Dropbox Owns Cloud Storage on Mobile - <AUTHOR> https://cloudrail.com/cloud-storage-report-dropbox-owns-cloud-storage-mobile/ <comment><USER2> From among CloudRail powered mobile apps. Meaning iCloud isn't considered at all. Interesting finding, but needs an asterisk.

<comment><USER3> I don't claim to represent the average app developer but I've never so much as heard of CloudRail, them claiming to be a "Unified API integration leader" and all. I can't find them being written about by someone like Gartner; some other sources claim that they're a European startup in the IoT integration space.

I guess I'm not sure what to make of some unknown-to-me company's study on usage of its own SDK for cloud storage; and this study being posted in 'news release'-style on their blog. To me, these are huge grains of salt.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've heard of them before a couple times but frankly, I don't know how good the source is. Just considered it interesting and I'm a Dropbox only user as well.

<comment><USER4> I'm a "use all the free space I can get from whichever provider" user. Across the providers I use I have 207.25 GB of storage.Dropbox, Drive, Box, and OneDrive all integrate with Astro file manager on my phone. Media Fire and AT&T Locker thru only their own apps. Astro may or may not use cloud rail internally to abstract away the apis for each different server. Although Astro does not offer egnyte so probably not.

That doesn't include Amazon's unlimited free storage for photos with our family prime account.

Oh, and a 1 TB Western Digital personal cloud drive...

<comment><USER5> I decided that it's not worth the hassle to keep track of so many accounts, so I fork over $2/month to get 100 GB on Google Drive. I was going to get OneDrive, but I have no need for the whole Office 365 shenanigans.

<comment><USER4> I do understand that point of view. And did consider it, but the way I use the different services is segmented by what I use them for which works for me. box is the backup of just my Calibre library, amazon photos, google drive is just documents, spreadsheets, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really don't understand Dropbox. For the average user that wants to store, say, a few tens of GBs Dropbox costs $9.99 a month. Nevermind it gives 1TB total, most people don't need that much. iCloud, for example, costs $0.99/month. That's an _order of magnitude_ more expensive.

Whichever way you slice it, it seems like Dropbox's core user base, that pays but doesn't take full advantage of the 1TB is bank-rolling the free accounts and the accounts that max out their paid storage.

I don't know why people put up with it?

<comment><USER7> Dropbox works.

Put aside all the concerns over War Crimes or Spying, or Security, Dropbox simply works. Every mobile platform is supported. Every desktop platform is supported. Sharing, Teams, direct links, all the core features are there. Anyone can safely recommend and share Dropbox files with their Grandma (with a PC still running XP), or their Mac loving parents, or their weird hipster friend running Gentoo GNU/Linux, and Dropbox will still work.

A lot of HN prioritizes things like data security or political signaling over frictionless implementations. Sure you can get secure file synchronization with rsync and ssh keys, but the average consumer has never even _seen_ a terminal. I'm sure security and politics are important when selling to other tech users, but Dropbox is general consumer facing, and they have succeeded at their task, making flash drives obsolete.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, it's just got to work.

We're working on an alternative: [https://www.sync.com/your- privacy/](https://www.sync.com/your-privacy/)

<comment><USER9> I understand what you mean by "zero knowledge", but it bothers me when companies say things like "we can't access your data because it's encrypted client-side".

If the service provider controls the code in the client (as you do), the fact is the service provider definitely _can_ access the data, you're just choosing not to.

I don't think there is much difference between encrypting client-side when you control the client, and encrypting server-side before storage. Either way you have encryption-at-rest.

<comment><USER10> There is a difference, and its about how the data is going to leak out. If the access can only happen via a key stored on the client, the client somehow has to supply that to the attacker (whether an official attacker or not). If every user's key and data are stored on the server then a compromise of every (or any) user becomes much more feasible. There isn't really a problem of data at rest being stolen (except for laptops/cell phones/usb sticks), it is stolen while live.

Overall though I would agree that you can't trust it much, because some code is downloaded from the server and then you trust that code (which can communicate with the server) with the key... Perhaps if it was in a local sandbox whose policies were enforced in a browser pref, or there was taint analysis applied to sensitive local data.

In years to come people will snicker at how wide open and insecure things were back in 201x.

<comment><USER9> If you store the keys, sure, that's less secure for sure.

But just because you encrypt server side doesn't mean you store keys.

What's the difference between:

      1. Get key from user on client
      2. Encrypt on client
      3. Discard key
      4. Discard unencrypted data
      5. Send encrypted data to server
      6. Store encrypted data

and:

      1. Get key from user on client
      2. Send key and data to server over SSL
      3. Encrypt on server in response handler
      4. Discard key
      5. Discard unencrypted data
      6. Store encrypted data

There are some differences, but I don't think it's clear which one is "better". I think it would depend on the details.

Big picture: either way the developer sees the key and the unencrypted data. Either way, you are completely trusting the competence of the developer at implementing this scheme, and their trustworthiness with the key and unencrypted data.

There is no such thing as "host-proof" encryption as long as the client is provided by the host.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nothing can be concluded from this data as is. It's by usage on their platform.

A totally different way to read this would be Dropbox needs the most help from 3rd parties. Another would be that Dropbox is the platform that people build for the most.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm struggling to understand why. It has a very poor business model, security issues and the storage for the price just doesn't add up. Google Drive or iCloud are far easier to set up, cheaper, and has oodles more space.

<comment><USER13> Dropbox is currently indispensable for iOS users. Most iOS people I know use Dropbox as the clunky-but-works app-to-app sharing mechanism. Dropbox is not as popular on Android because apps can integrate more naturally.

iCloud may be easier and is the probable successor, but Apple has only recently gotten its cloud game together and its free option is only 5GB.

Eventually the platforms are going to make using a third party obsolete (arguably already so on Android) so I predict we're at peak Dropbox usage. Especially considering Google's new Pixel phones will store all photos at full resolution for free, I'm sure Apple will at least have to increase their free storage tier.

<comment><USER14> I'm confused by your comment... I'm a recent convert to iOS from Windows Phone, and I've just kept on using OneDrive for my documents. I'm not even sure what "app-to-app sharing" means. Dropbox definitely isn't indispensable to me.

<comment><USER15> For example, creating a file in one app, editing it in another app, sending it to a third app to upload somewhere else.

That's hard to do without a filesystem or proper Intents.

iOS has neither, so people use Dropbox as filesystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hope on Android they support SAF (Storage Access Framework) soon. Since I don't want to include N cloud SDKs for each point-to-point integration, my app only supports what SAF does -- and sadly dropbox support is missing.

<comment><AUTHOR> isn't that what cloudrail claims to provide?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Given that Apple was spending in the order of $1 billion to store iCloud data in AWS I don't think this claim is exactly credible.

Dropbox reportedly had to move 500PB of data off of AWS which at a very naive $0.03 per GB per month would only be around $180MM per year. $0.03 is probably higher than the rate dropbox pays per GB but I'm ignoring network ingress/egress costs.

From those back of the envelope calculations I think it's safe to say that iCloud is very likely larger, or at least a similar size to Dropbox.

[https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/03/magic-pocket- infrastr...](https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2016/03/magic-pocket- infrastructure/)

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/3045436/data-center- cloud/app...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3045436/data-center-cloud/apple- said-to-move-part-of-cloud-business-from-aws-to-google.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe. This report seems to just take Dropbox Google Microsoft and Box into account. But is iCloud really that big when you talk about usage? They store tons of data but most of it might be just iOS backups which are activated by default for every user. Consider that usage or not.

<comment><USER18> I think so - and the fact that it's so in the background speaks to how well the user experience is designed for iCloud. Apple pretty much surreptitiously hides the backup of contacts, photos, calendars, email (yes - a lot of people use iCloud mail), and lastly documents. The fact that Apple was so late to the game on iCloud Drive was that a lot of the shit that the average person doesn't want to manually back-up and monitor are handled in the background by Apple ("magically" to use their term.) I personally love Dropbox, but I would find it a nuisance to manage my contacts, or anything else beyond my documents and occasional photos backup.

Therefore, regardless of manual input necessary, it should still count as usage. I imagine a lot of people store backups on Dropbox, and that looks like it's counted in the article.

Yet, I am kind of surprised that the prevalence of Android software doesn't correlate to Google Drive market share.

<comment><USER17> Re: Google Drive being less than you expect... Lots of handset makers and carriers put their own crappy cloud backup software on there and attempt to push that.

e.g. Verizon has their own cloud storage service.... it's annoying on Android, not sure if it exists on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The way I hear Aaron Levie speak, I would have thought Box had more market share.

<comment><USER20> Box is more enterprise/business focused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It would be awesome if they put a simple text editor in their IOS and web app.

</comment><comment><USER22> dropbox has a better desktop client to share stuff. It makes the difference to end users. But it's slow sync outside US.</comment>


Companies may be losing millions due to emails buried in collapsed Gmail threads - <AUTHOR> https://thehftguy.com/2019/02/12/the-gmail-bug-thats-been-stealing-187m-a-year-from-expedia/ <comment><USER2> I worked at a place that had many customers who used a major free email provider that also ran an ad network (but was not Google or Microsoft) that kept deciding that most mail we sent to our customers was spam: receipts, installation instructions, responses from support, and notices that subscriptions were going to re-bill were all blocked.

We'd contact them, they would fix things, and it would work for a while...but invariably it would go back to classifying it all as spam, and we'd get customers calling to complain about not getting instructions or support responses.

Finally, our guy who managed our ad spending called up our rep in ad sales at the email company, and asked in rather forceful terms just why we should continue spending $large_number/month on ads there to acquire new customers, when we were then going to be blocked from emailing those customers?

The ad rep conference called in their head of IT, who conference called in their engineer in charge of spam filtering, and had him right there add us to a whitelist that would prevent anything from us being classified as spam no matter what the rest of their spam system decided. As far as I know we never had another email go into the spam filter.

If we hadn't been spending a large amount on ads with them, I doubt the problem would ever have been resolved.

If you sell a software product to end users, and have non-marketing messages that you need users to see such as responses to support requests or reminders that subscriptions are going to automatically re-bill, I'd recommend including some kind of messaging system specifically for this in the product itself. Still send them as email, but also send them via this in-product channel, or at least send notices that there is a message with links to a way to view it on the web. Email only is simply not reliable enough.

<comment><USER3> > Email only is simply not reliable enough.

That is because implementations, especially gmail, ignore the specifications: (EDIT) there are specific error codes and messages should be sent back to the originator. The reasons to ignore it is, in theory, not to give spammers ideas how to avoid it.

Email is incredibly reliable, it can tolerate outages, configuration errors, delays, etc, by specification, but ever since "modern" spam filtering, gmail (and those who follow their practices) it became a nightmare, because everyone ignores how it _should_ work. It was done in a time when connections were slow and prone to errors; it had to be flexible.

Yes, I know spam was bad I was there. But I'd rather have spam, than actually important mails getting dropped because of false positive, paranoid spamfilters.

<comment><USER4> When there's too much spam, your important mails are effectively dropped as they're buried in the noise. Modern spam filtering is what saved email. Without it, you'd never see those important messages, because new spam would come in faster than you could delete it.

<comment><USER5> I don't have any content-based spam filtering (but I do use the spamhaus sbl- xbl list).

It doesn't take very long to manually delete spam from the inbox. And if your spam filter is putting legitimate emails in your spam folder, you need to manually filter them anyway.

<comment><USER4> At the peak of my spam experience, I was getting hundreds a day. That was ages ago when the internet was much slower and more expensive than it is today, and bad people online were much less sophisticated. I wouldn't be surprised if a totally open email system today generated enough spam that even deleting one message per second you'd fall behind.

I haven't checked my spam folder on a routine basis in many years.

<comment><USER5> What I'm saying is that "modern spam filtering" (by which I assume we mean GMail-style highly-aggressive spam filtering that puts lots of legitimate email in the spam folder) is not what saved email. Rudimentary spam filtering saved email. There's no need to ever have a legitimate email go to the spam folder.

<comment> T-hawk The definition of spam changed. Originally, it was scattershot bulk email, where the sender would just send to any address they had ever acquired for any reason.

Now spam means "anything the user doesn't want to receive". Even if the user previously deliberately created a relationship with the sender. Gmail successfully trained users into clicking the spam button for anything such. People just click Gmail's magic make-it-go-away button for things as legitimate as a mailing list they deliberately signed up for and are simply too lazy to properly unsubscribe.

Legitimacy isn't a binary either-or, it's a continuum. You bought from a merchant ten years ago and they email you again, is that spam? How about the company that acquired that merchant which is now trying to sell you a completely different line of business? You donated to a politician and now their successor in the same party emails you, is that spam? That's what modern spam filtering deals with.

<comment><USER6> 'Now spam means "anything the user doesn't want to receive".'

Spam means anything from someone who is indifferent to whether the recipient wants to receive it and doesn't get "sufficient" permission. I think this is consistent with the original type of spam, even if there is no bright line delineating it.

If you're implying that anything with a working unsubscribe link shouldn't be considered spam, then I think this definitional issue relates to the same controversies about what constitutes consent that have been discussed a lot recently.

I mean, I agree with your last paragraph, so far as that goes, but I would suggest rather than the definition of spam changing, ordinary businesses got spammier/sleazier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a Gmail nightmare story from a couple of years ago.

The company I work for was sending confirmation emails doing everything properly: separate IP range mx boxes, warmed up, DMARC, SPF, DKIM, all the bells and whistles. Nothing else was allowed to go through them.

Suddenly people weren't getting those confirmation letters. It turned out that soon after Gmail introduced the "Promotions" tab, a silent, new feature was added: anything from noreply@ was put in there.

We tried going through the official channels - once we got to the end of the tunnel, it told us "we'll get back to you in 2 weeks". That's when we started digging into internal google connections across the company, and thank god, we found someone who know someone, and in was sorted within a couple of hours. (It might have helped that the company spends a lot of money on google ads.)

Gmail is lovely.

<comment><USER7> You should never have been sending mail from noreply@ in the first place. Every message needs to be send from a real mailbox that can receive a reply that will be read by a person. If the message isn't important enough for that, then it is spam and Gmail was doing the correct thing with it.

<comment><USER3> I don't believe your approach is correct, for multiple reasons.

There are valid scenarios for one way communication; those emails are only verifications of transaction that can't be simply altered via responding to a mail.

Email has the notion of Reply-to header, although this case, that was not populated.

Making a decision solely noreply@ is why the life of Mr. Null is quite hard.[^1]

No, gmail is not right about this.

[^1] [https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/)

<comment><USER8> I have to disagree with you. If you're sending a message to somebody, no matter what the medium, it's the right thing to do to give them a way to respond. Emails are a two-party transaction, not a facility for unidirectional spam.

<comment><USER9> A valid return address is not the only way to respond. There could be a link to a support page in the mail, a telephone number or even a mailto: link.

<comment><USER10> There could be, but frequently is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Article admits it isn't a bug then continues calling it a "bug." Also the $187M figure is just pulled out of the air.

Essentially Gmail (and other mail services) put messages from the same sender with the same subject into a Conversation View. Users are confused by it, and clicking the oldest password reset link (expired) rather than the newest.

Claims that users being unable to reset their passwords costs Expedia $187M.

<comment><USER12> Nah, the author does have a point. There's something fundamentally wrong with how Gmail collapses messages. I have email notifications from a certain web store when some of the items I might be interested in come in stock/for preorder. I always read them. Years after I started using it, I discovered that I actually miss reading about 30% of these messages. How does this happen?

Well, it turns out that Google randomly groups some of these messages in a single thread. And yet this thread looks identical to a single message. So I click on the thread, read the first message, see the email footer and go back to Inbox to read the next one. _This marks the entire thread read_ even though I didn't actually read the subsequent messages. So I never come around to read them.

I completely believe that most users will not read any email in the thread beyond the first one, because there's absolutely no indication there's more stuff to read.

<comment><USER13> Also, long exchanges with someone who uses Outlook as a client are incredibly painful.

<comment><USER14> Does it not collapse them? I have a few people I used to talk with that had the included reply but GMAIL just replaced it with [...] that I could click to expand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Many of my customers use Gmail (mostly as part of a company subscription to Apps) and I have frequent problems with their mail getting lost, classified as spam, rejected, filed somewhere, or just difficult to see.

I wonder at which point people will start realizing that Gmail is not all it's cracked up to be. Apart from the privacy issues (you basically have to assume that Google is reading all your mail and mining data from it), Gmail treats your mail as their mail: they will do anything they like with it, including hiding it from you.

If that sounds like a rant, it is — I am worried about the increasingly centralized nature of E-mail.

<comment><USER16> I recently applied to be a volunteer first aider for St John's Ambulance, who are fairly prominent in the UK. It was 2 weeks of no response to my application, until I happened to check my gmail spam folder to discover that SJA had invited me to a selection evening like the day after I'd applied!

Marked as "not spam". Further correspondence from them, via the same address, ends up in spam list. Filter seems to be ignoring me reporting the misclassifications.

I can't tell whether the spam filter is personalized per user, or whether my reports are drops in the ocean. Either way, I get that feeling that I don't own my own email account either.

<comment><USER17> Author here. Shockingly, the company is to blame as much as gmail in most cases.

There are a few settings to configure to be able to receive and send emails and many companies can't bother to do it. This can be as stupid as not setting the MX records or sending email from yorcompany.com (admire the subtle typo). Spam folder guaranteed.

In this article for instance, the issue is incredibly stupid and only surpassed by the triviality of the workaround. It's been known for years, yet nothing is done about it.

<comment><USER18> Why prevent users from whitelisting yorco.com? It's equally anoying that you can't blacklist what Google whitelists. You have to do folders or rules to delete mails from whitelisted senders.

<comment><USER19> I think because either yorco.com is a valid domain and fails SPF or it isn't a valid domain and allowing it lets anyone send mail from yorco.com. I don't understand why failing SPF doesn't reject the message in a way the sender can see.

<comment><USER20> If you have DMARC setup, it actually does reject it in a way the domain administrator can see. Google does send DMARC reports.

<comment><USER19> Thanks, good to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Setting aside the validity of the dollar amount, the title belies a dangerous view of product development.

In the real world, the buck stops with you. Even if it's not fair, if there's an issue your users are having, you need to fix it.

At their scale, there is no excuse for not polishing every minute aspect of the UX, and that it includes how it interacts with every email service.

Expedia stole 187m from themselves by not having their shit together.

</comment><comment><USER22> We've encountered this a lot and when sending emails to organizations that use Google Suite or Gmail. When we explicitly don't want the messages to be grouped our team has began making the subject of the email unique to the request.

e.g instead of:

Subject: _" Password Reset Notification"_ (or) Subject: _" Website Support Request"_

we'd use:

Subject: _" Your Password Reset Request - March 14th 10:19am"_ (and) Subject: _" Website Support Request - Jimmy Davis, Failed Login"_

<comment><USER23> Yes, this is the exact fix the article suggests making. And then goes on to say that he never did it because it was too hard to format dates in Java or some such nonsense.

<comment><USER24> In fairness, it's a bad UX that forces you to change your own workflow to keep it from introducing undesired behavior.

<comment><USER13> It's bad UX to have messages that are entirely identical from a user perspective, but perform different functions. The email with the functionality to reset your password was no different than the past ones that have no effect.

The emails should have specified the expiration date in the text of the email document from day one.

<comment><USER17> >>> The emails should have specified the expiration date in the text of the email document from day one.

That doesn't avoid the issue. Similar emails are collapsed, it's not about being identical.

For example, two orders listing the (different) products you bought might get collapsed, despite being fairly different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The "fix" for this is actually pretty trivial, and it doesn't require using a unique subject or sender.

When you send an email that you don't want to be collapsed into any previous thread on Gmail, include an `X-Entity-Ref-ID` header with a random value.

I don't remember where I learned this. I can't seem to find any official documentation mentioning it. But it works.

<comment><USER26> If the company can't figure out how to add a date to the subject line, they won't be able to figure this out either.

It's gmails bug, but I'm amazed they couldn't figure out hiw to implement the fix. Amazed but not too surprised given how not nimble big companies are.

<comment><USER17> To be fair, the header should be significantly easier to implement. There is a truckload of issues with formatting a date in 100 languages that don't apply.

Incredible how Hacker News figured out the workaround in 6 hours, when they couldn't in 6 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _The issue is impacting all users who forgot their password, use Gmail (not sure about other clients) and don't notice the hidden messages being at the bottom (it's really hard to spot)._

So the "bug" is collapsed message/sort/thread view?

Feels like this is about as un-bug-like as you can get. Adding the unique Subject: line feels like the right fix (in you) rather than shout at google "you have a bug"

<comment><USER28> I am quite surprised by this response, and even more that there are several saying the same thing.

> So the "bug" is collapsed message/sort/thread view?

No - the bug is that new messages were being hidden because they were mischaracterized as redundant.

I quickly disabled Google's 'conversations' feature (or whatever they call it), when it was first introduced, because it did not seem to be doing a good job, but did not think about its wider implications.

I probably should not be surprised about these reactions, as I have had experience with fellow developers who insist that what is manifestly a bug is not one because it is "working as designed", or because there is an undocumented workaround to the undocumented problem.

<comment><USER29> It does a great job, apart from this, it's a really annoying thing that I have no idea why they've done it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> While a whimsical writing and storytelling style sometimes works great, in this case it makes the article very confusing, even contradictory in places.

I also find their numbers very hard to believe. Expedia's net income last year was ~$400M. They could apparently make a 60-character fix and increase that by $187M but they don't, because...reasons?

<comment><USER31> I'm guessing $187M is referring to total bookings, which is in the $Billions

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The defense of gmail in the other comments is bizarre. Gmail suffers from a number of similar, very serious usability issues. From the perspective of the user, failing to show the correct password reset email is a bug in gmail that affects many sites.

A less advanced non-threaded show-most-recent email view would not suffer from this issue. When you add a more advanced feature, make it the default, and inadvertently reduce usability, you are at fault.

<comment><USER33> Maybe, but you shouldn't be getting any password reset emails anyway, because you shouldn't be forgetting your passwords.

What, you can't remember literally dozens of different passwords from different sites, that all have differing and incompatible password requirements?

<comment><USER34> password manager?

<comment><USER2> Even that doesn't eliminate the need to receive password reset mails. I've seen sites that suspect that their password DB has been compromised invalidate all existing passwords, requiring you to go through the password reset mechanism to pick a new password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I had never used Gmail until a few month ago when I switched jobs and my current company uses GSuites.

The Gmail UI is horrible, the amount of confusion it creates and how illogical it does collapse and order things amazes me. Why not just show me the content as it is and let me figure out how to handle it?

<comment><USER36> You can disable conversations and view all individual messages in the chronological order without any grouping.

But it will not solve other UX issues, like the fact that gmail UI encourages top-posting, even if the sender replied inside the body of the original e-mail. (it skillfully hides the option to reply inline inside the quoted body, even in this case)

It also makes a complete mess when you write responses inside the quoted text, if you're not extremely careful and aware of this fact.

For example these are identical messages:

As gmail user sent it: [https://megous.com/dl/tmp/gmail- garbage2.png](https://megous.com/dl/tmp/gmail-garbage2.png)

As I received it (text e-mail message gmail actually generated): [https://megous.com/dl/tmp/gmail- garbage4.png](https://megous.com/dl/tmp/gmail-garbage4.png)

Now someone tell me this is not a complete garbage!

Honestly, conversing with gmail users is my least favorite thing, as long as they use the web client. Gmail webmail is not a serious e-mail client. It does not even implement threading.

<comment><USER37> Not OP, agree that the UI is still horrible in many ways, but still thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This title is way too clickbaity for what it's talking about: Gmail grouping emails by subject can bury password reset emails

</comment><comment><USER39> Google should indeed fix every single UX issue, however minor, given its operation scale.

That said, such overblown criticisms reminds me of the quote "There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses". It's true for everything.

</comment><comment><USER40> I just want my colorful threading back. Every time someone 'improves' the Gmail UI, it gets harder and harder to use.

Back when each new message in a thread had a different-colored header, it was vastly easier to use by skimming.

Now, with everything in various shades of monochrome, threads collapsed or expanded, quotes hidden or not hidden, signatures here and there, it's virtually impossible to tell at a glance where one message begin and the other one ends.

</comment><comment><USER41> All Gmail would have to do to fix the issue is consider the link target when diffing to determine which part is quoted from previous messages.

I've noticed this myself on the occasion I end up requesting a password reset multiple times. It's annoying at best to have to click open a closed message and then click again to show the quoted text. I'm sure it took me a minute to figure out what was going on the first time I encountered this.

</comment><comment><USER42> I opted for one email sent/received, display one line option in Gmail eons ago. The collapsed email format is complete bollocks with one small exception... coming back to work after a vacation. Collapsed view allows for reading a series of emails to acquaint with how a particular subject evolved over time while away.

So after vacation > turn collapse back on > clean up vacation built up email > turn collapse off again

Edit: oh, I also proactively search for "lost" emails with the following search string:

has:nouserlabels -label:inbox -label:drafts

With my workflow, I apply a label to everything I want to save when I move it out of the inbox, meaning I've finished dealing with whatever the email requires. So that search string finds whatever has fallen out of my workflow.

</comment><comment><USER43> ...okay, I have a very vague memory of this being straight up announced by Google as a new feature back around 2002-2005.

Basically, if I'm remembering right, there was a semi-standard header field in emails that used some sort of hash to identify which email was being replied to. This was how emails were threaded together in other clients, and worked well for the most part.

But there were some situations where it didn't work accurately, leaving some emails un-threaded, so Google created its new conversation view to both flatten the reply tree (so you'd see all emails so far before responding, instead of making the same reply as someone else) and group up emails sent from clients that didn't include the hash.

And now we're here.

</comment><comment><USER44> Alternate title: Our Assumptions About MUA Presentation Turned Out To Be Wrong.

</comment><comment><USER45> The concept of collapsed email threads is a terrible idea for the typical user. It probably only makes sense for public figures who get a ton of unsolicited emails (whoever designed Gmail must have been a public figure). It also would explain why Marissa Mayer redesigned Yahoo mail to have collapsed email threads by default.

The average person doesn't get so many emails that they need to have them collapsed and sorted based on the sender. Most people don't have a problem reading every email in their inbox each day - In fact, that's what they want to do.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Debugging complete. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

"The direct impact of this bug"

"Actually, the bug is still active"

So I thought the author realized it was a feature, not a bug. But then the author goes on to claim it's a bug, several times. It's clearly not, it may be a shitty feature but it's not a bug.

It took me one instance of this to realize what was going on. Why only one time? Because I took the time to learn how my tools work.

<comment><USER47> Someone else's mailbox isn't your tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Additionally, the search function doesn't easily surface the most recent messages matching a query. "Gooz Frabba" seems to get me a short list (the first ever mention from years ago; the one where I mentioned it to a friend; etc), followed by a random assortment of messages which don't contain the very latest email I received until I scroll down a screen or few.

</comment><comment><USER49> Is the GMail behavior described here accurate? Does GMail really hide the _latest_ email in a collection sharing similar sender and subject?

<comment><USER41> GMail will hide parts of a message that are similar to previous ones. When the entire message consists of what GMail considers to be quoted text, it doesn't really look like there's an email there. I just tried this myself and in the second password reset email, I only see a button with three little dots that says "show trimmed content" when I mouse over it. It's tiny and I wouldn't expect someone to figure it out if they didn't spend some time looking or have an idea of what happened.

<comment><USER50> OMG, it's not just me. It's super frustrating on mobile. On certain threads, I'll literally spend 5 minutes just trying to find the new content.

<comment><USER51> I still miss pine, tbh

(If this reference is too old: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(email_client)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_\(email_client\)) )

<comment><USER52> offlineimap and mutt work just fine for me...

<comment><USER53> It might work well for you, but

      are you sure your recipients
      aren't
      seeing emails that look like
      this?

Sending plain text emails that look good when nearly every email client is mostly only tested with html emails is actually very difficult, and sometimes simply impossible. Format=Flowed doesn't always fix this. Plain text emails are defacto deprecated just because a lot very popular email clients don't handle them well.

One major problem with plain text emails is the standard was created when nearly everyone had a screen wide enough to display at least 78 characters per line (or whatever it was). Today people spend most of their time on screens much narrower than that. FF is a half assed solution to that problem

html was designed to work on a much wider variety of screen sizes so it works much better for email.

I say this as an offlineimap/mu4e user who knows some of my recipients are seeing bad formatting and doesn't really care.

<comment><USER52> > I say this as an offlineimap/mu4e user who knows some of my recipients are > seeing bad formatting and doesn't really care.

This basically describes me (though substitute "bower" for "mu4e").

[edit]

It occurs to me that it would be relatively simple to write a filter that converts text e-mails to a multipart with an html e-mail having the same text.

Still no solution to replying to html e-mails inline, but the intersection of (Doesn't topost) and (uses html e-mail preferrentially to text e-mail) is relatively small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I can't believe I got hooked in by that deceptive, clickbaity headline. Am I on the ExpressOnline and didn't realise?!

</comment><comment><USER55> I've always felt that gmail is more cumbersome and packed esp in mobile! Inbox was nice in few areas however the core gmail app on mobile is almost impossible to get to a correct mail.

Enter Outlook mobile, absolutely love it, no wonder its the most rated mail app in app stores!

</comment><comment><USER56> This happened to me and was incredibly frustrating. Figured I was just a moron, but perhaps not.

</comment><comment><USER57> tl;dr - Gmail collapses 'threads' of identical messages and you might not see the newest one, and on password reset links (and others) that can be a problem.

At Blekko we ran into a variant of this caused all of our regular logging reports to get thrown into a single gmail thread and collapsed (making it hard to find the results) so we changed our logging script to include the date in the subject line.

The fix for the author would have been to change the subject to 'change password request received on 14-mar-2019' or something similar (you can include the time too for more uniqueness). Then it always starts a new thread and the messages are always visible.

<comment><USER58> If only there was a way for email messages to indicate they were part of a chain or not…

Sarcasm aside, it stinks to have to workaround email clients that deliberately don't pay attention to convention. Putting the date in the subject should be a clear indicator that Gmail is in the wrong here—there's already a date field in the headers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I have experience this exact issue described in the article so many times. It is so frustrating when trying to reset passwords because other than the time stamp, each email looks identical.

</comment><comment><USER60> I have had too with some support emails. With Gmail it's really easy to not see some messages in long threads. Also reading a thread is quite difficult with gmail hiding parts all the time.

</comment><comment><USER61> It's odd to me that the phrase, "conversation view" is nowhere in the OP and it's literally the name of the feature they're talking about, which can be turned off.

<comment><USER47> That doesn't matter from the perspective of the sender. Most people won't turn it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I switched off collapsing Gmail threads, or having them as conversations I believe Google call it. It's quite difficult as I would find myself struggling to find certain emails.

</comment><comment><USER34> it doesn't matter if gmail is buggy or whatnot. you have a duty to your clients and shareholders to fix the issue. in most cases this means circumventing an uncontrollable entity. in expedia's case it means having pseudo-random email formats when requesting a password reset. as a long time so-called "hacker", this is junior-level stuff.

</comment><comment><USER63> very interesting read - for an alternative interface to email, try mutt[1]

[1] [https://smalldata.tech/blog/2016/09/10/gmail-with- mutt](https://smalldata.tech/blog/2016/09/10/gmail-with-mutt)

</comment><comment><USER64> Is this not just a repost of the flagged post from yesterday?

</comment><comment><USER65> I want to know! Did 9,000 people actually book the listing?

</comment><comment><USER66> some friends thought I was insane when I said i preferred outlook to gmail purely for UX reasons. The email threads are so difficult to track.

<comment><USER67> Outlook (the client not the service) has a feature that could cause similar issues - the focused and "other" tabs. I've missed a few responses to AWS support requests because of it.

On the other hand, I chose to use the Outlook client instead of the built in mail client for iOS, specifically because there is a grey area between "spam" and automated email that isn't urgent but I still want to see.

Most of the time Outlook gets it right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Very interesting read. Author should have submitted the problem and solution as part of a bug bounty perhaps. Something for us all to watch out for.

</comment><comment><USER69> Put the time of the request in the subject line of the emails so they are unique and don't get threaded.

Wow, I just saved you $100M! /s

</comment><comment><USER70> TLDR: Gmail hid the most recent password reset email with a working token link at the bottom due to grouping similar looking emails together. The fix was to introduce a date in the subject line, thus preventing grouping in the first place.

Edit: Well, actually it didn't work and it is still an ongoing bug.

<comment><USER71> The "still not implemented" fix, apparently.

 _" Actually, the bug is still active. I never had the opportunity to fix it, didn't stay long."_</comment></comment>


Building a Well System - <AUTHOR> https://trackchanges.postlight.com/building-a-well-system-be5cfa77bad <comment><USER2> > Hire people who like to work hard and who have something to prove

In my experience, having "something to prove" can often be a negative.

<comment><USER3> Is it just code for "young"?

<comment><USER4> See also "old and bitter".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was a really wonderful article. I don't agree with everything that was said in terms of conclusions, but I feel like I would very much like the person who came to them.

To the author: Hoping good people continue to come your way, and that you can create value in the larger systems that I share with you.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you hack this hot weather? - <AUTHOR>

Cold vs hot shower during the summer? which do you guys take to cool you down. I hear taking a hot shower helps to cool you down more than the cold shower it would make sense if you think about Newton's Law of Cooling. But seriously this hot weather is killing me while I'm programming. <comment><USER2> Being a south Texas native, I live by cold showers several times per day in the summer, even if just for a few minutes, and especially before I go to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER3> Concentrating when uncomfortable is hard. Run a fan or live down the basement?

After a couple of summers in Washington, DC, I found that running in the daylight hours helped to acclimate me. I wanted to survive, so I made sure to figure out routes that are mostly in shade, but even so I can tolerate more heat than a lot of folks can.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am pretty old fashioned in that I carry a handkerchief and try to have more iced drinks. It works out for me well.

With my AC running all the time and a box fan my electric bill was still only $70ish dollars because our electricity here is dirt cheap. (Partially nuclear)

</comment><comment><USER5> Fire up the AC, put it by your desk and have a Popsicle! It's Summer, maybe go outside.

</comment><comment><USER6> mouthwash made with some high quality peppermint essential oil. The menthol in mint plants apparently tricks your brain into thinking you are cooler than you are......

</comment><comment><USER7> Satirical answer: move to San Francisco. Most nights this summer have been jacket or sweater weather. I made the escape from the southeast 6+ years ago.

Serious: Close the blinds/curtains. This helps reflect light back out rather than staying inside and heating up the space. Stay low. Heat rises, cool air sinks. If possible, give the hot air somewhere to escape to up high and back outside.

<comment><USER8> Blinds definitely help. I've heard that if you have horizontal mini blinds you want to turn them up so it reflects the sun back and not down where the sunlight streams in.

Keep fans running even if you're not in the room. It'll keep the air moving. Make sure it's rotating in the right direction (switch down for summer, up for winter)

Turn off incandescent lights.

Check your AC unit, I recently found mine needed to be recharged. The AC should be 20 degrees below ambient temp.

Any sort of insulation improvements. In a house I lived in during college I found that the 3M Window seals helped immensely, and closing the fireplace flue.

Get rid of that Pentium 4 box sitting next to you :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: HoRNDIS - an Android USB tethering driver for Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://joshuawise.com/horndis <comment><USER2> I've been waiting for this for a very long time; works perfectly. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a beta tester, and probably the only person who has run this on 10.6, so if you have 10.6-related problems let me know.

</comment><comment> rob-olmos Thanks for this! However, I'm unable to get this working, let me know if you'd rather I post this as a github issue:

MacBook Pro 13" with 10.7.5 Droid Razr with Android 4.0.4 Verizon with mobile hotspot and I believe I had tethering working on a Windows laptop before.

Steps: I have installed HoRNDIS and rebooted (tried install/reboot again just to be sure) Plugged in my phone via USB Enabled USB tethering and it says tethering error There are no changes in the Network preferences on the Mac

Saw it wasn't loaded so I manually loaded it:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/HoRNDIS.kext

Tried to tether again and noticed these errors in kernel.log:

      Nov 14 19:05:28 Robs-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: 0        1 AppleUSBCDCACMData: start - Find CDC driver for ACM data interface failed
      Nov 14 19:05:28 Robs-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: 0        1 AppleUSBCDCECMData: start - Find CDC driver for ECM data interface failed

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm! Yes, please post this as a GitHub issue. It seems like it might be something phone-side, given that the phone says 'tethering error'...

Post it to GitHub and I'll take a look there.

Thanks!

<comment> rob-olmos Here you are:

<https://github.com/jwise/HoRNDIS/issues/2>

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Folk give Linux flack for it's driver problems, but I've noticed OSX does have it's own issues. :)

I'll be looking forward to testing this out, since it'll be more convenient than wireless tethering in some circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is an alternative if you have the android sdk running on your laptop.

Use adb to forward a port from your machine to your Android device. Run a SOCKS proxy app on your Android.

<http://graha.ms/androidproxy/>

I use a similar method for transferring media, since mtp doesn't work very well on Linux.

I wonder why did Google decide to implement mtp as the protocol of choice. I know why MSC was not ideal anymore, but it _already_ has working tcp over usb. That can be used to implement so many different things like file sync, tethering, etc.

<comment><USER6> > I wonder why did Google decide to implement mtp as the protocol of choice

They presumably had iTunes in mind as the competition, MTP is a "standard" and many apps already implemented it. Of course it turned out to be 4 steps forward and one step back.

<comment><USER5> Actually iTunes uses tcp over usb[1] . Which is why this is so counterintuitive - adb already does everything on tcp over usb, why didn't they just use it for everything.

I hope it is not patent encumbered - I'm hoping at least Cyanogenmod can implement it.

[1] rant warning -[http://sandeep.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/the-fastest-way- to-t...](http://sandeep.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/the-fastest-way-to-transfer- files-on-a-one-xs-or-samsung-s3-why-mtp-sucks-and-a-note-to-google-engineers/)

<comment><USER6> Apologies for not being clear - I meant iTunes' functionality (sync collections of media) not implementation. Presumably Google thought it would be a neat shortcut using MTP since others would then write the media sync functionality (eg Media Monkey, Double Twist).

It was a good short term choice, but a bad one for the long term. And there is nothing stopping them adding a TCP based sync later.

You'll note however that they prefer you sync to the cloud and then Google handles cloud to your device rather going direct from local machines to the device. See Google Music etc.

Thanks for the rant!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On OS X 10.7.5 with a Nexus S running Android 4.1.2 I get the following in kernel.log:

        11/15/12 9:55:40.019 AM com.apple.kextd: Can't load /System/Library/Extensions/HoRNDIS.kext - no code for running kernel's architecture.
        11/15/12 9:55:40.022 AM com.apple.kextd: Load com.joshuawise.kexts.HoRNDIS failed; removing personalities from kernel.

Great project, btw. Can't wait to try it on another phone/computer and get it working.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty weird! Do you know if there's any reason why your machine would be running a 32-bit kernel? I didn't think that was still supported on Lion...

<comment><USER7> It's a 2007 MacBook, with a Core 2 Duo processor. I had been under the impression that it was running a 64-bit kernel. But it seems I was wrong. I believe that since Lion most Macs boot with a 64-bit kernel. I guess this model was left out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thank you from the bottom of my battery. I have wanted usb tethering to work on my mac for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER9> Cool project; I was kind of hoping when I saw the title it was a way to emulate USB over MTP, and not have to use the _absolutely rubbish_ Android File Transfer application... but alas, not the case. Oh well.

<comment><USER10> The frameworks that AFT uses are open source if anyone wanted to make a better one :P

<https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/libmtp/>

<https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/libusb/>

[https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/libusb- co...](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/libusb-compat/)

<comment><USER11> You've given my life purpose. By that I mean, AFT is the worst application I've used in my life, ever. It is that (un)reliable. And I need yet another side project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tangentially related - if anyone is using native wifi tethering on their Android with their Mac and having issues, try tethering over Bluetooth instead - I found it to be much more reliable.

</comment><comment><USER13> I plug my android phone and it works as a USB modem. I can use it in OS X or Linux (as /dev/ttyACMx). Am I missing something?

(My old Nokia used to do the same thing)

<comment><USER14> You might be missing out on an easier way to do it. When I plug my Nexus S into Ubuntu and enable tethering, Network Manager recognises a new Ethernet device, acquires an IP address via DHCP, and I'm connected. I've never had to configure anything on the computer.

<comment><USER13> Oh NM recognises the device but didn't work properly when I tested

I prefer using wvdial because it allows me to see what's happening and fix something if needed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks really good.

What would be awesome is some kind of reverse tethering - use my computer's Internet from my phone connected to the computer over USB.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think some HTC phones can do that; I don't think it was very popular, though.

It should be possible to do without rooting your phone; I think Koush was discussing a similar proposition (tethering a phone to a tablet) using Android's support for usermode VPN applications.

I've no use case for it, though, so you're on your own there :-) It would also not be quite so "plug it in and it works" to set up, since you'd at least manually need to set up NAT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome, I've always wondered if having to set up a WAP on the device to route traffic through caused more delays then a straight tether.

</comment><comment><USER17> Serious question...not trying to be snarky...

Why would anyone use anything but FoxFi?

<http://foxfi.com/>

EDIT: I suppose FoxFi doesn't work on some phones + using both radios at the same time might run down the battery quicker.

<comment><USER2> From personal experience, USB tethering is both faster (bandwidth-wise) and uses considerably less battery than Wifi tethering.</comment></comment>


Report: Star Wars toymakers were directed to exclude female characters - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypable.com/star-wars-toymakers-specifically-directed-to-exclude-rey/ <comment><USER2> This is why I'm not such a huge fan of "but the market wants it" arguments, at least in our current society. The market has high barriers to entry (only one entity can make a Star Wars film, and very few can make a Star Wars-scale film) and is run by people who, evidently, have no idea what they're doing, and are _still_ profitable and have no need to seek maximum profit. Their own jobs and raises are not threatened by the possibility that they could have been ten times more profitable, because there's no way for their bosses to know that. Rey action figures aren't on the market, so there are simply no numbers for how profitable it would be.

Same goes for startups. Given the barriers to entry in the software business, which are low but still very much nonzero (hence the need for VC), and given that VC can't fund all the possible ideas that want to enter, what's in the market is what non-consumer participants have decided in their wisdom that consumers will probably like. Which may well be very profitable, but is unlikely to maximize profit.

Which leads to a simple reply to PG's claim, "When you accuse Silicon Valley of x, you're implicitly saying x works well, which doesn't seem smart if you're against x." No, I'm implicitly saying that x works rather poorly, because Silicon Valley works rather poorly and is still profitable. It could be much more profitable.

<comment><USER3> Here's the money quote (literally):

> "maintain the sharp boy/girl product division"

You're assuming what they're doing is unprofitable and irrational. But a majority of families with two or more children have children of opposite sexes and a cultural taboo against different sexes sharing the same toys means parents need to buy more toys. It isn't hard to believe that this strategy is profitable on net.

So it's really showing the other thing -- not that the market isn't efficient, but that it can be efficient/profitable for the market to be sexist.

But that makes the analogous thing in tech that boys are encouraged to be programmers and girls are encouraged to be nurses. Which is a thing that happens predominantly in schools and at home and it isn't clear how the software industry would be a beneficiary of that -- which is perhaps why we hear many calls to do something about it. The profit-seeking behavior is to change it.

<comment><USER4> "So it's really showing the other thing -- not that the market isn't efficient, but that it can be efficient/profitable for the market to be sexist."

"The market" is not some natural occurring phenomenon, but rather a complex mix of political and ethical choices.

It is our responsibility to be acutely aware of this and make "the market" accountable to our cultural aspirations.

That is, we must use whatever tools available to make "the market" not profitable when it encultures sexism or is overtly sexist. Find the people responsible behind these decisions and make it clear to them, and the companies that enable and protect them, that it is absolutely unacceptable.

<comment><USER5> The solution is simple: vote with your wallet. Encourage others to do the same.

<comment><USER4> The idea that all things should be reduced down to a quantization of money is a chunk of the toxic rhetoric that led to this.

We could apply the same hollow catch phrase to the election of government and reveal how ultimately toxic the trope is.

Quote from article, that brings up the trope:

"For far too long, fans searching for merchandise of their favorite female characters have been told that the onus is on their wallets. "Buy the toys that are out there," the message has echoed, even as fans scour the unyielding shelves for a green-skinned assassin, a black-clad Avenger — and now a fearless young woman who hums with the power of the Force.

It is time to reverse the conversation. Toy and merchandise companies must stop taking a character's gender into consideration when including them in products. Put Gamora with the rest of the Guardians. Leave Black Widow on her motorcycle. And when Star Wars: Episode VIII finally arrives, don't make us ask "Where's Rey?""

<comment><USER5> Yes, it'd be nice if we could be heard for more than our money.

But these people only listen to money, and even when they listen to people, there will always be someone who only listens to money.

The theoretical beauty of capitalism is that it uses greed against itself; in theory, the best way to become rich is to make something truly valuable. In practice, we're pretty easy to manipulate and we've unwittingly ensured the destruction of the very parts of capitalism that make greed work for its pay.

So yes, we do need to vote with our wallets, and we need to do it ASAP, because it'll only get worse if we keep buying it.

My recommendation would be to buy every goddamn Rey toy you can find. That'll make it clear that Rey is what sells. A broad boycott won't tell them anything, other than "we're angry".

<comment><USER4> We can vote with our cultural ethics.

Putting this on the front page of HN so that other media outlets pay attention is one such technique.

Conversely, by voting with wallets, we show support for the very minds that enabled and legitimized this toxic decision.

<comment><USER5> One, HN is not something I expect most media outlets notice.

Two, short of a march held in front of Mattel's doorstep (or the doorstep of whoever refuses to make Rey toys), voting with "cultural ethics" is not going to be noticed by the kind of person who says "no boy will want a toy with a girl on the front".

Three, "cultural ethics" is a vague term in and of itself. Are you referring to the culture of expecting boys to like boys' toys? Or are you talking about taking that culture and replacing it with another? What's the difference between cultural and personal ethics, and if personal ethics exist, then how do cultural ethics have an effect?

Fourth, voting with our wallets beats the corps at their own game. By consciously deciding to only pay for products that fit our ethics, we force companies to follow our ethics (or, at least, the ethics of the masses). If we do not buy, they don't make money, so what we buy directly affects their decisions.

Finally, I don't understand the "toxic" label you keep using. What is toxic about it? An idea can't be poison; ideas do not inherently do anything. Only actions can be harmful--or helpful. Voting with our wallets is only as toxic as the thing we decide to vote for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "I've spoken with Disney people, and they were completely blindsided by the > reaction to the new Star Wars characters," he tells Boehm. "They put a huge > investment into marketing and merchandizing the Kylo Ren character. They > presumed he would be the big breakout role from the film. They were > completely surprised when it was Rey everyone identified with and wanted to > see more of."

...they thought everyone would identify with the whiny, emo bad guy?

<comment><USER7> It might seem insane, but from the limited and prejudiced perspective of these Disney executives, it makes sense. They won't be Star Wars fans, or consumers of their own company's output in general. They'll be business people, who are probably privately ignorant or contemptuous of Star Wars and science fiction in general as an art form, and who think of it only as a franchise from which the maximum profit should be extracted.

Their conception of the Star Wars fanbase will be based on the worst cliches you can imagine — a homogenous mass of awkward, nerdy, unsophisticated adolescent white boys and young adults — and be informed by a crude and cynical view of marketing psychology. Basically, they have no intuition whatsoever for what Star Wars fans want or think, so will fill in the gap in their knowledge by assuming the very worst.

All the above leads the executives to believe that the nerdy white boys who are dumb enough love this Star Wars crap cannot and will not identify with any character except the one who most resembles themselves. A moody, caucasian man-child with a cool mask and superpowers? How could they _not_ love him? Any objections about him being a rather unsympathetic villain will be waved away as so much noise. "After all, Vader was a villain or something, and we sell a shit-ton of merch with _his_ face on it, right?"

To these same execs, the characters of Finn and Rey won't be viewed as anything other than a bone thrown to potential black and female fans. A way of expanding the franchise's appeal beyond its typical demographic. But they will still look at that homogenous mass of white nerds and say "These losers are the target of our marketing and merchandising efforts, and they will never identify with a female character, or buy merchandise containing one. We don't need to prove this, because we're top execs and our success demonstrates that our intuition is correct."

<comment><USER8> I think an important part is that the typical "profitable" Star Wars fan isn't a kid anymore: they are in their late 20s to 40s. Probably white and male. Now with enough disposable income to buy a lot of stuff, and kids they'll take to the new film and buy toys for.

But what appeals to them isn't necessarily what appeals to kids, and while the parents _pay_ for the toys, the kids _pick_ the toys. Their market research might have indicated that this is what the typical Star Wars fan wants (or maybe wanted a few years ago, due to changing perspectives in the past decade that weren't apparent during the last rush), but they aren't selling toys to the people that are already Star Wars fans.

(Toys as in kids' toys, not "Collectibles")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It wasn't until I had children of my own that I realized just how _UTTERLY EGREGIOUS_ sexism is in the toy industry. When people talk about needing to tackle inequality at every point along the pipeline, this is where that pipeline starts.

I understand the argument behind "vote with your dollars", but when an _entire industry_ is on the wrong side of the issue how can you possibly "vote"?

(BTW, as unlikely as it might seem, we've found the best gender neutral toys are at Ikea.)

<comment><USER10> I've made exactly the same observation.

And people like us are voting with our wallets. Its just that noone (except Ikea and some small "alternative" toy stores) seems to want our money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lol, For all the research, disney doesn't understand the market. This isn't the 1970s. Little boys don't want female characters. That's not odd. It's the difference between playing with "action figures" and "dolls". Disney's market research with little boys would show this. But star wars fans are not little boys. Most of them, myself included, are well over the age where girls are "icky". We want to see girls/women/heroines represented. For us these are not toys but collectables.

Disney is also in a tough spot re depictions of female characters. Any 3d/toy depiction will subject them to complaints re body type. A gold-bikini leia is not acceptable today, but any distinctively female profile will be judged harshly. The real character/actress may be a traditional rail-thin model, several inches shorter and 1/2 the weight of her male counterparts. That's what sells tickets. But that same profile in an action figure will be judged harshly. I understand why they might want to avoided the debate.

</comment><comment><USER12> They blocked Rey with a lighsaber for 1 month so as not to spoil the movie, is the story I've heard, and it seems reasonable. By the way BB8 is female.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/star-wars-the-force- awakens/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/star-wars-the-force- awakens/bb-8-droid-girl-female/)

<comment><USER13> That's an excellent explanation for why they didn't sell Rey toys with lightsabers early on. To my eye, it falls a bit flat as an explanation for why they didn't sell Rey toys _without_ a lightsaber (since Rey didn't have one for 95% of the movie).

<comment><USER12> I'd imagine the manufacturing process for Rey toys is 99% the same and it doesn't make sense to not make all the variants in a single line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought Rey was the main character.

</comment><comment><USER5> The irony here is that studies have shown that there's more boys that are willing to take a product with a girl on it than there are girls that are willing to take a product with a boy on it. They're more than halving their market share, and risking flak over excluding women (again), for a statement that isn't true.

</comment><comment><USER15> I sense that there's some media manipulation going on here.

</comment><comment><USER16> Time and time again, western media corporations prove they have no fucking idea how to market their productions to fans.

Problem:

Western corporations treat the consumer as some sheep to whom you show some advertising and then they are supposed to react accordingly and purchase their stuff. You show the advertisement for the movie and then consumers are supposed to pay you to watch the movie. You show them the movie and then they are supposed to go buy the toys you make available on store shelves. They treat the consumers as a simple black box with an input for advertising and an output where money comes out. And time and again people prove they are not this simple revenue generating mechanism. And whenever they prove this, western companies are baffled, unprepared, and ultimately blame it on the consumers by starting anti-piracy crusades and trademark protection crusades. Many pages could be linked here to prove the utter stupidity of these companies, but maybe in a grandchild post. The market and these companies are not efficient. They just barely manage to make a humongous profit. This is typical of any monopoly. The market is inefficient, the market actors are inefficient and the monopolizing actor makes a profit (most often not as much as an actor could possibly make if the market was healthy) to the detriment of all other actors.

Solution:

They are even more pitiable when compared to the state of affairs in places like Japan. The media industry for anime, manga and all related things understands there needs to be a symbiosis between the source (usually or eventually a company) of original content and the fans. Once a company releases something it becomes part of an ecosystem around that content. They are no longer the sole provider in that ecosystem. And this serves to keep the ecosystem healthy. Fan content keeps the community active and buzzing during the periods between releases by the original source.

Let's take one company acting in such ecosystems for example. More precisely one range of products(Nendoroids) for one year(2015) from one company (Good Smile Company). For those unfamiliar, Nendoroids are high quality posable figurines (with a few articulations and interchangeable parts) of super- deformed(chibi) versions of characters. For the particular issue of gender representation of characters a rough count leads to around ~125 female figurines and ~50 male figurines released in 2015 which results in a ratio of about 5/2\. Note that the target audience also isn't segregated into male or female. The target customer is simply Japanese.

To showcase their agility in the ecosystem let's take a much more narrow example. The Mikudayo figurine. This is a figurine with a lot of fan history behind it. It starts with Hatsune Miku who started as the box art mascot for a voicebank for the vocal music synthesis software Vocaloid. Fans in turn created an entire character around this one picture sparking an entire phenomenon that spread through the entire world (I may write a tangent explaining a bit the Miku phenomenon). Good Smile Company crated a Nendoroid figurine for Miku in the specific style of the line. Eventually, a fan based an entire costume on the Nendoroid version of the character and wore the costume at a convention. The result was rather grotesque, but the sheer discrepancy between the cuteness of the Nendoroid figurine and the eeriness of the life size costume version sparked a phenomenon around this new version of the character that turned into a new character of its own called Mikudayo. Subsequently Good Smile Company released a figurine of exactly this new character.

Such a chain of events is mostly unthinkable in the west.

\- The Mikudayo figurine would never have been launched because of the murkiness of the trademark issues.

\- The Mikudayo phenomenon would have been squashed and people sued for infringing the original trademarks and misrepresenting the character.

\- The Hatsune Miku phenomenon would have been squashed and people sued for infringing the original trademarks by creating fan content that mislead people into thinking Miku was anything else than a piece of software (People new to the phenomenon usually mistakenly associate Miku and Vocaloid in general with the hologram not the voicebank and the software. Trademarks were designed to prevent exactly this.).

\- The Vocaloid software would never have been made or would never have succeed, because the very idea of making your voice available for everyone on the planet to create songs with is baffling and outrageous to artists in the west.

And yet the ecosystem around this phenomenon (Miku) is healthily spreading and growing and all actors are making a profit even if there is rampant copyright and trademark infringement.

The only western company that seems to get it a bit is Hasbro. They aren't really actively targeting their fanbase but at least unlike others they aren't cracking down on fan content too hard. (And it's a good thing they are not targeting their fanbase because their biases around what the demographic of the fanbase would want would make them change the content and abandon the very strengths that made people fans in the first place) Hasbro has on their hands a completely unexpected phenomenon of an unprecedented growth and scale. This phenomenon is called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the volume and demographics of the fanbase is something Hasbro could never have anticipated.

Looking at the length of the comment maybe I should turn this into a blog post of it's own. But it's not like I said anything new. Maybe I should end this by saying that we should make these companies that treat consumers as a money spewing black box fail. Alas, it may actually have no effect since there actually are a lot of sheep that will just buy what is given to them, and any of our efforts ignored with the decrease in sales blamed on piracy.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yes a noble sentiment. Let's shove stuff down people's throats for greater good.

Let me ask you a simple question - who gets to decide what stuff should or should not be shoved down people's throats?

Because it may so transpire that you might find yourself quite soon in a position where you are going to say: "To save this village and its villagers we have to slay everybody and burn it to the ground."

<comment><USER2> > Let me ask you a simple question - who gets to decide what stuff should or > should not be shoved down people's throats?

The people whose throats they are being shoved down, i.e., the consumers. Right now you have a situation where Rey action figures are _unavailable_ to consumers who want to buy them, because some marketing executives thought they knew what people wanted better than the people themselves.

Did you even read the headline? (I'm not even going to ask about the article.)

<comment><USER18> > Right now you have a situation where Rey action figures are unavailable to > consumers who want to buy them

What are you talking about? How did you arrive to the conclusion that they are unavailable? [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=rey+action+figure)

> because some marketing executives thought they knew what people wanted > better than the people themselves.

Isn't that pretty much what marketing is in the first place?

<comment><USER19> "rey action figure star wars" \- 199 results "kylo ren action figure star wars" \- 341 results

Most of Rey figures were announced after the backlash. Anecdotally, I went around shopping and was able to find everything SW, except for a Rey figure. They even had action figures for minor characters in the Rebels series, but no Rey.

<comment><USER18> I just don't understand the certainty on your part. Was it because of the backlash or because they wanted Rey's prominence as a character to not be spoiled? Either seem plenty reasonable to me, and until there's evidence of the contrary, I don't really see what folks are on about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> An anonymous source... must be gospel.

</comment><comment><USER21> When did supply-side economics become a core tenet of feminism?

<comment><USER16> This has nothing to do with feminism. This is idiocy on the part of Disney and toy makers. Not releasing toys with the main character of the production when you release toys with other characters is plain stupid.

This has everything to do with the fantasy demographic biases in the minds of the executives of toy making companies.</comment></comment>


Happy and You Know It? So Are Millions on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/science/30twitter.html?hp

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but this is a really naive (and outdated) NLP technique for analyzing sentiment. The researchers are injecting an enormous amount of bias by choosing apriori what words are considered positive and negative - they'll also miss bad spellings, abbrevs, sarcasm, etc. I worked for a company doing similar analyses (but with different techniques), and I've heard of margins of error as bad as 40% for this type of analysis. You might be better off flipping a coin.

<comment><USER3> Yet, if it was coin-flipping, shouln'td we get wildly different results for each of the 7 days, since they were assumingly analyzed separately?

<comment><USER2> Flawed results can correlate with flawed results. If we measure Monday incorrectly, and we have the same flaw in how we measure Tuesday, is it a surprise that the results for both days might look similar? All we've proven is that people use similar words at similar times of days - not necessarily anything about their sentiment or emotion.

The coin flipping comment is a joke. These are obviously not random results. But that doesn't mean they're accurate or meaningful, either.

<comment><USER4> Great comment. I just wanted to add that "not random" != "interesting".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The quote at the end sums up the accuracy of this study:

"I suspect that if you counted the good and bad words people said during intercourse, you'd mistakenly conclude that they were having an awful time," Dr. Gilbert said.

</comment><comment><USER6> Everytime I see someone post a "happy" update in Facebook, I get the suspicion he/she is really masking some discontent instead, or just wants everyone to feel jealous. Noone is really truly happy, right?

<comment><USER7> > No one is really truly happy, right?

"Happiness" is multidimensional, so even describing it with one word is over- simplistic. Our minds are very complex; they have different levels of consciousness, intelligence, and perceptions at the same time. So one way I would describe "happiness" is to break it down like this:

* Are you free from physical pain or discomfort?

* Are your basic physical needs met (food, clothing, shelter, safety)?

* Are you free of negative emotional states (fear, anger, sadness) and experiencing at least one positive emotional state (contentedness, excitement, laughter)?

* Think about the "stories" of your life--what is currently happening to you and the goals you are following. Do you anticipate happy endings?

* How do you feel about the relationship with the world around you? Do you fundamentally think you are a good person? Do you fundamentally think the universe is a good, safe place? Do you feel like your connection with the world around you is meaningful?

If you are fulfilled in all of these areas, you'll be and feel truly happy. I've had times like that. So yes, it's possible for people to be truly happy.

On the flip side, only one of those things have to be out of whack for us to feel unhappy, so that's why sometimes happiness can seem so elusive.

So that's my 2 cents. And am I happy at the moment? No. :)

<comment><USER6> 1) Yes I am free from physical pain 2) Yes, for the most part.. minus one, starts with s, ends with x. 3) I experience negative emotions regularly. 4) Yes I anticipate a couple of happy ending. 5) I think world is cruel inhumane place</comment></comment></comment>


Licenses Matter - <AUTHOR> http://blog.agardner.me/2013/01/licenses-matter.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I had an interesting discussion on the Adobe thread, and I thought I'd flesh out my posts into a full blog post. I'm a wannabe IP lawyer, so I'm sure I'm wrong about at least half of it ;)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you organize all your personal data? - <AUTHOR> I've decided to shape up 4 TBs of mess and I want your insights! What data organization strategies have you settled for? What strategies failed? This is a big topic that few seem to discuss.
I have saved webpages (in MAFF file format), eBooks, word documents, wget mirrors of sites, audio recorded with my phone, etc etc. The only thing that's really in shape is my Lightroom library and music library.
I'm mostly after the grand scheme, the basic structure of your files (ie. the top level and perhaps the directories following these).
Some seem to start by organize by file type (directories for Audio, Video etc) and some seem to organize by source at the top level. Source could be "Me", "Internet", "My Company". The funny cat pictures would go in a folder under the "Internet" directory.
You could illustrate your file system layouts by using code, like this:

  Audio/
        Music/
        Speech/
  Documents/
            eBooks/
            Web pages/
 I use OS X, but I guess these strategies should apply to any OS. <comment><USER2> I have Projects, Details, Media and Mirrors. Mirrors are computers (whole drives), archives (mainly of retro stuff) and websites (usually my own). Media is divided into Books, Audio, Video, Music, Pictures and so on. Projects I divide up into academic, coding, creative, games, there are a few others. Details is where I keep admin reminders, dotfiles for various systems, common admin address book, stuff like that. I tend to have Details on all the systems and keep it small, then specific bits of the rest when I use them. Well, in theory, I am also in midst of organising it all.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've given up on sorting my enormous hoard of duplicate photos. At some point, Dropbox/GDrive/OneDrive/etc. will offer a deduplication feature and I'll move them on there. Local programs like Visipics or Duplicate Annihilator just can't do the job on my underpowered hardware. At the moment, I just keep my past couple years' worth of photos on GDrive for viewing through G+ Photos.

Ebooks are far and away best sorted with Calibre. It's not as intuitive as I'd like (does anyone know how to combine multiple formats under one title, or the key command to search your books?), but it's the only viable way to maintain your library.

OneNote is PERFECT for personal notes and projects. Project management is best outsourced to Trello, in my experience. I'm a fanatic of both.

For non-personal data, I've forced my wife to keep pictures of purses and whatever on Pinterest rather than on her local HDD (where she would never view them again). Likewise, articles I want to read are best saved to Pocket, where viewing, archiving, and deleting are dead simple. And of course, Kindle is a great place to buy and sync commercial ebooks.

My whole life is moving online, and I fully expect everything I have will be stored and presented through online services in five years or less.

<comment><USER4> Have you ever tried something more advanced than VisiPics and Duplicate Annihilator? I've found that Duplicate Photo Cleaner is reliable for finding similar photos and Easy Duplicate Finder works really well for the rest of the duplicates. They are not free, but I think these programs work better than the free ones like VisiPics, Auslogics, Duplicate Annihilator and the rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I keep a working directory of everything that's relevant to my day-to-day right now. That folder is chaos but it's easy to keep mental track of it because it's small. Once something is no longer relevant (that project ends, I've shared that photo, I've cooked that recipe, I've listened to that album etc) then stuff goes into the archive.

Within the archive I group everything by year. Then within the year I'll subdivide by project/event and then by document type.

So the archive looks something like:

      2014
        pics_from_my_phone
        project_a
            .doc
            .pdf
            .ppt
        project_b
        downloaded_music
            album_a
                track_1.mp3
            album_b
        ...

      2013
        pics_from_my_phone
        project_c
        ...

      2012
        project_d
        project_e
        ...

Having suffered from catastrophic data loss in the past I usually store the archive redundantly on different physical drives and cloud services, and sync the backups every few days.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would say it very much depends on which computer you're trying to organise.

For my work drive, everything is sorted by year then project, and each project starts with a timestamp (= start date), so: 2014/ 2014_01_Project A/ 2014_03_Project B/ etc. and on top of this there's an admin folder to sort contracts etc.

For my personal computer, I tend to organise things by file type (apart from personal projects which are organised as per above), so one folder for videos / images / audio / documents, and then I tag the file accordingly (using the Mac OS X tagging feature).

Hope this helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input!</comment></comment>


Funding drug development for rare cancers can hurt patients - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/stop-developing-drugs-for-the-cancer-that-killed-my-mother-rd

<comment><USER2> Based on what is described in the article, perhaps the problem is not that drugs are being developed for rare cancers (which does not harm patients in any way that I can see), but that the level of testing expected by the FDA is simply not reachable.

We saw a similar situation with the Ebola drugs that were being offered to a few select westerners, despite still being in development. Withholding these drugs from patients because their efficacy had not been proved seemed unethical to many.

Perhaps what is needed is a more nuanced notion of efficacy testing -- one which takes into account the survival rates under existing treatments, and which focuses on clear communication to patients about the chance of non- efficacy and/or harmful side effects from a not-fully-tested drug.

<comment><USER3> > ... perhaps the problem is not that drugs are being developed for rare > cancers (which does not harm patients in any way that I can see), ....

I don't think the article explains this very well. The idea seems to be that if the money weren't spent on a goal that is unlikely to be met (getting a drug approved for a rare cancer), then it could be spent on a goal that is more likely (getting a drug approved for a more common cancer). What "hurts patients" is that the latter is not happening. Dolgin is essentially claiming that if the former happened less, then the latter could happen more.

This might be true to some extent, but it is a fallacy -- often seen in discussions of governmental funding -- that if some money is not spent on item A, then that same amount will be available for item B. On the contrary, the emotional impact or political timeliness of item A might be what scared up the money in the first place. Furthermore, even the money is still available, the people who decide how to spend it might choose to spend it on options other than item B.

In any case, the general principle of targeting funding at projects that are actually likely to help people, seems to be a good one.</comment></comment>


An Engineer's Eureka Moment With a G.M. Flaw - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/business/a-florida-engineer-unlocked-the-mystery-of-gms-ignition-flaw.html?hp <comment><USER2> _that an unsuspecting driver could bump the ignition key and cause the car to cut off engine power and deactivate its air bags._

I didn't know that turning off the ignition would deactivate the air bags. I've welded on vehicles before, and have talked to body work guys about it. Everyone says to disconnect the battery so you don't accidentally set off the air bags. It can happen by stabbing the mig wire into the air bag harness, or just by letting the welding lead lay next to it and inductively causing current to flow.

Seems like if you're parked in a parking spot, and someone smashes into you hard enough that the acceleration can trigger the airbags, you would want the airbags to go off. I don't know why you would ever want to disable the airbags (except baby in car seat).

<comment><USER3> The airbag sensors require power, and would, perhaps only eventually, drain the battery. I use a bluetooth adapter on my OBDII port and I suspect this very small device drained my battery after a couple weeks of not using the car. It would be unacceptable for cars to come off the production line that way.

<comment><USER4> The ADXL78 series [1] which is recommended for vehicle collision sensing draws 1.3 mA. If it were the only load, it would take on the order of ten years to discharge a car battery, which is well below the self-discharge limitations. I don't know if lower power sensors are available, or if some rule like "enabled for 24 hours after the car is run" would be appropriate, but lack of power for the sensor does not seem like a good reason for the airbags to be disabled.

Bluetooth devices actively searching for devices to pair with could plausibly draw significantly more power than that.

[1] [http://www.analog.com/static/imported- files/data_sheets/ADXL...](http://www.analog.com/static/imported- files/data_sheets/ADXL78.pdf)

<comment><USER5> > if some rule like "enabled for 24 hours after the car is run" would be > appropriate

There are pressure sensors, such as those used to determine if the passenger airbag should be enabled/disabled. That should be the reference for both driver and passenger; if seat = occupied, trigger airbag if collision detected, regardless of engine status, ignition switch position, etc

If only automakers could update this sort of logic over the air...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's kind of funny that now that everything in a car is effectively software- controlled something like a mechanical ignition switch is still left to control a main circuit that's so crucial it will stop the engine if broken. To think, we do have wireless car keys already, with just a start/stop button on the instruction panel.

Even with physical keys I would assume that this particular circuit would be controlled via a relay and the car computer would only let the driver to stop the engine by removing the key if the car was not moving.

<comment><USER7> In the news over the last couple of years, I've seen more than one report of schoolchildren stopping a runaway school bus (driver passed out, etc.) by turning off the ignition key. So this behavior can be a feature, not a bug.

<comment><USER6> Turning off the engine doesn't have to be attached to the mechanical ignition switch.

There are already cars where the ignition switch is completely wireless and software-controlled. For example, many cars offer a start-stop feature which turns the engine off when standing in red lights and automatically starting it again the foot moves from brake pedal to the accelerator. People are going to learn that there's no such thing as ignition switch anymore.

Motorcycles have red kill switches that shut down the engine completely. A school bus or a car could have something like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "In one deposition, Mr. Cooper confronted Raymond DeGiorgio, the head switch engineer on the Cobalt, with the differences between the original switch and the replacement. While Mr. DeGiorgio said he saw the differences, he could not explain why the part had been changed without a corresponding change in its identification number."

Since the part was changed on the later models (post '06-'07) without changing the part number, that means there is no way to tell the new ones from the old defective ones. This goes against commonsense, why was this done?

<comment><USER9> _This goes against commonsense, why was this done?_

Almost certainly because they knew about their own enormous liability. They settled with a family for this issue in February of 2006, and not long after did the engineering change, albeit leaving the defect out there on millions of cars (insert Fight Club quote).

I suspect this issue is going to continue to grow until someone is charged with criminal negligence causing death.

<comment><USER10> > I suspect this issue is going to continue to grow until someone is charged > with criminal negligence causing death.

Which is worth noting won't happen; not under this administration with Holter behind DOJ's steers. Keep in mind, GM was bailed out and saved from bankruptcy by taxpayers money, despite their uproar. Clearly, GM is in bed with administration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am not saying this is the drivers fault as, based on how the facts are presented here, is clearly GMs.

But- Are the deaths due to the drivers not adapting quickly enough to the loss of power steering? After all breaks and steer are still working?

I have driven a vehicle without power steering and it wasn't that bad, and the vehicles in question (Cobalts) are rather light.

<comment><USER12> The article stated that you also lose airbags when the ignition is not in the run position. That seems pretty significant!

<comment><USER13> I think that this is the key argument fir the deaths caused. But, I was under the impression that the effectiveness of air bags compared to their hazards was coming into question in testing anyway. a seat belt saves many more lives than an airbag?

<comment><USER14> The combination is the best (apart from not crashing at all). I had heard that US airbags were bigger than European ones as they were designed to attempt to compensate for the lack of seat belt use (which was apparently common in the 90's).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can we stop posting links to nytimes until they get rid of the paywall?

<comment><USER16> NYTimes is often the best or original source for an important story.

Most readers here can either afford a subscription, or know how to read a story-of-interest without sending paywall-triggering cookies.

Some great reporting entities, using information beyond that which we have as readers, have decided such leaky paywalls are better than the alternatives. Against that domain expertise, we don't need HN to adopt some uniform, ideological "boycott all paywalls" policy. If it's so easy to get the same good stories from elsewhere, find them and submit them.</comment></comment>


Oh-My-God particle - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle <comment><USER2> Obligatory link to John Walker's excellent piece: [http://fourmilab.ch/documents/OhMyGodParticle/](http://fourmilab.ch/documents/OhMyGodParticle/)</comment>


Young Tableaux in the Tasks of Searching and Sorting - <AUTHOR> http://kukuruku.co/hub/algorithms/young-tableaux-in-the-tasks-of-searching-and-sorting

<comment><USER2> This algorithm does not work as stated. In the insertion example, the numbers were cooked so it would work. Change the 1 to a 3 -- now at the end the last column is 3-2-3, so it is no longer a Young Tableau.</comment>


Ask HN: What is best strategy for selling a new product to SMB? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Wow this is a broad question with little to go on.

For comms look to break your sale into 2 parts. 1) The introducion: define your key selling points, especially any points of differentiation. E.g. Show value and ideally ease of implementation. Make this short. Someone is likely to view your offer at a glance. Make a non committing and interesting call to action. 2) Have follow up materials for those that do where you go into detail and expand on selling points and information. Ideally you'll run them through in person. This could be for broshures or the website.

LinkedIn should be your friend for making initial contact with decision makers. Try advertising and direct contact. Look to use that to get on the phone or have a face to face meeting. Be chill about your approach and don't push or be overly eager. Don't harass as people are busy and might be interested just not now but stay in contact with new and interesting information. Personally if I don't get a reply I wait 3-6 months to recontact. Aim to contact people up the food chain at companies. Things get taken more seriously when something interesting is passed down 'to investigate' that a junior presenting up.

Given your product is new use this as a sales point. Never shy from truths when marketing. Embrace it and find the positive. Perhaps Thus business gets first mover advantage. Perhaps you can offer customisation specifically for there business as you develop the product offering. Ect.

Is this the kind of information your looking for?

</comment><comment><USER3> Either it sells itself with basic marketing or sell it to big companies first.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I agree. I'm not sure about the specifics of their product but with mine I can't spend too much time on each SMB because the return isn't high enough to compensate for a complex sales effort.

1000ft overview? Press releases, white papers, blogs posts, surveys, mailing list ads, and pay-per-click. Then those funnel into website sign ups with little to no upfront support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought the big problem was the valley of death.

There is a reason why there seems to be so much opportunity in this market which is that you can't make a profit because the acquisition costs of SMB customers exceed the LTV.

<comment><USER6> And it really is a valley of death, because every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he can strike gold where no one else could.

<comment><USER5> Yes sometimes a market is deserted because everyone that tries to enter has died. If you need high touch sales to sell your product into the SMB market then you will fail. To succeed a SMB product needs to be sold like a consumer product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Your first big hurdle will be educating the SMB.</comment>


Yuan Devaluation Triggers Exodus of Chinese Wealth, US West Coast Primary Target - <AUTHOR> http://wolfstreet.com/2016/10/31/fearing-yuan-depreciation-60-of-wealthy-chinese-plan-to-buy-real-estate-overseas-us-west-coast-primary-target/ <comment><USER2> Real estate will hit new highs, many Chinese communities in Southern California are dealing with a rapid rise in the housing market already. It's bound to go higher now that more money is coming.

<comment><USER3> Until the outflows stop, then it is California 1990 all over again.

<comment><USER2> So true...</comment></comment></comment>