How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/how-duolingo-got-110-million-users <comment><USER2> The title of the article belies its content. Several examples of marketing are cited:

\- They identified a market: people who want to learn a language as quickly, easily and inexpensively as possible.

\- They analyzed and understood the needs and desires of the target market. Presumably they further segmented the market.

\- They created an offering that met the needs of the segment(s) they were going after.

\- They deliberately positioned their product so as to attract as large a share of the addressable audience as possible .

\- They increased awareness and trial of their product via word-of-mouth, an age-old marketing communications tactic.

This is marketing.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention a high-profile TED talk: [https://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration?language=en)

<comment><USER4> Yes, word of mouth comes cheap when you're a recognized professor and inventor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The gamification aspects of Duolingo are a nice touch, but even if it didn't have this it would probably still be popular. I don't think there has to be some sort of "one weird trick" here.

It's not perfect, but Duolingo 1) is free, 2) has no ads, 3) has both a website and apps, 4) is interactive with audio and voice recognition. There really isn't any competition to this. Lots of people want to learn languages; is it surprising that it has tons of users?

<comment><USER6> Memrise ticks (1) (2) (3) and (4), although I believe it is now a fremium model.

<comment><USER7> Have you seen Wanikani? It's the best! Before I used Wanikani, I was struggling to learn Nihongo, also known as Japanese to you non-anime experts. I was able to get my katakana and hiragana down, and I was also a pro at romanji, but I just couldn't get myself to study the kanjis! By the way kanjis are like the Japanese alphabet if you were wondering. Anyways, I spent 2 years working really hard on my Japanese listening ability by listening to native material, but try as I did, I couldn't get anywhere, but then I used Wanikani, and WOW did it boost me up to a whole nother level! I'm starting my 4th year now learning the language, and I'm still working on Wanikani. Some people do it faster, but I'm happy with my pace. Anyways, I now know 756 kanjis thanks to Wanikani! It's definitely joyous to see all the progress I've made! Once I get through the rest the kanjis, then I'm going to learn the grammar, which should be easy due to all of the vocabulary and kanjis that I'll know. I do know basics, but I still have a lot of work left for my grammar.

Yeah, I really feel like technology is bringing us into a whole new era for language learning. At least it has for me.

みんなさん、どうもありがとう!

<comment><USER8> Well, we know wanikani is spending on advertising.

<comment><USER9> I use wanikani, and I'd be surprised if this was a fake/paid for post. The team that builds it is really small (just one guy develops the product, he has 2-3 employees for community management etc), and their user base is really in love with the product.

I might be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was just an excited user. Partly because for the reasons I just listed, and partly because his path to learning Japanese sounds... counter productive to say the least (learning 756 kanji over 4 years before you tackle grammar is... silly).

Regardless, wanikani (and other Japanese products made by this small company) is excellent. I recommend it, and am not affiliated with it.

Keep in mind in that learning a language, limiting yourself to a single source is silly. Try different textbooks, online courses, apps, YouTube videos, etc. Some of them will convey grammar in a way that clicks more with you, others pronunciation, others vocabulary, etc.

<comment><USER10> > Keep in mind in that learning a language, limiting yourself to a single > source is silly.

This. Two thousand times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Don't want to go all academic on you all, but what they taught us in school is: "marketing" entails every aspect of interaction with customers, so if customers hear about your product, that's marketing. If you have a product... that's marketing.

The article means to say "promotion" or "advertising" or "PR" or any of a myriad of "marcomm" activities that have a budget, but if you design a product to meet customer needs and bring it to market, you are marketing your product. If you think marketing has a negative connotation, you're doing it wrong, same as if your product is poorly designed or dangerous or simply ineffectual.

Approach your marketing program from the point of view of "meeting customer needs".

<comment><USER12> There's also the opportunity cost of foregoing revenue in order to make a product free. I don't doubt that they'll eventually be profitable, but they are definitely paying for their userbase, just indirectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Where does this idea of glorifying not spending on marketing come from? I think it involves a fundamental misalignment of the point of building a business.

I view a business as an investment vehicle and marketing is how you turn over that investment. I would be much more impressed with a business that can consistently arbitrage advertising into profits at scale.

In reality anything that touches a prospect, customer or user is marketing!

A better question is... how much further would duolingo be if they invested in advertising and focused more on marketing? Would they have billions of users instead of 110M ?

Further, how many of those 110M are like me that downloaded the app, used it once or twice and than never opened it again? How many users like me would use it much more if they did invest in communicating its value to me at ideal times. (i.e. when it sees I am visiting Cabo, or Cancun, two trips I took with the app on my phone and never touched it?)

<comment><USER14> I think soared's answer mostly explains it but also I think the demographic/general theme of this particular site has something to do with it. Tales of growth hacking and doing much with little are more interesting and relevant to people interested in starting their own businesses or having success with their own projects than tales of big marketing spends are.

I'm highly unlikely to find myself in a position any time soon where I've got a $500m marketing budget. So someone turning that in to $1b+ is of less interest to me than the guy who went from 0 to whatever cheaply.

<comment><USER13> If your $500m budget is only returning $1b you are probably losing money and are wasting a ton of your budget.

For what it's worth, Duolingo raised $83.3M , so it's not like they bootstrapped to that growth.

The growth hacking you are referring to has a large cost too. You need disciplined and very creative engineers, copywriters, analysts, a culture of testing, social psychologists, marketing experts, directors, etc... I bet Duolingo's marketing costs are well into the millions a year in Human Capital.

The stories of guys going from 0 to whatever cheaply are not the same stories as a company with 83 million in funding.

<comment><USER14> I mean, I didn't actually get anything out of this particular article at all or upvote it, but there was at least potential of hearing how they got to the point where they could get that funding and afford those experts, so I clicked it. It had a chance. Can't say the same if I saw "How Coca Cola increased ROI on their $2 billion advertising spend by 3%!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The title here is misleading -- the article barely talks about Duolingo's marketing strategy, touching briefly on word-of-mouth and gamification...

This is really just a fluff piece about Duolingo and the founder...

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this headline must have meant "without spending on advertising".

Marketing is a _far_ broader category than advertising.

</comment><comment><USER17> They got most of the Livemocha audience as the former turned to total sh--t. Livemocha used to be a great platform for learning. Then it was bought by Rosetta Code which sells expensive and obsolete language learning material.

<comment><USER18> What exactly was Livemocha? I heard a lot about it but by the time I did, they had already changed their site. What was their original approach that was so well received?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really wanted to use Duolingo but it appears that Japanese for English course is still not available (I would settle for just be able to speak and not read/write Japanese).

<comment><USER20> Duolingo primarily uses a text interface, so knowing the script is a key part of their methods. Japanese and Chinese scripts are among the hardest. So we'll probably see those added on late. Hebrew is a recent addition, and Hindi is on the anvil.

<comment><USER21> Yes, I guess they would probably show you what you have to type amongst choices and not make you type Japanese in your mobile phone

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > It uses the same tactic as a casino, where a slot machine increases your > chances of winning on the first couple of tries to give your brain a > dopamine rush to go for more.

Is this really a thing? Sounds exploitable, and I thought the randomness of slot machines is quite carefully vetted.

<comment><USER23> That's illegal as hell in Nevada, and I would assume in most jurisdictions in the US that permit casino gambling. The machines are very, very carefully engineered to give _exactly_ the odds reported to the regulator. If you don't, that's a corporate death sentence; if Nevada refuses to certify your machines you can't sell them anywhere.

The difficulty of certifying a machine / game / etc is so high that the industry mostly uses a few basic games which are proven (both from a legal and operational perspective) and then reskins them endlessly to keep players coming back. Vampires were in for the last few years, apparently, thanks to Twilight. (Anecdata based on walking through a few casinos while in town for Microconf. It's vampires, TV shows appealing to older Americans, and a lot of very very obviously US-company-attempts-to-do-China games.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Since I was curious it seems like they were valued at about 470 million in June 2015 (where it seems they had roughly 100 million users). I don't know how they plan to monetize (certified tests are mentioned and it seems they dropped their idea to crowd source translations) but it seems like they focus hard on staying free to grab even more users. Probably a decent case study for "defending VC" against bootstrapping.

TechCrunch article on their series D: [http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/10/duolingo- raises-45-million-...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/10/duolingo- raises-45-million-series-d-round-led-by-google-ventures-now-valued-at-470m/)

</comment><comment><USER25> They have marketing people working for them, so they're obviously spending money on "marketing". Advertising, which I think the article is alluding to, may or may not be worth it. ROI in your ad dollars is really where the trick is with paid acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been using Duolingo everyday for 2 months now (to learn Spanish). Some thoughts: It's entertaining. You don't need much motivation to "play" everyday. Whenever I want to procrastinate, I feel it's a better option than reading the news and so on... However, it's too simple (which is why it is addictive). By itself, it's not enough to learn a foreign language. It's a good complement, and a great way to get started though.

</comment><comment><USER20> Having a marketing department to get the word out is very different from running expensive marketing campaigns through digital marketing platforms. The sense of the heading is clear enough - that building a good product and telling a cool story about it does more for your marketing than many paid campaigns.

</comment><comment><USER27> > "without spending a dollar on marketing"

Yet their crunchbase profile shows they have a head of marketing. That's basically like saying I didn't spend a dime on engineering because I built the app myself.

</comment><comment><USER28> By offering a valuable, no-cheating service, so users would talk about it.

It is actually a heuristic - as long as you see a costly marketing, the product is either crap or fraud. SAP is the best example.

If you see an established product, such as Facebook, advertising itself, think of it in a users-data-mining stage, instead of offering a valuable service which gives growth without deceiving maladverticing.

<comment><USER29> Beware of judging costliness by frequency though. I see advertisements for DigitalOcean and Linode fairly frequently, but their offerings are certainly not crap.

<comment><USER28> These "small guys" are re-selling metered resources of leased hardware, and has a lot of competition, so they need ads. Their ads are usually factual, not deceiving or cryptic-misleading, like that AWS nonsense-marketing-speak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The title is misleading. The very article is a clever piece of marketing. And it certainly cost something to someone to get it online. Perhaps the correct title is "without spending on advertising"?</comment>


I want to be Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud - <AUTHOR> http://www.tawheedkader.com/2010/06/i-want-to-be-bootstrapped-profitable-proud/

<comment><USER2> I would be cautious about airing these concerns in front of the same audience that you want to spend money on your products:

      1. Are Braintrust and Tout the right products? Will it make money for me?
      2. Do I need to focus on one product to succeed? Is now the right time to focus?

It's hard to get too excited about using either of your products knowing that you're likely to kill one of them in six months.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I now clarify in the post what I actually think about these products and that is unlikely I will kill them (not because its what I should say, but its what I truly believe)

<comment><USER3> Please don't kill Tout - I'm a big fan! Good Luck TK.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't be leaving my six-figure day job if I didn't believe in Braintrust and Tout. They're not getting killed ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "I realized that I was getting very fixated on the financial questions, and even worse was jumping to common solutions like "oh.. Just go look for funding.""

I get so tired of people saying this. Looking for funding is a crapshoot. It's hard. It's grueling. It takes 2-3 months to even take a shot at it, and most people walk away empty handed. And no offense to the OP, but his businesses (on the surface) ARE NOT FUNDABLE. They aren't obviously huge opportunities. Given what he's posted about them, they don't have great traction. He's a single founder.

It makes me grumpy when people triumphantly declare that they aren't going to "choose" to get funded. Great companies fail to raise money all the time (if you want to read a truly outstanding post on the topic from a great company who did fail to raise money: <http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seomozs-venture- capital-process> ).

The other gem in the post: "Of course I don't want funding. Of course I should work on my ideas freely. I don't want to take on any masters."

What the HECK makes you think that early stage investors won't let you work on your ideas freely? Or want to be your masters? At most, the OP's businesses MIGHT have a ghost's chance at angel funding. Angels don't sit on your board. Most of them have very full lives and a large portfolio of investments that they generally ignore. There are very few contractual protections for angels. Yeah, you might have to drop them an update every quarter or two.

Bootstrapping is a fine "choice" here, to be sure. It's a great way to build a business (and it's how I built my first one). But, this whole post doesn't really convey a good understanding of early stage financing (either getting funding or the realities of post-angel funding).

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Whether I can get funding is a second order question. Who cares if I can actually get funding? The first thing to figure out is whether I _NEED_ funding and whether I _WANT_ funding and all the things that come along with it -- and that is all this post focuses on.

1a. Regardless of how hard it may be to get funding, the value equation has changed. I don't _NEED_ funding to build a web startup, I don't _NEED_ the VC... I value it. And that is a difference you are missing.

2\. On me not wanting another MASTER: Why would someone give me money without putting in place some sort of accountability? Some sort of plan? I wouldn't even want to take on funding from someone without being sure that I can deliver on what I am promising, and even more importantly, I wouldn't want to take on an investor that throws money at me and just forgets about me.

<comment><USER4> "2. On me not wanting another MASTER: Why would someone give me money without putting in place some sort of accountability?"

Most angels don't. I'm not making this up. Sure, there are contractual protections to make sure you don't sell the company for $1 to your Aunt Linda. And yeah, they want an interesting vision (most know that deep planning makes you too rigid, so don't encourage it).

The best balance is an angel that gives money, gives great advice and help when you ask for it, keeps you a little disciplined by asking hard questions, but largely stays out of your way and lets you run the company. Most angels know this-- and that's how most of them behave (I've raised money from half a dozen angels and pitched 15 or so).

It seems like you agree-- you don't want a master and you don't want an angel who "just forgets about you". 90% of them are neither-- so an angel looks like a good fit if these businesses (or future ideas) reach a fundable place.

My contention (which stands) is that your concerns with early stage investment are wrong (i.e. fear of loss of freedom/control)-- unless you're talking about the freedom to build an unfundable business... which is fine. A LOT of really freakin' awesome businesses aren't right for equity investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you are fooling yourself by thinking that you do not give up any freedom/control by taking someone else's money.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


X-Frame-Options: All about Clickjacking? (2013?) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://frederik-braun.com/xfo-clickjacking.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: discussion and examples of various xss attacks using iframes as attack vectors.</comment>


Jim Keller to Depart Intel - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/changes-intels-technology-systems-architecture-client-group/ <comment><USER2> Jim's talk with Lex Friedman was quite amazing. Highly recommend listening-

[https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA](https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA)

<comment><USER3> > If you constantly unpacked everything for deeper understanding, you're never > going to get anything done. If you don't unpack understanding when you need > to, you'll do the wrong thing.

I really liked that quote. It's a great talk indeed.

<comment><USER4> It echoes a Confucius quote I like: "Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning is dangerous." (Analects 2:15)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bloomberg has the following commentary:

 _"Keller's departure is a big deal and suggests that whatever he was implementing at Intel was not working or the old Intel guard did not want to implement it," Hans Mosesmann, an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, wrote in a note to investors. "The net of this situation for us is that Intel's processor and process node roadmaps are going to be more in flux or broken than even we had expected."_

</comment><comment><USER6> Intel has some absolutely killer politics, especially at the higher level, entire organisations will plan road maps deliberately contingent on deliverables they know other teams are going to miss. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the result of Keller just having enough of it and giving up. The fact that the press release involves an already resolved organisational structure that looks highly political is a big red flag.

</comment><comment><USER7> Jim Keller giving a talk on Moore's Law at Berkeley,

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIG9ztQw2Gc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIG9ztQw2Gc)

And another

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eT1jaHmlx8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eT1jaHmlx8)

And another

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnl7-- MvNAM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnl7--MvNAM)

DEC, PA Semi, Apple, AMD, Tesla, Intel. He's been everywhere.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_\(engineer\))

The internal announcement memo:

[https://wccftech.com/exclusive-intel-internal-memo-jim- kelle...](https://wccftech.com/exclusive-intel-internal-memo-jim-keller- departure-new-structure/)

<comment><USER8> I like it when they're introducing him and during the introduction he was praised for "Zen Architecture"; you can see Jim in the background shaking his head - sign of humility that he is not alone, amazing engineering team that made that happen under his leadership. This kind of humility is rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's so funny to hear the interviewer explaining to Jim what he understands. All this happening after in the first part of the interview he couldn't compute the answer Jim gave when explaining predicting branches. Also he's in no position to push back on ideas. As if I really care what the interviewer care or not.

It's such a pity the interviewer didn't prepare more technical questions that touch on the new architectures, compilers, cache, TPUs and his design experience. I only care about him asking good questions.

Jim equally seems incredibly engaged and patient with the questions sometime moving the game to a lot higher level than at which the question was posed. Without breaking a sweat.

<comment><USER10> interviewer is a domain expert in AI, which maybe explain what he pushed back and what he didn't delve deeper into

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If Jim is going back to Apple or AMD then the Intel struggle won't stop anytime soon. As much as I like Apple, I hope his choice will be AMD.

<comment><USER12> Every time I criticise Intel, Or more like pointing out facts , supporters will always use Jim Keller as the excuse, as if he was the silver bullet.

Intel's struggle has nothing to do with is processors' design. Sunny Cove and Willow Cove ( aka Icelake and TigerLake ) were close to design complete before Jim Keller joined. Intel's problem is with their manufacturing, both technical and economical. And Jim Keller is not a Fab guy, nothing he could do to fix this.

<comment><USER13> Why do you say their problem is based in manufacturing?

<comment><USER14> They have been working on the 10nm manufacturing process for ages and it's still not completely finished. That gave AMD huge opportunity to catch up (which it did).

<comment><USER15> Nothing stops Intel manufacturing their designs with third parties. Yet they don't.

Either it isn't worth it (too much coupling between fab and designs - not the right abstractions), or institutional inertia stops them doing it.

<comment><USER16> I'm not a hardware engineer/cpu designer/electrical engineer, but my understanding is that designing high end cpus requires engineering and designing towards the specific manufacturing process of the fabs you're using. Even if intel did decide to, I don't _think_ they could just send their designs to tsmc/global foundries or what have you.

<comment><USER17> Not my expertise either, but it seems that the advantages of vertical integrations between fabbing and chip design being large was the "common wisdom" in the industry for a long time. But it seems that lately AMD/NVIDIA/TSMC and others have demonstrated that fabless chip companies and merchant foundries is a model capable of producing the highest end chips as well.

And yes, if for some reason Intel would want to fab their chips at some merchant foundry (see my sibling answer to yours why I think that's unlikely, but just for the sake of argument), I'm quite sure they couldn't just email the RTL's to the foundry and get chips back. It would take a lot of work to adapt the chips to the merchant foundry's process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm guessing a project he was working on either wrapped up or got canned. He had previously helped AMD with their Zen architecture.

<comment><USER8> My guess is he is going back to Apple.

<comment><USER15> He's been at Apple before. Doubt he'll go back to a place he's been before unless he thinks the landscape has changed enough he can have a really big impact again. I don't think thats the case at Apple.

No - I think he'll go to Nvidia, because he hasn't been there before, hasn't really worked on GPU's before, and because I think GPU's could gain a lot of performance by having someone look at optimizing the big picture, adding the right abstraction layers, and generally making a GPU more CPU-like to allow more execution to be moved to it more easily.

<comment><USER19> > Doubt he'll go back to a place he's been before unless he thinks the > landscape has changed enough he can have a really big impact again

He did two separate stints at AMD, and if the rumors of Apple switching the Mac to the A-series are true (which they probably are) then there will be some very interesting problems to solve over the next few years.

<comment><USER20> If Apple switches Macs to ARM this or next year as rumored, all the interesting problems w.r.t. chip design must have been solved at this point.

<comment><USER19> You could make this same argument for any sufficiently mature architecture, but the reality is that there's always something new around the corner. I can't imagine the processor in an eventual ARM-based Mac Pro will look much like the one in the first ARM-based MacBook, you know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My guesses to this are either 1) leaving due to not a good culture fit or 2) literally a personal reason (e.g., health).

Intel has a culture which isn't exactly amenable to working flexibly, or to someone coming in and making lots of changes to the culture itself.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's a huge surprise. For reference, Intel's stock is down 6.5% today (on what is admittedly a historically bad day for the market to begin with).

<comment><USER22> I don't know that those are necessarily correlated. The S&P500 is also down by 6%. NVidia is down by 6%. AMD is actually down by 8%

<comment><USER23> A good person leaving a company drives the company's stock price down. A truly great person leaving a company drives entire industry's stock down.

(tongue in cheek)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Resigned effective immediately, announced the same day due to "personal reasons" is not a good look. Anyone who's spent a sufficient amount of time reading $BIGCORP press releases immediately sees how it stands out from the usual PR fluff.

In situations where I have seen that in the past, the person was caught in grievously bad, unambiguous case of sexual harassment, racism or something equally socially despised.

If this is not the case, Intel's PR people are doing a serious disservice to Keller in the way the announcement has been structured.

Generally if a higher level executive resigns due to actual "personal reasons" or a family tragedy, and it's an amicable departure, it's announced with at least a few weeks notice.

<comment><USER25> Your throwing of shade is unwarranted:

> Intel is pleased to announce, however, that Mr. Keller has agreed to serve > as a consultant for six months to assist with the transition.

<comment><USER24> If I'm being critical of anyone, it's the person who wrote the press release and decided on the "effective immediately" and same date, not Keller. They _have_ to be aware of the optics of it.

<comment><USER12> I am thinking if it was an opportunistic PR. They knew he was resigning for some time, but didn't want some bad PR from it as Keller was known as the man to save Intel. Given the market situation today they have decided to rush into this announcement.

And yes I do agree with your take on it. Intel has some of the best PR and marketing folks in tech industry. The writing is surely something to be worth looking into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wishing him good luck and healthy life.

</comment><comment><USER27> And...back to AMD?

<comment><USER28> It says "for personal reasons," which is not text I would expect if he was just going to another company.

<comment><USER29> He could have had a falling out with Intel losing their edge

<comment><USER30> These things are in development for many years before they hit silicon, I don't think his time at intel has been long enough for that to be true. More likely, IMO, is that the same bureaucracy that lead to intel falling behind drives people like Keller away.

If scaling pipelines is hard, scaling pipeline pipelines is harder.

<comment><USER31> Accountant management. Current CEO came up thru finance. Knows how to hold a dividend steady but not a wafer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow. This likely throws a wrench in Intel's ability to design a revolutionary "Non Core" architecture free of all the security vulnerabilities that have been plaguing the Core family due to unsafe shortcuts in the name of performance.

Here's to hoping that in the 2 years Keller had been in Intel, he had left many good, realizable ideas on how to overhaul Intel's CPU architecture. If not, then this news might be the death knell for Intel's CPU might for the next decade.

<comment><USER33> Given the lifetime of CPU design, if Intel releases a revolutionary new architecture in two years, we'll know where it came from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Best guess: Jim Keller came in with guns blazing about how Moore's law is not dead and if you believe so you're stupid.

He was a comp-architecture guy counting on the device/physics folks to deliver. They didn't, while Jim put his reputation on the line. He probably resigned in disappointment and/or protest.

\- Moore's law is dead at the physics level.

\- Exponential tech progress doesn't stop but it won't be in the form of Si FETs, at least not in the foreseeable future.

\- There is plenty of opportunity at the higher layers of abstraction though.

\- Fortunately the AGI problem has escaped Moore's law (AGI can happen with existing node technology). And in my opinion that's all that matters for the next 10 years.

<comment><USER35> What is the AGI problem? I've never heard of it.

<comment><USER36> Artificial General Intelligence.</comment></comment></comment>


The Zappos way of managing - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090501/the-zappos-way-of-managing_Printer_Friendly.html

<comment><USER2> When people are happy, they do good work. Understanding the human condition is a surprisingly rare trait.

More companies need to take notice.

</comment><comment><USER3> "he runs what is arguably the decade's most innovative start-up, Zappos.com. Hsieh helped start Zappos in 1999 as an online shoe store" They seem to be defining "the decade" creatively in order to exclude google (founded in 1998). Yuck.

<comment><USER4> I read it to mean _this_ decade, not the 90s.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't google also apply there? I read it as an attempt to exclude them by defining the decade as 1999-2009. Or as I described it, "creatively."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most unintentionally (?) funny thing I've read in awhile:

"...The call center rep had ordered the flowers without checking with a supervisor and billed them to the company. 'At the funeral, the widow told her friends and family about the experience,' Hsieh said, his voice cracking and his eyes tearing up ever so slightly. 'Not only was she a customer for life, but so were those 30 or 40 people at the funeral.'"</comment>


Show HN: Tragopan – Minimal, dependency-free pan/zoom JavaScript library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/team-video/tragopan <comment><AUTHOR> We use this library on [https://team.video](https://team.video) for panning and zooming around in screenshares.

It can be really useful if you have situation where a colleague is sharing their hi-res screen, when meanwhile you're on a laptop with a lower-res screen, and you want to zoom in on their terminal or some part of the screenshare so that the text there can be easier to read.

<comment><USER2> Demo link -> [https://team-video.github.io/tragopan/](https://team- video.github.io/tragopan/)

This looks good, will check out for one of our projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice! We've been looking for a lightweight solution to zooming on images in the issue tracker we're building [0]. Figured we'd end up rolling our own because we're trying to avoid adding heavy dependencies for these little things. But this looks great, we'll definitely give it a try!

0: [https://kitemaker.co](https://kitemaker.co)

</comment><comment><USER4> Having infinite pan/zoom is a very exciting, you always have free room to write new things! I made BigPicture a few years ago for this purpose. Live demo: [https://josephernest.github.io/bigpicture.js/index.html](https://josephernest.github.io/bigpicture.js/index.html)

Note: I never did a mobile version, so it only works on desktop; same for the website [https://bigpictu.re/demo](https://bigpictu.re/demo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, that is a cool concept. Part of the motivation with tragopan was to see if using native scrolling could be a more natural fit especially on mobile, versus the more common way of using transform/translate.

On BigPicture, two bits of feedback for what it's worth:

\- Maybe try `user-select: none` while a user is panning? Otherwise I end up inadvertently selecting text sometimes when I try to pan around, especially in Firefox

\- I couldn't figure out how to make a given bit of text bigger or smaller, like the demo shows is obviously possible. I did make it happen a few times but then couldn't understand what steps had actually led to the change... Maybe some instructions on that, or just a floating toolbar could help (even though the toolbar-less aesthetic and approach is otherwise pretty nice!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Scroll zoom on the demo image is very choppy for me. Not sure if it's my screen or the library itself.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I'm using the latest version of Firefox.

<comment><USER7> Which OS? There is an issue open for Firefox on iOS: [https://github.com/team- video/tragopan/issues/3](https://github.com/team-video/tragopan/issues/3). Is yours different?

<comment><USER6> Firefox on Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm finding it very choppy and jumpy Safari Version 13.1.1 (14609.2.9.1.3) Mojave 10.14.6

<comment><USER7> Is the toolbar jumpy (which is a known problem, I've just opened an issue for it at [https://github.com/team- video/tragopan/issues/5](https://github.com/team-video/tragopan/issues/5)), or is the zooming jumpy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It works well on Chrome for desktop.

On the demo page, it looks like you're using CSS that isn't supported by most browsers, which might be what causes the flickering / jank on Safari.

      width: max-length;
      scrollbar-width: none;

</comment><comment><USER10> Very jumpy on my iphone with firefox or chrome, sadly. Okay with safari. I suspect it's the shoddy version of webkit apple forces upon moz and google.

Nice effort. I applaud any efforts to make a dependency free anything in js.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the report - I've filed it at [https://github.com/team- video/tragopan/issues/3](https://github.com/team-video/tragopan/issues/3)

I couldn't reproduce the Chrome jumpiness - what version of Chrome/iOS was giving you trouble?

<comment><USER10> Latest ios. Chrome 70.0.3538.75. It's a little better in chrome than ff, but when I pan up and down in chrome it jumps.

<comment><USER7> Okay, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can you write a bit about why this over other pan zoom libs.

<comment><USER7> I've opened an issue to track this request: [https://github.com/team- video/tragopan/issues/4](https://github.com/team-video/tragopan/issues/4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very smooth</comment>


The retaliation begins: Google profiles get Schmidt-faced - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57607238-71/the-retaliation-begins-google-profiles-get-schmidt-faced/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TechnicallyIncorrect <comment><USER2> This is funny but I expect will ultimately prove fruitless. Advertising companies like Facebook and Google are not going to back away from monetizing the information they have been collecting from their willing users. In the end, you have the option not to use their services if you don't care for the terms.

<comment><USER3> yup, newsflash to all the idiots in the world: google and facebook aren't doing anything for free. blue_beetle is still right:

       "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product
       being sold."</comment></comment>


Mapping the internet with Hilbert curves - <AUTHOR> https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/scan-ping-the-internet-hilbert-curve <comment><USER2> Nice! Perhaps a Gibson quote is appropriate here:

> Program a map to display frequency of data exchange, every thousand > megabytes a single pixel on a very large screen. Manhattan and Atlanta burn > solid white. Then they start to pulse, the rate of traffic threatening to > overload your simulation. Your map is about to go nova...

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think straight hilbert curves:IP ranges are the best mapping, and would prefer something built around ping times or hop check routings in 3 dimensions. Or integrate it with geolocation data. But! It's still super useful. Or integrate it with geolocation data.

 _On top of all of this, I also did a bonus scan of a few APNIC IP blocks every 30 mins for 24 hours. The data from that allows you to see the internet "breathe" as clients come online in the morning and offline at night_

Really, I'm surprised there isn't a distributed/crowdsourced system to do this all the time and allow people to study the 'weather' in the datasphere.

<comment><USER4> H-curves have better locality, might be interesting to use those:

[0] [http://www.akt.tu-berlin.de/fileadmin/fg34/publications- akt/...](http://www.akt.tu-berlin.de/fileadmin/fg34/publications- akt/fct97.pdf)

[1] [http://hint.fm/papers/158-wattenberg- final3.pdf](http://hint.fm/papers/158-wattenberg-final3.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also for fun, ipv6 exhaustion counter.

[https://samsclass.info/ipv6/exhaustion-2016.htm](https://samsclass.info/ipv6/exhaustion-2016.htm)

<comment><USER6> Note: A power law is definitely not the same thing as an exponential fit. Using the two interchangeably is disingenuous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish this used a good color mapping, like Viridis or cubehelix, or at least used HSLuv or HPLuv to map the parameters to colors. I bet we could see a lot more patterns in this then.

Edit: I made a github issue for this:

[https://github.com/measurement- factory/ipv4-heatmap/issues/2](https://github.com/measurement- factory/ipv4-heatmap/issues/2)

</comment><comment><USER8> I did something similar few years back, mapping ipv4 address space owners.

[http://zokier.net/stuff/map_of_the_internet.png](http://zokier.net/stuff/map_of_the_internet.png)

</comment><comment><USER9> You can scan the whole internet in about an hour. I had luck using AWS and zmap.

[https://github.com/zmap/zmap](https://github.com/zmap/zmap)

<comment><USER10> >ZMap can scan the IPv4 address space in under 5 minutes.

<comment><USER11> That's misleading, because you're quoting half of a sentence. Full quote:

> On a typical desktop computer with a gigabit Ethernet connection, ZMap is > capable scanning the entire public IPv4 address space in under 45 minutes. > With a 10gigE connection and PF_RING, ZMap can scan the IPv4 address space > in under 5 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> According to [1] IPv6 adoption is slowed down significantly, so we stick to NAT for a decade at least I think.

[1] [https://www.google.com/intl/ru/ipv6/statistics.html](https://www.google.com/intl/ru/ipv6/statistics.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> The 9MB PNG is unoptimized. By passing it through optipng and advdef I managed to losslessly squish it down to 7MB.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not point out that this:

cat ping.txt | pcregrep -o1 ': (\d+\\.\d+\\.\d+\\.\d+)'

is a Useless Use Of Cat.[1]

It should be rewritten:

pcregrep -o1 ': (\d+\\.\d+\\.\d+\\.\d+)' <ping.txt

[1] [http://porkmail.org/era/unix/award.html](http://porkmail.org/era/unix/award.html)

<comment><USER14> >I managed to squish it down to 7 MB

wow, what a stellar compression ratio

>Useless Use Of Cat

Oh My God No One Cares

<comment><USER13> > wow, what a stellar compression ratio

It's pretty good when compared to uncompressed RGB of the same size, which would be 48M.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You can do the same with LBA's of a block device. It's interesting to see where different file systems place the (meta) data.

</comment><comment><USER16> How do the number of internet connections relate to the number of nodes? Building fat pipes is not the answer just as more highways is not the answer to more destinations. The increase in traffic will consume more resources exponentially (factorially?)faster than the increase of address space

</comment><comment><USER17> IPv6 Active Webhosts Hilbert also exist based on Akamai data as I found this d3 block by Vasco Asturiano:

[https://bl.ocks.org/vasturiano/0c0f60cf193fa3a04b5d414aed6f5...](https://bl.ocks.org/vasturiano/0c0f60cf193fa3a04b5d414aed6f5834)

The author also has some other cool d3 visualizations of IPv6 Routes, AS, as well as IPv4 allocations.

</comment><comment><USER18> Surprised that he missed out 192.168.0.0/16

<comment><USER19> why ? these are non routable...

<comment><USER20> It is missing from the table of reserved ip addresses.

He mentions:

0.0.0.0/8 Local System 10.0.0.0/8 Local LAN 127.0.0.0/8 Loopback 169.254.0.0/16 "Link Local" 172.16.0.0/12 Local LAN 188.8.131.52/4 Multicast 240.0.0.0/4 "Future use"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It strikes me that we've "run out" of IPv4 address space but there's entire large blocks of space allocated to entities that don't appear to be using them.

</comment><comment><USER22> Aye :)

[https://xkcd.com/195/](https://xkcd.com/195/)</comment>


Cryptographic hobbyists claim to create unbreakable code - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/02/technology/unhackable_code/

<comment><USER2> I wish people like cnn would do more research, or ask an encryption expert.

I could produce a dozen encryption systems which are fatally flawed, yet impossible to hack given only a page or so of encrypted text.

The challenge comes when people

A) Know the algorithm.

B) Have Gigabytes of encrypted text.

Because there is no way you will ever keep your algorithm secret once you release the software, and people will encrypt lots of text.

I am sure under these circumstances, their encryption will fall very quickly, unless the underlying basis is one of the existing good encryption systems (which I doubt).

EDIT: Found the following hilarious clip of text:

"We make you a deal: We will reveal our algorithm the same time when Google reveals theirs. Does the fact that Google does not reveal their search algorithm make their algorithm questionable?"

The very idea that google not sharing their search algorithms, and these people not sharing their encryption algorithm, are the same thing, shows either these people fundamentally misunderstand encryption, or are frauds. Or both.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not even bad encryption, it's just a cipher. Release the executable, analyze the assembly, and it's completely broken.

This is their test for unbreakability:

> We will create a contest where hackers will subscribe to with an entrance > fee of $250.00. The first one to hack the encryption will receive 1 Million > Dollars.

> 1.We will host the event at BYU.

> 2.One person will be assigned to choose an article from the web to be > encrypted.

> 3.We will encrypt article

> 4.Hackers will attempt to crack the code

> 5.300 Days of standing offer.

> 6.If code will not be cracked, IPO in September 2012

This is not how peer review works. I don't think I need to point out why.</comment>


Dictatorship of Google in Android? - <AUTHOR> http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2010/04/is-android-evil/

<comment><USER2> Trolling/linkbait. The points made are taken out of context and mixed with a conspiratorial tone.</comment>


Canada Learning Code to provide 10m Canadians with access to tech education - <AUTHOR> http://www.canadalearningcode.ca/ <comment><USER2> They spout the 'Canada has a Shortage of IT/STEM' that seems to get thrown around a lot.

They'll create these 10 million education 'experiences' but are they doing anything to create jobs?

Maybe they should try to compete more with competitive tech jobs and salaries.

Where as now a lot of the best talent is drained to America due to better wages.</comment>


SinGAN: Learning a Generative Model from a Single Natural Image - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.01164 <comment><USER2> I think the approach is really cool but the processing time required is too much for this to be very useful at the moment.

On a 1080 Ti it takes 45-90 minutes to train networks for the various tasks on 256px images (depending on some quality parameters and which task). Each task also requires training individually so if you'd like to try them all for a given image you'll need to train 6 times.

Also the pyramid of GANs approach is very memory hungry. I was only able to get up to 724px images with 11 GB of VRAM. This was also only possible with a higher scale factor (sparser pyramid) which sacrifices a lot of quality and is incredibly noticeable at larger image sizes. I only tried for larger sizes with the animation task though, perhaps there is a way to combine the super resolution and animation task and achieve better results. Training on larger sizes was taking upwards of 6-8 hours.

All of this was tested with the official repo[1] about a month ago.

[1] [https://github.com/tamarott/SinGAN](https://github.com/tamarott/SinGAN)

<comment><USER3> Could you put that in context in terms of $$? How much does it cost in aws/gcp/azure to run a 1080 ti for 90 minutes?

Would you say that could be a downside of the single image approach? Rather than feeding images into a generalized model you're training a whole model per image which is costly to scale?

<comment><USER4> You can't run nVidia consumers cards in datacenters. You need to use the expensive versions. However, for a one-off of 90 minutes they still come cheap (like [https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator/#id=cd604b5c-76...](https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator/#id=cd604b5c-7644-48f7-a52c-afa3b2898b85) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not read the paper in detail yet, but it reminds me of Deep Image Prior ([https://sites.skoltech.ru/app/data/uploads/sites/25/2018/04/...](https://sites.skoltech.ru/app/data/uploads/sites/25/2018/04/deep_image_prior.pdf)).

<comment><USER6> the authors of the paper were actually aware of the deep image prior and even compare to it. The SinGAN is apparently clearly superior to the deep image prior (DIP).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks fantastic and gets me excited about where the field is going, despite the performance issues.

</comment><comment><USER8> Having spent some time in trying to do style transfers, this looks very promising.

The harmonization aspect of the paper actually makes it very useful. There certainly are cases where you want to introduce an image component as an overlay and want the style to integrate.

Really cool stuff, and with code!

</comment><comment><USER9> where there any images with people?

<comment><USER10> Check out

[https://github.com/tamarott/SinGAN/tree/master/Downloads](https://github.com/tamarott/SinGAN/tree/master/Downloads)

They ran it on the Berkeley Segmentation Dataset; the human faces came out a little interesting...</comment></comment>


Netflix – Our learnings from adopting GraphQL - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/our-learnings-from-adopting-graphql-f099de39ae5f <comment><USER2> This was so interesting to read. I greenfielded a project recently and while we went with GraphQl (largely for the same reasons they did) I also admired Falcor a lot, and well remember the day I saw it hit 1.0 here on HN. Falcor has been my road-not-taken, despite being happy with GraphQL.

How could Falcor move to compete? it's a neat technology.

<comment><USER2> Although in retrospect it seems weird to ask you about a package you didn't even use, so, uh, there's that

<comment><USER2> wait, hold on. it should be possible to use Falcor as a transport and something like Apollo Link to provide a GraphQL interface. Basically apollo- link-state but the store is shared with the server via Falcor

<comment><USER2> OK that would actually rock I am going to go play</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Relating Tuning and Timbre - <AUTHOR> http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/consemi.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is the informal summary of William Sethares' model of musical consonance and dissonance perception. The full paper is available at: [http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/paperspdf/consonance.pdf](http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/paperspdf/consonance.pdf)

This model generalizes musical theory to arbitrary timbres and tuning systems. It shows how the Pythagorean idea of simple integer frequency ratios being consonant is not fundamental, but a result of the design of common Western musical instruments. Instruments with enharmonic timbres, such as those used in Indonesian gamelan music, require different tuning. The underlying principal remains the same. Combined with synthesized timbres, this model allows for even more unusual tunings, without the dissonance usually associated with microtonal music.</comment>


Jonathan Ive designs Leica camera for Red charity - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24458783 <comment><USER2> The charity sector looks forward to a Bono-led recovery

RICH PARADISE, Bahamas, Monday (UNN) — The (RED) anti-AIDS marketing initiative has announced its first annual results.

The initiative, fronted by Bono, seeks to promote a "co-philanthropy" model, wherein companies can do good works by selling products they were going to sell anyway, but with a little red bit on to show how much they care. Really. They care.

"We've worked hard on the model," said Bobby Shriver, (RED) CEO. "It's been a brand launch designed to get people used to the idea of an entirely new fund raising model. Because (RED) is explicitly NOT a charity, we encourage our partners to go about their business including their marketing. Gap, Apple, Sprint and other sales people are meeting Americans and explaining that 5,500 Africans dying daily of AIDS is preventable."

"The publicity has been fantastically effective," said Bono from his Caribbean island. "Steven Spielberg smiling down from billboards in San Francisco, Christy Turlington striking a yoga pose in a New Yorker ad, me cruising Chicago's Michigan Avenue with Oprah Winfrey, eagerly snapping up Red products, Chris Rock appearing in Motorola TV spots saying 'Use Red, nobody's dead', and the Red room at the Grammy Awards. This is something to be really proud of."

Zombie Steve Jobs also voiced his support. "I don't see how else you can assuage your OVERWHELMING GUILT at your comfortable life and income without a Red U2 iPod on your belt. Imagine the SHAME if people saw you with a plain white or black one. The SHAME."

The stunning return to AIDS charities for 2006 was $18,000 on over $100 million in marketing and consumer spend. "The only way is up!" said Shriver. "Onward and upward!"

"Buy more stuff!" said Jobs.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual perforations" sounds so much fancier than "metal screen".

<comment><USER4> Metal screens are just stamped or rolled sheet metal, while these perforations are made by a CNC mill from the same piece of aluminium as the rest of the body.

Might not mean anything to a layperson but watching a CNC mill make thousands of precision perforations would be quite a sight.

<comment><USER5> Those perforations are lasered out, like they do the MBP speaker grill/holes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm always uneasy with the idea of (RED) charity: the message is "save the world by buying stuff". It's just consumerism with a bit of karma, no?

<comment> k-mcgrady I think it's more "you're going to buy this product anyway, so why not go with the model that will help a charity?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This to me does not really strike me as some Mr. Ives would have had a large amount of time in, and quite frankly am shocked that he put his name on this.

The Leica M has had pretty much the same dimensions and design for since the 50s (save to major departures the Leica CL and the Leica M5). Note that I am referring to the analog film version and not the modern digital M8 and later incarnations design, along with the Fender Stratocaster are the closest thing to perfection anyone has come up with.

The Stratocaster is a discussion for another time. In the case of the Leica, it is the best design because it distills the essence of the photographic expression and builds the product around that. The controls are simple. You have a shutter speed dial, a film crank, a shots taken indicator. Aperture control is on the lens barrel. Any photographer can pick up a Leica M and know how it works intuitively. The controls fall right where they should. Its been 50 years, and no one really has come up with a better interface to take a picture.

This design throughs all of that out the window. From the looks of the picture, it doesn't look very comfortable to hold. It seems to rounded, and the "cheese greater" design is just asking for dust/environmental problems. A well used Leica looks even more desirable with age, this would just look hideous. This design just lost all of the elegance that 50 years of incremental design bestowed on the Leica M and turned it into something that looks like a Braun product.

Then lets move to the usability -- whats with the recessed dials??? the whole point of the dial placement ABOVE the top plate is so that the photographer can operate all the controls via his thumb without taking his mind away from the act of taking a picture. This completely violates that principle. Not to mention all the ergonomic evolution the engineers at Leica spent so much time agonizing over.

Don't get me wrong, yes I do love the Leica M. I am not a zealot by any chance. I don't claim they do everything but what they do -- they have perfected the design. And here they just through all of that out the window.

If the goal was to make an advancement on the design, I would say take a close look at the Fuji X100s. It has taken the Leica ethic and bridged it beautifully with the modern digital age. In fact I will say the Fuji X100s is the first classic of the digital age.

<comment><USER8> It's also a one of a kind and may never actually be used, but instead displayed in someone's private collection. Who cares if it's not particularly usable, it was not designed to be used from what I can tell.

<comment><USER7> That is my point exactly! As you stated, it is not designed to be used. I have huge respect for Jonathan Ives. Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." I think Mr. Ives forgot about that when he was working on the Leica. And that is why I am surprised he let his name go on such a poor design

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _The camera took 85 days and more than 735 hours to manufacture. During that > time more than 550 models and 1,000 prototype parts were made and tested; 55 > engineers worked on the process._

And

> _It is expected to fetch between $500,000 (£312,000) and $750,000._

If they took the cost of that time and work and donated it directly to the charity how much would it have been?

<comment><USER10> Ah, but it's not a direct equivalent. Do you think Jony Ive's contract with Apple allows moonlighting?

<comment><USER9> I didn't mean he should have sold his time to another company..

<comment><USER11> It's possible he can't (via a contract) but can donate it. No idea though, just guessing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looking at that, without reading the text, I thought immediately that it looked like Marc Newson's work rather than Jony Ive's.

Then I read the text:

> Apple's feted design chief teamed up with industrial designer Marc Newson

I would say that Marc did most of this, and Jony either just created the collaboration and put his name to it, or his touch was reasonably light.

The only part that really looks like Ive's stamp is the perforated aluminium. Every other curve, the buttons and balance of the design, scream Newson.

<comment><USER13> Really? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see it, there is a Dieter Rams influence to it that says Jony Ive more than Marc Newson to me.

<comment><USER11> It really screamed Rams to me as well (much more than Ive), even more than Newson as well.

It doesn't look to me like a Rams/Braun product though, but a product that's trying to be one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > 85 days and more than 735 hours

> more than 550 models and 1,000 prototype parts were made and tested... 55 > engineers worked on the process.

Uhh... I think they spent more developing this than what it will fetch. Wouldn't it have been better to just donate the money?

A 500k donation at the expense of that many resources...

<comment><USER15> It's called marketing. Ive "designing" a limited edition Leica is like Murakami being involved with Louis Vuitton.

Lecia needs people to believe that their cameras are worth a lot of money and involve a much greater amount of design work and craftsmanship than a standard Canon.

<comment><USER16> For the curious, Murakami = Takashi Murakami.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Like so many apple products, it probably feels great to touch, but bad to hold.

</comment><comment><USER18> I suppose people that buy these will just put them on a shelf, but if not, those perforations are going to fill with garbage.

<comment><USER19> There will be only one.

<comment><USER18> Oh, I see now. I misread the part about 550 models thinking it meant they produced and were selling 550 of these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ive doing what he does best. Industrial and hardware design.

I still think there are some question marks about his software design skills as some of the things in iOS7 is very badly thought out such as the new date pickers.

</comment><comment><USER21> How the hell it that top selection wheel supposed to be operated? Overall, it looks pretty similar to the normal Leica M, but with Apple-style all-aluminium coloring and more rounded corners.

</comment><comment><USER22> _A leica fan and his money are easily seperated_

\-- source: leica owner

</comment><comment><USER23>
      It is expected to fetch between $500,000 (£312,000)
      and $750,000.

      The special edition Leica M camera features an anodised
      aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual
      perforations.

      The camera took 85 days and more than 735 hours
      to manufacture.

      During that time more than 550 models and 1,000
      prototype parts were made and tested; 55 engineers
      worked on the process.

The best part about writing for the BBC without a byline is that no one can criticize you as an individual, when you start spewing hyperbole and completely unrelated statistics in an illogical fashion, for the purpose of making retarded embellishments that go over like a lead zeppelin.

But hey, it's for charity, so the Madison Avenue bullshit artistry is (almost) excusable.</comment>


A Treatise of Human Nature, by David Hume (Sect. VII. – Conclusion) - <AUTHOR> https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/treatise-of-human-nature/B1.4.7.html <comment><USER2> Signal to noise ratio of that prose is pretty low. Someone needs to compress it.</comment>