Ask HN: What did you think of the Force Awakens? (Spoilers) - <AUTHOR> I always like hearing opinions from people here about politics, code, honeybees, etc. why not the sci-fi cultural event of the year?<p>I hope to see it again in the theater. It was very good, given the expectations. I thought J.J. Abrams attempt to remake the moments and themes of The Wrath of Khan was a disaster...the desire to retread the themes of the original trilogy got a little tiresome but still a pleasure to watch, and it seems that the second film has been well set-up to forge its own path. <comment><USER3> The callbacks to Episodes IV-VI were a bit excessive. And it reminded me of the Poochie episode of The Simpsons, where Homer suggests that whenever Poochie isn't on the screen, all the other characters should be asking "where's Luke...I mean Poochie?"

I wish Kylo Ren got more of a character arc, but the Sith rarely do. They're basically just cardboard foils for the heroes except for Anakin/Vader. JJ, are you listening? My money is waiting for an opening day ticket to the Kylo Ren prequel.

Overall, it looked and felt like a Star Wars movie, more than the prequels ever did. But it was a 2015 Star Wars movie by JJ Abrams instead of a 1977 Star Wars movie by the director of THX-1138. The First Order was more organic, more believable than the sterile, efficient sci-fi bad guys of the Empire. Kylo Ren's temper tantrums wouldn't have fit into George Lucas's Star Wars universe, but it added depth to his character. It gave him a weakness. It humanized him.

Another case in point: motion control cameras and Steadicam were cutting edge filmmaking when A New Hope was filmed (I think Steadicam was only used for the speederbike sequence in RTJ). Shaky hand-held cameras are a JJ Abrams trademark.

I love the new diversity to the Stormtroopers. Hopefully it'll draw more die- hard fans from all walks of life into the family. It also contrasts them sharply with the Clone Troopers. The Jedi built an army of disposable cannon fodder. Who's the bad guys here?

It wasn't a perfect movie, but neither were Episode IV-VI. It was still fun for all ages and I just may duck out for another showing today since I have the day off.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really enjoyed it, but thought it was too derivative of the earlier installments, particularly the original trilogy.

Which I suppose is unsurprising given they are trying to bring the story back to its roots and not the infamous prequel trilogy, but I hope they are more original with the future installments and rely less on callbacks.

It honestly felt more like a New Hope reboot, than a new installment in the franchise. I sound pessimistic, but I really did enjoy it :)

<comment><USER5> I also enjoyed it immensely, but I couldn't help but feel exasperated that they recreated Darth Vader _and_ the Death Star.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Overall I was not disappointed. Which was the main thing for me. But I did have a few minor issues with it.

The whole movie looked very distinctly like Star Wars, but only the second half actually felt like Star Wars. (I haven't figured out why yet)

It's way to mild in terms of violence. It was like Narnia, in that all the violence was only alluded to but you never actually see anything violent. Especially the scene where Han Solo dies. You don't see the lightsaber go through him, you only see it behind him. This ruined the effectiveness of the scene for me. This contributed to another thing I didn't like about the film. It didn't have the same darkness and grit of Episodes 1-4 (and to a lesser degree 5 and 6) that I really liked.

There were a few too many scenes that were made just for the nostalgia, and they seemed a bit forced.

Other than that, I enjoyed the film very much.

<comment><USER4> Have the films ever been violent?

I don't recall ever thinking they were, characters frequently get limbs cut off with no blood, Obi-Wan 'dies' by disappearing and not even getting cut down, even Qui-Gon in the first one isn't even a violent death.

I just don't think it's a part of the franchise in general.

<comment><USER6> Well I wouldn't say they are violent films. Compared to an action movie for example. But as you mentioned limbs get cut off (and you see it happen). And when Qui-Gon was killed you see the light saber go through him.

So it's not that I wish there was more blood/gore or anything. It's just that for a relatively un-violent movie series, it seems like they went out of their way to shield people from the violence in this movie, as if it is a children's movie like Narnia. And that pissed me off.

<comment><USER7> > as if it is a children's movie

It is a children's movie.

EDIT: That's not a bad thing, but it's really freaking obvious that Disney aren't going to suddenly change this massively lucrative franchise to be 12+.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Star Wars is not "the sci-fi cultural event of the year". It's more fantasy than sci-fi, it just happens to use space ships and lasers and stuff.

<comment><USER9> If it involves "space ships, lasers and stuff" then it is, by definition, SciFi. SciFi is very rarely a genre all on its own.

To give some examples:

\- Alien: Horror/SciFi

\- 2001: A Space Odyssey: Mystery/SciFi

\- Interstellar: Adventure/SciFi

\- The Martian: Drama/SciFi

\- The Force Awakens: Fantasy/SciFi

<comment><USER10> Words are funny things. But the crowd's against you on this. Space and lasers don't make something sci-fi, and Star Wars is a conversation example of Science Fantasy - magic in space.

Science fiction builds a universe on the innovation and consequence. Star Wars doesn't work when you think like this. "why doesn't all the air leak out of the hanger into space?", "why can people see energy beams in the sky that are millions of miles away?", "why don't robots shoot straight?", "why can't they write an algorithm to match BB-8's segment of the map in the map database?", "in all the vastness of space, how did Han+Chewey chance upon the Millennium Falcon?". And, the force just doesn't fit.

2001 and The Martian are fine examples of scifi.

<comment><USER11> I agree w/ you on this, I used to argue the other way w/ my aunt when I was 5 lol, but I grew up and realized the difference. Star wars is a Space Fantasy, science fiction while not ALWAYS accurate hinges on at least trying it's best to be 'real' or use as much real science as possible. Star wars on the other hand tends to put the technology and science on a back-burner, and focus more on the story and character arcs. Here's a good stackexchange article asking the same question:

[http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/46481/did-george- lu...](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/46481/did-george-lucas- consider-star-wars-to-be-science-fiction)

And here's a quote from that: "No. Lucas often used the term Science Fantasy. He never referred to it as only science fiction. Star Wars doesn't hold itself to use science: space craft bank in a vacuum like airplanes do in air, there's the Force (a type of magic or at least metaphysics), .... Star Wars is about epic story telling and not one to get caught up in details such as physics and using the scientific process to solve a problem. This is also why it's felt that JJ Abrams is a great choice for directing Star Wars movies, much more so than Star Trek which spent much effort on not violating laws of physics or at least having a really good technical explanation why something works. Star Wars doesn't attempt to use science to solve problems where as science fiction series such as Star Trek expose science to the audience in an attempt to engage them as to the difficulty of the problem, some possible solutions, and how to conduct experiments to decide upon a solution."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I enjoyed the film. I saw the original Star Wars in the theaters as a kid, and the nostalgia at the opening sequence was surprising and overwhelming. It put me in an odd mental space for watching the movie.

I agree with most other commenters that there were a few too many overtly nostalgic references. I didn't mind them too much in this initial viewing, but it makes me wonder how well this film will age. I watched IV a month ago and it's aged well; there isn't really anything in there I'd consider corny or outdated. I think some of the scenes in this new movie will age poorly.

That said, I really enjoyed it overall. I liked that Ren took off his mask early, that certainly added depth to his character. I'd love to see a movie between VI and VII. I also liked Rey's character a lot.

</comment><comment><USER13> The storyline was incredibly shallow, basically just an amalgamation of scenes from the last six episodes.

On the plus side, the characters are a _lot_ more convincing and very well acted. (Even though I still don't understand why JJ Abrams chose to add a female storm trooper captain, that somehow doesn't feel right. Glad to see some more diversity than in the previous the movies though.) Also, I like the sense of history that pervades the everything. I can understand if some people consider it too nostalgic, but IMO it adds a lot of depth to the movie world.

On the whole it was a film I very much enjoyed watching, even though I wish Abrams had been a bit more creative with his plot.

</comment><comment><USER14> I enjoyed it quite a lot.

It obviously mirrored the original quite strongly. Had I been alive when that movie was released, I might have been upset about this. However, A New Hope is just one of the most solid coming of age stories there is, and I can't fault Disney for wanting to do a soft reboot for a new generation.

The film added little new lore since it is mostly a recreation of the original, but I at least do not watch Star Wars movies as a lore hunter. I watch them to be entertained, and TFA delivered in spades. I don't feel like Star Wars has ever been particularly strong on lore, so not much is lost in my opinion. In fact, my main disappointment with the prequel films is that they focused more on providing new lore and less on being solidly fun to watch. They provided a lot of great material for Star Wars wikis, but not much else.

I feel like it improved on the original in a lot of ways that matter to me personally, but may not matter to others. It might have regressed in ways that matter to others, but not to me.

The acting in general was very good, and I liked Rey more than I liked Luke. This is a big deal for me. The actors carried this movie extremely well.

I enjoyed the older Harrison Ford more than the younger -- he's grandfatherly now on top of all the traits he already had when he was younger.

Kylo Ren was a more interesting villain to me than Darth Vader. Not necessarily better, but more interesting. Vader only became interesting retrospectively with the information gained from The Empire Strikes Back and ROTJ. Given only what was known in A New Hope, he was incredibly one- dimensional.

Starkiller Base was obviously highly derivative of the Death Star, but it was so visually stunning that I don't mind. The film excelled at showing its sheer scale. It was a sight to behold on the big screen in 3D. Any Star Wars movie needs an incredible spectacle, and I think Starkiller Base delivered.

This film is probably the first Star Wars installment where none of the humor annoyed me. That's a big deal for me as well. I'm glad that C3PO was featured very minimally here.

I could go on, but I'll leave it at this. Bottom line: I was very satisfied with it, but I don't regard it as a perfect film. It worked for me, and I suspect it will work for most viewers, but certainly not all viewers.

</comment><comment><USER15> I enjoyed it, but afterwards came across some opinions talking about how it basically knocked down the triumph of the original trilogy and rendered the entire struggle from episodes I through VI completely futile and pointless. The "Empire" is still going strong (as strong as before, certainly, if they have the physical and economic security to build a super-weapon capable of destroying multiple planets at once), and the Rebellion er... Resistance is right back where it started.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, that's a lot like real life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very sad to say but this old Star Wars fan was very disappointed with the movie. To me it looked cheap, with a poor rehashed plot. Very much the Hunger- games (permanently unhappy teenage girl) meets any film staring Danny Glover (out of place but racially correct actor who looks permanently shocked & breathless). And just how bad does Jedi training need be, so that you get beaten by a little girl who has never picked up a lightsaber before?

</comment><comment><USER17> I thought it was great. I enjoyed the humour that they put into it. It seemed like they really cared about what the fans thought of the movie and that made me happy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Music is critical to star wars. This film is scored to the standard of the originals.

// Music in star wars

Sound is critical to Star Wars. There's lots written about this, [http://houstonsymphonyblog.org/09/15/before-luke- skywalker-t...](http://houstonsymphonyblog.org/09/15/before-luke-skywalker- there-was-siegfried/)

Examples,

* IV. Luke Skywalker watches the binary sunset, and feels the pull of the force. The force theme has been hinted at previously, but is played more richly here.

* VI. Interplay between themes in the space battle/endor/emperor chamber. Use of the imperial theme, the rebel alliance theme, troubled variations of rebel alliance theme. Tension, victory.

* Leia's theme. In the original trilogy, Leia is constantly successful and ends each episode on a joyful foot. Yet - her motif is distinctly melancholy. Why? What is the darkness in her future that earns the troubled motif?

Williams is a master. His tunes from the original films worked well then, and have stood the test of time.

// The prequels

The prequel scoring was awful.

The 'trick' in Anakin's motif was unsubtle and uninteresting. There were no interesting new motifs, and they watered down some of the existing motifs by applying them to purposes that they weren't suited to.

Either Williams was left out of the creative process, or he treated it as a time+materials job. There's nothing interesting there, and it's over-egged in the films.

// Episode VII

As I was waiting for the film to arrive, I was wondering how it would compare for music against the original and prequels.

Several segments were scored as richly as the best bits of the original. Example: the scene where they launch the Millennium Falcon.

There are strong new motifs. Kylo Ren's motif is good, and gets used well. For example - the battle after the first light-sabre scene.

The plot has been taken in a direction that satisfies Leia's melancholy motif.

Disney has brought in a team who know what they're doing. Nice work guys!

// Other

Away from music - I was disappointed at the Poe situation. If you're going to stamp out a new series by sticking closely to the old formula, at least stick to the formula!

The original films were edgy. Esbalished characters were killed off (Luke's relatives, pilots), and Han shot first. We should have seen blood at the crash site, and no more of Poe. Killing off an established character is part of strong writing.

Not enough female characters. Rei is good. But only one? All the nazis - <USER2> are they all men? Poe - could have been a woman (and then she could have been killed off). Even the author of Buffy makes a Star Wars film dominated by male characters.

Back to the Nazi thing - this has been pretty heavily played out. Davros and the daleks were fun. Starship Troopers. But it has been thoroughly picked over. Old is boring. Find something new. Why not do something with the samurai themes, feudalism?

There were too many strong American accents. Cushing made sense with a strong English accent in episode IV because it helped establish the idea of /empire/. But strong American accents are a distraction in the star wars universe.

I loved the monsters in the freighter. The Tai Fighter hijacking was cool.

Fin worked. Hope he evolves into a badass and not a comic relief character.

Kylo Ren is a strong addition. He is a powerful /angry young man/ character. Another nail in the coffin of the originals - fabulous. His accent is fine.

As another writer comments, the tributes to the original films were excessive. Everyone has seen the originals. Get on with it. Hopefully this is a one-off cost.

The droid is excellent.

<comment><USER18> I agree with with almost everything you said, but before someone else points this out in a meaner way than I do:

JJ Abrams isn't the writer of Buffy, Joss Whedon is, and he hasn't done a Star Wars movie.

<comment><USER10> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


A collection of ReactVR experiments - nik-graf https://github.com/nikgraf/webvr-experiments <comment><AUTHOR> I can see a bright future for JavaScript

<comment><USER2> Especially for React. The decision to decouple the component layer from the rendering layer makes it amazingly easy to create new renderers!

I reckon in 2017 we'll see both React and JavaScript a lot more places than before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Next level: Now I have to learn to create 3D models with Maya, Cinema4D or Blender as a web developer :)

<comment><USER4> If you have a Mac, I recommend cheetah 3D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone's missing context, there have been a few WebVR renderers for React, some built on top of A-frame, some native WebVR. ReactVR is a new, currently preview, release of a Facebook-built VR React renderer.

It was announced at the Oculus Connect dev conf in October 2016.

</comment><comment><USER6> React gets a lot of things right but the technology is not exclusive to JavaScript. We will see adoption of similar approach in other languages with potentially portable views and semi-portable business logic (more decoupling I suppose).

In terms of ReactVR - yes it is pretty cool.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get good at social media? - <AUTHOR> I feel absolutely shit when I am trying to be relevant by spamming the trending tags, repeating what is already there in the form of SEO spam, email spamming, asking people to subscribe to thing they probably don't even care about.
How do you handle this?
Trying to keep track of what's trending tires me out. Why is it always hate, hate and hate. Why is it always politics or some celebrity expressing their "concerns" or cute puppies. <comment><USER3> In the offline world, much of what "trends" is stuff that hacks people's reward system.

E.g., high-fructose corn syrup, french fries, nicotine, slot machines.

It's bad for us long term, but satisfies our evolved physiological needs in the short term.

Most of the trending content on social media is the same, and much of modern news and commerce has adapted to it.

From what you've said, you're trying to win at the same game, against people/companies who are far more experienced, skilled, resourced and cynical than you.

The answer: don't play that game.

Find a small niche of people you can satisfy with earnestly good quality content.

Think really small - like, 5-10 people, who you can get to know personally and whose interests you can address really really well.

Then grow gradually.

It will seem painfully slow at first, but with a consistent effort over a long enough period of time, you can achieve exponential growth and eventually build a huge audience that really cares about what you have to offer.

One of the best people to follow for guidance on how to do this is Seth Godin. Follow his daily blogs/emails, and read his books, particularly Linchpin, Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and The Dip.

Simon Sinek is another person worth paying attention to.

<comment> at-fates-hands > It will seem painfully slow at first, but with a consistent effort over a > long enough period of time, you can achieve exponential growth

This is the part most people don't get. A great example is Jonny Giger. He's a skateboarder most people have never heard of. He's pro, has his own youtube channel which now has around 380K followers. He rides for a company most people have never heard of called Revive.

He basically hacked the entire industry. His first pro video part was just released a few months ago. He's been creating his videos for EIGHT YEARS to grow his audience, and do it his own way. Because of the revenue he makes on his channel, he literally has no need for big corporate sponsors, or to constantly put on insane video parts or do well in contests to stay relevant like most pro's have to do these days.

He puts up regular content about learning tricks and revisiting old tricks that haven't been done in a long time. He has a whole series where he's just trying to learn some of Rodney Mullen's hardest tricks. In my mind, he's a legit pro and is a really skilled skater. The cool thing is he's done it completely on his own, instead of taking the normal route. Yes, it can be done, but it didn't happen over night did it? No, it didn't. It was dogged persistence on his part and sticking with something I'm sure people told him was impossible, or wasn't going to happen.

As insular as the skateboard industry is, I'm glad there are guys out there like Jonny getting it done on their own terms.

<comment><USER4> +1 for Jonny Giger mention. That guy is awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few things to consider:

Why do you want to get good at social media? You mention spamming tags and subscribing to things that they don't care about.

What is the outcome you want from this?

Getting a lot of likes/RTs? Getting a lot of followers?

If that's the outcome you want, then it sounds more like you want some form of community where you can feel appreciated or encouraged. Social Media is a vacuum of constant churn, and you won't find fulfillment there.

There are exceptions, but I strongly recommend thinking about what things you like to do and try to find your community in real life where the reward is so much higher.

Join a tabletop game club, take French cooking classes, go to some Yoga meetups.

I know now is not an opportune time to go out and meet people, but it's a hell of a lot healthier for your mind and body to be around real people when the time comes. Don't waste your time on social media right now. Build yourself up, learn something new, create something cool. If you get one of those things done, share it on social media if you want, and maybe you'll find some cool people who share your passions or interests.

<comment><AUTHOR> No. I wouldn't use any popular social media if I could. It's for promotion of a project.

To expand on the problem, I have only once or twice susbcribed to an email listing. I consider all the other spam, irrelevant and Will never check them unless forced (some sites do even when you pay them) and other missed to opt out. I don't like seeing people spamming follow me or subscribe to me everywhere either. I know the functionality is there and I would if I want to. I don't care about most of what brands post? I don't want to see a corporate puppy in my feed. I don't want to know that you have a discount running and retweeting this will give a hypothetical chance of winning a giveaway if I have no need for the product. I don't consider businesses intrusive tracking and analytics everywhere ethical. I don't want to participate in signalling that businesses do. Most businesses need to make money and pretending they care more beyond is ughh. Most social media UX sucks. It's unintuitive to use and horrible (see twitter). I have the google paradox, if you can easily find it on google why do I need to share it to you? This is wrong pattern of thinking but this does make me tired mentally when posting something.

 _Obviously, the problem is entirely me_

I keep trying but deep down, I don't even want to support the platform by engaging on them.

It just feels bad to have an ulterior motive behind posting a cute puppy pic.

<comment><USER6> > It just feels bad to have an ulterior motive behind posting a cute puppy pic

Is your project about puppies? If not then don't spam it!

It's low value marketing and you feel bad because you are deliberately trying to trick people. Maybe try to get your product in front of people who actually want it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Practice?

Seriously though, isn't this like _everything_? Stop trying to shortcut it and actually put in the work. The people that grew massively overnight are outliers. The other 99.9999% put in time and effort to cultivate the following they wanted.

What sort of audience do you want? What do they want to see? Put your ego aside, answer those questions, then create genuinely engaging content that ticks that box and isn't a rehash of every other account in the same niche. If you can't offer something different, why would I follow you instead of them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I get it. Found something to remove toxicity from my feed.

And sorry I can't give you an upvote because that would ruin the number. :)

Edit: someone ruined the number :(

<comment><USER8> I don't see numbers- one of us is the "control" ...

<comment><USER9> Same. I don't see vote counts, there's no downvote buttons, and no "report" or "flag" link anywhere on HN for me.

<comment><USER8> To flag, I think you can click the "X hours ago" \- that's actually a link, and flagging will be an option if you look carefully. I know they were experimenting a long time ago (apparently still are) with making upvote counts invisible. It's been a long time. The idea of 7000 upvotes on a comment is an order of magnitude for what I've ever heard of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Why is it always hate, hate and hate

Anger is the most easily evoked emotional state behind sexual arousal, because it is tied to basic survival instincts. US "wild west" culture over its history has ended up making it very OK to be angry at something. This is exploited by people seeking attention.

> Why is it always politics

Politicians and their opposition pay people to to stay visible in the media and run stories about them. Facebook is also mostly used by older people who tend to be the ones to consume opinion-based cable news shows.

> celebrity expressing their "concerns"

Celebrities pay people to stay in the media and run stories about them.

> cute puppies

I think it was in the Naked Ape that I read that the "aww..." reactions produced by cuteness is evolutionarily intended to ensure people like their babies (who need non-angry-at-them parents to survive). This is exploited by people seeking attention.

If social media promotion is your job, you have to detach from it emotionally, and remember that no one is being forced to use social media, or to like anything, or repost anything. It's all on them.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't buy the sentiment that social media isn't "worth it".

I've made friends, started projects, had job offers, acquisition offers -- all through Twitter. Twitter opens up huge opportunities for meeting people who share your interests.

The single best resource I've seen on this is David Perell and Matthew Kobach's (recent) lecture on "How to Crush it on Twitter" [1].

They say:

\- People treat social media interactions like real-life interactions: if you're selfish irl folks won't want to listen to you, so why would social media be any different? Be generous with good ideas

\- Pick a niche and only tweet about that niche. This obviously has to be something you actually care about. Your niche is probably smaller than you think

\- Practice and review: Post for 30 days and at the end of the month, review the likes/RTs and draw a green circle over what worked and a red circle over what didn't. Post more of what worked and you'll notice you're getting better over time.

It's an excellent watch if you are looking to deliberately grow your Twitter following and are willing to practice

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5d6zm3YbqM&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5d6zm3YbqM&feature=youtu.be)

</comment><comment><USER12> You cannot be "good" at social media in the abstract. You have to be providing the kind of entertainment people want. Yes, hate is a kind of entertainment, although an extremely unsavoury one.

Trying to piggy-back a top trend when you're unrelated is also doomed. It's just spam. As you've noticed, trying to get people who don't care to sign up to something that _you_ evidently don't care about either is futile and demoralising.

You have to have a niche. You have to be relevant to people, not topics. Oh, and the advice is radically different depending on platform; I'm mostly HN/Twitter. Few of us is pretty enough for Instagram.

<comment><USER13> Absolutely. TBH, Instagram is not a suitable platform to do this. It's not so much lined-up as Twitter. I mean you can play around with the fancy lined-up on Instagram when one visited your profile but it doesn't deliver the main purpose of using social media for engagement. IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Trying to keep track of what 's trending tires me out._

Are you suggesting that posting about things that are trending is what you would consider to be "good at social media"? That's not what post people would call it.

Look at what are generally considered good social media accounts - they don't follow trends. Some times they might happen to post about something that's trending, but most often the good accounts are ones that have an authentic voice about a topic they find interesting, and they don't deviate all that much. Occasionally a good account might also have a mix of a topic they care about and 'everyday life stuff' because people are human after all. No one who's really good at social media is posting about lots of disparate topics that happen to be trending at a given time.

</comment><comment><USER15> You're copying the wrong behaviour. The marketing staff at XCorp engage in all kinds of marketing that you likelh don't want;the behaviour you are describing is either a deliberate brand awareness campaign, or an accidental pursuit of likes/follows ignoring engagement (often an easy way to boost your appraisal).

For small companies and projects:

Focus on your niche. If it isn't relevant, don't send it. Determine a relevance bar and stick to it (when you get settled you can try playing with this if you care)

Set a limit to how much you send, and over which channels. Set a target as well. Don't lower quality to meet target.

Set up triggers for relevant events (your competitors trending, HN/core forum discussions on your topic) and have a small list of things to do when they happen.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've found Twitter to be the only one really worthwhile. The key is finding thoughtful, interesting people whose opinions you care about, and then ruthlessly weeding out anything political. No matter how much I might like someone, the moment they make a political post they're gone. Political discussion can be great, but social media is simply not the place for it. You'll find that there are plenty of people who feel the same and avoid it entirely, so eventually you can build up a really cool list of interesting folks to follow and learn from.

</comment><comment><USER17> What you need to do to promote yourself and still sleep well at night is come up with good content, and bring it up when relevant. You can easily become an outrage or clickbait factory, but that's no fun; likewise, spamming SEO, trying to get people to do things that they don't want to do, like subscribe to your content, pay you, or even pay attention to you is difficult if they have no reason to do so. You don't have to "optimize", either: not everyone ends up being hugely popular, but you can still be known for something you're proud of.

</comment><comment><USER18> Don't post everything mindlessly by following the latest trends. Instead, focus on a niche you're good at, a topic that interests you and you have the experience, and you will get dedicated followers who want to follow that topic.

</comment><comment><USER19> Since I'm doing other things now I'll tell you the secrets:

Basically its all anti-patterns, the things people SAY are not the things popular people are DOING. And the unorganic stuff like "buying followers/email lists" isn't the unorganic stuff that you should be paying attention to.

Long story short: don't buy people to add to the list, _buy the account_

On Instagram, you just buy a popular account and rebrand it. Pricing is followers multiplied by engagement. You'll figure it out. 3% higher engagement is much better than higher followers. But you can get in the door with partners with higher followers.

You break even on the account by doing paid features for like a month.

The rebrand will cause a bunch of followers to leave, so THATS when you use bots like instagress to get the attention of other real humans to offset the decline. _you are never actually growing the account_ , teenagers in Albania and India are growing the accounts. Don't fall for the time wasting ideas, unless your time isn't valuable. You buy their already grown accounts.

Use those accounts to hack hashtags for several years. I'm not sure thats a term but here is how you do it: you take the account private, and thats when YOU pay for promotions on other people's accounts to drive real humans to your account.

When your account is private, instagram queues up follower requests 100 at a time, and when you switch back to public only 100 followers or so are added at once I think. There is some limit. The point is that you always maintain a currency of new followers that you can accept in bulk at any time.

So THEN when you post a picture with almost any hashtag (based on popularity of that tag), you can accept a TON of followers that you've been queuing for an indefinite time period - also amplified by paid promotion again - <USER2> everyone likes/engages with it quickly, pushing it to the TOP section of a popular hashtag.

Rinse, repeat.

Regarding promotions again, you also want to be in a liking ring in Instagram DMs with other popular accounts. You post your picture in those rings and they like your photo, and vice versa. I'm not sure how much this works since the friend's activity feed is gone, but it can still move your photo up on other people's normal feeds if you share followers.

Its a decent place to START your funnel these days.

<comment><USER19> If I find a good deal on an account with more followers and higher engagement, I'll just buy that and then rebrand that to my main account, and turn the old account into a "fanpage" of the same brand, or consider using it for a similar venture in the same sector (or a hard rebrand I won't use, because if you never post you won't lose followers, but you can still get in the door with people - or just slide into DMs with Tinder girls because they actually talk to you if you have alot of followers, you don't even need to swipe right on Tinder. It really functions very similarly to currency. I have 100% brought beautiful women to my apartment, in programmer filled San Francisco, who have never seen me before, by sliding into DMs with a popular account that I purchased and broke even on, after I saw their profile on Tinder and didn't even bother swiping right.

Instagram accounts pay for themselves you'd be surprised.

Oh well the secret's out, my actual opinion is that purchasing accounts is riddled with fraud and Facebook should broker them and take a cut because it is a whole economy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > I feel absolutely shit when I am trying to be relevant

Sounds like you should stop. Obsessing over social media isn't healthy and unless (perhaps even if) you're doing it professionally I very much doubt it's going to bring you value proportional to it's (negative) emotional and psychological impact.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Good" in what sense, to what end? Why are you on social media in the first place?

"Trending" is virtually always utter dreck. Advice on Reddit is to unsubscribe all default subs, on G+ it was to block or avoid "What's Hot" (a/k/a "What Snot"), and to avoid at all costs _appearing_ on it.

My goals are, mostly, finding intelligent conversation, awareness of _relevant_ information, and bouncing my own ideas off others, for further development and refinement. I agree strongly with this comment by @tomhoward ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22933833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22933833)), especially about finding a _small_ core group. Best discussion group I'd managed in recent years had about 50 subscribers, core actives about 15, but excellent discussion. It's since been dissolved and the platform it was hosted on shut down, but was good while it lasted.

The one secret hack I've found, on any platform which suports it, is "block f ---wits":

[https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102504802435025145](https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102504802435025145)

Effectively it's a S/N boost mechanism by curtailing noise sources. It's remarkably effective.

For HN, that's not possible, but moderator intervention and user flags tend to be highly effective.

</comment><comment><USER22> What's the end goal for which you feel you need to get good at social media?

The thing to consider about "social media" is it's a term that's taken out of the pages of 1984, like the Ministry of Peace. It's social in the way that social experiments or popularity contests are "social", not as in hanging out with friends and feeling good.

There are many, many people whose entire job is to get good at jumping through these hoops, and even then most of them fail. So the best thing you can do for yourself is decide you're not a monkey or a lab rat.

I'm guessing you have in mind something you'd like to promote, even if it's just yourself and your thoughts. And I second the suggestion to build a tiny audience at first. Even if it's just 5 people who absolutely love what you do - that's a start.

The way to get these people is to step out of dystopia-land and recall how it works in real life, and mimicking that in whatever social network you feel is most relevant to your objectives. For me, that social network is LinkedIn. [I left any others I was on.]

I've written an entire detailed article on how to take this approach, which is different to the traditional "gain a following", but ends up building actual relationships. You might find stuff in it relevant to your needs.

[https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on- linkedin-w...](https://medium.com/skill-strong/how-to-network-on-linkedin- when-youre-shy-4c60f02b3afd)

</comment><comment><USER23> I have no affiliation, just a happy customer, but the Holloway Guide to Twitter is a great, lengthy resource for Twitter at least, probably applicable across platforms for the most part: [https://www.holloway.com/g/using- twitter](https://www.holloway.com/g/using-twitter)

</comment><comment><USER24> I help run a small all-volunteer non-profit that advocates for trail access for mountain bikes (CRAMBA - [https://cramba.org](https://cramba.org)), along with trail maintenance, design, building, etc. I've found the best way to get a good response on social media for promoting our topics is to have them be relevant to the audience.

Literally, posts and things that are stuff people are interested in (new trails, COVID-19 closure info, trail conditions, asking what they did on the trails this past weekend) get very good engagement and they get info out there. Stuff that's only peripherally related trying to gain likes and followers and whatnot just seem... meh.

So, the short answer to what works for us? Not trying to game things and providing actual, nice content. It also keeps our audience very focused.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think one tweet that stood out to me not sure who it was by is that each social media platform requires a different set of skills to be good at it.

So I think the best step is to pick one social media platform and study people who have successfully gained traction on that specific platform.

</comment><comment><USER6> > Trying to keep track of what's trending tires me out

From your post, it sounds like you are tying to spam everything with irrelevant content just to try to trap people into getting something they don't want.

Maybe you feel bad because that's a bad way to behave?

Social media is what you make it. If you are promoting a product you like in areas where it is relevant then maybe you'd feel better?

Others have suggested finding a niche and working that, which is a great approach.

Otherwise, if you product isn't about cute puppies why do you care if others are posting them? I use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pretty heavily and I go days without seeing any puppies.

</comment><comment><USER26> It really depends on what you're trying to do with Social Media.

I tried for years to get a small business' Twitter account to take off with no success.

But I also created a personal Twitter account for political musings and it had 10 times more followers than the business account in a few months, and literally hundreds of times more engagement.

I don't think anyone is actually "good at social media" as it's constantly changing. I just think you have to take the right approach to whatever you're trying to do, and also be lucky.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's not that different from other social endeavors. If you don't have existing social connections, meaning people don't know who you are, it's tough. If you're already "famous" you could be posting third-rate content and get decent engagement. Even if you get a few posts to go viral it doesn't help you in the big scheme of things if you cannot convert it into a relationship.

At the end of the day it's all people on the other side. Think how to get them to like YOU, not your posts.

</comment><comment><USER28> People only have so much attention to allocate. It's exponentially harder to become a star on social media platforms as the number of users grows. Look for the next platform that appeals to your audience & begin building while there is a vacuum to be filled.

Advertisements and referrals will magnify your reach. If you have money, buy ads. If you are famous on another platform or have access to other famous people, promote your channel via referrals. If you have a website with high search rank, link to your posts.

</comment><comment><USER29> The only winning move is not to play.

</comment><comment><USER30> We tend to find that our team are most interesting when they write about what they are interested in. After all, people who tend to create content to reach trending audiences often aren't writing with the same love and passion, and so what the offer is less unique. Get really into the details of what you love and you'll tend to find and connect with others who do the same and build your community that way.

</comment><comment><USER31> What's your product ? What added value is it offering to your prospects compared to other's product ? Who are your prospects ?

I'd suggest getting your hand on a marketing 101 book or online courses, take the shortcut here by learning from others and stop trying out things at random.

And depending on your business: be prepared to shell out money in ads. Be very careful. If you don't know how then it's the time yet.

</comment><comment><USER32> What are your goals? It's hard to give you actionable advice without knowing what you are trying to achieve.

It sounds like you're just copying others; that is not a good way to be good at most things that aren't commodities (which social media is not).

Copying the techniques that you see on trending pages, without copying the (unseen) techniques that _got_ people on trending pages will, predictably, not land you on trending pages.

</comment><comment><USER33> don't get good at social media, get good at finding sponsors and scouts.

with this I mean, get good at finding 100 persons that either: \- would pay 1 euro a month for whatever you're doing next \- would happily forward infos about whstever you're doing next to that friends of theirs who is really into the same niche (who usually would love to pay 1 euro/month)

</comment><comment><USER34> Personally I've found the way to "win" at social media is to not engage.

I left Facebook over a decade ago - as it happens because of the _people_ not the platform - and I find myself not using Twitter at all (I'll occasionally go read a linked tweet, but its not like I need an account to do that) for months now.

</comment><comment><USER35> > Why is it always hate, hate and hate.

I firmly believe that being mean (spreading hate) takes much less effort than being nice. It's like curse words. It is so much easier to drop an F-Bomb than it is to a word that's more descriptive. People just gravitate towards the low effort fruit, even if it isn't nearly as delicious.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why do you care?

I'm going to take the opposite view here, and advise you that if see Social Media as full of hate (which it is in my view), then Social Media is not for you. I recommend you leave it to those who enjoy that sort of toxic interaction, and focus on something you actually enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Being good at social media is not worth much by itself. What is the actual goal? Selling something?

</comment><comment><USER38> It seems unclear whether you approach it from a professional or an individual basis. You mention spamming the trending tags which sounds like a blackhat marketing tactic. Do you want to promote your product or to become more involved at a personal level?

</comment><comment><USER39> Work towards a niche.

Then announce it to the world. Although getting "followers" or "retweets" as a vindication of your online presence is not a metric that should be pursued. Its futile.

</comment><comment><USER40> You need to find your inner voice first, and your best fit? Each medium has its own population and style. Start from the one you like the most and be yourself.

</comment><comment><USER41> There's no need to play that game and it's far more rewarding to define and play your own game with a smaller audience. I had cut myself off of social media and blogging but got back into it recently because I felt there would be an audience I could benefit: [https://blog.kowsheek.com/should-i-start-a- blog/](https://blog.kowsheek.com/should-i-start-a-blog/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Stop using it and get Actual Work done

</comment><comment><USER43> Hate, feelings vs facts, false compassion, relatability and all that is part of the current bit of nature we are experiencing. Studying art, culture, religion and psychology has a lot of answers for how people behave. Ultimately a lot of the pop art and advertising is just plastering a film over what people want at the moment and pointing people in a direction from that.

Hate is running out of steam as we speak, in a few years it will all be money, humanism, unity, kindness, ect. Then it will be taste, the tall mother, class, sisterly love ect. The cycles of what the nature in people want can be tracked over days, months, years, decades, centuries, ect. People have been doing this stuff for millennia.

Hate, jealousy, ect are signals that something of value exists and is worth hating. Getting your product hated for silly reasons is a great boost, sell to both the haters and lovers. People won't tolerate inaccessible and distant rich or classy figures at the moment, all the cash and attention is in relatability. All the old symbols of competence and class have mostly collapsed (except for the old mainstays) so there's few ways to visibly distance yourself socially from others anyway.

It's all a big ecosystem that rumbles on, for all the 'individual brilliance of an artist/advertiser/designer' they are all using the same tools to do the same stuff, including the understanding of human psychology. Once you learn all the tools it becomes constraining what gets attention and what you can actually live off, it can only really be one thing, one story at the end of the day and everybody's competing for it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Yes targeting fewer people easily show you better results in the online industry.

</comment><comment><USER45> oh, the whole proccess of seo is an experiment. there is no accurate formula for success, however, there are some tips and tricks.

what social media you are talking about? reddit, facebook, youtube, twitter?

</comment><comment><USER46> A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

</comment><comment><USER47> 0.0.0.0 facebook.com

0.0.0.0 twitter.com

</comment><comment><USER48> Don't. Just don't.

Social media has proven to be a least common denominator gutter that worships outrage and chumbox spam. Either have bots make the snausage by filling the world with crap for money, or be at peace without approval in relative obscurity with worthwhile content and less money. There's not much middle- ground because it's half-stepping to not go all-in and focus one way or the other. Personally, IDGAF and would do the latter if I was forced to but don't really care what random, cyberdisinhibited people think because it's usually time-wasting noise.</comment>


Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704369304575632602305759466.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

<comment><USER2> Good God, I hope so. E-books are a joke right now, ridiculously walled-in, incompatible with many readers, and frequently mere OCR'd scans of the books they're supposed to be, instead of even doing _basic_ linking like TOC / Index. Google book search _alone_ does better than many publishers.

More competition will be good for the game. And am I the only one who wants an _open_ Android E-ink device? Stupid F*#^#& locked-down systems, crappy desktop software, and proprietary formats; it's no wonder they're not selling like hotcakes.

<comment><USER3> That wasn't my experience.

Oreilly I think has done a good job with this and so did Pragmatic Press among a few others. The good ones give you the choice of downloading in several formats to use on your different devices. I think that's a good thing to do. And I try to only support the ones that do that.

My problem with some ebooks right now is the price point. Some publishers insist on maintaining the price of the ebook to be the same as that of the regular book. One would think that removing the printing costs and logistics would bring the cost down substantially.

<comment><USER2> The problem is that such ease of use shouldn't require the small-time publishers to make what are seen as risky moves like that. And that it's tied to the publisher: they go down, they take my ability to retrieve what I paid for with them. Those two are particularly buyer-friendly, and I've purchased a few from them, but they're certainly not the standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They talk blot about independent publishers, but most of the books people wants are not likely to come from those publishers. How will Google get these companies on board?</comment>


Cheating on Honorlock W HDMI? - <AUTHOR> My university is using honorlock for tests. If I connect an HDMI cord to computer with an extension cord leading to living room and project it onto tv, would honorlock's tech be able to detect that if the hdmi cord isn't in the room scan? To clarify, my friend is taking the test. I would be in living room texting answers to friend.
They say they can detect a phone but my friend used a phone on last test and hasn't gotten kicked out of our university so I suspect it's easier than their website claims. If I text my friend answers I see from hdmi/tv and she doesn't touch the phone, can they detect it?
Also, I have the testbank. But if I didn't have a question the professor wrote and had to look it up, would honor lock really be able to know if I'm looking it up if I use data on my phone rather than wifi server? <comment><USER2> They could detect whether an external monitor is connected. They can't tell whether the cable ends in the same room.</comment>


Coding Book Bundle - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@js_tut/my-coding-books-8f0f79eb030 <comment><AUTHOR> For a limited time premium quality coding books CSS Visual Dictionary and JavaScript Grammar are available at a discount.</comment>


On "updating" premodern recipes (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://marissanicosia.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/a-question-of-updating/

<comment><USER2> Summary: 'Updating' involves everything from transcription itself to changing the spellings to match their modern equivalents - but also to convert ingredients or their handling (room-temperature butter, for example), and finally the more substantial issues of converting cooking on something like a hearth to modern alternatives.

Some people gripe at any 'updating' but it's actually a subtle problem on where to stop.

<comment><USER3> There are even more subtle issues of updating than were touched on in the post. A lot of meats (especially chicken and pork) are much different than their equivalents of even a few decades ago. As a result, recipes in even relatively recent cookbooks like Julia Child's classics will "work" but they're probably not ideal for today's leaner pork and more tender chicken.

<comment><USER4> That reminds me: The older admonitions to cook pork until it's bone-dry and sawdust-like date from an earlier era before modern pig ranching, when trichinosis was more common and cooking until desertification was the only way to ensure safety. These days, at least in America, trichinosis is practically unheard-of and pork can be juicy and tender with very little actual risk.

[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/26/cooking-...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/26/cooking- pork-safely-the-science)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you are going to update it would be a good idea to use weights in gram or kilogram rather than the volume of ill defined cups and vague quantities such as not too large. Then everyone could enjoy them without having to scour the web for equivalent measures. Similarly for Fahrenheit, it might have been modern in 1724 but most of the world has moved on.

<comment><USER6> It's not everyone, it's just you. Metric system might have been hot in 179x or when it was introduced after the French revolution, but it's it's not that hot anymore; it's simply not convenient, especially in the kitchen.

Here's my recipe: scour the web once and write it down; buy calibrated cups or measure what you have once and remember it (again, write it down); enjoy.</comment></comment>


Turn your new Iphone4S into a full blown GoPro HD like Action Cam - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/actioncases/action-case-turn-your-iphone-4-into-an-action-came Matt has a great idea of designing a protective case around the Iphone4 and Iphone4S that is also compatible with all GoPro mounts... I would totally buy this.
Iphone4S + the GoPro converter + the full 1080p HD videos == win! <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the promo vid on Vimeo: <http://vimeo.com/29239321> Please help to spread the word out for the guy, it is a sweet idea!</comment>


Why Is Chinese Web Design So Bad? - <AUTHOR> http://thinkvitamin.com/design/why-is-chinese-web-design-so-bad/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+vitaminmasterfeed+(Think+Vitamin) <comment><USER2> On the side, a block of chinese text will -always- look busier than an equivalent block of latin alphabet text. It's just the nature of the symbols. There's a lot more stuff being packed into the same space.

Also, I really dislike the interchangeable use of chinese and eastern here. Just because the author states that he's going to interchange, and is possibly overgeneralizing, doesn't mean that he should do it. You recognized and -admitted- that you're probably in the wrong. And then go ahead and do it anyways.

</comment><comment><USER3> Take a look at some of these popular Western portals. They are no less busy than the Chinese portals discussed in this article.

<http://www.yahoo.com/>

<http://www.aol.com/>

<http://www.msn.com/>

Google and Baidu both share a minimalist aesthetic because they aren't portals! They are just search engines.

Also consider America's most popular local classifieds site, <http://craigslist.org/>.

<comment><USER4> is it any surprise that yahoo does so well in taiwan and japan when compared against google then...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> nice article, i've also often thought the same that sites in china lack sophistication. a quick note about myself, i've spent the past four years living in japan and china, originally from america.

i think japan is an exception, there are a lot of very good designers in general in japan, web design being no exception. and china reminds me of how japan was in the 70's, rapidly growing, quite far behind and needing to catch up. so just like the japanese who started making cheap cars and televisions following in the footsteps of the western companies, china is doing the same except across many other industries. and because things are rapidly growing here, it's about time to market, grabbing the opportunity which often times means taking whatever's out there (that worked locally), copying it and going to production.

over time the chinese customers will seek simpler, cleaner designs. it's just a matter of time.</comment>


2,000 student hackers expected at Santa Monica hackathon this weekend - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-student-hackathon-silicon-beach-20140124,0,2818949.story#axzz2rS4AJfuz

<comment><USER2> "Students will be working for 36 hours to produce websites, apps or hardware using any open-source libraries and API."

Title should read "2,000 computer science students expected at Santa Monica hackathon this weekend". Common misspelling, no worries... -__-

<comment><USER2> Go ahead, ban me. I'm already dead.</comment></comment>


Banning Netflix, Amazon from Festivals and Awards Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2018/03/27/banning-netflix-amazon-from-festivals-and-awards-is-wrong <comment><USER2> I don't understand where this cheerleading for these multi-billion dollar companies started.

First off, these companies aren't banned at all. They are free to show them.

They can't compete unless they show their movie in a French cinema, which they refuse to.

The only way to legally watch these movies like Okja is to subscribe to these companies. If Cannes gives out an award, you can't go see it in an independent cinema, you can't buy it on disc, you must subscribe to Netflix or Amazon. I completely side with Cannes on this fact. You can't celebrate film by promoting the distributor (and in this case, their subscription model).

Netflix and Amazon are going to continue their quest to destroy cinemas, and in this case, French business. If Netflix and Amazon want to start their own awards, then they can go ahead and do it. I'll make sure to stay away from it.

<comment><USER3> It was my understanding that Netflix wanted to show their movies in French cinemas, but French regulations would prevent them from doing that while also streaming the movies for subscribers.

<comment><USER2> Yes. The CNC wanted Netflix to show their movie in more than a measly 6 cinemas since it was showing at Cannes, and the windowing regulations require 3 years before a movie can go from cinema to streaming. This is mostly a protectionist cinema regulation, though there are talks to reduce it going on right now.

I'm not at all a fan of regulatory capture, but I do understand that you can't pay lip service to the spirit of Cannes - celebrate film and cinema, don't promote your streaming services.

<comment><USER4> So you watch it at home and suddenly it's not art anymore.

<comment><USER5> What you watch at home is `video`. What you watch in a movie theater is `cinéma`.

<comment><USER6> Speak for yourself. Surely you understand that there's a wide spectrum between watching a film on a laptop with built-in speakers and the true theatre experience you mentioned.

Personally, I use a good projector and a high quality audio system in my living room and while not typical, I'd consider it far from unusual. Degrading any media consumption that happens at home in a blanket statement really doesn't add anything to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had posted on Twitter from a comment here that "good cinema is good cinema no matter the release medium" – a hollywood writer targeted my tweet in regards to Spielberg comments.

He said: "His argument is that the very definition of "cinema" is the movie theater. Are you saying that a very good film shot and released on NBC should be allowed entry to the Oscars? That's what the Globes and Emmys are for."

So I said: The source of production and viewing outlet is less relevant than 10 years ago. At 30,000 feet the end user would say a movie is a movie and, some don't prefer a movie theatre.

His response: "So you're saying that TV movies should be eligible for Oscars? And, if so, should the Emmy awards for those films be eliminated?"

My response: "No, I'm not saying any of that. I'm not in that industry. A movie is a movie to me and most the world. That's all"

The bottom line: Strong opinions and ego are flaming internal Hollywood politics, which, are disregarding the enduser.

<comment><USER8> > The source of production and viewing outlet is less relevant than 10 years > ago.

I couldn't agree more.

My living room tv is a 65" 4K monitor. It cost me around $999 during sales.

The perceived size of that screen at such a low distance gives the impression of looking at a bigger screen that the one at the local cinema.

We watch Netflix on it using two pairs of high quality headphones.

This results in a better viewing experience than going to the cinema. If I really felt like going there, I would simply burn some butter in a pan and play some crying children sounds in the background.

<comment><USER9> And next up, plausibly even better ways to simulate massive viewing at home via virtual reality tech getting perpetually better.

Obviously home projection tech is amazing now as well, if one wants to leave the glass behind.

<comment><USER10> A 110" wide powered projector screen and a decent 1080p projector will run you less than $1000.

I did my full setup for about $730 with an Optoma HD27. Have not used the TV since.

<comment><USER11> I did the same when I moved into a smaller 1 bedroom and had to choose between having a television or my small apartment woodshop. It's been great.

<comment><USER12> That does not sound great for your lungs.

<comment><USER10> That's why we have respirators.

As long as the apartment wood shop isn't heavily used for sanding, it will be fine. I have a full garage woodshop and still do sanding out in the front yard, even in the winter. I built a bar top and did the sanding in the garage; was brushing sawdust off of everything in there for weeks.

<comment><USER12> I don't really like giving out healthcare advice on the Internet. But also... I feel bad for folks being harmed. I'm an amateur woodworker and a non-amateur medical professional, so I've looked into this topic for my own self. Putting on the n95 while you're sanding isn't sufficient in that sort of environment.

But I'd really rather you didn't take my word for it: perhaps you'd consider reaching out to a pulmonologist with experience in carpenters' occupational lung diseases, and get their take on it?

Spoken, honestly, as one stranger wishing another no harm.

<comment><USER10> I don't use the n95's, I use the dual filter half mask respirators.

Similar to this: [http://a.co/1jM2zu6](http://a.co/1jM2zu6)

<comment><USER12> That's still N95 with respect to particulate filtration. P95, to split hairs, but equivalent with respect to the topic at hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An impressive shot... at their own foot.

The only thing Cannes is going to hurt in the long run is its own relevance within global popular culture. If they want to restrict themselves to movies that have been shown in French theaters as defined and regulated by the French government etc. etc., I suppose it's their prerogative to do so.

But they are sticking their heads in the sand if they don't realize that audiences are less interested in that particular subset of media than ever. (I don't think movie theaters will ever go away, at least not soon, but using them as part of the definition for "what is a movie" is stupid.)

I hope that Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Hulu, and others will continue to spend money on good cinema and continue to deliver it audiences in the way that audiences want to watch it. If they play the long game, they're going to win. Let the industry crusties pat each other on the back (this is politer than the metaphor I was originally going to use) at their awards -- audiences have an appetite for good storytelling and money to spend on it.

<comment><USER14> Cannes has little to do with popular culture. It's an elite event, open to industry insiders and artists. A regular person can't just buy a ticket to go to Cannes anyway.

The situation is roughly analogous to the US Academy requiring movies to play in the US for some time. (There are more restrictions, but it's in a similar spirit.)

<comment><USER15> Actually they can. Just take part in what's called the Int. Cinephile Society with a lot of older French folks showing up at the screenings there. Many of them don't know how to queue up, constantly jumping the line, so they are not very much liked there. Typical waiting period is one hour in the line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Goodbye Cannes and Oscars. You do this and you will make yourselves irrelevant.

<comment><USER17> I don't think so.

Netflix, Amazon, etc. have some great entertainment, but they seem to avoid serious, emotional, social, and political topics.

Instead they keep producing tons of supernatural/superhero series.

That kind of stuff was never particularly popular at Cannes anyway.

I guess what I am saying is that even though they share the medium, they do very different things with it.

<comment><USER18> > Instead they keep producing tons of supernatural/superhero series.

No, that's just the stuff that is most popular and visible, just like in almost every other venue of the film industry. Dig slightly deeper, just like in actual cinema screenings, and they offer plenty of lower-key content.

<comment><USER17> So you are saying my recommendations are off?

<comment><USER19> i don't even use netflix recommendations. cinesift.com is one way to find stuff, but really anything but netflix for netflix recommendations.

<comment><USER19> i guess it's called [https://flickmetrix.com/](https://flickmetrix.com/) now

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm going to push back on the case that this kind of exclusion would somehow make these awards / festivals irrelevant. That's unlikely. The power of the recognition they extend has much less to do with how broadly inclusive they are; it has much more to do with whether whatever they put the spotlight on is something that resonates with general audiences, with enthusiasts, and with others who work in the medium. As long as Cannes and the Oscars are functioning well as one kind of curator, they'll probably remain relevant.

Now, if those left out were to start some sort of new award or festival, and it were to become as reliable a curator of attention as the currently prestigious festivals and awards. Or if it became more so. You'd need the participation of services that have a broad reach, who could draw attention to it, if only there were a few of those left out in the cold for pushing their new model who might want to do such a thing...

<comment><USER21> One of the differences of being in my 30s, rather than 20s, is discovering things I thought were very relevant and influential are sometimes totally unknown.

In the short term, Cannes and the Oscars may be very relevant. Yet, if something were to happen where they lost relevance for a younger generation, in another decade or two not only the relevance will have vanished but so to would much of the popular awareness they even existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Banning users from enjoying art because they use vpns or don't care for DRM is also wrong. It's hard to care about what feuds traditional studios and these streaming companies get into. They deserve each other.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a prime example of an industry responding the wrong way to being disrupted.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've read elsewhere that film festivals like Cannes also perform a vital business function for independent filmmakers whereby distributors attend to find movies they want to buy the rights to distribute to more theaters in various countries, and filmmakers bring their movies there seeking this to try and get their film onto more screens.

For Netflix and Amazon exclusives, this part of the film festival is completely irrelevant, and I would imagine that the people who use film festivals to shop for independent films to distribute would rather not waste their time,

</comment><comment><USER25> This is ripe for a new awards ceremony inclusive of all platforms.

<comment><USER26> IMDB should host one :)

<comment><USER27> Potential conflict of interest since IMDB is owned by Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Given the disaster ratings at the latest Oscars, Netflix and Amazon might just as well go ahead and start their own new awards shows and lock out old Hollywood. It's obvious who has the power now, old Hollywood is a little dog barking at a couple of tigers.

"Oscars Drop to All-Time Low 26.5 Million Viewers"

[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings- oscar...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings-oscars-eye- new-low-early-numbers-1091636)

<comment><USER28> 26.5 million viewers is still a lot for something that is neither a sporting event nor a Presidential address, inauguration, or debate. It's enough that other networks will schedule around it rather than going head to head.

<comment><USER29> Unless you're AMC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They should just create their own awards, you know, with black jack and hookers. Seriously though, anything that curves to Hollywood's caprices isn't that great anyway.

</comment><comment><USER31> As an avid movie watcher, this means nothing to me. Gatekeep your self- indulgent, self-congratulatory, award shows. Pontificate all you want about what "film" is or isn't. I'm not going to movie theaters on a regular basis because they are noisy, expensive, and often not worth the price a premium ticket. The genie is out of the bottle.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems to me that it's only a matter of time before these festivals open the way to streaming services. They are dominating the creation of episodic content simply because of the money they are spending. Festivals can't ignore all that content. Also, streaming services can just start there own and stream it which givis them more content.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just make good content. Make a new award ceremony. Invite everyone.

</comment><comment><USER34> The Post's article has more details and a link to the original source (which is behind a paywall): [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2018/03/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2018/03/26/cannes-film-festival-bans-netflix-films-from-competition- also-no-more-selfies)

Sounds like the core of the issue involves "French cultural exception" which "mandates a 36-month delay between a movie's theatrical release and streaming date."

It's not clear to me if Cannes cares about the 36-month period (I can't imagine...) as much as theatrical release. If the latter, films like Manchester by the Sea which were released in the theaters would still compete at Cannes.

Seems absurd, particularly that this is enshrined in law, but that's just me.</comment>


Ask HN : Is hacker a good terminology? - <AUTHOR>

When the word hack is used, despite other elite explanations available in Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries people[1] will take it wrong - Hacker is a person who will make harm to your machine or the person who will break your computer.
Convince me, and I will others that Hacker the term itself defines a nice human/person living behind.
or I would like to know why people say so.
Edit: [1](Your mother or your friend who doesn't know what HN is ) <comment><USER2> It's not a bad way to discriminate between people based on how much they think about technology. The less informed only see the term when it appears in a bad news headline. Others know there is more that one meaning.

At Hacker Dojo we have experienced this first hand. Once we had a tv crew show up asking about the arrest of some Anonymous members. Nothing at all to do with us. There have been a couple of times we wished the name was the Mountain View Yacht Club.

</comment><comment><USER3> The term hacker as someone who fiddles with technology out of curiosity predates the negative term for a malicious computer user. I believe it even predates computers.

<comment> mkr-hn 14th century: <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hacker is fine, all job descriptions looking for a "ninja hacker" or for that matter any job descriptions prefixed with the word ninja should be ignored. I have never met someone serious about programming that liked to be called a ninja or thought of themselves as such. I have met many people who were very into start-ups but had no CS or Engineering background that loved to give themselves and others silly prefixes though. In a nut shell call yourself what you like, but be wary of those too interested in titles as they are probably trying to make up for something.

</comment><comment><USER5> This will answer all your questions: <http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker- howto.html>

<comment><USER6> This would be much more applicable if there'd be a culture distinguishing the two kinds here at HN. Most submissions about Anonymous or "cyberwar" call them hackers, i.e. there's no "hackers vs. crackers" mentality. (Never mind that for me, having grown up in the 80s, a "cracker" is someone who circumvents the copy protection of a game)

Still, considering that the term has morphed once again into something greater ("life hackers" etc.), I don't see a real danger in the name of this site. Never mind that we've got way more capitalistic neo-yuppies here than phreaking aging hippies…

<comment><USER7> I expect that most of us just assume that context will be a sufficient discriminator, and don't feel the need to always call out the distinction explicitly.

<comment><USER6> I think that's the core of it. Someone who plasters stickers on their Ikea coffee table is a "hacker", as is someone who breaks into the NSA, as is someone who, well, creates yet another specialized social network using RoR… (I'd say complaining about the loss of meaning would be a much better topic than arguing about a potential bad reputation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn People think a lot of wrong things. It's more productive to inform them when it comes up than it is to change the word you use.

</comment><comment><USER8> I tried but...

"a terminology"? "a person who will make harm"?

English? Can you speak it?

<comment><USER9> Clearly not that well, perhaps it's not their native language.

Polite, motherfucker, can you be it?</comment></comment>


Handling Filesystem Events with GCD in iOS and Cocoa - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidhamrick.com/2011/10/10/handling-filesystem-events-with-gcd.html <comment><USER2> Interesting. In my autobuild[0] tool I used the FSEvent api to monitor filesystem notifications.

This article prompted me to revisit the documentation, to make sure I'm not doing anything too stupid. The documentation clarifies:

The file system events API is also not designed for finding out when a particular file changes. For such purposes, the kqueues mechanism is more appropriate.

The file system events API is designed for passively monitoring a large tree of files for changes. The most obvious use for this technology is for backup software. Indeed, the file system events API provides the foundation for Apple's backup technology.

So the FSEvent api is more suitable for my use case, but it is useful to know this if I happen to have a different use case in the future.

[0] <https://github.com/scoopr/autobuild></comment>


Ask HN: What should I read while offline for a year? - <AUTHOR> I want to spend a year doing more focused, dedicated studying.
That means avoiding checking websites regularly (including this one) and avoiding following the big shiny things.
However, I want to keep growing as a developer.
I'm currently employed as a web developer (React) however, I'm also interested in AI, Distributed Systems, Security, and general computer science (I'm a self-taught coder).
What are your favourite (paper) resources for studying these subjects? <comment><USER2> A large list of mostly CS academic papers briefly explained. [https://blog.acolyer.org](https://blog.acolyer.org)

</comment><comment><USER3> I am enjoying "Quantum Computing for Everyone". It's by an MIT math professor, and is certainly for "everyone" . . . who wants to learn quantum techniques for linear algebra (e.g., everyone who wants to do some serious work).</comment>


A Generation Lost in the Bazaar & The Design of Design - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257

<comment><USER2> Already discussed here today : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4407188>

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't see it on the front page when I was submitting, and HN link checker didn't catch it since the url is different.</comment></comment>


Civilized terminal styles for Node in ~30 LOC - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bucaran/clor

<comment><AUTHOR> Clor is a 30 some LOC original and superior alternative to colors.js and Chalk.

See repo for full docs and examples.</comment>


Windows Defender Antivirus and layered machine learning defenses - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mmpc/2017/12/11/detonating-a-bad-rabbit-windows-defender-antivirus-and-layered-machine-learning-defenses/ <comment><USER2> Will they do anything about its terrible performance? According to [1] the Windows Defender causes a 5x increase of Chrome's build times and it delays a process start by 260 ms.

[1] [https://twitter.com/BruceDawson0xB/status/940747236614574080](https://twitter.com/BruceDawson0xB/status/940747236614574080)

<comment><USER3> What measure are you using to determine the performance is terrible? As a developer, I have always had issues with Antivirus. If your compile times are crap then AV should be one of the first things you try disabling.

Hell, I've had overly aggressive AV (McAfee) locking files in temp data folders causing performance to falter in running applications (Visual Studio, Pidgin, Outlook, Office).

Why does the end user care about compile times?

<comment><USER4> I've had the same experience, I've just taken to whitelisting all of the cache, assembly, and lib folders throughout the workflow (and processes).

Never found an AV which didn't seriously hamper build times, since building often involves a lot of process start/stops and new small files, both of which are kryptonite to AV.

MalwareBytes Enterprise recently got completely uninstalled as it was locking random files during compilation indefinitely. They have a fix but only for the consumer branch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is both pretty impressive and pretty scary. Impressive to detect new malware with such a low N. This massively changes the economics of creating malware. Scary now that pretty much any file that flags as suspicious locally can be sent to the cloud for further inspection. That would seem a no go for many corporate clients?

<comment><USER6> It's how Reality Winner's NSA files were sent to Kaspersky, too.

Just some food for thought. I never trust any "cloud-based" antivirus solution.

<comment><USER7> Reality winter printed out a classified document at work, I think you're confusing her with Nghia Pho, whom appears to have been the Kaspersky leak victim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been recommending msft antivirus to my tech illiterate family over symantec/mcafee/avast/whatever since win7.

<comment><USER7> It's extremely effective on win10 without creating further security issues with the cabal of AV products out there. We tell our clients save the cash, use Defender, and invest in other more effective technologies in the stack.

<comment><USER9> At my old job we used Defender and Deep Freeze. Never had any incidents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing I'm very eager to see is how Defender and Microsoft in general will interact with various third-party AV and "enterprise security" solutions which almost invariably contain rootkit-ish/malware-ish modules.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does it still run as SYSTEM? If so, fix that and come back later please.

[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=12...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=1282&desc=2)

<comment><USER12> Can you explain what you mean by "fix that"? How is that helpful? I read your link and it doesn't provide any actionable items.

In any case, it doesn't "run as SYSTEM". The invoking credentials for a process are not necessarily relevant on a kernel like NT. A process can choose modify its security token after process invocation. For e.g. User mode apps, can downgrade their read/write rights, limiting them to a fixed directory, so even if they had exploitable bugs, the damage could be limited. Chrome on windows uses these same protections. I'm sure similar tech exists on competing kernels.

MsMpEng.exe AFAICT runs as a 'system protected process'. Certainly, it looks like there were severe bugs but its not clear where the bugs lie. It could be that the protection mechanism itself is flawed (which would be very bad), or maybe the way it's being used is incorrect, etc etc

<comment><USER4> Different poster...

Certain parts of an AV product need to run with the top-most privileges. But that component should be relatively lean, and quickly hand off dangerous work to lower-privilege, memory isolated, processes.

Windows Defender has a process called NScript which is a full JavaScript processing engine, running in SYSTEM. A JavaScript engine is inherently complicated enough to have bugs, and running as SYSTEM with no isolation could allow escalating a bug into a full blown code execution just by visiting a web page. None of this is theoretical, it was found and exploited May 2017 [0].

You're correct in saying that Windows does allow more nuanced token control than the full user's context, but I'm yet to read that Windows Defender actually utilises that. None of the previous bugs have been stopped by low- priv style access control, it has been a full SYSTEM leak. Do you have specific information about Windows Defender which suggests they're using voluntary revocation of token privileges?

[0] [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=12...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=1252&desc=5)

<comment><USER12> >Do you have specific information about Windows Defender which suggests they're using voluntary revocation of token privileges?

Sure, just dump the security token for MsMpEng.exe. Here it is: [https://pastebin.com/ukMPUWA7](https://pastebin.com/ukMPUWA7)

IntegrityLevelIndex is 01, MandatoryPolicy is 0x3 , Privs are a subset of the full list.

[https://www.nirsoft.net/kernel_struct/vista/TOKEN.html](https://www.nirsoft.net/kernel_struct/vista/TOKEN.html)

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/bb5...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/bb530716\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/bb3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/bb394728\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/bb625963.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/bb625963.aspx)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Vulkan spreads CPU load between cores, is it good for AMD? - <AUTHOR> Original too long title:
Ask HN: If Vulkan spreads CPU load between cores, AMDs strategy to build more CPU will pay off?
According to this video [1] Vulkan spreads CPU load between CPU cores, making whole process more efficient. AMD long lasting strategy that got its own meme is "build more cores". [2] Does it mean that the strategy pays off and AMD will be better for gaming in long run?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llOHf4eeSzc
[2] https://i.imgur.com/GDyOS.png <comment><USER2> Yes and no, Vulkan is a very low level API that leaves quite a bit of how CPU & GPUs are used up to the game engine developer. This can be good or bad, unlike OpenGL or DirectX you can really optimize your engine, but that is labor intensive & there will be games that should have used a higher level API like OpenGL, since they aren't willing to spend the time to take advantage of what OpenGL offers (much quicker to get pixels rendered on screen in a decently per formant way).

Another way of thinking about it is to think of Vulkan like C, and OpenGL and DirectX as Java, since that is an apt comparison in terms of high level vs low level languages, just in our case its a low level API (Vulkan).

I think long term AMD will benefit from more games using Vulkan at least on the GPU side, but it isn't a miracle solution that will make AMD compelling over Intel. Zen may create such a situation, though ultimately it is up to businesses and consumers to pick AMD over their competitors, which could happen due to a combination of factors (including Zen & Vulkan).

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't magically spread computation between cores. It just allows many cores to submit work at the same times. (yeah, I'm really simplifying here)

What that means though is that developers still need to write the code in a way that actually uses all the available cores for graphics. This has not been common so far and it will likely take some time for studios to move to that way of development. Even when multicore CPUs first came out, it took years before games actually started using that hardware properly.

But I don't see any reason for AMD to be much better here. Most CPUs sold by both Intel and AMD have either 4 or 8 cores.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, this is a complicated question :) AMD's "build more cores" strategy is, in comparison to Intel's "build more cores" strategy, all marketing. What I mean is, they both have to "build more cores" because about 10-15 years ago the strategy of building a faster single core ran into a wall known as physics. Historically, a general-purpose CPU "core" meant an equal proportion of floating-point units to integer units (amongst other hardware units, but whats important here is the ratio of one-to-one). Well, when AMD was designing their successor to the Athlon64 architecture ("Bulldozer"), they tried to predict/steer the direction of the software industry by changing the ratio to one floating-point unit to two integer units. The rational being, GPUs are essentially monstrous high-bandwidth floating-point units, so the CPU needs less FP capabilities.

But software changes slowly, very slowly, and they were either decades early or deluding themselves; take your pick. Their new architecture was both slower than Intel's "Nehalem" architecture, and less energy efficient. But changing a CPU architecture is a very expensive and highly time-consuming process, and meanwhile marketing/sales has to keep the company afloat with the cards the engineers dealt them. So to make a long story short, they changed their definition of a CPU "core" to only count the integer units, and therefore, all AMD CPUs have "double" the cores. But it's kind of a lie, because they don't control the optimization of software/compilers, which all empirically seem to work best with the one-to-one ratio.

Of course, they eventually woke up to the truth, and have been hard at work on designing a successor. That's "Zen", which you've probably heard about by now. Its head architect is the same guy who led design on the Athlon 64, and after that, took the reigns on Apple's CPU efforts (he wasn't involved in Bulldozer). But he came back for Zen, and by all rights, it should put AMD back in the fight. Whether it's a knockout punch remains to be seen. Spoiler alert: public details are light so far, but, it sounds like it's conceptually (eg at a block-diagram level) very similar to Intel's current architecture.</comment>