Molten Aluminum Lakes Offer Power Storage for German Wind Farms - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-27/molten-aluminum-lakes-offer-power-storage-for-german-wind-farms.html

<comment><USER2> The article is really misleading: If I understand correctly, what Trimet will do is to REDUCE its power consumption on demand in order to reduce the stress on the power grid at times when there's not enough energy available for everyone. Since Trimet alone consumes about 0.7 % of Germany's energy production, adapting its energy consumption can help a lot to stabilize the power grid. Here's an article that makes this a bit more clear:

[http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-aluminum- firm-...](http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-aluminum-firm-rescues- grid-twice/150/407/82143/)

The general term for this is "demand response": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response)

The author of the Bloomberg article seems to think that they will use the Aluminium as a battery, releasing energy back to the grid, which to my understanding is not at all what they are planning to do (or even possible, for that matter).

BTW, a Businessweek article seems to get this wrong as well: [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-26/germanys- tri...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-26/germanys-trimet- aluminium-turns-smelting-tanks-into-batteries)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's really a badly written article about an interesting topic - and I'm not sure what the real story is. Considering the graphic: [http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_...](http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_630.jpg) it looks like they are indeed releasing energy back to the grid.

Additional article: [http://www.aluinfo.de/index.php/gda-news-en/items/trimet- dev...](http://www.aluinfo.de/index.php/gda-news-en/items/trimet-develops- virtual-electricity-storage.html)

It looks more like they are adapting the process to handle energy fluctuations. The current process most likely requires a steady current and they are adapting the process to ramp up during times of cheap energy and throttle it during times of expensive energy. Still no battery, more like a balancer, adaptively throttling energy consumption.

 __Edit __

More information from a paper abstract [1]:

High Frequency Power Modulation - TRIMET Smelters Provide Primary Control Power for Stabilizing the Frequency in the Electricity Grid

Scope The strong growth of renewable energy in Germany leads to high prices fluctuations, varying with the availability of these energy resources. To deal with this situation, TRIMET is using the tool "power modulation" since 2008 to compensate these strong price effects. Simultaneously the strong growth of renewable energy sources leads to a need of primary regulation energy for stabilizing the electricity grid at 50 Hz. In this context, TRIMET is the first electricity consumer world wide, which provides primary regulation energy by modulating a consumer. Traditionally this source of energy is only provided by power plants or energy storage plants, e.g. pumped energy storage or stationery batteries.

[http://www.programmaster.org/PM/PM.nsf/ApprovedAbstracts/281...](http://www.programmaster.org/PM/PM.nsf/ApprovedAbstracts/281A8D0A5E4E0F0085257A48004DD9DA?OpenDocument)

Now were getting closer to the real thing.

Edit II [2]:

TRIMET Aluminium SE is developing a process that can turn electro- lytic furnaces for the production of primary aluminum in collabora- tion with conventional power plants into energy storage reservoirs for renewable energy. Aluminum has a high energy density. This makes its production energy-intensive and aluminum smelters re- cipients of base-load electricity. Excess energy is stored in the light metal. The principle behind the new process is the grid- commutated operation of the production equipment. To ensure this, the electrolysis cells are modified so that their output can be increased or reduced for several hours, as needed. The ope- rating point is selected in such a way that the output can be raised or lowered by more than 25 percent for hours. This makes it possible to provide enormous storage capacity. Using this method, TRIMET aluminum smelters could provide outputs of up to 130 megawatts with future capacities of up to 6,000 megawatt hours. This corresponds to the daily energy consumption of two million people.

The "virtual battery" relies on the improved flexibility of aluminum elec- trolysis. With this method, TRIMET is revolutionizing the basic principle of a manufacturing process that has existed for more than 120 years. An electrolytic furnace is similar to a water container whose walls are made of ice. To ensure that the tank does not melt, the ambient temperature must be kept very low. But it must not reach a temperature that is too cold, or the water in the tank will freeze. Similarly, the temperature of the electrolytic furnace must be harmonized in order to stabilize the fur- nace walls under fluctuating power supply levels. The process developed by TRIMET regulates this balance through the clever use of exhaust heat, a form of thermal insulation that can be adjusted in an innovative way.

The process offers significant advantages over other storage systems. At 85 percent, the efficiency factor of the aluminum storage reservoir approaches that of pump storage reservoirs, far higher than those of compressed-air or hydrogen storage reservoirs. what's more, the system does not require new power lines, since it is integrated into the existing high-voltage grid.

[2] [http://www.trimet.de/fileadmin/pdf/trimet-at-a- glance-2013.p...](http://www.trimet.de/fileadmin/pdf/trimet-at-a- glance-2013.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Nope, they don't release energy as such, just "resell" it. They buy and consume energy when it's cheap, then they sell it at higher price by not using it.

That's why they call it "virtual".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The original german presentation of this is here:

[http://www.innovationsforum-energiewende.de/wp- content/uploa...](http://www.innovationsforum-energiewende.de/wp- content/uploads/2013/11/Thomas-Flesch-Trimet.pdf)

To put this in simple terms:

Normally the plant runs at a constant rate of energy consumption, due to restrictions in how the production process works.

This means sometimes there will be a deficit of available electricity, other times there will be a surplus.

They plan to change their production process such that they can:

1\. soak up the surplus usefully when it is present

and

2\. "give back" energy to the grid by reducing their own consumption when there is a deficit

They never feed back any energy, they just make it so more energy is available on the grid by reducing their own consumption.

The difficult part here is that there is a certain engineering effort necessary to make this possible in the first place without disrupting the production process.

<comment><USER5> Some years ago Germany "deregulated" its energy sector. The energy providers are buying and selling electricity on exchange markets where prices change with supply and demand.

Today, industrial clients are changing to dynamic pricing schemes instead of fixed price-per-kWh contracts with a supplier. That means they also schedule their consumption to profit from low prices when supply is high and demand low.

In the future, big industrial clients could take an even more active role on the energy markets and directly trade capacity without an energy supplier as intermediary. Germany invests a lot in the grid infrastructure to enable more flexibility and decentralized energy sources without risking black outs. They have to do so, as it was politically decided to phase out all nuclear power plants after Fukushima happened. But it's not easy since nuclear plants provide a very stable "supply base" whereas the rising renewables are more volatile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is _NOT_ an energy storage system.

It's a demand-dispatch system.

Think of it this way: in a conventional fuel-driven grid, your _generation_ (supply) is dispatchable. If you need more electrical generation, you can crank up your coal, oil, gas, or nuclear-fueled generators (or hydro capacity) to meet that demand. Since demand is largely predictable based on known parameters (weather, day of week, season), even slow-to-cycle generation (e.g., coal and nuclear) can offer pretty good demand-matching, with the difference made up by other options. Gas and hydro can respond to load shifts in seconds to minutes, vs. hours for the others.

Under a largely renewables scenario, your generation is _not_ dispatchable. Your options are:

⚫ Retain some dispatchable capacity: hydro (conventional or pumped storage), biofuels, synfuels, geothermal, nuclear, conventional fossil fuels.

⚫ Utilize storage. Batteries, thermal energy storage, banked capacity (e.g., excess heating or cooling utilized later), pumped hydro, compressed air energy storage (CAES), flywheels, capacitors, electricity-to-fuel. All have limitations, most are cost-prohibitive.

⚫ Load shifting. This generally goes by the terms "demand response" or "demand side management". Effectively it's the inverse of the present model: rather than shift supply to meet demand, you're shifting demand to meet (an inelastic) supply. Typically this involves large industrial uses and customers.

Tino Andeson's reporting here is horrible. It's sadly all too commonplace in general coverage of energy issues.

<comment><USER7> It's a horrible article, but it certainly does imply that it is an energy storage system.

"The electrodes, in tandem with the liquid metal that settles to the bottom of the tank and the oxygen above, form an enormous battery."

"Trimet can soak power from the grid when energy is cheap. It can then resell the power when demand is at its peak."

My guess: they usually just load shift in response to prices, but when prices get exceptionally high they resell, and the author mixes the two up.

<comment><USER6> Problem is that there's different information available in different places which confirm either argument.

The Trimet annual report / brochure linked elsewhere in this discussion makes clear that this is only demand-side management / load shifting.

The diagram linked elsewhere ... here: [http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_...](http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_630.jpg) ... shows what could well be a metal-air battery.

It's a fucking disaster of reportage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Article is bit misleading. They do not 'store' energy in the same way as battery, they never pump electricity back to grid. They just adjust their consumption to use cheap energy.

> By varying the rate at which the metal is produced, the plant will be able > to adjust the power consumption of the 290-megawatt smelter up and down by > about 25 percent. Trimet can soak power from the grid when energy is cheap. > It can then resell the power when demand is at its peak. The company can > temporarily reduce its power consumption by slowing the electrolysis, > cutting the energy drain.

<comment><USER9> The article isn't clear at all, but they say "It can then resell the power when demand is at its peak." I wonder if they didn't understand the thing, or if they missed some very important information about getting energy back from the aluminium.

EDIT: They also talk about a conversion rate of 90%, so this makes me think there needs to be a mechanism to generate current.

<comment><USER8> I think they have contract obligation to take some energy, so they just resell it.

Anyway the biggest problem of German grid are not really peak hours, but transporting energy from north where turbines are to industrial south.

<comment><USER10> I don't know how it works in Germany precisely, but in Poland there's a system where big energy users can publish "demand reduction offers" and network operator buys these offers as needed to balance the network.

The basic rule is - those, who unbalances the network pays those that balances it back for the troubles, so there's huge incentive to predict your power requirements and transfer requirements precisely. I guess Germany with their solar cells and wind turbines have a lot of problems with that.

There are a few whole markets set up with energy, transfer capacities, reduction (or increases) offers by both plants and users, and it works quite nicely.

I worked on a system for bulk energy trading and it was very intersting to see how it works behind the scenes.

BTW demand reduction is actually BETTER than storing and returning energy. Demand reduction of 100 MW frees more than 100 MW (heating loses), and lets other people use the wires in that time.

<comment><USER11> It's similar in the UK - large users can join the "frequency service", where they respond to demand-induced drops in frequency by disconnecting their loads, and get a discount for doing so:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_the_National_Grid_%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_the_National_Grid_%28Great_Britain%29)

Another, unrelated, slightly bonkers UK power supply innovation is the ability for energy companies to remotely control their customers' supplies using secret signals embedded in Radio 4:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_teleswitch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_teleswitch)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is nice for soaking up and making good use of peaks, but it does nothing for the lows, the aluminium can't give back the electricity, so you'd still need coal plants to complement the wind/solar farms when they're down.

That said, even if we could reduce the need for coal plants that would be a huge win of course.

<comment><USER13> > but it does nothing for the lows, the aluminium can't give back the > electricity

Actually, it seems they might be doing precisely that. See the information in the other comments. It's hard to say for sure, even the primary sources seem fuzzy. But this graphic seems to indicate that they are indeed extracting electric energy from the molten aluminum: [http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_...](http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_630.jpg)

This presentation also shows the energy arrow pointing from the aluminum plant to the consumer: [http://www.innovationsforum-energiewende.de/wp- content/uploa...](http://www.innovationsforum-energiewende.de/wp- content/uploads/2013/11/Thomas-Flesch-Trimet.pdf)

The most confusing thing about all of this is that they say that they only adjust their own power consumption by +/\- 25%, which seems to contradict the statement that they're giving energy back. But as far as I can understand, this +/-25% is the long term average. Of course they need to consume a positive net amount of energy during the day to keep the plant running.

But it seems that they are able to pump energy back into the grid for a short amount of time, which would be during the hours when solar/wind power is at a minimum.

<comment><USER14> Maybe they are just _giving back_ the energy to the grid in two respects, (1) energy they contracted for today they do not consume but sell back to the grid and (2) the energy was to come via the grid to them but, in not consuming that energy, the energy flows to homes, etc. instead and, thus, at least is _redirected_ in the grud or, if you will, flows _from_ the aluminum plant _to_ the homes. At one point, they do say _virtual_.

The _losses_ involved are from some somewhat inefficient use of the grid and, there, losses flowing the energy through the grid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My first thought when I read the headline was that a German firm had gone through to find a new substance for use in molten salt storage [1]. Reading through it, I was a bit disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any sort of waste heat recovery in place here, which is making me curious. Given that the molten aluminum needs cooled and shaped into ingots to be distributed to manufacturers, I'm curious if there is any sort of waste heat recovery system in place, and/or a system to pump that heat into any sort of a District Heating [2] sort of system. All that heating in the system has to go somewhere, and given the sizes of the smelting halls, it seems like it would be profitable to set some sort of system up.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage#Molten_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage#Molten_salt_technology)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating)

<comment><USER6> The fact that a metal-air battery is a thing, and that aluminum is actually one of the best anodes for use in them, only confuses the matter further.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here is a billion dollar question: If we mix aluminum with mercury will we be able to use it as a real battery with high enough efficiency?

Or to get real freaky: thermite -> Fe + Al2O3 + electricity, Then we break down corundum to al + o?

<comment><USER6> No need to mix it with mercury. An aluminium-air battery is a thing. And among the best anodes for metal-air batteries is aluminium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> But, could molten aluminum or other metal be used for energy storage?

So, when the sun is shining and/or the wind is blowing, use the resulting electric power to heat the metal by, say, just simple resistance heating.

Then when want to draw energy from the molten metal, just have some tubes made of metal with a higher melting temperature carry water to be converted to steam to turn steam turbines and generate power.

Since I doubt I'm nearly the first to think of such a thing, I have to guess that the detailed engineering and costing makes it not worthwhile.

<comment><USER6> Yes.

You've got two options. One is the straight thermal route, the other is to run the aluminum oxidation process forward and backward, in which the aluminium is the cathode and oxygen from the air the anode. It's just like any other battery in that you're creating an electric potential difference and current flow directly.

<comment><USER14> I wondered if it was necessary to boil water

<comment><USER6> It's not necessary, but it's a good route.

You could run a Stirling-cycle engine off a hot and cold end without a phase- change working fluid. But gas turbines are very efficient (and simple), and work best when working with the very high-level pressure gradient presented either by combustion (as with a jet engine) or live steam (with a pressure drop in the condensed state) as with a steam turbine.

You could substitute other volatile working fluids, but water is cheap, abundant, and provides useful work at temperatures typically attainable in systems -- 100 - 1000 C (typically in the 200 C - 500 C range).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Losing My Patience with Google+ - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+GideonRosenblatt/posts/Wrig2znc3r2 <comment><USER2> I think G+ was dead on arrival. Don't really know why that was the case but it just never made any sense. They had Orkut and killed it which kinda makes me wonder how management at Google thinks.

<comment><USER3> It was a better twitter, but the people were already on twitter It is a better subreddit community feature then reddit, but people were already at reddit.

Single sign on made people mad, but YouTube and Google passwords being different needed to become the same. They made it look like it was a conspiracy for everyone to be on Google+. Then this tied people's real names with their YouTube content and outed some people. Just a bunch of mistakes.

Heck I think if they stayed with Waves they would have been Slack but then again ....

<comment><USER4> Actually I think the fact that reddit enables pseudonyms makes it quite different. I don't particularly want to share the fact that I'm super into weird animes with my colleagues, and reddit enables this, google+ not so much.

<comment><USER5> Forget weird animes; your coworkers might rib you about it a little, but that's not a career-ending revelation.

What if you're a recovering or current addict, and your support group is on a subreddit? What if you're advising people considering opiates to not follow your path, based on your own life experiences? That's not likely something you want to sign your name to.

What about domestic abuse victims who want to support each other? Victims of sexual abuse as children? Parents of children who have been abused?

What if you're into something that's would _really_ set people off, even if it's something consensual? Consider what's happening over in Drupal-land - regardless of your opinion of Goreans, BDSM practitioners, etc., what if you're just into something that your local community or coworkers find anathema?

<comment><USER6> LOL this made me wonder if there is a The_Donald for google+

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google had a chance to be the open standards communications platform. Just as Gmail succeeds in the world of federated email, Google was poised to do the same with standards based chat, RSS, etc.

Vic Gundotra, with apparently passive approval from above, killed all that and Google lost its only real differentiator in this competition: not being the centralized bad guys.

<comment><USER8> I think that's a bit unfair as Google tried to federate social networking many times but failed (ActivityStreams is one that comes to mind but there were several others).

The big change, imo, came when Larry Page returned as CEO. He shifted the company's strategy away from "technology" and towards "products". In same cases this was a major success, it's when Android started to actually improve its UX, but it also meant no longer focusing on things like standards as much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was under the impression that the plus movement died a while ago internally at Google. They had an initiative to switch all of the user ids to plus ids and have everything revolve around your plus account.

<comment><AUTHOR> My impression is that the YouTube integration was A Bridge Too Far.

The YouTuber's (Google's biggest social platform, and displacing FB recently in Alexa's rankings) didn't like it. The G+'ers didn't like it. And the privacy nuts (self included) _really_ didn't like it.

It took about six months for that to play out, but in the end, Vic Gundotra was pushed out of Google, and G+'s Product Manager left to join YouTube directly.

It's been fits and starts since then. A major site redesign, which despite the standard Google UI/UX fuckups, is vastly less resource-intensive _under_ the hood, this past December. But ... little else, and very long-wearing problems still unaddressed.

The lack of meaningful search is particularly embarrassing.

I suspect what may have done more to kill this than anything though is the political cycle. I'd joked to the former G+ chief architect that "the political cycle was hard on the social graph", and got back the cryptic response that "it was more complicated than that". This all a couple of years ago.

Then 2016-17 happened.

Given the general unpleasantness of political discussion, harassment, bots, etc., and what I suspect is soul-searching on multiple fronts as to what is really worth doing and engaging in, Google are themselves increasingly tarnished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The worst part was they removed the + operator from searches to accommodate it

<comment><USER11> Google search got a lot worse for me after that. I relied on the + operator quite a bit.

<comment><USER12> Here too. Going from a single keystroke to a minimum of three per term still _really_ grinds my gears, every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know who this guy is, but I find his claim to provide "Analysis and News About Google" highly dubious if he's _just now_ noticing that google has pulled resources from Plus. Has there been a single significant update to this platform since it launched?

<comment><USER14> > Has there been a single significant update to this platform since it > launched?

There was a makeover in the last six months. The article even refers to the relaunch supported by the awesome Luke Wroblewski. Luke is a smart guy and it's telling that he's active on Twitter.

One thing I will say, as a designer I'm saddened to see designers think they can re-UX a site to success. When the fundamental are against you, you might as well piss into the wind. Or visa versa as is the case with sites like Craigslist.

Agreed on the underlying tone of the article. None of this is news. The guy must be living in a cave, under the basement of the Googleplex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How did someone even find this post in order to re-post it?

"Hey, let's go check on what's happening on google+?" or "What I'll just google google+ to see what's happening there..." said no one ever.

<comment><USER16> I don't understand what you mean. The article was posted 20h ago by a guy who has over 50,000[0] followers, in to a collection that has almost 100,000[1] followers. Of course a lot of people saw it.

[0] [https://plus.google.com/+GideonRosenblatt](https://plus.google.com/+GideonRosenblatt) [1] [https://plus.google.com/collection/UgYzY](https://plus.google.com/collection/UgYzY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lots of gloating about the failure of Google+, even though Facebook could really use a competitor (although, yes, something smaller than Google would be better).

The one feature G+ had, that I was sad to see failing, were their "Circles". The idea that you have different personas within different social groups, i. e. work/high school friends/family/...

It's theoretically possible with Facebook I guess, but I just don't trust them not to change my settings, nor do I actually feel like I know the ins and outs of what's private and what's not.

Twitter is a bit better because the clients are made with account-switching in mind. But one account with maybe different "channels" would still feel better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Part of my own frustration is that Google failed to be that competition.

Or better yet: failed to create a federated, open-standards, open-protocols, multi-client alternative.

So much potential, squandered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google+ was quite good in the beginning, invite-only to get a circle of incrowd users on it first. Much like Facebook only allowing students from certain universities, but for nerds where people would write interesting stuff.

It would've grown to Twitter like proportions easily if they would just let it grow organically. Imagine getting an invite, signing up and then seeing great content by great people. Of course you want to partake.

Then came the YouTube mistake. Millions and millions and millions of user accounts that do absolute nothing. Google somebody's name and a good chance you'll find a completely void Google+ profile.

</comment><comment><USER19> People still use Google+?!

<comment><USER20> I had the impression the Googlers were disproportionally active on Google+, and it seems this guy is complaining that even they are bailing.

It's hilarious that this guy seems like the last person in the world who hasn't figured out Google+ was a dud and has no future.

He's also a good illustration that technologies that were widely panned and rejected can still have users that love them.

<comment><USER21> There was a point in time where Google heavily encouraged employees to use Google+. Around the same time they were integrating everything that was anything with Google+. That time has ended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> With cloud services being as cheap and available as they are, what's to stop a federated social network from really taking off? Is there a chicken and egg problem here? Why can't a decentralized social network displace Facebook the same way Facebook displaced MySpace? Is it simply a question of marketing? Or is it the lack of profits in creating such a network? Does technologies inherently go from "open" to "closed" with no chance of ever turning back?

<comment><USER23> Because Facebook managed to be the first massive service that convinced just about everyone to sign up. A good chunk of those people would much rather deal with the minor annoyances or nebulous complaints about Facebook than set up and learn how to use a new service. Just being "a bit better in some ways" is not enough to drive the mass adoption needed to create a shift away from the incumbent Facebook.

And since Facebook would never allow some theoretical decentralized network to interface with their service, it would end up like all the other attempts: people who like to try new things/dislike the status quo will check it out, realize they still need to cross-post to Facebook, and give up.

The only way to pull it off would be to offer something sufficiently novel and in-demand that people would scramble to use it. From what I've seen in the past, those sorts of things don't come from loose federations of decentralized network nodes. They come from commercial development and heavy promotion....or they are bought up by a company that does those things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm actually a little confused because I didn't think G+ had enough engagement for anyone to be patient or impatient about anything about it.

<comment><USER25> Hate to pile on, but this was my reaction as well. If this were an article written today about someone losing their patience with MySpace it would only be very slightly more confusing.

FWIW, I really liked Google+ at release and had hoped it would become popular, but the platform's inability to achieve anything close to a critical mass with mainstream users doomed me to continue using Facebook as my "stay in touch with friends/relatives who live far away" platform and I haven't given google plus a fully formed conscious thought in years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I use Google+ everyday. In my private circle, there are multiple posts from members each day. These are private posts shared among these people everyday.

It makes me curious how many other small private circles exist like that. Obviously it isn't as big as Facebook, but people don't use it like they do Facebook, Snapchat, or Twitter. For my private circle, most people have Facebook, Twitter, etc _in addition_ to Google+ and the content posted on Twitter and Facebook is usually not what is in the private Google+ circle. I think a big mistake people made was that Google+ should _replace_ Facebook, etc, rather than work in parallel with those services.

That said, there is writing on the wall that it is either going to be eliminated or drastically changed. For example, there are sometimes now little feedback windows that pop up and ask you questions about why you use Google+.

</comment><comment><USER27> Google Reader could have been the better Google+. But nobody saw the potential. 99% of the "public" discusses matters (hello social networks!) over the news and informational items. And what is/was better than RSS? Nothing else really.

Now you have walled gardens and people behind cages.

</comment><comment><USER28> Never made sense to me, but that's fine. What's not fine is how it injected itself into my life: must have G+ profile to do things like comment on Youtube. That's a big FU. OK enable it and now I get a bunch of crap notifications from people I do not want to be in contact with. It behaves like social malware.

Even disabled, this asinine concept still exists in Gmail. On the left side UI, top part has Compose, Inbox, Sent Mail; and on the bottom are chats. About in the middle is my name, to the right is a + icon. Click that then search. Why in the fucking fuck fuck fuck does it show me people who are not in my contacts? It shows me people all over the fucking world, but won't show people in my fucking contacts. WHAT THE FUCK?

Google+ makes me irrationally angry. Still.

</comment><comment><USER29> Google+ would have been great if Facebook didn't already exist. I tried to use it but it is pointless if no one else you know is there. I think less than five of my facebook friends tried it.

In the end I just deleted both my facebook and google plus and have never looked back. :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm reluctant to use new Google services because I'm afraid they will be abandoned (Buzz, Wave, Reader) or pivot into a new direction different than what I originally signed on for (Picasa).

But I think social networks have a life cycle. I still use Twitter, though it's changed a lot. I still use Instagram and Facebook, but new users just coming online in their teens or earlier, will likely choose something else. Existing social networks could support these new groups, but they want a new identity.

That said G+ was trash from the start. Shoving it down our throats didn't help.

</comment><comment><USER31> This matches a common complaint about Twitter - that most of their senior executives don't use the service, and as a result couldn't possibly understand how to improve it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Interestingly, there is a comment in the original post from Carter Gibson of the Google+ team that "Google+ team joined GSuite" and are working on "helping people connect to awesome people who post about their interests and help enterprise teams be more productive / find the knowledge they want". So there is still some interest to make this work somehow.

</comment><comment> nikki-9696 I never had any desire to use G+. No one I knew was on it, so it certainly wasn't a FB competitor, and they then tried to FORCE me on it for some google services, which is guaranteed to just piss me off about it. Nothing there I can't get better elsewhere, as far as I know, and I never cared enough to find out.

</comment><comment><USER33> Here we talk about social networks and I need advice. We combine search engine and social network, on Bubblehunt you can create own search system for bookmarks and other resources, but we using Twitter and Facebook for authentification. How you feel - it's right way? Or we need think about Reddit model?

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by "reddit model"?

I don't want centralised authentication (a/k/a "centralised user tracking across the Internet").

That was a major strike against G+, frankly. And any FB auth is dead to me.

Twitter also, since I have no profile there either.

<comment><USER33> I mean just this Ok, you will not be authorized through social networks. And if you use mail, then you can create an unlimited number of bots ... a dilemma ...

<comment><AUTHOR> So, one of my soundbites is: "Who are you?" is the most expensive question on the Internet. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked.

Thing is, I think we're missing the point on "identity". It really devolves into a set of related, though nonidentical, considerations:

* _Authority:_ Should you be allowed to do the thing you're trying to do?

* _Reputation:_ What is your credibility or history? Closely related to _trust_.

* _Integrity:_ Is this thing with your name/identifier on it actually yours, and the same as when you created it?

The point is that _identifiers_ are cheap and easy. _Reputation_ should be exceedingly expensive. Integrity is very nearly a simple technical problem. Authentication, similarly, and it carries the additional challenge that People Lose Their Damned Keys.

I'd like to see a signet ring or similar mechanical, worn, replaceable, contact-based device replace or complement password and other mechanisms. Which means establishing some kind of standard (you need a detector / sensor on a wide range of devices).

And _that_ happens to be a Hard Problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Duh. Management decided to strip off everything of value and push it into standalone apps (see: Photos).

<comment><USER35> The Google Photos app spin-off is one of the best things ever to come out of Google (IMHO).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> G+ communities were great for quite a while. In many ways reminiscent of HN (quality/serious reactions) but more topical, until it started to be used as just another social advertising outlet with cross-posts.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can someone get into detail *what made Google+ good"?

<comment><AUTHOR> So, as someone more used to _criticising_ it:

* A good founder cohort if you're into intelligent, quirky, and techie discussions. Basically "Googlers and Friends". (Though this also included a bunch of marketing types, a net negative.)

* Really solid technical fundamentals. I'll scream until I'm hoarse about what Google _doesn 't_ get, but one thing that they absolutely nail is solid, robust, scalable, updateable infrastructure. The server-end side of G+ was amazingly robust and had exceedingly few outages. Only a small handful of site updates that I'm aware of ever broke the service. That's an exceedingly good record on any score.

* Scale. Basically, Gmail and Android registrations fed into the G+ userbase, and whilst that is something can, quite rightly, be criticised, it makes for a _potentially_ large engagement pool.

* Search. Took a while, but when Google bolted Search onto G+, it was fast and comprehensive. Not necessarily _useful_ , but _every comment_ was indexed. (HN's Algolia is comparable, though more useful.) Reddit still struggles with search (timeouts, no comments), though the _syntax_ is powerful. Ello's search is useless. (Yes, I poke around the oddball corners of the Internet.)

* Long posts. It was possible to, pretty much, write a book within a post if you wanted to. For those of us who live by words, this was useful.

* Integrated images and video. Photos were definitely well-presented (if overused), and being able to preview / play YouTube on-site not bade.

Later features made small-group interactions fairly viable (though large was always a nightmare), and more.

I've addressed criticisms elsewhere, most particularly in my "Plussology and Plexology" collection on G+ itself.

[https://plus.google.com/collection/MY_CX](https://plus.google.com/collection/MY_CX)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> >what it was that once made this service so good in its early days.

Google+ was never good.

</comment><comment><USER38> G+ for me is: That strange social network that Linus Torvalds likes to use.

</comment><comment><USER39> He posts, on Google+

</comment><comment><USER40> Google+ is still around?

</comment><comment><USER41> What's Google+ ?

</comment><comment><USER42> 3 years ago called...

</comment><comment><USER43> What's Google+?

</comment><comment><USER44> Only on HN... I can't think of a single person outside of maybe Android Kernel developers who use G+. How is this on the homepage?!</comment>


Show HN: Swappa Price Alerter – Telegram Bot - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/gallery/zAeF0YW <comment><AUTHOR> So I have this Python script that checks Swappa for me, and notifies me via Telegram when there's a new listing that's below a chosen price. Would this interest anyone?

If so, please let me know. I'm happy to make this into a web app of some sort. Just not sure if there's real interest.

Also, if you want to try it out now, feel free to contact me and I'll manually do it for you, and you can start getting alerts for a specific type of product on Swappa.

My info can be found at [https://raskin.me](https://raskin.me). Thanks for reading!</comment>


We took a tour of the abandoned college campuses of Second Life - <AUTHOR> https://splinternews.com/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandoned-college-campuses-of-sec-1793849944 <comment><USER2> Digital ghost towns! Are we seeing the emergence of a "digital archaeology" exploring the abandoned ruins of the Internet's past?

</comment><comment><USER3> [2015]</comment>


Forstall Out; Ive Up - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2012/10/forstall_out <comment><USER2> May be the second time I've found a genuinely insightful piece by Gruber. Skeuomorphic design was a nod to my non-computer using father in the 90s. It no more represents useful metaphors for interfaces than steam engines represent a good way to build cars.

iOS is stagnant, reviews of recent Apple designed skeuo-heavy apps bemone the lack of functionality -- while noting what must be hundreds of hours of graphics work -- and not seeing that the tradeoff is worth it. With finite development hours the general public realizes that they'd rather get shit done then look really great sorta getting some things done.

So who makes the money at Apple? It's two people, Cook and Ive -- supply chain and product design. Let's give turning the entire device design over to a holistic human interface designer a try instead of running hardware and software as two disjoint efforts.

Between Siri and the maps screw up the decision made itself.

<comment><USER3> "iOS is stagnant"

iOS only seems stagnant because they don't have to trumpet every year about how they've finally gotten rid of ui lag or completely overhauled the system appearance. These are points in it's favor to most people.

<comment><USER4> I'd say it is stagnant because when you look at the design, it just feels old. I'm not much of a designer, I can't tell you why, but it just seems dated. Perhaps it is the skeuomorphism, maybe something else, but something is off about it now.

<comment><USER5> It feels old because it hasn't changed in 5 years, but I personally appreciate that. All of the original mechanics make perfect sense, and the new mechanics (such as app folders and multitasking) have been introduced in a way that minimizes interference with the existing look and feel. As someone who uses a lot of music production apps that can't talk to each other, I do wish there was something like a filesystem, but I also want it to be introduced in a way that does not change the basic look and feel of the device.

What's amazing is that an original iPhone and iPhone 5 look and feel largely identical for basic uses, even though the latter is a far more capable device. That's a testament to the strength of the original design.

<comment><USER6> > It feels old because it hasn't changed in 5 years, but I personally > appreciate that.

And I think Apple is betting on a "conservative" majority that does not want change for the sake of change (I'm certainly part of it) - just observe how similar all the iPhones look, or all the laptops, displays... The only exception I can think of are the cheaper iPods.

<comment><USER7> And that's because they are cheap enough to buy on impulse, and/or to make an affordable gift for the holiday season that is clearly the hottest and newest available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While the majority of people seem to be cheering Forstall's departure, I personally think this is a really bad sign.

Software just doesn't get enough respect, and there are few people who realize how important it is. Steve Jobs was one of them, as was proved when he was running NeXT. When things started to go downhill, he made the right decision to turn NeXT into a software company. He knew that software was _the_ most important thing.

He brought the best software people over to Apple, including Forstall, who was the key figure behind one of the most important business decisions that Apple ever made -- using OSX as the basis for the iPhone.

Software needs to have a strong advocate inside of a company, and there's no substitute for having someone like Forstall -- a real programmer who can fight for the Right Thing, instead of having the developers overrun by the other units of the company.

When software stops being so important, the other parts of the company overrule the developers and make bad decisions, like releasing software before its ready (eg. iOS6 maps).

Now that the future of Apple is being lead by the hardware people like Cook and Ive, I think we're going to see less innovation on the software side. We're going to see more hardware-only product launches like the iPad mini. More shinier and thinnier cases, and fewer killer apps.

What we might end up with is the old post-Jobs Apple, which launched a plethora of new product lines while letting the software stagnate to the point where Microsoft almost killed them.

<comment><USER9> I don't cheer it. I agree with everything you said. Forstall has a track record. He's done well.

Forstall has a track record, and the iOS is the best of the products out there compared to similar devices from other companies. So he did _SOMETHING_ right. As a developer, I love the developer environment as well - compare to say BlackBerry, Android and its eclipse and etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "That makes it all the more telling that Apple's press release contains no quote from Tim Cook offering kind words or thanks to Forstall."

Indeed, this has been expected since Jony Ive was observed standing immediately to Tim Cook's right at the last Red Square May Day parade.

<comment><USER11> That comment didn't add anything to the discussion. The comparison you made is not helpful to anyone's understanding of the situation. Please don't do that. Hold yourself to a higher standard in the future.

<comment><USER12> The comment is non-offensive and draws an analogy between two organizations which used propaganda effectively. Comparing Mr. Gruber's writings to those of fellow travelers is a legitimate comment on the possibility of editorial bias in the original article. I

It is useful because it places the article within a larger historical context. It extends the content, and on HN, that is appropriate.

<comment><USER11> All right, let's go into specifics here.

I strongly disagree with your description of the objectionable comment:

* First, saying that it is "non-offensive" to compare someone to Stalin's regime (or more generally to the Soviet regimes) is so blatantly inaccurate that it's difficult to believe that you seriously advanced that claim. Let's set aside "offensive" and say merely that comparing someone to Stalin is in virtually all contexts likely to be inflammatory, perceived as aggressive and hostile, and very likely to derail the discussion. It is not innocuous. So the original claim, with its comparison to Stalin, is immediately suspect because the author has chosen a way to express their disagreement that leads the conversation away from substance.

* When you say it "draws an analogy between two organizations which used propaganda effectively" you elide important points of information. For one, the nature of any comparison to Stalin. For another, the comment did not, I would say, "draw an analogy," it _proposed_ one - and then took it for granted that the analogy was sound and useful. It presented no evidence for this point, it just stated its view as a _fait accompli._ That is not a good way to make an argument. When you advance a position, you're also obliged to advance evidence for it if you want it to be taken seriously. Humor is no defense here: the commenter was using sarcastic humor to advance an argument, and is not excused from the requirement of presenting evidence for the argument.

* On your own part, when you say "Comparing Mr. Gruber's writings to those of fellow travelers..." you too are assuming facts not in evidence. Do you mean that Mr. Gruber is a Stalinist? Then please advance the evidence in favor of that, or abandon your argument. You are obliged to present your arguments and their evidence forthrightly, not to wink knowingly and wave in the general direction of something faintly evidence-like.

* That the comment "places the article within a larger historical context" is so low a standard as to be useless. Any comment here that referred to events outside of 2012 could be said to do as much. Even if the above critiques did not hold, saying that the comment added "historical context" would be too glib, would not be a substantial point in its favor. If the comment were presenting evidence for its views, that would be one thing, but to say that the comment as it stands adds "historical context" is to say nothing, because by that standard you could defend the legions of facile "Apple would never have done X while Steve Jobs was alive" comments.

* The comment advanced, more or less, the argument "Apple's press releases are a form of propaganda; their terseness requires us all to make inferences and guesses about goings-on inside the company that do not serve our understanding well." This is a mere _argument_ \- which is a good thing! It is something that we can have a discussion about, reason about, and it is capable of being falsified. For that matter, if the comment had had what I just said appended to its original content, then all would have been forgiven. But instead we got only the version of the comment that flatters the prejudices of people who are already convinced that Apple is a bunch of no-goodniks and which has nothing useful to say to people who are not already convinced of its argument.

In summary, I objected to the comment because it advanced its argument by a method that was obviously likely to drag the discussion in unproductive directions, because it advanced its argument without presenting any evidence, and because it was advancing by insult an argument that could have been advanced without the insult just as productively. I disagree with your defense of it because you are neither holding it to a high standard of argument nor addressing any of its flaws - flaws which are obvious enough that my listing them is barely necessary.

Now, since you spoke up to defend it, you have heard its measure. It didn't add anything to the discussion, and the comparison it made was not helpful to anyone's understanding of the situation. I'm willing to put effort into explaining exactly why I think that because I think that a high standard for discussions here is important and necessary, and that letting comments like the one I object to slide by without expressing that they do not meet those standards, is part of maintaining that standard of discussion. Silence on community standards serves no one well. When objectionable comments are met with vigorous resistance, it not only shows the people making them "no, that kind of comment is not welcome," it affirms the community standards by setting them out explicitly and bringing them to everyone's mind. This is why I'm willing to write this much telling you and the author of the objectionable comment why I object. It is not about my _disagreeing._ Disagreement is a normal part of discourse - but there is no productive disagreement to be had unless people make their arguments plainly, make them falsifiable, and make them by going from evidence to conclusion.

<comment><USER13> Comparing two things is different from equating them. It's not offensive to compare Stalin to anything, including those things you hold sacred. It doesn't imply they are equal in all respects, and any inference to that effect on your part is in error.

<comment><USER14>
        > Comparing two things is different from equating them.

True, obviously.

        > It's not offensive to compare Stalin to anything,

False.

        > including those things you hold sacred. It doesn't
        > imply they are equal in all respects, and any inference
        > to that effect on your part is in error.

When you compare X to Hitler, or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or the devil, you're necessarily invoking an element of offense to make your broader point. Rightly or wrongly, those figures are inexorably bound to offend. It's not possible to simply assert that away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "I wouldn't read anything more into Browett's departure than that Tim Cook knows how to recognize a mistake and correct it. (Although it was Cook who hired Browett in the first place.)"

Good leaders know when to change their mind. I actually have more respect for Cook being able to recognize that John Browett was not a good fit after personally hiring him.

<comment><USER16> Cook seems like the kind of CEO who accepts he's imperfect, and rather than justifying a bad decision and keeping someone around will do what needs to be done. Good thing for a leader of a company the size of Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The idea that his leaving was based on the Maps debacle, may be correct. But not in the way that Gruber implies.

The timing of his stock sale in May, is more consistent with the idea the Forstall foresaw the writing on the wall when he was made responsible for Maps. Selling 95% of his shares was clearly a sign that his long term commitment was in doubt.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57425920-37/apple-exec- sco...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57425920-37/apple-exec-scott- forstall-sells-off-95-percent-of-his-shares/)

<comment><USER17> Forstall may have been trying to do a move similar to what Jobs did when he returned to Apple. Jobs lost confidence in where the company was going and sold all but one of his shares. The maps may have called Forstall's "bluff".

<comment><USER12> One thing is pretty certain. The decision to dump Google was probably made above Forestall's pay grade. I suspect that the decision to include Maps in the next release of iOS happened about the same time as the decision to dump the stock. Stock sale announced in May, Maps announced in June.

<comment><USER18> I wish this meme (that, in no uncertain terms, Apple dumped Google) woud die. This is a very large contract between two large, competing companies.

If I were looking only at the impact of the iOS decision, I would have a hard time believing that Google didn't tell Apple to piss off, but I think even that reading is far too simplistic.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps it is too simplistic, but the alternative Apple chose suggests hubris. I suspect that TomTom or Garmin or even OpenStreetMap would have been glad to partner with them to develop an app to replace Google Maps. Instead, Apple chose a homegrown solution, quality be damned and then threw TomTom under the bus when Maps was released half baked.

The decision to adopt not invented here as corporate policy backfired. Forestall was probably prescient enough to see where it was headed.

<comment><USER18> The problem is I can just as easily come up with a situation where Google is being "evil" and doing everything it can to screw Apple:

Apple and Google have become _serious_ competitors. Apple realized that and started working on its mapping solution, but recognized it wasn't ready in time for iOS 6. Unfortunately, the license was going to run out before iOS 7, so a new contract would have to be negotiated[1].

Google came back and said "piss off" (or "pay $50/phone" or whatever "evil" terms you want). Apple couldn't make the terms work within their constraints, so quickly made a deal with Tom Tom and tried to integrate their data into the nascent mapping system[2].

The iOS 6 beta comes along and the data is nowhere near where it needs to be. Apple has a decision to make here and, with a choice of "go for it" or "pull a major feature in iOS 6.x"[3], they decide to cross their fingers and go for it.

Now, iOS 6 release hits. They know the maps aren't ready, but the bridges have been burned. Their choices now are "put some lipstick on a pig" or "pull a major feature from iOS 6.0". They decide on lipstick. Sometimes you get away with it; sometimes you don't. They didn't.

 _I'm not saying this is what happened!_

My point is that when major companies are in "coopetition"[4], nothing is simple and obvious. Maybe Apple thought they could shroud everybody in a reality distorition field. It is possible, even plausible. I just don't think it is the _most_ possible scenario, and it is tiring to hear it expressed as the "only" possible solution.[5]

1\. [http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/timing_of_apples_map_switc...](http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/timing_of_apples_map_switch) (that's the best I've got to "source" the end of the Apple/Google deal happening before iOS 7 would release)

2\. [http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/427347/apple_signs_glo...](http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/427347/apple_signs_global_agreement_tomtom_maps/)

3\. iOS releases seem to have stabilized on an October time-frame. Based on my experience, it is unlikely that you could pull up the release of an OS by 6 months, so maps would have to change in a "dot" release.

4\. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition>

5\. Regardless of what _really_ happened, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in those meetings. Those would have been awesome bizdev meetings...unless Apple really did say "piss off". :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Congratulations to Tim Cook for making this decision. We might have to wait some time to see if it was the best decision, but at least he didn't just make the safe decision. It may be a risk, but it means Apple won't stagnate. It will change as a result of this.

This is all about unity.

Unifying iOS and OS X under one person.

Unifying human interface, both hardware and software, under one person.

Unifying underlying technologies under one person.

And fundamentally, unifying the team at the top, and removing discord.

No one can deny Forstall's legacy. But from what we've read in recent years I think there's real truth in this comment from Gruber:

"Thinking about it some more, though, and considering what I know about Forstall's reputation within the company, I think that headline, euphemistic though it is, tells the plain truth: Forstall was an obstacle to collaboration within the company."

For the future? Integrating the hardware and the software was always Apple's core strength, that this just makes sense. It's an open question whether Ive has the technical knowledge for this role, but he certainly has the taste. He certainly wouldn't have let that new iPod nano UI be seen by the outside world.

Modern-day Apple has always shied away from manufacturing directly, and for good reason, but it may just be that they're too big not to anymore. That no one manufacturer can meet their demands, whether due to lack of capacity or politics. Making chips is difficult, and usually best left to the experts, but Apple now has the cash to hire the best and is in the perfect place to benefit from the competitive advantage it'd give. It'll be interesting to see how this new Technologies group turns out.

</comment><comment><USER20> Good read. However:

 _One of the things I admire about Apple is their plainspokenness, both in advertising and in press releases. ... Thinking about it some more, though, and considering what I know about Forstall's reputation within the company, I think that headline, euphemistic though it is, tells the plain truth:_

This, to me, reads as "Apple is plainspoken. Ok, so they're not, but let me convince you that even when they're not, they really are, it's just in disguise!"

Why go to such lengths? Why even bring that up? It's hardly a critical part of the article.

I'm genuinely curious, by the way - please, someone show me how I'm wrong.

<comment><USER21> I think what Gruber was trying to say here is that (in his opinion at least) Apple is usually plainspoken, but in this case they were not because they were being polite to Forstall by being euphemistic rather than plainly saying that he was given the arse.

<comment><USER22> Sure, but euphemism just doesn't fall under the umbrella of 'plainness,' in any way, shape or form. So you can't be euphemistic and tell the plain truth. It's just a bollocks statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is this the new Jony Ive Apple?

Ive is Apple's new Product Chief (heads hardware and software design across whole company).

Federighi (Mac OS and iOS), Mansfield (Tech), Cue (Services & Content), Williams (Supply Chain), Schiller (Marketing) - all in support roles to Ive.

Under Steve Jobs, product and design was consolidated under himself. He had the ultimate say as to what shipped and he was the toughest curator. Now it appears that Apple is returning to that model, except now it's Jony Ive with that role.

<comment><USER24> It seems it was only a matter of time until Ive took over as true heir apparent to SJ in this respect. Will be interesting to see how the relationship with Cook works and if it pans out in a similar fashion as it did with SJ+Cook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hm. There were rumours about 18-24 months ago that Ive wanted out of Apple. I wonder if this decision is a consequence of that previous discord.

I also wonder what this means for the future of hardware design at Apple. If Ive must now look after both the hardware and the software, he must be less hands-on in the day-to-day work on individual designs. Does this imply that Apple are not expecting to iterate on the hardware design on a high level from now on and have identified the software as the area with most potential for aesthetic improvement?

<comment><USER26> > If Ive must now look after both the hardware and the software, he must be > less hands-on in the day-to-day work on individual designs.

What this means is that, Ive now gets to chose people and those who do that in turn report to him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is likely been coming for quite some time. IIRC he was brought in by Jobs and was likely protected by him while he was alive.

Steve being gone meant the didn't have to keep him around, and the maps debacle was likely the straw big enough to break the camel's back.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'll be interested to see how Ive's does. He is, undoubtedly, hugely talented - as is the team he's built at Apple.

However the work that he's done is all about Industrial Design, which operates under many different constraints from the software world.

From the Apple folk that I know Ive and his team currently seem to run a bit like an in-house agency rather than being 'part of Apple'. I wonder if they'll try and continue that way - or become more integrated with general product development.

</comment><comment><USER29> This sets up an environment that Cook prefers, IMHO. A clear-cut decision maker about all things product design, Ive replaces Jobs. Inasmuch as a Cook/Ive pairing can be beneficial, they're missing Jobs as the great overseer. I think this is not finished playing out.

As has been seen, mistakes aren't really tolerated when Apple's name is on the line -- someone almost always pays for it with their job. Apple has started to show cracks in the armor, and I imagine we're going to see a few more events of non-perfectness in the future. (Entirely reasonable, but nonetheless those that contribute to an image.)

If things don't go Apple-esque perfect in the future, I wonder who starts pointing fingers?

</comment><comment><USER30> "One of the things I admire about Apple is their plainspokenness"

What?

</comment><comment><USER31> Can someone please tell me why this is worthy of HN front page? He hasn't said anything new at all; almost half of the article quotes and the other half has already been iterated countless times in the press release thread. Gruber really isn't adding anything to the discussion, so why do we need him to parse it again for us?

<comment><USER32> > Can someone please tell me why this is worthy of HN front page?

Sure! I'd be happy to.

The way Hacker News works is, people submit content.

If people like the content, they vote it up. Sufficiently high-voted content reaches the front page. 55 people have voted this up at the time of this comment, feeling the content was worth their attention. Given the recency of the content relative to the votes it has received, it occupies the position you see on the front page.

Is there anything else I can help with?

<comment><USER33> him: why did people elect Hitler?

you: Explaining how votes are tallied.

Technically correct but totally useless.

<comment><USER34> Reductio Ad Hitlerum - For when you have nothing to go on but a cheap appeal to emotion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The "Spanish Theory" of software project management - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodgycoder.net/2012/03/every-software-project-ive-worked-on.html

<comment><USER2> I'm in a situation now where, instead of walking 10min / day back and forth to the office my boss is expecting me to commute on buses and trains 4hrs / day (not exaggerating).

I consider this extra commuting time as unpaid overtime (up to 20hrs a week, even though I'm not "working") and hence want to deal with it as this article says I should: "No way, I quit".

Yet I feel bad about this; what would you do?

<comment><USER3> A daily four hour commute is horrifically bad for your health (both mental and physical). You absolutely should not feel bad about quitting or demanding to be allowed to telecommute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In practice what this often means for the developer is unpaid overtime (also > known as "crunch time"), something very familiar to game developers, and > also common in traditional software development, as the project nears its > deadline. But those unpaid hours are actually costing you, the developer, > because you can't get them back.

Sure you can. A good employer will give you time off in lieu later.

Of course, an even better employer would never let it come to that.

<comment><USER5> In days of yore they had a mechanism so that if an employer ever let it come to that, there would be financial repercussions.

I believe they called it "time and a half."

<comment><USER4> Point being, no amount of money can replace time spent off work with your family. What are you going to do, pay your spouse and children as an alternative to actually eating dinner with them? Only replacement time can make up for that sacrifice.

<comment><USER5> Actually my point was, that rather than an absolute ("no amount of time can replace time spent off work with family"), there was a market mechanism that did a pretty good job of letting individual employees/employers manage the tradeoffs between work and non-work. Somehow (Republicans) that mechanism became deprecated, and has been replaced by conflict and bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There even a not written rule in Spanish companies: «you never leave the work office before your boss». Effort in Spain only correlates to the time spent in the office and not with results. That is the reason why telecommuting never really took off in Spain.

<comment><USER7> Let's go disrupt their economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm Spanish and I approve this article!

I didn't knew that there was a "Spanish Management Theory" ;), it seems we are just giving the world awesome things... like the Spanish Flu.

<comment><USER8> Except the only relation between the Spanish Flu and Spain was that Spanish newspapers were the firsts writing about it, as they weren't as censored as the ones published in countries fighting WWI.

<comment><USER9> They nap in the afternoon, they publish uncensored news .. is there anything those Spaniards are good for?

<comment><USER6> And you forgot about food and weather ;)

<comment><USER10> Not to mention the friendly late-evening dinner in the summer. Suddenly missing Northern Spain and Southern France :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was a bignpropknent of OT for non managers since they have less control. The danger with paying managers OT is every hour they do "make work" causes the organization to spend 10 more so you don't want to invent that. OT policies encourage managers to properly staff from the start.

<comment><USER12> Your concern applies only any creative professional work where time input and work output are not clearly correlated, not just management, though.

<comment><USER11> The challenge with management is the costs of waste get externalized and multiplied.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Umm, didn't England (and later Scotland) exactly extract the wealth from the ground, in the form of coal, which enabled the industrial revolution.

Spanish coal on the other hand seems difficult to mine.

Cue Jared Diamond and all that "there's actually a reason for that" can of worms.

</comment><comment><USER14> This meme about how unfair it is that programmers work unpaid overtime is starting to drive me nuts.

I've been in big stodgy software company where everyone worked exactly 8 hours, and the whole company filed out the door at 5pm as if a factory whistle had blown. I've also worked at a smallish software company where the norm was at least 10 or 11 hours a day, and half the programmers came in on Saturdays and Sundays (and I did too).

I much preferred the latter. Why? The work was more interesting, and the programmers were smarter (and nicer!), but the main reason I preferred it is, "What's the alternative for my free time?"

What do you really do with the rest of the day? Yeah, sure, you have great "personal life with your family". But really, the typical programmer at BOTH companies was single, didn't have a girlfriend, and didn't have many friends.

The free time was wasted on video games, lots and lots of video games, mindless chatter at a bar, watching team sports,... you get idea.

Let's stop with the whining and sniveling about unpaid overtime among programmers. The average programmer is well paid, his work is usually interesting, and his free time will be squandered (applies to me too). I prefer to be at work where at least I'm doing something real.

<comment><USER15> It appears that your comment has been taken the wrong way... I _think_ what you're saying is this:

* It's more fun (for you) to work with people who _like_ to program and ship software than it is to work with people who just program to pay their bills and would rather be anywhere else than at work.

When employees care about solving problems, they put in extra hours sometimes. Managers have the problem of making sure that team members don't burn themselves out. At these companies you see things like as much time off as you want, work what hours you want, work where you want. There's no need to make people work.

When employees don't care, they spend lots of time in the office getting coffee, checking email, IM chatting, surfing the web, having endless meetings arguing about whether or not source control is a good idea, etc. The managers there have the problem of getting the staff to do any real work at all.

For an employee who wants to work at one kind of company, it's _very_ frustrating to work at the other kind.

<comment><USER16> Many really good people who love to program, though, don't necessarily love to spend 100% of their time programming one thing. Lots of strong, motivated programmers work on open-source projects and other side projects in addition to their day job, and try to avoid companies where excessive crunch-time would make that impossible.</comment></comment></comment>


Abootstartups - <AUTHOR> http://abootstartups.com Everyone and their mother have told you what it takes to get a startup off the ground. We didn't put this page up to teach anything, but to share some of the events that go without mention as a startup takes off. Abootstartups.com invites everybody that relates to share the events that never make it to light, so we can have a laugh and reminisce together! <comment><AUTHOR> This is a site about startups in Canada and also world wide. This site was founded by a Canadian company.

</comment><comment><USER2> Awesome site! Some hilarious stuff. Definitely not all peaches & cream in our igloos up here.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was really disappointed to find this isn't a site about start ups in Canada.

<comment><USER4> you are partially correct - this site is not about start ups in Canada... it is ABOOT startups in Canada, hehe

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The bathroom thing is hilarious.

Seriously Classic.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's great under the hood stuff. I love it :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Very funny!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> new post today check it out

</comment><comment><USER8> very interesting i like it</comment>


U.K. Parties Prepare for 2015 by Erasing Web Histories - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-15/u-k-parties-prepare-for-2015-by-erasing-web-histories.html <comment><USER2> "Removed" makes it sound like a sin of commission, where it's more likely that they decided to re-build their website and didn't see a point in having a historical archive of speeches, policy documents etc. on there. To the extent that political parties are marketing operations rather than history societies, this is not really surprising.

I'm not sure how this kind of thing used to be handled prior to the web being a major campaign tool. I wonder how easy it was to get hold of the 1992 Labour election manifesto in 1997, when such things existed only as printed documents.

There has always been a thriving cottage industry of political obsessives (in a good way!) who maintain their own archives of this kind of material. It turns out that you can't get old election manifestos from the Labour party, but you can get them here: [http://www.labour- party.org.uk/manifestos/](http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/) \- and the Conservative one here: [http://www.conservativemanifesto.com/1992/](http://www.conservativemanifesto.com/1992/)

I'm not sure what's best here. Should we put greater pressure on political parties (and other similar organisations) to maintain a public history of their own activity despite this being sometimes against their self-interest, or should we support the efforts of third parties who archive this stuff without such conflicts of interest? (Of course, the right answer might be "both").

<comment><USER3> I believe the Conservatives (at least) have also disallowed the relevant paths via their robots.txt: [http://www.conservatives.com/robots.txt](http://www.conservatives.com/robots.txt)

This then has the effect of removing it from the Internet Archive for a start...

<comment><USER4> Kind of makes sense too - you don't want people searching for Conservative policies at election time accidentally finding the ones with the pressing issues for the last election.

<comment><USER3> ... or for them to be complicit in laying bare their own hypocrisy ...

<comment><USER5> It's not hypocrisy to change your mind or change direction as the situation changes.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the Tories never planned on following through with their promises in the first place. Their original justification was that the country's finances were so bad they couldn't afford all the things they'd promised. However, now that everyone's mostly forgotten what they originally said and they've deleted it from the internet David Cameron has declared that his policy of closing and crippling the Government services he got elected on the promise of protecting is permanent and has nothing to do with the country's financial state after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm delighted that my choco ration is going up to 25 grammes.

<comment><USER8> > I'm delighted that my choco ration is going up to 25 grammes.

I suspect that Americans, and those under 30, aren't going to understand this reference. As to those both American and under 30, well, they're double double plus unable to understand this reference.

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past." ― George Orwell, 1984

<comment><USER9> For what it's worth, most Americans under 30 have probably read 1984 in school.

<comment><USER8> > For what it's worth, most Americans under 30 have probably read 1984 in > school.

Didn't know that, thank you, many years since I was in school. So has 1984 replaced Catcher in the Rye? That would be a shame, as well as a difficult choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm very disappointed in how archive.org handled this. I mean, they just delete all of their archives as soon as the source blocks archive.org or requests they delete its archives on them? Then what's the point of it all?!

<comment><USER11> What do you expect them to do? It's copyrighted material. They can't retain a copy if the author doesn't want them to.

<comment><USER12> Well and that is the problem with digital goods. In "the old days" (TM) it was, that libraries and library-archives had papers and reporting on these speeches and oftentimes even manuscripts of speeches archived.

I would have loved to see a political party, or a newspaper request libraries to delete their copies.

So, what is a digital archive other, then a library, our repository of shared human historic-source-files? Why do we make it that easy for anyone, to destroy things, that might be of interest to future historians/generations?

I strongly believe, that our day and age will be one of the least known to future generations, as so much of the digital artifacts will be lost without the smallest possibility, to recover any artifact of it.

And yes, it is copyrighted material, but was copyright ever conceived as a tool for history-mingling or censorship?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it." \- George Orwell, 1984

</comment><comment><USER14> > Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party confirmed a magazine > report on Nov. 13 that it had removed from its website speeches that > predated the party taking power in 2010, as well as placing markers on its > site asking search engines to remove these from their archives.

The standard behavior of search engines in such cases should be to remove the entire website from the index. All or nothing.

<comment><USER15> > as well as placing markers on its site

I suspect what they mean is that requests for the files send an appropriate HTTP status code (e.g. 410 - Gone). This is standard practice on any website where something is no longer available and is used by search engines to spot dead links.

It's not a request to Google for censorship.

<comment><USER16> You suspect wrong: They added a long list of URLs for their news archives to robots.txt:

[http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public- sector/2013/11/co...](http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public- sector/2013/11/conservatives-erase-internet-h.html)

This does not just cause search engines to stop linking to it, but also causes all the main engines to remove it from publicly accessible caches, and causes Internet Archive to remove the pages as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a very strange action. It's almost as if they thought that some simple technical tricks could remove things from the Internet. Now there will be even more interest in comparing what they've said in the past with what is said in the future, and other organisations - now familiar with the Wayback Machine policy will keep mirrors.

As a quick fix, the wonderful British Library has a service called www.webarchive.org.uk. Here are some speeches from 2008 : [http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20081209103831/...](http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20081209103831/http://www.conservatives.com/News/SpeechList.aspx?SearchType=NewsDate&SearchTerm=080101-081231)

They also seem to have done something with their YT channel. For example, this video is dated Mar 21, 2007, but when viewing the channel and sorting by oldest first, it's not there: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbPpcuh7DF8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbPpcuh7DF8)

<comment><USER18> Streisand effect: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Such is the nature of politics. I don't know what politics are like elsewhere but in Britain it goes something like this..

At Prime Ministers Questions.

Opposition: Another bank scandal, not doing enough, blah blah blah

PM: _ignores question_ Well the hypocrasy, in 2009 opposition was shaking hands with these people. In 2005 you praised the banks blah blah nonsense blah.

In UK politics any position you take today is used as a weapon against you tomorrow. This is my understanding of why things are being deleted.

Take the conservatives. Before the banking crisis they wanted to match Labour spending. On crime they wanted to hug a hoodie.. now they believe in Austerity, blame Labour party for the financial problems and are tough on crime. Turns out that the world changes and so do policies and I guess this drastic step is to reduce the ammount of ammunition each other have.

I am not sure it matters that they are deleted. Surely the websites of political parties should reflect the policies of today. It is up to historians, archivists and the media to note and store the speeches of yesterday.

<comment><USER20> _> In UK politics any position you take today is used as a weapon against you tomorrow._

As it damn well should be. If I'm voting for a person or party on the basis of some promise they are making about a given policy or a claim that they have an understanding/capability of something, I want to be able to see their history of keeping (or not) said promised and proving (or now) their actual understanding/capability.

Someone who has a history of being badly wrong and/or not keeping their word is someone I'm less likely to trust. That'll be the majority of current politicians (ours and those in other countries). I don't consider this position to be at all unreasonable. Someone who actively hides that they were wrong in the past, and/or made promises that have since not been kept, is someone I trust even less.

Removing the content from their site to replace it with up-to-date positions I'm OK with, we understand it is a fluffy promotion site rather than a library of meaningful and historically accurate information anyway, but actively working to have the old content removed from other archives is simply not on IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It took me two minutes to find a speech from Gordon Brown on the labour UK website:

[http://www.labour.org.uk/gordon_brown_conference](http://www.labour.org.uk/gordon_brown_conference)

Saying "The opposition Labour Party has eliminated all news items from before Ed Miliband was elected its leader in September 2010 from its website." seems a little strong.

</comment><comment><USER22> By no means comprehensive but there are several speeches archived on this site, set up by academics at Swansea University: [http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech- archive.htm](http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm)

</comment><comment><USER23> Glad to see the Lib Dems haven't been caught doing this (yet).

<comment><USER24> Well everyone's well aware of the promises they broke so there's no point in hiding it or it'll make them look even worse (if that is possible).

<comment><USER23> well, if you want us to keep our promises you have to vote us in to a parliamentary majority. My frustration with how crap our MPs have been is still high, but they do have a reasonable (ish) excuse.

<comment><USER24> I doubt that would happen if they did. Not only that, the whole ward system is clearly biased towards morons who are easy to sway towards the party rather than a fair representation country-wide.

There is no excuse. Stick to the manifesto or we should be able to fire them instantly and force another election.

<comment><USER23> nope, I disagree. Parliamentary elections don't always give majorities, nor should they. Indeed, I'm in favour of Proportional Representation which makes it nearly[1] impossible to win a majority.

Indeed, even if someone _can_ win a majority, it's very bad liberalism to say they should be allowed to implement _anything_ \- politics is as much about fighting the tyranny of the majority as implementing what you want to.

Of course, when we're talking about the NHS changes, which were in _no_ manifesto, but seemed to have been a tory plan for many years, we have a right to be angry. Indeed, the Lib Dem constitution has almost certainly been blatantly violated in respect of this and other policies - Our MPs aren't whippable on anything that isn't party policy, with the exception of the Coalition Agreement (which was passed by a vote at a special conference session, which I attended.)

Of course, they seem to accept the government whip on such matters, which makes activists like me very depressed for the state of our MPs (who are mostly the richest activists from their local area - since we're a very poor party who ask our candidates to fund their own campaigns - this is the reason I'm in favour of some sensible way of state funding parties, although I don't know I've ever heard a good implementation.)

[1] SNP. populist party without any real philosophy, thus able to seem to appeal to everyone simultaneously.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you like to see in a students resume - <AUTHOR>

I've decided to join my college's co-op program and I'm going to start applying for jobs probably in October.
I'm a bit unsure as to what I'm supposed to include in the "technical skills" section of my resume. I was told that since I lack experience, I should use a combination (highlight skills and education rather than experience) format resume. Unfortunately, I've been coding for only two years and I don't have cool or huge projects to show my potential employer. What I have built are small tools (command line and GUI) that I use personally. I know only a bit about lots of things (Linux, Windows, Java, C, Python, SQL, git) because when I discovered my passion for programming, I started reading and learning as much as I could.
My question now is, how would you like me to present these skills in my resume? Am I supposed to include as many buzzwords as possible? Would you like me to talk about those small tools that I've made? Or would it be better if I emphasize what I've learned in school? <comment><USER2> 1) Use the apostrophe correctly, when applicable: "student's". Your resume should have no obvious proofreading errors.

2) Include everything relevant without being too verbose. Education, Experience, Skills. Probably relevant coursework in the Education section. Don't put anything in Skills that you wouldn't be comfortable being asked about in an interview; it's appropriate to differentiate between "strong experience" and "experience".

By the way, I am not a recruiter, but my student resume landed me interviews for internships with Microsoft and Google, among others. If my experience is any guide, your first resume will suck, but getting the content out there is a good first step, and then you can improve. Spend several short sessions on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its the classic catch 22, no work experience to put on the resume, hard to get a job to gain the experience.

But I think it is a lot easier now then it was in the past. There are lots of opportunities to work on open source projects. What I look for in student or recent graduate resume is decent list of technical skills (languages, db, methodologies, etc.) These you can pick up at school. The biggest issue for me is to see some code. You can learn a lot about a person by looking over their code. So I'd publish a few of your personal projects. Reference the website where the code and documentation sits on your resume.

I less concerned about buzzwords. They don't tell me anything. They may help you get past a resume screener, but they will not help you beyond that. If you have experience in the area, you should specifically list that.

</comment><comment><USER4> What area are you looking at? If you're looking for web roles then put together a website explaining who you are and a portfolio if you have enough to show. Polish your smaller projects, publish them on GitHub and link to them from your site.</comment>