California Isn't Backing Off Bullet Train  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/us/california-rail-project-advances-amid-cries-of-boondoggle.html?hp

<comment><USER2> For the last two years I worked on autonomous cars. The one thing everyone in our company agreed on, regardless of political persuasion, was that robo-cars were going to thunder fuck the high speed rail. A 2033 deadline makes this all but certain.

<comment><USER3> They seem to have little in common, aside from the fact that both get people from A to B with relatively little attention required on the part of the people.

High speed rail is:

(a) Vastly more efficient

(b) Much faster (SF -> LA in < 3 hours, versus ~6.5 for a car)

(c) Not subject to traffic (which can greatly increase the latter time)

(d) Much more comfortable (compare Amtrak to a private automobile)

How do autonomous cars overcome these deficiencies?

<comment><USER4> Trains and buses suffers from last mile problems on each end. And you sometimes/often have to share an air space with rude, dirty, sometimes crazy people. Not so with individual vehicles. Now make them electric (to reduce pollution and enabling the getting off of fossil fuels) and automated (to reduce frequency of accidents, and wear-and-tear caused by aggressive driving, etc, etc.) and the trade-offs can look attractive.

<comment><USER5> Admittedly, I'm no expert on electric cars, but they always make me feel like the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

Electricity is frequently generated by fossil fuels like coal. Electric cars don't reduce pollution, they just move it to wherever the coal is being burned.

You have to get the electricity to the car from the far-away power plant, which means you're going to suffer from transmission loss (e.g. not every watt that is generated is going to make it to your drivetrain).

Finally, we suck at making batteries. They're still big heavy lumps of highly toxic materials that wear out in relatively short amounts of time. What do you do with all the exhausted batteries?

Like everyone, I'm all for making our infrastructure more environmentally- friendly. Sadly, I'm not convinced electric vehicles are anywhere close to where we'd need them to be. I feel like we have a lot of misplaced enthusiasm from people who want to clean up the industrial age a lot sooner than we realistically can.

<comment><USER6> _Electric cars don't reduce pollution_

They most certainly do. Even the latest, most wonderfully advanced gasoline engines are positively filthy compared to a modern coal plant, which is positive filthy compared to a nuclear plant, which is positively filthy compared to a solar/wind/wave plant.

<comment><USER7> You have that last one backwards, nuclear is cleaner than solar/wind/wave, because you are forgetting just how much land those need.

<comment><USER6> How does land use have anything to do with pollution?

<comment><USER7> Because you have to construct them, and it takes a ton of energy to do so. The construction process also produces a lot of waste.

<comment><USER8> You aren't taking into consideration the vast amounts of concrete and steel that go into a nuclear plant, nor the mining and refining of the uranium, nor, for that matter, it's disposal.

Further, I think you are overestimating the impact of building and deploying wind turbines. They may require a lot of land, but their physical footprint is pretty small, and most of the land around them can be used for other purposes, like agriculture.

<comment><USER7> I am taking those into consideration. A nuclear plant produces a tremendous amount of energy for the materials it's made from.

I was doing the math, and this document popped up as a search: [https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:UjtsvTfrOgQJ:...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:UjtsvTfrOgQJ:www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/wind- concrete- steel-07.doc+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShS9RRktG_eNeqbnoTZa_JCkPBNZdqboYOE6i7beemDjgYK4GJc5ZryJJ8i4MxfiO2YK7R87bOBIySvVayW7VC2GcwnxUWIM4zVwVP7LPYJ6blgXqoGy4Ub8FUQv_pkbIdPcYnp&sig=AHIEtbSQTCLuYOK3u4CG37_QbqZXH6EdLw)

So they did the math for me - wind turbines require 60 times as many resources as nuclear. The amount of uranium needed is tiny, very very tiny. And all the uranium ever made can be disposed of in one site, it's not really a lot.

They also require far far more land. I don't just mean how much air space, but the actual tower.

Wind turbines are better than coal, and since we are building lots of coal plants I am all for wind. But they are not better than nuclear - not even close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a resident of Los Angeles, I don't see why we are funding this project ahead of advancing L.A.'s pathetic rail/subway system.

Traffic in L.A. is so bad during rush "hour" (which lasts several hours) that you can't travel by car faster than walking speed. It routinely takes 30+ minutes to travel 3 miles or so. Car is your only option in most locations.

The state would benefit from a solid metro system in L.A. FAR more than one between L.A. and S.F.

I can only hope that this metro will link Downtown L.A. to West L.A. and spur local metro development.

<comment><USER10> > Traffic in L.A. is so bad during rush "hour" (which lasts several hours) > that you can't travel by car faster than walking speed. It routinely takes > 30+ minutes to travel 3 miles or so. Car is your only option in most > locations.

Bicycles? Have you heard of'm?

<comment><USER11> Have you tried to bike from Venice Beach to Silverlake? 90 minutes. Santa Monica to Hollywood? 1 hour.

For long journeys, public transportation.

<comment><USER12> If only there were some way to combine them <http://www.brompton.co.uk/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are only two profitable high-speed rail lines in the ENTIRE WORLD. One in Japan and I believe the other is in France. High speed rail just doesn't make sense especially in the spread out urban centers that make up the US. The last mile problem is huge.

Someone commented on the airports being near capacity. That's only because our air traffic system is horrible. If they updated the system and automated much of it, we could drastically increase capacity since the planes could fly straighter routes instead of the current zig zap pattern and fly much closer together safely. Sadly the air traffic controllers union won't allow the changes since they'll lose jobs in the productivity increase.

<comment><USER14> No, right now the big constraint on air travel is runways.

You need 3,5, or 7 miles between planes depending on size, and that works out to one flight every minute or two per non-conflicting runway. Seattle just completed a third parallel runway, that gives them three simultaneous ops in good weather, and two in bad. Atlanta has 5 or 6 now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >But for many Californians, struggling through a bleak era that has led some people to wonder if the state's golden days are behind it, this project goes to the heart of the state's pioneering spirit, recalling grand public investments in universities, water systems, roads and parks that once defined California as the leading edge of the nation.

well, why don't we return the golden days and invest these billions in the universities, water systems, roads and parks ... And if there some money left - for healthcare and basic school education. That would definitely put CA back on the leading edge of the nation.

<comment><USER16> Invest in roads - presumably for cars powered by oil to drive on?

Now that's a long term vision of the future!

<comment><USER15> >Invest in roads - presumably for cars to drive on powered by oil. Now that's a long term vision of the future!

roads are presumably for wheeled vehicles. Until you can show a good prospects for flying cars, we need roads.

Edit: Despite the lobby and being favored by the political system, the use of fossil fuels in cars is going away. Even today, the 30KW batteries weighting 500kg will get you 150mi range at the price $10-20K - about the price and weight of ICE engine + transmission. The avalanche is starting ... The argument that there is no infrastructure to fill-up the electric cars is BS - the electricity is everywhere, including existing gas stations. Some upgrades may be necessary though - this is exactly minor (compare to the rail system) investment that would provide huge return.

<comment><USER16> To be pulled by horses or mexican immigrants ?

Edit: well you might get the range if you want to drive tiny little Honda golf carts at 30mph. But what about real men that want to drive a 5000hp electric train at 300mph

<comment><USER17> apparently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not a terrible idea, but our Public university system is crumbling on 3 billion a year and Brown wants to invest 98 billion (an average of roughly 4.6 billion a year) on a train.

Sounds like a bad long term strategy to me. Then again, epic public projects are huge sources of pride and tell the world "California is not falling into the past," unlike so many other aspects of a country in mature decline.

I think that free or 1980's level-priced UC education would easily be on par with a train, if not even better; especially what's been said about autonomous driving. For all we know, if states play their hand right, there could be a ton of never-before-seen widespread private fundin for road systems, if this whole autonomous thing takes off.

</comment><comment><USER4> Public transit: more efficient on the macro scale, but less on the micro (individual) scale. Close that gap and you'll have me, and probably a lot of other folks, and not before. As others have mentioned in this thread, perhaps robo-cars can fill that role.

</comment><comment><USER19> My family owns a 320 acre ranch in the valley and one of the proposed rail routes runs right through it. I've yet to hear details on how the state plans to handle compensation.

<comment><USER20> IME the state won't start talking compensation until after the Final Environmental Impact Report has been accepted for your segment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I visited California in 2009 and found it very strange that there wasn't a daily direct train between the two largest cities. Every second day there was a connecting bus between LA and Bakersfield.

Two largest cities in the world's eigth largest economy, and there's no daily train between them. Very odd.

<comment><USER22> San Francisco is not the largest city in the area (San Jose has about 200,000 more people), let alone the state (San Diego has more than San Jose), and has a number of geographical problems with any associated train system between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Because it's at the edge of a peninsula, getting from anywhere else requires fairly significant engineering feats, and due to the slowness of Amtrak, most people don't want to take an 8+ hour train trip; both flying and driving are faster than the train.

<comment><USER21> We may measure city populations differently - where I am, we go by the metropolitan area. Wikipedia lists SF as a metro population of 4 million, San Diego 3, and San Jose only 2.

The bulk of the trip is outside SF though - that 8+ hours has little to do with the very end of the trip... something a bullet train might help with.</comment></comment></comment>


Decide.com Acquired by eBay - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130906/ebay-acquires-price-research-site-decide-com/

<comment><USER2> _The acquisition price was not disclosed, and eBay execs said it is not large enough to require disclosure in a SEC filing._

Does anyone know the minimum acquisition price that would require disclosure? Is it a fixed price, or does it vary by company?

<comment><USER3> It varies by the company. I did a little bit of research and found this quora article. [http://www.quora.com/Mergers-and-Acquisitions-2/For-a- public...](http://www.quora.com/Mergers-and-Acquisitions-2/For-a-public- company-when-does-the-size-of-an-acquisition-have-to-be-disclosed-publicly)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the link! So there isn't a specific number, but it is "material" if the amount is enough that a reasonable person relying on a report would change his opinion based on the inclusion or omission of the disclosure. So a $70 billion company buying a $100 million startup is probably not going to change any opinions, but that same company buying a $12 billion company will.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Facebook really down? - <AUTHOR> http://sitemeer.com/#https://www.facebook.com

<comment><USER2> Answers better [https://downdetector.co.uk/problems/facebook](https://downdetector.co.uk/problems/facebook)

Edit: just wondering how long until downdetecter will go down

<comment><USER3> We are in need of a downdetector downdetector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like collecting downtime for big websites :) [https://timelinee.com/t/aan6iH/](https://timelinee.com/t/aan6iH/)

<comment><USER5> _Facebook theoretically loses about $22,453 for every minute it's down around the globe._

The average yearly programmer salary is generated about every four minutes. Neat.

<comment><USER6> That number seems relatively cheap for me. I guess it's a little over that if it's worldwide, no? Not to mention related values like stock prices, etc...

<comment><USER7> sillysaurus3 said every 4 minutes, meaning the salary would be somewhere between $80k-$90k, which is pretty reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vhost- Does Facebook ever do postmortems?

<comment><USER8> Publicly? Rarely. (Here's an example, though, from 2010: [https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/more- det...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/more-details-on- todays-outage/431441338919))

Internally? Absolutely, for, at minimum, every user-visible outage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ha, right as we pushed some facebook related functionality to test. No wonder the testers all thought it was down.

</comment><comment><USER10> Down in San Francisco. [http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/facebook.com](http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/facebook.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

</comment><comment><USER12> Failed to load resource: net::ERR_CACHE_MISS in portugal

<comment><USER13> That's a Chrome bug, though it's probably still down for you:

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=424599](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=424599)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice that it allows you to share this on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER15> yes it is as far as I can tell. I connect to few of my overseas vpn but it seems to be down there too.

<comment><USER15> Connected from Morroco (Down) Connected from France (Down) Connected from Luxembourg (Down) Connected from Nigeria (Down)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Up here, Austria / EU.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was getting ready to ask the same question. Florida Here...

</comment><comment><USER6> So, how will I procrastinate now? Tumblr, I guess...

</comment><comment><USER18> Down in Boston

</comment><comment><USER19> Down in AU but it's just come back up.

</comment><comment><USER12> \- The world broke. \- The world stopped.

</comment><comment><USER20> Down in Santa Barbara, CA as well

</comment><comment><USER21> Down in southwest FL, 500 error

<comment><USER21> back up, was down for me maybe 30 minutes

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's back (Serbia, EU)

</comment><comment><USER23> Down in Charlotte, NC area.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes Quebec Here

</comment><comment><USER6> It's back

</comment><comment><USER25> Down in France

<comment><USER25> Up in France

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Down in LA.

</comment><comment><USER27> Up in NYC</comment>


From Tape Drives to Memory Orbs, the Data Formats of Star Wars Suck - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-disk-formats-of-star-wars-rogue-one-spoilers/ <comment><USER2> There's nothing wrong with using tape for storage. And nothing wrong with the Empire's storage facility as depicted in Rogue One. I think there's an underlying belief that tape is "old fashioned" which is nonsense.

<comment><USER3> During college I worked as a tape librarian. I thought the tape library scene in Rogue One was delightful, and I think that tape is still a great medium for storing huge amounts of data.

I don't actively follow tape development, but as of a few years ago, tape technology existed that could theoretically hold 185 TB on a standard-size cartridge.</comment></comment>


Caution on macOS 10.12.4: sudo is broken - <AUTHOR> https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20170328_1326-macOS-10_12_4.html <comment><USER2> > The ONLY fix that works is an erase/reinstall and manual reinstall of apps > and data and reconfigure. This can take many hours for advanced users like > me, with a detailed working environment.

This line bugged me a bit, surely if you're a "pro" user, you would have a set of dotfiles and a script to install things from Homebrew.

</comment><comment><USER3> As pointed out in the article, there's probably a state problem here. I don't repro on the one 10.12.4 machine I have. What's really mystifying is that it _eventually_ works (five minutes later), and the author states that nothing networky is involved (the example uses _date_ command). My first guess was that _sudo foobar_ was trying to access $FLAKEY_NETWORK_RESOURCE, but apparently not.

<comment><USER4> I don't see why some failing/timing out network resource was eliminated here. Fwiw, I'm on 10.12.4 as well and see no issues.

Would look at tcpdump or netstat (look for SYN_SENT connections) while sudo is hung. Also suggest hitting ctrl-t a few times while sudo is busy and see what is going on. Can also dtrace sudo and/or whatever dtrace shows sudo is talking to, and you'll eventually find the problem that way for sure (though you might not be able to fix it, but I suspect you will).</comment></comment>


Show HN: Cryptare – Cryptocurrency Portfolio, Alerts and News for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://cryptare.app <comment><USER2> Curious what made you make separate "See it in action!" & "Watch a quick GIF!" buttons that are taking the visitors away from the main landing page to only show an .mp4 & a .gif file? If the videos are too big to autoplay - maybe you could play them on hover, right inside the phone that's already placed next to the buttons? (sorry, no comment on the app itself, there are plenty other ones doing the same thing or maybe I just missed what's it doing differently).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the questions!

So to answer your first question, the reason why I don't autoload the .mp4 and .gif files is, as you said, because of the file size. Your suggestion of playing them on hover right inside the phone is much better than an external link button and I'll definitely update it to support that soon. I haven't implemented it yet just for simplicity.

And you're right, there are a few apps that are trying to tackle the same problem, each in their own way. This means that there already is a good market for this sort of product and that it is expected to grow. What I felt missing in most of them is accuracy, detail or ease of usability or even all of them.

In Cryptare, there is a high emphasis on accuracy for the Portfolio management. For example, when you enter a transaction, you have the option to enter the exchange the transaction was done on. What Cryptare does is that when it calculates the price change, it uses the price directly from the exchange instead of the global market average price (as most other apps do). This reduces the chances of inaccuracies. There are 100+ exchanges supported with all their listed trading pairs and this list keeps growing.

You can compare the prices of a cryptocurrency across exchanges very easily and on a good day this can save 20% on a crypto purchase.

On many other apps, price alert notifications are received with a delay. This is not the case with Cryptare. Exchange-specific alerts are also a highlight.

This is just the start as there are many more features on the list. Web and Android versions are coming soon as well, so cross-platform management would become seamless.</comment></comment>


Microsoft to Google: Please Don't Use Patents to Kill Video on the Web - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2012/02/22/google-please-don-t-kill-video-on-the-web.aspx?Redirected=true

<comment><USER2> _For a $1,000 laptop, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay a royalty of $22.50._ That is 2.25%.

According to reports, that is roughly the royalty percentage Microsoft is getting from Android phone sellers ($5 to $15 per phone $15/$500 = 3%).

<http://www.mobiledia.com/news/107165.html>

<comment><USER3> Linked within that page is also this: <http://www.mobiledia.com/news/104161.html>

_Microsoft Wants to Ban Motorola Phones in U.S._

 _"Motorola is infringing our patents and we are confident that the ITC will rule in our favor," said David Howard, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for litigation._

 _"We are vigorously defending ourselves against Microsoft's patent attack business strategy," said Motorola in a responding statement. "We have also brought legal actions of our own in the U.S. and in Europe to address Microsoft's large scale of infringement of Motorola Mobility's patents."_

He who lives by the sword...

<comment><USER4> I didn't even know that. So they wanted to _ban_ Motorola's products from US, and they complain about Motorola wanting to "only" charge them a little too much? Wow. If I were them I'd be thankful Motorola didn't adopt their own tactic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Motorola and Microsoft _are_ using the same tactics. Both are trying to get injunctions against alleged infringing products:

 _"In legal proceedings on both sides of the Atlantic, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft take its products off the market, or else remove their standards-based ability to play video and connect wirelessly."_

This is a standard move in these patent battles; the same thing happened in the various Apple/Samsung/etc. cases of the past year. I presume the threat of lost sales is meant to motivate the other party to settle quickly (i.e., pay up!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When Google accused them of being patent bullies, Microsoft called Google crybabies. So who's the crybaby now? Not to mention that they are still bullying every single Android manufacturer out there to give them money on a product they didn't make.

So, Microsoft, you probably heard this a few years ago, too, but: _Please don't use patents to kill an open source OS_.

<comment><USER5> Whatever you may think of licensing software patents in general, I hope we can agree that promising to license a standards-essential patent on FRAND terms during a standards process, and then reneging, is considerably worse. I work a lot with standards groups, and I don't think the process could work very well if just any company could add their patented IP to the standard and then sue competitors for injunctive relief based on it. That would be destroying one of the few safe spaces in the patent landscape.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you, but by the same token. MS has been a patent troll for years, the nortel patents is only the most recent case. Oh and look, Google took notice. The shoe is on the other foot and Google is using it as a bargaining chip.

They are telling MS "leave android alone, or we make sure all of YOUR products take a hit. Worst case scenario, we create a massive shit storm, who do you think will lose more? Want to bet your company on patent trolling?"

I am happy they are going after one of the biggest bullies on the playground.

<comment><USER5> Microsoft promised not to abuse any standards-essential patents it acquired from Nortel, while Google refused to make a similar promise.

The US Justice Department said: "During the course of the division's investigation, several of the principal competitors, including Google, Apple and Microsoft, made commitments concerning their SEP licensing policies. The division's concerns about the potential anticompetitive use of SEPs was lessened by the clear commitments by Apple and Microsoft to license SEPs on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, as well as their commitments not to seek injunctions in disputes involving SEPs. Google's commitments were more ambiguous and do not provide the same direct confirmation of its SEP licensing policies." <[http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-at-210.html&#...](http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-at-210.html>).

What has Microsoft done with Nortel's patents that you would count as "patent trolling"? I am not aware of anything they have done that would meet any of the definitions here <[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll>](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll>).

<comment><USER7> Microsoft did make a promise, but they're also trying to have it both ways.

They made a promise about patents that they have made commitments to _standards organizations_ about.

The conveniently fail to say anything about de facto standards that were created by their monopoly power (like FAT and VFAT). Personally, I think those patents on an ill-gotten standard are probably the most powerful in their arsenal with respect to Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I recall Microsoft is using its patents to collect fees from Android licensees, yet here they are trying to make an appeal to the hacker ethos that Google is being anti-competitive. Sounds like they are trying to have things both ways and manipulate us in the process, we shouldn't stand for it.

<comment><USER9> There is a difference between RAND and non-RAND patents, though. H.264 is an ISO standard; stuff like slide-to-unlock isn't.

<comment><USER7> Apple is slide-to-unlock. Microsoft is FAT and VFAT (and other silly obviousness that has been documented in the Barnes & Noble case).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Microsoft has used patents in an anti-competitive manner for years and have lobbied in favor of software patent laws.

As you sow, so shall you reap.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was confused until I read:

"For a $1,000 laptop, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay a royalty of $22.50 for its 50 patents on the video standard, called H.264."

Google (and thus Motorola) wants to increase the use of WebM (instead of H.264) on the web. I see this as a positive thing, even though I am not sure how to feel about the methods used here.

Still the message to Microsoft is clear: Implement WebM so that we can have the same, open-source format across the Internet. Killing H.264 is not the same as killing video on the web.

<comment><USER12> Killing H264 is shortsighted and destructive since at present, there's no way Apple is ever going to drop H264 for WebM. All it accomplishes is fragmenting the web further and hurting end-users.

<comment><USER13> Why wouldn't Apple adopt Webm?

<comment><USER14> First its an inferior codec (particularly when compared to h.264 main or high profile)

Second its unclear if WebM is patent encumbered or not. AFAIK its not yet been tested but if this current battle heats up its likely to come under fire fast.

Third you now have literally millions of mobile devices and other CE devices with built in H.264 hardware video decoders very few with built in WebM.

A lot of folks haven't cared that H.264 is patent encumbered, they pay the licensing fees and go on their way with a very tried and true codec. Until now...

<comment><USER7> I suspect (but can't prove) that WebM is more battle-tested than you think.

It has been shipping in Android phones since Gingerbread and it also ships in Chrome (which comes directly from Google). Those are big, fat juicy targets for anyone who thinks they have a patent that can take WebM down.

No one has even tried. I wonder why? I suppose they might be laying low to get more WebM adoption and more potential damages, but how many millions of infringing instances can you want?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow, way more Microsoft hate here than I expected. We likely all agree on how terrible software patents are. However there _is_ a difference between patents. Microsoft's request for FRAND pricing on patents related to mutually created industry standard protocols does not seem unreasonable to me.

<comment><USER16> I'm curious, why? The patents Microsoft is suing others over (for example, B&N) are all very general and necessary to implement a modern OS. Just comparing the patents to the ones Microsoft is crying foul over here, both sets of patents seem about the same - general, of dubious quality, but necessary to implement a modern OS.

The fact that some of those patents happened to have a committee around them earlier (and some deals in the committee regarding future use of the patents), is a quirk of history. In all fairness, all of these patents should be licensed under FRAND terms (or better) today, or none.

<comment><USER17> The difference is that with one set of patents, the owner of the patents asked for them to be included in standards, and promised to license then on fair and reasonable terms to anyone who wished to implement the standards. That did not happen with the other set.

<comment><USER16> But regardless of that promise, both sets of patents are necessary today to implement modern OSes. Why should one of them be usable to extort huge sums and the other not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Live by the sword, die by the sword.

</comment><comment><USER19> What Googlerola is doing here really isn't all that far off from what Rambus did a few years back with JEDEC. That was a good time and a half.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why is HN that is against patents in general now seems supportive of Motorola ? Am I missing something or is this patent supposed to be the "good" patent ?

<comment><USER21> we're supportive in watching MS get what it's dishing out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Kill video on the web. Maybe then the artifice of software patents will come tumbling down.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hey, at least they said "Please".</comment>


Internet Explorer 9: Platform Preview - <AUTHOR> http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive <comment><USER2> Certainly looks as though Microsoft are finally willing to try to take on the competition (they are actually flaunting the progress of ACID3, and posting benchmarks).

In fact, its interesting that their new engine is so fast. Its going to get very interesting, especially since personally, I couldn't give a damn about supporting unfinalised standards the ACID3 tests (in fact, one of the ACID3 tests can't be passed 100% of the time anyway).

Speed is important, and since a lot of applications use the IE engine, maybe this will speed up some other applications as well.

Btw, I can confirm their sunspider benchmark.. Their preview does run faster than Firefox on my system (although, unsure if my addons are having an impact on that, or external causes). As its just a preview, it should only be taken with a grain of salt anyway..

<comment><USER3> I don't think anyone has ever questioned Microsoft's ability to take on the competition - or even beat the competition as they did in the Netscape wars. Rather, I think we're permanently jaded against the IE browser not because of its technical merits or flaws, but because they let it go stagnant.

Knowing that people using Windows 2000 are stuck with IE6 - despite the fact that their machine still suits their needs - is why we need to continue to push people away from IE. Even if IE9 is amazing.

Firefox 3.6 STILL works on Windows 2000 ([http://www.mozilla.com/en- US/firefox/system-requirements.htm...](http://www.mozilla.com/en- US/firefox/system-requirements.html)). Until Microsoft releases a browser we know isn't going to put us in the "I can't upgrade past IE6" situations that we hear about, I'll proudly support everything that isn't Internet Explorer.

(Note: Has anyone ever tried to submit a bug report to Microsoft? It is impossible! I even put together <http://crashie8.com/> as a proof of concept, and I still can't get anyone to acknowledge the problem!)

<comment><USER4> I think we should all take a moment to thank Google for making Chrome and get all browser developers to get out of their collective ass and do something to fix their broken browsers. The amount of improvement and works going on the top 4 browsers since Chrome was released is really amazing. IE 7-8 were half- assed job to counter Firefox's popularity.

Even Firefox is getting their act together and their next release is very much inspired by chrome.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. But I find it amazing that a browser that has roughly a 5% user share has had so much impact. I surmise that it's really the weight of the company behind Chrome that has scared its competitors more than the adoption of the browser itself.

<comment><USER6> The marketshare in the general public (the 5%) is almost inconsequential. The general public doesn't build websites for a living. The marketshare amongst tech professionals is more significant, and there Chrome's numbers are much higher. More so, Chrome's marketshare, even among the general public, is growing quickly, only a fool would ignore the significance of that.

Also, marketshare is not necessarily the primary motivator for every developer. A lot of the Firefox developers are motivated to put the best browser possible out there, regardless of marketshare, the fact that there is a leaner, meaner, faster browser even exists (even if the marketshare was less than 1%) might be enough motivation for them to innovate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the FAQ:

Does Platform Preview replace my current Internet Explorer?

No, it does not, though it does share some settings with your existing Internet Explorer intsallation. One of the best features of Platform Preview is that it installs side-by-side with earlier versions of Internet Explorer and any other browser(s) on your computer.

<comment><USER8> While I'm glad to see this, it flies in the face of their previous position that side-by-side IE was impossible.

<comment><USER9> Maybe their previous position was entirely accurate for older versions of IE.

<comment><USER10> <http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE>

It is possible, but a bit of a hack.

<comment><USER11> better version

IE 1,2,3,4,5,5.5,6,7,8+Dev Toolbar

<http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm>

<comment><USER9> this is slick. thanks for the link; i have never seen this before!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Finally, somebody implemented border-radius without throwing a prefix in front of it. I get tired of all the -moz and -wekit prefixes.

<comment><USER13> Does this mean that webkit and mozilla are going to drop the prefix? What's the point of the prefixes to begin with?

<comment><USER14> Because you get yelled at for doing a blink tag, but it's fine to do a moz- blink tag.

The problem is when browser #2 wants to implement blink. They shouldn't use your prefix, so they now have webkit-blink. And the HTML writer now needs to sniff the browser.

Progress?

<comment><USER15> These are CSS properties, not HTML elements. There is no need to sniff; you just provide multiple properties.

p.wibble { -moz-blink: slowly; -webkit-blink: 10%; -ie9-blink: "Microsoft.XML.Autocompositor(alpha=99,blinkrate=14692,emulate-old-ie- versions=false,true,true,false)#ie9" }

or whatever. (In practice everyone who provides these properties does so in a very similar manner, so it's easier than the above pseudosnippet suggests.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aside from all the meta-discussion about MS and IE in the abstract, my opinion on this platform preview:

I'm extremely unimpressed. Judging by the absence of a location bar and settings menu this appears to be more of a demo than a pre-release application preview. This is very disappointing when measured against MS's other previews, betas, etc. (Windows betas and RCs, Visual Studio CTPs, even previous IE betas) and outright pathetic compared to, say, Chrome's dev-channel releases (which are release quality by the standards of this industry).

Speed was unimpressive on my system compared to Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Acid3 performance was also unimpressive as I had to force IE9 document mode via the debug menu in order to achieve even a score of 39. One of the important aspects of the acid tests is that the browser be in the default configuration when visiting the test page. Just because there's some magical "improve standards compliance" button on IE doesn't mean that the browsing experience for everyday users will increase, somehow every other browser manages this problem just fine, yet IE always struggles with it. Perhaps they'll fix it by release, if we're lucky.

The supported features are refreshing but nothing that multiple other browsers haven't supported for a while.

Once again IE is trying to play catch-up and once again they are doing so slower than the other browsers are pulling ahead. It's good to see IE improving its feature-set, standards compliance, and performance, but at this point IE9 is racing the clock against irrelevancy. By the time IE9 is released its implementation of several years old technology may seem quaint.

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone know what the word is on WebSockets?

<comment><USER17> Websockets are something I long dreamed about : bidirectional HTTP, no more stupid AJAX polling tricks.

<comment><USER18> Yeah now you just have to deal with this stupidity:

Send the following bytes:

               0D 0A

did that work? ok send the following bytes:

               57 65 62 53 6F 63 6B 65  74 2D 50 72 6F 74 6F 63
               6F 6C 3A 20

etc: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie- thewebsocketprotocol...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie- thewebsocketprotocol-54)

<comment><USER19> No, you don't need to. Try putting this in a hex editor. You'll see a http handshake. The first part you need to send is "GET " which is the same as sending the following bytes: "47 45 54 20". It's just made a bit "simpler" so people don't get the encoding wrong (non-ascii characters, etc...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hate to be conspiracy-theory-guy, but deep down, I feel that the rate at which IE becomes compliant is tied to Silverlight's market penetration. The move to open standards on the web will only truly come when MS feels like it has sufficient control over a different proprietary technology.

<comment><USER19> Uhm, off-topic much? I mean, Silverlight isn't linked to IE9 in any way. Silverlight is a plugin, like flash. It will work in Firefox too, but isn't installed by default. I don't see the link between IE9 (which gives web developpers the possibility to make interactive websites WITHOUT plugins) and Silverlight (a plugin).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> All this highlights is their complacency up until now. Competition should never have been the thing that stirred them into making a browser that wasn't dire, it should have been a matter of course.

Imagine if they had to fight for operating system dominance.

</comment><comment><USER22> IE 9 will not support XP. Now take that to the IE 6 user-base. Ref: [http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5572&tag=col1;post-5...](http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5572&tag=col1;post-5572)

</comment><comment><USER23> No mention of WOFF? So we're stuck with EOT?

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's the developer guide: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/ff468705.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's what would make my day: an announcement by MS that they will force- upgrade all users to IE9 from IE6,7 and 8. Goodbye clunky images + css + javascript hacks, hello lovely design.

</comment><comment><USER26> It'll be nice to see independent verification of their SunSpider benchmarks but if they hold up that's very good news.

</comment><comment><USER27> hmm, in viewing HN from the IE9 platform preview it centers all the text which is promising ;)

</comment><comment><USER28> This is a step in the right direction but it obsoletes any windows/IE computer earlier than Vista SP2.

Considering the amount of resources used by Vista, I think all speed improvements of this browser would only be realized if you're already dedicating lots of processing power to OS overhead.

<comment><AUTHOR> While the hardware acceleration will only be available on modern Windows, there's a good chance IE9 will come out for Windows XP too. (The lack of hardware acceleration on non-modern Windows is something that Firefox will face too once it flips on the D2D switch by default.)

> I think all speed improvements of this browser would only be realized if > you're already dedicating lots of processing power to OS overhead.

That's really not how operating systems work. CPU and RAM are rather orthogonal.

<comment><USER28> _That's really not how operating systems work. CPU and RAM are rather orthogonal._

1) click on start menu 2) wait 3 seconds for it to respond and open 3) click on icon for browser 4) wait 15 seconds for it to respond 5) wait 5 seconds for it to render the default home page 6) type in desired url and wait 3 seconds for it to download and render.

It doesn't matter if the new IE browser is faster than firefox, since any computer that is powerful enough to run Vista in the first place will probably not take a noticeable amount of time to render a page in Firefox.

The above is an example of the vista user experience on a slower computer. That same computer could (running linux) load google chrome and open the desired page in 1 second each.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It doesn't matter if the new IE browser is faster than firefox, since any > computer that is powerful enough to run Vista in the first place will > probably not take a noticeable amount of time to render a page in Firefox.

Probably not, but hardware acceleration makes a ton of difference in responsiveness (it pushes a lot of things below that 100ms barrier where you feel that things happen instantaneously). Try out a Firefox 3.7a3pre nightly on a Windows Vista SP2 or 7 computer, enable Direct2D, and see for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How about making a Mac version?

I probably wouldn't use it, but the more browser choice, the better (healthy competition pushing everybody to do better).

Apple has Safari for windows, it would make sense for Microsoft to do something similar...

<comment><USER30> Why would it make sense? Would any Mac user use IE? How many Windows users use Safari? Not many I'd wager.

<comment><USER29> The whole point is that browsers should stand on their own and not be part of the OS, no?

If IE becomes really good, it should be judged on its own merit and maybe some people on the Mac platform would want to use it.

I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but I know that when there's healthy competition on a platform, everybody wins. I'd love to see the IE guys try to make a better browser than others, and not just on windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Nice work zaatar and team!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's certainly fast, but the lack of <canvas> is disappointing.

<comment><USER32> But it should support SVG. I'm not convinced canvas is the greatest in-browser rendering option for many of the things web devs want to do anyhow like click handlers and simple animations. There is a reason why many browser-based vis libraries are switching over to SVG (and VML in older IEs).

<comment><USER33> There's always been separate use-cases for pixel and vector-based graphics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> lol Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER35> _Interested in checking out the new Web platform capabilities of Internet Explorer 9?_

Honest question?

No. Not at all. All _I_ am interested in is: Can you _please_ ship it with chrome frame pre-installed.

<comment><USER32> Browser competition is a good thing. If Microsoft released the fastest standards compliant browser and became the industry leader (from a standars perspective) tomorrow I would be happy. I don't care what OS you run on your computer or which browser you choose. All I care about is my bits are displayed as intended and I find that IE makes that task significantly harder to accomplish. If my life could be made easier by a new MS browser, and other's browsing experiences improved, I'm all for it.

<comment><USER36> Sure. But there's a much simpler and more foolproof way to get your bits displayed properly to everyone who buys a new windows machine (which of course are just about the only non-developers who will get ie9):

Scrap IE, start shipping windows with Opera, Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Let the crappy existing versions die off slowly and focus on improving the mediocre operating system rather than reinventing the wheel with a consistently inferior and uncooperative browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> > (which of course are just about the only non-developers who will get ie9):

Why so?

<comment><USER36> Historical evidence. Firstly, IE users are less likely to care enough to upgrade a browser, for the same reason they didn't care enough to look for a better one. Namely, it doesn't really matter to them and they're unaware of why it should. Secondly, Microsoft is a lot less pushy about software updates than other browser vendors.

IE7 came out 4 years ago (and then IE8 two years later), but despite what an enormous improvement it was to IE6, we're only now seeing IE6 finally start to fade away. IE6 usage didn't drop below half of all IE usage until around June 2009. By comparison, Firefox 3 had more than double the usage of FF2 within 3 months of its debut. Chrome shows even better (in fact, absurdly fast) adoption rates.

All this source StatCounter: [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww- monthly-200807...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww- monthly-200807-201003)

Add in corporations hesitant to update IE in the workplace, and you've got the IE stick-around-forever problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> But that still doesn't provide evidence that people buying a new computer are the only non-developers who will get IE9. You need to demonstrate that upgrades from IE6 to 7/8 are non-existent.

In fact, I'd say the fact that IE7 has dropped below IE8 is evidence that people on IE _do_ upgrade, and that the people on IE6 are only on it because they need it.

<comment><USER36> I'm counting on common sense interpretations here. Obviously it's not the case that there are NO EXAMPLES of 7->8 upgrades. I'm suggesting that it's very much an exception rather than a rule. I don't have the energy to dig up the stats demonstrating a correlation between purchases of new computers and browser version market share. It's probably there, maybe it isn't. Whether that's the cause is immaterial though because the point remains: new IE versions tend to be adopted very slowly.

And I would point out the enthusiastic reception of Win7 (comes with IE8) compared to the chilly reception of Vista (came with IE7) as evidence that browser adoption is correlated with sales of new computers (or more specifically, new OS's. Keep in mind a lot of Vista machines were sold with downgrade packs).

And yes, Chrome auto-updates. That's part of my point about Microsoft being less pushy with their updates than other vendors.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm suggesting that it's very much an exception rather than a rule.

I think the opposite is true. I don't have hard data to back up my thoughts, but the fact that IE8 is above IE7 seems suggestive.

> I don't have the energy to dig up the stats demonstrating a correlation > between purchases of new computers and browser version market share. It's > probably there, maybe it isn't.

So you're retracting your statement, then? I'm asking because you seemed to lack any sort of doubt when you made it, going to the length of using _of course_.

> Whether that's the cause is immaterial though because the point remains: new > IE versions tend to be adopted very slowly.

I agree (relative to other browsers at least), but this is certainly _not_ what you stated in your original post.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Keyboard Ghosting Demonstration – Microsoft Applied Sciences Group - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/content/projects/KeyboardGhostingDemo.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> This can also test for N-key rollover if you can get more than 10 keys (6 standard + 4 modifier keys) at once.</comment>


Leadership Is a Gift Given by Those Who Follow - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/leadership_is_a_gift_given_by.html <comment><AUTHOR> Some of the best advice I've seen on leadership. Anyone looking to lead others in high risk activities (like start ups) can learn from this. Key lessons I took away (in addition to the title): Always keep your promise and Everyone has a story.</comment>


Let's just say it: 3D TV is a joke.  - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2010/09/03/3d-tv/ <comment><USER3> Even 1080p isn't really working yet. All systems I've seen out of high-end post production gear (yes, that includes broadcasting gear) have visual timing problems. Maybe I'm biased because I've worked in professional video and TV for too long, but I'm tired of seeing gradually worse quality becoming the norm (compression artifacts, poor color, bad timing, poor sound sync are more and more common) because apparently quantity trumps quality.

So what's the last trend in "quantity trumps quality"? Adding a 3d dimension of course! I've looked at some 3D streams during the World Cup, just to check, on my 2D set. How does this work? Simple, halved horizontal resolution. Oh, BTW it's 720p, so that means actual resolution is 640x720. 5% more pixels than good ol' PAL, that's basically a step back to low def. Hu.

Did I mentioned that the first time the industry tried to impose 3D on an unwilling public was in 1958, with Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder"? Wow, now that's a _new_ technology!

<comment><USER4> 640x720 _PER EYE_ ; you still get a 720p amount of pixels, your brain just has to combine them; which it does in spades.

<comment><USER3> When I look at 2D 720p, I see 1280x720 per eye too... When you encode a new information with the same bandwidth, there must be a trade-off.

<comment><USER4> Take a look at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_problem> . The reduction in fidelity to provide depth perception isn't nearly 1/2 the pixels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A couple of wagers:

The Nintendo 3DS will be a massive driver for stereoscopic gaming, both in increasing demand for it and in creating a base of knowledge amongst developers on how to make use of stereoscopy.

Gaming or porn (probably gaming) will put stereoscopic displays in a lot of living rooms. We're well on our way to critical mass in terms of distribution.

Over the next 10 years or so, stereoscopy will fade into the background, in much the same way as stereo or surround sound has - some people will ignore it completely, others will be fanatical about it, but it will be a normal part of the film-making process.

We've been here before with sound. Listen to early stereophonic records and you'll hear what we're seeing now with stereoscopy - crudely exaggerated balances designed to show off the technology. "Revolver" by The Beatles is a good example - the record is quite uncomfortable to listen to on headphones because tracks are panned hard left or right, creating a completely artificial sound. Classical recordings sounded good in stereo quite quickly because the engineers just stuck two microphones in front of an orchestra, but pop records took a lot of development to sound natural and pleasing, most significantly the development of good stereo reverb.

Likewise in stereoscopy, we're currently seeing stereoscopic images with a hugely exaggerated depth effect, partly to show off the technology, partly because the technology and technique still needs to mature. We have films not shot stereoscopically being rendered to 3d, stereoscopic images being digitally 'widened' and all sorts of other shenanigans. There just isn't a body of technique for stereoscopic cinematography, so directors and DPs are struggling to figure it out.

I reject the argument that stereoscopy will fail now because it has failed previously. We now have a critical mass of technology that has massively reduced the cost of filming, editing and exhibiting stereoscopic pictures. We have overcome most of the significant technical problems, although this is not evenly distributed yet. This time around, stereoscopy is a big deal precisely because it won't be a big deal for very long.

<comment><USER6> > "Revolver" by The Beatles is a good example - the record is quite > uncomfortable to listen to on headphones because tracks are panned hard left > or right, creating a completely artificial sound.

The Beatles were only preset for the mono mixing of most of their albums; they were not there for stereo mixes of albums like "Revolver." This probably just reinforces what you're saying, but I would like to think if they were around when the stereo version was mixed there wouldn't be as much hard panning. I believe they mixed "Abbey Road" in stereo and the mixing vastly better.

<comment><USER7> Alan Parsons did become rather well-known for his abilities as an audio engineer.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 3D's just fine. I'm sure it'll sell a bunch of TV's the same way printing 'MEGA-BASS" on boomboxes and hooking the crossover to a little switch sold those in the 80's.

They can have their 3d. Just please, _please_ don't make the 2d experience worse in order to shoehorn this nonsense into what should just be passive wall monitors. If there must be 3d on most tvs, _please provide an easy way to turn it off_.

<comment><USER9> One thing I noticed was that when sport is being broadcast in 3d, they will use some completely useless camera angles which have lots of people at different distances. Although I don't watch a lot of sport, I've only noticed this in games where they are available in 3d.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem with 3D TV adoption:

      -Lack of 3D content
      -Lack of 3D TV standards - which causes the previous problem.
      -Increased cost
      -Decreased 2D quality
      -Extra equipment required for some implementations

If 3D TV had a single standard that content producers could use to create their 3D content, and if consumers could watch it on TVs that required no extra equipment, and if the vast majority of 2D content still looked good on 3D displays, AND if the cost is not prohibitive, then 3D TV will have a shot at thriving in the market. As it stands right now, I think the best application for 3D displays is in specialized research and design, and limited consumer experiences (Avatar, shows at Disneyland, etc.).

<comment><USER11> _Lack of 3D TV standards - which causes the previous problem._

That's not true - there is a 3D broadcast standard. There's no standard glasses/TV interface, but that is a separate problem

 _Decreased 2D quality_

There's no reason why 3D TVs should have decreased 2D quality. IF they do that's a problem with the current implementations, but something that is fixable.

I think the only hope for 3D TV is gaming. Everything else seems pointless to me.

<comment><USER10> You're right about the 3D standards. Creating raw 3D content is one thing - use two cameras at perspectives that mimic the human eyes. I think I meant to say that the standards for publishing weren't there. You could release a 3D film for one standard, and it would be useless on another. It seems similar to the HD DVD and BluRay problem. The filming wasn't an issue, it was choosing which standard to package it with that was causing the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a lazy eye, so 3D doesn't work on me, so I upvoted this on principle.

I refuse to bow down to my stereoscopic overlords.

<comment><USER13> I do too. My friends always want to go to 3d movies and are confused when I refuse to go. It takes me about 5 - 10 minutes to explain that while they're seeing 3d, I'm seeing a 2d movie tinted red.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, I certainly do get some of the effect but don't find it very pleasant to watch. Like when they float the subtitles right in format of you, it almost hurts my eyes.

<comment><USER15> It probably does hurt your eyes. You're perceiving an object at a certain distance away, but your eyes have to focus on a fixed plane against all their training,

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The real problem with 3D video is that it requires a lot of production work to get right. You can't just record in 3D and expect it to work. You have to carefully manage focal length. And when it comes right down to it, it only adds things to carefully crafted shots like the bioluminescent plants in Avatar, or the birds flying through hallelujah mountains.

And the fact is 90% of television doesn't have visuals that are going to benefit from that. The remaining 10%, few people will miss it when it's gone. There just isn't a huge value proposition for most styles of video, and there's not a clear case that 3D video is a superior art form to 2D, it just costs more and takes more production time.

<comment><USER17> >>The real problem with 3D video is that it requires a lot of production work to get right.

This, it should be pointed out, is going to be the dominant problem, making 3d that doesn't make your eyes bleed is hard. It's also why 3d porn is unlikely to take off anytime soon, porn isn't in the business of high production values and carefully thought out cinematography. It will end up with people's eyes hurting after 5 minutes of constantly re focusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think like many other nascent entertainment technologies, the first really profitable use cases for this could be porn and gaming.

<comment><USER19> Social location-based porn gaming...app.

<comment><USER20> Yes, disrupt that space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "As a medium, 3D remains remarkably self-trivializing. Virtually nobody who works with it can resist thrusting stuff at the camera, just to make clear to viewers that they're experiencing the miracle of the third dimension."

Reminds me of a film class a took. The professor explained how when prerecorded sound was first introduced into film, the movies ended up people just talking to each other. It took some time for them to get over the novelty of the technology and use it artfully.

But I agree. 3D is way over-marketed and overhyped.

</comment><comment><USER22> I also think that this is a fad - and only industry fad if I may add. I don't believe that people will start throwing out their 2D HD sets just because of 3D.

It's unpractical - this is the worst. I can't imagine sitting in my living room watching the stupid TV with stupid 3D glasses.

But I kinda like the emergence of 3D sets - because it will probably bring down prices on 2D sets, which is good. And I guess that people might start buying 3D sets - if they phase out 2D sets and not increase the price too much. But people buying and using stuff - that's completely different on the other side - I divine that entertainment industry will try to charge even more for 3D movies than what they charge for already overpriced 2D movies - <USER2> that certainly WILL kill 3D.

And also it is interesting to see corporate drones all droning to the same failed hype.

Call me when the holo-TV is ready. kthxbye

<comment><USER23> > It's unpractical - this is the worst. I can't imagine sitting in my living > room watching the stupid TV with stupid 3D glasses.

I believe that the argument for "radio > tv" sounded very similar. People said that it would require doing stupid things like sitting and concentrating on what's on the screen, instead of "just listening".

<comment><USER22> Similar, maybe - but spending evenings on couch with polarization glasses on my nose, enduring headaches really seems way more unpleasant to me :)

If you're after an analogy - people have been trying to build various 3D mouses for quite some time now and this one ([http://www.ecal.ch/ra&d_mandats.php?id=521&lang=en](http://www.ecal.ch/ra&d_mandats.php?id=521&lang=en)) seems in the same league as 3D TV - regarding inconvenience to the user.

I have a similar opinion about speech recognition as interface. Why would I want to talk to a computer ("Turn on the Lights!") - when it ought to just "recognize" that I'd like more lighting - so I'm just gonna wait for Brain- Computer Interfaces and Holo-TV :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought the iPad was a joke, and by all accounts it seems to be a success, so I'm wary of judging a product's future success based on my own personal opinions.

<comment><USER25> The iPad is a joke. I've yet to see a normal person owning one (But then I don't live in the valley either).

It's a toy for people who have more money than they know what to do with.

<comment><USER26> I raise your anecdotal evidence with my anecdotal evidence.

I know 5 people personally who own iPads. All are over 30, two are male, 3 are female and all except 1 are what I'd consider "normal" people (non tech type people). I also happened to sit behind two people using them on the train on Friday. Oh, and I'm most definitely not in the valley.

<comment><USER27> Evidence from Asia:

I saw about 5 Kindles and around 10 iPads on my last flight.

There was a huge lineup in a store selling iPads and iPhone 4G's for a big markup in HK.

People are loving those products and buying them. Definitely premium goods, but there is no denying the popularity of these items.

It is easy to doubt these premium goods like 3D TV's and iPads...but there are a huge number of people who replace their phone every 6 months and their TV every 2 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 3D TV could work if producers showed restraint and only used it to add depth behind the frame, instead of throwing stuff at the audience for effect. Clipping of objects thrown towards you really kills the experience for me.

I think it will work for sports and nature shows. In the same way BBC's Planet Earth is great in HD I think some future production of the same kind will work great in 3D. Let's face it, that is basically what Avatar is – a gorgeous nature show set on an alien planet. At least that was the best part of it for me.

</comment><comment><USER29> So far my main complain looking at 3D films have been:

1- They are darker and therefore you lose some details, simply because polarised glasses cut half of the light

2- But most of all every time something is coming towards me in the film is impressive only until it reaches the edge of the screen... at which point I get one massive reminder that I am watching a film and not reality and it completely kills my suspension of disbelief. Maybe with time I'll get use to it, but so far I've been much more aware that I was in a cinema when watching 3D... ironically it was a lot less _immersive_. ;)

Where I do think it can have a positive effect is either where the film maker makes careful use not to go beyond the screen's size (for example "How to train a dragon" was quite nice in 3D because of all the dogfighting which was a lot clearer in 3D), or in sports where the director can be sure the ball and the players will stay within a certain area.

<comment><USER27> Avatar was brilliantly glowing and didn't feel dark at all. Am I the only one?

<comment><USER30> It's harder to tell when you watch just 3d because eyes can adapt pretty well to low light.

I removed my 3d glasses while watching the Avatar to check how it looks. It was indeed much brighter and afterwards 3d felt quite dim (for some time, till my eyes didn't adapt again).

Brighter 2d felt right and 3d was dim as opposed to 3d feeling normal and 2d being too bright.

It's a bit like changing between good desktop LCD and notebook. If you work just on notebook, it feels perfectly ok, but if you have it side by side with a good monitor, it looks quite bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Peoples expectations for 3D TV is a bit higher than some illusion produced by wearing some glasses staring directly at the correct angle at a flat screen.

I'll look at 3D TV when it is similar to a Star Wars 3D hologram. I don't think I'm alone. No one wants to pay extra for glasses and watch a faux 3D illusion.

<comment><USER32> _No one wants to pay extra for glasses and watch a faux 3D illusion._

Really? Because I remember a lot of people here a few months ago saying that you were wasting your money if you _didn't_ pay extra to see Avatar in 3D.

Personally, I agree with you. I hate 3D movies. I'll go out of my way to see the non-3D version. But, there's plenty of people willing to pony up the extra $4 for it.

<comment><USER33> I think it works better on the cinema.

The cinema is and should be kind of an alternative reality. You enter this large, dark room and from now on you're in an artificial fantasy. Wearing goggles almost adds to the experience.

Your living room is something different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Agree. The Star Wars sequence where Luke and Obi-Wan plays the "you're my only hope"-message from Princess Leia would look so much less cool if they were forced to wear 3D goggles. Now where's the holograms?

</comment><comment><USER34> Sports is the thing that's going to sell 3D TVs and there's no mention of it in the article. The broadcasters are investing a lot in their live sports 3D tech and it looks good.

<comment><USER35> I couldn't agree more. I checked out the directv sample at the Sony booth last CES and both football and soccer looked amazing. Sports will be a massive driver.

I can see 3d TVs starting their life in man caves all over the world. I'm not sure they'll move out of the cave up to the living room, but who knows once people get used to them.

I also think there'll be a lot of improvement on the eyewear situation.

<comment><USER36> Man caves: So porn should help sports to drive adoption?

<comment><USER35> I would bet porn will be a pretty big driver of 3d as well, but man cave doesn't necessarily refer to porn. Man Cave = basement where you get away from the family (for good or bad) for a couple of hours and watch your hockey/football/soccer/golf/nascar/whatever.

I love the term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have to disagree: my Dad bought a 3D TV about 2 months ago, and with the LCD shutter glasses the visual quality is good and it is a lot of fun (at least we all enjoyed the few movies my Dad had). My Dad makes his own blu-ray videos, is totally into video editing,is very fussy about quality, and likes the new TV for regular blu-ray viewing.

About 16 years ago in our SAIC virtuality lab (we made a few prototype race car simulators, starting with taking 3 days of lessons at Laguna Seca from NASCAR drivers) we had LCD shutter glasses to experiment with and even back then the quality was stunning.

Before you diss on 3D TV, try watching a movie in a comfortable home setting with friends and see how much fun you have.

</comment><comment><USER38> Some 3D is admittedly bad. Some is terrible, such as when someone incorrectly swaps the L and R images. But when 3D is done right you aren't looking at a screen any more. For me at least, with 3D games, what I have instead is a window to another world, a window that things can come through. A window that makes me feel like a giant with little people playthings that jump at my command... plus playing a tomb raider game in 3D is just awesome.

</comment><comment><USER39> The medium is great, but the current implementations are v0.1 alphas. Unfortunately, marketing will buff and shine, or attempt to, until reality bites.

As they say in the music business, "You can't polish a turd".

Now, v2.0 should be interesting, when the goggles and the crappy picture have been axed, and the content isn't focused on the "gee whiz".

</comment><comment><USER27> I just saw the latest 3D TV (no glasses required) demo'd in HK.

Every previous 3D TV looked like garbage. This one seemed to add a new level of depth to the movie without being blurry or looking ridiculous.

It is coming, and it is stupid to ignore it. People love 3D movies and 3D tv too, and the market will drive the products.

</comment><comment><USER40> Let's all hope that 3D television with expensive, goofy spectacles is to 2010 what Laserdisc was to the 80's.

<comment><USER41> The crazy part about laserdisc? You had to get up and flip the disc over halfway through the movie!

<comment><USER42> I remember Laserdisc mostly as the thing that almost killed the BBC Domesday Project: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The real question for me is why so much 3D TV and more importantly, why now??

Are they only trying to make things more difficult to copy a movie? Or just another excuse to have people purchase new hardware as the cycle for HD is not even over? Or is it a reason to justify HD and put those extra pixels to use?

</comment><comment><USER44> The so called 3D TV on today's market is really 2D x 2. Sometimes it's even 3D for one spot, one person only.

I guess real 3D, or holographic TV could be rotated at any POV like in-game cameras.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1127195>

<comment><USER36> It would probably be enough to make it as 3D as a theatre. Theatre scenes do not have to look good from behind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> 3D TV right now is badly used in everything EXCEPT animated features.

Pixar does 3D right. Toy Story, Up, etc benefit greatly from 3D and it is used well.

Non-animated shows haven't yet figured out how to use it. But they will. And when they do 3D TVs will become the norm.

</comment><comment><USER46> The author mentions blurriness and ghosting; I must say, with the Sony and Panasonic demos in stores, I noticed no such problems. And it would be pretty nice for games. The glasses and lack of content are a real drawback, though.

<comment><USER47> I tried the Samsung products in the store, and they were perfect. I ended up buying a cheaper Samsung model (one that wasn't on display) and the ghosting is really bad.

Is it the TV? Is it my environment? I dunno. But I wasn't willing to pay twice the price to go up to the next set, and I really, really like 3D, so I kept mine. When the next generation comes out, and they've got things worked out a little better, I'll likely buy one of the better sets.

I enjoy the 3D on it, but it could be better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> We just finished our first 3D commercial production (airs on ESPN3D this weekend) and it felt a little hoakey the whole time, but damned if it didn't look really cool in the end. I hope someone enjoys it cause I'm not buying one.

</comment><comment><USER43> No one seem to mention one of the things that annoy me the most with 3D movies: the focus. If you are looking at something different than what the director wants or expects you to look at, it all blurry because its out of focus.

</comment><comment><USER49> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11178043>

I'm skeptical just like this reporter, but at the same time, I would really like to see 3D more widely available.

</comment><comment><USER50> I dunno, I think three dimensional video is an exciting medium once creators get over the novelty factor. It's going to be quite popular once the technology for glasses free displays are in homes.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'll only buy it if the dial goes up to 11.

</comment><comment><USER52> hi guys, first post here.

As it stands now, 3D tv is going to be a flash in the pan. Advancements in tech is about making things easier, not more difficult/annoying to use.

Having to wear ($200) glasses to watch tv takes all the ease out of it, and as silencio mentioned, is pointless when watching a movie/game with friends.

<comment><USER35> I hear you but I think it depends on the situation. Headphones can be annoying but it sounds so much better. You don't wear them at a party but there are still plenty of situations where you do.

<comment><USER52> True, but the benefits of having personal, portable music outweigh the annoyance of having to wear headphones. And as you said, you don't wear them in social situations, which is exactly what will be required with 3D tv. It is in effect like having a party and making everyone wear headphones.

Sure, it might sound better, but is it worth the hassle?

<comment><USER35> Yeah I don't think it's great for the social TV watching. But plenty of people also watch TV solo, and play video games solo, etc.

The effect is pretty astounding in sports and video games, which might be enough to get away from the nerd stigma and maybe even make it a must have for some people.

I don't think it's a fad this time. This article didn't even cover the main attractions, which makes me think the author is either ignorant of the topic he's covering, or he's biased.

I'm personally not a huge pusher of 3d tv. In fact I'll probably wait until it's more mainstream and prices have dropped before I grab one. But yes, after seeing sports and video games in 3d at CES I will definitely get one eventually. Hopefully with more comfortable and less nerdy eyewear (just a matter of time before Oakley designs a set).

<comment><USER52> True. I for one would also love to play games in 3D. I always tend to think of sports as more of a social viewing event though, but I guess there are many people who watch it on their own.

It will be interesting to see how it goes, but I'm still not convinced it will be the next big thing. I guess that's partially because overall I don't find it that exciting.

<comment><USER35> One thing to keep in mind is that the eyewear is bound to get better, and won't be that limiting in terms of social situations. Do you socialize with sunglasses on? I do often enough, so why can't the 3d eyewear be framed the same way?

I agree that it's not necessarily the _next big thing_ , but I definitely think there's a market for it, and it's not a fad as the article suggests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> 3D is the future. Even if these first attempts aren't perfect, we will get there.

<comment><USER54> So, why is it the future? Is it the future because it's a huge improvement over current technology, presenting compelling reasons to move over to it, or is it the future because everything thinks that it's the next big thing, to make people buy stuff again, and produce an ongoing revenue stream in the form of horribly expensive glasses needed for it to work?

<comment><USER50> Because binocular vision represents one ofthe complete capacities for human sensation. It's about as big a jump as it was from mono to stereo in terms of fidelity.

It's one step closer to total sensory immersion.

<comment><USER29> But binocular vision is only one of the many ways that our brain uses to create the perception of depth... and not even the main one at that.

We use the knowledge of what covers what, the size of objects/people, and the parallax effect. The first two can already be done with 2D and the latter cannot be done in 3D either (at least not with a lot of the cheap stuff out there). Which is why it doesn't seem that big of a deal when you look at something in 3D (though surely it helps a bit).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Amen.

<comment><USER56> Indeed. I just recently shopped around and bought a new TV. As someone that had a budget of upwards of $2k, everyone and their mother in every store I went to, including Fry's and Costco, were pushing 3D TVs at me. They all needed $200+ glasses to work (that's just awesome when you have lots of friends over...), were all giving me nothing other than 3D to justify the increased cost, and nobody really mentioned what I already knew: there's a dearth of 3D content out there. I think every store that had a 3D TV I could try out was permanently tuned to either ESPN 3D or the manufacturer's demo video.

By the time my new 46" Samsung LED TV needs replaced (I give it 5 years at the earliest), I bet neither the 3D technology nor the content will have improved significantly. I haven't seen much 3D content that adds rather than detracts in a very uniquely gimmicky way, ever, and I don't see all the studios and manufacturers agreeing to a common set of standards very soon...

<comment><USER57> At least it's driven down prices on decent non-3D TVs. Got a nice 55" recently that has two USB ports and plays all my AVIs/etc straight off external drives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This argument only holds true if people buy TV's to watch stuff on them. TV's aren't about watching stuff. At least they aren't only about watching stuff.

<comment><USER59> What are they for, then?

<comment><USER58> big screen TV's used to differentiate the haves from the have nots. we need a new generation of pointlessly expensive TV's to fulfill this niche.</comment></comment></comment>


SXSW buzz network data visualization - <AUTHOR> http://austin.dataistheinterface.com/index.html

<comment><USER2> It looks nice, but I don't understand what it is showing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I just added some more explanatory text. We just invented this visualization last week and are working on the minimal explanation..</comment></comment>


Monoids deployed - <AUTHOR> https://deadbeef.me/2017/09/monoids <comment><USER2> Great quote:

      > Monoids are a great representation of the FP mindset
      > as it gives us a way to build complexity out
      > of simplicity

What I don't get is why they call it a monoid if it is a two argument function?</comment>


Show HN: Doka – A JavaScript Image Editor for Your Website - <AUTHOR> https://pqina.nl/doka/ <comment><USER2> You've posted many Show HNs in the last couple days. Are they all your personal work? If not, you can't post them as Show HNs—that's effectively taking credit for someone else's work.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18525231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18525231)

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh sorry about that. I didn't know they had to be your personal work. Duly noted</comment></comment>


Docker + Autoenv: Super magic automated development environment - <AUTHOR> http://livingintheshell.com/docker-autoenv-super-magic-automated-development-environment.html

<comment><USER2> Does having the shared folder for the DB (the -v switch you mentioned) minimize the security/isolation advantage of what Docker is supposed to be providing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that makes sense. And besides it is not a problem in a development environment, it would be better to just share the container file.

But I can't find another way to share containers between host restarts (there is also -volumes-from option for sharing volumes between containers)</comment></comment>


The Lesson of Iraq (1958) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1958/12/the-lesson-of-iraq/306494/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> Frivolous, theoretical question: What would happen to the Middle East situation if, say, the Western World suddenly switched to alternatives to oil, en masse? Electric vehicles, nuclear power generation, bicycles - whatever. Is there more to it than just oil?

<comment><USER3> Based on my experience in the Middle East I would think something like the following would happen.

Gulf states would switch to a financial economy as quick as possible, states such as the UAE and Qatar would succeed but states such as KSA and Bahrain would fail. In the immediate short term nothing would happen but within a year there would be widescale protests through out KSA as public sector employs realise they have no equity what so ever.

Outside of the gulf, North African countries would undergo massive social upheaval as the ruling elite and powerclass fled and left behind those who are unforunate enough to not be able to escape. The Levant would be sheltered primarily due to their lack of reliance on petrochemical dollars though Syria would degenerate.

Iran would diversify and overcome the situation. They've been under embargo one way or another for nearly 30 years so they have experience in maintaing the necessary cash flow to pay their citizens and avoid major economic collapse.

In the medium term you would see the complete collapse within the gulf of the ruling class. The royal families would flee and take as much money as they could while their underlings would be handed the reigns. They would fail and social anarchy would take over before the common people reverted back to Islamic governance. For a generation at least you would see fundamentalist Islamic theocracies pop up as people vied for power but no real governing institution would rule.

Now that we're looking so far into the crystal ball things could go either way but there is a possibility that the Arabs would return to a Kilafa style of governance which would actually reunite the Arab World, see human rights (at least an Islamic interpretation of it) flourish, education take off, economic and social reform at a level never thought possible etc etc.

But really, at the end of the day shutting the oil off will probably only have minor consquences. The Middle East has spent trillions of dollars diversifying to protect themselves from the inevitable reduction in demand for oil.

<comment><USER4> > Iran would diversify and overcome the situation. They've been under embargo > one way or another for nearly 30 years so they have experience in maintaing > the necessary cash flow to pay their citizens and avoid major economic > collapse.

Iran is quite an industrialised and high-tech nation with many skilled engineers. I know they look a bit bad when they release videos of model aircraft as fancy stealth bomber. But I have no doubt that they'd overcome such a situation.

It looks much worse for the Arab oil nations because they lack industry, skilled engineers or labour, or any kind of research. The financial market is a fragile thing and well Dubai is build on sand. We've seen in the crisis that nations with an industrialized base did much better than nations who were more focused on financial markets.

In Arab oil countries the situation is that large projects are designed by European, American, or East Asian engineers and architects and the construction is done by basically South Asian slave labour. In the end the building is left but nothing of the know how and skills that came with the project.

Another big indicator is the lack of a Saudi space program. Usually if a nation just has too much money a space program is a great way to boost engineering, science, industry in the country. Even Nigeria has a space program. Alternative would be a build up of the military. Which the Gulf states are clearly doing. But they import all their weapons from Europe or the US. Again no domestic research or industry. And military isn't really an investment. Once you try to reduce the budget the fighting power decreases dramatically and your past investments start to rot.

edit: My crystal ball is therefore rather showing negative picture. I believe there will be huge social unrest. It won't happen immediately but gradually. It will turn out similar to Egypt, Libya, or Syria. Currently the Saudis and Gulf states are using radical Sunni Islamists as a way to fight Shia Islam/Iran. They already used Islamism as a tool against Panarab Socialism but their current support goes far beyond that. And this will all eventually come back to them. There could even be an open war between Iran and the Gulf States.

<comment><USER2> Something else I do not understand: Why does the violent antagonism between Shia and Sunni branches still exist and so widespread? I am aware of the antagonism between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, but that seems to be also based on ethnic lines (native Irish versus English immigrant stock) and everyone else in the Western World has moved on.

<comment><USER3> Its a contentious theological issue which finds its history immediatly following the death of the Prophet(saw).

I could go into detail if you would like but its a very complex and painful story. The wikipedia page probably covers it rather well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Like many foreign policy documents of the early cold war -- clearsighted and to the point and very depressing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Down atm?

Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:grI6ylM...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:grI6ylMic7gJ:www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1958/12/the- lesson-of-iraq/306494/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=is)

</comment><comment><USER7> It strikes me as being rather too naive politically. We can't expect perfect hindsight but predicting how politics develops in states focused on the extraction of natural resources and close ethnic ties isn't rocket science. Highly organized ethnic groups take control and use oil resources to maintain political support. It is why strongmen in the middle east so often come from ethnic or religious minorities. (Syria, Iraq to name a few). Tribal structures make it impossible for a liberal opposition to build a winning coalition.

Democracy isn't magic and just suggesting that we should help democratic parties when we can is a 'no kidding' suggestion.</comment>


Poppy Seed Tea Can Kill You - <AUTHOR> https://www.poppyseedtea.com/ <comment><USER2> 3.5 pounds of poppy seeds to concoct one dose of tea. I can only surmise that this was being taken, knowingly, as a recreational drug, no?

I think my curiosity with this website is that it speaks with two conflicting tones. One is the desire to educate, protect others, and take full responsibility for their son's death. But the other is almost a, "if you're reading this, we assume you already read between the lines on what people are doing with poppy seeds."

Maybe the site needs a section to educate people of how exactly poppy seeds can be abused?

<comment><USER3> I don't understand your comment. I think the site is trying hard to strike a nonjudgmental tone. Yes, poppy seed tea is a way of taking opiates. The point being made is that the dose is difficult to control.

<comment><USER2> Hmm. I didn't really think of it that way. I was seeing a site that wanted to warn people of a danger but not touch on the fact about how people can abuse poppy seeds.

I guess my confusion is that I was so unaware of this that I read half the page before I realised that this wasn't some accidental exposure to high concentrations of poppy seed extract.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be clear this was the result of mixing a lot of poppy seed tea with Xanax. While it does look like in this sad case it may have been intentional abuse of poppy seeds (to get high), mixing drugs without talking to a doctor can easily cause severe problems.

But it isn't just poppy seeds.

Some non-abusable substences mixed with other drugs can have severe complications.

If you are taking benzodiazepines then consuming grapefruit is dangerous.

If you're on MAOIs then turkey, cheese, etc are very very dangerous (anything with tryptophan, but those are just super common causes of problems)

<comment> a0-prw From the article, "his blood free-morphine content alone (219 ng/ml) was already lethal, even without the benzos"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 3.5 lbs of poppy seed makes how much tea: a cup, a liter or a gallon? Seems like a heckova a lot of seeds for a batch of tea.

If this were in the US, shouldn't this be something the USPHS, USDA or FDA should regulate? Selling bulk poppy seeds containing enormous amounts of would-be heroin seems tantamount to drug trafficking.

<comment><USER6> Regulating poppy seeds really isn't the answer to systemic drug abuse. It hasn't worked well for any of the countries that try it. The right response is _patently_ decriminalization and management if you want to lessen the impact of drug use on your society. You have all of Europe, which has many different policies and good statistics on their effects, to use as investigative material.</comment></comment>


Choice of Work - <AUTHOR> http://daniellefong.com/2008/06/26/the-choice-of-work/

<comment><USER2> This was a neat post, but the word "leaderless" in the following statement should be removed. All large, successful efforts have leaders. If there is more than one effort, there are more than one leader:

"I intend to help grow large, leaderless, open organizations, and so I'd do almost anything for a chance to work with Caterina Fake, or Linus Torvalds."

Even nomadic tribes have strong leaders. Look at Afghanistan.</comment>


Zimbabwe Shutdown: Government accused of blocking WhatsApp and Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.pazimbabwe.com/politics-49811-zimbabwe-shutdown-mnangagwas-government-accused-of-blocking-whatsapp-and-facebook.html <comment><USER2> Would probably be better if an HN mod could modify the title to clarify this affects Zimbabwe and not the US.

Real-time RIPE stats: [https://stat.ripe.net/ZW#tabId=routing](https://stat.ripe.net/ZW#tabId=routing)

This affects more than just Facebook and WhatsAppp, as the article claims.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, we've reverted the title from the submitted "ISP blocking data access during Shutdown".

<comment><USER4> I know this story isn't startup related but it would be good to give it some front page time (not sure that is possible). Hackers here can suggest ways in which the people of Zimbabwe can get online and let the world know what is happening.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, had been offline for sometime because they had blocked VPN usage as well</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Shift – Photo filters designed by you - <AUTHOR> http://shiftbypixite.com

<comment><USER2> Will it also be available for android any time in the future?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it will be in the near future :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's pretty cool. Waiting for android

</comment><comment><USER4> Does the world really need more photo filter apps?

In nearly every case, and in all of the examples, these filters have degraded the images substantially. I guess some people might find these fun, but don't we already have enough photo filter apps?

<comment><USER5> It's not for merely reproducing what's in front of the camera. It's an artistic tool for producing emotional effects.

<comment><USER4> Please! Seriously.

what you're describing isn't photography, but graphic design. That's fine, and of course people are free to corrupt their images as much as they want, but we really don't need another app for this, there are already hundreds of them and they all do the same stuff.

As for the OP suggesting these are works of art, yeah right.

These move photography away from being an accepted form of art, not towards it, these filter apps take photography more and more into the world of cheap throw-away effects. There's nothing new here, nothing that creates any real artistic value, it's just pixel pollution.

Along with t clarity slider in LR these apps are doing so much harm to the reputation of photography in the art world.

<comment><USER5> Good, reputation is overrated. I mean you don't punctuate or capitalize properly, and you don't worry about someone berating you for not maintaining the reputation of the written word as a serious medium for expression.

<comment><USER4> You're going there, you're criticizing my punctuation and capitalization skills???

As for your point, it makes no sense. I mean, it sounds fine, and it reads just perfectly, the capitalization and punctuation is almost spot on, but there's no substance to it. I don't worry what others think, that would be as dumb as another photo filter app. The written word will manage just fine long after we're both pushing up daisies.

I think you might have been trying to make some kind of snide remark comparing the written word's reputation to the plight that photograph has taken in recent years. That might be something that would be interesting to talk about. Twitter has done to the written word much the same that Instagram (et al) has for photography. There's a lexicon all to twitter, it has its own vocabulary, it's own grammar and so on. Anyone, like me, who does machine learning using twitter is painfully aware of how the authors of twitter have degraded and abused the language as a "serious medium for expression.", Photo filter apps have done the same for photography making it harder for actual photographers to be taken seriously in the art world.

Actually, I think I read too much into what you wrote, I think it just didn't say much of anything at all, just a pretentious attempt at an insult. Let me guess, a liberal arts major :)

<comment><USER5> No, it's not an insult. I just think it's crazy that anyone sits around fretting about the artistic merits of Instagram photos. I don't see how one person's crummy photo has any bearing on someone else's seriously good photo. You or I can type any gibberish into a text box on the internet, and it has just as much right to exist there as anything else. And it doesn't affect how good anyone else's writing is. So no one worries about it, and I don't see why anyone worries about crummy photos either.

I have a BA in CS :)

<comment><USER4> Fair enough, we don't agree but this is a free country after all. And besides, who cares what either of us think about this point, history will decide. Photography is definitely morphing into something new with technology playing a larger role over time. The written word on the internet isn't really a good analogy, a better one would be software that takes the written word and embellishes it with similes and metaphors generated from HMM algorithms, or rewriting adjectives with embellished phrases for you, or converting it to iambic pentameter. These are the literary metaphors of photo filters. Can you imagine picking up a copy of Gravity's Rainbow and having to chose between the Ludwig, Aden or Mayfair filter. One has Slothrop not rescue Katje from the octopus. That's what these photo filter apps are doing to photography. Maybe people don't care, maybe there's layers to photography and there's no spill between them, like you say, maybe these layers are isolated from one another. I like it when the name changes so we don't call them photo filters but something more lomo to show it's not meant to be photography. If he were dead, Jeff Wall would be rolling in his grave.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Suggestions for how to Learn Android? - <AUTHOR>

Greetings,
After attending Google I/O, I am fairly interested in branching out from Web Dev, into Android development.
I took some Java in college a few years back, but was wondering if anyone had recommended courses, books, videos, etc that they found helpful in learning Android App Development.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Tool: Android Studio (Beta) [https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html](https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html)

Then learn by examples, it's quite easy. Hello world: [http://karanbalkar.com/2013/05/tutorial-25-helloworld- applic...](http://karanbalkar.com/2013/05/tutorial-25-helloworld-application- using-android-studio/) More samples: [http://developer.android.com/samples/index.html](http://developer.android.com/samples/index.html)

For any error you get or doubt you have gust google it and you'll find your answer: mobile app dev field is really crowded and stackoverflow has everything you need to start!

Ps: i'm not a fan of dev books etc.. Just dig into the sources!

</comment><comment><USER3> Since you have already experience with software development, I suggest you start with the tutorials and documentation on developer.android.com.

Apart from that, keep an eye open for a new revision of Reto Maier's "Professional Android 4 Development". Reto is head of Google's Android Developer relations team, and the book is a very detailed explanation of architecture, patterns, APIs and best practices on the platform.

The current edition is somewhat old, however. I expect a new version after L is released later this year.

</comment><comment><USER4> Start with the online tutorials. They are vastly better now than when Android first shipped.

If you have no Java experience, but have some OO programming experience, start with Eckel's Thinking In Java, and keep that handy as you do the tutorials.</comment>