My coffeehouse nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/ <comment><USER2> Although the author barely touched on it, I used to have a friend who owned a coffee shop and told that there's always an interesting push-pull. People like a coffee shop for two reasons: Great atmosphere (most important), and great coffee.

Great atmosphere encourages people to linger on that $5 ticket for hours, which is a black hole for money, but if your atmosphere sucks you'll never get the buzz and reputation to keep the long lines of to-go in the mornings that you need to survive.

Great coffee is hard to find, and requires competent baristas, which are a hard to find/train outside of big cities.

I'm a huge coffee shop nut, but from a business perspective it seems crazy. As an interesting aside, another slate article noted once that indie coffee shops that have a starbucks open nearby actually do _better_ afterwards on average.

<comment><USER3> > _Great atmosphere encourages people to linger on that $5 ticket for hours, > which is a black hole for money..._

This is a problem that restaurants and other places solved a long time ago. I don't get why coffee shops never seem to do this: train your staff to make the rounds when they're not busy. Stop by any table with an empty cup, pick it up quietly, smile, gently ask the customer if they'd like anything else. (Don't nag or harangue the customer or ask the same one more than once an hour.)

Coffee shops have a problem with customers coming in and making themselves at home because they aren't being run like a business: there's very little staff- customer interaction. People come in, order (maybe), find a corner, and park there on the wifi for two hours. Shops respond to this by making customers come up to the counter to get a wep key, but that's the wrong way to do it. Instead, invite people in, invite them to stay, and ask them once in a while if you can bring them anything.

And as an added bonus, your staff will make a little extra in tips, too.

<comment><USER4> You make sense, but the attraction at staying in a coffee shop for me (and often paying the inflated prices) is in treating it like a library. In any business if a salesperson comes past more than once asking if I've found what I want yet I'm pretty tempted to leave. That's probably the desired result here but I'd pretty quickly find an alternate coffee shop that didn't bug me at all.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's the least desirable of the outcomes, but it's still not a bad deal for the business.

You have to figure that there will be some customers that want to be able to come in and basically rent space (plus, usually, a restroom and wifi) from the business for a couple of hours for the price of a cup of coffee. Although there's nothing really wrong with a customer wanting that, it's not a good deal for the business and they have no motivation to support it.

That's why the interaction from the wait staff should be really low-key. If the customer really isn't OK with being offered something once an hour or so, then that's just not a good customer for the shop. (My local co-working space charges $20 per day for anyone looking for a place to work; I use that as a yardstick for what's reasonable at a coffee shop. If I'm going to be there for more than a couple of hours, then I'm treating it as a co-working space and I owe them $20 of revenue.)

Most other people find it fair and convenient to get another cup of coffee or other treat delivered to them, and regard it as good service.

I suppose that if the shop thinks there are a large enough number of people in their area that are just looking for a place to work, _and_ are willing to pay for it, but just don't want to be bothered at all, then they could offer something like a "day pass" -- $10 for camping out for more than a couple of hours without being interrupted by the staff, plus a discount on their coffee or other products.

But I'm not sure that would have enough takers to be worth it.

<comment><USER5> You say, _My local co-working space charges $20 per day for anyone looking for a place to work; I use that as a yardstick for what's reasonable at a coffee shop._ This logic is totally broken. Your co-working space has a different cost structure than the coffee shop. In particular:

* Your co-working space doesn't need to factor in the cost of baristas and managers into the value of a table/hour.

* Your co-working space isn't set up in a super-expensive retail property, so the inherent value of a table/hour their is lower.

You've been underpaying your coffee shop.

<comment><USER3> There's a limit to how much of a business's problems the customer should have to consider. I don't think very much about the co-working space's costs (are they spending more on marketing? What about faster internet? Building maintenance?), and I'm not thinking much about the coffee shop's costs.

I'm just starting with what a particular thing would cost me elsewhere, and offering to pay that to someone else.

Also, I'm trying to avoid going into specifics because they won't help us understand why coffee shops should work on their customer interaction, but I can assure you that our local co-working space has much higher monthly expenses than any of our coffee shops.

<comment><USER5> I agree. I'm being facetious. It's not your problem that the coffee shop is letting you sit there and cost them money; they should stop letting you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most coffee shops fail at their primary function: serving a quality cup of coffee.

In years and years of being cafe-obsessed, I've never seen shop fail that went the extra mile with their drinks, whether by roasting their own beans, training their baristas to competitive levels, or simply buying good beans, milk, and machines.

I read this article some time ago, and didn't see the obsession with coffee shine through. Without that passion, a cafe will be replaced by the next hip or quaint establishment that pops up to cater to idling customers.

<comment><USER7> Intelligensia (<http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/>) seems to put all the focus on the product.

<comment><USER8> That focus shows too, I literally can't walk past them without stopping in for a cup. The baristas know me by name. Even after a two week absence due to traveling they still had my order brewing as I walked through the door and ready immediately after I paid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting article about a failed business, marred only slightly by the way the author wants to write off his own bad business decisions as an inevitable problem with the coffeehouse business model.

Of course it _must_ be possible to make a lot of money with a coffeehouse; Starbucks frinstance does just great, and plenty of non-chain places must be making a lot of money too.

Many of the problems he had just sound like he didn't have enough time to optimize his business model... if he was throwing half his croissants away then maybe he should have been buying fewer croissants? And do you _really_ need a guy in the kitchen getting paid to whip up the occasional crepe when coffee is where you're gonna make the big bucks?

<comment><USER10> He obviously tried to create not a standard a-la starbucks coffee shop, but a more luxury experience. It seems he had to revert to non-cozy and fast or to charge premium prices and try to become "fashionable" place.

<comment><USER11> The real issue seems to be that he tried to create a "family restaurant" operation without the "family" (in this case him and his wife) wanting to work in the business:

 _My wife Lily and I could work there, full-time, save on the payroll, and gerrymander the rest of the budget to allow for lower sales. Guess what, dear dreamers? The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it's fun and romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have to is enormous_

In other words, he had the luxury of choice. And he chose not to.

<comment><USER12> I wish I could upvote this more than once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As one of the maligned "people with laptops", I often wonder how much I'm expected to spend. What's the expected $/hour you should drop if you spend all day working in a cafe?

<comment><USER14> > As one of the maligned "people with laptops", I often wonder how much I'm > expected to spend. What's the expected $/hour you should drop if you spend > all day working in a cafe?

I think it depends on how busy it is. If the place is dead, they'd probably be grateful for you to sit there and make it look more happening for someone who comes in. But during busy time, clogging up table space for three hours on one coffee is probably aggravating.

When I go to a non-chain, if I want to sit for longer than is normal, I just ask them. "I was thinking of having a coffee and hanging out on my laptop for a few hours - is that okay with you?" 90% of shops will say yes if they're not busy, or tell you when the time that that they get busy is. 10% will give a hesitant yes or non-answer, and I'll either only stay a short time or head out from there. Like everything, it depends on the particular situation.

<comment><USER15> Wow, actually working together and _talking_ to solve problems instead of passive-aggressive "no laptops allowed" signs or "I hate my customer" blog posts? What a concept...

<comment><USER16> I like your thinking even better than mine. Although I don't think sarcasm translates well to this format.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No doubt New York's a very different beast, but in Melbourne it seems cafes are still bursting out everywhere (and have been for years). This is even more amazing given how many still serve bad coffee. It seems to remain profitable here, whereas the dream of running a restaurant is what seems to drive more people to ruin.

A local celebrity chef started a new restaurant with another talented chef partner. Six months later, the partner left to run a cafe, since the work and stress involved in making paninis and light meals for people was far less than a gourmet restaurant, and the payoff better.

<comment><USER18> Um, you need to get out of Melbourne. I am always amazed at how universally excellent espresso is there: beautifully roasted, excellently barista'd and absolutely no milk or sugar required while still being dark, thick and tasty. Compare to Sydney or most of Europe (or much of North America).

Cafés in North America often run to chocolate muffins and energy bars, but the whole Australian café provision of light warm meals is fairly alien there (see the success of Pret in NYC as a business with a very different value proposition to most other chains). I would imagine that the additional profitability from this cultural difference might be one of the reasons of the success of cafés where you are; that and the fact that the inner core of Melbourne has 2m+ residents and is fairly walkable which leads to a different kind of use of these kinds of spaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is an old dupe, but I think it's worth revisiting for the "cautionary tale" aspect: this is the link I send to friends who mention wanting to "open a little coffee shop somewhere."

</comment><comment><USER20> 2005.

<comment><USER21> So What? Does that make it obsolete? I guess indicating the year is important for older tech articles, but definitely irrelevant in this case.

<comment><USER22> This particular articles pops up every couple of months. Sure, it's quite interesting, but it's time-saving if you know that it's older and you don't have to reread it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> $18k a month in revenue with 15% takehome is only $2700 a month.

For a couple.

On the Lower East Side.

The problem was not people with laptops.

It was a business without a _pro forma._

</comment><comment><USER24> "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love."

That is a powerful quote.

<comment><USER25> I think that's the real message of the article. I don't think it's about the coffee market in NY, or in general - it's about making sure you think and measure before you leap.

Starting a business is a huge deal and consumes huge amounts of your time. If the sums don't add up - that is, you're not going to be profitable unless you work as slave-labour in your own business - maybe you shouldn't do it. I think this is a trap that many educated people fall into that don't have direct business (or time billing) experience.

This is applicable to tech as well - if you build a product, sell it super cheap (say, software @ $20 per year), and it takes around 1 hour per year in technical support per user (per year), you need to consider that when pricing. It may not be worth it. Or you may just have your pricing or business model wrong.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you balance between gaining knowledge and applying knowledge? - <AUTHOR>

Earlier I used spend an hour or so every morning to go thru my Google Reader.
Then I joined Twitter. It was difficult to keep up with all the tweets.
Then I joined Hacker News. There's so much useful info posted here but now I restrict myself to only go thru posts on HN's home page and my submissions (if somebody has commented anything. I wish there was a way to get notified via email when somebody comments on your post / question).
Now there's one more - Quora. Again a very good source of info.
It seems I almost spend half of my day on all these. There's hardly any time left to apply these knowledge.
I'm sure few others might also be facing the same problem.
How do you guys manage this? <comment><USER2> I ususally find myself working in bursts. I have been on the knowledge gathering burst for the past few months. I went all crazy, bought books, read through most of them. Read HN posts etc.

But now I am kind of getting sick of it. I am now at a stage where I don't want to be on HN. And I am shifting into application mode. Now I will be focusing on applying what I have been gaining. Once I get sick of it, I will switch back to gaining mode.

So I would suggest, if you know that you also have a similar pattern (of working in bursts) then just do it until you get sick of it and then shift to application mode.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I am now in lockdown mode. No Twitter, Facebook, Quora till Monday.

Checking HN only once in 2 hrs. Google Reader only once a day.

Let's see how this experiment goes. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do what Tim Ferriss says: Go on an "information diet". You don't need to have all the news. If it's really important you'll hear it anyway.

Relax.

Also for Twitter: Follow real people only and only those that don't tweet 100 times per day.

<comment><AUTHOR> yea. I used to follow like 300+ users. One day I went to my twitter account and unfollowed everyone but those who tweeted only tech stuffs and only few tweets a day.

That really helped.

Thanks :)</comment></comment>


Design feedback request – my new personal site - <AUTHOR> https://www.jack-shepherd.co.uk/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello! I would appreciate any feedback for my new personal site. Specifically, I'm pleased with the concept and appearance on desktop/tablet, but I cannot think of how to make this design work well on mobile. Thank you!</comment>


Show HN: 3D Vector Graphics - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fogleman/ln <comment><USER2> This looks pretty great, I'll play with it. Can you explain this from the Readme?

 _Unfortunately, it 's difficult to compute the joint formed at the boundaries of these combined shapes, so sufficient texturing is needed on the original solids for a decent result._

What is hard about computing the joint? Why does texturing help? My question is from a perspective of curious ignorance, not arrogance (i.e. me saying "don't be silly, it's easy.")

<comment><USER3> unless you're dealing with sufficiently large integers computing the intersect between a line and a plane with any robustness is impossible on modern computers with float or double. sometimes when you intersect meshes that have nearly coplanar faces, the intersection might shoot vertices near some infinity because of division inaccuracy.

<comment><USER4> Sufficiently large integers (and FP numbers too) are directly supported by Go's standard library: [https://golang.org/pkg/math/big/](https://golang.org/pkg/math/big/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you run into limitations with the Cairo binding you're using, I'd like to shamelessly plug the one I wrote, which covers much more of the Cairo API: [https://godoc.org/github.com/martine/gocairo/cairo](https://godoc.org/github.com/martine/gocairo/cairo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice. I love Cairo. I'll check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whenever I see install instructions like this:

OS X

      brew install cairo pkg-config
      go get github.com/ungerik/go-cairo

Ubuntu

      sudo apt-get install libcairo2-dev pkg-config
      go get github.com/ungerik/go-cairo

... I always think there should be a "default" instruction page linked to somewhere that explains what brew and apt-get are (and other things). I mean, I know you can't be expected to go to the lengths of explaining this stuff for every single project, but this is the kind of thing that will inspire the next generation. So maybe we, as a community could come up with a, "you don't know what this is? look here..." kind of page that people can put on their github projects.

<comment><USER7> Wholeheartedly agreed. When I was learning about OSS, I had no idea what a "pull request" was but people kept mentioning it. A standard guide on how OSS works with Github, Linux, and related tools would be immensely helpful in welcoming new developers into the OSS world.

<comment><USER8> The google answer for "what is a pull request" is quite good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's pretty cool. A commandline app that just takes an .OBJ file and renders it to an .SVG would actually be pretty useful (viewport position / orientation would of course need to be options as well).

<comment><AUTHOR> Even cooler if I could figure out some general way of parameterizing & texturing the surface instead of just rendering the triangles. Any ideas?

<comment><USER10> Hughes Hoppe has done a variety of research that depends on finding interesting parameterizations of meshes. His papers aren't exactly lightweight on the math, but you may find some ideas there:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/hoppe/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/hoppe/)

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/hoppe/proj/vfd...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/hoppe/proj/vfdesign/)

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/hoppe/proj/lap...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/hoppe/proj/lapped/)

<comment><USER11> Great! Hughes Hoppe's work is amazing!

<comment><USER12> Hugues Hoppe, unless he has changed his name.

<comment><USER10> Shit. Thanks for your correction, I can no longer edit the above comment to reflect it, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> `ln` is a utility commonly used for making links. Searching for this project in the future is going to be a pest.

<comment><USER14> One could argue that as a name, `go` is not optimal either, yet it seems the community has worked around it pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is fantastic! I think I can use this in my laser projection work. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to hear. Let me know if you have any questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The output reminds me of Blender's Freestyle plugin. This looks great though because it's not part of a software suite! ;)

[0] [https://www.blender.org/manual/render/freestyle/export_svg.h...](https://www.blender.org/manual/render/freestyle/export_svg.html)

<comment><USER17> blender is, contrary to popular belief, extremely nimble and easy to compile/modify.

it is all python, mostly.

and can be used a command line tool with very little effort. you can make a "open obj file, put default camera, render" scripts very easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought I remembered seeing your graphics work before in go posted on HN. Yep: [https://github.com/fogleman/pt](https://github.com/fogleman/pt) Is this an evolution of that work, at least in terms of the learning process?

<comment><USER19> This is amazing. I spent some time staring at he gopher picture in disbelieve. 'Mindblowing' would be the fitting description.

Then I scrolled down to the samples...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It might be an interesting idea to use similar algorithms to create vector plots in scientific PDF documents, instead of having embedded raster images that don't scale well.

</comment><comment><USER21> I just want to say that I'm a huge fan of your open source projects. Thanks for sharing them!

<comment><USER22> Same here - Nice job. Craft (Minecraft in C / opengl) is a really cool project. I didn't realize it was the same person until I went back through the github repo just now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is fantastic. I love programming geometry. This must be a lot of fun to work on.

That gif at the bottom is mind bending [https://camo.githubusercontent.com/9f83ca714a35fd2a08b85370f...](https://camo.githubusercontent.com/9f83ca714a35fd2a08b85370f8cb7410cc70a839/687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f676b385574564b2e676966)

</comment><comment><USER24> Question: at the bottom of [https://github.com/fogleman/ln/blob/master/ln/matrix.go](https://github.com/fogleman/ln/blob/master/ln/matrix.go)

Did you type that in manually?

I wonder if there's a way to do that in Go that doesn't have as much duplication, but has the same performance?

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably found the algorithm somewhere and used multiple selection in Sublime Text to quickly reformat it.

<comment><USER24> Anyway I think your webpage is very impressive! Nice job!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thank you, @fogleman! We really love you work - including other projects!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> An other similar software is Sketch[1]. It generates tikz images that you can compile in LaTeX.

[1] [http://sketch4latex.sourceforge.net/](http://sketch4latex.sourceforge.net/)

</comment><comment><USER26> That's pretty rad! I wonder what it would like to bake pre-rendered color information onto the vector geometry. Even without textures on the models some nice ambient occlusion could look cool.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to see someone output this to an oscilloscope.

</comment><comment><USER28> Have you considered using bilinear gradients to do shading?

<comment><USER28> Actually, that's not part of the standard yet, but at least somebody is working on it:

[http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=316](http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=316)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if there are any libraries or tools for making simple 3D visualizations of data. Something like a 3-dimensional Conky.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, this is amazing! Really, really nice work! Will read it and analyze it in-depth, think I could learn thing or two...

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice work!</comment>


Software pirates use Apple tech to put hacked apps on iPhones - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-piracy/software-pirates-use-apple-tech-to-put-hacked-apps-on-iphones-idUSKCN1Q3097 <comment><USER2> The problem with this article is that it seems to be shaming Apple for letting people have some way of doing what Android users can do; sideloading apps of their choice onto devices they own.

And this isn't the only article like this I've seen recently. I'm sure that now Apple will lock down their platform even more now, because _gasp_ people are looking at porn and using pirated software.

Why do these journalists care? Are they next going to attack the fact that you can use a $99 personal developer license to side load your own apps on your iPhone that you write yourself?

I worked on a project that only got off the ground when we abandoned Test Flight and used enterprise certificates. It seemed like a refreshingly sensible compromise on Apple's part.

<comment><USER3> >Why do these journalists care?

They don't. They only care about the clicks.

<comment><USER2> It reminds me of this article:

[https://external-brain.redwolf.com.au/2002/06/26/cd- pirates-...](https://external-brain.redwolf.com.au/2002/06/26/cd-pirates-in- from-the-cold/)

Published in a mainstream Australian Newspaper (But they've since deleted it). These journalists are _outraged_ that it will soon be legal to copy your own compact discs.

And they just assume that anyone doing so much be a pirate.

There is similar language in this article. If someone just wants to watch a movie they own without DRM, they must be a pirate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really don't get the recent hype around this topic. Sideloading pirated apps on android is a click on a button and a checkbox. Solving it seems close to impossible, without seriously compromising the users freedom to install apks and privacy.

Apple on the other end has a finite list of issued developer certificates and an even smaller list of enterprise certificates. If some are abused, it's as easy as revoking them, given iOS regularly checks the OCSP.

I guess they just spy less on their users, which for example means iOS might not phone home telemetry data of every app an user installs, which makes it harder to catch abuse immediatly. Also since taking down a small number of pirated apps might not directly translate into an equivalent revenue in legit app purchases (as the industry might claim), I guess there isn't too much of an economic incentive for Apple to enforce their TOS immediatly.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is Apple's war on drugs. Apple claims to be protecting users from themselves, and that's true to a degree, but the cost is a significant loss of freedom and eliminating a check on Apple policies.

Just as a US resident could move to a country (or state) with legal drugs, an iPhone user could switch to Android. But the availability of this "choice" shouldn't be used to justify a bad policy, in either situation imo.

</comment><comment><USER6> Apple has been playing wack-a-mole with enterprise developer certificates for a while now, especially when the currently most reliable jailbreak method requires special entitlements that require an enterprise or developer certificate.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this called jailbreaking? Not everyone who circumvents Apple's walled garden is a pirate.

<comment><USER8> Nor is anyone that copies digital information.

<comment><USER9> I assume everything you work on is open source? What software have you written lately that I can copy indiscriminately?

<comment><USER9> Why do I always get downvotes for challenging the idea that every piece of media should be free, but no one ever explains why?

<comment><USER8> Do you consider copying software equivalent to hijacking boats by deadly force? I was only arguing against the sensational term, not for the act or any particular licensing.

<comment><USER9> Ok, that's totally fair. No parrots were harmed in the making of BitTorrent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whats the name of that service?</comment>


Is your Android device hacker friendly? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/100459-is-your-android-device-hacker-friendly

<comment><USER2> Two pages - first page talks about general rules then says to visit the second page for the list of devices. Second page points to XDA-developers and says to look on there. Basically a link to XDA-developers could have replaced 90+% of the article...

</comment><comment><USER3> A locked boot loader is the entire reason why I won't be buying a Motorola Droid Razr. I really like the looks and features of it but what happens if they refuse to update the OS to fix potential issues down the road? The fact that I can hack (and have done so) my Galaxy S and upgrade the OS as well as uninstall all of the bloatware is immensely appealing to me.</comment>


The American Heart Association Bravely Admits They've Been Right All Along - <AUTHOR> http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2017/06/22/the-american-heart-association-bravely-admits-theyve-been-right-all-along-part-one/ <comment><USER2> Looks like it got hugged to death. Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MUishJR...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MUishJRbO_oJ:www.fathead- movie.com/index.php/2017/06/22/the-american-heart-association-bravely-admits- theyve-been-right-all-along-part-one/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER3> OK so through the chain of reblog web vomit, the "source" study minus any of the garbage and very legitimate sounding "fathead-movie" which is a regurgitation of a nypost article, is this

[http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/06/15/CIR.000...](http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/06/15/CIR.0000000000000510)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11745-010-3393-4](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11745-010-3393-4)

It isn't too hard to read nutrition studies you find from Google Scholar. I strongly recommend people try it. Instead of angry rants about those awful bureaucrats at the AHA you get informative and very readable scientific prose like this:

>Public health emphasis on reducing SFA consumption without considering the replacement nutrient or, more importantly, the many other food-based risk factors for cardiometabolic disease is unlikely to produce substantial intended benefits.

It really is nice.

<comment><USER5> The fathead article is a rebuttal to that study, not an "angry rant".

<comment><USER6> It's a rant.

The problem with the blog is that it uses all the wrong keywords and format:

\- "Has I said all along" \- "Follow the money" \- Characterizing stuff like vegetable oil as "industrial product" \- Attack individual (Sacks), not ideas. \- Provides no data \- Provides plenty of exclamation marks. \- Fill with fake-news looking "cholesterolcloggingarteryohmy!" key phrase all over.

If he aimed at looking non-credible, he succeeded.

<comment><USER5> He attacked the studies of the individual and used that to show that the man had no business writing the study in the first place and should therefore be discredited.

<comment><USER6> I'll take his characterization of the low-salt study as an example. He criticize that:

\- Starting form a healthy diet and reducing salt "only" lowered blood pressure by 3 points. \- Comparing junk food diat to healty diet.

The problem right here is that the reduction in slat _did_ result in lower blood pressure for both groups. That it only reduced by 3 points only shows that the healthy diet... was already healthy. He then goes on to say that the reduced blood pressure when comparing junk food to the healthy diet was due to not consuming junk food... where did he come up with this exactly? He base this claim on nothing! (I don't doubt junk food is bad for you, but he claims that the study is un-scientific, but he comes to his own conclusion out of the blue... that's science?)

When you read all his rebutals an attacks, you come out with a sense that they're more or less based on his own pre-conceptions of what the results should be.

It's the typical loud-mouthed critics, which start from some truths but then veer into zealotry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is "fathead-movie.com" an authoritative source? It sure does not sound like it.

<comment><USER7> When the site comes back up, you should have a look through the site's blog and come to your own conclusions. IMHO, Tom Naughton cites more studies more accurately than the vast majority of so called 'health' authorities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't know how to process this article: is AHA morally compromised as the author claims or is the author one of those fake-news-screaming type folks?

<comment><USER9> I think it is more like the innovator's dilemma, as applied to a non-profit organization. I wouldn't go so far as to call them "morally compromised".

<comment><USER10> It kinda sounds like they're a non-profit public health organization that profits by harming the public's health. Am I missing something?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> All I know is that when I started following a ketogenic diet - 20g of fewer of net carbs per day - I started dropping weight for the first time in my life and my overall health and well-being has improved substantially.

</comment><comment><USER12> And it's down.

<comment><USER13> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MUishJR...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MUishJRbO_oJ:www.fathead- movie.com/index.php/2017/06/22/the-american-heart-association-bravely-admits- theyve-been-right-all-along-part-one/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

<comment><USER5> Stop loading the page by pressing X, then choose "text only" to get the content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good lord the tone of this could not be more irritating.

</comment><comment><USER15> > "His definition of "low carb" was 35% of calories. If you're consuming 2000 > calories per day, that's 175 carbs per day. "

What's a "carb per day"? 175 of them?

I _think_ he's trying to say: "That's 700 calories of carbs per day". If he is, his writing is really sloppy. Pass.

<comment><USER16> 175 grams of carbs. Each gram of carbs has 4 calories. 175 grams of carbs = 700 calories.</comment></comment>


Tilera unveils 72-core processor chip for data networks and infrastructure - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/19/tilera-unveils-72-core-processor-chip-for-data-networks-and-infrastructure/

<comment><USER2> Are 64-core and 100-core models discontinued?

<comment><USER3> afaik they didn't release their 100-core version. Judging by the changes compared to the TilePRO (more SoC stuff), they seem to be focused on better covering their commercial niche: network and server infrastructure.</comment></comment>


Web Design Museum - <AUTHOR> https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/ <comment><USER3> It is impressive how design has changed thru the years. Just compare the 1996 Space Jam web [https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/space- jam-1996](https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/space-jam-1996) with its current design [https://www.warnerbros.com/archive/spacejam/movie/jam.htm](https://www.warnerbros.com/archive/spacejam/movie/jam.htm)

<comment><USER4> > The jamminest two minutes of trailer time that ever hit a theater. It's 7.5 > megs, it's Quicktime, and it's worth it. Click the graphic to download...

Oh god if only the modern web was 10% as light-hearted as this was

<comment><USER5> It's a site for a kid's movie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's really a shame that so many of these exhibits are company homepages; it really puts a strange spin on the internet and makes me wonder how weird our look at history is compared to "what it was really like."

For example, I remember the split frame layout (nav on top or left, body in remainder) dominating web layouts for a long, long time -- the CSS float to keep navigation "on top" was really just mimicking that for a lot of people.

Similarly, pop-up windows were such a huge thing for a long time, whether it was for a music player, or for site navigation, or just links opening in little miniature windows meant to be hovered over the main page so that you never "left."

The closest that any of those sites come to capturing the "feel" of the internet in that time for me is probably the Microsoft Games site.

Incidentally, one of them looks really broken: [https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/true-is- true-2001](https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/true-is-true-2001)

</comment><comment><USER7> SpaceX ([https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/spacex-2002](https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/spacex-2002)) is the one that really struck a chord with me. Not because of the design itself, but because it shows just _how old_ the company already is, while only stepping into mainstream spotlight fairly recently.

<comment><USER8> What's crazy is that blue origin is older.

<comment><USER9> So, it takes couple of decades for overnight success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It makes me sad that the web design museum is mostly made up of corporate sites. Companies didn't take the web too seriously in the 90s and early 2000s...at least as it pertains to design.

If you wanted to look at good design back then, you went to fray.com, glassdog.com, 0sil8.com, zeldman.com, and others I don't remember. Oh boy those were the days...

<comment><USER11> Fortunately Fray has all the old site up as an archive[0]. Also can't forget k10k.com and everything they linked to.

[0] [http://fray.com/index-old.shtml](http://fray.com/index-old.shtml)

<comment><USER12> Man, people still aren't as creative with their headings (see the simple icon overlap in the iTunes heading) as they were in the days when when you had to use images as headings to even use a unique font.

Even though such capability can be abused, it's kind of depressing to still miss this option in most projects due to time, etc. from a graphic design standpoint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looking at these older websites (for me thats 1996—2002) I remember spending a lot of my time on figuring out how they really worked underneath it all.

It was truly an exciting time where the differences in design and style for websites were big.

Today, you don't really see personal websites anymore, and things have somehow become streamlined and pretty much just standard. There is hardly any wow effect on the web anymore, and that's sad I think.

<comment><USER14> On the other hand, Web standards makes it easier to use the Web.

<comment><USER15> That must be why I have 3 dofferent browsers installed in case a website doesn't work on one of them.

<comment><USER16> When was the last time you really needed that? I haven't had to in years, and I work in .gov. The only thing I see is needing to enable Flash and that was awhile ago.

<comment><USER17> Last week. For some reason just over the past month or so, a couple times Google Hangouts has randomly decided it doesn't support Firefox one day, then work fine the next.

A bit further back (maybe a year or so?), I've also had issues with Youtube and my bank's website. Both of those seem to have been fixed, though.

<comment><USER16> That's probably just Google's aversion to paying for QA. I get the same kind of problems in Chrome and their apps which randomly go away after clearing the cache, resetting the app, etc. I suspect the root cause is that most of their developers want to work on cool things rather than fixing the previous round.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Note if any maintainers are here: some of the captures, like Habbo.com, are done with ClearType enabled, when it was in fact only available from 2006 with IE7.

The blocky text rendering was a significant part of the look and feel of those websites.

<comment><USER19> Some sites, like Time.com, prerendered parts of their text antialiased to an image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You might want to also exhibit secondary pages. The front page is often not representative of the overall experience with a site, since it has different objectives and techniques (that was especially true back before the single- page era).

</comment><comment><USER21> These sites are better lookin compared to their modern version.

The facebook pic in the top banner is cool how it fades.

Why is modern design better? It is just the mobile aspect?

<comment><USER22> Works better on more screen sizes. All standard web tech; no flash/Java/browser specific things.

Less clutter and visual distractions once you block adverts. Also much much easier to navigate with a consistent design guideline vs having every page randomly assembled with no oversight. Standardised components and design also makes larger websites possible without having to manage 1 billion pages and elements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Man, this was the time when me (and every computer literary teen) fancied himself a dev and webdesigner. And we were like, considered geniuses too - <USER2> being able to code some PHP and copy some cool designs :3

good times

</comment><comment><USER24> k10k.com! Used to spend hours browsing that back in the day. Some seriously good design despite how basic the tools were.

And pixel fonts for the win.

I'm glad I no longer have to wait for Flash to finish loading, or to figure out the navigation of whatever site I've landed on, but things are less interesting now.

<comment><USER25> I was trying to read up on what this was, it said it was a site focused on pixel perfect design? What does that mean exactly, lots of images, spacers, and pixel fonts?

<comment><USER24> It was an early webzine and community that showcased cutting edge web & digital design in the late 90s and early 2000s.

For me it fits into the same early 2000s movement pushing the boundaries of digital expression as The Designers' Republic did in graphic design and Warp Records in Music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Many of those sites were designed with such bandwidth, resolution and color constraints. I wonder if they could add some sort of toggle to see display those images in the original intended resolution, or what was common for its day. The jump from 640 to 800 to 1024! The Web-safe 216 colors. Modems from under 3+, to 14, 28, 33, 56 kbps, ISDN, T1 and broadband! you had to use lowsrc attribute in <img> tags while the better image loaded, or pre-loading images in javascript. Glad all of that is over, glad I lived through it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Compared to others, the Apple site from 2001 holds up really well.

<comment><USER28> Funny to see them marketing their machine as a means to copyright infringement.

<comment> dan-robertson Buying music on iTunes or CDs and then burning it onto CDs to eg put into hifi systems or car stereos is not copyright infringement. It was a way to play music that was bought online and a way to make mixtapes of legitimately owned music.

Saying that advertising a CD burner is inciting copyright infringement is like saying that advertising a knife's sharpness is inciting stabbings

<comment><USER28> Ah, ripping (eg CDs to iTunes) & mixing was and again is unlawful in UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> An obvious criticism about the implementation of this museum deserves to be mentioned--the postcard size of these screen shots misrepresents the websites visual impact. Page load time was a limitation, and a significant tradeoff in any design. Shrinking the page doesn't communicate the impact of sites like K10K to the visual landscape of website design.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is pretty cool! Where are you getting these images from?

I would love to see this expanded to different genres of sites too. I've noticed that (niche) fashion websites have their own aesthetic that is a bit divorced from the mainstream. I'm sure we're all aware that Asian design trends are also very different.

<comment><USER29> In the day I collected screen shots of K10K promoted websites in FileMaker Pro. I suppose these images are screenshots sitting in someone's CDROM collection. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why aren't they in order by year?

Also, the page buttons at the bottom aren't working for me (I'm using safari on iphone x).

Nice site altogether :)

<comment><USER32> Thank you for bug notification. On the desktop you can use filters by years. We are now working on the new version of Web Design Museum where it will be possible to filter sites by years also on mobile phones.

<comment><USER33> Except on Firefox/MacOS, once you select a year, you can't deselect it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Would it be possible to incorporate some more recent websites as a point of comparison? To my mind web design has changed pretty significantly in the last ten years and it would be nice to see the progression.

<comment><USER32> Look at timelines outlining the development of the most important world websites over the past 20+ years. [https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/timeline](https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/timeline)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> CDnow 1998 is the best one [https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/cdnow-1998](https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/cdnow-1998)

<comment><USER17> Y'know, seeing that tall/thin site with a side menu just reminded me: [http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The page screenshots look nice, but does the site let us look at the original HTML code and media resources that made up those pages?

<comment><USER32> Thank you for your comment, but it is very difficult to reconstruct the HTML code or media resources of these old websites. For example flash technology is now completely dead.

<comment><USER37> which is really unfortunate, there were some killer flash website with really subtle layout, animation and aesthetics that I haven't seen yet in any HTML5 websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Similar to another site, [http://www.versionmuseum.com](http://www.versionmuseum.com)

</comment><comment><USER39> Great idea but your website seems to be using very old style. Its not working properly on mobile.

<comment><USER32> We are now working on the new version of Web Design Museum, which will be better optimized for mobile phones.

<comment><USER40> I hope the Web Design Museum will have it's own screenshot too.

<comment><USER32> Yes, but until 2027 :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Some really aged well, especially those with more extravagant designs.

</comment><comment><USER42> looks like the site is crashing...

Adobe's old web sites still look quite good.

</comment><comment><USER37> And boom, you are old.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Shhh. The nostalgia already did that. You didn't need to say it, too!

I still really like some of the design trends back then. I think a lot of it was because they _only_ had to work on desktop.

I also like those old isometric pixel drawings that were so popular. It was fun to play with as a kid because you could pretty easily follow along with paint, albeit with a lot lower quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> To me, what this illustrates is that too many companies today don't understand there is a big difference between a web developer and a web designer.

Companies that have both are the ones with the sites that stand the test of time.

</comment><comment><USER44> Gap looks about the same so many years later.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well now I just feel old. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER46> tabs where made of 3 images. left/right radius corner, and stretch background in between.</comment>


UCB Glitterati - <AUTHOR> http://ucbglitterati.com

<comment><USER2> I got in, but it's just a forum.

I don't see what's interesting or thought-provoking about this.

<comment><USER3> It's mostly (entirely?) a joke about secret societies as a response to a DailyCal article. There's a post by FooBar which gives an explanation for the site.</comment></comment>


Apple stock movement: A short history lesson - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/ff897886040e

<comment><USER2> Not saying he is wrong, but almost any pattern can be traced if the lower and upper bounds are picked carefully. For those interested in trading with technicals: how can you know where in the cycle the equity stands?</comment>


How to Choose a Web Application Scanner - <AUTHOR> https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/blog/How_to_Choose_a_Web_Application_Scanne?hn <comment><USER2> The link is broken but this looks like the right one: [https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/blog/How_to_Choose_a_Web_App...](https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/blog/How_to_Choose_a_Web_Application_Scanner.html)</comment>


Moves by HP, Google further marginalize the traditional PC - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/story/2011-09-05/Moves-by-HP-Google-further-marginalize-the-traditional-PC/50266334/1

<comment><USER2> > _Google Chairman Eric Schmidt put it bluntly last week at a cloud conference > here: He said tech had exhausted the limits of the PC as a platform, and the > future would center on mobile devices.

"The PC market has become commoditized," says Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps._

The automobile industry is highly commoditized, yet continues to innovate with hybrids and electrics - not to mention the commoditization of the mobile phone market which is conveniently ignored (and perhaps cynically ignored as well given Google's role in commoditizing the current generation of devices).

While it is possible that one day there will be no computers in the cubicles of the world's office parks, absent a coherent argument showing why businesses will shift from computers to mobile devices _en masse_ , the argument seems tenuous. Yes, the consumer space is changing and that's all Google really has a meaningful presence in [a smattering of small businesses aside].

There is nothing surprising about HP's move, it is pretty much an attempt to repeat IBM's act of twenty years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I concur. Not sure if it's ever possible for businesses to shift from computers to mobile devices completely imho; only time will tell.</comment></comment>


Prolog.c: a simple Prolog interpreter written in 200 LOC of C++ (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~am21/research/funnel/prolog.c <comment><USER2> I found Paul Tarau's work the easiest to follow on making a functional Prolog without WAM, for example: [https://code.google.com/archive/p/kernel- prolog/](https://code.google.com/archive/p/kernel-prolog/)

He also has theory papers explaining the architecture. For example: [http://logic.cse.unt.edu/tarau/research/NewJinniPapers/fluen...](http://logic.cse.unt.edu/tarau/research/NewJinniPapers/fluents.html)

<comment><USER3> WAM: "an abstract machine for the execution of Prolog" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Abstract_Machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Abstract_Machine)

(a couple of others in the Wikipedia disambiguation page are worrisome ...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a good reason to still be using Prolog? I used Prolog back in the day, but is it still the tool of choice for some projects?

<comment><USER5> Using DCGs ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite_clause_grammar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite_clause_grammar)), you can easily create grammars for automated document parsing and generation.

You could even write a compiler ([http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/1/64.full.pdf](http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/1/64.full.pdf)) or disassembler ([http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a242987.pdf](http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a242987.pdf)) in Prolog fairly easy. All thanks to the really smooth support of tree-like structures.

I do wonder why all this seems to be a little forgotten. Granted, the syntax and semantics are a bit unusual, but the expressive power can hardly be matched.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for these links. Another DCG tutorial [http://www.pathwayslms.com/swipltuts/dcg/index.html](http://www.pathwayslms.com/swipltuts/dcg/index.html)

<comment><USER4> Your link lightly addresses one of my questions about using DCGs for parsing. How hard is it to get a sensible error message out of a DCG parser? I've basically written off LALR parsers because getting a reasonable error message out of them is about as much fun as repeatedly poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. Good old recursive decent using precedence climbing for expressions seems to be more maintainable in the long run for production parsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pedantic: C++ code should generally have a .cpp extension.

<comment><USER8> You're right: that is pedantic -- in the worst sense of the word.

<comment><USER7> Actually, worse: there are actually lots of C++ file extensions and .cpp doesn't even seem to be the most popular. I was mistaken, apologies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would love to see it in C++11 or later.

<comment><USER10> It wouldn't necessary be much different if using C++11. Maybe using unique_ptr instead of new, etc.

It certainly _could_ be a lot different, using a more functional approach, but it likely wouldn't be, and would remain a basic OO program dressed in new syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It leaks memory all over the place. Is it intended for tiny, short-lived programs that don't generate a lot of garbage?

<comment><USER12> program termination is a valid reclamation strategy</comment></comment>


Silent Circle and Lavabit design new end-to-end encrypted email protocol - <AUTHOR> http://darkmail.info/?year-later <comment><USER2> Discussion from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8816806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8816806).

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh! I didn't see it then. Sorry for the repost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, and of course I love the mission. They are trying to move beyond PGP and protect metadata (who talks to whom) instead of just content.

The spec strikes me as complex. Why are there three modes (Trustful, Cautious, and Paranoid)? Why is there a Cryptocurrency field and a Motto field?

<comment><USER4> > Why are there three modes

I don't understand this too. If you set the mode to paranoid, this gives the NSA metadata that you're trying to hide something from them and then the NSA will archive all of the paranoid emails as they currently archive OTR messages, in the hopes that one day they can decrypt them. There needs to be just one mode, private by default - unless their specification is designed in a way to make the NSA unable to detect which mode a user has enabled?

<comment><USER5> From my brief reading of the spec, the three modes are mostly just a matter of where the keys are generated and stored. I think the messages themselves are indifferent to the mode (and therefore intermediaries can't determine between the three).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't gone through the whole paper yet, but other than showing up on the site (which hasn't been updated for a year until two days ago), and in an initial talk a year ago, I don't see the Silent Circle guys mentioned anywhere else.

What have they actually contributed to this project? I get the feeling they wanted to do something together, but then they probably got busy with their own Silent Circle + Blackphone + moving to Switzerland, and they might've had some slight disagreements on what DIME should look like as well, and then it was all up to Ladar Levison and someone he hired to work it all out.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's good that someone is looking into making the most important electronic communication mechanism secure. Making email secure without figuring out a way to make the architecture spam-proof would probably end up in a situation where people would be forced to open up their email contents to someone, thus adding a privacy loophole. Or it might end up with ton of spam similar to usenet, which essentially makes it unusable. Also, why would one want to name something "Dark Mail" which has some negative connotation to that.</comment>


Number of children in Japan declined by a third during Heisei Era - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/05/national/number-children-japan-fell-third-heisei-era/ <comment><USER2> If anything, the problem is overpopulation. And the falling number of children is really a sign of the solution. (I do take offense at framing that the declining number of children is something to solve. What benefit exactly solving it would bring?)

People realize that living in an overpopulated country is a miserable way to live, and it's self-correcting.</comment>


Eclipse helios is released - <AUTHOR> http://www.eclipse.org/#helios

<comment><USER2> There is a 10 minute talk of the changes in the JDT:

[https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a300965365/p57522647/?launc...](https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a300965365/p57522647/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal)

Nothing earth shattering for what I do, but interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dupe: Discussion is at

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1455280></comment>


Show HN: Get a beautiful visual overview of all your projects - <AUTHOR> https://www.omnirocket.com

<comment><AUTHOR> We have been working on this easy portfolio management system since may 2014, and I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.</comment>


Abelson's Android Class at MIT Expands to Nokia and Windows Mobile—But No iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/09/26/hal-abelsons-android-class-at-mit-expands-to-nokia-and-windows-mobile-phones-but-no-iphone/

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or is it bizarre that Apple couldn't find a way to make this happen?</comment>


Antitrust complaint against Android is an attack on open source - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/opinion-antitrust-complaint-against-android-is-an-attack-on-open-source/

<comment><USER2> Not surprising that it comes from Microsoft, then.

</comment><comment><USER3> I do hope regulators take into consideration the source of these complaints. Microsoft is investing a fortune on lobbying groups and PR campaigns attacking Google and this is just another cynical attempt to cripple their main competitor.

(Edit: not sure why this was down voted)

<comment><USER4> Of course they are, but that approach worked for Netscape and Sun etc, who spent a fortune lobbying against Microsoft.

This is why Google now spends vast sums on its own lobbying efforts: Learning From Microsoft's Mistakes, Google Invests Heavily In Influence [http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/01/learning-from- micros...](http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/01/learning-from-microsofts- mistakes-g.html)

Whether it's a sensible approach is another matter. This warning from the Wall Street Journal is pertinent:

In 1999, economist Milton Friedman issued a warning to technology executives at a Cato Institute conference: "Is it really in the self-interest of Silicon Valley to set the government on Microsoft? Your industry, the computer industry, moves so much more rapidly than the legal process that by the time this suit is over, who knows what the shape of the industry will be? Never mind the fact that the human energy and the money that will be spent in hiring my fellow economists, as well as in other ways, would be much more productively employed in improving your products. It's a waste!"

He predicted: "You will rue the day when you called in the government. From now on, the computer industry, which has been very fortunate in that it has been relatively free of government intrusion, will experience a continuous increase in government regulation. Antitrust very quickly becomes regulation. Here again is a case that seems to me to illustrate the suicide impulse of the business community."

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732353980457826...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578266290231304934.html)

There's an old rule that says Do Unto Others As You Would Be Done By. In other words, don't start whining when the shit you sent around comes around.

<comment><USER3> Difference is that Google lobbies for their own interests, Microsoft lobbies against Google.

And one assumes that much of Google's lobbying is to counteract Microsoft's.

Also Google's competitors are teaming with Microsoft to destroy Google, their agenda has nothing to do with consumer welfare. Case in point: now they're lobbying against open source software.

<comment><USER4> So it's the same story as before, just with different names....

<comment><USER3> No it isn't, none of Microsoft's competitors from the 90s were anything near its size.

<comment><USER4> In terms of 1995 turnover, IBM was by far the biggest IT company ($71.95 billion) and it was trying hard to kill Microsoft. IBM was followed by HP ($31.52bn), Intel ($16.2bn), Apple ($11.06bn) and then Microsoft ($5.09bn). Sun was bigger as well, but I can't turn up a number.

Google's turnover for 2012 was $50.18bn, so Google is 10x the size now that Microsoft was then. And it's much more powerful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Android isn't freedom, because Google is closed - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonearena.com/news/Android-isnt-freedom-because-Google-is-closed_id48751 <comment><USER2> It may not be 100% freedom, but they allow me to load apps from wherever I like, unlike Apple or Microsoft, and so I will continue to use them.

If there was a popular phone platform that was even more open, while providing the same levels of functionality, I'd be very tempted to give it a go.

<comment><AUTHOR> Google has too much authority over Android Platform itself like Apple and Microsoft :

While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform—not a bunch of incompatible versions

source : [http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits- imp...](http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-importance- of-compatibility.html)

<comment><USER2> Google offer the Google Platform to people who agree to certain things. But anyone is free to fork Android at any point, if they choose - Amazon have done so, for instance, as well as many Chinese manufacturers.

<comment><USER3> They're free to fork the segment of android that google hasn't locked into their own closed-source ecosystem.

Many AOSP applications have been abandoned by google in favor of their proprietary applications.

<comment><USER4> And the reasoning is most of those apps (for better or worse) depend on Google's cloud services, so it makes no sense for them to be in AOSP.

There remains nothing stopping you replacing all the Google stuff on Android, including the very parts that make them money.

One of the sadder, non obvious, parts of the way mobile has developed is it is becoming synonymous with trivial front ends to cloud services, and not really smart client apps at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> More and more Anti-Android propaganda pops up since iOS' market share is nosediving.

If Android is not freedom what is iOS then? No inter app communication, no exchangeable launcher/lock screen/ keyboard, real multitasking came just since this fall, no real resolution independency, no nothing.

<comment><USER6> Maybe Firefox OS or Tizen fit the bill of a free mobile OS better?

<comment><USER4> If anything, less so. Firefox OS could be viewed as an incredibly limited subset of Android, and these things promote ever increasing dependence on computing services not in the devices, which more than likely means closed ecosystems in clouds. This is a worse situation than you have on Android today.

The freedom problems with Android are more to do with driver support. Until an app development SDK is self hosting it's a bad sign too, but none of the mobile OS candidates has that right now.

<comment><USER7> I haven't seen a detailed breakdown of the freedom problems with Firefox OS, but it looks to be more or less the same as Android in the cupcake era - really basic core applications and a phone that works, but not much third party stuff. You have to rely on mobile web sites. The biggest difference is that rather than have dalvik-based applications, they are written in javascript. All the core apps are on your device locally, and you can write code that is also stored locally too.

Then it promotes the whole "search" part. That seems to be links to websites mixed in with applications, which does seem confusing and doesn't sit well with having data independence. But that's just the same as using web sites on Android.

On the positive side, I'd trust Mozilla to maintain their first-party code as free software. The core phone apps are not likely to go proprietary, as seems to be happening on Android.

<comment><USER4> The killer cutoff is if it's possible to write server apps for the platform in question. For iOS you can while the app is in the foreground, for Android you can all the time, for Firefox or Chrome OS . . . nope, they are explicitly designed to be clients to something else.

That may seem ridiculous, but the hooks are not there in Web APIs to do peer to peer communication for example, let alone peer to peer based on discovery of nearby devices. Chrome OS even lacks zero conf network support. Aside from Mozilla (who seem overly attached to the support of carriers) the people pushing the advancement of the web platform have zero interest in altering this direction, and in fact would prefer we go further in it.

I would be far keener on FF OS or Chrome OS if they supported sandboxed node.js on the clients, and worked on extending the API from node.js, not the web browser model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Whats the difference between Android/AOSP and RedHat/Linux, or nginx.com/nginx.org, or DataStax/Cassandra? I believe the Android platform itself is free, however the many components that Google provides that run on Google's backend aren't, and understandably so.

<comment><USER9> The "open" variants of those you list can be compiled, installed and used practically without significant compromise - they are genuinely useful. The exception is AOSP.

There are very few devices where you can compile _and install_ AOSP and have a genuinely useful result. Compiling alone is fairly useless if the binaries you generate can't be used for any purpose. You may recall the maintainer recently quit because it became an untenable position:

[https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...](https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURorE7g)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > but the idea that Android as we know it is open-source and the ultimate > freedom is absurd.

Nobody claimed that Android was the ultimate freedom, but it's the most free mobile operating system that is successful in the market place.

Free software extremists like the author of that article can simply never be satisfied.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't know how someone types up the 1000th iteration of this article with no acknowledgement of the 999 times people have written it before now or of any of the responses or counterarguments anyone has made in response.

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://replicant.us/about/](http://replicant.us/about/)

"Replicant is a fully free Android distribution running on several devices."

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, but as i can see there are no 2013 year's devices listed in supported devices page

<comment><USER13> Another option, which isn't 100% free but still manages to avoid the Google Play Services layer, which is what the article focuses on, is running an alternative ROM such as Cyanogenmod, skip flashing the Google apps package, and install an alternate package repository such as f-droid.org which features only FOSS apps.

Most alternative ROMs have binary drivers pulled from the official ROMs, but it should be no worse than running a Linux distro with, say, non-free binary firmware images which are loaded on demand for wireless cards, and you strike a better balance between a fairly open system and the latest hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _" In the real world, if you want the best customer support, you're not likely to find it in the Android ecosystem. If you're looking for specific productivity apps like OmniFocus, you're not going to find it on Android. If you're looking for the best integration of Microsoft services, you won't find it on Android. So, how exactly is Android the "ultimate freedom"?"_

Who needs RMS when this guy is on the case.

</comment><comment><USER15> Android isn't the problem, Google is.

The problem begins with the installation of every android device when you're asked to register a Google account (same process with the Apple ID in iOS). [Sure enough you can use the phone without a Google account or an iOS account but your excluded from each ecosystem]. For me - as an iOS user - I got a much worse feeling using the Google ecosystem than Apple ones because of one simple fact:

Google can get much more value out of the data you're generating than Apple does using it to later 'enhance' your experience for all other Google services (Google Search, Gmail, etc.) showing ads. Knowing everything about my daily behavior ('When is the user active? Was does he do? Where is he? ...') will lead to a perfect profile to sell the right ads.

At Apple you at least got the change to opt-out even using the ecosystem of the unique ad identifier. Correct me if this is possible using a Google account on android as well.

<comment><USER16> No, you're not. You can use any android device without any Google involvement at all. Please stop spreading FUD. Look at the Kindle devices.

<comment><USER17> Kindle is a particularly bad example. Kindle forked Android, so are not under control of Google. In principle, other manufacturers could also do this, but in practice it's practically impossible because they'd loose Google Play.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip- on-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android- controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> one thing i like about Apple, despite being closed, old devices get software support, for example iPhone 4 released in 2010 and get the newest version of iOS.

i bought my Android device 2.5 years ago it has only get 2.3.5 , initially it was 2.3.3.

<comment><USER18> ... and curiously Google is migrating stuff to Play services for this exact reason : so you can benefit from its upgrades without upgrading the OS itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Google needs to start treating Android and Google Edition Android like Chromium and Chrome.

GE Android is Google's and they do whatever they want with it, and they control and update it just like they do with Chrome, but Android needs to become a little more open than it is (more like Chromium), and they need to actually keep develop it, just like they do with Chromium.

I'd actually prefer a more Google-dominated Android _ecosystem_ than a Samsung or some other Android OEM one, and I'd prefer to see more _standardization_ in the Android ecosystem for both hardware and software.

My only concern is NSA or the US government starting to demand of Google to spy all Android users through Play Services, or to be able to shut down their phones at will during protests. I just hope Google will not be that stupid to allow them without a fierce fight.

But I guess we'll deal with that when the day comes. Until then, yes, I want Google to get more control of Android and fix fragmentation.

</comment><comment><USER20> I sure look forward to Sailfish OS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone hitting the wider market.

<comment><USER21> I got a root shell on a Firefox OS phone, just started 'adb' and got 'root@android'.

We should call it by it's proper name "Android/FirefoxOS"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's unlikely that Google will become more open now that they are working on vertical integration with Motorola.

</comment><comment><USER23> waiting for firefox OS

</comment><comment><USER24> I can change the design and layout my my android phone. Much better than the other competitors.</comment>


A Rump Kernel Hypervisor for the Linux Kernel - <AUTHOR> http://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/a_rump_kernel_hypervisor_for

<comment><AUTHOR> Anykernel/Rump kernel stories already covered here on HN

Kernel Drivers Compiled to Javascript and Run in Browser [http://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/kernel_drivers_compiled_to_...](http://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/kernel_drivers_compiled_to_javascript)

If you are interested to find out more I recommend to check the dissertation

Flexible Operating System Internals: The Design and Implementation of the Anykernel and Rump Kernels [http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2012/isbn9789526049175/isbn9789526049...](http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2012/isbn9789526049175/isbn9789526049175.pdf)</comment>


Snapchat will sell its new video-capturing glasses via vending machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2016/11/10/13584462/snapchat-spectacles-how-to-buy-snapbots <comment><USER2> This seems to be a great way do distribute them. Moving the vending machines leads to a fun hunt and if they don't sell Snap haven't tied up a lot of stock.</comment>


Uber's New Terms of Use Gives It Unlimited Rights to Sell Customer Data - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextbigwhat.com/ubers-new-terms-of-use-gives-it-unlimited-rights-to-sell-customer-data-297/ <comment><USER2> Coupling this with the app's removal of the "While Using" location access option, given their history, it's hard to imagine Uber won't try to do something nefarious to violate their users' privacy in the worst way.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does this compare with Lyft?</comment>


FailCon: Failing Forward To Success  - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114271856

<comment><USER2> I went the the conference, it was actually pretty good. The main theme being to fail often and realize that you are failing so that you can learn from your mistakes and do better on your next venture.</comment>


Ask HN: Chicago IP lawyer / firm  recommendations? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone have personal experience with a good individual or firm for IP matters (software licensing, litigation etc.) in Chicago, IL? <comment><USER2> My design industry colleague Nick Disabato uses <http://www.hafeleinwhite.com></comment>