Reducing notification permission prompt spam in Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2019/04/01/reducing-notification-permission-prompt-spam-in-firefox/ <comment><USER3> Downgrading the prompt to a non-popup icon in the address bar unless it follows a user action sounds like the perfect balance.

This won't entirely stop sites which are properly trying to request the permission in the worst case, and the navbar icon is unobtrusive enough that if it gets spammed it's no big deal.

Actually I think it makes sense to persistently show the notification icon in the navbar once the permission has been granted (same with mic, audio, and anything else) providing a quick glance at any privs that have been granted and an obvious way to revoke them.

The icons would then need granted and non-granted states, and perhaps even three states;

\- Black : requested but not authorized

\- Black with green check : granted

\- Grey with red x: requested and denied

<comment><USER4> >> Downgrading the prompt to a non-popup icon in the address bar unless it follows a user action sounds like the perfect balance.

I disagree. There should be no UI for these. A site should essentially say "click here to enable XXX" as part of the page. Anything else is essentially a pop-up. I don't want buttons or controls in my browser to be controlled by a web site. BTW that includes the back button - why browsers ever allowed sites to take control from the user is beyond me.

<comment><USER5> > A site should essentially say "click here to enable XXX" as part of the > page.

Then the site will just make their own annoying popup asking to enable notifications. By giving UI control to the browser, the browser vendor can decide how forceful it should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Most prompts are dismissed, while almost 19% of prompts caused users to > leave the site immediately after being confronted with them.

Guilty. I've started taking requests for permission to send push notifications as a strong signal that I've accidentally clicked on clickbait.

<comment><USER7> What's the logic for publishers, here? "If we add this feature, we will immediately bounce 19% of our traffic." Why would you do that? Or is this a scam thing where that 19% just proved they aren't suckers, so you don't want to waste your time on them?

<comment><USER8> You bounce 19% of your traffic but some other 30% might accidentally agree to the notifications and now you can bump your traffic every day by sending them. Those 19% are probably useless people with adblockers that never give their email or click any ads so you lose nothing anyway.

Also, you can send ads using notifications and earn money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Serious question though: has anyone here ever used the notifications for anything other than web based IM (slack, whatsapp)?

I think the use case for legit notifications is very small, thus the UI should be an opt-in, rather than an intrusive pop-up.

I never understood why browser makers gave it such a prominent UI, and of course in this attention seeking market it was bound to be abused. The new UI that Firefox is suggesting in the article is good, this should have been like this from the first day. I hope other browser vendors quickly follow.

<comment><USER10> Looking at my permissions, it'd only Mastodon/Pleroma instances and chat. The other 80~90% of sites that request permissions are blocked.

The most annoying are news/blog sites. Who the hell actually clicks Allow? Like 1%? 2%?

<comment><USER11> According to the article, overall acceptance rate on the notifications popup is 3%. But that will include legitimate notification requests like Gmail, Discord, Slack, etc..

That also includes people that just randomly accept any notification their computer gives them. This is older people who don't understand the specific permissions they are granting.

There was one time I was clicking on a navigation element right as a popup for notifications popped up and i accidently clicked it. I immediately went in and reverse the permission to block access, but I am sure there are use cases of accidental acceptance as well.

So considering all of that. My guess is that real intentional adoption is below 1%.

<comment><USER12> This is an occasional problem I've had on multiple platforms (Android/Windows OS, browser UI, ZoneAlarm way back when, etc). Why is it not yet a thing to ignore the first click within 50-100ms or so of a dialog popping up? Especially on desktop where you can find out if the cursor was already in place before the pop-up showed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's insane that the two visible options are "Not now" and "Allow notifications" while 99 percent of the time I want never bother me again, in fact disable this feature entirely. I clicked yes exactly 3 times (my own Nextcloud instance, Protonmail and Whatsapp web), I'd be happy to do some more clicking to enable those at the "cost" of never being bugged again.

<comment><USER14> I was beginning to wonder if I can disable globally by default and have no popups, just manually enable it for a specific site if I want it badly enough (I don't think I ever will anyway).

Of course then they'll start showing weird UI pop ups to enable stuff, but if websites ever do that I will close them as I do with sites that tell me to disable adblock, the last few times I ever got malware on my system was due to ads, I am NEVER turning off adblock. This was many years ago, now I only download FLOSS just to keep it that way.

<comment><USER15> User script that overrides the API to noop. :)

<comment><USER14> I'm just bummed the old greasemonkey site is gone (or whatever it was called), it feels awkward trying to find scripts now.

<comment><USER16> I'm even more bummed the old stylish plugin was really malware

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/05/browsers_pull_styli...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/05/browsers_pull_stylish_but_invasive_browser_extension/)

<comment><USER14> Eventually, it wasn't always so but yes that's disappointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is one more reason why the acceptance rate of notification prompts is low (3%), other than the two points mentioned by Mozilla.

THAT reason is that simply people do not want to be notified. They value their attention in these times of constantly being bombarded by attention seeking prompts, ads and notifications, that if asked, people surely chose not not being bombarded more.

<comment><USER18> I'd say Mozilla is right in their wording. Your point here is also included in that - if websites showed the push dialog responsibly, it would be for example in the website settings after the user checked a box called "send me push!". Many good web services do it this way, and if done this way I suspect the accept rate is closer to 100%.

Some people might want push from news pages, but 97%+ don't, so it makes no sense to request it immediately.

They probably even lose subscribers. Someone who read some content and liked it, decided that they want push may have already opted out because they didn't know the site yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This "feature" is abused terribly around the web. For every site with useful notifications like gmail, there are 10 which misuse it. Yesterday I had the misfortune of misclicking on the prompt from a website. I started getting notifications like "YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH A VIRUS". Turning off notifications for that website took at least 4 clicks through Chrome settings. Good to know there is a setting to turn it off completely on Firefox. If I personally actually wanted notifications from a service, I'd install the mobile app.

Second, Mozilla seems to use telemetry data responsibly and well. Turning _off_ notification prompts by default can't possibly be done unless you have the data on acceptance rate on different types of prompts. If you're making such decisions based on your intuition you'd likely get it wrong.

I ask the folks on HN who constantly criticise the collection of such telemetry, what did I lose as a user when Firefox collected this anonymised data? More importantly, how would you have made a decision here without the data? Intuition? (I'd request that no one reply with platitudes like "with enough data nothing is anonymous" and "you're making a nothing-to-hide argument")

<comment><USER8> I think the bad thing is not telemetry itself but the fact that it is silently enabled by default instead of asking the user whether they agree to it. Make it voluntary and there would be no problems at all. I didn't ask for this feature.

Also, one doesn't need telemetry to notice how notifications are abused on the web. You can just start a browser, visit top 1000 popular sites and count how many of them show the popup.

Also, it seems like everyone tries to abuse notifications. For example, Youtube app shows a notification when the channel you are subscribed to releases a new video. Is it so urgent, that you need to distract the user? They could show this information when the user opens the app.

<comment><USER20> > Make it voluntary and there would be no problems at all.

Unfortunately that would make the telemetry non-representative. That said, it _is_ opt-in when possible, if you consider "using Nightly" as opt-in (it's clearly explained before and after installing Nightly).

> You can just start a browser, visit top 1000 popular sites and count how > many of them show the popup.

That doesn't tell you anything about what behaviour led up to a permission request that got granted vs the 97% that got ignored. Furthermore, it wouldn't have told them that the notification request is denied far more often by users than the webcam/mic request.

> Also, it seems like everyone tries to abuse notifications. For example, > Youtube app shows a notification when the channel you are subscribed to > releases a new video. Is it so urgent, that you need to distract the user? > They could show this information when the user opens the app.

It would be nice to have data on when users revoke permissions again as well, indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm still shocked that anybody thought the first generation implementation of this (in any browser, not specific to Firefox) was ever a good idea. I can see making the request visible to the end user, but... _as a dialog_? Why?

At least make it a narrow bar across the top/bottom that doesn't obscure web site content and can be easily ignored. Perhaps better would be to make it a button like there is a button to favorite/bookmark a site. A dialog isn't even near the top of the list of good designs.

<comment><USER22> Agreed completely.

\- Why are dialogs still a thing?

\- Why is stealing focus still a thing?

Browser makers, operating system manufacturers: Stop it. Dialogs are hot garbage, and users ALONE should have control over input focus. If you need the user's attention flash/animate.

If you cannot make a thing without a dialog, focus lock, or focus theft then maybe the thing you were trying to make was inherently a bad idea.

Windows is terrible at this. I was running the Visual Studio Installer in the background and it stole key-input focus dozens of times, often going to black dialog boxes that immediately closed leaving focus on nothing.

<comment><USER23> I had no idea wth you were talking about until you mentioned Visual Studio Installer, then I knew immediately what you meant.

This is a huge problem for Windows and Mac.

<comment><USER22> Open notepad. Press a key over and over. If the key-press stops going to notepad then focus has been transferred/stolen. Firefox's Notification Permission dialog has this behavior within the browser.

For example go to Reddit or Facebook, start entering text, the notification permission dialog will appear, steal focus, and now your key-presses go into a black hole.

The whole concept of focus-theft is an anti-pattern. Interestingly one mobile operating systems originally designed out but has slowly been creeping back in.

<comment><USER21> Every time it happens, I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick that football: [https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Football_gag](https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Football_gag)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just a couple weeks ago i was helping "disinfect" an android phone for a acquaintance (shopkeeper) here in India.

The "virus" in question was chrome notifications for spam/porn/malware probably from malvertisements embedeed in some websites. It took me several minutes to locate and disable them. You would think that chrome on android would give an option to disable an offending notification from the notification bar but no, you have to go digging in the chrome settings and scan through the permission list to find the offenders.

While i certainly think it is a useful api needed for the free web(i still prefer websites over apps which are essentially websites with undeleteable hypercookies), Mozilla and Google need to do a better job protecting the literally billions of people who are less literate (either in tech or english) from the cesspool that is online media.

</comment><comment><USER25> It would have been better if the notification API never existed and RSS had become the de facto standard for subscribing. The only good use for a notification API is urgent information, almost nothing on the internet qualifies. Giving everyone the power ruined the whole thing.

<comment><USER26> Yeah the only thing I think it's actually useful for is chat apps -- and for the ones I use frequently I ended up downloading their electron app anyway

<comment><USER27> It's also nice for Google Calendar notifications.

<comment><USER25> Convenient, but anything truly important requires multiple forms of notification anyway since you might not be in front of your browser. I usually set sticky reminders (e.g. order more contacts) to send an email, and do-it- now reminders (e.g. ZeroPage Homebrew is live on Twitch now!) to both email and SMS. Browser notifications are pretty redundant after that, but nothing's wrong with having multiple fail-safes if you're really paranoid about forgetting something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Good work from Mozilla, but it won't help prevent those sites that pop up a HTML modal asking you to subscribe by email AND then a few seconds later pop up another HTML modal asking to send you notifications to keep you up to date AND then sliding in something from the bottom with "relevant" posts AND maybe also slide something else in from the top or sides with some other thing that just ends up blocking the content you're actually interested in reading....

<comment><USER29> I opened a medium post the other day from my phone that did all this stuff. It was amazing - there was a bar up the top asking me to install the medium app. Then another bar below that asking me to subscribe to the author or something. Then a call-to-action pop-over on the bottom of the screen asking me to join a mailing list or something.

Only about 1/4 of my phone screen was left displaying the content - <USER2> wasn't even enough space to see the post's title on my plus sized phone.

I closed the tab, because who has time for that?

I can never tell if websites don't know how many people get turned away by how awful their websites are, or if they know but figure its a good deal. (Maybe medium figures an X% drop in blog engagement is worth it if a few readers join their mailing list).

In the meantime I'd like it if all browsers added an option to automatically block all website notification requests. Firefox does this, and its great.

<comment><USER30> > I can never tell if websites don't know how many people get turned away by > how awful their websites are, or if they know but figure its a good deal.

Having been told to implement aggressive exit-intent overlays on sites: I'm pretty sure it's the latter. A substantial amount of people don't bounce if you throw an annoying "do you really not want to know this secret?" overlay at them with an option saying something like "OK YES I WANT TO KNOW". I hate sites that do it, but for most sites, it's not tech-adept power users that make up the audience.

<comment><USER31> My favourite thing about using 1Password to store my credit-card details is the number of times I've gone to pay, started moving my mouse to the 1Password button, and the exit-intent fires and gives me a discount I wasn't expecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe I missed it but I don't see a discussion about how the majority of sites are actually showing a "pre-prompt" for notifications before triggering the actual prompt from the browser. This is similar to how apps ask you to rate them using some internal UI and only if you rating is the desired one (5 stars) send you to the app store so you can rate them there.

With the notifications a 3rd party script is used to display a Yes/No prompt for notifications and only when you click yes on that prompt it triggers the browser's yes/no prompt. This allows the site to show you the notification request on each session while if they used the browser's native prompt they could only show it once.

<comment><USER33> >>the majority of sites are actually showing a "pre-prompt" for notifications

Do a majority of sites do this? I have never seen it, but have seen the browser notification prompt several times

<comment><USER32> I'm in ecommerce so I visit a lot of online stores. I'd say about 80% of them are doing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Websites should not ask users for permission notifications. It only annoys the people using it. It is a bad idea!

If users are interested enough in your content, they will find a way to opt-in for notifications like email; an opt-in for notifications button or even RSS. Why would website owners assume that users want to get notifications only after 5 seconds of visiting a random site?

<comment><USER35> Some of them do have legitimate uses, like chat apps (messages.android.com for example). Otherwise though I do agree that they are a fairly bad idea.

<comment><USER36> Even then, notification permission should not be requested without some sort of prior input from the user. A simple red bell icon with the hover text "enable notifications" would work so much better than the user being assaulted with the dialogue box right away.

It really is a shame to see how terribly these permission requests have been abused, especially by news sites. I see this is a push for engagement by management, and not sufficient pushback from developers against this dark pattern.

This is not a difficult feature to implement well, and we should know how to do it properly after years of mobile permission request design.

<comment><USER37> Yeah, it should require user interaction to trigger the prompt. In fact, some of the better websites do this already.

This should be the same for nearly everything, like:

\- playing video/audio automatically \- location access \- direct GPU access

In fact, it would probably make sense to include all scripting (JavaScript and web assembly).

To make this suck less, the website should be able to request multiple permissions at once, with each permission able to be granted individually and websites able to put a short reason why each is being requested. Those permissions should show up in an easy to use menu for each site, like the TLS info button. Perhaps that same menu is the only way to enable/disable, so no popups, and all permissions are disabled by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Notification requests are really saturating my patience. I appreciate the Mozilla/Firefox efforts for creating a user-first browser, with this and past features.

I always avoided (or at least I try not) to provide any telemetry data, but in the case of Firefox, if these are the kind of improvements we may have, maybe I will opt-in for anon telemetry.

Is the voting-with-your-wallet era moving into voting-with-your-telemetry era?

<comment><USER39> It has always been that way. If you had one of these boxes that measured the channels you watch on tv, you had much more influence on what's going to be on next year than other people. If you fill in an (anonymous) questionnaire about politica issues you have more influence on these issues than people who just cast one vote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think that no matter what solution the browsers decide on, we will always have to fight the "pre-permission prompts" from websites. These are the homemade prompts in JS and html that the sites pop up that essentially ask if you want to be prompted for the real permission. Once you click accept on their dialog, they hit the real browser api to show the native dialog.

<comment><USER41> I actually mind those a lot less, since these prompts can be used to properly set expectations about how the notification permission will be used.

Or at least, I mind these a lot less in theory, since it feels like they're rarely implemented this way. It's a golden opportunity for app developers to explain why they want to send you notifications, what benefit you'll get from it, and how often you should expect to be notified, and recipe sites are using it to trick you into effectively signing up for a mailing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Yes! I hate the notifications prompt showing up on the landing page of a website. I definitely support the browser blocking nuisances until there's user interaction, things such as: sound, videos, popups, and request for permissions.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's slightly unfortunate that after reading this I went to [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/notificatio...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/notification) to read up about them, and immediately got an unsolicited "allow notifications?" prompt.

<comment><USER44> To clarify: MDN in general does not ask for notification permissions.

However, it does execute code samples on the page.

That page has a code sample for requesting permissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Hmmm - I can see how this is a good thing for the notification permission (there are far too many news/blog sites starting with that request) - but it looks from what they're saying that microphone/camera will still use the old method. Won't that be a bit confusing?

As an aside I've often wondered why cookie permissions couldn't be moved to a similar model? It would create a much more consistent experience instead of the popup insanity we currently have across Europe...

<comment><USER46> Use this for the cookie permission popup nonsense: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont- care-a...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about- cookies/?src=search)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> About time. Introducing a feature like this without a "Go away, and never come back!" button was a big UX fail IMO.

On a related note, seems like desktop notifications would be a great venue for remote code exploits. Have there been any yet?

<comment><USER48> Under the big arrow next to the "Not now" button is a "Never on this site" button, of that's what you mean. Otherwise there is the settings item (which, admittedly was added recently)

<comment><USER49> I don't want a "never on this site" button, I want "disable popups forever and don't pester me again". Glad this can be done in the settings now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> As a user, I don't even really understand what a "notification" is but it sounds annoying. I don't think I've ever allowed them when prompted. I didn't realize until reading this that I could disable these prompts entirely, but I have just done that.

</comment><comment><USER51> Straw proposal: Get rid of the whole system of permission prompts completely and instead introduce a special input element for each permission.

Example: Instead of calling a JS API to show a prompt for push notifications, you'd embed an [input type="push-permission"] element in your page. This element would render as a special button that grants you the permission once the user clicks on it.

However, embedding it into a context where the user would actually _want_ to click it, is your responsibility.

It would still be possible to spam the user with "self-made" overlay popups, but this is already possible today. The button would also need protection against clickjacking, which, I think, can be done by restricting how it can be styled or layered.

<comment><USER52> This will only result in people finding clickjacking methods to trick you into pressing. I would prefer that you can only trigger the request (using JS) on a top-level click-event, similar to how audio works on iOS (maybe Android too?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I feel that browsers are really getting permissions horribly wrong. The prompts often look very similar to each other (no icons) regardless of what they are for. Some permissions are detectable, others are not. When a site tried to use a function that's blocked, the notification in the browser is often easy to miss, leaving users wondering why the functionality isn't working.

If it were good:

1\. Users would be very aware of the request or attempted use for any permission.

2\. Users would be able to easily ignore that request without the permission prompt interrupting them.

It seems that browser vendors are struggling with a fairly simple UX problem.

</comment><comment><USER54> I welcome this change. Notification prompts have lately become the new popups. Almost every WordPress blog under the sun now is nagging for notifications.

</comment><comment><USER8> In my opinion, notifications are poor UI solution:

\- they distract attention

\- they obstruct content below

\- they disappear quickly

Also this allows the site to monitor whether user's computer is on or off even if all the tabs with the site are closed.

In Windows XP the way for an app to ask for user's attention was to highlight app's button on the taskbar (it also could flash several times which I never liked). While this is a little bit distracting too, it is still much better than Android-style notifications. With Windows XP, you can switch to the app when you have time.

Browser push notifications were designed with interests of developers in mind, not with interests of users.

A better solution might be to highlight the tab that needs user's attention and highlight browser's button on the taskbar.

On the other side, Android-style, annoying notifications might be easier to notice and understand for users who don't understand computers well.

I think Firefox devs should also consider switching from Android-style distracting notifications to time-tested solution from Windows XP. I don't think the ideas from the article will work.

For example, they suggest to show an icon in the address bar but there are already too much icons and users might not notice it. And if you allow to show permission popup only after click, then sites will show it after you click anything.

</comment><comment><USER55> The article doesn't seem to mention this, but you can already disable popups for notifications in Firefox.

1\. Go to Preferences, Privacy & Security

2\. Scroll to Permissions > Notifications, click Settings...

3\. At the bottom of the dialog window, check Block new requests asking to allow notifications

The permissions already granted will still work.

</comment><comment><USER56> >> Most prompts are dismissed, while almost 19% of prompts caused users to leave the site immediately after being confronted with them.

Finally! Some numbers from a respectable source showing that most pop-us are bad for user engagement.

</comment><comment><USER57> god forbid you leave firefox set to never remember history, you don't get the option to block sites forever. So every time you hit a reddit link it will gleefully present you with a prompt about notification permissions.

<comment><USER58> Wow thank you for pointing that out. I have always set my browsers to never remember history, if I want to remember it, I will use a bookmark. Consequently Reddit mobile will totally spam me, making it even more unusable than before.

<comment><USER57> Alternatively you can workaround the issue by telling firefox to delete history on close. This will allow you to block notifications per-session.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I feel like Solution 1 is pretty close to what I see as the "solution".

I think for commonly requested permissions that are not commonly accepted, they should just use a smaller, more discreet icon for notifying the user; one that doesn't hang down over the chrome and block/cover up the site. That way, it can be easily ignored.

It should be more obvious than the one they're using in that solution. Maybe something equivalent to an icon next to the refresh button or something. The text icon they had in #1 was probably /too/ easy to ignore.

<comment><USER60> As someone with "not-so-tech-savvy" users on my website, this is bound to get ignored a lot. I have seen screenshots of my users (when they need support) and they dont even click "Okay" on the Cookie bar (to accept cookies and stuff) and / or any notification on the website (Not the Push Notification).

<comment><USER61> Is there a reason you have a cookie bar? The idea of a 'click ok' bar should be dead since GDPR adjusted the law. If it's not for tracking then you don't need a bar. If it is for tracking then whenever possible the site should work without opting in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> "Reduced" should be "zero". Prompts are fundamentally broken; they replace simple interactions with "STOP, answer this question NOW!" scenarios. A sensible solution would be: _automatically deny by default_ because sites don't really need to be asking up front! They can either give you another way (e.g. button/field) or they don't have business querying this in the first place.

Simple example: On one site I used to just type in my zip code (easy but explicit transfer of information) and it immediately zoomed a map to my specified area. Then one day they changed it to magical location tracking; now, before I can even enter the stupid zip code (still an option and all I ever want), I get a "STOP! Share location!?!?" kind of interaction first. I have to find it, close it, then enter a zip. I had the zip code in my head and would be able to type it in a second with no delay but instead, I am distracted. Or maybe I was copying and pasting. Everything about immediate form access was efficient.

All prompts have this problem. The potential for a prompt out of the blue makes direct actions slower, and any other case where a prompt might appear is going to be an undesirable interruption telling you about things you didn't want happening anyway. User agents should be saying No to unreasonable requests _for_ me, like a good manager.

<comment><USER63> The difference is that the ZIP code doesn't tell them the exact house in which you live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Good to see, I outright disabled them. Its pretty rare when I would ever want something like this.

</comment><comment><USER65> I don't want to receive notifications from any site nor grant any permissions to any website ever. Perhaps some people want to grant permissions and to receive notifications from some websites but it seems obvious that will always be about just a small selection of favourite websites. So I doubt it even is reasonable to pop anything up, just make subscribe/allow buttons easy to find yet waiting for the user passively.

</comment><comment><USER66> If I want to be bothered at random I'll install the app. This functionality should never have been bundled into a web browser.

</comment><comment><USER67> It still boggles my mind how over engineered that prompt is in Firefox [1]. And glad to see that the new prompt follows Safari's simple "Allow / Disallow".

[1] Of course I got into a shouting match on Twitter about it some time back: [https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/920293887746433024](https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/920293887746433024) and [https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/920373234104700931](https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/920373234104700931)

<comment><USER68> I honestly think a patch is a more productive way to deal with this if you're a developer who wants to see the functionality.

<comment><USER67> What if I'm a developer who has no idea how Firefox UI works?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Notifications are the new popups, just add an option to disable them completely.

</comment><comment><USER70> Making the "Never Allow" button directly accessible is a big win.

</comment><comment><USER71> The notification prompt should be a good lesson in feature creep for browser vendors. Pretty much applies to all "engagement" features: If you build it, it will be abused.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder how many of the currently-accepted prompts are already in response to user interaction. If it's most of them, then the first option would still be reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER72> Good. The whole notifications thing is BS as it's used on most of the web and is actively exploited and there's no "don't show this again" prompt to be found anywhere. The only sites that do it gracefully show a cookie-consent- like floating div that pops the prompt up if you accept it. I have honestly been looking into completely disabling the whole thing but despite Safari being quite good usually, there is no option to do that anywhere to my knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER73> I think there should be a difference between sites which the user is merely browsing, and sites which a user is actively using. The former shouldn't be able to show popups, while the latter may. Moving a website from "browsing" to "using" state could be done with a (small) button in the top bar. It's in a sense like "installing" an app.

</comment><comment><USER74> The UX pattern that should be observed is preflighting -- ask the user if they want notifications from within the webpage (if appropriate, obviously) and let them know it'll prompt a browser dialog. If they say yes, you're good to go. It's an extra step that significantly improves both conversion and experience, often used in mobile.

</comment><comment><USER75> Global setting: "I will never choose to receive notifications from a website." Linked directly from that popop.

Sorted.

Chrome already does this right with language translation: "do you want to translate this website?" "No"/"Never translate this site"/"Never translate French"

Do that with notifications And well never need to see that prompt again.

</comment><comment><USER76> It's completely rude to send a browser notification prompt without prior warning. The solution to this is html notification prompts that only trigger the browser notification prompt when the user clicks on them. They aren't as intrusive. That's what I use on my wordpress site.

</comment><comment><USER77> what I would dearly like to have is a way to disable the Firefox update notification that pops up every day

</comment><comment><USER78> While we're at it, some sort of "always opt in or opt out of cookies" standard would be very nice. I'm really tired of sites asking for permission. Forcing companies to ask to use cookies was a mistake, cookies on/off should have been a browser feature first.

<comment><USER79> It was ... it just wasn't really exposed except as "arcane configuration that 99.9% of users would never even know was there". This is why we, as an industry need to be proactive in putting the user first in decisions like this, because if we don't, it will get abused, and then that's when the regulation comes (and rightly so).

<comment><USER78> Tracking is the reality, cookies are merely one form of it and disabling them does basically nothing. "Regulator mandated popup" is the worst possible outcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> If a website presents a pop up to me asking if I want notifications, I click yes _then_ I click block when the browser dialogue appears. No more notification pop ups on that site.

I realize I can categorically block all notification permissions, but there are some sites where I want to allow them.

</comment><comment><USER78> Is there a plugin or setting to auto reject these in firefox and/or chrome? Notifications are something I will never want from a website, and most of the time its as annoying as a popup. No, random news site for somewhere I don't live, I would not like your notifications.

</comment><comment><USER81> These notifications can in a way act as a sort of adware. I had family friends who complained of pop ups on their laptop advertising dodgy products. Turned out they'd accidentally dismissed one of these with an OK and was being spammed in the desktop environment via Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER82> IMO, it makes more sense to require that the permission prompt is tied to a button instead of directly triggered by a script.

IE, the only way to display the permission prompt is to put a button on the page, and then the permission prompt is only shown when the user clicks the button.

</comment><comment><USER83> These are super annoying in Safari, too. Apple needs to take note and follow Firefox's lead here.

<comment><USER84> You can completely disable them for all websites, and allow notifications for some websites.

I disabled them and never see them anymore.

<comment><USER85> I disabled the allow push notifications checkbox in Safari, but still get prompted with the native Safari modal. I'm not sure how this is done, and it's infrequent, but I'm guessing Safari left a hole in their notifications web API that is being exploited.

Safari's implementation could also be improved. The modal forces you to chose without the ability to cancel, and saves the website into your preferences, even if you just want to immediately close the tab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> First thing I do on a new Firefox install (among other things) is disable all new requests for Alerts. I've never wanted a website to send me alerts, and I've never met anyone who wanted them. Who is the audience for this?

</comment><comment><USER87> > _User interaction is a popular measure because it is often seen as a proxy > for user consent and engagement with the website._

"This site uses COOKIES! Click here to brush off this interruption and be presented with the page proper."

</comment><comment><USER88> Those omnipresent dialogs are a cancer on the web. It was the worst idea ever.

I actually can't believe the browser vendors made basically the same mistake as the obnoxious JS "alert()"

</comment><comment><USER89> I would be happier if Firefox dropped the prompts "feature" completely. Just ignore it. Less code, less dependencies, and less hassle for everyone involved.

<comment><USER90> And you can't think of any valid use-case for notifications for anyone? Bearing in mind that we are talking about a huge range of potential apps that now run in the browser?

How about communication apps? Or reminder apps?

<comment><USER89> Make the 10 users who need those install a plugin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I'm still surprised µblock doesnt have a list for this.

</comment><comment><USER92> The name notification permission is misleading. Because what it actually does is run _any_ code from websites you aren't even visiting currently.

</comment><comment><USER93> Nice to see Mozilla doing something against this. I've found those unsolicited notifications to be annoying in 95% of the cases.

</comment><comment><USER94> OK, changing tools is painful, but I think they're gonna actually get me to switch to firefox.

<comment><USER95> It took me a bit to adjust from Chrome, but I haven't looked back.

<comment><USER94> Any advice to a potential switcher from Chrome? Anything you did to make FF more Chrome-like in any ways or whatever?

As a web dev, I'm scared of having to learn the new dev tools (I'm gonna use the same primary browser for web dev as for everyday, realistically). Do you use the dev tools, did you find it easy to switch there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Does even know what the push notifications do? I'm too scared to ask for them.

</comment><comment><USER97> "Since notifications can be sent after you leave a site"

What? How?

</comment><comment><USER98> I just disabled 'dom.webnotifications.*'

</comment><comment><USER99> Whoever thought implementing to show every notification permission prompt to the browser is, excuse my language, an idiot.

</comment><comment><USER100> Anyone remember when browsers were just browsers?

</comment><comment><USER101> Most sites today display cookie or GDPR popup, such sites could abuse clicking OK or Cancel on such popup as the user action that triggers enable notifications.

</comment><comment><USER102> Finally

</comment><comment><USER103> I don't understand what is wrong with the folks over at Mozilla. Are they stupid, or are they taking bribes?

How about an option for, "No, I don't want notifications from any website, ever!"

How about an option for, "Don't auto-play video, including silent video, ever. Not audio either. Never. Just don't."

How about an option for "I know what cookies are. Never, ever warn me about them again. Ever."

I don't know if the devs are just young and inexperienced, or if they are truly brain-damaged, or if they are corrupt and some advertiser said, "Here's a million dollars to leave those notification prompts in, heh, heh, heh".

At this point it's like smoking in movies. There has to be some cigarette maven with a pallet of cash going into the production office on the back lot somewhere, because otherwise why does every young director show all the 'cool' people puffing away on something that's going to waterboard you with COPD for the last 40 years of your life?

Mozilla, we don't want any of that shit. Fuck that shit.

</comment><comment><USER104> Good opportunity to voice my displeasure about the update notifications! Sorry, IT SUCKS!

It is really annoying that Firefox forces me to read about complex policy settings to avoid this. I have reasons not being able to update on a certain computer at certain times. (Already blocked the update checks, `# prevent Firefox update checks 127.0.0.1 aus5.mozilla.org`, but it seems I still have notifications).

</comment><comment><USER105> I wish Mozilla would use this as a profit opportunity.

Pay a fee to get your domain whitelisted for features like fullscreens, notifications prompts, etc.

Part of the fee goes to handle complaints, if your site gets too many complains or is found to violate policies your sites permissions are revoked and you need to remedy the situation and apply again.

If Facebook can responsibly handle not sending me notifications I don't need they won't get any complaints from me. But if they notify all users about a useless auto-generated-end-of-year-movie they made, then perhaps they'll loose permissions.

For certain features it wouldn't be unreasonable to require that sites are vetted. There could be tiers related to how many uses you have, such that small companies aren't locked out.</comment>


Twitter wins: Gap Bows to Outcry, Nixes New Logo and Crowdsourcing  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662470/gap-bows-to-outcry-nixes-new-logo-and-crowdsourcing

<comment><USER2> "Will companies know when an outcry isn't pointing to a terrible design, but rather just people refusing to embrace change?"

I was thinking this this morning. Gap aren't amateurs, the new logo will have been tested, focus group-ed and all - and likely those groups would have been more representative of the target market for Gap than the general blogosphere which criticised the new design.

So, what seems to have happened is that they've overruled the views of a more representative but less vocal group, in favour of a more vocal group who may have no relationship with or interest in Gap at all bar criticism.

And remember, the default position for most people is conservatism (with a small c). We dislike change so the default position for a majority of people to this sort of thing will be to keep what's already in place.

People keep drawing the parallel with New Coke but that seems wrong. New Coke was launched, bought and disliked by actual Coke consumers. In this instance we have no real idea what the actual Gap customers thought or what impact the new logo might have had because it never got that far.

This will go down as a formative moment in marketing and branding but I'm not sure whether history will show Gap acted wisely or foolishly. My gut feel is that later.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's got nothing to do with Twitter, brands have made big shifts before and failed due to public opinion. The 'New Coke' debacle happened before the web, and I don't recall the telephone being given credit.

</comment><comment><USER4> i still think gap is on the positive side for 2010 after their tie-in with groupon. wasn't it the most popular deal to date?

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting POV. I wonder though if Groupon has quite the same reach -- or branding influence -- as a logo everyone can picture in their head? One gets at how the brand actually lives in people's minds; the other maybe affects whether they think there's cheap deals to be had...

<comment><USER4> i rarely ever think of gap...am i really going to become anti-gap now that they backed off their potential logo shift?

if anything, i think the "any press is good press" saying could apply here. the only people that expressed their distaste are loyal customers as it is.

as for groupon, the fact that a big brand like gap adopted it for a day was a) a HUGE get for groupon and b) a good way for gap to show how they're embracing the hottest tech approaches.

i bet a great amount of the buyers that day won't even remember to use the groupon...they just bought it cuz they thought "hey, it's gap. i could find something there. i'll use it one of these days..."</comment></comment></comment>


Live Nation Rules Music Ticketing, Some Say with Threats - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ticketmaster.html <comment><USER2> The record store I worked at in college (this was the 1989-ish timeframe) had a TicketMaster machine. This was a CRT computer terminal, modem, leased-line, and a custom ticket printer. The surcharge was $2 per ticket, and presumably TicketMaster was making a profit on that, even after paying our cut.

These days, they have fees that can easily exceed $20 per ticket, and they don't have any of that custom hardware or phone line overhead anymore (I think they even charge you to print your own ticket) - how do they justify that except via monopoly power?

<comment><USER3> Ticketmaster doesn't get 100% of the fee. One of the services that Ticketmaster offers is to charge a large fee, which is then split between everybody (i.e. the artist, the promoter, the venue). They act as the bad guy so that the event can be more appropriately priced while providing the artist with plausible deniability.

[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market- scr...](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/)

<comment><USER4> Okay, so let's just slash prices in half and give all the money to the artists ;)

EDIT to add: I'm being glib, but only a little - I think the artists, compared with venues and promoters, ought to hold much more power than they currently do. Of course venues should get paid - but are fees the best way?

<comment><USER5> Well, the venue has to pay its bills too.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't the venue also make a small fortune selling overpriced drinks/snacks?

<comment><USER7> Depends on the target audience age and proclivity for buying concessions / alcohol.

(Also, LiveNation owns the House of Blues locations and often takes a cut of merchandise sales in their venues)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah it's a bitch. But if you see indie bands, which really need your support more than anyone else, you can often buy a ticket at the door and completely avoid all this bs.

Plus, if you really want to support the artist, buy a bunch of there merch at the show - they make a lot off that stuff! I usually buy a couple copies of there records even if I own them already and give them away to friends. Sometimes smart bands have tour only singles (Stereolab did this a lot).

Sure you can't always avoid Ticketmaster, that's life. We all have that band or show or sport-event, etc we must see (My Bloody Valentine, etc, for me).

Point being - don't forget you can always buy a ticket at the venue! They are not the only game in town.

<comment><USER9> > Sure you can't always avoid Ticketmaster, that's life

But it doesn't have to be, that's the point of this discussion

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just wish there was a truth in advertising law that said Ticketmaster and other could only advertise the final price after fees and taxes. None of this $40 tickets suddenly being $60 or $80 at checkout.

<comment><USER11> I think that should be required in all circumstances. Final price advertised openly.

They obviously can calculate it at checkout, they can display it upfront.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes, the whole industry is filled to the brim with pricks. But the issue I have always had with Ticket Bastard isn't so much the _fees_ , since that is just a matter of honesty in pricing, but in being able to buy tickets at all.

When I was younger, you dialed the phone number. If you wanted tickets to a particular show, you had to know what time the tickets first went on sale. Then you started calling in, madly hanging up and redialing the instant you heard the busy signal. Fifteen minutes later, they told you the show was sold out.

Now, you madly hit F5, and when the sale goes live, you try to choose seats and buy tickets through the website. The site _always_ stalls out somewhere in the process and boots you back to the main page, dumping all your session details. By the time you finally get to the payment page, all the tickets have gone to the bots.

Eventually, you learn to just not bother with stadium shows. Traveling to the venue on the mere _possibility_ that one might be able to pay at the gate and get in, rather than having a guaranteed seat ahead of time, is for young people and fools. Big names simply don't play venues in my town, since none of them are big enough for their giant tour with two or three opening acts and enough traveling stage gear to ground a C-130. I'd be driving at least 90 minutes, and probably 2 hours or more. And that possibly means hotel rooms and days off from work--the show is the centerpiece of a bona fide _trip_. If you can't get tickets, what's the point? You might as well stay home, with your nice, cushy chair and over-the-ear headphones.

Or you could support local bands and local venues, as they have much greater need for your money. They don't have that studio polish on their sound, but you can actually get in to hear them play.

</comment><comment><USER13> Blog post regarding the matter from Jared Smith, President at Ticketmaster

[https://insider.ticketmaster.com/ticketing-vertical- integrat...](https://insider.ticketmaster.com/ticketing-vertical-integration- and-the-nyts-recent-article/)

</comment><comment> Joe-Z What some people pay to go to concerts is just insane to me. RHCP? Huge fan, but €100+ for a concert? No way!

I've been to a lot of concerts, but I think I never paid more than 50€ for a show (and even that was an exception, think "Rancid is in Europe for the first time in 10 years!"). I guess I'm not the typical concert-goer, because even IF RHCP (not hating or anything that's just the most recent example) offered cheaper tickets, I'd still be in a giant stadium, 100's of meters from the stage. At that point, I might as well just watch the DVD.

EDIT: Forgot to get my point across: Concerts shouldn't be a big business, it's supposed to be about a connection between an artist and her fans.

<comment><USER7> Why should one of the biggest alt rock bands of all time charge less for shows, so you can go? I can't imagine anyone but Foo Fighters fit into the same category and are more popular.

Literally millions of fans want to go to their shows, charging less would only mean they sell out in seconds rather than minutes.

<comment><USER14> His comment is an example of market forces. At 100 dollars they priced him and others out.

If millions will go see a show why hide the service charge/fee? Why not auction all tickets?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not optimistic about the eventual outcome, but maybe an investigation will at least spook them into preemptively lowering some of their astronomical service charges.

<comment><USER16> There's no way an investigation will spook them.

The real crime was already approved by Congress when they let Live Nation merge with Ticket Master.

Now Ticket Master also owns all the the artists contracts that they are booking in these venues. You can choose to leave Ticket Master, and you can easily replace their ticketing services.

But if you leave, you lose access to all the artists who you would have liked to have in your venue. So you can have a beautiful arena with a fair priced in house ticketing system, but it means 'fuck-all' if you can't book Lady Gaga or any of the other profitable acts to come play in your venue.

<comment><USER17> Congress? Aren't those mergers approved or denied by the executive branch?

<comment><USER16> You are right. This was approved by the Justice Department, under the Executive Branch. Thanks for pointing it out.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/business/26ticket.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/business/26ticket.html)

Obligatory..... "Thanks Obama"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One of my favorite quotes from back in the day:

"If Hitler owned Haliburton, it still wouldn't be as evil of a company as Ticketmaster."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/c4704/fuck_you_ticket...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/c4704/fuck_you_ticketmaster_that_is_all/c0q0rnu/)</comment>


Derek Lowe on Theranos and its blood test machine - semi-extrinsic http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/10/15/theranos-and-its-blood-test-machine <comment><AUTHOR> Please don't editorialize the titles of stories you submit to HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment> semi-extrinsic Ah, sorry, fixed.</comment></comment>


Molten Bismuth Shader - <AUTHOR> https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WdVXWy <comment><USER2> Since we don't get much Shadertoy content here, I'll point out that, while this is really cool, there have been some much crazier fluid simulations on Shadertoy.

The most insanely fast fluid sim I've seen there is the one by nimitz: Chimera's Breath [https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4tGfDW](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4tGfDW)

And the most insanely _weird_ ones are hands down those by wyatt. They're often conceptual intersections between fluid, particle and wave. It's gotten so weird I have a hard time using words to describe them at this point. For example:

Communication and Grouping - [https://www.shadertoy.com/view/wtSSDm](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/wtSSDm)

Branching Paths - [https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ts33DS](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ts33DS)

Fluid Mosaic - [https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlVfDR](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlVfDR)

<comment><USER3> If you think the first one looks cool, check this out: [https://paveldogreat.github.io/WebGL-Fluid- Simulation/](https://paveldogreat.github.io/WebGL-Fluid-Simulation/)

It is even more amazing on mobile with multi-touch, I think you can find it in the app store.

<comment><USER4> Why no multi-touch on non-mobile ? :'(

<comment><USER3> Well, it uses standard touch* events, so I guess it would work - did you try it?

<comment><USER4> I did, doesn't work in Firefox on my Surface Pro 3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is extremely cool! Amazing work @flockaroo

The implementation very different from other fluid simulations I've seen, copying the comments from the source:

        // single pass CFD - with some self consistency fixes

        // ...the actual fluid simulation

        // this is some "computational flockarooid dynamics" ;)
        // the self-advection is done purely rotational on all scales.
        // therefore i dont need any divergence-free velocity field.
        // with stochastic sampling i get the proper "mean values" of rotations
        // over time for higher order scales.
        //
        // try changing "RotNum" for different accuracies of rotation calculation
        // for even RotNum uncomment the line #define SUPPORT_EVEN_ROTNUM

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've just launched RenderToy [https://www.rendertoy.com](https://www.rendertoy.com) into beta, which captures websites to animation/HD video. Let me know if you would like to join the RenderToy beta, or subscribe to hear when we launch.

So if your hardware can't the view shader in the main link, here it is:

 __ __Molten Bismuth Shader

YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OE6IrV- kMk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OE6IrV-kMk) MP4 download: [https://zone000.previews.rendertoy.com/video/mp4/805fc41be0b...](https://zone000.previews.rendertoy.com/video/mp4/805fc41be0b24b66af86f409a970ce2c/h264.mp4)

<comment><USER7> I did something similar a while back, except it was ShaderToy specific and batch rendered them one frame at a time at 4k (occasionally running in to the 5 second frame limit nVidia cripples its non pro cards with), which I then downscaled in to 1080p 60fps.

Your renders seem pretty smooth but not perfect by my eye (which may be the capture, the shaders or my playback hardware). Are you doing it in real time with a beefy GPU, or using some kind of secret sauce to do general purpose batch rendering?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErtbHTvRgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErtbHTvRgo)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-D0N_7s0OQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-D0N_7s0OQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zjuA4zx8J8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zjuA4zx8J8)

<comment><USER6> >> I did something similar a while back, except it was ShaderToy specific

RenderToy captures any website to video - let me know if you'd like to try it out - I need beta testers.

>> Your renders seem pretty smooth but not perfect by my eye

Are you looking at the YouTube or the MP4 - the MP4 videos will be of higher quality than the YouTube. YouTube videos have many factors out of my control that might degrade the quality. RenderToy also outputs (very large) lossless videos you can play with the downcompression yourself to optimise.

There's lots of factors when capturing/rendering video that can influence the quality and lots of animation simply isn't very suitable to compression. Optimal YouTube video comes from uploading the lossless video capture so double compression is avoided but those files are around 500MB to 1GB depending on factors.

>>Are you doing it in real time

Yes RenderToy is pretty close to real time - it has a real time preview mode and a slightly slower high resolution capture mode.

<comment><USER7> By smooth I'm referring to a 60fps capture, rather than the compression artifacts. I did download one of the videos to check. It looks very smooth for real time, but not quite perfect.

<comment><USER6> Do you think this looks any better?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y041xO6Xdb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y041xO6Xdb8)

I had a stern word to the hamsters at the back end who turn the wheels that do the rendering and I told them to run faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I forgot that my deep learning box has a GPU which can actually do graphics;)

Wow so smooth and beautiful fullscreen, this effect should be everyone's new homepage wallpaper.

These linear ruptures when dragging are border conditions of differential equations?

There was a similar more colorful demo some months ago, someone has the link?

<comment><USER9> FWIW runs at 30fps on a Pixel 3a :)

<comment><USER10> 60.7 fps on the Pixel 3

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Shaders helped me understand how to program GPUs.

My favorite book on the topic is [https://thebookofshaders.com/](https://thebookofshaders.com/) (free) and I'd highly recommend you mess around with it

Blender and Unity also have a graphical language to do shaders which are really fun to mess around with.

<comment><USER12> Is there anything out there that is more complete?

<comment><USER13> Plenty, depends if you want books,

[https://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-Shading-Language-Cookbook- high...](https://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-Shading-Language-Cookbook-high- quality/dp/1789342252)

[https://www.amazon.de/Graphics-Shaders-Practice-Michael- Bail...](https://www.amazon.de/Graphics-Shaders-Practice-Michael- Bailey/dp/1568813341)

[https://www.amazon.de/Real-Time-Rendering-Fourth-Tomas- Akeni...](https://www.amazon.de/Real-Time-Rendering-Fourth-Tomas-Akenine- Moller/dp/1138627003)

[https://www.amazon.de/Physically-Based-Rendering-Theory- Impl...](https://www.amazon.de/Physically-Based-Rendering-Theory- Implementation/dp/0128006455)

Or grab some online content instead,

[http://www.pbr-book.org/](http://www.pbr-book.org/)

[https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems/gpugems_pref01....](https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems/gpugems_pref01.html)

[https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems2/gpugems2_insid...](https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems2/gpugems2_inside_front_cover.html)

[https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems3/gpugems3_pref0...](https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/GPUGems3/gpugems3_pref01.html)

[https://developer.download.nvidia.com/CgTutorial/cg_tutorial...](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/CgTutorial/cg_tutorial_frontmatter.html)

Naturally most of the stuff I linked to, doesn't use necessarily GLSL ES, however it is relatively easy to translate the concepts and ideas into it, given how most shading languages happen to be either a C or C++ based dialect.

<comment><USER12> Nice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Programming shaders is like some black art, just like RF electronics.

<comment><USER14> Seriously. I'd sell my soul to the devil to make stuff like that. Wish my brain was big enough!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't view it right now because of my old hardware. A YouTube search for _" molten bismuth shader"_ turns up only _real_ molten bismuth videos. Has anyone a link to a video?

<comment><USER16> Sadly cant record screen atm, but be sure to check it out when you get home, it is quite the jewel

Edit: Im WRONG! You CAN record!

Here you go

[https://streamable.com/bnn16](https://streamable.com/bnn16)

<comment><USER15> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is insane - how do people learn to program stuff like this?

<comment> Joe-Z I attended a game development program at the college I went to and we had pretty nifty computer graphics classes. Basically you learn how graphics work on a computer first. There's a lot of tutorials out there and some pretty easy to learn frameworks for graphics programming. From then on it depends on what you want to achieve, but basically you'll have to learn and understand a lot of physics and then translate that into code.

I don't know if this is even remotely the answer you were looking for. But if you're interested in computer graphics give it a shot! It's super fun and a good way to learn all kinds of new stuff.

EDIT: Just to not leave you without any references at all, here's a link to openframeworks, which I used to implement my first exercises in CG:

[https://openframeworks.cc/download/](https://openframeworks.cc/download/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like how there is a Shadertoy app for mobile which nicely shows off the insane power of modern smart phones.

</comment><comment><USER19> Did something change in the source/environment?

I'm getting compilation failures on load:

        vec4 c=texelFetch(iChannel0,ivec2(0),0);
        'texelFetch' : no matching overloaded function found
        '=' : dimension mismatch

</comment><comment><USER20> If this was some meditative game of sorts (optionally multiplayer) on my phone I would play it for ages (not sure about the mechanics yet, but I already spend 5 minutes just fiddling with it in my browser). Truly mesmerizing, cool stuff!

</comment><comment><USER21> For Safari users, try enabling Develop->Experimental Features->WebGL2

</comment><comment><USER22> Very cool site but it's very slow.

I get around 2 fps on that shader. Less on others. I have a GTX 1660. Definitely not top of the line but it's in the latest generation of video cards.

<comment><USER23> I get 18 fps on my Google Pixel.

<comment><USER24> I get a consistent 25-27fps on my Google Pixel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I got 80fps in Opera. Is this navier+stokes+surface tension?

<comment><AUTHOR> well, actually its a self advection based on rotations only (and therefore automatically divergence free). so there's actually no explicit navier stokes equations or pressure/tension physics involved (implicitly one could argue though...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does not seem to work on my Firefox mobile. High fps but static images.

<comment><USER27> Works well for me in Firefox Preview on Android (the rewrite that will eventually replace standard Firefox for Android, which I think is in maintenance-mode now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not bad, getting 15FPS on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER28> Offtopic: Are we going to get these cookie warnings until the end of time?

<comment><USER29> Unlikely, eventually people will stop putting them up when it's widely believed the laws have no teeth.

<comment><USER30> Or when they stop actually using tracking cookies.

<comment><USER31> You're supposed to issue the warning even if you don't use tracking cookies, aren't you? My understanding is that any persistent storage at all is enough to trigger the requirement.

<comment><USER32> I've read that if cookies are stickly required for your app to work (e.g. keeping a login session), there is no need for the popup (Until you start adding tracking).

<comment><USER30> Right. Many people who put up those notices don't need them, and in doing so unfortunately sour public perception for the law. It's actually not as stupidly written as people think it is.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 'Manhattan of the Desert': Shibam, Yemen's Ancient Skyscraper City (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.archdaily.com/771154/the-manhattan-of-the-desert-shibam-yemens-ancient-skyscraper-city <comment><USER2> This claim: "Credited as the home of the first highrise apartment buildings, Shibam has become a symbol for the rise and resilience of middle eastern culture in the desolation of the surrounding desert." appears to be false as Roman Insula reportedly reached over 9 stories high and predate these buildings: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)#](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_\(building\)#)

<comment><USER3> Over 9 stories? Your source says: "The insulae could be up to six or seven stories high, and despite height restrictions in the Imperial era, a few reached eight or nine stories"

<comment><USER4> Insulae aren't necessarily sky-scrapers, though, right? They kind of build up on a larger composite base, and are a bit more massive - and lower in general - whereas the Shibam seem to have a smaller base, but taller reach, as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gimignano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gimignano) or the other Italian city-states like Florence. Same apparent dynamics, too: lots of insular clans creating little fortresses for their extended families while competing economically & socially inside the density of the city, always teetering on the edge of civil war.

<comment><USER6> If you like the idea of clusters of building complexes you'd also find interest in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, Kowloon is cool but driven by different dynamics. Closer to Arcosanti or Tokyo than Shibam.

<comment><USER7> Would you mind expanding on this comment? I want to understand what you mean :)

<comment><USER8> When Gwern expands on a comment expect a book length article with everything remotely relevant cited and leaving nothing but a wasteland for future researchers.

<comment><USER9> I had to look up Gwern:

I found this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660220)

fascinating!

<comment><USER8> [http://www.gwern.net/](http://www.gwern.net/)

Hope you have a couple of spare days. Make that weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be interesting to learn how the builders decided on these specific structures. I note a few attributes: * Banked foundations. * Small windows at the bottom, large windows at the top. * Tall doors at the bottom.

Specifically, how did they gauge the thickness of the walls and the structural properties of the mud? Was the planning based on a published code that took into account the expected building materials? Did they have occupancy limits?

<comment><USER11> The city is 1700 years old - I'm sure they had time to figure this stuff out.

<comment><USER10> Yes, of course. So where's the documentation and does anyone readily know the answers?

<comment><USER12> I'd guess it's mostly oral, master->apprentice stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Too bad the Yemen, home to the oldest cities in the world, is being completely destroyed in the civil war and seeing millions of cholera infections by now.

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/world/middleea...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/world/middleeast/yemen- cholera-humanitarian-crisis.html)

<comment><USER14> Civil War? I thought they are currently bombarded by Saudi and American rockets?

<comment><USER15> Pretty much on point.

Apparently US is involved to fix relations with Saudis after the nuclear deal with Iran.

> The United States is selling the Saudi monarchy missiles and warplanes, > assisting in the coalition's targeting selection for aerial bombings and > actively providing midair refueling for Saudi and United Arab Emirates jets > that conduct indiscriminate airstrikes — the leading cause of civilian > casualties. Meanwhile, the Saudi coalition is starving millions of Yemenis > as a grotesque tactic of war.

via [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opinion/yemen-war- unconst...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opinion/yemen-war- unconstitutional.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Growing up in the NYC area I saw many 4 to 6 story apartments, built mostly before elevators became common and practical. The upper floors were considered undesirable due to all the stairs.

Eight stories seems like quite a lot.

<comment><USER17> Edinburgh had residential buildings up to 14 or 15 stories in the 17th century - land inside the city wall was very limited and building outside the wall was unpopular due to the threat from England.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Edinburgh#Union_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Edinburgh#Union_of_the_Crowns_to_Parliamentary_Union_.2817th_century.29)

<comment><USER18> Although due to the geology of the place you can "cheat" this by building up a hill, it's not quite the same as building a freestanding 15 storey building. There are several places I know round the Bridges that have street level entrances four floors apart.

<comment><USER17> That's true - and I believe there was a lot of tunneling _down_ into the relatively soft rock of the tail of the Old Town "crag and tail".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Roman insulae were taller centuries earlier. I can't imagine why anyone would credit Shibam with the earliest high rise apartment buildings.

<comment><USER20> I don't think the article is. However, it's still there (there's only one insula left), and it's more uniformly made up of tall buildings than anywhere in Rome likely was.

<comment><USER19> From this fine article: "Credited as the home of the first highrise apartment buildings, Shibam has become a symbol for the rise and resilience of middle eastern culture in the desolation of the surrounding desert."

There were 46,600 insulae in Rome at the time Shibam was built, and only 1790 private homes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Would be nice to see which of the buildings were from 1700 years ago and which are from 500 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER22> I had the chance to visit Shibam in 2005. AMA

</comment><comment><USER23> How hard is it to visit?

<comment><USER24> You don't want to go there.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_(2015%E2%80%9...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Civil_War_\(2015%E2%80%93present\))

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/23/in-yemen-a-saudi-war- fou...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/23/in-yemen-a-saudi-war-fought-with- u-s-help/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> * Doesn't respect parking minimums

* Doesn't respect sebacks

* Inadequate green space

* Floor-area ratio way beyond acceptable.

Complete planning failure!

<comment><USER26> What does "seback" mean? I couldn't find anything in 30 seconds of googling

<comment><AUTHOR> Most likely a typo for setback:

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Quite surrealist</comment>