Stranded after driving out of cellphone range in app-powered smart car - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.5468449/tech-reporter-stranded-after-driving-out-of-cellphone-range-in-app-powered-smart-car-1.5468741 <comment><USER3> Remarkable how the designers did not conceive that cell coverage doesn't actually cover every inch of the planet or is 100% reliable. What will we have next? A heart-lung machine that depends on 24x7 internet access?

<comment><USER4> We already have a ton of apps which assume that everyone has a decent internet connection at all times.

I frequently land in places where my connection is but a trickle(with an absurd ping of 20s at that), and because of that a large part of apps simply refuse to work.

One notable exception is Facebook Messenger - if it doesn't work then you _really_ don't have internet.

<comment><USER5> And this is _infuriating_. I would expect mobile apps to be able to deal _better_ with complete/spotty loss of Internet connection than PC programs, not _worse_ !

<comment><USER6> I roadtrip and camp alot. It's amusing how many campground/boondocking locator apps require cell service. They often have a ton of other features, but downloading a dataset is not one of them. They want people to add, rate, and comment on campsites and yet, again, have no offline abilities. Doh!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not just bad cellphone service, but sometimes server issues could have the same effect. Hyundai ran a car sharing service here in Amsterdam that used a combination of Bluetooth and cellular connectivity to remotely unlock cars and provision software keys for phones. Every once in a while, though, the app would crash and lose the software key, meaning that the car would end up back again on the map exactly where you picked it up without leaving you with a way to unlock the car. I am not sure what exactly was the issue as the app just errored out.

I'd have to call the customer service line, where they wouldn't know what to do as the car was already in use according to the backend. After a few times getting stuck, I came up with a solution which was to literally beg them to cancel the checkout so that the car was available again. They were trained to not do that as their information was that a car could not be left parked outside their service area, which was definitely not the case as I was able to start a new reservation and unlock the car. This happened quite a few times, so much so that I would already know the solution but had to spend an awful amount of time explaining it to the reps -- starting with uninstalling and reinstalling the app as told by them.

Then, some other company took over the system and started a new system with the same infrastructure and the app codebase. When it happened again a couple times, I was finally able to get hold of a systems programmer who debugged the issue with me while I was out in the wind. It hasn't recurred since.

Just wanted to share this story

<comment><USER8> Well, but that is not an issue of cell phone connectivity, it's just the app being crappy.

Sounds like the new management is less clueless than the previous one, if no one had heard about the problem (and if the cars were - they should be - gps- tracked then the backend should just use that as a position, obviously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would like to compare with a "normal" rent:

1) you are given (by a human) the keys of the car in exchange of providing your driver license and credit card

2) you do (within limits) whatever you want with the car

3) after the agreed upon rent period you bring back the car and keys (giving them to a human) and then the rental company checks how many miles you did (and if you exceeded the included amount you are charged, unless you got an all inclusive/unlimited mmileage contract)

I.e. the renting company actually "trusts" you (backed financially by your credit card).

And this formula worked seemigly just fine for the last 60 years or more.

A "natural" evolution would IMHO be:

1) you get pre-approved (i.e. you provide your driving license and credit card before and outside the actual rent) when you start the rent your smartphone is _somehow_ allowed to open and start the car

2) you do (within limits) whatever you want with the car

3) after the agreed upon rent period you bring back the car in a designed area, you notify the renter of it and _somehow_ your smartphone cannot open or start the car anymore (and at that time the mileage is checked remotely, etc.)

If this was the case the need for coverage would only be needed in the designed pick and leave area.

I fail to see any practical advantage for the renting company to collect data "realtime" (and thus need the anytime coverage).

I.e. it seems to me more like a "because I can" reason than anything else.

<comment><USER10> Seems to me that it is probably some inadvised anti-theft thing.

<comment><USER9> Yep, but is it theft an actual "real world" problem?

How has (say) Herz, Avis or Budget managed to survive all these years (and still do)?

Surely rental car theft must be something rare enough to not be of concern (statistically).

Besides, a car is not something designed (by the manufacturer) to be easily accessible, and if professional car thieves are going to target a vehicle, allow me to doubt that the _whatever_ the smart peeps at GigCarShare devised is more effective than the manufacturer's and or additional third party [1] anti-theft devices.

BTW, should the _whatever_ device/system actually be much better than competing systems, they would most probably have much more imcome/profit by selling the devices/systems instead of renting cars.

[1] possibly specialized since a couple decades or more in the anti-theft technology

<comment><USER11> Yes, it's actually a serious problem. [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/skbaer/chicago- rental-c...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/skbaer/chicago-rental-car- company-fraud)

The problem is when your authentication is an app and a digital photo it's a lot easier to fake who you are. At least if someone tries to go on a crime spree with traditional rentals they're gonna be on dozens of office security cams, have to repeatedly show a physical license and have their identity checked, and so on.

<comment><USER9> I meant for "traditional" rental service, where the theft is performed by someone else, not by the person that rented the car.

They _somehow_ either solved it or it doesn't represent an issue.

What you linked to is possibly yet another kind of crime, the _whatever_ app was seemingly hacked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The internet of shit is alive and well.

Live tweet at [https://twitter.com/kari_paul/status/1229428892802392064](https://twitter.com/kari_paul/status/1229428892802392064)

<comment><USER13> > _The internet of shit is alive and well._

IoS

It has a nice ring to it. However, I fear for its wider adoption:

[https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual- property/trademark/...](https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual- property/trademark/appletmlist.html)

 _" IOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license."_

Uh-oh.

Can see the headline now: _Cisco sues budding Internet of Shit (IoS) startup claiming trademark infringement. Plaintiff filings also allege numerous instances of patent infringement, as well as theft of trade secrets._

<comment><USER14> I never heard of Internetwork Operating System till now.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any in vehicle device that has the power to control whether the car starts or not should have a fail safe mode that ensures that it will never be _less_ safe than the vehicle without the addition. Telling users to 'overnight in their car' could be very unsafe depending on the conditions. This company deserves to go out of business rapidly.

</comment><comment><USER16> Had the same experience in Spain. Turned off the car in a location with bad phone signal and the car wouldn't start anymore. Not even creating a wifi Hotspot with the phone (funnily enough our phones did have a weak signal. Ludicrous how a big car can have a weaker antenna than a weight-size-optimised phone).

After hours of talking with support, they finally sent someone to tow us to the nearest city. The car then had reception and finally started again.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm just surprised they have to tow the vehicle. A better design would be to have a hardwired or bluetooth number pad in the car. The app can generate emergency start codes 2-3 times which can be entered in the number pad. Lots of ways to prevent abuse including working only when there isn't a signal present.

</comment><comment><USER18> > So we initially had it towed to our AirBnb because we had Wi-Fi there and > thought that would be enough to start the car, having our phones securely > connected to Wi-Fi.

> But it turned out it actually needed to be towed ... to the nearest town > with cell service.

> I'm a tech reporter. I'm pretty tech savvy.

<comment><USER19> All while they were on the phone w/ Gig Car customer support. I'm pretty confused about the sequence of events here.

<comment><USER20> I use Mint Mobile here which is a MVNO that uses T-Mobile. I don't get cell reception at my house. But my sister uses AT&T and gets full bars here while my phone is dead. And by dead I mean it doesn't even connect.

So maybe went Gig went cheap when choosing a cell partner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >@GIGCarShare told us to sleep in our car on the side of the road and try again in the morning

...i...what...but why...that doesn't even make sense?...

>Gig told us we used our "allotted restarts" of the car

why is this a thing? if i rent a car from enterprise etc, they don't care how many times i start the car up, it's paid by time...just seems like yet another needless over-complication

also i wonder if these cars have similar issues in parking garages where cell reception is less than ideal.

<comment><USER22> > ...i...what...but why...that doesn't even make sense?...

From the article

> Basically, a phone unlocks the car using a combination of cell service and > Bluetooth. So when you're out of cell range it can be difficult to unlock > the car.

> They were unable to ping the car because, I don't know, they hadn't updated, > or synced, the software in 24 hours.

My understanding is that it works like scooter and bike sharing services, where you have to have an active connection to their servers to use the vehicle. Of course, while it works in the city where there is 3G/4G coverage, it's not going to be efficient in the middle of nowhere where coverage is unlikely... so sometimes convenience (AKA it's just an app) becomes a hindrance. Who's fault is it? (rhetorical question)

<comment><USER23> > Who's fault is it?

The developer's fault. How this is even debatable is beyond me. Completely failed on the UX level.

<comment><USER24> How is that the developer's fault?

You unlock the car with your phone over your data connection and not with a key. Losing the data connection is the equivalent of losing the key. You may not like it, I know I don't, but that's the downside of doing it this way (just like it's a downside to have a physical key because you can lose it too).

I have no doubt that the developers warned management of the risk of doing it this way, they accepted the risk.

<comment><USER25> Whether the restriction is reasonable or not is up for debate. The issue is that they created a vehicle that only works within a specific geographic area, then failed to document that area or warn users that it existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Based on the cars and how it is described, it sounds like the same system as Evo[0] in Vancouver. It is run by our automobile association, BCAA. Their platform vendor is called Vulog[1].

The big difference with Evo is it sounds like these don't have the keys in the glovebox. The app is hot garbage, so it comes in handy. Also the RFID cards are standard issue here. I have taken them well out of service for over 24 hours without issue. All this to say, I don't believe it is an inherent limit of the platform. That said, my experience poking around exposed endpoints does not inspire confidence. The back end is some Microsoft abomination. I'd love to know what runs on the in-car embedded device, but it's probably WinCE. Anybody here worked for vulog?

The article seems to imply they are smart cars, but the picture is clearly of a Prius C. I guess they mean smart as in internet-connected rather than the brand from Mercedes.

[0] [https://evo.ca](https://evo.ca) [1] [https://www.vulog.com/en/](https://www.vulog.com/en/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I cringe when a "pure software" business gets into an area where health and safety are potentially at play. This kind of stuff is going to only get worse. Hi, we're from a startup, and we're here to burn your house down.

I think that something like "engineering fundamentals" should be a course requirement for computer science majors in case they aren't headed for careers in CS research. Back in my day, at the start of the first day of physics class, the professor showed a video of the famous footage from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster. Then we got down to business.

<comment><USER26> Based on the stack, I'd wager that the vendor (vulog) is not an engineering- driven organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Remember the Freeman's Mind joke about guided missiles that fly out of range of the authentication servers?

</comment><comment><USER29> Next in Internet of Shit: "smart" car ransomware. Coupled with autopilot, because why not.

<comment><USER30> Gilfoyle did it to Dinesh !

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Some comments read to me as if they were trying to say, _> I want to benefit from the latest technology_ _> I want to enjoy the bleeding edge tech_ _> bugs? Why are there bugs in the bleeding edge technology?_ _> misfeatures? Why are there misfeatures in the bleeding edge tech?_

Some people are okay with occasional tech hiccups as the price of pushing the frontier forward. I hereby thank the brave beta-testers, and hold them above the people who expect perfection the first time out of the gate.

Now if they went for a Death Valley trip in the car that'd have been entirely different story - one of irresponsibility and needless risk taking. But as things were, they suffered only a major inconvenience and no appreciable risk to life and limb, due to maintaining sensible proximity to civilization.

On a lighter note, please consider the histories of Alice Ramsey[1] - <USER2> woman to drive cross USA, and Bertha Benz[2] - first woman to drive cross a country, having financed the development of the car. Both encountered malfunctions and other mishaps, solved problems & persevered, and earned fame and appreciation. Both also added to the popularization & development of the technology.

\--

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz#First_cross- countr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz#First_cross- country_automobile_journey)

<comment><USER32> I thought you opened with quotes from the article, but it seems like you made them up? There's no indication that the people here were expecting to go on a pioneering expedition.

<comment><USER31> You are right, and thank you for pointing it out.

My intent was to satirize the incredulity or even outrage conveyed in certain comments; should've chosen a better format for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> We live in the future now... and it's horrible.

<comment><USER34> Worse, it's _stupid_.

<comment><USER35> Yep. All good old dystopic sci-fi of yesteryear was at least evil but _cool_. This is just sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Last time this story was posted (less than 48 hours ago) someone pointed out that you're supposed to get a nfc card to open/start the car when you're out of town.

Also, there are plenty of old school rental companies that are cheaper and more convenient than these shitty services for these kind of road trips.

</comment><comment><USER37> This has to be satire right? How is it even legal to produce a car that only works with an internet connection?

<comment><USER38> What law would it be breaking? The "cars have to work all the time" law?

<comment><USER39> Roadworthiness of vehicle definitions - I heard apparently the Autobahn has fines for running out of fuel or breaking down on it without a collision but that is a very different place and legal context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> So the company that did this - Gig Car - can remotely shut off a vehicle in their fleet? How is this legal?

It's sounds so dangerous! What if they lost internet on a bridge? People could really get hurt.

<comment><USER24> > It's sounds so dangerous! What if they lost internet on a bridge? People > could really get hurt.

There's actually system to do this, and I'm also amazed that this is legal. In this case though it's not that, it's simply that to unlock the car it go through a data connection. It won't shut itself, you just won't be able to unlock it without a data connection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, this is DRM taken to a whole new level!

<comment><USER41> Technically speaking if you rent a car you don't actually own it, so I don't think this goes in the same category as other DRM-fails.

<comment><USER42> DRM doesn't have to require ownership. See Amazon's ebooks or Netflix. Not owned, but still under DRM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> ZipCar seems to have gottwn this right, probably because it was developed years ago. You have a card, and it works for your car even without cell service afaik.

Unfortunately zipcar is declining where I live so I canceled my membership. They removed the zip cars in my neighborhood and I see zip cars around less often in general.

</comment><comment><USER44> "Gig also told me is that they offer RFID card where you kind of scan the card to get into the car. So in the case that you don't have cell service or Bluetooth, you can still get into your car."

\- From the article.

<comment><USER45> Sounds like an undocumented feature, plus you have to order it and it takes 2 weeks to arrive, so, per the article,

>it's a bit at odds with their 'hop in and go' advertising language. So, I think maybe that's why it's not stressed so much on their website.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who's the best programmer you ever worked with? - <AUTHOR>

To become better programmers, it's really helpful to have a sense of what's possible at higher levels of skill.  I'm curious to hear from HN'ers about master programmers you've personally met/worked with.  What impressed you?  What were they capable of?<p>Edit/update: At this point in my learning, people in software I consider $DEMI_DEITY-like (but have not met/worked with) include Peter Norvig (I have PAIP in front of me and think, He wrote this in his mid-thirties?  Gah!), Abelson and Sussman (authors of SICP), and some of the people who created the tools I use (Stallman for Emacs, GvR for Python, Hickey for Clojure).  As for personally-encountered greatness, there was one fellow at my last firm who later went on to be in the top 5 in the TopCoder competition, whose speed and ability to build the right abstractions were really impressive - that's vague, but at the time, I wasn't good enough to appreciate his skill in-depth either. :) <comment><USER2> The best developer I've ever worked with was a freelancer named Alex in Belarus who worked for $8/hour. I hired him back in 2007 to write a CMS for a heavy data-driven site in PHP. The client needed to be able to upload multi- sheet Excel spreadsheets with formulas, and have the results of the formulas be written into the appropriate tables in the database. Alex did it in about 3 business days, and the code he wrote was hands down the cleanest object- oriented PHP I have ever seen. The only bad part about working with someone in Belarus is payment. It costs about $40 for a wire transfer, and you can't send it directly to Belarus without the recipient having to fill out government paperwork detailing where the money came from. We ended up sending wire transfers in Euros to a bank in Latvia.

<comment><USER3> Sad you would exploit someone like this. You could be a good mentor and advice him on what his real asking rate should be and also pay him better, if he really performed at a much higher level.

<comment><USER2> I didn't come up with that rate...that's what he charges all of his clients. It is double what I pay my team in the Philippines, and considering that the average monthly wage in Belarus is under $150/month, it is quite generous (I paid him a month's wage for 3 days' work).

Would you react the same way if a Silicon Valley company hired a developer in rural Mississippi (the state with the lowest median salary) for $35,000 (the median salary there) instead of hiring locally for $150,000? Is that exploitation? Remember that the cost of living there is much lower, so he will enjoy a much better standard of living on a lower salary.

<comment><USER3> Please read this <http://aci.byelarus.com/index.php?p=6#wag-fig>. The average wage for a good software developer is close to 1000$ (note that minimum wage is $2.5 per month). You say he is awesome, that ways I will put his to 2000$. He is consulting for you, so he should make 3X the money as his salary, that comes to 30$ an hour.

The living cost thing is BS. You are confusing between "living cost" and "cost for a good standard of living which everyone in US takes for granted". The former is less, just because more people are very poor, eat once a day and live like hell. I can bet cost for a comparable standard of living to US would be super high.

Just because your developer is OK with living poorly doesn't mean he has to. You can be fair and guide him to a better life.

<comment><USER4> This is veering dangerously off-topic, but if your contractor charges a set rate, there is no moral obligation on your part to pay him more, especially not 3x more.

If the wages were poor for the country that would be one thing, BUT $8/hour in Belarus is a good salary. That is $1080 per 160hours worked a month. It actually would let him have a good standard of living.

Of course one could argue that the developer should be charging $12 or $16 an hour but that is his business.

What one could do next time, is do a fixed price project. If he is very good AND fast, he would increase his earnings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Actually worked with would be <http://benrady.com/>, <http://grack.com/blog/>, and a few other people who don't have online presences.

Seen in person but not worked with would be <http://twitter.com/venkat_s> and <http://www.nealford.com/>.

</comment><comment><USER6> Jason Mirra from <http://addepar.com> \- knows Java like no other. I think he was teaching at CMU when he was still in highschool.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://spinning-yarns.org/michael/></comment>


Earlier Thoughts that Inspired Grothendieck (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~oort0109/AGRoots-final.pdf <comment><USER2> Tangent but related: is there any serious study into why so many of the greatest minds in mathematics have/had serious mental health issues?

<comment><USER3> A cursory search yields that actually mental health is correlated with academic achievement (and thus mental health problems must be anticorrelated):

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4443903/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4443903/)

Of course, this is "academic achievement" as in getting a 4.0 at Stanford, not creating a new field of mathematics...

I imagine your question would be hard to investigate as many of these high achieving mathematicians are rare outliers and would defy statistics on population averages...

<comment><USER4> Given the way mental disorders are defined, that's kind of unsurprising; adverse impacts to work, school, etc are required to diagnose many disorders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TL;DR: yes.

Are there candidate examples of ideas in philosophy, natural sciences or maths that are so original that only a single mind could think of them?

<comment><USER6> Einstein came up with the idea that light would behave like particle. He published the paper in 1905 where he eloquently explained his thinking and gave three examples demonstrating it. One of the examples was the photoelectric effect. He won a Nobel price for that discovery.

>Energy, during the propagation of a ray of light, is not continuously distributed over steadily increasing spaces, but it consists of a finite number of energy quanta localised at points in space, moving without dividing and capable of being absorbed or generated only as entities.

Plank had explained black body radiation as it would originate from quantified oscillators 1900, but nobody except Einstein believed that light could propagate as energy quanta. Only after Compton effect was discovered in 1923, everybody saw that Einstein had been on the right track all along.

Being the only physicist who saw it for almost 20 years, even when everybody has read your explanation and takes you seriously is a sign of highly original mind.

<comment><USER7> The Fizeau experiment definitely had some people thinking.

For more on that and Planck, see [https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4t1n...](https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4t1nb2gv&brand=ucpress) (From c-numbers to q-numbers by Olivier Darrigol) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute#Ol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute#Olivier_Darrigol_\(2004\))</comment></comment></comment>


The state of Android updates is still dire - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/4/20847758/google-android-update-problem-pie-q-treble-mainline <comment><USER2> While writing about this [1] recently, I made a chart which shows the adoption rate of each version of Android, X months after release, according to Google's own numbers.

It is indeed dire.

Each new version of Android is typically reaching less and less devices, X months after release.

For example Android M, released in 2015, was on 24% of devices accessing the play store 12 months after release.

Android O, released in 2017, was on 14.6% of devices 12 months after release.

Here's the chart: [https://i.imgur.com/yRDIEAs.png](https://i.imgur.com/yRDIEAs.png)

Google stopped releasing these numbers on their developer dashboard, and I think it's possible that the reason is because they're terrible.

[1] [https://unlikekinds.com/article/android-updates-are- getting-...](https://unlikekinds.com/article/android-updates-are-getting- slower-and-slower-despite-googles-best-efforts)

<comment><USER3> Part of the reason for slow updates may be that new versions of Android really aren't bringing a lot of user-visible new features anymore. Android 10 brought dark mode (which is still only supported by a small subset of Android apps), but not much more that the end user can see. Are the users still "languishing" in Android Pie really clamoring for Android 10?

<comment><USER4> The lagging updates has nothing to do with users, it's a corollary of Google having strategically chosen to build a fragmented ecosystem, whereas Apple built their walled off garden.

Apple can incentivise updates much better because they control the whole ecosystem. To achieve this, Google would need to somehow _force_ OEMs to update Android, but the fragmentation makes this a herculean task.

<comment><USER5> As opposed to computers running Windows? or Ubuntu?

More fragmented than Android. Continuous updates even for hardware from the year 2000 (a few paid along the way).

<comment><USER6> Actually Windows and Ubuntu are not a good example because the end user can easily perform updates without the computer manufacturer having anything to say. I would upgrade my mom's Android 8 phone, but I cannot. It is not the fragmentation, it's who's in control of the updates.

<comment><USER7> Heh, after years of prodding, my mom _finally_ gave up her Android 4.4 phone last month. Instagram stopped allowing her to sign in from it. It was replaced by a Pixel 3, which no longer allows her to easily set up her third-party ringtone app among a plethora of other annoyances and disappointments.

"This is why I never want to get new phones or computers" was muttered probably about 15 times in the two hours I was helping her salvage content from the older device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think that a lot of people miss the point that most people don't care about updates. Most people want a phone that does the same thing when it was bought and as many years later as possible, as the battery allows.

It's the same thing around passwords. People don't use weak passwords or reuse their passwords because they don't know any better, they do it because they do not care about whatever is protected by the password. I personally couldn't care less if someone stole my Facebook or that some bad actor may abuse something in my phone to send something to China. These digital things rank very low on the list of my priorities, and like me are a lot of not very technical interested people.

Some people buy cheap phones knowing they won't get updates, we know, we don't care. And we are happy to have the option not to care, we do not want more expensive phone with constant updates, just like we don't want the mandatory use of password managers. If we cared we'd buy/use them.

<comment><USER9> Seeing that 80%+ of iOS users update to the latest OS within the first 3 months according to Apple's charts, why would you think that if Android users could update they wouldn't?

<comment><USER10> iOS is very annoying about updating. It's much less work to update than to constantly ignore warnings. High adoption rates therefore don't invalidate OPs point.

<comment><USER11> I hate that iOS downloads the updates in the background and uses up data quotas without warning and without consent from the user. The only solution to prevent inadvertently updating is to go to the storage settings and delete the downloaded update, only to have it get downloaded automatically again in a matter of days or weeks.

<comment><USER12> Low Data Mode in iOS 13 should make this stop (although they don't say it on the support page, it shouldn't do it if they are blocking App Store/iCloud updates...)

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210596](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT210596)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What is missing from this article is that many manufacturers "force" you to buy a new phone, in order to get the latest Android version and security patches. It's implied indirectly, where the author states that we as users keep our (expensive) phones for longer, hence being left behind on updates. The fact is that manufacturers want us to buy new phones so as to make profits and stay in business, even though most of our "old" phones are capable of running newer versions.

<comment><USER14> >even though most of our "old" phones are capable of running newer versions.

Its astounding what older devices are capable of with the right software. I installed the community supported version of ubuntu touch on a nexus 5 phone which is about 7 years old now and was stunned to see it was buttery smooth. This device was running faster than my pixel 2. Even web browsing and web youtube worked fine. Apart from the horrible camera and lack of an sdcard slot you could actually use this as a main phone quite easily.

<comment><USER15> > ou could actually use this as a main phone quite easily.

except it has none of the apps you need if you belong to 99% of typical users.

<comment><USER16> Seems to me like the focus of his comment was the phone, not the OS. You could just as easily install a custom ROM like Lineage on it and it'll run perfectly fine (aside from maybe the camera, which is quite outdated and poor in comparison with new phones and I guess in our modern culture is probably a severe negative).

<comment><USER14> It really is a shame that it is not realistically possible to upgrade phones. Its somewhat simple to remove the camera and replace it with the same one but it is just about impossible to put a different camera in.

The only way I see this could be done is if every oem committed to standard shapes for every part but that would never happen because they shape and layout of a phone is the only way they can make visual changes so people know its a new phone.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. Even just a phone where only the camera is modular would be a fantastic step. I've had 4 year old phones that run just fine but the camera is unbearably bad. While I do have a DSLR, it's not something I have with me very often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article is written by implying the wish of the author is the wish of the users. No, users don't want updates. They get annoyed.

I am on Android 10 and honestly I wish I didn't update. The update bricked by phone until I went in the bootloader to reset it to delete my data. Was it great to have it on day 1 (essential ph-1)? Maybe 5 years ago I would say yes, but now no. It wasted 2 hours of my time. Next time I will buy a phone with a good camera instead.

My experience with Android 9 was similar, but didn't break anything. The UI changes were just not good. I personally know the reason (worked with some of them) - all (unfortunately really all, no idea why this wasn't fixed) designers at Google are Apple users and have a bit if Apple envy. Apple can change the UX for everyone and make users get used to it (even if it is less efficient for everyone, which it is). Why wouldn't Google be able to do it? So Android had the best app switcher, but converged to the iOSish variant. I wish Google would just ignore Apple like Microsoft does it in their Windows.

In a similar way, most journalists are Apple users and there is one "right" way to do things. So we get this nonsense in articles and blogs.

<comment><USER18> You don't mention a big part of the puzzle : security updates.

Given the current state of infosec, any OS that has not received any security update for a year or two is doomed to become a sitting duck for malware. Device security is a whack-a-mole game where new vulnerabilities are found daily and security updates are the only way we have to keep our computers secure.

In a perfect world, UI-and-features-related updates would be optional while security updates would be seamless. Also in a perfect world, older OS releases would receive long term security support and you should not have to upgrade to a more recent release to be secure.

Alas, we do not live in a perfect world. Apple doesn't provide any easy way to accept security updates but refusing others. Android just doesn't seem to provide a seamless update experience, either for security updates or not.

So you should really apply security updates, and if it takes getting other updates for that, then so be it.

<comment><USER6> If you are Apple, you cannot ignore the security updates. If you are one of the 100 small vendors that sells some cheap Android phones, you offer no support and nobody will complain. If most of the Android phones have no updates, the entire market will not provide security updates, except a few flagship models where Samsung and a few more top manufacturers will have to do it to maintain the brand equity. This way you get to live in a world where "no updates" is the norm and there is no incentive to change that: the people buying $100 phones will not care about updates that they don't understand, but will increase the price by $10-20. When sub-$200 market is 80-90% of the market by volume the gold standard of no updates is set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've owned a Nokia 6 Plus for the last year and I've been pleasantly surprised to receive the monthly security patches within a week of them being released. If I buy another Android device it will probably be a Nokia for this reason. My previous Samsung and OnePlus devices seemed to receive updates fairly sporadically for the first year, and then nothing after that.

<comment><USER20> I only hope they start supporting CDMA across more models, or Verizon finally axes CDMA. That's the rather large obstacle that has stopped me from getting a Nokia.

<comment><USER21> You can already use phones without CDMA radios on Verizon, they're requiring all new phones to support VoLTE and axing the CDMA network entirely next year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "can't" is such bs. Make it so that the kernel and OS can be fully updated independent of device drivers and bypass manufacturers for distribution. Why does nobody remember that Windows updates come directly from Microsoft and that third party webcams just keep trucking along?

<comment><USER23> The Linux kernel doesn't provide a stable ABI for modules so they have to be atleast recompiled each time. There are some workarounds such as DKMS to rebuild the interface when the kernel updates but I don't know if Android provides it.

Last I checked a big issue was Qualcomm doens't support their SoC for very long so manufactures have to tweak each devices 'tree' (it's unique kernel and drivers) for each kernel update.

The whole point of project treble was to disconnect the Android version from the kernel version so that manufactures could keep using the existing kernel and drivers and would only have to recustomize the new OSI to their liking.

Turns out a lot of device manufactures still don't see much value in providing timely updates since the general public doesn't even know what version their currently running and are just as likely to hate an update than like it.

Personally, I feel Google's sluggishness to enforce update policies or change how Android works is out of fear that Samsung will break completely and launch their own app store and not have the Play Store, or rather Play Services which is what Google needs if they want to power many of their online platforms (where do you think Google map road conditions come from?, Or that feature that shows how busy restaurants are?). Without play services on every Android device, Android looses it's profitability.

<comment><USER24> Yet Apple manages it, and they use Qualcomm components. What happens to the Qualcomm drivers when Apple releases a new iOS version that works across multiple generations of devices, are they updated by Apple or does Qualcomm provide a new driver to Apple ? I am not 100% accepting the ABI argument the drivers in the Linux kernel are not getting rewriting every release, sometimes there are changes and I don't know if applying those changes to drivers is such a burden otherwise the kernel will be always broken

<comment><USER25> > I am not 100% accepting the ABI argument the drivers in the Linux kernel are > not getting rewriting every release, sometimes there are changes and I don't > know if applying those changes to drivers is such a burden otherwise the > kernel will be always broken

I think you may be mixing up "ABI" and "API". If you change internal kernel APIs, you'd break a lot of code and have to go in and fix it. If you change the ABI, you just have to recompile. The ABI does change pretty often and as a rule of thumb there is no effort to keep it stable, the way you would if you were writing a shared library (which ideally has both a stable API and ABI). Drivers in the kernel are not broken because they are recompiled with the rest of the kernel. Kernel modules from different kernel versions ARE broken and this is why we have DKMS.

But just to talk about what happens here—Apple is the only developer of the XNU kernel, and they have a fairly short list of iOS SKUs in the history of iOS, and only a small portion of those get iOS 13 support—something like 12 iPhone models. So the support for all of these devices is right on the mainline kernel development tree.

This is not how Android development works. You generally have a bunch of different manufacturers, who get a team of engineers to get a fork of the Linux kernel working on each device, and then they drop it and move on to the next one. There will be various binary blobs involved, and integrating the changes back upstream or downstream ends up being a pain.

And just to return to the original point, the Linux kernel developers are actively hostile to any attempts to make the kernel ABI stable enough for binary blob drivers to work. This is not a question about whether it is technically possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Android has a stable ABI, it is called Treble HAL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Doing this analysis by SKU (device model) makes the picture look far worse than it is. You should be looking at _users_. Ideally you'd be looking at your own app's users which may differ from the general Play Store usage quite significantly.

The most representative public data for a US centric app is Mixpanel's [1]. This has lined up with most of the apps I've worked on more closely than Google's own dashboard [2].

If I were starting an app today with no data, I would set my minSDK to Lollipop (21). If I had an existing app I'd be dropping support of any version used by <1-3% of my user base.

[1] [https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/android_os_adoption](https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/android_os_adoption) [2] [https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards)

</comment><comment><USER27> been burned twice (Lenovo, Motorola) with "yes we will" followed by months of "we meant maybe" followed by months and then "no, we won't"

Tablets get less love than phones too. That said, my recent expriences have been better than prior, but still somewhat dire.

"two years and its junk" is a pretty bad rule. it feels like formalized planned-obsolescence.

</comment><comment><USER28> Quick warning for anyone wanting to upgrade to Android 10, if you're using a custom alarm app, don't upgrade. The new OS has broken pretty much all alarm apps that aren't the stock clock app.

<comment><USER29> I am using "Sleep Cycle" without problems. Poco F1 custom AOSP 10 Rom .

<comment><USER28> Nice thanks for mentioning it. Just gave it a shot and it actually activates the screen correctly which the others I've tried weren't doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This shows Oppo as being the worst -- but I have had the last 2 OnePlus phones (6T and 7Pro) that received updates within a month of a new release (and OnePlus is Oppo).

</comment><comment><USER31> What if Android was designed in a way that meant the device makers had to modify only the UI and not alter the functionality of the features. Wont this have solved their problems? Im thinking this because many phone makers just apply their skin on top of stock android and nothing more!

Things like settings UI can be fixed for all vendors so that we don't get confused everytime we get a different phone! I hope fushcia does it this way!

</comment><comment><USER7> The key to driving voluntary updates is to separate the platform from the product. There's no reason that Google shouldn't be able to maintain an Android OS that looks and works just like it did the first day that the user opened the phone.

Such a standard is _expected_ in commercial software because businesses won't tolerate expensive disruptions to placate a vendor's vanity. If Google were serious about maintaining a healthy Android ecosystem, they'd make platform upgrades mandatory and transparent. Launcher and interface "upgrades" can and should be optional.

As far as I know, Microsoft continues to fret over backward compatibility with software that's probably older than their median employee, because their customers expect nothing less. Moreover, customers demand a consistent experience and have very little tolerance for arbitrary workflow disruption (a point forcibly driven home by the crash and burn of Windows 8, in case it wasn't already obvious enough).

RHEL releases are supported for more than 10 years and they function essentially identically the entire time, somehow _without_ leaving users in the breach to contend alone against a decade's worth of crashes and security flaws, and believe it or not, there are specialized and boutique platforms that take this type of thing even more seriously.

"Don't break the user's shit" is not only _possible_ , it's the baseline expectation from any profesionally-managed platform.

Then we have Google saying "Hey, upgrade your OS and we'll change the whole interface, break a third of your software, and force you to learn this weird new 'no buttons' thing because buttons aren't in this year. No takebacks." When that's all vendors have to offer, it's not a surprise that consumers avoid upgrades like the plague.

While Apple is definitely closer to the Google side of the fence here, they've paid a high price for it over the decades, penetrating only those industries where the appearance of eccentric creativity is a larger asset than consistent productivity. Since iOS devices are primarily a status symbol, it appears the combination of getting the hottest thing and feeling compliant with the overlords in Cupertino is sufficient upgrade motive for the ever-dwindling number of iOS users.

Google should know their audience of "everyone else" well enough to know that for most people, that dog just don't hunt. Maybe it's time for Microsoft to draw its claws out of Nokia and see what happens if they take another pass at the market.

</comment><comment><USER32> Stop. Fucking. Buying. Non. Google. Phones.

<comment><USER33> <incorrect information>

<comment><USER34> Wait what? The original Pixel was updated to Android 10. That's three years of updates.</comment></comment></comment>


What is the P2P Web? - <AUTHOR> https://pfrazee.github.io/blog/what-is-the-p2p-web <comment><USER2> I think it is a bit concerning that P2P is litterally letting everyone connect to your PC.

But

In many aspects it could be safer than the regular Web.

Tech like IPFS already stores everything by its hash, so chances that you download malicious software that was added behind an URL that once was "good" is almost zero.

Also these system would load-balance rather nicely, the more people want something, the faster it will distribute to more nodes and easier to get.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rcomend: Decentralized web summit 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yth7O6yeZRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yth7O6yeZRE) ; 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfWgin3JlAU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfWgin3JlAU)</comment>


George Soros on the global economic crisis and the Euro - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/aug/19/crisis-euro/?pagination=false#

<comment><USER2> "Keynes taught us that budget deficits are essential for countercyclical policies in times of deflation, yet governments everywhere feel compelled to reduce them under pressure from the financial markets."

While, I think he is right, I find this statement a little like a pulled- punch. Are the markets applying pressure or is it politics and hot air from financial pundits? If the markets were applying pressure, wouldn't long term interest rates be higher? I see this more as a perception problem than anything else: people don't want any more stimulus, everything is fine now, let's get some government belt-tightening going.

<comment><AUTHOR> The markets (which is to say banks and financial institutions) are applying lots of political pressure. They are heavily involved (like any powerful industry) in the political machinery in every mainstream party in the main European countries (and obviously in the US as well).

I haven't seen any evidence that pundits are driving any of these policy decisions.

I don't know what you mean by "perception problem" – there is a real economic crisis.

<comment><USER2> When I said perception problem, I don't mean to say that there there isn't a problem. I totally agree about that. I think everyone who is watching is in agreement on that. I was speaking more about the debate between inflation vs. deflation. Soros is warning about deflation here but my perception of the political pressure has been that governments need to tighten in and spend less. Unemployment is on the rise but the idea that government can come in and be counter-cyclical is politically taboo.

Overall, I think this whole topic is crazy complex and one where your instincts are probably wrong. I was simply picking on a small point that I don't think the evidence shows markets are warning about inflation, it's pundits and politics that are doing that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good read. I recently added <http://feeds.feedburner.com/GeorgeSorosBlog> to my reading list. I first became interested in Soros because my very conservative son in law hates him - so Soros immediately looked good :-)

Here is an interesting interview with Eric Schmidt: [http://georgesorosblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/george-soros- wit...](http://georgesorosblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/george-soros-with-google- ceo-eric.html)</comment>


How Being a Doctor Made Me a Better Founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/how-being-a-doctor-made-me-a-better-founder.html

<comment><USER2> It has been my experience that doctors make horrible businessmen. I think it is the medical school training that encourages over confidence in their abilities, even outside their domain, and a dangerous reluctance or inability to listen to outsiders or experts of lower social status. Perhaps this guy is the exception but I don't think it was the doctor training so much but the fact that high intelligence is general can quickly be applied to any area.

<comment><USER3> Not sure whether docs generally make better, same or worse businessmen, but my experience with medical training taught me to question everything rather than to encourage overconfidence. There's certainly value in artificial confidence in medicine as it applies to most patients, who aren't knowledgeable or alert enough to distill information like you may be able to.

<comment><USER2> > medical training taught me to question everything...

Certainly this has value but the ability to question everything in an intelligent way is not generalizable. By that I mean that the training in med school includes a huge context of medical knowledge not just this method. The danger and error that I see is that many docs think the method is sufficient without out the context.

> There's certainly value in artificial confidence in medicine as it applies > to most patients...

I get it and understand the need. However, in my experience the eventual dupe of the con is not the patient but the doc. I have seen it often enough that it is my default assumption though I have met some good people who happen to be doctors who have not fallen into that trap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great article.

What I have come to appreciate more and more about physicians is their on-the- fly algorithmic decision-making ability whereby the doctor must account for factors that go well beyond pathophysiology and extend into statistics, social/cultural conventions, benefits/costs analyses, financial situations (insurance coverage, or lack thereof), and more. To gather, categorize, rank, simplify and prioritize data is an incredibly valuable skillset no matter your profession, particularly for an entrepreneur whose roles can vary greatly hour-to-hour.

</comment><comment><USER5> Spot on. I work in medical informatics and my brother is a doctor. Doctors have a unique way of distilling information. My brother likes to say "does it change management?" aka, is a piece of information important enough to change outcome.

The problem I have with virtually all medical information related startups revolves around protected health information (PHI). How does a startup get it? How does a startup attain a level of credibility, both financially and technically, where an organization that has access to a patient population - like a physicians group, hospital, etc. - get the opportunity to prove their product. Unless you make your case directly to the patient and get them to give you their data, any sizeable organization is going to be extremely reticent to part with their PHI for political, legal and, of course, general technical ineptitude reasons. Not a trivial problem, I can assure you.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm also a physician and my hospital uses a similar product that I wrote with symfony. It's rough but we've been using for three years now. If you are interested in helping me take it to the next step or you need a doctor as part of your project, just contact me. carotids at g mail

</comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting article. Just wish it explained what medisas actually does. Also slightly amused that they really seem to stick to the priotizing by having a website that's simple and not minding that it's slightly broken: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gk8om9gnsujhte/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gk8om9gnsujhte/Screenshot%202014-02-07%2002.17.30.png)

Edit: Huh, looks like they don't even have a product yet.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately we've had to prioritise building product and taking care of our customers - the corporate site is a lower priority item ;)

But we're hiring, so anyone who desperately wants to fix the website should send us an email.

<comment><USER7> I don't see it as something unfortunate, just a consequent application of your other conclusions. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The biggest takeaway is that medical troubleshooting methodology carries over to running a startup? Someone clearly needed some press...

</comment><comment><USER10> I was expecting to open this article and read the word "MONEY" in big bold font.</comment>


Ask HN: What is truly the cutting edge? - <AUTHOR> I feel like every hype article I read talks about advancement in machine learning/AI, or some other buzzwordy field. While I'm not discrediting the merit in those discoveries, I often yeard to hear about what new and cutting edge technologies exist which I haven't even heard of it. Which are so cutting edge as to not have made it to the level of mainstream appeal. <comment><USER2> maybe the answer is NO, there is nothing new.

If we take a deep look at machine learning, it's just some combination of linear algebra / information theory / neuron network, and it's been there for more than a decade.

All those called "cutting edge" things are based on something already exist. We rarely create / discover new things.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://cuelang.org](https://cuelang.org)

Based on your handle, I'd imagine you shall like this

</comment><comment><USER4> pandemic logistics?</comment>


Stem Cells Cure Blind Man - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5433391/stem-cells-cure-blind-man

<comment><USER2> This is pretty remarkable and will hopefully lead to further exploration and research regarding using one's own stem cells to grow additional cells for cures and replacements.

One thing I don't fully understand is why the human body doesn't do this process on its own. If the cells can indeed be regrown or "incubated" using byproducts of the human donor her/himself and reintroduced into the body with little chance of rejection, you wonder why the infinite genius of the human body hasn't evolved to do this naturally. I suppose one might argue that the healing we ARE capable of is a form of this process and you might be right (I'm no doctor), but are their cases of something as grand a scale as restoring your own eyesight happening naturally?

<comment><USER3> Why would evolution favor this, by the time this helped the individual he'd already have had all his children. Evolution optimizes more babies, not healthier individuals with long lifespans. A naturally blind person probably wouldn't have survived childhood for most of human evolution.

<comment><USER4> The value of an individual to the evolution of a species doesn't stop when they have their offspring. Long lifespans or intelligence may allow the formation of culture and society, which improves the chances of survival of the group as it works together. Even individuals that have already had offspring still have value to the group in that they may allow the group to operate more effectively as a unit, increasing the likelihood that it (and thus the species) will thrive.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that 'evolution' doesn't care about the individual... it 'cares' about the species. We think of 'evolving' in terms of mutations to individuals that get passed on via reproduction, but it's just as valid to look at 'mutations' in group behavior that make any given group more fit for survival. These mutations aren't passed on via genes... they are passed on as cultural norms within the group, with the aid of both intelligence and sufficient lifespans that allow offspring to learn from their parents.

Groups with better cultural norms will enjoy more success than other groups. These other groups will either adapt the ideas, or they will be at a disadvantage and eventually lose out. Either way, the species will have 'evolved' in such a way as to improve it's chances of survival, even though no physical improvement was made and handed to offspring via genes.

With this in mind, it's almost as if we are evolving more rapidly than ever. The sweeping changes to human culture (and technology, which is another vector to improve fitness of a group) over the last few centuries (new forms of government/economies/law/freedoms) has been extremely beneficial to the survival of the human species.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely. Comparing the evolution of ideas to the evolution of genes is like comparing a programmable chip to a hardwired circuit. I remember reading about this in _The Science of the Discworld_ , a hilarious yet informative book where the authors described these concepts in terms of "memes" (a word coined by Dawkins, I think, to refer to the mental analog of genes) and "extelligence" (knowledge that lives outside you head, like Wikipedia).

Even though we haven't evolved the ability to regrow eyes automatically, we've evolved enough intelligence to approach the level of civilization where, by playing with our own biology, we can _make_ eyes regrow. How's that for a hack!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cross reference: <http://searchyc.com/stem+cells+blind>

Very similar reports from both very recently and from 2 years ago, with some discussion.</comment>


Immigration Overhaul Passes in Senate - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/us/politics/immigration-bill-clears-final-hurdle-to-senate-approval.html?hp

<comment><USER2> so what exactly does this mean to a student with f1 and is this going to change the answers we need to answer for the visa interview when coming to here.</comment>


Games on smartphones snare a new breed of player  - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_17177670 <comment><USER2> From the article:

"the high-fructose corn syrup of entertainment," providing delicious pastimes without much nutritional value, so to speak.

But then they list games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. I would say that games like Farmville (along with its ilk) which are little more than incentives to continue playing at bite size intervals are more the "junk food" of the gaming world.</comment>


Just work hard - <AUTHOR> http://thehundreds.com/blog/2011/07/12/just-work-hard-its-not-hard-work/

<comment><USER3> As a millennial who actually works his ass off I always feel somewhat compelled to respond to these. Many of my friends who just graduated, especially non-developers, actually want nothing more than to put in hard work and get stuff done. Unfortunately the few jobs that are out there for young people rarely actually involve working hard if it is building towards a career. Sure, you can go off and work your ass of as a waiter, but if you want to go into something that's going to give you a long term career (an internship or intro office job), guess what: you wont be required to work nearly as hard as you can, and it will fucking bore you, and will not require even 20 hours a week of actual work, and in the end you will have pushed some papers around. When you compound this with the fact that the cultural presentation of work that we've gotten for our entire lives is that "it sucks and there's nothing you can do about it" (something I whole-heartedly disagree with), it's no wonder our generation is "lazy."

Millennials "lack direction" (at least in work) because they are being told over and over again that they are in the most fun time of their lives, it's all down hill from here, and that there is no chance at a fulfilling work life. Outside of software engineering, there is little "hard work" available that actually builds towards a career. Finally, when you add in the massive moral ambiguity of working at many companies (Philip Morris seems to own half the country), it again becomes very difficult to become motivated about work. I think most of us really do want to work hard and accomplish things but it is really not clear how to do that.

<comment><USER4> I think the problem here is that not all employers will challenge you. In my mind, the key to finding enjoyment in your work if it's not challenging is to challenge yourself. Unless your job is oppressive to self direction there is nothing stopping you or anyone else from creating or doing something that is positive for the business and challenging for you. As a few examples you could find ways to optimize a system that is inefficient (it doesn't even need to be at the software level), analyze information about your customers, find ways to save money, research ways to get new clients, etc. A side benefit to challenging yourself is that you will find it quite rewarding. I can highly recommend Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book on "flow" in regards to the phenomenon around it.

I think what I'm trying to say is by challenging yourself to be more than what it is your employer expects out of you results in a net win for both you and your company.

<comment><USER5> I agree completely. I work at a company that is small about 25 people, but I engage in this quite often. The company is rather open about everything. I have access to just about everything I need except for the company bank accounts, which I do not want. This provides with a lot access to do a lot of this flow analysis. However the two greatest challenges I still have to overcome are 1)Buy-In from the higher ups to actually use the data/analysis and 2)the time to keep it up. I often feel, for multiple reasons, that I shouldn't be spending time on these endeavors. However, I still seem to always have a 'project'.

<comment><USER6> I also agree with the grandparent post. There's always something to do, and something more that could be done to make a project interesting.

However, I've often been frustrated by the effort required to get buy-in or recognition from higher-ups. I often found myself _wanting_ to contribute more, but sometimes it seemed like a sisyphean task and not worth the effort (especially once you start balancing compensation and effort).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sometimes it feels like HN is descending into a self-help group for intelligent but certified procrastinators. Does the consumption of such articles and other forms of self-help literature actually inspire you to create and do? Is the discussion of doing a form of action or the prelude to it?

Just follow my patented 3-D treatment program for hardcore procrastinators. Decide, declare, and do. Just stay clear of the 3 Es: explanations, extensions and excuses.

<comment><USER8> The press always make it look so easy. This post was actually refreshing for the ones of us slaving away hours of their weekends working while others play.

So yes this helps.

<comment><USER9> Hey, wait a minute, you are procrastinating on HN just like the rest of us. Pfffft, _working_ ....

<comment><USER10> Just because an individual is browsing HN does not mean the individual is procrastinating. Please consult a dictionary for an accurate definition of the term.

<comment><USER11> I think the right term has 4 letters, starts with a _j_ , ends with an _e_ , and has an _ok_ in the middle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At some point in my life I was into NLP (neuro-lingustic programming - <USER2> few bits of practical psychology.

What I've found - many dreamers do not need to achieve it - they already experienced what they are dreaming about and it is the same as to achieve it for them. It's like watch a trailer for a movie and then get bored in the movie theater..

There is opposite side - people who never dream and find any excuse to not think about possible future..

I believe, right way is in the middle - you have to dream, but only so much to start wanting to get there. And never try to experience the whole thing in a dream.

So we should teach kidos to dream, but only enough to ignite the spark, but not to burn it full.. Have no clue how to do this tho...

<comment><USER13> Poster may be talking about something similar to this

[http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...](http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html)

"After hitting on a brilliant new life plan, our first instinct is to tell someone, but Derek Sivers says it's better to keep goals secret. He presents research stretching as far back as the 1920s to show why people who talk about their ambitions may be less likely to achieve them."

<comment><USER12> From my experience, telling everybody around may work both ways - it may put you in to frame where you HAVE to get to your target, or get enough discussion to experience it and forget about it. But in general, I would say yes - for me it is better to keep things in secret, try to build dependencies on these targets and slowly go through it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was going to ask HN yesterday how many unfinished app they currently have. This stems from the fact that a developer with a popular app told me currently he has 30+ unfinished apps in his IDE right now. Naturally, I started to feel good about the my 4-5 projects that are unfinished right now.

But, the truth is this isn't school. School strives on following through, passing every test, rinse and repeat. In the world of business you only need one.

"The point of all this is that it doesn't matter how many times you fail. It doesn't matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and (n)either should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because

All that matters in business is that you get it right once.

Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are." - Mark Cuban

My point being, so what if their t-shirt company failed, onto the next one. These guys get it.

[btw Antigua are you from Antigua in the Caribbean?]

<comment><USER15> I have (1) MS thesis, (1) half-finished prototype for a desktop app, (1) idea of a ios app, (1) idea of a niche MUD.

But I also work at a BigCorp, so I'm perhaps atypical.

I gave up on having one zillion unfinished programs a year or two ago, when it became apparent nothing was getting meaningfully done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Work hard, eh? I'm sure the author has spent many years contemplating this unique advice. I've got more fatherly advice while we're at it: save money, try your hardest, don't put your elbows on the table, and close the door, you're air conditioning the entire neighborhood.

In all seriousness, did anyone else find this post incredibly condescending? If the new generation has these problems (and I don't think they do anymore than the generations before), it's going to take a lot more than platitudes to solve our problems.

</comment><comment><USER17> I just realised my generation is now old enough to be complaining about younger generations.

I think the only "generational" debate worth having these days will be the funding of the pensions (promised to people but not always saved for) and medical procedures of the long-lived baby boomers whilst simultaneously dealing with the debt mountains in the West. The debt in the West is approaching, I think may have exceeded in some instances, levels just after the end of WWII. A nice big screen TV doesn't quite have the same quality as defeating fascism.

<comment><USER18> Yes, it's funny how that makes you feel old, isn't it? Every friggin generation has people who complain about the younger ones lack of direction. I'm not worried though - They too will grow up.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, but the real problem is the younger younger generation. Those kids have no direction. You should see them...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Putting in the hard work is a huge part of being successful, no doubt, but this article talks as if it is the ONLY important thing, which I disagree with.

You can easily end up working hard on the wrong thing. Writing an app or building a startup that sells something nobody wants for example. There are plenty of people working super hard on already doomed projects because they didn't do enough market research or listen to the right people.

You have to work hard AND get a lot of other stuff right as well to have any chance of success. There are plenty of things you can do e.g. automating tasks and outsourcing that don't require extra work but can improve your chances of success.

Forgive me if this seems obvious, it just bothered me how the article tried to sell hard work as a silver bullet. I don't think it's that simple.

<comment><USER21> It seemed to me that the article wasn't saying it was the only important thing, but that it was the one thing most likely to be _missing_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think for the HN crowd (generally not a lazy bunch), this may come off as a bit trite. But what the author is saying here is not confounded. I have plenty of friends who fall into this category. They fail to realize that in order to get somewhere, you have to work your ass off. Not to mention, his remark about caring about popularity and fame over having a nice family or caring for others is spot on. There are a lot of intelligent kids ambling about, carelessly making choices that for the most part will not help them to excel or move forward in life. For those that it applies to, this is a good article.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hard work alone is often not sufficient. The real solution is to work hard but also to work smart. You need to find a balance between slogging just to get things done and innovating to reduce the slog required in the future. This applies not apply to physical tasks but also to learning. When learning a new skill/subject it's easy to expend a lot of effort reading whole books and articles without taking the leap of getting your hands dirty and applying your learning, but without doing so you can't build the neural connections required to learn.

<comment><USER24> Also I would say "hard work" is a bad metaphor. More important parts are:

1) (as you said) "work smart"

2) "enjoy your work"

and only then 3) "work hard"

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I know I am nitpicking, but is there a reason that a huge semi-transparent dark box is in the middle of my screen, informing me that:

Notice

JavaScript for Mobile Safari is currently turned off.

Turn it on in Settings > Safari to view this website

I do not quite see any content that requires the use of JavaScript, nor does the noscript handler identify my browser, Firefox 5, correctly.

</comment><comment><USER26>
      A truly invaluable life is comprised of the journey

Something worth remembering in all aspects of life, not just your career. Without the low-points the highs aren't as noticeable, and, in my experience, some of the hardest things I've experienced are also some of the memories I cherish the most.

I wish I could express this view in a less cheesy fashion, but I don't think I can. It's a cliché, but it also often happens to be the truth.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if his observations about "millennials" is actually true. I'm always skeptical when people refer to (especially) younger generations and their flaws, it reminds me of a grumpy old man. "Kids were tougher back in my days! Knew the value of hard work and a dollar! Nowadays they got their MTV and their eyePhones, I'm telling ya this country's falling apart!".

However, we live in a different world now. Means of production have opened up to virtually anyone; whether your writing software for computers, producing films, music, t-shirts, etc. It can pretty much all be done with a laptop and your basement. Channels of distribution have also opened up too, so anyone's work can easily be accessed, purchased, and collaborated by anyone else in the world. By these factors alone, we'd expect to see a higher volume of low and high quality work. I don't think its necessarily true the younger generations don't understand hard work, but that we see much more success and failure together.

<comment><USER28> Things have always been degenerating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is totally missing the point. Everybody I know is working hard and is keen to work hard to achieve things. But today it's not easy. 30 years ago you could work hard and you had good chances to succede. Today you may end up working up to update a power point, or because the boss doesn't use vba and you have to do all things manually.

I mean, work hard is a really, really, bad metaphore. It is more about learning good and useful stuff. Which is also kind of diffucult having seen the total absurd that universities have become.

</comment><comment><USER30> Let's not forget that work is a vector quantity: direction is as important (or more important) than magnitude.

Also, it's important to understand the relationship between work and productivity. I knew a wannabe programmer who once bragged about how much "hard work" he put into an 8-hour day of manually tweaking data, when he could have written a program to do it in a half hour.

<comment><USER31> Yes. There are also the superstars that just put in 8 hour days but manage to get more meaningful work done than anybody else in the office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm going to side-step the generational flame-war and point out a few things.

First of all, we don't live in a culture that values hard work. To be fair, maybe it shouldn't. Hard work at something pointless is just wasted effort. But we should toss the hypocrisy by which we claim to value "hard work" when what we really value (as a culture) in people is the resources they already have. The Randists and conservatives and big-business lapdogs dress corporate executives up as "society's most creative and productive individuals" but this isn't true. As a society-- we worship _consumption_ , in the guise of jet-set executives who consume the earth's resources and in that of celebrities who consume others' attention-- and production and hard work really aren't major concerns.

Consider the celebrity cult (the hatred and envy included, because the baseless hatred of him is as execrable as the pointless veneration) around a rather bland executive-- neither deserving of much admiration nor dislike-- of a rather boring but important and successful upstart company, a cult existing mainly because he's a billionaire in his 20s. No one know or cares if he worked hard to achieve what he did (I think it's obvious that he did, although he had ridiculously lucky breaks) but because he's rich, he's important.

"Millennials" don't see people who are rewarded or even respected for working hard. They see a culture of rent-seekers, lucky bandits, and celebrity that is based on celebrity alone. And if people are going to pin our cultural degeneracy on the Baby Boomers (a reasonable contention) it should not be based on what they _said_ as parents but what they _did_ in the marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER33> The rugged individualism of Americans is amusing sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER34> Ok, then, working hard in Nike factory would be a good start for many people. Work hard. Seek advice from right people. Outperform coworkers. Three years later you would be the CEO.

...No, I strongly disagree with this. Effort without significance to what you want in long term is waste of everything. If you're not sure what you want, the only effort you should be making is trying to come up with what you want to do. Effort chosen to be, designed to be, MUST be, beneficial to what you ultimately want to achieve is the only effort worth making.</comment>


Inserting Artificial Objects into Photographs - <AUTHOR> http://www.cgchannel.com/2011/10/cool-tech-demo-match-3d-models-into-archive-photos/

<comment><USER2> Read the linked paper, it's actually very good. It looks like they used good science in testing this:

"From our study, we conclude that both our method and the light probe method are highly realistic, but that users can tell a real image apart from a synthetic image with probability higher than chance. However, even though users had no time restrictions, they still could not differentiate real images from both our method and the light probe method reliably."

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great example of using humans for what humans are good at (interpreting photographs) and computers for what computers are good at (lots of light modelling).

</comment><comment><USER4> Very realistic. My first thought was that if this can be done without leaving detectable artifacts, then it will inevitably impact the admissibility of photographs as evidence in trials.

<comment><USER5> And eye-witness testimony should be made inadmissible (and I think may eventually). DNA evidence has a 1 in 200 (ish) chance of being wrong[1]. Hard time to be a lawyer.

1\. Source: The Drunkard's Walk. This is the estimated likelihood of a lab error, which by far drowns out the 1 in a billion chances the DNA match is wrong, but the numbers are not reported and not admissible as evidence.

<comment><USER6> On average, you need 100 people to find two among them with one common fingerprint. Now calculate how many you need to find one among them that has a common fingerprint with a given person, i.e. you.

<comment><USER5> But if you know the lab has a one in ten chance of screwing up the processing of my print, how can I trust the one in a large number of a match. The screw up may cause a one in five chance of matching with anybody.

Error rates are hugely important yet completely ignored in court.

<comment><USER7> _Error rates are hugely important yet completely ignored in court._

Not actually true. This is not to say that courts get it right all the time, but it's not particularly newsworthy when they do. Attacking the chain of custody and alleging contamination or false positives are standard techniques in challenging forensic testimony, both biological and digital.

The cases where the forensic evidence is legitimately challenged and those challenges are ignored or overruled are often dramatic and newsworthy, but the rate of miscarriages of justice is falling because courts today are much more aware of these issues than the courts of (say) 20 years ago. Unfortunately news reporting of trials and appeals is so utterly awful that people tend to assume the exceptional is the norm.

I'm not saying that it isn't a problem, just that the courts are more cognizant of the issue than more people appreciate.

<comment> daniel-cussen "A technician in the NYPD's forensics lab has been suspended for allegedly falsifying drug-test results, throwing into question "maybe thousands" of criminal cases -- and prompting a panicked meeting yesterday between cops and the city district attorneys."

[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/lab_tech_wQIOPAcKY...](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/lab_tech_wQIOPAcKYnI2rP1lQMEDqL)

<comment><USER7> What's your point? If courts were not aware of such things, there wouldn't be the potential for a large number of convictions to be overturned, would there?

<comment> daniel-cussen I was giving a good example.

<comment><USER7> Ah, I see. It was hard to tell without any comment of your own on the grandparent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny thing is that this was posted 3 days ago : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3111258>

and it only got 5 points

And the link was to the page of one of the guys who did research.

???

<comment><USER7> Happens all the time. The new and front pages are too busy so worthwhile articles often get overlooked. But it is good to repost as you did, I will usually look at the original and add an upvote.

<comment><USER9> Yes, e.g. the recent "Quantum Levitation" was submitted 5 times before the successful one: [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Quantum+Lev...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Quantum+Levitation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can we please not use OTT descriptions like "Mind-Blowing". It sounds a bit... tabloid-y

<comment><USER5> The article linked to uses the title. Better would have been to link to the paper itself (which also includes the video), but the OP was following title submission rules.

<comment><USER11> The article was submitted days ago and received no attention at all. I guess _Bind Blowing Titles_ work even on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That is very impressive. I used to do a lot of photorealistic modelling using mental ray or vray in 3ds max, andt he level of precision of this is quite frankly extraordinary. This could very be a game changer in the 3D industry.

<comment><USER13> This is true.

Camera matching usually requires a lot of forethought and preparation of the physical scene, involving thoroughly surveying the location & obtaining light- probe data so that an accurate 3d model of the scene can be produced and the inserted objects lit correctly.

This could make composing 3d/practical images a trivial exercise, very nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> pretty cool... i can see this being used as a pretty slick "try before you buy" feature for an online furniture/home goods store.

</comment><comment><USER15> As technology progresses, it seems like only a matter of time before all photos and videos can be perfectly modified to suit whatever purpose. At some point, perhaps movie stars will do no more than lend their likeness (airbrushed of course) to productions.

<comment><USER7> It will be a case of '3d killed the video star,' in many ways. We are already approaching a point where the acting and the appearance are two different things; actors like Andy Sirkis and Doug Jones are not very well known to the general public, but have played starring roles as larger-than-life monsters of the screen. Although it is not yet economical, it is already quite possible to take one person with excellent acting ability and map on the appearance of someone else who is more visually appropriate or attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love the extensive use of teapots. On a previous life, I had one (a physical one) on my desk.

<comment><USER3> It's the standard Utah Teapot <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Utah_teapot> also the Stanford Dragon makes several appearances [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Stanford_Drag...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Stanford_Dragon)

<comment><USER16> Never had a dragon, but I was very fond of my "teapotahedron"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I see they use Luxrender. Any one dares to take a guess at what algorithm they used? The animations seems noise free so I guess particle/photon mapping? IGI perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER18> Papers: <http://kevinkarsch.com/publications/sa11.pdf>

Looks like film makers and others will save a lot of money in decorating scenarios.

<comment><USER19> Same thoughts here, it might make low budget special effects possible?</comment></comment>


Social products win with utility, not invites - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/2013/03/25/social-products-win-with-utility-not-invites-guest-post/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AndrewChensBlog+%28Andrew+Chen+%28%40andrewchen%29%29 <comment><USER2> A must-read for any new social product. Lead with content first, build network later.</comment>


Auralization experiment - <AUTHOR>

It seems to be possible to hear the sound of execution of a Java software; CodeSounding assigns instruments / pitches to programming statements (if, for, etc), so that the flowing of execution can be played as a flow of music.
Max/MSP enabled the auralization of several sorting algorithm's execution path: every instruction triggers an oscillator, tuned to a specific pitch.
See an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol5ml9e2THw <comment><AUTHOR> Here the clickable links:

Example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol5ml9e2THw>

CodeSounding project: <http://www.codesounding.org/indexeng.html></comment>


Ask HN: Why do you care about privacy? - <AUTHOR>

In light of recent events, I thought it might be useful to start a conversation about the trade-offs between privacy and security. It's easy to see the consequences of a terrorist attack, but the implications of losing our privacy/civil liberties are a bit more subtle. Why do you care? <comment><USER2> If history has taught us anything, it is that at some point, no matter what society or period in time, someone will come along who has outwardly evil intentions and claim power. The less information they can obtain on any individual the better. While I do not think what is currently happening has evil intentions behind it (I think it is fear/money based), I'd rather not take any chances.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey guys, let me tell you a little story ... I'm somehow what your government is calling a "terrorist" ... I didn't yet kill anyone but I do a lot of drug related stuff, fake ID and paper, hacking, money laundry and I already spend time in prison as very dangerous but not for one from the above. I did participate at demonstration similar to the one in Istanbul and I have over 18 complain against me for insulting, threaten and sometimes extreme violence against the police. That's why I spend time in prison and probably I will do again as I have already fabricated files at the judge table.

This Prism scandal is somehow numbs me. What good does it have if people like me and many others like me walk free and do, with the help of corrupted people from the government, many more other criminal things? Absolute none. I don't use phones, I do not have a job (obviously), I do not use social media "spying" sites, credit card, real ID or other crazy stuff like donating blood or something.

I'm a real free man.

The Prism software will never catch me even if I use my real email cause I speak in thief's slang, I do hacking related things from free internet points, I never use credit card, only cash and I'm really loved for that, I do not eat meat packed with hormones that can bring me to hospitals or other genetically engineered food, I do practice yoga and listen good music. I'm a very happy "criminal"

You on the other hand are very NAIVE. It is a very soft word for what you are. The Prism is really a tool for more inside corruption, more control over YOUR LIFE, not mine, more money laundry, more power excess, more real and dangerous crime as in people killed for they belief and probably "wrong" invention or other related whistle blowing scandal's. There is nothing in this software related to criminal activities, only control. It cannot be really, thief's know how to speak and how to live but I assume there is a small segment of people that gone bad and do lame things like stole a bike in from of the street camera. That is because they probably need money for food or shelter for their kids. And you have to ask yourself why this draconian control over YOUR life?

The answer is very simple. Cause they want you to fail so they can justify and steal the billion dollars budget. It is YOU who fail and start think in wrong terms after all this pressure from work, home, media and society. It is you who are blind and very naive about the true meaning of their "democracy". There is nothing special about so called criminal and terrorist - they just want their freedom and life back from the corruption - that's really all. Everything else is just government bull __ __, please excuse my language.

<comment><USER4> Maybe break your pills in half.</comment></comment>