Anatomy of a Noob - Why your Mom Suck at Computers - <AUTHOR> http://000fff.org/anatomy-of-a-noob-why-your-mom-suck-at-computers/ <comment><USER2> One quick tip for describing things to non-technical customers: tell them everything three times. Don't tell them to click the "sign in link". (Don't ever use the word link. You'll regret it. "Button that says...", "picture that says...", "underlined blue text that says...") Tell them to click the

\+ purple button

\+ which says Sign In

\+ near the top-right corner of their screen.

You will be _amazed_ how much more effective that makes them at carrying out directions. (If you can only pick one, go for color or similar visual distinctiveness. Your users have long-since stopped reading everything on their computer because "none of it makes sense anyhow.")

In my experience it is worth overruling your designer's desire for visual continuity and having your most important button(s) be uniquely identifiable by color. (Strictly speaking I use purple for two things, but if they try to sign in by signing up for the free trial they'll be signed in like they intended.)

<comment><USER3> It's even easier to walk someone through with a command line. I've done it, reciting the magic incantations for the Windows recovery command line to a relative who didn't even know the difference between Windows and Office.

It was painful, but I relish the idea of walking someone through a GUI to do it even less.

<comment><USER4> How did you get the person to understand the concept of "what the command printed out"? I don't know how many times I had to say "Yeah, but look above the dollar sign, was there any text printed out between the current dollar sign and the last one?" The person I was talking to always would complain "IT DID NOTHING I'M BACK TO THE SAME THING."

I eventually got through it by getting them on IM and giving them text to copy-paste, and sometimes they'd send me screenshots.

<comment><USER3> "Can you read back the last three or four lines on the screen, please?"

<comment><USER2> Ori has it exactly right. Your mental model in seeing a CLI is that there are a series of commands being executed, that each one produces output, and that one adjusts what commands one executes in response to the output to achieve a goal.

Your user's mental model is that they are looking at a black and white screen written in ancient Aramaic. They can't read it, they won't try to read it, and they cannot keep it in their working set while speaking with you or while engaged in other tasks such as, most relevantly, typing. They hope the demon on the phone will tell them the right magic spell, because this is _so frustrating_.

But irrespective of their inability to read ancient Aramaic, they can still identify color, location, and motion. So the clever demon will always phrase his requests to read ancient Aramaic in terms of color, location, and motion.

<comment><USER4> You guys rock, thanks a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I was a TA in grad school, I had one student who _couldn't double click_. To double click, she'd take her hand off of the mouse, hover her palm a few inches above the mouse, then stab down twice with her finger. Doing this, she'd move the mouse while clicking the button, so her double clicks never registered. I kept telling her to leave her hand on the mouse and just press twice with her finger, but to my knowledge, she never tried it.

This was the same class where I tried to use the theory of evolution as an example, and about half the class laughed, because to them the theory was just a ridiculous idea. Gotta love the Bible belt!

EDIT: I think there's two keys to the true intuitiveness of an interface that many people overlook. It's easier to make an intuitive interface if you narrow the domain of an interface. It's also easier if you narrow the effective bandwidth of the interface -- show the user more data and they tend to be more confused, show the user less data and they tend to be less confused. Apple seems to apply this in Front Row and in iOS.

<comment><USER6> > _When I was a TA in grad school, I had one student who couldn't double > click._

This isn't at all uncommon actually, especially among adults age 50+. Double- clicking a mouse requires a certain amount of manual dexterity, but we've all forgotten that because we developed it a long time ago and to such an extent that it's become effortless.

<comment><USER7> Recommend they get a trackball; a big, beefy beast that can be slowed to a crawl. Better for the neck, better for double-clicking, and easier for positioning the cursor (especially if they have Parkinson's).

[http://cil614.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/kensington_trackba...](http://cil614.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/kensington_trackball.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> User interfaces my mother doesn't understand:

\- Running multiple applications at the same time is too confusing. She doesn't understand/notice the taskbar. She always tries to close one thing before starting another. Also, she doesn't notice that she has four copies of gmail open in the same browser -- since she doesn't understand what tabs are either.

\- Window geometry is never manipulated. She has never maximized, minimized, or resized a window.

\- As a result of the first two problems, inter-window operations such as drag and drop, cut and paste are often impossible.

\- She doesn't know when it's correct to left click, right click, or double left click to do what she wants. So she opts for double-clicking on everything: links, buttons, menus, credit card purchases...

\- She used to have 10 different "toolbars" activated in word 2003 because she couldn't find the button she needed, and they are randomly positioned everywhere because of accidental dragging (probably from overzealous double- clicking). Then one day she accidentally dragged the main toolbar offscreen, and was no longer able to open, save, or print...

\- Corollary to above -- she avoids menus, since they appear to her as a hierarchical wall of text full of jargon. Also, they are difficult to use when you tend to over-double-click, since they close themselves...

\- Activating Chinese UI in i18n-enabled programs it is often detrimental, as she doesn't have the tech vocabulary in Chinese either, and it just makes it harder for me to help her remotely.

\- She clicks on a word doc attachment in gmail, spends hours editing it, and can never find the file again, because it's really called "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Temp\awq2a393.doc"

\- She will click OK on any dialog box to make it go away, because she is trained to close dialog boxes that way. Even if the dialog box is a security popup warning for a sketchy activeX control.

\- She calls firefox "the google" because it was installed by google pack, and opens to the google homepage. She doesn't know the difference between the browser and the internet.

\- She doesn't understand why she can't print a web page and have it look nice, without all the extra columns of ad junk.

\+ Okay, one thing that does work well for her -- hitting control key twice accesses google desktop search popup to find anything -- even those annoying files in TEMP. She can remember that shortcut.

Once ipad gets traditional chinese support -- I'm going to get her one, and cut my tech support calls by 90%...

<comment><USER9> \- Email can have multiple recipients and reply vs reply-to-all

My mother has been using Outlook at her office for over 5 years. When I send an email to both her and my father, she replies only to me and frequently ends with "tell your father..."

-Copy and paste

Somehow, she understands CUT and paste, but can't make the mental leap to COPY. She typically cuts, pastes it right back to where she came from, and then goes to paste it again elsewhere.

\--

Despite all this, she _used to_ work with a 100% text mode CLI app for requisitioning with airline tickets as a travel agent. She was an expert at esoteric commands and had a little notebook that co-workers had photocopied and bound as a reference manual. She didn't understand a thing that she was typing, but she knew which magic incantations worked and which didn't. I noticed that she was doing the equivalent of calling functions, piping data, storing variables, etc., but to her it was "I type this in, and instead of 'CITY' I write the actual city name. Oh, but if the city name has a space in it, I need to type \ before the space. But if I type a \ anywhere else, it can crash the whole computer."

<comment><USER10> Clearly you should set up a mail filter that forwards emails with "From: Mom" and mail body containing "tell your father".

<comment><USER11> I don't think that's a great idea. A mum/mom could always send an email saying "DON'T tell your father!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My mother has been a practicing computer scientist for 40 years and doesn't particularly appreciate your stereotypes.

<comment><USER13> But isn't it interesting that she gets her child to make a comment on HN instead of writing it herself?

<comment><USER14> I don't usually say things like this, but...

`hahahaha, buuuuuurn`

That said, we're the kids of the world by most standards (median age).

You think Thompson or Pike chill on here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think this applies to my Mom. She is 50 years old and has installed harddrives (both scsi & ide), memory, formated and installed Windows 98,XP,ME (blah) and 7. Set up her own wireless. She calls me every-now-and-then for tech support, though honestly, the level of questions she asks have shot ahead of me, since I've been on a Mac since 05' and hate messing with hardware now. You'd be surprised how much a game like the Sim's can motivate a person to pick this stuff up.

<comment><USER16> She is definitely an outlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, some people like to say that there is nothing "intuitive" about User Interface whatsoever, even for Mac systems.

I don't know if it is true, but it does seem to have some air of truth around it.

<comment><USER18> The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned. <http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2002/08/nipple.html>

<comment><USER19> Although even the nipple is often something that has to be learned. There are a lot of lactation specialists that help new mothers and babies latch and feed. And a surprising number of babies that have trouble finding the nipple.

<comment><USER20> This is especially common with slightly premature babies. My son was born a day shy of 36 weeks (normal is 40 weeks; 38 is considered "full term") and needed a lot of training.

He knew how to suck and he knew how to swallow, but couldn't put them together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I learned long ago to never do family tech support over the phone. Use screensharing -- TeamViewer FTW. Even the most non-technical person can open up a teamviewer session and you can take it from there.

<comment><USER22> Despite my parents asking me what kind of computer they should get, and me telling them they should get a Mac, they keep getting Windows machines. They don't call me for tech support that often (they're pretty clever folk), but usually when they do I'm out hiking or at the mall or something, so I offer a few suggestions, then honestly say 'Well I dunno, I don't use Windows so I've never encountered that.'

The only real problems they've called with recently though are 'suddenly I can't get on the internet' problems, which is usually solved by saying "look in the Add/Remove Programs control panel for anything that says 'Norton' or 'Symantec', then uninstall it and reboot"

TL;DR: After a few weeks/months/years of Mac use, you can disclaim all knowledge of Windows to family members. Symantec sucks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Didn't his mom notice that the cursor moved the opposite direction? That's the first thing my mom would've said: "This mouse is broken".

<comment><AUTHOR> No she didn't unfortunately. Mind you the mouse is an abstraction, which means it can be interpreted in many ways. Inverted mouse used to be natural in fps games and still is in flight simulators.

A touch screen on the other hand that don't register where you click but just randomly chose coordinates now that would be noticed.

<comment><USER23> One of my aunts got my grandmother a computer 10 years ago or so. She had actually operated old IBM machines for accounting back many moons ago, but hadn't used a computer otherwise.

When I went to her house I got on her computer and said, "where's the mouse?" She didn't know what I was talking about, of course. She sewed a lot, so when I discovered that she thought it was some kind of foot pedal, I guess that makes sense.

These things are always illuminating. "Scroll up" gets a confused expression. She initially just tried moving the mouse. Click the scrollbar. What's that? How do you click? The button on the mouse? Which one? Do I click and release or hold the click? etc...

It's amazing how many minor details we can't help but take for granted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So, why does my Mom actually suck at computers? Is it because computer interface designers suck at design?

</comment><comment><USER25> I like 'Bablefish'.

</comment><comment><USER26> It would help me a lot if you defined what _you_ mean by 'holistic' since you use it frequently in your article. I'm not familiar with this term used in other contexts besides medicine. <http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/holistic> isn't very helpful and the term remains rather opaque.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm thought that expression was well known also outside medicine?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism>

<comment><USER26> I guess that would make me ignorant in that respect. The first paragraph of the wiki article clears it up for me. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Explain Why Typography Matters  - <AUTHOR> http://www.commarts.com/columns/how-explain-typography.html

<comment><USER2> I hate old style numerals. I never understand why they are still around:)</comment>


How Drive.ai Is Mastering Autonomous Driving with Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/how-driveai-is-mastering-autonomous-driving-with-deep-learning <comment><USER2> It's been 10 years since the DARPA Urban Challenge. Maybe it's time for another self-driving car competition?

One possibility is an automaker that wants self-driving car technology would agree to acquire the winner for a certain price, but this would already exclude most of the big players (Waymo, Cruise, Argo, Delphi, Uber).

Another possibility is the competition is funded by the big auto corporations in order to advertise who has the best technology, similar to racing events.

The biggest benefit from a public competition like this would be to improve public perception of self-driving cars so they're more receptive to the technology (and more likely to buy it).

<comment><USER3> The first Darpa challenges were great, but we don't need these things now free market competition is now doing it's job accelerating the development of AVs as fast as it can possibly be accelerated. There are things like Roborace, but the irony is that anyone capable of making an awesome autonomous race vehicle has much more important things to do.

Google, GM, Ford, Uber- they're at the point where throwing more money at the problem can't help it. Amongst start-ups that have yet to be swallowed up by a big carmaker or tech company, Drive.ai is by far the most exciting.

I mean, if a billion dollars (Cruise, Otto, Argo.ai) is the going rate for a demonstrably talented autonomous driving startup, the Drive.ai is already worth at least that much. They've got the most futuristic approach, and they're moving the fastest.

<comment><USER4> Independent testing is lacking.

Right now all we have is marketing. This leads many to believe that Tesla is ahead in self driving tech, for example. You may or may not perceive that as a problem.

Regardless, I agree with GP that there is a space for independent testing. It could spur development further in the right direction. There is lots of investment now, though the target varies. Developing some tests could help consumers see what types of autonomy they want to buy, and give developers a chance to succeed in different areas, earning more unique awards than "best self driving car". We haven't established a public understanding of SDC testing criteria yet. I'm not clear whether developers agree on a set of tests either.

It's an odd state of affairs. Testing ought to be the first thing software engineers design.

California DMV does testing, but the results aren't sexy or widely known. Companies participate to varying degrees depending on how they feel it would affect their brand. Uber left CA and Tesla's participation was minimal. Also, the reports are only annual which seems slow these days.

We could use something like the league of women voters did for presidential debates, or like Netflix did for machine learning. Get the SDC community to scientifically show who really has the chops, and not just rely on marketing and branding!

<comment><USER3> The California DMV doesn't do any testing, all the companies with a testing permit in California self-report.

I'm not sure how one would would even go about independent testing, now or ever. Gill Pratt, head of Toyota's SV research lab points out that to have statistically meaningful data about the safety of an autonomous vehicle, you'd need to do about 8.5 billion miles of real world testing on public roads. Of course, by the time one gets to the 8 billionth mile of testing, the early data will be irrelevant because whatever autonomous OS is being tested will have undergone considerable maturation and development in that time frame. I doubt there will ever be a huge amount of 3rd party auditing.

"You can apply for a permit to deploy when… you as a manufacturer believe the vehicles are ready to go," says Bernard Soriano, Deputy Director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). "The traditional system of not wanting to be sued crazy controls when manufacturers will do this."[1]

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that- think/transportation/self-driving/.WMMMBzJ_sqk.twitter)

<comment><USER4> > I'm not sure how one would would even go about independent testing, now or > ever.

That's a bit short sighted isn't it? Certainly the companies themselves have internal testing in order to help them judge, for example, whether some sensor data is useful or not.

I disagree strongly that the only valid test comes from consumer-driving. Plenty of things on the market go through trials before being sold to the public, be it toys, drugs or cars.

I'm not calling for regulated testing by the government. Just something cool that can get more people, even the companies themselves, excited about self driving vehicles.

George Hotz could do it. He knows the tech and has the popularity to get people's attention. Or, Chris Urmson, any others who previously participated in DARPA, or any existing SDC company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't every SDC company use deep learning though?

<comment><USER6> Yes, this is marketing.

<comment><USER7> The article addresses this question:

"I think this is the first time autonomous driving has been approached so strongly from a deep learning perspective," says Tandon. "This is in contrast to a traditional robotics approach," continues Carol Reiley, cofounder and President. "A lot of companies are just using deep learning for this component or that component, while we view it more holistically," says Reiley.

and

"This is why many companies working on vehicle autonomy are more comfortable with using traditional robotics approaches for decision making, and restrict deep learning to perception. They reason: If your system makes an incorrect decision, you'd want to be able to figure out exactly what happened, and then make sure that the mistake won't be repeated."

"This is a big problem," Tandon acknowledges.

<comment><USER5> Nvidia has been demonstrating end to end deep learning for a long time....Andrew Ng's talks imply that Baidu's SDCs are also based on end to end.

<comment><USER8> Hmm, it might be worth noting that two of the cofounders of Drive.ai are Andrew Ng's PhD student and his wife. Not sure what that means in terms of how much, if any, collaboration there is between Drive.ai and Baidu.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does the site really show an advertisement (for an online graduate program) and remove the node completely before I can even read to the end?</comment>


No, PGP is not broken, not even with the Efail vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> https://protonmail.com/blog/pgp-vulnerability-efail/ <comment><USER2> Finally, a company not using this attack as a way to say PGP is fully broken and you should be using their walled garden instead of PGP.

I don't even understand why efail is getting so much publicity. The attack requires privileges access to your computer or your mail server in order to modify your existing messages. Or the ability to intercept messages in flight. That is a huge barrier, and if they had that access, all your plain text email is compromised as well.

I don't understand why people are uninstalling gnupg because of this "attack". I am extremely upset at the email keybase sent me, basically telling me that to be secure I should unregistered my PGP key; complete with instructions on how to do so. Accourding to them, I should be only using keybase's home grown encryption tools.

This whole exploit just seems like a marketing attack.

<comment><USER3> Your own comment equates the level of protection PGP provides to that of plaintext. Which sounds to me like another way of saying, "PGP is broken".

<comment><USER4> I agree that this is the wording of the comment - if having a PGP-encrypted message intercepted in transit compromises it, something has gone horribly wrong.

Fortunately, it's not true; the situation is actually much better than the comment suggests. As the Protonmail rundown points out, the better PGP clients should be unaffected, and secure even with in-transit interception.

<comment><USER5> Unless another recipient uses a flawed client, which is pretty hard to check.

<comment><USER4> If securing the contents of the message are the issue, then this is true but it's an opsec problem - no different than corresponding with someone who's downloaded malware.

But "another recipient leaked the data" isn't actually the same security breach as "my data was observed". If the message was sent twice to different people, no one even has reason to believe I was sent the data. If the message was sent with multiple recipients, GPG encrypts it symmetrically, then provides an encrypted copy of that key to each user - which means there's no way to check that I actually received a valid copy of the message.

It's a good point, though, that if you're planning the Arab Spring by group email or something, you should currently treat messages as at higher risk even if you use Protonmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If one or two clients don't implement the standard correctly, the clients are broken. If _all but_ one or two clients don't implement the standard correctly, the standard is broken. Part of what makes good standard design is knowing how to avoid pitfalls in client implementation.

<comment><USER7> Most clients do not implement (correctly or incorrectly) PGP at all. Instead they delegate the PGP parts to GnuPG, and failed to handle the warnings that GPG emitted. So your logic could be applied to GPG and argued that it is broken.

<comment><USER8> > So your logic could be applied to GPG and argued that it is broken.

That's a pretty common claim and has been for a long time. It's not just verification of identity, but verification of integrity that the encryption is supposed to enforce. Instead, it throws a warning for one case and will not decrypt for another. The binary client is broken, as a security tool (insofar as it fails to provide the security it claims). If the integrity of the message is compromised, why show a version of the decrypted message at all? There's no guarantee that's correct and has led to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well there is more to it though:

[https://secushare.org/PGP](https://secushare.org/PGP)

[https://www.ctrlc.hu/~stef/blog/posts/on_pgp.html](https://www.ctrlc.hu/~stef/blog/posts/on_pgp.html)

<comment><USER10> That first link is just a list of known short comings of PGP (wrong usage, infrastructure, metadata, etc), but none of them is a reason to not use PGP at all. PGP might not be encryption for the masses, but at least encryption that works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> MIME parsers are broken. End of story.</comment>


Ask HN: How much food labeled as "organic" is truly better for you? - <AUTHOR> I know someone who literally won't eat any food unless they know it is "organic". They wouldn't even eat a piece of fruit someone brought in out of fear it wasn't organic. This made me wonder, what is the state of "organic" food labeling, how scientifically justified is it, and how much is just clever marketing similar to the "gluten-free" craze? <comment><USER2> The official USDA-certified label is, in my view, just clever marketing.

When common people say "organic", they think of local farming, no pesticides, renewable resources, and other warm and fuzzy thoughts. However, the official label is quite different.

The organic label, contrary to popular opinion, does not forbid pesticide use. You merely have to use "organic" pesticides, such as Rotenone. If the organic pesticide used is not as effective as conventional pesticides, farmers will use more chemicals. These of course leach into the watershed.

There are many articles about this; here is one I found on Google. [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science- sushi/httpblogss...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science- sushi/httpblogsscientificamericancomscience- sushi20110718mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/)

</comment><comment><USER3> As far as I know, studies do not show any health benefits to food that is labelled organic. One reason is that the label of organic is more about marketing and industry than about health. The work of Michael Pollan is very good on this subject, especially _Omnivore 's Dilemma_.

I would not compare an interest in organic food to a gluten-free diet. I would be careful when saying '"gluten-free" craze' because celiac disease is very real and certain people cannot tolerate gluten. I am not saying the subject is out-of-bounds, but just be informed before discussing. Personally, I find trying to understand other people's diets to be a subject that is best avoided and I would not get into it with your friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> definitely.. I mentioned "gluten-free" craze because it really became this big marketing thing despite the fact that only a small percentage of people have celiac disease. Foods that don't even contain gluten are labeled "gluten free!" etc to piggyback off it...

and yeah I didn't say anything as I figure it's similar to discussing politics.. was just curious for my own knowledge since I don't really consider if food is organic or not normally...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Local and fresh beats just "certified organic". Many farmers at farmers markets are not certified as it's expensive and a hassle, but they don't spray their produce, and most of their food is healthier than the organics bought at the chains. Here's a list of companies to avoid: [http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/](http://www.cornucopia.org/who- owns-organic/)

</comment><comment><USER5> What you really want is pesticide free. Organic doesn't really mean all that much.</comment>


Slack Experiments with a Technological Solution to Work-Life Balance - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/slack-do-not-disturb/421716/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> It was annoying that it was released as opt-out instead of opt-in, without much notifications for the admins.</comment>


Obamacare's web site is really bad - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/04/wonkbook-obamacares-web-site-is-really-bad/ <comment><USER2> I gotta say I don't really get these articles. What's the point? Triumph in someone else's mistakes?

All this negativity is bad for your limbic system. Having your primary emotion driven via rage/anger or even fear is not a health way to live life. Cortosol and all of that, yknow?

Now, here in CA, the coveredca.com is actually really good. It does a good job, and it will substantially reduce my healthcare costs A LOT! By 50% in fact, and I'm not eligible for any credits/subsidies.

The ACA is hands down GREAT news for entrepreneurs. It makes covering yourself and your family possible and affordable. And when you go to hire those employees it is reducing costs there. You can get a platinum PPO plan in SF for $492 a month. Typically that plan would cost $1500 at trinet (employer cost).

I can also predict the minimization/irrelevancing of trinet too. It's primary purpose was to pool small business for healthcare in a handy package, but now that isn't as necessary.

<comment><USER3> I think rather than negativity and "triumph at someone's mistakes", it may be a combination of:

1\. They are comparing themselves to a successful commercial product (the iPhone / iPad) which was orders of magnitude more polished and performant when it was released. This is complete rubbish and is going to raise the hackles of people who have worked on and delivered decent product.

2\. There are pull requests on their repo three months old that have not been merged. People are fixing problems _for_ them, but these fixes are not being merged -- not even the simple typo fix ones.

3\. This site is supposed to be a guide for acquiring something you are _legally_ required to have (or you face a financial penalty). The bar for usability for such a site should be way higher than "redirect to a a phone line every time we get a lot of traffic".

<comment><USER4> Also, it's fair for any U.S. citizen to critique the site, since we are paying for it.

<comment><USER3> Well, even non-U.S. citizens who work in the U.S. on visas pay for the site through their taxes. In fact, they also pay for Social Security and Medicare without generally being eligible to receive either of those benefits.

<comment><USER5> Many Americans also pay for both of those without being eligible to receive either of those benefits. I count both of those items as additional taxation, in my case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having used a handful of insurance (health and otherwise) industry sites over the years, all I can say is that while all this criticism is no doubt valid, the bar is a lot lower than people might expect.

Medicare was successfully delivering care decades before the web was even invented and we all somehow survived.

<comment><AUTHOR> But isn't the point of all this to make the process of getting health coverage less painful? A few glitches or a slow site are to be expected, but from what I can gather, the site was literally unusable for several days.

<comment><USER7> _the site was literally unusable for several days._

Why are we still surprised when a website gets crippled by a big launch? This happens again and again and again, and people are surprised every time!

<comment><USER8> My thoughts exactly. This website was supposed to go from "testing" to "ready for millions of users who will present loads of unexpected corner cases" in just one day? That is not remotely trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel bad for the contractors and government workers that are on this project. Talk about a high-profile website. And I bet the amount of customer and user feedback is astronomical. I don't know the exact schedule but it seemed aggressive for such a mission-critical app. Something so monumental usually takes years to create and test because there are so many use cases, differing opinions, etc.

That being said, I think the comparisons to Apple are off. They should take it on the chin. We messed up, and we'll fix it. End of story. Not "yeah but.. apple".

</comment><comment><USER10> >Choose a username that is 6-74 characters long and must contain a lowercase or capital letter, a number, or one of these symbols _.@/-."

Requiring entropy in the _username_? What? I can understand the password, but what site requires you to put a symbol in your username?

<comment><USER11> I haven't visited the website but

> lowercase or capital letter, a number, or one of these symbols _.@/-."

says "or" and not "and", so it doesn't actually seem like there's any issue so long as you include a letter. Then the only real restriction is the minimum of six characters.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't say "and" but the front end JS won't let you proceed without a special char. But if you put the special char at the end it fails without explanation b/c a different page says you can't do that.

In other words, the sign up page text, the sign up page JS validation, the back end database, and the trouble logging in page ALL have different requirements just for the username.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The good news for Obamacare is that lots of people want to sign up. Lots and > lots of people. Many more, in fact, than anyone expected. The bad news is > that the Obama administration's online insurance marketplace -- which serves > 34 states -- can't handle the success.

I see it as any big new service out there. In the beginning there is going to be a spike in user interest. I'm guessing a large number of people using the site right now are doing it just out of interest (due to news reports about it). People browsing the site may have no intentions of actually paying for healthcare through the system, they just want to poke around and see what it has to offer.

<comment><USER14> There are millions of people legally required to get insurance now, and this is the place to get the information needed. People who already have health insurance provided shouldn't need to be poking around yet, and let the rest of us who have to deal with this at least get on the system.

<comment><USER15> As I understand it, you have until January 1st.

<comment><USER16> Enrollment doesn't end until March 31st, 2014. Everyone that wants or needs to use the exchange has 6 months to do so for this year's plans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From my experience, yes the site is really bad, and it's more than just heavy traffic.

The sign up screen lists some requirements for the username, but not all of them. My sign up attempt failed several times with a non-descript error message, which I attributed to the heavy traffic, until later I saw the "Forgot your username" page listed more requirements (apparently you can't _end_ a username in a special character, which wasn't mentioned on the signup page, and which I only added at the end because _that_ page wouldn't let me through _without_ one)

So finally I signed up, but I get invalid login message every time I try to log in. Thinking maybe I mistyped my password (twice?) I clicked "forgot your password" and entered my username. It actually sent me a Forgot Password link to my email (confirming that I'm in the system) but when I click the link in the email it pulls up a page that says "We could find any account with the information you provided" \- yes, with the information I provided from their own link. Have done that three times.

With these kinds of basic inconsistencies and bugs, I'm actually hesitant to enter my info once I do get in, wondering what kind of massive security holes are waiting to be discovered...

<comment><USER17> > but when I click the link in the email it pulls up a page that says "We > could find any account with the information you provided" \- yes, with the > information I provided from their own link. Have done that three times.

Frequently when I see that sort of thing it's because they're escaping/stripping characters out - often using email@example.com will result in firstname.lastname@example.com or email@example.com and the resulting lookup will fail if it isn't de-escaped correctly.

<comment><USER12> The link has my username, not my email. It contains a period in the middle (again because I was require to used one). I looked up the URI encode for the period and replaced the period in the link in case it wasn't escaped right, but that didn't work for me either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's the repo of healthcare.gov is anyone is interested in addressing some of the optimization issues mentioned in the article:

[https://github.com/CMSgov/healthcare.gov](https://github.com/CMSgov/healthcare.gov)

<comment><USER19> The CMS on the front-end (and the repo you mention) is pretty clean and well optimized. As soon as you get into /marketplace, that's when the problems begin from what I can tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The comments on the Washington Post site are really a sight to behold.. I don't know who's worse, all the conservative/liberal commenters or the apple/android commenters.

</comment><comment><USER21> Whatever. What did people expect? I'm dumbfounded people think the ACA was somehow going to make buying insurance "easier." What planet are people living on?

</comment><comment><USER22> I've read that many of sites for the state exchanges (for those states that chose to create their own exchanges, rather than default to the federal one) performed much better than the federal site. . .and at this point, who really knows which factors could be driving the better performance/user experience. . .differences in architecture, demand, testing, QA, support. . .

</comment><comment><USER23> I would be interested in seeing their capacity planning. That would tell us how long it'll take to fix up the system.

In the meantime, we (software developers) can help. Data is widely available. I made one info graphic:

[http://vida.io/discussion/SuRAGDs7J78HCvoxE](http://vida.io/discussion/SuRAGDs7J78HCvoxE)

Anyone is interested in building more tools?

</comment><comment><USER24> From the article: "Republicans who decided to shut down the government this week rather than relentlessly message against the Affordable Care Act's glitches did the law a great favor."

I thought it was the Senate Democrats voting against the house spending bill that shut the government down?

</comment><comment><USER25> I ask my self how much better could I do then what they have presented. I like to think in this case I, myself, without the teams of developers and millions of dollars could have made a system that queries a database that could handle 7m page views per day.

<comment><USER16> It doesn't just "query a database", it talks to a whole slew of 20-year-old legacy systems on all different platforms at a whole list of other government agencies. In the process of signing up and creating your profile, here are a few of the systems, all maintained and managed by other departments, that this website has to communicate with in real-time:

* The IRS to verify your AGI, family size and marital status

* The SSA to verify your social security number, SS benefit status and incarceration status

* The DHS SAVE system to verify your citizenship and immigration status

* The DOD, VA, Office of Personnel and Peace Corps to check if you're already enrolled in health programs through their services

Just to name a few, and all of which can be external bottlenecks the team behind Healthcare.gov can't control. You're seriously underestimating the complexity of this website. They've hidden it well!

<comment><USER25> I don't mean to be flippant about the amount of effort required to create the web site, but who decided You needed to verify in real time my AGI and maritial status when I am "browsing" for health plans. That's something that can be done during a verification stage after the fact.`

I know a lot of good work went into it by well meaning individuals, but as it stands it was all for naught as it doesn't work

<comment><USER16> These things affect what plans you qualify for and how much they'll cost you. It also does work, it's not as if they built something that nobody will ever use. Some millions get through each day, and long before the 6 month enrollment period is over, there won't be anywhere near this kind of load to handle.

It's only been 3 days. Imagine if Blizzard Entertainment wrote off World of Warcraft on day 3, when it was also barely usable with almost exactly the same number of people trying to get online. That'd be ridiculous.

If it weren't day 3 and the site was working, you'd never wish what you just wished for. Nobody would _want_ a system where you have to choose a plan then wait an unknown amount of time to see if you're approved, interact with a bureacracy to correct conflicts between what you provided and what they found in those other systems after-the-fact, have to re-make all your decisions. That's essentially what we have now, except you're interacting with the government instead of a private insurer, and it sucks. What they're giving us instead is the simplicity of online shopping applied to health insurance -- a listing of plans you actually qualify for, the true price you'll pay for them, and online signup on-the-spot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They should get some software engineers from the NSA maybe and put them on the obama care website...

</comment><comment><USER27> Why focus on the negatives? Just think about all the jobs it created.

<comment><USER27> Ah, I love it when my sarcasm utterly fails to connect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> They must've hired a well-known team of web developers from elance:

[http://toprate.org/FILES/programmers.jpg](http://toprate.org/FILES/programmers.jpg)

<comment><USER29> Have*. It's must have. Or, must've, but that feels very weird.

<comment><USER30> The contraction shouldn't feel weird unless _all_ contractions feel weird. The grammticalized "have" in the modal is almost never pronounced the same way as the verb meaning "possess"; it has become a schwa-vee or often even a simple schwa (rendered as musta) in ordinary (not explicitly emphatic) speech. It has really become more of an affix than a separate word, so maybe it is time for the written rendering of the language to begin to reflect that.

<comment><USER29> Are you proposing a common spelling of "musta" ("woulda", etc)?

I only find "must've" weird as it's not a very commonly seen contraction. Much like "mustn't". They're definitely used in speech, but people rarely type them out, which is how you end up with people using "of" when they mean "have" or "'ve".

I don't think I've come across anyone using "must" and "not" in a contractional form. I shudder to think what the "of" crowd would type for "mustn't".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why the Web 3.0 Matters and you should know about it - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@matteozago/why-the-web-3-0-matters-and-you-should-know-about-it-a5851d63c949 <comment><USER2> TL;DR - it's an ad for the OP's platform: essensia[1]

I've been interested in this sort of thing for a while, but I really don't know that much about these services. For example:

\- how do I pay? just crypto? If so, I can't see how prices can stabilize enough to compete against existing services \- what happens if I don't pay? \- how do I get my data out of the platform? \- can I delete my data? \- what happens if the crypto is broken? Is all of my data compromised, or just some of it?

I wish the author mentioned alternative approaches with similar goals, such as Solid[2], which is especially notable as Tim Berners-Lee is associated with the project. Because of that, I see this as mostly an ad for the OP's company.

\- [1] [https://essentia.one/](https://essentia.one/) \- [2] [https://solid.inrupt.com/](https://solid.inrupt.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: Selling domains that another site started to use? - <AUTHOR>

I registered a domain name (.com, .net, and .org) for a startup I'm working on, and before I could launch, someone registered the .info domain and started a legitimate business on there. I came up with a new name for my site and am not going to try to use the old name, but is best to try to sell this other site the TLDs I own, auction them, give them away, or just let them expire? <comment><USER2> Sounds like you didn't apply for a trademark, did the other guy? You can do a trademark search here: [http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=400...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4006:53ch9h.1.1)

Either way, if the other guy is running a legitimate business AND received a trademark, he'll probably be able to force you to hand those over. That may be true a little longer down the line even if he doesn't hold the trademark.

If you don't have any investment (other than the $7 or so), selling to them for a reasonable (whatever that means) price is probably the most useful course for both sides.

<comment><AUTHOR> Neither of us has registered the trademark but they're using it on Twitter etc and they're close enough in what they're doing to cause confusion. Thanks for the response.</comment></comment>


Full Autopilot in GTA Using TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> https://littlemountainman.github.io/2020/05/12/openpilot/ <comment><USER2> Let's all give this 12 year old kid some applause. Me water-cooling my xbox 360 (yes, and I wasn't alone in doing so) at 13 felt cool, but this is on another level.

<comment><USER3> The best part about being a kid is that you have nothing to think about other than a little school work. You are free to scour the web finding all the newest tools and put them to use for 'play'.

Not saying it can't be done as an adult, just harder to get that time and unbroken/unlimited focus.

<comment><USER4> I'd love to spend some time living in a serviced apartment with meals included.

Or something similar to a retirement village or university student accommodation, or be able to afford a staff of servants. You get the idea anyway.

<comment><USER5> You can do this quite affordably in huge numbers of countries if you can earn your income with a decent remote job in the US. The things to think about are time zone, tropical disease, quality of food, and safety. There are a whole range of places from Arkansas, to Costa Rica, to Panama, to Nicaragua.

The thing you'll lose out on is anyone you know, unless you can get them to go with you, or can make new friends in your destination.

<comment><USER4> I'm in Australia so I often half-joke: let's sell everything we own and go live like kings on a remote Indonesian island.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Grand Theft AutoPilot. Now that would be a great name for this project. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes that's true :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And to me this is the essence of hacking and hacker culture, not "how do I create MVP from my idea and become an entrepreneur" or "this and that in company XYZ" mindset.

So glad to see people doing silly things that in fact require skill. This is why I come to hackernews.

Keep up great work with this wonderful attitude!

<comment><USER8> Not sure why you need to put down entrepreneurs while praising this kid.

Hacking a company together is really hard. Like tech hacking, it requires intelligence, creativity, and persistence.

There's no reason we can't read about and respect both on this site.

<comment><USER9> The concern is in the appropriation of the term 'hacker'.

He's not putting anything or anyone down, he's saying that this is hacking, and MBA posts of acronym soup aren't.

I think his implied conclusion is probably wrong-ish (both are arguably right for HN, even if I vastly prefer this), but he's right in that this is hacking.

<comment><USER10> One could argue WeWork hacked unicorns.

<comment><USER11> One could argue anything they like, it doesn't mean their argument (or sophistry in general) leads to a better acquiring of knowledge through discussion.

In my opinion, the gp's discussion is one worth having.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What ever happened to the OpenAI/universe GTA sandbox? Is there any reason Rockstar shouldn't support research using their game?

<comment><USER13> For some reason they really didn't like GTA being seen as a research platform and C&D'd projects.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps because it could lead eventually to the most undetectable cheats yet and undermine their Skinner box cash extractors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For inputs, roundabout but easiest ways I know is to either just get a Pro Micro and use the gamepad library in Arduino IDE to make it a serial-to- gamepad adapter, or use it in conjunction with a cheapest no-brand knockoff Xbox 360 controller(which are easier than genuine controllers to mod as well) and solder digital/analog out from Arduino to digital/analog sensing pads for the same effect.

The latter allows real Xbox 360 to be used(don't go online with it, that is cheating). Xbox 360 is past EOL so I bet they can be had for cheap, steps to capture is well explained by millions of wannabe streamers, and probably less tedious to set up at the same time than a PC.

<comment><USER15> Or full software solution for PlayStation is Remote Play.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This kid is awesome. I say that even though he's going 25 MPH in the left lane :P

</comment><comment><USER17> Great job, love it. Do commercial solutions use simulations and stuff? Sounds like a great way to bootstrap is to use some of these more realistic games to get some initial work.

By the way, I found this part funny:

> _...if it doesn't make sense to you think about it and try to understand > it._

We had a teacher once who'd say "If you don't understand, try to understand". Haha!

<comment><USER18> > Do commercial solutions use simulations and stuff?

Yes

Here's a random news article on it

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside- waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/)

<comment><USER17> Très cool. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reading the title my first thought was someone is driving a driverless car in Toronto, how cool is that. I was disappointed to see it's about the game. (Great article though)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd love to see this done in Forza, although I'm sure that's optimizing for the wrong kind of driving behavior (lol)

Amazing work!

<comment><USER21> A'I' in racing games is already a cracked problem I think (unless you mean forza horizon?).

The AIs in Rfactor2 are even pretty good wheel to wheel on some tracks - definitely a lot better than online rookies who are quick but blind. The only noticeable thing is that they don't learn over the course of a race. They seem to be programmed to make mistakes realistically, i.e. if the car loses grip in the wet they don't lock back onto the track.

<comment><USER22> Sure, but this is a different kind of agent - one that takes screen frames as input, rather than one that has direct access to game state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> sentdex did something similar a year or two ago: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVvvaa0QuDeETZEOy4Vd...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQVvvaa0QuDeETZEOy4VdocT7TOjfSA8a)

<comment><AUTHOR> Behavioural cloning, doesnt work in the real world ! I use path and lane detection

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you want to play with ML racing, AWS DeepRacer is free for May (and you can compete against NASCAR drivers).

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/join-the- formula-1-deeprace...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/join-the- formula-1-deepracer-proam-special-event/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Howdy, I came here from [http://discord.comma.ai](http://discord.comma.ai). littlemtman, what related source code is available? How about more details and the code for connecting to the XBox controller interface, is it open?

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure what OP used, but definitely look into FreePIE.

[http://andersmalmgren.github.io/FreePIE/](http://andersmalmgren.github.io/FreePIE/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of the the Mario Kart version someone made 3 years ago: [https://github.com/kevinhughes27/TensorKart](https://github.com/kevinhughes27/TensorKart)

</comment><comment><USER28> this is pretty cool.

I used a similar scheme (two computers, one with HID control over the other, and a webcam to observe) as a way to hide a simple aimbot as a proof-of- concept for getting around on-computer anti-cheats that would search through memory on popular FPSs. This was years ago on games with weak anti-cheats, anyway.

It worked OKish. It had to rely on computer vision to do the aiming, so it was significantly slower than examples that would rely on memory pointers or straight pixel recognition from the screen itself -- but the point was proven, the computer that was cheating looked fine as far as memory was concerned.

modern anti-cheats that look at things like pointer movement and player randomness would definitely flag it now-a-days, but I had fun.

The hardest problems were room lighting, which at the time the cheapy webcams had terrible issues with anyway, FPS, and resolution.

Major shortcuts had to be taken back then due to the resolution and fps mismatches between the input and output, shortcuts by which reduced the bot performance significantly, but I bet that'd be a lot easier to deal with today.

Now, my point : I know that a majority of the memory structs are available, documented, and deconstructed for GTA V, having written cheats for the game in the past. Maybe you can exploit that to emulate some of the functions of an IMU?

Lots of vehicle physics variables are fairly easily exposed. "GTA V Memory Structs" google search will get you started on that road, should you care to.

Neat project. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yes maybe I will add proper sensoring to the project with emulating a can bus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Great work! Now let's drive faster than 25 mph -- it's called Grand Theft Auto for a reason :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I will add a speeding video !

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The real challenge of AI vis a vis real world problems is how to create _infinite_ examples, labelled observations, etc at _finite_ cost.

</comment><comment><USER31> Can I buy stock of this company?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can't

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Can it drive a plane / the tank on the road? How do motorbikes go? So curious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes a tank would be possible. Both only from the front camera view, the model is not used to see the car it is driving otherwise !

<comment><USER33> Interesting. I have a World of Tanks twitch streamer's video playing on the side as I read this, and also thought tanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Since this is GTA, it would be cool to add pedestrians to the mix...

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried it in the city center it was going nowhere, the bigger and complex the models get the more they learn "intuitively" i.e. avoiding pedestrians, avoiding crashes etc. Like the video where Autopilot predicted a crash 3 seconds before it actually occured.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Wasn't there a Twitch channel running this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes but what he did was behavioural cloning, I do lane and path prediction that's a whole different level

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> How about a self riding horse for RDR?

</comment><comment><USER37> But can it do a drive-by???

</comment><comment><USER38> sick

</comment><comment><USER39> My heart broke when I saw it wasn't one of the renderware era GTA games.</comment>


A 19th-Century Vision of the Year 2000 - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/ <comment><USER2> Aside from a strange fascination with being underwater, many of the concepts are spot on even if the implementation is off:

Aerial battles, rural drone deliveries, automated floor cleaning, helicopter scouting, factory farming, motor homes, audio-based learning and so on.

May give the whale bus a miss.</comment>


GIF for CLI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/gif-for-cli <comment><USER2> See also the venerable libcaca: [https://github.com/cacalabs/libcaca](https://github.com/cacalabs/libcaca)

Demo: [https://asciinema.org/a/kjsWPMv5qtn87IHRd4th3EuNB](https://asciinema.org/a/kjsWPMv5qtn87IHRd4th3EuNB)

<comment><USER3> Or if we go even deeper down the rabbit hole:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I made something similar in Go. [https://github.com/esimov/gifter](https://github.com/esimov/gifter)

</comment><comment><USER5> Of course.

Love the little note at the end:

"This is not a supported Google product."

<comment><USER6> It's probably someone's 20% project.

<comment><USER7> I don't think you could get your manager to approve that as a 20% project.

More likely, it's someone's personal project they worked on in their spare time, but it still belongs to Google (because everything does, according to most engineering contracts there).

<comment><USER6> > everything does, according to most engineering contracts there

Most of the contracts I've heard about only transfer ownership if you use company resources to work on it. Any project done in your free time, with your own resources, belongs to you.

<comment><USER7> Not at Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It should be "CLI for GIF" or "GIF CLI" or "GIF for terminal".

"GIF for CLI" doesn't make sense.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you like this project then you might like these ones.

Image visualisation in terminal using Unicode 9 and True Color:

[https://github.com/daleroberts/tv](https://github.com/daleroberts/tv)

Image visualisation for iTerm2:

[https://github.com/daleroberts/bv](https://github.com/daleroberts/bv)

Matplotlib graphics and animation in iTerm2:

[https://github.com/daleroberts/itermplot](https://github.com/daleroberts/itermplot)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it possible to do something like this, but writing the actual GIF to the host's framebuffer (/dev/fb*)? Or are we getting into X11 territory?

<comment><USER11> If you use a Mac, the Iterm2 terminal emulator has an additional protocol that supports rendering images [0]. It basically encodes the image with terminal escape sequences, and also works for animated gifs.

Unfortunately, it seems to not be a standard - it would be neat if there were such a standard, and if other terminals could/would do similarly. It seems like the silliest thing but I like being able to easily indicate when my tests fail or not:

        alias SUCCESS="echo -e '\n\nSUCCESS' \
            && imgcat ~/Pictures/success-100.png \
            || imgcat ~/Pictures/fail-100.png"

        make test && SUCCESS

0: [https://www.iterm2.com/documentation- images.html](https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-images.html)

<comment><USER12> See [https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics- protocol.html](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol.html) for a much more comprehensive terminal graphics protocol

<comment><USER11> Slick :D Thanks for pointing that out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Libsixel is also pretty sweet. You can even integrate it with sdl and all kinds of crazy shit.

[https://github.com/saitoha/libsixel/](https://github.com/saitoha/libsixel/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Ah, this reminds me of fond memories of watching The Matrix converted to ASCII.

</comment><comment><USER15> You can also do this easily with mplayer: mplayer -vo caca ~/my.gif

<comment><USER3> note that the heavy lifting there is done by libcaca...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can someone shine some light on how Tenor makes money?

<comment><USER17> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

well, they were acquired by google...

</comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea Stop calling text based graphics CLI! Grrr

</comment><comment><USER18> Excellent choice for the example GIF. Haha.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why are the results so dark?

</comment><comment><USER20> My god.

I think programming as a profession has now jumped the shark.

<comment><USER21> Why do you think that? Is it because you personally find no value in this project? If you don't understand what the value of this project would be then it's not for you but that doesn't mean it has no value. Also, computer science and programming are built on the two mule team of 'because we need it' and 'because we can!' This is nothing new.

<comment><USER20> I'm mainly just joking, because it's combining two things that are trendy: GIFs in everything and CLI wizardry.

No real criticism of this software. If I had thought of it first I might have built it myself.

<comment><USER22> "CLI wizadry" is trendy?

<comment><USER23> Kind of, yes. More and more products and services are going to offer cli clients. Angular, vue, Azure, kubernetes, docker, choose your weapon.

<comment><USER21> That's been the norm since the 80's, not sure what's new about that.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h The industry is, to a degree, cyclical and prone to fashions; CLI was everything in the 80s, then went out of style in many circles in the 90s and 00s, and now is coming back into style in more circles. And with each new wave we get new variations and fun things as new people hit the old ideas with new perspectives:)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Anatomy of a Miracle: US Airways Flight 1549 - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/06/us_airways200906?printable=true&currentPage=all

<comment><USER2> Very nicely written.

 _Shedding distractions_ should become a new "term of art" for all of us.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of the best non-fiction writing I've ever read. This has got to win some award.

</comment><comment><USER4> Brilliant article. (I work in ATC R&D.)</comment>


Ask HN: What prototyping tool do you suggest for non-technical users? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a prototyping tool for mobile apps that I can use with my two non-technical friends to iterate over design and layout ideas. None of us work in the same timezone and due to hardware/bandwidth limitations for one of them, the traditional pen & paper (+ scanning) approach isn't feasible. So I'm looking for an easy to learn tool that we can all use. What do you suggest? Also, any tips from people with similar experiences would be very much appreciated. <comment><USER2> ASCII.

        Enter your zip code to win!
        [         ]
        [Give me free money]

The first step isn't design or layout, it's interaction. You should do many interaction-only prototypes with NO design and NO layout first. When you understand the core interaction flows, some good candidate layouts will be self evident, and you can iterate on the design.

The most valuable thing your early prototypes can tell you is which features you can get away with leaving out for V2. You probably only need three features that can be built with 100 lines of code. The problem it's it's extremely difficult to understand what those 100 lines are. Most companies spend millions before figuring it out, but you don't need more than pencil+paper to do it.

You really don't need CSS until after your first sale.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're a bit past this. We do have candidate layouts in mind hence why I asked about design and layout. But I'll definitely suggest going back a step and seeing if we can further simplify everything. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pidoco (www.pidoco.com) is a great tool for mobile apps and collaboration at the same time. It's online based, so you can share your prototype and simultaneously work on it and with the Pidoco app, you can preview your prototypes on your mobile device. Also, it is very intuitive and doesn't require any technical knowledge but still offers a bunch of different interactions and stuff.

For me Pidoco is working best for the wireframing and low fidelity prototyping stage.

</comment><comment><USER4> One UX design firm I know uses cheap document cameras (I believe IPEVO makes several inexpensive and portable models) so they do pen-and-paper prototyping during videoconferences without any need to scan things in. It's much more interactive to see someone drawing and talk to them as they're doing it, rather than only seeing scans of the finished product afterward.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do they have access to Paint or a similar program? I used this as an online college student. I had no scanner and I had to submit drawings online as part of my class assignment. My husband was shocked at what I could accomplish. He called me a Paint Wizard.

Find some drawing program that is free and within their hardware constraints.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was my first thought, but I was worried about it becoming unwieldy after a couple of iterations. What are your experiences with doing this in a team? Any tips on how to manage all of the back and forth?

<comment><USER5> I have not done this as part of a team. But I would think it is not critical for everyone to be using the exact same drawing. The drawings should be viewed as a tool for communicating. If different people are using different drawings, but it is facilitating communication, that second piece is the important piece.

At the mock up stage, I think the most important piece is hammering out effective communication protocols. Regardless of what tool you use, this will be a process. It sounds like you may be in different countries. If so, you may find that bridging the culture gap is harder than bridging the tech gap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I was probably thinking too far ahead instead of focusing on the communication aspect. No worries about culture though since we're all American and even lived together for a while. We just happen to be spread across the world because of our jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Adobe Experience Designer is great for this.

It allows you to rapidly wireframe UI / UX, and then prototype interaction flows by linking views together.

There's also PoP, which is an app for iOS, which allows you to do the same thing with photos you've taken on your phone.

</comment><comment><USER7> Balsamiq has my vote.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks interesting and will take a look into it. I saw it mentioned alongside Pencil ([http://pencil.evolus.vn](http://pencil.evolus.vn)) when searching for prototyping tools. Sort of reminds me of Visio. Would that be an apt comparison?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It has to be PowerPoint or Keynote!

Most people already know how to use them and you can create pretty realistic designs using them!

<comment><USER9> Or Google Slides - it has most of the benefits of PP or KN, but it's visible in realtime to anyone with a Google account (ok, everyone) while giving you notes and revision history.

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems doable, though we might have to resort to LibreOffice instead. One of them is based in China so no Google products work without a VPN which isn't always very stable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Invision App

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

</comment><comment><USER11> I recommend a sheet of paper and a pencil.</comment>


The new Nokia phones are here: Nokia 6, 5, 3 & 3310 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones <comment><USER2> I really, really wish someone would make a smaller Android device. I was hoping the Nokia 3 would be it, but alas.

Surely I'm not alone and there is a market out there? The iPhone SE sells well, and will be my next phone after I lost my trust in Sony's compact Android devices.

<comment><USER3> I have the SE. Amazing phone, highly recommended, and I'm sure it will continue to get updates for several years, the same can't be said for most Android devices especially from Sony.

<comment><USER4> 5/5s/SE will forever remain Apple's greatest phone in my opinion. I have had my 5 since 2013, and dropped it too many times to possibly count. The metal body is completely worn down and scratched from years of abuse, yet the screen is flawless. I just ordered an $8 battery on Amazon, replaced it in 5 minutes, and my phone is now back to working like new condition. It's the _perfect_ phone.

<comment><USER5> It's an amazing phone. But I brought the 16gb version and lack of space is wearing on me. I really want to listen to music on it without streaming.

So I'm going to ditch it soon :/ Terrible feeling ditching a perfectly functional thing, I wish I had the foresight when I purchased it get the larger HD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only person who was hoping for an actual re-vamp of the 3310? ie. a b/w screen (always on, easy to read in direct sunlight). Perhaps updated for 3/4G networks and modern chargers, and maybe without some of the bugs.

Right now I'm rocking an ageing 8310; the buttons are worn out and, one of the more interesting problems with running a 'classic' phone is that the contacts erode a modern SIM card every 6 months or so.

Today we got a curvy 'featurephone' with a camera, which is valid, but feels like that's something already out there.

<comment><USER7> I was hugely disappointed when it turned out that it's not remotely similar to the 3310.

They've basically created a generic featurephone and piggybacked on the glory of the 3310, which was anything but generic.

I highly doubt the new 3310 will be even slightly as durable as the old one.

<comment><USER8> It has more in common with Nokia 6300 than with the 3310, IMO.

As zbuf said, I was also hoping for a 3G or newer modem, 2G networks are being shut down in many parts of the world and will continue to go down in the next couple of years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why does every phone these days come out looking like the standard rounded- corners slate? Have companies stopped innovating on phone design anymore... are rounded-corners superior for deflecting drops or something?

I yearn for the days when we got unique designs like the Nokia 6820/E70/N95, the Sony Ericsson M600i, Moto Razr (as junky as that phone was), etc. Even the Nokia Icon was an edgier but classy design. I just went with a Sony Xperia XZ recently because it's one of the few smartphones that seemed like the engineers bothered to apply a modicum of creativity/differentiation to the physical design.

<comment><USER10> In this case, the explanation is simple: these new Nokia-branded phones are made by Foxconn, the company that manufactures iPhones. After years of working with Apple, they already have the equipment and process set up to manufacture unibody aluminium devices. Building anything else than iPhone clones wouldn't really make sense: it would be a substantial extra investment for a dubious return.

Nokia used to innovate with phone design because they had their own factories. Those days are long gone.

<comment><USER11> I am sorry, that is the worst "explanation" I have ever seen on HN...

<comment><USER10> Why? The company that makes these phones, HMD Global, is part-owned by Foxconn. They wanted to create a line of affordable phones quickly, so of course they use their existing expertise and manufacturing lines.

Experimenting with design has very limited payoffs in the phone market these days (ask HTC), and retooling at Foxconn's scale is very expensive. Design innovation wouldn't be worth it.

<comment><USER11> You are making things up.

According to people who seen the phones the are similar to the old Lumia line by Nokia. Guess why that is??

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The best thing in these new phones is vanilla no-clutter Android with tight integration (both directions) with Google/Android. These get just as fast updates, upgrades and fixes as Pixel phones.

<comment><USER13> That was the promise with Motorola too, but since Lenovo bought them they've been a little weaker on that. I'm skeptical on promised upgrades now.

<comment><USER14> Yeah 6 month delay on 7.0 for some versions of Moto Z? The phone isn't a year old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They should revive the N900 platform by offering Maemo/Meego in Nokia 6, 5 or 3. Would cost little and bring in tons of loyal followers.

It's an antifragile plan. They would have to invest little to port and keep Maemo running on these new terminals. But if it takes off it can give great ROI. Also, it buys them independence and differentiation.

They should also provide AOSP for these phones, so that we don't get yet another Android terminal that gets no updates past a few months. It'd be nice to have alternatives for pricy Pixels to run CopperheadOS.

<comment><USER16> I had the N9 with MeeGo, best OS for phones I have ever used. Also very beautiful and easy to use.

<comment><USER17> Yea N9 is still best, only N950 can beat it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, three generic aluminium-clad Androids made by Foxconn, and one more cute basic phone on the rather awful Series 30+ platform [1]. I wasn't expecting anything else, really, but still feeling a bit disappointed...

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B)

<comment><USER18> I was hoping for literally the old Nokias with modern batteries and bigger memories. Surely the entire point of these was for people who wanted a feature- rather than a smartphone?

<comment><USER10> Well, Nokia/Microsoft has been making those for years. This new one has been branded 3310 to bank on some assumed nostalgia, but it's just a direct continuation of recent devices like the Nokia 105:

[https://www.cnet.com/products/nokia-105-2015/preview/](https://www.cnet.com/products/nokia-105-2015/preview/)

The Series 30+ operating system on these devices is kind of weird. It's basically a generic clone of the old familiar Nokia Series 30/40 phone UI, but made by MediaTek instead of Nokia itself. I guess what happened is that the internal featurephone OS teams were terminated when Microsoft acquired the business, and they just picked up the closest replacement from the Chinese clone masters at MediaTek.

<comment><USER19> But does the OS matter much for a feature phone? One does not even really want to write mails with that, those are phones too call someone, write a text, maybe listen to some music (radio) and play some snake. A basic OS might just be okay for that.

Now, the atrocity that was the OS for the Nokia Asha phones, that is a completely different story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b €49, 1 month battery, no distraction.

$600, 12 hr battery, tells me every 10 minutes how the world goes down the drain.

Mmmmh...

<comment><USER12> It's technologically possible to combine $600 smartphone and dumb phone and make smartphone that has has 1 month battery and all day speaking if you don't activate smartphone features (you might want to add low power dummy display on the backside).

Consumers might like it but everybody else would hate it. It cuts into profits and teaches wrong habits to consumers.

<comment><USER20> The truth is, nobody wants that. I got a Sony Xperia Z5 Compact. I turned on "stamina mode", where almost everything is disabled. In that case the battery lasts more than 1 week.

However friends want to messsage me on Whatsapp (ergo wifi or mobile data), I want to use the GPS from time to time, I want to google things from time to time (ergo more wifi or mobile data), etc., etc.

<comment><USER12> >nobody wants that.

>I want to

I agree. It's important to direct wants of the consumer into frequent use. The real value in marketing is creating cultures where people must consume to participate.

Consumer needs are path dependent, so it's important to not allow avenues for countercultures or ways to avoid traps.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure I understand your comment.

Are you saying they're guiding/tricking me into wanting/using the GPS?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am impressed with the prices. Sure the core specs are nothing amazing but if it has the excellent Nokia build quality I think I will pick one up.

<comment><USER22> I'm not that impressed because they're based off the Snapdragon 4xx series processors.

The Nokia 5 has the same basic hardware as a Moto G4 Play, but costs twice as much ($200 instead of $100). You're paying double for a possibly better camera and a metal back.

Similarly, the Nokia 6 is a $242 5.5" 1080p phone. The Moto G4 is a 5.5" 1080p phone, but has a Snapdragon 6xx processor rather than 4xx - and costs less. Again, the Moto is lacking the metal design.

The Nokia reputation doesn't really have anything to do with these devices. They're certainly playing it up in marketing, but I think that's yet to be seen. It's possible they'll have good build quality, but looking at the Nokia 6, it's not going to be more durable than an iPhone. In the video, they clearly want to leave you with the impression that they're somehow more durable than other smartphones, but the display is just Gorilla Glass (of unknown generation) completely unprotected (there's no lip or anything to deflect some falls).

The Nokias definitely look cool, but are they offering a better option? In addition to the Motos, you can get a Huawei Honor 5X with a Snapdragon 6xx for well under $170 unlocked on Amazon. That has a better processor for $70 less. Again, they definitely look good, but they also seem expensive (42% more expensive) compared to, well, more powerful options.

When put in the perspective of 42% more expensive, they don't look as great. It's like, "yea, they're fine, but if I'm being cheap, I should get a Moto G or Huawei Honor. If I'm not being cheap, I should get something with a better processor than a Snapdragon 4xx series." I mean, a OnePlus X is $200 with a Snapdragon 8xx series processor. The OnePlus X isn't a great option for Americans since it doesn't support enough of the North American bands to get good coverage, but the Nokias don't really support North America at all. I have nostalgia for Nokia too and the phones do look pretty, but I'd definitely take a $200 OnePlus X over a $242 Nokia 6. Similarly, a Huawei Honor 5X or Moto G4 looks to have a better processor than a Nokia 6 and they cost less. A Moto G4 Play has similar specs to a Nokia 5 for half the price. And I think Motorola/Lenovo are coming out with a G5 this Spring (which might be before the Nokia gets into customers' hands). LeEco and ZTE also have devices with more power.

The thing about the mobile industry today is that it's reasonably saturated with good options. The Nokia devices look nice, but they're in the "get notified when you can actually get one" stage. Let's say you can get your hands on one in June. By then a whole slew of new Android slabs could be out - possibly with better specs and prices. I do love CNC machined aluminum like the Nokia 6, but I also like a phone that has enough performance to be great to use for a while.

I'm guessing that Nokia is going to push these in cheaper markets. There are European countries like Poland and Greece that have lower GDP per capita, markets like India where Nokia has been historically strong where people might be willing to shell out an extra $75 for the Nokia, and China where the cachet of having a Nokia could play well (Volvo, another Scandinavian brand, plays well there). But it's a hard market that's saturated with plenty of good options and it's hard to one-up anyone given that all players (other than Apple and maybe to a small extent Samsung) are essentially pulling from the same parts (and OS) bin.

They look like fine devices, but they're not a value you can't already get for multiple manufacturers today and given that they aren't available yet, it remains to be seen what this Spring will bring from competitors. I mean, they're super pretty and that almost makes me want to cast off all my cynicism aside and say "screw-it, I want a pretty blue or copper metal Nokia", but the practical side of me notes the Snapdragon 4xx processor (and the fact that the device won't work where I live). I kinda wish that Nokia had decided to go high-end. I think Nokia could have done well with a $650 device if their build quality is actually what they claim in the videos. Why not stick a Snapdragon 8xx in there with the latest LTE and a display to match. I mean, we all miss Nokia and the Nokia 5/6 look nicer than most Android phones out there. Why not go after the profitable part of the market? Even if you don't want to deal with CDMA, there are a lot of people on T-Mobile/AT&T in the US or other GSM- stack carriers in the world.

But, alas, it was probably a calculated effort to play into the markets that might have the most Nokia dumbphone penetration today and therefore most receptive to a Nokia smartphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Play the classic Snake

I was kind of hoping from this statement that it actually was the _classic_ version of snake on the 3310. But it's not, you can see in the video that it's a modern version. Not that that's necessarily bad except for nostalgic reasons.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why would they "reimagine" the UI and shell of the 3310? Isn't the point of re-releasing a device like that to get the people who love the old one exactly as it is?

<comment><USER25> Because look at the success of e.g. the new Mustang, the new Camaro, the new Mini, the new Beetle etc. pp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The full specs page for the 3310 says it's a 2G phone. That must be an error? Verizon and AT&T have both started the shutdown of their 2G networks.

<comment><USER27> This is odd - there is plenty of industrial equippment/ M2M communication modules that run only 2g.

I'd assume that UMTS would be shut down long before 2g.

<comment><USER28> This is actually impacting San Francisco buses right now - the transponders that MUNI buses use to transmit their location for arrival estimates use 2G, and they stopped working because AT&T started taking down the 2G network.

[https://www.sfmta.com/about-sfmta/blog/why-muni-arrival- time...](https://www.sfmta.com/about-sfmta/blog/why-muni-arrival-times-are- off-week-and-how-we%E2%80%99re-working-fix-them)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Disappointed with the 3310 being Dual Band 2G only. If it had a modern 3G chipset in it I would happily throw down money for it.

As it stands its a curious oddity.

<comment><USER30> Some countries like Germany are talking about dropping 3G entirely in favor of LTE and keeping 2G because old controlling hardware depends on it. So maybe Nokia is on the right track here.

<comment><USER31> OTOH AT&T in the US has already shut down its 2G network and T-Mobile US has reduced their 2G capacity to the point where they can operate it in the guard bands for their 3G signal. 2G is basically on life support in the US at this point. The writing is also clearly on the wall for 3G as well, though the carriers won't be able to shut that down until enough people upgrade to VoLTE- capable handsets (even T-Mobile, who have the greatest VoLTE penetration among the US carriers, still see a third of their customers' calls go over their 2G and 3G networks).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder what "we'll make sure you keep getting regular updates" really means. Regular updates and prompt security updates the moment Google publishes them are two different things. Considering that even Google's support of its own devices is somewhat abysmal (three years of security updates _at best_) and that almost all 3rd party vendors don't push security updates fast enough I'm not confident that Nokia will be any better.

<comment><USER33> Since, from my understanding of the texts, all the Nokia Android devices are running stock Android, I guess they can apply the same updates as for the Google devices.

<comment><USER34> Is it "stock Android" from the Android repo, or "stock Android" from the chipset manufacturer's fork? And will the carriers keep it untouched?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Personally, I'm excited for the Nokia 6. It ticks mostly all the right boxes.

I hope they have similar build quality as the Lumia 920 although that seems unlikely.

<comment><USER36> Me too, the only negative point seems to the be the integrated battery.

Otherwise SD card support, the type of lenses, regular Android and promise to actually care about updates are very enticing.

In any case, my device is not going to die yet, so I still get to see how they actually will look like.

<comment><USER35> Indeed. It would have been perfect with an easily replaceable battery.

Either way, I look forward to the real world reviews, I hope they live up to all the expectations.

<comment><USER13> I wish the issue of battery replacement wasn't so binary. I mean, if it just takes a screwdriver to replace battery surely that's okay right? There's a spectrum of ease-of-replacement, imho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't understand why companies have such a hard time crafting smartphones that are as good looking as Xiaomi or Apple devices. The front of the 5 & 6 is acceptable, but the back just kills it for me. Also the 5 looks the best in my opinion but the specs are so bad that I'd not even consider it

</comment><comment><USER38> As an Android developer, I don't know whether I should be happy that this knowledge is basically applicable on all kind of electronic device or lament that the competition has been so thoroughly obliterated.

</comment><comment><USER39> Of the many people I know who say they yearn for a 'dumbphone' (feature phone), I've yet to see anyone I know actually make the nostalgic leap. I don't think the Nokia 3310 would achieve that either.

The long battery life of feature phones is fantastic, and I could certainly type faster with T9.

The experience often falls apart when you want to join a group text, book an Uber, get directions etc. There are lo-fi versions of these, but the experience is bad enough to just not be worth it.

<comment><USER40> I'm smartphone phobic, I have only used one briefly and I hated it. I prefer the ergonomics of texting with buttons and I get stressed out by constantly being connected to social media, emails etc. Personally I feel like smartphones are a huge step backwards. We have allowed corporations to colonise our leisure time and disrupt our social interactions in exchange for a few tawdry gimmicks.

<comment><USER41> I consider having access to maps and ridesharing to be life changing, not just tawdry gimmicks. I'm not exaggerating - for example I don't think I would've been able to go car-free without Citymapper and Lyft.

I don't have any social media apps installed on my phone, nor do I have my work email set up.

<comment><USER5> Am in the same camp. Not that into my phone at all, my 16gb iphone is battered and almost entirely unloved, but holy smokes, Maps/Uber can be useful/life saving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I remember my Nokia 3310 clearly. I still think I can type texts faster using that than I can on my iPhone now. It just required that you memorize the built-in dictionary.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does anyone know what apps you can run on the 3310 and if you can perhaps 'sideload' them? I see an 'O' \- would that be Opera Mini? That would be nice, also I am not sure but wasn't there a version of Whatsapp running on the older Series 30+ Nokia phone? If so, such a phone would be ideal for hikes. Add water resistance and for 50$ you have an amazing thing in a small form factor with long battery life.

<comment><USER44> And I wonder if there's email functionality in that thing.

<comment><USER43> Appearently there wasn't in the previous ones, but there was an Opera Mini browser, so the 'O' icon might really be Opera. It makes me wonder what the other 'O' does and the upper right dual-arrow icon. So you could use the browser to e-mail through webmail which might be good enough. They talk about a previous model here: [https://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/mobiledevices/forum/mdas...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/mobiledevices/forum/mdasha-mdservices/does-nokia-s30-phones-have-an-email- client/e93bba3c-6691-46bd-af9b-1b96cec362f5)

In the Nokia 210 also Facebook and Messenger were usable, from the movie it's not clear if it's available this time. Perhaps there is a list of aditional apps under the squares icon. [http://www.opera.com/blogs/mobile/2015/01/microsofts- afforda...](http://www.opera.com/blogs/mobile/2015/01/microsofts-affordable- phone-comes-preinstalled-opera-mini/)

Now could you use Opera Mini to execute local javascript apps or games on the 240x320 screen? For example could I use parchment.js to load local text adventures or play local hosted 2048, sodoku or minichess games? What about a 2FA javascript app?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> They mention durable earphones.That's important - really big different at public transportation or a busy workplace.

But more interesting would be earphones with decent noise cancellation, which get power from the phone. Huawei has those at $80. But earphones are delicate.

If Nokia can them long lasting - and create good demo videos showing the real effects on user life - they may have a nice niche.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm very excited about the promise of security updates for Android.

</comment><comment><USER47> So my masseuse came on the weekend and she had Nokia 3310 (for 15 years I think she said). She's saying the battery still lasts 10 days on a single charge and doesn't want to change it.

My question is - would this new shiny thingy last as long as well or everything is going to get drained by bells, whistles, emojis, big emojis, animated emojis etc?

<comment><USER48> they claim all-day talk and month-long standby battery life.

<comment><USER49> So probably not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Engadget's coverage [https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/26/nokia-android- smartphone...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/26/nokia-android-smartphone- global-launch/)

</comment><comment><USER51> > In a world that is more disconnected than ever, what we really need to do is > unite.

Totally agree, however not sure how they are doing this by introducing new phones.

</comment><comment><USER52> >Max. standby time Up to 31 days

Good old 3310

</comment><comment><USER53> >... whilst the 2.4" polarized and curved screen window makes for better readability in sunlight.

As opposed to the perfect sunlight readability of the original monochrome transflective screen the 3310 had.

I have a Nokia 1100. I've had the thing for over 10 years. It appears that I will run out of 2G networks to connect it to before I can buy a technologically more advanced phone.

</comment><comment><USER54> Can someone with mobile spec reading skills speak to the 3310 as a travel phone?

I'm an immigrant living in the US, interested in a dumber phone to use when travelling across US border. I mainly travel to Sweden, but would be keen on a phone that works well across Europe, South America and, if possible, south east Asia.

The somewhat modern GUI, coupled with good battery time and dual sim seems appealing - or?

<comment><USER55> Tech spec is 2G GSM 900/1800 MHz frequency which is good across Europe and SEAsia but South America has variability (some by country, some by network) [http://www.worldtimezone.com/gsm.html](http://www.worldtimezone.com/gsm.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I really like how the 3, 5 and 6 are going to come in dual-SIM options too. Great for vacation or having one device for work and private.

</comment><comment><USER57> Right timing for the launch -- Google just discontinued its Nexus line leaving only a few options for non-premium stock Android phone.

</comment><comment><USER58> Is it true in the U.K. that Carphone Warehouse has the exclusive rights to sell these and the only way to get a 3310 is on a contract?

</comment><comment><USER59> I wish Apple let others use macOS and iOS on other hardware.

I got a Y6II and Android is about 1000 times more frustrating than iOS, while the hardware and price are great.

I also like macOS better than all other platforms, but hate paying so much for Apple's outdated hardware.

<comment><USER60> > Android is about 1000 times more frustrating than iOS

I'd be curious to decompose that into:

1\. The fact you're familiar with iOS

2\. The fact that Huawei have tampered with default Android and not all of those changes will be improvements

3\. The remainder - genuinely valid complaints about Android vs iOS

Number 3 would have to be weighed against a corollary of (1) - if you're more familiar with iOS you'll notice deficiencies a lot quite quicker than you'll notice improvements as the latter requires relearning habits.

I'm not denying the validity of your opinions but I think the factors I lay out above go some way to reducing their universal applicability.

<comment><USER59> Of course, whether something is simple can be subjective.

To answer your points:

1\. I've been using Android for a few months, I can now say that I'm familiar with both

2\. that would be one thing where iOS is simpler. I've tried and I still haven't figured out what the default Android installation is (I assume Google phones?). Every Android installation is different, every phone gets different updates and bugs, etc. What a nightmare.

3\. I bought the phone because it was 179 vs. 799, and it had dual SIM. Everything else is worse, but it would take ages to go through all that. In general, the control that you lose with Apple makes things easier. There is one launcher that always works, the apps are double-checked and don't contain viruses or malware, every app follows some guidelines and is integrated with the rest of the OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> "In a world that is more disconnected than ever"

How is this in any possible way true?

<comment><USER62> I think it's referring to Trump, Brexit and the various moves the right elsewhere in Europe, which are dividing people on nationalistic and religious grounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> My wife just messaged me about this saying: "I'm finally on-trend!".

She still uses her old Nokia as an alarm and normal phone.

Uses a wifi-connected smartphone for everything else.

Don't ask me why.

</comment><comment><USER64> There does not seem to be much difference between the Nokia 3310 and the Nokia 220 / 215 / 108 that have been around for at least 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER65>
      > United we have more fun

That's the slogan for Nokia 6. Is this a play on politics du jour, now permeating even consumer campaigns?

</comment><comment><USER66> Where were you six months ago! I'd have jumped at a Nokia 6 android phone.

Also six years ago before the whole MS kerfuffle...

</comment><comment><USER67> Too bad they didn't jump on the Android bandwagon years ago when they were still in good shape.

</comment><comment><USER68> Does anybody know about the build quality? Is it on par with what Nokia was known for?

</comment><comment><USER69> Nokia is really giving highlight to the word "Android" on these copies.

</comment><comment><USER70> Any word on whether it can tether?

Dumbphone + tethered netbook could be a killer combo.

</comment><comment><USER71> Looks promising, but no USB-C is a deal breaker for me.

</comment><comment><USER72> No bluetooth?

<comment><USER73> Bluetooth is not listed in the spec (I only looked at Nokia 6), but scroll down product page further on accessory section there is a wireless headphone. So I guess Bluetooth is standard.

<comment><USER74> Bluetooth is listed for Nokia 5 and the 3310, that's strange</comment></comment></comment>


Leaked police files contain guarantees disciplinary records will be kept secret - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/07/leaked-police-files-contain-guarantees-disciplinary-records-will-be-kept-secret <comment><USER2> > leaked police contracts

This is the problem right here. These contracts shouldn't need to be leaked, because they shouldn't be secret in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> Evil unions have to make deals with something legitimate for this to happen. Whoever agreed to these terms should also be punished.

<comment><USER4> Unions are not evil, they are simply people following their own incentives. Indeed the same can be said for the vast majority of humans and inflammatory language like that does nothing to further understanding of their points of view.

As for "punishment", are you serious? What punishment? By whom? Under which terms?

Personally I'd advocate for my work disciplinary interactions to be private between me and my employer, as I suspect would most people. The police have a public interest counter argument to that otherwise rational expectation. So what's the middle ground? Can there be generalised stats released whilst maintaining privacy? Perhaps privacy simply cannot be maintained in this instance (for example my professional body would publish the results of disciplinary hearings to the public record I believe).

Accepting that you don't like the result I find it hard to believe you can't see that there's a conversation to be had and that both negotiating parties had a case to make.

<comment><USER3> Welp, not going to lie here, I do feel like someone's personal disciplinary records should not be public. Unless that person is a public servant. Which a cop is. I'm not certain under which terms the punishment should be. When you protect an entire group from persecution from their crimes, what is that punishment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many business policies are negotiated by union & business, and some using "tripartism" \- usually union & business & government. I'd like to see more involvement of other interest groups - more of a corporativism model. That would allow other segments of society to contribute to the policies of business and government.</comment>