G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/technology/gm-invests-in-lyft.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F01%2F05%2Ftechnology%2Fgm-invests-in-lyft.html <comment><USER2> It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this:

FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school.

SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's owners collect a fee from Uber, Lyft et al.

THIRD, economies of scale and changes in perceptions towards the utility versus cost of owning cars causes people to stop buying them. Instead, they subscribe for access to a fleet–such as Uber or Tesla's. (Note: people already do this in cities like New York, where car ownership is relatively scarce.)

AND FINALLY, as distributed car ownership falls, retail locations for their maintenance go out of business. Barring massive public subsidy for car ownership, this creates a feedback loop that increases the cost of individual car ownership until it becomes a luxury.

1 will happen later than we expect. 2 will happen sooner, 3 much later and 4 drastically sooner. In fact, I think it will ultimately be 4, not 3, that drives a rapid, self-perpetuating dominance of self-driving cars within our lifetime.

[1] [http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Tra...](http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Transforming- Personal-Mobility-Jan-27-20132.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center.

1\. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. If they all have a 15-20 minute commute (well below average for many areas) and the destinations for all three aren't in the same immediate vicinity, we're right back to the family needing 2-3 cars.

2\. Eh, no. Go to the mall or a shopping center parking lot and walk around looking in people's cars. The average person's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty. IMO, this will only get worse with SDCs, since people will be able to do more eating/dressing/preparing/relaxing in their car without the need to drive. Not to mention the number of people who simply don't want random strangers using their car. Uber or Lyft would have to offer a _significant_ fee before I would even consider it.

3\. Vehicle owners are used to convenience. If I live in 20 minutes outside the city, then I probably have to wait 20-30 minutes for a ride to arrive before I even start my trip. Massively inconvenient, and not worth it.

SDCs will definitely lead to change in American society, but I have to wonder if it won't completely backfire on some of these expectations, and actually lead to American society sprawling out even more into the suburban and rural areas. WFH is becoming a viable option for more and more jobs, and longer commutes will be much more acceptable to most people when the time in their car isn't simply lost time.

<comment><USER4> _The average person 's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty._

Give people an economic incentive for keeping a neat car, then you're going to see neat cars. This is clearly true for the current Uber and Lyft fleets.

<comment><USER5> "Current uber and Lyft fleets" \-- they made a conscious economic decision. Maybe think about reality of life, a commute, family, etc.

A friend with an incredibly smart 7 year old still has a messy car. Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess.

When it comes to these pie in the sky utopian scenarios, I wish people on HN would step outside and actual observe every day people.

<comment><USER6> >Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess.

Right, and that's a choice. It has nothing to do with "she's a 7 year old" and everything to do with "she's allowed to make a mess in the car".

I was never allowed to eat in the car beyond the odd sweet, and I wouldn't have thrown wrappers or anything else on the floor on pain of death... I find it mind boggling that the child is blamed for the state of the car, when realistically it is just a parenting choice. There are 7 year olds with exceptional table manners even in this modern day, and there are 7 year olds I'm embarrassed to eat at the same table as.

I'm fine with people choosing to have messy cars (mine oscillates between spotless and a dump over ~3 month periods) - but it's a choice and other choices can be made.

<comment><USER5> The point being here, there is "it would be nice", "some fit the model where this would work", and "there are a lot of cases where this won't work". Or even more fundamental things when talking about little ones like things like car seats.

Maybe it is "choice", but there are a lot of people out there where the "choice" around their vehicle is closer to that of it is lived in, may have books and papers, clothing, toys, etc. (maybe food as well) that will not conform to this scenario.

Walk through a grocery store parking lot sometime and observe the state of vehicles as people get in/out, etc. my bet is on a sufficiently large pool would be in the condition where utopian sharing doesn't make sense.

That said, if there was a mind shift because of an overall benefit, it could happen. But, that is a long way off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GM had and still has an impressive technical research center. Its just that establishment big companies dont get the respect that startup companies do. Nor can the employees win big like in a startup IPO.

General Electric is currently running a humorous TV commercial about this. A hipster engineers friends throw him a "new job party". But they go slackjaw when they discover he joinged GE instead of Facebook. GE has the oldest R&D lab in the country, started by Thomas Edison.

<comment><USER8> the ad - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvfU1NpCJQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvfU1NpCJQQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm glad we bailed them out so they could wildly speculate on tech startups.

<comment><USER10> The bailout was massively profitable for the government and every penny has been repaid. Investing in innovation is exactly what a company like GM should be doing and our tax dollars are in no way involved in this.

Edit: didn't make money on GM [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm- treasury-idUSBREA...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury- idUSBREA3T0MR20140430) Made lots of money overall: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end- of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end-of-bailouts- of-automakers-and-wall-street.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER11> This is entirely untrue, pertaining GM. We tax payers lost tremendous money on GM[1], and then GM restructured (think "good bank bad bank"[2] style nonsense) in a clever way to ensure that we would never reap the benefits of the future success of "GM".

1\. [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury- idUSBREA...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury- idUSBREA3T0MR20140430)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_bank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_bank)

<comment><USER10> Good point! Very good point - I still think investing in innovation is the only thing that makes sense for GM, the reason the auto bailout worked out is because Ford*, for example, did and is crushing it.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end- of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end-of-bailouts- of-automakers-and-wall-street.html?_r=0)

Edit: Ford did not take bailout money so that logically does not hold like I thought it did. Point about innovating still holds fine.

<comment><USER12> I was under the impression that Ford was the only one that didn't take a bailout.

<comment><USER13> You are correct.

<comment><USER14> IIRC Ford actually got very lucky in that they were actually in huge trouble before the market crash and decided to mortgage the company right before the credit market seized up. So that was really why they didn't need to take the bailout.

<comment><USER15> I would argue they were also better run than GM during this period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So Google+Ford, Lyft+GM, Tesla on both sides software/hardware... Where is Uber's Hardware going to come from now?

I wonder if this is an instance where the personalities involved with Uber are having a detrimental effect on these sorts of long-term needs. Or is there something yet to be announced?

<comment><USER17> Didn't Uber buy the Carnegie Mellon robotics division? Is it too much to think they might try for their own hardware platform?

It might be, but why else do so?

<comment> sjm-lbm They will still need a chassis/engine before they have a viable car, and there's been no real external indication of them either developing that in house or partnering with/purchasing someone that can provide that expertise.

.. at least I think that's what the question is about.

<comment><USER18> Uber planned to buy 2,500 driverless cars from Google (GX3200, investment of $375m), announced back in 2013 [1]

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/uberauto/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/uberauto/)

<comment><USER19> Look at the publication date. I'm not sure what TechCrunch was trying to accomplish doing that. It wasn't even the right day of the year for something like this.

Edit: Apparently the point was to test what rebloggers would believe: [http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/27/uber_goog...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/27/uber_google_and_driverless_cars_fake_techcrunch_story_widely_reported_as.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> GM's current mktcap is about $53B. A $500m investment represents putting almost 1% of their company into Lyft. Tesla's mktcap is about half of GM's, so this investment represents 2% of Tesla. Uber's last valuation put them above both GM and Ford, so what GM is looking at is a Lyft competitor "worth" more than they are and they want in.

I don't really care about talk of tech bubbles, but seeing older institutions invest so aggressively in startups is gnarly. Both Fidelity and Blackrock went into Uber and now GM owns a huge piece of Lyft.

I don't really have a point. Just thinking out loud because I'm not sure what to think...

</comment><comment><USER21> "GM and Lyft said they will work together to develop a network of self-driving cars that riders can call up on-demand."

Pretty interesting. Especially considering Ford has been linked to working with Google on developing self-driving cars. [0] Though, it seems the Ford family is also involved with investing in Lyft.

[0] [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-talks-google-build- self-0...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-talks-google-build- self-040522897.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> My theory is that with the ever increasing reliability of cars, they aren't being replaced as often due to low utilization (sitting idle most of the day). Having a more highly utilized fleet of vehicles will mean they get replaced more often.

This isn't a big vehicle sales growth strategy, but it could be a way to preserve vehicle sales, while keeping a foot in the door of the future. They might even be able to get away with spending less to manufacture these cars, since people don't care as much about finish quality in something they don't own.

Also, the interiors of the vehicles would probably degrade faster than the mechanical and electrical systems, so GM could probably make a business in remanufacturing and certifying such vehicles for return to service, or putting them into cheaper tiers of service.

Essentially, that would be the partial transformation of GM into a large fleet management/maintenance company.

EDIT: wording

<comment><USER23> Correct. If my car drives me to work, then drives other people around all day, it will rack up miles far faster than before. Now, instead of driving 12K mi per year, it can rack up 60K mi per year. I'll need a new car every 3 years.

Luckily, it can also schedule maintenance and drive itself to the dealer too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "G.M. will also work with Lyft to set up a series of short-term car rental hubs across the United States, places where people who do not own cars can pick up a vehicle and drive for Lyft to earn money. Daniel Ammann, president of G.M., will join Lyft's board of directors."

This reminds me very much of the taxi model; where the driver is going to start the shift in the hole and has to work their way out of it.

<comment><USER25> Maybe they could paint them in a special livery so that you could tell it's a Lyft from a distance ;)

<comment><USER26> I know that you and parent are joking about lyft being just another taxi service, but would that really hurt them?

Lyft and Uber win because of the ability to rate their drivers, ease of payment (imho Uber wins this much more than lyft), and the fact that everything about your trip is tracked.

You get into a regular taxi, and who knows who is going to be behind the wheel, what state the car is going to be in, what sorts of payment they'll agree to take, etc.

Uber and Lyft took all of that nonsense out of the transaction. _THAT_ is why they're winning (that, and cost), not because of what their cars look like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The "short-term car rental hubs... where people who do not own cars can pick up a vehicle and drive for Lyft to earn money" is a nice idea in the short- term. I still think Uber has the right idea long-term with a completely autonomous fleet, but once those hit the market, there will still be a pretty large demand for NON-autonomous vehicles -- take my parents, for instance, who refuse to get into a car not driven by a human.

<comment><USER28> Your parents will be irrelevant in 2 or 3 generations from now. At some point, fully autonomous will be a norm without the fear.

<comment><USER29> 2-3 generations is a long time to make money.

<comment><USER30> Tell that to Jeff Bezos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't know whether this is a real difference or not, but Lyft "feels" like a much nicer company than Uber. I'm not thrilled about Lyft's rampant hipster- branding, but Uber seems like a company run by pricks.

Maybe it's just because they're the underdog, but I'm really rooting for Lyft.

<comment><USER32> When I was in Colorado Springs, Lyft was much more available than Uber so I used it for the first time after only having ever used Uber for the past year.

The major thing I found different was the driver wanted me to sit in the front and was much more enthusiastic about conversation. It wasn't bad but it was definitely different and somewhat offputting. Not sure if that was just a single event, but I wonder if each company encourages those differences in driver interaction.

<comment><USER33> Sounds like a Colorado Springs effect. Here in NYC I've used both fairly evenly and (unsurprisingly) the experiences are fairly similar and in line with the typical "uber" style of sitting in the back and not talking unless you choose to reach out...

<comment><USER34> From my experience in NYC many drivers drive for both Uber and Lyft. In an anecdotal poll I ran with those drivers, they say Uber riders usually like to be left alone while Lyft riders are more chatty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "From a G.M. perspective, we view this as much more of an opportunity than a threat" - G.M President

Something you don't hear big corps talk so about start-ups very often. It's promising.

<comment><USER36> I can't see the opportunity for them, on the other hand I can see the threat, if autonomous cars become ubiquitous then why would you bother owning your own?

Also if rental becomes the dominant model then customers aren't going to worry so much about those expensive extras where car manufacturers make their profits.

<comment><USER37> >autonomous cars become ubiquitous then why would you bother owning your own?

Anything requiring a truck (60% of new vehicle sales) will not be something that you use as a automated vehicle that is for rent. You really are ok with ordering up a driverless car that I will take off-road and load up with scrap materials from a house remodel and send off, driverless down the road with my trash hanging out the back?

I really love the idea of driverless cars and I can see the stars in the tech worlds eyes. Be realistic about what your average American does with a vehicle though - it's not a daily commute up and down sandhill road to sit in a nice office.

<comment><USER22> Why would the autonomous vehicle I rent for a commute ever be the same one you use to load up with refuse from your home remodel?

Wouldn't it make way more sense for you to rent (or own) a pickup truck and for me to rent an autonomous passenger vehicle?

Setting autonomous vehicles aside, current short-term car rental companies (i.e Zipcar) have requirements on the condition you return a passenger vehicle in, vs a cargo/hauling vehicle.

I've rented a Zipcar pickup truck to haul a load of concrete pavers, but I wouldn't try to do the same in one of their regular passenger vehicles.

There should be a sufficiently large market for both use cases that there should be limited sharing of vehicles between them.

<comment><USER37> Imagine if you owned 10 rental properties, were a plumber, an electrician, a basketball coach or had almost any job other than something in the tech industry. You would use your truck/van/large SUV for hauling trash, wire, sports equipment, etc.

You would laugh at the idea of selling your primary transport and using an uber/lyft every day to transport all your equipment. Every time one shows up or drops off, remove and replace all your tools/gear. The wear and tear on these vehicles is greater than a small commuter.

Just because you rented a truck once to move gardening supplies makes you anomalous. Most people who want to do that kind of work/hobby own a vehicle that allows them to transport these things with ease.

We haven't even gotten into the aspect of children. Imagine remove/replace every day on a child car seat from a rental.

<comment><USER22> Most people I know who work in the trades own the vehicle as part of their business, and have separate passenger car(s) for hauling family.

The vehicle subscription would replace the passenger car, not the truck used for heavy work, not at the least because the depreciation of the work vehicle is deductible as a business expense. Also, a vehicle actively used for construction work is already heavily utilized (it is hauling/holding stuff most of the day), so it makes more sense to own it. Passenger cars, however, sit idle most of the day in a parking lot or your driveway, hence their low utilization / wasted value.

Also, many cars today have built-in car-seats ([https://www.cars.com/articles/2014/05/which-vehicles- offer-i...](https://www.cars.com/articles/2014/05/which-vehicles-offer- integrated-booster-seats/)). You can bet this sort of feature will be more common in autonomous vehicles.

Furthermore, in certain Uber markets today, you can pay an extra fee to get a vehicle with car seats pre-installed. Right now that fee is high ($10/ride) because they're the only ones doing it, but it's a service so easily replicated that the price will surely come down.

<comment><USER37> If 60% of the fleet is trucks and trucks are rarely purchased for explicitly moving humans and instead purchased for the moving of things.

Rideshare already only has 40% of the market to convince to sell their car and perpetually rent on demand. What's the conversion rate of that 40% who could use the on demand service for moving humans? 50%? That's not a massive pile of customers.

Built in car-seats are almost a mirage, they are wildly uncommon. The premise still remains, overwhelming majority of people will not want to abandon a personally owned vehicle for some on-demand car that arrives and some varying condition and layout that you have to load/unload every time with your things.

Try it for a week if you drive, take your car charger/paperwork/sunglasses/whatever in and out of the car every time you park. That alone will sell you on private ownership.

<comment><USER22> > Rideshare already only has 40% of the market to convince to sell their car > and perpetually rent on demand. What's the conversion rate of that 40% who > could use the on demand service for moving humans? 50%? That's not a massive > pile of customers.

Assuming that your estimate 50% of non-truck owners adopting it is correct, that's 20% of 253 million cars, which is 50 million. Seems massive to me.

> Built in car-seats are almost a mirage, they are wildly uncommon.

What makes you think that they won't become more common (especially among car service vehicles) if there is a strong demand for them from car subscription services? It's not like it's a complicated technology to add.

> The premise still remains, overwhelming majority of people will not want to > abandon a personally owned vehicle for some on-demand car that arrives and > some varying condition and layout that you have to load/unload every time > with your things.

I'm not sure how you can be so sure of your prediction of future demand, especially when technology is changing so fast.

Regarding the particulars you mention, I already load/unload my private car with stuff, but 90% of the time, it's just me and my backpack.

Sure, you can't use a rented vehicle as paperwork storage, but why would one use a car for storing paperwork?

Chargers can be provided in the rental vehicle (just like Starbucks does).

> Try it for a week if you drive

I routinely take the train (with the kids and all their gear), and we have to naturally take everything we brought with us when we get off. If anything, the rental car scenario is more convenient than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I like Lyft quite a lot as a company. However, partnering with another company is often a bad sign. It means Lyft needs more cash and isn't able to innovate enough on its own to survive in the market. Additionally, $500 million to "work on developing a so-called autonomous on-demand network of self-driving cars" is a demoralizing statement. 500m is not enough to complete this goal, especially for such a large company as General Motors. From the uninformed sidelines, I predict this is a hail mary pass with a minimal chance of success and long term support.

<comment><USER39> Do you even _know_ how much money Uber has raised so far? Lyft is already being outspent by Uber in many aspects. It's not that Lyft doesn't have proper market fit, it's that Uber has raised megatons of cash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The last time GM invested in companies that competed with private ownership of cars, it didn't go too well... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy)

<comment><USER13> Perhaps it went right to plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you are surpised that GM might invest in Lyft, remember that Daimler AG (a.k.a. Mercedes & friends) OWNS Car2go.

While I believe that the future of transport will involve a mixture of self driving vehicles and mass-transit (also potentially self-driving) we need to remember that this problem is being attacked from many angles.

Right now in many large cities we ALREADY have a mixture of:

Car ownership, human transportation (walking, biking), mass transit, car sharing (Zipcar, Car2go, Getaround), and finally RIDE sharing (Uber, Lyft).

I would actually argue that car-sharing services might be some of the first to use fully-autonomous driving technologies. Imagine Zipcar getting a permit to use self-driving cars on certain known routes between their pods, or to go for maintenance/refuelling. Uber and Lyft will be among the last to use fully- autonomous technology because they already have somebody getting PAID to drive and they have the widest area to cover.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think GM is wasting their money. The talented engineers in this space are flocking to Tesla, Google and soon-to-be Apple.

<comment><USER43> Who the heck wants to enter the GM tech culture?

<comment><USER44> It's an investment and probably a board seat. I doubt GM is going to interfere with their day to day engineering decisions.

<comment><USER45> From the article:

> Daniel Ammann, president of G.M., will join Lyft's board of directors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> What happens when the first person gets killed while riding in an autonomous vehicle? Do companies who make them get sued into oblivion? Will customers stop riding in them regardless of whether or not statistics suggest they are safer than traditional cars?

</comment><comment><USER47> Brilliant. Concierge drivers consume very new cars, decreasing use of older ones thus driving GM sales.

<comment><USER48> And for lyft, it gives a more adaptive workforce - say there's increase in demand for SUV's - the workforce can more easily adapt.

That seems like an important thing when you look at uber's recent UberHop experiment - using SUV's as small ,almost on-demand mini buses for quite cheap. this looks like something that can grow very rapidly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Everyone is relating this mostly to autonomous vehicles. I think this might take uber/lyft straight out of the game.

Ubers advantage/most is the network. Its hard to beat a network advantage. They are installed and plugged into a lot of people's creditcredit cards. That works just as well for self driving cars. But the advantage of the driver network is straight out the door if autonomous vehicles replace humans. Networks become a much easier problem to solve.

I don't see it happening within 10 years but if I we're uber or lyft I wouldn't want to.

<comment><USER50> I don't get how the driver network has any value. I see all the value in the passenger network. Of course Uber wants self-driving cars to happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Not to hijack, but how do we stop esentially duplicate URLs in "new" see ([http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/technology/gm- invests-i...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/technology/gm-invests-in- lyft.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone- share&referer=http://jalopnik.com/gm-to-invest-500-million-in-lyft-build- autonomous-on-1750886157&_r=0)) not matching?

<comment><USER52> The subdomain is probably the issue. Suggest updating it to strip out subdomain, query string, hashes etc and do a domain and path comparison. Too many sites have a mobile subdomain with the rest of the domain the same.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, sites like NYTimes add different URL parameters based on how you arrived at the article (eg, which menu item you clicked). I strip those out when submitting to HN, but others might not, so HN views it as a different URL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Interesting idea to have the short term car rental. I assume this will include proper insurance which I think is one of the big 'hidden costs' that these services aren't covering.

Very good way for Lyft to increase the amount of drivers on their network without people having to finance vehicles of their own (which isn't worth it unless you drive a lot for them).

</comment><comment><USER54> This kind of leaves a sour taste in my mouth, seeing as GM took an 11 billion dollar government bailout. Should they really be allowed to make speculative bets in a highly competitive market, where the market leader (Uber) essentially has unlimited capital? Isn't this the kind of stuff that got GM into trouble?

</comment><comment><USER55> It's interesting to see how the aggressive tactics of Uber are affecting the automotive industry. Companies are partnering which would have never even talked to each other previously. I'm very curious to see how this whole thing plays out.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm wondering if this an IP raid by GM. A couple of terms of the deal are that GM gets a seat on the board (for $500m, _I would expect so_ ) and access to Lyft's software. The latter might be the important part to GM.

</comment><comment><USER57> With the decline of car ownership, a huge loss in jobs wills follow.

To me, one of the biggest long-term problems the U.S. faces is the rising gap between the rich and poor. Unfortunately, SDRs will only widen this.

</comment><comment><USER58> So, can we say that this is the moment when taxi industry and car production industry are officially starting to turn into a single unified transportation industry?

</comment><comment><USER59> This can be Alibaba of GM as after few years majority of GM's market cap will be due to their stack in Lyft.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's either a vote of confidence in Lyft or a desperate attempt to stay relevant.

</comment><comment><USER60> Why do you think GM invested in Lyft rather than Uber?

In my experience, Uber is more established, well-respected, leading the ride- sharing movement. Why would GM partner with the seemingly second-place horse in the race?

<comment><USER39> Uber's price might have been too steep. They probably think they don't need GM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Ugh, self driving cars, but SHITTY self-driving cars. Of course.

<comment><USER50> Your Pontiac Torrent is here!</comment></comment>


When service members die by suicide, they look a lot like civilian suicides - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/suicide-in-the-military/ <comment><USER2> Definitely written by someone not in, and not closely related to anyone on.

There is a sense of puzzlement that help isn't sought. But in some MOS and some fields and some clearances seeking help is career suicide. Not all, but some. Not all soldiers are career and not all MOS and security clearances require no mental illness diag of course. So a soldier will only seek help if he's ready to pull the trigger on career suicide in which case doing the real thing is a microstep. You can tell people to seek help all you want to make you feel better about doing something, but if they know by example that their lifes work will be wiped out and they'll be unemployed in weeks if they actually follow thru and seek help, well, you do the math.

Second gaping hole is some of the support REMF (I was a REMF so I can use that acronym "proudly") have higher sec clearances than some front line. Naturally that means some front line both see some interesting stuff and if they get help for what they saw they might not lose their job. And the REMF now a days might get blown up in a convoy or IED or whatever as bad as a front line, yet if they seek help its bye bye MOS.

I have no personal experience with this, I was in during the early 90s but I kinda keep up with the times. There's an old saying about it being a rather permanent solution to a temporary problem. Young kids tend to have poor concept of time. A year in Korea is bad, but not worth offing yourself, unless you're a dumb kid, but then you don't want to speak ill of the dead, so ...

As with most big messes there is no simple solution and the more you know, the more complicated it is...

<comment><USER3> _But in some MOS and some fields and some clearances seeking help is career suicide._

This is a truly toxic misnomer - and one that needs to die. As a former CC of one of those types of units, I can tell you that the only way that would happen is if your mental health issue caused a real world problem that created a chance that you could be vulnerable to coercion from a FIA. I've never heard of someone who got read off because they were diagnosed with something - it's always been in conjunction with them doing something illegal or vulnerable to exploit.

If an SCI troop seeks counseling, either through Doc or something like MIL One Source, you will have no issues, even with a diagnosis. Once you've passed through screening, indoc, training and are in the game it would be ridiculous to take someone out cause they got rattled. In fact we always pushed it mental health heavily to all of the other spooks cause there are real mind fucks in playing our games that can get to people.

 _Second gaping hole is some of the support REMF (I was a REMF so I can use that acronym "proudly") have higher sec clearances than some front line._

In fact, it's most likely that a REMF (read: non 11/18/03) will have a higher clearance. Spot on too with the fact that a lot of non-standard troops are seeing the worst parts of the shit. Aside from SOF, Docs, Spooks and Engineers have been taking the brunt of it the past few years.

<comment><USER4> This isn't true at all. I had a TS-SCI and was aircrew. I got diagnosed with "Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" after a SINGLE visit to the base psychiatrist and was permanently taken off of flight duty. It literally ruined my career and I basically had to beg for an early discharge.

<comment><USER3> Either someone fucked up really badly (happens with everything from time to time) or this isn't the whole story.

If nothing else because no Mental Health professional would give a formal diagnosis for DD-NOS after one visit. I know cause I was given that along with a host of others after years of visits to Military Mental Health - so I'm no stranger to the system.

Your SCI doesn't apparently relate to this story as you were made DNIF and nothing else according to you. Did you get read off SCI?

I'm not saying that people don't get fucked, but there are as many people that have been DNIF or separated for things like arthritis in the pinky toe (yes I know someone that happened to) or some kind of funky random thing that wouldn't otherwise be an issue.

<comment><USER4> My point is: I was fed the line about 'just get help it won't hurt blah blah' by people like you and it turned out to be lies. It isn't and wasn't good advice. The stigma exists for a reason.

<comment><USER3> It's no different than the other terrible advice of "Don't go to sick call cause [insert bad outcome]." At the end of the day whatever problem you have, physical or mental, is going to come out and be worse in left untreated.

99.9% of people in high stakes military jobs who seek treatment will have no adverse impacts on their career from seeking mental health treatment.

I don't know enough about your case to make any further comment but the plural of anecdote isn't data.

<comment><USER4> Your fake statistic isn't data either lol.

<comment><USER3> No argument there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the article got it close that it's really to do with being: Male, Young, White.

When I was with the firm, we had a spate of suicides on base over a short period of time. Enough for 'management' to implement an in-loco parentis type arrangement for the young, single servicemen (and women) who were housed on base in barracks.

It meant great adventure trips away - and did help give some sort of support network for those posted away from families. A better option than just drinking in the bar, at least.

There are help options available (career suicide or not), but if you're depressed/suicidal, it's actually quite difficult to reach out to those options. In a well-run workplace environment, I found the Sergeants (and up) to be both a wealth of knowledge/experience and most were quite actively involved in taking care of the well-being of us young skins.

<comment><USER6> Ive seen similar attempts to compensate, to de-toxify a base by adding on new activities. Im not a fan. It is the easy solution. The harder option is to dig out the issues. Debt. Count the number of payday loan places and casinos near the base. Drugs and alcohol. Count the bars. Then turn to the attitudes of team leaders. Petty insults to subordinates might be part of military culture, but that doesnt mean it has to remain so. The little things add up. Improvement in these areas takes real effort, far more so than a weekly bus trip. It requires commanders to act a bit like parents, something they used to do but these days do not.

My gandfather used to speak of "hats off" activities on the base he ran. Rank had no place during such things. He said he learned more about his people at the weekly "hats off" card game than he ever did while on duty. Those sort of back channels, without any risk of getting something on someone's record, are imho missing from base culture today. But to maintain such things you need stability of leadership. Today people move around so fast that commanders have trouble even keeping track of names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Solid reporting and analysis. To further the stark difference in point of view from a veteran to civilian is a comic strip from a famous Marine illustrator:

terminallance.com/2012/01/23/terminal-lance-174-breaking-news/

<comment><USER8> That's a weird mentality to think of a killer as a "dumbass" and a "huge dick" when your own job is to kill people. Does it matter if they're Americans or Iraqis? They're still people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How to handle people that you know are suicidal, but refuse to undergo treatment? I once had this situation (luckily with a happy end), that I only knew the rough location (in another country) and tried to talk someone out of it over the course of about a week. I was very close to calling the police, but was afraid it would do more harm than good. The person I was dealing with was very rational and calm about it and would probably just convinced the police of beeing fine.

<comment><USER10> I think you handled the situation correctly. You can't do much. Just like you can't do much if a loved one is injured or sick and dying but they do not want to go to a doctor (this actually happened to a friend). It's very hard to get a handle on these situations because most 1st world countries have a strong concept of individual liberty. I am actually glad it is that way, but I also realize how awful those situations are. But frankly, I'd rather not erode liberty to better deal with such cases, I think the problem has to be attacked from another direction, i.e. not stigmatising mental health problems, more conversation, tolerance, education about mental health, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just got a notice on Facebook. Another brother lost his battle. I don't use Facebook except to every month or so check in on a group of guys I deployed with. It seems like one or two each year take their own life. This has been going on the last ten years. Many others have struggled but haven't committed suicide (yet, it pains me to say).

After reading the article I still don't understand what's going on. I wonder if it has something more to do with society in general and how men in this demographic are received. I've heard almost all of my brothers say they feel rejected by society, or like an alien in their community. I feel/felt the same way.

<comment><USER12> I agree with you that there's a feeling of alienation from society. From my own experience, I felt a growing sense of isolation from the people that were closest to me.

I feel that many coming out of the military are put at a disadvantage compared to their civilian counterparts. Coming home from deployment, I'd lost touch with many of my friends, had broken up with my long term girlfriend, and had scarce job opportunities. The military has made some efforts to better help reintegrate with the civilian world, but they all fall short because they have no particular expertise or influence on what happens outside of service. They can't help you much with finding a job or mending your relationships other than impersonal job assistance programs or a couple MWR trips with your family. I eventually found some success but my military service and its side effects were a hole that I had to dig myself out of with the help of my friends and family.

I think that successful reintegration requires a strong support network. I'm fortunate to have strong family connections and a few friends that were there for me. I still reach out to some of those I served with to have coffee and just chat about life, though I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't been as good about it as the years have gone by. Good on you for continuing to reach out to your battle buddies -- I'm sure you're making a positive impact in each of their lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> All I can do is listen here and maybe learn something.

</comment><comment><USER14> An insightful article from a few years ago: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/us/marine-battalion- veter...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/us/marine-battalion-veterans- scarred-by-suicides-turn-to-one-another-for-help.html)</comment>


Introducing the for-if anti-pattern - The Old New Thing - Site Home - MSDN Blogs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/12/27/10251210.aspx <comment><USER2> Terribly junk code.</comment>


RIM Acquires Tungle - <AUTHOR> http://www.tungle.me/Home/rim-acquires-tungle/ <comment><USER2> Great service, but it seemed liked they really slowed down about a year ago and gave up on trying to do anything about their growing backlog on GetSatisfaction. As a very early user, it's been frustrating that they haven't done really basic, cheap improvements that obviously would have big impact and lots of users are screaming for.

I can't imagine how RIM owning them will improve the situation. My bet is that within 6 months their GS page is taken down altogether. <http://community.tungle.me/tungle>

</comment><comment><USER3> Darn, yet another useful service snapped up by the dying beast. Great for the employees, who I met a few times and thought were great, but bad for the users.

</comment><comment><USER4> Congrats to Tungle! any info on the acquisition price?

</comment><comment><USER5> Why is it bad for users?

<comment><USER3> 1) Rim will probably bring Tungle to the grave with them 2) They'll probably change the service to benefit Blackberry users rather than iOS, Android, or even web users. 3) I doubt the product will get the attention it needs to remain useful

<comment><USER6> 2015: YouTube Founders Acquire Tungle.me from RIM</comment></comment></comment>


Why Most Startup Acquisitions Fail, And Always Will - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/02/23/why-most-startup-acquisitions-fail-and-always-will/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29

<comment><USER2> _A Flickr developer's tale of how Yahoo continually tied up development at the photo-sharing service is a perfect example: 85 percent of the unit's time was spent dealing with the Yahoo bureaucracy_

When large companies have an economic advantage, it's because certain transaction costs are lowered within the organization. These lower transaction costs can be used to competitive advantage when producing products for external markets.

There seems to be a strong tendency for this to break down when establishing new patterns of transactions. Why? Why don't companies give the same transaction cost advantages to entrepreneurs operating inside?</comment>


Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible - <AUTHOR> http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/ <comment><USER2> You know what helps products last longer and reduces waste at the same time?

 _Repairability_.

The repairability of apple products is so poor that even Apple can't fix most of their own products without replacing surprisingly large portions of any given Apple device. End user repairability has been utterly neglected. Disassembly is frequently impossible without causing damage, and components such as batteries are frequently soldered on.

Are other manufacturers better? They _used_ to be. Apple leads the way, and now the average phone is nearly as difficult to repair as an iPhone.

Hey, it's great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S. It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs! Just wonderful. How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S? Oh. I see. Well, running iOS 12 on a 5S isn't so practical then, is it?

Repairability. I'll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair.

<comment><USER3> > How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S? > Oh. I see.

I did it in about 45 minutes the first time, and could do another in 20-30 minutes pretty easily.

It's now a 5-year old phone. 10 minutes labor per year is OK in my book.

How easy is it for end-users to replace the clutch in that off-warranty Civic? For that matter, how many people even change their own brakes (one of the easiest DIY tasks, IMO)?

<comment><USER4> The 5 series and SE phones are pretty easy to repair indeed. I've replaced a screen and battery with no experience, a few tools from ifixit and a youtube video without much hassle. It's gone pretty downhill from there with the iphone 6. Especially because the screens are much more intricate.

<comment><USER5> The newer phones are easier to lift the screen out of, and replace the battery? Have you taken apart a 4 and a 6? A 6 is MUCH easier.

<comment><USER6> Replacing the battery in an iPhone 4 requires taking off the back cover, not the screen. And it was really a pleasant process when I did it two weeks ago. I had expected much worse, but I only had to get through three screws (granted, they were a bit small, but still).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That is all very well and I really appreciate Apple's long support for iPhones, but Apple did popularize firmly bonded batteries in its phones and even in notebooks. A battery is a wear part and should be easy to replace. Every thing else leads to more waste.

<comment><USER8> I do not necessarily disagree about the fact that batteries should be easily replaceable. On the other hand, I do not think that Apple's motivation was pure greed: if you make the battery an easily replaceable part you also need to encase it in a shell, and make it robust enough that even untrained users can safely handle these.

This means that you have to make it bigger (externally) sacrificing actual internal volume. A softer shell (that will be reached only by qualified personnel who will later properly dispose of the old battery) give you a slightly longer battery life.

So they decided that (battery life+markup in handling replacements+making sure only certified batteries will be used) > (user convenience) which I think is not such a stupid idea: outside HN maybe not everyone is willing to grab the closest screwdriver when having to deal with their phones...

<comment><USER9> Plenty of other manufacturers manage a decent replaceable battery, I don't see why Apple can't.

<comment><USER10> Other manufacturers tend to also have way bigger phones.

<comment><USER11> Are you sure? The differences between say Samsung J3 and iPhone 6 are negligible (iPhone 8 is even slightly fatter). About 1.5mm thickness and that mostly because plastics have to be thick to survive falls and not because of removable battery. If it were made partly of steel it could be a match.

The size is different (J3 is bigger) and materials are a bit better in the iPhone... But we're comparing a budget phone with a flagship here.

Oh, and the battery is also bigger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > After a long life of use, ensure that they are recycled properly.

Anyone ever read about Apple's must-shred agreement[0] with recyclers? Is that what "properly" refers to here?

> Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible.

Anyone read about Apple's recent lawsuit[1] for planned obsolescence in iPhones?

[0]: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple- recy...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling- iphones-macbooks)

[1]: [https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/09/targeting- apple...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/09/targeting-apple- designing-slow-down-iphones-small-french-consumer-group-punches)

<comment><USER13> The original iPad also had OS updates discontinued incredibly quickly.

<comment><USER14> When Apple no longer supports a device, the boot loafers should be unlocked so they can be reflagged. This should be a requirement for all hardware.

<comment><USER15> At least let me roll back to old software version. I have 4S which is unusable and locked on iOS 9. It's not like it's secure today, so just let me get back to iOS 6 and have at least fast phone.

<comment><USER6> This opens the door to rolling back devices once you've waited for them to become obsolete and then reading their contents, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'll believe them when I see their products come with replaceable batteries and more expansion options, and they start selling parts on their site.

<comment><USER17> The battery is replaceable in most (all?) of their products, just not by the user. Battery service is sold on their site today.

<comment><USER18> I believe was asking for something akin to old Nokia phones.

<comment><USER19> The old Nokia phones used another strategy (and so did most other vendors): Every new model used a different battery. Which at the same time obsoleted the battery in the old model, i.e. no new batteries were produced. You could still buy them, but they would have stayed on the shelf for a long time - in other words, they were as old as the battery you replaced. I bought a number of replacement batteries over the years, and without exeception the new battery (originals, mind) were as bad at keeping charge as the old one, after a couple of months. Into the drawer with the phone, buy a newer one, repeat. I'm absolutely certain that this constant change of battery form factor was just that: No point in replacing a battery because you could only find old ones. Buy new phone instead.

This year I emptied a drawer full of old phones going back to around 1997 (the very earliest used NiCd batteries) until recent. Wow there were many. And I never got a new one unless the old one still worked - they all went into the drawer because they couldn't take a charge anymore.

It should be said though that batteries don't die on me as quickly as they used to - the change seems to be from the last few years. They seem to keep better in storage, but charging strategy also matters - old phones used to really deep-discharge batteries before declaring them below 10% charge.

<comment><USER20> No. I used Nokia phones from the mid-1990s until I reluctantly bought an Android phone a few years back.

The 6110 needed a different battery from the 2140 I had originally, but from there all the way until the 6310i in mid 2000s they were compatible.

Its even spelled out on their Wikipedia entry. "Accessories (such as batteries) can generally be swapped between all these models."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> EZ-E Real talk here : what makes an iPhone slow after 2 years?

\- the battery aging?

\- the apps using more ressources than before?

\- the newer OS version using more ressources than before?

I've started using my old Android phone again after it being unused 3 years (Nexus 4), the apps are extremely slow now, the camera takes forever to open : what's going on? Computers don't age as much

<comment><USER21> Of course you're missing out one option - perhaps they actually aren't actually that much slower, but you're just used to newer stuff being much faster. The definition of slow changes.

<comment><USER22> This is clearly not the case: the C64 could respond to input faster than the a few-year-old iPhone.

<comment><USER23> Sadly, the C64 is also quicker than Apple's iCloud website. Frequently, when I type a new note or a reminder, the lag between my pressing a key and character appearing on the screen is in several seconds. This is on a 4-core machine with 16 GB of RAM that's not doing anything else.

<comment><USER24> It really does perplex me that the iCloud website is as bad as it is. I'd almost think it was abandoned-ware except that Apple continues to update it. Their whole cloud offering (iTunes store, Apple Music, iCloud) needs a MASSIVE overhaul. Everything should be available via the web and on a modern accessible website.

I'd go as far as to say that they need a new point-person in charge of their Cloud Services because whoever is doing it now is completely out of touch. iTunes in particular is embarrassing, and I personally buy less stuff because I don't want to run it (instead use Vudu, Amazon Digital, etc).

<comment><USER25> iirc, icloud was written in sproutcore. version 2 of sproutcoure became ember which is now in version 3. there was no upgrade path from sproutcore 1 to ember, so likely its a case of needing a rewrite and that not being prioritized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> To this point, iPhone performance has grown by first doing their own silicon and then by offering more hardware blocks to do what used to be done purely in SW. Of course, they also rode the wave from 45nm to 7nm.

As you look forward from 7nm, the picture is less exciting. Claims of 2x and 4x improvements will give way to 20% benefits from the hardware alone, and they'll have to work really hard on technologies like Metal to limit the amount of SW layers between an API call and the instructions in the chip.

Making products that last as long as possible _is_ good for the Earth, but without breakthroughs in semiconductor physics, the space is maturing. Software already ate the world, and must now learn to coexist with the remaining resources.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is an interestingly a reverse of Europe's (effective) policy and on greening the auto-market. Most European jurisdictions _effectively_ ^ tax (and otherwise discourage) old cars wuth a higher rate.

For an example from my country. A 2007 2L Passat is a common old car currently taxed @ €1,000 pa. It quickly escalates to 2,000 as engine size/emissions increase. Passats are decent quality cars with long lived engines, so most of the 10-15 year olds are still alive. For their time, they were average CO2 producers, say 200g/km.

The tax system is designed so that an incremental decrease in emissions substantially decreases annual tax. A 30% carbon saving (say 60g/km saved, in this example) will save you 60% -70% on your annual tax (€600-€800 ish). People buy/drive 12 year old cars for value, and the tax system (by design) takes that value away.

The way to lower your annual tax is to buy a car designed _after_ the new tax regime was designed. The net effect of the policy is that perfectly good old cars are being crushed and replaced with newer, "greener," short lifecycle cars. There's no point building a car that will last more than 8-10 years because tax laws will probably get it off the road by that time. The most economical way to drive is not the old cars, it's cheap new cars.

The real (environmental) question is whether the net effects of building a new car outweigh the case by output of the older car.

Idk what the carbon cost of manufacturing a car is, but the number to beat (for my example, anyway) is about 600 kg co2. My uneducated guess is that it's about even, ie the policy is just another Volkswagen subsidy.

<comment><USER28> > A 2007 2L Passat

Turns out my SO got her hand on a second hand '06 New Beetle which has a TDI engine with a CO2 production of ~146g/km. The car has 300000km on the clock.

> 600 kg co2

How did you get there? I seem to miss something to make sense of this value.

Over the 12 years the car has been on the road it emitted:

        300000 km * 146 g/km => 44 metric tons

The equivalent engine today is the 1.6L BlueMotion and emits ~85g/km. That's 40% less, about 18 tons saved.

But such a churn is quick at first yet soon enough has diminishing returns, as the low hanging fruits get reaped until we reach minimal ICE emissions or even zero emission, then (environmentally) you'll soon want the longest living cars, so this phenomenon should only be temporary.

<comment><USER29> Its not only about tons of CO2 saved, since that can be fixed by trees. Asthma-causing particulates and other cancer-causing compounds are completely ignored in that calculation, not to mention the opportunity cost of not having that $25k go into something else, like a house.

<comment><USER28> I agree, but:

\- the point was about whether changing cars every 5-10 years offsets the cost of building a new car

\- whatever the car you can still plant the same trees

\- living near a heavily polluted crossroad in a city, I guarantee you I'd rather have less CO/CO2 (as well as all the other NOx/particles crap) right out of the exhaust, not captured over decades

<comment><USER29> Most of that pollution is coming from diesel engines in the form of particulates. Which the EU happily allowed so as to reduce CO2 emissions. Which they're backtracking heavily on at the moment. Not to mention that cars by themselves are a very small part of overall pollution today, compared to good transportation and factories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does the 'Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible' assume wrapping new iPhone into one of those cases?

I don't know if I am alone here, but I find it counter intuitive that to protect my new shiny, I would have to cover it with more or less ugly case to avoid it breaking when I eventually drop it? And since I don't [use cases], maybe consequently, I seem to break them at about ~11 month intervals (although last one, iPhone SE, was lost by accidental submersion - with this at least the new Xs's promises to be slightly better).

TL;DR; I am rooting to be able to buy an iPhone someday that will tolerate my 'normal' use as purchased without any covers or other add-on protections.

<comment><USER6> No offense, but I think the problems you haven't been solved by any phone vendor. They seem to be "you" problems. Protecting an iPhone when you drop it would (with current technology) require a bulky phone–though water resistance has significantly improved since iPhone SE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The biggest take away I got from the article was the need to make software last and function even on older devices. They mention ios 12 working on an iphone 5 which really does not impress me. I have an iphone 4s as my daily driver and it can only get ios 9.x. The biggest problem lies in the app store. I can not use many of the apps, some that previously worked because they all want the person to be on the latest ios. Nothing wrong with the phone other then I am slowly being locked out of apps.

<comment><USER29> > Nothing wrong with the phone other then I am slowly being locked out of > apps.

This is the main reason I swore off the iOS ecosystem. Apple encourages developers to target the latest iOS and the latest devices, which is great if you are on the upgrade treadmill. If you aren't, then your apps stop being compatible fairly quickly. If you have bought an app in the past you are allowed to re-download it, but if you haven't, you just get a message saying that you should upgrade your OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Phones being disposable isn't going to change, so looking at the annual cost of ownership is really all I care about. If a $1K iphone lasts 5 years vs my $170 android lasting 2 years, its still a better deal to simply spend $170 on the android. Better yet they usually last far more than 2 years, you just don't necessarily have the latest OS, which I mean, seeing as these devices change so little now, who cares?

<comment><USER33> > Better yet they usually last far more than 2 years, you just don't > necessarily have the latest OS, which I mean, seeing as these devices change > so little now, who cares?

Security holes care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I had a cheese-grater Mac Pro G5 for 8 years that _still worked beautifully when I gave it away_. I did upgrade memory at one point. An external display had a power supply problem after a few years. I replaced the graphics card. The ability to replace parts does help but I've also had a MBP since 2013 that has no accessible parts that also works fine.

Of course, on the flip side I'm grateful for this reliability because there's no _way_ I want to replace my 2013 MBP with any current Apple offering. They've truly screwed their product line and I figure I can only wait one more generation for them to come up with something sensible.

<comment><USER35> In February my daily driver machine for development, VMs, "normal work", etc. will begin it's tenth year.

It's a 2009 Mac Pro. I don't notice any slowness or issues. Have not needed to replace anything. Have not upgraded beyond the original 8GB of RAM.

I just loaded El Cap on it this past year (latest OSX release it will take without a firmware upgrade) and plan to continue using it for years ...

<comment><USER36> I'm in the same boat with my circa-2010 Macbook Air. Its still supported as it has an i5, but its ancient by today's standards. Still holds a 3+ hour battery charge on its original cells though, boots in under 20 seconds on SSD (running 10.12 on it, haven't taken the High Sierra plunge), and everything on it works. I'd love to have more RAM and a retina display but tbh, it ain't broke so I'm not replacing it and when/if I do, it will likely be replaced with the 2016 version that just upgraded the RAM and I'll use it for another decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Tell that to the person/people in charge of the lightning port and headphone jack on the iPhone.

I know headphone jacks are no longer on Apple's radar, but they always seem to get messed up after a year so that the stock iPhone headphones are not recognised and thus the control buttons don't work.

However, the lightning port drives me mad because the blasted device won't charge up properly without me fiddling with angles and pressure for that goldilocks zone. It just sits there vibrating away in a charging/not-charging loop. One assumes it's the cable but that makes no difference.

<comment><USER38> Check if there is any debris/lint built up in the port. If so, use a toothpick to remove. The downside of a tab-less female connector is that it picks up more stuff and you have to clean it every once in a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> To me it sounds like Apple wants to be "seen" as building products that last as long as possible to justify the cost of the product. They want you to justify the buy it for life cost, because they want you to believe the marketing that it will last longer than competitors, even while laptop keyboards fail early, the repair process costs over $800, the screens on laptops look like someone sprayed brake cleaner all over them when they've only lived in an office environment, iPhones get "touch disease" etc etc.

<comment><USER40> You don't have to believe Apple. All you need to do is look at the secondary market and see how prices for used devices hold up and see that it's true.

<comment><USER41> But is that because people immediately take a $1000 device and wrap it in a protective case, or by virtue of the device being durable, etc.?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Tell that to Thinkpad users that can upgrade 15 years old second-hand Thinkpads with compatible parts bought from China (also apply to other notebooks).

How easy it is to change the faulty keyboard on a MacBook Pro?

<comment><USER43> Isn't it possible that replacing parts all the time embraces disposable culture? "Oh I can just get a new battery? Great, I'll get one way more often than I need to, because I can." The old one gets in the garbage, or isn't recycled properly. And believe me, it happens often.

I don't see why improving durability is a bad thing. And also not sure why whenever anything positive gets posted about Apple, so many enter "APPLE MODE: RESIST IMMEDIATELY IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE."

<comment><USER6> > And also not sure why whenever anything positive gets posted about Apple, so > many enter "APPLE MODE: RESIST IMMEDIATELY IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE."

There are people here that have both positive and negative opinions about Apple, as there are people that have opinions about nearly every other company. Perhaps with Apple these opinions are a bit more strongly held.

<comment><USER43> It seems to be with any of the big tech companies.

It's just best to ignore it - the conversations offer no value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This "should last as long as possible" was already assumed... and frankly kind of insulting after buying apple products for many years. And we do expect to be able to repair... I took my iPhone 6 to apple because the battery was done. They "tested" it and said it was fine. I paid a third party to replace it since apple would not. Phone was fixed... couple weeks later apple admitted there were battery problems and were handing out cheap replacements.

<comment><USER45> And after your experience would you buy Apple again?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Has the iPhone screen durability improved at all? It seems like they are (or were?) extremely susceptible to damage from dropping and I always took that as a sign that Apple wanted to force people to upgrade.

Edit: Here's a link discussing the issue: [https://www.fastcompany.com/3063238/why-wont-apple-fix- the-i...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3063238/why-wont-apple-fix-the-iphones- one-huge-design-flaw)

<comment><USER47> I would argue yes... they keep on improving the materials in every generation. I have a 7+ and my kid has thrown it across the room multiple times and dropped it onto a wooden floor more times than I can remember and even on concrete a couple of times. Each time my heart is in my mouth but each time it comes up without a scratch.

<comment><USER46> Yikes! Good to know. I just wonder if there has been any official mea culpa announcement or if I (along with many other people) are just suffering from sort of selection bias. Did the screen material change at all?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I was asked by Apple Mexico $350 to replace the battery on a retina MBP with the excuse that they have to replace the complete top panel (battery, keyboard, trackpad, etc).

The initial price was closer to $600 but I got a discount because they buy the old part from me.

Of course I said no. I will try to do it myself for less than $100 with a battery I bought from Ebay.

</comment><comment><USER49> Tell that to my iPad 3, which got unusable just after one major iOS upgrade. So I'm a bit skeptical.

<comment><USER50> There were a few "bad Apples" in the iOS lineup, the iPad 1 and 3 and the iPhone 4 were a bit underpowered the day they launched and didn't fare well on iOS 7 (or even 6...).

<comment><USER51> My iPad 1 aka "the tank" (as we call it in my house) is still (hardware wise) 100% functional. Software is another story. I believe the only thing it's used for is Netflix (which shockingly works). Web browser/Safari is a complete no- go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The discussions here reminded me of [https://www.theonion.com/apple-announces- new-trade-in-offer-...](https://www.theonion.com/apple-announces-new-trade-in- offer-for-customers-to-exc-1829001894)

</comment><comment><USER52> Bullshit. I broke a keycap on my 2015 MBP that was out of warranty. The solution from the official distributor/service? Buy a new bottom shell with the battery, trackpad and keyboard for 700€. Longevity my ass.

</comment><comment><USER53> Sure they do.... NOT!

I'll believe THAT when it's possible to replace the battery without dealing with microscopic screws, glue, heat guns, and hard-to-source clippy thingamajigs that require super-human dexterity to install.

</comment><comment><USER54> Well start by making features and software run on less capable hardware, hardware becomes obsolete because of the software it runs.

I'm waiting for companies to just stop following wirth's law.

</comment><comment><USER55> > Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible

{Looks at unrepairable phone}

{Looks at unrepairable laptop}

{Looks at cord with no strain relief}

I don't believe you.

</comment><comment><USER56> When my 2k mac became unsupported after 4 years, Apple lost me permanently.

</comment><comment><USER57> I'll believe it when the keyboard on a six month old MBP doesn't feel like the keys are about to fall off.

</comment><comment><USER58> If longevity is what they want, they should release private keys and hardware specs for hardware that they drop from their own OS updates.

That way, we could continue using old iPads and iPhones, albeit with custom Android builds.

<comment><USER59> You can still use a first generation iPad today and do all of the stuff you did with it in 2010. Yes you can also redownload older apps from the store.

<comment><USER58> No, I can't unfortunately. Too many apps rely on web backends that have been upgraded and are incompatible with the versions that run on iPad 1. For example, the built-in YouTube application on iPad 1 is completely non- functional. Also, the newer iCloud features require you to "update" your iCloud to a version incompatible with the old iPad.

Many older apps have now also been pulled from the store. My iPhone 1 can only reinstall Skype from an old iTunes backup, but not from the store.

<comment><USER59> Being able to download the last compatible version doesn't work with iOS 3 but does work with iOS 5. I don't know about iOS 4.

I have a first gen iPod Touch running iOS 3.x and a first gen iPad running iOS 5. Of course I have newer devices too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Hard to believe, that would be a 180 degree turn. The two iPhones I owned (3G and 4) had shit durability. I'm not sure the fault laid in the hardware (although my mute button broke on the 3G), but software updates made the phone unusable.

Otoh, my Galaxy S4 from 6 years ago stills runs well (if not always _cool_ ). I've repeatedly seen Android phones actually get _faster_ when applying updates.

<comment><USER61> > I've repeatedly seen Android phones actually get faster when applying > updates.

 _IF_ the get updates. My Android phone managed to get slower even without getting any OS updates...</comment></comment>


Twitter Removes 'Via' Stamp From Web Client - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/08/28/twitter-longer-displays-client-tweet-posted-web-emphasizing-first-party-reading-experience/ <comment><USER2> Twitter's image would be better served by the bandaid-removal approach. Everything bad - all at once, rather than this drip-drip-drip of changes perceived to be hostile towards its developer community. You have to figure they've got a road-map of where this heads, so why not do it all at once and consolidate the pain?

<comment><USER3> Actually I agree with you in this case, given the massive amount of attention on Twitter now, but in situations of lesser scrutiny, the 'drip-drip-drip' is often the the more cunning move.

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normalcy> and all the related concepts, eg boiling the frog etc.

<comment><USER4> Except you know, if you boil a frog slowly, it will still jump out.

[http://www.fastcompany.com/26455/next-time-what-say-we- boil-...](http://www.fastcompany.com/26455/next-time-what-say-we-boil- consultant)

IE needs more actual examples, instead of metaphors that turn out to be completely wrong in practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It was about time, always wondered how 'via' improved user experience in any way.

EDIT: since I'm getting downvoted because some of you don't agree:

There's like 140M active Twitter users (as of March 2012) and like, 30 clients (guesstimating). If I assume there's like 1M developers on Twitter (which I don't think it is), this feature is still useful to less than 1% of their user base. Not exactly a "must have" feature IMHO.

<comment><USER6> It helped people discover new Twitter clients by seeing what other people were posting with. I'll admit that this benefit may not have been anywhere near worth the added clutter and screen space, but it was good for something.

<comment><AUTHOR> and it helped me to remove useless/automated tweets from timeline using a home-made greasemonkey/user script.

<comment><USER7> That's your own fault for following spammy accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> My friends use _automated_ apps like Instagram, Foursquare, GetGlue ...... and many more. They are not spammy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sick of this kind of twitter stories. This is just a hype about Twitters' internal affairs. Their business. Why on earth this is top news or even on frontpage? They have just skipped showing 2 words. If the story was about "how twitter hypothetically screwed and made 2 man hours work of deleting two words from tweets 2 man days of work" I'd be more willing to read it.

Please - this is not about hacking, this is not about technology, this is not even about entrepreneurship - I would really love stories about twitter's opensource projects, twitter's technology choice, twitter's software development methodologies, twitter's devels' thoughts about samsung-apple case. But this is not news worthy. At least not news worthy for Hacker News.

<comment><USER9> Tell ya what I'm sick of.

This kind of comment.

Why on earth should I care what some anonymous person thinks is newsworthy? You've got a counter right there showing you exactly how many people find it worth reading.

If it's interesting, read it and/or comment. If it's not, scroll past. Flag if you want. But the only thing less newsworthy than a given story is your assessment of its newsworthiness.

<comment><USER8> Look, there is something wrong about this.

This story has 97 point at time of my writing, 44 comments. It's top story. Learning C with gdb story has 297 points, 80 comments and it's on third row.

<comment><USER10> It's not based solely on points, it's based on points and time.

<comment><USER8> Thank you. I know how could it be calculated. Well I did not look into the code but I deducted it. But I was just trying to make a point in the context.

<comment><USER11> Actually, I'm a HN regular and I find this story interesting. I find it interesting because it's an indication about how Twitter intends to treat developers - a signal that I should worry about about building off other APIs and not the Twitter API.

<comment><USER12> > _"a signal that I should worry about about building off other APIs and not > the Twitter API."_

Call me crazy, but hasn't this always been the case? Relying on an API out of your control is fine if you're running a website, but if you have a business and you rely on the Twitter's and the Facebook's of the world to keep you going then it's only a matter of time.

<comment><USER11> In the beginning this was not the signal being sent out to developers, so I will call you crazy :)

I understand the risks. Hell, I'm even taking them with my own project, but I always hoped if you add value to the API owner and that they created the API to give more value to their users why would they company cut you off?

As in all business there are risks. No company have every parameter under control. Building a business off other companies API is one of those risk variables I'm willing to take.

However, Twitter is quite clearly telling us that it's not a risk worth taking anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really liked the via tag for one purpose.

Buffer.

I liked to know when folks were live tweeting versus time delayed tweeting as it gave me context. If they were live, I'd respond. If they weren't I'd just consumer the content (if interested) and move on.

</comment><comment><USER14> "First-party clients" is certainly a new euphemism in this context.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is very clearly the end of Twitter as a "platform". Now that Twitter is huge, they don't want or need developers or 3rd party clients. They want to centralize everything into a monetizable service. That would've been fine if that was their plan from the get-go. The bait-n-switch they're doing disingenuous at the least.

So what now? Status.net hasn't gained traction, and it's obviously too early to say anything about tent.io, but I am very, very hopeful that eventually a new open, decentralized platform/protocol will emerge as the next-generation social communications platform to replace both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously.

<comment><USER16> dramatic much? it's not like 3rd party clients stopped working

<comment><USER15> You'd have to be silly to not expect what Twitters next move will be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "We've always been at war with third-party clients."

Twitter needs to shit or get off the pot. Either they want a nice big ecosystem and they make money by leveraging their ridiculous amount of 3rd- party traffic, or they listen to the biz dev guys with their nice haircuts and just force all traffic through their official points. It's so wishy-washy, with the Tweetbot Alpha token pull, and this it's very clear they're saying this is the new way but through so many layers of subtext it's like reading a management presentation on blue-sky thinking.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is an unfortunate move. I found it very useful to see who was tweeting using an app that suggested it's the real person, versus tweets coming from large, paid enterprise apps using Twitter's API -- big "social media management" software that a marketing organization would use to schedule tweets at pre-designated times.

</comment><comment><USER19> The API changes stated that they wanted all clients to look the same and to have a similar experience. Could this be a hint that they want to rule out 3rd party clients slowly but surely?

<comment><USER20> I think they are more concerned about users avoiding ads than they are about a consistent user interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not too long now before twitter releases pricing?

<comment><USER22> Pricing for what? Users? That would be an unequivocal death knell. Developers? Possibly. However, it's doubtful that Twitter stands to gain any significant revenue from charging for an API. Their audience for advertising is so much larger and more lucrative, a paid API would be of trivial importance to their bottom line and a waste of time.

I don't think they'll charge for anything. Doing so would relegate them to the same, minuscule potential user base as App.net has.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This should not be surprising to any of you.

</comment><comment><USER24> one more step closer to monopoly</comment>


Debugging Websites in Chrome for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chromium.org/2019/03/debugging-websites-in-chrome-for-ios.html <comment><USER2> this is great to have, but as you can see, the page chrome://inspect itself is not mobile friendly by google's standard. text and button is too small to see.

it's also unclear what it means by "log", javascript exceptions? or console.log. My page prints lots of console.log, but I didn't seem to see those with the inspect page.</comment>


Surprising new role for lungs–making blood - <AUTHOR> http://exactlyscience.com/archives/11651.html <comment><USER2> Blogspam of this article (with the original author credit stripped out... along with, oddly, the names of the study authors):

[http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/03/406111/surprising-new- role-...](http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/03/406111/surprising-new-role-lungs- making-blood)</comment>


How I launched a product in 15 days, got 962 users in 24 hours spending only $30 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cbots.ro/how-i-launched-in-15-days-and-got-962-users-in-24-hours-and-46-minutes-spending-only-30-35a482782541#.kl8lijixa <comment><USER2> Points to consider:

\- Influencers are key in social networks. They dont necessarily have to be famous or have a huge following. Some people are natural social butterflies. Leverage them.

\- Having a marketing plan is more important than having a website. It is what you will execute over time in order to drive traffic. A plan does not need to be overly complex. It maybe simple and updated as progress is made.

\- The initial rush will go quickly. Leaving you with a rather monotonous amount amount of work. Its boring. Dont chase the high. Learn to plow through the lows.

Best of luck to this team. Seems promising.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sorry if this is obvious, but what did you actually build? I know its a chatbot for FB Messenger, but what does it do?

<comment><AUTHOR> It helps you to keep up with personal expenses and set up reminders.

Can be tested here: m.me/peegi.me

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where did you find the dev to help you out?

</comment><comment><USER5> How much did you make?

<comment><AUTHOR> Basically I saved a $4k investment into a platform for creating chatbots and it lead me into another market I am building a product now.

<comment><USER5> Very cool!</comment></comment></comment>


Hurricane Maria: Puerto Rico may be months without power - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41340392 <comment><USER2> Potable water shortages presents itself as one of its most crucial challenges in the months to come.</comment>


Endangered Languages Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/ <comment><USER2> Let me share something related I learned about recently.

Mansa Musa was a king of Mali. He was the richest man alive during the 14th century, possibly the richest of history. He owned about half of the world's production of gold.

He is mostly known through the pilgrimage he did to Mecca, where he distributed gifts in such a generous fashion that he possibly crashed the Egyptian economy. He is also known for ordering the building of the Djinguereber Mosque.

Thing is, we only know him through the eyes of foreigners. Either because of his pilgrimage or because of the european architects he brought. We only know the things that involve foreigners.

I would like to know more about his predecessor, who, according to a single Arab source citing Musa, transmitted the crown as he was decided to sail west on the pacific to make a trip around the world. Unlike Colombus, he had calculated the trip duration correctly and allegedly led an expedition of 3000 (!) boats. They were never heard from again. However, some pre-columbian historians suspect they have found some possible places where trade occurred in south America.

Why have I never heard about it? Why don't we have more sources about it? Then I remembered another piece of news I have read a few years ago. My country (France) was involved in a conflict in Mali recently. I followed it a bit. I remember reading an article about a heroic museum director who, upon seeing islamist fighters approaching and knowing what they do to historical artifacts [1] decided to disregard all typical precaution, loaded all he could in a pick-up truck and drove like crazy to the safe territories.

A lot of what he saved were manuscripts from Mansa Musa's period and the next century. Most were undigitized and untranslated.

This is why we need to save knowledge of ancient languages. Can you imagine the numerous epic stories we are missing? Maybe along those burnt books are the discussions of the western expedition. Maybe similar expeditions are sketched out. Maybe they give insights of civilizations or trading routes we did not know exist.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/28/mali- timbuktu-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu- library-ancient-manuscripts)

<comment><USER3> I think this points more to the need to preserve source material. Even if the language is known, if the source material is gone, the information that was in the source material may be gone forever. On the other hand, with enough source material, languages that have no living speaker( and in fact, have had no living speakers for centuries) have been successfully decoded (for example ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics, ancient Sumerian, etc).

<comment><USER2> Yes, you need the source material, but the things you can infer from it alone are less numerous.

With no living speakers, you can map writing to meanings but not to phonetics, which are one of the main sources to trace language lines.

Is the city of "Ass'n" in one language the city of "Hassim" in another? Are two sources talking about the same person or are the names different?

Is this text poetry? Is this word here for the rhyme or does it have a specific meaning?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a particular interest in the languages of Mozambique. Many of these languages are heavily used in their local areas, but endangered by lack of acceptance in schools, lack of media in the language, and lack of resources (Possibly one of the reasons Moz is blank in the linked map).

I've found most of the best resources for actual text in smaller languages comes from religious translations, which can be a bit outdated but usually offer a fair amount of text. And beyond that I've gotten lucky with a few google drives and other repos mostly containing educational packets put together by various volunteer and missionary groups.

Unfortunately I'm not sure the copyright on many of those. I think that's why most of the language projects[1] I've seen wind up being mainly repos of titles of papers published on various languages. Which can be hit or miss for educational purposes.

[1] From the linked site I mainly poked at a couple African languages and didn't see much beyond the paper titles. There may be others with much more info.

<comment><USER5> Seems like a good candidate for something to throw the way of the Internet Archive.

<comment><USER4> That's a good idea. I'll have to make a few uploads there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really cool! Back when I was in college, I tried to raise awareness of all the languages spoken in my hometown (Fresno, CA)... We even shot a video about it!

FresnoLanguageProject.com

</comment><comment><USER7> If a language dies because nobody uses it, what is the point of trying to keep it alive?

Maybe I'm dense, but it seems to me that the world might be simpler with fewer spoken / written languages rather than more?

LEVEL I BASIC is pretty endangered, but who cares at this point?

<comment><USER8> I'm not native, but I'm learning Lushootseed (language of the Puget Sound Salish peoples) to help keep it alive, after it technically fell into extinction.

Language preservation is huge for native culture and identity, and it helps prevent assimilation (one of the reasons why the language and others like it were forcibly stamped out by the boarding schools which abducted Indian children from their parents.) There are even projects to teach Lushootseed to inmates in tribal jails, as a way of reconnecting prisoners with their culture and heritage. Iirc studies also show that depression and suicide are reduced if the native language stays alive.

There's a lot of debate and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has fallen out of favor with contemporary linguists, but I also feel like different languages encode different thought patterns. Lushootseed is nothing like English, and there are words specifically for tribal customs, religion and viewpoints that can't translate.

Overall, I see languages as living creatures. Extinction of minority languages or cultures is, to me, like species disappearing. Even if the biome doesn't suffer (and it can in both cases - Indians knew how to take care of the land before whites showed up), something sacred is lost v

<comment><USER9> I really wanted to do this for a very closely related language to lushootseed about 10 years ago when I had an apartment in one of the tribal areas that were 50% non tribal. I looked into resources and programs, but there didn't seem to be a lot of resources or actual interest by the people group. I eventually moved onto other things (probably Akkadian or Dutch at that time), but this desire still lives somewhere inside me.

Would you care to share how you've done the learning you've done and any assimilation you've been able to do?

<comment><USER9> actually, I just looked up the language, and it's technically one of the dialects of lushootseed; so same language continuum as whatever you're learning more than likely.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Google and Apple made their own programming languages - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/wwdc-apple-swift-google-go-2015-6?r=US

<comment><USER2> Apple: was afraid to loose developers to Xamarin (once it becomes more stable). Failed to deliver a fast language, failed to deliver an open-source language in 2014 (!).

Google: starts using / creates a new language every few years - C++, Python, Java, Dart, Go. Failed to stick to the vision of native Dart support inside of Chrome, Angular team deflected to TypeScript as a better alternative, Go - quite limited, e.g. no generics - nowadays(!), useful if you cannot use other options due to "religious" views or the situation.</comment>