Why Apple Should Buy Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@i_am_fabs/apple-should-by-twitter-4661b1de95e <comment><USER2> When Apple was struggling, Wired ran a piece[1] called 101 Ways to Save Apple. None of them were actually the right way, or the way that Apple ended up saving itself.

Twitter speculation falls into the same camp. Apple has enough money to buy Twitter, write it off as a total loss, and it would have no lasting effect on their balance sheet. Apple doesn't need Twitter. Twitter needs good management, and I'm not sure Apple can help with that. They can't even ship an iTunes that isn't trash.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/1997/06/apple-3/](https://www.wired.com/1997/06/apple-3/)</comment>


Which 2020 Disaster Are You Quiz (Viral on ProductHunt) - <AUTHOR> https://sources.outgrow.us/which-2020-disaster-are-you <comment><USER2> Nothing like being bombarded with a massive animated gif background while trying to read text.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Made this over the weekend cuz I've had ENOUGH of 2020. Went viral on ProductHunt.</comment>


YourStreet.com Brings Social Network to Your Street - <AUTHOR> http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/13/yourstreetcom-brings-social-network-to-your-street/ <comment><USER2> The article mis-referenced the url - it should be www.yourstreet.com . It looks interesting, but the neighborhood I live in, Cole Valley (SF) is combined with Haight Ashbury into one big neighborhood. These two are completely different cultures and valuations, so I am a bit disappointed in the lack of local knowledge. We'll see if it evolves.

</comment><comment><USER3> There should be a rule against submitting your own site more than 49 times. If your content is valuable enough for others then you must know someone else willing to share it with us.

</comment><comment><USER4> This was one of the best features of a nice little site that was called myspace.

Let me rephrase this: search by zipcode does this great already.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yet Another Social Network :)</comment>


Quantum Convection : Original Located at southjerseyengineering.tumblr.com - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/VmJOo7y

<comment><AUTHOR> The original can be located at [http://southjerseyengineering.tumblr.com](http://southjerseyengineering.tumblr.com) or in the Quantum Physics discussion boards on LinkedIn</comment>


Upssucks.com domain belongs to UPS - <AUTHOR> http://www.whois.net/whois/upssucks.com

<comment><USER2> I think this is a pretty common domain grab for trademark holders. For example, see aolsucks.com: <http://www.whois.net/whois/aolsucks.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is indeed a pretty common strategy to protect a brand.</comment>


A Little More on the Graph Isomorphism Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/a-little-more-on-the-graph-isomorphism-algorithm/ <comment><USER2> NC;DR (no context, didn't read) super-dumbed-down summary, found in this [1] linked page, is that there is now a quasipolynomial algorithm to solve graph isomorphism ("are these two graphs identical?"). This is important because:

"[…] it could be that GI will become the first ever problem which is NP- intermediate (assuming P is not NP), but from historical patterns it seems more likely that it will fall into P. So people are excited because it's tantalizing: everyone believes it should be in P, but nobody can prove it. It's right at the edge of the current state of knowledge about the theoretical capabilities and limits of computation."

NP-intermediate being that space between P and NP-complete where quasipolynomial algorithms sit.

[1] [http://jeremykun.com/2015/11/12/a-quasipolynomial-time- algor...](http://jeremykun.com/2015/11/12/a-quasipolynomial-time-algorithm- for-graph-isomorphism-the-details/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone else getting "latex path not specified" in that blog?

<comment><USER4> Yup</comment></comment>


The case against the MacBook Pro with Retina display - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2012/06/13/the-contentious-case-against-the-macbook-pro-with-retina-display/

<comment><USER2> I am disappointed, but I will probably buy one anyway. Currently using a MBA, and it's a little underpowered (but only just).

Just means you'll need to make sure you get the max amount of ram up front.

I'm not 100% sure that the apple care warranty is needed either - at least for New Zealanders. We have a law (The Consumers Guarantee Act) which provides that products sold to consumers must be fit for purpose for a reasonable length of time. This has been repeatedly defined as longer than the 12 months warranty traditionally offered. I think given the extra price for the RD model, I might pass on apple care this time, and rely on my consumer rights...

</comment><comment><USER3> Tough shit. Lessons learned from MBA being applied to new line of MBP. Is Apple the only technology company that draws the wrath of people in this vein? Everything is less open - it's the inevitable path of more for less that the consumer demands.

Techno-nerds are not what's driving technology any longer - it's regular folks that a) don't care what's in their technology as long as it's good and b) it's better than the last thing they purchased. Get over yourselves.</comment>


Google Hopes Open Source Will Give Its Cloud a Path to the Enterprise - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/26/google-hopes-open-source-will-give-its-cloud-a-path-to-the-enterprise/

<comment><USER2> I work for a large, "enterprisey" corporation. Three years ago, I had a the company's chief architect explain that we had a policy prohibiting any use of open source software because it had "too much legal risk" for a large company. (He apparently had no idea what was actually used.)

That individual is no longer with the company. This year I have heard senior executives say that EVERY piece of software we use should be open source, unless there is a good reason not to. (They are even trying to figure out how to contribute back to open source, although in my opinion they have a lot to learn.)

It is anecdotal, but from this (and other examples) I think Google may be right about this. Open source was once the kiss of death for "enterprise", but now it is (rightfully) considered an advantage.

<comment><USER3> Nope. Our executives and risk management group are very much against open source. We have to jump through hoops to use any open source software. Never mind that 90% of all vendor solutions use open source. Sigh.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which version of Rails are you running now? - <AUTHOR>

If you're using Rails in production, which version? If you're spread across multiple versions, what's the composition of your codebase? <comment><USER2> We're currently using 3.2.13, but we have a bit of Rails 2-esque code mixed in too.

</comment><comment><USER3> 4.0.1

</comment><comment><USER4> Rails 4.0.1

</comment><comment><USER5> 3.2.15

</comment><comment><USER6> 3.2.13

</comment><comment><USER7> 3.2.14

</comment><comment><USER8> 3.2.14

</comment><comment><USER9> 4.0.1</comment>


Apple iPhone 5 US Carrier Comparison Chart - <AUTHOR> http://mgalligan.com/post/31528271799/att-sprint-verizon-iphone-5-comparison-chart Here's a comparison chart I made to compare the different reasons to choose AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon as your carrier for the iPhone 5. <comment><USER2> This is cool but if you could, please add prepaid? Specifically add the following?

\- 4th column for StraighTalk as one of the carriers

\- 5th column for Tmobile as one of the carriers)

\- Cost to buy iphone (199 normally, but full price prepaid)

\- Cost over the entire life of the plan

See:

\- Tmobile: [http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/10/t-mobile-unveils-its-big- plans...](http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/10/t-mobile-unveils-its-big-plans-for- iphone-bring-your-unlocked-iphone-and-save-1200-vs-att/)

\- StraighTalk: [http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/30/review-the-iphone-on- straight-...](http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/30/review-the-iphone-on-straight- talk/)

Note: Since StraightTalk resells AT&T using their own antennas, the available service would be same. Correct?

<comment><USER3> There's no point in adding Straight Talk at this time because official word (via their Twitter) is that they do not have nano SIMs and they have no (announce-able) plans to sell nano SIMs at this time.

Micro-SIMs cannot be cut down to nano-SIM dimensions and be used.

<comment><USER4> Why not? Is there a difference in the actual chip? I thought it was just a trimming of the plastic around the chip.

<comment><USER5> Nano sims are also _thinner_.

Source: [http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/09/12/dont-plan-on- cutting...](http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/09/12/dont-plan-on-cutting- microsim-to-fit-iphone-5-nano-sim-slot/)

But it looks like you can hack it: [http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/09/14/convert-micro-sim- ip...](http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/09/14/convert-micro-sim- iphone-5-compatible-nano-sim/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Americans pay a LOT for their cellular service. I mean $100/month is just absolutely insane.

Currently I pay about $17/month but if I wanted unlimited everything I could get it for $32/month.

We don't pay to receive calls or texts however so there is little need to have "unlimited" either. Even the thought that I am paying for advertisers to send me junk text messages or calls would drive me insane, if I was in the US.

The US and Canada really have it rough with mobile and internet services...

<comment><USER7> Cherry-picking one number and comparing it to another country by converting the dollar amount is a ridiculous and meaningless comparison.

Looking on here:

[http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/pay_monthly/24_months/Medi...](http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/pay_monthly/24_months/Medium/Apple/iPhone_4S_16GB_White)

It looks like the cost is $70/month for unlimited text/voice and 1 GB of data. That doesn't seem much cheaper at all to me.

<comment><USER8> I'm living in NYC and paying ~$80/month for limited everything (900 minutes/1000 texts/2GB/other perks but other discounts).

I visited Berlin in June. I prepaid 15 Eur for unlimited one week everything on Vodafone. I could have gotten prepaid everything for 30 Eur/month, but I was only there for a week.

And the 3G speeds I received were actually higher than the ones I usually get in NYC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What about prepaid?

I'm dying to find out if, say, Cricket or Virgin's iPhone5 plans will be any better - I'm willing to buy up front.

<comment><USER10> Looks like Virgin has announced their pricing for Australia but not for the US: <http://www.virginmobile.com.au/iphone>

Virgin's iPhone5 will likely remain a better value than any subscription option mentioned in the article. Unfortunately Sprint (and therefore Virgin) can't get close to Verizon's US 4G coverage.

<comment><USER11> Those Australia plans all have stiff data caps. Will that be the same in the US as well? Hopefully we can still get the unlimited plan for $35/month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really fail to see why 'tethering' should cost you anything, _especially_ if you're capped in bandwidth already. If you pay for x GB you should be able to use as much, using any device you like. Weird.

</comment><comment><USER13> Imagine how much of an advantage it'd be to only enforce a _1 year_ contract. That'd be a huge differentiator, as it would allow you to upgrade your iPhone on it's yearly release. I'm sure that would cause a massive switch in carriers for Apple fans.

<comment><USER14> AT&T used to allow iPhone users an upgrade annually for the new iPhone despite being on a two-year contract. I'm not sure if they have for this round, but every other year, they simply changed upgrade eligibility for iPhone users right before the iPhone came out.

The problem is that this is very expensive. An iPhone costs $650 and you get it for $200. That means that the carrier is eating $450. Even if you argue that a carrier is getting a discount and it's only costing them $300-350, they have to earn that back. $300-350 over 12 months is $25-29.17 per month that they have to earn back, plus interest. So, you have a $30 data plan, and only $0.83-$5 of that is going to actually implementing, maintaining, etc. the network. If they're subsidizing the device by $400, giving you an upgrade ever 12 months would mean taking a loss of $40 not including the cost of creating and maintaining the network.

So, it's quite detrimental to a company's bottom line to offer that to the point that it isn't wonderfully feasible. Sure, you can say that it gets you the voice plans of those people who switch and maybe that can go to the subsidy as well and whatnot, but the margins are thin. I'm quite literally paying $40/mo for my iPhone plan as an add-on to a family plan (plus 1/5th of $20 for texting ($4) and 1/5th of $70 for voice ($14)). So, I'm paying a total of $58 and getting a $450 discount on the device. $450 over 12 months is $37.50 plus interest and so I would only be paying $20.50 per month for my actual usage. Even if I bring my own phone, there isn't a carrier that would give me a price near that low.

Frankly, I think it would be better for uses to pay the $649 up-front and have cheaper plans (and this does happen in many countries and can happen here if you want to buy the iPhone 5 for T-Mobile). However, even there I wouldn't be getting such a value. T-Mobile offers 500 minutes plus texting plus 2GB of data for $50/mo. For $8 more on a family plan, I'm getting $450 off my device which even if I can only upgrade every 24 months is an $18.75/mo value.

It would definitely be a huge differentiator. AT&T did this for many years to keep Apple fans happy and to prevent their yelling from overwhelming the press around the new device. However, it's really expensive. Even if you gained more customers, it likely wouldn't be worth it.

<comment><USER15> If you ask nicely, AT&T will upgrade every year -- they have for me. They'll tell you about the "early upgrade fee" ($250), so just ask them what your current early termination fee is -- it'll be less (that's why they raised it last year).

So you pay the ETF and switch to Verizon. If you got the 4S last year, you're looking at $215 right now for an ETF vs $250 for the "early upgrade fee". Chances are, they want to retain you as a customer, so they'll waive the upgrade fee.

I certainly don't feel bad for AT&T, my average monthly bill is $130, so I'm paying them ~$1600 in monthlies per year plus the annual $200 (& change!) upgrade fee. So I don't think it's unreasonable to get a new $650 iPhone each year for the $2K I'm paying (which as you say probably only costs them $350).

I just wish they'd formalize this into a "Apple fanboi" plan so I don't have to threaten to cancel, argue with managers etc to get that shiny new phone on release day!

Full disclosure: I do sell the previous phone via eBay, so I guess I'm at least making the $200 upgrade fee back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, the AT&t prices are too high based on their new mobile share plan. $70 for 4 gigs and $40 per smartphone with unlimited talk and text.

<http://www.att.com/mobileshare>

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have info on the Sprint tethering pricing listed here? I don't see it on their site or a Google search, and the existence of such would be very compelling for me (obnoxious overage price notwithstanding).

<comment><USER18> They had the info when I was checking out. I don't remember the specific amounts of data, but the rates were +$20 and +$50 per month to your plan.

<comment><USER17> I saw that as well... 2 and 6 gb. I understood the infographic to mean a base amount of tethering data was free per month, which sure isn't how it looks on Sprint's site.

<comment><USER18> I also interpreted the infographic to mean that you can tether up to 5GB per month for free, but I think that's incorrect.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can update the chart if someone finds a definitive price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not relevant for people who switch phone in two years, but AT&T's phone unlocking at the end of the contract or with account charges taken care of, is pretty neat.

<comment><AUTHOR> If a Verizon account has been in good standing for at least 60 days, supposedly they'll unlock your device: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57361283-266/will- verizon-...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57361283-266/will-verizon- unlock-my-iphone-4s/)

<comment><USER20> Only for international use. Domestic use is still locked to Verizon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not looking forward to basically a 100% increase in my bill when Verizon pulls the plug on the grandfather unlimited plans.

<comment><USER14> I felt that was a disingenuous part of the chart. The author said that FaceTime only worked over cellular for AT&T when you moved to a shared data plan, but always worked on Verizon. That's technically true, but only really because Verizon won't offer customers subsidized pricing without moving to a shared data plan.

From Verizon's perspective, if you pay their post-pay rates and bring your own iPhone, you're paying them an additional $18+/mo since they don't have to cover the subsidy. As such, if you have a grandfathered plan, they care less since you're basically paying for a higher rate plan by not using a subsidy.

<comment><USER22> That $18.75/month buys you much more than unlimited data, if it's a truly unlocked phone.

<comment><USER23> It's a CDMA phone which by definition can't be unlocked.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not true. CDMA is just one band. The iPhone 5 supports multiple bands, including GSM bands and LTE bands. It also includes a SIM card slot. The iPhone 5 can be unlocked and a new SIM inserted.

<comment><USER23> Not the iPhone. You can use the SIM internationally but not in the US. Put an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM in your "unlocked" Verizon iPhone and it will not work.

UPDATE: I should also add that if you buy an factory unlocked iPhone from Apple, there is no way to activate it on any CDMA network. CDMA is inherently a locked network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sprint seems to have it together on this one.

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest drawback for Sprint is their abysmal LTE coverage. They bet too early on with WiMAX and lost out on the LTE train. It's going to be a good long while before they're caught up there.

<comment><USER25> That's not necessarily true. There is little difference between WiMAX and LTE on all of the hard parts: antenna configuration, transceivers, and amplifiers. Even the modulation scheme is the same: OFDM. Sprint started installing firmware-upgradable base stations a little while ago and I strongly suspect that the process for converting from WiMAX to LTE is governed by staff time limitations than outright technical debt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately LTE-based devices on Sprint still won't be backwards compatible with the converted WiMAX towers as they only output in 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands. The iPhone 5 specifically maxes out at a 2.1GHz band.

<comment><USER25> Oh ya, the user terminals out there are going to have to be replaced wholesale. My only point was that Sprint is going to be able to convert to LTE a lot quicker than people expect. Building up a user base is another issue entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> AT&T: Tethering is included (no additional cost, using your existing data pool) with the new shared data plans.

<comment><AUTHOR> Corrected that part. Thanks.

<comment><USER23> You should also fix the cheapest unlimited plan with 4 GB is $110 not $120 with 1 GB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> His AT&T pricing is inaccurate (he is reporting it too low). This looks like a great comparison chart, but the first thing that jumped out at me was the low prices he used for his analysis. After doing my own research it turns out his #'s for w/1 phone is wrong, w/2 phones it's even more wrong, etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> For people with LTE: Is the difference significant enough to warrant upgrading from a 4 or 4s?

<comment><USER29> It's typically faster than any Wifi I can connect to. So yeah, absolutely.

<comment><USER8> Would that still be the case when adoption rate is higher, though?

Does anyone have an idea what kind of internet pipes LTE base stations get, and how much bandwidth they can (realistically) provide to every phone once they are operating at planned capacity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I actually didn't know only AT&T is able to do voice+data. For me, that option alone seems to justify the carrier choice. Nothing better than looking things up online or checking map directions while staying on the line with somebody.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, same here. I do this all the time. The fact that AT&T is the cheapest option for me ($75/month for unlimited data, 450min, 1000 sms) and that it's the only one here that does this basically forced me to keep it. — Now, I just have to figure out how to unlock my phone (@cutyoursim?) and whether or not I want to rent a phone for LTE or just get a SIM Card whenever I travel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Anyone know if VZW will let you use something other than the "Share Everything" plans with the iPhone 5?

I'd like to switch (they're the only ones with LTE coverage in my city) but probably half of my calling is to/from/in Canada.

<comment><AUTHOR> Share everything is the only current option.

If you're going to Canada a lot, your best option would be the AT&T iPhone as the Verizon iPhone won't support Canadian LTE bands.

<comment><USER32> I'm in Canada a lot, but I'm here (Bellingham) more, so I'm torn.

Right now I'm trying to decide between sticking with AT&T's Nationwide plus Canada and a global data add-on ($110/month) and Verizon's cheapest Sharing is Caring option plus a prepaid Virgin Mobile Canada plan (once VZW will unlock my SIM slot -- $105/month total).

With AT&T I only have one phone number and get free long distance calling to and from Canada (which I do a lot). But the closest LTE market is out of state, and I would need to use my old phone for overseas use with a local SIM.

With Verizon I get LTE in my hometown and much of the rest of the world, and I can use local SIMs when I travel, but I would need to use Skype or FaceTime to call people across the US/Canada border, and probably wouldn't get missed call or voicemail notifications until I crossed into each carrier's coverage area.

The AT&T option appeals to my practical side and the VZW option appeals to my hacker side. Anyway I'm traveling till October so I have a couple of weeks to decide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm sort of debating - I'm grandfathered in w/ one of the AT&T unlimited data contracts at around $80/mo, but am thinking of switching to verizon for the extra LTE bands and what looks like better network support in general...

</comment><comment><USER34> This doesn't seem right. My individual plan cost me $69/mo for an iPhone 4S with unlimited data. I just switched to a family plan with two iPhones and it's costing me $110/mo, before taxes and surcharges of course.

</comment><comment><USER35> So, as for people not from US, could someone, please, explain - how much would it cost monthly to use a single iPhone5 device with unlimited text/voice, 2GB data and tethering? Just curious.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can someone explain the business logic behind reducing the cost per phone on a shared plan?

<comment><AUTHOR> Incentive to move multiple devices to a single plan. Reduces attrition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The thing that sucks is that I have two iPhone 4's that are grandfathered into the AT&T unlimited accounts and pay less than $100 a month for both. I'll probably never upgrade since I know I'll just get screwed by AT&T when they force me to move to LTE accounts.

<comment><USER14> AT&T isn't forcing customers to change plans (at least not during this upgrade cycle). Verizon is requiring shared data plans for upgrades, but AT&T is allowing grandfathered users to keep their plans. AT&T is, however, throttling past 5GB, but they're doing that whether you upgrade or not, IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Since when is CDMA a 'worldphone' compatible format?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not. That's why the iPhone 5 has GSM bands supported as well.

<comment><USER39> Could you explain this? This chart* would suggest that, while LTE bands are shared between the CDMA model and the non-North America GSM model, none of the models are both GSM and CDMA capable and therefore are not "worldphone capable". I would love to be wrong about this so please elucidate the situation if you are able.

*<http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/>

<comment><USER40> The CDMA model does GSM as well: <http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html>

_CDMA model A1429: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25)_

The CDMA iPhone 4S was the same (minus LTE), it has a SIM card slot for global roaming and everything.

<comment><USER39> Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Looks like there's no competition here - Verizon is dominant. Even when it comes to price, they're not much more expensive, and actually cheaper if you've got 3+ members on a family plan.

<comment><USER42> Looks like AT&T is still the only option for simultaneous voice+data, though, due to antenna limitations: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/09/still-no- simultaneous-v...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/09/still-no-simultaneous- voice-and-data-on-the-verizon-or-sprint-iphone-5/)

<comment><USER43> It's really weird that there is that restriction because all of the other 4G phones on Verizon can do simultaneous voice+data. Must be something weird about this new all-in-one qualcomm chip they are using.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Doesn't the current phone not support VoLTE?

<comment><AUTHOR> No current network supports VoLTE so I'm not sure this can be confirmed yet.

<comment><USER31> Right, but what if the network began supporting it? My understanding was that even if turned on, the current device still relies on either CDMA or HSPA/whatever for voice no matter what.

<comment><USER44> I dont think it's clear yet; changes to the network may only require a change in software to get this VoLTE function. The document suggests Verizon is testing this, but where did he get that info? There is no footnote about it. Also, would the phone even support it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> If early termination fees are just ~$350, what's stopping people from doing that and selling the phone on eBay for $400? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER31> Because the combined eBay/PayPal fees are 10%, and you also have to pay $199 for the phone.

<comment><USER46> +1 for doing all the math</comment></comment></comment>


How to Always Win at Dots and Boxes (2015) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KboGyIilP6k <comment><USER2> I won a dots and box bot competition years ago with this: [https://github.com/farnasirim/dots-and-lines- box](https://github.com/farnasirim/dots-and-lines-box). You can try it out in the terminal as easy as `g++ decision.cpp && ./a.out` and try the technique in the video in a 4x4 instance of the game against the bot. It plays fine in general, but I had not heard about the trick for the 4x4 case (outlined in the video) back then, so it doesn't support it.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I had no name recognition of this brilliant theorist, turns out he is the same guy that wrote Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays (recommended). Also found this sad news: [https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/04/18/elwyn-berlekamp-game- th...](https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/04/18/elwyn-berlekamp-game-theorist-and- coding-pioneer-dies-at-78/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Elwyn Berlekamp wikipedia entry: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwyn_Berlekamp) He died in April this year.</comment>


Infinity (life is short) - <AUTHOR> http://www.awful-drawings.com/post/3502040865/infinity

<comment><AUTHOR> My brother always has healthy reminders.</comment>


0xDBE: JetBrains IDE for DBAs and SQL developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/features/ <comment><USER2> If you haven't tried them, test out their datasource tools in IntelliJ, which this seems to be mostly a repackaging of. Especially if using JPA, it's pretty incredible to be able to use all of the standard shortcuts (go to definition, etc) and inspections right into your development data environment.

The one that really killed me was that you can CTRL-Click on a foreign key in the data explorer and it will go to the row in the foreign table with that PK. Jetbrains has gone to such incredible effort so that the same gesture will perform the same action (or a reasonable analogy) in _every_ context.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do they insist on a separate heavyweight installation for each functional area / language? IDEA (Java), PhpStorm, RubyMine, PyCharm, AppCode, WebStorm, and now 0xDBE? What if you were building something that used all of those? You'd be buying a license for 7 IDEs? What happened to the good 'ol plugin model?

I still prefer the lightweight Sublime Text to having to install all these monolithic Java-based IDEs, but I agree that the SQL/DBA tools have sucked for a long time -- especially a good cross-platform tool. Valentina Studio was the best I've found [http://www.valentina-db.com/en/valentina-studio- overview](http://www.valentina-db.com/en/valentina-studio-overview) \-- has support for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and their own proprietary db.

<comment><USER4> > You'd be buying a license for 7 IDEs? What happened to the good 'ol plugin > model?

+1, it's ridiculous. My colleague switches between PhpStorm and IDEA depending upon which language she is writing in, so it's two licenses for us to absorb. I only use IDEA because doing Java without an IDE is painful, for everything else I use Sublime.

* edit for grammer

<comment><USER5> She doesn't need to be. Idea includes the PHP plugin which is basically PHPStorm thats lags a bit (usually negligibly)...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting to see JetBrains coming in that space. Their other IDE are really great to use, and I can see where they could compete with Oracle SQL Editor. I use it from time apto time, and try to stay away as much as possible, but knowing JetBrains great IDE, I may at least give it a try.

<comment><USER7> Yep, i have used TOAD for Oracle, it is not bad. But imho jetbrain's make very good ide's. I mostly interested in DB extensions (non standard SQL extensions, PL/SQL and PLPG/SQL) etc, because as was written most jetbrains ide have basic db's support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm lost on the name. I mean, I know it's hex and the decimal is 3518 but.. what's its significance? Is there some hip way of pronouncing it? I currently use razorsql but don't tend to dive too deep.

<comment><USER9> Some sort of mashup between database (DB) and IDE makes DBE. Unsure why they prepended 0x to make it look hexidecimal.

<comment><USER8> Oh. Well that was way less interesting than expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> JetBrains have, by far, some of the best IDE out there. I'm personally a huge fan of IntelliJ. I just hope they roll out the C++ IDE for free, unlike WebStorm!

</comment><comment><USER11> Main question ... pricing?

<comment><USER12> Really? Pricing is the main question? How about how much time does it save, relative to the up-front investment of learning a new tool? As a developer, your time is worth far more than nearly any piece of software you will buy!

It seems incredibly ironic that software developers have hangups around software pricing. With the amount of money you can make writing software, and the amount of time good tooling like this can save, it should be an absolute no-brainer. They even offer personal licenses and free versions for OSS developers.

The best justification I can think of is the non-free aspect. Any text editor requires a lot of up-front investment to master. As the centerpiece of a developer's workflow, developers could be justified in favoring an open-source editor to embrace. But if that's your reason, $1 is just as unpalatable as $1000.

<comment><USER13> _Really? Pricing is the main question? How about how much time does it save, relative to the up-front investment of learning a new tool? As a developer, your time is worth far more than nearly any piece of software you will buy!_

Part of that investment is knowing how much it will cost. How can you know your time is worth more than X when X is undetermined?

<comment><USER12> I'm sure it's in the ballpark of any of their other specialized IDEs. Also not that the X I was referring to is your time invested, not your cash.

It shouldn't be the "main question" is all I'm saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Aqua Data Studio ([http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio.html](http://www.aquafold.com/aquadatastudio.html)) has some amazing features, though most of them are geared to DBA usage. Oh, and it's quite expensive (though not as much as Toad). I spend a significant amount of time writing SQL queries, so anything that makes it faster is worth checking.

</comment><comment><USER15> The first time I tried to use the database tools integrated into PhpStorm (which are the same as the ones in IDEA), their SQL parser stumbled over PostgreSQL's ::type cast (try "select '2014-01-01'::date") and the next time I tried it, it stumbled over a CTE and failed to parse the rest of the query.

Yes. Both are simple bugs (I reported one of them, the other would be very difficult to reduce the test case for), but _if_ I need a tool that's more advanced than plain psql, then it's for the big and complicated queries which this tool apparently isn't made for.

It's fine if it's a plugin for an otherwise mostly unrelated IDE (like in the case of PhpStorm, RubyMine or IDEA), but it's not at all acceptable if it's the main feature of a product.

As such we'll see which one happens: Either they make their database support arbitrary queries or their tool will just fail in its biggest use case (being a tool for the complicated queries where the text editor/native tool combo isn't sufficient.

<comment><USER16> Similar story here: the MSSQL DB integration in IntelliJ IDEA has never worked properly for me (schema support is terrible). They better make sure these things work if they want to release this as a separate product.

<comment><USER17> came here to ask for MSSQL support. i guess i have my answer.

<comment><USER18> Don't just take some guy's opinion for it. Download a trial and try it yourself.

JetBrains makes good products; it'd be a shame to avoid a useful tool just based on what one guy said.

<comment><USER16> Agreed, they might've just fixed my problems with this product release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> JetBrains make the best IDEs on the market, their products always surpass my expectations. I use their python IDE and the php IDE both fantastic products that are well worth the money(and i HATE paying for software). No i don't work for them and i am not affiliated with them i just happen to appreciate their amazing software.

<comment><USER20> > I use their python IDE and the php IDE both fantastic products that are well > worth the money(and i HATE paying for software).

I don't think I've ever seen a better advertisement for a product.

Think about it: we're carpenters but we really don't want to pay for our hammers and saws! Paying for tools is fine, if they are good quality and give you a competitive advantage.

<comment><USER19> Fair comparison, but the difference is that we generally can get the hammers and saws free online. Choosing to pay for these products shows that they are superior to the other free ones which are available to us, and the paid ones can also be obtained for free if one chooses to do so (yes i know its illegal and wrong but its very common and easy).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I totally love JetBrains products. Haven't used many but my favorite is resharper. Totally took the pain out of coding. Formatting, following naming conventions and so much now looks so simple. Totally recommend them to anyone considering buying it. Worth every penny.

</comment><comment><USER22> JetBrains makes some amazing tools but they still don't highlight the search field when you use the ctrl+F hotkey. I don't get it.

Open ticket (1+ year): [http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-107627](http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-107627)

My request, which has been closed: [https://intellij- support.jetbrains.com/requests/29892](https://intellij- support.jetbrains.com/requests/29892)

</comment><comment><USER23> JetBrains announcements are always pleasant surprises.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how this handles version control of schemas. I've been really impressed with PyCharm, so I trust these guys.

At work we're trying to integrate [[http://www.red- gate.com/]'s](http://www.red-gate.com/\]'s) SQL Source Control plugin, which is a huge pain. They prefer too much autodiscovery, which is just too finicky.

</comment><comment><USER25> Some of these JetBrains IDE's are _really_ good, and hopefully this will make the mind-numbing task of writing this a lot more pleasant. Here's to their eventual MongoDB support

</comment><comment><USER26> Great news! Looks like they are going in the same direction as Datazenit ( [http://datazenit.com](http://datazenit.com) )

Proper database management tools were long due.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are you (JetBrains) going to offer those SQL features to PyCharm etc or will it always be a standalone (or it already exists but I never looked for it) ?

<comment><USER28> I believe that many of these features are already included in PyCharm, PHPStorm, etc...

Check the "Databases" under View -> Tool Windows

<comment><USER27> Thanks, somehow missed it all this time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> SQLite will definitely benefit from this. So far it seems the space for SQLite DB admin is pretty sparse, despite its high usage in mobile apps.

<comment><USER30> If you are on a mac Base is about as good as they come. [http://menial.co.uk/base/](http://menial.co.uk/base/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Looks nice so far, JetBrains certainly puts out solid products. Will have to compare it with Aqua Data Studio when the final is released.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems awesome, but they need a better name.

<comment><USER33> 0xdbe is a codename, not the final one, so please feel free to suggest other names! :-)

<comment><USER34> Even something as simple as xdbe (cross db explorer or cross db+ide?) would work. The whole hex thing makes me look again thinking it's an error code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> If they can pull that off for all DB engines it would be very interesting to have unified DB IDE.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks great, I'm tired of using a different program for every database type I have.

<comment><USER36> I use Navicat on OSX; I've queried and managed SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and even SQLite databases with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Now, if they'd just release (a preview of) their C++ IDE… It's been months: [http://blog.jetbrains.com/objc/2014/02/jetbrains-c-ide- statu...](http://blog.jetbrains.com/objc/2014/02/jetbrains-c-ide-status- update-and-video-report/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Since this post is located so prominently on the front page of HN I would like to use this opportunity to implore fellow HNers to go and vote for GoLang Plugin/IDE.

The issue is located this way: [http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-5938](http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-5938)

</comment><comment><USER38> aw, no postgresql support. How come?

<comment><USER39> Where does it say that? PostgreSQL is third from the left in the list of supported DBs on the front page.</comment></comment>


Wire messenger server code open-sourced - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wireapp/wire-server <comment><USER2> The title for this post should be changed to "a piece of the wire messenger server code open sourced." Most of the source is not open source, you can't run your own.

Also, holy shit they're storing a lot of information about their users:

* All of your contacts.

* Unencrypted profile information for everyone.

* Every active conversation you have.

* Every archived conversation you have.

* The frequency that you communicate with your contacts ('top contacts').

* Every group that you're in.

* The unencrypted titles and avatars of everyone's groups.

Wonder what will be in the _rest_ of the database schema if they open source it.

<comment><USER3> So I checked if this matches their privacy whitepaper [0] that claims to list what they store. It almost does, with one notable exception and one minor one.

* All of your contacts.

Wire contacts, they only store non-wire contacts in a hashed form, and there's an opt out for non-wire contacts.

* Unencrypted profile

(Isn't this just profile picture (which is shown to people you haven't connected with), and name anyways?) They do say so in the privacy policy.

* Every active conversation you have.

Specifically they claim to store:

Who/when it was created, who is involved (which seems critical to be able to route messages), and conversation name

* Every archived conversation you have.

I assume they store the same as for non-archived conversations, seems necessary to be able to add new devices.

* The frequency that you communicate with your contacts ('top contacts').

Ya... that's not listed as far as I can tell. Arguably "aggregated usage statistics"... but it's not really aggregated.

* Every group that you're in.

This is the same as conversations... they clearly need to know this to route messages.

* The unencrypted titles and avatars of everyone's groups.

Titles is listed. Avatars of groups isn't... seems like a minor oversight though given that they're like a profile picture, and profile pictures are publicly available.

[0] [https://wire.com/resource/Wire%20Privacy%20Whitepaper/downlo...](https://wire.com/resource/Wire%20Privacy%20Whitepaper/download/)

<comment><USER2> > _So I checked if this matches their privacy whitepaper [0] that claims to > list what they store. It almost does, with one notable exception and one > minor one._

Maybe it's good that they've documented this somewhere, but I don't think most Wire users read white papers. I'm a dev and I was surprised. Their outward facing marketing didn't lead me to think they track all my contacts and the state of every conversation I am having. It very clearly suggests the total opposite.

They need to do much better than this if they want people to think they take security/privacy seriously.

>> * Every group that you're in.

> _This is the same as conversations... they clearly need to know this to > route messages._

Why? That's not true for Signal from what I can tell.

<comment><USER3> > Maybe it's good that they've documented this somewhere, but I don't think > most Wire users read white papers.

In the sense of "most users don't read privacy policies", sure.

It's pretty clearly linked in their privacy policy as "this is where you should go for information", I know I'm not the only wire user who read it before installing it.

> Why? That's not true for Signal from what I can tell.

Ya... I think I overstated it. It's the easiest way to route messages but it's not the only way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great to see an example of practical, real-world Haskell out in the wild. It's surprisingly readable. I'm more motivated to finally knuckle down and learn the language.

</comment><comment><USER5> Shit. I have never believed that someone would really build and run a Haskell- based back-end in production. Respect and kudos. Classy as fuck.

<comment><USER6> Isn't there some music-learning app too? Chordify, I think it was called.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's great to see more Haskell code being used in production.

<comment><USER8> And a little bit of Rust, too!

[https://github.com/wireapp/wire- server/tree/master/libs/libz...](https://github.com/wireapp/wire- server/tree/master/libs/libzauth/libzauth)

<comment><USER9> If you're into rust then their crypto is all in Rust [https://github.com/wireapp/proteus](https://github.com/wireapp/proteus)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm supper happy about Wire taking this step. Has someone done a security analysis/review of Wire yet? It would be interesting to read.

<comment><USER11> [https://medium.com/@wireapp/wires-independent-security- revie...](https://medium.com/@wireapp/wires-independent-security- review-61f37a1762a8)

<comment><USER12> Probably worth mentioning this is a paid report for one library they use, not the Wire app.

<comment><USER9> The post states that the app level review is coming. As a comparison afaik Signal only has protocol review available, no implementation review.

Edit: typo

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is fantastic news. If I understand things correctly, we can now host the Wire server on our own VM, and use the clients to connect to it, correct? We'll have full control over the end-to-end encrypted network?

<comment><USER2> No most of the source is still missing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is really great to see. Kudos to the Wire messenger team for taking this step.

</comment><comment><USER15> there is something i never understood, maybe someone can help me: what makes wire better than xmpp? why do we need yet another protocol for chat?

<comment><USER16> XMPP is terribly fragmented and the clients all suck.

<comment><USER17> I just tried [https://conversations.im/](https://conversations.im/) and I must I'm very impressed.

<comment><USER18> The clients on everything except Android all suck.

<comment><USER19> To add to that, try enabling omemo across 4 different OS (Andoid, iOS, MacOS and Linux) and you'll want to burn all of your devices. Messages showing up on some devices randomly or not, etc. nice thing in general and I really like the idea of xmpp, but not exactly user-friendly for non-technical folks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hoping more and more people start to show their support for services such as this one by joining and bringing friends. They are running circles around Signal lately.

<comment><USER12> I was hopeful at first. A large VC funded company with a big full time team _should_ run circles around a small open source effort, but their security is still way behind Signal. I was also quickly put off by their "less than honest" marketing.

<comment><USER11> Could you share details on "security is still way behind Signal"?

Edit: found previous discussion, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13132157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13132157)

<comment><USER12> I haven't directly explored the source for either in little while, so I should take a new look. I might be a little out of date, but the things that I have seen second hand recently confirmed my earlier conclusions.

Like I recently saw an announcement from Wire that calls are now secure, but they had been advertising them as secure all along! I had even spent time looking through the code but didn't know that calls weren't authenticated. _Now_ are they really secure? I don't know, they said that before too, and the source is so hard to follow. Then I saw a post that showed they weren't even doing cert pinning, which is so basic.

I wanted to like it, but the more I looked the more I felt like "security" was just sprinkled on as an after thought.

<comment><USER11> Did you see that they implemented CBR for audio calls and submitted patches to both Signal and WebRTC?

[https://medium.com/@wireapp/call-security-constant-bit- rate-...](https://medium.com/@wireapp/call-security-constant-bit-rate- encoding-and-improving-webrtc-a85be6caa43a)

<comment><USER21> In 2017... CBR has been a thing in secure calling apps for ~5 years now.

<comment><USER11> Can you recommend some iOS/Android apps which support CBR?

<comment><USER21> Silent Phone is both Android and iOS compatible, and we have used CBR codecs since we launched (in 2012).

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the pointer ($10/month), did not know this was available without buying a Blackphone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How will Wire make money and stay viable while maintaining this level of service?

<comment><USER23> Also mind the license. It means anyone competing with Wire has to comply with the AGPL which is specific to servers. If you modify the code, you must publish it, whilst Wire can retain their own modifications to the server.

<comment><USER24> Weirdly I think free licenses are great for businesses to use and open licenses are great for personal projects.

If I'm writing a hobby project, I want it to help the ecosystem as much as possible. If businesses want to use it then great! So MIT.

If I'm running a business my main goal is to survive. I want to help the community as well, but I obviously can't do that if I go broke. "Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others" and all that. So *GPL, because it lets me balance those goals.

<comment><USER23> I'm not arguing against it or anything just pointing it out. AGPL keeps the lights on whilst still letting others play with it and contribute.

<comment><USER24> I understood you! I just wanted to add a few reasons why I (generally an open > libre guy) don't mind the AGPL in this case.

<comment><USER23> Understood, I only worry about AGPL if I'm working on a similar product for commercial work I would absolutely avoid looking at the code. Some licenses are fine for some companies, others are a nightmare. Apparently D had that issue for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm wondering if the clients will allow you to select any server or if you have to rebuild the apps just to do that. Never used Wired, but I am very interested.

<comment><USER9> One of the details we haven't quite settled on yet. Safe to assume that once all of the server code is open then at first you'd need to roll your own apps pointing to the right server.

Since a lot of the interest for self hosting comes from companies then a nicely packaged version is somewhere in the future.</comment></comment>


Do you agree with President Obama's immigration plan? - <AUTHOR> http://livecaucus.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! This is a new polling tool I made to quickly gauge public opinion on key issues. The idea is to be able to immediately respond to politicians and the pundit class when they say "The American people want X" with _very_ large samples. It's completely nonpartisan and does not mix polling with education. Do your research elsewhere. Help LiveCaucus "go viral"! Vote and share with friends, family, strangers!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is an experiment in access to see how voting can be integrated with our existing technological lives. It's only interesting if lots of people use it. Like at least 10 million. Vote and share!</comment>


Show HN: Maracanda – halal classifieds for Muslims - <AUTHOR> I made classified ad network (Android app and website) for Muslims. The purpose is to let Muslims primarily from western countries to buy and sell halal products, find and post halal services, jobs and other ads. I think that this project might be useful to Muslim minorities having difficulties to find/sell halal products/services. Whole foods, jobs, restaurants, services, products, tutoring, education, mosques, clothing, books, and ads of other types can be posted to the network.
Website: https://maracanda.net Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maracanda.... <comment><USER2> good initiative..</comment>


A Bitcoin debit card – available now - <AUTHOR> https://in.xapo.com/campaign/debit/

<comment><USER2> "the first ever bitcoin debit card"

meanwhile, Shift has been out for over a year... [https://shiftpayments.com](https://shiftpayments.com)

I guess it's maybe the first Bitcoin ONLY debit card?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you perceive numbers? - <AUTHOR> This is a weird, curiosity fueled and probably poorly-worded question but how do you map numbers in your mind? When you do mental math for example how do you picture the numbers? Or how do you simply picture a number when you read it?<p>I personally picture a long "ruban" with different intervals (1-10, 11-20, 21-30 etc) in different shades and looked at from different perspectives (vintage points) for each one. <comment><USER2> I see the written representation of the equation and then manipulate it like I would with a pencil and eraser.

I actually like this question a lot. I've been practicing mental visualization and mental audio reproduction. I call it fidelity. My theory is by increasing my mental fidelity, I can increase my overall intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. It seems mine changes with the weather.

I can think of numbers as their symbols and manipulate them in my head like that. I can do small long addition, multiplication and division in my head this way but it's bounded by working memory I think. It seems like a skill I could improve on.

When I read numbers/equations first, however, it's audio. I sound the numbers out, much like I would words, since I hear the words in my head when I read. I can read without sounding out but I've noticed comprehension can suffer depending on the text.

None of this has any particular colour. The only things in my thought with colour are constructed imaginary scenes (for instance, walking on a beach) or memories. Both have a high degree of audio, visual and kinaesthetic information - that silly learning style categorisation test never seemed to work on me.

</comment><comment><USER4> My head has more auditory stuff going on than visual. I "say" things in my head as I read them. It makes me a slow-ish reader (compared to most smart people, who typically read faster than I do, though I read faster than average).

But I was good at math in my youth. One of the reasons for that is I make all kinds of weird mental associations. For example, I relate to single digit numbers in a paired or complementary way, such that 3 and 7 are oppsite sides of the same coin and it helps me with addition or subtraction. To me, those mental categories are part of how I percieve numbers, though it doesn't correlate readily to perception in the vein of sight or sound.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's no geometric complement in my mind. At times it's useful to think of "wholeness" base 10, so 4 and 6 fit together, and when adding numbers, I sometimes find the nearest multiple of 10 and then go lower from there. I don't picture numbers in the abstract (e.g. 178); when they refer to something else (e.g. 2 coins), they're a description or a property.

</comment><comment><USER6> I lack the ability of attaching numbers to an image or anything, I just make them float in the air, but they don't keep up long, since my short-term memory is not that great. That's why I need to be extra fast to calculate anything before they go out 'poof!' :)

</comment><comment><USER7> The way I visualize numbers is actually based on a picture from my maths book in primary school. In that picture numbers were visualized as coloured, spiralling band / number ray with the integers from zero to 1000 written on it. The band started somewhere in the centre and spiralled rightwards and outwards from there.

The funny thing is that I continued to use this image till today and for larger and more complex sets of numbers. Negative numbers for me are a continuation of the spiral to the left. For larger numbers the spiral continues to the right and in upwards in the 3rd dimension. Each number that's larger by an order of magnitude of 3 (10, 10000, 10000000 ...) roughly lies on the same 2-dimensional vector.

</comment><comment><USER8> When I see numbers in passing, for example a telephone number on an advertisement, I'm obsessed with adding them up to see if the total is divisible by 9. I do the same with letters of company names. Done this for years, a compulsive tick.

<comment><USER9> Any reason why the number 9? Where did the habit start from?

<comment><USER8> Spelling. I was really bad at spelling. So one day on the bus, about 20 years ago, I decided to count the numbers of letters in words, assigning them different weights depending on being capitals or not. Why 9? It seemed fun at the time to have a secondary goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I kind of see equations with a video in my head of numbers moving around. so 11 might become 10+1 or 9 might become 10-1 depending on how I need to put the numbers together. X might move to one side of the equation etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> physics ruined me. whenever i encounter a number now, i round it to the closest order of 10. you'll likely not encounter a number outside the range [10^-34,10^40], so you really just need to know how to subtract -34 from 40 and everything in between. no need for semi-autistic interpretations of numbers.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't get any kind of image, they are just numbers.</comment>


600613 - <AUTHOR> http://bit-player.org/2014/600613

<comment><USER2> > Most numbers of this magnitude garner a few thousand hits on Google, but > 25898913 gets 29,500,000.

If you actually click through the results, on pages 1-34 you get "Page 34 of about 24,900,000 results (0.34 seconds) ", but on page 35 you discover that there are only actually 341 results.

<comment><USER3> I've found this to be consistent behaviour with Google. The number of search results tend to be totally unreliable. I don't know if they use the same search algorithm for gmail, but the same problem occurs there as well. Initially it might say 1-50 of 100 results, go to the second page and suddenly it's 50-100 of 2000. And on the next page 100-150 of "many".

Google search-hit count has never been fully accurate - I say this empirically from use over the years, and having tried to use the number of hits in some random experiment I can no longer remember.

<comment><USER4> Google acknowledges this: [https://support.google.com/gsa/answer/2672285?hl=en](https://support.google.com/gsa/answer/2672285?hl=en)

I remember seeing a more in depth article about this but cant find it at the moment.

<comment><USER5> So apparently it is possible to get an accurate result count (for up to 1 million results) using "rc = 1"? Does anyone have an examples illustrating this behavior (I can't seem to contrive one where it makes a difference)?

<comment><USER3> I suspect rc=1 applies to enterprise search.

<comment><USER5> Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be nice to change the title to something coherent and useful, like, "Search queries containing only numbers," or something of that sort. As such, there's not a lot of incentive to click on "600613". (Yeah, I did it, mostly just to make this post coherent.)

<comment><USER7> Well, I was expecting something about the "Google projection" for maps, unofficially noted as the slightly different EPSG:900913 [1] until finally standardized as EPSG:3857 [2].

[1] [http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/243/google- projection-900...](http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/243/google- projection-900913/)

[2] [http://www.epsg- registry.org/report.htm?type=selection&entit...](http://www.epsg- registry.org/report.htm?type=selection&entity=urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3857&reportDetail=short&style=urn:uuid:report- style:default-with- code&style_name=OGP%20Default%20With%20Code&title=EPSG:3857)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In response to the trivia question: I'm assuming that it's impossible to find some N wit fewer than 10 digits. In all of my attempts I've received results relating to phone number reverse-lookup sites.

There also seems to be this website which exists just to generate a page full of numbers with any given prefix (defined in the URL):

[http://www.qzonecom.com/mobile/maanshan_511556.html](http://www.qzonecom.com/mobile/maanshan_511556.html)

Why?!

<comment><USER9> That's my favorite thing about the internet: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cghg- QyTP_M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cghg-QyTP_M) No reason

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A new type of business: find a number that's not yet in google/bing/etc. - embded it in your text, and then track who's copied you verbatim - some kind of tracking I guess..

</comment><comment><USER11> 10,041,295,923 now returns exactly one result - the author's page, just as he theorized.

I wonder if it'll return two results soon.

<comment><USER12> [https://archive.today/j8KXp](https://archive.today/j8KXp) Now it does!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> website is under a heavy load, here is the cached version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MvuGGDF...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MvuGGDFhj4MJ:bit- player.org/2014/600613+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=be)

</comment><comment><USER14> The about "number" results should give an idea but it might not be accurate, tells google. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ix3mHeL7hg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ix3mHeL7hg)

Anyway you only get the first 1000 results of your googling.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think it's a matter of scale. The scale of the human race gives us a range of number that are humanly comprehensible. Their distribution diminishes as they make less and less sense to our scale.

</comment><comment><USER16> That is pretty much the kind of posts I come to HN for. Thanks for the read :)</comment>


Facebook is down - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/ <comment><USER2> It's back up.

While they were down, they responded with a simple HTML page [1] and a 503 noticeably devoid of any interesting cache or CDN headers.

[1] [http://pastebin.com/LaUX4Hp9](http://pastebin.com/LaUX4Hp9)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Messenger app still works, but it looks like Facebook.com, Messenger.com, and the Facebook app are all broken at the moment.

</comment><comment> enahs-sf I wonder how many 9's this cost them.</comment>


Coinbase advisory with screenshot - <AUTHOR>

I signed up with coinbase and I found it to be very easy to use. High five for building something with a good product market fit.
I used the option of linking my Wells Fargo bank account to coinbase with my Wells Fargo username and password because it seemed like the fastest way to get everything setup.
After the Wells Fargo authorization went through, I immediately changed my Wells Fargo password just in case coinbase was saving the Wells Fargo authorization in fear of what would happen if coinbase ever got hacked.
A couple of days later, I got an alert from Wells Fargo about my account being disabled from too many invalid login attempts.
This is not a coincidence. Whatever caused this would certainly be related to the fact that I signed up with coinbase. I never log into Wells Fargo and I did not attempt to login with other programs such as mobile apps etc.
I'm sorry if this seems overly alarmist. I have filed a support ticket with coinbase but I got a reply which simply said they are overwhelmed with support tickets and there's a long wait. I have also tweeted at them.
Interesting that the bitcoins were successfully purchased so I am confident that the link to withdraw money from my bank is set up correctly.
For now, I would strongly suggest avoiding that feature until further notice.
Screenshot:
http://screencast.com/t/4waKr2DD <comment><USER2> Coinbase needs access to your WF account at all times?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lets hope not!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What Are You Building? - <AUTHOR> I love to hear about what people are building? Fun side projects, side businesses, etc. <comment><USER2> I'm building a marketplace for medical practices to find technology vendors of all types (everything from your office phone system to online patient portals to remote vitals monitoring tools). The goal is to become a one-stop-shop for medical practices and save time for clinicians, purchasing teams, & administrators by rigorously vetting all of our vendors before we host them. Esp important as the health tech market explodes and the universe of tech available to doctors & clinicians grows quickly. [https://www.goplacebo.com/](https://www.goplacebo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently finished a beta version of yaddu[0], a new community aggregator platform with built-in VR[1] support.

[0] [https://yaddu.pw](https://yaddu.pw) [1] [https://yaddu.pw/vr/c/yaddu](https://yaddu.pw/vr/c/yaddu)</comment>


Exxon Still Funding Climate Change Deniers - <AUTHOR> http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/exxon-exposed.html

<comment><USER2> This new usage keeps throwing me off.

[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/Denier_L...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/Denier_Louis_le_Pieux.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Comment from this context? [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004434.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004434.html)

Is the point that "The problem with symbols like this that do not form part of a well-defined system is that people will see what they want to see."?

Meaning that oil companies will create a reality that matches their business or that the global warming alarmists act like religious zealots? I believe both are true...

<comment><USER2> What I mean is that a denier is a medieval coin.

<comment><USER3> Hmm. I was close :-P</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Toward a new self-definition for open source - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/09/10/a-new-self-definition-for-foss/ <comment><USER2> Wow. Epic.

Even if you're put off by the software licence politics stuff at the start, hang on for the personal reflections on the craft and culture of open source software development.

</comment><comment><USER3> My software political philosophy is built on a wider and bigger framework called individualist anarchism and libertarianism.

Now, each ethical system, with the exception of maybe nilhists, have its own set of duties that are owned to other person(s).

So what is the duty of my ethical system? I think it can be sumed up as "first, do no harm". Then it perscribe protection from interferences as well protection of the individual from corecison and whatever forces that have decided for whatever reason to attack that person(s), whether it is for the "benefit" of the group or just plain tranny.

In the libertarian ethical system, you will not take somebody's property for the sake of welfare or other reason without consent. You also have freedom of contract and the right to bear arm, especially when somebody decided to violates property right and start killing/murdering/looting/taxing. You have the freedom to conduct trade, and compete on the free market, as well give charity to others.

However, you don't have the right to internet, free education, free roads, or health care in exchange for protection from stealing and theft(which is sometime known as taxation).

As for what this mean in practice in free software for me?(I know I skiped a lot of stuff)

1\. Copyright is pretty much a violation of property right.

2\. Consumers owned software that they brought by default.

3\. It doesn't matter if I couldn't compete with "pirates", I don't have a right to make a living.

4\. Economic intervention is wrong. It doesn't matter if copyright give 50000% increase in productivity.

So this is why I want to move toward copyfree free software to the best extent as possible. I wish I could license all my stuff under the public domain, but people licensed their stuff under MIT or GPL. I want to use their stuff, so I licensed similiarity.

Old code are still licensed under too much of a restrictive licenses.

Still, I have some plan to do public domain software in the future.

<comment><USER4> Creative Commons has a fun license called CC0 that you might enjoy: <http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0>

While I'm not comfortable with the idea myself (I'm a big fan of attribution), it certainly looks attractive.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I am very aware of Creative Common Zero and I am going to try to use it in latest release of my game.

Attribution has worked very well for me in the sense that all of my fears were unfounded. It only seem that copycats only copy when you're popular. At that stage, copycats are no problem at all.

Mostly, I am worried about frauds prepretuating lies that they're the authors of my work but they seem to be the rare type.</comment></comment></comment>


Lyft Announces Record Second Quarter Results - <AUTHOR> https://investor.lyft.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lyft-announces-record-second-quarter-results <comment><AUTHOR> Something they forgot to include in the press release but appears in the filing:

Expected Early Lock-Up Release Date

In connection with Lyft's initial public offering of Class A common stock (the "IPO"), all of Lyft's executive officers, directors and holders of its capital stock and securities convertible into or exchangeable for such capital stock as of the IPO were parties to market standoff agreements with the Company or entered into lock-up agreements with the underwriters that restrict their ability to sell or transfer their shares, or otherwise engage in certain transactions related to their shares, for a period of 180 days after March 28, 2019. Such period is referred to as the lock-up period. Pursuant to the lock- up agreements with the underwriters, if (i) at least 120 days have elapsed since March 28, 2019, (ii) the Company has publicly released earnings results for the quarterly period during which the IPO occurred and (iii) such lock-up period is scheduled to end during or within five trading days prior to a broadly applicable and regularly scheduled period during which trading in the Company's securities would not be permitted under its insider trading policy (the "blackout period"), such lock-up period will end ten trading days prior to the commencement of such blackout period.

The lock-up period is scheduled to end on September 24, 2019, which falls within the Company's quarterly blackout period that commences at the end of the day on August 31, 2019. Therefore, in accordance with the lock-up agreements with the underwriters, the lock-up period will end at the open of trading on August 19, 2019, which is ten trading days prior to the commencement of the Company's quarterly blackout period. The Company will also release the market standoff agreements when the lock-up period expires. The Company estimates that approximately 257.6 million shares of Class A common stock (including approximately 12.8 million shares of Class B common stock convertible into Class A common stock) may become eligible for sale in the public market at the open of trading on August 19, 2019 (subject to continued vesting of any unvested equity awards as of such date).</comment>


Techurls.com – Read tech news from the most popular tech websites in one place - <AUTHOR> https://techurls.com/ <comment><USER2> I do not understand the distinction between "popular tech websites" and "the most popular tech web sites" \- would you please summarize how this filtering is done?

<comment><AUTHOR> For the title of this HN submission, the text is from the og:description tag in the page's html.

I'm not sure how the popular websites were selected.

Perhaps the author of the site can answer your question in the comments of the corresponding blog post. [http://www.catonmat.net/blog/announcing- techurls/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/announcing-techurls/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You are showing the url from other sources. How's it different?

<comment><AUTHOR> If this question is directed at the author of the site, there is a comment section on the corresponding blog post: [http://www.catonmat.net/blog/announcing- techurls/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/announcing-techurls/)

Three factors I view as appealing, versus navigating to each site separately, include 1) the aggregation itself has value (e.g., to save time), 2) the primarily textual interface and 3) the search functionality.</comment></comment>


Acer Set to Take On iPad with Iconia Tab A500 - <AUTHOR> http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/acer_set_to_take_on_ipad_with_iconia_tab_a500/ <comment><USER2> ASUS 'Transformer' is way more compelling IMO.

ASUS seems to have done a fantastic job of really differentiating their product from the slew of Android tablets set to hit in the very near future, while keeping the cost reasonable.

I just wish they were a bit more clear on when I could actually buy it here in the US.

<comment><USER3> Sale times, thats such an annoying habit with tablets. I've seen more tablets with a undetermined date than tablets with the latest version of Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty perfect article. Even the comments are dead-on, 'I think for $50 more most people will say 'why not get the real thing?' and go with the Apple product.'

It just looks like a portable tv. Not a interactive metal clipboard. The last iPad was iPhone shaped, the current one is iTouch shaped (much larger size of course). Millions of people know what that means and will like it just for that. Still, 3 and hdmi, it has a good chance (of a failing group).</comment>


Twitter Kills The #Dickbar - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/31/twitter-kills-the-dickbar/ <comment><USER2> Twitter is experiencing what I believe is a much larger issue with today's platforms.

You _cannot_ attract a mass of users, give them a nice UX, build a community - and then one day throw ads all over to place, call it a monetization strategy and keep a straight face.

Twitter is going to have a _very_ hard time monetizing their platform, if the #Dickbar is the best they came up with at this point. If I were them, I would be afraid.

<comment><USER3> _You cannot attract a mass of users, give them a nice UX, build a community - and then one day throw ads all over to place, call it a monetization strategy and keep a straight face._

Really? Google did essentially that to great success, as has Facebook (perhaps with less clear-cut success, but clearly not to the sort of outrage Twitter received over the QuickBar).

<comment><USER4> There is a major difference in the service model between google search and twitter tweets.

In search, you are actively seeking something out - you enter a phrase, it returns a result. This meshes beautifully with ads - because in the ideal, an ad matches what you're looking for, except it may want you to buy the end result.

Tweets, totally different. With tweets - you are effectively either pushing information to a specific group (your followers) or you are accepting pushed information from those you follow.

This is much more intimate of a conversation as the tweets you're accepting by following come from real people, or entities/groups that you associate/identify with or are otherwise interested in their info; such as a news stream.

To interject ads into this communication is much more akin to you standing at the bus stop with your friend and you're talking about where to go for lunch and being approached by some random stranger saying "Hey I think you guys would really like Coke!"

You already KNOW what coke is, so this random person is not adding any value to the conversation that you're having with your friend.

Between google and twitter, we are looking at the age old problem with content relevance in push/pull context.

<comment><USER5> Hitch hiking on your observation, perhaps Twitter should start by monetizing search. When you search Twitter for tweets about the Japan Tsunami, maybe you do want to see ads for charities or radiation pills? Maybe when you search for Justin Bieber you are interested in concert tickets and music downloads?

<comment><USER6> The types of searches you mentioned don't even monetize well on Google. The reason Google search is a profit machine is because people search for stuff like "lowest credit card rates", "refinance mortgage", "best shoes for my wedding".

Searches for "Japan Tsunami" and "Justing Beiber" are not revenue generating searches. Twitter's searches are only marginally monetizable.

<comment><USER7> > Searches for "Japan Tsunami" and "Justing Beiber" are not revenue generating > searches.

The first one probably isn't, but it's not too hard to imagine monetizing the second search. You might need automatic spelling correction, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> " _Business Insider reported that the Dickbar was a mistake in the first place, having been developed by a junior product manager with no senior oversight._ "

and it made its way into a release? huh?

<comment><USER9> That sounds highly doubtful to me.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, it's definitely classic scapegoating. The fact that it was mentioned makes them seem a bit petty...

<comment><USER11> That and the "lots of people used it! really!"

I suspect the "junior product manager"'s name is Richard Bahr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good on them for admitting wrong on this and backing down. Blindly forging ahead when it was universally hated was never going to do them any favours. Many a good blog post has been written about what they could do to make it better, hopefully some of that feedback will find its way into whatever they do next.

<comment><USER13> True. I don't think anyone begrudges Twitter the ability to put ads into the mobile app.

Why not just put trending items between "pages" when the user scrolls through tweets, each one about the height of a tweet? (one per page so that it's not too overwhelming)

<comment><USER14> That's how Tweetie originally worked on the Mac and everyone was fine with it. The Dickbar was a bad idea because it laid on top of everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a little surprised that they removed the revised version of the bar. I found some of the topics listed there interesting. Seems like they responded to the technorati rather than what would best serve their needs along with their users. Facebook made changes all the time - and then people would start organizing groups on facebook opposed to the changes. But eventually the users adapted and all was forgotten.

I suppose one option is to move the bar to just the search area, where people are willfully looking for particular types of information.

</comment><comment><USER16> So, I guess this means I can finally go update my twitter client.

<comment><USER17> Ha—not yet, it doesn't drop until later today!

<comment><USER16> I just did an update, and I don't have the dickbar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The real difference I see between google and twitter is space and focus. Google had room on their clean results pages to place ads, and they also had users that were used to skimming and overlooking a lot of the text on the page anyway. Ads were not a huge problem for google. Twitter's app users don't have the space on their feeds for a few square centimeters of ad space, especially because we don't skim and skip over tweets (unless they look like the have lots of @s and #s). Tweets are like prepackaged feelings already. Someone who barely read tweets would have nothing left to intake. Twitter needs to find a way to place ads without taking up space or annoying reading time. That, or find a place on the page which doesn't LOOK like its taking up space. Meaning, if the bottom cm is always an ad, it isn't dropping down into my tweets. I just have a slightly smaller screen, which I will acclimate to quickly and won't annoy me regularly. Also, the ads can be more expensive that way. Put the ads on the screen all the time, not just some of the time, and they won't impede upon my twitter space, they'll sit within twitter's ad space.

</comment><comment><USER19> A painful but necessary decision for twitter, I know they need to monetize their service but alienating users in a way that becomes a meme is the wrong way to go.

I fully expect some version of #dickbar to be back someday once they've worked out the technology for showing relevant updates, they just tried to implement it before its time.

I guarantee you that by next year there will be a way to do this right.

</comment><comment><USER20> This seems to be a great example of one of the challenges with iOS apps: you can't do a limited roll-out of new features.

If Twitter could have deployed the bar to a hundred or so real users, I think they would have quickly found that people mostly hated it.

I believe you're allowed to distribute test versions of your app to 6-ish handsets for testing, but I'm sure this barely covers the internal folks at Twitter. It'd be nice if they'd had the option to do some more thorough early testing. (Whether they would have done so, or would have listened to the results is outside my point).

<comment><USER21> It's _harder_ to do limited roll outs, but not impossible. It's feasible to have all the code in place and only trigger it based on a server response, for instance. That's basically how they handle the web app.

<comment><USER22> How does that work with the App Store approval process? I could see that also being a strategy to try and sneak stuff past Apple.

<comment><USER23> The same way that testing apps with Easter eggs works. You have to tell Apple that the feature exists, and let them test it. If you don't, and they find out after approval, you run the risk of getting your app pulled.

<comment><USER24> Would Apple really pull the official Twitter app? It seems highly unlikely, because Twitter has leverage over Apple's users. People won't switch to some other short message sharing service, they'll switch to a non-Apple phone.

<comment><USER25> The iPhone was popular before the existing Twitter client existed. There are also lots of good 3rd party Twitter clients for the iPhone.

 _People won't switch to some other short message sharing service, they'll switch to a non-Apple phone._

Nah, they'll probably use the web UI or some other native client that supports Twitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I felt if they had made it an optional item in the settings they would have avoided the backlash, and they would still be generating money off of it. The fact it was not optional, then they announced limited API access for developers whipped everyone into a frenzy.

</comment><comment><USER27> "The bar was also seen as a potential means of in-app notifications for new @mentions, DMs, and other important activity."

Raise your hand if you believe this.

</comment><comment><USER28> so why isn't this headline: @Jack offed the #dickbar ?

</comment><comment><USER29> Good. I hope I never, ever have to read the word "dickbar" ever again. That is one of the most ridiculously stupid attempts at being "hip" I've ever seen.

"Dickbar"? What are we, 12 year old jersey-shore fans?

<comment><USER30> For you, possibly. For everyone else, "dick" refers to Dick Costolo.

<comment><USER24> Would it be called the "jrockbar" if I created it? Unlikely.

"dickbar" stuck because "dick" is a word with negative connotations that refers to the male anatomy. The fact that it's the guy's name simply makes for a cute cover story.

<comment><USER30> I'm sure the entendre didn't escape the early proponents, you're right.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Software Design Manifesto (1990) - <AUTHOR> http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/1-kapor.html

<comment><USER2> The market is happy with marginal quality software, even if it's not good enough. (In some cases, marginal might be good enough, in others the externalities of marginal software aren't fully taken into account). Few people are going to pursue good software when it'll be trounced in the marketplace by marginal software. What's the solution to that?

<comment><USER3> People needs to solve their problems today, and if a product with marginal quality (which is cheaper and faster to produce) can help them to get their job done, they'll adopt it.

The market won't wait until top-quality software is finished if they have alternatives they can use today.

<comment><USER4> Also, there is a paucity of information with which to draw conclusions as to the quality of software you are buying into (whether literally or figuratively) in order to make informed decisions, and there are rarely adequate resources assigned when making the decision to investigate potential problems (or the expertise to do so effectively). This is all confounded further by marketing departments putting out a lot of misleading information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related: [https://medium.com/@johnolilly/the-revolution-has-not-yet- su...](https://medium.com/@johnolilly/the-revolution-has-not-yet- succeeded-7513f1b0a80b)</comment>


Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/11/27/cavium-truly-contender-one-two-arm-server-punch/ <comment><USER2> I've run experiments/developed on both Applied Micro's X-Gene 1 and Cavium's ThunderX (the original). Both of these have been touted as "ARM servers".

The X-Gene was complete crap in terms of both performance and power consumption. The ThunderX was only really useful for highly-parallel applications that don't require a lot of horsepower, and even then it's a power hog.

I'm cautiously optimistic with Qualcomm's Centriq and Cavium's ThunderX2, but unless they can make a compelling argument in terms of power consumption, I'm skeptical of them making any inroads into the market. Sure, Intel Xeons and IBM Power8s may suck power, but they're _damn_ fast, so you can execute your workloads quickly and then just shut the machine down or enter idle power states.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention the amount of hardware standardization that still needs to happen. Having a different image for each manufacturer's hardware is going to get real old, real fast.

5+ years on, ARM on anywhere but mobile seems like a dud.

<comment><USER4> You don't need a different image for different manufacturers' platforms. One Linux image works across vendors. The standardisation effort started some years ago resulting in SBSA/SBBR, which allows a common image to be used.

<comment><USER5> I really want to see someone attempt an Android Treble-like project for ARM Linux distros.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yesterday: ARM in your phones

Today: ARM in your toys (RasPI, Nintendo Switch)

Tomorrow: ARM in your servers

Next week: ARM in your desktop/laptop?

The iMac Pro will have an ARM co-processor: [https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/19/imac-pro-a10-chip- hey-s...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/19/imac-pro-a10-chip-hey-siri/) \- Arguably for "Hey Siri" and other mobile-inspired functionality, but wouldn't it be interesting if it were also an ARM-on-the-desktop beachhead?

I, for one, welcome our new ARM overlords.

<comment><USER7> > _The iMac Pro will have an ARM co- > processor:[https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/19/imac-pro-a10-chip- > hey-s...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/19/imac-pro-a10-chip-hey-s..). - > Arguably for "Hey Siri" and other mobile-inspired functionality, but > wouldn't it be interesting if it were also an ARM-on-the-desktop beachhead?_

The current MBP already has ARM: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/apples- new-intel-driven-ma...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/apples-new-intel- driven-macbooks-have-a-secondary-arm-processor-that-runs-touch-id-and- security/)

But this is similar to ARM (or MIPS or whatever) cores that already exist in all sort of peripherals (what's in your Wifi chipset? Bluetooth? SMC?), so it's nothing new.

I'm dismissive of any talk of switching conventional Intel-based desktop/laptops to ARM. It's not equivalent to Apple's switch from PPC to Intel, because in that case there was a clear performance advantage. ARM may have the performance-per-watt crown on the low-power end, but Intel maintains the pure-performance lead everywhere else. Conventional desktops still care about performance (and if you don't, likely you can switch to a Chromebook), and there aren't any advantages to switching a heavily Intel-ISA-dependent desktop ecosystem (macOS/Windows) to ARM.

<comment><USER6> I care about performance in my phone too, so where can I buy an Intel phone?

The truth is that my phone doesn't have to be the fastest; it just has to be _fast enough_ in balance with other factors important to me (size, battery life, etc).

And the same goes with my laptop. I currently have an MBP with an i7 processor, and I'm a web developer - it's overkill. I also play games with it now and then, but it's clear that the iGPU is the bottleneck there and not the processor. Very rarely do I do heavy compiling or video encoding or other CPU- maxing tasks on this thing.

So would I trade the i7 for an A-series plus a couple more hours of battery life and/or a lower (or at least not further increased, damn it Apple) price? Yes, I would take that trade, and probably never suffer for it.

<comment><USER8> Why you bought a laptop with an i7 then in the first place? There are already more energy efficient alternatives - i5, i3, core m.

I have a theory that probably when Apple will release a laptop with their own SoC it will be more expensive...

<comment><USER6> Because it checked the other boxes I was looking for with regards to screen size, memory, and so on.

Perhaps an A-series laptop would be more expensive for consumers (damn it, Apple), but I don't think it would cost more for Apple to manufacture, since they can do so much more of it in house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This looks even more promising than Qualcomm's chip?

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm-takes-wing/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm- takes-wing/)

Either way, competition is definitely heating-up in the server space. If I were them I would price these chips super-aggressively (near-cost) for first few generations to get rapid mass adoption and software support. Worry about profits later, when they are established as serious players in the server chip market.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd sort of been expecting that ARM would begin making HPC inroads when SVE[1] was ready to go. But I guess those two Neon units provide enough horsepower?

[1][https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/technology...](https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/technology- update-the-scalable-vector-extension-sve-for-the-armv8-a-architecture)

<comment><USER11> They don't for fp32 or int8 workloads until SVE IMO. High end Skylake as an example has 2 AVX-512-F ports (and not considering AVX-512-4FMAPS), which give you do 64 FLOP/cycle (512 / 32 * 2 * 2). Even 2 NEON units, assuming FMA's execute in 1 cycle/unit, gives only 16 FLOP/cycle. For ML inference workloads you can even get away with lower precision and even do away with floating point (which helps motivate AVX-512-4VNNIW).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> ARM on desktop or server will be tightly controlled closed SOCs with zero driver support. These will be nothing like the relatively open systems in the PC world, so there is nothing to look forward to.

This is ARM's model and they have shown no interest in improving things beyond kicking open source developers between the ARM and SOC vendors each blaming the other for years on end.

Intel, even with something as nasty as ME, look like an angel in comparison.

<comment><USER13> That's not true at all.

That has been true only for the embedded and mobile space.

The server space is exactly being made open and compatible between SoCs (in the same way AMD and Intel machines are). Platform crud (i2c, gpio, i2c, clock trees and pinnmuxes) is hidden in firmware behind ACPI, PSCI and UEFI just like on x86. SBSA and SBBR specs mandate stringent compatibility requirements. Machine error handling is firmware-first. IO is basically PCIe now.

For an OS vendor or an IT guy these machines look almost exactly like an x86 box. And then they look the same between the Arm vendors too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone wants to play around with a 96-core Cavium ThunderX system for 10 cents an hour, [https://www.packet.net/](https://www.packet.net/) has some deals on their spot pricing sometimes.

With their out-of-band console, you can watch it boot from the very beginning.

Not affiliated, just sometimes use them when I need to play around with a physical box, and can't do so at work...

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting that the graph shows ICC getting 20% more performnance than GCC - This seems a much bigger difference than normal, as people usually don't find the ICC speedup enough to warrant using. Anyone know if it's a CPU2017 phenomenon, or has ICC recently dramatically improved, or was ICC always 20% faster?

<comment><USER16> or ICC was optimized for benchmarks

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Larger ROB/OoO window than Xeon? Wow.

</comment><comment><USER18> I would enjoy seeing a Cavium based system that I was allowed to actually run my own code on to see what was what. Over the years, in various roles, I've listened to them trying to sell me servers but they have never actually had hardware that they could just let me run code on.</comment>


Ask HN: How to find side project friendly companies? - <AUTHOR>

The title says most of it, how do you find interesting companies which are cool with side-projects (open source or otherwise)? <comment><USER2> On one hand, time not spent on product is time not improving the bottom line. Period. For a small company, that can easily mean instant death.

On the other hand, I've regularly taken a day or two off at times when I needed a break from working on our primary product, and ended up writing stuff that either massively improved my programming abilities, or contributed in a huge, but non-obvious, way towards improving our app.

Working on those side-project has helped to keep me energized and focused; you can't spend all day making license plates.

So, I'd hire someone who had a side-project, provided that it didn't conflict with what the company is doing, and that they were professional enough to not work on their 'side project' at the office.

I'd also want to be kept in the loop on what the side project is, because I want to make sure there isn't a conflict of interest. And also because, if it turns out that this project could be productized or would otherwise benefit the company, I could offer to buy it and put them to work on it on company time.

Alternatively, if an employee's 'side project' turned into their own scrappy startup, that's fine too, but at that point they really need to leave and focus on building their own company; it's just too big of a legal risk to keep them on as full-time employees.

</comment><comment><USER3> One thing, echoing HN user corruption, is that you need to look for companies that can afford your not devoting 99% of your technical time, effort and attention to their needs.

I doubt Google had its 20% policy when it was moving from its Stanford lab foundation to establishing the company, I would think that had to come later.

Even if a company is profitable, that doesn't mean it has this sort of luxury, but you should probably start out with profitable ones.

I don't think on its face that your desire is crazy, people like you can provide all sorts of benefits to the company they're working for (e.g. your network, recognition (would Transmeta have had the slightest chance in the marketplace if they hadn't hired Linus?), etc.). But raw survival comes first.

</comment><comment><USER4> If I thought your side project could interfere with your work, I wouldn't hire you. I've done that before, it did, and it was a problem.</comment>


Show HN: The charging cable Apple should have made - <AUTHOR> http://juicies.com/pre-order

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a product hunt thread here too: [http://www.producthunt.com/l/170fd13548](http://www.producthunt.com/l/170fd13548)

</comment><comment><USER2> Just pre-ordered.. It's awesome looking

<comment><AUTHOR> What type of cables have you normally purchased? just curious. I bought 2.

I tend to go through a few knockoffs every year, especially in the car.</comment></comment>