How the Bubble Destroyed the Middle Class - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/113086/bubble-destroyed-middle-class-marketwatch;_ylt=At4mPlCBilFtqaDeVWAOHkK7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE1YTVsNjl0BHBvcwM4BHNlYwN0b3BTdG9yaWVzBHNsawNob3d0aGVidWJibGU-?mod=bb-budgeting&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=

<comment><USER2> Here's what I find most interesting about what has happened to the middle- class in America:

When the middle-class in America was booming, you would have had to be crazy to leave America. Good job. Nice car. Family and a house? You're set! Why leave?

Another way of viewing what has happened in the US over the past 20 years or so, is that the US middle-class is falling back to earth. Now the average middle-class family in America could move to just about anywhere in Europe and enjoy a pretty similar lifestyle to what they currently have in the US. Sure, gas is still more expensive and clothing is still a bit pricy, but it's nothing like it was in the 80s and early 90s. (I still remember seeing electric razors advertised for the equivalent of $150 on my first trip to Germany when the equivalent model in the US would've cost no more than $50.)

Take that one step further, and the average American family could now potentially consider a move to one of the BRIC or CIVITS nations, and they would find themselves with only slightly less access to the luxuries they might expect in the US.

Why is this important? Because I think that for the first time in the history of human kind, we might just be reaching the point where the choice of where to live and work could be made based solely on things like the climate or the culture instead of on things like "Can I eat?" or "Will I have a roof over my head?"

That would be a world I would want to live in...

<comment><USER3> _When the middle-class in America was booming, you would have had to be crazy to leave America. Good job. Nice car. Family and a house?_

Lack of old culture? Lack of proper healthcare for everyone? Lack of decent unemployment benefits? Being stuck in your own little bubble? (No tastful bread? ;))

Do not misunderstand me, I do like the US for its nature and kind citizens. But many would never trade their life for a life in the US. Even if they were given the choice of a 'booming middle class life'.

<comment><USER4> _Lack of old culture?_

Your comment was kind, so please interpret this as a kind reply. When I used to interpret for official visitors to the United States from China, I could take them to a cemetery in the city of Boston where there are graves that were dug before the founding of the Qing Dynasty in China. Harvard University, for example, dates to the Ming Dynasty.

Similarly, here in the United States we use the ROMAN alphabet, a cultural survivor now more than 2,000 years old, and the Indo-Arabic decimal place- value numeral system (just as much of a new upstart in Europe as it is for any American), and Gregorian chant and other music that precedes the use of musical notation anywhere in the world. We have plenty of old culture here.

The United States also has new culture such as ragtime, jazz (various genres), blues, soul, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop music that compare favorably in the aggregate to traditional music from anywhere in the world, broadcast media and motion pictures that were largely invented here but now enjoyed around the world, and this cool thing called the Internet that links all of us together on Hacker News.

Your point is well taken. A lot of countries offer a lot of interesting lifestyle features. I would return to Taiwan (where I met my wife, and where I last lived a decade ago) at the drop of a hat. My oldest son is very interested in living in Norway, a land my ancestors left for Minnesota a century and a half ago. It's wonderful that more and more what country a person lives in is a matter of choice rather than solely a matter of birth. The trade-offs involved in living in one country rather than another involve many interesting incommeasurable issues.

<comment><USER3> _Harvard University, for example, dates to the Ming Dynasty._

I do not disagree that there are no traces of old culture. However, go to any random city in, say Europe, the middle east, or Asia. Chances are high that you will easily find artifacts from the roman age until now. Most of the US is new, in many cities you'll have to work hard to find something older than one hundred or two hundred years old. This is not a criticism, but many people appreciate cities and artifacts that are old ;).

Also, with respect to culture in the other sense, the difference is huge. US city centers tend to be boring (with notable exceptions such as New York), since much of the activity is in the outskirts, and are only reachable by car. Compare this to many other countries, where city centres are cramped with pubs, small theaters, etc, and people tend to hang around until the early morning. I liked some cities int this respect (e.g. Portland), but in comparison it's still a bit dull.

 _The United States also has new culture such as ragtime, jazz (various genres), blues, soul, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop music that compare favorably in the aggregate to traditional music from anywhere in the world,_

It's just marketed a whole lot better. E.g. I am into jazz mostly, and American musicians are the most well-known. But Europe had (and still has) a lively avant-garde scene, which was at least as progressive is the scene in the US. In Africa, mostly isolated and in parallel, what resembles modern jazz developed (e.g. check out the excellent Ethipiques series). One good example is Getatchew Mekurya from Ethiopia, who developed his own weird flavor of jazz, that sprung directly from traditional ethiopian music. Anyway, I digress. The rest of the world had thriving and progressive music scenes, but often failed to package is for mass consumption.

 _broadcast media and motion pictures that were largely invented here_

Are you kidding? Ever heard of Nosferatu, Battleship Potempkin, Le voyage dans la lune?

 _but now enjoyed around the world_

Hollywood movies are often looked down upon as superficial, but 'ok if you want something easy'.

 _and this cool thing called the Internet that links all of us together on Hacker News._

True, ARPAnet was invented in the US, but the 'interface' that we all use was invented by a Brit in Geneva ;). Sure, it had its precursors, but the point is, that in contrast to popular belief, the US did not bring us to modernism. It's a collective contribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate misleading graphs. First off, that graph should be logarithmic to show true changes in year over year percent terms (otherwise everything looks exponential in the long term) and secondly, the y-axis should extend to near the origin.

<comment><USER6> You will have to scroll a _long_ way to get near the origin on a logarithmic graph.

(Or, the two parts of you advice on how to enhance the graph are mutually exclusive, the origin on a logarithmic graph is at minus infinity.)

<comment><USER5> I specifically said "near" to avoid this heckle. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While this is interesting, I think it misses the fundamental issue, our (American) view of wealth. If people looked at a home as a consumable with nominal value, this wouldn't be a problem. The article hints at the core issue, middle class families have on average $100K in savings. If, instead of purchasing large houses out in the suburbs with large yards, they purchased something more modest and within their means, the house wouldn't be the center of their financial universe.

<comment><USER8> I do believe the article is spot-on about why there is no recovery from the crisis that actually reaches the population at large.

The headline is a bit misleading, however. It's not that the bubble destroyed the middle class. The bubble was a way for the middle class to continue living a happy life despite the fact that there income share was continually being reduced. Instead of consuming on income, they consumed on the housing bubble.

So it's not the bubble that destroyed the middle class - the article basically says so itself - it just delayed the inevitable and made the decline much more spectacular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know why people keep thinking class is about personal income.

Edit: this is relevant because their evidence that the middle class is shrinking comes in the form of a drop in the share of total income earned that accrues to the middle quintile, from 17% to 15%. That's an interesting result, but it doesn't really say anything interesting about the "middle class". In my book, if you have to go into work every day or you can't pay the mortgage, you're middle class. You have a job, you have secured debt, you own your home, and your income comes from employment. I will bet you that a much larger span of that spectrum, up to and including most of the top 5%, meet that description. Those at the top might be "upper middle" and enjoy a lifestyle that others envy, but that doesn't make them upper class.

<comment><USER10> Probably because class is about personal income.

<comment><USER9> No, it's not. It's certainly not about which evenly-spaced quintile you're in. It's about HOW you make your money, and what you spend it on.

Consider: do you really think everyone making 88K or more should be considered "upper class"?

<comment><USER10> I fail to see the relevance of how one makes one's money to the class discussion and 88k is an arbitrary number.

The classic "American Dream" lifestyle is typically defined as home ownership, two cars in the garage, three squares a day and sufficient disposable income to be able to comfortably afford to raise children and save for retirement.

So, assuming this works as a definition of "middle class", anyone not capable of all of the previous due solely to financial constraints is therefore "lower class".

Based on my experience, $120k annual household income in a low cost of living area barely squeaks over the bar if you use this metric. $175-$200k annual household income seems more realistic to me given the retirement clause.

Where the line gets drawn for "upper class" is harder to define, but I think we can all agree an upper class exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "off topic" But I cannot remember when was the last time that an article from yahoo.com got over 50 votes on HN !

</comment><comment><USER12> I really hate it when reporters use words incorrectly.

"And make no mistake, the middle class has been ruined: Its wealth has been decimated, " ... They only lost 10% of their wealth? That's not so bad. Oh wait, they mean completely destroyed, not decimated.

<comment><USER13> The writer and history buff in me loves that you have pointed this out. But I think the word "decimate" decoupled from its original meaning sometime between the fall of the Roman Empire and today.

<comment><USER14> As fellow history buff, I was fascinated to learn that decimation was used as recently as the 1930's. By Italy against Libyan tribesmen.

But, I agree with you decimate has long had alternative meaning of "destroy almost completely"

<comment><USER13> That is interesting. And it would make sense, given that 1930s Italy was run by a dictator who had a personal obsession with proclaiming himself the heir the Roman Empire. This is a fun tangent. And apologies to everyone else who's trying to stay on topic. This is why I love nested comment systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bullshit. If America had a great middle class, ordinary folk would go on vacation in the summer, not to the movies like they do now and have done for decades. In the US, movies come out in the summer; even Newsweek used to have a Summer Movies special. In Europe, they come out in November or December, when the weather's shit and there's nothing better to do.

<comment><USER16> Um, lots of families do BOTH of these things.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for leaving a comment. A lot of (pretty fascist, imho) people seem to have just down-voted me instead.</comment></comment></comment>


Reduce node_modules and long paths for ASP.NET 5 by 60% - <AUTHOR> http://www.ageofascent.com/reduce-node_modules-recursion-long-paths-asp-net-5/

<comment><USER2> This is timely for me. I'm really starting to try and push into the ASPNET5 / MVC6 space right now. I'm bumping up against walls left right and centre though.

I know they say it's too early to use and I'm doing it to myself, but I'm really enjoying all of the changes as well.

Trying to figure out how to use the best parts of MVC while also being able to pull in the best modern tools from other streams is a bit troublesome at the moment ... and from a 'business' standpoint may prove to be counter- productive.

Regardless, I'll give it a try and see what I learn.</comment>


You've been Yelped - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100201/youve-been-yelped.html

<comment><USER2> The first page was the worst human interest story I've read. It was structured as though we are to pity the business owner while thumbing our noses at Yelp.

For those who haven't read it, essentially the biz owner trolled yelp and then hunted down a critic, and was arrested for battery. Best line: _More than anything, she blamed Yelp._

Edit: If you read the rest of the article, it goes to a salon owner who actually gets it, and her business has benefited from it. Know your customers.

<comment><USER3> I especially like how she blames the cluttered mess on poor sales. Maybe poor sales are a result of a cluttered store!

<comment><USER4> My favourite bit was where she claimed she found his address and turned up at his doorstop to 'apologise', but was surprisingly antagonistic and violent when she got there.

Yeah, right, 'apologise', just admit you went crazy and intended to shout/beat him down.

<comment><USER5> > Accounts differ as to what happened next, but a struggle ensued.

I don't get why Sean C.'s version is more believable than Diane Goodman's, I don't know either of them and nobody else witnessed the event so how can any of us judge?

<comment><USER6> > I don't get why Sean C.'s version is more believable than Diane Goodman's

FTA: "Over the next few hours, she sent several more angry messages. She warned of a 'world of pain.' 'Goodbye pussy boy I will be contacting your employers,' she said."

Compare this with the story's quote of Sean C. : "TOTAL MESS"

Hers was not a proportional response.

[http://www.hulu.com/watch/12772/the-big-lebowski-world-of- pa...](http://www.hulu.com/watch/12772/the-big-lebowski-world-of-pain)

<comment><USER5> I understand that but why do we believe Sean C's side of the story? He could a bigger loon than she is, it takes two to make a fight.

<comment><USER6> > He could a bigger loon than she is, it takes two to make a fight.

He could be, but we have no evidence of that. Furthermore, she admits sending the messages.

It does not "take two" to make an assault.

<comment><USER5> > It does not "take two" to make an assault.

Actually it does :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Max Chafkin is a little bit late to the party on this one. Here's an LA Times story with most of the same details:

[http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/11/business/fi- lazarus1...](http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/11/business/fi-lazarus11)

I read it when JWZ pointed to it from his "I Hate Yelp" post:

<http://jwz.livejournal.com/1002269.html>

JWZ runs the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, and is "pretty sure" that he was in fact given a pay-to-play pitch for Yelp placement and review management.

For some very specific kinds of businesses --- the kinds unlikely to attract a constant stream of casual reviews --- Yelp has been useful to me. For restaurants and bars, it's less than worthless; "reviewers" clearly do make up random stories ("Publican serves O-Reida fries! Violet Hour serves well- liquor!").

In Chicago, we have LTH Forum. It is the polar opposite of Yelp. It is a PHPBB named after a specific Chicago Chinese restaurant that has completely owned up all the reputable food reviews in Chicago. It has no salespeople, makes no profit, is aggressively NOT SEO'd (LTH is never going to be the first hit for anything), appears to be layed out in PHPBB's default template, and is better than any other source of reviews in any city in the US. Every year it gives out awards (the LTH "Great Neighborhood Restaurants"), which --- again, this is a PHPBB site --- are hung in the windows of every restaurant that has received them.

You could never post a half-assed troll review on LTH and get anywhere with it. 15 people who'd been there and talked with the chef would write counter- reviews, and the moderator would probably strike your post. Someone needs to figure out how to scale _this_ model.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the comment. And sorry if it seemed late--that's one of the drawbacks of a monthly mag.

But it's also advantage since we have time to sift through these claims. I talked to a lot of business owners for this story and I was unable to find a single verifable instance of pay to play. All of these stories end up being hearsay. As I tried to convey in the story, the problems that Yelp creates for business owners are more complicated and more subtle. Like Google, Yelp is based on an algorithm that can make or break businesses and that is ever- changing and hard to understand. That's what is at the heart of most business owners' complaints.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for an interesting article.

I think some of the problem is just adjustment into a new medium. Those of us who have been net-savvy for a while know how to read reviews - I am pretty confident we can all tell an irrational impossible-to-please customer from their bad review, as opposed to a rational customer who genuinely had a poor experience. The problem is that some of these business owners are worried that a poor review from a crazy person will sink them - but I doubt that is the case, if they respond in a calm, rational manner.

I encourage people to read through to the later example of the salon owner. Even if the owner had not caused the unhappy customer to up their review rating, I think I, as a potential customer, would have been capable of not placing much weight on 1 bad review out of 30 good ones.

<comment><USER7> Take a restaurant where, upon walking in, you can see the chef --- a bona fide celebrity, for what it's worth --- individually peeling potatoes over a bucket for the fries, which are to be fried in pure duck fat.

Now tag that restaurant with a review saying "I went to this place with my husband last week and it was VERY disappointing. The prices were very high, they were all out of the dish I wanted to order, the service was bad, and they served me O'Reida food service fries".

This isn't just an adjustment. On LTH, your comment would be buried under those of reputable people setting you straight. On Yelp, I found a substantially similar review on the first page of results.

<comment><USER9> Right, but presumably the owner can reply with "For the record we only use hand-cut fried cooked in duck fat" to that review?

I am not insensitive to the point, that an individual customer may be poorly placed to be a reliable critic, but I am not sure what the solution is besides somebody with a yelp-type service providing an infrastructure that lets everybody have their say. Not every sector in every town will have an editorially controlled forum for high-quality recommendations.

As a point of interest, do you for example object, say, to tripadvisor as well, or is it something that yelp does in particular?

<comment><USER7> Yelp is a user-generated content company (meaning: unpaid contributors are doing the lion's share of the value creation) with heavy SEO optimization and little quality control, _and_ a business model that extracts money from business owners.

Their incentives are all out of whack. They profit by dragging eyeballs to non-authoritative content they didn't write, and then scaring businesses with it.

<comment><USER10> Hear hear.

I'm not a yelp user, but the other problem that occurs to me is the anonymity.

Of course you have user profiles, but you can't (easily) track a review back to a human being, which is why this was such a shock to the reviewer in the magazine article when it actually happened.

The businesses stand there naked and the reviewers can take little potshots at them behind the screen of anonymity. No wonder some people go a little crazy.

If yelp made reviewers less anonymous, such as stating where you work, maybe this would be less of a problem.

At least bad reviews would probably be polite and dignified rather than outright nasty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Overall, I thought it was an excellent article. It had a good "hook" up front with the slightly crazed store owner, and then led into a pretty good description of Yelp's impact on businesses. As a frequent Yelp contributor, and reader, I'd say that 95-99% of reviews are honest, forthright, and make an attempt at some kind of balance. I'm actually quite impressed at how effective Yelp is at keeping both the trolls and shill reviews off their site.

The downside of the Yelp "Anti-Shill" algorithm is that it does to tend to have a lot more false positives than false negatives. As a result, infrequent, or new Yelp reviewers will typically have their reviews dropped off the site, or not appear to accounts other than theirs - New Yelp reviewers may not be aware that their Yelp reviews may appear to their logins, but not to others.

The foundation of Yelp, of course, are the "Elite" reviewers - They are the equivalent of the "Wikipedia Admins" - by themselves, they are obviously fallable. As a group, you can trust them - particularly the best of the best - someone like [http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=P5bUL3Engv-2z6kKohB6...](http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=P5bUL3Engv-2z6kKohB6qQ) is more trustworthy than any restaurant critic you've ever read in the NYT. I can attest his credibility is untouchable, and, with Yelp, you can get a _dozen_ reviews by people like him of high-profile places.

Is Yelp Perfect - No. Have they had salespeople (typically teenagers or people in their early twenties) say things on the phone during cold calling that they shouldn't have? Absolutely. Do they maintain a pretty damn good wall between Sales and Advertising/Services - Nowadays, yes. I don't know if that was _always_ the case, but I don't have any strong evidence to the contrary. Just rumor and innuendo. Regardless, they are a pretty upstanding act these days.

I'd be interested if anyone has any real evidence of poor behavior lately? I think this is more like Mark Pincus's speech that "when you are small, and struggling, you do all sorts of things that you'd rather not do - Just so you can get to a stage _where you don't have to do those things_ anymore."

I think Yelp is now at that stage.

</comment><comment><USER12> Max (the article's author), I saw that you're posting in the thread. Reading the account on the first page, the bookstore owner sounds troubled. She won't clean her store, and when someone leaves (what I think is) a review with valid criticism, she responds with vitriol. Considering her prior behavior and the fact that the authorities sided with him, I'm inclined to believe Clare's account of the altercation. I don't always cede to the authorities. But considering that the stereotypes were stacked _against_ Clare - male, younger - I bet the cops who interviewed the two decided that Goodman was unhinged.

Others here have the same impression. So, two questions. Why did you decide to lead the story with her? And are your conclusions regarding her behavior similar to ours?

<comment><USER8> Thanks Scott. I led with her because I think the incident, while extreme, is a vivid illustration of the way that Yelp (and not just Yelp, but all online review sites) is making business owners feel. This owner is not the first or the last to take criticism personally and respond without thinking.

As to your second question, I don't think anyone thinks that the the owner's actions were reasonable. (As I say later I the story, she feels terrible about what happened.) Sean C.'s review was negative, but not overwhelmingly so. And whatever someone says on a review site, I think that everyone has a right to privacy.

<comment><USER13> Doesn't she know she can just become a "Yelp! Sponsor" and have the offending reviews removed?

My whole Yelp account was banned for calling out a local restaurant owner for being so psycho that he made my date cry. It was a mighty coincidence that my account ban and deleted reviews coincided with his shit-hole restaurant deciding to sponsor Yelp.

But I'm sure Yelp has excuses. Maybe I didn't log in frequently enough, or they thought because my experience was so out-there that it must be fake. Either way, I'll never trust or use Yelp again. It's pay for play all the way.

<comment><USER14> That sponsorship costs $300/month. That's a lot of money for many small businesses and can easily push a business that's barely scraping by in this economy into the red.

And I don't know about you, but I get angry when I think of people trying to extort $3600/year from me. It is my business - not theirs. Yet somehow I'm the one getting my wallet picked.

<comment><USER13> My bad, cynicism is not easy to convey via text.

To be clear, businesses are not supposed to be able to remove _any_ review from the site. Yelp makes a big deal about claiming that they don't let businesses, even Yelp Sponsors, remove negative reviews. That being said, I know first-hand that they do remove negative reviews, so... fuck Yelp, I guess.

I'm angry too that Yelp pits businesses against customers for profit while claiming to be an unbiased source. Just the fact that it's even possible for a business to "sponsor" an "unbiased" review site should set off a lot of red flags.

Just ran a search on "yelp unbiased" and this popped up: [http://ask.metafilter.com/142694/Yelp-sucks-I-need- unbiased-...](http://ask.metafilter.com/142694/Yelp-sucks-I-need-unbiased- reviews-Help)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of the AppStore. You write an App. You publish it. A few weeks later somebody make the first "review": 1/5 stars + a comment "Total crap" without any explanations...

You have no possibility to contact this person, no way to delete the review. Sales are down. You can forget the app.

Ce la vie.

<comment><USER7> Now imagine that Apple threw regular parties for the people who wrote those troll reviews, and you have Yelp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Summary of first page:

* Woman encounters a problem.

* She reacts angrily instead of intelligently.

* She is surprised when the problem gets worse instead of better.

* Yelp is bad.

<comment> brown9-2 To be fair, there are then four more pages to this article which focus on Yelp and it's growth and impact and have nothing to do with this woman's story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> _The company was, literally, conceived over lunch and funded -- to the tune of $1 million -- by dinnertime._

Interesting. There's more on page 3 in case you didn't read that far.

<comment><USER18> I really couldn't read it past the first for the same reason as everyone else, the account was just annoying to read. Not sure if it was intended but it seemed to sympathize with a crazy person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Business owners need to keep this in perspective. Most people have never heard of Yelp. I had not before I read this. The more you react to what somebody posts in an anonymous forum, the more you call attention to it.

<comment><USER20> As a small business owner who could find himself on Yelp, I can somewhat sympathize with some of the owners (although not the woman in the article, she just seemed nuts. A much more appropriate thing would be to contact the negative reviewers and try to learn how to make her store better).

The problem with Yelp is probably the search rankings. Chances are, Yelp has higher PageRank than some local company, and when someone search for "company name" on Google and Yelp reviews come up, it could harm their reputation.

While most people haven't heard of Yelp, they could easily find unfair negative reviews of your company easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _By Max Chafkin | Feb 1, 2010_

Wow, news really travels fast on this site! Can anyone find the Apple Tablet announcement somewhere on the future-web? I'd love to know what it looks like.

<comment><USER22> Random association, but my first experience of this was comic books. When I was younger, I remember that the date on the book was always way ahead of when I bought it.

I bet this goes back to some weird print/magazine marketing thing: more current = more better.

<comment><USER23> If I remember my 2000AD days right, I think the date was when the newsagent should remove the comic from the shelves, more like a sell-by date than a published-on time.

<comment><USER24> Correct. I raise my LRD to you, Sir.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> does anyone have a business that is featured on Yelp? If so, do they offer any buisness centric tools. Like get satisfaction, where they encourage a dialogue between owner and client rather than one sided posts? If not, maybe some companies would be willing to pay for that kind of ability...

<comment><USER8> They offer a bunch of tools. and they've gotten a lot better at being sensitive to business onwers. Owners can respond to negative reviews, either publiclly or privately. (Later in the story, I talk about a hair salon that has done a really awesome job managing its Yelp reviews by being fanatical about responding.) The difficult issue is that the interests of business owners and those of Yelp will never align perfectly. If they did then Yelp would essentially be useless to its readers. (The tension is similar to how some companies feel about GetSatisfaction.)

<comment><USER25> Good info, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think it's interesting how /personally/ business owners take feedback. Especially at first, I know my stomach churned rather unpleasantly when I got even a mildly negative review. It's hard not to take it personally.

But how you end up handling that, I think, is super important. In my space, it's pretty easy to say "Oh, I'm sorry, would you like a refund?" First, taking responsibility for the problem, and then offering to refund what the customer paid seems to disarm even the most vocal critics. I mean, you don't usually get to keep the customer, but they usually stop saying bad things about you.

But really, being 'just a guy' is a little bit of a double-edged sword. you want to be 'human' enough that you seem like a person and not some faceless corporation, but you also need to maintain enough emotional distance that you respond in a polite manner (or don't respond at all) when someone insults the 'baby' you have spent the last 5 years of your life working on.

</comment><comment><USER11> I actually went to the email thread from the store owner - ([http://www.flickr.com/photos/44269394@N06/sets/7215762259508...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/44269394@N06/sets/72157622595083993/)) - I can see why the police tended to believe the customer, and not the store owner. While I recognized that "tone" doesn't carry well in email, I'd be seriously concerned for my welfare if the person who had written those missives showed up at my door one day...

"Do you not have a girlfriend? Are you divorced? I can see why...." , "world of pain", "Goodbye pussy boy and I will be contacting your employers", and on, and on...

Yowsa!

</comment><comment><USER27> Sure, the bookstore owner was a psycho, but there are huge problems with Yelp --namely, that if a store/restaurant isn't the kind of thing somebody likes, he posts a 1-star review.

"This used book store isn't Barnes and Noble! DO NOT GO HERE IT IS SMALL AND HAS OLD BOOKS"

"This corner bar is not a dance club, I could actually hear my friend talking to me. Plus the bartender didn't give me and my friends free drinks for acting like sluts, BARTENDER IS GAY AND THE BAR IS BORING"

"This restaurant serves Korean food! I like Chinese food! One star!"

<comment><USER28> I would instantly disqualify all of those reviews while reading them, even subconsciously. So either 1) I am smarter than Yelp users, or 2) the lame reviews are actually more subtle and believable, or 3) this just isn't a big issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish that there was a reviews co-operative that didn't have draconian terms- of-use.

Maybe you even get a share of the advertising profit based on the helpfulness of the reviews you write?

</comment><comment><USER30> My first thought was that the company might be mismanaged. It may be just going through growth pains. The concept seems innocent enough. It sounds like what is needed is is a filter that keeps both sides of the discussion civil and warnings that "this post may be archived" with the appropriate reason so that no one is left guessing.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think there must be already a service offering everyday good reviews on any selected website like Yelp. For business owners it would be a better brand management tool and probably the least expensive.

</comment><comment><USER32> Sounds like that business owner Yelped herself!</comment>


$30 for a new release movie at home? Studios think you'll pay - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/09/movie-studios-in-talks-over-30-film-releases-via-cable.ars <comment><USER2> I'd pay $30. There's nothing romantic about waiting in an hour-long lineup at the multiplex for the opportunity to cram yourself into a crowded theater and watch a half-hour of commercials and trailers.</comment>


What's stopping Elon Musk from becoming Tesla's largest franchisee? - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure there's a simple answer to this but I haven't been able to find it. What's stopping Elon from opening up another company that happens to become Tesla's largest franchisee. Opening dealerships across the US and selling to consumers in states where laws forbid Tesla as a company from selling directly to the customer? <comment><USER2> dangrossman, in one of the other Tesla threads here on HN, answered a question of why Tesla can't just set up dealerships themselves. The rest of this post is a direct copy of dangrossman's response at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7490837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7490837) \- upvote that, not my ability to copy&paste:

Because, under the same state laws, that's illegal as well.

"It shall be unlawful for any franchisor to ... acquire any interest in any motor vehicle dealer in this state ... or to use any subsidiary corporation, affiliated corporation, captive finance source or any other controlled corporation, partnership, association or person to accomplish what would otherwise be unlawful conduct under this article"

\-- NY Vehicle and Traffic Laws, Article 17A, Franchised Motor Vehicle Dealer Act, S 463 Unfair Business Practices by Franchisors

There'd be little point to having the rest of the law on the books if it were so easy to work around.

Note that "franchisor" as defined in that law includes all manufacturers, whether they sell franchises or not. IANAL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> because Tesla is a battery company... which is far more lucrative than building an electric car only rich people can drive..</comment>


Smartphone sales fall for the first time, says Gartner - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/smartphone-sales-fell-for-the-first-time-ever-in-q4-apple-samsung-gartner/ <comment><USER2> Or perhaps more positively, "e-waste production falls".

It's not surprising that the market would reach a saturation point; manufacturers are running short of ideas to improve their products, and even starting to resort to _removing_ features.

Especially in the low-end/unbranded smartphone segment, I've noticed newer models aren't actually getting better. Several years ago they practically all had removable batteries, microSD, dual SIM, and a full complement of sensors; now it's nearly impossible to find such a complete combination anymore --- they're all missing one or two things.

<comment><USER3> I've even considered ditching my smartphone entirely here and there. I'm not convinced its utility outweighs its use as an ad-driven anxiety rectangle constantly vying for my attention. Combined with the steady loss of features, I'm wondering if this decide is really a tool or a burden. Something to ponder, I suppose.

<comment><USER4> Turn off all notifications. Delete all non-tool apps; you know, the apps that want you to spend time in them. Keep only the tool apps.

You won't spend 30 minutes scrolling through your navigation app, or your music app, or through the pictures you made, or looking at the weather forecast, or...

These are all very useful features. I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

<comment><USER5> The Galaxy S8* has a "Do Not Disturb" mode which allows you to whitelist contacts for incoming calls and messages, and apps that can create notifications.

It's meant to be a temporary setting, like to turn on while in a meeting or while sleeping, but I have it set to run 24 hours a day, only allowing people in my "favorites" to call me, everyone in my contacts list to message me, and only allowing notifications from a couple apps.

I just set it up a week ago, and I absolutely love how little I'm bothered by my phone now, including no more calls from bots, which I was receiving around 4-6 times a day.

* I assume most recent Samsung equivalents have this feature as well. My S6 had it.

<comment><USER6> I often see complains about mail or bots spamers. But I don't get why? I use smart phone several years and rarely has a random phone call from an unknown number, which real person on the other site. And I never got call from bots.

Could you share your experience about bot phone calls? What in it for them?

<comment><USER5> You seem to have been down-voted. Wasn't me.

Just like email spam, I assume there's enough benefit to be worth the cost, which is far less than it used to be now that, much like the transition from physical mail to email, a computer can do the calling for very little cost or effort.

I used to get a a few random spam calls from people a week, and still do from time to time. They're generally trying to sell me something; trying to ask for my vote; trying to convince me that I'm in trouble for one thing or another and I should give them some personal information or money to get out of it.

As for being called by bots, if I answer and I don't hear a human voice within a second or two, then I assume a computer just dialed me. It might play me a recording; It might connect me with a human. Regardless, it was a bot that called me to begin with, and I've no interest in speaking with or waiting for the unsolicited demands of computer programs.

I used to be able to keep a list of numbers to block with whatever dialer app I was using, but it's gotten incredibly easy for these spammers to spoof numbers. The big trend in the past couple months seems to be to use numbers that have the first six or seven numbers of my full ten-digit phone number. So if my number was 444-555-6666, I'll get random calls throughout the day from 444-555-6777. It's obvious when I see the number - especially since my number is from a city I haven't lived in since 2012 - but harder to block via standard phone apps.

This is why the white-listing of a "Do Not Disturb" mode better suits me.

As for why I get so many spam calls, it's hard to say. I've had this number for almost 20 years. I'm sure it's been sold and resold for pennies hundreds of times. I'm sure it's also on plenty of database dumps from various hacks as well. No matter, switching numbers seems to be more hassle than it's worth. I assume whatever new number I get would be just as bad.

What I _really_ want is for phone numbers to become obsolete. Just a random UUID that means "Call / Text / Message enobrev" in someone else's device, where I can maintain a whitelist of who can connect to my devices to talk / chat / etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The overall rate of growth declined, but from the article: "For the full year, smartphone sales increased 2.7 percent to 1.5 billion units"

This really seems like we're just hitting a saturation point in terms of physically putting these in people's hands. From that stat, we're talking about 20% of humans in the known universe getting a new smartphone in 2017. Some significant chunk of them probably handed their phone down to someone else (or sold it), some much smaller percentage went from a feature phone to a smartphone and a big chunk of people just held onto their current phone because it does what it needs to do and smartphones are becoming a mature market.

<comment><USER8> Relatedly, a lot of carrier-based phone subsidy systems seem to have expired in the last couple of years. At this point, consumers are (mostly) bearing the full brunt of direct device cost, and a lot more consumers are taking market costs into account with replacement timing.

The 1-2 year replacement era seems to be at its end, and I think we're likely looking at a time where people replace phones more in line with desktop/laptop purchase cycles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Smartphones today are good enough for most use cases. New features are usually gimmicks or luxuries that one can do without.

<comment><USER10> That alone would already be a good reason to hold on to a phone until it breaks. And after Apple removed the headphone jack, I'm also keen to keep a phone that still has one.

<comment><USER11> I think the phone maker will using software to make sure your phone is beyond tolerant in 2-3 years.

<comment><USER10> You still have the option to not install that software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is definitely the first year where I have absolutely no interest in getting a new phone. I used to be able to do without an upgrade, stretching it. (I had an iPhone 4 about 6 years after release) But now I'm fine with an S7.

Seems like only cameras are worth upgrading for nowadays.

<comment><USER13> This is exactly where I'm at as well. I have a 6S (and a 6 for work) and, for what I use them for, there are plenty fast enough. I really wish the camera was better, and this will drive me to upgrade eventually, but there really isn't a phone on the market that I see and think, wow, I want that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's definitely pretty crazy. I wonder what this means for progress on connecting the "next billion". Also, I hope it comes as a signal to VC money to shift out of the era of low hanging "everyone has a smartphone" fruit.

The smartphone golden era may be coming to an end, pumped for whats next.

</comment><comment><USER15> Just looking at myself, I have a OnePlus3, launched mid 2016. It still feels like "my new phone", can't believe it is already 1.5 years old. Everything is just good enough and the thing is still blazing fast in everything it does. I got regular updates, it's on the latest android (for stock Rom users) and it was among the first batch of phones to be supported by LineageOS 15.1. I see no reason for a new phone in the near future. Before I always got the itch at about 2 years (ok, I did use mostly budget phones before like the Moto G), now I see myself easily on this phone for another 2-3 years.

<comment><USER16> I'm still rocking the original Oneplus One, with a Jan 2018 LineageOS installed.

I've been browsing stores to find a replacement phone since this one is getting older. Amazingly, I couldn't find anything vastly better in terms of screen, responsiveness and camera, even if I desperately wanted to justify a new toy. There are no new hardware features that OPO doesn't have.

All the apps that I want to run perform flawlessly. The camera is nearly on par with the OP5 camera, a phone specifically marketed on the camera quality (my wife has one so I could test it).

I ended up replacing the aging battery about a year ago, and continue using it.

<comment><USER15> I feel the same, will probably replace the battery at some point, feels good to do. In the same vein, I know people putting ssds in 2011 iMacs, thoroughly cleaning them and feeling like they have a new, modern computer again. It's a big win for sustainability. It's too bad that in this age, where hardware can live pretty long, repair-ability is at an all time low (not a coincidence no doubt).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Uh-oh. Smartphones finally took a nosedive.

> ...down 5.6 percent from the same period a year ago

I don't think "nosedive" means what this author thinks it does.

<comment><USER18> Someone's never managed a supply chain before

<comment><USER19> I would venture that most people here have never managed a supply chain before. Could you please share why instead?

<comment><USER20> There's an illustrative example in the UK right now.

A meat supplier called Russel Hume has just gone out of business and their product pulled from major chains.

Basically, they ordered meat according to their expected needs only to suffer a downturn in expected sales. So they cut future orders but had a glut of stock which they tried to use over an extended period. Meat has a lifetime associated with it. (Although it can be extended slightly if you pay for bacterial analysis to re-certificate it).

It appears Russel Hume pushed the margin too far.

That's what even a small downturn in your supply pipeline can do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm at "peak phone". I can't go to a dumb phone and I'm locked into apple and google's ecosystems, but I am underserved by them and actively working on moving away from them. I've been buying small computing platforms and testing out PCIe LTE modems as well as playing around with the LimeSDR LTE[1] networking getting ready for 5G mesh networking with the next model.

I want to carry a brick that I control in my backpack or pocket and use my own input and display devices[2][3]. I don't need another $1000 light up rectangle / digital leash. I haven't played a mobile game in years, none of the apps on my phone are increasing my enjoyment of the tool. Basically it's there for banking and so I can check Slack if if I'm running errands and something else happens.

I made the decision to start working on the DIY phone project when I found out the iPhoneX used the primesense depth camera on the front. It's 100% for more tracking and advertising stuff without any of the cool AR/Depth stuff that I want. Also potentially SUPER creepy social control when you have thousands of high detail copies of everyone's face because they posted them with goofy masks on them. As if the instagram to Deepfakes pipeline was too complicated. Then google mothballed Tango a couple weeks after I got a ZenPhoneAR.

The emperor has no clothes at this point. We don't need their phones and they don't want us to know it yet. I have a $300 Firefly[4] board that dual boots Ubuntu and Android and has HDMI in. I'm working on automating my control of an external iphone through HDMI and a hacked together capacitive touch overlay so I can control it with a mouse like stylus so I won't have to deal with the communication gap from iMessage being so wired up to my life. I'm pretty sure I can virtualize iOS or OSX with a bit of work to solve that problem too then just work on migrating out. There are starting to be very appealing X86_64 tiny computers like the LattePanda[5].

The walled media messaging garden between iOS and Android bugs the crap out of me. If I send someone a phone vid from iOS to android they get a thumbnail that looks like a 1996 RealPlayer DVD Rip.

I want an Ono Sendai but cooler, the tools are here now. Fuck the adslabs.

[1] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime- micro/limenet](https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limenet)

[2] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt- smart...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt-smart- glasses-announced-ar-video)

[3] [http://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/mobile-world- co...](http://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/mobile-world- congress-2017-new-bosch-microscanner-bml050-for-interactive-laser- projection-90624.html)

[4] [http://shop.t-firefly.com/goods.php?id=64](http://shop.t-firefly.com/goods.php?id=64)

[5] [http://www.lattepanda.com/](http://www.lattepanda.com/)

<comment><USER22> You are my spirit animal.

I think I've outlined a similar set of preferences myself, and this has been the on-the-road computing experience I've wanted to see for .... years? It's absolutely stubbornly resistant to happening.

I've been using an Android tablet for the past 2.5 years, and have absolutely hated it pretty much from the start. The best thing about it was Termux, but something (Memory management? App model? Hardware limitations? OS bugs?) keeps trashing that.

The apps ecosystem is abysmal. Arguably moreso on Android than iOS, for reasons I've iterated on G+.

The _hardware_ ecosystem, most especially for peripherals, is similarly abysmal. Apple, at least, having a small number of specified form-factors _has a set of offerings, specifically of folio-type keyboard-case systems, that work._ For Android, I find that such products _are specific to specific versions of a product_ \-- say, the Samsung Tab of a given size -- the folio keyboard case that fits one will _not_ fit others. This is beyond frustrating.

The _quality_ of those products is also exceedingly limited. Logitech have failed me and failed me badly.

(I _strongly_ discourage use of _either_ Samsung _or_ Logitech products based on my direct experience with products, support, and quality. Across multiple cases for both.)

Given (theoretically) wireless connectivity options, the notion of being able to carry:

1\. A vox handset.

2\. A mobile-capable display. Something that will fit into a backpack, messenger bag, or bike bag -- this does _not_ have to be pocketable and actually preferably isn't. Women (or men who carry them) may substitute a purse.

3\. Additional _locally managed_ storage. Multi-terrabyte storage is available in card-deck-sized form factors (or smaller). This fits somewhere within the bag above.

4\. A folio-style case (see illustration on link below).

5\. An integrated _full feature_ keyboard.

6\. Ideally some sort of trackpad / mouse interface as well. Touch-interface is too constrained. See click-vs-drag ambiguity mentioned here: [https://redd.it/5x2sfx](https://redd.it/5x2sfx)

7\. The ability to share work with a "real" system as well. I'm actually partial to Git-based, file-based synch, _not via some "cloud" system_. Problem of course being that several major applications, most notably browsers, handle this poorly.

8\. A full and real userland and Linux environment. I've tried the rest. This is the best.

I'm sure there's a global market for about five of these systems, but that's how IBM started in the 1950s.

One of my previous rants on this: [https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq)

And for the general problem of poor-quality mass-market products, the Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User:

[https://redd.it/69wk8y](https://redd.it/69wk8y)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > buying nicer feature phones

That's a thing? I grudgingly switched to a persistent surveillance device two years ago when the buttons fell off of my last feature phone and the new feature phones were enough worse that they were basically unusable.

<comment><USER24> I would love a feature phone with Facebook Messenger, rudimentary Google Maps, and no other features.

Honestly, if there's one that works I'd buy it tonight.

<comment><USER25> Google Authenticator is the only app I actually need, it's required to authenticate for a whole bunch of services at work. My employer paid my iPhone, and future upgrades, so it's their call, but I'd be just as happy with something like Nokia 104. Assuming that I could get an Google Authenticator app for it, my employer could save $1000+ every 18 to 24 month.

<comment><USER26> You can write a Google Authenticator script that works on your PC you know. It's about 20 lines of code. Also there are many freeware apps available for PCs.

<comment><USER27> Or you could use a Yubikey to store the secrets, and [https://github.com/Yubico/yubioath- desktop](https://github.com/Yubico/yubioath-desktop) on your desktop. That way you would still have a portable second factor, and it would be very very hard to extract the secrets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The new camera technologies are, for me at least, a reason to upgrade to the current generation. I'm going to grab an IPhone X along with some telephoto lenses for my wife so she can stop taking both her phone and DLSR camera on trips.

I agree that, in general, the reasons for upgrading your phone are less and less. I don't know how new that actually is though, I was using my first generation ipad until a couple of years ago; Apple kit tends to last forever and a lot of new features came in software upgrades. Same with the Nexus/Pixel series in Android world.

</comment><comment><USER29> Speaking for myself, I'm due to upgrade my phone - my contract is up, I have no balance owed - but I just don't see a need to. My phone is two and a half years old and it's hanging in there. It still calls, texts, browses and reads just fine. And the typically weakest link of all, the battery, is still holding a decent charge. I don't see any advantage to replacing it right now. I lost the comment, but someone else posted that they're at "peak phone" and I'm inclined to agree.

Edit: -redundancy

</comment><comment><USER30> Phones are feature-complete now.

The second iPhone was 10 times better than the first ones, but now you can hardly tell the difference.

</comment><comment><USER31> My Nokia N900 from 2009 still does all I want. Phone, xmpp, camera, video, calendar with CalDAV, web, email, sms, rss, ssh, emacs. Just ordered a new battery for 10 € instead of a new phone, because I had no idea why I should get a new device.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why on earth does CNET have autoplay videos?

<comment><USER33> Firefox has `media.autoplay.enabled` in about:config, so it's easy to turn it off globally.</comment></comment>


Using a Dyson hand dryer is like setting off a viral bomb in a bathroom - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/dyson-dryers-hurl-60x-more-viruses-most-at-kid-face-height-than-other-dryers/ <comment><USER2> My main grievance with Dyson dryers it that it's difficult keeping your hands in the little narrow gap while the jet is blasting your hands, without touching the sides. It kind of defeats the point if you end up touching the dryer.

It seems like a case of form over function.

<comment><USER3> Yep, but I found over time that I tense my arm muscles before going in and now can keep them fairly steady in the middle without touching. Call it a learning curve I guess.

<comment><USER2> I think it indicates a serious UX problem if users need to do something like that.

<comment><USER3> I agree. This is not vim, it's a hand dryer. User should be able to master it on the first use.

This can be fixed by measuring user's hand proximity to both sides and adjusting the air jet flow to keep their hand in the middle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This test was done with a hand dipped in a virus. When in real life this is only used after you wash your hands.

That doesn't seem like a very accurate test IMO.

Science.

<comment><USER5> The degree of dispersion should be the same, though, right? It's just that with a lower starting density you end up with a lower ending density. But the relative performance of the methods would still be valid.

<comment><USER6> if the starting density is insignificant, then the ending density is insignificant.

we expect hands washed in soap to be clean enough to handle food, so they damned well be clean enough to breathe nearby!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Exactly. This is an extreme - and ever more prevalent - illustration of why I don't use air dryers in public restrooms. It also bothers when they says it's done to help the environment. Even if that's true (unlikely, but it saves money and generates good PR), it just makes the environment and those in it dirtier, which probably doesn't help most people.

<comment><USER8> You can plant more trees. You can't un-burn the coal that spins the motor. (I wonder if there's a way of actually comparing the environmental impact, though).

<comment><USER9> Planting trees sequesters the CO2 that was emitted from the burning of the coal. Cutting trees down and turning them into paper that easily decomposes hastens the release of the previously sequestered CO2 back into the atmosphere, killing us all.

Every time you use a paper towel, you kill a puppy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So that's what's been causing people to drop dead after going to the bathroom!

</comment><comment><USER11> It should be illegal to have a restroom without paper towels (or equivalent).</comment>


macOS Kernel Extensions are officially deprecated - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/support/kernel-extensions/ <comment><USER2> Interesting.

The company I worked for and our competitor VMWare both had to create small kexts to enable on-the-fly capture of USB devices. We both accessed USB devices from user-space, but we needed to put small kexts in the kernel to prevent class drivers from being automatically attached to general USB devices. There was really no race-free user-space way of doing this and Apple ignored our messages on their dev forums when we asked for assistance.

I wonder if they've added an interface for this? Or maybe promiscuous USB device control just isn't going to be possible now?

<comment><USER3> If I'm correctly guessing that you might have worked on Parallels, thank you for one of the best programs I've ever used. So many nice delightful touches, like their autodetection of USB devices and asking if I want to use them with the VM or the native system. Without Parallels I could never have used a Mac as my main machine.

I've since moved back to Windows, but I hope Parallels might make a Windows version. The Windows competitors aren't as good as their Mac versions, and painfully slow compared to Parallels running on my ancient MBP 2012.

<comment><USER4> > on my ancient MBP 2012

I still do all my work on one, fast as the day I bought it.

<comment><USER5> Why can't someone slap the XNU api onto Linux and create a runtime system that permits Apple's UX frameworks/libraries to be used by Linux developers (who will create more performant apps that do incredible things while maintaining the look-and-feel of the Macs that we once loved)? As long as we're booting Linux on machines bought at their local mall outlet or online store, I don't see the legal problem. Maybe a new generation of managers at Apple would even cooperate with such a Linux distribution (something like A/UX of yesteryear)?

<comment><USER6> _Why can 't someone slap the XNU api onto Linux_

Probably because importing Mach messaging and VM APIs into the Linux kernel, and recreating IOKit and similar from scratch is a pretty major undertaking; the APSL isn't GPL-compatible, so using the existing XNU code and trying to make it fit into the Linux kernel isn't something that could ever be upstreamed. Aside from the fact that Linux's device model doesn't exactly map to IOKit well.

Then there are invariably plenty of assumptions that userland makes: launchd is probably assumed to have PID 1; all sorts of stuff like that.

Plus of course, there's the question of whether this would be inline with the EULA of Apple's userland…

There's always GNUStep if you want to write Cocoa apps in Objective-C on Linux. Somehow I have a feeling the APIs aren't what's been holding back Linux on the desktop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if this is the end of drivers for 3rd party PCIe/thunderbolt high performance NICs? I imagine that this may make Macs less viable for situations where having a reasonably high performance 3rd party NIC is important (eg, video editing).

Are there any details about DriverKit that are available?

I used to be a Mac driver developer ~10 years ago or so. I did one of the first 10G drivers for Macos, and MacOS performance was always terrible compared to Linux or BSD, but I can't imagine that moving it into userspace is going to help anything. MacOS boundary crossing (eg, syscall, ioctl, and Mach traps) performed even worse than their network stack as compared to Linux/BSD.

<comment><USER8> Yes, WWDC video

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/702/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/702/)

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/driverkit?language...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/driverkit?language=objc)

[https://developer.apple.com/system- extensions/](https://developer.apple.com/system-extensions/)

Regarding performance, on the other hand Linux/BSD still don't match macOS real time audio capabilities.

<comment><USER9> > Regarding performance, on the other hand Linux/BSD still don't match macOS > real time audio capabilities.

Got a source for that? I use a Debian machine for an audio workstation. I moved there from OSX and am using the same DAW and get less latency now. Especially because I can run a real-time kernel...

<comment><USER8> The source is what professional musicians get to use.

They don't have to customise their kernel on the newly bought Window/macOS laptop.

<comment><USER10> Your statement was that audio latency is lower on OSX compared to Linux, and you cannot back that up. We all know that the prevalence of Linux DAWs in the studios are low. But that would only be related to OSX having the lowest latency if latency was the only thing that ever mattered to professional studios. Which it's not.

<comment><USER8> Try to do the same with a standard Linux distribution kernel, without customisation.

<comment><USER11> Why? The goalposts you've erected are entirely arbitrary and unnecessary.

<comment><USER8> Because that is what regular users care about, they are not nerds compiling kernels to achieve what is supposed to be a factory enabled capability.

My point stands, macOS kernel doesn't need to be compiled from scratch to achieve that.

<comment><USER12> Ubuntu Studio doesn't need to be compiled from scratch to achieve it either..

The applications that most professionals involved in music and audio use don't run on Linux. And with most professionals the application and it's stable running is the key concern, the OS just facilitate the application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you want to know how much non-Apple kernel extensions you use, use "kextstat" and filter out com.apple. In my case, I only use Karabiner:

      % kextstat | grep -v com.apple
      Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
        185    0 0xffffff7f84cc0000 0x5000     0x5000     org.pqrs.driver.Karabiner.VirtualHIDDevice.v061000 (6.10.0) 4D004D1A-ED2F-3780-AD53-A10F286EC759 <51 6 5 3 1>
      %

<comment><USER14>
      Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
        109    0 0xffffff7f83eb3000 0x7000     0x7000     net.sf.tuntaposx.tun (1.0) 95DD963D-E23D-3B0F-8DE8-A4D2F6BFA5CC <8 6 5 1>
        110    0 0xffffff7f83eba000 0x7000     0x7000     net.sf.tuntaposx.tap (1.0) 23FDB715-3D0D-3A26-ACBA-E3794C231CB7 <8 6 5 1>
        111    3 0xffffff7f83ec1000 0xf0000    0xf0000    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (6.0.12) 79AB3317-5F6D-3FE0-965C-92E45277AA0D <8 6 5 3 1>
        112    0 0xffffff7f83fb1000 0x29000    0x29000    com.intel.kext.intelhaxm (7.5.1) D0CC7B8F-1F62-33B1-BE6B-B5573D2A607B <8 6 5 3 1>
        117    0 0xffffff7f84000000 0x8000     0x8000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (6.0.12) B1285DF7-2D17-3497-A948-40825951123A <116 111 54 8 6 5 3 1>
        180    0 0xffffff7f84964000 0x5000     0x5000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (6.0.12) C1B5DFEA-CB4C-30BD-9A92-C92391F7BDE0 <111 8 6 5 3 1>
        184    0 0xffffff7f84a2f000 0x6000     0x6000     com.valvesoftware.SteamInput (4357.73.42) 17B6ECD0-A50A-3D6A-B350-9C70805EE129 <44 6 5 3>
        191    0 0xffffff7f85b19000 0x6000     0x6000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (6.0.12) F8D3E46F-C4EA-397A-ACB1-EF2BF77C0506 <111 6 5 1>
        193    0 0xffffff7f85b2e000 0x6000     0x6000     com.getdropbox.dropbox.kext (1.10.3) F29DD0CB-48D6-311A-9B69-E39CF775493C <8 6 5 2 1>

\- Dropbox

\- Virtualbox

\- Tuntap for VPN

\- Valve controller support

\- Intel haxm for Android Emulator

<comment><USER15> Pretty insane for an application like Dropbox to use a kernel extension.

<comment><USER16> They use it in SmartSync, so files that are actually stored in the cloud and not physically on your local machine, are visible and selectable in the Finder and automatically downloaded on demand.

<comment><USER17> It would be great if there were some user-space support for this in next year's macOS release. I think it would be useful for a lot of cloud storage providers.

<comment><USER18> Apple previously added third-party sync integration points into the Finder to stop Dropbox from injecting into that process (when it was easier and Apple was locking it down). It's likely they do not want to break Dropbox and will try to support whatever it needs.

<comment><USER6> There is NSFileProviderExtension, but last I heard it was still a very immature API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Kernel programming interfaces (KPIs) will be deprecated as alternatives > become available, and future OS releases will no longer load kernel > extensions that use deprecated KPIs by default.

This is the key part, as presented during the WWDC 2019 talks, the long term roadmap is to make macOS into a proper mikro-kernel OS.

This is just the start.

<comment><USER19> Nothing about Xnu leads me to believe they are pursuing a _bona fide_ micro- kernel architecture. This doesn't really indicate anything in that direction either. They're just doing the typical Apple thing of enforcing a "one proprietary port, one licensed plug" policy.

<comment><USER20> We had a very serious performance issue resulting in crashes across our fleet of macs that was ultimately traced back to an endpoint security solution that was patching the kernel and doing dumb stuff.

These changes from Apple have forced this vendor to completely rewrite their product the right way.

<comment><USER21> I saw a rewrite of some functionality from a vendor (rhymes with mcafsee) as well. They decided to start running lsof to find open files. This can be excruciatingly slow and cpu intensive on macOS. It was running it near constantly effectively turning machines into beach ball render farms.

I suppose avoiding kernel panics is an improvement but let's be real: these enterprise vendors have always made shit software and rarely keep up with OS releases or updates. They're not about to change any time soon.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, but they are what causes OS vendor to actually do something about it.

Android now is requiring hardware memory tagging on ARM, Fortify by default, and Treble requires out-of-process for new drivers exactly because of the same kind of issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here's a text transcript from the WWDC 2019 session that gave an overview.

>A System Extension is part of your app that extends the functionality of the operating system in ways similar to a Kernel Extension but running in user space outside the kernel.

[https://asciiwwdc.com/2019/sessions/702](https://asciiwwdc.com/2019/sessions/702)

<comment><USER23> Can this handle filesystem drivers? I am going to miss NTFS for Mac and one or two Serial drivers I use.

<comment><USER24> I'm curious which ones -- CDC drivers are supported automatically and since Mavericks there is built-in support for FTDI and CH340G written by Apple. I think there is still a PL2303 driver but I've not used something with one of those for a couple of years.

I definitely do not miss the kernel panics from unplugging an older FTDI based Arduino while it was sending serial data!

<comment><USER25> Apple's FTDI driver doesn't match against every FTDI device though, sometimes you still need the VCP driver FTDI themselves provide.

<comment><USER26> FWIW, I'm having serious issues with my FTDI board on Catalina —- even after installing the VCP driver. I've had to downgrade to Mojave for the time being

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Kernel extensions being deprecated is not news (it was announced at WWDC). The only real new info in this post is that 10.15.4 will pop up warning dialogs when loading the certain types of kexts that have replacement APIs available.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does this mean Hackintoshes are on their way out? Kexts have been used in that community to maintain support for non Apple hardware.

<comment><USER29> It might mean switching more towards virtualization for Hackintoshes. It's now possible to run a completely, 100% unmodified macOS in qemu/kvm on Linux and use vfio passthrough to place GPUs (mostly Radeon cards) and other PCIe devices into macOS.

<comment><USER30> Speaking of virtualization, what about using macOS as a VM host? This typically requires kernel mode drivers. It would be awfully inconvenient to not be able to host VMs on a Mac development machine.

<comment><USER31> It could be this is done by MacOS itself, in a similar manner to Hyper-V on Windows, where you can no longer use VMWare/VirtualBox/etc. Virtualisation is critical to Win 10 security, wouldn't be surprised to see MacOS going in that direction.

<comment><USER32> My Windows used to BSOD when running with hyper-v enabled. I disabled it and I'm not going to enable it again anytime soon. VirtualBox works just fine. I don't know why do you think that it's critical to Win 10 security.

<comment><USER33> And at least on my machine, hybrid sleep doesn't seem to be compatible with Hyper-V, either...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Curious if anyone knows what Dropbox will do about SmartSync. KAuth extensions are likely out as of 10.16, and the Endpoint Security extensions don't let you block a reply for more than 60 seconds, so you can't dynamically page in large files anymore.

<comment><USER35> The new FileProvider API supports something like smart sync: placeholders for files that live in the cloud and download on demand.

<comment><USER36> OneDrive does this without requiring a kernel module.

<comment><USER34> They have access to a kernel module and entitlement that only they have access to, com.apple.fileutil - and Apple has said they aren't giving out any more entitlements for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is this the end of any form of fuse style fs on macOS? (whether osxfuse, or an open source fork of an earlier version of it)

They say that future OS releases will no longer load deprecated KPIs, but they do not note the VFS KPIs as deprecated in their list.

<comment><USER38> Potentially, although OSXFUSE only works on old macOS versions now.

<comment><USER39> The latest version of FUSE for macOS, which is still freely available to end users but no longer open source and not licensed to allow redistribution, works on the current version of macOS. The open source code has not been updated in a few years and as such only works on older macOS releases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Just looked through my kexts. I've got two that I use, one that I dont, all signed and approved by Apple:

* Driver for RTL815X that works with my USB Ethernet adapter from RTL.

The standard Apple driver refused to run at 1G, only at 100Mb. It'll be interesting to see if they update the drivers any time soon.

* Tripmode that controls network I/O (I don't use it)

* Karabiner Elements to handle my custom keyboard

I use the (excellent) Karbiner-Elements to handle my keyboard and it has a kext that sets up a virtual keyboard and virtual pointer as HID devices. So I'm guessing that's going to need to be converted from a kext to something using the HIDDriverKit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> As usually, Apple does not give developers any time to react. There is no migration plan save for one video from WWDC where they briefly describe some alternatives.

> In macOS 10.15.4, use of deprecated KPIs triggers a notification to the user > that the software includes a deprecated API and asks the user to contact the > developer for alternatives.

<comment><USER8> The alternatives are well known and everyone has half a year to actually read about DriverKit and Network Extensions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, let me disagree. The documentation is lagging. Right after the WWDC there were nothing except for some header files.

Also, why half a year? Do you think it will take them that much to release 10.15.4?

<comment><USER41> What's this "documentation" thing you're talking about? Is it something other than header files and code?

I'm joking but documentation (and tech support) do seem to be dying things at Apple and elsewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, they are quite helpful on the developer forums.

Fully agree on the documentation point, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I really hope that this is the final nail in the coffin for third party Anti Virus vendors.

It's been really worrying to see large enterprises that have moved from Windows to macOS and carry their thinking that the need to install a third party AV product (which in turn often acts as a near-unrestricted way into the kernel).

<comment><USER43> I can't wait until I can uninstall University-mandated AV. I'm still waiting for Jumpshot to respond to my CCPA inquiry.

<comment><USER44> You don't have to worry about that anymore...

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

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h That is ironically one of the nicest, cleanest, most to-the-point pages I've ever seen on the web. ...I'm not sure what to do with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is yet another reason to move away from MacOS. The blocking of 32-bit apps, a requirement to have Apple notarize every application, and now the removal of kexts.

If Apple still made great software and even better hardware then I wouldn't care, but that hasn't been the case for years.

<comment><USER46> If you've been unhappy with hardware and software for years, why haven't you moved to another platform? At least your OS if you didn't want to buy new hardware.

<comment><USER47> You effectively can't use alternative OSes on new mbps easily. Drivers are not available and wifi firmware is broken (wontfix, don't care) for use with Linux stack.

Reasons to stick with them: company purchasing policy.

<comment><USER48> Your company will only purchase macs? Is there no windows option? That would be .. unusual.

<comment><USER47> There is, but the choice available doesn't quite work for developers. In my opinion anyway. (reasonable for generic office workers though)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > _At WWDC19, we announced the deprecation of kernel extensions_

The title as written deserves a (2019) since they announced this to developers last year.

<comment><USER50> That is only for a post written in, say, 2019. A new post that cites old information is still a new post.

Additionally, they _announced_ the deprecation at WWDC, but that did not take immediate effect. The point of this post is that they are as of right now no longer supported.

<comment><USER8> They announced one OS release for deprecation period after an userspace API for a previous Kext gets introduced.

So now that Catalina is officially released, they are following up on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Does this mean VFSForGit for Mac is dead? Is there some proposed mechanism for filesystem implementations other than kernel extensions?

<comment><USER6> I was the external contractor brought onto the project as the project's macOS kernel extension expert; my contract expired in November after the port was put on ice. As far as I'm aware it's no longer being pursued, with sparse checkouts being the new hotness.

I don't want to and can't speak for Microsoft, and I did not make the final decision, but:

* The user space alternatives (NSFileProvider, EndpointSecurity) are not up to the job for various reasons.

* Porting everything to the much more involved VFS KPI would have been a large amount of work, and with a near-100% risk of having the rug pulled out under it yet again.

<comment><USER51> Cheers, I appreciate the details and context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wonder about drivers for PCIe add-in cards for the new Mac Pro. I have a client that has asked me to develop such a driver for their card so they can run on modern Mac Pro systems. I'd work entirely in userland via DriverKit if I could, but I don't think the necessary APIs to interact with PCIe hardware are available.

<comment><USER53> They are in 10.15.4

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> >IOUSBFamily has been deprecated and headers removed from SDK since macOS El Capitan (10.11). All clients should move to IOUSBHostFamily or USBDriverKit, where appropriate and outlined below.

lol which one of you? i fully sympathize but oof, guess you lost that fight

</comment><comment><USER55> As a total layman to developing kernel extensions, is this another example of apple limiting what you can do with their hardware, or just an effort to get developers to modernize how they make drivers for macOS?

<comment><USER56> Well, apple makes the hardware, so they would typically make the drivers as well. From what I read and understood is that without being able to load own extensions you can only do whatever Apple allowed you to do.

It could be compared to changes that Chrome plans (or already introduced?) to restrict extensions that filter sites which affect adblockers and you're at mercy of Google what you can block and what you cannot.

Similarly here, you will only be able to hook to interfaces Apple provided, but if you plan to do something that wasn't thought of, or Apple does not approve, tough luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> How will hackintoshing work without kexts? I'm no expert but have built a few, and they make extensive use of them to make non-apple hardware work properly and to add functionality.

<comment><USER58> Was wondering the same thing. I'm guessing you'll always be able to install them as long as System Integrity Protection is disabled.

<comment><USER8> Kexts will be completely removed, as long term plan.

It goes into two steps.

1 - A new user space API for what was previously kernel API gets introduced

2 - There is one OS release where the kernel API gets deprecated

3 - The release thereafter removes the kernel API

Long term roadmap is to make macOS into a proper micro-kernel OS.

<comment><USER59> Do you have any official references for this roadmap? There are several comments on this page alone that try to debunk the 'road to microkernel' plan. If you don't have any reference, please edit your comment and insert 'I think' into proper places.

<comment><USER6> If you are relying on the ability to develop and load specific types of kext in macOS in future, I recommend getting in touch with Apple DTS. (Note that communications with DTS are unfortunately typically under NDA.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It's shit like this that drives me never to use Apple products. Oh, your company gives Apple laptops to SWEs and I can't order something different? No, I won't work with you. I need full control over the machine I spend my day driving, and this control includes loading kernel modules on my own damned computer if i want to do that.

</comment><comment><USER61> This was my favorite kennel extension. It allowed for accessing memory via a device that you could call `cat` on, grep etc. [https://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter8/kma/](https://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter8/kma/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Right now I use an empty kext to prevent macOS from seizing control of a hardware programmer (keeping it from being accessed by the program that uses it). It was a hack of a solution, but it worked.

This means for the moment, I don't have an upgrade path that works for me...

<comment><USER62> USBDriverKit is the new way to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I need Kernel Extensions for Karabiner and USB-to-TTY drivers to talk to and program firmware on embedded boards. If I can no longer do this, my next machine is not a Macbook. Unless there is a different way, this is a dealbreaker.

</comment><comment><USER64> How does something like Lulu firewall goons work instead?

Is there any alts for virtualbox?

<comment><USER38> macOS provides an API called Hypervisor.framework for virtual machine managers like Virtualbox. It means they don't need kernel modules anymore. QEMU also uses it for acceleration.

<comment><USER64> Is there anything that I can use for running Windows now?

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure Parallels will come up with a solution. If you want to play with virtualizing Windows via Hypervisor.framework right now, I remember that the people from Veertu.com had Windows running via their Veertu Desktop product. But they seem to be focused on virtualizing macOS-on-macOS right now.

<comment><USER65> Parallels can already use Hypervisor.framework - it's a per-VM configuration option.

<comment><USER13> Thanks, good information

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> What does this mean for VM technology like Parallels and Oracle?

<comment><USER67> They should have switched to Hypervisor.framework already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Interesting. I can track 100% of my kernel panics on MacOS to kernel extentions (VirtualBox in particular). Hopefully this improves stability.

</comment><comment><USER69> Could this be the beginning of the arm transition?

I mean porting kernel extensions would probably be a big deal, so deprecating them would be the first step.

<comment><USER70> Short term, I suspect that it's going to be more relevant for porting functionality to iPadOS and/or allowing that functionality to be shared between Mac and iPad (in Catalyst apps).

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I'm still on MacOS 10.14 thanks to depreciation of 32 bit support.

Guess Apple really wants to keep me locked in an old OS for as long as possible.

</comment><comment><USER72> Does anyone know if this will impact:

\- FUSE

\- XQuartz

\- LittleSnitch

<comment><USER73> I do not know about impact, but

$ kextstat -l | grep -v com.apple | tr -s ' ' | cut -f 7,8 -d ' ' at.obdev.nke.LittleSnitch (5430)

It does use a kernel extention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I'd just like to point out that the title is a bit misleading -- They are deprecating extensions that use parts of the kernel API that have alternatives, as these become available.

How well that will work in practice remains to be seen. But they aren't simply deprecating all kernel extensions.

</comment><comment><USER75> Really hope this won't kill osxfuse, virtualbox or vmware. Will it?

<comment><USER62> No; none of those are using deprecated APIs. VirtualBox and VMware could avoid the need for a kext by moving to Hypervisor.framework, but there's no immediate need to.

<comment><USER65> Perhaps worth noting that Parallels can already use Hypervisor.framework - it's a configuration option per VM (although I don't know if you can have a mixture of the options running at the same time).

<comment><USER76> I tried switching Parallels to the Apple hypervisor once because I was curious. I ran a quick x264 encode to test performance, and Apple's hypervisor was quite clearly worse.

Far from a comprehensive test, but, yeah, there's probably a reason Parallels defaults to their custom kext.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Huh. The only non-Apple ones on my Mac are for:

* VMWare Fusion * Little Snitch * Dropbox

plus one for a firewall I don't run anymore and could get rid of.

</comment><comment><USER78> I just found Turbo Boost Switcher, which uses a kernel extension to manage intel turbo boosting. I'm a little worried that this sort of change will prevent this kind of innovative work (and quite possibly the application altogether. [http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/](http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/)

</comment><comment><USER79> I haven't had experience with kexts lately, but they were a source of instability for me in the past. Not sad to see them go.

</comment><comment><USER80> RIP tonymacx86 :(

</comment><comment><USER81> Is this a move to kill any Hackintosh attempt?

<comment><USER82> There's probably easier ways of going about it. I doubt Apple really cares that much about Hackintosh users. Many of them probably have legit Apple hardware as well. I personally own a Hackintosh, a MacBook, an iPhone and an Apple Watch, and also have a MacBook at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> What if I need to format a FAT32 flash drive?

<comment><USER84> That has never required a kernel extension.

<comment><USER83> Sorry, I meant NTFS. That requires a "system extension" AFAIK -- is this not the same thing as a kernel extension?

<comment><USER76> A̶F̶A̶I̶K̶ ̶n̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶j̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶N̶T̶F̶S̶ ̶M̶a̶c̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶k̶e̶x̶t̶s̶.

Edit: I'm completely, totally, and utterly wrong, don't mind me.

<comment><USER3> Both Tuxera NTFS and Paragon NTFS are kernel extensions.

<comment><USER76> Tuxera is a kernel extension? I have Tuxera installed right now, and there's no kext for it in /Library/Extensions.

I also could have sworn Tuxera was FUSE based...

Edit: Oh, but it shows up in `sudo kextstat`. Okay, I'm completely wrong then. I _was_ wondering how a FUSE filesystem could have such good performance...

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was going by Tuxera's website FAQ that has an answer for "I'm Getting A System Extension Blocked Message During Installation". Didn't actually check for the kexts myself, so thanks for verifying.

A macOS without Tuxera NTFS and Parallels Desktop is going to be really problematic for me, but presumably Apple will find workarounds for them. I already switched back to Windows a year ago anyway.

<comment><USER62> Not all kext functionality is deprecated (yet), only things that have userland replacements. Filesystems are not deprecated.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does sass drive us away from the 'program it once' attitude? - <AUTHOR> Ive noticed some solutions people are using have monthly costs.<p>Now that its been a few years and sass founders get bored, they leave a company and the software either shuts down, or the software survives as this weird legacy niche that only a dozen people around the world still remember. <comment><USER2> Did you mean SaaS? Or is this about some other web thing?</comment>


What no one tells you before you become a deep sea diver - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10-things-no-one-tells-you-before-you-become-a-deep-sea-diver/ <comment><USER2> I used to work as a deep sea saturation diver with various companies in South East Asia. Mostly based out of Singapore and jobs in the South China Sea but also Japan, Indonesia, etc.

Almost accurate description of what live is like as a deep sea diver. Though they don't live "down there" in tiny decompression chambers as the article claims. The chambers are on the surface (on-board a rig, a ship etc).

<comment><USER3> > Though they don't live "down there" in tiny decompression chambers as the > article claims. The chambers are on the surface (on-board a rig, a ship > etc).

I had never heard of this before; that sounds like a lot of uncomfortable strictures to follow for a long time! The Wikipedia article on saturation diving says that underwater living chambers are also an option, but seems to suggest that they're mainly used by scientific research divers (I'm not sure why that would be).

<comment><USER2> these underwater chambers have been used in the 70ies 80ies afaik. but I personally have never seen one nor heard of anyone who had the opportunity to work in one (and most of the guys out there were in the early 50ies while I was very young in comparison). Not saying they didn't exist but their use was limited. Because "wet welding" or any type of work that requires a mechanical engineering effort carried out by a diver is usually not as solid/sound as welding the parts on the surface (out of the water). The welding seam produced by a diver is usually of lower quality (even if the diver is really well trained in welding impurities of the water are reducing the quality of the weld). Also many places where one would have to wet-weld it is too deep (even for sat-diving), so they would use ROV's anyway. There has to be a very special reason why one would have a team of divers do all this at the depth. Certainly not in the oil/gas industry.

EDIT: clarification, I mention welding because welding/cutting (e.g. an oil pipeline) was usually a scenario where one would create such chambers at subsea level in order to isolate the under water part of the pipe in a dry "bubble" within this structure to repair it.

<comment><USER4> > * isolate the under water part of the pipe in a dry "bubble" within this > structure to repair it*

Is that even possible? How would one isolate big pipe under such great pressures?

<comment><USER5> The golden gate bridge and many others were built by working in dry "bubbles". An inverted dome on the sea floor was filled with air so the workers could work on the seafloor pretty much the same as on the ground outside. I don't know how they worked under that air pressure. I guess they had to decompress like any diver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin)

If there is a accident, it will be over quick.

If there ever is a mars colony, this is what is its going to look like.

<comment><USER7> Except that going from 9 atmospheres to 1 is way more dramatic than from ~1 to ~0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> here is a nice explanation of what deep sea sat diving is about. [http://www.slideshare.net/KevinDuck/simple-30154573](http://www.slideshare.net/KevinDuck/simple-30154573)

</comment><comment><USER8> Ever since hearing about the Byford Dolphin accident, deep sea diving has always had a special place of respect in my mind.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_accident)

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like a pretty hard job... How much a deep sea diver makes?

<comment><USER10> From the article : "Saturation divers are incredibly well paid (around £1,500 per day), but the risk they are exposed to reflects the rationale behind the pay structure."

<comment><USER11> To put that in context it's in the same range, maybe even less, of a decent contract programmer/consultant billing $150 - $200 USD per hour.</comment></comment></comment>


What Does It Mean To Be A God? - <AUTHOR> http://aubreygoodman.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-god/

<comment><USER2> "Ray... if someone asks you if you are a god.. you say YES!!"

The idea here seems to be that Einstein and Feynman were gods, but they were actually people, and the author is a person, so therefore the author is a god. And "a god" seems to be defined as someone who knows something before others do.

I think the author is deluded as to what a "god" is. Or has some unstated alternative definition.

I don't believe the comment about Chandrasekhar "living in a yurt, redefining the mathematics of supernovae ... surrounded by uneducated peasant farmers" is at all correct. He started that supernova work in England, and did most if not all of it in Europe. Even in India, when he was born his father was Deputy Auditor General of the Northwestern Railways. He was initially tutored at home, and his mother "translated Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House into Tamil." So says Wikipedia. This doesn't sound like a family which would live in a yurt.</comment>