your product.

<comment><USER37> It's a typical plan when your initial product cost is going to be way high. Commercial/industrial users will pay high prices if the application is what they want. Home users will not.

<comment><USER36> You might be surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> They are local to me...maybe I will swing in.

</comment><comment><USER39> I would love those wall-decals for my room. Beautiful

<comment><USER11> You can always buy and cut up electroluminescent panels, like this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPCwM9TxMqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPCwM9TxMqA)

<comment><USER40> Agreed, i was just about to say the same thing with this vid: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkA0YdNEsqU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkA0YdNEsqU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Perhaps more useful information can be found here: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/litcoat-takes-paint-to-a- ne...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/litcoat-takes-paint-to-a-new-level- with-electroluminescence-2014-10-17) [http://www.12newsnow.com/story/26828656/litcoat-announces- av...](http://www.12newsnow.com/story/26828656/litcoat-announces-availability- of-three-new-electroluminescent-paint-packages) [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/litcoat- revolutioniz...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/litcoat- revolutionizes-the-painting-industry-with-paramagnetic-electroluminescent- paint-282324651.html)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is called LitCoat and more information is on litcoat.com LitCoat is nano coating and consist of spray paint layers working together:

(1) Conductive - (2) Dielectric - (3) EL (Electroluminescent) - (4) Conductive layer and then you seal it off with the (5) Top layer. (Once applied save to touch)

From principle it can be applied on everything but it is depending on the under-layer trace thickness and uniformity. In case of irregularity of the surface it would require treatment for a more homogeneous surface.

DIY: [http://www.litcoat.com/product/litcoat-electroluminescent- pa...](http://www.litcoat.com/product/litcoat-electroluminescent-paint-rd- kickstarter-package)

<comment><USER42> > This is called LitCoat and more information is on litcoat.com LitCoat is > nano coating and consist of spray paint layers working together:

Is your claim that the Rohinni Light Paper is actually based on the technology that LitCoat is pushing?</comment></comment>


Anonymous hacker claims he broke into wind turbine systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/041711-anonymous-hacker-claims-he-broke.html

<comment><USER2> "Click here to turn the wind turbine into a really big fan."

("Coolest" hack ever, you could say...)

</comment><comment><USER3> The hacker was dumb to have identified himself as a company employee who was fired under bad circumstances. HR could probably give the police a short list of suspects by Tuesday.

<comment><USER4> Unless he wasn't... if so it was a pretty good idea.

<comment><USER2> Indeed. Imagine that you hated your boss and he was fired, but you still wanted some revenge. A few screenshots and a trivial "story" later, and you're in business.</comment></comment></comment>


Paxos, a beautiful protocol for distributed consensus - <AUTHOR> http://www.goodmath.org/blog/2015/01/30/paxos-a-really-beautiful-protocol-for-distributed-consensus/

<comment><USER2> I often see Paxos and Raft mentioned side by side in discussions of distributed consensus algorithms, with Raft touted as "a simpler, more understandable Paxos." Does this simplicity come with any downsides?

<comment><USER3> In Raft, the stable leader is the only one that can act on requests, which can be limiting in the wide area. Also, leader election phases can introduce response time spikes. Some eludications of paxos (e.g. Egalitarian Paxos[0]) can improve on both of those characteristics.

[0] [http://css.csail.mit.edu/6.824/2014/papers/epaxos.pdf](http://css.csail.mit.edu/6.824/2014/papers/epaxos.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Heterogeneous Replicated DataBase(HRDB) was a prototype of a similar protocol for fault tolerance amongst database replicas.This one is mainly focused on DBs and on building a middleware for a DB inclusive of its technology. Its from 2008 , however.

Detecting and Tolerating Byzantine Faults in Database Systems :[http://web.mit.edu/benmv/thesis/thesis.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/benmv/thesis/thesis.pdf) (Benjamin Mead Vandiver)

Edit: Name correction</comment>


Data Mining and Analysis: Fundamental Concepts and Algorithms [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.dcc.ufmg.br/livros/miningalgorithms/DokuWiki/doku.php?id=pdf

<comment><USER2> I had the luck of being taught by Prof. Meira - who is one hell of a professor - while this book was in draft stage. Here you'll find not only a great toolkit of techniques of data mining, but more importantly, a very comprehensive arsenal of concepts to properly analyse your data and the results of the techniques applied.

As grizzlon said in a sibling comment, you'll find the chapter dependencies on page 10, in case you need to look up/learn something specific on demand.

<comment><USER3> The chapter dependencies is one of those things that is so obvious you wonder why it isn't in every textbook.

How was the class? The book is very comprehensive. I'd imagine it would be hard to cover it in a year, let alone a quarter or semester. What environments and languages did the class program in?

<comment><USER2> Agreed about the chapter dependencies. I hope this becomes a trend!

The class is one semester long, and is divided between data analysis, frequent pattern mining, clustering and classification. Most of the book is either covered or briefly discussed. It is indeed a 'deep' class: UFMG has a strong data mining/machine learning/information retrieval/natural computing/other related areas program, so each class can afford to be pretty specific.

The class is taught at the same time to undergrad and graduate students (the difference being that each group has a different class project; grads have to write a basic research paper).

There are lots of pen on paper theoretical quizzes and tests. Technologically, AFAIK there are no restrictions on which technologies to use, but popular choices are those which the TAs are most experienced in, usually Weka, C++ and Python. Like other classes taught by Prof. Meira, students are pushed as far as possible in terms of evaluation difficulty, then graded on a curve. UFMG alumni considering these classes should be careful if they decide to take it along with other difficult classes.

Here is the course page (in pt-br, but Google Translate should be OK): [http://homepages.dcc.ufmg.br/~meira/DokuWiki/wiki/ensino_md](http://homepages.dcc.ufmg.br/~meira/DokuWiki/wiki/ensino_md)

Off-topic: OP seems to share my first and one of my last names lol. Another seemingly brazilian commenter in the topic also seems to share my first name. This may or may not indicate a correlation between the name Rafael and computer science in Brazil lol.

<comment><USER3> Ahhh - UFMG - solid place. I heard UFMG is why Google is in Belo Horizonte.

As for names, when I saw yours, I thought of this R Almeida. [http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Ricardo- Almeida-11](http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Ricardo-Almeida-11)

<comment><USER2> That would be correct. Google settled in Belo Horizonte by buying Akwan Search Technologies, which was co-founded by UFMG professors Nivio Ziviani[1] and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto (currently Google's Head of Engineering in Brazil). Information Retrieval - a department in which they play key roles - is another strong area of the university.

Ziviani currently is a co-founder in recommendation startups Zunnit[2] (just upstairs in the building I am right now) and Neemu[3].

PS: Ha! Maybe this guy is the reason I can't get my screen name everywhere I want!

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nivio_Ziviani](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nivio_Ziviani) [2] [http://zunnit.com/](http://zunnit.com/) [3] [http://neemu.com/](http://neemu.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Like the _Chapter Dependencies_ on page 10.. Don't think I have seen that before

</comment><comment><USER5> This is great, I've been looking for something like this, to refresh and build on a class I took in college. To my surprise, this is my professor's actual book I look forward to reading the book again. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for the PDF. I am a math major and have been feeling rather bummed that I haven't had much of a chance to learn techniques for data analysis, so this is really appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome, thanks!

I have ~3.5million pieces of structured data to go through, I will find this paper interesting.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's great to see quality content from Brazil. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks great!

</comment><comment><USER10> Good!</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more web startups open-source their applications? - <AUTHOR>

This is something I've been thinking about a bit recently, but decided to look into it a bit more.  One of the only ones I could find (apart from the obvious such as diaspora, though they don't seem to have a business model as far as I've seen/googling tells me) is SugarCRM, who seem to be doing quite well with a combo of GPL'd code and a commercial SaaS product built off that code.<p>I guess what I want to know is why is this such a bad idea that a lot of us, who are OSS advocates, don't follow this sort of business model (or another OSS biz model)?  Also I was wondering if there are any famous casualties of companies trying this and it failing on them? <comment><USER2> How about this as a fundamentally equivalent question: Why don't more web startups run poetry competitions?

Much like Open Sourcing your code, running a poetry competition is unlikely to add enough business value to offset the resources it will take to accomplish.

Sure, there are guys on your team who _really_ like poetry and would go out of their way to help organize the contest. And the poetry fans that happen to be your users would think more of you for doing it.

But at the end of the day, it's just not a good business decision, so you don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a business, you want to look for "sustainable competitive advantage." A way to differentiate themselves from competition and make a profit.

Having closed-source code is a sustainable competitive advantage for many companies selling heavily software-dependent products like games, apps, websites, etc. "Advantage" because your competitors don't have it, "sustainable" because, with adequate investment in new features, you can keep your platform ahead of copycats.

There are a variety of strategies to make money with open source, but as a business, your first priority should be figuring out how you'll make enough money to adequately pay your owners, employees and vendors. The answer to that question is sometimes "open source," but not always.

Strategic reasons can sometimes justify open source products. For example, consider infrastructure components that are an incidental byproduct of your operations, not a core piece of your product. Twitter Bootstrap immediately comes to mind. Twitter releasing Bootstrap as open source doesn't help its competitors in the same way that open sourcing the code to its main website would, and allows the community to provide some amount of testing and improvement which may help them in the future.

But there is no one-size-fits-all answer; whether to open-source your code, and what to open-source, depends on your specific situation.

</comment><comment><USER4> For a lot of sites the code is pretty much the sum of the business and the rest is just customer acquisition which plenty of people will have more experience and money and smarts to figure out better and faster than you. Maybe not directly at your expense but it's easy to imagine bidding against competitors you created or gave a head start to in AdWords.

There are exceptions, anything where the code is secondary to the community or something like reddit.

</comment><comment><USER5> One problem is that with SaaS apps, the GPL isn't "viral" in the same sense that it is with desktop apps. It doesn't provide protection against a competitor taking your code, adding proprietary extensions to it, and then running a competing product that's an improved version of your product without sharing back the improvements, because they would only be "internal" improvements that don't have to be shared. You can stop that with the Affero GPL, which considers hosting the app to be equivalent to "distribution", but enough people seem to hate the AGPL that there's not a lot of incentive to bother releasing at all.

</comment><comment><USER6> My guess is that sadly investors value unique intellectual property that can be protected, and they might not be too crazy about open source as a result. This is because if the company goes south the patents may be the only thing the investor can salvage.

<comment><USER7> The problem with this hypothesis is that you never hear anyone in the startup community talk about their patents and how much they are worth. Not on HN, not in the media, not on Techcrunch. You never see an "Ask HN" about how to file a patent, or license a patent, or litigate a patent. And I don't recall ever hearing a VC talk up the awesomeness of patents, or encourage a startup to waste even 0.1% of its time filing for patents instead of doing something more valuable.

<comment><USER6> If you're getting angel money you're right (because you're doing proof of concept) -- but if you're at the VC stage that's incorrect. And I've gotten that from VCs...</comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN: Wordpress Users: Disqus, Livefyre or wordpress commenting system? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Disqus. LiveFyre is terrible, and _NEVER_ use the Wordpress default.</comment>


Save PBS. It makes us safer - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/opinion/stanley-mcchrystal-save-pbs-it-makes-us-safer.html <comment><USER2> To me, anybody who argues that PBS should be cut loses all credibility as a budget hawk (if they had any to begin with). PBS is an incredibly valuable public-private partnership. For every dollar the federal government spends, two or three listeners listeners voluntarily contribute a dollar of their own money, much of which goes to their local community. Other programs should be looking to public broadcasting as a financial model to be emulated.

 _edit_ Not to mention the lasting value created by the content.

<comment><USER3> PBS is in a dying industry. Television. Perhaps another equally good public- private partnership will arrive. The Khan Academy and Wikipedia are something like that.

<comment><USER4> You should familiarize yourself PBS Digital Studios. They have several high quality Youtube channels. CrashCourse, Space Time, Infinite, etc. are much better at using the Internet medium and specifically video for learning than Khan Academy, with high production values for a Youtube series though they have different objectives. Khan Academy is like a traditional classroom via the web.

The PBS shows are bingeworthy. Seriously, take a look at SpaceTime. It's so much better than anything the Science or Discovery channel puts on. And I've binged on several topics in Crash Course

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fred Rogers testifying before congress in 1969 about why PBS should be funded:

[http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fredrogerssenatetes...](http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fredrogerssenatetestimonypbs.htm)

<comment><USER6> The world has changed a lot since 1969. Many homes don't even have network television anymore.

<comment><USER7> PBS news hour has 390k subs on youtube and does 50k views on their nightly 50min. Compared to other news networks this is not too shabby. So yeah don't worry they have many other ways of getting to viewers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The President's budget proposal might tell you something about what the Administration is about, but it's not a serious legislating document; the budget is one of a few subjects that is entirely delegated to Congress. Meanwhile, PBS is a rounding error in the non-military discretionary budget (which is itself dwarfed by mandatory entitlement spending).

It's been said, most recently I think by John Dickerson, that conservatives benefit more from having PBS around as an issue than they would by slashing its funding. As several people here have pointed out: PBS gets ~15% of its funding from the government and could easily make up the shortfall, but the GOP would lose a straw man to beat up. This particular straw man goes all the way back to Reagan. It was even a campaign issue in the 2012 election.

The point of Presidential budgets is to frame the conversation, not to enact changes.

<comment><USER9> It's just not a straw man. PBS influences the decisions of millions of Americans, and steers them unequivocally to the left. If 15% of Fox news's budget would come from federal government you'd understand that the money is not a "drop", but enough to influence people.

<comment><USER8> Comments like this are pretty much what I mean by the GOP wanting PBS around as an issue to beat up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gingerbread-man Outline of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's FY2014 budget: [http://www.cpb.org/files/aboutcpb/financials/budget/FY2014-O...](http://www.cpb.org/files/aboutcpb/financials/budget/FY2014-Operating- Budget.pdf)

Out of a total budget of $445m:

~66% (292m) is distributed via direct grants to local public television and radio stations.

~17% (74m) goes to television programming grants.

~7% (30m) goes to radio programming.

~11% (59m) goes to system support and administration.

<comment> gingerbread-man I'd be curious to hear from someone who has worked at a local public broadcasting affiliate about what their budgets look like. I enjoy state-level public radio, but I don't watch a lot of state or local public television programming.

It seems like a lot of the arguments for funding PBS/CPB have been centered around their national programming, e.g. Nova and Sesame Street. But if the proposed cuts are "across the board," state and local public television programs would bear a greater share of the burden. Maybe we should be talking more about those.

<comment><USER10> It's a simple strategy. Everybody knows "Sesame Street." Fewer people know, say, "North Carolina NOW" or "Wild Nevada."

On the other hand, _somebody_ should do local stories about local shows. Each PBS station should highlight its own programming, but they would reach a different audience (including potential new fans) by getting other channels to include a story on their local news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a long-time (but now, former) financial supporter of PBS, I am of two minds here.

There is a lot to like - focus on the arts, science. serious topics, quality children programming.

But in recent years, the news and politics programming has turned - almost to a caricature level - unabashedly partisan and ideological. Not a single white male to be seen on the cast of NewsHour, other than a couple of low-level field reporters such as Jeff Brown, an obsession with stories like the abuse of women in southern Nigeria, while they completely ignore white male citizens of the US are left to rot (and die from opioid abuse and suicide) in West Virginia, etc.

It is their prerogative to set the agenda as they like, but I feel that a publicly funded channel should cover all points of view.

I feel the same about Planned Parenthood. Even though, personally, I am pro- choice, I can understand that people who are opposed to it may have a problem with their tax money used to fund it.

<comment><USER12> "they completely ignore white male citizens of the US are left to rot (and die from opioid abuse and suicide) in West Virginia, etc." :

A simple google search yields :

\- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioid- abuse/](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioid-abuse/) (1 stories) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/) (7 stories) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting- life-s...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting-life-short- white-americans/)

West Virginia \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/another-west-virginia- to...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/another-west-virginia-town-sues- drug-wholesalers/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/west-virginia-school- caring-s...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/west-virginia-school-caring- students-addicted-parents-cant/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/early-results-of-w-va- to...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/early-results-of-w-va-towns-needle- exchange-program-shows-progress/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sobering- stories-drug-addicti...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sobering-stories-drug- addiction-west-virginia-237/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/rural-west- virginia-schools-h...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/rural-west-virginia- schools-help-grandparents-parenting-second-time/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/schools-rural-west- virginia-a...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/schools-rural-west-virginia-aim- improve-students-prospects/)

[the next statements are made with the hope of furthering dialog] Yes, they could do better as far as content, what worries me about your post is your statement "completely ignore" seems to differ from reality.

<comment><USER11> OK, so "completely ignore" was an exaggeration. They do talk about opioid abuse as a problem in general, but rarely ever mention that the affected segment of the population is about 65% white male (in West Virginia, not sure about other areas). If there is a program on PBS or NPR about it, it is almost always a young female being interviewed - just my subjective observation. Details, but they add up quickly and create an ideological bias, where there should not be.

<comment><USER12> "If there is a program on PBS or NPR about it, it is almost always a young female being interviewed"

I posted the link : [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/opioids/)

So I read through a few of the stories, and of the first few that focus on the stories of individual addicts all three are white males.

\- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/montanas-pain- refugees-l...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/montanas-pain-refugees- leave-state-get-prescribed-opioids/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/opioids-as-a-first- respo...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/opioids-as-a-first-response-to- pain-hospitals-are-rethinking-that-policy/) \- [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/painkillers- controversy-...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/painkillers-controversy- doctors/)

Although they fall short of giving the specific statistic you quote take a lot at these stories : "white" is in the title and url and they both mention the toll males are taking.

"He's been seeing a lot of dead white males of late, especially ages 45 to 54." : [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting- life-s...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/deaths-despair-cutting-life-short- white-americans/)

"So, here is a male with no identity. He's not working. He's supposed to be a provider for his family. He can't even do that. So that low self-worth, along with that hopelessness feeling, we start seeing tremendous depression." [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/feeling-falling-behind- fuels-...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/feeling-falling-behind-fuels-deadly- distress-white-americans/)

I just don't know how you get from "subjective observation" to what I am reading. I stay this as I also worry your perception is alienating you from folks that have your interests in mind as I am doubtful it is the folks calling for cuts do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For more background on the author: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal)

(I had to look him up, might be useful for other people as well.)

</comment><comment><USER14> Keep PBS on the air. Consider donating today.

[http://www.pbs.org/donate/](http://www.pbs.org/donate/)

<comment><USER15> Agreed. I signed up for recurring membership (in the past, I only donated intermittently or during drives). This is something worth keeping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why can't people just donate directly? I set up recurring payments for donation-based channels I watch on Youtube, so not sure why this can't be the same.

<comment><USER17> The people PBS can best serve are often the ones with the least amount of money to donate.

<comment><USER18> Can't be stated any better than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> PBS doesn't have commercials? Because I'm pretty sure it does.

<comment><USER20> PBS has underwriting spots that are only shown between programs and are subject to more restrictions than commercials: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriting_spot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriting_spot)

No programming is interrupted, and the only marketing content is typically something like "Brand Flakes is happy to support PBS".

<comment><USER21> They are commercials.

<comment><USER22> What? Care to back up your claim at all instead of just traipsing in and saying "no"? I watch PBS every day and they are most certainly not commercials as your parent comment says. They generally are 10 seconds at most, have maybe two sentences about the company, and show the logo. Usually one of those sentences is "Company xxx is proud to support PBS".

<comment><USER23> Dictionary.com says a commercial is "a paid advertisement or promotional announcement." Companies pay PBS, they get an announcement promoting the company. It's a commercial. If Company xxx just wanted to do great things, it could easily give money and seek no acknowledgement (the same way that, ahem, viewers give money and get no on-air acknowledgement, not even a flash in crawling text.) But Company xxx wants to be acknowledged. No problem. But it's a commercial.

<comment><USER24> You are missing the point and needlessly tripping yourself up on nitpicking. The point of the piece is that PBS delivers a lot of quality content to children (lots of other content too, but that isn't the author's focus). A couple minutes per hour of "Brought to you by XYZ Corporation" vs 20 cumulative minutes of animated bunnies selling breakfast marshmallows aimed at 2-7 year olds is not the same thing.

You can hide behind your dictionary definition and declare yourself the victor, but you must know there is a substantive difference between them and that is exactly the point that author was making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I personally would be happy to give up a few dollars of the $1,859 [1] I spend on bombs every year. That is 6 weeks of work if you are working minimum wage. The blah blah budget hawks is b.s. to remove the few elements the benefit the general public and reshape the U.S. into a developing country where we fight over scrapes. Matthew 25:40 : what you do unto the least of your brother ... if we don't start taking care of one another as a family you won't have much left.

[1] : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita)

</comment><comment><USER25> How come PBS cannot fund itself? And make profit and revenue? Just curious.

<comment><USER26> It probably could fund itself and make a profit. But the whole point is that the country is choosing to invest in providing quality media content in the form of high quality detailed reporting and educational content because it's critical for the success of our nation.

I think even the most partisan American would have a hard time looking at commercial media and declaring it a resounding success - educational channels like Discovery/History Channel are more of a meme than source of quality media these days and "news" is now a mix of entertainment and partisan opinion pieces between a deluge of advertising.

<comment><USER27> I remember how twenty years ago, the argument was made that the high quality of educational programming on the Discovery and History Channels made PBS redundant. I didn't agree even then, but at the time there really were some pretty good stuff on those commercial channels.

But it turns out that shows about science and history don't make as much money as nonsense about ancient aliens and so the commercial stations stopped being that educational. It really shows how the commercial model doesn't really work for education.

<comment><USER4> Plus, their shows are made for a 3rd grade level of understanding. None of their science shows have even a hint of math

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting.

It always seemed odd that PBS is such an frequent target of Republicans while the Voice of America seems fly under the radar.

VOA is fully-taxpayer funded to the tune of $260M/yr.

<comment><USER29> I suspect it's because VOA flies under the radar in general. I for one have never heard of it.

<comment><USER30> VoA is great if you are ever stuck in some remote part of the world with no media access but a shortwave radio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _> The federal appropriation for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — about $445 million annually — supports more than a thousand television and radio stations at a cost of about $1.35 per citizen._

a) It easily could be funded voluntarily

b) If it is so important (as the article argues), why is it such a small portion of the budget?

<comment><USER32> And I have yet to hear an argument regarding exactly how PBS is still necessary. Once it was, but not since anyone with a cel phone can record and upload content accessible to the entire world.</comment></comment>


Gmail's New CSS Buttons - <AUTHOR> http://noscope.com/journal/2010/03/gmails-new-css-buttons

<comment><USER2> Shameless plug: I spent way too much time working on CSS3 buttons for Cadmus. It doesn't use gradient property but it uses a bunch of others that people might find interesting - [http://blog.anomalyinnovations.com/2010/03/creating- a-realis...](http://blog.anomalyinnovations.com/2010/03/creating-a-realistic- looking-button-with-css3/)

<comment><USER3> Nice one. How about adding support for :focus alongside :hover?

<comment><USER2> You know I never used the focus property in my apps before. Maybe I should start using it. Thanks for reminding me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Youtube also uses linear-gradient and box shadow for its account button.

</comment><comment><USER5> I actually prefer the "broken" buttons in Firefox. The gradient is much smoother.

<comment><USER6> The article said that WebKit is adopting FireFox's gradient, not the opposite.</comment></comment>


IBM Selectric Typewriter - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric <comment><USER2> My father was a typewriter repairman, and his specialty was fixing the Selectric. It was quite lucrative -- these things were expensive enough to be worth repairing and were as important to companies as Internet is now. When I was 10, however, we were watching the Super Bowl and the infamous Apple 1984 advertisement came on TV. My dad immediately realized he was doomed. He went out and bought the Mac on the first day it was available. We brought it home. I plugged it in, turned it on, and my faster saw WYSIWYG for the first time in the text editor. The first words out of his mouth were "oh, shit." I went to print the document and it didn't work -- the initial batch of printer cables were incorrect. When we got the new printer cable from the store the next week, my dad decided to change professions and focused on real estate.

<comment><USER3> What was the printer? It certainly wasn't producing letter-quality output.

<comment><USER4> As I recall, the original ImageWriter printer was much better than the other dot matrix printers at the time largely due to the Mac software. The Mac Screen was 72DPI and the ImageWriter was 72DPI. This was real WYSIWYG.

Additionally nearly all of the other dot matrix printing was done based on low quality build in fonts. Send some text to output with control codes and you got output. The Mac basically painted pixel on the printer, so what ever font or image you had on the screen was accurately rendered.

Prior to the Mac/ImageWriter combination most of the letter quality (meaning good enough for business correspondence) printing I had seen was done via typewriters wired up to computers. Afterward, many businesses decided the Mac/ImageWriter was good enough for many purposes.

Edit: oh, I forgot there were also Daisy Wheel printers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_wheel_printer>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A couple years ago, while working toward a creative writing/publishing MFA, I found an IBM Selectric II on Craigslist. I'd done all my writing on computers up to that point, but I loved the idea of using a typewriter for first drafts. There was something romantic about the idea. It seemed like a more intimate way to write.

Its owner was a retiree moving to Florida. He'd bought it in the late 60s to write his dissertation but hadn't used it since. It had sat in a corner of his office under its original dust cover for forty years, though he'd had it serviced a few months earlier.

The first thing I noticed was the weight of the thing when I carried it out to my car. It's a tank. The second thing I noticed was the sound it made when I brought it home and switched it on. There was no mistake I was dealing with a piece of machinery, humming, waiting for me to get to work. It looked great, too.

As soon as I sat down to write, I worried that it would bother my neighbors. My apartment walls were thin enough that I could hear anything louder than a cough, so when I discovered that typing each letter was like firing a cannon, it was clear that late-night writing sessions were out of the picture unless I wanted to make enemies.

But I was right about using it for first drafts. On the computer, it's easy to second-guess myself, go back, change things, and re-write too much before the story is even finished. A first draft is supposed to be the shitty, rough, inconsistent sketch of a thing, and my Selectric forces me to press onward. It's awesome. Each key press is satisfying, each carriage return is a mechanical thunk that lets me know I'm making progress. Watching pages stack up on the desk next to it is a reward itself.

I still do my rewrites and edits on my computer, copying from the typed pages, but I'm so happy that I have this monster machine to keep me honest and get the first versions of stories down.

<comment><USER6> _There was something romantic about the idea. It seemed like a more intimate way to write._

I wonder if, a couple decades from now, we'll all be using some kind of neural interface to interact with computers and someone will be writing (using only the power of their mind)< "There was something romantic about the idea of using a QUERTY keyboard and a machine with a 'monitor.' It seemed like a more intimate way to write."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just bought myself a Seletric II off of Ebay a couple weeks ago. The thing is magnificent. The only electrical component is the motor running the driveshaft, otherwise all of the operations are mechanical. For example, pressing a key makes the type head pitch and yaw to the proper character, then lifts and slams it against the paper, all within a few dozen milliseconds, and that whole process is done with just levers and pulleys (clutching off the driveshaft, too, I'm sure). There's even a buffer mechanism, so that if you hit a key while the type mechanism is in the middle of printing the previous character, it's actually "stored" in this buffer until the print head is done with that cycle. AND, if the buffer is full (I believe it only stores one character), then all the keys are locked to prevent any mishaps.

And the maintainability of the thing is pretty nifty - you can take the cover off, and then lift and slide the guts up from the base[0] to stand upright with the bottom facing you. All by-design, since of course such mechanical objects require regular lubrication and other maintenance.

[0] See this video (I linked to 3:35, but the whole thing is cool): [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uB3sM2cA6Wk#t=215s)

<comment><USER8> The guts sliding out of the case was pretty common for typewriters. Most of the cases where nothing more than decorative shells while the actual mechanisms were built into a rectangular metal frame and pretty easy to get around in. Most of these things were fully mechanically linked and manufactured by hand.

My grandfather had a weekly Italian music radio program and every week he went through the same process. First he'd hand write his cues, then add in any commentary, and finally type up the entire thing double spaced so he could easily follow along. I have fond memories of helping him rip apart various type writers to fix them on Friday afternoons during they type up the notes phase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This device is worth a test run, just to know what it was like to type with the best of the best equipment 30 years ago.

Comparing it to other typewriters, imagine firing a gatling gun when you've been writing with revolvers. It feels like your words are typed ahead of when you think of them.

I used a Selectric with a copy machine for class projects and messing around, then my family got a mac ha ha.

<comment><USER10> >It feels like your words are typed ahead of when you think of them.

Best key feel ever.

It starts with a very light millimetre drop to place your finger. Then the tactile bump, and when that gives way, still near the top to the throw and exactly when the switch activates, it's so fast that it's almost like the key itself is pulling away from you. Then the resistance ramps up continuously, with no hard landing.

IBM did make a good attempt at electronic switches with good feel with their beam spring keyboards, but they were still not as good as the Selectric. Then eurocrats killed those, and the Model F and Model M that followed were a poor substitute, activating almost at the bottom of the throw and landing hard.

[typos corrected]

<comment><USER11> "Best keys feel ever."

Agreed. Noting also that the sound, if you were a good touch typist, was like a background beat that somehow added to creativity. Or if you were simply doing drone work seemed to lull you to be at peace with the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked at IBM in 1987. My group's secretary was AMAZING! I remember walking up to her one day. She could talk to me in English, chat to her girlfriend on the phone in Spanish and type a hundred words a minute on the Selectric through her dictation headphone simultaneously and not miss a beat. Simply amazing!

</comment><comment><USER13> I wrote my papers in college with one of these, then used them in my first job in a newspaper newsroom. I'll never forget the noise of 100 typewriters hammering away before the deadline. A modern newsroom seems like a tomb in comparison.

Using a typewriter was like taking photos with a film camera. Each page required such an investment that you worked really hard to get it right the first time. Then on the second draft, since you had to retype everything anyway, you were a lot more likely to completely recast a passage that needed it, instead of just moving words around a bit. I think typewriters made me a better writer.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if the designers of the Model M keyboard used the Selectric as an inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like the "golfball" would make a pretty cool novelty shifter.

</comment><comment><USER15> There is nothing like a Selectric's keyboard. Bought one in the early 2000s, disconnected from the internet for a year, moved out into the woods and typed on nothing but the Selectric. Never did get around to writing the great American novel though.

Oh and this is pretty nifty. [http://hackaday.com/2012/06/13/turning-an-ibm- selectric-into...](http://hackaday.com/2012/06/13/turning-an-ibm-selectric- into-a-printer/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I always wondered if back in the days of typewriters there was a similar conversation going as there's today about keyboards.

Where there the IBM, Apple 2, Das keyboard fans?

</comment><comment><USER17> My favorite text editor font (Letter Gothic) was originally designed for the Selectric.

[http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/monotype/letter_goth...](http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/monotype/letter_gothic_std_complete_pack_adobe/) (that link isn't the monospaced variant, don't get it, but a good visual representation)

</comment><comment><USER18> I learned to type on a Selectric in high school a few years back (maybe more than a few, actually).

The thing I remember about them, besides the hum, is the smell -- a warm machine oil scent.

I should probably get one of these while they're still commonly available in working condition.

</comment><comment><USER19> We had one at home when I was in high school. Loved that thing. Abandoned it when we got a PC, but we got a printer that worked the same way. It was a big step up from dot matrix output, back before laser printers and inkjets.

</comment><comment><USER20> I learned how to type on one of these in high school. Ah, the good old days...

</comment><comment><USER21> I always thought the way the golf ball moved, at speed, was pure magic.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is why I like my Das Keyboard so much. :)

</comment><comment><USER23> The first computer I learned to program, an IBM 1130, had a Selectric as the console.</comment>


Assistly now FREE:"Netflix could take a page out of Assistly's book."-Techcrunch - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/26/with-v2-0-assistly-brings-a-simple-pricing-model-rewards-and-a-bit-of-free-to-customer-service-software/

<comment><USER2> Greg Meyer is the new Director of Customer WOW. What a smashing idea: A team devoted to wowing customers. Love it. Imagine if the rest of the business world adopted that philosophy. Great thinking, Assistly!

</comment><comment><USER3> Love Assistly! We handle more then 25,000 tickets a mont using it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Great move by Assistly. Killer service that just got better.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's a pretty awesome quote...

</comment><comment><USER6> Love Assistly!</comment>


A three-second laser strike cost Barry Bowser everything - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/a-three-second-laser-strike-cost-barry-bowser-everything/ <comment><USER2> Well, he should have thought about that before he potentially killed someone. It takes much less than three seconds to shoot someone. Maybe he didn't think his actions could be deadly. But that doesn't excuse his actions. Fuck this guy.</comment>


How to Stop Procrastinating: the "Seinfeld Strategy" - <AUTHOR> http://jamesclear.com/stop-procrastinating-seinfeld-strategy <comment><USER2> Funny, Jerry was doing an AMA on reddit and he was asked about the "Seinfeld Strategy". His response was something along the lines of "I can't believe I'm getting credit for putting an X on a calendar."</comment>


Android smartphones: USSD calls can kill SIM cards - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Android-smartphones-USSD-calls-can-kill-SIM-cards-1719230.html

<comment><USER2> This was patched in JUNE.

Blame your carrier if your phone isn't patched.</comment>


Pricing as Signal - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html

<comment><USER2> I love those old Joel posts. It's a pitty he stopped writing about anything interesting once he sold enough copies of FogBugz..

<comment><USER3> If I remember correctly, Joel mentioned in one of the podcasts that he likes to just tell stories in his blog posts now and let audiences draw their own conclusions. When he tried to make arguments before he was often misinterpreted (e.g. his stance on exceptions) and now he feels he has to pre- respond to the multitude of ways people might respond to his argument, and that doesn't make for fun reading. As he's gotten older and more experienced he also said the world has become less black-and-white so he doesn't like to make absolute statements as much anymore.

The podcast is linked off from here: <http://blog.stackoverflow.com/>

He also writes a column in Inc, which isn't bad: <http://www.google.com/search?q=joel+spolsky+site%3Ainc.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many (most? the vast majority?) of people who go to the movie theater will see a movie even if the movie they intended to see is sold out. Plus, they are not price-conscious. So, it makes sense to keep all the movies at a high price so that the customers end up paying high prices for movies they didn't go to the theater to see. "A rising tide lifts all boats." If they went to the theater to see a particular movie, and it was sold out, they will pay for some other movie this weekend and then try again next weekend (and the next next weekend if necessary) until eventually they see the movie they originally intended to see. LoTR is sold out three weeks in a row = many customers bought three or four movie tickets, instead of just one.

If they were price conscious, they would rent it for a dollar from RedBox when it comes out on DVD. Or, they would go to the discount movie theater to see it for $4. Or, they would download it for free off the internet.

On iTunes, there is no such thing as "sold out." And, everybody is price- conscious because everybody under 30 knows you can just get the songs for free off the internet if you are willing to put up with the hassle. Apple has recognized that people value that hassle at approximately $0.99. If people were willing to pay $2.49 for a song, it wouldn't mean that the song was better than a $0.99 song. It means that they would probably pay $2.49 for every song, since they value the convenience at about $2.49.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll say the same thing I said last time I read this: _Brandy_ isn't a bad song, dammit!

<comment><USER6> Note to self: Never accept a mixtape from tdavis, or attend any function where tdavis has selected the music.

How do you feel about _MacArthur Park_?

<comment><USER7> Great tune. Too bad about the lyrics.

Hint: Find the jazz arrangement of it with the lead trumpet performance by Maynard Ferguson :)

<comment><USER6> _Hint: Find the jazz arrangement of it with the lead trumpet performance by Maynard Ferguson_

Not my scene. It's too much easy listening. Certainly, it's a tight performance by a great bunch of musicians...but, really, I hope he has better tracks.

And, I don't share your opinion of the tune being great. The intro is nice, as an intro, but past that the song is saccharine, repetitive, and predictable. We agree on the lyrics, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this even an accurate comparison, considering that movie theaters only show new movies, and iTunes sells both old and new music?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to compare the pricing strategies of iTunes to, say, Blockbuster Video?

</comment><comment><USER9> Can you put "(old)" or something in the title if the article isn't new? I almost always like these articles, but then feel silly when I realized that it's 2-3 years old and that I've read it before.

<comment><USER10> There's nothing wrong with old - as a matter of fact I would argue that if a 2-3 years old tech related article is stille interesting it is truly worth your time.

Hwo many of the recent articles on Google chrome will be reread in 3 years time?

<comment><USER6> I refer to this effect as "The Filter of Time" (or just "the filter" in conversation). It applies to music most obviously, but it can be applied to any work with an artistic component, I think. Oldies stations play a higher ratio of good to bad music than modern pop or rock stations, because the filter has been at work on their playlist.

It's probably worth thinking about the filter when doing anything online, since there are so many places one can get sucked in without actually gaining anything, learning anything, or improving the world in any way. Your example of articles about Chrome is an excellent choice...do we learn anything from the second through the fiftieth article about Chrome? Probably not. So, skip it. If you're writing another "me too", skip it. If you're reading something and can't imagine it applying immediately to your life _or_ being useful for the rest of your life, maybe you should skip it.

Of course, since I'm just agreeing with you in a somewhat verbose manner, maybe I should have skipped it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is he really selling DVD's about the companies summer internship program?

<comment><USER12> He was, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is another reason movie theaters don't use the basic strategy of raising prices: they can just increase the number of rooms for a movie. This pretty much takes care of any demand pressure (unless everyone in the country decides to see the same movie in the same day).

With old music, in CD format, someone could say that there is a physical media that needed to be sold, so prices could fluctuate. With digital music, however there is a theoretically infinite number of copies that can be sold, so there is not reasonable explanation for raising prices.

In other words: the price of selling the latest J.Lo album is exactly the same price of selling any other crap you can think of.

<comment><USER14> Except it costs money to make recordings. Lavish recording, small market: explanation for higher price.

Of course, this kind of reasoning is irrelevant if a recording is essentially just advertising for a tour, movie, fashion-label or whatever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nonsense. How often would someone need to buy expensive, crappy music before they realized that the price is not an accurate signal of whether they will like it? Particularly in the case of music in which it is not difficult to hear it before buying it.

<comment><USER16> The thing is, I don't think people always work like you're describing. Some people might actually look to the price of the song, if only unconsciously, to help decide whether they should like it. Especially if the song is popular, and price indicates popularity. Then it's not just a matter of liking a song, but of fitting in and being hip.

<comment><USER17> And if by buying overpriced music, the person feels like they're "fitting in" and are "hip" then what's the problem? They're not being ripped off. They're getting $2.50 (or whatever) of smugness / well-being / hipness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I disagree. What if you make something free? Does that make it seem crappy?

I don't think pricing is a signal. It is a barrier - how high a barrier would you like to set for you customers.

<comment><USER19> If something is expensive, you ask yourself "what justifies this price", with the expectation of greater quality, features, stability, support or whatever.

If something is free, you also ask "what justifies this price", but this time you expect things to be missing, flawed, incomplete, contains viruses, etc. You're instantly looking for whats wrong, not whats great.

So, yeah, pricing is a signal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't think the analogue with movies was a good one. The time investment of several hours involved in going to see a movie is more than the actual money cost for most people. There are many movies that wouldn't be worth seeing if they paid you. Music has this as less of a factor because the time investment is so much less. Usually when you are going to buy a song you have already heard it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Joel's argument makes sense in theory, but in practice it doesn't add up at all. You can preview music, get a feel for what it's like, regardless of the price. On a movie, you're relying on other people's opinions, but from 30 seconds of preview you can _usually_ establish if you like it or not (and if it's a band you always buy the music from - you don't care anyway).

<comment><USER21> In makes sense in practice too. I'll never touch a bargain bin of CDs at a store.

<comment><USER17> Ah, but if that were generally true of public perception, bargain bins wouldn't exist.

<comment><USER7> I love hitting the bargain bins at video game stores. There are many many games which don't merit spending $40-$60, but have some redeeming quality at $1-$5. I've found some of my favorite games that way, and the junkers are easy to trade back in for credit. The great ones generally were just obscure and deserved better market attention than they actually got.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CensorZilla (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwz.org/doc/censorzilla.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting why "hack" was appreciated as offensive word?

<comment><USER3> The word has been hijacked by mainstream meadia and means "computer break-in" in the public eye. Not a cussword, but I understand how a company could fear being publicly associated with that word.</comment></comment>


Feedsqueezer the Upcoming Alternative to FeedBurner - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_were_desperately_awaiting.php <comment><USER2> Ok, I admit it - I almost upvoted just based on the title. But I restrained myself, and have discovered it actually links to a decent article

What's especially amazing to me though is how hungry we are for a competitor - an empty website, empty getsatisfaction page and a single twitter account - and we call this a feedburner competitor?

My hat's off to them for some excellent PR work, if nothing else ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry for misleading users! :)

I made the title based partly on a) the articles _sub_ article and also the request for a feedburner competitor.</comment></comment>