HP drops Windows 7 from 'Slate' tablet, will use WebOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2010/05/02/hp_drops_windows_7_from_slate_tablet_will_use_webos_variant <comment><USER2> I wish I could downvote articles. This is a shoddy regurgitation of the Techcrunch article from last week, with slightly more formal language (and thus misleading with its implied certainty). Let's compare:

Techcrunch: "But our source tells us that HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet operating system and has terminated the project (something CrunchGear mentioned months ago). HP may also be abandoning Intel-based hardware for its slate lineup simply because it's too power hungry. That would also rule out Windows 7 as an operating system."

AfterDawn: "Sources say HP was not happy with the overall performance of Windows 7 on their unreleased tablet, saying the OS was too power-hungry... TechCrunch says also that HP is set to drop the Intel processor used in the tablet, which would completely kill off any chance of Windows 7 being used."

Funny how the echo suddenly changes it to the OS being too power hungry instead of the chipset, huh? It saddens me that this is how "news" often gets reported. People keep repeating mistaken versions of what they heard without doing any investigation of their own, until the facts get completely muddled. It's like a giant game of telephone...

<comment><USER3> It is a pretty awful article.

But isn't it Windows fault that it requires a power hungry x86 CPU? You can run other OSes on multiple types of hardware and have your engineers pick the best hardware for the device's needs. Or you decide "We're going with Windows!" and now your engineers are trying to figure out how to stretch the battery long enough to run this x86 CPU. If not for Windows being stuck on one platform I don't think we would have ever had the Atom.

<comment><USER2> An interesting point, though I don't think it justifies the way the new article chose to change the meaning of the original by rephrasing it.

I don't think it's just Windows that encourages x86 use; it's also the fact that the ecosystem is richer for that chipset anyway (hardware compatibility for things like the webcam and card reader come to mind). If you decide to go with a linux distro on top of custom hardware, then you might have to develop drivers yourself, as well as build up some UI paradigms customized for touch. WebOS gives them a great starting point to do just that, so in the end their actions still look consistent with their goals.

<comment><USER4> > it's also the fact that the ecosystem is richer for that chipset anyway

Well, it's richer mainly _because_ that's the platform Windows runs on exclusively (or near-exclusively; there are probably a few non-x86 Windows installs out there still) and thus dominant. If you had more competition in processor architectures I would expect that you would not have such an unbalanced chipset and onboard-hardware ecosystem.

Also, I'm not really sure why things like webcams or card readers would depend on processor arch; most webcams (even built-in laptop ones) that I've worked with interface over USB. Same with most recent card readers. It's not like they're plugged right into the FSB or anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wishlist:

\- Pixel Qi or similar screen (<http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/the- pixel-qi-display/> ). 1024x768 (instead of x600) would be nice.

\- Thrifty CPU/chipset (e.g. 1GHz ARM, etc.), for day-long battery.

\- Video out (e.g. mini-DP, for presentations, etc.)

\- Easy to install your own OS. Seems there's already Linux underneath WebOS; if HP is not selling hardware at a loss, it might as well profit from unsupported (software wise) customers ...

<comment><USER6> Sounds like the Adam from Notion Ink: <http://www.notionink.in/adamoverview.php>

<comment><USER7> Except for the resolution (which is 1024x600 for that one as well). I don't know how you can claim "Full High Definition Multimedia" without offering even a 720p screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Additionally, a Windows 7 license will bring up the price of any final Slate product, and now that HP owns WebOS, the move makes sense."

"TechCrunch says also that HP is set to drop the Intel processor used in the tablet, which would completely kill off any chance of Windows 7 being used."

This gives HP more negotiating leverage over Microsoft and Intel. Now that they have their own OS they can put on new form factor devices, Microsoft will have to give HP a good deal to get Windows on those devices. Windows is tied pretty tightly to Intel, so owning WebOS gives them more flexibility in processor architecture. Negotiating over new devices could lead to lower prices from Microsoft and Intel all around.

This alone could justify the price they paid for Palm, over time.

<comment><USER9> I can't see the price of Win7 license being an issue on a $550 PC. Normally the pay-back for including anti-virus and other trialware is more than the OEM windows license.

I suspect this is a negotiating point with Redmond. If MS is serious about remaining relevent in the smartphone & table era - the price of a Win7 license might well be negative.

<comment><USER10> Yes, because HP will totally think it's a good idea to continue pre-installing that shit on something they want to compete with the iPad.

<comment><USER9> You think HP care about the customer experience!!!!!!!

HP has been the graveyard of a lot of OSes - VMS, HPUX, Tru64, Compaq, Tandem now BEOS and WebOS

<comment><USER10> That's quite a lot of exclamation points.

And I just think it's possible that HP is finally getting a clue. Buying Palm is a good sign, because really, why _else_ would they buy it if they're not planning on actually using WebOS?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just a thought. Wouldn't it make more sense for HP to take that cool billion to microsoft for an initiative to further 7 for tablets... OR microsoft to buy palm and further the initiative themselves? HPs business is not OS (we'll leave HP-UX out of this).. I really see no point in them controlling their own OS for devices like these, unless they want to open source it eventually or something I'm not seeing.

<comment><USER12> Not a great idea to find development of an OS you don't control and that can (and will) be used by your competitors.

By buying Palm, HP gets:

\- immunity from Apple lawsuits (through MAD)

\- a decent patent portfolio on the mobile space

\- a decent OS comparable to Apple's

\- a reasonable stick with which to coerce Microsoft

Not a bad deal, IMHO

<comment><USER11> I understand, but here is what they also get:

\- headache and commitment of OS maintenance and advancement on OS that nobody but them uses \- virtually no app eco system

Basically what they are getting is bootstrapping an OS onto the market in their own closed loop of hardware+OS which is an epic endeavor IMHO. They don't have (anymore) tablet nor OS nor apps on the market and now they will try to try to do all three at the same time. I was just saying it might have been better to rely on someone whose job is OS rather than allocate resources themselves.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it sounds like webOS could make a great tablet OS. But I'm not sure about the market reality... apps are so important on these things, and when you've got iPad appealing to the design-centric crowd and Android appealing to the open/hacker-crowd (and no doubt, soon a broader variety of hardware than Apple will ever offer), what place is there for a third OS unless it's leaps and bounds better than one of those two competitors?

Considering it in comparison to the PC market: iPad has both the "cool/design/ease-of-use" of the Mac and the large 3rd party app market of Windows; Android has the openness/choice/capability of Linux. Those both seem to have a very obvious niche and I'd think will continue to see much success. So what room is there for a 3rd OS? And it doesn't help any that Microsoft's going to want a big chunk of 3rd place, too...

Still, it's nice to see more vendors attempting to sell/take responsibility for "the whole widget".

<comment><USER14> WebOS is a real Linux, it uses vanilla kernels (close to stock linux-omap, the hardware platform is basically a beagleboard), standard drivers, and a mainstream userland with glibc, gstreamer, pulseaudio, etc.

Android is none of that. It's a Linux that's been bludgeoned to death by Sidekick developers, and then run through the meat grinder by a bunch of Taiwanese hardware idiots. Everything their code had to touch directly was needlessly reimplemented in boggling ways that are neither useful nor portable.

The fucking iPhone is more recognizably Unix than Android is! You get about as much of the "openness/choice/capability" of the Linux kernel on Android as you do with a TiVO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Who could not have predicted this, after the Palm acquisition?

I love my Droid phone and was thinking that a tablet droid (no phone service, just Wifi) would be really nice. The HP tablet with WebOS will also be worth considering.

I read that in a few years that half of Internet use will be mobile devices so HP's acquisition of Palm may prove to be a good gamble.

</comment><comment><USER16> As you were everyone - "...sources say..."

</comment><comment><USER17> This is just awesome news. All my initial excitement about webOS is coming back now that it's not turning into (hopefully) another BeOS situation. Kudos to HP, I want one bad!

<comment><USER18> it's funny you mention BeOS, since it's now/will be HP's with the Palm acquisition.

<comment><USER19> BeOS is believed to have gone to of Palm in the hardware/software split. That means ACCESS owns Be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> WebOS should make a nice tablet platform but I think HP is still going to face an uphill battle building up good third party applications if they don't take a more active role. HP needs to throw some money at developers. There just aren't enough WebOS devices out there for support to happen naturally. 1%-2% of the sticker price for Palm going into developers pockets would greatly improve the situation.

</comment><comment><USER21> Drops Windows 7? More like RUMORED to do so.

Please use accurate headlines people... Unless you want hacker-news to become like Digg?

</comment><comment><USER22> HP should host webOS on Android. That could give them an app ecosystem that can draw from JavaScript and Android together.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sigh. I have a Pre and I love it, but I don't want a bigger one. I want Windows 7 on a tablet (if any tablet at all). I want access to Roboform and Zumodrive and Dropbox and Trillian and full fledged Outlook/Exchange. I want Flash so I can play Facebook games (oddly more for work-related reasons).

I can't imagine trying to use a browser without Roboform for anything other than the most casual Googling on the go. All my media is in the cloud in Zumo.

</comment><comment><USER24> The only thing worse than being in distant second place is being in distant third place. HP is weird, their laptops aren't the best, their netbooks aren't the best, and now they are rolling out tablets with a proprietary, untested operating system. My prediction: fail.

<comment><USER25> In the event that they use WebOS, How is Linux more 'proprietary' than Windows 7? How is it untested when it's shipping on real phones right now?

<comment><USER24> Where can I download the WebOS source code? Where is a WebOS-only laptop that I can test?

<comment><USER26> <http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html>

<comment><USER24> That's not the WebOS source code, that's their hacked version of ALSA (etc.)

<comment><USER27> Yes, that's what webos is built from: alsa, the linux kernel, webcore, etc. It's a linux that contains those packages, customized for their hardware.

You might as well complain "I wanted a forest, but all I got were a bunch of trees!"

<comment><USER21> Well, we also have the base of OSX (Darwin). Does that mean it's useful? NOPE. Because all the core libraries (and aqua) are missing.

The packages provided by WebOS are useless too. It's built from a lot more than that.

Anyway, it's just some silly rumor masquerading as fact. It's more likely HP will offer something like expressgate, and offer 2 OS's, so that people can use WebOS for basic tasks, and Windows 7 for complex ones (at the cost of greater battery usage).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Man Behind the Google Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/technology/04google.html?ex=1351828800&en=972e4f34160a839e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> If Windows Mobile can't beat Symbian, Google can't...

Symbian is one of my favourite UK companies, having been spawned off from Psion (I have a battered 3c).

<comment><USER3> I'm not a big fan of Symbian. I had to code a J2ME XMPP client for Series 60 handsets.

The incompatibilities between models and vendors is imho far worse than any browser used to be... But to be fair, I'm not sure if this is Symbian's or the manufacturer of the handset's fault.</comment></comment>


History of Silicon Valley and the Toxic Remnants of the First Computers - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-and-the-toxic-remn-1743622225 <comment><USER2> I found the comments section following this article is especially funny. My favorite, the thread claiming that lead poisoning is the _only_ statistic correlated with the violent crime rate... The authors proof- a single academic pre-print. I love the new internet science.

<comment><USER3> IIRC the correlation between lead exposure & violent crime rates 20 years later is fairly good: you can track it on a state by state level as each state banned lead additives in fuel at different times.

But proving any cause with a with a 20 year delay in its effect is going to be very difficult. At best it seems reasonable to believe that lead in fuel was a sizable chunk of the problem, but it's certainly not proven beyond doubt.

<comment><USER2> Yea, there have been a couple good summary articles I've seen here on Hacker News. Personally I find it kind of mind boggling. It's like discovering the cause of Alzheimer's, dementia, or autism.

I just find it funny, when discussing issues in comments, the depths people will go to, to frame things in black and white.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suppose one of the reasons why they thought it was harmless for so long could be that trichloroethylene really does smell good and not at all repugnant, so people are less inclined to notice its presence or be concerned about it. It's a pleasant, clean smell that somewhat resembles minty chocolate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was reading the article when I ended up taking a detour to watch the embedded video promoting IC's:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z47Gv2cdFtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z47Gv2cdFtA)

As sad as the pollution is it's still quite amazing to imagine that in 1967 they were on the cusp of a revolution driven mainly by efficiency. At one point in the video they talk about magazine pages that have chips on the front and a schematic for a "real industrial application" on the back. This was literally the start of the "maker" revolution, it just took original makers like Woz to see it and many years of evolution so that people with minimal electronics training can build amazing things on the shoulders of giants before them.

</comment><comment><USER6> > _"Twenty-three soil vapor extraction wells have been built, along with a > carbon adsorption treatment facility," the EPA reports. "Groundwater is > being extracted, treated by air stripping, and discharged into Calabazas > Creek."_

What are the possible side-effects of transferring ground water in quantity to surface waters?

The CIR report is also worth reading. [http://cironline.org/reports/cleanup- silicon-valley-superfun...](http://cironline.org/reports/cleanup-silicon- valley-superfund-site-takes-environmental-toll-6149)

> _Waste begets waste. At every step along the trail, treatment leaves behind > a new batch of waste that needs to be shipped somewhere else. At one stop, a > plant in Wisconsin creates more waste than it takes in._

I wonder if biological technologies can take some of the "zero sum" out of this system? The technology doesn't have to be particularly 'high' either; perchlorate rocket fuels (which btw are also present in lethal quantities in the regolith of Mars) are broken down by... wait for it... _composting._ [http://www.denix.osd.mil/edqw/upload/GEOSYNTEC_BIO_P2.PDF](http://www.denix.osd.mil/edqw/upload/GEOSYNTEC_BIO_P2.PDF)

</comment><comment><USER7> You can contrast this story with another Fairchild Superfund site, this time in south San Jose on Bernal.

[http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/ViewByEPAID/CA...](http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/sfund/r9sfdocw.nsf/ViewByEPAID/CAD097012298)

I grew up a few miles from here, close enough that my parents were worried about the contamination. Thankfully the well supplying our neighborhood wasn't contaminated.

For years, I'd always wondered what the giant concrete sarcophagus was whenever we'd drive out to the freeway, but it never occurred to me to look it up. Only when visiting the Bay Area in the early 2000s and finding it demolished and replaced with a freaking strip mall did I look things up and realize both what a horrible thing it was (birth defects and all) and how lucky we got that this site was clean enough to build on again.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been walking past a mysterious bunch of tanks and pipes in the middle of a parking lot in Sunnyvale for the past year. It often smells terrible. I just realized that it's almost certainly a Superfund water treatment site. I'll probably give it a wider berth from now on...

</comment><comment><USER9> Google silicon valley toxic plumes and you get some stories and maps like this- [http://whatsdown.terradex.com/#12/37.3674/-121.9649/](http://whatsdown.terradex.com/#12/37.3674/-121.9649/)

<comment><USER10> That may is extremely misleading. In it's default state, it's zoomed out so that you can't tell San Francisco from Los Angeles. The markers are not scaled with the size of the map, so a single marker, when zoomed out, covers several miles, but when zoomed in is less than a single city block.

In other words, looking at it in it's default state, the entire coast of CA is covered in toxic plumes, but when zoomed in, you see there are several areas along a particular road but large areas in between that are unaffected.

It's a good idea, but the implementation is extremely misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that they don't mention one of the worst Superfund sites (Lorentz Barrel and Drum), which lies right across Alma from Spartan Stadium _and_ right across 10th St. from Sharks Ice.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I do remember reading about this and the fact that at one of Google's building they have to use special air filters to filter the air due to where it was built.

<comment><USER13> Google and Symantec and most of the offices in that area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The video is very interesting. Kator's comment is spot on.</comment>


Monitoring and Managing Your Network with SNMP - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorial_series/monitoring-and-managing-your-network-with-snmp <comment><AUTHOR> Monitoring and Managing your Network with SNMP</comment>


Ask HN: How to obtain a work visa as a Canadian founder? - <AUTHOR> Hey all,
I'm cofounding a startup with two other founders. I'm a Canadian citizen and one of the other founders is a US permanent resident.
Is it possible for me to obtain a work visa (TN, H1B etc) so that I can work on the startup while living in the US?
I've read on here that it might be possible when the following conditions are true:

  - 3+ founders so that I don't have majority ownership of the company
  - Company has revenue
  - At least one founder is American
 I'm looking for advice on how to make this happen. Preferably by someone that has gone down the same path. <comment><USER2> You might be eligible to Apply for an E2 visa:

[https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary- worker...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary- workers/e-2-treaty-investors)</comment>


Show HN: Shellcaster, a terminal-based podcast manager in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jeff-hughes/shellcaster <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! Just wanted to show off shellcaster, a terminal-based (i.e., ncurses TUI) podcast manager, which has just hit v1.0.

This represents the largest coding project I've ever done (so far!), and my first project in Rust, but I'm incredibly proud of the result. Happy to answer any questions here. But also, feel free to use, share, and contribute! Issues and pull requests are more than welcome. Thanks!</comment>


Malicious SHA-1 - <AUTHOR> https://malicioussha1.github.io/

<comment><USER2> This research obviously demonstrates the importance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_up_my_sleeve_number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_up_my_sleeve_number) This is why the SHA-1 round constants were chosen from a simple operation (square root) on a series of nondescript numbers:

      √2 = 0x5A827999
      √3 = 0x6ED9EBA1
      √5 = 0x8F1BBCDC
      √10 = 0xCA62C1D6

      $ python -c 'for i in (2,3,5,10): print hex(int(i**.5*2**30))'
      0x5a827999
      0x6ed9eba1
      0x8f1bbcdc
      0xca62c1d6

However, it is a little bit strange that the designers chose √10 instead of √7 which would be the next logical number. Think about how many sets of constants can be generated in a nondescript way: for example they could have replaced √/2,3,5,10 with cos()/1,2,3,4, or sin()/2,4,8,16, etc. If there are, say, a million ways to generate sets of constants "above suspicion", but if 1 in a million exhibits a flaw, then in theory they could have carefully selected the one that introduces a flaw in SHA-1. (Personally I do not think it was malicious selected, but it is a fun thought experiment...)

<comment><USER3> > Think about how many sets of constants can be generated in a nondescript way

One example of this is the BADA55 curves[0]:

> The name "BADA55" (pronounced "bad-ass") is explained by the appearance of > the string BADA55 near the beginning of each BADA55 curve. This string is > underlined in the Sage scripts above

> We actually chose this string in advance and then manipulated the curve > choices to produce this string. The BADA55-VR curves illustrate the fact > that, as pointed out by Scott in 1999, "verifiably random" curves do not > stop the attacker from generating a curve with a one-in-a-million weakness. > The BADA55-VPR curves illustrate the fact that "verifiably pseudorandom" > curves with "systematic" seeds generated from "nothing-up-my-sleeve numbers" > also do not stop the attacker from generating a curve with a one-in-a- > million weakness.

[0] [http://safecurves.cr.yp.to/bada55.html](http://safecurves.cr.yp.to/bada55.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      We also build colliding JPEG files, which can be any two
      images, as in the example below (images were chosen at
      random): https://malicioussha1.github.io/img/collision.png

Haha. Brilliant. Almost RdRand-om!

<comment><USER4> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RdRand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RdRand) if anyone wonders :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sooo... does this leave the door open for the possibility of SHA1 to be backdoored like this? The FAQ says it's only "unlikely" by assuming NIST didn't have the skills to pull it off?

<comment><USER6> To qoute the page: "Did NSA use this trick when creating SHA-1 in 1995?

We believe this is unlikely, for

\- Our results rely on state-of-the-art differential cryptanalysis research, as of 2014, based on techniques that were only publicly developed since around 2004"

I'm not a cryptographer but I wonder how they truly can believe that's unlikely since it's entirely possible for the NSA to be 10 years ahead of what was "publicly developed".

<comment><USER7> Is there any evidence anywhere that the NSA is even 2 years ahead of anything? From what I've seen, the NSA doesn't have especially advanced technology, they just have a huge budget and they can exploit trust relationships that normal attackers can't (forcing companies to comply in their schemes, tapping backbone routes on the internet).

Frankly, that's also the most plausible situation independent of what we've learned anyway - it would be fantastically hard to advance technology by ten years entirely in secret. They wouldn't have the benefit of any of the literature released in those 10 years. All their computers and other equipment would be 10 years older, and the sheer number of cryptographers working on these sorts of things at the NSA is almost certainly much smaller than the number working on them outside of these contexts. It would be pretty difficult to pull off, particularly since they can get away with just cheating.

<comment><USER8> The S-boxes were hardened against differential cryptanalysis long before it was publicly disclosed as a method (about a decade), largely because they got the team at IBM work on DES to keep the secret.

So it's entirely within reason to think the NSA has the potential to be a decade ahead of the public on matters of cryptography.

<comment><USER9> No, not really. I've been trying to Learn From Them™ [I'm a reverser...] and well, actually it turned out rather fruitless overall.

They eat their own dogfood, too, and move glacially slow: conservativism and military procurement, yay. (One of the Suite A's is basically LUCIFER without the training wheels, a bigger block, and more parity.)

They really aren't as far ahead as you think. What they do have is an absolutely colossal budget, and that helps a lot, especially when they get to cheat, bribe, etc, and try to convince people to use crap stuff that even I could probably break, or stuff on the verge of that (like RC4).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've never heard of proprietary systems "customizing" SHA-1 "…to personalize the cryptography for a given customer, while retaining the security guarantees of the original algorithm".

Are there any examples, prominent or obscure?

(Who the hell would buy something with "SHA-1, but different"?)

<comment><USER11> It's the kind of thing that does happen occasionally, yes. I think one of the Bitcoin clones uses a modified version of SHA-256 with modified round constants for example. Can't remember a SHA-1 example but there are some out there.

As for why? Intentional incompatibility with the standard hash usually, often as security-by-obscurity or to lock users into using their products.</comment></comment>


Stop Talking About 'Technical Debt' - <AUTHOR> https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/is-technical-debt-real <comment><USER2> I think this is a very long-winded way of saying that you should really just be thoughtful about the terms you use in the workplace. This, to me, is symptomatic of a larger issue of taking buzzwords and using them willy-nilly without careful thought put into it.

I've been on teams saying they're building a "platform," when what they're building isn't a platform at all. I think the same can go for tech debt. Like the article says, tech debt is purposely using a suboptimal solution to the task at hand for the sake of efficiency, with a known understand that the debt needs to be paid back later. If what you're doing doesn't fit that definition, it's not tech debt. If what you're building is a CRUD web app, it's not a platform. If what you're using is a library, it's not a framework.

I'm ranting a bit here, but stuff like this is a large part of why it's so difficult for young engineers to develop into more senior engineers. It's frustrating when every team uses the same terms for different things, especially when it seems as if those terms should have a more precise definition. It really limits a dev's ability to map out the project, what's doing what and why.

<comment><AUTHOR> this is a great point. how would you define a platform?</comment></comment>


What's New in Swift 3? - <AUTHOR> https://www.raywenderlich.com/135655/whats-new-swift-3 <comment><USER2> Huh.

Looking at the code snippets, I find this:

        func g(a: Int -> Int) -> Int -> Int  { ... } // old way, Swift 2

much easier to read than this:

        func g(a: (Int) -> Int) -> (Int) -> Int  { ... } // new way, Swift 3

The old way is obvious: g takes a function from Int to Int, along with an Int, and produces an Int -- and I can tell that it's curried. It reads just like a type signature from any given ML.

The new way confused me at a glance, because my eyes got lost in all the parens and I read (a: (Int) -> Int) as (a: (Int -> Int), with a missing paren, which threw everything after it off and made it confusing.

It just adds another, unnecessary layer of parens. Weird.

</comment><comment><USER3> Swift will be available in a lot platforms. Do you think it has potencial to became the 'new Java'?</comment>


A closer look at the Jolla phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/29/a-closer-look-at-the-jolla-phone/

<comment><USER2> The Jolla UI looks like they borrowed liberally from Blackberry 10 OS. This is a good thing mind you, as I prefer subtle swiping gestures over tapping, and I like being able to 'peek' into my email without opening applications up.

Using the Blackberry 10 OS seems more like a true smartphone experience IMHO. Maybe Jolla felt the same way.

<comment><USER3> A lot of the gesture stuff predates BB10 and was already in Nokia's N9 MeeGo phone. A little bit about the background:

[http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/meego-diaspora/](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/meego- diaspora/)

[http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/jolla-sailfish/](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/jolla- sailfish/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone know how the Android app compatibility works? Is it a fork of Google code? Can Jolla be shipped by Android OEMs or will they be banned by Google for violating the secret terms of the OHA like Acer was?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.myriadgroup.com/Press/News-2013/Myriad%20Powers%2...](http://www.myriadgroup.com/Press/News-2013/Myriad%20Powers%20Android%20Apps%20on%20First%20Jolla%20Smartphone.aspx)

It's independent from Google code.

<comment><USER6> Does it mean it's limited to running only pure Java android applications that don't rely on any native extensions?

Seems like BlackBerry 10's Android Runtime had this exact limitation but is now being improved to address this: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/25/revealed_how_blackbe...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/25/revealed_how_blackberry_made_its_better_android_than_android/)

I wonder how they both compare.

<comment><USER7> What native extensions? Android native code is just regular ARMv7 (usually) that links into a stripped out libc called bionic. Since both Android and Jolla are Linux there should be no problem with portability.

The big issue for compatibility is in the Google Play libs - Amazon devices have similar problems with maps and that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lost at Sea - <AUTHOR> https://harpers.org/archive/2019/05/lost-at-sea-richardson-bay/ <comment><USER2> I lived in on a 50ft houseboat near Botany Bay in Sydney for many years. It was the cheapest lifestyle I have ever lived in this city.

[https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.9926935,151.1272364,3090m/d...](https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.9926935,151.1272364,3090m/data=!3m1!1e3)

I was on a swing mooring about 200 meters from shore, close to a public wharf, and my 'rent' was only several hundred dollars a year.

A membership at a local yacht club provided me with access to services and fast WiFi in the bay.

It was bliss in the summer months, but rowing to shore on a rainy winter morning was not so much fun.

It is not legal to live on a vessel in this manner but it only strictly enforced on major waterways like Sydney Harbour.

I was never hassled by water police, but I did get a letter from Ports Authorities from time to time. I ignored them, and there was never any repercussion.

<comment><USER3> I think the key to your plan was to live in your houseboat somewhere where it wasn't technically allowed. In Western US cities, slips in docks where living in your boat is explicitly allowed aren't cheap and often having multi-year waiting lists.

<comment><USER2> Yes. That is definitely key to living cheap on the water -- skirting the law.

It is a similar situation for walk-on moorings with shore power and water in Sydney. The marina in the bay I linked charges thousands per month for large vessels, but does allow live-aboard tenants.

<comment><USER4> I feel like it also ignores the effects of the ocean on one's residence. Maybe I am thinking this in ignorance, but I would imagine that the ocean is essentially eating away at the boat as time goes one. Yeah it might be cheap to live this way for a few years, but eventually your house will become uninhabitable, something that is much, much more rare with a land-based dwelling. At that point I wonder what the cost equation looks like because you basically need to purchase or find a whole "new" house.

<comment><USER2> On the plus side; storm water flooding isn't so much of a problem :)

But seriously, I was forever fixing things, pumping bilges and doing maintenance on generators and battery setups, etc.

I was lucky enough to be able to slip my vessel in the same bay for free each year in exchange for helping out other people and club members with their boats from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Redwood City used to have something like that, near what was "Pete's Harbor". Now it's condos and a private marina.[1]

[1] [https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/12/19/redwood-city- waterfro...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/12/19/redwood-city-waterfront- restaurant-at-petes-harbor-will-close-to-public-after-friday/)

<comment><USER6> A friend of mine lived on a boat there in the late 1980s. He said it wasn't as ideal or romantic as one would assume.

He lives in Wales now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sleeping in a ship rocked by the sea at least is surprisingly comfortable.</comment>


CEO creates 'Snowflake Test' to weed out job applicants - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/video/ceo-creates-snowflake-test-weed-005819769.html <comment><USER2> The american flag is earned by... some guy?

What a weird video clip.

Anyway, copied from his facebook

[https://www.facebook.com/KyleReyesCEO/](https://www.facebook.com/KyleReyesCEO/)

> 1\. Outside of standard benefits, what benefits should a company offer > employees? 2\. What should the national minimum wage be? 3\. How many sick > days should be given to employees? 4\. How often should employees get > raises? 5\. How do you feel about guns? 6\. What are your feelings about > employees or clients carrying guns? 7\. What are your feelings about safe > spaces in challenging work environments? 8\. In a creative environment like > The Silent Partner Marketing, what do you envision work attire looking like? > 9\. Should "trigger warnings" be issued before we release content for > clients or the company that might be considered "controversial"? 10\. How do > you feel about police? 11\. If you owned the company and were to find out > that a client is operating unethically but was a high paying client…how > would you handle it? 12\. When was the last time you cried and why? 13\. You > arrive at an event for work and there's a major celebrity you've always > wanted to meet. What happens next? 14\. What's your favorite kind of adult > beverage? 15\. What's the best way to communicate with clients? 16\. What's > your favorite thing to do in your free time? 17\. What are your thoughts on > the current college environment as it pertains to a future workforce? 18\. > What's your typical breakfast? 19\. What's your favorite drink when you go > to a coffeehouse? 20\. How do you handle bullies? 21\. How do you handle it > when your ideas are shot down? 22\. What do you do if a coworker comes to > the table with an idea and it sucks? 23\. What does the first amendment mean > to you? 24\. What does faith mean to you? 25\. Who is your role model and > why? 26\. "You're in Starbucks with two friends. Someone runs in and says > someone is coming in with a gun in 15 seconds to shoot patrons. They offer > you a gun. Do you take it? What do you do next?" 27\. What does America mean > to you? 28\. You see someone stepping on an American flag. What do you do? > 29\. What does "privilege" mean to you? 30\. What's more important? Book > smarts or street smarts? Why?

<comment><USER3> I didn't watch the video, because I'm a special snowflake who can read faster than someone can talk, but I'm guessing that the list you posted is his snowflake test.

These are very invasive. How do I feel about guns? The police? When was the last time I _cried_?

And then starbucks-gun example is ludicrous. That's when I'd start looking for the hidden camera.</comment></comment>


Old but Gold: Paul Buchheit at Startup School 2008 [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E

<comment><AUTHOR> Kinda funny to see Paul Buchheit talk about Friendfeed being the real deal and ragging on companies which flip for 20 million! (Obviously things change and I'm not trying to disparage Paul but it is funny)</comment>


Macbook charger teardown: Complexity inside Apple's power adapter (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surprising.html?m=1 <comment><USER4> The price list at the bottom [1] isn't fair, a company like Apple usually pays more for it's components for "higher" quality (usually a probabilistic reduction in failure rate). Things are so bad in the industry that it's not possible to get some of the higher rated components because Apple has bought them all.

[1] List (from reference 19 on the site):

        Component                                          Cost
        MSP430F2003 processor                              $0.45
        MC33368D PFC chip                                  $0.50
        L6599 controller chip                              $1.62
        LT1460 3.3V reference                              $1.46
        TSM103/A reference                                 $0.16
        2x P11NM60AFP 11A 600V MOSFET                      $2.00
        3x Vishay optocoupler                              $0.48
        2x 630V 0.47uF film capacitor                      $0.88
        4x 25V 680uF electrolytic capacitor                $0.12
        420V 82uF electrolytic capacitor                   $0.93
        polypropylene X2 capacitor                         $0.17
        3x toroidal inductor                               $0.75
        4A 600V diode bridge                               $0.40
        2x dual common-cathode schottky rectifier 60V, 15A $0.80
        20NC603 power MOSFET                               $1.57
        transformer                                        $1.50?
        PFC inductor                                       $1.50?

_On a side note..._ I've seen the case where Apple's standards for compliance are set using the components they buy the highest grade of - making it even more difficult for external companies to implement compliance. It was bad enough that the standard chip, recommended circuit and recommended testing tools failed to meet their requirements.

 __NOTE: __Apologies to any users where the screen is stretched.

<comment><USER5> The only parts on that list that would have different grades are the capacitors. It isn't a measure of quality, but the temperature and stability specs of the dielectrics.

EDIT: Source: I'm an electrical engineer and design electronics for a living and have even worked with ex-Apple engineers.

<comment><USER4> EDIT: There certainly seems to be different quality levels for this particular processor anyway [1], which I'm sure they'll want a premium for higher quality. Feel free to correct me though.

[1] [http://www.ti.com/product/MSP430F2013/quality](http://www.ti.com/product/MSP430F2013/quality)

<comment><USER6> Those are various combinations of IC package, temperature grade, and bulk packaging. They are demonstrating that all the different types they sell have gone through environmental testing. There is no such thing as 'higher quality', generally, but a part with extended temperature range or a faster speed grade does cost more.

<comment><USER4> I think perhaps my wording was misplaced, but a part that has been shown to reach high temperatures might be more preferable in a charging application - even if they blow up anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> An amazing amount of thought went into the design of these power bricks. Now... What does that say about their choice of fray-prone insulation?

Obviously they are aware of those of us who have to buy new power bricks regularly because the insulation has shredded. (I have to buy a new one about once a year.) In some proportion, we are either 1. a profit opportunity or 2. collateral damage of an engineering decision to favor that thin insulation for flexibility or whatever.

I'd love to know their analysis!

<comment><USER8> My pattern is that I buy a MacBook, use it for a few years, resell it and get a new one.

I'm at my 5th or 6th MacBook in over 10 years, and I've always sold the laptops back with their original charger.

I have a 2011 MacBook Air that I take everywhere with me - the battery is at over a few thousand cycles (and lasts about 40 minutes) last time I checked. The charger for this one is dirty and chipped, but not frayed.

I've seen frayed cables, so I know it's a real problem, but given my experience I can't help but wonder... what are people doing with their chargers?

<comment><USER9> They completely unwrap and re-wrap the cord.

The design is defective, and cannot handle the typical stresses that it is subjected to.

<comment><USER10> Yes. "Blame the user" is not an acceptable approach to resolving a problem with even a slight incidence rate. "We don't see that behavior often enough to commit resources to addressing it" is valid, but "they're touching it wrong" isn't when you're making a mass-produced consumer-grade product, especially a product that's meant to be carried to and fro (Apple had to learn this with the iPhone 4 too).

Some people may take pride in carrying their chargers around on special hand pillows to ensure that they are kept pristine over the years, but I personally want my products to work without demanding special accommodation for themselves. I went through 3 chargers in the 4 years I used a MacBook Pro. I didn't mistreat the stuff, I just didn't pamper it.

The answer in this case is pretty obvious, though; Apple knows that an $85 power cable isn't going to cost them any meaningful quantity of customers, and actually the breakage tends to net them $85 extra per year, so they kind of like it. There is no incentive for them to un-plan the planned obsolescence of the charger.

<comment><USER9> The ridiculous thing about it is the power supply itself is almost an engineering feat unto itself.

In my personal experience, I've owned hundreds or thousands of electrical devices, but to date I've only gotten an electrical shock from my old MacBook Pro's power brick, which was an amazing device in every other way.

It speaks to the hubris of their design org.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > A powerful microprocessor in your charger? > One unexpected component is a > tiny circuit board with a microcontroller, which can be seen above. This > 16-bit processor constantly monitors the charger's voltage and current. It > enables the output when the charger is connected to a Macbook, disables the > output when the charger is disconnected, and shuts the charger off if there > is a problem. This processor is a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller, > roughly as powerful as the processor inside the original Macintosh.

I'm not surprised at all. Microcontrollers are ubiquitous. There's little reason to use something like a 555 timer anymore. I wouldn't have been surprised if this had been a 32-bit ARM MCU (or a 8-bit PIC).

<comment><USER12> On one project I was on, we used a 16-bit MCU for a power controller. Cost less than twenty cents, and we got a lot of functionality out of it (you can cram a bunch of complex logic into 2K of code).

Near the end of that project, the hardware engineers came to us and apologized; they had managed to source a part for the same price with twice the code space. Could have used that, would have saved quite a bit of space optimization effort.

<comment><USER11> Should have had your supply chain people push the vendor/distributor on price of the half code space part to make all of that cramming NRE worth it. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The linked video of how bridge rectifier works is enlightening, funny and terrifying. Makes me glad I'm a software developer and not an electrical engineer so I'm in no danger of killing myself if I miscalculate.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5Ftm1-jik&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5Ftm1-jik&feature=youtu.be)

<comment><USER14> His videos are extremely entertaining, but his disregard for safety exaggerates the danger a little bit. My understanding is that most bridge rectifiers are put in a circuit after a step-down transformer, so they're operating on a much lower AC input voltage.

Also, don't wrap the safety ground pin on test equipment with kapton tape. Just don't.

<comment><USER15> They can be, and they are in certain linear PSUs. Linear PSUs generally make ripply DC with linear power transformer -> rectifier and then use active linear analog circuits to get clean DC power. Has very low efficiency but exceedingly low noise.

For most consumer things, you use a classic switch mode power supply design. You bridge rectify mains directly, and you switch that really fast to get the DC you need, and you filter it a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amazing that so much thought goes inside the adapter, but they still manage to completely skip any worthwhile stress relief on the cable ends. One of the reasons I know how to solder wire is because I got tired of buying a new adapter every year.

</comment><comment><USER17> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10628212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10628212)

</comment><comment><USER18> > One problem with simple chargers is they only draw power during a small part > of the AC cycle.[5] If too many devices do this, it causes problems for the > power company.

What kind of problem?

<comment><USER19> I'm mostly familiar with this from UPSes, but I assume it's basically the same problem on a different scale.

Lets say you have a device that requires 110 Watts - 1 Amp at 110 Volts. And you have a UPS that is rated to provide exactly the same.

In an ideal world (spherical cows, etc), and a device with a power factor of 1 (e.g., perfect), this works.

But if you have "non-sinusoidal current" (as his footnotes word it), your device isn't actually pulling 1 Amp. If you graph the voltage and current draw out, you should see the current draw forms a wave that matches the voltage (in shape, not value). If it doesn't, then at some parts of the wave, you're drawing more current than you claim - and at others, you're drawing less. So you're still drawing 1 Amp on average, but at any given instant, you're probably not.

So back to our spherical cow UPS. What looks like a perfect match on paper, goes wrong - 60 times a second, you're drawing more than those 110 Watts and causing an overload condition. And it's an issue that gets horrible when you scale it, because every device is receiving exactly the same wave form - <USER2> every device is using more than you think at precisely the same time. Like the trope of people jumping on a bridge at the same time, each consumer causes the same condition in perfect unison with each other.

<comment><USER20> It's not really that your device draws more than the claimed wattage, it's how the power arrives.

Resistance is proportional to current (I = V/R) so drawing 100W at 240v will result in a lower resistance than 100W at 110v. In an ideal world this doesn't matter but the real world had wires with resistance etc.

This means if you draw your peak current at peak voltage you're using as little current as possible, but if the peak current is offset you'll be drawing more amps than you would if you were in phase.

This causes parasitic losses in the distribution network and makes utilities grumpy, amongst other things.

<comment><USER19> I think what you're describing is phase shift (typically seen with inductive loads), where the current sine is the right form, but lags behind the voltage sine.

The (fifth) footnote in the article has "The difficulty comes from the nonlinear diode bridge, which charges the input capacitor only at peaks of the AC signal." And "If you're familiar with power factors due to phase shift, this is totally different. The problem is the non-sinusoidal current, not a phase shift."

So the demand looks like inrush current - but inrush at every single cycle. This produces a non-constant load, where the current draw instead graphs more like an ECG and less like a sine wave. If you overlay this ECG-style graph over a perfect sine, you see that to average the same draw, the spike has to peak much higher than the sine - because it's drawing nothing for the rest of the cycle.

The net result is basically the same (which is why both problems come under 'power factor') - you're drawing current in a very inefficient manner - <USER3> that's why I'm describing 'drawing more than the claimed wattage', because at the peak of each cycle, you do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've owned couple of Macbook and Macbook pros since 2009 and never had any issue with the fraying, but I've seen one case of fraying from a friend's Macbook Pro just few months ago. I didn't think she'd abused her adapter in anyway. On a side note, I had every single original iPhone charging cable fray after less than couple of years of use (including 30pin and lightning cables from iPhone 3, 3G, iPhone 4, and my current iPhone 6). It is very annoying.

A good way to fix is to use Suguru ([https://sugru.com/how-to/fix-a-broken- cable](https://sugru.com/how-to/fix-a-broken-cable)), which seems to be made to fix things like this, and stronger than heat-shrink tubing.

</comment><comment><USER22> Title would be less ambiguous if it said Macbook Pro charger, since they have laptop called Macbook and it uses a different charger.

</comment><comment><USER23> Are other laptop chargers similarly complex? Dell, HP, Microsoft etc

<comment><USER24> Once your power supply is capable of delivering >=75W, european norm 61000-3-2 requires you to implement power factor correction (PFC), which makes complexity balloon.

All name-brand laptop chargers will usually have it.

<comment><USER25> > requires you to implement power factor correction (PFC), which makes > complexity balloon

Depends on how much is required and what your size limits are. Apple used active PFC here to minimize the size of the brick. An ATX desktop or server supply might be able to get away with passive PFC, which is not very complicated but tends to be bulky.

<comment> TD-Linux All desktop and server power supplies use active PFC at this point, because the cost of the much bulkier passive components is now higher than the cost of the active ones.

EDIT: apparently not quite, I went on Newegg and the non-80plus power supplies still have passive PFC.

<comment><USER25> Sure, simpler active PFC components are pretty cheap now. There isn't much to a valley-fill circuit, though. That should get you below the legal limit on harmonic distortion in most cases. I know it is still the standard PFC in lower-power fluorescent light ballasts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > AC power enters the charger and is converted to DC. The PFC circuit (Power > Factor Correction) improves efficiency by ensuring the load on the AC line > is steady. The primary chops up the high-voltage DC from the PFC circuit and > feeds it into the transformer. Finally, the secondary receives low-voltage > power from the transformer and outputs smooth DC to the laptop.

I had a hard time reading this. It sounds like the transformer is getting DC power? Do transformers even work with DC power?

<comment><USER27> > The primary chops up the high-voltage DC from the PFC circuit and feeds it > into the transformer.

It chops it up to AC for the transformer.

<comment><USER28> Ah, this makes sense. Do you know how the "chopping it up into AC"works?

<comment><USER29> This transformer would be a flyback transformer therefore doesn't need to be driven by anything so hard-to-generate as a sine wave. It can be driven by a "switch" (MOSFET) at it's primary which is connected to DC.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer#Operation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer#Operation_and_usage)

<comment><USER30> All switching power supplies (hence the name) are driven by either full-on or full-off ("switching") transistors. A "flyback" topology is only one of many possible ways to build a switching power supply, but as it's the simplest, it's the most common in low power supplies.

See the Switch−Mode Power Supply Reference Manual from ON Semiconductor for info on all the other possible ways to build a switching power supply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> now if they can just make it earthed by not lacquering the connector designed for that purpose to make it shiny... maybe macbooks everywhere will stop giving people shocks (!)

<comment> TD-Linux Double-insulated appliances don't need to be earthed.

<comment><USER31> a long time ago i used to work in a factory testing fairly low build quality computers, if i did their qa process on macbooks they would fail this 15 year old test because of this.

i know that us standards are often different to uk, europe and others in this regard. maybe it is safe and our standards are paranoid, but i don't enjoy electric shocks, no matter how small they are... and from talking to others, this is not an uncommon experience - at least on 2013 and newer macbooks using the UK version of the plug

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if its possible to run linux off a power adapter...

<comment><USER33> No implementation for the MSP430 as it stands, but I can't see why not.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CClinux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CClinux)

<comment><USER34> MSP430's only have 64K of address space, which isn't enough to run even uCLinux.

<comment> c-smile But it is quite a lot for CP/M - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M)

<comment><USER34> Eh, it's low even for CP/M. MSP430s have 64K of address space, not RAM. Even the smallest CP/M machines had that. A lot even had simplistic paging hardware to exceed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I guess USB-C charger for newer MacBooks is even more complex. Still I wish Apple paid more attention to designing cables and connectors. In my case the cable broke within weeks and after a year the USB-C socket on the power supply became loose randomly disconnecting the cable :(

</comment><comment><USER28> Amazing that today's laptop chargers have as much computational power as the original mac

</comment><comment><USER36> Mine have always lasted for Macbooks, as I never take them out with me. Phones/iPads start fraying after a year or so if you chuck them in bags etc.

</comment><comment><USER37> "plugged in, not charging" problems are very common with Macbooks. Maybe a simple charger would work better.

</comment><comment><USER38> Can anyone give me a quick summary?

</comment><comment><USER39> oh yes... a classic read. a perennial favorite!

</comment><comment><USER40> Maybe add 2015 to the title. This same blog post has been linked a good amount before.</comment>


Slash: A markup language for styling text on iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chrisdevereux/Slash

<comment><USER2> An alternative is to use AttributedMarkdown which also takes a dictionary of attributes per element type and returns an NSAttributedString. <https://github.com/dreamwieber/AttributedMarkdown>

</comment><comment><USER3> Another alternative is FTCoreText ( <https://github.com/FuerteInternational/FTCoreText> ), which I've had good experience with. Like AttributedMarkdown or Slash, you define NSAttributedString text styles in code. But there are (I believe) two differences which might be significant advantages in some cases.

First, FTCoreText doesn't predefine the tag vocabulary. You just associate your styles with tag names you define, and write your text in a pseudo-XML syntax using those tags. This is good for defining tags with semantics suited to your particular domain.

Second, FTCoreText doesn't use UIKit's NSAttributedString attributes. It uses the more powerful CoreText NSAttributedString attributes, which have been present since iOS5 at least. They are more powerful in one important way: only the CoreText string attributes support defining tab stops. This might seem like an irrelevant corner case, except that (as far as I know) this is the only way to properly define correct text indentation of text in bulleted list items.

<comment><AUTHOR> Couple of corrections about Slash:

The tag vocabulary isn't really predefined. There is a default vocabulary, but it can be easily changed by passing in a different dictionary of tags.

Also, the attributes aren't restricted to UIKit's NSAttributedString attributes (or not by Slash, anyway). You can provide whatever attributes you want, so long as the view you pass the attributed string to understands them.

<comment><USER3> Chris, thanks for the correction. That's very good to know. Sorry if I misrepresented the project!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, no problem. It's helpful to know that the readme gives that impression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why make the markup HTML-esque and then provide an _emph_ tag instead of _em_?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! <em> would make a lot more sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wait, why doesn't iOS have the equivalent of the -initWithHTML:documentAttributes method from the AppKit additions? That's been around since, let me check... always. Why would Apple leave it off on the iPhone?

<comment><AUTHOR> Or initWithRTF:documentAttributes:... No idea.

<comment><USER5> At least with RTF, that seems to be functionality that is _generally_ missing from UIKit. HTML parsing, on the other hand, is already there in WebKit.

The sense I get is that Apple didn't really know what they were doing when they first released the iPhone, didn't actually intend to release an API for it (after all, the initial message to developers was "just build an HTML 5 app") and then rushed one out without properly thinking through its design. And I guess they've been filling the gaps ever sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting... I sort of agree. But the strange thing is to start supporting rich text in UIKit controls without providing a sane API for manipulating rich text. That's not problem introduced with v1.0, it's a problem introduced at v6.0.

The problems I run into tend to be quite circumscribed deficiencies that are more like oversights than deep design flaws. I'd attribute that to the pressure to rapidly improve the API rather than the framework never have being thought through (In general, I find UIKit better thought out than AppKit).

Whether it was the official policy or not, I'd imagine that the UIKit team probably wanted UIKit to be an API... Wouldn't a private api that looked like that just be completely over-engineered?

<comment><USER5> >Whether it was the official policy or not, I'd imagine that the UIKit team probably wanted UIKit to be an API... Wouldn't a private api that looked like that just be completely over-engineered?

Yes probably, but API design is hard, and when the API is for something that big, it's even harder. My gut hypothesis is that Apple didn't initially put anyone with that particular expertise on the team because the people in charge thought HTML5 would be good enough. The people on the team, being UI developers, knew that that was silly and that the API would eventually need to be public, so they made a valiant effort to prepare for the inevitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> DTCoreText was not mentioned yet - we've used it with mattt's TTTAttributedLabel and it worked okay on iOS5.

<https://github.com/Cocoanetics/DTCoreText>

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. I personally find NSAttributedStrung raw to be pretty easy to use, but I understand how this is appealing for web developers.

<comment><USER8> I think the strongest argument for a markup language/translator for NSAttributedString is ease of localizing other languages. A translator can learn the basic markdown, and that can be passed along in a .strings file.</comment></comment>


37signals Draft for iPad: Simple sketching and sharing - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/draft <comment><USER2> $10?

Adobe Ideas is free. <http://blogs.adobe.com/designandweb/2010/04/adobe_ideas.html>

<comment><USER3> I really don't get the backlash about the price. If a customer uses 37signals services and gets a ton of value from the app, how is $9.99 unreasonable?

<comment><USER4> Sure, that's true as far as it goes, but it gets a little strained when you see the similarly-priced competition. Pricing isn't a function of absolute utility and value, it's also a function of economic environment.

Take Apple display adapter dongles. Do I get a ton of use out of them? Do they make my MacBook better? Sure, but $30 is still a cruel fucking joke.

My wine key feels great in my hand, never breaks, and has given me loads of value and joy over the last decade but I would still be a fool to pay more than $5 for it.

I've carried a plastic Japanese fan in my bag for more than ten years that has saved my sweaty ass in many social circumstances, and is indispensable for my personal well-being between July and September; it's covered in ads and I got it for zero yen and I wouldn't have paid much more than that for it.

All that said, the correct price of a thing is whatever people will pay for it, and 37signals has certainly demonstrated an uncanny ability to find their market.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but $9.99 still isn't expensive.

<comment><USER4> That's the thing, though, it really depends. $9.99 is a good price for a display adapter, a pretty spendy price for a wine key, and an absoludicrous price for a crappy Japanese hand fan. Among iPad apps, $9.99 is top-shelf.

<comment><USER6> >Among iPad apps, $9.99 is top-shelf.

You think that because that's what the fine Apple iWork apps cost, but keep in mind that they normally sell that as a package, and now each application costs $9.99. So the total price for many people will actually be $29.97, 38% of the cost of the Mac OSX version.

Now that the "iFart" craze is over, expect to start seeing more specialized apps selling at higher prices. "Things" is already about $20 and they are a top grossing app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll just stick with the free Adobe Ideas for the iPad. It has some sharing functionality (email), and you can pinch to zoom & draw, different brush sizes, different brush colors, different opacities, etc.

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for- ipad/id36...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for- ipad/id364617858?mt=8)

PS: It's _free_

<comment><USER8> according to 37signals less is more, but that doesn't apply to the price

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I should add this to <http://www.73primenumbers.com> somehow...

Oh wait, the Trailer Park _already_ has this functionality! <http://73primenumbers.com/trailerpark.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> More power to 37Signals for having the good sense to set their own price and value for their own product. There's nothing controversial about asking $9.99 for a simple app that you can master in 5 minutes and use to sync your ideas with your team. Pricing Draft at $9.99 is no more controversial than charging $4.25 for a soy grean tea latte (a one-time use product, at that), $829 for a 64GB iPad, $2,200 for a 2-year Verizon Android contract, $51k for a Porsche Cayman, or $450 million to launch the Space Shuttle...

"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey." -- John Ruskin (found on a poster in my local Baskin- Robbins ice cream shop)

</comment><comment><USER11> Price and all the issues aside, these guys are simply amazing. They've tied it in with their Campfire product which is kind of a double whammy now. If you like Draft, you might actually end up becoming a paying customer for Campfire, whether you truly need it or not!

</comment><comment><USER12> It serves a very small niche: Designers / who have an ipad / who do drafting on a iPad / who use CampFire.

I don't understand why 37Signals would release such an application except for riding the iPad frenzy and testing the water.

Something I would have been impressed with is if they added the possibility to add user interactions in the draft. When I click on this drawn red button, it goes on the next screen, etc...

(Sometimes, 37Signals is a bit too extreme with Simplicity (Draft / TadaList))

<comment><USER13> Here's why: We needed it for ourselves and we thought others might find it useful.

That, btw, is the same motivation we've had to release every single piece of software we've ever done.

Also, tadalist is the #1 google result for "todo list". It's an incredibly loved product that has a huge user base. For tons of people that's exactly what they need. Just like Draft was exactly what we needed.

<comment><USER14> I'm confused...people here are hating on the price? If you don't like the price, don't buy it.

Free markets are pretty efficient, and pricing anamolies have a tough time persisting. DHH and crew are not perpetrating a crime on society with this price. They are not withholding a public good which cannot be obtained from anyone but them. They built something, and want to try and sell it for a price they set to customers they hope to win. Welcome to capitalism.

The point is - and this is especially true with software these days - there's always an option priced above free which causes someone to say "really?" But if you derive value from it, then you will pay. If not, you won't.

There's likely better ways to spend our IQ units than hating on the price of an app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sometimes they really go out of their way to actually emphasize the lack of features, as in "It only comes in black", sort of like giving you the finger. Then there will be a a blog post or two about how it helped them focus on the experience and integration and what not and how Apple like they are. Then another one on how creative users had to be to work around the limitations. Fast forward a couple months and then:"Draft! Now with colors!"

</comment><comment><USER16> 2 colors... Are you kidding me? Are more than 2 colors really too complex for our small brains? This app is lazy passed off as "simple".

</comment><comment><USER17> I love the simplicity of this. A breath of fresh air!

I don't have an iPad, but I would buy it. Though, for $9.99 I wonder how many people would still purchase this app if it wasn't by 37signals.

<comment><USER18> Considering a primary feature is uploading to 37signals' Campfire, not many?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not going to buy this thing but I don't get why people are so upset over the price. They can charge $100 if they want, you are owed nothing.

And they'll sell a bunch at $10 anyways.

</comment><comment><USER20> Campfire has an API, why not build Draft with Colors that still integrates with Campfire (and other services)?

</comment><comment><USER21> $9.99 is an order of magnitude too much for this app period</comment>


Ask HN: Structured consumer product database - <AUTHOR>

Would there be any interest in a structured consumer product (electronics, gadgets etc.) database/website? Similar to wikipedia - users would be able to change/rate content.
The database would contain neutral information, pictures, reviews and videos.
So HN readers, what are you thoughts on this subject? <comment><USER2> I like the idea, but what would be the advantage of using it over Amazon? Amazon has a robust database of products, a well entrenched and fairly accurate review system, and all the product specs given by the creator. You also have the option of buying it on the spot.

I think this sort of idea would work best for a type of product that, unlike consumer electronics, would not be readily available on Amazon. Maybe something like cars?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd use it.. Currently I just google for '<product> <model> review' or so and have to manually sift through the results until I find a credible source. You could also include links to PDF manuals, firmware Updates, software, etc.

Though I can see it being hard to gain traction in the beginning when the database is small and not very useful.</comment>


ASK HN: What do you think about Whizbase (programming languauge)?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.whizbase.com/eng/default.wbsp

<comment><USER2> There really isn't a whole lot of information on the website about the language itself, though the couple examples I see look like PHP. The description makes it sound like a web framework, and it has some extra database select methods to help out.

Why would you pay $100 to use software which hardly sells itself and probably can be done better with existing tools like Rails, Django, (and maybe CakePHP)?</comment>


OpenID: The Web's Most Successful Failure - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/openid-the-webs-most-successful-failure/ <comment><USER2> The top response on Quora is enlightening: <http://www.quora.com/What-s-wrong- with-OpenID> (also, it's annoying that I can't directly link to a response on Quora).

I really agree with the breakdown there. It's an over-engineered solution to a problem that doesn't really solve it all that well. I also use it to log into SO and the related sites, but frankly it's a PITA. I don't use OpenID to log into HN, and I _never_ have to type in my credentials here, since my browser has the cookie saved.

I also use a password manager, so OpenID doesn't offer any additional security to me. As for privacy, the potential problems are too abstract for me to understand. I'm technical, but I don't understand OpenID on a deep level. I'd hardly expect your casual home user to know this either.

OpenID seems like a product that was designed in a vacuum, and should have had a stronger vision behind it. It's put together well, but the thing as a whole just doesn't do what it needs to do.

<comment><USER3> Sure you can link to a response:

<http://www.quora.com/What-s-wrong-with-OpenID#ans24870>

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Care to explain how you did that?

I just hovered over everything on that comment, and found out that the date (of all things!) is permalink-ish.

<comment><USER3> I looked at the page using Safari's Web Inspector to find an id that looked like it represented an answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love OpenID and use it as much as possible. The only problem I have with it is the URL-as-username approach it takes. When a site asks me for the URL, I don't use OpenID as I always forget it. If the site asks me to "log in with Google using OpenID" or something similar I will use it. I don't see how people say that OpenID is a solution in search of a problem: I DO have the problem that I don't want to create a new account for every site I use. The problem is there, and some uses of OpenID really do solve it.

<comment><USER5> The reason for the URL as username is that OpenID originated on Livejournal, where users have their own URL (i.e. mine is andrewducker.livejournal.com)

It therefore made sense to use URL endpoints as identifiers, as you could bounce people to their authorising server incredibly easily. Doing it via email address would be much harder (where would my email, firstname.lastname@example.com, be authorised by?).

It's caught on amongst people who have URLs (bloggers, journallers, etc.. It hasn't caught on amongst people who don't (everyone else).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> OpenID isn't "done" yet. There very much is a market for 3rd party identification and I think that people will really want some level of neutrality from their identification provider.

Unfortunately, it seems that facebook is filling that market-- albeit without the neutrality. I don't like that. It just feels "icky" when I sign-on anywhere other than facebook using my facebook identity. I might NOT want my facebook picture to be seen on the sidebar of random websites by my friends. I don't particularly feel good about facebook monetizing my preferences even if it is done in an anonymous statistical fashion. Nor do I like that sometimes I have to worry about what exactly facebook is going to broadcast about me to the rest of the world or to my friends.

This might be nothing deeper than a superficial perception, but I simply don't trust facebook with my identity as much as I do OpenID participants.

</comment><comment><USER5> Both Livejournal and Dreamwidth use OpenID to allow commentors to claim an identity. I also use it to log in to Disqus, Hacker News, Slashdot, Stack Overflow, and a bunch of other sites. Oh, and to leave comments on a bunch of different blogs.

It's not the answer to everything - but it still works remarkably well for many.

</comment><comment><USER7> Somebody said it days ago, we should use our email address as openID and every big email provider should comply with openid standards. Problem solved.

<comment><USER7> In the case of google and stackoverflow, instead of using this:

<http://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id>

or <http://www.google.com/profile/kilimanjaro>

which I never remember, how about just providing

firstname.lastname@example.com and let gmail.com/openid/username do the magic?

Never put the burden on the user...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So the real reason it failed is because it was a purely technical solution and didn't have a canonical usability example?

Or maybe that big sites like Facebook decided it would remove the monetization opportunities by creating their own universal login?

</comment><comment><USER9> There's been a lot of talk on OpenID recently; it's nice to see one that doesn't simply bash it.

TL;DR: OpenID wasn't revolutionary in itself but the idea behind it is.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's how I had hoped that OpenID was going to work, when I first heard about it, but did not know many details. Initial conditions: I have an account at some OpenID provider, and I do not have accounts at Hacker News, Reddit, or StackOverflow, and all three of these take OpenID.

1\. I decide to sign up for HN. I enter the URL of my OpenID provider. HN sends me to my OpenID provider, along with something that uniquely identifies HN.

2\. I authenticate to my OpenID provider. It tells me I have not associated an ID with HN yet. I tell it to create a new one. It creates an ID for me, which I can name for my convenience, and it assigns a UUID to that ID, say 5F29ADF6-132A-43D0-889E-AD38A48D2419.

3\. I'm returned to HN, and HN is given that UUID, 5F29ADF6-132A-43D0-889E-AD38A48D2419, and told that I've been authenticated. HN sees there is no HN account associated with that, and lets me create one. I get to pick a name to use on HN. I pick "tzs". HN remembers that "tzs" is associated with 5F29ADF6-132A-43D0-889E-AD38A48D2419.

4\. Next time I come to HN, assuming my cookies have been deleted so I need to login again, the steps are similar. I tell HN my OpenID provider and go authenticate there. It sees that I already have associated 5F29ADF6-132A-43D0-889E-AD38A48D2419 with HN, so provides a one click way to send that ID to HN.

5\. Now I decide to sign up at SO. Similar to signing up at HN. When the OpenID provider says I have no identity associated with SO, I tell it use the same identity I use with HN, so 5F29ADF6-132A-43D0-889E-AD38A48D2419 gets sent to SO. I create my account there, again getting the name "tzs".

6\. Finally, I sign up for Reddit. I decide I'll probably not be able to refrain from staying out of the technical groups there, and will end up in the politics groups, and will probably make a lot of enemies. I think I want to keep that identity separate from my more professional/respectable personas at HN and SO, so I have my OpenID provider generate a new UUID for use with Reddit: DE982C60-3164-4399-B8E5-C9F84FCE2B21.

7\. With each identity I can associate personal information, if I wish, such as real name, address, phone number, email address, even credit card information if I dare. When a site sends me to OpenID to login, it can send a list of what personal information it would like. At my OpenID provider, it shows me what is being asked for, and I can decide what actually gets sent. It would have a reasonable system for managing defaults to make this unobtrusive most of the time.

With this kind of OpenID, I can easily solve the problem that is most important to me: having one good password to control access to a bunch of sites, without having to actually give that password to the sites. It is up to me if I want to use the same identity on multiple sites or not. It is up to me how much information for an identity I wish to share.

(The low level details in the above are simplified to get the ideas across. In a real implementation, there would be some kind of public/private key system involved to identify the user, rather than a simple UUID system, so that one could reasonably implement a way to let someone move their identities to a different OpenID provider without having to have HN, SO, and so on all update things on their end to recognize the new provider).</comment>


In Civil-Contempt Cases, Jail Time Can Stretch On for Years - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137263059962659.html?mod=rss_US_News <comment><USER2> Short summary: Judges can throw you in jail. Don't make them mad.</comment>


Django or Ruby on Rails? -- A Comparison - <AUTHOR> http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2005/08/14/a-comparison-of-django-with-rails/ <comment><USER3> I'm leaning toward Rails because I've been using it since its early stage. I also wrote stuffs in Django just out of curiosity, and it feels just as good. I think they're both highly productive environments, and with the time it takes to read all the comparison articles, we could've written entire apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha! A true testament to the efficiency of both frameworks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The timestamp said that the article was written back in 2005. Does anyone have a feel for how much of it is still relevant?

<comment><AUTHOR> For all intents and purposes, I found it all to be completely still relevant.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I'll go back an re-read it carefully then. I admit that I stopped once I realised how old the article was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not a bad article, bit light on Rails though.

INTERESTING QUOTES: '... although there is no reason why fastcgi couldn't be used ...' ~ except it's slower! ~ http://superjared.com/entry/quick-django- benching. '... here is no equivalent of a model-specific SQL refresh – something that could drop a specific model's tables and regenerate the needed SQL automatically ...' ~ true, recognised & being corrected ~ http://www2.jeffcroft.com/blog/2006/jul/20/top-ten-things-suck-about-django.

SOME POINTS: Two things come to mind that are not mentioned. The first is hosts. What is the comparison between hosts? The second is how mature the language is. If I want to use python and I need a particular module that does 'fo '. it is probably out there somewhere (though it may be alpha or beta it will most likely out of date) unless you want to re-invent the wheel. I can't say the same for Rails. Ruby is just a younger language with less code mass.

QUESTIONS TO ASK: In the end what really matters is how good the idea & business is. There are plenty of Rail based companies I can think of making a go of it. The same applies to Python based companies. If you accept that technology is an amplifier of ideas, will using Rails or Django alone make a better choice? Is the difference between them compelling enough to make a difference? One area that could tip in Rails favour is "susinctness". But Django with it's python code base has more tools to choose from.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The link goes to a small comparison done on the two (similar in many aspects) frameworks.

To the YC-News community: Based on experiences, which do you prefer? If your project uses one of the two, why did you pick the one you did?

<comment><USER6> I've been using django, but I picked it because I enjoy python more than ruby. I think that they are close enough that the selection comes down to whether you've any pre-existing experience with either framework or language. If not, then I claim the decision really lies between which language you want.

My biased and un-researched opinion is that you'll find more support for learning python than ruby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My understanding (after watching the "Snakes and Rubies" video of DHH and the Adrian Holovaty) was that Django is for best for content-centric sites, while Rails is for apps...

http://www.djangoproject.com/snakesandrubies/

<comment><USER8> This is a Holy War, but that comparison seems as good as any.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So prompted by another recent _long_ discussion on the merits of these two frameworks, I quickly threw together this little poll for giggles: <http://www.railsordjango.com>

Clicking on either logo logs your vote. Done my best to prevent vote spamming, so hopefully the results won't be too inaccurate.

If you have any great resources or comparison articles I missed for either stack, please let me know and I'll throw them in.

</comment><comment><USER10> it is apparent from this article that the author is a lot more familiar with Django than Rails and misses a lot of things. (e.g. I haven't seen a project in the last year that uses salted hash login generator - <USER2> is great - and there are admin interfaces available as plugins that are similar to what django offers by default.) Each framework has its advantages, but its unfair to compare them (in a which one is better sense) without equal knowledge about both.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm actually quite happy with Google's GWT. And eclipse makes Java quite pleasant to use.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a poorly written article by someone who has used each framework for only a few days. Not worth reading or even thinking about.</comment>


Ask HN: Code etiquette - tabs or spaces? - <AUTHOR>

I like putting coding with tabs only but I've been told that using spaces is more uniform across various IDEs/what have you.<p>what do you use? <comment><USER2> To quote BSD style(9): _Indentation is an 8 character tab. If you have to wrap a long statement [because it would go past the 78th column], put the operator at the end of the line. Second level indents are four spaces. Do not add whitespace at the end of a line, and only use tabs followed by spaces to form the indentation. Do not use more spaces than a tab will produce and do not use spaces in front of tabs._

If you find that your code doesn't fit into 78 columns using 8-character tabs... you need to refactor your code.

If your editor mangles whitespace... get a better editor.

<comment><USER3> Why would someone downvote this? It's the guy/girl's opinion, it's about the topic, and I don't see any reason to downvote other than someone is just having a bad day or being pissy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My theory is that your IDE should be able to adjust the amount of spaces that 1 tab is equal to, and therefore the whitespace is adjustable across editors that way - so I always use tabs.

But if you're so anal about whitespace, there's always regex...

</comment><comment><USER5> All the companies I have worked at have enforced spaces by setting up the editor to translate tabs to 4 spaces. I never asked why. Some battles aren't worth fighting.

'Spaces instead of tabs' wasn't the near the near-religious fervour of which editor to use though (VSlick won at my 1st company - e.g. company bought group license - though you could buy your own fave). I guess if you spend all day working with a hammer, you want the best hammer for you. I've spent hundreds of my own to buy my own editor to use at work.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're writing Python, the convention is spaces. From PEP 8:

      Indentation

        Use 4 spaces per indentation level.

(see <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/>)

I'm partial to spaces in general. Most (all?) IDEs can insert spaces when you press the tab key, and doing so will prevent the nastiness that can happen when you mix spaces with tabs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally I use whatever the editor that the team uses uses as the default ( _that's right "uses uses", baby! Don't get many opportunities for that!_ ). I'm a big fan of using the defaults when it comes to development. I want to be able to step over to a co-worker's or temporary machine, do my work, check it in and not have to worry whether we used spaces or tabs.

</comment><comment><USER7> whitespace. Tabs are non-standard across systems and of a non-unit length and so when custom continuation lines are indented, they have to use a mix which wreaks havoc when the tab length goes from 4 to say 8 or vice versa. If you are interested in re-indenting code, then use a program/command that is actually designed for code re-indentation, not some inaccurate stupid shortcut like tab length manipulation. Pretty much any modern IDE would have a code re- indentation infrastructure.

<comment><USER8> Tabs _are_ whitespace.

<comment><USER7> My apologies. Spaces.</comment></comment></comment>


Fourier theorems under various conventions - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/fourier-theorems/ <comment><USER2> this post is pretty much the table in the back of my signals & systems book</comment>


How to Become as Rich as Bill Gates (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ <comment><USER2> > Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding.

That's just wrong:

In 1983 Microsoft had revenues of $55 million and a headcount of 500. Bill was the CEO. And yet, according to Gates talking about the Tandy TRS-100, "part of my nostalgia about this machine is this was the last machine where I wrote a very high percentage of the code in the product. I did all the design and debugging along with Jey."[1].

Gates was CEO of a company of 500 with revenue of $55 million, and still producing large amounts of serious code. That's impressive (or misspent time, however you want to think about it.)

[1] [http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/bill.htm](http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/bill.htm)

<comment><USER3> The article is from 1999, not 1983.

<comment><USER2> What does that have to do with anything? I'm not suggesting Gates still wrote meaningful code in 1999, and the article was very dismissive of Gates coding abilities and the impact they had on his success. He did not restrict his criticism to 1999.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        > If Donald Trump had taken the millions he inherited
        > from his father and put it all into mutual funds, you'd
        > never have had to suffer through one of his books. But
        > he'd be just about as rich today.

I made a half-hearted attempt to run the figures on that a few months ago — I'd be very grateful if anyone was sufficiently more diligent than me and ran the figures.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better- inve...](http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-investing- than-donald-trump/)

"Imagine Trump had retired in 1982, sold his real estate holdings and invested his $500 million in the S&P 500 — that is, 500 stocks representing the American stock market.

"From 1982 through the end of 2014, the S&P 500 index had an annualized return, including reinvested dividends, of 11.86 percent, according to MoneyChimp's S&P 500 Compound Annual Growth Rate calculator.

"Per this calculator, every dollar invested in January 1982 would have been worth $40 by December of 2014. That means Trump's initial $500 million would have grown to $20 billion. That's twice what Trump says he's worth today."

<comment><USER6> This calculation seems to ignore slippage. Donald Trump can't drop $500M into the S&P and get the same price per share that I can get if I drop $5k into it.

<comment><USER7> Yes he can, or at least nearly the same price with very little slippage.

The S&P is not a single illiquid penny stock but a collection of 500 of the most liquid investments in the world, and 500 million dollars is a pittance compared to its capitalisation even back in the 80s. Sure, if he had to invest it in half an hour he would move markets - but if he had a year? No slippage from adding 2m a day distributed over 500 stocks...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Articles like this are evidence that people are still surprised that capital grows faster than labour. At least in fair capitalist society the surest way to become wealthy (statistically speaking) is to understand:

\- The total wealth of the world is expected to keep increasing \- Capital grows faster than labour \- Taxes and disasters redistribute wealth

This is why investing in index funds that don't pay dividends is such a good idea.

<comment><USER9> Capital only grows if it can be deployed in new endeavors that generate more revenue (and as a by-product usually increase the amount of labor at work). That's part of the problem. Not enough public companies know what to do with the excess cash, and therefore don't end up creating more value.

<comment><USER10> Companies with excess cash do not store currency in a vault. They invest it, usually in short term investments convertible to cash, but investments nevertheless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some past appearances:

2 years ago 88 comments [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325)

6 years ago 31 comments [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=553776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=553776)

</comment><comment><USER12> Will I be as rich as he was in '99, or as he is now?

Screw it, doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER13> > When Microsoft products were threatened by network computers and Web-based > applications, they simply bought WebTV and Hotmail.

Back when WebTV was considered a good idea?

<comment><USER14> For what it's worth I'm happily using the modern incantation of WebTV, my FireTV Stick.

I have my 'TV' on demand, whenever I want it, I can run some web related apps, even hacked something together for controlling my lights.

I don't think WebTV was a bad idea. I think it was just too early and lacked that critical video on demand concept.

In the UK there was a gap for a long time that was filled by 'Smart' functions of Sky TV's digibox. This used a modem to upload content, and allowed for receiving of good quality video from sat, as a result you could watch the 'latest' films, for around £3 and only have to wait a few minutes before it would start. Automatically from the box interface, rather than via a call centre. But this was just the start, shopping was possible, you could order products and the like.

Now we live in a world where Amazon Instant isn't even on my desktop web browser, instead needing an 'app' for a phone, and apparently mine isn't even supported. There are lots of people who want to consume 'web' functions from a device other than a computer.

<comment><USER15> One brings the Web on the TV (Web TV) the other brings TV on the Web (Streaming, Netflix) which you end up watching on your TV. Turns out people like watching TV on their TV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12>
        > *Lesson 4. Let Other People Do The Programming*
        > ...
        > Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding.

<comment><USER16> The same is true of Linux Torvalds, ironically.

<comment><USER12> I mean, it hasn't always been true of either of them. But I posted it because I find the idea of sitting down for a code review with Bill Gates today (or, on Monday) pretty amusing!

<comment><USER17> Oh man, you should read: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html) It's a brilliant account of the process!

<comment><USER12> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> this excerpt I find striking:

> If you're an intelligent curious person it can be painful to run a company > of more than 50 people. You spend more time than you'd like repeating > yourself, sitting in boring meetings, skimming over long legal documents in > which you know there are errors but aren't sure how serious, etc. The > temptation is to hand over the reins to the first "professional manager" who > comes along. And that's what the standard venture capitalist formula > dictates. But Bill Gates didn't do that. He hired Steve Ballmer in 1980 and > gave him the CEO job 20 years later. Making money in the software products > business requires domain expertise and a commitment to solving problems > within that domain. Great tech companies are seldom built by non-technical > management or professional managers who aren't committed to anything more > than their paycheck. Adobe is another good example. The two founders were > PhD computer science researchers from Xerox PARC who were passionate about > solving problems in the publishing and graphics world. They are still > guiding operations at Adobe.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Choose your parents carefully" has got to be one of the most pessimistic and cynical perspectives in existence.

Instead, you could say "treat your children well", which is basically the same thing, except a lot less selfish.

<comment><USER20> _> treat your children well_

The point the author was making was that Bill Gates' parents were extremely wealthy and also very influential, which gave Gates a uniquely preparatory childhood, the means to make pretty much whatever risks he wanted, and easy access to capital (and the people behind it).

Not everyone has that kind of influence and money to pass down to their children.

<comment><USER21> I see it repeated frequently that Bill's parents were very or extremely wealthy. Where's the proof of that?

His father was a prominent lawyer by the mid 1970s, yes. They were an upper class family, that is well known. As far as I'm aware, having read a lot about Bill Gates over the years, there isn't much evidence to stipulate just how wealthy they were. If his father earned a higher level lawyer salary in the 1960s, it does not necessarily mean great wealth had been accumulated. I'd argue it would be extremely unlikely at that point in time, as his father would have been merely 40 years old in 1965 when Gates was 10. Try accumulating "extreme" amounts of wealth in just a few years as a lawyer, it's nearly impossible.

By the time Gates was 25, he was already richer than both of his parents combined.

<comment><USER22> If they could afford 3 meals a day without ever having to skip a meal because of lack of money, then they were richer than most people on the planet. If they were middle-upper class in the U.S. - that's not extremely wealthy by U.S. standards but it's quite filthy most anywhere else. That's winning the birth lotto.

<comment><USER10> There are millions of Americans like that, but only one Bill Gates. You can't just assign his success to his parents.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>