Apple Rant – The Failure of Technology - <AUTHOR> http://blog.joemoreno.com/2014/09/apple-rant-failure-of-technology.html <comment><USER2> The abominable live feed took the lustre off everything Apple announced. It plagued them throughout the entire presentation. Apple's entire business revolves around user experience and frankly during the live feed I kept thinking to myself if you can't pull off a live feed then what makes you think you can pull off a game-changing watch? Especially in an era where nobody wears watches anymore? The entire presentation left me with the feeling that Apple has jumped the shark.

<comment><USER3> > The abominable live feed took the lustre off everything Apple announced.

Maybe, but in 2 or 6 or 12 months, the products will still exist, but the feed failure will be "oh, yeah, remember that the feed sucked?" And in 2 years, not even that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E)

I had to wait TWENTY MINUTES...</comment>


AI Sports Journalist Covers Every Division I College Basketball Team - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2010/11/17/ai-sports-journalist-covers-every-division-i-college-basketball-team/ <comment><USER2> The future. It has arrived. I remember reading a few years ago that sports writing is very formulaic and _should_ be possible to automate. At the time, nobody had really done it...but here we are. It's fantastic to see all this "weak AI" out there, making people money and building a reputation for _being better than most humans_ at a task previously thought to be human-only.

Are we slowly walking directly towards strong AI, with all our little tiny steps of weak AI?

I can't wait.

<comment><USER3> Surely strong AI is by definition such a paradigm shift that it cannot be achieved with lots of little steps of weak AI? I thought that was kind of the point of the strong/weak AI dichotomy.

<comment><USER4> A definition has no power to change the engineering feasibility of a task. If it is possible to build a strong AI from a series of weak AI steps, which is certainly not out of the question (one can argue that's how human brains work), no amount of definition will change that.

<comment><USER3> However if we accept the definition, then it is surely meaningless (pointless?) to discuss AI progress in those terms.

EDIT: what i really mean is that I reject the strong/weak AI dichotomy. I really need to resist the urge to play pointless semantic games. Guess thats an occupational hazard of programming all day long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really amazing. I love data, but the real value comes when I'm able to translate that data into a story. Programs like this are going to become increasingly important as we become deluged with data, but don't know what it means.

All that being said, I want to start hacking around on something like this in a different domain. Any tips on how to get started on the data-to-language transformation? Code or academic articles welcome.

</comment><comment><USER6> I never understood what was interesting about sports or sports journalism until I moved back to Nebraska.

I've been watching Nebrasketball, the mandatory Huskers games in the evenings, and roller derby, all with a group of very sports-aware people and one aspiring sports journalist. His commentary on the football/basketball games converted me from a bored observer to actually enjoying the sports.

I'm impressed by what this site is generating, but I'm not too worried about it displacing actual writers. It's the difference between a local news affiliate press release, and an article in the New Yorker or the Atlantic, or BBC reporting. There's still something that a passionate human can bring to the equation that will be almost impossible to automate.

That said, StatSheet is really damn impressive.

<comment><USER7> I agree that we aren't replacing anything. There will never be one source for a particular topic (although our content is significantly less expensive to produce).

But I wouldn't underestimate the potential for automated content to be even better than what the best journalists can produce. We are at the infant stage of automated content. We have a long way to go and it will only get better.

<comment><USER8> You've already surpassed Adrian Wojnarowski, but computers have a long way to go to replace even average humans:

[http://www.truthaboutit.net/2010/11/wizards-claw- raptors-109...](http://www.truthaboutit.net/2010/11/wizards-claw- raptors-109-94-the-gilbert-arenas-hockey-assist.html)

That's a bit of a joke, but the real value automation will provide is not the translation of statistics into narrative, it is providing the right statistics. I can honestly say that your generated stories are better than most AP articles in that regard.

Have you looked at computing any advanced basketball statistics? Highlighting those and turning them into narrative could go a long way toward raising awareness about them in the general (sports) public.

<comment><USER7> Yes, we compute a bunch of advanced stats for statsheet.com. I've intentionally shied away from doing too much "advanced" stuff on the individual sites because i want them to be consumable by the average fan. Some feedback we get about statsheet.com is that it can be overwhelming.

That said, we'll be adding more unique stuff over time. We started doing a "Fan Satisfaction" chart: [http://carolinaupdate.com/north-carolina- basketball/fan_sati...](http://carolinaupdate.com/north-carolina- basketball/fan_satisfaction) that attempts to objectively measure the subjective notion of "fan satisfaction".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Expectations are high that this year's <% TEAM_NAME %> team is an improvement on last year's. They'll be bringing back a group that played <% TOTAL_MINS %> of last season's minutes and adding the efforts of <% NUM_TOP100_PLAYERS %> Top 100 recruits that will *###>>>#> RISE UP AND KILL ALL LIFEFORMS ###>> ... losing in the Championship game to <% FINAL_OPPONENT %>

<comment><USER7> Not quite that easy I'm afraid :-)

<comment><USER9> Are you sure about that? [http://www.google.com/#q=%22Expectations+are+high+that+this+...](http://www.google.com/#q=%22Expectations+are+high+that+this+year%27s%22+%22is+an+improvement%22)

<comment><USER10> Not quite that easy. Notice that the following sentence is often different. What I suspect they do is have a set of characteristics they look for, like winning team, number of starters coming back, all starters coming back, won conference, made NCAA, made final four, won it all, etc...

And then they have a set of sentence structures they can plug in for these. This allows you to actually generate a different story for the exact same team -- saying really the exact same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The lesson for journalists here is: if you get into the habit of writing formulaic garbage, you WILL be replaced by a small shell script.

We're a long way from top writers like Hunter S Thompson (who was a sports journalist, among other things) being replaced by programs.

Even far less outstanding writers still provide something valuable, by, for example, extracting knowledge and insight out of the data, rather than just regurgitating data in a human-readable format. If your job is to publish hard facts without insight or analysis, though, your job is toast.

</comment><comment><USER12> Bravo! This type of technology will free up sports journalists to concentrate on the areas where they can really add value, such as interviews, analysis, and "color" that the algorithms cannot generate.

A word of caution, though: The potential for bad data to enter the system and get published and spread without a human editor to correct it could cause real problems for teams and athletes. It will require tightening up on the sources that are used, redundancy of sources, and checking mechanisms.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a Stanford fan, so here's a (nit-picky?) deconstruction of [http://cardinalupdate.com/stanford-basketball/game- recap/sta...](http://cardinalupdate.com/stanford-basketball/game- recap/stanford-wins-64-48-over-san-diego) \- the recap of the team's first game.

"Stanford has already started living up to monumental expectations with a good first game": I'm not sure where the "monumental expectations" comes from; Stanford finished below .500 last year and was picked 9th in the Pac-10 preseason media poll.

"Stanford defeated San Diego with domination in offensive rebounding and an additional beat in possession management.": Not sure what "an additional beat in" means here.

"Stanford has incredible expectations for this season, and this victory over Cardinal was a good start.": Should be "over the Toreros" or "for the Cardinal".

Overall, though, it's pretty slick.

<comment><USER7> Two of those three have been fixed now. The first (around expectations) requires a larger tweak which we are making.

The point to keep in mind is that we are at the infant stage of automated content. Unlike most writers, our content will get significantly better over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> At a hospital that my dad programs for, the radiologists were using medical transcription software to translate "normal foot, normal shoulder" into doctor-speak, and the pre-canned phrases were too repetitive to be pleasant, so they ended up with 50 ways of expanding "normal", and that was acceptable.

This looks like a pretty cool way to interpret stats; I wonder if they could automate Tufte-quality graphics of how the team performed, annotating graphs with news excerpts.

</comment><comment><USER15> The original robot in Asimov's "I, Robot" short story was called Robbie.

OMG, statsheet has robot journalists _and_ a robot CEO!

<comment><USER7> Can you tell me more about "robot CEO"? :-)

<comment><USER16> Well played :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As someone who has long had an interest (my wife would call it an obsession) with transforming the basic stats of sports into something more useful and meaningful, this is fascinating stuff. I think anyone that reads the game previews and recaps on NBA.com, NFL.com or any other major league site can see where things could be automated. That writing IS largely formulaic and forgettable. It would be very interesting if instead of just doing the same thing through automation, it produced innovative stats and interpreted them in ways that gave the reader insight into the outcome of the game.

My current pet project is taking NBA data and transforming it into something beyond points per game, etc. I think that's where the future of sports related AI resides.

<comment><USER18> Mind if I ask you where you can get these data?

I'm a semi hard-core NBA fan.

<comment><USER19> I'd like such data as well, email in profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How interesting, I was just reading some articles [1] [2] about learning to think like a programmer and program. Both mention how beneficial it is for journalists to code and think like a coder.

While they mainly talk about saving time with repetitive tasks or compiling/understanding complex data, _I suppose now its good for job security too_...

[1] [http://infovore.org/archives/2009/01/22/learning-to-think- li...](http://infovore.org/archives/2009/01/22/learning-to-think-like-a- programmer/)

[2] <http://www.charlesarthur.com/blog/?p=1098>

</comment><comment><USER21> Article says: "Many games, though not all, get detailed write ups. Computer programs turn data from box scores into full sentences that put the reader in the game. "

I have yet to find a game that has a write-up, even for top 25 games. Am I missing the link or something?

Because just automated stats doesn't seem that impressive or very AI.

<comment><USER7> Actually we generate game recaps for EVERY division I college basketball team. Which one did you not see it for?

Here is Duke: <http://bluedevildaily.com>

<comment><USER21> Oh, I didn't realize that the per team domains have different stuff than what is on StatSheet.com. I just went to the site, clicked on College Basketball in the header, and then picked my team.

Basically, I was expecting to see a generated recap on this page: [http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/2010/11/12/rutgers-73-princet...](http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/2010/11/12/rutgers-73-princeton-78)

<comment><USER7> And it should be there! We have a lot to do and integrating the team site content within statsheet.com is a top priority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I automating sports news is first, I predict that Finance will come next.

<comment><USER23> Seriously, most finance "articles" already look like they were written by bots. I have no idea who reads garbage like this:

[http://www.tradershuddle.com/20101117119131/Stocks/pre- marke...](http://www.tradershuddle.com/20101117119131/Stocks/pre-market- update-gapping-stocks-f-urbn-c-fcx-hd.html)

[http://collegestock.com/blog/885-metal-stocks-slumped- alcoa-...](http://collegestock.com/blog/885-metal-stocks-slumped-alcoa-inc- cenx-nor-fcx/)

There's literally no useful info, just data written as words.

<comment><USER24> HFT = High Frequency Trading ?

<comment><USER3> Yep. They do natural language parsing of wire news stories to try and synthesize market intelligence. Which is one day going to lead to a civilization-ending feedback loop due to the sort of thing we're discussing here (in my paranoid hyperbolic opinion :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know where they get their data but I just checked my teams(FSU) football page and they have a bug in the record (6-4 instead of 7-3). Not too impressed there.

</comment><comment><USER26> If the bot is willing to make Taiwanese-style CG animations of the highlights, I'm all for it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Obviously the big win here is in the long tail: high school sports, rec leagues, etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> Ugh this obsession with AI is annoying.</comment>


Education 2.0: The Importance of Ownership - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/04/ed-20-the-importance-of-owners.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are the two paragraphs that jumped out at me:

 _I was hiking with my son yesterday. It was a long hike for a boy his age and he asked me, "Dad, do your feet hurt?" I turned my head as we walked and said, "Yeah. They hurt. But not all hurting is bad and you wanted to get to the top of the hill. Do you want to stop?" He thought about it for a long while, ten, maybe twenty steps and said, "no, but my feet hurt too. I'll be glad when we get to the top." Ed 2.0 won't make our feet not hurt. We'll just be hiking to more wonderous places._

and...

 _Ed 2.0 is about encouraging ownership - genuine heartfelt ownership of one's own educational destiny. The institutions will transform faster than we can keep pace. Between the cracks of our existing educational infrastructure will grow varied species of educational delivery the likes of which we have never seen and cannot possibly forecast. What our students will need is a love of learning but we should not mistake this for an easy love affair. A love of learning is a hard relationship. Learning hurts sometimes. Learning is scary most of the time. It's impact is all-too-often proportional to its agony. As Benjamin Franklin described it, "Those things that hurt, instruct."_

I'm spending my professional life teaching business to adult learners. There seems to be a very significant and visible difference between people who understand that learning is sometimes difficult (but that's okay), and people who believe that everything should be easy or simple. The former inevitably grow, and the latter give up or stagnate.

I'm also competing, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, with MBA programs. Compared with self-education, many of my readers consider MBA programs a form of "easy mode" as if it's a good thing - they know they probably won't learn anything practical, but the structure is handed to them, but at least they'll "complete" it and get a sheepskin at the end. Some choose the safe, predictable path instead of taking ownership for their own learning - even if it's more expensive and less valuable. (Most individuals who take ownership for their own learning in MBA programs are the people who don't need them in the first place.)

I really wonder if "ownership" can be taught. If so, I'd like to teach it.

<comment><USER2> It can be, but often people have to get themselves in a rut 'the easy way' before they're willing to learn it (at least I did).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like to distinguish between "vanilla fun" and "Nietzschean fun" (after the German philosopher). You get to experience the latter by simply pushing your pleasure button over and over like the rat in the experiment (drugs, sex, dancing,food, etc). You get to experience the latter by cultivating a sense of self-development through willing submission to some sort of (often painful) discipline which makes you grow out of yourself. You have be excited about growing, rather than trying to hold on to who you already were, in order for this "fun" to be fun; a lot of people grip ferociously to who they are and don't want to self-overcome, and so they can't really become learners. Math homework, physical training, etc -- all Nietzschean.

Don't get me wrong -- the former should be part of everyone's life. But so should the latter.

<comment><USER4> The latter is what raises your baseline level of happiness, while the former is mostly temporary and fleeting. I like them both, of course, so don't think that I'm knocking vanilla fun.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill></comment></comment>


PayPal withdraws support for Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/4/20899310/facebook-libra-paypal-online-currency-payment-system-cryptocurrency <comment><USER2> > The company doesn't cite a specific reason, saying only in a statement given > to The Verge that it decided "to forgo further participation in the Libra > Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing > mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to > financial services for underserved populations."

It was never clear why companies like PayPal signed up in the first place, other than to avoid alienating Facebook.

PayPal has everything to lose with a Libra success and little to gain. This goes for the other association members. Their businesses are built on the friction of making and receiving payments.

This will likely be the first of many such announcements.</comment>


Your Wireless Router Is Broken – Help Us Fix It At DEF CON - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/your-wireless-router-broken-help-us-fix-it-def-con

<comment><USER2> FTA: _" Last year, researchers at ISE found that a staggering 100% of SOHO routers they evaluated were vulnerable to remote attacks."_

However, the linked study[1] shows that:

1\. 2 of the routers did not have remote exploits

2\. All but 2 of the other routers required authenticated access to exploit remotely

Authenticated attacks _" require that the attacker have access to credentials (or that default router credentials are used—an all-too-common situation) or that a victim is logged in with an active session at the time of the attack."_

While default passwords may be common, virtually all routers have remote admin turned off by default as well.

[1] [https://securityevaluators.com/knowledge/case_studies/router...](https://securityevaluators.com/knowledge/case_studies/routers/soho_router_hacks.php)

<comment><USER3> The real fun comes when you can turn remote admin _back on_ remotely.

Oh, god, I _wish_ I was joking.

<comment><USER4> I did that to a ISP provided router. The company wouldn't enable port forwarding for games. So I did it myself.

Why do those routers have open telnet interfaces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really don't understand why they feel they need to develop their own full firmware rather than contribute to another project like OpenWRT or CeroWRT? Anyone involved care to tell us why?

<comment><USER6> I would guess that they want the default behaviour and user experience different to OpenWRT's goals.

<comment><USER7> If UX is a must, then Gargoyle is an option: [http://www.gargoyle- router.com/](http://www.gargoyle-router.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know the rough economics of router manufacturing? At what quantity could you get reasonable enough prices to sell it at an acceptable (to consumers) premium?

Build your own, only open hardware (if that's even feasable..soooo much closed stuff) and sell as EFF approved/privacy friendly whatever. EFF probably has enough brand recognition with the right folks to pull it off as a sponsor or something.

Seems like a couple of million kickstarter or similar project to me. Especially if they also serve the non-US market which is currently rather security/privacy concerned.

[unfortunately I know very little about hardware cost/closednes but last time I did a rough check it seems like somewhat of a nightmare field to be in]

Edit: Heck YC could think about opening a spot specifically for a startup that improves privacy (i.e. open wifi router). After all they did enter the nonprofit market. Seems like a reasonable PR/goodwill move.

<comment><USER9> Router boards these days are a commodity, with all the available consumer access points using the same SoC and hardware on a different PCB with their own plastic case.

A single SoC often provides 1) MIPS processor, 2) Ethernet MAC, 3) Switch in ASIC, 4) WiFi MAC

See also: [http://www.eeboard.com/wp- content/uploads/downloads/2013/08/...](http://www.eeboard.com/wp- content/uploads/downloads/2013/08/AR9331.pdf)

You can buy off-the-shelf complete systems ready to be dropped in a plastic case, or even complete (and very commodity) systems: [http://routerboard.com/](http://routerboard.com/)

I'd love to see a RaspberryPi-style approach to home access points using the popular MIPS SoCs, with pfsense ([https://pfsense.org/](https://pfsense.org/)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> At least one of the attack, the CSRF on the Asus RT-N56U, seems to need the IP address of the router. Does this mean that this attack is useless when the attacker doesn't know the IP of the router? Or is there a way to know it remotely? (I happen to have this router and the IP of the router is not the same, and I don't think that the default config has been changed as the admin interface has the default password.)

Also, an attack necessitating a user to be logged in to the admin interface has probably a very small chance of success. I don't know any "normal" person who would log into their router admin interface (unless maybe they are asked for with social engineering).

PS: but having an Open Wireless Router is a good idea anyway. We could imagine one having upgradeable hardware and just switch the mini PCIe card to have 802.11 ac instead of 802.11 n for instance.

<comment><USER11> Can easily be obtained by spear phishing or nmapping IP ranges.

<comment><USER10> Do you need to be on the same local network as the user to do that or does that work with an attacker being on the internet?

<comment><USER11> If you just need their external IP address, you can probably easily coerce that out of them by getting them to click a link. Send an IM to a bit.ly link that logs an IP and forwards on to some random image, an email, a tweet, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing I realized is that you can share several safe internet sites on a public SSID.

For example you could share Google and duckduckgo searches you can also share Wikipedia. You can also share access to well known VPN services.

So you put in an iptables rules for the guest SSID interface.

This is not a fully open net and all respect to those who build it but I am a bit affraid what sites users might surf on and as it now law enforcement assume ip==user who did things.

<comment><USER13> I built a Onion Pi router for this purpose. All traffic on the public access point is sent over Tor. It's a mixed bag but seems to work well enough.

[https://learn.adafruit.com/onion- pi/overview](https://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi/overview)

<comment><USER14> it would be nice to have routers with pre-configured exit nodes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What about things like [http://wrtnode.com/](http://wrtnode.com/)

Opensource hardware with opensource dd-wrt</comment>


Basic features that will hopefully return to the MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/19/the-7-great-features-that-will-hopefully-return-to-the-macbook-pro/ <comment><USER2> > _When Apple first launched MagSafe, the company loudly proclaimed they did > so because customers kept breaking the connectors that plugged into the > laptop. You know, like what's in the current MacBook._

I have a new MBP and I don't miss the MagSafe, to be honest. Mostly because I have the USB-C power cable connect through a USB-C hub -- what I lose in the usability of MagSafe, is mostly made up in flexibility. And with Apple using the USB-C standard, I can buy any USB-C cable I want, including ones much cheaper and more durable than the Apple-branded cords. I have 3 MagSafe adapters from previous MBPs and they are all worn out at where the wire connects to the adapter block, with no cheap way to replace them.

<comment> java-man Let's see how the USB-C female connector fares after the same amount of use. Something tells me it'll be busted long before the cable part wears out.

All Apple cables seem to have a weakness where the cable joins to the connector. A short PVC tube is no match for a gradually tapered part found on some Ethernet cables. And the fact that the user usually just yanks the cable instead of pulling on a tiny connector part...

<comment><USER3> There's an art to designing strain relief. Apple doesn't bother with it.

I have a new electric kettle with a plug that incorporates a ring into the strain relief -- your fingers will always grab the ring to pull it out of the outlet, and that's where the cable-to-plug connection is strongest.

<comment> java-man strain relief, did not know that term. thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was originally on board for comments like "If a person buys a MacBook Pro and iPhone, that person cannot connect their iPhone to their new MacBook Pro without buying an adapter or cable."

But I can't remember a time I've plugged my current iPhone into a computer, ever. I had the original iPhone, where I had to plug it in constantly to manage music, sync contacts, and update the OS, but it hasn't been like that in my experience for a while.

<comment><USER5> How do you reinstall OS or make non-iCloud backup without computer?

<comment><USER6> Is reinstalling the OS on an iPhone really a thing? I can't imagine that any significant number of people do that. Non-iCloud backups are probably more common but still extremely rare, as are any backup solutions that require more than a few minutes to set up and permanently automate.

<comment><USER5> I'm reinstalling OS every time instead of updating. I don't trust automatic updating and I like the feel of new device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Worth noting for folks who don't use Siri that the TouchBar contents are customizable. I was in the same boat as the author, accidentally activating Siri non-stop, and then I figured out I could just remove that button.

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> "Customize Control Strip" button

<comment><USER7> Whoa, great catch! ;-)

Kept hitting the (disabled) Siri virtual button, and it would unhelpfully offer to enable it every time.

Annoying, but at least there's a way out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Like the author of this article I tried to like it, and just couldn't do it. I use non-touchbar MBP at work, but now only use an iMac at home. Thought I'd miss the portability of a laptop but a year later I haven't missed it at all.

A small but noticable benefit is no longer having an internal debate on whether or not to bring the laptop traveling, since I can't. Being on vacation without a computer (iPhone aside) is the way it should have always been.

<comment><USER9> This is exactly what I plan to do! After the new year I'm going to buy a new iMac and a full keyboard and a used MacBook Air with the intention of using then as my non work computing environment for as long as I can, hopefully 5-10 years. And maybe by them computing will be in such a different place I never have to worry about a touchbar or shitty MacBook Pro keyboard again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The elimination of MagSafe is nearly too painful to talk about. It was magical. Now it's dead.

Here's how it worked: The power cable was magnetic. Instead of sticking into the laptop, it connected to the side of it. If someone tripped over the cable, the cable would harmlessly disconnect from the laptop._

That feature was really removed? I've accidentally yanked the power cord multiple times on my laptop. MagSafe saved the hardware from major damage.

<comment><USER11> Good riddance!

In my experience MagSafe 2 ruined the MagSafe connector design. It's nearly impossible to use MagSafe 2 in anything but a stable flat position. Forget using it while laying down.

Also, I work in a metal fabrication workshop, which means the brass contacts and their housing on the laptop side of the MagSafe 2 connector on my MacBook Pro are now blanketed and burned from poor contact due to metal dust interfering with the connector.

There are aftermarket MagSafe type connectors for the new MacBooks. This is a superior design in my opinion because it makes _both sides_ of the connector replaceable.

<comment><USER11> That should say * blackened and burned*. Touchscreen keyboards + autocorrect + not proof reading = bane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The power cable was magnetic. Instead of sticking into the laptop, it > connected to the side of it. If someone tripped over the cable, the cable > would harmlessly disconnect from the laptop.

Worth pointing out that there are third-party MagSafe-esque wrappers for USB-C like [https://www.snapnator.com/](https://www.snapnator.com/)

<comment><USER13> it sticks out - magsafe was flush

</comment></comment><comment> trey-jones I use a 2013 MBP and I agree with this article in that I don't really want to "upgrade" to a Macbook without most of those features. In fact, even the 2013 is missing some features compared to the 2011:

* The old style Magsafe, where the cord comes out the back instead of the side. I still feel that one was superior.

* Accessible RAM. I upgraded the RAM in my 2011 from 4GB to 16GB for a fraction of what the 16GB in my 2013 cost pre-installed and soldered to the motherboard.

I can live with these, though. I absolutely will not buy a computer that doesn't have a real escape button - I don't actually use any software on my mac that I couldn't use on Linux, other than Apple Developer software, and that is not my primary function, just something I do sometimes.

Other than that, I do agree that the tabs on the power supply are pretty sweet. I think I would be fine with USB-C power, but it would be kind of nice if they didn't do away with perfectly good QoL features just because.

<comment><USER14> Is the hard drive and battery still user-swappable on a 2013 MBP? I have a cache of MBAs to last me a decade or two, but I'm always interested in other options if I come across them inexpensively.

<comment> trey-jones The hard drive is easy to swap. The orginal battery is glued-in, so not so easy. My original battery is still going strong 5 years on though. One thing about Apple products that has always impressed me is the battery life and longevity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What i'd really love is if there was a service where I could pay a technician to take previous generation Macbook Pro with it's excellent keyboard and no touchbar and transplant a new logic board with modern 8th generation intel processor, 16gb of ram and an nvidia max-q gtx 1070 (or AMD equivalent) into it, complete with working USB-A ports. I wonder if it could still fool MacOS into thinking it's a real mac without having to go the hackintosh route.

That would be the perfect laptop.

Does anyone know anyone who has done this? Could you get something like that done in China?

<comment><USER16> Ha, that's going to thermal throttle like nobody's business. Just get a proper laptop if you want specs like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find the Touch Bar to be incredibly dim and low-resolution compared to the monitor or display of my iPhone.

It doesn't relay a lot of practical use. The removal of basic features like MagSafe and the little power LED's is maddening. The removal of the classic white glowing Apple on the back is practically an announcement that they're not even the same company any more.

I do iOS development for a living, and I'm rocking a 2018 15" MBP, and I'm very disappointed if this is the future of Apple.

<comment><USER18> I saw the end coming when they removed the breathing standby led from the Unibody design.

<comment><USER19> I finally can sleep in the same room of my MB without remembering to cover it every night.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I actually really like that the power block can be separated from the charging cable now. Yeah the tabs may have been nice, but the base of the cable would always get mashed.

</comment><comment><USER21> The arrow key layout gets me cursing faster than anything else. I simply can't reliably find them by touch.

Truth .:.

Lies |:|

</comment><comment><USER22> I miss the separated power button. Having it on the corner of the keyboard is bad ergonomics.

</comment><comment><USER23> I still have a 2010 MBP. Maxed out the ram, dropped in a standard 2.5" SSD, and it's doing fine.

<comment><USER24> You need to worry about the battery degrading at this point and what the costs to repair it would look like

<comment><USER25> Batteries for this model are quite easy to replace, and pretty cheap.

<comment><USER23> yup. I've done it twice now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> java-man Good luck getting those in the next MBP. Once a company exceeds a certain size, the normal rules of designing a product for the users stop applying.

Mag safe, headphone jack, multiple USB ports, escape key - why were they removed? Who made these decisions?

I might add a lack of dedicated PgUp/PgDn/Home/End keys on larger laptops. There's plenty of space, but no, we are going to use the same keyboard for all of them (makes sense from a supply perspective!)

<comment><USER26> _I might add a lack of dedicated PgUp /PgDn/Home/End keys on larger laptops. There's plenty of space, but no, we are going to use the same keyboard for all of them (makes sense from a supply perspective!)_

Mildly unrelated, but many split-keyboard designs put an arc of thumb-keys like this [http://xahlee.info/kbd/i04750/keyboardio_m1_rgb_44488.jpg](http://xahlee.info/kbd/i04750/keyboardio_m1_rgb_44488.jpg)

There's plenty of opportunity for normal rectangle keyboards to put 2+ new metakeys below space bar, and almost none of them do.

But what about on a laptop - could there be key chords where the thumbs are on the trackpad? Could you have right_thumb_trackpad_top_right + j/k for PgUp/PgDn (picking from Vim bindings) ?

<comment><USER27> By the way, on Apple keyboards you can get six extra keys by holding down the "fn" key:

fn + delete = forward delete

fn + return = enter

fn + up/down arrow = page up/down

fn + left/right arrow = home/end

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Since I had to buy a new adapter for MBA I totally love that they ditched MagSafe where cable was permanently attached.

Also because I use a cheaper MBP I still have an Esc key. And I don't have a single dongle and don't understand why would I need it.

I also love they keyboad very much — would be great if they could make it more reliable but I prefer it to the old one on MBA.

</comment><comment><USER19> Two things the author forgot: 1) A non click clack keyboard 2) Antiglare screen!! Glossy screen has no function at all, apart being fancy.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's getting harder and harder to deny the proposition that Apple's business model is selling adapters.

</comment><comment><USER30> Not a returning feature but what about a Macbook that updates with the lid closed? Or is that asinine?

<comment><USER25> In answer to your question, that would be asinine. That's one of the few things Apple has (almost) consistently gotten right on their laptops—close the lid, it goes to sleep. Period. I can't describe how frustrating it is to use computers that think they are smarter than you (or are just unable to work properly) and stay on when you close them.

<comment><USER31> Except, that doesn't happen like you described it. A process can "prevent sleep", at which point closing the lid will still leave the laptop running (you can view apps/processes that do this in Activity Monitor - there is a separate column titled "Preventing sleep").

[http://www.chriswrites.com/mac-refusing-sleep-figure- whats-k...](http://www.chriswrites.com/mac-refusing-sleep-figure-whats- keeping-macos-awake/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Gave up trying to say NO to gdpr cookies after 3 pages in.

</comment><comment><USER33> All of these features are on my mid-2014 model.

Due to the design of the case, the bottom has bowed out from temperature changes, but the battery is fine.

Shame what they did to the new ones. I ended up getting a Razer Blade 13" to use at home, which seems tantalizing close to what new MacBook Pros should be.

<comment><USER7> Whoa--if'n you're getting bowing, you're likely looking at an expanding battery, which is bad news. Get that to Apple repair ASAP!

<comment><USER33> I opened it with a special screwdriver and it's fine and flat.

There's no where for the metal to go when it expands and contracts during temp changes, so it bowed out, in its little creviced area it fits in. Nobody told Apple to surround metal with metal or how apparently.

It gets down to freezing sometimes, always shut off and I warm it up to room temp before turning it on, 8 or so hours.

How does your MacBook Pro work after being repeatedly frozen? Or sitting in a hot car? If you don't do this, you wouldn't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How many of these articles need to be written? Seriously, just buy a different brand of computer. There are plenty of us who don't care about these "features."

The keyboard is great. USB-C is great. Buy some new cables and get over it, already.

</comment><comment><USER16> The current state of Apple users is pitiful. Wishing for features that were removed? How can you support a company so much for caring about you so little?

<comment><USER35> If they never removed features, Apple computers would still have serial ports and scsi busses. I'm not saying I don't miss many of the features in this article, nor am I being an Apple apologist, but sometimes you need to take a step back before you go forward.

<comment><USER16> Don't be disingenuous, there's a difference between moving to USB-C and removing the damn esc key. In any case, I don't want to get caught up in details. I was just expressing my pity towards people like the author of the linked article; do you really think Apple is ever going to listen?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just a point worth mentioning: if the MacBook Pro is actually "marketed to professionals," then the removal of the SD card slot makes a lot of sense. No "professional" is using an SD card; they are using Compact Flash, CFast, XQD, 2.5" SSD, or a proprietary interface.

<comment><USER37> Professional what though? Just because a pro photog has CF cards in all his cameras don't mean there aren't other professions where the pros need an SD card.

Field recording and audio engineering people might have audio recording equipment that use SD cards.

Software developers working with Raspberry Pi might appreciate having the SD slot built in.

And also, just because the photogs don't need SD don't mean that people in other professions never need to transfer photos from SD.

Probably a lot of journalists have cameras with SD cards. You can't always bring a photographer for every article that you write.</comment></comment>


Business Insider recommends smoking, says it makes you smarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/25-research-based-ways-to-increase-your-intelligence-2012-7

<comment><USER2> Quoted for posterity. One of the most amazingly crappy articles I've seen come out of the SEO content mills.

"1. Coffee and cigarettes. 2\. For nonsmokers, coffee and a donut. 3\. Chew gum. 4\. Doodle. 5\. Red Bull. 6\. Think about college professors. Don't think about morons. 7\. Sniff rosemary. 8\. Do NOT take an IQ test or be ranked by intelligence. 9\. Have good relationships, be social and adopt other people's perspectives. 10\. Exercise. 11\. Listen to some Bach or Mozart. 12\. Better yet, learn how to play some Bach or Mozart. Or learn any new skill. 13\. Stop multitasking. 14\. Guys, stay away from pretty girls. Don't even think about them. 15\. Get enough sleep every night. 16\. Finish what you start. 17\. Lay down to improve problem solving. 18\. Believe you can become smarter. 19\. Try out certain nutritional supplements. 20\. Feed your superstitions. 21\. Talk to yourself. 22\. Stay away from the color red. 23\. Avoid situations where you feel out of control or powerless. 24\. Avoid rejection. 25\. Get a boss who thinks you're a genius."</comment>


GitHub's "Ghost Organization" Bug - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/git-rest/spooky <comment><USER2> I get the bug, but does it introduce any security issues/considerations?</comment>


Prosperity Comes from Eliminating Jobs, Not Saving Them - <AUTHOR> https://outlookzen.com/2019/01/05/prosperity-comes-from-eliminating-jobs-not-saving-them/ <comment><USER2> The question is who's going to foot the bill for the 55 year old coal miner that's job gets eliminated. Or the 55 year old Cobol programmer. or name your favorite current programming paradigm in a few years. Most people are paid basically enough to survive may be support a family. Also, a lot of people don't want office jobs. And just about everyone advocating for "free markets" don't want to invest in people, just assets.

<comment><USER3> > The question is who's going to foot the bill for the 55 year old coal miner > that's job gets eliminated

That, and your other questions, are the important questions that noise about saving legacy jobs distracts from. And mostly it's just noise; the people arguing against those who dare to talk about how to manage the transition with fantasies about avoiding it altogether invariably fail to save the jobs, they just prevent the creation of structures to assure that some of the gains from the transition go to ease the effects on those displaced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is my first time at outlookzen.com as far as I know.

My first impression: A rather incongruous (in my experience) juxtaposition of conservative ideology with use of the word "zen".

<comment><AUTHOR> > _" But these are all problems that can be addressed by public policy. > Unemployment benefits can cushion the short-term blow to the newly > unemployed. A higher minimum-wage or earned-income-tax-credit can help those > with lower paying jobs. And a more progressive tax system can prevent any > rise in income inequality."_

That doesn't sound particularly "conservative" to me</comment></comment>


Study Finds Craigslist Took $5 Billion From Newspapers - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/08/14/sorry-craig-study-finds-craigslist-cost-newspapers-5-billion/

<comment><USER2> Craigslist _saved_ the buyers of classified ads $5 billion from 2000 to 2007. They didn't "take" it from the newspapers.</comment>


LinkedIn and The Strange Case of The Disappearing Market - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/linkedin_disappearing_market.php <comment><USER2> Even after reading this, and other similar articles, I still don't understand the current valuation models.

In this case, LinkedIn makes _revenue_ of $80-100m, but what is the _profit_?

Are such valuations solely based on _projected_ revenue? If so, what about money pits like YouTube that operate on similar models but still yet to make profit even after a few years already.

Thoughts on this always appreciated.</comment>


How does single-threaded node performs better than multi-threaded apache/nginx? - <AUTHOR> I need some clarity on understanding Node.JS. To the best of my knowledge, my entire server.js app works on an event-based, non-blocking but single-threaded model. Unlike apache, it doesn't spawn a new thread for each new request, right?
But if you consider the below code:
setTimeout(function () { 	     for (var i = 0; i < 1000000000; i++){} 	}, 1000);
Imagine that the above code is inside my server script. I've placed a 1 second timeout which is non blocking, but after that I've placed a great loop that blocks the entire thread for a long time.
In between that loop, if a new request comes, then what will happen? Node.JS will create a new instance of my server, right? So, Node.JS itself can't be single threaded because its already busy with my loop. So overall, how many threads is my entire app (including the V8 engine) consuming? <comment><USER2> Node.js internally has a small pool of threads. Processing of response/request is by design handled in one thread designated to handle event loop.

Therefore - if your handler blocks, the _handling_ of requests will be blocked. Your server will still be able to ingest new requests.

The downside of this is that requests are stored internally in a queue so if your handler blocks for a long time, you can bring the whole node down.

Just in case you want a longer read on this: [https://www.toptal.com/nodejs/top-10-common-nodejs- developer...](https://www.toptal.com/nodejs/top-10-common-nodejs-developer- mistakes)

Or if you want to go really bare internals: [http://www.journaldev.com/7462/node-js-processing-model- sing...](http://www.journaldev.com/7462/node-js-processing-model-single- threaded-model-with-event-loop-architecture)

</comment><comment><USER3> This might be interesting for you. Sorry not Node expert myself, but it seems to touch some of your question. [http://blog.mixu.net/2011/02/01/understanding-the-node-js- ev...](http://blog.mixu.net/2011/02/01/understanding-the-node-js-event-loop/)</comment>


The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/the-privileged-have-entered-their-escape-pods-4706b4893af7 <comment><USER2> That was a great piece, thanks for sharing!</comment>


Show HN: Goment – port of Moment.js to Golang - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nleeper/goment <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this library because I've been wanting to learn Golang for a while. The easiest way for me to learn a new language is to try and port something from another language, especially something that is well-tested. I've always enjoyed using Moment.js in JavaScript, so it seemed like a fun candidate project.

This is my first Go project, so I'd love any feedback on improvements I could make. Thanks for checking the project out!</comment>


Forget about Clean Code, Let's Embrace Compassionate Code - <AUTHOR> http://johannesbrodwall.com/2018/06/24/forget-about-clean-code-lets-embrace-compassionate-code/ <comment><USER2> _I know people that I respect professionally that could have been good friends if one of us hadn't insisted on purity of code in some situation or another._

My closest friend at work and I take basically polar opposite philosophies when it comes to coding style. We thoroughly enjoy the debates that result. You don't need to be anti-"Clean Code", you just need to not let your concept of it become so important to you that it gets in the way of human relationships.</comment>


Amazon AWS introduces resource levels for EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/07/08/announcing-resource-permissions-for-amazon-ec2-and-amazon-rds/?ref_=pe_395470_31013550_7

<comment><USER2> "Amazon AWS"? I think you mean "Amazon AWS Web Services".

<comment><USER3> Which then translates to, "Amazon Amazon Web Services Web Servies"

<comment><USER4> That's the joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is huge. We were about to develop an web application in our company to achieve this very functionality.

As we have dozens of clients and projects, we want to give our developers full access to developing and staging resources they are currently working on.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's awesome! Although I'm not (yet!) in the position to use it, I can really see how useful it is for larger teams or projects. It always amazes me how AWS just keeps pushing new features while lowering their prices at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most comparisons of AWS to other services focus on price vs. performance. But that is only part of the total cost of building a solution. It is the software ecosystem around AWS and functionality like this that really makes AWS shine in comparison to its rivals

</comment><comment><USER7> Yea! But when do we get drains for Elastic Load Balancers?</comment>


Micro Front Ends – Think Smaller, Avoid the Monolith Love the Back End (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://noti.st/naltatis/HxcUfZ/micro-frontends-think-smaller-avoid-the-monolith-love-the-backend#s1TPtMd <comment><USER2> We've come a long ways with MFE and will be going even further with the advent of webpack 5 federated modules: [https://federated- libraries.now.sh/](https://federated-libraries.now.sh/)</comment>


American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/american-airlines-planes-entertainment-system-cameras <comment><USER3> They already take a high resolution back scatter shot of my genitals on the way in, what's a little more humiliation among friends? If they want to spend 6 hours watching me make pained expressions as I shift and turn and feel the bits that make me human slowly slip away, leaving me a crippled, grunting inhuman beast by the time I get out of the aluminum can full of other peoples farts, I guess they are welcome to it.

<comment><USER4> For all the crap we give China and their authoritarian government, airport security is FAR easier at every Chinese airport I've been to. Walk through a metal detector and get a quick non-invasive pat down.

<comment><USER5> When you've already locked down your citizens, control all guns, and record their wrongthink in databases linked to credit and their livelihoods, there's probably less danger at any one point.

Hell there aren't mass shootings in China either. Again, authoritarians often cite Order as the result of just giving in to their oppressive tactics.

<comment><USER6> There certainly are mass stabbings though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To me this is just a distraction. Yes there's a hardware camera. I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ. Some are raging about the non-existant theoretical privacy violation (again, not 100% non-existant, but I will bet money there's no surveillance through this camera), meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks (which that webpage has too, btw).

One might say "But what about hackers?", luckily unlike Alexa or Google Home, it's hard for hackers to tinker with one these devices and find remotely- triggerable exploits.

<comment><USER8> >>I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ.

not yet

Given the last 20 years of bad behavior from tech companies overall, and the steady erosion of privacy in nearly all quarters, I question your confidence and must ask "based on _what_?"

<comment><USER9> AA isn't a tech company. There revenue isn't based on selling eyeballs.

<comment><USER10> Those in seat screens have advertisements on them you know.

<comment><USER11> Don't forget the brainwash about their company they make you watch while you're strapped into a seat with nowhere else to look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most of these are just COTS Android tablets. When they reboot the IFE, you sometimes see the Android soft home/menu button on the bottom.

It's easy enough to repair, too -- just apply some opaque tape to the camera.

<comment><USER13> > Most of these are just COTS Android tablets

This isn't quite true. They're not off-the-shelf (COTS) Android tablets - <USER2> hardware is custom, especially in terms of industrial design (although the chipset is pretty standard). IFE manufacturers aren't going to OEMs and re- purposing commercial tablet designs.

You couldn't use off-the-shelf tablets anyway, because they have lithium batteries in them - and whilst the form factors might work for economy seating, in business and first class you often see very large units, larger than any tablet available today. IFE systems also need a much wider variety of I/O than "consumer" Android tablets provide.

There are also requirements vis a vis safety and impact that make commercial tablets unsuitable. For example, the display is usually made of plastic rather than glass, since these units have to survive a lot of abuse.

Some example components from one of the two big manufacturers: [https://www.panasonic.aero/inflight-systems/x-series/key- com...](https://www.panasonic.aero/inflight-systems/x-series/key- components-2/)

Source: I worked in the IFE industry when they were transitioning from Linux based systems over to Android. One of the primary drivers for doing so was software, rather than hardware.

<comment><USER14> Thank you for the more detailed explanation!

But if this is custom hardware then somebody must have wanted these cameras on there? To what end?

<comment><USER15> > But if this is custom hardware then somebody must have wanted these cameras > on there?

I mean, the explanation could be as simple as "it's semi-custom hardware with the minimum number of changes from a commercial tablet". In that case, it has a camera for the same reason brown sugar is refined sugar with molasses added back in: it's cheaper to stay on the path of high volume as much as possible.

Of course, it could also be a more nefarious explanation. Short of mass surveillance by the government, I can't think of one: it's not like the airlines don't know exactly who is in which seat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I mean, I'm a big fan of privacy but I consider an airline cabin to be a pretty public place.

I'm already used to security cameras in pretty much every public building I walk in...

...can anyone think of something nefarious that could be done with these cameras?

The only possible "threat" I can think of would be to eavesdrop on someone's laptop/conversation for potential business secrets or otherwise, but the cameras are pointed at someone's face (not screen) and no mention is made of a microphone... although planes used to have those phones (obviously with a microphone) in them for many years.

And in any case, a commercial flight is probably not the best place to be discussing top-secret info anyways.

<comment><USER17> If Facebook paid the airlines a dollar per flight to be able to study your facial expressions during moments of turbulence, would that be considered nefarious?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I understand why airlines and other industries are using off-the-shelf parts; I actually prefer this because it gets us closer to more modular IFE systems like what Delta/GoGo are doing on the A220, which means airlines can conceivably upgrade their IFE systems more frequently and at lower costs.

What I don't understand is why there aren't commodify parts available sans cameras, given the myriad of use-cases and the customer volume for camera-free Android/Linux/QNX (I doubt QNX is even a player given their royalties but just thinking of what embedded systems are available) tablets.

Anyway, it would take very little effort to assuage customers by blocking the cameras. If a 2¢ cover is too much, gaffer tape would work. It's disappointing — though not surprising — that the airline industry hasn't done this.

<comment><USER19> >> What I don't understand is why there aren't commodify parts available sans cameras, given the myriad of use-cases and the customer volume for camera-free Android

Yes. In fact, an acquaintance of mine is staying at a psychiatric hospital being treated for schizophrenia. He has absolutely nothing to do all day and wants to read books from the library. But he can't easily access the library.

This is possible (but slow and inconvenient) to do with an e-reader, but very convenient with a tablet.

However, devices with cameras or microphones are not permitted in the psych ward. They can be used to compromise the privacy of other patients. So the hospital would not allow tablets.

I "upgraded" a cheap tablet for him by permanently disabling the microphoneaand camera using a power drill and some epoxy. He's thrilled with it and the hospital has asked for more!

<comment><USER20> > _Yes. In fact, an acquaintance of mine is staying at a psychiatric hospital > being treated for schizophrenia. He has absolutely nothing to do all day and > wants to read books from the library. But he can 't easily access the > library._

Nice. I guess this is the psychological equivalent of crappy hospital food right when your body is recovering and has the highest need of nutrients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Given the state of surveillance at airports already, I'm honestly kind of surprised the cameras aren't active & recording the whole time to try to "detect threats"

<comment><USER14> No worries, I'm sure we will still be alive to see that happen. Ain't living in the future just wonderful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's ironic that in the book 1984 all the citizens have hidden cameras in their TVs. Today, in 2019, all the citizens have non-hidden cameras and microphones in pretty much every electronic device they use. We also have the customary day of rage, where we all direct our collective rage at some political opponent. Don't get me started on the butchering of the English language...

<comment><USER23> Sorry to nitpick but the cameras in the TVs in 1984 where not hidden. They even had a speaker and the government was able to talk directly to an individual through them.

The problem there, and here, is people don't really care.

<comment><USER24> Except people do care, as evidenced by the fact that this is even an article about a controversy in the first place.

<comment><USER25> Some journalists care. Don't conflate journalists or HN forum with the general public. Most people likely don't care at all.

<comment><USER24> People is just the plural of person. Journalists are people too.

A small amount of disgruntled air travelers stranded on the tarmac led to the establishment of a Passenger Bill of Rights: [https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us- department-t...](https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department- transportation-expands-airline-passenger-protections). So I wouldn't say that this is worthless or that this is not impactful.

<comment><USER25> Then say "some people" if you don't want to be deceptive in what you're portraying. Just saying "people" implies that most people believe it, which is not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is the reason we need laws surrounding data its collection, usage, retention and sharing. Companies and people will willfully or through sheer incompetence collect data, create privacy violations. For consumers there is no option but to rail against every new find. As we saw every company big and small do it. There is no solution but laws. At least that way we have a line drawn and we can fight for that line and about that line. Right now we are all screaming into a void hoping someone will listen and in some cases we yell into a void when its not warranted.

</comment><comment><USER27> Actually surprised there's no cameras on planes (that I know of at least). Buses, subways, other mass transit have cameras.

And I've seen no one complain about the cameras some food chains use in their table-side checkout systems. Red Robin is the first that comes to mind. It sits there your entire meal... Obviously it's to take your pic when you swipe your credit card (and apparently scan coupons and gift cards).

<comment><USER28> Those kiosks have cameras in them? I've used them dozens of times and never realized, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER27> Yep

[https://www.ziosk.com/the-experience](https://www.ziosk.com/the-experience)

"Scan coupons and gift cards with the built-in camera"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The real question is, why didn't AA & Singapore Airlines not put a sticker on top of the camera instead of having all this negative publicity? QA was probably concerned about something else.

</comment><comment><USER30> I flew on a plane similar to the one cited in the article this past Monday. It was a late night flight and I turned the screen off to try and sleep, only to have the screen turn itself back on (and disable the power button) to show me advertisements. Between this and "smart" TVs that secretly surveil the end user, I'm not optimistic about the future of humane consumer electronics.

<comment><USER31> Should've grabbed keys or something sharp and scratched the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Griping at and shaming companies who may or may not have a legitimate use case is a battle that will never end. You don't necessarily know which products have cameras, and you don't have a ton of leverage anyway.

Instead, what would make sense to me is to have an across the board regulatory requirement that cameras, regardless of purpose, product type, etc.:

(1) must be clearly marked (logo, wording, etc.), and

(2) must have some kind of reliable, independent way to shut them down or defeat them (such as a plastic shutter to cover the camera, etc. -- not just a software controlled indicator light).

That way there is considerably less need for complicated agree-to-disagree debates about whether a camera should or shouldn't exist in this or that context. Instead, there would be one thing that is clear cut, objective, and possible to enforce, and people would be empowered to do something about the cameras around them. (Except for security cameras, which would need to be a separate category.)

</comment><comment><USER33> Most airplanes have built-in CCTV cameras whose explicit purpose is to record everyone in the cabin for the entire flight. So do MUNI buses.

Instead people are raising the issue of a stock camera that's obviously not being used to record. There would be no way to keep that a secret, everything in an airplane has to be FAA approved.

<comment><USER34> A CCTV camera from an angle far(relatively) away at the front and back of the cabin isn't the same level as one in the device staring you in the face.

How long until that camera gets enabled to do eyetracking for ad and premium services tracking. Whos to say its not already?

Mixed it in with facial recognition so they can sell that data to other ad agencies and now you see the problem with allowing the camera to exist at that location in the first place.

<comment><USER33> The recently passed California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires that any collection of biometric information to be disclosed and along with who the data is being sold to. The law goes into effect on January 1st, 2020 so we'll know then and in the future if they are doing any kind of personal identification at all.

Given the tablets can't even scroll through a list of movies without lagging and show everyone the same 2 minute Honda commercial before each movie despite already knowing who you are from your ID and frequent flyer number, I'd venture that the airlines haven't figured out how to do eye tracking yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> United has several planes with what appear to be active IR LEDs in the same spot on the front bezel. Any idea what those are doing? Tracking empty seats? Movement for some reason?

<comment><USER13> It's for detecting when your hands move towards the display, and turning on LEDs in response (for instance, many in-seat monitors have a USB socket with a LED ring around it) - I worked on those units many years ago.

<comment><USER35> Pretty cool, I guess I never picked up on the behavior because I am mostly on my laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If you're in a taxi cab the driver will have a camera pointed at them and you, the passenger. You're paying to get transported from A to B. If you're on an airplane you're doing the same thing only paying more and going up in the air. I guess I don't see the issue? Maybe, and I mean maybe if you paid for a plane ticket that had a "private" seat with a door, could this be a gray area.

<comment><USER37> Taxis have cameras because passengers have a terrible habit of beating up and robbing drivers.

<comment><USER38> Such history exists in air travel as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Security concerns aside, I thought the cameras were there so you could swipe in front of it to turn the infotainment system on? Is there proof they are recording? Planes have weight limitations. A long-haul 8-12hr flight for 300 passengers is a significant commitment to storage space and the weight of said drives.

<comment><USER40> 1 TB fits on a flash drive these days. If they were transferring semi- regularly when grounded and recording in SD, you'd be talking on the order of a few pounds.

<comment><USER39> I forgot security cameras only run at like 5fps, so that's a good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> These cameras will eventually be enabled plus they're pointing at your face. This becomes especially important when facial recognition software gets to the point that it can, with high probability, capture your mood. If you look angry or aggressive then you are a risk to a safe flight. It might get to the point where you're escorted from the plane before it takes off due to you looking mad because you couldn't find an overhead bin. An extension of this would be for air marshals to Taser you inflight before you can causes an incident, all because you look drunk or look mad due to sneezing giving you a red face.

</comment><comment><USER42> What's the big deal, though? Its not like these devices are in your home -- they are in a public space that is well known to be heavily surveiled.

So I guess, even in the worst case scenario where these cameras were recording you, what is so different from the other 500x camera FOVs you step into during your journey? What am I missing?

<comment><USER24> An airport is a public space. A plane seat is semi-private or at least has always had that expectation. And given that it was placed there by the people owning the plane, it is well within the bounds of what passengers can expect to demand changed by said owners.

<comment><USER43> > A plane seat is semi-private or at least has always had that expectation.

Really? I've never had that expectation. I consider it the same as sitting on a seat on a public transit bus or subway train.

I still think the airline should disclose when and how they're recording me, but an expectation of privacy? Nah.

<comment><USER44> So when you're sitting next to your significant other and talking about personal issues, you have no problem with being audio/video recorded?

Most people expect some level of privacy when sitting at their seat. This is not a general/overview cabin camera, this is literally a foot in front of you and pointed directly at your face.

<comment><USER43> For topics that I wouldn't like recorded, I don't speak about them on a plane. I don't think I'm abnormal in not thinking of a plane seat as a private place, and disagree with your assertion that "most people" do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron It's been about a year or so since I've flown, but from memory there were tablets on my last QANTAS flight that also had run of the mill hardware cameras on the tablets. They looked like any ol' chinese made tablet to be honest, I didn't think too much of it.

</comment><comment><USER45> This seems like a cost issue. Aside from the privacy issues, it's gotta be cheaper to buy a pile of COTS tablets and bolt them to your airline seats than commission a custom form factor and hardware spec.

That said, this is actually a time when physically occluding the camera makes sense.

<comment><USER46> Interestingly, Delta just launched a group (Delta Flight Products) recognizing that this is an area for differentiation: [https://news.delta.com/3-ways- delta-flight-products-revoluti...](https://news.delta.com/3-ways-delta-flight- products-revolutionizing-aircraft-interiors)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I think I remember reading Cathay Pacific has cameras in the first class cabin for a customer service reason—to attend to you when you were awake...

</comment><comment><USER48> I give it about a week until the airlines cover all the cameras with stickers. Maybe a nice little company logo.

</comment><comment><USER49> The overwhelming availability of gum in an airplane cabin might suggest a solution to the privacy-conscious.

</comment><comment> andy-x Wait until they start embedding cameras in toilet seats. "For better passenger comfort".

</comment><comment><USER50> I've seen these in:

SAS Emirites Cathray Pacific

flights.

</comment><comment><USER51> Hmm. I guess I need to start carrying post-it notes when I fly.

</comment><comment><USER52> Soon the TSA will be confiscating sticky notes.

<comment><USER38> More dangerous than Dasani!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> There's security cameras in every mass transit vehicle I've ever been in. Why is this a privacy issue?

<comment><USER54> Then we have to hope that someone leaks a cell phone video of the incident as it plays on a screen in a security hut somewhere. No way any airline is going to publish video of airport security dragging a paying customer down the aisle of an aircraft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I can't wait for the MKBHD breakdown of them.

</comment><comment><USER56> You're in public on an airline, so whatever, they can have all the cameras they want on that airline.

</comment><comment><USER57> How can you have privacy concerns in a completely public space?

<comment><USER58> I think the people who disagree with this reply should explain their reasoning.

You're in public on an aircraft, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The people around you, including the airline's staff, can listen to your conversations/see you.

I'm not even arguing legally, even just in terms of common sense, everything you do or say is isn't private in those circumstances. So a camera being there (regardless of if it is used) isn't moving the needle either direction.

<comment><USER59> Sure, there are other, strange people on board. It would be uncomfortable if one of them positioned their face right in front of mine and stared at me, listening, the entire flight. The camera would bother me likewise.

<comment><USER58> Even if they blocked the camera then the argument would shift to the microphone which may still work even if physically blocked.

Plus you're contrasting the invasion of personal space, with the perception that a non-privacy space is now non-privacy.

But since the space was never private to being with has anything changed or has the airline just ruined your own fiction about the space?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Buzzfeed confirms his focus on writing articles for the sole purpose of provoking outrage to get the last few clicks before they finally go bankrupt.

</comment><comment><USER61> These stories remind me of something that happened in my first internship in 2000.

One of the interns that I worked with left a week earlier than I did so he could have some R & R. That Monday, we all got an email from him that went something like, "Check out my WebCam!!!!"

I clicked on the link, and my screen was filled with a picture of him with his finger fully up his nose, picking a winner.

Would have been better if we saw the full booger.</comment>


Show HN: Moving from a desktop hologram lab to a 3D hologram printer - hologram-paul https://www.litiholo.com/hologram-kits.html <comment> hologram-paul Hey HN! LitiHolo (I'm the founder) already makes the Hologram Kit and Full- Color Hologram Kit. They let you make real laser holograms on an average desktop with self-developing film. But we want to do much more, and are working on a 3D Hologram Printer for making hologram portraits and images from digital 3D content.

I'm looking for feedback on what you would want to do with a 3D hologram printer. The plan is to start small (think Makerbot Cupcake), and incrementally get more advanced, so I'm trying to find early applications that would fit.

Thanks for your help!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Paul, I'm a big fan of your work democratizing holography, and I love the idea of a small-scale hologram printer.

If you need any assistance with a Unity, Three.js (WebGL), or Shadertoy rendering engine, let me know. I'm the software lead for Project North Star (Open Source AR Headset), and I've done miscellaneous other exotic display integrations and calibrations (ie shadertoys for the Looking Glass Display and a few CAVEs).

My absolute dream would be to print HOEs (but I'm unsure those are within the limitations of digital holography). I imagine holograms bent into a cylinder (that can be viewed from any direction), followed by shiny (metallic) objects and far-field subjects will look the most striking.

Will the printer be "full-color" too? Countering the chromatic distortion effects of the holographic film sounds like a fun challenge.

<comment> hologram-paul Yes, might be interested in getting your assistance. Send an e-mail through the info (at) litiholo address, and mention you reached out on HN.

Anticipating the first printer will be single-color, just to keep it simple. Then as quick to color as the market will allow.

The printer holograms will be reflection holograms, so they have almost no chromatic issues. We've made many nice full-color holograms for commercial application. Can't wait to get it into more people's hands!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Your full-colour example is very impressive! I see several opportunities for currently impossible costume designs.

Personally, I've wanted something similar — but larger — for a long time. How big can these go? Could I, for example, take a poster-sized holographic photo of some woodland for my wall?

Or, for digital content, a wall-sized holographic galaxy image?

<comment><USER3> If you're in NYC you can visit the holography lab -- Jason has created some truly life size stuff, the biggest I saw was about poster board sized, maybe 3 x 4 feet. They were not for sale, but he does commissions...

[https://www.holographer.com/](https://www.holographer.com/)

EDIT This place advertises "analogue holograms in size of up to 1.2×0.8 meters"

[http://geola.com/](http://geola.com/)

<comment> hologram-paul Met Jason many years ago when the Museum of Holography was shutting down. Amazing that he is still there, although I think he was in a different location when we met.

Our 3D Hologram Printer is working to bring hologram-making like this to everyone!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://geola.com/](http://geola.com/) in Lithuania have a "hologram printing as a service" that works quite well, check them out.

<comment> hologram-paul We are building a 3D Hologram Printer so that you can have that kind of technology right at home!

Or entrepreneurs could set up new businesses so that this is available easily and as common as a print shop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of my bucket list items is a visit to Holographic Studios [1] in NYC to get a custom portrait.

[1] [https://www.holographer.com/](https://www.holographer.com/)

<comment> hologram-paul Yes, I lived in NYC for many years, and actually made hologram portraits in the basement of the old Museum of Holography off Canal Street.

One of our big pushes for the 3D Hologram Printer is to put this kind of technology into the hands of anyone.

Kind of like Makerbot did for 3D printing. We want to be the Makerbot of holograms!

<comment><USER6> Given the early Makerbots' reputation for quality, I hope the analogy isn't precise... ;)

<comment> hologram-paul Roger that! Trying to convey the concept, but the goal is certainly to outperform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How many angles/slices/images/whatever you call them can you fit on a single film? What is the limiting factor? What limits the form factor size?

<comment> hologram-paul Right now targeting 48 angles/slices/images per hologram. Want to give a smooth "look around" feel.

Limited by the hardware/cost choices that get us good quality vs. reasonable cost.

Size of the holograms initially based on the hologram film that we already produce, which currently is 2"x3", 4"x5", and most recently 6"x8".

<comment><USER8> This is extremely interesting. What kind of SLM is that? As I'm sure you're aware 48 angles is unusually small for this kind of thing as most existing printers use (expensive) SLMs of at least XGA resolution, or 1024 horizontal angles; the limiting factor for resolution is generally the data pipeline and lighting setup rather than the printer hardware. But it sounds like you might be taking a radical approach.

ALso, are you targeting single or double parallax? Again the limiting factor there is usually software - there really needs to be a "Cura" of holography to properly democratize this (I am currently working on a Blender plugin, but that can't cover the entire scope).

<comment> hologram-paul Yes, we're taking a radical approach to make it something that can be more accessible. Kind of like the first Makerbot, but for holograms.

The SLM choice will be part of trying to get the right performance/cost mix.

The printer will probably be full-parallax capable, but we might lean more toward horizontal-parallax-only for most user cases, to simplify the image input requirements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome! However I am still awaiting the animated and 'floating' in mid-air holograms ... as a HUD in my flying car!

<comment> hologram-paul Yes, agreed!

Although I tell people that what we are doing currently with the Hologram Kits is helping to create the next generation of hologram engineers. So they can build what we dreamed of!

And a 3D Hologram Printer will get us one step closer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder, is it possible to create 2D holograms? That is, a sprite, or a hologram that looks the same no matter the angle?

My usecase would be a set of parentheses (as in XKCD #297 "These are your father's parentheses, elegant weapons for a more... civilized age"), or perhaps even dragon balls (the star formation are supposed to look the same no matter the viewing angle).

But I suspect that the interference pattern would in that case interfere with itself down to nothing.

<comment> hologram-paul Possible! If you make a 3D hologram of a 2D plane, it will still be 2D, but at a particular depth location.

This makes my head hurt to think about, though.

<comment><USER5> Would it be possible to use light-field cameras like Lytro as source material?

<comment> hologram-paul Yes, this would work well!

Might have a more narrow viewzone, because the light field from those is fairly narrow as I recall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it feasible to do landscapes or is this more for macro distances?

<comment> hologram-paul Our current kits would not work for that, but the 3D Hologram Printer that we are building could make those.

The printer takes multiple images, each from a slightly different perspective (maybe 1 degree apart each), and then synthesizes them into the final hologram as a full 3D hologram image.

So could do landscapes, portraits, 3D computer graphics, etc.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, I will have to keep an eye out for that printer. I'd love to see something like that used on one of the iconic scenes in Yosemite. I'm currently riding out the pandemic at my place nearby so I'm thinking a lot about it.

<comment> hologram-paul That would be cool! Personal favorites would be Big Sur or NYC skyline.

Stay tuned on the LitiHolo site for hologram printer details as we get closer!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Mildly interesting!

<comment> hologram-paul Thanks. I think hologram portraits are the next direction, but any ideas on what else would make it more interesting?

<comment><USER13> You could print many frames from a video, and then if you move them fast, you'll have the illusion of a holographic video.

<comment> hologram-paul That is very much how the hologram printer works! You take many images, each from a slightly different perspective (maybe every 1 degree), and the hologram synthesizes them into the full 3D image.

The other cool part is the holograms can have motion as a result.

So as you move the hologram back and forth is will move!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> to the future!

<comment> hologram-paul I like where your head's at!</comment></comment>


Show HN: libsaas, it's libcloud for SaaS - <AUTHOR> http://libsaas.net

<comment><USER2> Very impressive. At Zapier we're building an internal tool very similar to this (and in Python to boot). Maybe we should hook up?

<comment><USER3> That would be awesome! Hit us up on email@example.com (or my profile email)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this what web services were promising us? Cool library, but ideally the SaaS apps would export APIs for this functionality.

<comment><USER3> The lowest common denominator of SaaS APIs is HTTP. Apart from that, everyone does it different.

Some use JSON, some use XML, some use SOAP... Sometimes you authenticate with Basic authentication, sometimes you use OAuth 1.0 and need to sign each request, sometimes it's OAuth 2.0 and you just need the token. Oh, and the actual GET parameter for the token is different, too...

There are APIs where you need to set a 'X-API-Version' header to something, or you'll get weird results. The list goes on...

The goal here is to hide all that crap from developers and focus on achieving the desired result.

<comment><USER5> Instead of hiding it, why don't we ditch it altogether? HTTP is simpler, more direct and easier to debug. By sticking to HTTP, we might get closer to a situation where "everyone does it the same". Life might be easier.

Nah, it would never work. Pay no mind. I'm just a fool.

<comment><USER6> All of the things in that post use HTTP. (Though SOAP doesn't require HTTP). Did you mean REST? Even then, people often don't get it right, and it's still not as nice a language specific API. (er, application specific api)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have written something similar in JavaScript: <https://github.com/olegp/restwrapper>

<comment><USER8> What about cross domain requests?

<comment><USER7> It's server side JavaScript with an option to proxy to the browser if needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Didn't want to test this, in case it's actually a problem, but the usage examples seem to include your Mailchimp key. You may want to remove that :-)

<comment><USER3> It's not a real key, just a random hash to make the example feel more real. Seems we hit the Uncanny Valley of code examples ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I quite like it. I'll get to porting it to Ruby.

<comment><USER3> There were some very sketchy plans about making this multilanguage... The best we could come up with was writing a small C module that would call Python code and that you could wrap in other languages.

If anyone has a better idea on how to keep the logic in one language, but make it accessible to everyone (preferably without inventing a whole DSL, that would end up being just like a real programming language, but worse), please speak up!

<comment><USER6> >a small C module that would call Python code

Seems strange to me. Seems like for a lot of this, where it's often HTTP based anyway, you could implement much of it in C without it being a complete nightmare.

<comment><USER8> Not very practical if you needed to deliver the integration over the Internet in a web app

<comment><USER6> Huh? We're talking about a library to use in applications, web apps or otherwise, and finding ways to make them usable with multiple languages. That screams "C", as every language I can name can call C code. If they delivered libsaas as a C library, everyone can write a small wrapper and then have it in their favorite language.

Honestly, I don't know what "deliver integration over the Internet in a web app" means in this context at all.

I'm sure there are already C libraries to make REST calls easy and the rest is just creating the proper queries and parsing responses into usable structures, etc.

<comment><USER8> I ask because I'm solving the "cloud API" problem right now too - but my context and environment require that we can solve the problem with internet technologies and not compiled C code. I can't really go into too much detail yet.

<comment><USER6> ... what?

Like I said, the things you're saying are either vague to the point of misleading or you're extremely confused about some very basic things...

I'm a huge fan of "web techonologies". Seeing as Go is a great way of writing web services that back web apps, it's a pretty good fit. There are thousands of things that aren't possible, and never will be with "web technologies". Every web technology is hitting some web service somewhere that's powered by code that does _not_ run in a web browser.

"Solving the Cloud API problem" sounds like... well it's sounds like a bunch of jargon speak.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dear Apple, move the damn scrollbar in Eclipse. - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/115195708001192408562/posts/RqsBX1xmcEj

<comment><USER2> I guess that's what you get with pseudo native interface toolkits. Honestly, I can't stand using it, not because it doesn't work, but because it's so inconsistent with everything else I use.

<comment><USER3> Being an iOS dev and Android dev, going between Xcode and Eclipse is horrendous. I wish I would have seen IntelliJ IDEA before being halfway through our latest project (though IDEA still suffers from being built without tools consistent with OSX, i.e. Java).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1) don't use Mac OS 2) don't use Eclipse IDE

Fixed?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have Eclipse installed to verify, but normally if you wait a second the scrollbars disappear. Is that not happening?</comment>


I Call BS on Tech's Obsession with Working Long Hours - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90355919/im-a-former-elite-athlete-and-i-call-bs-on-techs-obsession-with-working-long-hours <comment><USER2> The quoted study that found that productivity may decrease and error/accident rate may increase with prolonged work hours: [http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf) Note, data are on _munition workers_ , engaged in tasks arguably more repetitive and less cognitively taxing than athletic/engineering performance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not only is it counterproductive, it also exacerbates the climate and loneliness crises. Yes, I think the two are related.</comment>


Will the Adult Industry Drive Android Adoption? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=11685&tag=wrapper;col1 <comment><USER2> No, no, no. Everyone needs to lets the "porn wins" angle go; it's plain wrong.

Porn helped VHS because the only way to get it otherwise was in a crowded theater! HDDVD did porn and lost. YouTube was big before any adult websites caught on to Flash video.

Porn is freely available to anyone, anywhere. Nobody cares anymore.

<comment><USER3> And really, having access to porn when you're out-and-about? Logistically, it doesn't seem like a high priority. Though, they do sell porn at the airport so who knows.

<comment><USER4> Playboy's mobile site gets a lot more traffic than you might think. (Though I can't imagine it makes very much money)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The better question in the linked article is whether third-party app stores will flourish on Android.</comment>