Amazon's gadget as a service theme: Hardware becomes irrelevant soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/amazons-gadget-as-a-service-theme-hardware-becomes-irrelevant-soon-7000003851/ <comment><USER2> From business perspective right and nothing new: printer manufacturers, video game system manufacturers, telcos and many more do this for years—building a base where they earn money when people using their stuff rather than buying the initial setup.

From user's and ecosystem perspective it's wrong and leads to bad user experience: proprietary and closed systems, gatekeeper controlling the 'market', limited to no competition within the proprietary ecosystems.

I don't want this and look back at that days where businesses made money from selling systems following or creating open industry standards.

<comment><USER3> Noone's stopping competitors from launching platforms with open standards. The only factor is the content producers/app developers will go to where the most money can be made or where they can reach the largest audience.

The users will ultimately go where there's the most (or best) content/apps.

So the business models of the producers is the deciding factor.

<comment><USER4> And for an example of this look no further than Nintendo - selling a hardware platform (Wii, DS) on razor thin margins, but selling the games at a significant markup. Their inability to compete with the low priced smartphone apps is a big challenge to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An interesting development in the tablet market, but hardly a new business strategy.

Cell phone companies have done this for years. Cheap iPhone + high monthly contracts with 2 year lock ins.

But before them, video game console companies did it. Sell console with razor thin margin (or in XBox's case, at a loss), and make it up by selling lots and lots of games.

But before them, Gillette (and others) perfected and honed the idea by practically giving away razors and then selling you the blades. I got a Mach 3 in the mail days before my 16th birthday (which is another story of amazing data mining in the 1990s), and they've hooked me into buying those stupid blades for the last 15 years.

Bezos is no idiot. He's applying well known business models to his market now that he knows he can achieve the necessary scale.

<comment><USER6> The problem with the complimentary goods model is that it depends on a certain amount of proprietary between the complimentary goods. But what happens when someone makes a complimentary good that is interchangeable, and breaks the proprietary; and then undercuts your price.. You are screwed racing to the bottom of profit margins with a competitor, and then you have 2 items which are low margin.

<comment><USER7> It depends on either proprietary lock in, or a service integration so good that you don't want to buy the content anywhere else.

I'm perfectly capable and willing to pirate any ebook I want to read, but most of the time I just buy them in the kindle store because it is so much more convenient. Amazon doesn't have to race to the bottom on content pricing because their services have value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It may not be the case that services are the end game, but rather that there is a trade-off due to organizational structure and capital investments needed to sustain a product-focused company vs. a service one. As revenues from one type of model dry up (e.g., majority of people have your product), the investments needed to sustain that type of company structure have less marginal value or may even be a drain. Simply put, there are always diminishing returns to any strategy and there may exist a middle ground that maximizes revenue.

Related to topic, Professor Cusumano at MIT wrote a good paper covering this exact topic back in 2008 which covers additional historical cases dating back to the 90's. A lot of what is happening now follows logically from that analysis.

I couldn't find a direct link since it was an IEEE paper (pay to access), but found a copy here (if bored, skip to page 6 on the pdf): [http://www.iae.univ- lille1.fr/SitesProjets/bmcommunity/Resea...](http://www.iae.univ- lille1.fr/SitesProjets/bmcommunity/Research/cusumano.pdf)</comment>


In Honor Of Mandelbrot, A Collection Of Beautiful Fractals - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/science/gallery/2010-10/honor-mandelbrot-collection-beautiful-fractals

<comment><USER2> hey..has it got to do with fractal geometry? just curious.</comment>


What if the FBI tried to crack an Android phone? We attacked one to find out - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/what-if-the-fbi-tried-to-crack-an-android-phone-we-attacked-one-to-find-out-56556 <comment><USER2> I once encrypted my HTC One M7, which required that I permanently set a PIN on the lockscreen. Unfortunately, I previously had a Tasker profile with Secure Settings integrated that would, when connected to my home wifi, disable the lockscreen (this was before the Smart Lock Screen that Lollipop offers). When it triggered, something that the Tasker plugin did must have somehow tried to disable the lockscreen but discovered that it couldn't and inadvertently ended up resetting the PIN somehow.

I got to about 6 incorrect PIN attempts before I panicked. I was finally able to get into my phone, however, by logging into Google's Device Manager from my laptop and resetting the PIN remotely.

At the time it was a lifesaver, but in hindsight, the knowledge that Google can remotely reset the PIN on my Full-Disk Encrypted phone makes me highly suspicious that they would even hesitate to do so if compelled by the government.</comment>


Josh Harris, the internet entrepreneur who lost $50m - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/f6d1a910-ac1b-11e6-ba7d-76378e4fef24 <comment><AUTHOR> Archived/non-paywalled mirror of article: [http://archive.is/2wKaK](http://archive.is/2wKaK)</comment>


The decline of Asian marriage: Asia's lonely hearts - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21526350

<comment><USER2> Do these countries recognize and count their lesbians? Is it socially acceptable for lesbians to live together? If not, that would go a long way to account for this growth in single women.

20 seconds of Googling convinced me there's no consensus on how many women are lesbians, nor did the article say how many women are single. So it's hard to know whether that could explain the whole bulge.

</comment><comment><USER3> the hell does this have to do with hackernews?</comment>


MG Siegler: Faith No More - <AUTHOR> http://parislemon.com/post/12263286304/faith-no-more

<comment><USER2> We don't need more Apples. There is one right now, doing very well at being Apple. Google could take some cues from Apple, sure, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. The fact that MG thinks Android sucking at first and slowly iterating to a solid product is a negative is mind boggling. That is great! We are talking about a search company that in the span of few years became the dominant player in mobile operating systems. And that never would have happened if Google took years and years to create one "perfect" phone.

Coming out of the gate with a great product is overrated. It can work. But more likely, cause you aren't Apple, you will flop. By starting with the basics instead of a complete product, you also give yourself a much more interesting place to grow (the iPhone 4S could be mistaken for the original iPhone; no one could mistake the Galaxy Nexus for the G1).

<comment><USER3> There is a VAST difference between launching something simple and functional and then iterating to a solid, polished product, and launching something that sucks / is simply broken, and hoping people put up with it until you can get it right.

Apple does the former; features for v1 of their products are almost always quite limited, but what is there is polished. Increasingly, Google seems to do the latter.

It's not minimum product, it's minimum _viable_ product. And if it doesn't even work, it's hardly viable.

<comment><USER2> You are honestly claiming Google products haven't been viable or working? That seems like quite the stretch.

<comment> Anti-Ratfish Have you read the article or used the app? Broken is exactly what it is, and it's a Google product. So yes, I'd assume that's exactly what's being said.

<comment><USER2> "The native Gmail app isn't really shit... it's just buggy as fuck and extremely underwhelming."

I am not saying it is good app. It is weak and disappointing. I am saying that the philosophy MG is promoting where you must get everything right the first time is a distracting and unattainable goal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I found this paragraph to be insightful: "When Jobs took the stage to unveil something, people got excited not just because he was a great showman but because it instilled an underlying belief that what he was going to unveil would be great. You know that whatever it was, he signed off on it. And the vast majority of the time, it was great. That built trust. Faith."

I have to agree - whilst Apple had it's stumbles from time to time, on the balance of things, they consistently released good products. You always got the feeling that there was attention to detail and care was put into whatever Apple sold.

Google on the other hand - particular in the last few months has really stumbled. To me, they are coming across as sloppy and with poor product management. I don't really have confidence that their products will work reliably or consistently unless it's been in production for years.

Slapping the 'beta' tag on their products used to feel exciting that Google was rushing new developments out the door to us, but lately it's feeling more like it's an excuse for covering up sloppy work habits.

<comment><USER5> As a fan of Apple, I see people seeming to forget the antenna issue from the iPhone 4, and the current battery issue with the iphone 4s. The final cut issue of a few months ago, and many, many other missteps. All big companies make mistakes, and i think this entry is singling out Google for some strange reason.

<comment><USER6> I immediately thought about the first (?) releases Apple did for Windows: iTunes and Safari. Both were really bad but I have never seen software as buggy as that one new release of Safari that would crash if you clicked on any button.

It's basically a matter of how many good releases you do against the bad ones. Google is in bad shape right now but that changes quickly with a good release in the near future. (I'd say the new Gmail theme is a good release.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It feels like the author is giving Apple an undue free pass.

He mentions Microsoft and Yahoo as other companies who've failed him with bad releases, and the subtext seems to be that Apple hasn't done significant wrong.

To do so conveniently ignores how bad Windows versions of QuickTime, Safari, and iTunes have been at early stages.

<comment><USER8> Early stages? All three are still crimes against product management today.

<comment><USER7> Agreed.

1) I'm not sure what made Apple feel that their video codec warranted a home in the control panel. I don't forgive DivX for this, either.

2) They put their personal aesthetic before usability in a big way. E.g., iTunes was unusably slow, though it's improved. Quicktime ran horribly. I am _assuming_ this was in part due to wanting to use MacOS-style brushed-metal chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Did I miss something? Sounds like he got burned on a scoop. Did Google do anything bad to him?

"MG: show me on this doll where Google touched you."

If the application is that bad at least they retracted it. I don't know how much financial loss or other damage it did to the people who downloaded it. It probably doesn't help the overall perception of Google but I view it differently.

I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases. Don't get me wrong; I was very upset to learn the demise of Notebook and removal of social from Reader. I like the concept of making lots of small bets and seeing what works. That can be a cheap path to innovation sometimes.

<comment><USER4> > I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases.

I do to - but don't you feel that lately they are just releasing far too early? Take the Gmail redesign - opened up to beta, they took onboard the early feedback about too much whitespace and when the fully released the new design, we had a 'compact' option - to me, that is test and learn style done well.

But take the Gmail app - released into production and it's key feature doesn't work - how was this not picked up in basic testing? Plus it's getting near universal derision as being an underwhelming app. That doesn't seem like 'test and learn' style to me - that's more like sloppy work.

And Siegler lists a whole bunch of recent product launches that have fumbled not because they release new tech, but because Google made basic faults. One that affected me this week - the launch of Google+ for Google App users ... only to discover that it doesn't work with their for iOS/Android app - again, a basic fault.

I want Google to keep releasing in a 'test and learn' style, but I also want them to have some attention to detail and tighten up their work practices which appear to be slipping.

<comment><USER10> Google Wave is hardly recent though. It's easy to cherry pick bad products from a company that releases gobs of them. I could point to GameCenter. Or Ping. Or MobileMe or iBooks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seth Godin warned Google about this 5 years ago...

"But I can give you a warning. This is a key moment of the life cycle of the company. As the stakes keep getting higher and higher and the opportunities keep getting bigger and bigger and the number of smart people keeps increasing, so does the competition, so does the stakes, so does the opportunity to pay a $200 fine. And what I want to do today is really place a steak in the ground about a key conceptual underpinning that I want to sell you on and then try to outline why I think Google has succeeded to date and how repeating that could really help you moving forward.

People care about Google. What happened is you made an audacious promise to people. You changed the way the interacted all day long when they are supposed to be working, all day long when they are surfing, you changed their interaction. And that interaction made them care about your brand. And that means you have a platform to do some spectacular things. But if you blow it just a few times in a row they won't care about your brand any more."

Google Tech Talk: "All Marketers Are Liars" (<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294>)

<comment><USER12> I hadn't thought about Google in this sense. The way I remember the net is a big bad mess of ugly websites and then Google came along and they changed search. And they changed Email. They changed advertising. Think of how many more ugly flash ads there would have been without Google. And yes that built affection for the brand. Taking risks is awesome. Shipping crappy products not so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting that the main complaint is that Google does not know how to develop for a competitors platform very well. Have you taken a look at Apple's software on Windows machines? If I had to rely on the reputation of Apple simply by their software on Windows machines then they would be among the worst software companies ever.

Google+, Music, Voice, and Chrome have all been good releases but maybe not earth shattering. So Wave has given them a stench of failure? Really?

</comment><comment><USER14> Even though I see what MG is trying to do here, I don't agree that the botched release somehow reveals a bigger pattern at Google. It's a big company doing a lot of things and it's going to have flops along the way.

At least they're open and honest about their failures - I can respect that.

</comment><comment><USER15> The great thing about the headline to this piece is that it started with MG Siegler, which meant I could ignore it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Matt Siegler is simply following the modern trend amongst Apple People in viewing Google negatively. Has Matt posted anything negative about Apple re iCloud? Because I've heard bad things about it from other Applists. In summary: if I want this kind of stuff I'll go to the master: Gruber.

</comment><comment><USER17> Some words to the people comparing the GMail app with Ping, MobileMe, Final Cut, Antenna problem, Battery time etc. (and please start to make precise distinctions here, not everything is that bad, like the GMail app).

These are not Apples core products. Apples core product is the hardware and the OS on either platform. Googles core product is creating software.

So it's sad to see, they have no capable software developers knowing how to code for iOS (or willing?). They don't use any native components from iOS, even the navigation bar is a web element, how strange is that?

It's the same with Apple and iTunes for Windows. They take no native elements, because they use some wrapper to get the OS X code to Win. When the rumors are true and only five people do iTunes, then I understand why they do no decent Windows app, but why not get some good Win developers?

Same for Google, why get no decent iOS devs? And the Google+ app is an awful app too. It's such a shitty app, it's sad too.

But after thinking some time about it, I guess, they have no usable APIs for the mail service, so they have to rely on web views.

<comment><USER18> "Apples core product is the hardware and the OS on either platform."

Okay then, iOS 4 for iPhone 3G.

Checkmate.

<comment><USER17> Actually, no. iOS 4 was designed for the iPhone 4. 3G getting it was bonus, and in the end, they fixed the bugs.

And when you say something like that, how about no Android 2.3+ for the biggest part of Android phones out there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> how about a post on Apple 4S release with bugs causing battery drain. Or does MG believe apple can do no wrong.

</comment><comment><USER10> Agree with the general sentiment but Google Music is better than iCloud music.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think Google's bigger problem is that they have a hard time keeping people's attention. They throw products over the fence with a lot of fanfare and then they just languish and eventually get killed. I haven't heard a peep about Google Music or TV for months now, for example. Most of the buzz about G+ lately has been the backlash for their ham-fisted and disingenuous handling of the real names issue.

I think they have a lot to learn about product marketing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Google has jumped the shark. Though it will take a while to sort out, they are bound for one of two destinations: The next MS (IBM, etc.), or death.

When you stop supporting and responding to your most technical users, you divorce yourself from that edge.

And when you ignore and blow off user issues and complaints, you divorce yourself from broader good will.

The Panda exercise was an improvement. Plus was appealing in concept but is failing in execution. (We don't need another Facebook -- especially not the Big Brother aspect.) The rest of recent developments have mostly sucked (where products are not simply languishing).

Google Apps remains somewhat interesting, but it's becoming apparent that you only count if you're the Feds, GM, or similar.

</comment><comment><USER22> They released a buggy app they didn't go about punching orphans. Their webapp is excellent and the native one will be fixed and re-released, let's get things in prospective and try to complain less about free stuff.

<comment><USER4> Siegler isn't just complaining about a buggy app - he's complaining more about the trend of Google releasing sub-par products or mis-managing their releases.

<comment><USER22> Nah, they've already released Gmail. And by the amount of stuff they release statistically they will muck up a few, luckily it's mostly easily fixable. He is just angry his "scoop" went sour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Glad he basically addressed the point I made here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3188980>

Let's stick to this instead of all the hyping and hyperbole please.

<comment><USER24> Except this point isn't about whether or not MG was wrong about how gmail on IOS would rock, this was his observation at the general randomness of Google's product releases with respect to their perceived 'greatness.' He observes that Apple had the iron hand of Steve to control the results. Google used to have the iron hand of Marissa but that changed when she lost out in the big social shuffle.

If you push out whatever any group considers done, and you take away the 'preview' zone that was labs, you have to accept that you are going to push some turds out.

Google's previous product process didn't scale, this new one has quality issues. I'm sure the next one will address that to some extent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Google is good at algorithms, not software used by humans.

Search is better than anyone else because the algorithms are better, Bing is much prettier.

Same thing with AdSense no one can touch the CTR of adsense. Would anyone ever WANT to use the AdSense interface? No.

Gmail was great because they figured out how to do giant inboxes at scale for cheap (and had awesome spam filtering), again, the strength was algorithms. Not because "OMG this is the best interface for email evar."

Google could beat Apple on the iPhone if there was some algorithm that just 'knew' who you wanted to call and whether you wanted to call. Imagine a phone where you just opened it and it pulled up magically whatever you wanted to do. That or some other great algorithmic feature could overcome the horrid interface.

Google wins on algorithms and loses everywhere else.

<comment><USER26> I personally think that Gmail's web interface is the best email client out there nowadays. I can't find any desktop software or webapp that is nearly as good, but that is my 2 cents.

<comment><USER27> Agreed. I haven't played with new UI too much yet, but the gmail interface was probably among the best web interfaces. And things just worked. It wasn't about 2GB limit per se (but it did create the buzz)</comment></comment></comment>


What really caused the eurozone crisis? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16290598

<comment><USER2> Pretty good analysis (for an infographic).

They correctly show that government debt did not cause the current crisis but total debt did. By stating that the increase in private sector debt caused it they almost (incorrectly) imply that therefore the private sector (and the people) are to blame. Of course it's the responsibility of the government to take corrective measures to ensure long term financial stability. The European governments were completely negligent in that regard. Note also that the financial sector is not mentioned at all in this analysis.

The nasty dilemma offered at the end is a false one. First the article observes that government spending was not the cause of the crisis, and then the solution revolves around government spending? The current eurozone debates are about politics: the people in western Europe want to punish the countries they see as irresponsible. That's why we have all the talk about austerity measures. Austerity will only further cripple the economies of the GIPS countries as we've seen during the Great Depression in the 30s. Austerity doesn't work: it leads to criminal levels of capital waste: high unemployment, low standards of living, poor liquidity, and so on.

So the question isn't "Should the GIPS countries spend money to prevent a worse recession?" the real question is "How can the GIPS countries get the money to prevent a crushing depression and a lost generation?". There are a number of options: ECB bailout. Eurobonds. Bailout by the richer part of the eurozone. Various forms of quantitative easing. Unfortunately this is difficult as long as the people in Europe are angry at the GIPS countries. No politician is going to support a bailout at the expense of the richer countries if the people want to see blood.

<comment><USER3> At the end of the day, the Europeans can't have their cake and it eat, too. Either the Eurozone is a truly integrated, multinational superentity, or it's a meaningless construct on top of a group of wholly independent nations. It can't be the former when things are going well, and the latter when things are going poorly. A fairweather EU / economic zone doesn't work, because it's built on a foundation of quicksand.

How can these countries rely on a cooperative economic superstructure when, beneath it all, they still see each other as competitors? Transnationalism doesn't work when you're secretly a nationalist.

<comment><USER4> It's hard to know exactly what a _truly integrated, multinational superentity_ is, though.

For example, in this case Spain did everything right. They even regulated their banks so they wouldn't make risky loans. But they couldn't stop German banks making the same loans - so does this mean that regulatory authority over banking should be seceded to the EU too?

<comment><USER5> Spain did a lot of mistakes. I.e. not to take any action to stop the real state bubble, create unnecessary infrastructure, or the fact that a plenty of youngster stopped their education in order to work as construction workers.

<comment><USER4> My understanding is that they did try and stop the real estate bubble (to some extent anyway) but regulating bank loans, but the German banks stepped in to fund riskier projects.

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, many Spanish commercial banks and saving banks bet the farm on the real state market. For example the Sabadell Bank just bought the CAM (a saving bank) for one euro.[1]

The were some talking about burst the bubble in 2004, but Zapatero's government never implement the reforms. The Spanish prime minister regret later about not bursting the bubble earlier.[2]

Spanish banks are well protected against loans because, the asset pledge as collateral" clause is rarely use in Spain.

[1] [http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-08/sabadell-buys- ca...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-08/sabadell-buys-cam-for-one- euro-as-spain-banks-bail-out-caja.html) [2] [http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/06/28/suvivienda/13092749...](http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/06/28/suvivienda/1309274989.html) (Spanish)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The drawbacks of the "cut spending" option are predicated on textbook Keynesian analysis. Cut spending, you get an anti-stimulus, and a contraction.

But it's important to recognize the assumptions that go into Keynesian analysis, sticky nominal wages in particular. Sticky nominal wages prevent the necessary cuts in real aggregate wages, leading to unemployment (another way of cutting real aggregate wages). Keynesian analysis typically treats sticky nominal wages as given.

But is it? In the time of Keynes, government employment was a fairly small sector of the economy. This is no longer true - I've heard estimates that the public sector makes up 20-40% of Greece's economy. Further, even in the private sector (particularly in Europe), a lot of wage stickiness is caused by union contracts, minimum wages, and mandated benefits. Wage stickiness is also created by welfare/unemployment/etc - why get a job paying less than your old job if it only pays marginally more than unemployment?

So why not make use of this and impose wage flexibility by fiat? Cut the pay of government workers, force renegotiation of union contracts, reduce benefits and make welfare/unemployment/etc as unpleasant as possible?

I truly don't understand why Keynesians don't push for these policies.

(Note: I'm aware of the problem of nominal debts, these could be mitigated by making it easier to settle debts. I.e., make foreclosure/debt collection faster and easier.)

[edit: just curious, will those who are downmodding explain where my analysis fails?]

<comment><USER7> Good luck getting unions to renegotiate. Sounds like a long winded legal battle & asking for large scale strikes.

Unemployment Insurance is insurance setup to help you transition to a job at similar wage, that is it's purpose. Some tiers in the US are subsided but do have stricter job acceptance & search requirements already in place.

Cut welfare for the disabled, elderly & impoverished? Talk about winning the hearts & minds!

I think you'll also find it hard to get prosperously employed workers to take a pay cut, especially a massive one meant to rebalance the entire economy. If you do start to see it happening you'll probably have imbalances where companies keep prices high to milk profit while worker compensation goes down. You may also see certain sectors impacted more than others, causing an exodus of talent in certain areas. This might just further destabilize the economy.

Also as far debts go, if people don't have the money to pay, they don't have the money to pay. If the banks foreclose on property but people don't eventually buy that property, that's not very helpful. Also banks have already been foreclosing on properties too quickly & got in trouble for it.

<comment><USER6> _I think you'll also find it hard to get prosperously employed workers to take a pay cut, especially a massive one meant to rebalance the entire economy._

The goal is not to impose a pay cut on currently employed workers, the goal is to convince currently _unemployed_ workers to take a job at a lower wage. Since unemployment benefits provide a disincentive for finding work, reducing unemployment would reduce this disincentive.

 _If you do start to see it happening you'll probably have imbalances where companies keep prices high to milk profit while worker compensation goes down._

This is exactly what Keynesian stimulus is designed to accomplish: a reduction in real wages. I'm glad you agree that if wage flexibility could be engineered, then this would make Keynesian stimulus unnecessary.

 _If the banks foreclose on property but people don't eventually buy that property, that's not very helpful. Also banks have already been foreclosing on properties too quickly & got in trouble for it._

Homeowners and home-mortgagers seem to be the driving force in sticky house prices, not banks. Banks tend to sell foreclosed properties at, well, foreclosure sale prices.

As for foreclosing too quickly, that's why I would (assuming I believed in Keynesian economics) advocate changing the law to make foreclosure faster and easier.

<comment><USER7> _Since unemployment benefits provide a disincentive for finding work, reducing unemployment would reduce this disincentive._

Sounds like blaming the unemployed for being unemployed. There are many factors regarding people who are unemployed long term. Most often it has nothing to do with the minimum wage, people being lazy or feeling entitled.

>I'm glad you agree that if wage flexibility could be engineered, then this would make Keynesian stimulus unnecessary.

Sounds like it's inviting companies to continue to profit while not hiring or rehiring their workforce a lower wage. That or you get disparity between old workers & new workers. Cost of living I doubt would adjust very quickly. Those who would pay the biggest price are those coming back into the workforce who will be making less, but probably paying the same living expenses.

>Banks tend to sell foreclosed properties at, well, foreclosure sale prices.

You assume they are selling. The housing market is flooded with foreclosed properties going nowhere. If the idea here is to reducing wages for those who are able to find a job.

<comment><USER6> _Sounds like blaming the unemployed for being unemployed._

Sounds like accepting reality. Moral hazard is real, and this has been empirically demonstrated whenever a natural experiment presents itself.

[https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:xdATBYGtHBcJ:...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:xdATBYGtHBcJ:www.econ.upenn.edu/~hfang/teaching/socialinsurance/readings/Meyer90\(4.12\).pdf+%22unemployment+insurance+and+unemployment+spells%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESijVugfxTMH8N17GpSU_u2JvA9mKUnU2-0yEbjnU4nwsZzfb6xylzJiPCE7EUAmsWycAgt74ZcB3dWYw4wZ- JRBbT5DLbajcMt_A0VhvZTgz74ppJlG27NwAeZXcun3IjfAtx70&sig=AHIEtbRr14Z-jKd0rYrZD25qNSBSVWlWEg&pli=1)

<http://ftp.iza.org/dp2171.pdf>

(Note: I only read the first paper in detail, but the second is quite popular.)

 _Sounds like it's inviting companies to continue to profit while not hiring or rehiring their workforce a lower wage...making less, but probably paying the same living expenses._

A monetary or fiscal stimulus does the same thing - the only difference is that instead of making 10% less dollars, workers earn the same number of dollars but prices go up 10%.

 _The housing market is flooded with foreclosed properties going nowhere._

This is because regulations allow banks to mark properties to a model, rather than to market. This is also why banks are not foreclosing on a lot of deadbeats - they don't have to admit to shareholders that they took a loss until after they foreclose.

This is basically just a way for banks to cook the books, but for some reason politicians and regulators don't seem to care. Strange.

<comment><USER8> I'm not in Europe, but there was a very striking fact presented on the local newspapers:

80% of those receiving "emergency" unemployment benefits in Uruguay rejected a job offer

[http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/214462/el-80-de-la- po...](http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/214462/el-80-de-la-poblacion- del-mides-rechazo-una-oferta-de-trabajo/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Countries & institutions that weren't mentioned :

Greece 22% of the people in Greece work for the government. That's unsustainable. They paid very little taxes and the government's debt ballooned to a point where the market said enough. Greece asked the EU for a bailout & they got it. There were no real austerity measures. Now they want the debt holders to cut the debt in half.

Belgium's problems. Belgium's debt is ballooning out of proportion & bigger than Greece's. Close to 10% of the people work for the government. Savings are high and can be used to revive the economy. Instead, the government asked everyone to buy up their bonds at prices lower than what's available on the market. Crazy & stupid but real. 50% of all goods are export, even though labour costs are twice as high as Spain's. The Netherlands is in a similar situation. How is that possible? They just work harder. I don't know why that isn't mentioned in the article as a possible solution.

The Netherlands They were able to handle the world economic slowdown that started in 08. They came prepared, they paid down their debt with every surplus they had. Exports have been holding up quite well, although the slowdown is catching up. Savings are high and that's another bullet you can use to revive the economy. Housing prices are a bit high though. Also, those who work after age 62 can earn a bonus for every year they remain employed.

ECB & IMF The ECB says they aren't allowed to buy government debt. That's correct but it's BS as well. They found a way around it. They gave money to the IMF and the IMF gave it to Italy. With Germany & France's permission. Last week the IMF tried to raise money from its members. They failed at it. Both the IMF & the ECB are sitting on gold reserves. Not enough to bail everyone out but perhaps enough for some quantitative easing. Not that I'm in favor of it. Quite the contrary.

Inflation When everyone wants a bailout and the ECB blows through all reserves, then they will have no other option than to do what Ben Bernanke is secretly doing in the US. He's buying up all the debt and he's probably doing it by printing more dollars.

Don't worry, don't feel sorry, there're other solutions.

1) Governments need to be smaller & more efficient.

2) Lack of discipline & brass balls In some EU countries you get paid $ 1,000 per month to take time off. You get to ride on the bus for free. You don't have to pay taxes on your house. The list goes on and on. It's a luxury problem. It's easy to stop. It's political suicide but it has to stop.

3) Retirement age. The worldwide average is 64 if I'm not mistaken. In Europe it's something like 60 - 62. In Germany it's 65 to 67, so they already shot that bullet. It used to be 50 something in Greece ...

I'm all for austerity programs because I want the craziness to stop. I want our politicians to stop getting deeper in debt. Now !

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not so sure this tells the whole picture. Countries borrow money from banks and wealthy individuals in the bond market. These same countries (and I class Europe as a pseudo-country) want to bring in legislation to prevent banks from doing what they did to create the first crisis in 2007.

But the interest rates are being set by the lenders, and this can be used as a kind of weapon to retaliate in this game.

What's happeneing at the moment is that the bond holders are basically trying to force the governments to raise taxes and cut public expenditure for no other reason than so they can get their money back.

Governments are caught in this trap because it's rather unfair to punish the people like this.

If you take a step back and look at the series of problems since 2007 you'll see that the banks were responsible for selling worthless "structured debt" to each other before realising they couldn't trust each other, then freezing all lending causing liquidity problems, and now using bonds interest rate weapons to effectively prevent governments from legislating against their bad behaviour.

It's a game of poker with some very high stakes: the options are a few banks choking or whole countries.

I'm not greek but the more I read and look at this the more I think they had the right idea to stand up to the banks. In the end they got half their debt removed, but unless all politicians stand together with the people and call it, this will all end in tears.

<comment><USER11> The Greek debt negotiations haven't finished, and while the private sector bond holders may get 50% losses, Greece will not cut 50% of its debts, as the official lenders are not taking losses. Greece would be better off simply defaulting fully, as it will still end up with government debts of 150% of GDP or so after default.

Also if the countries default the banks do too, as they hold a lot of the government debt - it was a mutual game.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. Banks were previously bailed out on the basis that this would be terrible for the people whose assets/savings were held at banks that failed because they could not return those assets to the people.

But things have changed since then... firstly governments have guaranteed people's assets in the event that a bank fails. In addition some countries took charge of their banks, notably the UK, meaning that at least from a "business as usual" case, it is not inconceivable nor technically impossible to move the accounts from a failing bank into a nationalised bank.

So if the banks were to default now, the situation would be different. The governments _could_ let a bank or many banks fail and with careful management take back control.

One other point is that banks can make very large profits in a very short space of time. LloydsTSB in under six months following the write-down of massive losses in the crisis, made a first quarter profit of 3 billion pounds. I don't know many companies that can turn things around that quickly, but banks regularly do.

This, to my mind, makes it less credible to hold the threat of many banks defaulting over the heads of the governments, and is another reason why I say the governments make the call.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One point that's not fully explained in this infographic is the borrowing costs in the Eurozone countries:

Before the Euro introduction, borrowing costs in Germany, both for the private as well as the government sector, were cheap, whereas in the southern countries they were high.

With the Euro introduction, borrowing costs were essentially unified, the interest rate being set by the ECB. So Germany suddenly faced higher borrowing costs than before and the southern states faced significantly lower borrowing costs.

That lead to the debt explosion in southern Europe and it put Germany in a tougher position than before. Germany went through an economic slump between 2000 and 2005 and had to retool its economy to be as competitive as before. Germany did this with internal devaluation: German wages have now been stagnating for a decade.

Between 2005 and 2010, the roles have switched and right now Germany's economy is almost overheating, in part because the interest rate set by the ECB is super low to make life easier for the struggling southern countries.

That's why Euro critics like Ambrose Evans-Pritchard call the ECB's policy "one size fits none". However, that's not to say the Euro critics are right. The hope of Euro optimists is that the Eurozone countries' economies will eventually converge. Whether or not that will ever happen is still up in the air. The whole thing is an experiment without precedent.

</comment><comment><USER13> Missing from this otherwise good infographic: the role played by _private- sector financial firms_ , which are tightly interlinked with each other in a massively complex global network no one really understands, even today. The structure and behavior of private-sector financial firms appear to have been a major destabilizing force leading to the crisis.

A (relatively tiny) number of reputable economists are starting to look beyond these current-account imbalances to the disproproportionate growth and destabilizing role of the financial system -- a welcome development IMO.

Here's a recent example (in lay language): <http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7446>

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the most fascinating point in this is that wages remained constant in Germany whereas they rose in the countries that are in the worst shape right now.

Can anyone corroborate this data? Is this actually true? That would be such an easy explanation…

<comment><USER15> It's true, but it's debatable how much it explains. Germany looks relatively good right now, but it's been 20 years of slow growth and lots of pain after '89. It's funny that just a couple of years ago, say 2003, you'd read about the booming Greece and "sick man of Europe" Germany.

<comment><USER16> And Ireland was the Celtic Tiger...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Tiger>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is not a fully developed thought, but I think the current Eurozone crisis shows the difficulty of trying to politically unify culturally diverse people groups.

I am not an economist or a political theorist, but I think that the Eurozone crisis proves that in trying to create the EU and gain some of the economic advantages that the United States has with a single currency (and other advantages as well, I know I am simplifying), the Eurozone founders didn't fully take into account the cultural issues that their creation would face. America, for various and sundry reasons easily traceable through its founding, is largely culturally monolithic (I realize this is a simplification, yes) and by and large, Americans in one geographic region of the country (for example, the Midwest, which didn't fly too high in the recent booms but is also not facing a bottom dropping out like other regions) do not strenuously question the need to 'bail out' other areas of the country through large federal spending. It happens in America, its just largely invisible and rarely widely debated along geographic lines (farm subsidies, bank bailouts, automaker bailouts, all can be argued to have a strong geographic context that largely gets ignored in America politics) because of the strong nationalistic component in America that the Eurozone lacks.

Smaller versions of this basic problem can be seen, manifested in different ways, all throughout Asia (Afghanistan, India, India/Pakistan, Laos, China) and Africa (Sudan/South Sudan, the DRC), and probably though South America too, but I am far less familiar with SA.

<comment><USER18> There are indeed cultural issues, but deeper than that is the problem of trying to impose one economic policy (via one currency) on an area as diverse as Europe. We are generally quite good at rubbing along with our European neighbours, but the race to expand the Eurozone at breakneck speed has led to a large number of economically disparate countries being lumped to together as (somehow) one entity. Like easy credit, it only holds together while the trend in the worldwide economy is upward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The summary of the infographic can be made in a single sentence: Paul Krugman has been right about the causes of the Eurozone crisis.

The "Don't cut spending" solution at the end mentions the real heart of the problem, "The ECB says its mandate does not allow it [to bail governments out]." -- All the Eurpoeans need to do is make the ECB a lender of last resort. In a liquidity trap expanding the monetary base will do very little to devalue the precious savings the Germans are so worried about, so it won't even hurt them.

<comment><USER20> >All the Eurpoeans need to do is make the ECB a lender of last resort.

The problem with this solution is that it is specifically prohibited by the EU treaties (Maastricht, I believe). I would guess that this treaty change (which would require a referendum in Ireland) would be extremely unpopular in Germany and the Netherlands, the main payers in this situation.

That being said, Eurobonds are not specifically forbidden so I suspect that the Germans will relent on this after they've extracted their pound of flesh.

<comment><USER11> Eurobonds are forbidden by the German constitution though. And why exactly is more borrowing the answer? ECB money would be monetization but eurobonds are just subsidized borrowing for the PIIGS, which we already had for years with their low rates. .

<comment><USER19> If you read the infographic you will find that borrowing by governments was not the cause (and even if it were that does not mean it can not be the answer, that is what widening the monetary base is partially about). Italy and Greece would be running surpluses if they could borrow at U.S. rates (maybe Spain and Ireland too, I don't know) - so Eurobonds at the good rates they would attract can be an important part of the answer.

<comment><USER11> Borrowing from governments was not the only cause. But more borrowing wont make it better. Monetization does not create any more debt, while eurobonds do.

Italy and Greece did borrow at US-like rates for the last ten years. They can't pay back those debts, and saying that if rates were low they could afford to increase the debts even more is not that helpful. People have realized that there needs to be a plan that involves reducing debt levels, as the ever increasing bank leverage story that funded both the government and private sector debts is over now, so there are no buyers of new debt, at any interest rate.

<comment><USER19> "More borrowing won't make it better" is grossly oversimplifying. If, for example, Italy can borrow at US-like rates but not borrow since that would put them in a surplus position then obviously that would resolve their problem. As the article explained, Spain _never once_ broke to EU deficit rules until the crisis pushed their rate up.

If you have bought the idea of "expansionary austerity" then I don't know what to say - it ain't gonna work and it hasn't worked for anyone so far. The problem right now is exactly that "people have realized that there needs to be a plan that involves reducing debt levels" - "people" want to do that now but now is not the time to do it, it is causing wasteful under-utilization of capital and causing GDPs to run way under their potential rates of growth.

The assertion that "there are no buyers of new debt, at any interest rate" is incorrect -- Spain, of all countries, sold more debt than it expected to on the open market 3 days ago.

My original comment was that Krugman was right about this crisis from day-one and about the US crisis before that. I am really just repeating things he has already said many times in many places that no one anywhere seems to be able to refute with real data.

<comment><USER11> I haven't bought the idea of expansionary austerity, but I really believe that the debt levels are far too high, and only managed to get that way because of a huge bubble, largely in the banking sector. Spain borrowed the other day because temporary measures to reflate worked briefly. Monetization or default are the two real options, or a combination.

Spain's problem never was the government, it was private sector housing, funded from abroad. The solution to that is structural, and also involves getting the private sector debts written off, which also means the banks are bust. Bailing these out will add another huge hole on the governments balance sheet, and make it even harder to fund debt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In regards to 'wages rose and rose in Spain' and are now not competitive with Germany: I would have thought that wages in Spain pre-1997 were very low compared to Germany, so if they rose it was to become comparable. How does this then make Spain less competitive with Germany? (I may be completely wrong and am neither an economist nor aware of what the wage gap is/was between eurozones).

<comment><USER22> The infographic says regarding Spain and Italy: "Their exports are uncompetitive".

Maybe the thinking is that stuff exported by Spain and Italy is on average crappier than stuff exported by Germany, so it should cost less to manufacture, ie. lower wages?

<comment><USER23> I can tell that the minimum wage in Portugal is around 485 Euros (and there is a very significant portion of the population earning just that), so it's not fair to say the wages are 'even' with Germany.

It is really a matter of what you invest on and export: and with few exceptions, the choices made here were not brilliant...

<comment><USER22> Here in Hungary it's around €300.

Btw. there's a Google feature for this:

<http://tinyurl.com/7xlfah2>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> On a related note, the "Money as Debt" documentary is a fascinating watch to understand where money comes from.

I just submitted it to HN <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3381634> and I'd be interested in hearing the opinion and criticism of people with better knowledge of the monetary system than me.

<comment><USER25> do you have a textual transcription of this video ?

<comment><USER24> Here: [http://usuryfree.blogspot.com/2011/01/money-as-debt-ii- trans...](http://usuryfree.blogspot.com/2011/01/money-as-debt-ii- transcript.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Having the same Euro currency but different economic structure and policy in different countries doesn't work, especially in Spain/Italy/France's case. Their labor cost has soared and trade deficit widen against Germany but they can't cheapen their currency to make them more competitive. They are stuck.

</comment><comment><USER27> Asking what specifically caused the crisis is like asking which hamburger caused your obesity. This is a problem that has been building over decades, and it will take decades to solve.

</comment><comment><USER28> But where is Greece?

<comment><USER29> The infographic stated that Greece is wholly excluded, as they never reported properly anyway, enabling them to join the union in the first place, and broke the rules all along. Though I too wish they were included at least for some perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "the idea of a single currency" caused it. A truly terrible idea.

Everything that happened was inevitable.

<comment><USER31> Single currency without a single fiscal policy.

<comment><USER30> A single currency across countries with such different economies, histories, cultures and languages would still result in the same outcome IMHO.</comment></comment></comment>


Advertising and the End of Instagram's Sincerity - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/the-end-of-instagrams-sincerity.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "Instagram's plan from the beginning has been to exploit that conceptual slippage between content and advertising in a powerful new way, because it is the social network with the greatest claim to a foundation of genuine emotion. Instagram has become what it is because people care about it and what they put on it in a way that isn't true of Twitter or Facebook—and which is precisely why Facebook bought it."

Interesting statement, because while a picture is worth a thousands words, it's usually some lame brain comment in text that get's people the most worked up. For some reason text has this power. I can't remember the last time I got pissed off at a photograph. I'm sure naked pictures of your wife would constitute a scenario where you were to get pissed off.

Regardless, ads were a comin'. Will be interesting to see if it plays out differently than other networks. If you already follow American Airlines in your feed, why would AA pay extra to advertise to you?</comment>


Google will comply with censorship laws to get Play into China - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/report-google-will-comply-with-censorship-laws-to-get-play-into-china/

<comment><USER2> "Don't be evil," my ass.</comment>


Math Explains Why Uber Is a Scam - Gabriel-Lewis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQPj90OrQE&feature=share <comment><AUTHOR> How is it Uber's fault that there's a 10% sales tax in LA county?

Uber could start charging 10% more for rides, but that would reduce the number of customers that choose to use Uber, which would reduce the total amount a driver takes home.

</comment><comment><USER2> I wish there was an easy way to get consistent sound quality in 2016. It clips constantly.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review my automated web testing startup, Browsera - <AUTHOR>

http://www.browsera.com
I'd like to get some feedback on my automated web testing service startup, Browsera.
The service automatically detects major cross-browser rendering differences as well as scripting errors, and also provides screenshots.  A significant difference from Browsershots/Litmus/BrowserLab/Superpreview is that it actually analyzes live DOMs and reports differences.  And, its got features that allow it to crawl your site and even test pages behind login walls.
If you're a web developer or tester, please give it a try and let me know what you think. <comment><USER2> Technical side - neat, very neat. I like it a lot.

Business side - the recurrent pricing model does not make any sense whatsoever. Unless someone is actively developing the site or _manually_ changes the content on a daily basis, per-use charges is what is expected.

There is certainly a market for enterprise-ish application of your idea, when the site is routinely modified several times a week by marketing and product people and such. But then your Basic plan basically will easily cover the needs of a small/middle size corporation with extensive online presence. Additionally, beware of the existing services like Keynote that already target that segment and that will be copying your idea in a matter of weeks.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is very useful, good work.

I suggest a change in the pricing model to adjust to the most likely use from customers (many would like just a one-shot), something like:

\- "Test" (one time): $29

\- "Project" (one month): $199

\- "Enterprise" (one year): $890

("Enterprise" can be dropped).

All of them can have say, 1000 pages or pages/month and 5 or whatever users, and then there can be a small additional extra per 1000 more pages or 5 more users.

</comment><comment><USER4> I mean, wow - I'm totally impressed and will probably become a paying customer. If the free version works out to be as impressive as the sample, I'm sold!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words, always working on improving the accuracy, but we've had pretty good success so far, even on the production versions of some of the most popular sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems like a very useful service. I think that you may be losing quite a lot of business by jumping from free to $49 directly.

There is probably a sweet spot at around $19 for say 250 pages and login support that would attract a lot of hobbyists/developers who work on one web app or a couple of sites and wouldn't pay $49 a month for something like this.

Perhaps you should try it out.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like how your start up actually helps solve a real problem. Who's your competition? Does the subscription model make sense?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good question, and one I've been thinking about a lot. Pricing is a tricky thing, so I went ahead and used the competitors models for pricing based on subscription.

It's certainly possible a per page or per test model might work better, but I haven't heard users ask for it yet.</comment></comment>


Safari is the new IE - <AUTHOR> http://fabiofranchino.com/blog/css-height-parent-flex-safari-issue/ <comment><USER2> Safari is not as bad as IE was compared to other browsers. However, calling it the 'new IE' is accurate if the definition is 'the browser with the worst support of new features and most bugs'. Here is a comparison [http://html5test.com/compare/browser/safari-10.2/ios-10.3/ed...](http://html5test.com/compare/browser/safari-10.2/ios-10.3/edge-15/firefox-53/chrome-58.html)

What is especially frustrating for web devs is that all browsers on iOS are Safari underneath. We have to deal with those weird bugs and missing features the same painful way we dealt with IE, hence the title of the article. Saying that it's not as bad is not the point, IE 11 was also not as bad as IE6, we still had to deal with its quirks.

<comment><USER3> Safari doesn't compare with how IE was in its heydays.

In IE times, it was the majority browser and web shops were complaining that they were developing on less popular platforms (typically Firefox, and Netscape before it) and then ranting about how IE did things differently. Had they developed for IE all along with an aim for compatibility with FF, they'd have done things differently and, in many cases, compatibility wasn't that hard if you targeted lower common denominator - that is, a few earlier versions of each browser.

Sure, you'd miss out on the latest browser features, but that's not what web dev was about then. Rather, it was - depending on the shop - about making a site work on all platforms, or about making it work on IE and to hell with other platforms - with great despise from the rest of the community.

For some reason, things changed in recent years. Chrome is now dominant, and for whatever reason developing against its latest version has become the new normal, with web shops complaining that other browsers aren't keeping up fast enough, and no echo chamber to counter that discourse by pointing out that "hey, why aren't you targeting older browsers to begin with?" In case it needs reminding, iOS 7 is from 2013 and iOS 5 is still running on 2010 devices. That's only a few years ago. For comparison, we coped with IE6 for well over a decade, and XP (from 2001) only recently got deprecated.

<comment><USER4> True.

But in some ways current situation with Safari is worse. With IE you could at least say "download a proper browser if you want proper experience" (if you had the luxury of not being in servitude to your visitors). With Safari it's more like "get a proper phone", which is far from costless.

On the bright side, Apple is also hurting themselves with this approach. Missing a good browser will only speed up the decline of iOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Drastic title for an incredibly weak article that barely even bothers to make a case. So Safari has a bug. Why does that warrant immediately labelling it abandonware?

<comment><USER6> "Safari is the new IE" has been a complaint for many years. The author is providing supporting evidence.

Here is an article from 2015 [http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-safari-web- browser-is-b...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-safari-web-browser-is- becoming-the-new-internet-explorer-2015-7)

<comment><USER7> If anything, these journalist are incredibly misinformed and shallowly invested in the issue (they do love clicks though). There's not a sentence about the power usage of browsers, performance on mobile browsers, the mass amount of APIs that have been added over the past few years, the evolution of JavaScript that is happening in tandem with new features that are being released, not even a sentence about how these APIs are extremely immature and still a WIP; all things that if taken in perspective will highlight the nuances of Safari's strategy of slow adoption.

Apple could make a browser that has all these features (where APIs are slow to being adopted on sites that users most use, low impact) or they could keep investing in iOS (where APIs are mass adopted from day one on apps used by hundreds of millions, high impact).

<comment><USER8> Why is it an either/or? They are the largest company by market cap in the world with more than $8B in profit last quarter. They should be able to handle both.

<comment><USER7> It is precisely an either/or because it has made $8B in profit last quarter. Apple as a massive company must make thousands, hundreds of thousands of tiny decisions to make it's business more profitable.

Investing in iOS attracts more customers and buy in to its products and services. Investing in Safari is not a key differentiator for their business and rivals will be able to easily implement the same features. Apple is smart not to play Google's game.

If Apple were to engage in this, the browser now becomes a selling point of the phone. Apple goes from iOS/iPhone company to Safari company. They give away their offering/unique selling point that no other company has, along with their massive advantages as a market leader.

Because their tech and business strategy is more developed in this space (browsers), Google can start acquiring customers at a lower cost than Apple without having to differentiate its core product more than the fact that it has more APIs/features. We see Google already does this to a degree, they market their products more on the feature set rather than the mission and brand.

Web technologies also inherently support Google's business strategy, the more APIs in the browser, the more data Google can collect on Apple's users, the more advanced targeting they can do to swipe away Apple's customers and collect intelligence on what Apple is up to. Do not be fooled, every time there is an API added to the browser, there are teams of people at Google ready to capitalize on it to help drive profits.

It would be a bad, bad bet for Apple to start all of sudden focusing its energies on Safari. As a SWE, it is completely understandable why Apple gives Safari little love, I'm okay with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> meh, desktop Safari is actually a very good browser. It is the fastest of all browsers in macos for a bunch of operations and their support for ES6 features beats all the other browsers (99% in [https://kangax.github.io/compat- table/es6/](https://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/) ).

Also one could argue that if Apple did not invest so much in WebKit then chrome would have had a harder time achieving its current usage and would probably be a very different browser than what it is today.

My 2cents

<comment><USER10> > their support for ES6 features beats all the other browsers

That's really grasping for straws. All modern browsers almost fully support ES6 features. Tail optimization are more controversial because they can actually lead to a performance decrease in some cases.

Far more important are things like custom elements and service workers on which Safari is lagging behind.

<comment><USER11> > Tail optimization are more controversial because they can actually lead to a > performance decrease in some cases.

How exactly can the tail-call elimination optimization decrease performance?

Sounds more like an implementation problem.

<comment><USER12> Both TCO and PTC can decrease performance easily for a bunch of reasons. TC39 addressed this[0] when considering explicit tail call sites. Reasons vary from Windows ABI (Chakra) to something as simple as "now I have to figure out if this is really a PTC" \-- and if your function has a PTC but that only gets invoked once, it's not hard to see how the extra analysis pressure doesn't weigh up to the elided stack frame. JS engines were already extremely optimized, it's not like you're taking a CS student's first lisp interpreter and adding TCO. (Fortunately, some of the litmus tests for whether you can apply PTC are encapsulated within strict mode, and the compiler stages definitely know that for free already.)

[0]: [https://github.com/tc39/proposal-ptc- syntax#performance](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-ptc-syntax#performance)

<comment><USER11> I remain unconvinced that just because it's difficult for a couple of JavaScript implementations, that we're still not talking about an implementation problem.

How exactly does anyone think that v8 doing something badly, is proof that something cannot be done well?

<comment><USER12> I don't know which "anyone" you're referring to, but the argument I made about analysis pressure isn't implementation-specific, and neither are the concrete issues raised in both the TC39 notes I linked and elsewhere (they affect Chakra primarily, and *Monkey/V8 secondarily). The parts of a JS implementation (or really, any JIT) that decides to inline portions of code, attempt to detect loops and unroll them,... are already central to those implementations. I hope it's not difficult to see why a change that directly impacts that might have negative consequences elsewhere. Indeed, _because_ this is implicit and part of the spec, implementations can't take the simple multi-staged path they did before: they _have to_ do the PTC dance. I've heard no argument why the PTC mode should be intrinsically faster than the non-PTC mode (yes; you elide a stack frame at the cost of a whole-function analysis pass -- heuristically, "stack frame" isn't the expensive one of the two). This is why STC was proposed: it allows an impl to decide at _one_ location how to handle a function, in an obvious-to-the-parser way. No other code paths are affected. To contrast with PTC: even a compiler that knows with epistemological certainty that a particular call will happen only once or even never, _still has to do the PTC dance_.

However, you're asking me to prove a negative. I've given arguments, which apparently you find unconvincing. The people you are disagreeing with (not I) are responsible about 85% of the JavaScript engines on the Internet, an incredibly competitive space with billions in funding. I submit that they are probably neither incompetent nor lazy. (Evidence for "not lazy": the V8 team implemented it and turned it off.) If you are convinced that it's a (presumably fixable) implementation problem, I'm sure they'd love a patch or at least something more actionable than your insistence that they're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER11> > I hope it's not difficult to see why a change that directly impacts that > might have negative consequences elsewhere.

Sure, but at the risk of repeating myself: That sounds like an implementation problem.

> I've heard no argument why the PTC mode should be intrinsically faster than > the non-PTC mode

There's a simple one: Hitting the stack less means you hit less memory.

> The people you are disagreeing with (not I) are responsible about 85% of the > JavaScript engines on the Internet, an incredibly competitive space with > billions in funding. ... I'm sure they'd love a patch

Happy to oblige. I'll implement TCO on V8 for a billion dollars in a way that beats these benchmarks.

> However, you're asking me to prove a negative.

And you're making straw men instead: At the beginning of your response, it's not even clear you read my complaint, but at the end, it's quite clear.

The simple answer would probably have been "yes, it's about an implementation, but it remains unknown where else we can go", but instead you doubled down...

<comment><USER12> I'll repeat myself: it is not an implementation problem that a compliant implementation needs to do necessarily more work. You say:

> there's a simple one: Hitting the stack less means you hit less memory.

But I explicitly acknowledge this in my comment:

> (yes; you elide a stack frame at the cost of a whole-function analysis pass > -- heuristically, "stack frame" isn't the expensive one of the two)

(Completely ignoring that there are already plenty of optimizations where a compliant interpreter may avoid the stack frame already anyway, so it's not even true that PTC must be faster for that reason.)

You keep picking on V8, but remember that there is so far only 1 major JS implementation that managed to do this without impact. It would seem that it's more probable that it's the other way around: it's an implementation detail that JSC had it easy.

> And you're making straw men instead: At the beginning of your response, it's > not even clear you read my complaint, but at the end, it's quite clear.

I'd be happy to address this point, but I genuinely don't know which straw man I've supposedly built.

<comment><USER11> > > > I've heard no argument why the PTC mode should be intrinsically faster > than the non-PTC mode

> > there's a simple one: Hitting the stack less means you hit less memory.

> But I explicitly acknowledge this in my comment!

Not really sure what your point is. If you agree that's an argument as to why tail-call elimination should be intrinsically faster, I'm not sure why you'd say it isn't.

I can't shake this feeling you think you're having a very different argument than I am.

> remember that there is so far only 1 major JS implementation that managed to > do this without impact.

Which for some reason you think means this isn't an implementation issue.

<comment><USER12> > But I explicitly acknowledge this in my comment!

I did not put an exclamation mark there, but a colon, pointing out the specific reason why PTC can end up slower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Anecdotal, but this doesn't match my own experience. When developing for the web I usually develop on Safari. More specifically for a first-gen iPad running Safari Mobile. And then, for whatever reasons, it almost always works on other browsers pretty much as is - the main exceptions being very old devices running ancient versions of IE.

(Admittedly I aim to make sites that degrade well and work _without_ JS, so that might be an important caveat in an age of Angular and what have you. Perhaps I'm stuck in y2k and still think a site should render in 0.2s on all but 10+ year old browsers. [Shrugs])

<comment><USER13> That is because Safari's feature support is the lowest common denominator of the other browsers. By developing on it you are ensuring you don't use features every other browser but Safari supports.

<comment><USER3> > By developing on it you are ensuring you don't use features every other > browser but

Sure. But isn't developing against the least common denominator _precisely_ what web development has been all about in the past 20 years or so?

Edit: Just to expand on that...

Then, there was a laundry list of web shops that were targeting IE first because "more advanced" and complaining about other browsers because they "suck". And it looked wrong to just about everyone else who targeted other browsers because Microsoft.

Now, we've a laundry list of web shops that are targeting Chrome first because "more advanced" and complaining about other browsers because they "suck". And for some reason those browsers should all catch-up and fast because Google?

<comment><USER14> If Safari would run on Windows and Linux maybe everybody would develop with it and take advantage of this least common denominator thing (but still wish it would get on par with the other browsers.) Unfortunately it is not.

This app store first / web second policy served well Apple bottom line. Too bad web developers are paying for it with extra work and this is the point of the post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A few bugs don't really make Safari the new IE. There will always be bugs and differences with rendering engines, that is the price of competition. However IE was a completely different class of shit sandwich that inflicted horror onto all devs who had to work with it.

<comment><USER15> Agreed.

Saying Safari is the new IE is like saying Trump is the new Hitler.

Not even close.

Just no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I suspect all the people disagreeing with this either

A) Are not web developers

B) Use macs as their primary development platform

C) Have never had a user using iOS 7 complain that your website is entirely broken and not be able to replicate or debug it because every mac in your office is using OSX 10.10 and Apple have jigged it so you can't run an emulator for iOS <9 and everything on the computer (Except iTunes) refuses to believe the iOS 7 device exists when you finally persuade the customer to bring it in to you.

<comment><USER16> (OTOH at least it has a vague attempt at developer tools - with Samsung Internet you're on your own matey)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's an irritating bug that popped on Safari 10.1 (iOS 10.3) that strains the use of CSS variables: You can't just use a variable to declare a box- shadow's color opacity, you need an intermediate variable.

Demo: [https://codepen.io/anon/pen/YxmQdj](https://codepen.io/anon/pen/YxmQdj)

Apple versus Google keeping devices up-to-date is a reversed problem on the web: iOS's web browser updates only with new OS releases, and they don't come to all devices. iPhones 5 (and iPads 4) will be stuck with that bug forever. On Android you can use Chrome's latest version if you're on ≥ 4.1 and Firefox's if you're on 4.0. 99% of Android users are.

Even if you're very aggressive on focusing only on recent browsers for your website, you need to handle Safari bugs for _years_.

Safari is far from being as bad as IE ≤ 8, but it sure is the most annoying browser when you're targeting only recent ones.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am as weary with Chrome, but for a different reason.

While Safari lags, Chrome seems to introduce more and more Chrome-isms onto the web.

<comment><USER7> Web fragmentation, unfortunately is built in to our community, but my hope is that we won't ever see an era of fragmentation like the HTML5 era. I'm okay with Chrome-isms, as long as they're not too radical.

<comment><USER19> I think both you and me would agree that Google aims to make them radical.

Just today I changed my Chrome's search engine to DuckDuckGo. Of course, I get periodically politely asked if I am sure that this is my correct search engine setting. _< facepalms>_ As an Eastern European, I'd shut them down the same instant on this basis alone, no questions asked. Shame that we don't run the world. :D

An off-topic for sure but the gist is: Google wants to entangle you in their web. They are just much more subtle compared to Microsoft and thus almost nobody notices. So, less Chrome-isms, please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is only going to get worse as newer iOS versions drop support for older hardware, especially iPads. It is doubly concerning since Apple bans browsers from the app store unless they just use the iOS-provided webkit engine for, so these devices are stuck with legacy Mobile Safari versions for the end of time.

As more and more modern iDevices become legacy while still being perhaps "powerful enough", I think we will start to see a persistent population of web users similar to the clan of IE6 users that took forever to shake off.

<comment><USER21> Oh right, of course few years old android phones can still be updated officially (-> by the average user, too), being way better this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The first example seems to work fine in iOS 11, but congrats on the clickbait title.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, iOS 11 is only a couple of weeks from being adopted from hundreds millions of people. Our community isn't as proactive in testing against unreleased software as the native iOS community. :disappointed_face:

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why not simply just div { height: 100vh } though? No overflow rules on the body needed

</comment><comment><USER24> Luckily, it doesn't have near the numbers IE 6 ever had and it's not something a company would require their employees to use for work applications long after EOL, that was the real pain of IE.

</comment><comment><USER25> It works the other way arround too. 2 years ago part of a site in production stoped working just because how chrome loaded some js libs at loading time. Ff,safary heck even ie worked ok but chrome.

</comment><comment><USER26> I fixed his bug by changing the height on panel from 100% to 100vh. No need for extra markup like his fix plus as someone else mention iOS 11 doesn't have this problem and that most likely means the next desktop version will that fix also.

<comment><USER2> This is not a fix, on mobile 100vh and 100% are different due to the auto- hiding address bar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> IE still holds the crown here. Lots of "enterprise" still use IE (not Edge), and IE have not got that much updates lately. That said I've had more issues with Safari then IE.

</comment><comment><USER28> This article barely makes a point for itself. Why is this on HN?

</comment><comment><USER29> Wasn't this "bug" originally meant to reproduce IE behavior for compatibility purposes with IE?

</comment><comment><USER30> Safari won't be the new IE until it has an IT department enforceable compatibility mode which breaks everything forever.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't know about the challenges for a web dev. But as a MacOS user I love Safari. It is very fast, it does not drain my battery and it gives me an increadibly streamlimed experience (bookmarks sync across all my Apple devices, I can continue a session that I started on my iOS device on my Mac).

Chrome kills my battery. Firefox is way to slow (startup time).

</comment><comment><USER32> Durn whippersnappers, when I started developing for the web Apple didn't even have a web browser. Personally, I dev on a Mac and use and test with Safari, Firefox, and Chrome and to be fair they're all great.

I can deal with little CSS issues but what Safari really needs is Service Worker support.

</comment><comment><USER33> The great things about CSS is that there are many ways to achieve the same result.

You just found one incompatible way of doing it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Safari may be broken but it's not as broken as ie6 was back in the day.

</comment><comment><USER35> Safari isn't the new IE for one big reason: it's the only rendering engine on iOS, which means if you want to support mobile web, you _have_ to support it, and that won't change anytime soon.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Can't you download other browsers in iOS? In any event, it may not be relevant if most iOS users don't bother.

<comment><USER36> They're all Safari underneath.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Thanks for replying! (I don't own an iOS device, so please bear this in mind before further dowloading, dear fellow HNers.) If all browsers render the same way, what is the point of downloading Chrome or Firefox, just syncing? Thanks again.

<comment><USER36> Pretty much. Different UI and features but all the same rendering engine.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Travel by cargo ship around the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/travel/articles/travel-by-cargo-ship-around-the-world.shtml

<comment><USER3> If you are serious about travel then get trained and crewed on a yacht. I met a lot of refugees from the 99-00 dotbomb. People that were college educated, unemployed, and worn out from the long hours. This was a welcome refuge for them. The hours were great and so were the locations. And the money was totally tax-free.

And, as a guy, 90% of their female colleagues were drop dead gorgeous. I really considered calling in work and resigning so I could join a crew on the next boat looking to hire.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like a nice way to spend my summer before I start work. Does anyone have any personal experience with this? Any resources or tips on how to go about this would be appreciated.

<comment><USER3> The biggest part is probably location. They aren't going to fly you in for an interview so you have to be in an area that has a yacht industry. This will be Ft. Lauderdale (your best bet), Miami, Palm Beach, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and parts of California. Go to the docks and pound the pavement. I was walking around taking pictures for my job when I inquired about availabilities crews were giving me all sorts of advice. The stories were so fascinating I was ready to call my office and drop everything. You'll find agencies in these areas that will probably want your CV and a passport photo. Appearance is big component of the job. Captains like their crew looking like the cast of a movie.

If you're looking for a summer only thing there are boats looking for crew. They don't pay you, you'll pay for part of the voyage to cover food, landing, and docking fees. Depending on the boat be prepared to work hard. But the payoff is better ports of call.

Try here: <http://www.crewfile.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apart from an excellent holiday, this sounds like a great way to get some coding done.

Take a laptop, a few books on your favourite languages, come back with a product!

<comment><USER6> I wonder what their net access is like? Guess everything's done via satellite phone, which might get a _little_ expensive.

<comment><USER7> I think having regular internet access would ruin the whole point of such a trip to me. The appeal is in the refuge-less disconnect, both from the internet and everything else.

<comment><USER8> I frequently try becoming a internet fugitive for periods of time, but its long arms eventually capture me again. I believe being in the middle of the ocean would certainly liberate me for a prolonged period of time, however so would going into cottage country in a tent . . . although there is considerably less bears at sea (note that there still is technically a fair amount due to Polar Bears being on ice in mid ocean, hence 'considerably less' and not 'no').

Internet access is both a curse and a blessing, however it tends to lean more towards the former rather than the heavy lean towards the latter that everyone desires.

<comment><USER9> Go south of the equator. No Polar bears down here.

<comment><USER8> But you have to watch underwater for frigging birds and there's flying fish! The southern hemispheres wildlife is insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The costs are just too high unless you only seek the romanticism of taking a boat with likely non-English speaking crew for weeks at a time across an ocean. A round-the-world ticket (www.oneworld.com to start) is usually a far better value in terms of seeing many places on a (much more) flexible schedule.

<comment><USER11> I regret my oneworld ticket approach to a 6.5 month backpack break - <USER2> retrospect I should have seen far fewer places and got a better feel for the ones I was in. It's also not nice having flights booked so far in advance that it's hard (not impossible) to stick around in the various paradises you come across.

<comment><USER10> Actually though you have a ton of flexibility on those tickets. If you need to move a date, it's easy enough to switch to any flight with availability in that class, no charge. Also, you can split it up and take half the trip, fly home for a while, then return and continue the trip where you left off. As long as you fly within a year, you can do segments 11 months apart really.

<comment><USER11> We had to pay £30 for a change, if I recall correctly...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I crewed on a private sailboat for a summer after college and it was amazing: it's a paid adventure with great people in breathtaking places. Even the middle of the ocean is surprisingly beautiful. The most important pre- requisite is a strong stomach. It's likely you'll hit a storm where you will be levitating off your bed at the height of each wave for two days straight: seasickness is completely incapacitating and will make your captain regret taking you onboard. If you pass that and can clean and heat up a pizza, most captains will take you on all expenses paid, possibly with pay. There is a migration of boats from the Caribbean to New England in the spring and back down south in the fall. Try hitting the docks at the stopping over points in St. Barts, Martinique, Bermuda, or Newport.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've looked at this in the past, and unfortunately it's prohibitively expensive for longer trips. I'd like to go transatlantic at some point, but it costs 2-3x as much as flying, and in fact, even more than a cruise ship (which sounds horrible to me).

<comment><USER13> I've looked into this and reached the same conclusion. Longer trip? Fewer Amenities? More expensive? It doesn't add up.

 _(really all I want to do is go fight pirates)_

<comment><USER14> You know that the crews are not only discouraged, but usually not allowed to fight back with real firearms for fear of retaliation ? The pirates are ready to die, after all. The most they'll do is use a fire lance to keep the pirates away or wash them off-board.

<comment><USER15> > The pirates are ready to die, after all.

Are they? They're willing to kill, but that's different.

Remember, a robber isn't telling you what he thinks that his life is worth, he's telling you what he thinks your life is worth to him.

<comment><USER14> I'm really meaning Somalian pirates, which have shown repeatedly complete disregards for their own lives. A Western robber is no match.

<comment><USER13> I would pay money to see this fight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Considering that you can ship a container from China to USA for about $3-4K, the quoted prices seem quite high at $125 per day.

Sure, food is included, but given that the ship no doubt purchases food in bulk, as well as resupplies itself at the cheapest ports, it would seem that $50 or less per day (perhaps double occupancy) would be a lot more reasonable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I speculate that the price is that high because they can afford to charge that much. A cargo ship can take only 12 passengers at most... and there seem to be a few 1000s of people who are really into this kind of traveling. Suppy & demand is the most likely explanation for such high prices.

For example, the following company charges $2,500 for a 20-day voyage from Long Beach to Shanghai:

<http://www.freighterworld.com/places/fareast.html#LaeiszCAX>

If the flight ticket is approx. $1,000 and 20 days of rent in LA are at least $500, then one is paying a $1,000 premium for the experience, which does not sound _too_ much if one does it only once. Travel by cargo ship on a regular basis would be unaffordable, though.

<comment><USER17> I believe the main reason they offer passenger service is that there are some shipments that need a human handler. (Horses, for example) There's definitely demand for passenger berths, albeit not for tourists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You used to be able to putter around the caribbean on a few of the mailships. Voyages normally lasted a day or 2 and the price was insanely cheap. But just like everything else, as more tourist figured out how the islanders got around a new business opportunity came up. Now the mailships aren't much cheaper then the puddle jumpers.

</comment><comment><USER18> I recommend reading Christopher Buckley's Steaming to Bambula - though things have changed since then.

([http://www.amazon.com/Steaming-Bamboola-World-Tramp- Freighte...](http://www.amazon.com/Steaming-Bamboola-World-Tramp- Freighter/dp/0140099220))

</comment><comment><USER19> Another alternative is the last Royal Mail ship: <http://www.rms-st- helena.com/>

</comment><comment><USER20> I always thought it would be cool but now I am not so certain.

Going 55 days without net access would be a deal breaker for me.

</comment><comment><USER21> "[...] many are happy to take you along for the ride."

If you are a woman, sure.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some more links:

[http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-travel-by- carg...](http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-travel-by-cargo-ship/)

<http://wikitravel.org/en/Freighter_travel>

[http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0011/miniguide_freighter_v...](http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0011/miniguide_freighter_voyage.html)

[http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0906/freighter-cruising- ex...](http://www.gonomad.com/transports/0906/freighter-cruising- experience.html)</comment>


What is the difference between Keto, Paleo and NSNG diets? - <AUTHOR> https://nosnivelling.com/2017/12/difference-keto-paleo-nsng-diets/ <comment><USER2> This seems very much like an ad for the NSNG site. And as far as I can tell, it's just keto with a dose of "don't feel bad if you have pie for xmas".

<comment><USER3> It wasn't meant to be an ad -- I wondered about the differences myself, and figured other people may as well. But in reading about the alternatives, it became a little bit more clear why NSNG has worked for me where other 'diets' have been too difficult to stick with. Anyway -- definitely wasn't intentional. I'll try to add more substance to future posts -- this one was just a quicky, trying to share some of what has really worked for me. Onward... PS just noticed your username -- we have a fawn frenchie named stella :-)

<comment><USER4>
      Note that NSNG adherents use the term 'way of eating' rather than diet

This usage precedes NSNG by _decades_. We used WoE in preference to "diet" in the 90s in keto forums like ASDLC.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Overlapse - easily create and share time-lapses from your smart phone - <AUTHOR> http://overlap.se/

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone wants a direct link to the app (which is where we'd really like the feedback) then it's on Google Play: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.overlapse&...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.overlapse&hl=en)</comment>


22 Signs That Global Economic Turmoil We Have Seen So Far Is Just the Beginning - <AUTHOR> http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/22-signs-that-the-global-economic-turmoil-we-have-seen-so-far-in-2016-is-just-the-beginning <comment><USER2> Just wondering how much positive economic news gets reported on theeconomiccollapseblog.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Lots of doom-saying in the comments of this site.

I hesitate to blame my own lack of jobhunting success on these trends, but it's possible.</comment>