Show HN: Emacs Mini Manual - <AUTHOR> http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor.html

<comment><USER2> This is really impressive, I'm starting to try Racket coding with Emacs + Geiser Mode. And I really need some sort of Guides to rely on once in a while.

The following words also sounds convincing:

"If you are a programmer, you should try to automate thing as much as possible. One way of doing this is using a good editor that automates many menial and tedious tasks. For example, one of the thing that annoys me is using the command cd to change into a deep directory path like this:

[/path/to/a/very/long/long/long/long/long/long/..../directory/ ]"

<comment><USER3> You might want to combine Geiser with Quack[1] for best result with Scheme. Also, I think it's worth a shot to have a look at the fairly new Racket- mode[2] written by Greg[3]. Geiser + Quack are rather old and for Scheme in general, Racket-mode focuses on and is tightly integrated with Racket.

[1] [http://www.neilvandyke.org/quack/](http://www.neilvandyke.org/quack/) [2] [https://github.com/greghendershott/racket- mode](https://github.com/greghendershott/racket-mode) [3] [http://www.greghendershott.com/](http://www.greghendershott.com/)

<comment><USER4> racket-mode is good in that it at least indents Racket code properly. It implements it's own integration with the REPL, IIRC, which makes working with Geiser at the same time not ideal. But still manageable, just a bit of tweaking needed. Disclaimer: I may remember wrong or it may have changed since I was last configuring Racket support in Emacs, so don't get discouraged and just go check racket-mode anyway :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tuhdo: just to clarify, I am Vincent Foley-Bourgon and yes, I wrote both "Why I (Still) Use Emacs" articles. I sometimes omit the last part of my last name since it's often butchered by people who don't speak French.

By the way, thanks for putting both of them up there: I forgot about the one I put up on Wordpress :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhh this is good to know

Thanks for writing such a good article, so people can have a better glimpse of what Emacs is capable of. It saved my time because I don't have to research all of those and make my article even longer :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs- tutor.html#text-7-29](http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor.html#text-7-29) \- the excersise:

        C-f to the beginning of each character group and add whitespace.

No, don't! Use C-s or even better iy-goto-char ([https://github.com/doitian/iy-go-to-char](https://github.com/doitian/iy-go- to-char)). This scales much better.

You can also set mark at first 'b' in the first line, go to first 'b' in the last line and use C-x r t to insert a string across all the lines.

You can of course use regex-replace, too: \\(a+\|b+\|c+\|d+\\) -> \1 <\- space here

And so on and on. It's good to see well written "introductory courses", like this one, but what about "Emacs for black belts"? "Advanced Emacsology"? There is one book about writing Emacs extensions ([http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781565922617.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781565922617.do)), but that's all there is. Does anyone know about another source of knowledge about the most advanced Emacs techniques?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've fixed that. I only wanted something simple for new users to try out the new feature (Macro).

This manual is only about stock Emacs features, not adding complexity with 3rd party packages. When I first introduced on Reddit, someone advised me to stick to stock Emacs (which I did) because they see this section using an external package (ggtags) for browsing kernel source code: [http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor.html#sec-8](http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs- tutor.html#sec-8). When people are good with the basics, they understand what they need and find appropriate packages.

If you want advance techniques, the primary resource should be Emacs Lisp Manual, Emacs docstrings, and learn code written by package maintainers.

EDIT: Even before working with Emacs Lisp, using 3rd party packages already makes Emacs much more advanced.

<comment><USER4> > If you want advance[d] techniques, the primary resource should be Emacs Lisp > Manual, Emacs docstrings, and learn[ing] code written by package > maintainers.

(I'm also learning English, so I know that having your mistakes pointed out helps - that's what the [] are for in the quote)

Yeah, been there, done that. :) Docstrings and easy access to source code (find-function, find-library) are a great strength of Emacs - not only the documentation is of great quality, but it's mostly up-to-date. But going through packages' sources is not always pleasant: some authors are not very good with English (like me, for example), others have a dislike for writing comments, yet others are biased against cl-lib or too much in favour of eieio and so on. It's still a great learning experience, but it takes more time than it could take if the content was presented more systematically and in a more readable manner. Like in a book. Or a series of articles, or something. Note: I _am_ thinking about writing something like this myself, but I don't feel confident enough just yet.

> someone advised me to stick to stock Emacs

I think it's stupid advice - bad for both programmers and non-programmers. If you're a programmer, using Emacs is (should be) about endless customization, tweaking and - you guessed it - _programming_ your editor to do your work for you. In this case learning to use C-f instead of right arrow is so stupid it _hurts_ \- you should learn about define-key, make-sparse-keymap, global-set- key, describe-keymap (and generally describe-...) and of course apropos instead. I guarantee it will take you less time than making C-f a habit! That's the way I learned Emacs: I started learning with Emacs Lisp Manual, not a tutorial or Emacs Manual and it got me up to speed in no time at all. Instead of learning what keys to press to do something it's better - again, for programmers - to just learn the name of a function which does what you want. It's true that I don't use many standard keybindings and I remapped most of them, but this is ok, because this is my editor and nobody else is going to use it anyway. And when I started fiddling with packages I already knew how to hack them into shape and dig through their code, which is infinitely better than just knowing where to find them and praying they have any docs at all :)

And for non-programmers, sticking with vanilla Emacs makes it unnecessarily painful experience, with 2/3 of useful features disabled by default and without access to the functionality available via packages, which I'd call really essential. For non-programmers vanilla Emacs is not that much better than Notepad++ or Gedit (if at all, considering weird key bindings!) and it's pointless to stick to it just to "learn about Emacs philosophy" \- non- programmers won't benefit from "the Emacs way" (which is: being an infinitely _programmable_ editor!) at all. It's much better for them to grab some Emacs starter kit, like Prelude or any other starter kit out there and then use customize-... interface to tweak what they need.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did write about customizing and extending Emacs here, and made a clear point about extending and customizing:

" Because the nature of Emacs is an extensible system, people write extensions to improve Emacs and share with others. The extensions improve various aspects of Emacs: Improve existing and add new editing features, integrate 3rd party tools, add programming languages supports, change Emacs appearance… Without the ability to extend, Emacs will just be another obscure editor with some useful features but cannot meet the demands of people, because different people have different needs, and Emacs maintainers cannot provide them all and integrate all into Emacs. With the ability to extend, people can bend Emacs the way they want, much like Lisp.

Unlike other editors which encourage users to stay with the default as much as they can, Emacs encourages users to customize and extend Emacs as much as they can."

[http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor3.html](http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs- tutor3.html)

I just don't want to mix the two things: Emacs basics and Emacs extending together in a guide. It should be separate. I used to use packages a lot, until I realize that many built-in features which I didn't know serve me well. Learning stock Emacs is beneficial because users get the features that are always available.

> I started learning with Emacs Lisp Manual, not a tutorial or Emacs Manual > and it got me up to speed in no time at all

I guess you method could work for, but I think it would be intimidating for most new users when they first read that to be able to use Emacs, they will have to learn Emacs Lisp. This is contrasting to everything else, even Vim.

Vanilla Emacs is definitely better than Notepad++ or Gedit:

\- Emacs is an implementation of Emacs Lisp with an editor on top of it. The other editors are just... editors.

\- Emacs has many useful features such as:

\+ how to use mark and point and region. A useful feature is exchange-point- and-mark; other editors do not have this.

\+ Dired

\+ ibuffers, that can manage hundreds of buffers

\+ a window management system (so you don't have to use things like tmux, screen)

\+ registers, you can save anything, like window configuration, text, position

\+ the help system

\+ Bookmark (to quickly access things later)

\+ Calc (a scientific calculator)

\+ CEDET a language framework for building IDE features (like context- sensitive completion, jump, find references...). The best language it is supporting is C/C++, as demonstrated in the guide.

...more features that typical editors won't have...

Learning all these things should not require customization and external packages to further add burden to learners. After people learned something like Dired, if they want more, they can look it up for packages like Dired+.

Finally, Prelude disables arrow keys and encourage users to use key bindings like C-f, C-b... I think most of the key bindings for editing in Emacs are fine and make editing faster. Of course, the bindings are not as ergonomics as Vim, but it is still much better than other editors.

Since you don't like C-f, C-b... I guess you don't like key bindings with prefix C-x and C-c as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's a pretty good introduction. I've been using emacs for years, but this post reminds me that I've never gotten around to setting up a satisfactory project management system, so that I can grep and find files across the whole project.

<comment><USER7> Projectile is neat, but you don't need anything fancy to grep and find across the project. I just have a single binding to switch to an eshell, and running rgrep or find commands automatically pops up a hyperlinked buffer containing results. Having a shell function to cd to the project root helps too.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, right now my workflow is just to use silver searcher in my (non-emacs) terminal which is always in a window right next to emacs. Eventually I'll take a few moments to integrate the workflow into emacs.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can use Ag right inside Emacs with this package: [https://github.com/Wilfred/ag.el](https://github.com/Wilfred/ag.el)

If you use Helm, there's helm-ag: [https://github.com/syohex/emacs-helm- ag](https://github.com/syohex/emacs-helm-ag)

Use MELPA and package manager to install the above packages: [http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs- tutor3.html#sec-4-1](http://tuhdo.github.io/emacs-tutor3.html#sec-4-1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks like an excellent resource for those new to emacs, and a good reference for those already using it.

All written in org-mode as well.

Thank you

<comment><USER9> Definitely good for someone already using it. At least in my case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mini Mini Manual... ;)

Great material!

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice work. It would be nice if you can find a native English speaker, or at least someone with stronger English skills, to edit (in the literary sense) your prose. You manage to get the point across, but the grammatical errors are distracting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank for your feedback. I will improve it. Please tell me my mistakes , I will fix it quick. Even a little is better than none. For your convenience, feel free to open a new issues at [https://github.com/tuhdo/tuhdo.github.io](https://github.com/tuhdo/tuhdo.github.io)

<comment><USER11> Almost every sentence needs work. What you need is a writer who is fluent in English to spend a few hours going over it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've fixed some mistakes in sections before the "Concepts" section (which is the core of the manual). Hopefully it improves reading before getting the actual part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, this is great but I'm a vim user. I'd really love to have something in this format for vim. Maybe something like that already exists but I just don't know about it yet?

<comment><USER13> I would like to write something like this for Vim, but I don't know how to easily create animated screencaps like those displayed here. Does anyone know a good tool for that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I used byzanz-record for these screenshots: [http://askubuntu.com/a/123515/13847](http://askubuntu.com/a/123515/13847)

<comment><USER13> I will look into that, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I learned how to record the window layout with register, but I also want it to be recorded for next time. but I would like to record this for next time I use emacs. How to do this?

<comment><AUTHOR> You need extension package. Workgroup2 is great for this: [https://github.com/pashinin/workgroups2](https://github.com/pashinin/workgroups2)

With workgroups2, windows configurations can be stored in a workgroup, and you can create as many workgroups and named it; later, you can switch back. Because you can name your window configurations, you don't have the burden to remember which to which in registers. You can also save your window configurations to continue using them in later Emacs sessions.

You can issue a command to save current session with workgroup2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a diehard vim guy, I've always wanted to at least dabble a bit in emacs to see what it's all about. This will do nicely. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't use Emacs, but this is great. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've seen this page before but couldn't get anything to work in Windows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you use this patched Emacs for Windows: [http://semantic.supelec.fr/popineau/programming- emacs.html#s...](http://semantic.supelec.fr/popineau/programming- emacs.html#sec-2) ? According to the guide in that page:

"There is no installer. All you have to do is:

\- Unpack in a location like c:\Local\

\- Setup a shortcut on your desktop to c:\Local\Emacs\bin\emacsclientw.exe

\- Double click the new shortcut."

Or just use the 32 bit version from official GNU Emacs homepage.

Could you tell me what the problems are? I use Emacs on Windows fine, with all my 3rd-party packages. At least with stock Emacs, it should work on Windows.

<comment><USER17> Hey that look awesome! It's been a while since I last tried Emacs (I'm a vim on Windows user) but I will definitely check this out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Shameless plug: always happy to see Nyan Mode being used ;).

</comment><comment><USER19> Well done.</comment>


8k Cisco RV320/RV325 routers are still leaking their admin credentials - <AUTHOR> https://badpackets.net/over-9000-cisco-rv320-rv325-routers-vulnerable-to-cve-2019-1653/#2019-03-28-update <comment><USER2> > Cisco firmware update for RV320/RV325 routers simply blacklisted the user > agent for curl.

Oh Cisco.

<comment><USER3> So, lawyers. Do we short cisco? Are they going to be sued out of existence. They know the problem. They have claimed a fix that does absolutely nothing. It will be the vector for a hack. Hundreds of thousands of people's personal details will be stolen with Cisco responsible through criminal negligence or worse.

Bye bye Cisco? (Bankrupt, assets sold off to other companies).

Or is this not going to happen because there's a computer involved so nobody can switch their brain on and think in the entirety of both lawmaking and enforcement?

<comment><USER4> It's not going to happen because that doesn't even make sense. This concept "you will have perfect security or you will be fined out of existence" is just a long way to saying "you will be fined out of existence" as there is no such thing as perfect security or a security patch that covers every possible attack.

<comment><USER5> There still is the fact that they released a non-fix but claimed it fixed it. At that point it is not unreasonable to infer either negligence or bad faith.

Having "perfect security" is obviously not expected, but it is expected that you act on receiving knowledge of risks in a reasonable manner instead of basically writing a sign saying "please do not exploit" and wrongly claiming you fixed it.

<comment><USER4> I guarantee the security patch didn't claim to permanently fix the class of bug which is what I was getting at. Unless Cisco has been signing contract agreements claiming their security patches will do <x> where <x> was something that wasn't done here then you're essentially asking if they'll be sued into the ground because you don't think their patch was good enough.

<comment><USER5> > you're essentially asking if they'll be sued into the ground because you > don't think their patch was good enough

No, that is distinctly not what I am saying. Again, nobody demands a perfect fix and a valid attempt is all that is needed. Their "patch" however is not a valid attempt, not because it is not good enough, but because they are not even trying but just pretending to do something.

The question thus is: You are notified of a big security problem and do absolutely nothing, can you be sued for that? Since you are mentioning contract agreements, it seems that the US does not have any minimum standards here?

<comment><USER4> > Their "patch" however is not a valid attempt, not because it is not good > enough, but because they are not even trying but just pretending to do > something.

If not according to you than who? If not "I don't think that patch was a good enough attempt" then what is the quantitative evaluation used to say "Cisco never guaranteed security but it didn't meet base security measurements <x> or <y> and is therefore responsible for $<z> of damages"? In fact the Cisco sales and support contracts are going to state the opposite, as almost any software does, because nobody is foolish enough to be in the position to agree blindly their stuff is so good you'll never be hacked.

> You are notified of a big security problem and do absolutely nothing, can > you be sued for that? Since you are mentioning contract agreements, it seems > that the US does not have any minimum standards here?

The US has many laws about minimum standards but not "pass the buck" style by default. E.g. a hospital doesn't get to pass the fine to Cisco because they left the management interface open to the internet and someone hacked the router to steal patient information in the same way it doesn't get to pass the fine to HP for documents printed on an HP printer being stolen. The hospital is responsible for providing the security it claims to provide. If it wants to pass that responsibility to a 3rd party it needs some other agreement to stating that as Cisco is not bound by HIPAA simply because the hospital bought a Cisco switch (new or used).

It's more common that a role be outsourced than straight out responsibility taken. Taking the example above Cisco isn't going to want to take responsibility the router is secure unless they can manage the router's security otherwise something like the above "they left the management interface open to the internet" is going to bite them in the ass. A more common example would be PCI compliance for small businesses can be outsourced to a "use this blackbox register and payment system" with an insurance style agreements in case you get fined but the business is not allowed to mess with the black box.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone have experience with GA Tech's Startup Accelerator? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone have any tidbits to share about Georgia Tech's ATDC? Is anyone on HN currently in it? <comment><USER2> Stammy?</comment>


Elegant answer for simple question - What Should I Watch This Weekend? - <AUTHOR> http://www.movieorwhat.com

<comment><USER2> If this site would have also login via Facebook Connect i would made much more sense...

</comment><comment><USER3> The UI kind of stinks. Good, intuitive front page, but a page dedicated to comments from the site's users kind of stinks - I expected at least a synopsis on that page, even if it was auto-populated by parsing imdb.com

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no way we can provide synopsis grabbed from imdb.com - they want 15kUSD per year if you want to do that. We provide link to imdb.com instead.</comment></comment>


Optimizing Parrot - <AUTHOR> http://wknight8111.blogspot.com/2009/10/optimizing-parrot.html

<comment><USER2> So now they realized the same thing the linux kernel programmers realized earlier: building _really_ efficient things requires a more precise stance towards 'best practice'.

While data encapsulation is neat for datastructures which might be accessed by fools who might break something, it is a performance killer and utterly uneccessary if no fool ever touches the datastructure.

While gotos might be old and too powerful for most people, they do have the ability to reduce code duplication in C and even have use cases where a goto is simpler than no goto.

<comment><USER3> That's not the lesson I take away here. Yes, breaking encapsulation is occasionally necessary. Yes, abstraction sometimes has a performance penalty (but sometimes it doesn't).

Mostly I've learned that we had a mountain of technical debt we have to remove before we were in a good position to produce huge optimizations. What Andrew didn't write is that _despite_ losing some speed with recent changes after 1.4, we've added a lot of optimizations. We'll probably lose a bit of ground after 1.7, but we're in a much better position to gain it back and more after 1.8.</comment></comment>


OpenSocial Hacked Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/05/opensocial-hacked-again/ <comment><USER2> Might not be a big deal.

[http://theharmonyguy.com/2007/11/06/ning-opensocial- implemen...](http://theharmonyguy.com/2007/11/06/ning-opensocial- implementation/)</comment>


Handsfree Android apps - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kritts/HandWave

<comment><USER2> Hm, this is a pretty good idea. Have an Android apps already been created using this HandWave library?

<comment><USER3> This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for. I'll use the library and let you know what I think.

<comment><USER3> Oh woah. There's actually a bunch of examples of that person's Github account. They're pretty helpful.

[https://github.com/kritts/HandWave-Sample- Apps](https://github.com/kritts/HandWave-Sample-Apps)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, loving the library so far. SO cool.</comment>


Email Sign-In Links - <AUTHOR> https://hashnode.com/post/email-sign-in-links-cio03gpez00iopz53tw2660cq <comment><USER2> This has been suggested before, and the same problems are never answered:

Email is not guaranteed to be secure in transit. This type of authentication system gaining popularity would _greatly_ increase the incentive for in- transit email scanning.

A mailbox is not a password store, and with several "new" mail clients operating with their own server-side component between you and your real mail server, this type of authentication becomes a waiting game of the first major breach.

A good password manager will suggest strong random passwords, store them securely __and __conveniently, and if you choose, sync them to your other devices.

This problem is solved, it's just a shame some people insist on repeatedly yelling about how a less reliable, less secure solution is _better_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very valid points, some of them are already addressed in the post.

Password managers do solve A problem, but I'm not sure they solve THE problem. They're great when you have a browser extension, but leaving the app, entering another app, and then copying and pasting on mobile is difficult.

There's also a trust issue with giving all your credentials to one app.

The biggest problem that password managers haven't solved yet, is adoption. LastPass has 4 Million chrome installs. It has 1-5M android downloads. That's still a drop in the ocean compared to how many users are out there.

<comment><USER2> > They're great when you have a browser extension, but leaving the app, > entering another app, and then copying and pasting on mobile is difficult.

Agreed, but again - the answer here is not some elusive "login via email link" \- how do you even _do_ that in a native app?

As with the password manager situation, I believe Apple's approach is right in this space too - auth form fields fields in _native apps_ on iOS can hook into the saved passwords system (aka Keychain). I have _yet_ to see it used in a real app, but I don't use that many apps either, so its possible support is wide-spread.

> The biggest problem that password managers haven't solved yet, is adoption.

Windows has a built-in password manager. OS X/iOS has a built in password manager. Even if you discount those who don't use the built in solution, that is surely tens if not hundreds of millions.

I have no idea how good the Microsoft solution is - but Apple's is good enough that I wonder why people think good, _secure_ password management is some mythical beast that will never be realised.

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a great link someone commented on the post itself, describing how to implement a "login via email link" on mobile. [https://auth0.com/blog/2015/12/04/how-to-implement-slack- lik...](https://auth0.com/blog/2015/12/04/how-to-implement-slack-like-login- on-ios-with-auth0/)

I haven't spent much time reading it, but I guess it works with deep-linking - the mechanism used when you click on a link to Facebook.com and it takes you to the Facebook app instead of the Facebook webpage. [https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Genera...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/AppSearch/UniversalLinks.html)

<comment><USER2> That only works for first-party website/app combinations. E.g. if HN implemented "email auth links", there would be no way for any third-party HN reading apps to authenticate a user.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting use case. I'm really enjoying this discussion.

I'm guessing this could be solved if 3rd Party apps register to handle "news.ycombinator.com" links. I don't think there's any enforcement by apple or google that you actually own the domain.

<comment><USER2> There specifically is enforcement by Apple with the new Universal Links feature (which that auth0 article talks about)

Without the enforcement, it's arguably not secure unless the user is prompted "do you want to open this link in Xyz.app"

With the enforcement (you have to upload a special file to web server(s) for the domain(s) you want to "claim" for your app) third party's cannot have the same level of integration (which is not limited to just auth - I'd love Twitter links to open in by native, non official client)

Honestly I think the "solution" already exists and just needs polish:

\- Better password managers built in to browsers/os's

\- MUCH better handling of private keys and client certs on user devices (add client cert syncing via iCloud Keychain for example)

\- wider knowledge and use of 2fa systems</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making Sense Out of Datomic, The Revolutionary Non-NoSQL Database - <AUTHOR> http://theholyjava.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/making-sense-out-of-datomic-the-revolutionary-non-nosql-database/

<comment><USER2> Seams like it is distributed, in the same way that noSql is distributed, but keeps SQL style transaction locking. Did I understand? .... Is there some way of updating that can deal with conditional updates? E.g. Credit card payment of $1000 is often conditional on a card limit. Is this possible but also keep most of the noSql advantages?</comment>


Capitalism is killing the world's wildlife populations, not 'humanity' - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/capitalism-is-killing-the-worlds-wildlife-populations-not-humanity-106125 <comment><USER2> It's time to face facts. Universities in the United States have completely failed. They have brainwashed impressionable young students with unbelievably bad political opinions and faulty logic while putting them in inescapable lifelong debt. It's absolutely criminal.

I'm not even acknowledging the article because it's pure propaganda and I was unable to get through it after several honest attempts.

<comment><USER3> The brainwashing and propaganda are by design. The system was hijacked by Marxists who were playing the long game.

<comment><USER2> STEM or skilled trades. I'm not saving money every month for my kids college 529 plans so that it can be spent to send them to a $100,000 political re- education camp for 4 years.

The word is out about the humanities in US Universities. They are a melting pot of resentful people who actively restrict free speech/thought while pushing an awful mix of proven bad ideas.

<comment><USER3> You're 100% right but the problem is that society will ultimately collapse because of those indoctrinated students. It's probably too late to reverse course. We should've paid more attention 30 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool. Back to the feudal times, folks!

<comment><USER2> Come for the mud huts and starvation, stay for the sky-high infant mortality!

<comment><USER5> But hey, at least you'll get to work outside!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Socialists/Communists and anti-vaxers are similar in their irrationality. Literally no amount of data over any time period could get them to even question their position.

They are also similar in the fact that their ideas seek to undo over a century of progress that massively reduced human suffering.

Capitalism and vaccinations are two of the greatest achievements in human history in terms of improving the quality of human life on earth. Why anyone would advocate abandoning them after learning about what life was like before them is completely incomprehensible.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would say that blaming capitalism is too short sighted as well - neoliberalism is the real cause (see also: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/29/neolib...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/29/neoliberalism- economic-system-ethics-personality-psychopathicsthic))

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not capitalism. It's greediness. Most resources are abused not because they need to be abused to progress but because some CEO or investor somewhere is not satisfied with a 100% profit, he wants more.

Resource abuse also happens/happened in communist/socialist countries.

We have to separate resource use from abuse.

</comment><comment><USER8> Compared to what? Sure, if the alternative was stasis where the majority of humanity was stuck in abject poverty, we would preserve the world's ecosystems, but humanaity would be mostly miserable (and population would probably shrink violently and dramatically).

Meanwhile capitalism has also been gradually eradicating extreme poverty - over a billion lives in the last 20+ years. [https://amp.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the- end...](https://amp.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of- poverty)

Is that worth the price? I don't know. Self preservation and advancement seems to be our thing.

I can agree that capitalism has massive, terrible problems. But these sorts of essays tend not to be an argument, they are a supposition laced with unjustified certainty, with the fig lead covering the suggested solution being some form of collectivism. Humanity's large scale experiments in that regard were not environmental paradises either, though - arguably far worse than capitalist democracies!

One might assume it's possible to find a third way. It will be very hard. It will take a long time. It's a conversation worth having. But a large part of the West is in denial that there is even a problem. I don't think that's a capitalism problem, that's a humanity problem.

<comment><USER9> You can't congratulate capitalism for lifting people out of poverty when it was capitalism (with its friends like racism and colonialism) that put them there. Capitalism is inherently wrong, unless you belong to the winners. And no, a programmer making 200k a year isn't a winner. He is bribed with toys and a comfortable lifestyle, at the cost of immense suffering outside of his view, to support a system that is eventually going to cost him as well. The only winners are in the board rooms of multinationals.

Capitalism is flawed from its very core and no matter how many fixes and laws and regulations you implement, it will always be rotten. Just one leader like Trump and all its nastiness will show again by simply removing those laws and regulations. Capitalism cannot be fixed, but, like cancer, it must be cut out.

The solution is of course anarchism. No gods, no masters, no ceo's. That will most likely mean no iPhones, as keeping global trade alive will be impossible without the dictatorships of corporations. but that is a small price to no longer have a system that rewards poisoning rivers halfway across the world to make things for a bored population that is completely divorced from its society.

<comment><USER2> You started with an incorrect assertion that contradicts every data point available and end by advocating anarchy and a general collapse of civilization. I admire your conviction.

<comment><USER3> Communists are insane and violent individuals who don't care about data and reality.

<comment><USER2> lol you got downvoted.... I can't imagine what kind of person wouldn't agree with this statement. Falling for Communism in 1917 is one thing, but falling for it with access to a 20th century history book... well that's a mental disorder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well goverments depend on consumer capitalism for tax money = financibg their debts. So the narrative we get is that we could continue consuming with some adjustments to current model (electric cars in pleace of combustion engines, no plastic bags or cotton buds).

Saddly it seems this won't be enough. If we want to save the planet we should alter the model drastically. But imagine: \- bikes in place of cars \- no more long distance travel \- no more cotton clothes that travel half the world, are purchased of of boredom and land in a trash next season. Spin your own thread, make clothes yourself, repair not throw away \- no more fancy food from all over the world, growing your own in the garden \- no more new apartments and concrete \- dark cities after 10pm

Just a few examples. But who will choose living like this? Let us enjoy musin on Titanic.

<comment><USER8> Except that urban multi-unit dwelling (apartments, concrete) is far better for the environment than suburban or rural single-unit homes with gardens.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure concrete is better than gardens. Is density better than sprawl? Absolutely. But it would be better to integrate nature with density.

<comment><USER8> Gardens are fine, integrating nature is fine, and not incompatible with high density / concrete.

The issue is the wastefulness and carbon emissions of sprawl, fuel, etc. that are common in less-dense areas. A return to the old-days isn't necessarily good, is all I'm saying... Burning wood for example is worse for the environment than coal or gas. We got away with it in olden times because there were so few people.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Magic Leap Says Ex-Engineer Copied Headset for China - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-18/secretive-magic-leap-says-ex-engineer-copied-headset-for-china <comment><USER2> Nreal optical hardware is closer to ODGs and very different to Magic Leap. Magic Leap acquired ODG patent portfolio recently (after effectively killing them via some backstabby acquisition shenanigans) and is now opportunistically patent trolling Nreal and the increasing amount of Chinese competition (Nreal has much better visual quality at a much lower price) using post rationalized accusations given current US-China climate. And on queue, Bloomberg Tech does a Bloomberg Tech on the story.

<comment><USER3> > and is now opportunistically patent trolling Nreal

Are you making this up?

I don't see any patent claim being mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER4> I think he didn't mean that literally.

"Patent trolling" as in extorting someone who successfully implemented some idea just because I have some claim to comming up with vaguely similar idea first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article reports on the lawsuit, but is light on details about the headset. Tested recently did a 10 minute review on this headset, the 'Nreal Light' [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9A9u-lwjTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9A9u-lwjTs)

Regardless of the merits of the lawsuit, I can see why Magic Leap would be scared. The AR glasses looks great. They're certainly stylish enough for the mass-market -- they look like normal glasses at first glance, they're quite reasonably priced (at $500), and run from a regular Android phones via USB-C (for power, as well as sensor and video data).

For reference, here's the Tested review for current Magic Leap product, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrq2akzdFq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrq2akzdFq8). It retails for $2295. Though it comes with controllers, eye-tracking for focal accommodation, two waveguides displays that are used to provide two separate physical layers to focus on.

<comment><USER5> On the merits of the lawsuit, after reading the whole district court filing [1], the core allegation is that the 'Nreal Light' is based on Magic Leap's unproductized internal designs produced "after extensive investment of time (multiple years), money (hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research and development) and human resources (hundreds of engineers)", and that the defendant learned about the product designs and research during his employment, including adapting (as discussed elsewhere in this thread) Magic Leap's proprietary font ([https://i.imgur.com/7pYZ8bp.png](https://i.imgur.com/7pYZ8bp.png))

If Nreal Light is indeed based on Magic Leap's unreleased designs, this makes me very sympathetic to the price difference -- Magic Leap One is a development kit backed by 5+ years of huge R&D investment, and is/was never intended for end-users (hence the price and awful aesthetics).

The Nreal Light is an indication of what a consumer Magic Leap was going to be: a cheaper, slimmer, less ambitious product (by avoiding multiple waveguide displays) that appeals to a consumer market, then it's unfair and sad that they didn't have the opportunity to go to market with their own product.

On the other hand, Magic Leap has had ample opportunity to release an affordable high-quality AR headset so I do feel some sympathy in an employee leveraging legitimately acquired knowledge and experience to build a commercial product that beats its competitors. The situation may not that different to the Traitorous Eight, or Steve Jobs infamous "adapting" of design ideas of the Alto for the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh, after his visit to Xerox PARC.

[1] [https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.343717...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.343717/gov.uscourts.cand.343717.1.0_1.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Magic Leap alleges that Chi Xu, who left in 2016, exploited its confidential information to "quickly develop a prototype of lightweight, ergonomically designed, mixed reality glasses for use with smart phones and other devices that are strikingly similar" to the Florida-based startup's designs.

>The startup alleges that Xu plotted during his roughly 13 months working there to launch his own competing company in China and "neglected his work duties" to acquire proprietary information.

While these are valid allegations to make, I'm not sure what IP "theft" has occurred. It sounds like Magic Leap is accusing Chi of looking at Magic Leap's designs and having the intention of launching a product in the same market and with roughly the same form factor - but crucially, does not allege that Chi exfiltrated any CI/trade secrets or infringed on any IP.

The second set of accusations is also kafkaesque, by the way, as they are accusing Chi of having the intent to launch a competing company by himself - something that many, many tech employees have dreamed of (and done) without ever being sued. I'm not sure what that allegation is there for, honestly.

<comment><USER7> _but crucially, does not allege that Chi exfiltrated any CI /trade secrets or infringed on any IP_

Their complaint alleges exactly that, repeatedly.

<comment><USER8> Nowhere in the complaint do they ever mention a single specific bit of technology, code, design or patent stolen by Chi Xu. Their entire argument is that he signed a confidentiality agreement when he started working there so should not be able to start a competing company. This is going to be next to impossible to enforce in California, let alone China.

<comment><USER9> A complaint isn't required to allege specific IP stolen. It's to allege _general_ categories of IP stolen. Too much specificity limits the scope of the complaint and would require an amended complaint if more IP was stolen than originally alleged.

The next stage of the litigation process, discovery, is for determining the specific IP pilfered (if any).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lessons learned from Magic Leap: don't sign a non-compete agreement with your employee; you have to pay and it's legally not enforceable in California. Ask your employee to sign a board confidentiality agreement and sue him if he works for a competitor.

Also, I wonder if people would think differently if this case is about a Facebook employee left to work on a social media App like google+.

<comment><USER11> Possibly, but copying a web app is substantially simpler than copying AR tech. Considering magic leap was stealth with hundreds of millions in R&D, I would put it in a different category than making a similar web app.

<comment><USER12> > stealth with hundreds of millions in R&D

Wow. That number sounded high since I'm very unfamiliar with the space but according to crunchbase [1] they took in 2.6B in funding overall. Before this headset they mainly put out a few iterations of that gesture input device, right?

[1] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/magic- leap](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/magic-leap)

<comment><USER13> Leap Motion and Magic Leap are two different companies. The only thing Magic Leap seem to be doing is the headset, and that took them 2.6B funding and turned out to be at about the same level of tech as already existing products.

Leap Motion (which did the gesture recognition input stuff) was recently sold at about a 10th of their peak valuation ($30M price from $300M valuation about 2 years ago).

<comment><USER14> I interviewed at Magic Leap a few years ago and it was never explained to me how they were differentiating themselves from competitors or what their valuation was based on.

I declined the position based on the fact that their options were already diluted without a product or revenue stream.

Maybe one day I will regret that decision when they get bought by Apple, but I just don't see it happening.

<comment><USER13> I think their hope currently is to get bought for a boatload of money, but even if they are, it's hard to see they would keep their valuation. Personally I think of Magic Leap sorta like Juicero: overfunded, overpromised, and thought the market would magically appear at launch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Read the complaint here

[https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15787938/1/magic- leap-i...](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15787938/1/magic-leap-inc-v- xu/)

<comment><USER16> Summary of the evidence presented in the complaint:

1) Using the same proprietary font in their logo was a really dumb idea:

> [https://i.imgur.com/7pYZ8bp.png](https://i.imgur.com/7pYZ8bp.png)

2) Alleges he engaged in internal meetings "outside the scope of his work at Magic Leap" in order to gain useful information, while simultaneously neglecting his duties at work as he planned to start his own company in China. Before launching a product that looks and functions very similar to the Magic Leap product within a 2yr timespan (quitting in mid-2016, started in 2017, launched in 2019) while Magic Leap has been at it since 2010.

3) Their primary evidence seems to be some useless "Private Information" confidentiality form we all sign

4) The other is some Youtube interview the Nreal founder did where he openly admitted to being inspired by his work at Magic Leap:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcPB4POYkpc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcPB4POYkpc)

Where he basically said that Magic Leap was being too ambitious with an "impossible" goal of trying to put it all in one small device... and he wanted to utilize Chinese manufacturing pipelines to build the same thing but much simpler by utilizing existing smartphone and laptop tech.

5) Finally another section compared demos by both companies, both involving whales:

Magic Leap's whale demos:

> > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM0T6hLH15k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM0T6hLH15k)

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

Nreal's twitter picture demo:

> [https://i.imgur.com/jPIGMkf.png](https://i.imgur.com/jPIGMkf.png)

That's about it. Points 2) and 3) get repeated ad-nauseam and not very convincingly IMO.

<comment><USER17> > Using the exact same proprietary font in their logo was a really dumb idea

It's not the same font. Similar but not the same. Look at letter L and A. They are different

<comment><USER16> "e" and "a" are the same but the "L" by Nreal is custom. Additionally the "n" in Nreal looks like half of the "m" in Magic.

Only the "Nreal" part is using the font FYI and only 3 letters directly overlap (e, a, l).

Magic Leaps offers a similar font LominoUI on their site but it isn't entirely the same as the logo font:

[https://creator.magicleap.com/learn/guides/design- typography](https://creator.magicleap.com/learn/guides/design-typography)

<comment><USER17> A is not the same. It looks similar but the cut on the bottom has different angle. Also looking at it closer, even E is not the same. In magic leap the top cutout is bigger than bottom one, in nreal they have the same, equal size.

<comment><USER16> Oh come on, that logo type is extremely derivative of the Magic Leap one. n/m e, and a were essentially copied. They don't have to be exact copies to be stolen.

I'm very pro-theft in design as a learning and inspiration tool but it's extremely stupid when you both copy the logo font while also doing similar IP, when the cofounder worked there previously. It makes it look like they were baiting Magic Leap to complain. Even if the initial complaint is overall quite weak and the whole thing is probably futile.

<comment><USER18> > They don't have to be exact copies to be stolen.

A font would be covered under copyright so....I mean....legally, they _do_ have to be exact copies, yes. And this one is not, so the entire discussion of the font seem legally irrelevant.

<comment><USER16> But it's certainly not helping. It amplifies the derivative nature of the whole operation, right from the branding level to the product, regardless of exact legal implications.

This stuff matters in personal legacy, industry/media respect, and ultimately branding too. Unless they were purposefully going for the Chinese knock-off look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Shouldn't they be busy building a product that people want instead?

<comment><USER20> I can't help but think that insiders who knew the product was doomed to fail are breathing a sigh of relief that the blame for the killing blow won't land on them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Things like this is what prevents capable inventors from taking the necessary risk to develop a truly innovative product. My wish is for there to be better legal protection for entrepreneurs bringing new products to the market, in order to encourage innovation and long difficult r+d work.

My heart sinks every time I hear a story of copycats profiting off of the work of someone or some company that sank tons of hours and dollars into developing a unique product - going up down left right backwards forwards upside down right side up headfirst ass backwards - just to find a solution, and then to have all that effort once you've found the answer, be pulled from right under your feet because someone can do it better now that the answer has been discovered (because you put the hours to discover it). That's just ducking awful. I remember seeing [this]([https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/4/2/18290492/in- the-making-series-lumio-pressy-kickstarter-knockoffs-dragon-innovation)) about a simple product and it made me so furious. The reality is it's happening everywhere.

China and Chinese culture of designer knockoffs and blatant copycatting needs to start playing fair and follow the same laws as everyone else if they expect to deal respectably in international markets.

I'm wondering if with things like even the font being the same, wether or not the act of copycatting even registers as an offense to the people who do this.

And to make it clear my stance isn't against Chinese people, some of my favorite people in this world are Chinese, it's against a government that condones and does little, or turns a blind eye when a company is doing the equivalent of removing padding from a boxing glove. If we can't resolve something like this through verbal communication and legal action what other options do we have?

</comment><comment><USER22> Edit: Deleting this comment. I don't know enough about the subject matter to speak as confidently as I was.

<comment><USER23> Magic Leap actually have a product and it's actually pretty damn good at what it does. What they don't have is revenue. There just isn't a big enough market for mixed reality headsets.

<comment><USER24> What they sell is not the product that they teased. People got excited by their amazing promises of light beamed to your eyes and we got a lackluster Hololens bis. Bait&Switch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > "Whereas Nreal purported to develop its Nreal Light product in under two > years, Magic Leap developed its technology after extensive investment of > time (multiple years), money (hundreds of millions of dollars spent on > research and development) and human resources (hundreds of engineers)," > according to the complaint.

I have no real opinion on the allegations, and if true they are serious but...

...I find it a bit hilarious that Magic Leap, a company that has been widely criticised for over promising, under delivering, having extremely basic tech which is _itself_ quite close to the tech of competitors, and which is well known for spending an eye watering amount of money and time in order to obtain very little results would offer _this_ as a supporting argument.

Just because Magic Leap spent two billion and 7 years doesn't mean a competent engineering team couldn't do it a _lot_ faster with a _lot_ less money. :) (Especially with entirely legitimate access to Magic Leaps hardware, and with the benefit of years more published research across the industry.) I hope Magic Leap has some better arguments than they managed to get published in Bloomberg, because what's in the article is just hand wavy nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER25> The optics of this aren't great for Magic Leap. AR pun not intended. Really all this does is present Nreal as a legitimate threat to a company that raised approx 100x more money* before shipping a product.

(* Magic Leap funding $2B+, nreal $16M ish)

<comment><USER26> I don't want to take any position on either Magic Leap as a product/company or on this lawsuit, but it's not at all unusual for R&D to cost far more than production. This is how drug development works: someone spends billions researching and developing a drug and gets a temporary monopoly on production. Once competition is allowed and prices are competed down to the marginal cost of production the generics are close to free in comparison to the original branded product.

So "Nreal copied Magic Leap's product after Magic Leap sank billion into R&D" is an entirely plausible explanation for the comparable results despite the dramatic gap in funding.

<comment><USER25> I mean, I'm not arguing that there is no plausible explanation for Magic Leap's inability to ship a product with only $1B in funding. The plausible explanation is that they are running a tech startup like a drug development company, to use your analogy, which is just a terrible way to do startups.

AR/smartglasses is not a market where you will have "generics" any time soon. You're going to have the iPhone of smartglasses which will dominate, and then everyone else will try and fail to copy. Like Facebook dominating social, then google+ failing. Or iPhone vs Android, although Android did finally manage to achieve market share thanks to googles muscle.

Tl;dr: successful startups don't raise billions of dollars before shipping a product as mediocre as ML's v1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I never heard of Nreal and went to their website but did not find any demos of the product. Here's an execellent youtube video demoing their product - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9A9u-lwjTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9A9u-lwjTs)

</comment><comment><USER28> Chinese have a good grasp of add-on innovation. Give a base product and they'll pad it with all manner of features to make it a very marketable product. Look at DJI's action camera's, drones, etc. I'm not even going to touch on the age old conflict in combating apparel clones in China town.

I have a feeling its going to be very difficult to cage this kind of innovation unless there is a recurrent policy in place to periodically ban the import of a wide range of Chinese products.

On the other hand there are lots of super smart Chinese students in top tier colleges who also make salient contribution to research work that benefits us in one way or the other.

The bigger question is how do we resolve both markets to mutually benefit from sunken R&D as opposed to how we starve consumers because of slow paced tinkering refinements when the other party can speed the product to market.

Case in point: Lit Motors

</comment><comment><USER29> _Mr. Xu's misuse and exploitation of Magic Leap's image and goodwill is further manifested in Nreal's shameless use of whales in its demo experiences_

Are we patenting Whales in demos now? This is exactly the kind of myopia ML continues to have - thinking they were the first ones to use a whales in a VR/AR demo. I guess Intel was ripping off ML with Leviathan demo in 2014 [1] and theBlu was ripping off ML with their Vive demo in 2015 [2].

[1] [https://ronaldazuma.com/Leviathan_at_CES2014.html](https://ronaldazuma.com/Leviathan_at_CES2014.html)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFKbL-GU- _U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFKbL-GU-_U)

<comment><USER30> Well if people are going to start doing things with animated space whales are they crediting Disney ([https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6eS8WUoKeP0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6eS8WUoKeP0))?

Perhaps the easy availability of royalty free 3d models is relevant ([https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/animals/fish/humpback- wha...](https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/animals/fish/humpback-whale-for- unreal-engine-4))? Perhaps Oculus Rift museum humpback whale VR back in 2015 was an inspiration?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> But who knows whether Magic Leap's claimed 'technology' is really there? I mean, they don't have any product yet?

Is idea copying a thing? I don't really know...

</comment><comment><USER6> This situation strikes me as very similar to what Eric Yuan of Zoom did. He was one of Webex's founding employees and the VP of Engineering for Webex after its acquisition by Cisco. He then left to build a lightweight competitor that's currently cleaning Webex's clock. I wonder if Cisco should sue Eric as well?

</comment><comment><USER32> Winners: Lawyers

</comment><comment><USER33> I think everyone ultimately benefits from this. It means cheaper and more accessible AR technology for all.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's just Bluehole suing Epic Games for PUBG and Fortnite all over again, get on with it.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't know the full story here and have not taken the time to dive into it. Perhaps I will later. I just want to make a quick comment based on some of the responses I've seen.

Having been the subject of market research, product plan and intellectual property theft in the past (no, not by the Chinese) and having that information used to launch a competing business I think I have perspective to offer on this.

There is HUGE difference between "R&D" and just "D". "R&D" is slow, costly and full of risk. "D" simply requires execution. Borrowing from sports talk, you know "where the puck is going" and you can aim in that direction. You don't have to invent much and you actually have the luxury of improving upon what you know is and will be the technology of the "R&D" shop from which you stole.

One of the mantras of YC startups goes something like "if you are not embarrassed by your first product...". This is usually true for hardware as well. And, in most instances, you actually know very well what you'd like to build next. However, hardware isn't a simple matter of a weekend pivot. You just don't have that freedom. Not even close. So you have to go with what you have, get it to market, make some money with it and look at introducing your "next generation" product a year later. You can't do hardware spins in a couple of months. The greater the volume the more you are shackled to whatever you are shipping and it can easily be a year or more before you can put out a significantly updated version 2.

I've seen comments about optics being sub-par and more. Well, that's the kind of thing that can happen when you are doing "R&D" and you have to put out a product. It could be embarrassing, but that's what you brought to the party and that's what has to ship.

The thief, on the other hand, knows what you are shipping, what's ugly about it, your future plans, market intelligence and much, much more. Upon gaining this information all they have to do is align it with funding and execute on your version 2 or 3 way before you do. While you are busy building a company the thief can surface out of seemingly nowhere with a product that your first product can't compete with.

This is PRECISELY what happened to me nearly twenty years ago. Our resellers, from the US, Europe, Asia and other areas started to call me out of nowhere to ask if we had licensed our products to company X. One of them made an interesting comment, he said: "Martin, the material they sent me sounds and reads exactly like what we've been talking about for more than a year" (under NDA, of course).

Company X came into the market and put our product --which was going to be replaced in about six months-- to shame. And they did it with MY product plan, MY specification, MY design, MY market intelligence. The net effect was that, ironically, when we came out with our product WE looked like we copied from them. Which was the proverbial addition of "insult to injury".

Anyhow, not defending anyone. I don't know enough. Just wanted to react to some of the comments that point out the thief's product is better than the original. Well, yeah. It would be.

</comment><comment><USER9> Chinese companies have a very long history of state-supported IP theft.

When a Chinese product so obviously mimics an American product--especially when the chief engineer used to work for the American company--it's on the Chinese company to prove that no IP theft occurred. They've lost the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER6> What do you think about Eric Yuan and Zoom, then? He was the VP of Engineering at Webex before he left, and then he launched Zoom (with a mostly Chinese R&D team). Would you haul him in front of your imaginary court and prosecute him until he proved no IP theft occurred?

<comment><USER9> Zoom is a US company based out of San Jose...

As Zoom is definitely within the scope of a valid CA non-compete, if it violated any WebEx IP of wouldn't currently be a publicly treated company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hey, did Bloomberg ever retract its entirely unverified Chinese spy chip story?

Just a reminder that they've blown all their credibility.

<comment><USER5> You may not be aware of the great talk titled "Modchips of the State" [1] (presented at 35C3 in Dec 2018).

The speaker managed to reproduce the exact single-chip hardware implant attack suggested in the Oct 2018 Bloomberg Businessweek story [2] [3], which claimed Amazon and Apple found malicious hardware implants in Supermicro motherboards while conducting detailed inspections.

While Bloomberg has never retracted the story, there's an argument that the sources have vested interests in lying to Bloomberg suggesting that attacks developed in lab-conditions actually occurred in the real-world, in order to raise awareness of supply-chain risks (something the current US administration has been attempting to do for some time). There's also a suggestion that the journalist was acting in good-faith but mixed up a few different attacks, with the sources reluctant to clarify things. Another suggestion is that the attack did happen, and Amazon and Apple were forced to issue denials.

It's a very fascinating story. Maybe I'm naive, but if Bloomberg was in-fact wrong, they would issue a correction or a retraction. The fact they haven't retracted it suggests to me that there's truth to the story.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7H3V7tkxeA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7H3V7tkxeA)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the- big-h...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how- china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJGbcjfJ7rU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJGbcjfJ7rU)

<comment><USER37> The fact Supermicro didn't sue kind of says it all to me.

<comment><USER38> Indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Magic Leap has raised $2.6 BILLION dollars in funding and have nothing to show for it. Somehow I don't think a random guy in China is what's holding them back.

<comment><USER39> As other commenter said, this is not really the point of this particular article.

But I totally agree. I recently had the opportunity to try to develop (with a team) something for the Magic Leap One over a period of about 3 months, and it was an awful experience, a complete and utter disappointment.

Here are just some of the issues we faced:

\- terrible overheating: we offloaded most functionality (basically everything in our app but image tracking) to a remote server and both the headset and the lightpack would still overheat to the point of being very hot to the touch within 5-10 minutes

\- image tracking in general pretty much doesn't work: the effective range is like 2 feet, and even then it's laggy and inaccurate. And forget about trying to use your own images.

\- controller drift: the tracking for the controller literally just starts floating away. We had attached something to the controller and during demos people would say, "woah it's just floating away" and look up as the virtual controller slowly faded into the distance

\- unexplainable throttling: once it starts overheating, things like image tracking just stop working, apps freeze or shut down, etc.

\- dizziness: everyone who tried it started feeling eye strain within minutes of wearing it

\- awful field of view: to put it simply, if you look at someone eye-to-eye, the field of view cannot even show things right above their head

\- clunky design: the lightpack is heavy and constantly getting in the way, and the cables attaching it to the headset are very stiff

\- Lumin OS: sucks

\- controller trackpad: the least functional trackpad I've used in my life. The circular scrolling is incredibly hard to use; our team just dropped the entire scrolling feature for demos because not a single person we trialed with was able to get it to work. Theoretically, it's just a circular motion with your thumb to scroll. In practice, after 3 months of experience using the device I was still unable scroll consistently.

\- dim screen: like wearing dark sunglasses

\- heavy headset / awkward weight distribution: it feels uncomfortably heavy on your eyes & nose area

And there are many more issues that make it feel more like a prototype made by a couple people in a garage than the flagship consumer product of a company with $2.6b in funding. Really makes me think the whole thing was a big scam, like a slightly less completely-made-up version of Theranos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Magic Leap promised Fiber Scanning Displays ; They conned everyone into believing they had the tech to beam photons more real than reality's directly in your eyes. Now that they baited and switched, they should just STFU. Who cares if someone copied their disappointing actual stuff?

<comment><USER40> Whatever they promised - The Google's and VCs of the world put in money into them. What does that tell us about investors in this country?

<comment><USER41> That FOMO is rampant; if you're waiting for the startup to prove its tech, you've likely missed the investment boat already.

Just saying, there is definitely some rationale to it, esp when considering how investment portfolios are precipitated on a few huge winners and 99% losers.

<comment><USER40> @dyrosla FOMO: Thank you for the explanation. I am trying to understand. The lottery ticket on the back of engineers and workers. Any thoughts on how long is this game going to last? Now China is playing the same game, but with relaxed rules - to speed things up on FOMO? Do I understand this correct?

<comment><USER41> I'm not sure if I understand you- FOMO is just the fear of missing out on investing in a company that has a likelihood of making it big.

In the case of Magic Leap, VCs bought into the team's background and expertise and banked on the likelihood of their success/impact if successful and decided to risk it. It doesn't mean they were 100% sold- just that the risk/reward calculation they made was favourable.

Had they waited for Magic Leap to be a ways farther in their tech, (and had Magic Leap delivered), the price of entry to invest would be astronomical and the opportunity would have been 'missed out' on.

<comment><USER40> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rony_Abovitz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rony_Abovitz)

Why was a biomedical engineering guy (with absolutely no background in AR/VR/graphics/CS/...) being given a billion dollar to do something that is not up his ally at all?

What are we missing here? Which Team? I never understood this story.

<comment><USER41> I'd read more into what was presented that early on and with what team beyond Abovitz.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm pretty sure, actually, that this affects _every single company_ that has anything the Chinese government would want. If you want to tell me that there aren't any spies among e.g. 100K Intel/AMD/Qualcomm/Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple/Facebook/Tesla/SpaceX/etc employees, I'd say you're very naive. There are also likely domestic spies on staff, as well. You won't even know who they are, and all the right parties know everything they need to know. Basically any company of any consequence which doesn't do DoD-style clearances and compartmentalization for everyone has a bunch of spies on staff, 100% guaranteed.</comment>


Gravity Payments in Seattle Is Raising Minimum Salaries to $70K - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/business/owner-of-gravity-payments-a-credit-card-processor-is-setting-a-new-minimum-wage-70000-a-year.html <comment><USER2> Already posted and discussed here a few hours ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9371854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9371854)

</comment><comment><USER3> So to the person who is currently making $75k and watching their coworker getting a $30k raise does what, exactly? Suddenly that person is worth 66% more, so what about everyone else? Come salary review time, I'd be asking for a huge raise, because clearly the company has the cash to throw around, and if they're handing out 50+% raises, my value must have also increased.

<comment><USER4> If you read the article, you'll note that they don't actually have the cash for this. The CEO is taking a massive paycut to make it happen.

That being said, that kind of logic demonstrates an incredible lack of caring for the people who are benefiting from this. I presume you make more than $70k a year, and you fail to understand what it's like to live on less than $48k, as half of his employees do, in a city like Seattle. Making sure his employees are well paid makes a huge difference in their lives in a way increasing someone's salary from 75k to 95k just doesn't.

<comment><USER5> The two aren't mutually exclusive. A skilled employee can both be happy for their coworker who is now living comfortably, and upset that they draw the same wage with twice the experience and domain-specific skills that their colleague doesn't possess.

To put it another way, why invest time and money into education and specialized skills development if you can draw the same wage for an entry- level job with fewer responsibilities?

<comment><USER6> You might have twice the experience, but if the value of your output and your coworkers output is the same, why should you get paid more?

<comment><USER5> You shouldn't, and that isn't my argument. If Gravity was paying some people $40k and some people $75k for the same work and result, they were being economically irrational. I'm saying that the $75k worker, up until today, was someone who likely commanded $75k because a) their training and experience allowed them to do productive work that exceeds that of entry-level workers, and b) they are harder to replace than entry-level workers.

If your employer says "your value to this company is equivalent to the value of unskilled entry-level workers", when you are in fact a highly trained and experienced worker, that may well be difficult to swallow.

<comment><USER6> > You shouldn't, and that isn't my argument.

That is your argument. The company decides what it values, not you.

> If your employer says "your value to this company is equivalent to the value > of unskilled entry-level workers", when you are in fact a highly trained and > experienced worker, that may well be difficult to swallow.

Your value doesn't necessary map to your training and experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd be concerned about what will happen if someone currently making $35k either loses their job or has to change jobs. Their lifestyle will (theoretically) be adjusted to an artificially inflated income which they will more than likely have trouble finding somewhere else for the same work.

</comment><comment><USER8> As someone who has been above and below this mark. I truly hope that more companies and influential individuals follow this and start taking action. Freeing those of stress of things that shouldn't be stressing people in this era.

</comment><comment><USER9> I understand that the study was actually about _household_ income. If my wife already has a good job does it follow that I shouldn't get paid?

</comment><comment><USER10> As a thought experiment: What would happen if all companies did this? If this was the actual minimum wage?

Is there enough economic activity to support it nationwide? I would have to guess so, considering the volume of people who make drastically more than this. What kind of impact would such a massive redistribution of income have?

<comment><USER11> Plenty of folks would be perfectly happy flipping burgers instead of going to college, so there would be fewer qualified folks for the positions which currently pay 70k, so those salaries would go up (since supply would be going down), so some of those businesses would go bankrupt, etc.

<comment><USER12> A burger flipping job isn't a bad job simply because it's paid badly. It's boring, unfulfilling, tedious and people don't respect you for doing it. People would still go to college to get jobs that have _those_ things.

Arguably a high minimum wage would mean no one would want rubbish burgers any more, so perhaps burger flippers would have to retrain as chefs. That wouldn't be such a bad thing.

<comment><USER11> > It's boring, unfulfilling, tedious and people don't respect you for doing > it. People would still go to college to get jobs that have those things.

Ha, they'd give up on years of income and pay tuition for that? Nope, I think a lot of people either wouldn't care enough, or just wouldn't be able to afford the opportunity cost. For many of the people whom a 70k minimum wage would affect, college is a financial investment, not a route to lack of tedium as an accountant or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems like a flaw with Capitalism. In it's pure form, it leads to extremely wide wealth gaps. If history repeats itself, and conditions worsen, perhaps we'll see a repeat of the robber baron era which would then, as it did in the past, lead into an strong socialist reaction (unions and social welfare programs). Feels like a cycle.

<comment><USER14> What part is the flaw?

<comment><USER13> The flaw is that it always leads to extreme income inequality. There's no inherent mechanism to prevent it.</comment></comment></comment>


Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond <comment><USER2> Keep in mind that this article was apparently written in 1982 so it's nearly 30 years old. Not that this invalidates it, but you should take into account that times change (although, with diamonds, they are largely the same).

Personally, my wife and I decided to buy a synthetic diamond for her engagement ring. She didn't want me to spend alot of money on it (knowing that whatever I spend is really "our" money once we are married anyways and thought it silly to tie up so much money in something you'd never actually sell). She didn't even want a diamond since they were so expensive in general. In the end we found a company that made synthetics that we liked and were able to get a nice sized stone for very little money. It gets the requisite social oohs and aahs and we don't have to explain why we think spending money on a diamond ring is silly.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure you're not unfamiliar with the signaling aspect of diamonds: a costly gesture and sign of commitment, since it can't easily be repeated to other mates, or done at all if one doesn't have the wealth / position / etc. And the signaling utility of diamonds is helped, rather than hindered, by the lack of a secondary market.

<comment><USER4> If your mate actively doesn't want the signal, then what's the point of signaling?

I mean, mine would scream bloody murder if I gave her a $2000 diamond next week. Hardly worth it, huh?

For our wedding, we went with a nice ring that has two modestly-sized Tanzanite hearts in a silver ring. It costs a mere fraction of what a diamond would have cost, has better symbolism than a single diamond, and, oh, it also _looks nice_. Frankly I think fully transparent gems lack personality. Only downside I was worried about is that Tanzanite is quite a ways down the Moh scale, but it has not proved a problem; if your gemstone is getting scratched your finger is probably getting torn off. This does not happen often.

<comment><USER5> I don't know about your experience with women, and by all means, if this is not true, kuddos to you, but this seems like one of those things women would say but feel something competely different.

<comment><USER6> Geez, way to generalise about _an entire gender_ , and quite negatively at that. There are certainly people (both men and women) who say one thing and mean another, but comments like this do nothing but undermine those women who actually mean it when they say something (like "let's not spend too much money on our rings"), which I have to assume is most of the ones that bother to say stuff like that in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This Warren Buffett quote on gold could very easily be changed to apply to diamonds:

"Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."

<comment><USER8> Except that diamonds are just a form of carbon, whereas gold is divisible and un-manufacturable. Say what you want about diamonds, they way will pass as technology makes more and more strides, but gold does have industrial use as well as financial use. Gold is money when the future is completely uncertain. Heck, the Dow hasn't moved since the thirties when priced in gold.

<comment><USER7> Gold is money only because most people agree on that. If our civilization collapses the only 'money' people will take will be corn and rise.

Said that, I agree that gold has value, it has it's uses. But when it's get used as a 'safe' currency it's all artificial.

<comment><USER9> If our society collapses, rebuilding parts of it will give great economies of scale to those with the requisite knowledge. Gold might not be the most worthful metal, though; that might go to copper, until the infrastructure gets built back up to the point where we're concerned with gold's particular conductivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The pain you feel selling diamonds is much more due to the huge markup charged by retail jewelers than anything De Beers has done.

It might be true that they're doomed as long term investments, but if you buy a diamond for a fair price (e.g. at Blue Nile), I'd expect you to be able to turn around and sell it for >75% of what you paid.

<comment><USER11> Even without the markup, diamonds are not going to be easy to sell. A valuation based on cut, caret, color and clarity is going to be hard to do. The buyer must accept a risk that they have undervalued (and you will shop around to find the buyer who undervalues it the most), so they need to give themselves some margin of error.

<comment><USER12> Don't you mean overvalued? The effect is calle the "winner's curse", if anybody wants to read up on it.

<comment><USER11> Yep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A case study in perfect marketing. I remember mentioning to some reasonably intelligent girl on how I would never buy my wife-to-be a diamond, and remember the reaction being the very definition of "scoff". The fact that someone wouldn't buy their lover a worthless rock is just too unreasonable to even contemplate.

One thing I like about wars is that they help thin out the human race. Hopefully one day, we will completely kill ourselves off; then I can finally be happy knowing that everyone alive will be thinking for themselves.

<comment><USER14> i would presume that the scoff came more from the implied "I am unable to understand or appreciate the needs and desires of a female partner" than it had to do with the logic behind the statement.

if you find a partner who doesn't want a diamond, then you are completely justified in not getting her one (just because she says she doesn't want one, doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't, though).

otherwise, the real value isn't in its intrinsic value, but in the various byproducts -- the signal it sends, how she's able to show it off to her friends (and will be expected to), the fact that she's likely been dreaming about it since childhood, etc.

just like any social norm, it doesn't always make sense. but by refusing to do something because you think it doesn't make sense, the real thing you're saying is that it's about your needs, not the other person's.

<comment><USER15> _the real thing you're saying is that it's about your needs, not the other person's._

Really? Why, because you say so? Firstly, no girl "needs" a diamond. Secondly, doing things that don't make sense in order to please others has already been a cause of too much suffering in history already. Lastly, by insisting on having your partner spend a significant amount of money to buy you something that has no real value just so you can show off, the real thing you're saying is that it's about your needs, not the other person's.

<comment><USER16> Girls don't "need" anything except food, water and shelter, but a man who gives her only that won't last very long. A blanket statement like "I would never buy you a diamond" implies "I will vet all your purchases." It's the most un-romantic thing one could possibly say. It sets the tone of the relationship, something like "What you want has to make sense to me before I give it to you."

It sounds quaint and old-fashioned, but a man should give everything to a woman he hopes to marry, and demand nothing in return, without worrying about whether or not it's sensible. It doesn't make sense until you realize that she only wants to do the same for you. She will commit to _unconditional_ satisfaction of your wants, but you have to commit to hers as well, and saying "I would never buy you a diamond" sets up some major conditions.

It's not about the diamond. You can debate the diamond specifically (and btw, the showing-it-off part is where most of the worth lies) and you might win. It's about the debate, about having to discuss her wants in order to decide if they make sense. That is unromance.

<comment><USER13> It cuts the other way, too. If someone tells me, "I must have a diamond" then I know that person values her friends' thoughts or her appearance to strangers over her own rational thoughts. Not interested. (Alternatively, she has no rational thoughts. Also bad.)

 _It sounds quaint and old-fashioned, but a man should give everything to a woman he hopes to marry, and demand nothing in return, without worrying about whether or not it's sensible. It doesn't make sense until you realize that she only wants to do the same for you. She will commit to unconditional satisfaction of your wants._

This makes life seem even more meaningless than I usually think it is. One person does whatever he thinks the other person wants, in exchange for that in return. A silent existence devoid of interaction, sacrificing your happiness so that the other person is happy to sacrifice their happiness.

All that's left after this is reproduction. Is that all human relationships are about?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _Brod estimates that a half-carat diamond ring, which might cost $2,000 at a retail jewelry store, could be sold for only $600 at Empire._

</comment><comment><USER17> So it is probably inevitable that the price of diamonds will plunge, but there are still amazing possibilities with synthetic gems. It should be possible to create synthetics with careful control of impurities so that they have designer optical properties.

It reminds me of failed business venture by Kary Mullis the guy who got the nobel prize for PCR. He was going to create a business that would embed the cloned DNA of a celebrity or deceased ancestor into a piece of jewelry for a fee. While this business was unsuccessful I think that if people keep experimenting with this kind of thing someone will win big.

<comment><USER18> What's astonishing is that, in the 28 years since this article was published, De Beers and the retail diamond market have failed to collapse.

I'll readily admit to not knowing one bit of information about the wholesale or investment diamond markets, but given the picture painted, De Beers must have something _really_ special going on.

<comment><USER19> It's mostly a brilliant manipulation of public expectations. The article illustrates it beautifully: the creation of the matrimonial diamond ring in America and then Japan, the manipulations needed to sell small diamonds one year and big diamonds another.

As I've heard it, when synthetic diamonds arrived on the market, it turned out that they had fewer impurities than natural diamonds. The cartel's advertising changed to emphasize the uniqueness of natural, "genuine" diamonds (which presumably have _just the right number_ of flaws).

A 2003 Wired article on synthetic diamonds:

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html>

<comment><USER20> I hope people note this: Literally perfect diamonds can be produced for impressively small amounts of money, and the cartel barely bats an eyelid, happily swinging into their next marketing campaign to secure their position. We should all learn from these masters of marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The diamond engagement ring was invented by a PR company hired by De Beers: [http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21211.htm...](http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21211.html)

Personally, I got suckered into buying an engagement ring one time, but the engagement didn't take. After lots of searching, I was eventually able to sell the ring for half what I paid for it.

I used the money for gas and moved to California :)

</comment><comment><USER22> This line particularly tickled my fancy: "Nobody took into account that diamonds, like any other commodity, can drop in value"

The wheel of time turns, ages come and go.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is certainly an intriguing article. Is there any more recent information about the stability of the market?

</comment><comment><USER24> When my wife and I became engaged, she wanted to choose her own ring. Since I was leaving on a business trip, we agreed on a ballpark price range and she went looking.

While she likes diamonds, they are not her favorite gem stone. She ended up buying a very nice emerald ring with much smaller diamonds channel set on either side.

So when an anniversary approached, and I want to give her a bracelet, earrings, or some such item, diamonds don't even come into consideration.

While I don't preach my view to others, I have been asked a few times about gift ideas by other guys. I try to steer them away from diamonds, endeavoring to explain the scam for what it is.

<comment><USER13> Emeralds aren't a scam?

<comment><USER25> Emeralds have the advantage of actually being very rare, for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd talk to Doug the Head. If it's stones and it's stolen, Doug's the man to speak to.

</comment><comment><USER27> Seems like an opportunity for a startup: help people get the highest price for their jewelry.

<comment><USER11> E-bay? Or you could offer better appraisal and eschew. I hear India has some good (and cheap) gemsmiths ...

<comment><USER28> s/eschew/escrow

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When talking to my girlfriend, she mentions she is not interested in diamonds. This seems to be the next candidate: [http://www.moissaniteco.com/moissanite- wedding-sets-c-106.ht...](http://www.moissaniteco.com/moissanite-wedding- sets-c-106.html)

<comment><USER30> No, pick another gemstone, perhaps a Sapphire.

<comment><USER29> What are the benefits of a Sapphire? I'm not looking forward to the day I need to buy a ring, i'm way out of my knowledge domain :)</comment></comment></comment>