Strategic shortcomings of Pre in the post-iPhone era - <AUTHOR> http://counternotions.com/2009/01/12/pre/

<comment><USER2> There has to be something to the "too little too late" shortcoming. Does Palm actually have enough money to market this thing? Blackberry seemed to dump a LOT of money into advertising for the Storm. If that's what is needed to actually gain consumer's attention, then Palm could be in trouble. I'm not sure if word of mouth will actually be strong enough.

I also didn't realize that this phone was attached to Sprint. I just don't see this device having the initial appeal that the iPhone had. That appeal was enough to get a large amount of people to convert to AT&T.

I hope for the sake of competition that Palm manages to avoid bankruptcy and that the device does well. I just don't see it happening. It might end up doing good enough on Sprint but I don't see the numbers of people flocking to this that was there for the iPhone.

One of the major advantages to the iPhone was that even though it was announced just two years ago, it was the first phone device to provide a legitimate web browsing experience, a quality touch screen interface, and a usable audio/video player. Two years later, you can't bank on those three things as a competitive advantage. Where is the next killer feature that the iPhone is missing? The answer isn't a physical keyboard.

<comment><USER3> Palm recently got a $100m investment by private equity firm Elevation so they should be able to stay buoyant for now. Internet buzz will help, and presumably Sprint are going to be doing a lot of advertising for them and push the phone heavily.

I don't think they are competing with the iPhone as much as they are RIM, the biggest smartphone manufacturer in the US.

There are lots of innovations in there: good multitasking support, a proper application dock, and sync and communicate via multiple services being the obvious ones. But it benefits from looking like a good all-round phone when every other one out there has glaring flaws.

<comment><USER4> I think the other key benefit is that it actually _looks_ like a phone. Smart Phone companies are all aiming for the 18-34 bracket, however there's a lot more people with a lot more money in the 35-65 bracket. My wife's uncle laughed at the iPhone, because without a keyboard it's completely useless and as a 20 year old writer I whole heartedly agree.

There's also an amazing thing called "word of mouth" which beats any other form of advertising ten-fold. I saw the demo and said "I want one", I showed my wife and she said "I want one!" There's a handful of people that if I showed I'd say there's a good 80% chance they would say they want one, all of whom don't have an iPhone.

See the funny thing with the iPhone is that it plays off the iPod gimmick. I'm not sure how long that momentum will last, before all the people who are whipped into thinking apple are amazing begin to ask questions. Apple has too much momentum and it'll have to spend a lot of energy keeping it up to keep people distracted from flaws. Palm however has virtually no momentum, it has no large vocal user base that it has to fear, aside from a few techies (like us) most people probably haven't even heard of Palm so it's like being a brand new player. No one knows they failed in the past, no one cares and as long as the Pre is as good as it looks in that demo then I give Palm an amazing chance as lead underdog.

I also think the Pre sits in a nice niche between iPhone and Blackberry, which will either make it huge or kill it completely depending on if it can steal customers or if it acts as a gateway drug to the iCrack/crackberry.

<comment><USER5> Things that may be completely useless:

      * Car without engine
      * Bookshelves that cannot support the weight of books
      * Computer without processor
      * Nonalcoholic beer

This that are most definitely not completely useless:

      * Cell phone that can play MP3s and videos but lacks a physical keyboard

<comment><USER4> Okay, how about I take your keyboard away, and lets see you type that on the on-screen keyboard utility's you get with Windows/OS X. Please, let me see you type an email message without a keyboard.

I agree, it's not completely useless. It's about 99.9% of the way there though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having watched the XKCD Google video yesterday, I remember a quote about defending yourself from Raptors in the building he was in: "I don't have to outrun the Raptors, I just have to outrun _you_."

If you're looking to see if Palm can survive long enough to make this product stick, it doesn't have to beat the iPhone. It has to beat the slowest iPhone competitor whose market share will keep Palm alive. Who's that? Android? Rim? One of those really terrible touchscreen clones with no noticeable software stack?

Finally, the fact that it's CDMA first is a huge boost for it. A _lot_ of people I know have the money for a smartphone, but don't care enough about features to jump networks for it. Palm'll have GSM versions out later. In the mean time, I suspect Sprint & Verizon will happily push this model for Palm, as a way to fight AT&T.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if releasing on Sprint is an advantage. Sprint customers have been stuck with terrible phones for the last couple of years.

As long as the pricepoint is reasonable (and the hype isn't unfounded), the Pre should do really well with Sprint customers. Right now they don't really have a modern smartphone available.

As a sidenote: I think we can see why Sprint delayed releasing an Android phone: [http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2008/10/24/sprint- android...](http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2008/10/24/sprint-android-not- good-enough-yet/)

<comment><USER8> Sprint customers have been stuck with terrible phones for so long, most of them are no longer Sprint customers.

And those that are will look at the Pre and say, "What? No PTT!?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are still a lot of unknowns until they have a shipping product. But assuming they deliver I have a feeling that someone will buy Palm. HP? Nokia? Google?

People are making a fuss about a perceived lack of rich application development. My bet is Adobe Flash will pull it out of the bag.

The big issue in North America/Korea is that only RIM, Microsoft, and now Palm support CDMA properly. Advantage Pre.

Finally - lets see if they can get decent deals in Japan or China. Two of the largest markets - where iphone has had limited success.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure, I think the Pre and the new Palm OS has a lot going for it. HTML/JS-based apps are possibly a weakness, but I couldn't say without looking further at how they integrate. As for "late to the party" - no. The "mobile phones as first class devices" party is only just getting started. Good luck, Palm.</comment>


Apple loses big in DRM ruling: jailbreaks are "fair use" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/apple-loses-big-in-drm-ruling-jailbreaks-are-fair-use.ars <comment><USER2> The tech blogs are starting to realize that these kinds of sensationalist headlines about Apple really bring the page-hits. If they lose a few serious readers along the way, well who really cares?

The reality, of course, is that Apple has been doing very little to prevent the Jailbreak scene, and I'm sure those who do Jailbreak couldn't give a rat's ass about the legality of it.

This doesn't change how Apple approaches Jailbreaking, nor does it suddenly make jailbreaking less of a pain in the ass. And it surely doesn't change users' attitudes. In other words, nothing has changed.

<comment><USER3> Apple was explicitly campaigning against this, it's addressed in the article:

> The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that jailbreaking one's iPhone > should be allowed, even though it required one to bypass some DRM and then > to reuse a small bit of Apple's copyright firmware code. Apple showed up at > the hearings to say, in numerous ways, that the idea was terrible, > ridiculous, and illegal. In large part, that was because the limit on > jailbreaking was needed to preserve Apple's controlled ecosystem, which the > company said was of great value to consumers.

\----

Also, a previous article: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/02/apple- sides-with-m...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/02/apple-sides-with- mpaa-riaa-against-drm-circumvention.ars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apple doesn't have to support jailbreak iphones users. It still void their warranty etc.

<comment><USER5> In the US, that is probably only true if Apple can demonstrate that the jailbreak caused the malfunction: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson–Moss_Warranty_Act>

<comment><USER4> According to Apple it voids your warranty. [http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/26/apple.says.sta...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/26/apple.says.stance.on.jailbreaking.not.changing/)

<comment><USER5> According to various manufacturers of various things, opening the device, making modifications or using unapproved parts voids the warranty. In most cases, this is illegal and they know it. Mentioning that it is illegal usually causes them to honor the warranty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see this as "Apple loses big" at all. Nothing really has changed. Those who jailbreak their phone will continue to do so and Apple will continue not to support those phones.

</comment><comment><USER5> _In large part, that was because the limit on jailbreaking was needed to preserve Apple's controlled ecosystem, which the company said was of great value to consumers._

They're providing value to consumers by attempting to legally restrict those same consumers from modifying products they purchased? I understand Apple's general argument about a restricted ecosystem for the typical consumer, but how is the user experience improved for someone who wants to jailbreak a phone by preventing them from doing it?

<comment><USER7> I think Apple estimates the value of its carefully tuned user experience very highly, and thinks most people would regret being able to hose their phones.

Not just true power users would want to jailbreak their phones, but only power users are actually able to take that kind of responsibility, and Apple doesn't want iPhones getting wrecked or just not working right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> loses big! Whats apple's loses. Still its responsibility on jail breakers, apple isn't going to help. Actually jail-breaking is helping apple in same ways. That many less devices to support.

<comment><USER9> not exactly, what if a credible cheap support emerges! what if you get cheaper batteries.

Apple had tried hard to sell their devices as an experience rather than commodity, now they can no longer live that way. the unlocked iphones become a commodity.

<comment><USER10> But how does that hurt Apple? They are still selling phones. If anything unlocking only hurts AT&T.

<comment><USER11> But if you signed a 2 year contract to get that iPhone 4, how does it hurt AT&T?

You're free to put another SIM in that phone after jailbreaking, but the bill will still come every month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> apple loses big?!?! they abused consumers for a decade and loses big? how is that?

in my book that's a major win!</comment>


Hermit crabs line up by order of size to exchange shells [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/117375257 <comment><USER2> Wikipedia calls this a "vacancy chain"

> In a vacancy chain, a new resource unit that arrives into a population is > taken by the first individual in line, who then leaves his/her old unit > behind, this old unit is taken by a second individual, leaving his/her old > unit behind, and so forth

Neat!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacancy_chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacancy_chain)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hermit crabs are wondrous and hilarious. I had a couple as pets decades ago. That's before I knew about that industry and how it deprives these creatures of a beautiful, wild existence. The following is worth considering.

[http://www.peta.org/living/companion-animals/7-reasons- never...](http://www.peta.org/living/companion-animals/7-reasons-never-buy- hermit-crab/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Crabsort: O(n)? It's a small set. Although there is a 4 plate/ five customer contention problem to boot. I can't tell if Crabsort is stable though.

Fortunately, everyone leaves with some spaghetti even if it's not a 100% optimal solution.

<comment><USER5> It should be 5 plates / 4 consumers, were it not for the late-arriving crab throwing a wrench in at the last minute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why was there only one shell left for the crab at the end?

There was an extra shell at the very beginning, so at the end it should be able to choose between 2 shells.

</comment><comment><USER7> Shellsort :D

</comment><comment><USER8> The Brits really are obsessed with queuing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hermit crabs are great scavengers and mostly peaceful, but they hardly wait for a shell to be vacant before moving in. They will definitely kill a live snail to take their shell if they need a bigger home. Or another crab.

<comment><USER10> I have a reef tank on my desk at work I get to watch this process happen on a daily basis. I have to keep adding larger shells to the tank because if I don't they will kill the snails and steal their shells. If there are enough shells available they leave the snails alone. Recently one of the medium size crabs decided to take the a shell that used to belong to a turbo snail, much too big for him as he can barely drag it around. I've come to the conclusion this crab is American and is going to fake it until he makes it.

<comment><USER11> you need a camera there. my old crabs where boring...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe a stupid question... But if each hermit crab grows their first shell and the sheds it for something larger. Where do the larger shells come from? also why can't they grow subsequent shells after shedding?

<comment><USER13> The hermit crabs don't grow the shells. They use snail shells.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of many reasons why everyone wants to be a crab.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation)

<comment><USER15> Well, this is not so simple as wikipedia says. Crustaceans are a really big and wide group of life forms, and Carcinisation can be applied only to some groups of decapods (about 15.000 extant species). There are also about 11.500 species of Copepoda, 10.000 Isopoda, 13.000 Ostracoda, 9.500 Amphipoda and 1.300 Thecostraca, for instance, and none of these are crabs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've seen this happening on the beach in Costa Rica. We'd been told about it and then to happen upon it actually occurring was quite a neat experience.

</comment><comment><USER17> But where are the shells coming from?

<comment><USER18> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_snail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_snail)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit_crab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit_crab)

</comment><comment><USER20> Crab's have resolved homelessness , but were still screwing are species over with sub-prime loans.</comment>


Breaking Bubbles. Europe, We Need to Talk - <AUTHOR> https://www.talkingeurope.eu/ <comment><USER2> I get along with people who I disagree with usually when we both share goals. Actual achievable ones. Like winning at team sports, fundraising for x, putting up a play, shipping a product etc. I think initiatives like these need that component.

<comment><AUTHOR> The app has the facility to introduce yourself to potential conversation partners.

> 5\. Answer five questions to define your political opinion. Tell your chat > partner a bit more about yourself - if you like!</comment></comment>


Why I Did Not Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times   - <AUTHOR> http://www.dynamist.com/2418/why-i-did-not-subscribe-to-the-los-angeles-times

<comment><USER2> Would it be wrong to put the LA Times' own phone number there?</comment>


Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575646704100959546.html

<comment><USER2> I foresee a future where the Adblock crowd runs a plugin that randomizes the data returned by browsers. It wouldn't take many variations in user agent strings, reported browser plugins, and system fonts to give you a quasi- anonymous footprint each time you visit a website.

<comment><USER3> or a completely identical infoblock - anonymity of the crowd

<comment><USER4> Surely by labelling yourself with this identical info block you're marking yourself as a type of person?

<comment><USER3> Obligatory "Life Of Brian": We are all individuals!

You're correct. Whether this ends up being more distinctive or demarcative depends on how widely deployed it is. A few hundred and it's not very helpful, but if you have tens of millions of browsers reporting only "LOLCAT BROWSER" (or for old sk00l credit, "AOL") it may give data miners some headaches.

It's kind of like Tor (or if I remember right, anonymizer.com) in those respects - until you have scale, it probably gets associated with shenanigans; once you hit the tipping point, it operates as desired/intended.

But hell, I don't mind marking myself as a type of person who doesn't want intrusive ads. (Why yes, I do run adblock!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Based on this article you can "fingerprint" a computer using the following combination of attributes:

\- Precise timestamp

\- Monitor size

\- User agent

\- Browser plugins

\- and fonts (!)

Really?? I use several browsers, and switch out a few external displays for my laptop. Plugins come and go with the browser version. My system time is synced to a timeserver (as I imagine are many other computers) but sometimes not. Based on these data, it's hard to believe anyone could truly trace my hardware over time.

<comment><USER2> The EFF tested this themselves. They run a website, <http://panopticlick.eff.org>, comparing with computers that have visited in the past. They have over a million fingerprints at this point, and my Chrome install is "unique."

It displays all data it lifted from your machine, along with how rare each datum appears to be. On my Chrome 7.0.517.44 install, I appear to be identifiable by my user agent (1 in 182,518), browser plugins (1 in 1,277,632) and system fonts (1 in 638,816).

<comment><USER6> Even the default IE8 on my stock Windows 7 Enterprise appears to be unique. In that case it's the browser plugins which identifies it (1 in 1277688). My installed plugins are nothing out of the ordinary: Java, Flash and WindowsMediaplayer.

<comment><USER7> Sample size seems to be a significant issue here. I'm one of two people on the site that had my user agent (1 in 638851), and while it's rare, sure, there are obviously a lot more than two people in the world running chromium x64 opensuse. Looking at the data it seems like most of the responses are bog standard for my particular software install, so it's basically saying I'm unique because:

* user-agent * time zone * screen size

Surely my TZ=EST and screen=1366x768x24 can't be too helpful in a large sample size.

And once chromium updates yet again, I think I'll be lost to the EFF test. It'll still see me as unique, but I'll be a different "unique" than the last time.

It does seem like browsers could easily cut back on user-agent details to the benefit of their customers privacy and security. Is it really necessary to tell every website I visit that I'm x64 instead of i386 just in case I'm not smart enough to know which download now button to click? It's probably most useful to malware domains for determining which version of the latest flash 0-day to push to me. And are we sure we need the exact build number of every browser? Most revisions of chrome aren't changing anything in the rendering behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> (throw away account...)

Full disclosure: I wrote one of these systems (AMA)

1\. You'd probably be surprised what we can figure out from this. You'd also be surprised that there isn't much you can do to stop it from happening b/c we've been able to find ways to get information that is actually outside the browser.

2\. You'd probably be surprised to see how embedded this is already. I'm guessing most people have had their browser fingerprinted at least once...for some reason. Knowing who used the services I wrote, I can tell you that they are everywhere...and given that I know our competitors also have this technology and who they work with...well...

3\. There are legitimate uses to this tech besides spam. Its just that the money is in spam. I'm near 100% certain that most people will use this for spam in the next year or two.

<comment><USER9>
      > You'd also be surprised that there isn't much you can
      > do to stop it from happening b/c we've been able to
      > find ways to get information that is actually outside the
      > browser.

I find it hard to believe that you're going outside of the browser if Java/Flash/JavaScript are uninstalled or disabled. Are you claiming to be using 0-day browser exploits to get information from outside of the browser?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _BlueCava says the information it collects about devices can't be traced back to individuals_

Well that's just blatantly false.

</comment><comment><USER11> The question we should all be asking is: why on Earth do browsers transmit all of this information to web servers in the first place?

A _few_ details, window size for example, might have a legitimate purpose and could at least be requested by the web server and provided optionally. However, this sort of fingerprinting technique is pretty obvious to anyone who's ever stuck an analyser on their system and looked at what a typical HTTP transaction to fetch a web page looks like. As far as I can see, there is no need for most of it.

<comment><USER12> In my experience, there's enough basic information in the HTTP transaction to identify a unique visitor for most forensic purposes. However, the level of detail available for fingerprinting goes far beyond this. I just performed a little experiment, disabling as much as I could in Firefox to affect my uniqueness at <http://panopticlick.eff.org/>. I was surprised when disabling plugins (font info comes from java & flash) and even cookies had virtually no effect. It wasn't until I disabled JavaScript before I dramatically lowered it from 7 figures to 5. I'm going to try surfing this way and adding exceptions to see if I can sustain the experience for a while.

<comment><USER13> The thing about Panopticlick is that the two most "accurately" identifying methods aren't stable fingerprints. As soon as you install an update to one of your plugins (the constant Adobe updates come to mind), your fingerprint is altered. Similar with the font list; programs seem to be installing new fonts on my system all the time, which makes that fingerprint unstable as well.

<comment><USER14> Yes. If you wanted to get serious, you should deal with unstable characteristics. Perhaps with Bayesian filtering or something? And maybe adding some outside information, like when the new flash plugin is released; and tracking if a user is likely to upgrade or not.

If you have a working solution for unstable characteristics, you can also add more more characteristics, than they do at the moment.

My scree1050x3360x24

<comment><USER14> Oops, I wanted to write: My resolution and colour depth alone (1050x3360x24) identifies me for 18 bits at that site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an effective demonstration: <http://panopticlick.eff.org/>

</comment><comment><USER15> I worked on this a long time ago and knew of others working on the same idea. I didn't pursue it for financial gain because it seemed too sleazy.

If you're curious what kinds of information your browser gives to a remote server, creating a "test.php" file with the contents "<?php phpinfo(); ?>", and opening that page in a browser is a good start. There are some other ingenious (read: I didn't think them up) methods, but I don't want to help the spammers n' spies.

These days, I use them in forensics.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder how this deals with corporate PCs.

We have dozens of desktops running identically imaged copies of Windows/browser/plugins and all behind a single NATed IP. I imagine that they'd all look the same to one of these systems.

If they start serving up adverts then perhaps I'll start seeing ads targeted at something one of my co-workers has been searching for. That could get interesting!

</comment><comment><USER17> I remember some while back (8 or 10 years? I cant remember exactly when) - Intel was trying to give each processor a GUID so that certain transactions could be traced back to the chip. Didn't go over well at all and Intel eventually pulled back.

I wonder if the same uproar will happen this time around?

</comment><comment><USER18> When I saw the title, I thought it was going to be about the FBI trying to find the source of WikiLeaks material.

</comment><comment><USER19> They could use TCP time stamps to estimate the clock skew of devices, as they access web services.

See "Remote physical device fingerprinting - Tadayoshi Kohno, Andre Broido, kc claffy"

<comment><USER20> Doesn't nmap have a whole bunch of such fingerprints stored in a database?

<comment><USER19> Nmap only gives you information on the version of OS and of network applications.

e.g.

       nmap -sV 127.0.0.1

       Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2010-12-01 18:28 GMT
       Interesting ports on localhost (127.0.0.1):
       Not shown: 997 closed ports
       PORT      STATE SERVICE   VERSION
       631/tcp   open  ipp       CUPS 1.4
       2000/tcp  open  callbook?
       24800/tcp open  kvm       Synergy KVM

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This sounds great until the spammers get involved.</comment>


Ask HN: Best platform to create a private community for 100-200 people? - <AUTHOR> I want to create a private community for 100 or so others. Right now we are using Telegram with 10 members, which is working great, but I can see you'll run into some limitations soon, especially around search.<p>Any suggestions you have, would be great. Thanks! <comment><USER2> 'Best platform' is a very broad term. Best in what way? In terms of ease of creation/coding? In terms of features/stability/reliability/scalability? Or what?

Be that as it may, if you're willing to explore the CMS route, I can vouch for WordPress with BuddyPress (and a handful of other) plug-ins. Proven, stable, feature-rich, quick to deploy etc. I'd say definitely worth checking out.

[https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's also Telescope [http://www.telescopeapp.org/](http://www.telescopeapp.org/) if you want to build something more like a reddit-style community

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried Slack or Discord? It really depends on the features you want to have and what you mean by "community"... Maybe take a look at Discourse too.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are looking for hn or stackoverflow like community with moderation built in,take a look at discourse. I have used it and really like it.</comment>


'Staying awake all night helped treat my depression' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-49413215/staying-awake-all-night-helped-treat-my-depression <comment><AUTHOR> _People with bipolar disorder are being asked to stay up all night to treat their depression. Doctors in Italy say that sleep deprivation therapy can have a remarkable effect for some patients when done under medical supervision._</comment>


Action Required: Stop the Internet Takeover Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xu5p_nDcrg <comment><USER2> I keep seeing this guy's video pop up and he's pretty much just a talking head.

He's also wrong about a lot of things. He's confusing IP assignment and DNS assignment. He also likes to bash the UN in this video while bashing the US gov in others.

Most of his arguments here are pretty non sequitur. He's somehow drawing parallels between the Snowden leaks and moving ICANN to international governance, even though international governance was part of the original charter from ICANN years before this.

There are better threads on HN that address this argument.</comment>


Those Gray Beard Hackers And Their Tall Stories - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/Those+Gray+Beard+Hackers+And+Their+Tall+Stories <comment><USER2> Are you a novice programmer who feels regretful that they are spoiled by the modern world of programming? Confused by your own nostalgia for a time years before you were born? Want to relive the glory days of bliknenlichten, mainframes of solid gold and necks of solid beard, from the _comfort of your own home?_

Well then you'll love the world of Microcontroller Programming!

 _You too_ can spend weeks optimising your opcodes to squeeze them into mere _bytes_ of memory! You'll need the rest of the 8kb available for lookup tables, because your processor is only running at 8mhz!

 _You too_ can dream of a 'debugger' as you write and decode your own LED blink sequences!

 _You too_ can draw your graphics by timing your own NTSC scanlines!

 _You too_ can almost burn your house down using a soldering iron while sleep deprived!

 _You too_ can almost lose your mind when you find out that the reason your program isn't working is because _your resistors have heated up by one degree since you wrote the code!_

It's fun, the tooling to write the code can be as modern as you like, and the community is great.

It isn't as hard as it can be made to sound, precisely because the constraints quickly force you to think small. When you're only trying to make a device for automatically traumatising your cat, the constraints only pose as much of a problem as the much looser constraints you might encounter solving a larger problem with more powerful tools, say, running a website. So the learning curve isn't that steep if you're already a programmer.

<http://arduino.cc>

<http://hackaday.com>

<http://electronics.stackexchange.com>

And if that's still too sissy for you then just build stuff entirely in 555 timers: <http://hackaday.com/2011/02/24/555-video-game/>

<comment><USER3> Bah humbug! Now I feel like a greybeard - all this arduino stuff is spoiling you. Some of the microcontrollers I used to use only gave you 4 bits to your byte, try telling that to youngsters nowadays!

I had one of the most entertaining hours of my university career in a lecture entitles 101 uses for a 555 timer, it should have been subtitled how to use and totally abuse a 555 timer.

<comment><USER2> _> 4 bits to your byte_

Did that used to be called a 'nibble' or am I making that up?

<comment><USER4> <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Byte#History>

Time was, a byte could be anywhere from 4 to 12 bits, depending on the architecture. A "nybble" is half a "byte".

<comment><USER5> 7 bit bytes were an interesting time. Thank god the System 360 came around and decided to start standardizing things.

<comment><USER2> I wonder how long it will be before I'm going around saying "In my day, our bits could only be in one of _two_ states!"

Maybe my kids say things like "We had to wait until our methods had been _called_ before we calculated our return values! We couldn't rely on Just-In- Time-Reverse-Causality-Compilation to optimize our code! Get off my hyperlawn!"

<comment><USER6> Isn't a bit (BInary digiT) _by definition_ in one of two states? Otherwise it would be a "tet" or a "quat"... ;-)

<comment><USER2> I was actually referring to the qubits of quantum computers, which can be zero, one, or in a superposition of both zero and one. Or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ah, memories. (Though I assiduously keep my beard off the lower reaches of my neck.)

I did start programming back in the days of punched cards/early timesharing on IBM mainframes (late 70's), but my first microprocessor experience was at a laser-printer start-up (TeX project spinoff from Stanford, Imagen), so we had the luxury of using the Sun-1 boards (the boards that Andy Bechtolsteim designed for use at Stanford, and which were the basis of the first Sun Micro workstations, the first Cisco routers, and the first Imagen image processors).

The Sun-1 boards had 68000 processors (no VM) with dual UART chip, so we actually could attach a terminal and interact with our primitive software that way (both for download & debugging). I had to write a real-time OS from scratch in our case, since we didn't couldn't really use the huge galumphing BSD Unix port that Sun was producing for future release.

Memories...

</comment><comment><USER8> I expect to burn some karma for this, but there's another extant pocket of optimization driven development: banner ads. If there is such a thing as a "good" banner ad, I'm referring to those (unobtrusive, non-autoexpanding, subtle animations resulting from interaction [no seizure-inducing manic blinking]). Good banner ads use almost no bandwidth (15k-40k) and go easy on the user's processor. They are built for big companies who care about their reputation and trafficked by platforms that respect the user.

I don't get to build as many of them as I once did, but they're incredibly fun little puzzles to solve. Cramming largish photographs, animation, copy (including fonts, which usually result in the bulk of filesize), and animation into such a tiny package is no small feat, and requires a lot of time (the productivity tradeoff Jacques referred to) and tons of little optimization tricks you need to spend a few years collecting and perfecting, like:

* becoming a vector artist. Sometimes its necessary to have a partially transparent image, which means 32 bit PNGs, which are super expensive. Flash allows you to create vector masks (vector illustrations are incredibly size efficient), which means you can use a PNG-8 or JPG and mask out the areas that need to be transparent. Which means getting really good, and fast, at tracing outlines. The next level being

* learning how to do photo-realistic illustrations. In the old days of 12k for a banner, I did a lot of car banners, which meant a lot of car illustrations that needed to look exactly like the photos. Even then, you'd have to reuse your assets a lot, in creative ways, in order to make the filesize. (Like using a tire illustration for the windshield [by scaling and masking]).

* writing really tight code. In the early days, our basic animation engines were a few KB, but you could rewrite your own using only the chunks of code you needed, and save a few K. My newest library is about 800 bytes and is powerful enough to use on most of my banners.

* learning that people really aren't as detail oriented as you might think, and blurs, rotations, tints, and speed are usually all the tools you need to make a convincing animation

<comment><USER9> That's quite interesting. Now whenever I see a banner ad I will involuntarily start thinking about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meh. Modern programmers get to say: "You were programming for one processor back then instead of 100 in a shared execution environment? Ha!"

</comment><comment><USER11> Anybody else think its weird his posts are continually on the homepage?

<comment><USER12> Not at all, given that he was an active member and prolific member of HN and now that he has taken a break from HN he has all this free time to just write.

<comment><USER13> Besides, this is some high quality stuff. This is _real_ hacker news.</comment></comment></comment>


Ever used a PC with a Turbo Button? - <AUTHOR>

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button <comment><USER2> My second machine was a 386 with a turbo button.

I think this would be better as a poll rather than a story, there's not a lot to say.

</comment><comment><USER3> The first computer I used was a 286 XT (or AT?), and it had a turbo. I remember playing a few games on it where the turbo button came in handy.

One specifically that I remember was called freefall, and simulated diving into a cavern. You had to move the ascii character representing yourself back and forth to avoid the cavern walls as you fell. Simple, but fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes.

Elite was very hard to play on some machines if they didn't have a turbo button. (To turn off turbo, and put the machine in a nice 12 MHz.)

Later machines kept the button, but either just hooked it up to a display or even left it disconnected. Cases could fit different motherboards so it's handy to have the button for the older motherboards.

</comment><comment><USER5> When I was very young, we had a computer which had this button. I always wondered why pressing it would change HI to LO, as the name of the button suggested otherwise. I never really used it as my few games worked fine without it. I was too young to remember the name of the computer, and we got rid of it long ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> I opened up my PC (486dx) and found that the Turbo button had been disconnected, and (obviously) made absolutely no difference whether it was pressed or not. I never really investigated further.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://instagram.com/p/HWBYYmNDYD/>

386DX 40 MHz

</comment><comment><USER8> They used to be very common. Probably around the 486/early Pentium days if memory serves.

</comment><comment><USER9> What was the since in ever turning it _off_?

<comment><USER10> Some games didn't use a timing loop, they were written with timing that corresponded directly to CPU speed. Thus a turbo mode would make the games impossibly fast to play.

Sopwith and older versions of Scorched Earth come to mind as examples of this phenomenon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yeah, and thanks for reminding me that I'm old.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes.

It didn't do anything.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sure :--)

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes.</comment>


New Jersey bans direct auto sales; Tesla stock inches lower - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/101481668 <comment><USER2> Can someone explain why you would want to ban direct auto sales? It seems like it would create competition, cut out haggling, and bring new innovative products to consumers.

<comment><USER3> "create competition, cut out haggling"

I believe that's the issue. The dealership lobby holds a lot of clout (and donation dollars) with the current government.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is Hacker News API returning wrong "time"? - <AUTHOR> Example:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268584 it shows "4 hour ago"(by time I posted this question)
API: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/21268584.json unix time:1571218522, and it is 3 days ago. <comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20timestamps&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment><comment><USER3> The way moderator post repromoting via the second-chance pool works will cause such a discrepancy in the API.

It is not ideal.

<comment><USER4> More info: [https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news- undocumented/blob/m...](https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news- undocumented/blob/master/README.md#second-chance-pool)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Recently developing a tool and I found this happed very common.

You can see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268584) is "5 hours ago", but from my tool([https://hn.okphp.com/?k=digital,postgres](https://hn.okphp.com/?k=digital,postgres) ) it is "3 days ago"(my tool is using official api timestamp)

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess it is caused by re-posting. But the api returns the "time" the link first posted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I dont understand why the item page shows "5 hours ago", but if you filter by domain : [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sivers.org](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sivers.org), the same item is labeled "3 days ago", so the API is rather correct. Maybe the timestamp shown on the item page is incorrect, or that the url was re- submitted?

<comment><USER6> I think there are posts that are automatically reposted according to some algorithm - could this be such a post?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I noticed that when one of my posts is resubmitted (via second-chance pool) it seems to appear with the time of the resubmit and not the time I posted it originally. I observed this on the website, I never checked the API and maybe this is unrelated to the original question from above. It may even be intentional but probably not many posters know about it.</comment>


Mac OS X App Store Poses Problems for Open Source Software - <AUTHOR> http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/20/director-of-firefox-fires-opening-salvo-at-apples-tyrannical-ma/

<comment><USER2> Well that article certainly wears its editorial slant on its sleeve.

I'm not really seeing the problem here; Apple isn't interested in selling, or giving away, in-progress beta apps or apps which exhibit obvious bugs because they want to maintain a certain quality of experience for people who use their store.

If Apple isn't interested in distributing your app, that's their prerogative. You're not entitled to it, and you certainly don't need it; Firefox has been doing just fine distributing their software through their own servers. They're free to continue doing so.

Nordstroms isn't interested in selling my janky, lumpy, hand-carved ash trays either, but that hardly makes them tyrants. They're just maintaining their store's brand.

<comment><USER3> But Nordstroms _doesn't own the city_. Apple does.

When all roads lead to the local men's department, yeah I'd be concerned with which products do, and don't make the cut.

No kexts? Seriously? No outside updates? Can't wait for the first app store 0-day.

<comment><USER2> > But Nordstroms doesn't own the city. Apple does.

Er, no they don't. This is about the completely optional Mac App Store.

To extend the metaphor, there's a Macy's next door and a Farmer's Market across the street.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it's time to step away from the metaphor. Just so we're clear I'm referring to the operating system -- the thing on which the store is built. It is, quite literally, owned by Apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The current HN title is wrong.

The article doesn't address Open Source. It states that the store will not be used for the distribution of beta versions of software. The tweet just says firefox betas won't be in the store.

Especially note: Free software is allowed.

There are classes of software that won't work in the store. The article mentions:

• Things that implement their own copy protection.

• Buggy software.

• Things that need root.

See the whole list: <http://pastie.org/1236378> but you will go blind before you finish if your don't have readability plugin.

I would characterize the forbidden stuff as "obnoxious, useless, or malicious" applications. There is some collateral damage along the way, e.g. anything with a kernel extension, and there are some morality/legality driven restrictions e.g. encourge minors to consume alcohol or realistic human killing.

The most alarming exception to me, is that the application can only distribute updates through the store. I would hope Apple doesn't hold up new versions like they have with the iOS stores. As a developer I cringe when I read of customers living with month old defects because the update is stalled in queue.

Customers will have a reasonable belief that stuff from the store isn't tearing through their computer looking for email addresses or credit card numbers to sell.

But that's ok, they have other channels for distribution. It isn't a Apple Store or nothing proposition like the iOS devices.

<comment><AUTHOR> The title was on the basis of this part of the article "If an app even exhibits a bug, it will be rejected -- does Apple know how many apps, open- source or otherwise, have bugs?"

The point that this could make FOSS especially vulnerable, although am open to discussion otherwise.

<comment><USER2> They can't, by the very nature of software, reject all software containing any bugs. The store would never contain anything.

But if your software contains obvious bugs that impact the user during normal usage (it crashes when you try to save, or the preference pane only stays open for 5 seconds), they're not interested in being associated with your software. That seems fair to me.

This is only "unfair" to FLOSS if you take the position that FLOSS is significantly more likely to contain such significant, user-facing defects.

Now, I'm not saying that's true, but if it were true, that seems to me to be an indictment of FLOSS, not of Apple's rules for being in its store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of course Apple doesn't want beta software in the Mac App Store. I don't want it either. If I want to experiment with some Firefox nightlies, I'll go and get them from the dev site. The Mac App store is geared at people who want software installation and maintenance to be painless and worry free. They are 'curating' it to be that way. It's not a software directory listing service where everyone can list their offerings.

<comment><AUTHOR> What happens when Apple "curates" it such that apps of a political nature are no longer allowed? Or apps that compete with their own?

EDIT: (1) There is a risk that the vast majority of the population (non- geeks), will increasingly rely on the store to get apps, so smaller innovators/FOSS projects will not have the same exposure as others if rejected. (Think the Microsoft antitrust issue with the preinstallation of IE on Windows. People could still get Netscape elsewhere.) (2) This could also be a first step, much like the iPhone/iOS app store, in Apple being the arbiter of _all_ apps that are allowed on Mac OS X.

<comment><USER5> Not sure I follow you. What do you mean what happens? To me it means they won't be in the store and you will have to get them like you have been getting them this whole time. What happens when Shell 'curates' their convenience stores so Newsweek is no longer sold there?

edit:typo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> " _apps that require optional installations (such as Java) will be rejected_ "

What additional installations do OS X apps usually need, though? Flash and Java are already included; the only additional thing I can think of is SIMBL, and that isn't usually used for normal apps.

</comment><comment><USER7> Correction: the App Store doesn't work with buggy, unfinished software that's in a constant state of beta.

The author sure has a low opinion of open source software quality, doesn't he?

<comment><USER8> Perhaps the author has a slanted view of how open source software tends to work.

You often have nightly builds, development (alpha/beta) releases and stable releases. Most people want and use the stable releases.

It's true the Mac App Store won't work for distributing the rest. This is hardly surprising and not the way you'd want to distribute this anyway I would think.

For stable releases, the App Store guidelines will probably result in more stable software. That's probably a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected"

 _So many_ OS X apps today use non-public APIs, this would exclude the vast majority of applications in use today.

"Apps that install kexts will be rejected"

There goes VMWare and Parallels.

<comment><USER2> VMWare and Parallels are already well-known and have their own direct sales infrastructures. I don't think they would ever have been interested in this.

<comment><USER9> So that's the thing - if Apple promises that there will _always_ be a way to directly install to the machine, I'm totally okay with these rules, they're quite reasonable.

However, this sets them up to do the same thing they did with iPad / iPhone, then require me to pay $100 to bless my machine as a "Development machine", _then_ I can install what I want. Or maybe even then, I can only use Apple- certified binaries but I can use XCode. Curated experience is fine, but only if I have the freedom to choose an alternate one.

<comment><USER10> Promises? Corporate promises are worthless.

Rely on _logic_ and assume Apple is reasonably _rational_.

They mentioned AutoCAD and Steam today. Steam isn't compatible with the guidelines, and Autodesk isn't about to sell AutoCAD through the store.

Apple isn't going to cut them off, nor are they going to cut off the myriad other software vendors for whom the App Store is either unworkable or unattractive or unneeded.

<comment><USER9> Sure, that's how it looks _today_ , but being in the App Store will be a huge draw, and tons of people will rework their apps to be App Store compatible.

In a few years once most apps have been pushed onto the App Store, they'll be in a far better position to cut them off, making the excuse of "This will only affect a small number of apps..."

While I agree that right _now_ , it's infeasible for them to do this, a few years of the Mac App Store will change the landscape to a point where they very well could do this.

<comment><USER10> It would be a case of "This will affect a relatively small number of hugely important apps that we can't afford to lose from the platform".

They're not going to feel free to lose Adobe, Matlab, Steam, VMWare, Parallels, and AutoCAD just because they have a million fart apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A question: can open source projects submit just their most stable versions to the App Store and then also release in-progress versions through their own sites?

If so, that would seem to address most of the issues. The people downloading software from the App Store don't want buggy or untested software, and those interested in cutting-edge versions are likely to be aware and active enough to download it themselves.

Win-win situation.

<comment><USER11> I mean, open source projects already have stable branches and dev branches, so it wouldn't even require that much additional work from developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It might not be the best solution for geeks, but Apple is serious about smooth user experience. I might not mind a few bugs in the software I download, but it will confuse/frustrate the hell out of Mr Average Joe.

</comment><comment><USER13> This App Store isn't the same as the iOS one. If the iOS one didn't push your app, nobody could use it (practically speaking.) Obviously this isn't true here. (For now!) So, it's hard to give Apple flak for any rules they have in their approval process.

</comment><comment><USER14> The crux of the matter: 1) Will Lion change the software install policy to App Store only (like iOS)

2) Will the App Store create an un-level playing field years from now by training users to only install Apple certified software.

<comment><USER10> "1) Will Lion change the software install policy to App Store only (like iOS)"

No, unless you think Autodesk wants to give Apple 30% of the $4000 price of AutoCAD for Mac on each sale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No beta software? Great.

No license keys? Why do you need license keys? You're now in the iTunes ecosystem like apps on iDevices.

No optional add ons? For a start, java isn't optional on OS X. Apps on iOS are completely self-contained. I guess the same philosophy is coming to the Mac. Not surprising but there are potential issues I guess.

No root privileges? This one has potential issues but I guess apple wants to play it safe. Not surprising.

Same censorship as the App Store? I took this as a given when I heard about it. No issue here.

The author's bias is pretty obvious and expect the Apple-haters to roll out the predictable criticisms.

But apps don't need to be distributed via the app store on the Mac. You can still use download links from a website at which point it's a question of choice as to whether you want to be part of that ecosystem.

I see a bigger issue being the 70/30 split. 30% is a lot to lose when you can sell it yourself. Even small sellers can use third party payment services. It'll be interesting to see how the software makers big and small react to this.

I suspect that those in the app store will sell more units. This is probably why Steve pushed the discovery argument (with some merit).

<comment><USER15> License keys can be really useful for institution-wide software licensing. Imagine an advertising agency trying to buy 30 instances of Photoshop. How are they going to do that with the App Store? Without some support for bundle purchases, the Mac App Store won't be very useful for developers of software for a professional audience.

<comment><USER8> The App Store has always had this "problem". Just like an IT desk can't easily manage, say, 500 iPads. That's really what Windows is built for. Apple is really targeting consumers not enterprise customers.

<comment><USER15> I'm not talking about large enterprises, I'm talking about small-to-medium creative workshops, a sector where Apple is traditionally very strong in. At my day job, we got a bunch of composers with high-end Mac Pros with Logic Pro installed on them, and believe me, we're very far from being "enterprise". We got producers, graphic designers and so on. These people would rather quit than ever use a PC. My point is, it looks like that the Mac App Store is not intended for this kind of audience, which is a shame because creatives and media people are a very core user group of the Mac, the kind of customers that were loyal to Apple even during its darkest hours in the mid-90's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> more and more developers seem to be really unhappy with the new app store.. probably not the best model

<comment><USER15> You know what, as a user, I quite like it. It's a really convenient way to get software. I like all the categories, featured apps, simple payment & deployment and the good signal vs noise ratio. I just simply don't care whether developers like it or not. (Having said that, I'm a software developer too but I understand that my convenience is less important than the customer's convenience.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's stopping OEMs from building an all-in-one device? - <AUTHOR> I mean a phone that can work as a PC as well.
There have been some failed attempts, most famously the Ubuntu phone, and a few Kickstarter projects, as well as Microsoft trying to do an OS to fit them all. But none of them have been much serious.
With the current technology, an Android phone could be built such that when connected through HDMI it launched a Linux desktop such as Debian (like Maru OS, but it is a hobbyist project). Apple could do the same with iOS/Mac.
Furthermore, if foldable phones were industry standard (not there yet, I know), the phone could double up as a tablet/laptop.
Probably there is no demand for such a device, and we can argue that it's better to have a device specifically designed for one purpose (communicating, working or gaming). However, I believe that the failed/current attempts were not serious enough, and if a big OEM wanted, an excellent all-in-one device could be shipped. I would be the first customer, waiting the whole night like some Apple customers do. Also, I'm kinda tired of taking care of 3-4 devices with their own update cycles, cables, and so on. <comment><USER2> Nothing. It's just very very hard.

One issue is that the mobile form factor doesn't lend itself to laptop or desktop class cooling. Some mobile chips can approach the performance of a desktop... until thermal throttling.

There is a reason there are different kinds of cars and trucks for different market segments. Try to build a car-truck and you get the El Camino. Computers are likely going to be subject to similar market forces.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. I don't think it's that hard.

Take a middle/high-end smartphone phone. Install something like Maru OS (but preinstalled and with OEM support). That's it.

I agree with the cooling problems, but a desktop browser and Unix terminal would be enough, and these apps are not that demanding for the CPU.

<comment><USER2> > a desktop browser and Unix terminal would be enough, and these apps are not > that demanding for the CPU.

That's called a tablet. You cal already browse, edit, and ssh from those. When I want a laptop I usually want something way more powerful that can build, run large software apps, run VMs, etc. I regularly max out all eight cores of mine for hours at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Librem 5, PinePhone and Shift phones, to name a few devices/manufacturers currently working on such ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Never heard of them, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> there is no rush to kill play store or apple store. ms could relaunch a windows phone but ms do not want to waste in consumer hardware, it's better to them invest on other types of "OS's" like github, azure, xboxlive, which are also virtual markets. the question that remain, can Intel make a x86 phone? I guess it depends energy research.

</comment><comment><USER4> all-in-one is a brand. there is no real all-in-one.</comment>


Show HN: A JavaScript-starterkit for 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ameesme/React-Redux-Starterkit <comment><AUTHOR> Disclosure: This is starter kit is a result of the work of many JavaScript- developers at Greenhouse Group, my former employer. I decided to clean it up a bit in a fork.</comment>


The Binary System Was Created Before Leibniz - <AUTHOR> https://m.cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/221749-the-binary-system-was-created-long-before-leibniz/fulltext <comment><USER2> > Shirley rejects Leibniz as the first creator of the binary system.

I think the idea of single-source attribution of relatively simple concepts is plain stupid. Any number of people could have made this up in a wide array of circumstances and for a similarly wide array of circumstances we may never know about it. For somewhat similar reasons a lower bar for patents has been established.

<comment><USER3> This is how I've always felt about De Morgan's obvious, obvious Laws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Then there is also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingala) who is not even mentioned in the article. Whats up with that?

<comment><USER5> Good point, but was Pingala actually using the binary elements as digits? I don't know but it seems possible that he didn't do place value arithmetic with binary strings.

I previously associated his work with "prosodic enumerations" like this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've read that it may have had origins in African divination systems -- or at least that binary arithmetic was in use from West (Ife) to North (Egypt) Africa for centuries before Leibniz. (Eglash, R. 'African Influences in Cybernetics." In C.H. Gray (ed) The Cyborg Handbook. ) Eglash connected Leibniz to that African tradition via his interest in geomancy.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article lost me after just the first couple of paragraphs. If Leibniz is, as quoted in the text, `recognized for first formally proposing` the binary system - then what relevance does it have that someone had the idea earlier (and thought it was useless)? He is not recognized for having had the idea first, he is recognized for seeing an application of it and formally proposing and specifying it.

Roentgen wasn't the first to observe x-rays either, he was the first to perform extensive studies and publications on them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Binary numbers are written on the phonograph records sent with the Voyager spacecraft [1]. Perhaps twisted logic but if it's so universal that aliens can understand it, then I suppose other people than Leibniz could have invented it.

[1] [https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-on-the- golden-...](https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-on-the-golden- record/)

<comment><USER9> Unless the aliens are taken with trinary logic, because they have 3 digits or what not. Their computers could be ternary based.

<comment><USER10> Then they'd only use the 0th and 1st positions in their number system, which would spread out the data, but as it's compressed or encoded it would still be readable. If you've ever opened a utf-8 document in a utf-16 file reader, you'll see the letters are spread out, but still readable. It's the same idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pluto and Charon alone were created billions of years before Leibniz, and many binary systems are even older. Not sure why this is a surprise to anyone.

<comment><USER12> Clearly, you didn't read the article. It's about binary _number_ systems, not binary _planetary_ systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> the I ching: yin(0) and yang(1); 1000BC

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching)

<comment><USER5> Yes, but I think we're talking specifically about positional numbers using binary digits.

<comment><USER13> The I ching works like a binary look up table

You divine a series of yins and yangs, usually 3 or 6.. trigrams and hexgrams (o).. then look up that sequence in the text to discover it's meaning

010010 references one, whereas 000100 references another

I guess you could argue it's more Shannon than leibniz

(o) [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching#Hexagrams](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching#Hexagrams)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, but do you ever perform an operation on two hexagrams (addition, multiplication)?

If not, each hexagram is just a bitstring, not a number in binary notation. If not used as numbers they don't count as numbers.

Words written with the standard English alphabet are not base-26 numbers until someone decides to interpret them as such. Dictionaries are lookup tables but the ordering is lexical not numerical. Maybe we are in agreement.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


For Innovators, There Is Brainpower in Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/business/07unbox.html <comment><USER2> jees another painful reminder of my refusal to "team up" during uni days and instead doing things solo (slapping myself on the back of the head)!!!</comment>


Show HN: No More – Android Tracking App to Quit Addictions (Promo Code for HN) - <AUTHOR>

I have recently finished developing an app called "No More!" which is meant to support you in defeating any addiction or bad habit you'd like to get rid of. It's your classic day tracking / don't break the chain app, with a few extra features like milestones, motivational quotes and quick in-app website/contacts shortcuts, all wrapped in a nice material design interface.
http://www.leoncvlt.com/apps/nomore
The app comes with advertisement plugged in and an in-app purchase to remove them - however for the launch window I'm giving away a promo code to you HN guys to disable them.

  * Go to the Settings
  * Go to "Credits & Licenses"
  * Tap "Enter Promo Code" and enter the code "hackersrule". Enjoy!
 Thanks for checking this out. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [http://www.leoncvlt.com/apps/nomore](http://www.leoncvlt.com/apps/nomore)</comment>


The Death of the Internet: A Pre-Mortem - <AUTHOR> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-death-of-internet-pre-mortem.html <comment><USER2> Unbelievable. I am an American sitting in Budapest working on freelance translation jobs I get in seconds from my agencies all over Europe, who Skypes his wife doing research in Indiana on a daily basis and who organized his 30-year class reunion last year at the last possible moment (three days in advance) by Facebook bullying. Record turnout, too.

When I program I have up-to-the-minute solutions for nearly every technical problem I encounter (well, at least to get me started) - I HAVE CPAN. (So I'm old.) I read American news (from Budapest) while it's happening. I see _video_ from news events that Joe Public has recorded an hour ago, and I don't need Walter Cronkite to discover things for me.

I haven't done an inter-library loan in decades. And I don't miss waiting two weeks to find out whether that book will really help.

And tonight, I read that the Internet hasn't brought anything new to the world. And that got linked on Hacker News. Post-mortem my ass. Much the same way monks were writing post-mortems of that new-fangled Gutenberg process, I mean, sure, you don't have to have a scribe write out a book by hand any more, but it's not like we never had _books_ before that guy came along.

Idiot.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have to disagree with the premise that we did the same things before the internet that we do today. Was it possible to order things remotely? Yes, but it was hard enough that most poeple wouldn't do it - they would go to their local store and just purchase an item there.

Did the average citizen communicate freely across the oceans? Not remotely. Mail was expensive, phones even more so. Can this continue without the internet? No.

Was information ever disseminated as freely as it is today? No. I have volumes of programming books which were years out of date when I purchased them to prove this.

That said, I agree that the internet is about to get a lot more expensive, especially as the ad bubble which supported so much of its growth falls apart. It will be interesting, and bittersweet, to watch how the internet evolves post-ads.

<comment><USER4> Frankly, the internet was pretty awesome pre-ads, so I'm not too concerned. :)

<comment><USER5> It was also a lot smaller!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are some _tiny_ points in this article which are worth considering (the way internet companies are financed, the possible scenarios of internet evolution towards mainstream entertainment), but as a whole, it's quite incoherent FUD (and a machine to promote the overall authors' gloomy predictions about the future).

It's especially pathetic that in spite of all the arguments, casting doom on the internet, the author declares in the middle of the post that all these factors "won't kill the internet". This is just ridiculous.

Just like ridiculous are the author's opinions which clearly stand against the facts, i.e. "(...) the internet can be expected to follow the usual trajectory of a maturing industry, becoming more expensive, less convenient, and more tightly focused on making a quick buck with each passing year". Can anyone provide an example of the industry for which maturing led to higher prices and less convenience?

</comment><comment><USER7> What a bunch of nonsense!

His main argument is that the internet is not economically sustainable, but even IF the current infrastructure would stob being supported humanity would find ways to keep it alive because it made our lives so much easier and we can't live without it anymore. We might switch to a decentralized infrastructure like Maidsafe is building for example and that would eliminate the economic issue this guy is blabbering about.

But the END of the internet? That's ridiculous!

<comment><AUTHOR> > it made our lives so much easier and we can't live without it anymore

You might think differently if for example you are an OAP struggling to pay heating bills or you live in Sao Paulo and the taps don't always work.

Agreed, some form of internet will probably survive for quite a long time, but that is addressed in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At first, Amazon's data center products were huge money sinks. Startup costs. Missed cost estimates for opex. Extraordinary events. Lack of scale. It looked BAD.

Now AWS is profitable, and Amazon's management knows enough about how to run it to live with thin margins that will cause their competitors lots of pain.

Stuff is getting paid for, and stuff is getting cheaper and there is plenty of room for stuff to get even cheaper.

<comment><USER9> Stuff is becoming monetarily cheaper, but I think we've also started to see other prices we pay: social price, ecological price, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd agree that a sales tax on Internet-based purchases will be imposed at some point, and that seemingly going industries can be remarkably unprofitable in the long term [1]. Don't know about the long term viability of Internet ads and do wish they'd die, but it'd be nice to see data.

But the rest of the article seems to be unquantified assertions -- the SST went broke, so of course the Internet will as well; data centers cost a lot of money to maintain. One could counter with other assertions-- Apple profits and Amazon revenues are huge, etc. Data would be nice.

[1]E.g. airlines have, over six decades of operation, not returned the cost of capital. [http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/02/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/02/economist-explains-5)

</comment><comment><USER11> All of the people that disagree with this article forget to disagree with its author's prediction that once fossil fuels and other still plentyful but possibly not forever plentyful resources (water and fertile soil, for instance) are over, the internet is going to become a burden too heavy to continue to be lifted in face of more pressing issues, like eating. But I do agree that before that happens, thought I think it'll happen in our lifespans, the internet has no reason to go away, except for all of those free subsidized services. (Paid) email will probably still be around for a while.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow. To claim the internet is not economically viable requires an extremely selective view of the evidence. I had to check the date at the top of the article to be sure it wasn't written in 1998.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why bother comparing the internet to supersonic jets? SST might have been a popular idea, but it never reached the same level of global acceptance and support as the internet.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is just the rantings of some wacky doom and gloom person. The Internet's demise pales to the idea that the average American will lack running water in 2065.

<comment><USER6> "John Michael Greer is the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America and the author of more than thirty books on a wide range of subjects, including peak oil and the future of industrial society. "

I wish I read that _before_ reading the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> His articles are largely based on studying history, I'm not sure what your point is.

If he claimed to be say an Economist, then I would be more sceptical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That sidebar of books being advertised suggests a mindset heavily invested in inevitable decline.</comment>


Microsoft Has Fired Its Entire Global Advertising Sales Team - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-advertising-sales-team-redundancies-2014-10#ixzz3HjhByYkz

<comment><USER2> Is it the minds who brought us "the scroogled" and "Surface dancing schoolgirls" marketing campaigns?</comment>


US Supreme Court backs protection for LGBT workers - ian-g https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53055632 <comment><AUTHOR> If the Supreme Court gets to redefine the meaning of one word, there's nothing to stop them from redefining any other word -- or all of them. As Cavanaugh pointed out in his dissent, it's not the role of the court to legislate, and Congress' recent attempts to amend the Civil Rights act proves they know the language is inadequate for protecting LGBT persons and that it's their job to fix it.

<comment> ian-g You're not wrong that congress should fix things too. But I don't think they're trying to redefine the word.

From the impression I got (and I only read the outline of the decision), the most important part seems to be:

> A statutory violation occurs if an employer intentionally relies in part on > an individual employee's sex when deciding to discharge the employee. > Because discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or transgender status > requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently > because of their sex, an employer who intentionally penalizes an employee > for being homosexual or transgender also violates Title VII.

I feel like that's more an interpretation of the law than redefinition of it</comment></comment>


Evernote is in deep trouble - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-is-in-deep-trouble-2015-10 <comment><USER3> Surprise. Evernote is just such a shockingly low quality product. First of all, as a note taking company, you CAN NOT LOSE DATA. EVER. I use my notebook for keeping data and derivations and lecture notes. Data is the most valuable thing in my profession, insights sometimes don't come twice, and lectures are often never given twice. So, the service already sucks. The client is buggy and bloated with features... Which I find somehow insulting since they're developing new useless features and selling merchandise that nobody needs while they're ignoring crucial flaws in their software.

Finally, and maybe this is something only scientists people care about, their pen input support is abysmal... AFTER acquiring one of the best note taking products for the iPad! How have they managed to screw this up so bad? OneNote gets all these things dead on correct, and that's why it's the standard in labs that keep digital notes. Evernote does not seem to understand the role their product takes in people's lives. I really hope they either shape up or go away so they can stop distracting people from what they actually want.

</comment><comment><USER4> From this article, I have some of my software business beliefs validated:

\- don't be afraid to charge money

\- release frequent, small updates. Users tolerate this much better than infrequent big updates with major changes

\- focus on quality. Every update should include several bug fixes. As much as possible, fix bugs before adding new features

\- focus. Put all your eggs in one basket, to some extent.

\- watch costs like a hawk. Operating in 10 locations sounds like Evernote let their costs get out of control.

<comment><USER5> I feel like this should be engraved in stone and delivered to anyone who is thinking of getting into this game but try telling that to a hot headed under 30 founder who is worried about burning that cash as fast as possible to 'grow big and sell the company'.

I almost feel like SV is all about exits and not enough focus on meaningful products that arise out of genuine passion to solve a real problem.

<comment><USER6> Those kinds of founders need a dose of reality. That path is usually more like "burn lots of investor cash and your reputation, then fail." For the very few who sort of pull the pump and dump burn to exit thing off there are dozens who just crash.

<comment><USER5> doesn't seem to happen. people who raise ridiculous amount of money seems to do it again and again and investors are happy to keep shoveling piles of money around. vast amount of money is moved around and evaporated.

that kind of money if distributed to single founders who have a working product, generating revenues would have a far more benefit to society and consumers instead of one giant company that bullies it's way into the markets by splashing money around.

<comment><USER6> I've seen that too and I still don't understand it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Evernote is only a weird bloated SaaS company (with hundreds of employees) because they followed the wrong business model.

Evernote should be more like Minecraft (Mojang). A cool piece of software that a handful of people develop but a billion people use. They would be wildly profitable and worth many billions to Microsoft and others.

<comment><USER8> True. Like Sunrise ([http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/02/11/microsoft- acquire...](http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/02/11/microsoft-acquires- sunrise-creator-innovative-calendar-app-mobile-devices/)) and Acompli ([http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/12/01/microsoft- acquire...](http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/12/01/microsoft-acquires- acompli-provider-innovative-mobile-email-apps/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Evernote Mac client is the one of the worst piece of software on the Mac platform. I've actually been using a $5 replacement app, Alternate, and moving my Evernote text notes back to nvALT synced through Dropbox.

Evernote, please, I do not want:

\- Work Chat

\- Headlines from Business Insider

\- To be CONSTANTLY BUGGED TO UPGRADE

That's the biggest thing. I'd love to give Evernote money, if I knew I was going to get left alone. Instead, all the Evernote Premium members I know are _still_ bugged to upgrade and get all these stupid, useless features thrown at them that they don't want.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you. I am a middle tier ($25/year) user and I eschue the Mac app and just use the web interface.

I filed a bug report last week on getting too many nags to use new features. On my Android phone, saying NO to using a new feature did not prevent many new nags about the same feature.

It is this nagging that might convince me to not renew my yearly service when it expires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Evernote has me hooked on cross device persistent notes. And I will change to the first quality alternative that lets me import my existing notes from Evernote.

Evernote still can't handle even simple non-overlapping changes on two devices. Every time I close my laptop I have to wonder if changes were synched. Especially embarrassing because superb open source code is already available for conflict resolution (git, for example).

EDIT: someone should write a notekeeping app built on github.

<comment><USER12> The thing I've become hooked on and am desperately trying to find a replacement for (just in case) is the functionality that adds a checkbox to a text file which can then be searched for with the todo: search parameter. For example "notebook:Pdcast todo:unfinished" will show me notes with things I still need to do (any unchecked todo checkbox will mean the note appears in that search)

I realise there's a billion and one todo apps out there, but being able to combine my ramblings and 3am thoughts with an in-line todo system is the killer feature for me. I think the next notes app that supports this will have to be a self-hosted option

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure that you could do that with org-mode…

<comment><USER12> Interesting and thanks for the heads up but I don't believe I'm quite compatible with that software. I guess I'm also looking for usable-at-3am features, web accessible, phone accessible (currently iOS), centralized or at least synchronised, and the only feature Evernote doesn't seem to provide - backup-able files/database

CLI, Linux.. emacs (!). I'm not sure I could manage to grasp emacs during the middle of a really good day much less a quick note at night

<comment><USER14> How much would you be willing to pay for this software? Available on all desktop and mobile platforms, with flawless synchronization and ridiculously good search capabilities?

<comment><USER12> How much are you asking? Evernote's pricing plans and features work for me, I'm looking for a viable alternative in case it vanishes.

Picking up some sarcasm in your comment, could you ask the questions or make the statements you're hinting at and I'll be happy to discuss!

<comment><USER14> Thank you for your reply.

No sarcasm in my statement at all. For the past several years, I've been looking for a personal knowledge management application that would work for me and now I'm seriously thinking about just writing it because I can't find one.

I'll probably write one even if I can't make a business out of it, because I need it. I'm also curious about the business potential and have been asking people in my personal network.

Evernote's pricing seems like a good benchmark - I heard that from several people already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Evernote is such a great idea and in its early stage, it showed a lot of promise as the "trapper keeper" of all things digital. But as time went on, the client became bloated and there were weird products like Evernote Food that were pushed on users.

I'm still using it for certain parts of my work, and I'm increasingly frustrated with the pop ups in the application every few days to upgrade to Evernote Premium.

Someone is going to make a product that looks a lot like Evernote that's going to succeed. But I think Evernote's best days are behind it.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget Evernote Market, where you can buy - for unknown reasons - <USER2> purple business socks from Evernote. Talk about losing focus if you have too much VC money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Big recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10299642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10299642) (448 comments)

</comment><comment><USER18> Did anyone else notice the recent Evernote update in Mac's App Store have a lot of suspicious positive reviews? Most of them were by accounts that had only submitted that one review.

When you compare it to the reviews of their past updates and the fact the current update just fixes minor bugs, their image improvement campaign seems a little over the top.

<comment><USER19> Wasn't really suspicious - there was a call-to-action at the top of the app to help Evernote by leaving a review (the reviews help their app store optimization).

There are a lot of die hard Evernote advocates out there that'd be happy to.

<comment><USER20> Holy hell. Today I learned that "appstore optimization" is a real thing...

<comment><USER21> It's not just a real thing… it's big business. Entire companies exist around it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> All I need is a good web clipper like evernote's Clearly, so that I can directly save cleaned webpage to a .doc file in a Dropbox folder. Still can't find one.

Also, why dropbox does not create a simple note taking app, just save notes to a dropbox folder?

<comment><USER23> If you don't need it to be a .doc, Google chrome allows you to save webpages to PDFs just by going to file > print[0] and it works quite well. The Evernote clipper worked pretty well IIRC, but either way you will have to edit the markup a bit to get the results on a very cluttered page. In a pinch though, chrome does a great job if you don't want to have evernote simply to clip pages.

[0][http://www.labnol.org/software/save-web-page-as- pdf/21153/](http://www.labnol.org/software/save-web-page-as-pdf/21153/)

<comment><USER24> I generally avoid Chrome, but I'll give that a try. I hope it works better than my experiences with both Safari and Firefox on OS X.

Those browsers have long supported what is mentioned in your linked article:

       File -> Print -> PDF -> Save as PDF

However, it's very hit-and-miss of what results you'll get. About 80% of pages come out fine, but the remainder can be quite awful. And it's unpredictable which browser will do better on any given page. At the least, you'd expect results to match printing to paper, but sometimes even that doesn't happen. Safari has a Reader View that produces good results, but I don't think very many websites support it.

Unfortunately, certain websites go out of they way to prevent us from saving them to PDF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't know if these recent articles will turn out to be the death toll for Evernote. Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this point, Evernote could pretty much do anything and still nobody on this thread would be convinced they are doing it right.

Another thing that I never liked about evernote is their API is perhaps the worst API I have ever encountered. Thrift should never be used for external APIs, period. [0]

[0]: [https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-poorly-written- APIs/answ...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-poorly-written- APIs/answer/Abhay-Rana?shared=1)

</comment><comment><USER26> It's interesting to me that EN is apparently in deep trouble partially because of buggy feature releases. Three days ago I wrote this comment in response to the last article about EN:

I wonder if they're experiencing feature creep because they've satisfied users of the core features. I use a program called Devonthink Pro according to this method: [http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002...](http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000230.html) and in some respects my use hasn't changed that much. I use syncing features and some other pieces, and maybe the engine has gotten a little better over time, but mostly I do what I did with it 10 years ago.

I wrote a little more about DTP here: [http://jakeseliger.com/2010/11/12/scrivener-or-devonthink- pr...](http://jakeseliger.com/2010/11/12/scrivener-or-devonthink-pro-with-a- side-of-james-joyces-ulysses-2/) , though I understand that some people use Evernote differently than DTP.

Mostly it seems to me that DTP is very close to "feature complete," for lack of a better term.

<comment><USER27> How does the sync between machines work, in your experience?

I know it wouldn't work for a lot of people, but I myself keep looking at switching from Evernote to "DevonThink Pro Office" because I would be OK with going Mac-only to get reliability.

(I know Devon has an iOS app, but my understanding from their own forums is that the iOS app is basically garbage, and the users are all basically waiting for Devon's rewrite that has been in progress for years; is that right?)

I do need it to reliably sync 500,000 items across multiple computers though, even if they are all Mac. Last time I checked, that didn't really work, the sync was a hack built on top of Dropbox and it had tons of problems. Do you use that and has it improved?

<comment><USER26> _How does the sync between machines work, in your experience?_

Not that well. For me it's not a huge issue: I use an iMac as my primary machine and keep that as the primary database / state. If I end up doing a lot of work on a MacBook, I manually copy from it to the iMac.

 _I do need it to reliably sync 500,000 items across multiple computers though_

Probably it's not for you! I think you can get a free trial, though, and test it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A great example of why the "number of users" metric is being overvalued. Until there is a solid, proven and scalable business plan to translate usage to revenue the $100 per user standard valuation shouldn't apply.

<comment><USER29> Maybe for late stage investors, but if you applied that strategy as an early stage consumer investor you would have missed almost much every big hit (FB, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc).

<comment><USER30> Twitter is a dubious hit. It's wildly popular, but its profits are very unimpressive, to say the least.

<comment><USER29> $20B market cap. You could argue it should be $10B, but 'dubious hit' for an early stage investor is ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's striking to me that here on HN, where there's rarely anything approaching consensus on software user satisfaction (IMHO), evernote is being roundly blasted. These feelings weren't formed in 2015 (I've been disappointed by it for years), and yet they continued to let it fester. (Shruggy guy)

</comment><comment><USER32> If you need note syncing, use Simplenote. Evernote is almost certainly overkill for what most people want.

</comment><comment><USER33> I heard this a lot: Evernote sync-ing is buggy. Could someone point to me how to implement a good cross-device sync-ing algorithms? Or is it perhaps just as simple as using object version based on timestamp?

I've never done this before so I have no clue how easy/hard it is to implement one.

<comment><USER34> The gold standard right now is operational transformation:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_transformation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_transformation)

But this requires that you capture every edit, which (I think) makes it more complicated than classical merging techniques which just work on whole documents as input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was a longtime user of evernote but recently gave up. The webclipping tool was phenomenal but the notetaking interface was so and so (their desktop app was also poorly built which made things worse). After awhile, onenote took care of my notetaking needs and pocket of my linksaving needs.

I think this was a great part of why evernote faltered. They just became a repo/dump of user crap. People didn't care to engage with the platform and therefore did not care to find out what extra value it could give them, thus preventing them from converting to paid users.

<comment><USER36> Were you able to import your Evernote notes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I tried to use EverNote to study scanned books in TIFF format. It was painful, it wasn't able to import 50,000 pages and apply OCR. I eventually wrote script using Tesseract and a web app similar to Google Books. I could take notes on the sides of the pages and the collect them by tags.

Now I use Skim for Mac to take notes form PDF files.

</comment><comment><USER38> Actual headline: "The inside story of how $1 billion Evernote went from Silicon Valley darling to deep trouble"

Current: "Evernote is in deep trouble" (overly strong, imo).

Also, I don't think the article supports very well the "deep trouble" description. It sounds like the company has plenty of money and continues to grow.

<comment><USER39> That doesn't seem like that big of a difference to me. In fact, I'd say the actual headline is more hyperbolic. _The inside story of how $1 billion_ is specifically written to cause people to click the link.

<comment><USER38> I Guess that's true. "Deep trouble" to me suggests the company is running out of money and in somewhat dire straits. Which I don't believe to be the case at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What alternatives are people using for Evernote that support more than just text?

The main draw Evernote has for me is the ability to attach an arbitrary number of files to a note, add some additional text or a useful title, and then search on those notes across iOS and OS X devices. I've been increasingly frustrated by how buggy and complicated Evernote has gotten so I'd be happy to try alternatives that might be out there.

<comment><USER41> I use OneNote, it seems to be pretty decent. Mostly I use it for bookmarking web pages and writing quick notes across devices. I'm not in the Apple club, but I have heard that it has decent clients for OSX, and the web interface in Office365 is not bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Products like this come and go. I don't know what the value of Evernote is. I've never been a power user. I prefer using Kippt ( sadly, also shut down ) + OS X Notes + Chrome's bookmarks + Google docs + Dropbox.

Doesn't feel like a company doing something so specialised can expect a real growth out of a product that isn't remarkably well done.

<comment><USER43> While it sounds like your solution works for you, don't you think there's room in the market for one app that does all that?

One of the ways of providing value is to do nothing particularly unique, but to combine several things into a unique workflow.

The fact that you use 4 different services plus one that's been shutdown suggests to me someone else might want that functionality without the trial and error of figuring it all out and setting it all up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> From the article: "last year, TechCrunch pegged the company's revenue at around $36 million, and while revenue has increased, we've heard the numbers are still short of internal expectations"

So Evernote is valued at more than 27x revenue??

<comment><USER36> Not a big multiple for a supposed growing company. Phil Libin said it takes on average of 40ish months to convert a free to paid user, that's harsh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I lost my entire Evernote notebook once. After that, I've been exporting notes manually once every month. Dropbox focused on making their "sync" and app rock solid, Evernote didn't. It's that simple.

</comment><comment><USER46> I switched to evernote when I switched to a Mac, but I never liked it much and it crashes frequently. Due to the 'switching hassle', I never got around to switching back to Onenote when it came out on Mac.

</comment><comment><USER47> Wrong motives (trying to be a cool company) plus wrong incentives (billion dollar evaluation and lots of cash to burn) leads to wrong focus and feelings of invincibility.

</comment><comment><USER48> They missed the ship without dead simple bookmark service a.k.a Pocket !

</comment><comment><USER5> what's evernote again? I installed it once in 2012 out of curiosity, never used it or seen it again. Some type of note taking app?

<comment><USER29> [http://lmgtfy.com/?q=evernote](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=evernote)</comment></comment>


Getting to Grips with LaTeX - <AUTHOR> http://www.andy-roberts.net/writing/latex

<comment><USER2> Handy! Thank you for posting this.</comment>