Git can't be made consistent - <AUTHOR> http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/74462.html <comment><USER2> Another interesting case: [http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/howto/revert...](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/howto/revert- a-faulty-merge.txt)

I'm not sure if the "forget whatever happened" metaphor works for me. In the "revert a revert" article above, the problem is that merging a topic branch doesn't cause the first few commits on it to be applied if those commits were already merged but then reverted -- the revert has no effect on the merge. This is precisely because every commit object, since it includes it's parent's sha1, uniquely determines a history of changes, and commits in that are in both ancestries don't get re-applied.

In Bram's example, you have the opposite problem -- two commits are semantically the same but were made independently and have different sha1s. If Linus were drawing this diagram he would label them B and B' (and so on... there's a lot). To git, B' is totally different so a merge applies the change "again". If the other person had noticed this and reset their branch to the first B, the merge would be a fast-forward.

IMHO, the Don't Do That should apply to creating those commits (by cherry- picking, or not rebasing duplicated work) rather than merging. Not because such commits are morally wrong or something like that, but because git intentionally ("the stupid content tracker") doesn't handle them well. That's the tradeoff of the nice object model.

Our git workflow at my job is pretty messy and does run into this sort of stuff. I'd love something just a _little_ more darcs-y, like say grafting together the two branches in the second example that arrive at the same content (without having to manage a local grafts file separate from the repository), but that opens many other cans of worms that I'm sure I'm not intelligent enough to deal with.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for mentioning B', I first did not understand what the problem was. Merging B' will turn A to B', which is equivalent to B. This causes confusion if the author of the left branch intended to get rid of B.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >I have a little secret for you: Git can't be made to have eventual consistency

David Roundy, the initial author of darcs, seems to disagree on this. From <https://github.com/droundy/iolaus> : > I realized that the semantics of git are actually not nearly so far from those of darcs as I had previously thought. In particular, if we view each commit as describing a patch in its "primitive context" (to use darcs-speak), then there is basically a one-to-one mapping from darcs' semantics to a git repository.

<comment><USER5> 'actually not nearly so far', 'if we view each commit', 'there is basically' - many differences and gotchas can lurk in such qualifiers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am surprised to see this post from bram cohen, as he himself had a heated argument with linus torvalds on git design.

<http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/archives/git/0504/2153.html> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=505876>

<comment><USER7> Which he lost... i.e. Linus paid no attention to what Bram said ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In short: Don't be a dummy and expect git to be some kind of advanced artificial intelligence.

<comment><USER9> Someone who knows this stuff please tell me if I my analysis is correct:

I see smart people pointing out "flaws" in software, not realizing the solution requires strong AI.

(e.g. yesterday's post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2455793>)

<comment><USER10> Merging _associativity_ doesn't require magic AI.

<comment><USER9> Sorry - I'm not sure what "merging associativity" is - can you give an example?

The above article gives us a simple example (A vs B) of a situation where doing the right thing requires a human aka strong AI because you need to know the "intent" of commit.

Is there a simple solution - or even a complex one - which would not require a human to verify?

For a similar analysis of yesterday's post, see this comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2455970>

<comment><USER11> Merge associativity would be where taking an initial stage and merging commit A then merging commit B (where A and B are commits created independently but from a common start point) _always_ creates _exactly_ the same results as merging in commit B followed by commit A. The word "associativity" in this instance is being used in the same sense as it is used in basic arithmetic: (1+A)+B === 1+(A+B) === (1+B)+A and (1xA)xB === 1x(AxB) === (1xB)xA.

The merge processes used by Git and other common source control systems are associative for most circumstances where the two (or more) merges affect different parts of the code (including different parts of the same source file). The issue tends to raise its ugly head when the two merges affect the same lines. For instance:

        Original:     Commit A:     Commit B:
        line 1        line 1        line 1
        line 2        line 3        line 2
        line 3        line 4        line 3 updated
        line 4                      line 4

If you merge in that order line 2 will get put back as it will look to simple inspection like that is what is intended (merging in A removes line two, merging in B inserts line 2 (which to the merge algorithm is now a new line) and updates line 3). If you merge B first then line 2 is gone from the result (merging in B updates line 3, line 2 not needing to be touched as it is the same, and merging in A after that will remove line 2.

        Merge A then B:     Merge B then A:
        line 1              line 1
        line 2              line 3 updated
        line 3 updated      line 4
        line 4

It isn't just deletes/inserts that are affected: changes to the same lines can produce similarly inconsistent results depending on merge order. The trouble is that for a DVCS it is impossible to consistently deal with these situations without a manual merge (or AI better than we currently have). Either output could be the intention and without context other than the original state and the two commits you can't tell one way or the other.

A centralised source control system doesn't have this problem because as far as the repository is concerned there is one and only one timeline: commits happen in one order so the second will either always override the first where there is a question. This doesn't mean that the CCVS would be _correct_ though, just that it would be _consistent_.

With either CVSC or a DVSC where a three-way merge (where the start point of each commit is known so the compare is done between commit, original state and current state) can be used then a merge conflict could be flagged for these issues, but a human still needs to make the final decision as no algorithm can be _consistent_ (or _correct_ ) 100% of the time without a universe of extra context.

If you were presented with the commits above, would you know what should be done with line2? Does the change in line 3 depend upon it existing, so you must keep it, or is it irrelevant, so you should delete it (A says delete, B doesn't care either way)? Even if you knew that commit B was done later than commit A that wouldn't mean that it is necessarily the one to trust, and in any case there might be a more complex set of commits with a mix of conflicts where A is right in some cases and B in others.

People expecting Git to be associative in these instances are (by my understanding) asking for the impossible. Perhaps the merge algorithm could be made a little more intelligent, but I doubt it could ever be 100% correct or consistent (where consistent implies the associativity of merges). Remember that what we are dealing with here are edge cases (unless you have lots of people working on the same areas of the source tree at anyone time, in which case you should probably consider a more hierarchical distributed repository arrangement) and changing the behaviour will likely create other, similar, edge cases so it is probably not worth spending many man hours tweaking the merge algorithms for instead of introducing a little human intervention into the potentially inconsistent situations. Any changes that get "lost" due to the wrong decision being made by the automatic merge algorithm or the human will still be present in a good source control system (unless you have explicitly told it to purge them) so they are not lost forever.

 _Caveat: I've not used Git (or any DVCS) in anger yet,_ but I have been reading around the area with the intention of starting to use it to track my personal projects and perhaps recommend it (or something similar) to be considered at work. This is an issue that I thought about a while ago, and I'm thankful of this recent discussion as it has reaffirmed what I decided after thinking about it a bit back then: these are edge cases that are safe to ignore until the rare occasion when they happen, at which point nothing is lost (I'll just may have to make some decisions manually and/or raise a new commit to revert changes that are "made in error" due to the inconsistency). Of course I lack the experience needed to confidently suggest I can't be proven completely wrong on the matter!

<comment><USER9> Thank you for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Note that darcs implements the "expected" or "naive" semantics, at the cost of edge cases that have exponential time (rather than going ahead with unflagged inconsistent merges).

<comment><USER12> The really big insight Linus had that Brahm apparently still doesn't want to recognize is that if that if you design what essentially a snapshotted filesystem, the merge algorithm is just a convenience. Any better merge algorithms can be added to git without touching the format. In fact any individual user can pick and choose their merge algorithm that the repository just cares about the recorded content history (which trees are parent to which trees).

<comment><USER13> Git also stores diffs from time to time: <http://book.git- scm.com/7_how_git_stores_objects.html>

<comment><USER12> I'm guessing you're referring to packed objects. If I understand them correctly they are just there for space efficiency of the _filesystem that is git_. They're not first order concepts on which _git the DVCS_ builds upon, just an implementation detail.

<comment><USER13> My thinking when I posted my comment above was that any diff format used in the repository could be treated as an "internal" format, and any actual merges that you perform could use any merge strategy that they like, as long as the commit code converted it into the repository's format on the way in. Which is why I pointed out that git also uses an internal diff format. However, if your point is that hg uses an internal format which cannot store particular changes to files correctly, or requires excessive engineering, then yes, that would be a problem and I see where you are coming from. I do very much like the conceptual simplicity of git.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice to see Bram Cohen coming to the same conclusion I did. Having two branches constantly cross-merging is a bad idea, no matter what SCM you use.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure the example in this article _wouldn't_ confuse git: weirdness like this is the reason git has the "recursive" merge algorithm instead of just doing a plain three-way merge. A recursive merge basically tries to merge some of the parents together before doing the final merge, which resolves this sort of case.

I do criss-cross merges between git branches all the time with no ill effects. Maybe non-git VCSes can't handle this sort of thing.

<comment><USER7> You need to do criss-cross merges that revert previous commits on one or both sides of the merges. If you're not reverting you're not hitting Bram's corners.

This is a though corner case and I'm pretty sure you can confuse _any_ source control system currently in production with cases like this. BitKeeper has some theoretical solutions, but we haven't gotten around to actually test them in production.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I stopped reading after the first sentence. The author takes some liberties with the definition of "eventual consistency.". Either he doesn't know what it means, or he likes to demolish terms which used to be defined precisely.

<comment><USER17> On a related note, to establish the credential of the author, he is the creator of BitTorrent protocol.

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

<comment><USER18> And has worked quite a bit on the revision control diff/merge problem, e.g. <http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/37690.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Mr. Joy is a really ironic name.

</comment><comment><USER20> Holy crap... someone still uses LiveJournal as their blog.</comment>


Ask HN: Advice on academic funding - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
To give this some context I will start by saying that I was a GPU programmer in the games industry and wanting to get a more academic footing I applied and managed to get onto the MPhil Advanced Computer Science course at Cambridge University with the hopes of continuing onto a PhD (or a research role in an industry).
In the UK courses are limited to the maximum price they can charge for 'home' students. So it was my plan to take a higher paying job outside of games to save the money to pay that. However, Cambridge has a policy of not wanting the students to work while they study, so the costs are higher as I will also need to provide more living costs than initially expected and my saving plan has accounted for.
I am very new to academia but it seems the standard way to solve this seems to be to approach the different funding organisations which offer limited amounts or through the Colleges. Unfortunately, for quite a lot of these I am not eligible, ironically, due to the income at my new job, age (I am 25 and a lot of them cut off at 24) and having been working for the years since leaving University in 2012. Others do not provide funding due to the course being an MPhil, not the standard MEng, MSci etc. as well as a few other things.
So, I am a little lost in the process and feel I might be missing something obvious.
The plan going forward, if I am actually on the right track, is to begin approaching businesses once I have confirmed my research subject. Based on my assigned supervisor and my research proposals the subject is looking likely to be in the area of developing GPGPU techniques for spacial recognition problems.
If anyone has any advice or guidance in this area I would love to hear it, especially if I have just went down the entirely wrong route in approaching this!
Thanks <comment><USER2> My experience is from Australia. The system is probably different from the UK, but there might also be some similarities.

I did a quick search and found that the UK also has a distributed version of the AU Research Training Scheme. Have you contacted the postgraduate student organisations, talked to your intended supervisor? You might have to defer for a year to save up enough to fund your year of research. BTW, once you get involved in your research work it is extremely hard to hold down a job as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I'll take a look for that scheme.

I have contacted the University organisations, my application was a little late so I had missed a lot of funding opportunities that go early but applied for anything that was available and spoke to my supervisor for departmental funding. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot going this year on that level due to changes in the system it seems.

The original plan has been to have enough saved to cover the very basic living costs and then small bar/shop job for anything extra. There is no way I could work my current job with full-time research on top, that for sure :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: As co-founders, how did you split up? - <AUTHOR> Since co-founders splitting up is one of the biggest issues a start-up faces, I'm really curious about the causes. Maybe there is something to learn and to look for <comment><USER2> i am an angel investor and have seen very good ideas and successful startups fail due to founders. Two of my funded startups have shut due to differences among founders. This happened due to lack of trust, mutual respect and synergy. When founders start thinking about individual contributions, one upmanship and dominant roles, the startup is bound to fail.

</comment><comment><USER3> Goals change.</comment>


Game Wagering with Bitcoin and USD - <AUTHOR> https://koalah.co/holiday

<comment><USER2> They want me to sign in with FB or Google, tying my BTC activity with my real identity. This is assuming they actually do support BTC, I couldn't find anything about BTC support on their website.

Further they require a 90 day waiting period, while they verify there was no fraud, before you can receive any money. They expect to garner enough trust to hold your money for 3 months, but they don't even have an 'About Us' or 'Contact Us' page anywhere.

Further the site seems to be generally incomplete, and would make me think it is therefore insecure. Clicking 'Terms and Agreements' in the footer takes you to a page the header of which contains a 'Logout' link, despite not being logged in.

<comment><USER3> Hey, our intention is not to reveal your BTC activity with your real identiy. The BTC is simply used to deposit and withdraw money as an alternative to the man, aka PayPal. We're huge supporters of BTC and the Ethereum project and tying in BTC was our way of opening it up to a community that does not look fondly upon fiat currency. The 90 day waiting period is only for accounts that are flagged by our security protocol. Rarely will we hold money for the full 90 days. Thank you for sharing this bug with us, we will be working through this and adding in a standard login process in the next two days. If you have any questions, please email me at email@example.com

<comment><USER4> Do you guys realize Bitcoin transactions are not reversible? Why not update your "security protocol" and take advantage of this new technology? Btw Ethereum is a scam. Why would you support that instead of say sidechains or Counterparty, and take advantage of the already existing code, infrastructure, adoption, and network effect in general?

<comment><USER5> Thanks for your concerns. We will actively check out all cryptos! It would be ideal to leverage the technology that has been built through bitcoin and something we will look towards.

<comment><USER4> Glad to hear that. Some additional info then: Counterparty published an Ethereum version built on top of Counterparty. Ethereum responded by building Counterparty on top of Ethereum. The obvious difference is that Counterparty uses Bitcoin's blockchain and security, while Ethereum has nothing. To makes things worse they use PoS which we know can't be made both secure and decentralized at the same time. That's why all PoS coins are centralized through checkpoints or whack-a-mole style security patching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why would they only allow facebook and g+ accounts to sign up? Maybe I am missing a link somewhere that allows normal sign up process...

Personally I very rarely link services. I especially wouldn't feel comfortable linking a gambling service to a social media service.

<comment><USER3> We have used facebook and g+ accounts to sign up to drive a social gaming environment! I understand your concerns and we will be adding a normal sign up process in these next two days. We are considered games of skill opposed to gambling. Players are wagering on their own skill. To give a comparison: take the NYC Marathon. A runner will pay money to run and if he wins he receives prize money. He is placing a bet on himself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For folks who don't want to have their identity associated with their gaming, I've created a Game of Thrones inspired bitcoin game:

[https://houseofchance.net](https://houseofchance.net)

The bitcointalk thread is here:

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=890248.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=890248.0)

Would love to get feedback from the community here, especially those interested in bitcoin or Game of Thrones

*edit: To create an account, you need to provide an email address, but you can make up a fake email address if you don't want to leak your identify.

<comment><USER8> This is just a satoshi dice clone with a game of thrones theme right? Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the question. Actually it's not a dice game. It's a slot game with a variable house edge that combines both luck and knowledge of Game of Thrones. Satoshi dice has a house edge of 1.9% in favor of the house. House of Chance has a variable house edge of up to 1% _in the player 's favor_ depending on how much they know about the books and TV show.

Here's an explanation of how knowledge factors into the odds:

[https://houseofchance.net/faq#a4](https://houseofchance.net/faq#a4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I say don't give too much thought to people complaining about the non- anonymous login, these are not the users you should be marketing to and they are not the users Bitcoin needs right now. Bitcoin is anonymous/pseudonymous but it doesn't mean every service built on it has to be.

PS: I believe Paypal and Coinbase both forbid gambling websites in their ToS. I suggest you have the code ready to switch to accepting BTC by yourself because you will most likely get your accounts disabled.

<comment><USER3> I've seen Bitcoin go from its beginnings through the thick and the thin. And they say that when there is blood in the water is when it's the best to get involved if you believe in it! We 100% do. We are operating our platform under skilled gaming which is legal in 37 states and the same protocol that other skilled gaming companies follow. This is allowed by Paypal and Coinbase. If you have any other questions, email me at email@example.com and thanks for the support!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Curious why you chose this image for your background:

[http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb3/universomasseffectrol/e...](http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb3/universomasseffectrol/es/images/5/50/Wiki- background)

[https://koalah.s3.amazonaws.com/static/img/desktop- landing-b...](https://koalah.s3.amazonaws.com/static/img/desktop-landing- background.png)

</comment><comment><USER11> Conceptually interesting, but I agree with other commenters that tying a public login to an anonymous currency via an unvetted 3rd party that holds it for 3 months sounds more like a bad joke than any kind of real service.

Huge signup friction, virtually no payoff.

Is this even within paypal's terms? I've seen them swing the hammer for less.

<comment><USER3> Hey Rick, Thanks for checking us out, and we added in the public login to drive a social gaming environment. We will rarely hold money for as long as three months, it is in case we have an account be of concern based on our security protocol. We will be publishing this security protocol in a white paper as well as adding in standard login. Skilled gaming is also allowed by PayPal and Coinbase, while gambling is not. Feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any questions.

<comment><USER12> This link suggests paypal only allows skill games for approved merchants:

[https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/helpcenter/helphub/article...](https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/helpcenter/helphub/article/?solutionId=FAQ915&topicID=&m=ARA)

<comment><USER5> We went through the Paypal Approval process and were approved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Your UX might need a little work if a user can't figure out how to play freaking snake

<comment><USER3> That snake game is our own little flare! You can't simply click in the direction but need to use the quadrant system. We will update our instructions to make that clearer.

<comment><USER14> I found the snake game pretty much unplayable with the mouse/touchpad. I'd strongly recommend adding keyboard support.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for checking us out. We will be updating our site in near future to include more games including keyboard supported games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well I got locked in flappy bird and then I got this message "Your account has been flagged as having experienced a security breach. " I made like +30 points... Please take a look if is all right. Maybe I won too much? (1.8$)

<comment><USER5> Shoot me an email at email@example.com. I'll check it out

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The FAQ tells me to visit the 'games' page to see the list of games. So where is this page? I can't see any links on the site. Have I really got to sign in before I can see anything useful about what is on offer?

<comment><USER5> We will be adding more games soon. There are only three games currently on the platform: Snake, Asteroids, Flappy Koalah. We required sign-in to encourage a more social experience. We shall be updating soon to allow people to check out the site without signing in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dammit, I accidentally flagged this, and then it seemed to drop off the front page.

Is that how this works? It seems to be unflagged now, but still off the front page.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can you explain how to actually win? I've done more than 40 points in snake an lost. I How much points do I need to win?

<comment><USER3> That is where the chance comes in! You play the person who plays concurrently before or after. Sometimes it only takes 2 points, sometime it takes 85 points. All depends on the luck of the draw. Good luck playing!

<comment><USER18> But is saying "waiting" and no money are in. Now I can't play because I have no usable money to play, they are all pending... Also some of "waiting" just disappeared WTF! You should keep all the history to check. I think this happened because you only show the last 5 in history...

Also now is boring... I don't even know if I lost or won..

<comment><USER5> We are working on getting more players. Sorry about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is this legal?

<comment><USER20> No. I'm pretty sure that it against the law to accept bets online.

<comment><USER5> Yes, this is legal. We fall under games of skill opposed to games of chance. More info on why this is legal: blog.koalah.co/post/86647837513/what-is-the- cash-based-skilled-gaming-industry</comment></comment></comment>


Looking to discover more tech podcasts. Can you recommend some? - <AUTHOR>

Thanks <comment> adam-_- The Changelog - <http://thechangelog.com>

I've been listening to this recently - decent if you're into open source, unixy, ruby, javascripty type topics.

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1644/what-good- technology...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1644/what-good-technology- podcasts-are-out-there)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome list. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just started <http://webpulp.tv> yesterday. It is gear towards server admin and web scaling tech.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> Any particular topic?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, trying to get a wide collection to keep me busy over the commute.

Data security or spamming would be good, as would social media, or even podcasts covering consumer gadgets. Anything really.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does thepiratebay manage to keep its domain name - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Here's the "law" on domains: <http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp- policy-24oct99.htm>

Basically a domain name can only be taken away if it infringes a trademark, which TPB does not.

<comment><USER3> They might lose it in a forfeiture though. Assuming someone can figure out who owns it in the first place :)</comment></comment>


Previewing Windows 8 (Video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/jun11/06-01corporatenews.aspx <comment><USER3> No, no, no.

The Metro UI is great. The tiles are smart, the apps are beautiful, the solution to multitasking is promising, but this whole new approach _cannot coexist with a Windows desktop._ I almost fell out of my seat when the demonstrator nonchalantly switched back to the Windows 7-style desktop, complete with start menu, taskbar, and maximized MS Office.

This the old curse of Windows backward-compatibility in a new form – not in system-level cruft this time, but in incompatible UIs from completely different worlds. You can't put a new tablet UI and a traditional desktop UI next to each other on the same device and expect users to use them together.

It's as if Microsoft is attempting its own "Back to the Mac," only they never actually left. Apple got it right, starting fresh with a new form factor and adapting appropriate elements of it to the desktop. Microsoft is also starting fresh with a new form factor, but then trying to shoehorn the whole thing onto the desktop.

Of course, this is just a preview. I'm sure things will change a lot between now and the next preview, let alone the final release. But this isn't starting off on the right foot.

<comment><USER4> I'd say "no, no, no" too, because prolonged use of a vertical touch surface is ergonomically unfeasible.

<comment><USER5> Saw that too, surely they'll make a toggle or something to switch x/y-axis, maybe it's already in Windows?

<comment><USER6> I think one of use misunderstood him. I assume he meant that using a touch screen that's in front of you (vertically) is unfeasible (nothing to do with x/y-axises).

<comment><USER5> Oh, yeah I was talking about the millions of primarily vertical scrolling mousewheels Microsoft helped put out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure Julie Larson-Green came from Microsoft Office during the overhaul of that product, which was an amazing leap forward in UI design for Microsoft. The "ribbon" certainly had/has its detractors (and I was one at first), but I soon realized what I didn't like about it was that it wasn't the old, broken system I had learned to use over my lifetime. For nearly everyone I worked with in customer service, approaching the system as an "Office Newbie" was several times easier under the new system.

She also led the Win 7 overhaul, for which I'm forever thankful if only because of the changes to how title bars work (being able to drag to maximize or cover 1/2 the screen, for instance). It was so intuitive that one day I was complaining about how Windows DIDN'T do that, but was on a Win7 box and it worked. I know Jobs likes to use the word "magic", but that was the first time I experienced it with a UI.

I'm wary of the changes I see outlined here, but I think that might, again, be the consequence of having adapted myself to bad design that's been prevalent. Past experience has me hoping I'm wrong to be wary, and I'll be delighted if I am.

<comment><USER8> I share those same feelings. I guess we will see in a year(?) when it comes out.

<comment><USER9> My concern is did MS just Osborne itself? I was just thinking my wife's current laptop is 3 years old -- maybe time for a new one. Now I'm thinking I'm waiting until next year and getting a Win8 touch laptop (ideally a really slick convertible).

<comment><USER10> Microsoft doesn't sell computers, they sell software. To them, whenever it comes out, it's gonna sell no matter what.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but they don't want Windows license sales to nose dive between now and the release of Windows 8 do they?

<comment><USER12> Expect awesome looking Win8-ready stickers soon, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, this looks great! For the first time that I can think of, I'm actually excited about a new version of Windows. Even moreso, I'm actually excited about developing for Windows as a platform. This is huge. Sure, I'm curious how the standard mouse and keyboard interface will work, but I'm not really worried. It looks like the standard Windows 7 interface is still there, just working behind the scenes and collaboratively with the new UI.

<comment><USER14> Agree that it looks good at first blush however it's key that the "OS" is a true OS and not a touch based shell on top of Windows7. HP has shipped a number of computers with these touch-based shells and while they demo well they aren't deep enough for day-to-day use. I do love that they are pushing the desktop platform and creating a product that is clearly different in user experience. I also like the idea of HTML as a rich platform but this was said back in the days of Windows98 so I'm waiting and seeing. (Disclosure I worked on the Windows team during 2000 and we had some similar explorations that never saw the light of day so it's great to see)

<comment><USER15> "...it's key that the "OS" is a true OS and not a touch based shell on top of Windows7....(Disclosure I worked on the Windows team during 2000 and we had some similar explorations that never saw the light of day so it's great to see)"

Do you know something that wasn't shown? It could just a full screen app that runs on top of the existing shell not a replacement shell with a sub process of the old shell. Or by having the quotes around OS when you say "OS" do you just mean a new interface?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As someone who said good riddance to the Windows platform about 10 years ago (for Mac OS _9_ , which ought to tell you how fed up I was), I have to say that I'm genuinely excited to see Microsoft coming up with fresh UI conventions, both with Windows Phone and now with Windows 8. They could have gone the Google route and copied iOS, but they didn't. Likewise, they could have gone the Apple route and rested on making modest changes to their existing desktop OS, but again, it looks like they aren't.

<comment><USER17> I followed a similar path to you (OS 8 was where I joined Apple), and I am also intrigued by some of the ideas presented here (split keyboard for thumbs, good job!). I am a little disappointed that I didn't see any examples of touch interaction on what are traditionally desktop applications though. It's all well and good to champion how tiles improve a weather application, but how will they improve Photoshop or Visual Studio?

The premise of an HTML5 and JS based desktop is simultaneously promising and terrifying due to bad memories of the Active Desktop days (and the exploits that brought...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The interface is beautiful but I think it will prove to be nothing more than eye candy veneer for an increasingly out-of-touch piece of software.

Let the desktop metaphor evolve respectively until it's no longer needed (by most), do not sap it's identity by tearing users between two very different modes of interaction. Once my brain is working in the desktop metaphor will it want to "zoom-out" to yet another layer of abstraction and back and forth? Surely this is a recipe for experience-degrading cognitive dissonance. When I stand up from working on my mac, pick up my iPad and then read a blog on the couch I have, subconsciously, switched to a drastically different set of interaction-metaphors for iPad use. ("Design dissolving into behavior." - Naoto Fukasawa)

If this interface found it's way on sub $100 20"+ smart screens (lcd or laser projected) with kinect-like interaction than you have a compelling product. Put it on Xbox and media center devices/tv's and you potentially have a new interaction ecosystem.

This Windows 8 concept is fighting reality and for it's eventual users it won't feel nearly as natural as their smartphones do today.

<comment><USER19> If they do it right, Windows 8 would be on the smart screen, on the Xbox, on the netbook, on the tablet, and on the smartphones a few years in our future when they're even faster than they are now. The UI may not be identical but it'd be the unified "Windows Everywhere" type thing Microsoft has seemingly always wanted to do.

<comment><USER18> If Microsoft can retain and gain mindshare you may very well be right, going forward I just doubt Microsoft's ability to "capture people's imaginations" (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvskEGWMLp4>).

<comment><USER20> If you buy a computer in 2012 it's gonna have Windows 8 on it (unless you buy a mac). Microsoft don't need to 'capture imaginations', they have the market share already.

<comment><USER18> Is that you Steve Ballmer? ;)

I don't doubt Microsoft's ability to get Windows 8 into consumers homes as much as I do not doubt their ability to shoot themselves in the foot by pushing yet another half-baked product out the door.

Sure in 2012 millions will experience Windows 8, I would only add that 2012 may be the tipping point with OSX, iOS, Android, ChromeOS, PalmOS and others aggressively vying to inherit their share of consumers who choose to move on.

I'm ambivalent to Microsoft's success or failure, I'm simply extrapolating from current cultural undercurrents, the sentiment even long-time Windows user's now hold towards conventional Windows PC's is haggard at best and they're more open now than ever to exploring alternatives.

<comment><USER20> People have been predicting the demise of Windows for DECADES and it's still around 90% market share so excuse me if I don't hold my breath.

<comment><USER18> The cost structure of computing product manufacturers is changing, there is no longer a dire need for manufacturers to sacrifice margin to Wintel. Windows/office lock-In is dissolving. Any network-effect of being a Windows user is dissipating. As software capability moves to the cloud, and open- standards are adopted there simply isn't room for a bloated/expensive OS.

Decades ago I would not have bet against Windows, but today you can sense a perfect storm of competition approaching their gates.

If in 5 years Windows is still a dominant piece of software I will be surprised. However, I won't be surprised if Microsoft is still a main technology player in 5 years.

<comment><USER21> Windows will dominate business for at least 10 years.

Office isn't the lock in. It's all those Line of Business (LOB) Apps that run on Windows. Ironically many require internet explorer and are built in...Java, oddly enough.

Marketing departments could switch tomorrow. Operations (depending on industry) are locked in for years. Some are lucky enough to web based options, some are stuck on what they have.

<comment><USER22> But those applications locked in to Windows are frequently locked in to old versions, so they won't move to Windows 8.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It doesn't look bad. In fact, it's nice. How it will work when you're using it to do real work will be where the rubber meets the road but I commend them for doing more than copying Apple. OS competition might now get interesting as it may no longer be an Apple to apples comparison (pun intended heehee.) As an Apple guy, I'm looking forward to what innovations they can bring with W8 and push the industry forward.

<comment><USER24> > How it will work when you're using it to do real work will be where the > rubber meets the road...

That's where I wonder how well received this new interface will be. I wonder if this shell will just become something that most people skip past to get to the familiar Windows desktop. Granted, my experience as a power user (read: I'm a developer writing code and using the terminal--not on Windows but on OS X or Linux) is vastly different from that of a normal consumer, but I still think there is a common ground of using the computer to create rather than purely for consumption.

Still, very interesting concept. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this released.

<comment><USER23> Yea, it was a thought I had too. It's similar to the Front Row and Media Center experience that most people probably don't use.

But I could see this having a different fate if it doesn't feel like a drag on the system and it can be made useful (as I think external developers will make it.)

<comment><USER24> Thinking about it a little more, it really seems odd to combine two very different modes of operation -- one touch heavy and probably best for a tablet or some sort of mobile device and the other is the standard Windows UI operated by keyboard and mouse. Having both modes on the same hardware seems like an odd situation. Usually, a device naturally maps to one or the other mode. I suppose hardware manufacturers might build tablet/laptop hybrids or convertibles (they definitely have been trying, but I don't think any are popular) and Windows 8 might be a huge win on these devices. However, aside from this narrow subset of devices, I'm still guessing how this will play out.

For instance, the device used in the demo (assuming it has no other mode of operation) seems to me that it would be a nightmare for using Excel.

edit: added the last sentence.

<comment><USER25> Yes, a lot of the freshness involved using gestures, but that's been shown not to work for vertical screens like on laptops and desktops ([http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/gorilla-arm- multitouc...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/gorilla-arm- multitouch/)).

This gives the video the feel of a Courier-like demo. Inspirational to look at, but not realizable in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This looks great, but isn't this pretty much what Microsoft always does - <USER2> decide that a particular technology or feature is THE feature, and they go way, way too far with it. The thing I am thinking of is when they decided that the internet and XML was it, and decided to make everything XML (ie Avalon). Another thing was .NET and the CLR, when they decided to throw their old VS codebase away and start over simply because now, ALL programs released HAVE to be CLR-based. And this time it's touch.

Microsoft is like a kid with OCD. Touch! Touch is great! I love touch! Everything is touch! Can I touch this? Then it sucks! Give me touch! More touch!

I mean... yeah. Touch is cool, touch interfaces will probably be the main way to use computers eventually.. but as usual, it feels like they are going at it in the wrong way. It doesn't improve Excel to put it in a touch environment. Apple did try that and discovered that it wasn't what people wanted.

Then again, this video focuses on the new stuff, so it's hard to tell just how much they've moved things around.

<comment><USER26> Also, another part of the video that I instinctively reacted negatively to was the swipe to switch apps. Not even while using a touch interface do I want to pull something in from the left side of the screen without knowing what will pop out from there. To find the app that I want I have to flip through all of them? That seems that the worst possible way of organizing / not organizing different running apps.

What makes it even stranger is that they pass by a much better implementation of the same thing in passing while demoing IE 10, where he pulls down to reveal thumbnails of all the open tabs. Something like that in the main interface would have been much better than having to swipe, swipe, swipe, accidentally pausing videos, replacing views and causing all kinds of frustration just to locate the particular app I was looking for.

<comment><USER27> I would be surprised if this functionality is not included at some point. Don't get too hung up on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is great. I've been waiting for a while to see some sort of good desktop UI that got away from the classic icons + sidebar widgets design. While this provides the same functionality, it gives the user a lot more information at a glance, plus it looks nicer (IMO).

I really hope that store becomes some sort of primary distribution channel. After using Linux for so long, I've become so used to repositories that it makes me cringe to go find some obscure nagware application when ever I need to get something done on Windows.

<comment><USER29> > UI that got away from the classic icons + sidebar widgets design.

Have a play with kde netbook stuff, pretty funky and solid. Also there is meego but i've never used it.

<comment><USER28> Is it at all similar to the Ubuntu netbook interface? I always liked that. Now I'm using Gnome 3, which I'm happy with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> From a UI design perspective, I think this will alienate lots of existing Windows users, which might lead them to sticking with Win7 (XP anyone?) or moving on to OS X Lion (to which Win8 is surprisingly similar).

Microsoft is taking their phone UI and scaling it to the desktop, which is a big risk given how many people use that phone.

I give them credit for taking a risk, but IMO, this is the last nail in the coffin of Windows.

<comment><USER31> Isn't taking a phone UI exactly what Apple is doing with Lion too? The large icon matrix and "full screen apps" are exactly what you see on an iPhone/iPad. Though it does feel more "optional" on the Mac relative to this video.

<comment><USER18> If Apple didn't have large multi-touch trackpads on their macbooks with a slew of natural gestures for navigating things like launchpad and mission control they WOULD be mindlessly scaling the iOS UI to the desktop... but alas, they have discernment and strong design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Meh mixed feelings. First the whole Metro UI seems to run on top of a normal Windows as an alternative glorified launcher. He mentions that Apps are written in some kind of new HTML/Javascript framework - now I don't know exactly how its gonna work but a lot of people were hoping that MS was finally settle on .NET in terms of API design. If this was a spin off of Windows, I'd probably be a lot more happier, but as it stands, I see a lot of Window 8 PCs, where the first thing people (and companys!) will do, is disable the new "MetroUI" and have the usual taskbar/explorer layout with all the "legacy" app(lication)s like .. for example .. Office2010.

<comment><USER33> If Microsoft abandons .NET... I'm done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I see opportunity here for someone to make a "Business OS." Microsoft has forgotten who pays their bills. Business users do not want all this crap.

<comment><USER35> I work in financial services and there's been a mad rush to build iPad apps. I think this will be very well received.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Did anyone else notice the Store icon on the start screen? I wonder if that will be the primary distribution channel for apps using the new UI. With any luck they'll sandbox apps like they do on Windows Phone 7. No more registry + dll hell.

It's also interesting that they only mentioned HTML5 + JS. Right now Silverlight is the only option for non-games on Windows Phone 7. Given how similar the UIs look, it would be a shame to be unable to share code between mobile and desktop versions of the same app.

<comment><USER37> I'm sure there will be some kind of a store for these dashboard apps. It's really not that different from a new skin on sidebar gadgets, is it? They're developed using HTML+JS and distributed through an online store. This UI looks great though and will definitely be beneficial to tablet/touchscreen computers.

There will still be registry+dll hell because the core operating system and applications will be running on the traditional windows environment in the background.

<comment><USER38> I think there was mention of how easy it will be to install/uninstall apps in the All Things D presentation earlier today. Registry+DLL hell might just die with 7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How will this work for people doing real work on their PCs? Apple (with Lion) and now MS seem to be treating power users as an afterthought after trendier tablet users. Don't get me wrong, I love the new stuff MS is doing on WP7, for example. But I still need a PC (or a Mac) for most of my work.

Is it just me?

<comment><USER39> Apple isn't ditching power users. They still sell Macs and OSX is not touch- based (nor will it be in Lion).

Microsoft converting all of it's desktop users to a touch-first OS is going to be... interesting.

Perhaps they will settle on multi-touch trackpads like the Apple Magic Trackpad to resolve the gorilla-arm issue?

<comment><USER31> I'm a developer. A touch screen UI doesn't benefit me too much, just like I think it won't most business users. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll have to wait and see :)

<comment><USER9> For businesses its a win if you can get everyone one laptop, rather than an iPad and a laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The one thing that really jumped out at me was that "thumbs" keyboard. I would LOVE to have that option on the iPad.

The rest of it looks cool enough, better than expected. For me personally I can't imagine going back to any version of Windows. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me...uh, you won't get fooled again.

But for those still on Windows this will be an interesting transition.

<comment><USER16> The thumbs keyboard was one of the few things that made me think "UX red flag" -- since you can't really type on a touch screen without looking, the user will have to constantly dart their eyes from one side of the screen to the other. That would give me a headache.

<comment><USER41> After enough time I think you will be able to type on a touch screen without looking (given a decent autocorrect which is a must for a touch screen anyway). I've owned an iPad for about a month now and just typed this comment without having to look at the keyboard (sans the parenthesis)

I think a spit screen keyboard is a win, overall.

<comment><USER42> > After enough time I think you will be able to type on a touch screen without > looking...I think a _spit_ screen keyboard is a win, overall.

Thanks for the good laugh :)

<comment><USER41> :) I swear I went over the text twice to make sure it didn't have any embarrassing typo that disproved my point. Oh well. In my defense I make similar mistakes on a normal physical keyboard as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If anyone remembers the Productivity Future Vision (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvA9lA7_5FE>) video, it looks like Microsoft is staying true to its beliefs about the future of interfaces in computing.

<comment><USER44> Well remembered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I can see this being very nice for tablets, which was demonstrated, but I'm far more curious to see what kind of innovations they throw into a standard desktop version.

</comment><comment><USER46> I would've thought that the widget/tile implementation technology would be Silverlight, not HTML5/Javascript. Didn't we also see a playing down of Silverlight at MIX11? Has Silverlight fallen out of favor?

<comment><USER34> Silverlight is dead, Jim

<comment><USER47> Netflix still uses Silverlight, correct?

<comment><USER48> Netflix uses Silverlight because it supports DRM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I did some quick overlays, and I applaud them for apparently paying attention to color blind users in their interface design. The colorful icons and sidebars all seem to provide contrast to the 8% of us dudes who are color blind.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have to say I'm really impressed. This exactly what i was hoping for after the introduction of the metro UI in windows mobile 7, though i didn't expect microsoft to have the guts to do it. Glad to see they did.

One thing though: I really hope they don't keep the explorer in it's original windows 7 style. It breaks the metro experience and i can only assume that this was in the video because of the early developement stage.

Well, this won't make me replace my mac, but it looks very promising.

</comment><comment><USER51> That is pretty awesome. Was a little worried about the integration with traditional Windows apps, and I still am, but it looks like they just might be able to pull it off.

</comment><comment><USER52> This actually looks like a great touch UI, and it would make a great tablet UX too given that users will never have to see the standard start menu and icons (at least for tablets).

I know it might be fashionable to bash Microsoft, but this demo looks great. While I'm at it, the Metro UI and Windows Phone 7 are actually good. Current market adoption is not equivalent to "goodness". I use it personally and I'm very satisfied .. even as a Linux user and an iPad owner.

</comment><comment><USER53> Wow, somewhat offtopic but that page is very well done. I browse in Chrome with Javascript and Plug-Ins turned off (except for a few whitelisted sites), and I think this is the first site that has ever had a working video for me. Usually I have to open the page in another browser or something.

Lends a little credence to their claim of incorporating HTML 5 apps.

<comment><USER54> Just out of curiosity, why do you browse with js turned off?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is pretty exciting, seeing as how it's the first major UI rethink for Windows since Win95.

I like the idea of simplification of the UI for the average mom and pop user. For them this will probably be a great fit with the large buttons and having one application that fills up the whole window. It almost allows people to think more abstractly, in terms of activities rather than apps for a lot of things (i.e. 'what do you want to do' vs. 'how do you want to do it').

I do not like the idea of having to switch back and forth between the legacy Windows Shell and this new shell. That, in my opinion, is what I would call as a developer, a 'lazy implementation' - probably easier to implement for the developers, but not the right way when it comes down to usability. I hope they are planning some kind of tighter integration that will make that more seamless...

</comment><comment><USER56> I reckon this UI would lend nicely to being controlled by a Kinect

<comment><USER57> Kinect for computers, and now an UI like this?

I think they're onto something huge here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I think this is a really nice thing they're trying. Yet I'm a bit astonished by the many comments here that say the UI looks beautiful. Because I thought the opposite - when the tiles screen first came on I thought it was a print ad for an insurance company or something like that. It's the kind of image my brain was trained to ignore. I also thought the colors were too much.

Don't get me wrong - I really think it's great that they're courageous enough to try something new. They're obviously trying to create a new style and not a Mac OS rip-off, which I think is the right way to go, too.

But I'm curious whether the design will undergo major rework before Windows 8 comes to the stores.

</comment><comment><USER59> I think this is looking really cool. I'm also quite happy that web standards is the new trends at microsoft, even if it will certainly be less ideal than one would picture it.

I also find it funny how much this looks like a tile based WM with visual sugar. I hope they dont gloss over features on the split screen view because ultimately that's gonna be a very important thing.

And also, they'd probably need a better way to integrate native regular apps than what is shown in the video, provided, for some users, this might represent 90% of the time they spend with the OS.

</comment><comment><USER60> Interesting...but I can't see using it for a desktop system. As a heavy user of a number of engineering and software development tools I just can't imagine how this is any good.

For example, I don't see using Solidworks or AutoCAD with my fingers. I also don't see using any CAD/EDA packages like Altium Desiger (electronics circuit design) with my thumbs. The same applies to firmware, software and web development tools (Keil compilers, Altera/Xilinx development tools, Dreamweaver, Komodo). For that matter, I can't even see using Photoshop or Illustrator that way. I could rattle off dozens and dozens of applications that would be seriously impaired by touch. It's cute and sexy, but it is the slowest and most cumbersome way to interact with a computer.

I don't even see using the Office suite like this.

An on-screen keyboard might be the thing to do today...but...and there's only one way to say it...they suck in a big way. Useless for anything non-trivial, even on a tablet. Typing on an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard is orders of magnitude more productive than poking at the screen.

Then there's the question of multiple screen behavior. All of our engineering workstations have a minimum of two large (24in or more) high-resolution monitors. A good number of them have three. There are engineering design applications (like Altium Designer) that use multi-screen environments very effectively to greatly enhance productivity. I need to know how this new UI will affect these scenarios.

In my not-so-humble opinion I have always thought that MS really needed to fix and enhance XP rather than what they've done with Vista and W7. As a power user there's so much in Vista/W7 that makes you say "really?". They've also just about ruined the Office suite. If you were an expert user of the prior generation of Office and had a code base of routines and tools they pretty much made you look like a complete newbie with the new UI and approach. Productivity with Office definitely took a big hit for most tasks for quite some time.

Despite criticism, Windows is a workhorse OS used across thousands of different industries. I really hope MS is very careful about not damaging this user base for the sake of being "trendy". Tablets are great fun, but I don't see doing my day-to-day work on tablets any time soon. Wrong UI.

</comment><comment><USER61> Great. Microsoft is going down the same rabbit hole Ubuntu and Gnome went down in by assuming that a mouse driven desktop should have the same UI as a touchpad. I was worried that Ubuntu made a step backward with the Unity failure, but now Microsoft will eagerly follow them, so Ubuntu's failure will not be that bad. In fact if the folks in Canonical overcome their egos and realize their failure soon enough, perhaps they can get ahead of MS.

</comment><comment><USER62> Looks really nice. I really enjoy Microsoft's 2D designs. It started with Whistler, then Windows Mobile 6 (even if I liked nothing else from it), and continuing on to WP7 and now Windows 8.

Even if ARM consumes less power than Intel chips, I hope that the desktop underpinnings of Windows 8 don't bog it down and destroy battery life. I also hope there's an OEM that can build hardware that's up to snuff.

</comment><comment><USER63> This looks like the same kind of thing as "Windows Media Player." A skin on top of the OS that hides complexity. First problem, if I'm am app developer why am I going to build for the Win 8 UI and then rebuild again for the other 95% of Windows machines that don't support the new touch interface? I can build for the old standard windows interface and it will work everywhere.

<comment><USER9> You'll do it for the same reason you build an iPad app for 20M users and not a Windows app for 1B users.

<comment><USER63> But that's the point. There aren't 1B Win8 users and there won't be for a very long time. With iPad you have to build in Apple's eco system but with Win8 you have the option to build a standard Windows app. How many people are still running Win95 or XP? It will be a long time before Win8 reaches anywhere near 1B users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I think this isn't necessarily about using a tablet or phone interface on the desktop, it's about using either one depending on what peripherals you are using. One configuration is a separate OS instance per device, but a more interesting configuration is basically a phone that you can hook up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. So basically you get a mobile interface in one mode, and a desktop interface in another. I'd much rather have a single small device i can lug around everywhere I go instead of separate devices for home, office and mobile. Given how quickly cpu speeds are progressing on mobile devices and the prevalence of cloud hosted applications, this could be a possibility sooner rather than later..

And regardless of that, this is about having a single application platform for all the form factors. This video shows a tablet interface, I don't think they will force you to use it on the desktop, at least as shown here. I think the point was the same apps can run everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER65> Pre-Windows 8 apps won't fit into the new Windows 8 model without being rewritten for new APIs/style. If we assume Windows compatibility is then no longer what drives Os marketshare for PCs (a big leap, but one Microsoft seems to be making), then this would be the perfect time for Android or WebOS to make the bid for the desktop and business users. Obviously OS X is limited by being Apple-devices only, so where is the next big x86 compatible OS that desktop manufacturers will sublicense?

On the interface, I absolutely think Microsoft can have Metro UI conventions and complex applications without compromise, but it seems ill thought-out to believe you can scale a phone interface up without greatly increasing the density of information or ability to interact with data, of which the preview seemed devoid.

The "wall-mount problem". What looks great on a wall-mounted monitor is not the best interface for my actual desktop computer.

</comment><comment><USER66> All this functionality requires a touch screen, thats fine on mobile devices, but what about on a desktop pc - what will be the cost of big touch-screen monitors?

I guess a really cool idea is to have a small touchscreen you use for control, in combination with an existing/bigger screen for the actual display.

<comment><USER67> I totally agree with your concerns, and I also love your small touchscreen idea. A full touch interface gets really awkward, not to mention expensive, once your screen gets bigger than 10-15 inches.

All these full-screen apps with touch functions are optimized for laptops and tablets. Apple did it, Ubuntu did it, and now Microsoft is going to do it. Maybe that's where everyone thinks the future is. But as the proud owner of a 24" widescreen monitor who is always looking for an excuse to upgrade to 30", I am very disappointed with this inspired-by-tablets-but-also-fits-the-desktop nonsense.

I don't want full-screen apps, dammit. I bought a big monitor because I want several apps and all of their content to be simultaneously visible at all times. I shudder whenever a member of my family "borrows" my PC for a few minutes and goes on to maximize all the windows without even thinking twice. And I certainly don't want to wave my arms all across the big screen like an idiot. There's a very good reason why we have a small device (mouse) that can be manipulated with the flick of a finger to control an arbitrarily larger interface. I don't know how a small touchscreen might be used in a similar role while retaining the intuitiveness of a touch interface, but we're definitely going to need something like that or our arms will begin to hurt very badly after 10 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> This fits well with all the earlier talk about Windows 8 supporting ARM.

Microsoft isn't scaling Windows Phone 7 up to the tablet, they are scaling Windows 8 down to the tablet. By the time Windows 8 is released, it might be viable to run this OS on a phone. Will the mobile and desktop OS's merge?

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, Windows 8 won't support legacy apps on ARM platform.

And as far as specs go, one of the demo devices was running an Intel Atom processor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> My first thought was "are you serious?" But then I remembered the Win8-on-ARM promise. I'm not sure I'd want to use a desktop (to me 'desktop' means 'workstation') like this, but it's interesting for sure. The more I think about it, the more the seems like a product of MS's unreleased _Courier_ UI work.

This reminds me of a recent article about how Linux is inventing the future of the desktop experience. I disagreed immediately, and this UI is an example of why. I do prefer the Linux desktop experience to others, but it is a refinement on a core of existing ideas with a few small but important inventions. So it's more like a limo than a bus, which neither KDE nor Gnome are driving.

</comment><comment><USER70> Does this mean that the majority of new PCs sold with Win8 will have touchscreens?

<comment><USER9> Probably not a majority, but a lot. Think 50-100M the first year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Ironic that after years of promoting their own complex software UI stacks they're going HTML5 + Javascript for this one. One more reason why JS is quickly becoming the most important programming language.

</comment><comment><USER72> Does this strike anyone else as little more than a shallow skin for Windows 7? HTML5 and javascript? How is this different than my browser? Apps in Windows 8 . . . kind of like apps in Chrome?

<comment><USER73> it would seem a core differentiator is that apps have means to interact with each other? (the photo thingy in the video)

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> More and more, I realize we're nearing a big crisis in computing - touch vs. non-touch.

I really fear seeing the world moving towards a place where you have to either choose one platform/metaphor over the other. Or where you have to port every single application to support all different input types. And the thing is, touch is just so _good_ for so many things, but so impractical for certain kinds of work.

Whoever manages to reconcile touch computing with boring old office computers, will have a _huge_ market for them.

</comment><comment><USER75> Ugh. No.

That looks like a decent tablet interface, and a good interface for the vast majority of users who will be using the core apps and little else..

But for me it's a bit useless

\- file browsing looked difficult.

\- App switching looked painful (when you're switching between a lot of apps at once I really don't want to be doing so in rotation).

I realise this is because I am a power user with specific needs... but I really really hope they have a version with a normal desktop.

</comment><comment><USER76> Holy SHIT. It blows me away that this came out of MS.

</comment><comment><USER77> Here is the thing.

Either MS with Metro have solved it and it plays across different platforms. I can see it work both with mouse and keyboard, touch and joypad.

Or Metro isn't versatile enough and it will mutate into a freakshow of edge case considerations.

In any scenario, I give MS props for finally presenting a worthy alternative to to OSx/iOS suite.

Now if only the hardware manufactures would follow suit it might be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER78> The 'snap' feature is pretty neat. That reminds me of how you could drag entire program fullscreen windows up and down on an Amiga. Like if you could show parts of your different displays on X11 on the same monitor. I know MS's system is just for different running applications here, but since they're fullscreen it serves a similar function.

</comment><comment><USER79> I admire Microsoft's attempt to experiment with a different Windows UI, but it will take quite some time for users to get accustomed to this new tile format after accumulating decades of experience with the desktop interface. These informative tiles may be better suited for some sort of screensaver or login screen alternative initially.

</comment><comment><USER80> A nice fantasy would be that Windows 7 replaces XP as the new "business OS" line for the next decade (XP has served in this role since ~2002). Windows 8/9/onward would then be free to deviate from backwards compatibility in favor of a better consumer (non-business user) experience.

But it's hard to say what will happen.

</comment><comment><USER81> It solves one crucial problem of all current tablet UIs (iOS, Android, WebOS): <http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2011/03/04/multitasking/>

Please, Apple, Google and HP, blatantly copy the ability to see more than one app at once!

</comment><comment><USER82> Full screen apps look awesome. I can only think of how the web apps will look on Windows 8 devices now. Hopefully there will be no need to learn a new SDK and leveraging the Web technologies for building great apps that will work across all devices will be enough.

</comment><comment><USER83> Corporations seem to be only adopting every other Windows version now, so it would be interesting if Microsoft decided to alternate the targets of their Windows versions. Windows 7 was good for enterprise, Windows 8 will be good for consumers.

</comment><comment><USER84> [http://allthingsd.com/20110601/steven-sinofsky-talks- windows...](http://allthingsd.com/20110601/steven-sinofsky-talks- windows-8-and-more-at-d9-video/?p=81774) another video on D9 with talk heads

</comment><comment><USER85> My first thoughts after showing the old windows desktop is... as a PC user (non tablet) that Metro UI is gonna get really irritating with a mouse; so you'll end up just using the Win7 looking part.... what's changed?!

</comment><comment><USER86> Hm, so it looks like there won't be any windows in Windows anymore.

</comment><comment><USER87> i'm so glad they've come up with something that can be considered new, and seemingly somewhat intuitive..

but i can't help but see that things aren't how they should be. i suppose this is a very early preview, but ms have got to go a lot further than simply creating an "on top of windows" application that looks pretty.

their benchmark for success has got to be the intuitiveness and the usability of OS X, without copying any part directly.. something i feel that has always come second place in windows.

time will tell, i suppose.

</comment><comment><USER88> Maybe I didnt catch this, but the apps are written in html/css/js, do they port over to win phone 7?

To me this looks like an official MS skin on top of the Windows desktop. We'll see though

</comment><comment><USER89> Oh come on. Media Center all over again. Nobody's going to use this on a desktop computer after the first boot-up.

I do like the tiling system implementation though.

</comment><comment><USER90> Wish I had the same OS and apps for laptop, tablet, phone, especially with the data somewhat synced.. this might be a step towards it

</comment><comment><USER91> i really like the UI. i wonder though what the input would be with a traditional mouse/keyboard setup

</comment><comment><USER92> So is Microsoft abandoning .NET? I really don't see how HTML and Javascript are preferable to that.

</comment><comment><USER93> That's one step closer to a keyboard-free future. I wonder how developer tools will evolve.

<comment><USER37> I think I'm a forward thinking fellow but I don't see developer tools moving away from traditional keyboard (and usually mouse) environment for a long time. This seems like a slimmed down Windows Media Center layer powered by HTML/JS just like Windows Sidebar gadgets. It'll be great for tablets and touchscreen PCs but I don't see it being too beneficial to business users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> It reminds me of Dashboard on Mac OS X, which is composed of HTML and CSS widgets.

<comment><USER95> Vista and Windows 7 had sidebar widgets that were/are also HTML + CSS. Before that (Win XP) you could put arbitrary HTML widgets anywhere on the desktop using activedesktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> How do you open Control Panel?

</comment><comment><USER33> Dammit Microsoft. I'm rooting for you but you just don't get it, do you? Someone that tries to please everyone, ends up pleasing no one. Touch + mouse does not compute. It's like mating a horse with a donkey. Do you really want your next product to be a mule?

</comment><comment><USER97> looks killer for a tablet not so interesting for PC!

</comment><comment><USER98> This looks suspiciously like some sort of Media Center for Apps that's running atop the Windows OS. Honestly, that's fine with me. All I really want them to do is fix all the dysfunctional, inconsistent stuff in Windows 7. If they want to put an app launcher over that, fine by me.

</comment><comment><USER99> I just love how Microsoft has started to (desperately) embrace all the "cool stuff" that the actual "cool cats" and underdogs have come up with and been doing for a very long time now... and how Microsoft likes to present themselves as a hip, cool company almost like a small software shop... ever since competitors have gotten significantly more successful and Microsoft has been losing market shares. So transparent.

I mean, trying to start Windows 7 launch parties around the world?? Posting on reddit to market some product and ask for "feedback"? Non-chalantly talking about "cool stuff"? Please... do you really think people will forget how you dealt with competitors back in the day? Will forget your FUD and zero open standards? Will forget what a humongous multi-billion dollar corp you really are?

</comment><comment><USER100> The video does not even have a fullscreen button. These guys really don't pay much attention to detail.

</comment><comment><USER101> I can just about guarantee most current touch and tablet devices couldn't process heavy duty dual app/dual screen/ picture in picture/what have you. Yeah sure a twitter feed and word let me see a HD video and adobe illustrator with 10 or 20 apps running in the background on a tablet device...this is ridiculous, its a silly toy. this is like that MSN keyboard for your TV back in like 97. The puny Microsoft ship swirls in the ocean about to be gobbled by Apple, Google, etc</comment>


What Is Amazon? - <AUTHOR> https://zackkanter.com/2019/03/13/what-is-amazon/ <comment><USER2> > Walmart is one of the wonders of the modern world, built from scratch in a > hyper-competitive environment, scaled from nothing to the largest company in > the US by revenue and by headcount, all resulting from a singular vision of > saving everyday people money with everyday low prices. It is the most > successful social welfare system ever implemented, saving billions and > billions of dollars for everyday Americans without costing taxpayers a dime. > It is a testament to the power of compounding interest, to the power of a > focused plan executed violently for decades.

I find it hard to take the article seriously when it omits that WalMart is built significantly on top of our social welfare system and is possibly one of the biggest welfare queens in the world.</comment>


Microsoft announces Xbox event for May 21st - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/24/microsoft-announces-xbox-event-for-may-21st/

<comment><USER2> What can really save Xbox next generation is games and price, tech be damned. Making another 'media box' just won't cut it. Tons of devices have Netflix and streaming capabilities; Xbox needs to focus on novel features, which include original games.</comment>


Spirit - Set your Tweets to disappear with a simple hashtag - <AUTHOR> http://twitterspirit.com/

<comment><USER2> this is great, lots of uses...contests...exclusives... snapchat like capabilities....

<comment><USER2> of course, at the rate that things get spidered and indexed elsewhere, the likelihood that something 'disappears' isn't that good....</comment></comment>


Show HN: Emergency fund calculator: how long will it take to save 3months wages? - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aqDNgv9OQ384rTf6KmKupkvg28eyn30uxGk7ctcN1hE/edit#gid=0

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an MVP of a tool I want to build for people considering self- employment.

Are there other monthly expenses or financial data it should be capturing? (I didn't want to break down the expenses too much further as it would make the form overwhelming).

How would you make the experience better?

(I've ended up locking the sheet to prevent people from breaking it... ideally of course you would be able to start tinkering straight away... maybe there's a script I could use to reset the spreadsheet every hour?)

Thanks :)</comment>


Calxeda Primes Pump for ARM Server Adoption - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/06/14/calxeda-primes-pump-for-arm-server-adoption/

<comment><USER2> As an embedded systems developer I'm well aware of the very low power processors with ARM cores but I'm wondering how this really transfers to the server world. It seems to me that large DRAM, cache and fast disk drives and I/O peripherals must be the main issues driving power consumption. Those won't go away, will they?

The Calxeda guy said that lower clock speeds and higher core counts are the key factors of his product, which isn't necessarily something only ARM can do. I'm wondering why Intel couldn't build servers along the same lines.

<comment><USER3> SSD are supposedly making similar inroads in the server space, for that reason. I don't think there's much IO in a server farm, apart from ethernet. Does DRAM draw a lot of power?

Intel's problem is backcompatibility: x86 spends silicon (and power) on it, but they can't give it up because it's their main selling point.</comment></comment>


Google faces EU charge over Android 'abuse of dominance' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36092441 <comment><USER2> "Virtually every phone maker using Google Android in the European Union has bowed to Google's demands, suppressing competition by other app makers and preventing free choice for consumers,"

\- is this really true?

<comment><USER3> If the problem are the apps, it would be interesting to know whether members of the Open Handset Alliance are prevented from shipping phones with app that would compete with Google services on Android. If there is no such constraint, either I didn't get what Google was charged with or the EU commission is once again full of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ironically, consumers would probably benefit if Google could force handset manufacturers to do more things (like not replacing sensible bits of Android/Play with shite and to provide updates for the hardware lifetime of the phones) rather than less.

That's assuming ignoring second-order effects on innovation and Google's continued benevolence of course, so probably not a good idea, but still.</comment>


Ask PG: Would it be possible to include id=xxxx in the RSS feed? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/feedbin/support/issues/23#issuecomment-17386909

<comment><USER2> Use a hash of the item:

<http://swik.net/RSS/RSS+Item+Uniqueness>

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't that hash change if the title is changed by a mod?</comment></comment>


'He's our hero': Hindu nationalists rally for Donald Trump in India - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/13/donald-trump-india-hindu-supporters-new-delhi <comment><USER2> Not entirely surprising given Hindu history with Islam... Many, many, many millions of Hindus have been killed from jihadist efforts.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best email-marketing tools besides mailchimp? - <AUTHOR> Context: I've been using Mailchimp for years, but it's starting to feel stale, overpriced, and underfeatured.<p>I've looked at a lot of the big email providers (Aweber, CampaignMonitor, etc.), but they all seem to have many of the same issues, so I'm looking for new, lesser-known alternatives I might like. <comment><USER2> Hey interesting question. Currently working on a project in this space that won't be ready for a few more weeks. But Let me pitch it at you and tell me if it could solve your problem?

# Volleyy Pitch

Volleyy is the tool for generating emails your subscribers love to read. We separate email content generation from aesthetics, and let you focus on getting your message across.

We've taken away the run-of-the-mill templates found in existing solutions and let you take the wheel with our (medium.com style) blogging interface.

We deliver your emails with a simple (and consistent) theme, tested for user- friendliness and ease of navigation (Get a sneak peek here: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/nnoduka/volleyy.jpeg](https://s3.amazonaws.com/nnoduka/volleyy.jpeg))

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I don't think that's really for me, because I'm a bit of a control freak in terms of design.

<comment><USER2> Ah that's a fair point. Thanks for the feedback!

Would you mind sharing what issues you seem to find in all the major platforms? And why you feel MailChimp is underfeatured?</comment></comment></comment>


Communication for Startup Co-founders - <AUTHOR> http://www.pranavpiyush.com/communication-for-startup-co-founders/

<comment><USER2> I hadn't considered Information Theory when 'debugging' things gone wrong and the summary here is pretty good.

When I have to summarise my idea of 'good communication', I usually break it down as: _Who_ needs to know _What_ and by _When_. That helps somewhat.</comment>


Infer.NET: A .NET Library for Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/infernet/

<comment><USER2> Here is the link to the actual project site: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/cambridge/projects/in...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/cambridge/projects/infernet/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I used this one summer to implement a graphical model I was working with. It has two approximate inference algorithms: variational message passing and expectation propagation, for which the inventors are co-authors of this library. I found the library to be powerful for those who knew what they were doing. But it took me a while to figure out the syntax.

Some bits were a bit hack-ey which made the syntax difficult for me to get right. For example, random variables are templates that take a bool or float depending on the underlying distribution. You could have a C# array of random variables, or a infer.net array of random variables, which had slightly different functionality. The infer.net array of random variables did not use the C# for loop, and instead had its own for loop implemented as a method.

Anyways, it's a nice library and great that they released the source code.

</comment><comment><USER4> The tutorial is an nice rapid summary on how to use this to drive some models and understand modern bayesian inference. Worth taking a look at, if you don't want to read the ".rtf" info...

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/cambridge/projects/in...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/cambridge/projects/infernet/docs/InferNet101.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this related to <http://clojars.org/infer> ? A Clj-based ML library.

Are there any other recommendable ML libraries? I know of Mahout and have read up on it, and have been reading "Programming Collective Intelligence", but am eager to learn more.

</comment><comment><USER6> This library comes as a .msi (Microsoft installer) and a license in .rtf format ("rich text" -- who uses this anymore?). In short, it's what you'd expect from Microsoft: not open source, not open at all, and the license probably limits you to non-commercial use and non-redistribution.

<comment><USER7> Aforge is an excellent open-source alternative that is years in development:

<http://code.google.com/p/aforge/>

<comment><USER8> Aforge is not even close to Infer.NET. The latter is a library to build graphical models and automatically generate deterministic inference algorithms for them. Trust me when I say there are probably less then 25 people in the world that can derive some of these inference algorithms without spending weeks studying the relevant papers (e.g. EP).

Aforge is just a collections of algorithms. It's nothing to do with building your own models. Useful nonetheless.</comment></comment></comment>


Can You Pass a C.E.O. Test? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15cornerweb.html?_r=1&em <comment><USER2> Tangential Question:

"Page: * 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 Next Page »"

Is there some usability/design advantage of having an article split into pages like this? CPM advertising revenue? It drives me nuts - sometimes you can escape it with print view, but it slows down reading and forces you to navigate/break train of thought a few times per article.

<comment><USER3> It's because when you read that article you have to click to a new page 3 times. Thus what would be 1 page view for an article becomes 4 page views. More page views = more impressions = more ad revenue.

<comment><USER4> Though, for me, it results in fewer visits to the site.

I would venture to guess that each of those clicks are less valuable than 25% of a single click, but many publishers are always looking to fleece their advertisers any way they can.</comment></comment></comment>