The new coronavirus appears to take a greater toll on men than on women - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/10/831883664/the-new-coronavirus-appears-to-take-a-greater-toll-on-men-than-on-women <comment><USER2> I'm not sure why age isn't mentioned here. I think the average age in Italy was something around 80. Men usually have shorter expected life spans, so this might confound the issue.

<comment><USER3> In UK the split of deaths is 2/1/1/1 between over75/65/55/45 - all other demos account for barely 1.5% at the moment. So yeah, age is a big factor. The problem is that age affects triaging procedures too: in situations of care- scarcity, younger folks and women are more likely to be prioritised for treatment. So it's hard to determine whether the distribution is entirely due to the virus or skewed by our response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know if this this is generally the case with influenza also?

<comment><USER5> The data is closer to 50-50 there although my understanding is that women overwhelmingly look after the sick men and are disproportionately exposed so those numbers aren't directly comparable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read (unqualified) ACE2 expression is X chromosome linked, and that men's single X means they've only got 1 type of ACE2 receptors => single point of failure.

Men(particularly in Italy) are more likely to smoke and work jobs where there encounter lung irritants (pollution, dust, other chemicals), meaning they're starting with more damaged lungs than equivalent women.

<comment><USER6> A different bit of research [1] says this isn't necessarily a respiratory illness, but one that attacks the red blood cells, blocking their ability to transfer O2, and causing free iron to spike in the body.

The body ultimately binds into storage in the alveoli, but at too high of a rate, causing that glassy lung imaging.

Women typically have lower blood iron levels than men, so once again are starting from a "safer" level.

[1] [https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surf...](https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So men have perhaps twice the rate of infection and death than women. One thing I can't understand is why there has been no government advice about this. I would have thought it would be sensible advice that if a man and a women are in isolation together, the woman should go shopping rather than the man, especially as usually the man is older in a marriage. I would have thought that this simple change could save many many lives, so I wonder why no government has suggested it?

<comment><USER8> Because he will just get it off her.

Neither should go shopping.

(If they have to go shopping then you'd look at who follows protocols better, women seem better at washing hands but may know more people shopping but don't shake hands)

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately my elderly parents (UK) are in a position where they can't get shopping delivered, there are no delivery slots at any of the supermarkets. I'm looking at sending food over in a taxi but it's really expensive!

While it's likely he will catch it from her, it's by no means a guarantee.

<comment><USER9> > While it's likely he will catch it from her, it's by no means a guarantee.

Unless they also isolate from each other, common sense suggests it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have to wonder if they controlled at all for heart disease. That seems like it would be a strong bridging factor.

</comment><comment><USER5> I learned today that this is true of most viruses. The flu appears 50-50 but women tend to look after infected men, and so are exposed disproportionately.

<comment><USER10> Shouldn't that yield the inverse effect?

<comment><USER11> No, the 50-50 is including that behaviour. So men are infected easier, but women are more exposed.

<comment><USER10> Ah, that makes sense; I read GPs phrase the other way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So biology employs discrimination.

<comment><USER5> Makes sense to me, biology doesn't follow social mores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So it's killing men at twice the rate of women.

Wonder if it's because women have been selected for better immune system as their body has to also protect the offspring and men's system only has to protect himself.

Maybe immune response of a pregnant woman is same as immune response of a man?

A lot of my friends were increasing their testosterone to 1000ng/dL through exogenous hormones, so some did develop minor heart issues.

I am also on Nanandrolene for very long now but I don't have any issue.

No idea what effect it will have on Coronavirus.

<comment><USER12> I've read that much of the immune system it's encoded in X chromosome and women have 2 X chromosomes.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone else realize that Quora is just a fancy "Ask HN?"  - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> No. You can go on Quora and ask how much it cost AOL to send out all those free trial CDs in the 90s, and the former freaking CEO of AOL himself gets on and answers. [http://www.quora.com/How-much-did-it-cost-AOL-to- distribute-...](http://www.quora.com/How-much-did-it-cost-AOL-to-distribute- all-those-CDs-back-in-the-1990s)

The mods on HN would kill a question like the following one, no doubt: [http://www.quora.com/It-is-possible-to-drop-a-marshmallow- fr...](http://www.quora.com/It-is-possible-to-drop-a-marshmallow-from-a- height-high-enough-so-that-it-releases-as-much-energy-as-a-nuclear- warhead?q=marshmallow+nuclear)

The discussion on the Tiger Mom stuff was much better on Quora than HN: [http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she- ex...](http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why- Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-Journal)

Hacker News is great at answering startup and coding-related questions, but none of you will be able to answer this one: [http://www.quora.com/Hearing/Why-and-how-do-we-hear- ringing-...](http://www.quora.com/Hearing/Why-and-how-do-we-hear-ringing-in- our-ears)

Quora has an incredible array of people with domain expertise, many of whom are good writers who tend towards writing much longer answers than what you see on HN. I can't exactly pinpoint why the design of Quora prompts such a different array of questions and answers, beyond the different user base, but it's definitely not a fancy HN. It's trying to solve a different problem. If anything, it's a fancy cross between the Q&A-ness of Yahoo! Answers and a rabid, tight-knit fangirl community, but it's much better executed than Yahoo! Answers so far.

<comment><USER3> That's a good summary, if perhaps a little down on the HN knowledge base than I'd suspect.

For instance, I'm afraid I can tell you an awful lot about tinnitus but I would be happier if I hadn't had the occasion to learn about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you realize that HN is just a fancy database ?

<comment><USER5> I really enjoy it being not _that_ fancy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's reasonable to conclude that HN had a significant influence on Quora: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197146>

That doesn't mean it's "just" HN though. It's clearly aiming to be very different in the long term. At this point they're not really successful at being any one thing yet.</comment>


GPT-3: An AI Breakthrough, but Not Coming for Your Job - <AUTHOR> https://www.skynettoday.com/briefs/gpt3 <comment><USER2> ...yet. Growth mindset.</comment>


FreeCAD 0.17 "Roland" released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.17 <comment><USER2> > _This release of FreeCAD is dedicated to our friend Roland Frank[0] who left > us in 2017. He was an active and well-appreciated member of the FreeCAD > forum, and his video tutorials on the Learn FreeCAD and BPLFRE Youtube > channels helped many people get started with FreeCAD._

R.I.P.

[0] [https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25673](https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25673)

<comment><USER2> Thank You, Roland, for your AWESOME video tutorials on _Learn FreeCAD_ [1] and _BPLFRE_ [2] YouTube channels!

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEvhclR4-o&list=PL6fZ68Cq3L...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEvhclR4-o&list=PL6fZ68Cq3L8k0JhxnIVjZQN26cn9idJrj)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m49z0weonog&list=PLsrwVwvqYb...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m49z0weonog&list=PLsrwVwvqYb8G4Ri0iz1JIebsOXkgoytAY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I encourage anybody to try FreeCAD. 0.17 is the first release I could actually recommend. The geometric kernel is still quite buggy and still cannot compete even with the cheapest commercial offerings, but it provides a massive feature set and some very interesting/unique features.

I use FreeCAD in combination with OpenSCAD and cadquery for my 3d-printed projects and CNC milling. It's actually good enough for most hobbyist projects (anything in the range of <5k$).

The ability to model with CSG with OpenSCAD and BREP in a single package (thanks to the openscad plugin) allows the best of both worlds. The python scriptability with cadquery allows to generate complex parametric geometries that would be painful to even approach with a regular CAD package.

With constraint references and indirect formula references you can setup pretty robust parametric models that can be reused quite effectively.

FreeCAD has _enormous_ potential.

<comment><USER4> I applaud the FreeCAD team for their efforts and hope it will become to 3D mechanical CAD what KiCAD has become for PCB design and schematic capture.

That said, I can get Fusion360 for free, and while I hate the fact that it's not open-source and that my files are hidden and locked away ond Autodesk's servers and that they can cancel my free "hobbyist" subscription on a whim, Fusion360 is so much easier and faster to use for my small weekend projects that I just cannot bring myself to go through the pain of learning how to avoid the random crashes of FreeCAD.

EDIT: if there is a donation page for FreeCAD, I am willing to pitch in.

<comment><AUTHOR> > EDIT: if there is a donation page for FreeCAD, I am willing to pitch in.

There isn't a single donation page. One of the main developers, Yorik van Havre, has a Patreon [1], and there's a Liberapay [2]. I also just decided to make a Patreon [3] (I'm the sysadmin for the project as well as a developer.)

1\. [https://www.patreon.com/yorikvanhavre](https://www.patreon.com/yorikvanhavre)

2\. [https://liberapay.com/FreeCAD/](https://liberapay.com/FreeCAD/)

3\. [https://www.patreon.com/kkremitzki](https://www.patreon.com/kkremitzki)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like this effort of creating an open 3D CAD environment. See here the release notes: [https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Release_notes_0.17](https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Release_notes_0.17)

</comment><comment><USER6> The last time I tried designing something in FreeCAD it kept crashing at random inopportune moments, but was so damn close to being good enough. This was version 0.16 from Debian, I'm looking forward to trying again with 0.17.

<comment><USER7> I last tried it maybe 3 years back. It was buggy then too, but the main issue was that when I sent a part out to fab they couldn't get the files to import/render correctly (missing faces).

There solution was "please send us the solidworks file". So... I gave up.

More recently, I've been using Onshape. My understanding is that was designed by many of the Solidworks team. It works reasonably well and I've not had issues getting parts made.

Ideally I think I'd like something that was both cloud based and open source. But I should give freecad or Solvespace another chance perhaps.

<comment><AUTHOR> > There solution was "please send us the solidworks file". So... I gave up.

Ack, that sounds rough--there can definitely be some pain on the bleeding edge (of open-source CAD.)

As far as cloud-based, do you just mean in terms of having that available as a storage/sharing option? Or are you wanting a browser-based client? I've been interested in looking at options for the former for FreeCAD, possibly using either Nextcloud or Mediagoblin servers as backend. (Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a good FOSS product lifecycle management software.)

<comment><USER8> As a thought, I've put time and effort into a potential solution for this, for a different (non-CAD) project though.

Emailed you the details in case it's of interest. Might need to check your spam folder as gmail _sometimes_ puts things from my domain in there (mail config issue on our end, but can't be solved easily).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have been using FreeCAD for a while for real projects where I would have used Inventor. My assemblies and parts are not huge, and being able to write things in python is awesome. You can even use FreeCAD without the gui from python. I am currently trying to get FreeDyn, a multibody dynamics simulation program to work with it [1]. I have used the FEM workbench to do simple FEAs too. It's an amazingly open platform with a lot of potential.

      [1] http://www.freedyn.at/

<comment><USER10> How do you handle assemblies efficiently? I found the assembly workbench to be a major weakness of FreeCad when compared to Solidworks or Inventor.

<comment><USER9> Typically I am not working on assemblies of more than 10 to 20 parts. You're right though, Inventor and Solidworks do handle them better, but with a lot of complexity that scales better when you are working on assemblies and subassemblies of over 100 parts or more. I used to work on machinery with more parts, but now I work on sub assemblies with fewer parts. The assembly workbench will improve when people who have a need for it improve it in FreeCAD. I used to do assemblies with CSG over 15 years ago, and it was complicated, but I was very frustrated in the early days of Inventor when you went down a path, and then found yourself painted in a corner by the history or constraint tree. Changing one thing, and watching it all blow up was my first letdown after jumping on the parametric/history modeling bandwagon (I also used SolidWorks and IDEAS). FreeCAD has come a long way, and I use it more often than before. Quick startup times and fast working with a great Python API (I used to program AutoLISP for comparison).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Linux users are advised to get FreeCAD from their distribution's repository

Wow, it has been a long time since I last saw a big piece of software recommending distribution repositories instead of a custom repo, a standalone package, or a curl|bash.

<comment><USER12> They do have a standalone AppImage. Which somehow managed to hang my entire GNOME session the first time I ran it, but worked after logging out and back in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> According to github I've used FreeCAD for 249 designs over the last 3 years. These parts have been 3d-printed, lasercut and CNC milled. Since 0.16 came out I've been quite happy with the software, but looking forward to switching to this release. Especially improvements in Part Design workflow and the integrated CAM should make my usage much nicer. Major thanks to all the contributors!

</comment><comment><USER14> Are there some news about jupyter-notebook integration? That would be massive...

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a potential Google Summer of Code project to work on this last year[1], but it doesn't look like there were any mentors or applicants this year.

1\. [https://freecadweb.org/wiki/IPython_notebook_integration](https://freecadweb.org/wiki/IPython_notebook_integration)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some highlights in video form [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iLOaL9z59k&t=11s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iLOaL9z59k&t=11s)

</comment><comment><USER16> Those of you coming from Solodworks beware. There isn't first class Assembly support. However Realthunder's Assembly3 work is incredibly promising.

[https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3](https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, now that the Part Design overhaul is complete, Assembly improvements will be one of the main targets for the 0.18 dev cycle.

<comment><USER12> Is there any estimated timeline for 0.18? 0.16 to 0.17 seems to have taken about 2 years.

There's a roadmap page but it lists 0.18 as "Scheduled For Release 2017-11-03".

<comment><USER13> Estimates are hard enough in the professional world where one pays X developers to do Y. In a volunteer-ran open source its nearly meaningless...

Start to use it today, use extensions like Assembly2/3 to compensate for missing features and do your best to help out if that is not enough. Or have patience :)

<comment><USER12> Oh yes, I'm well aware of this. I wouldn't still be using GIMP after 10 years if I wasn't a patient person. :)

Though I fiddled with an example file for ~5 minutes and it crashed twice in that timespan. Exactly like the last time I tried FreeCAD a few years ago. But I would really like to move on from F360 so I will try to give it more of a chance this time, and hopefully I'll find the time to contribute something.

<comment><USER13> Crashed in FreeCAD 0.17? Is the bug reported with clear steps to reproduce? Ensuring that is in place is already a good contribution!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there any effort towards a webassembly port?

<comment><USER13> Would need Python and Qt5 and OpenCascade. Huge undertaking. And for what gain? It's available on all common desktop platforms already. And one can export 3d-model viewers that can be embedded in HTML.

On web side of things what I think would be desirable is a webUI for parametric designs, ala Thingiverse Customizer

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For those interested in open source 3D CAD applications, there's a really interesting application called SolveSpace which is a very, very fast and low resource 3D parametric CAD application.

It's really useful, really fast and very stable - all in a tiny executable. Definitely worth a try if you're coming from a CAD background - it's the first open source 3D CAD application I've used which could replace Solidworks for quick, painless part modelling.

[http://solvespace.com/index.pl](http://solvespace.com/index.pl)

<comment><USER6> Interesting bit of trivia: SolveSpace comes from M-Labs, formerly known as Milkymist, creators of the Milkymist One video synthesizer. M-Labs now focuses on quantum information experiment control software. [1]

I remember watching Milkymist/Migen talks [2][3] given by creator Sébastien Bourdeauducq years ago and stumbling across the early SolveSpace site at the time in researching his background. It was already looking quite promising back then, and I got the impression they were using/developing it for their own CAD needs based on what I saw in their IRC channel. There's clearly a lot of talent in that group.

[1] [https://m-labs.hk/about.html](https://m-labs.hk/about.html)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0VhwgpzZg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se0VhwgpzZg)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADdKAtHM1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADdKAtHM1Y)

<comment><USER19> > Interesting bit of trivia: SolveSpace comes from M-Labs

I developed SolveSpace, and whitequark (via M-Labs) is the current maintainer. He's responsible for all the non-Windows ports, plus the last few years of features and some significant refactoring. We hope the latter will make the codebase more accessible to other contributors.

SolveSpace's NURBS operations are worse than OpenCASCADE's, but they're literally orders of magnitude smaller. There's still no great free alternative to Parasolid, SOLIDS++, etc. SolveSpace's constraint solver is pretty good, and people seem to mostly like the UI.

<comment><USER2> Jonathan, You write faster than me[0] :-)

> _plus the last few years of features and some significant refactoring._

Last few years there only Alexey Egorov's new features... :-/

While 'whitequark' is good programmer, his role as maintainer very bad for SolveSpace project itself - he don't work well with community at all. He fully non-responsive to Linux users, he not want hear any ideas from community...

Project now mostly in freeze...

Hope, You will find better project manager (such as Yorik now is in FreeCAD) for SolveSpace for make it more friendly for community. 'whitequark' should be just one of SolveSpace programmer, not maintainer, IMHO.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16797563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16797563)

<comment><USER19> > He fully non-responsive to Linux users

Well, he was nice enough to write the Linux port in the first place, and he personally develops under Linux, so...

To develop free, general-purpose, desktop, parametric 3d CAD software is fairly thankless work. It's a huge task, and relatively few developers have the necessary mathematical skill and ME domain knowledge. The commercial market is mature, limiting opportunities to monetize. I have great respect for the time and other resources that whitequark (and others) have chosen to expend here in spite of that.

<comment><USER2> It's look like nothing changed - _whitequark_ still respond[0] to users and contributors in wrong way...

[0] [https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/318](https://github.com/solvespace/solvespace/issues/318)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Choosing to Learn a Secondary Language.(Rust, Go, or Rails) - <AUTHOR>

'm a 15 year old coder that knows JS(first language) taking AP Java in school. Since I dont really like Java, I have narrowed down to 3 languages to learn as a secondary language. Im more into the Web Development area and I really like a lot of 3rd party packages to use and speed performance is also an importance. So which would you guys prefer for me? Rust, Go or Rails? <comment><USER2> Any of those three would be a good choice. (I'm currently learning Rust myself.) Ruby+Rails is the most mature and widely used of those three, and probably the most web-oriented. Go is still a relatively new language, but is rapidly gaining a lot of users in the "enterprise" space as well as startups looking for higher performance than they can get with Ruby or Python. Rust is still very bleeding edge, and borrows very heavily from functional languages, so it would be the most different from what you already know.

Ruby+Rails probably matches your interest best today, with Go a rapidly improving second. Rust is a wildcard right now. (I personally can't decide yet whether it's sheer brilliance or a steaming pile of poo -- ask me again in a couple months :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I would go with Django if you want to focus on web development.</comment>


Show HN: LibreBoard – An open-source clone of Trello - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/ <comment><USER2> I love the idea of open source tools, but this goes way too far. This isn't just rebuilding a popular concept, this is _taking code_ that was written by a for-profit company and blatantly stealing it. There's an important difference.

The earlier versions of this repo _still used the Trello logo._ Trello's CSS is blatantly used, even using trellicons, the custom icon font created by Trello. The entire front-end is completely, blatantly stolen.

If you want to build LibreOffice as a free alternative to Microsoft Word, that's great. But taking Microsoft Word's code and uploading it into an open source GitHub repository? That crosses the line. I don't care what legal ramifications there are or what constitutes copyright infringement or what is legally actionable (heaven knows the law is often off base from what is right/moral/ethical, especially in software). That's another discussion, but this is messed up.

Can you create a task management system in Meteor.js that is inspired by "agile" methodology and similar to Trello? Sure. But blatantly taking code, especially without even putting a creative spin of your own on it, is just plain wrong.

<comment><USER3> I'm on the fence on this one - I could argue either way (I could probably work a books worth of material).

However, I think it is interesting to note that the idea of "stealing" a design has been done for years. I just don't think many people do it to websites.

Examples - there are companies that bundle premade controls that look pretty darn close to the designs in paid software. Here is an example of one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYzjJHtldec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYzjJHtldec)

They may just wrap Windows API - but I've seen ribbon interfaces running on Windows 2K with VB6.

Even if one would argue that falls into "fair use" \- consider two more examples:

Zelda Classic[1] - they used original artwork from the original Nintendo game and re-created the game on the PC

Mari0[2] - the original Mario but with portals (including level design and graphics)

Now from what I can tell - Nintendo doesn't shutdown/care about these people because they aren't making money off the games. But if these games aren't infringing on Nintendo's copyright - I don't know what would be.

[1] - [http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?96754-Zelda- Classi...](http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?96754-Zelda- Classic-2-50-1) [2] - [http://stabyourself.net/mari0/](http://stabyourself.net/mari0/)

<comment><USER4> A year ago HN lost its mind after full screen Mario was shutdown. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703002)

<comment><USER3> I think it's interesting to point that out that the source is still available (on github no less) - I think Nintendo was unhappy because they were collecting donations (at least one of the comments mention this). The projects I mention don't appear to even have a paypal donate button.

Honestly, I have a feeling that Nintendo has talked to the authors of Zelda Classic and Mari0 at some point and made sure they understood where the line was drawn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I love the idea of an open source tool that explores the same problems that Trello does and potentially even solves it in a very similar way, I have to admit that the exact look and feel being copied here seems like a blatant rip off. Am I off base? Can anyone speak to the copyright aspect of copying a solution and design so fully?

<comment><USER6> Even setting aside the legality of this rip, doesn't the ethical aspects of it bother anyone as well?

Designing a simple and functional UI is _really_ hard. It takes ages to sift through possible options, discard the fluff, iterate over the details and while the end result _is_ endearingly simple, it ends up fronting a shitload of sweat and tears. And then someone just waltzes in waving their Libre flag and the middle finger to lift the whole thing just as if it's a no big deal. I don't know about you, but this really pisses me off. This is as disrespectful as it gets towards people who did the original work and it also reflects really poorly on the O/S in general.

<comment><USER7> If you want to see a completely original UI with not a single thing "borrowed" from elsewhere, my 5yr old has some drawings to show you.

This specific case takes it too far, there's no doubt about that. But you can be sure that the Trello designer was heavily influenced by those that came before him. UI designers spend half their time looking at UI's designed by others to see what works and what doesn't.

In fact, more often than not, UI design _should_ be copied. You don't design a completely different light switch just because you want to be original. Function before form.

<comment><USER6> Of course the cross-pollination is required. But this LibreTrello thing is a blatant rip - the look and feel, the semantics and interaction flows, all the details. Everything, to the dot.

It's still would've been not a big deal if it were just a temporary placeholder design and it got released to the public accidentally. Gotta start somewhere, that's understandable. But they act _entitled_ to what they did. This is what the problem is. They don't recognize or acknowledge all the work that Trello devs did to get things where they are. And they did a lot of it, which is plainly obvious from the fact that there was no other Trello before them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow...this looks like a clone of Trello, sorry I cannot support this.

I have been using Trello for a long time and I refuse to give credits to someone who blatantly stole the assets, code, etc. and didn't even care to AT LEAST add a different touch to the project. I love open source but this project is off the limit concerning copyrights.

<comment><USER9> What code did they steal, exactly? They re-implemented all of the functionality, and I'm not sure they took take the JS either. So at this point, it leaves CSS + Look&Feel, and I think they took some icons, though that seems like more of an oversight as it's still a young project from the looks of it.

I don't see this as any different to such works as OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe) and CorsixTH (Theme Hospital). Both open-source remakes of the popular closed-source games. Obviously they don't bundle the media (graphics, etc), and just ask end-installers to point to the installation files of the originals. You could argue that hot-linking css is quite similar to that, though not exactly.

The real problem is them putting this not-yet-sanitized-of-all-copyright- infringment onto a public-facing site with a domain and everything. If it was still on Github, then that's fine. But they jumped the bandwagon a little too soon, and people are escalating it incredibly quickly.

<comment><USER10> The CSS is distributed in the Github repo, ostensibly under an open-source license, which the project maintainer has no right to use, distribute, or relicense. It's about as clear a case of copyright infringement as they come.

(And that's not even mentioning that reusing someone else's CSS likely requires you to reuse their markup, too.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Yaşar received an email from Trello, Inc. asking him to rename the Metrello project. Do you have any idea for a new name?" [1]

Apparently it was even called *trello a few weeks ago, so they are definitely aware of that project already. Curious why it wasn't DMCA'ed earlier already.

[1] [http://crater.io/posts/8azTCHojZq8CoJpAR](http://crater.io/posts/8azTCHojZq8CoJpAR)

<comment><USER12> I had to check for dirt on my monitor on that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't endorse a blatant rip off of the UI and the assets. You can do better than that. Otherwise, good job on the development effort and open source initiative.

<comment><USER14> It is a blatant imitation[1]. At the same time, the design is incredibly refined, so there's only so much room to move away from without making sacrifices solely for the sake of differentiation.

EDIT: [1] According to a comment below, it's a straight-up copy of the CSS. That goes well beyond "blatant imitation."

<comment><USER15> Imitation is different than directly copying the CSS. They copied the CSS.

<comment><USER9> Which is totally fine for development purposes (prototype) and work in progress mockups. But they should have changed it before putting it on a public-facing .com domain.

<comment><USER10> I'm going to suggest that it's not even good for prototype work, because it invalidates any claim to clean-room implementation and makes it very easy to cross the line between original work and ripoff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think if this had been actually clean-room reverse-engineered, it wouldn't be getting the backlash it's getting.

The fact that the LibreBoard devs outright ripped off Trello's CSS and HTML is a bit disappointing. Perhaps with the DMCA notice they got, they'll consider scrapping the current UI and coming up with something a bit more, you know, not blatantly copy-pasted.

That said, being able to use something reasonably-Trello-like for internal use (with data under the control of the entity using it) is a fantastic idea, and the fact that LibreBoard does that reasonably well (from what I can tell) gives me some hope that they'll manage to pull themselves out of this muck.

EDIT: And apparently there is, in fact, an effort to actually create a UI that isn't a blatant Trello ripoff: [https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/94](https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/issues/94)

</comment><comment><USER17> Nice! I'm glad to see Cap'n Proto and Sandstorm seeing some love.

For those not in the know:

[https://sandstorm.io/](https://sandstorm.io/) [https://capnproto.org/](https://capnproto.org/)

(I'm not affiliated in anyway, just a fan of Kenton Varda's work, which also include Protocol Buffers)

</comment><comment><USER18> It's so sad that such great work can bring so many negative repercussions just because the project creator's decided to blatantly rip off Trello's assets.

The project would be under such a different light had they decided style it themselves... I think they're so much better than this.

<comment><USER19> What "great work". He took someone else's work and said "look what I did".

<comment><USER20> They should rewrite the CSS from scratch.

But for everything else is seems it is original work. And that's a big part of the project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some time ago I made Youfle[1]. I was trying to make a Trello clone, but for structured data, like a direct interface to a document database that could be used (and/or extended) by not-so-simple but yet data management contexts. The idea was to make something versatile like a spreadsheet and yet powerful as a database. The design resembles Trello (and, differently from Libreboard, it has card drag-and-drop and horizontal scrolling with click-and-drag capabilities). It works offline and saves data to PouchDB (IndexedDB on your browser, probably).

Documents should be written in YAML, but they also accept free text. The custom indexing, map and reduce functions, pagination, querying and other UI features were not implemented yet. To edit a card, double-click on its title. Adding the ID of other card as a value to any property of a card you create a link between the two, which you can see if you click on the body of the card after you stop editing.

If anyone has feedback to share about this, please let me know. The code is at GitHub[2].

[1]: [http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/youfle/](http://fiatjaf.alhur.es/youfle/) [2]: [https://github.com/fiatjaf/youfle](https://github.com/fiatjaf/youfle)

</comment><comment><USER22> I like it. I'm using Trello now, but the interface doesn't work that convenient on mobile I think. So I was thinking to make a client of my own using the Trello API, but this way I can change the original interface to my likings, and hopefully other's likings, so it gets merged :).

EDIT: A lot of people seem to think it looks to much like Trello. While I agree that the interface looks strikingly similar (or maybe even just exactly the same), I think the intentions are not to evil. How can libre software have evil intentions? Of course it can, but since it's libre and everybody can read and change the sourcecode, it likely won't happen.

And, in the end, isn't that why we have libre software at all? We want to have control over the software, instead of the software having control over us, right?

<comment><USER4> If your "independent" clone is hot linking assets from the original, you probably have less control than you think. Ironically, Trello probably knows (or could learn) the IP of every person to use this.

<comment><USER23> As far as I can tell, they're not actually hotlinking anything - they just copied it once into their repo. Did I miss something?

<comment><USER24> The copied css has references to image URLs in it.

<comment><USER23> Oh, I see it now. I was searching for trello.com, but they're using images that come from cloudfront.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It is a great example of a bigger open-source Meteor apps in a wild along-side with Telescope ([http://www.telesc.pe/](http://www.telesc.pe/)) which is also well documented and is extensible.

</comment><comment><USER26> For the curious, they're hosting their rework of the UI off github in order to comply with their DMCA takedown: [http://git.libreboard.com/libreboard/libreboard/](http://git.libreboard.com/libreboard/libreboard/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Been kinda building a trello-like app myself. But it's far more simplistic in features, and i'm trying to build it so it's way more mobile friendly. I have the front end as open source, and the web back end as closed. Not sure why I am doing it this way, but I hope to put out a proprietary iOS app for it at some point.

More or less started it to learn ReactJS. [http://gitub.com/agmcleod/desert](http://gitub.com/agmcleod/desert)

<comment><USER28> There's typo in the URL, should be: [https://github.com/agmcleod/desert](https://github.com/agmcleod/desert)

<comment><USER27> Ah thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow. Just wow. Two years ago we had an internal row about people using Trello and possibly exposing internal data (which we attempted to solve through various means).

Having this as a Docker container is _great_ for in-house use (although I haven't checked the internals and am not very enthusiastic about their using Node...)

</comment><comment><USER30> They received DMCA takedown notice from github because the user interface [https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/commit/14e6b2fb9149...](https://github.com/libreboard/libreboard/commit/14e6b2fb91496d4e35412a5106b559a271490291)

</comment><comment><USER21> Well, apparently they reimplemented all the logic by their own, they just copied the visual from Trello, with a single CSS appropriation. They shouldn't have copied the CSS, but they can still "uncopy" it and write their own styles.

</comment><comment><USER31> So now we get to set WIP limits?

</comment><comment><USER32> Reading all what is said, I can't keep myself from having words spring into my head: UNIX, GNU, Linux, Minix...

I can use grep, cat, ls and so many commands on so many different machines... Same names, same functions, and the same UI (black screen, anyone?).

<comment><USER4> Was GNU grep implemented by somebody writing the code or running "cp unix/grep.c gnu/grep.c"?

<comment><USER32> To the best of my knowledge, the people behind this project wrote code.

I don't know if it's a Bash script containing your one liner, though... But they seem to have their own code. (I don't think Trello's code is freely available).

Bear in mind, I'm not for or against. I'm just putting the thing in perspective and to be compared with what happened throughout History.

When I do Ctrl+K, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+Tab in Firefox or Chrome, they all have the same side effects.

<comment><USER33> The people in the project cp -rf'ed the assets from Trello proper including CSS, proprietary fonts, icons, and images.

<comment><USER32> Indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Trello is free, so is this meant to complete with Trello Gold?

<comment><USER35> I can't use Trello at work because some of the data that would be placed there may have a restrictive information classification.

I'd love to be able to buy a different tier of Trello service instead of stickers, but an open source clone will do too!

<comment><USER36> We've got an application that is very similar to trello (www.iferapp.com) that we are planning to offer in self hosted mode - we are going into beta very soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Fantastic! Gotta love the people who salivate at the mouth with talks of litigation. Just tweak the UI and this product is a great alternative. Congratulations on your launch

</comment><comment><USER38> Just the CSS for god sake ! ..... there is much more to it than that ...

<comment><USER10> Well, it shouldn't be too hard for the author to write original 'Just CSS' then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't understand the ethical dilemma many of you are raising.

I've never believed there's such a thing as plagiarism of style, only things like algorithms and methodologies. If someone makes a wierd looking chair, and I like it and make my own, and they try to tell me I'm stealing their ideas they can fuck off, especially if I'm not selling this chair but just using it for myself and helping others build their own chairs, too.

Style sheets are within these same bounds as far as I care. They're not intellectual property or content. There's nothing profound about aesthetics. No hard work in refining it. It's something that's composed entirely of intuition and trying to copyright that seems immoral to me. CSS is dressing, not content, and dressing is the only thing they have stolen from trello.

<comment><USER40> The case for infringement would be very weak to non-existent if they recreated the look and feel writing the CSS themselves from scratch. The issue is they took the original product and modified some spacing and other minor details and redistributed it. Any written work like this is copyrightable.

<comment><USER39> You're forgetting that they wrote the entire backend as a part of this.

<comment><USER41> Quickly reading through the code, it looks like the frontend is the bulk of the code. Which makes sense: Trello is really a pretty simple app; the UI experience is where the real magic is.

<comment><USER42> Could even be done as a couchapp.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The internet mystery that has the world baffled (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/10468112/The-internet-mystery-that-has-the-world-baffled.html <comment><USER2> I'm sure HN readers have some interesting stories about dropping out of the Cicada race, anyone care to share?</comment>


Dear Apple: Here's How to Stop the Antitrust Investigations - <AUTHOR> https://astropad.com/dear-apple/ <comment><USER2> > Open up alternate payment mechanisms… without the Apple tax

I don't agree with this, as a developer and a consumer. As a consumer it is extremely nice that I don't have to deal with all sorts of exotic and different payment gateways. Some accept Amex, some don't. Some try to store my card without my consent, some don't. Some make it really obvious that not being charged during a trial period some don't. Some payment gateways are buggy, slow and frustrating and some are really good. As a consumer I bloody hate that and I love iOS and Apple for the fact that I can securely put payment methods behind Apple Pay and then know that I can do any in-app purchases via an already established and well working gateway. No faffing about with some other shite.

From a developer perspective I don't see why anyone should use the AppStore as a distribution channel to a huge market and completely circumvent Apple's cut when clearly they are offering a lot of value by making this possible in the first place?

For example, my VPN I can either buy a license by going to their website and go through a 5 minute checkout process or I can do a 5 second checkout via the iOS app. The first one goes 100% to the VPN developers, the second also means that a cut goes to Apple. Sounds fair to me, because I literally purchased a VPN in a moment where I didn't have the time of going to a website. I was abroad, I was on a mobile and I had limited time to get quickly a subscription so I could use the VPN and I would have not bought it if it wasn't for the ease and speed which the app allowed me to do. This was only the case because Apple does such a diligent job in keeping it so sleek. Without Apple Pay I would have not bought that license and they would have not lost 30% of the sale, but effectively 100%.

<comment><USER3> > why anyone should use the AppStore as a distribution channel to a huge > market and completely circumvent Apple's cut

 _There 's no other option_. It's not possible to sideload apps. Developers are _obliged_ to use appstore.

Regarding payments, the developers are not only obliged to have a way to pay with Apple (would be okay), they are obliged _to not have another way_.

Your argument is "I like pepsi, therefore I'm fine with the fact that no one can buy coca-cola".

<comment><USER4> And yours is like "I don't like Pepsi but this restaurant I like only serves Pepsi, so I want the government to force them to serve Coca-Cola, instead of just going to another restaurant."

<comment><USER5> No its more like, "I don't like Pepsi but all the restaurants in town only serves Pepsi, so I want the government to force them to serve Coca-Cola, because I can't just go to another restaurant."

<comment><USER4> What is the "town" supposed to be here? People? People with smartphones? Nah, can't be those, because you're ignoring Android and the open web as alternatives to Apple. So I assume you mean "people with iPhones".

I always find it amusing when the boundaries for monopoly are drawn around the set of the customers of a company. By that logic, every company is a monopoly! United Airlines has a monopoly on every customers that flies in one of their airplanes. How dare they only offer a certain brand of snack! They're extorting their customers who have no choice!

<comment><USER6> Teens in the US are a market unto themselves.

The iPhone has somewhere between 80-90% market share with them.

Even outside of teens, they're at close to 50% and you don't need a strict majority in order to have control over the market. That's why, legally, you don't need a strict majority to be considered a monopoly.

Next.

<comment><USER4> None of that is how anti-trust works.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it is.

You can read about it here - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power#Measurement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power#Measurement)

<comment><USER4> _U.S. courts almost never consider a firm to possess market power if it has a market share of less than 50 percent._

And as much as you might wish it to be so, anti-trust courts are not going to take seriously an argument that Apple is a monopoly because you find a demographic (teens) that they have a larger market share in. Again, you can easily slice and dice markets by customer demographics to make any company a monopoly.

Next.

<comment><USER6> Incorrect. They've already lost a preliminary antitrust suit.

They can absolutely be sued for this. Look it up.

Here: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/us/politics/supreme- court...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/us/politics/supreme-court- antitrust-apple.html)

<comment><USER4> Apple Inc. v. Pepper did not cover what you think it did. The Supreme Court ruled that consumers had standing to sue for antitrust violations with regard to how Apple regulates the App Store because they pay fees for apps in that store.

It has nothing to do with your bizarre argument that because Apple has greater than 50% market share in the demographic of "teens", they're a monopoly and the government must step in. Does that also apply for a company who has a monopoly on "27-year-old web designers in Brooklyn who own a dog"?

I'm done with this conversation. You clearly have an axe to grind against Apple, and it's leading you to avoid arguing in good faith.

<comment><USER6> > The Supreme Court ruled that consumers had standing to sue for antitrust > violations...

Thank you for acknowledging the exact point that I just made?

> It has nothing to do with your bizarre argument ...

I didn't say that it was because of my argument. My demographic argument was simply a point of interest. And actually, you can disregard it and still know that Apple is the largest single manufacturer of smartphones in the US and they'll soon surpass the 50% mark based on their trajectory and the new $399 iPhone. Samsung is a distant second.

How bizarre is that??

> I'm done with this conversation. You clearly have an axe to grind against > Apple...

Pffft. Okay. Why shouldn't I have an axe to grind? And while we're at it - you're clearly apologizing for Apple where they deserve none. _Defending a company that is basically the fucking China of tech with their Great Wall of bullshit isn 't a real good look._ You're going to be on the wrong side of history when this bears out.

But please, do stop arguing because nothing you say will make what Apple is doing right. Even if the law were on their side, which it's not, we'd have reason enough here to make new laws that target these essential devices with new regulations. So, change your attitude, get on the correct side and stop defending your favorite corporation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wrote to US Justice Department back in ~2013 to complain that I could not find the protocol documents to connect to my iPhone over USB. Specifically I was not willing to accept iTunes terms of service and wanted a workaround. Microsoft was required by consent decree to document all wire protocols, so I wanted to begin the process for Apple to so the same.

I got a personalized response from the Justice Department. The response said since the iPhone had closed protocols from the beginning, before it was dominant, there is nothing they could do to force opening up. While I didn't like the outcome, I did understand it, and I was pleasantly surprised to get an actual response.

I suspect there is a similar argument for the App Store model. Apple never allowed side-loading apps. We may need new legislation to change this if we want.

<comment><USER8> I respect you so much for writing to them. I feel like in the USA people really write to the authorities and congressmen and the like while in eastern Europe people never do such things because I guess we think the system is so broken there is not fixing it from within. Since EU things really changed from the government side but the culture remains the same and we are not using the tools at our disposal

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a consumer of Apple products I am not too keen on any of these suggestions. I agree that developers for Apple's platforms would like these and perhaps there is some trickle-down effect for consumers.

> 1: Enable users to set default app preferences.

Fine, but really Maps and Email is pretty much the only one I care about. This is the best suggestion of the bunch.

> 2: Open up alternate payment mechanisms… without the Apple tax.

Nah. Last thing I want is to have to fill out my credit card information in every app and worry about what's going to happen with it. Apple Pay and IAP work perfectly adequately from the consumer standpoint.

> 3: Allow sideloading of iOS apps.

I don't think we have a problem with lack of iOS apps. In fact I wish App Store Review was stricter and took more issue with quality and dodgy business practices (i.e. excessive and addictive use of IAP).

> 4: Give third-party developers equal access to APIs.

What this is asking for is for Apple to effectively release features later or not at all. Or have some even more draconian App Store rules. I don't want every random app having full hardware access to spy on me as it pleases.

> 5: Stop sherlocking third-party developers.

Right, so Apple is not supposed to give me free access to nice features so I can continue to pay money to someone else. Right.

<comment><AUTHOR> > [alternate payment mechanisms] ...fill out my credit card information in > every app

Why is that the only alternative? How about

         app1 \                                  / payment service1
         app2 -  OS payment service framework    - payment service2
         app3 /                                  \ payment service3

This is how OSes should and used to work. To define the interfaces and provide frameworks for services to integrate.

<comment><USER10> And ditch the Apple tax, right? So Apple will end up will all of the headaches of the integration with none of the benefits. And if some "payment service" stops working, guess whose fault it would be.

<comment><USER11> What about the fact that we buy their 1k phones or 3k laptops? Does that not count for anything? Apparently not, it's not enough anymore. Large companies like apple want a piece of every pie. If this trend continues you will soon be able to enlist your whole life into the Apple or Amazon ecosystem, they will provide everything you need, and will just take all your productive output. Don't worry, you will have entertainment, food, accommodation... everything you need. And if you don't like it, you can switch feudal lords of course. It's a free market after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Congress: "Does Apple restrict, in any way, the ability of competing web browsers to deploy their own web browsing engines when running on Apple's operating system?"

Apple: "The purpose of this rule is to protect user privacy and security."

[https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...](https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf) via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587191)

Upd: Giving the freedom to users is not the goal of Apple. Quite the opposite.

<comment><USER13> Alternate Apple: "Yes, so what?"

Creating an obligation on companies to support competitors products on their own products, and dictating the commercial and technical terms of how they must implement that access seems a pretty extreme step.

Many vendors sell devices that allow limited customisation via apps. Cars allow some software client options and not others. Games consoles allow some software such as games and entertainment apps and not others. Feature phones had limited curated app download options in their 'stores' long before the iPhone. If we can require Apple to accept apps we dictate onto their store using their infrastructure on terms they don't get to determine, why can't we also require Nintendo to accept non-game apps or even a third party browser on the Switch? Why can't Spotify, or hundreds of streaming media or podcast companies require car companies to provide access to them to install their client app on car infotainment systems?

Where does this principle of imposing design features and commercial obligations, and technical implementation details on companies to benefit their competitors end?

<comment><USER14> I think you should re-read everything about the Microsoft antitrust cases and apply that to Apple. It's pretty obvious to me what accounts to antitrust here and it's been very obvious for years.

I think you should ask yourself really deeply "if this was the case on OSX would I be ok with it?" And use that lens.

<comment><USER13> I thought the browser finding against Microsoft was misconceived. The decision that including a browser in the operating system was anti-competitive bundling seems, from a modern perspective, utterly absurd.

>It's pretty obvious to me what accounts to antitrust here and it's been very obvious for years.

It's not obvious to me.

>I think you should ask yourself really deeply "if this was the case on OSX would I be ok with it?" And use that lens.

OSX is marketed as an OS that can run whatever software you like, and on which you can develop whatever software you like. Sure if they changed that I wouldn't be happy about it and I would move to another desktop OS. I would complain about it and fight it, but I wouldn't claim that Apple didn't have the right to do it. I don't have the right to dictate to Apple what products they design. OSX is a different tool for a different purpose. Not all tools, or even all screwdrivers have to be multi-bit screwdriver sets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I disagree with a lot of this list, it this particular item I think deserves so,e attention.

> #4: Give third-party developers equal access to APIs.

AirPods are great. Maybe a little… too great. It is actually impossible for a competitor to make a pair of earbuds that matches with the iPhone as easily as AirPods because that API is private. This strikes me as unfair and anticompetitive; no matter how much better a particular pair of earbuds might be, they cannot work as well as AirPods because Apple doesn't want them to.

There's a similar thing happening with the Apple Watch. Google Maps has abilities that Apple Maps doesn't have, but Apple won't let you use drop-in replacements for mapping. So instead of a safe bike ride, I'm heading the wrong direction on one-way streets or on freeways thanks to Apple Maps. This just sucks.

Some commenters here say "I don't want third parties to have access to private information." There's a line somewhere, I don't think anyone sane would demand access to _all_ APIs. But there are some clear examples where the platform maker is giving unfair advantage to their own accessories and services, this is dipping into antitrust territory.

<comment><USER16> One could argue, that you can create an experience as good as AirPods or even exceeding it. All you need to do is to develop a 'protocol' better than the horrible Bluetooth, make it an industry standard and convince companies to adopt it.

The only reason why Apple had to (and could at the same time) work on that aspect of headphones is because Bluetooth sucks and Apple is in a business of taking things that are widely used and suck, making them suck much less and selling them for a premium price.

<comment><USER15> Right, that's sort of the "well if you don't like Apple, you can always use Android" argument.

The problem with that is, let's say there's one thing on the Google-controlled platform you don't like (let's say privacy, to over-simplify)… "well if you don't like Android, you can always use iOS"

Platform makers have a level of power over consumer choice that monopoly law isn't equipped to address.

<comment><USER16> Mind, I've said nothing about operating systems or platforms nor have I said about abandoning them if you don't like one thing about them. I have said, that if you don't like something and if you do come up with a better standard/protocol and convince companies to use it, it will show up on all of them (just like Bluetooth is on macOS, BSD, Linux, Windows, iOS, Android, etc.).

Until better solutions are available all companies are free to and most likely will try to find better solutions themselves and to do it in a way that will give them an edge over competition. Some more than others, and Apple here is known for being in exactly that type of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This coming from a company whose primary product has a rent seeking subscription model, seems a bit like a case of the pot calling the kettle black. When Apple released Sidecar, it was a net positive for all the consumers who didn't want to pay a monthly subscription fee for a simple feature like using your iPad as a secondary display for their Mac.

There are a few holdouts from the days when you could pay for software up- front and then pay for major updates if you wished to. Products from Serif (makers of Affinity Photo) come to mind. I wish more software products went back to this simpler and IMHO, better revenue model.

<comment><USER18> The model you like also vanished because of Apple: first, they sold their own apps like Keynote for <$10, creating a really low price anchor, second – they don't support free trials, creating pressure for free versions of apps, and third and most importantly they don't support upgrade pricing, which pushes everyone to subscription pricing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The trouble is that as a tech company - first you want to build a moat around your success and barriers to competitors usurping your hard-won position/user- base.

IF you do this very well you become a "tech giant" \- then you want to continue building that moat/pulling away from your competitors BUT now you have to look like you aren't anti-competitive.

So i guess it's useful to think about: _what does Apple want to do vs what does apple want to look like its doing?_ Wherever the internal/external impetus of an organisation are at odds - progress will be painful/prolonged. Then again if you ran Apple would you be quick about ceding the moat?

<comment><USER20> > Then again if you ran Apple would you be quick about ceding the moat?

I'd hope I'd be smart enough to see how completely corrosive it's been to Apple. It's made their software development process fat and lazy, and propped up bad products that should have been dropped or fixed. Apple's software reputation was invincible ten years ago, and now it's shipping Mac apps that can't even full screen video properly. I think, in the long run, that will cost the company far more than it gains from it's behaviour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> As someone who bought and paid for their products (including two hardware dongles), I'm glad Apple developed Sidecar. It's faster, more stable, and generally works better for my use case. If their product was better, I'd definitely still use it, as I sank a lot of money into it, but it's not _to me_. If a customer pays around a hundred dollars (I think that's right, need to check) for your product and then decides to use a free alternative, what's that say about your product?

Not to be callus, but "when your entire business is adding a feature to a platform that can be added easily by the platform provider, you have no real business" is a saying that's been around for a long time for a reason.

<comment><USER22> Just to add to this, it was always an extremely obvious use case to use any external device with a nice display as, well, a display, perhaps for another device.

Pretending that you're Edison when all you did was to enable an already- obvious use case, and then whining when someone else also enables that use case, kinda strains credulity. Accusing Apple of doing something untoward, or even surprising, here, is just silly.

<comment><USER21> > Pretending that you're Edison when all you did was to enable an already- > obvious use case

Not sure if you were aware, but your analogy is more fitting than it seems on a quick read. Sir Joseph Swan was an early inventor of the lightbulb (he, like Edison wasn't the first, but his was earlier than Edison). Swan had moderate success with his lightbulb, but Edison's proved to be superior in the market and ultimately won.

In that analogy, I think Luna is Sir Joseph Swan and Apple is Edison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think Apple hasn't made payment on the App Stores nearly flexible enough. For instance, why should there be one and only one payment method supported?

I run a small business, and I have to keep a running total of App Store purchases I made for business purposes and write a monthly reimbursement check to myself. This is ridiculous for accounting purposes.

It should be easier to have an Apple ID for business and a separate personal ID.

There should also be an option to choose another payment method whenever you make a purchase.

</comment><comment><USER24> A great article with some very good points. 1) should be kind of obvious and easy to do, but especially 3) and 4) are extremely important in my eyes.

The biggest restriction on iOS (and on iPadOS, but for simplicity, I will only use the term "iOS") is the requirement to go through the App Store approval process. The justification is the promise of security and curation of app quality. First of all, those are two separate things and shouldn't mixed up. Second, in my eyes, Apple fails at both of them.

Of course, I don't know how many truly horrible apps (from a security point of view) are rejected by the process, but there are enough examples, where dubious apps made it past the review process. But the elephant in the room - no its actually a diploducus - is the so-called curation. On the one side, there are tons of very useful apps which cannot be submitted, just think of Termux, by the app store rules. On the other side, Apple does have zero restraint approving all those games which only are a vehicle of selling in-app purchases. Furthermore, they sell the prices for amounts which should be considered fraudulent. If you buy a AAA-title for your computer or console, at most you pay $50-$100. How can it be allowed that even the most basic games sell in-app purchases which can amount to several hundred dollars or even more without any limit? That is plain immoral in my eyes.

But Apple allows this. Worse even, they seem to quite support this, as the whole App Store design has driven most other game styles from the platform. On the other side, a lot of useful apps get disallowed from the App Store just for certain "rules".

Another bad example is the App Store search. When searching for an app, you get paid for app placements in the search result _before_ the results which best matched your search. Germany released a covid-19 tracing app yesterday, but a simple search yielded my everything but that app. Only when searching for the exact app name, I got to it. This is bad with general legit apps, a disaster in this specific case.

In consequence, I do think Apple should urgently overthink their App Store approach. Otherwise, legislators should enforce an opening of the platform.

Towards using private APIs: while it totally makes sense to develop APIs by co-developing them with the apps which use them as a test case for the APIs, in general, they should be opened up to all apps. Not doing so is not only unfair competition, but dumb in the long term, as it encourages the existence of semi-maintained APIs for internal applications. And harms the quality of third party apps.

<comment><USER25> Termius is in the app store? [https://termius.com/ios](https://termius.com/ios)

<comment><USER24> Sorry, my mistake, I of course meant Termux. But I keep mixing them up :). Thanks for pointing that out, have corrected it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's only smartphone platforms, apple and android.neither is perfect. Google drops apps and services it it does not have millions of users or it does not make a profit eg Google reader I use android I can sideload apps on my phone. Google does not seem to copy popular apps like apple does Apple is unlikely to provide an option to pay via PayPal or some credit card unless its forced to by Congress, like the EU forced Microsoft to provide a browser ballot Eg choose Firefox , chrome etc instead of Internet explorer years ago before Windows 10 was released Companys realise more and more products will be bought online using apps, if you can get people used to using apple pay or Google payment services you have an almost unlimited source of income. Even if apple is forced to allow apps to be paid with Other finance options like mastercard will they be easy to use will they have access to the api that apple uses for contact less payment We have seen before in tech the public tends to use the most easy to use app or services, it's easy to just put in your credit card into the apple app once and just buy any app or service with a few clicks without thinking about it The law is slow to catch up with tech. 10 tears ago people did not expect consumers to be Able to buy products and services using a smartphone app. Apple was the first company to offer an easy to use app to buy music or TV shows on a mobile device. The first music apps on phones were limited and hard to use

</comment><comment><USER27> > #4: Give third-party developers equal access to APIs.

I used to work for a company that produced an app server. They sold the app server as well as applications that ran on the app server. Other companies also sold competing applications that ran on the app server.

One of the things I had to do was write a tool that scanned our applications for API usage to ensure none of them were using APIs internal to the app server. It would have been anti-competitive to create APIs that only our own apps were allowed to use.

It has always surprised me that Apple has gotten away with this for so long. I'm not sure if the company I worked for was concerned about being sued by the government or by other companies, but I don't think they would have worked so hard to stamp out private API usage if there weren't some risk of litigation.

</comment><comment><USER28> Apple doesn't and won't care as long as its customers don't care. One can already see from some comments here that Apple is infallible and ever correct to some - and this is more of a technical crowd. Imagine what it's like for those who have a slight to little understanding of the issue at hand.

Unless a strong competitor comes along that does things differently _and_ better (especially in marketing) Apple can continue delivering mediocre products and being an ass to devs. Unless it directly affects the majority in a tangible fashion, it won't care.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think sideloading of apps on iOS would end up being a disaster for third- party developers and the platform. Some of the most pervasive hacks on the Android platform begin with a sideloaded app.

<comment><USER29> Exactly, and giving third party developers access to private (privileged) APIs would just increase risk of malware on the platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Astropad undermines their own argument by pointing out that Apple forced them to change their business plan by adding features to their product they otherwise wouldn't have.

One of my first jobs was at a coffee shop, owned by a guy who once tried to expand his coffee shop to other locations, only to see Starbucks snatch those locations from his fingertips at the last second by walking in and offering the landlord a lot more money. He never did expand, and actually he just went out of business in part due to this government mandated economic shutdown, but he was old enough to retire so I wouldn't cry for him, he's got his wife and health and plenty of time to enjoy his retirement. I digress. The guy who owned the coffee shop knew the real estate fellow at Starbucks who would walk in and offer these last minute deals. He would always tell him, "it's just business."

Apart from walking in and taking the prime pickings of the potential retail spots to open a coffee shop, Starbucks had another much more well known practice of opening up shop across the street or right next door to other coffee shops. Now what would happen really depended on what how the coffee was like at the indie.

Starbucks would actually drive up interest in the area for coffee, so if your small indie coffee shop served good coffee, then Starbucks opening up next door might be the best thing to ever happen to you. Sales would go up, more people in the neighborhood would start drinking coffee increasing your possible pool of customers.

If your coffee sucked though, then you were probably going out of business. Your customers would try the Starbucks coffee, find it was better than you served and the writing would be on the wall. People would still come by and try your coffee, but if it wasn't as good, they wouldn't be back.

Software isn't special. You can break your back putting your all into a product that people love and get a lot of value out of, but you're not entitled to success just because you worked hard, and you aren't entitled to go without competition, even from the platform vendor. When you find yourself at odds with the platform vendor, then you go multi-platform, you change, you adapt.

I bought my phone and iPad knowing their limitations, and I was okay with them. Every one of those developers I see in the App Store chose to be there, and if they weren't there, somebody else would be. The App Store created the opportunity for small indies like Marco Arment to build sustainable businesses on, and for services like Spotify to reach a larger audience, and for services like Uber and Lyft and AirBnB to get their start. Facebook and Google changed strategies and went mobile first more than a decade ago when it became clear how big of a deal it would be, and Facebook paid $1B for Instagram, what was then a small startup of about 30 employees that got their start making an iPhone app.

Not every business is successful though, and going through Apple is part of the cost of doing business because it's _their_ storefront on _their_ platform, a software platform where the included list of features can expand or shrink on a dime. App Store developers are in the same boat as YouTubers where their stream of revenue depends on a platform that changed over time, and YouTubers figured it out a while ago that to stay in business, they have to have a revenue stream other than YouTube and toe the policies.

If your business plan relies on the government coming in and busting your platform vendors chops, then you don't have a very good business plan.

Life is tough, and so is business.

<comment><USER31> Agree with your assumptions and conclusions. Especially impact of Starbucks on indies. Just adding some color.

Insiders regard McDonalds as a real estate company, not a burger franchiser.

Similarly, back in the day, Starbucks' real estate group was their secret sauce, IMHO. They knew exactly how much revenue a store would generate. So while they likely paid more than that indie owner, they most definitely did not over pay. I assume they've only become more sophisticated since.

Source: Worked in Store Planning, wrote some tools to help the architects draft designs based on budgets provided by real estate group.

<comment><USER30> That is interesting. Thanks for the added color, my former boss was under the impression that they were overpaying given the numbers they were quoting, but well, he didn't have perfect info either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This strikes me as a bunch of wishful thinking that Apple shouldn't do.

Apple ought not be subject to ANY antitrust action because the only monopoly it has is a monopoly on _its own phones and tablets_. If that's a monopoly, then so is every other walled garden. Android's market share dwarfs iOS worldwide. It's bizarre to go after this minority player with these laws.

</comment><comment><USER33> Not commenting on the merit or otherwise of the specific suggestions, because the only part that really matters is this:

"71% budget increase in the Department of Justice's antitrust division to investigate big tech monopolies.

It's in Apple's best interest to be proactive and tackle the antitrust problem itself rather than waiting for the government to step in. "

That is: Tim Cook and the Apple board have to weigh up the risks. How likely is it that the justice department will _actually_ come after them in a meaningful way? Can they head that off? Lobbying will be a _much_ more attractive option, commercially and strategically. They will do the least they possibly can to head off any imposed change to the status quo.

That the DoJ actually went after Microsoft was very much the exception rather than the rule. Apple will likely learn from that: it's unlikely but not impossible. An enforced breakup would be catastrophic for Apple (even if - possibly - good for the market). Tim Cook certainly wouldn't survive that. OTOH, loosening any of the current constraints will hurt Apple's services play.

So this is 100% about risk management for Apple. Neither the welfare of its contributing app developer community, nor "fair" market competition, are remotely first order determinants of outcome.

\--

EDIT: fixed typo

</comment><comment><USER34> #6 allow third party browser engines in iOS

</comment><comment><USER35> Organizations can be really stupid. There is some test about delayed gratification. If you wait you get two candies, if not you only get one. Apple is currently a one candy company. You see this in how it deals with the Mac and in the policies about IOS Apps.

Please note this is not to say the people at Apple are stupid, but rather there is a very, very low level of organizational intelligence at work here. Very. Low. Sadly.

The article is great, well worth the read and written with great clarity!

</comment><comment><USER36> "dear paesant, thanks for your concern, but we are going to stop the investigation the traditional way, using our millions from anticompetitive customers practices"

\- apple

<comment><USER37> First sensible post on this topic. All others talk about the content like the premise rings true, but Apple will never do stuff like that, same as how the current tech giants don't have a place in this world post capitalism.

<comment><USER38> well it's "hacker news" so people around here will keep spinning around technological solutions patting the back of each other and wondering why is apple so shortsighted while they're so smart and all-seeing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lots of wishful thinking. If these were allowed none of them would have the effect author claims they would. See Android.

1\. There are already alternative mail clients. Does author think that not allowing any of them being default tehy do not compete on quality? This is the only one I see as the reasonable one, albeit not for the reasons claimed in the article.

2\. Uhm, Apple Pay is as frictionless as it can get. I have no desire to keept entering my credit card details into every app which thnks they have a better payment processor.

3\. Apple does not "arbitrarily" reject apps. And it's restrictions that bring innovation, not the other way around. Author wants sideload apps, but somehow Apple would still be responsible for the security. Let's see how that works for Android.

4\. Just no. I do not want John Doe's app accessing my text messages.

5\. Well you wanted the competition in #1, so how about that.

<comment><USER11> I agree that Apple provides a great experience, and I am an Apple user for most of my computing needs; but Apple's approach uses the user experience stick to squeeze out monopolistic benefits out of their platform when it suits them, and when it doesn't, they ignore user expereince.

1\. This is a clear one, and Apple chooses to ruin user experience here. I only use Apple Mail because it's the default app.

2\. Me neither. Why don't they do something for payments that is similar to how they treat password managers. A standardised way to treat payment data.

3\. Apple does arbitrarily reject apps. They just signed a special deal with Amazon that bypasses the app store rules, for gods sake.

4\. I agree, and Apple has come out with good ways of allowing apps to special APIs.

5\. Well, what competition is it when someone has to pay 30% from their revenue?

<comment><USER10> I've been using iPhones for 11 years now and I have never used Apple Mail app. Currently I am using Outlook which is very good on iOS.</comment></comment></comment>


My Father, in Four Visits Over Thirty Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-father-in-four-visits-over-thirty-years <comment><USER2> This one hit very close to home. I too was born in Iran. My family too emigrated to the United States with my father staying behind. Our family too grew up poor in the United States and managed to work very, very hard collectively and individually to realize common measures of success in this country.

I want to address an aspect of this piece that seems to be a bit controversial in these comments. Many seem to be sympathetic to the father and feel that the daughter is unappreciative and uptight. I completely understand where she's coming from here from my own experience.

One very vivid memory I have as a child was my brother, a teenager at the time, yelling at someone on the phone like I had never seen someone yell before in my short life. He then slammed the phone down and ran into the bathroom crying – one of two times I've ever seen him cry to this day.

Only a couple years ago I shared this memory with him, asking him who the hell was on the other side of that phone call to generate that sort of reaction from him.

It was our father. He called to see how everything was going. He was being cheery and asking how everything was going. Things weren't going well, and he had thrust a teenager who lived a very comfortable life back in Iran a couple years earlier straight into the role of "man of the house." We were poor, my brother was bullied endlessly, and my mom had become depressed.

When you've been abandoned by a father, you don't have the patience for the "fun uncle." The abandoner wasn't there for the hard times – the bankruptcy, the eviction, the teasing, the depression, the canned food your classmates would donate that ended up on your table, the toys they would donate that would end up under your Christmas tree. The abandonment is a burden that follows you throughout life. It manifests itself in the form of insecurity, anxiety, and/or a shitty attitude.

Sorry if that's too deep for HN, but this struck a chord with me. Dug up a part of me that I bury way deep down.

<comment><USER3> This sort of situation can have tragic consequences too. In high school, a friend of mine was in the same situation: Mother and kids in the US while the father is stuck in Iran. They were wealthy so they didn't go through the added stresses of poverty in the US and my friend seemed to everyone to be a happy go lucky guy. He was popular, involved in the community, and did very well at academics but we found out too late that the stresses in the family over the separation had developed into a drinking problem. A few days before his father finally managed to get a Visa and arrive in the US, he got too drunk at a party and stopped breathing. The psychological toll on the entire family is hard to understate, even when life is otherwise good.

This kind of separation happens quite a bit within immigrant communities, especially nationalities that have long waiting lists for green cards, let alone undocumented immigrants. Due to some quirks in the Visa system, you have to leave the country in order to change your status which runs the risk of delays or outright rejection. When the parents are on separate visas, one can get let through with the kids while the other is stuck indefinitely. Often times that means that the parent not granted a visa becomes an undocumented immigrant in the host nation and the other is forced to return home because all of their stuff and financial obligation/jobs are in the US. If they can't find a job in the host nation, the stuck parent often moves back to their support network in their birth country, further complicating things.

<comment><USER4> I'm an Australian, originally here on E3, then H1-B, now green card. I got stuck on just such a trip, to Barcelona. The local US embassy called the wrong number to notify me of my updated passport (which was delivered to a post office only a couple of blocks away, which I wouldn't find out for weeks), and never tried again.

I was stuck for a month, with no possible way of getting back to the US. It's a truly sickening, horrifying feeling, that the only solution is to blow up your life and go back where you came from.

I was extremely lucky that my employers lawyers cajoled them into communication before my money completely ran out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reading this, I wasn't quite clear what the intent of the story was. Usually these have some kind of moral to them, or a lesson learned, or something.

The author came across as an extremely uptight and unapologetic jerk, who "quietly tolerated" all 4 of her lifetime visits with the man who stayed behind to make it easier for them to escape. Every time he came to visit, he seemed to be the "fun uncle" personality - Loud and boisterous, but always having fun and chatting up people. He seemed to have a few problems, for sure, but overall by the end I felt really bad for the father and rather upset at the abysmal treatment the author gave him. If I was supposed to sympathize with the author, they failed pretty spectacularly.

<comment><USER6> It's very clear that the author wrote this for the reader to sympathize with the father; the author's purpose is clearly to relate that she's made major mistakes in her life, misplacing her relationship with her father. She even mentions that her 'supposedly perfect marriage' [to a rich Princeton Ivy Leaguer like her] ended up in divorce.

It's very clear the tone, and it is in no way subtle; this is a piece meant for compassion for the father, and I assume is a cathartic release for the author. By writing it up and admitting her faults openly, she's giving herself the chance to forgive herself.

<comment><USER5> While I appreciate the response and explanation, the constant hammering of how "obvious" the point of this was is very irritating, since it is easy to see this was not apparent to me.

<comment><USER7> I don't like the use of the word "obvious" because of the pejorative connotations, but to me it seemed pretty self-evident when reading for effect (rather than the read-for-"content" that seems more common around here) that this piece should be taken as self-reflective and more than a little ironic. It's all the little things: word choice, framing of all the characters (author, father, author's husband, brother, brother's wife), and in particular the structure of the ending. It's the sort of thing you read in English Comp classes to recognize those signposts; if it's something that isn't regularly apparent to you, maybe it's a subject worth exploring further.

<comment><USER8> It was clear in its particularly East Coast Smug sort of literary omphaloskepsis. It isn't as easy as it reads to project a constant sense of superiority while pretending to be self-critical. I see the framing choice as a way to separate the author from any potential agency, a story viewed from behind glass, immutable. This conveniently absolves her of needing to actually grow, and the messiness inherent in the process.

//

(Please note this is in no way a criticism of you, or your point, with which I agree. But my experiences as a person who didn't live in the states until I was a teen give me... strong opinions about children who refuse to understand the deep sacrifices made to give them a shot (and that's what it is, just a shot) at a better life, no guarantees.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel bad for the girl for not valuing family enough and I feel amazed by the father not only for the initial sacrifice but also the subsequent seemingly cheerful attempts to stay in touch with his daughter and son who, sadly, seemed to have written him out.

I hope my own dad doesn't feel like I don't value his sacrifices endured while getting us to safety decades ago during one of the wars in the middle east. I got him out of the middle east and into Canada a few years ago (bringing parents to the US is hard). So far, fingers crossed, he seems to have resettled.

<comment><USER10> This is something I am always baffled by, is a western or modern thing. The lack of remorse really disturbs me.

<comment><USER11> Not everyone shows remorse or guilt in the same way. I think it's best for us to avoid judging people on the basis of what we think they are feeling, because their outward presentation of their feelings may not be what they are actually feeling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an interesting story but as others have commented, one without a clear point. that's not to say that we can't draw something from it. We can. Or at least I can.

Very tangentially I'm reminded of a book called _White Teeth_ (by Zadie Smith) that I found compelling (I was living in England at the time).

Some others have commented that the author feels like things like children are an imposition. Superficially, I see why, but I think that misses the point.

She hints at this in other parts. How she comes across to me is I think what must be typical of many first generation immigrants (those first to be born in the country or who emigrated there in childhood).

You see stories like this where a family comes to the US from Russia where someone who was a doctor now works as a janitor to give his or her children a better life. I think it must be common to get knocked down several rungs on the social ladder when making this kind of move. But it's a sacrifice many parents make for the sake of their children.

Having gone to Princeton and Harvard (as the author and her brother did), they became fairly high achievers, which is to be applauded but is also I think the exception. It must be a huge part of their psyche to remember where you came from, coming to the US with nothing, living as a refugee on virtually nothing and so on.

One affect that has on someone, and I think you have to have experienced poverty to some degree to truly appreciate this, is the inescapable fear that all that you've worked for in life might go away, be taken away. Those who aren't first generation immigrants or came from money I think just don't appreciate this lack of security as it's not something they're typically exposed to or have any experience with.

I'm not even sure the author realizes it even though it's what I took from the piece. Perhaps the book will explore this (the book is mentioned at the bottom). Perhaps it's an editing snafu with the excerpt.

<comment><USER13> Oh man this comment is perfect. I often get into arguments with my girlfriend because she says I think about money too much and that money isn't everything. That you should focus on living life and having fun.

Money _is_ everything. Without money you can't do any of that living life stuff. But only someone who's experienced not having any can understand that.

<comment><USER14> Certainly if you live in a city, money is everything. Without it, you are homeless and wondering where you'll sleep next or what you'll eat. Where to shower, how you'll find work, get your hair cut, and so on. All of these things require money to obtain, more or less.

The countryside might be a different story, if you're willing to work wherever you can find it. Room and board on a farm perhaps; that costs nothing if you are willing to work. Tent in a forest; this costs nothing, as anyone can scrape together a tent and sleeping bag. Cities have no room for these things.

A bare minimum amount of money can be everything. Once you can feed and house yourself, why not focus on life and making the best of it? I think money is everything _until_ you can sustain the bare minimum. After that... if you still think money is everything, you have lost sight of the rest of your life. That or you have kids.

<comment><USER13> > After that... if you still think money is everything, you have lost sight of > the rest of your life.

I think a large part of it is that I've spent the first 25 or so years of my life living hand to mouth. As such I'm probably never going to get used to the idea that you can ever have "enough" money.

What if something happens? Is your stash really big enough to tie you over? What if it isn't? What if ... basically I think that once you're in a money- tight situation for a prolonged period, especially if it was when you were growing up, that leaves a mark that's never going to go away.

As the anecdote attributed to different rich people says: "Yep, my son tips more than I do. He's the son of a millionaire, I'm the son of a <insert poor- ish profession>"

Maybe I hit a double whammy as well.

My girlfriend's parents emigrated to the US from a relatively well-off French background. It's not all roses of course, but to my understanding they were never broke broke. Her grandma, for instance, has an estate that's been in the family for 300 years.

I emigrated to the US from a single-parent background in a postsocialist country. My maternal grandparents went bankrupt when my mum was 15 or so, my dad's grandparents died by the time he was 5. Great grandparents' assets were mostly wiped out during WW2 (partially effect of war, partially socialist redistribution of wealth). So really I have about 4 generations worth of baggage about "Fuck we're broke!".

There's no way that doesn't have an effect on how I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As an immigrant, I see the "American pride" a lot, which is not necessarily healthy. That attitude of American doing everything right or better than everyone else is apparent specially first generation immigrants who are still riding the high horses, like the author in her early days.

Only when I had the first bitter taste of having the first series of failures did I bother to find out that not everything that I think is right is right, and there is not one true highway. People have different ways of living a life. Thinking everyone who doesn't live or think the style that I do is worse than me (especially the people and family back in the home country), is the one thing that will lead me to my ultimate demise. It got me to the utmost lonely, singled out, outcast feeling that I have ever experienced, despite how many likes and support I get on social networks because of my popular idea.

</comment><comment><USER16> Found this poignant. I made the decision to immigrate from India to the US in my early twenties. At the time I looked at the decision merely as a change of address. Thirteen years later I am still struck by how much of a profound change a "mere change in scenery" can have on basic issues of identity.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd like to voice my appreciation for the discussion here.

I've read The New Yorker (and similarly targeted magazines like The Paris Review, etc) since I opened one up to kill some time in the university library, freshman year.

Though I've never found a place to discuss them with people like myself - I'm not a literary kind of person though you pick up things here and there. I identify much closer with the HN crowd.

While some of your comments make me roll my eyes for how to me it appears you missed the point, some are genuinely enlightening and even those I don't "like" have been valuable.

So thanks all, for talking about this article. It was interesting.

</comment><comment><USER18> As an Iranian with a torn apart family (me in Europe, mom and brother in the U.S. and my father back in Iran) this was a spectacular read. Almost brought tears to my eyes.

The situation is not exactly the same for us. We'd like to reunite as soon as we can (but the immigration situation in the world has become an issue and we don't know how its going to happen).

But what I relate to is my connection with my father. I love him. He loves me immeasurably. But I cannot make the right connection with him and I feel its mostly my fault because he tries and I fail.

Both the main story and comments were fantastic. Many thanks to the Author and everyone here.

</comment><comment><USER19> I just (re)read a book which deals with a lot of similar themes. It's a collection of letters to a Yiddish-language newspaper advice column which started in 1906. Many of the letters are about immigration, including conflict between generations who are divided by their experience of immigration, both in families where everyone came to the US and in families where some stayed behind in the old country.

Although the immigrants come from a different culture and a different time than in this essay, they share many themes (keeping the old language, being ashamed of parents who seem too attached to the old world, fitting in, etc).

[https://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish- Forward/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish- Forward/dp/0805209808)

</comment><comment><USER20> I suspect the author felt betrayed. She's sent away. She is not 40 years old. Imagine trauma with absence of a father and who knows how the mother might have explained it all. Nothing easier than blame. I'm sure at the first visit she was extremely upset and trying to cope and kept coping to survive. It seems in the end that she might have gained some empathy for her father just at the time he lost it for her.

<comment><USER21> I think it is the father who sacrificed: Out of a family of four, he is the one that chose to stay behind so that the other three (mother and two children) can get to US.

Interesting fact is that we do not hear much at all about the mother.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The read was a great journey. It felt very honest but in that honesty I did not get the impression that there were good guys or bad guys in this story, and am a little taken aback by the strong comments to the contrary here.

</comment><comment><USER23> I got the impression that the author is blaming her father's decision to stay behind, as the root of all her issues in life, including who she has become over the course of her life.

</comment><comment><USER24> This was a touching story. Thank-you for sharing it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't understand the negative reactions to this. Emigrating to a new country is hard, being a teenager is hard. She was frustrated with her new culture for not accepting her and with her old culture for putting her in an impossible position and making her an alien in the first place. I felt like this was an honest account of what it feels like to be a refugee.

Maybe she could've done more for her Dad by moving him, but as she seemed (to me) to say, he didn't really want that.

<comment><USER21> Maybe the mother did not help keep the image of their father in perspective. It would be great to know how mother coped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> To all emigrants who left close family behind...

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if they would have been better off (happier) remaining in Iran and being together. The children basically lost their dad in order to live in the USA. I'm not sure that's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Had to read the entire article to get the full picture. Started off unsure, though finally drove the point home by the end. Enlightening story; much appreciated–

</comment><comment><USER29> A lot of people seem to be missing the culture shock involved in this.</comment>


Intelligent Networks: A New Co-Processor Emerges - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/03/02/intelligent-networks-a-new-co-processor-emerges/ <comment><USER2> While it was an interesting read it felt lacking in detail. Are there any other good resources on this kind of systems?</comment>