The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/the-bizarre-role-reversal-of-apple-and-microsoft-25d8b391d5b0#.xw7qjxmyh <comment> aaron-lebo > Just check out its striking video for the Surface Studio — it is so > influenced by Apple's playbook that I'm surprised there's no Jony Ive > narration.

What's happened is that other companies have figured out how to emulate Steve Jobs's playbook that's now several decades old and there's nobody at Apple to write new plays.

Jobs always talked about how Microsoft didn't have taste and when you look at MS products up until around 2005ish in comparison to Apple products, he was right. At some point a lot of business people realized what was making Apple successful - they weren't just selling computers, they were selling a lifestyle, they were selling _cool_. Oh, you are a creative? Well, shouldn't you have a Mac? It's what Einstein and Gandhi would have used.

Jobs was an absolutely brilliant marketer. Since 2005 other companies have gotten successively better at emulating Apple's design, experience, and marketing. They've distilled what Jobs knew intuitively into a formula that they can iterate on. It's not just MS, it's Dell, it's every medium and high- end manufacturer, it's Google. Please tell me what the difference between this [1] Pixel commercial and every Apple commercial made within the last decade is with the exception of the logo.

It's the Applefication of tech production and marketing and Apple doesn't have anything to stand out anymore.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCI1tcu8tQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCI1tcu8tQw)

<comment><USER2> Microsoft lacked taste and the ability to execute. With the Surface Book, they absolutely nailed taste. But they still have no ability to execute (the SB suffered at launch from firmware glitches that took months to iron out: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/new-firmware- finally-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/new-firmware-finally- fixes-surface-pro-4-surface-book-bugs-but-microsoft-should-do-better)).

<comment><USER3> When Cortana was launched on Windows, I went to a Microsoft Store to try it out. I found a Surface and tapped the Cortana button, and it opened a "Microphone Calibration Setup Wizard" that looks like it was from Windows XP.

So yeah, taste is one thing, but execution is a different ball game.

<comment><USER4> Any thoughts about Cisco?

We're literally trying to be the taste and execution. I work for Cisco. Curious about candid thoughts.

<comment><USER5> ISP Owner here. I wouldn't call their hardware visually appealing. In UI, we mostly use CLI - so not sure what more can be done in that regard. A visual way to looking at live traffic info similar to iftop/htop would be nice.

<comment><USER5> I want to add the cisco-IOS is an absolute clusterfuck. There is so much room for improvement I wouldn't know where to start. Please have a loot at Mikrotik, they are doing a pretty decent job for a small company. If their devices were powerful enough to handle our edge router traffic, I would drop cisco like a brick. I am not kidding.

Someone really needs to fund Mikrotik big time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Surface Studio is a major coup for Microsoft not because it'll necessarily sell well (although I think it has the potential to) but because it's made Microsoft cool.

I showed the video to my wife and she was so impressed that she looked at all the videos Microsoft did detailing the development. She's been a mac user for more than 20 years and tt's the first time she's ever looked at a Microsoft product.

Apple during the Steve Jobs era had a reputation for taking risks, for coming up with new products that impressed and that people just wanted.

A lot of people I know were excited by the announcement of new products and tried to watch the keynotes or follow the live coverage. In the past year, none of my friends care about them anymore. I only cared about yesterday's event because I've been waiting to upgrade my macbook pro and the event was lackluster. For better or worse, by not taking risks and not introducing new products, Apple seems less cool than it used to be and Microsoft showing off the Surface studio highlighted this. It's a huge blow for Apple in term of marketing.

(As an out of topic aside, Apple even sucks at doing boring incremental improvements, the iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Mini are languishing and the new macbook pro 15 inch design choices are non-sensical for professionals)

<comment><USER7> >the new macbook pro 15 inch design choices are non-sensical for professionals

You can't imagine how disappointed I was that they tap out at 16GB of RAM. I don't use that much memory every day but sometimes it would be really nice to have. I haven't bothered watching it again but the announcement gave me the impression that it started at 16 and going to the purchase page was a sad time.

<comment><USER8> I totally can, as I'm in the same boat. And the 240 CAD increase just for an extra 8GB of RAM - what a ripoff!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think it's a role reversal at all, rather everybody has been chasing Apple for so long the competition has caught up and surpassed in some aspects. Who doesn't have a laptop that hasn't been modeled after the macbook. Also remember that everything Apple introduces doesn't turn to gold every time, they have plenty of product feature failures.

The only innovation I saw yesterday which will be copied really came out of Microsoft with the Surface Studio and Surface dial. I'm sure microsoft would really like to see a surge in high-end desktops. The only worthwhile technical feature Apple did was adding touch id in the touch bar, but even then how often would I use this? Also seems like the more logical place for touch id is actually on the mouse where my fingers are a majority of the time.

The only commonality between these two is there marketing departments thinking people want to spend $3k+ on products, no reversal there.

<comment><USER10> >Who doesn't have a laptop that hasn't been modeled after the macbook.

As soon as they can pack the power i'm looking for in my laptops into an apple style case, i'll be there. Until then i'll be sticking with my boxy black Clevo.

<comment><USER11> Surprise: Virtually _all_ laptops are modelled after an Apple machine. The boxy black ones are PowerBook clones. Apple established the dedign language used by every laptop manufacturer since, in the early 90s: clamshell case, hinge at the rear, keyboard towards the back of the lower half with the trackpad front and center and all that wonderful blank space on either side usable as wrist rests.

<comment><USER12> Surprise: Apple wasn't the first with a "clamshell case, hinge at the rear, keyboard towards the back of the lower half...all that wonderful blank space on either side usable as wrist rests."

1983: [http://cosy.com/language/cosyhard/cosyhard.htm](http://cosy.com/language/cosyhard/cosyhard.htm) \- [http://cosy.com/language/cosyhard/ampropn.gif](http://cosy.com/language/cosyhard/ampropn.gif) (note: no trackpad - but then, the original powerbook didn't, either: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_100), and that round trackball is in just the same position as that round lid latch...)

Apple does a great job integrating elements that may have existed before, and is definitely a trendsetter in styling, but they also get credit for creating a lot of elements that existed before. ("Great artists steal.")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was thinking recently how Bill Gates often said the biggest competitor to Windows was the previous version of Windows. Alternate OSes didn't have enough market share or compatible software to really be a threat, but customers always had the option of just not upgrading.

iPhone seems in a very similar position. Sure, there are some people who will switch from iPhone to an Android phone. But Apple's biggest challenge seems to be convincing their current customers they need a new phone at all.

<comment><USER14> They have a killer feature for that! Glued in batteries you cannot reasonably replace, unreliable buttons that fail easily, the like

<comment><USER15> You mean batteries that rarely if ever need replacing (this isn't still the 1990s) and now fewer button to fail (the home button hasn't been a problem anyway for years now anyway)?

Not everything is a conspiracy, FFS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thursday's reveal of new MacBooks was so lackluster I am rethinking my loyalty to Apple. The Apple platform has always been the most productive platform for me. But other firms seem to be innovating and iterating on things quicker than Apple has: rumor has it that Apple will more or less copy the edge-to-edge display of Chinese handsets or the rounded edges of the S7 Edge, wtf, what happened to doing really bold things that nobody else has, or can? I guess we might have just hit peak-phone handset. In any case Apple wants to push into the enterprise but won't make a surface like device (what the iPad Pro should have been). Oh well. OS X is still the killer feature for me so I will remain securely on Apple and I'm not leaving my iPhone for any other handset but this is still very disconcerting.

<comment><USER17> > I guess we might have just hit peak-phone handset.

This is what happens in mature product segments. The first iPhone was released 9 years ago, and that was the last real revolution -- a smartphone whose front was pretty much all screen. Everything Apple and everyone else has done since then has been incremental -- better screens, larger screens, better cameras, faster processors, thinner chassis -- but definitely the same paradigm.

The same thing happened to laptops before that. Some of the older laptops had pretty odd and uncomfortable designs. Sometime in the 90s, everyone standardized on the clamshell laptop with a 4:3 screen (later moving to widescreen), a low-profile keyboard, and a central trackpad below that. If you compare a 20-year-old laptop to a new one, you'll see the same incremental changes that happened to phones -- larger, better screens, faster processors, thinner chassis.

I think the bottom line is that the smartphone market has become as mature and predictable as the laptop market.

<comment><USER18> > Sometime in the 90s, everyone standardized on the clamshell laptop with a > 4:3 screen (later moving to widescreen)

How did that happen? It used to be that a normal laptop had a 4:3 screen and a ridiculous, huge laptop had a huge, 16:10 screen. Now both of those are gone, and normal laptops have even _shorter_ 16:9 (!) screens. It's hard to think of a more user-hostile progression. I don't want to work in a series of cramped side-by-side windows. I want a screen that can display more than one paragraph of text at once.

<comment><USER19> Because most people use computers to consume content (ie video), which is largely produced in widescreen.

<comment><USER18> You don't lose anything by watching 16:9 video on a 16:10 screen.

Nothing's stopping you from watching it on a 4:3 screen, either, although at that point you've shrunk the image pretty noticeably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The thing is, hardware is important but software is arguably more important because it's what you interact with every day (yes, you interact with the hardware too but not directly, besides the keyboard and touch pad). In that respect, I trust Apple more than either Microsoft or Google. I will not trust Google with any of my data unless it's necessary and Microsoft isn't so great in my eyes either due to their ad and data collection policies for the new Windows OS.

I think Macs are designed very well, even though I do question the decisions of the new MacBooks, and I would prefer to have a little bit more than 4 USB ports and thin laptop. I also really like Mac OS, even with it's thorns, because its design is much better than whatever version of Linux I would use (not a big fan of Ubuntu's Unity). Most likely, my next laptop purchase will be either a 2015 MacBook Pro or some nice non-Apple product with Ubuntu installed.

<comment><USER21> A paid Linux! That's what I said on this comment about "Ask HN – What innovation would you want to see", which 84 people upvoted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12570030)

I wish we would have executed on that wish a year ago, because with the two Microsoft & Apple events, it's clear there is demand for "a Surface Studio, but not with Windows 10". Yesterday people effectively said they stay on Macs because of macOS, but envision switching to PCs because the innovation and specs are much better. Had we worked on that, we would have released a credible alternative to Macs, with distrib that would have embraced the Surface Studio while providing 1. the design, 2. the experience and 3.the privacy that everyone is looking for in an Apple computer...

As a reminder, the idea of a Paid Linux is to fund the open-source community with the same flow of money that Apple and Microsoft get from their OS (at $200/yr), in order to provide the same "red carpet" experience for specific profiles of users (either 3D workers, either graphists, whatever profile we target first). At the market level, one great experience for one type of work would develop adoption for Linux on the desktop. At a more selfish level, the benefit to paying for Linux instead of MS/A is that the new improvements are effectively open-source, so we're effectively raising the baseline of what every other distrib can do. The way to make people pay is by only providing their upgrades through authenticated PPAs, which means professionals will pay because it's easier, and hackers will redistribute versions on Torrent, which we don't mind, because hackers are a benefit for Linux. Besides, even hackers understand the value of funding open-source, so they might still participate. A lot of people would rather pay for open-source than closed-source.

I didn't execute on that wish, because I'm not an OS-level person, and I don't have the UX design background necessary for this endeavour. Nor the marketing know-how to execute at a high level. But I really wish someone would do it.

<comment><USER22> I feel the exact same way. I've been a Mac user for over ten years largely because of OS X, but I've been disappointed in Apple's direction for the past few years, and yesterday's MacBook Pro announcement was the last straw for me.

Linux is a wonderful server OS, and in fact I do most of my development inside of a VirtualBox VM running Debian, but in order for me to move to a full Linux workflow, I need to use some proprietary software packages like Microsoft Office and Apple Keynote (while I find LibreOffice Writer to be a suitable replacement for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel fits my needs better than Calc, and Impress is behind both PowerPoint and Keynote).

In line with a paid, polished Linux experience, another thing that would be nice for me and other disgruntled Mac users is a Wine-like compatibility layer that allows Linux users to run Cocoa programs. There's already a project called Darling ([http://www.darlinghq.org/introduction/](http://www.darlinghq.org/introduction/)) that has some of the basic functionality implemented. If this project had more contributors, then it could develop into a working solution for running my Mac programs.

My dream OS would have a Unix-like foundation (like Linux or FreeBSD) with an interface similar to Mac OS 8/9 (with various features from OS X added like Spotlight, Expose, and the Dock) and with Don Norman's UI advice ([http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/apples_products_are.html](http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/apples_products_are.html)) taken seriously.

I'm actually interested in contributing to such efforts toward an alternative OS for disgruntled Mac users; I have experience with systems and kernel programming. If there is enough interest, maybe an alternative OS will materialize.

<comment><USER23> I actually think that this is likely to happen over the next 2-3 years. Every single one of these companies is now going in the wrong direction in a specific way--which opens up a real desire for a real alternative.

We all used to love Mac, we all see that Apple has lost its way and seems to be heading more and more confidently in the wrong direction, and that may be just the push the community needs to actually build something.

And what an amazing achievement it would be--an actually open alternative that runs on lots of (powerful) hardware with the beauty of Mac OS (before Lion lol).

I really think it's going to happen because I think a very large percentage of the community now realizes that there is no existing private company heading in the right direction. So we now have to take the steering of the ship into our own hands.

Abracadabra.

<comment><USER22> I agree. In my opinion Snow Leopard was the high water mark of Mac OS X (although there are some features of later versions I like such as the auto- save feature of open documents between reboots). From a UI standpoint each subsequent version of OS X has been a deviation from the ideal user interface.

A fully open community "Mac" operating system that runs on any x86-64 hardware would be an excellent thing. I believe the best way of getting there is contributing to the GNUstep and Darling projects so that the underpinnings are fully functioning, as well as working on a Snow Leopard-esque interface.

I have some free time over the next week or so; I'm going to start developing a plan for making this idea a reality!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't use apple products because of the shiny, sexy hardware. It doesn't hurt to have a visually nice looking device to look at when you are spending most of your day on it. I use apple computers (don't use iPhone), specifically because of the OS. I just can't see myself working on Windows ever (unless it makes some major leap of improvement).

MacOS has its problems, but its still many time better than the POS Windows OS. The only other option is Linux/Ubuntu, which is nice but wouldn't be my first choice, but definitely a second choice.

You can't cover a shitty OS with a Shiny dress and fool most people who have been burned by it. They can copy all they want, at the end of the day it still has windows installed...

<comment><USER24> I can agree with that and felt the same way until I realized (or was forced to admit repeatedly) that 90% of my time using Windows or OS X is now spent either in an SSH session, a web browser, or a virtual machine. Frankly all of these releases, from both companies, come off as rather boring to me. I think all the most interesting innovation, from my perspective, is happening in software now and less "flashy" embedded systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel like Apple is trying to force innovation with their latest offerings.

I'm not against change, but change for the sake of change is annoying.

The idea well must be running pretty dry at Cupertino

<comment><USER26> 20 years Apple released the iMac which did away with SCSI, ADB, RJ232 etc in favour of USB.

What they have done now with the MacBook Pro is exactly the same thing. They are trying to establish USB-C as the one port to rule them all just like they successful did with USB-A.

Yes change can be hard and some people like yourself clearly struggle more than others. But change is needed sometimes to push the industry forward.

<comment><USER27> Unifying to one standard port is kind of cool, except for the fact that not even Apple's other devices use that type of connection and users will have to buy dongles for almost everything. That represents a concrete step backwards in user experience.

There is a time to be bold and throw your weight behind a better standard, but there's also a time when doing so makes things inconvenient with little to no benefit.

That wouldn't be so bad if the Macbook were significantly more powerful but here we have a machine with the same max RAM as the Macbook they sold 4 years ago while PC laptops are shipping with 4 times as much.

It just seems like Apple is focusing on making a sleek and visually pleasing device, rather than a device that will be most useful to those who want to work on MacOS.

<comment><USER28> The next iPhone will likely have a USB-C port. They couldn't have changed the lightening port on the iPhone after only being on the iPhone for a single generation.

<comment><USER29> You think they're going to ditch lightning after everyone buys a bunch of accessories? They could, but I doubt it. What would switching to USB C do for Apple?

<comment><USER30> "They could, but I doubt it." – you mean exactly like they did with the switch to Lightning already?

<comment><USER31> If you're going to piss people off by removing the headphone jack, you don't do it again by changing ports next year. You tear the bandage off in one go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Cutting edge Macbook _Pro_ : 16GB RAM "because battery". o_0

My 2011 MBP has 16GB.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'll keep buying Apple hardware (even if the latest rev isn't great) since macOS is the only usable operating system. Windows is (still/increasingly?) a tire fire that's only useful if you're a gamer, and Linux is for programmer- masochists.

<comment><USER34> Why do you think Windows is a tire fire and OSX is usable?

I used my first OSX machine ever earlier this year. I wanted to add some extra keyboard commands, so I had to download a 3rd party program that had to unlock accessibility controls and essentially take full control of the machine. That's absurd to me.

I also hit tons of external display problems. Things wouldn't connect or sync right, desktops not correctly moving to the right screens, no window snapping even though it's a high res screen, etc.

I hit way more beach balls/lags than I do with my modern Windows machines.

Windows 7 was solid, Windows 8 was a bit of a mess (as has been every 1st iteration of Windows [98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10]), but Win 10 is really enjoyable.

It's unfortunate that the BSODs caused largely by shitty drivers in Windows 98/XP has hounded the Windows ecosystem for over a decade, even though the driver verifier has fixed the vast majority of those.

<comment><USER35> You can customize a _almost_ everything using the Keyboard panel of System Preferences. Yes, 3rd party tools like Karabiner are needed for control of _absolutely_ everything but that is pretty rare.

Also note that accessibility must be "unlocked" because it fundamentally adds a security risk: processes that can inspect inputs in arbitrary unknown applications have a lot of power. What macOS does is actually a feature and it prevents one of the "tire fires" in Windows.

Beach balls in my experience are usually produced by problems in drivers, or programs that are unnecessarily complex (like the ones that are 400 MB installs with entire virtualization layers instead of being all native code). The OS can only do so much.

External displays: yes, definitely buggy on Macs these days, and with some obscure settings. Something to try: with at least 3 desktops/Spaces defined (need to use "+" in Mission Control), you can right-click on the Dock icon of an application to specify the default space to use for windows in that app. These menu commands are _not_ available with less than 3 Spaces created.

<comment><USER36> > These menu commands are _not_ available with less than 3 Spaces created.

Well, discoverability certainly _has_ been a problem with Apple software lately.

Take Force Touch as an example. Perhaps the menu items will show up with fewer than three Spaces created if you just press it harder?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "A day later, Apple ended the long wait for laptop users yearning for an upgrade by unveiling a new line of MacBook Pros."

Meanwhile, they did nothing to end the long wait for _desktop_ users yearning for an upgrade. I was expecting at least a cursory spec bump for their Mac Mini and iMac lines. I was hoping to replace my 6-year old Mac Mini sometime soon, but I don't want to do so with a 1-2 year old product.

</comment><comment><USER38> I keep reading about how unhappy people are with Apples latest reveal. I feel the same way. No way am I upgrading my 2015 Mac Book Pro with the new one.

Still, Apple will not change a thing unless people actually vote with their wallets. If you're really so upset, do NOT buy this damn computer!

If this latest line sees very little sells, they'll get the idea.

<comment><USER39> Suppose you need a new computer for work. Your other options are Windows or a Linux desktop experience, both of which are vastly worse in other ways. (No, I don't want to dork around with spending days compiling kernel patches and installing soundcard drivers before I can use the computer.)

I'd gladly buy any other laptop that was simple and _just worked_ out of the box in the sense that a Mac does. But there aren't any.

<comment><USER40> > No, I don't want to dork around with spending days compiling kernel patches > and installing soundcard drivers before I can use the computer.

You are badly misrepresenting the current state of mainstream Linux distributions. I've done probably 20 Linux installs, and by and large it always just works. If there is some necessary proprietary driver, it's almost always as simple as Menu --> Administration --> Driver Manager and then clicking once or twice.

Kernel patches? I wouldn't know how the hell to do that, but somehow I've been using Linux happily for a decade.

<comment><USER41> I am using Linux distros on both laptops and a desktop as the only OS and you are definitely misrepresenting the current state of things. It takes a lot of work.

For the laptops, the clickpads never work well. You have to mess with synaptics settings a lot and eventually you get a slightly worse config than the default on Windows and a lot worse than OSX clickpad. This is coming from someone who looked into hardware compatibility and bought a laptop that didn't seem to have any problems.

For Desktops (and laptops * 10), you have a lot of issues if you want to

A) Use CUDA in general for neural networks.

B) Resize VM encrypted hard drive after creation.

C) Dual boot with Windows (things like updating windows or reinstalling a Linux distro after digging yourself into a hole with CUDA drivers mentioned above can wipe grub in a way that wouldn't let you boot).

D) Allow hibernation in a dual monitor setup with proprietary drivers.

E) Use a tablet for drawing on a system with multi-monitor setup and proprietary drivers.

F) Mess with Compiz settings too much when you have proprietary drivers.

G) Dual booting with one hard drive with Linux full disk encryption and non- default partitions and another hard drive regular Windows.

H) Dual boot from one disk and encrypt Linux partition with luks and forgo swap partition.

Having said all this:

I would still use ubuntu/linux because almost all non-.NET/Java tools are easier to use on Linux. Lets you customize your system and code without VM overhead and inconveniences.

The system doesn't get slower over time and nothing unexpected randomly happens (except after updates to graphics drivers).

<comment><USER40> Most of your list is either a specialized requirement, or something that probably wouldn't be that much easier on Windows / MacOS. I meant that simple things like browsing the Internet, video chatting, and playing music (the needs of 99% of computer users) work out of the box. GP was saying that you literally can't install Linux without kernel patching and command line wizardry, which is totally false, and the only point I was refuting.

I'll add one to your list -- dealing with Linux audio. I have a stable music production setup now, but it took me a long time to iron everthing out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> People talk about games/3d hardware for MS products, but I do a lot of work in 2d graphics, animation and Typography and the amount of work apple puts into these compared to MS is superior imho. Even more when you come to compatibility with these in MS land compared to apple, Apple just works, and works beautifully, MS is a mire of API's that perform adequately. 2d is the interface that most people see and really the focus on this is the reason that 'creatives' flock to apple imho.

</comment><comment><USER43> Apple focused on creating a specific experience.

To achieve that, they started by only targeting specific hardware. Android supports various hardware and so does Windows. Does iOS and macOS do the same? no. Because it would compromise the experience, which is tied directly to the value of their brand, which is ultimately what allows them to price their products the way they do.

Apple focused on creating products people want to buy. I am not from a wealthy country, and I have seen people who have put basic needs aside to purchase an iPhone. For a much lower price you could purchase an Android phone, but they did not care. This is the power of a consistent, pleasant experience, something that Microsoft and Google seek to now obtain through the Surface and Pixel respectively. Let's see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER44> Bizarre role reversal? I still remember MSFT and IBM doing the same thing in the 90's.

</comment><comment><USER45> Microsoft was always more innovative than Apple - just Steve Jobs did a great job at marketing, borrowing Porsche design, etc. Let's face it - Jony Ive is now boring, Jobs was really inspiring people. I miss Jobs, Ive is no match.

It's so funny how Apple doesn't release a dual-mode touchscreen laptop because they are afraid their iPad sales will tank. So cowardly - unlike Jobs' Apple!

</comment><comment><USER46> Apple should have had touch screen Macs a few years ago with a pressure sensitive pen and other devices. They should have given the iMac a touch screen, and given the Macbook series a touch screen as well.

Microsoft got artists with the Surface Pro tablets and pressure sensitive pens, etc.

</comment><comment><USER47> > A day later, Apple ended the long wait for laptop users yearning for an > upgrade by unveiling a new line of MacBook Pros.

Was this a coincidence? I'm guessing not but no idea really.

</comment><comment><USER48> I was actually fine with Apple's "courage" to take away my headphone jack on my phone. But the courage to take away my Esc key crosses the line for me.

</comment><comment><USER49> [deleted]

<comment><USER50> >a developer who needs a Unix-based OS.

Windows 10 includes binary compatibility. bit-for-bit, checksum-for-checksum Ubuntu ELF binaries running directly in Windows. all of Ubuntu user space.

a full copy of ubuntu built in. Windows not working as a unix-like os for developers isnt reality anymore.

<comment><USER49> I have Windows 10 on my desktop machine, so I'll try it out. However, all that means (assuming it works perfectly, as you seem to suggest) is that Windows is usable to me. That's not enough of a reason for me to get a Surface Book.

I'm less than thrilled with Windows right now because just the other day the built-in Mail app started crashing within a few seconds of opening; it's now unable to connect to my Exchange account. After spending 10+ hours trying to diagnose and fix the problem, I've accepted that nothing short of a complete wipe of the machine will fix the problem.

<comment><USER51> My MBP periodically crashes any app that tries to invoke an open/save dialog. Its great when I try to download a file, accidentally make preview think I edited something, or try to save a document.

You can pick individual bugs to complain about all day. Every OS has plenty. Sorry to hear about your issues with the mail app though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What domain names do you hold which you're not using? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Does using them for "art" \- by which I mean, inside jokes - count?

* widgetsex.com

* cannedgoat.com

I've also got a few that I'm reserving for my child that won't be used until she figures out what she wants to do with them - and given that she's currently at "point, scream, put it in my mouth" stage, that's going to be awhile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Droven.co, I bought it for a side project I was working on at the time but ended up going with another name for it. I still hold on to the domain hoping to use it on something

</comment><comment><USER4> Diffuse.io</comment>


Confounding a Smoking Ban, and Bouncers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/fashion/smoking-is-back-without-the-stigma.html?pagewanted=all

<comment><USER3> _" Andrew Beaver, chief marketing officer for NJOY, likened smoking e-cigarettes to the early days of hands-free Bluetooth conversations: what looks strange now will soon appear normal."_

Yeah, people walking around talking on bluetooth headsets still look like douche bags to me.

<comment><USER4> because?

<comment><USER5> Association. Most people associate constantly wearing a Bluetooth headset with douchey, self-important MBA types. There's nothing wrong with the tech per se, it just got adopted by an unpopular crowd first.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if eyeglass-like wearable computers will suffer for the same reason.

<comment><USER3> I haven't actually ran into someone wearing them yet so I can't report on my personal response.... but I suspect I'll dislike them instantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The big deal about these e-cigs is that they're converting long term smokers. Two years ago for christmas I bought all of the smokers in my family e-cig kits. My grandmother refused to try it, and died a year later from emphysema complications. However, my mother has been cigarette free for over a year and a half! That's after 35 years of tobacco use. It's a huge deal for me because now I don't have to worry about her slowly wasting away over 10 years like my grandmother did.

Also, Nicotine is a nootropic. Studies suggest that it enhances general attention and memory retention. Check out this site for collected studies and information: [http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine](http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine)

<comment><USER8> Helped me quit smoking, as well as several of my friends. It's a much more effective transition because it mimics the entire ritual of smoking, not just the nicotine hit.

Mostly, nicotine was very secondary to the other reasons I would smoke. First, it's a great excuse to step outside alone, or with a small group. that's invaluable to an introvert-playing-an-extrovert like me. Second, cigarettes are a great study break. You let your mind wander, while your subconscious chews on problems. It's like taking a shower, but you can do it several times a night without leaving the library. Third, they're a countercultural flag. Want a good icebreaker when talking to hipsters, hackers, the Russian grad student programmers? Smoke a cig with them. Finally, there's a certain ritual to cigarettes that becomes very calming. Step outside, light up. Go to class, light up. Leave a party, light up.

E-cigs are so effective because they fulfill almost all of these needs. All in all, e-cigarettes probably added several years to my life.

<comment><USER3> I've moved from Australia (Melbourne specifically) where the counter-counter culture is to smoke roll your own cigs. Since moving to the US I've stopped smoking because:

a) I couldn't find a brand of roll your own tobacco I liked b) none of my friends here smoke

I really do miss the ritual of "creating and smoking" a cigarette. I can't really see any of the e-cig brands coming out with anything that mimics that ritual.

<comment><USER9> There's rebuildable atomizers or DIY liquid then.

At its most basic, an ecig is made of two devices: a battery and an atomiser. The heating element in the atomiser, a coil of resistance wire wrapped around some sort of wick, is consumable. Either the whole atomizer (in the case of a cartomizer) or the atomizer head (in the case of most clearomizers) has to be replaced every few months. Rebuildable atomizers are made so that you can make your own heating coil and wick instead of throwing out the cartomizer or head. There's a lot of technique to making good coils, almost like a craft.

It's also possible to mix you own liquid from ingredients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Man, I have never seen an article where one side of an argument seemed so consistently silly. Really, you're banning it because people might see it and decide to light a real cigarette?

And how does one figure that this "turns back the clock on public health advances"? It has the potential to turn countless potential smokers to a way safer (and perhaps even negligibly dangerous) alternative. How many otherwise nonsmokers would have to start using ecigs to cancel the benefit of _one_ otherwise smoker using them?

I feel like this is what happens when a newspaper feels the need to present "both sides" of an issue that maybe has 1.1 sides.

<comment><USER11> >Really, you're banning it because people might see it and decide to light a real cigarette?

I can actually see where they're coming from on this one, and in part, it's the fault of the e-cig makers for producing and pushing look-alikes. With some popular brands (mainly gas station disposables, but not always), the e-cigs _actually look like cigarettes_. The problem isn't that it puts the idea in the smoker's minds, its that the smokers think the other people are legitimately smoking. If he's got a cigarette, I can have one too, right? The e-cigs that have blue tips or don't resemble normal cigarettes won't give off this confusion.

If I saw someone smoking in an area, I might think it would be okay to smoke there too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I do doubt we will reach the point of 60s and early 70s sitcoms where cigarettes were common.

Two questions. What is in the exhaled vapor? What is to prevent there use in delivering substances other than nicotine? Combined with the first question is what worries me.

They are present where I work, but the users must go outside like regular smokers. I would love to see studies done on these like cigarettes and think the FDA needs to get onto it quickly.

<comment><USER13> The studies have been done. Nicotine on its own is orders of magnitude safer than tobacco (and so I find this scaremongering sensationalistic NYT article deeply anger-inducing if it means that _anyone_ decides to keep smoking rather than switch to e-cigs or if it helps ban or regulate e-cigs), which is why things like nicotine patches and gum are no longer prescription-only.

<comment><USER14> @MrMember

Sorry I deleted my other comment, but I can't help but laugh at your response that they exhale propylene glycol, ROFL.

That's the chemical used to de-ice airplanes!!!

Wikipedia says that the oral toxicity of it is low, but it can be harmful in large amounts.

So I would have to casually guess that the long term effects of it, and if you smoke heavily, that it could be a problem.

<comment><USER11> You know what chemical we use around here to de-ice? Salt. Both of these are generally recognized as safe and are approved for both human and animal food additives. The anti-freeze that is made with propylene glycol is labeled as non-toxic.

So really I'm not sure what you're laughing at.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't want to inhale and exhale salt all day, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think these are great. They have definitely helped some people move away from smoking, and any argument that they pose a health risk is fairly moot given the alternative.

However, I do think that there needs to be some legislation surrounding them. We should ensure that children and teenagers can't easily buy them - <USER2> because they're not _as_ harmful as cigarettes doesn't mean that they're completely harm free. I'm also deeply suspicious of allowing marketing of an addictive product - much like cigarette marketing I think it has the potential to destroy lives.

I do think that the people (mostly middle aged men) I see wandering around with a large e-cigarette around their neck on a cord look like complete idiots though.

<comment><USER16> > any argument that they pose a health risk is fairly moot given the > alternative.

What? You mean the alternative to _not smoking_?

<comment><USER11> E-cigs are marketed pretty strongly towards current smokers. In that group, not smoking is a fairly difficult alternative to accept.

<comment><USER16> Is it not still an alternative? It may be a difficult alternative, but it is still an alternative.

<comment><USER11> How effective has the "stop smoking cold turkey" campaign been? There are still people who smoke, massive numbers. In this wake is billions of dollars of smoking cessation products. Still, some people smoke, for reasons they have and are comfortable with. So why not have a middle ground? E-cigs are cheaper, seem to be safer, and help people out (including those who don't smoke). So why get all worked up over it? It's legitimately helping the problem. Smokers who use e-cigs are no longer affecting your life in any way.

Put it this way: cars are dangerous. Lots of campaigns exist to keep people from driving. Driving has economic, political, and environmental issues pushing against it. But still people drive, despite the risks. So rather than trying to force everyone to bike or walk, what's the harm in lower emissions, electric vehicles, and improvements in vehicle safety? Make it safer to drive, safer to be around drivers, and better for the environment when people _do_ drive. Is that not an acceptable alternative?

<comment><USER16> I'm not getting worked up over anything, I'm merely stating that not smoking is an alternative, which is something leoedin left out. Everything that's followed is my insistence that not smoking is an option. I have made no claims to the ease or feasibility of it as an option.

I've made no claim for or against e-cigarettes. I've made no claim for or against smoking in general in this thread. The only claims I've made are that not smoking is an option. The reason I made that claim was, as stated above, the original comment failed to mention that not smoking was an option.

On the car front, yes, cars are bad, I agree, wholeheartedly, but America made a decision to emphasize cars over trains post-WWII, which is why I use one. As for biking and walking, those are infeasible options for long distances. Fascinating that you neglected to include trains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Toxicity)

Seems like there are some indications that many of these contain toxic stuff.

Will not be surprised in a few years when a brand new cancer is discovered because of this.

<comment><USER17> The mist is hot too, I heard of a measurement of 56C at throat once, just googled, but can't find the source anymore.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, the mist is hot. It uses heat to vaporize the liquid. Even at 56C, it's not far outside the temperature range of a typical cup of coffee [1]. According to that link from coffeedetective.com, coffee should be served closer to 80C. They even list the low end of proper coffee temperature at 65C (and other sources I found on Google corroborate). As nicotine and caffine serve similar functions, I'm not sure that the temperature at the throat is necessarily an issue. How many people pour a fresh cup of coffee and breathe in the steam coming off the top? I know I do occasionally.

[1] [http://www.coffeedetective.com/what-is-the-correct- temperatu...](http://www.coffeedetective.com/what-is-the-correct-temperature- for-serving-coffee.html)

<comment><USER17> That's a good argument, I'm a sort of a wierdo, almost always let everything I eat or drink cool down to room temperature first, so it seems hot to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As long as it doesn't make me stink like a chimney when I get home from a bar or restaurant, then more power to them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hey, if it isn't giving ME cancer and it's odorless, they can puff it all over my face if they want.

<comment><USER9> It's not odorless, but most of the liquids have pleasant smells.

<comment><USER20> As a non-smoker, I wouldn't call it pleasant.

<comment><USER9> It depends on the liquid, really. There's no inherent smell to ecigs; it's all in the flavoring. So if someone is vaping peach flavored liquid, it will smell like peaches. If it's tobacco flavored, it will smell like tobacco.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Pleasures of Pessimism - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/05/25/the-pleasures-of-pessimism/ <comment><USER2> In scientific prep school the literature theme was "the search for happiness". I remember hearing the professor saying it was a worthless subject for prep school students. I've enjoyed reading Seneque and it made me put happiness into relative terms: once you stop setting yourself impossible goals, lead a simple life, find humility, have a minimum amount of discipline, you won't be so unhappy. Not following the advice of others too much is also important. Feeling fulfilled and content of what you have is also key. I cannot stand people who complain when they live in a first world country. I find it so insulting for the entirety of the third world out there.

Being the person that I am, I don't believe in happiness as people talk about it, and I got interested in what makes people believe in things, it seems to me that as religion is diminishing, people still seeks to fill their mind with a belief system. I read so many people on facebook quoting weird happiness, meditation stuff that makes no sense at all to me.

Honestly there is no point in seeking happiness. The more you want something the more it tends to run away from you.

What I know, is that people tend to seek happiness just so that they can attract other people to them, because it is somehow attractive. I find it desperate. To me happiness is just what drives society to socialize, mate and keep running, just like a machine.

And I have not even brought what I think how men and women view happiness, I'm sure there are large differences, especially when you think about the whole feminism and men's right movements.

<comment><USER3> > I cannot stand people who complain when they live in a first world country. > I find it so insulting for the entirety of the third world out there.

Eh, at least people in the third world have a better future to look forward to. In the first world you can expect decades of watching your country crumble, wondering if you'll be blessed with death before it gets too bad.

<comment><USER2> You're right, people in the third world have a better margin for progress, and people in the first world will be frustrated because it becomes harder to accomplish any sort of progress. Although you can still do a different kind of progress in a first world country, but I agree that it's a little more complicated and not always accessible.

That's why it's important to be humble. If you're not you can still go in those third world country and accomplish things.

It's entirely natural for first world countries to "get worse" as the rest of the world improves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A pessimist (and proto-existentialist) who I've been really getting in to recently is Giacomo Leopardi.[1]

He's woefully underappreciated outside of Italy, despite being highly influential on the likes of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

Check out his _Essays and Dialogues_.[2]

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Leopardi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Leopardi)

[2] - [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52356](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52356)

<comment><USER5> Just picked up Zibaldone the other day. Scanning through, it's nice to see some of his notes go beyond a mere pessimistic philosophy--some quite intriguing little explorations of language are tucked into the book.

It's no wonder he's a bit underrated though--this edition of Zilbadone is the first complete translation in English... and it was published in 2013! I think there were some prior translations, but generally Leopardi seems unrepresented in the English speaking sphere.

I'm excited to dig in once I finish up some other books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> cf. Ecclesiastes 1.

<comment><USER7> I ran across this "book" recently as was impressed by how deep it was, compared to the vision presented in Sunday School (and a certain 60s pop song).

It's a bit hard to read. Start here: [https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/old-testament-of- th...](https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/old-testament-of-the- bible/summary-and-analysis/ecclesiastes)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ethics of Quitting Soon After Starting B/c Another Offer Came In - <AUTHOR> Basically: Two offers, one is not final with a large, sought-after company. It is pending and I think they will opt to give me the job officially and extend an offer within weeks. Offer is not guaranteed though, and I need a job financially ASAP.
Second offer is official/final, but it is definitely my second choice. Much, much smaller company, lower pay, less name recognition. They want to know if I accept this week.
So dilemma: If I reject second offer, I potentially would have no job whatsoever. If I accept, maybe the better offer solidifies and I would want to leave the smaller company. However, I deeply do not want to put the smaller company in a bad position by onboarding me/giving me work/etc. and then I leave. They are semi-aware of the situation.
Is it unethical/bad to accept the second offer knowing that I may only work there a month if the first offer becomes official? If so, is there any way to mitigate this short of not taking the second offer at all and potentially risking my financial future? <comment><USER2> How about you tell them that you need more than a week to accept, and then tell the larger company, whose official offer you are waiting for, that you have another offer and would like to know their decision sooner.

Seriously, you shouldn't feel pressured to accept an offer. You'll kick yourself in the teeth later.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's definitely putting the "second" company at a loss, since staffing is not nearly as easy a task as is saying "I accept."

Honestly, think about the "second" offer as a legit job and consider whether you'd really want to work there. If yes, accept the offer. You will have many jobs throughout your career, some more fulfilling than others, and they all add up to your career—the sum total of your experience.

If you __really __want the second job, go for it, and leave the other job by the wayside. Having worked in jobs that, in hindsight, I hated, I can say it 's not worth it to work at a job you hate (or even mildly dislike).

What is good is good work. Pick whichever job you want to go for, and do it. Even though it's hard for a business to staff up, it's a business, and business is business. You are a person, and your life is your life.

On the financial end of it, don't worry about that either. Money comes, money goes. Having been in the workforce for nearly 20 years, I can tell you that job A will not directly affect you except in your ability to negotiate further. That being said, you can always negotiate further—your future employers will not have direct access to your financial situation, so you will still be at liberty to play poker, as it were.

THAT being said, money doesn't matter as much as job satisfaction. Would you murder innocents for six figures? Bottom line, don't waste your time doing anything you don't enjoy. The money will come.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've seen it happen a few times around me and while people usually get annoyed it's not a big deal, especially if it happens quickly.

We hired a machine learning guy from Facebook and he up and quit in less than 2 weeks, because his buddies finally landed a series A and he wanted to work for them. We were all annoyed, but I wouldn't bad mouth him to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Second offer is official/final... They want to know if I accept this week.

Simple, you have ONE real job offer. You need the job, now accept enthusiastically.

It is impossible to know if the Large, Sought-After Company will ever get it's slow, bureaucratic act together and tender you an acceptable offer.

If their offer does eventually come through -- then weigh the competitive merits of leaving. Meanwhile, you may have gained several weeks/months of work experience at the small firm, even discovered some hidden upside potential.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you left your job for a better job I certainly wouldn't hold that against you.</comment>


Rate my startup: Simplton - <AUTHOR>

It has been almost 8 months since I was shellacked in the hacker news comments (which I totally appreciate btw) for bad design/ui/ux.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1282132
Simplton is back after a total overhaul. I am hoping it is better but don't pull any punches. Please be "that guy" (or gal).
http://simplton.com and http://simplton.com/screenshots <comment><USER2> It's pretty enough in its own way, but do you know what my first reaction was? I first viewed your site in Chrome, then loaded it up in Firefox, and finally IE because I was convinced that something wasn't rendering correctly.

Two things stand out in particular: first, my laptop's resolution is 1600x900 and I have to scroll down to see the links on the left; secondly, that's a HUGE amount of empty space on the right hand side, and it looks like it could accommodate the "What is Simplton" text quite nicely.

Honestly, I'd advise doing what I do - although I'm not terribly successful, so perhaps you should disregard this advice ;-) Anyway, go to ThemeForest, find a decent sales page theme, and another one for your user area. It'll cost you $30-40, and whilst some will object to what are pretty obviously cookie- cutter themes, you'll find out pretty quickly if people will pay for it.

I was in the same place as you a year ago, with a tool whose design was 100 times worse than yours is, and I was signing up 1 trial account per day. Many months later I bought a design for $15 and an admin theme for $20, and that increased free trials to 20 a day!

Good luck! :)

<comment><USER3> Hmm, I agree about the links. I am on a desktop and the sign up link is right at the bottom of the screen. On a laptop it would be hidden.

Other than that, I like you art and design quite a bit more than a prefab theme. If you do try it, don't throw out what you have :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On <http://simplton.com/philosophy> I would make the bullet points the only content on the page. Click them and it expands to show your explanation.

For something that focuses on simplicity, you sure have a lot of words. If I were you, I'd look to cut 75% of your verbiage.

I don't understand what the companies represent on <http://simplton.com/pricing>. Is that companies that use your service? Am I buying real estate in this imaginary town? I think you're overusing your town metaphor.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like the "small town bug tracker" marketing on the home page, ... not sure if the image depicts a small town tho.

</comment><comment><USER6> clickable <http://simplton.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> About design, I have only 1 thing to say.

Use gradients or don't use gradients, PICK ONE. If you use gradients, then all (or most of) your elements need gradients. I recommend removing gradients, as sometimes gradients are hard to make work.</comment>


If You're Building a Startup You Need to Move to Phoenix (Not Silicon Valley) - <AUTHOR> https://m.tuftandneedle.com/if-you-re-building-a-startup-you-need-to-move-to-phoenix-not-silicon-valley-a7505318cd45 <comment><USER2> You could replace Phoenix in the article with a number of other cities, and indeed find plenty of unique benefits for each of those areas. With the exception of possibly New York or Honolulu, you're almost guaranteed to find it would be significantly cheaper in every way.

It would be good to start to see the tech industry / startup space start to spread out just a little bit more than it currently is.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a dev here in Phx with several friends in different startups who are also programmers, I can confirm a lot of what the article says.

Next time you think of spinning up a company in silicon valley - try to remember there is likely someone else trying to build the exact same thing here and doing it with 2x the number of employees(because labor costs are less here) and an extra year worth of capitol because space is cheap.

Yes heat is tricky, but compared to the pain of failure or losing out to a better functioning competitor it seems a small price to pay.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. I've always seen Phoenix as a place where you spend most of your life indoors due to the heat. And it always has given me a "suburb" vibe when I've flown over it.

Haven't lived there though.

<comment><USER5> Oh man... it's super suburban. Of course, if you've got a family and don't want neighbors breathing down on you from every direction, a proper suburban home here is totally affordable.

That said, if you like to play outside, it's a paradise. We've got thousands of acres of public land within reach, easily accessible and free to all.

<comment><USER4> Heh, I live in Seattle. Not only do I have the Cascades within reach, I have the Puget Sound, _and_ a lack of Phoenix heat. _And_ it's not super suburban.

<comment><USER5> Oh sure! There a nice places everywhere! I think we can both be jealous of folks who live in Boulder and whatnot.

I guess what I mean is this - we have several HUGE parks right in our urban area: South Mountain, the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, and the McDowell Mountain Preserve. If you like to hike, mountain bike, or trail run, we've got a great community of folks out there wandering around. (This time of year, at the crack of dawn.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not a bad idea but probably a tough sell in June. Forecast high temperature of 115F this week. Which translates to 125F+ at ground level in the parking lot where you have to walk to your car.

<comment><USER7> "But it's a dry heat"

<comment><USER8> Having worked in 125F with near-zero humidity (Kuwait) and 90F with 100% humidity (Alabama), I'll take the dry heat every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I visited the Scottsdale area on vacation a few months ago and despite the pleasant weather, the complete lack of pedestrians was amazing.

There were these nice, big sidewalks but NOBODY was using them. I walked a few miles a day and passed less than 10 total pedestrians. There were quite a few joggers and bicyclists though.

One passenger on a shared airport shuttle asked the driver to go out of his way to drop him off directly in front of his door to avoid having to walk about 50 feet.

I was just floored by the whole experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess if I were pitching PHX as a place to live, I'd say this: let's say you're 40, got a family, fighting it out in the Bay Area everyday for some little piece of the pie, a place like Phoenix could be a real shift of gears towards the better. This is an easy to place to live: commutes are fairly relaxed, real estate prices are low, everything is laid out in a nice big grid, so you're never really lost.

The obvious criticism of The Valley, as we like to call it, is that it's an undifferentiated sea of vitamin-c colored houses, that's totally true. Absolutely. And yeah, it's gonna be 108 here at the end of the week. Nothing but sunny days for the next three months.

The key to survival of an Arizona summer is to find a pool, grab a beer, and settle in.

Arizona is not without its obvious issues, but this place is steadily getting better. We've got a really strong outdoors community, tons of people up at dawn, running around in one of the really sizable parks which dot our metroplex. Our cultural scene has come together well after the launch of the Crescent Ballroom in Downtown PHX. We're centrally located with easy access to all the pleasures of the west, from the beaches at Rocky Point, Mexico and San Diego to the mountains in Colorado.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm living in Las Vegas right now, but Phoenix is one of my favorite cities. For me, the benefits include the low cost of living, the low stress traveling by car and public transportation, and a diverse nightlife.

I grew up in NJ and I prefer 110 with low humidity over 85 and high humidity. The summer heat is tough mid-day, but the mornings and nights are really nice. I lived in PHX the most recent winter and had no complaints, and fall and spring are beautiful.

I'm not convinced yet Phoenix is the best city for a startup, but it does depend on the type of business you're getting into. I think Phoenix is a great city if you want to grow your company and expand operations with a new office.

The demographic is unique in Phoenix, and it's still hard for me to understand why people think differently. I find it amazing how different the demographic is than Las Vegas, which is also a desert and only 4.5 hours away. I really like the suburbs of Las Vegas, but I would move to Phoenix again if I was involved in a meaningful project.

</comment><comment><USER11> Keep in mind the law enforcement in Phoneix and Maricopa county make the Bay Area look like Holland.

<comment><USER12> And I suspect the noncompete laws are not as friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Should try New Hampshire... just slightly north of Boston so you get a lot of the benefits of being adjacent to the city but a lot nicer place to settle down in a lot of ways (lower cost of living, newer and more affordable housing, etc). And it still very much has an innovation atmosphere. In fact, there is a talent pool of people who commute down to Boston every day that would love to shorten that commute.

Nashua and Manchester New Hampshire are roughly the same distance from Boston as Providence, Rhode Island (which also has a tech scene) but I'd rather live their than Rhode Island.

</comment><comment><USER14> Water supply: what's the latest (?) Lake Mead still seems really low:

[http://arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/](http://arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/)

An AZCentral article, from August 2014, which lays out some good news/bad news points, including the 2014 NASA groundwater study:

[http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/08/11...](http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/08/11/arizona- water-supply-drought/13883605/)

</comment><comment><USER15> It might make sense if you are bootstrapping and Phoenix is a place you want to live. (It is too hot, too conservative, and too suburban for my taste)

But if you try to raise money, you suffer from a valuation penalty for not being in Silicon Valley - just from the fact that there will be fewer interested investors. That valuation penalty is probably going to far exceed the cost savings of being outside Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER3> Yes... if only there was a technology that let us communicate with investors in other places... or better yet some sort of modern flying machine that could take us there!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The author spends quite a bit of time comparing the expenses, but never really mentions the pay. It's a better deal _if the pay stays the same_. This kind of comparison happens a lot, but I personally think it's a little faulty.

To demonstrate, let's do some math. If I make 60K after taxes in Phoenix and spend 18K/year on rent (1.5K * 12), and let's say another 12K on food and gas and miscellaneous expenses, then I have spent 30K and have 30K remaining. That's 50% of my income goes to expenses.

If I live in San Francisco and make 120K/year after taxes, and I spend 50% of my income on rent and food like I did in Phoenix, then I've both made 2x the Phoenix salary and I've spent 2x the Phoenix expenses. But what's left? Instead of 30K in savings, I have 60K in savings.

By living in SF, I've saved an additional 30K over what I would have saved in Phoenix. Now, I'm using nice round numbers here to make a point, but even if SF expenses were 2.5 or even 3x Phoenix expenses, I'd still come out ahead.

Sure, the psychological impact of paying less feels good, but unless you can keep your pay closer to SF pay while living in Phoenix, you're probably not going to come out ahead financially.

My two cents.

<comment><USER17> Is it true you'll clear 2x as much post-tax salary in SV as compared to Phoenix?

<comment><USER16> I live in SF now and I'm definitely clearing 2x as much post-tax as I was in Atlanta. I've never lived in Phoenix, so I can't really speak to it other than hypothetically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you are okay with not hiring the best, then sure, move your startup to Phoenix.

Startups go to Silicon Valley and NYC because that's where the talent is. Talent goes there because that's where the startups are. Even if everything about Phoenix is objectively better, how are you going to overcome this trend?

<comment><USER19> Real talent goes (or stays) wherever it damn well pleases, and has the leverage to insist on telecommuting if that's not where HQ happens to be. "All the talent is in X" is egotistical BS for any value of X, whether it's a city or a whole country.

<comment><USER18> You're talking about the super-high-end. I'm talking about a statistical distribution.

There are way, way more talented people, for any level of talent, in the bay area than in Phoenix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Many of the same reasons he lists are why more startups are popping up in Texas too.

and, well, Omaha. :-)

It's no secret that once you get out of California, the business climate is a lot different.</comment>


Big Data can prevent terrorist attacks? Do you agree? - <AUTHOR> http://iniwall.com/2015/11/30/data-mining-to-fight-against-terrorism/ <comment><USER2> This link and the previous posting at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10977520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10977520) appear to be part of a sockpuppet campaign. The poster (who submitted the link both times) and two of the uncritical respondents are all new accounts.

The only other comment is from me. I repeat and slightly update my earlier comment here:

This link is of little value. Why should anyone believe that Big Data could never be used to help prevent terrorist attacks?

Rather, lots of things can help us to prevent terrorist attacks. Depending on who you talk to this may include: hire more police officers, accept more refugees from Syria, record and analyze everyone's conversations and movement, stop bombing civilian populations, expel all Muslims, and withdraw US forces and other support from the Middle East.

As this article specifically supports Israeli methods to "track down enemies of the Israeli state", I'll add that I support Sweden's position and its recognition of the Palestinian state.

In that context, note also the statement "[suppose] a large percentage of people from Country X have performed some form of terrorist attacks in last years." Who do you think that "Country X" is supposed to be? To elaborate, I think there's a clear implication that the author of this scenario believes that a large percentage of the people in Palestine have recently performed terrorist acts.

Bear in mind that the US estimates there are no more than 200,000 terrorists in the world. (Says [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140506/14033627137/how-m...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140506/14033627137/how- many-terrorists-are-there-not-as-many-as-you-might-think.shtml) .) From the US perspective there are no countries where 'a large percentage of people ... have performed some form of terrorist attacks in last years', making the scenario pointless. For the US, the problem is in how to deal with a very small number of terrorists.

Though I suppose this piece could be targeted to xenophobic Americans who see jihadist boogeymen in every corner. Which is another worldview I don't want to support on HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> It can, but how to preserve Privacy? How can you build that kind of predicting system, without erasing personal freedom?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the biggest challenge!</comment></comment>


Qt 20 years in: A perpetually compelling tech fold - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbTEVbQLC8s

<comment><AUTHOR> The energy of the people involved, the domain the product catered to, it was awesome to be party to this.

If you are unfamiliar with the project [http://www.qt.io/](http://www.qt.io/) will enlighten</comment>


List of Unsolved Scientific Problems with Large Monetary Prizes - <AUTHOR> http://scienceprizes.org/ <comment><USER2> No need to be hopeless about winning one of these! The "easiest" ones to target, I think for the general HN crowd, will be the EFF Cooperative Computing Awards, i.e. finding primes with 100 million and a billion digits. Looking at the winning claim from 2009 ([https://www.eff.org/awards/coop/primeclaim-43112609](https://www.eff.org/awards/coop/primeclaim-43112609)), which was a Mersenne prime with 12M+ digits, I see that it was discovered using an "Dell Optiplex 745 computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU running at 2.4 GHz" running for about 33 days. Netting the 100M prime should be doable using, e.g. a couple hundred EC2 instances for a couple of weeks.

With current EC2 prices ([http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/)) , for $100k one can run a c4.8xlarge instance (36 cores) for 2244 days, so for a comparable time for the 2009 award, you can run (2244/33)x36=2448 cores rather than two. Assuming that's adequate to discover the 100M digit prime, that's a net profit of $50k!

Since no body has done this there must be some significant flaws in the naive analysis above. What are they? What is a rough estimate of how fast the computational load would go up from 10M to 100M to 1B digit prime search?

<comment><USER3> I think you misread how the previous prime was found:

"4D. The Lucas-Lehmer test began on Sun Jul 20 12:33:46 2008 PDT and concluded on Sat Aug 23 00:29:27 2008 PDT. That's a total of 33 1/2 days. The Dell Optiplex was the only computer used to initially prove this candidate prime. However, the computer was part of GIMPS' "PrimeNet" network of roughly 75,000 computers testing other Mersenne number candidates."

It didnt take one computer 33 days, it took 75,000 computers searching simultaneously to find a prime.

edit: The next largest prime, at 17 million digits, took a further 5 years of searching on a network that has over 100 TFLOP/s of compute power [1].

[1] [http://www.mersenne.org/primes/](http://www.mersenne.org/primes/)

<comment><USER4> The choice of a Dell Optiplex business desktop PC for a month-long calculation in 2008 is interesting for historical reasons.

A decade before that, Sun workstations that cost $30k each were used for long- running engineering tests like chip verification, while an Optiplex is less than 10% of that.

<comment><USER5> Well, in 1998, I was running a dual-processor Dell Optiplex at 400MHz for month-long simulations; it cost $5000 at the time. but yeah, most people around me were buying $25k SGIs that had about half the oomph of my machine. I think that was the year it became clear Intel was going to get enough floating point and cache to be competitive with the RISC UNIX systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The commercial value of the solutions to some of these problems are multiple orders of magnitude higher than the prize money.

In that sense, the prize money isn't really much incentive to develop a Tricorder, or a process to remove greenhouse gases.

<comment><USER7> If the prize was higher then the cost of the solution - then there would likely be no prize (and they would simply spend the money on developing that solution).

The prize money shouldn't be the incentive for these solutions, more of a by- product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The list is missing the Mprize for mouse longevity, which is still out there, and the Palo Alto Prize for rejuvenation treatments in mammals. Possibly others as well.

</comment><comment><USER9> They should make it so that people can donate to the prize of their choice to increase the size of the prize. Shouldn't we try to drive the prize $ up in order to create more of an incentive to solve each of these challenges?

<comment><USER10> Having non-profit collecting crowd-funds for the solutions to the important scientific problems would be great. But I would imagine that for those most capable of solving these problems prizes are _not essential_ , while grants that would allow them to conduct the research in the first place _are_.

So... Create capable non-profit with goal of crowd-funding important research.

<comment><USER11> The key innovation would be an investor (venture capitalist?) willing to give out grants themselves, in return for a share of the resulting X-prizes. Then funding the prizes would, through Market Magic™, produce grants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Luckily, KSP1.0 recently came out to help us with prototyping for the Lunar XPrize.

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't call the Lunar XPrize an unsolved problem. We have already landed manned vessels on the moon, and have landed and operated rovers on other celestial bodies. The issue is more that we do not care enough to land a rover on the moon.

Of course, if you interpret the challenge as doing it withing a budget of $20,000,000, then it becomes a much more interesting challenge.

<comment><USER12> Hmmmmmmm..... I wonder what you could get away with if you're ok with having a stupidly low-mass rover, say with the mass of a go-pro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >>> Create free Android apps to spread reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and prove their effectiveness over an 18-month period in African pilot communities.

5 prizes of $1M and a grand prize of $10M. That seems quite viable for the HN crowd. However, this is rather subjective compared to other problems. Many other problems are more like true/false.

Still, that's quite interesting and an app, designed for learning, with heavy optimizations on UX seems like a very commercially viable product. Given you have to do the skills of enterprise sales :)

<comment><USER15> "Registration closed" on that website

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is an interesting mix.

> Google Lunar XPRIZE $20,000,000 Successfully launch, land, and operate a > rover on the lunar surface.

That almost reads like a joke. It's going to take an awful lot more than $20,000,000 to accomplish that. The prize money is nearly irrelevant.

> ALS Treatment Prize $1,000,000 Develop a therapy that extends the life of > ALS mice by 25%.

I surprised this one hasn't been taken yet.

<comment><USER17> The Google Lunar XPRIZE already has a bunch of teams making decent progress. The $30 million[0] certainly won't fund the whole trip, but it seems to be a big enough supplement that it is encouraging institutions to give it a serious effort.

That being said, I would love to see the competition and effort if the prize was increased by a factor of at least 25.

[0] [http://lunar.xprize.org/](http://lunar.xprize.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I looked through 2 of these that looked the most interesting to me, and the registration is closed.

Need a way to filter the list to things that you can still register to enter.

</comment><comment><USER19> Or just build a photo sharing app called Instagram, worth $1 billion.

<comment><USER20> Yea but out of hundreds of photo sharing apps only one was worth $1 billion.

<comment><USER21> Well, the odds of finding a prime number with 1,000,000,000 digts are lower by far and you only get $250,000

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised SpaceX doesn't go for the Lunar prize.

<comment><USER23> The current plan [1] is for several teams to pool their money and launch together on a SpaceX rocket. Once they arrive together on the lunar surface, then they'll race to see who wins the prize. SpaceX will be paid their normal launch fee.

[1] [http://lunar.xprize.org/press-release/two-google-lunar- xpriz...](http://lunar.xprize.org/press-release/two-google-lunar-xprize-teams- announce-rideshare-partnership-mission-moon-2016)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The P vs NP one looks undoable compared to the other ones.

<comment><USER25> Why?

<comment><USER26> I'd explain, but it'd be exponentially long and boring. Or maybe not. I can never be sure.

<comment><USER27> Do let us know when you find the answer. We can check it quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 1\. Get a infinite number of monkeys into a room

2\. Give it one of these problems.

3\. Profit!, of course minus the cost of the bananas.

<comment><USER29> You forgot step 2.5. Find the scrap of paper with the correct proof on it among the infinite scraps of paper without the correct proof on it.

<comment><USER30> No need -- just submit them all!

<comment><USER29> Submit 'em all. Let peer review sort 'em out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Any low-hanging fruits? ;)</comment>


NCP, the Predecessor of TCP/IP - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Control_Program <comment><USER2> >On January 1, 1983, in what is known as a "flag day", NCP was officially rendered obsolete when the ARPANET changed its core networking protocols from NCP to the more flexible and powerful TCP/IP protocol suite, marking the start of the modern Internet.

It's a bit of a shame this sort of thing is impossible now. There's so many billions of devices on the Internet now that there's no way to have a flag day for stuff like IPv4.

<comment><USER3> Well, IPv4 is not bad per se, and it can perfectly co-exist with IPv6. IPv6 has some technical benefits for the internet, but the internet isn't a worse place while IPv4 is still there.

IPv6 offers little to no benefit for the average internet user. For ISPs and telcos IPv6 isn't really attractive because they can't market it like other technologies (5G! 5G! 5G! look! we have 5G!).

None of my ISPs (home, office and mobile carrier) currently offer IPv6, which I am personally frustrated about, but I totally understand why they don't.

<comment><USER2> Don't those arguments apply to NCP too? i.e. You need 2 ports rather than 1, and there's probably other disadvantages, but that doesn't affect the average Internet user much.

<comment><USER3> Computers had much less resources back then, and NCP had reached it's limits in terms of scalability. Running both TCP and NCP would have hindered progress and innovation. So the decision to outright deprecate NCP was necessary to keep scaling the network up.

Keeping IPv4 alive today doesn't hinder progress, and with the high bandwidth available nowadays the minor overhead improvements of IPv6 will be barely noticeable for the average user. Also keep in mind that the average internet user back in 1983 were a bit different from today ;-)

edit: typo

<comment><USER4> > Keeping IPv4 alive today doesn't hinder progress

Because many users/services have only IPv4, practically all services and ISP have to provide IPv4 and do not have to provide IPv6. If we could agree to kill IPv4 at specific date, we could have truly IPv6 Internet years ago.

<comment><USER5> And in return we would have harder to remember IP addresses. Nothing a user would drool about.

<comment><USER4> User should not use IP addresses. This is what we have DNS and mDNS for. In special cases, like local router if mDNS is unavailable, IPv6 address is even easier than IPv4 (compare "FE80::1" to "192.168.0.1").

Anyway, it's not like it's a choice unless you want to restrict who deserves public IP and who doesn't, because we do not have enough IPv4 for everyone.

<comment><USER6> Most average users don't notice IP addresses and would have no idea if their system is using IPv4 or IPv6 in ordinary day-to-day life, so long as it works. Statistically it's average home users that are already using IPv6-first if not IPv6-only and ISP/Carrier-Grade NAT6TO4 (most mobile networks, and a plurality of home networks), where it's increasingly Enterprises and certain types of power users holding on to IPv4 addresses that seem to be the biggest hold outs on IPv6.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But IIRC there was an earlier flag date when all the TOPS-20 and TENEX systems switched to TCP/IP (somewhere in 1979-80?), and that was the real breath- holder for those of us dependent on (and responsible for) those systems at the time.

The first TCP/IP implementation for TENEX/TOPS-20 was kind of a dog (large and complex and slow, of course written in -10 assembler), but over time it got tuned quite a bit.

When I was at Imagen, a Stanford TeX project laser printer spin-off using the same SUN-1 boards as the first Sun workstations and Cisco routers, we hired Geoff Steckel. Geoff was a genius from the Dave Clark (co-inventor of TCP/IP) group at MIT. He wrote for Imagen a very small, tight, super-fast TCP/IP implementation in C, since he had quite a bit of practice at it in Dave's group.

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1033.txt](https://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1033.txt)

       For example, the ARPANET is net 10.  That means there is a domain
       called 10.IN-ADDR.ARPA.  Within this domain there is a PTR RR at
       184.108.40.206.IN-ADDR that points to the RRs for the host SRI-NIC.ARPA
       (who's address is 10.0.0.51).  Since the NIC is also on the MILNET
       (Net 26, address 22.214.171.124), there is also a PTR RR at 126.96.36.199.IN-
       ADDR.ARPA that points to the same RR's for SRI-NIC.ARPA.  The format
       of these special pointers is defined below along with the examples
       for the NIC.

[http://textfiles.rolz.org/humor/COMPUTER/computersongs-1.4](http://textfiles.rolz.org/humor/COMPUTER/computersongs-1.4)

        Title    : Gateway To Net Ten
        Original : Stairway To Heaven
        Group    : Led Zeppelin
        Author   : Mark Lottor <firstname.lastname@example.com>

        GATEWAY TO NET TEN    -- Mark Lottor

        [Original words and music by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant]

        There's a hacker who's sure all that's coax is fast
        and he's buying a gateway to net ten.
        When he gets it he'll know if the ports are all closed
        with a SYN he can get what he sent for.

        Ooh ooh ooh ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh
        and he's buying a gateway to net ten.

        There's an RFC on the wall but he wants to be sure
        cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
        In a note on the page there's a warning that says
        sometimes all of our code is broken.

        Don't ya know, it makes me wonder.

        There's an error I get when I send to the net
        and my packets are lost and retransmitting.
        In my logs I have seen loops of mail thru the machine,
        and the screams of those who are hacking.

        Oooh, it makes me wonder.

        And it's whispered that soon if we all fix and tune
        then the packets will reach their destinations.
        And a new day will dawn for hosts that stay long
        and the telnets will echo quite faster.

        Ohhhhh, it makes me wonder.

        If there's a bustle in your cisco, don't be alarmed now
        it's just a quick ping for the NIC machine.
        Yes there are two paths you can route by, but in the long haul
        there's still time to change the protocol.

        Yowwww, it makes me wonder.

        Your host is loaded and it will slow in case you don't know,
        the unix's are asking you to join them.
        Dear hacker, do you see the overflow, and did you know
        your gateway is still under development.

        And as we wind out more coax, and gateways slower than our hosts,
        There goes a message we all know, it updates routes and wants to show
        how everything still turns quite slow.
        And if you listen very hard, the bits will come to you at last.
        When all are ones and ones are all, to be a rubout and not a null.

        And he's buying a gateway to net ten...</comment>


Firefox Private Network - <AUTHOR> https://private-network.firefox.com/ <comment><USER2> Here is standalone client for Firefox Private Network: [https://github.com/Snawoot/firefox-secure- proxy](https://github.com/Snawoot/firefox-secure-proxy)

Also works outside US.</comment>