Show HN: Set OS X files and folders to self-destruct based on tag - <AUTHOR> http://scottmw.com/463/os-x-set-file-self-destruct-based-tag/ <comment><USER2> If this was based on atime instead of mtime, and was coupled with Time Machine backups, it'd actually make an interesting form of Hierarchical Storage Management. Files would "expire" from your local disk, but still be restorable.

On a tangent, that's really what I (and I think most people) want from HSM—not "files canonically being on slow media but being cached on faster media", but rather "files canonically being on small/fast media, and then migrating to slower media when you stop caring about them, as if a garbage-collection pass had occurred, leaving your disk with more space." Basically, HSM should do automatically what people do manually when they e.g. burn files to optical disks to clear up space.

</comment><comment><USER3> For easy-to-use OSX automation I'm a big fan of Hazel: [http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php](http://www.noodlesoft.com/hazel.php)

I bet you could set up something similar in it.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a pretty good idea. Add the ability to tag a file/files with TTL from the CLI as well.

Source code: [https://github.com/tdlm/os-x-self- destruct](https://github.com/tdlm/os-x-self-destruct)

<comment><USER5> > Add the ability to tag a file/files with TTL from the CLI as well.

You can use the OS's standard facilities to do what you want: see `xattr` and `mdfind`.[1] There's also `tag`[2]

      1 http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/93979/are-the-osx-mavericks-tags-visible-from-the-command-line
      2 https://github.com/jdberry/tag

<comment><USER4> I'm using tag, too, but it's in C, so, I suggested xattr to the author. I submitted an issue already (first!): [https://github.com/tdlm/os-x-self- destruct/issues/1](https://github.com/tdlm/os-x-self-destruct/issues/1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome. I've been waiting for Yosemite's JS Automation so I can do some similar things with my downloads (Moving into folders based on tags, etc.) so this is going to be fun to play around with.

</comment><comment><USER7> It mentions it uses srm, is that any use with an SSD with wear levelling etc?

<comment><USER5> Probably not. Hopefully you're also using FileVault, though it doesn't totally alleviate recovery risks (from undelete scripts, etc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting idea, can anyone give me ideas for specific use cases in everyday use?

<comment><USER9> I use Hazel (mentioned by drhayes9 too) to monitor various folders and take action regularly. On the delete side, this includes:

* clearing out any items in Downloads > 1week * clearing out any items from my "Temp" folder > 1 day, unless they have an explicit "save" tag ("Temp" is my go-to alternative to the Desktop and is where I stash anything, well, temporary-ish) * automatically moving screenshots into my Temp folder (where they will soon be deleted)

<comment><USER10> Why not using /tmp?

<comment><USER5> 1 Workflow: you can put the files _anywhere_ this way, and still have them get deleted.

2 Time granularity (though you could, I suppose, set up subdirectories in /tmp/ with associated hourly/daily/weekly/monthly cronjobs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there no at(1) on OSX?

<comment><USER12> Yes, you could queue an at job for every deletion. If you moved the file that approach would break. Also, you'd have to remove that at queue entry if you changed your mind.</comment></comment>


What if we made a CMS that compiled down to a desired JavaScript framework? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/TarekAl62101525/status/1293742083254165504 <comment><AUTHOR> What if we, as an open source community, made a CMS that compiled down to someone's desired Javascript framework or HTML and CSS. If we made this featured enough, I think it could change frontend development as an industry.</comment>


Twitter and Posterous - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2009/04/20/twitter-and-posterous/

<comment><USER3> To be quite honest, I don't think Twitter and Posterous are comparable, but I do think both of them have tapped into two huge modes of human communication.

Prior to Twitter, there was no method to capturing stream of consciousness. Sure, there was AIM, but those chats are really transient. Twitter allows me to broadcast the funny youtube video I just found, or a frustration I may be experiencing with a company, and to have friends ride the stream with me. Not only that, we get to look into the streams of celebrities, something completely new. I didn't get Twitter for a time, too, but have realized its value and the 140 character limit, in my opinion, allows messages to retain their stream of consciousness type characteristic.

Posterous, on the other hand, is a more structured, more effort-in-your-post version of Twitter. But it's also an interesting middle-ground between both Twitter and conventional blogging, which I think is another form of human communication no one has yet explored. Blogging is for me to write a well thought out essay. Twitter is for saying 'omg check out this discounted laptop.' Posterous gives me a place to post things of importance with ease, in a nice structured manner. I don't want to throw up pictures of my friends at the beach on Twitter, or write a blog post about it, I want to put it on Posterous. However, I don't want to litter my Posterous with random links and thoughts. In those respects, I think Posterous and Twitter really aren't competitors. They both serve two different purposes, to me at least, and there is room for both to thrive.

<comment><AUTHOR> They compete when people choose whether to do what Twitter is good for or what Posterous is good for. That's what made this post more interesting to me than a Posterous vs Tumblr post would have been.

<comment><USER3> A spoon and a fork are competitors in cases where you're eating corn or rice, but you don't use a fork to sip soup or a spoon to eat salad. Sure, there will be instances in which Twitter and Posterous compete, but I think those might be less frequent corn or rice scenarios. I'm trying to show him that there are two distinct purposes both services serve.

Maybe a Twitterous spork is begging to be made. :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see the difference between Posterous and Tumblr. The latter also has an email address that you can send anything to and a great bookmarklet. Is it simply that Posterous sells themselves differently?

<comment><USER5> For other services, posting by email is an afterthought. it's poorly implemented, severely limited.

With Posterous, you can send us _anything_ by email and we'll handle it. Multiple images, video, audio, other documents all in a single message. That message can also have full html and we'll publish it all.

We autopost to Twitter (tumblr does this now) but also to Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, and all the major blog platforms. So you can email us once, we'll handle all the rich media, and then update _all_ the websites you use.

We also have a great bookmarklet. You should try it out.

<comment><USER4> I did as you suggested: the bookmarklet is quite awesome. Moreover, combined with autopost it effectively fixes all the things wrong with the wordpress.org bookmarklet. Sold. Can I import my Tumblr account?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dunno if I am stating the obvious, here, but Twitter's inanity is entirely dependent on _whose "tweets" you are reading_.

More generally, in the community I am involved in, Twitter has stepped into the gap left by the lack of a comfortable mechanism of interaction through Atom/RSS feeds ("blogs", comments and trackbacks are not convenient enough to use for many purposes).

</comment><comment><USER7> I find myself going back and forth on Twitter too, but mostly because of what will happen to the service as it approaches popular-mass; the beauty and grace of it is diluted to garbage and noise (which is then retweeted). However, I do believe Twitter is a rare startup and deserves its attention. I am in the camp that sees Twitter as a once-in-a-blue-moon event; a communication layer this thin and robust RARELY comes along (much less with this type of adoption rate and explosive growth). Posterous is great and all, but it has nothing on the communication-legos that is Twitter's API. For example, we're integrating Twitter into our exercise app which I think serves a purpose, as oppose to simply leveraging viral ads benefits.

What bothers me about 'social media' in general is that I'm reminded of unionized labor. There's no doubt that customers are extremely important, but there are problems when a mass audience assumes each individual to be the #1 priority and/or the customer is ALWAYS correct. This type of self importance is becoming a problem on the internet with millions looking for a unique identity and it's wearing on me, both as an observer and business owner who has to deal with armchair customers.

ps. I wish there was an auto-block for self-proclaimed 'social media' professionals; it's the new SEO.

<comment><USER8> I don't think Twitter will be destroyed by mass uptake. I don't care if 100 million people are spouting rubbish on Twitter, I'll just follow the few hundred who aren't. Twitter Search will become less useful, but the obvious next step for that (albeit difficult to build) would be to let me search tweets just from people who I am following.

<comment><USER7> I both agree and disagree with you. I agree because as you mentioned, Twitter's unique structure in regard to following/followers helps minimize that type of noise. However, retweeting for example is not something you can block and that's where I see problems.

Certainly I always have the right to unfollow or block, but it doesn't solve the problem if I want to continue following a tech entrepreneur who's side hobby may very well be celebrity gossip or American Idol. (god save us)

Fortunately (Twitter's API is what separates them), clients like TweetDeck provide a secondary interface that's more adaptable to social changes through prioritization, customization, etc. If it wasn't for this, I would likely not be using Twitter... and any lifestream-competitor should give this a lot of consideration I think before trying to compete.

 _edit_ man i can't write today, sorry for edits.. it's monday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have often tweeted a picture by emailing posterous and making the subject what i'd like to tweet. It works really well, and the picture also goes to Flickr & Tumblr, which is hot.

<comment><USER10> I do love the Flickr integration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just used Posterous to successfully document my daughter's arrival into the world.

I give it two thumbs up.

It was painless and straightforward to snap pictures on my iPhone and immediately have my family see them. And given the state of sleep deprivation we're going through, mindless is exactly where I need stuff to be.

<comment><USER10> Just think if the iPhone did video like, you know, every other phone on the market. Of course, maybe that would be a bad thing for a childbirth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "all I see when I look at Twitter are outdated limitations and people going > to great pains to work around them"

Personally, I feel like the 140 character limit helps in one crucial way - <USER2> gets people to think twice before they hit the "Update" button.

<comment><USER13> I would argue the exact opposite. Because the amount of information you can transmit is so limited, it makes it far easier _not_ to think twice. Think about it: writing a blog post is, for most people, an activity which requires a good deal of thought, revision, and editing. And why shouldn't it -- you can write and include anything you want.

Compare that to Twitter: how long does it take to think of 140 characters to spew into a tiny box? Not very long. And since it is so easy, it can be done 20 times per day! And since there are so many "posts", you don't really have to care about the _quality_ of those posts individually. You can see this on a lot of blogs, too -- once-poignant bloggers set out to write a post per day and suddenly it becomes obvious they are grasping for topics, jumping sharks, and simply putting stuff out there that is of low quality.

There are two ends to the writing spectrum, and on either end are the essayists and the, uh, twitter-ists. The essayists don't release very often, but when they do it is close to a foregone conclusion that the material will be worth reading. The twitterists release a dozen times per day and while they will occasionally, perhaps merely by statistical probability, release something worth reading, it is close to a foregone conclusion that the material will _not_ be worth reading.

Now we get to the "masses" part, and why Twitter will take off. Answer this question:

The majority of people are: (a) essayists, (b) twitterists

The answer is quite obvious. Tweeting requires neither skill nor forethought which are things that most people either do not possess or do not exercise very often.

<comment><USER12> > Tweeting requires neither skill nor forethought which are things that most > people either do not possess or do not exercise very often.

This is the exact reason where I think Twitter's restriction shines. The average person isn't going to rethink or edit their tweets. In some cases, the 140 limit forces them to, without getting in the way of the user experience.

Type type type type. Is my message under (140) characters? yes -> post. No -> rewrite it.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

I will agree with you that the people worth reading aren't on Twitter. But I think there's something to be said about making a large number of average people marginally better at something.

</comment><comment><USER14> "I don't have to worry about shortening URLs, and I don't need some Adobe Air client just to make it tolerable."

This quote sums up the argument between the two services pretty well. Posterous seems like an interesting middle ground between the super, uber short Twitter and other blogging services.</comment>


Wall Street analyst: in 2016, Facebook will have six trillion dollars in annual revenue - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/08/the-six-trillio.html

<comment><USER2> I believe that some of these 'analysts' are in need of help with a more full understanding of economics. Particularly the seemingly external factors that turn out to be fundamentals when thinking about economies. Energy inputs necessary to generate 'wealth' for example. What population would be necessary to support that level of economic activity. Keep in mind that the larger your population, the more of your fixed amount of energy resources you will need to do simple support of the population outside of other economic activities.

I am somewhat uncertain as to whether this is a misprint, however, I felt compelled to point out that US$6 trillion is an enormous amount of economic activity. By way of comparison, WalMart's revenue is about US$350 billion. Global telecom market sits somewhere between US$1 trillion and US$3 trillion depending on how we count things. The energy inputs that go into supporting this economic activity are mind boggling. Keep in mind that these industries invest a great deal in keeping those energy inputs to a minimum, that is, they invest in 'efficiency'. Still the inputs are incredulous! I suspect energy efficiency is not a strength that Facebook is possessed of.

I am fairly confident that this is the point that Warren Buffet would pose a question like will people need more Facebook than food? Maybe they will. I just ask that everyone try to keep in mind everything that needs to happen for Facebook to reach those numbers.

Then again . . . Maybe he is factoring in the crash of the US Dollar . . .

Never mind.

<comment><USER3> $6T is roughly half of the total U.S. GDP. Assuming that U.S. GDP grows at typical 3% rates or so over the next 10 years, this is saying that FaceBook will account for ~40% of the U.S. economy by 2016.

Something about that seems a little wrong to me...

<comment><USER2> You're right . . .

Even with a crash, this is just asinine.

It's that midwestern courtesy of mine. It obliges me, at times, to simply point out the deficiencies in arguments for silly positions as opposed to dismissing them out of hand. It is difficult to imagine a scenario culminating in the situation that the analyst postulates.

AAarrrggghhh!!!

I just did it again!!!

Listen to nostrademons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Disco Stu: "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue -- _eyyyy!_ "

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems to be some confusion.

Article gives Facebook a ~$6 billion valuation today.

It then says that after we have evolved into transhumans Facebook will have 6,049,602,150 billion dollars worth of revenue. This is actually $6 quintillion, not $6 trillion.

I'm assuming this is something of a joke, or a typo. Probably the former?

</comment><comment><USER6> The six trillian revenue is possible if we have the Weimer-like inflation some are predicting.

"So, what's it really worth?" is a question best answered with another question, "...before or after the next flash in the pan replaces it?"

</comment><comment><USER7> If anyone believed that, wouldn't Yahoo have paid facebook the 12 billion they wanted?

</comment><comment><USER8> The article says 6 Billion not 6 Trillion.

<comment><USER5> Actually, it says 6,049,602 Trillion

<comment><USER8> Hmm...when I click on the link, it says "and projects Facebook ad revenue as $6,049,602,150 billion!" in the middle of the text (end of second paragraph). Maybe we are looking in different places?

<comment><USER8> Oh I see what you are saying. No, I don't think they meant to say that number and then put another 9 zeros after it. I think they meant it to have it read as the number printed, i.e. what you would say aloud when reading if the word billion was not printed. Of course, one of us could actually register and read (or at least skim) the analyst document :)

<comment><USER5> true true. However, the bit about telepathy led me to think that it might be tongue and cheek. I don't care enough to go and check, but if you do...

:P</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Must Publish Notice Samsung Didn't Copy IPad In U.K. - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/apple-must-publish-notice-samsung-didn-t-copy-ipad-judge-says.html

<comment><USER2> This is not a disjunctive syllogism.

If Apple could not prove that Samsung copied them, it does not follow that Samsung didn't copy them, just as if California couldn't prove that OJ did it, it doesn't follow that he didn't do it.

This ruling, that Apple has to affirm something equally unproven, is bizarre.

<comment><USER3> You have your requirements analysis all mixed up here.

Legal logic isn't the same as mathematical logic. The goal isn't to "prove" a fact here, it's to "settle" the fact so that people can go on with their lives. The courts pick boolean logic as their basis. So yes, legally, it _is_ proven that Samsung did not copy Apple, no matter how many fancy-pants math terms you throw at them.

<comment><USER4> I think you're both right?

Legally, 'not guilty' is not equivalent to 'innocent'.

That being said, the sales injunctions that Samsung occured were a clear case of damages as result of a case for which Samsung was not found guilty; thus, its fair for Samsung to receive compensation.

<comment> jack-r-abbit > _Legally, 'not guilty' is not equivalent to 'innocent'._

hmmm... if "innocent until proven guilty" holds true, then you remain innocent until you have been found guilty. If at the end of trial you have been found "not guilty" then you have not been found guilty, therefore are innocent.

<comment><USER5> That may be a valid assumption, but it's also a dangerous one. A court cannot make the same one (and pronounce people innocent) as it would, I would expect, make it extremely hard to get the same person back in court given new evidence (they're innocent, the court said it).

So it's a bit like hypothesis testing, where you don't expect your hypothesis to be proven correct, you just expect it _not to be disproved_. Thus, further testing can continue.

In summary, someone who isn't found guilty isn't always innocent.

<comment><USER6> >In summary, someone who isn't found guilty isn't always innocent.

Right now, you aren't guilty...so that means...ummm...

<comment><USER7> It's not 'not guilty' it's 'not /found/ guilty'. Maybe I /am/ guilty.

(Just making a point. I am getting a kick out of reading this thread. I own >15 apple devices and every one of them has duct tape over the apple logo because I think their legal b.s. is just that. B.S. In 2000 I was cool for being the Apple guy. Now I'm ashamed of it. I just honestly still believe they make superior products. Show me a non Apple laptop that I can pick up and will feel as solid and sleek as my 2011 MacBook Pro all the way down to the even weight distribution, that I can install Linux Mint on and have it Just Work an ill buy it tonight.)

<comment><USER6> >Show me a non Apple laptop...blah blah blah

I have a Sony Vaio VGN FZ-21S. Its almost three and a half years old. When I bought it, it was the price of a Mac book pro. It had more performance, speed, features than a Mac book pro back then, including a Blu-Ray drive. It has survived huge amounts of mis-handling. I've dropped it into places where no one would even imagine - Sea (saline water), Rain water puddles, etc. and it still works fine.

I'm a film maker. I use it for heavy rendering, sometimes it is turned on without even a restart for several weeks or even months. It came with a defective GPU chipset and the entire motherboard was replaced free of cost even after its warranty period.

My friend has an Apple Mac book pro. I borrowed it once to do some comparisons. I will put up a blog post on this soon, but here's what you need to know:

1) ALL 2011 Apple Mac's have a shitty display contrast, compared to what this particular Sony Vaio gives you. The color and the contrast is beautiful on a Sony. Period. FYI - I'm a graphic/Web designer too, and this is really important for my work.

2) Apple charges you for anything that is not under warranty. But in my case (and millions of other Sony owners') Sony didn't charge us a single penny.

3) I compose music too. My Sony has an inbuilt ASIO chipset. The sound quality from this chipset is nothing like what you've heard before (assuming you've owned only Apple products). Its amazing. I compared it with the MB pro. Shit it was. Just like their iPods (If you argue the iPod has a better sound quality, then please stop reading right here. I don't want to argue with you anymore)

4) The MB pro heats like hell. I can't render something for more than 6-7 hours. BS. I might as well use it to fry an omlet.

Its ok to like Apple and its not my problem if you like Apple or not. But don't manipulate facts to suit your argument.

Because, this statement:

>Show me a non Apple laptop that I can pick up and will feel as solid and sleek as my 2011 MacBook Pro

is not accurate, heavily manipulated and is utter bullshit. It clearly indicates how biased you are and how ignorant you are about the pace at which the rest of the non-apple gadgets improve, day-by-day, which is atleast thrice as fast as how Apple's gadgets improve.

To answer your original question - >Show me a non Apple laptop that I can pick up and will feel as solid and sleek as my 2011 MacBook Pro

Please check out the Laptop sections of Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Asus, Fujitsu, Lenovo and HP from their corresponding websites.

Have a nice day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wasn't the original ruling basically saying, "It's not a copy of the iPad because it's not as cool"? You know if Apple really does have to put this notice on their website, they'll probably find a way to work that into the announcement.

<comment><USER9> "Samsung wasn't cool enough to copy us." - sounds good to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds fair, considering.

Apple's suit damaged Samsung, so this seems to me like fair payback.

<comment><USER11> Actually it sounds silly to me. Kind of like forcing a bully to stand up in class and say "Billy is not a poopy-face."

The only good thing coming out of this whole patent-a-geddon period is real attention to how broken the system is.

<comment><USER12> "Kind of like forcing a bully to stand up in class and say "Billy is not a poopy-face.""

The problem with this analogy is that no one serious for a second has ever doubted that Samsung copied the ipad, the court has simply ruled the iPad design is too generic to make it a protected design. That tablets are like refrigerators and car and airplane shapes - fair game for copying.

<comment><USER11> And the problem with your problem to my analogy is that if the court actually felt that way (that the tablets are fair game for copying because they are so generic) they would have simply invalidated with prejudice Apple's design patent(s) in the UK telling Apple to pay Samsung's court costs and legal fees and writing an opinion to that effect. Samsung could then take that (and the money they got back) and pursue similar sorts of decisions in other venues.

<comment><USER12> It's not a general patent on tablet shapes it's a registered design which covers the actual product itself. Which seems like a better system as outright product pirates will clearly run afoul wheras category copying the general shape etc. is allowed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is very good because it will make companies think twice before going to court.

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds of a kid who got totally destroyed in a fight: both eyes are swollen and black, his nose is broken and bleeding, he can barely talk through his swollen lip, and he has a chipped tooth. Then the teacher tells the other guy to apologize and shake your hand. You walk away thinking, "I showed him ..."

</comment><comment><USER15> Can someone more versed with the British legal system explain the logic behind this? Coming from the perspective of an American it is a bit peculiar, but then again our own legal system isn't always rational. Just curious if this is common for a defendent to have to publish notices of case outcomes. I know there are a number of other consumer protection laws in the UK.

That or pointing to something like popehat that has overall analysis would be nice too. Law stories tend to make me feel like I'm a fish out of water, especially when they are from other countries. Given that I know a contract lawyer and have finally gotten to a basic understanding of how some of that law works I have a bit more understanding of how common perception of the law differs from actual practice.

<comment><USER16> Basicly they have to make a public retraction for saying something that has been proven not to be true. Now Apple could do a public retraction along the lines of "Were so sorry Samsung for saying you copied the iPad, we know that is not so as yours is just not as cool as ours" or something like that. Probably wouldn;t be the best of moves but still viable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love this judge - putting everyone back to their place. Samsung, stop trying to act cool, and Apple, STFU.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is a sense of justice here. They had this coming ever since Apple blatantly doctored those photos to make it seem the Samsung product look more like the Apple product than it really was, as if implying that they thought tech market was so incompetent that such a strategy could work.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand how anyone can root for Samsung given Korean chaebol's long history of blatantly ripping off everything. Any research into the history of Samsung, Daewoo, LG will reveal a long line if copied products. Of course most if these products were only sold within Korea specifically because they knew what try we're doing would never pass muster on the international stage. Samsung is a dirty company. Do a little research before just blindly assuming Apple did something wrong. Looking at the side-by-side images here: [http://atomicsupersky.com/post/26275796849/on-the-samsung- ga...](http://atomicsupersky.com/post/26275796849/on-the-samsung-galaxy- injunction) should erase any doubt that Samsung blatantly ripped off Apple.

<comment><USER20> I think part of the reason why many people are rooting for Samsung here, is that in this community, in the field of competitive practices, copying is not frowned upon as much as litigating. There's no doubt that Samsung copied from Apple but blocking a whole product due to some parts being copied (like a green phone icon according to the page you linked) is arguably worse than the copying itself.

After all, copying (or stealing as Jobs would say) is an inherent part of the creation process. Sure, Samsung was not very creative in the pieces they took from Apple, but in the end these elements are a small part of the product.

<comment><USER21> Jobs would say copying. Stealing is reserved for those who recognise the artistry behind the idea and integrating it into the very soul of the new work; copying is the duplication of an idea without more than superficial regard for its true meaning or purpose.

<comment><USER22> I don't think a business leader, no matter how charismatic, is the most well suited person to talk about copying, since his business probably holds a lot of patents, which may or may be justified. In this case, the level of absurdity we reached is quite astonishing - the judge pretty much said : yes, Apple owns the black rectangle, but Samsung failed to do a proper black rectangle so they are not infringing.

By any means, this obsessive scorn of copying is something that must be relativised : it only really exists in the western world after the 18th century. Most cultures that exist in other times/spaces tend to see no moral issue in copying, and even dignify it when done properly

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can't wait to see just how much legalese and slanty writing they manage to include in the notice.

Unless the Judge gives them the text, or requires them to negotiate it with Samsung.

</comment><comment><USER24> Actually, nothing stops Apple from being passive aggressive: <http://cl.ly/image/2C132X1u363x>

<comment><USER20> This just shows that "black rectangle with rounded corners" is literally the only design aspect the iPad and Galaxy tab have in common.

<comment><USER2> On the contrary, the entire presentation is virtually indistinguishable.

[http://www.thegalaxytab.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/galax...](http://www.thegalaxytab.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/10/galaxy-tab-unboxing.png)

<comment><USER25> [http://www.singaporeclassifieds.org/wp- content/uploads/produ...](http://www.singaporeclassifieds.org/wp- content/uploads/products_img/ipad-box-side.jpeg)

Because they are both white boxes with large pictures of the product on the front? Well color me outraged!

I think anyone with any eye for design would agree the two boxes are sufficiently different to rule out the possibility that Samsung was trying to pass of as an iPad. (Not to mention the two prominent uses of the Samsung brand on the Tab packaging's front - as opposed to a logo-less shiny black rectangle on the iPad's.)

I honestly don't understand where all these "Galaxy Tab is an iPad clone!" accusations are coming from. Is it a physically similar device? Yes, it is. But there's only so many ways you can design a minimal touch-based tablet. If you made a car that looked suspiciously like mine from the front I'd have a good reason to be pissed off. If you made a wood colored dinner table with 4 legs and a flat surface - probably not so much.

<comment><USER2> The default screen on Nexus 7 is not mistakable. TouchWiz or Sense are not mistakable. This box shows a tablet configured to look like iOS, which isn't what I or most Android owners do with our Android tablets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Where would one put such a thing on one's website?

The very top page for six months?

As an aside, if Apple were to pronounce such a claim on it's website, what would that do to ongoing battles in other jurisdictions?

<comment><USER27> Presumably, Apple would only need to change the front pages of its UK websites (apple.co.uk and apple.com/uk).

<comment><USER27> Odd coincidence? Apple got its hands on Apple.co.uk just a week a go, after it had been owned by an illustration agency for years:

[http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/18/apple-takes-control- of-a...](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/18/apple-takes-control-of-apple-co- uk-domain-name/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does this ruling actually mean anything? Every time I see something like this I'm just waiting for an appeal to pop up. Or can this judgement not be appealed?

</comment><comment><USER29> Off-hand this seems like a rather cruel and unusual punishment. Are there any previous examples of this sort of order?

<comment><USER30> From wikipedia:

> Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing punishment which is > considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it > inflicts on the condemned person

You don't really think that an HTML page inflicts any kind of suffering or pain on someone, do you? First, I don't even think this is 'punishment': it appears to be more focused on clarifying the issue to the public and ensuring Apple doesn't try to twist the story. Secondly, there's absolutely no way it's cruel. It may be unusual, though, and I'm curious about that too.

<comment><USER29> I'm sorry you took such offence at me using "cruel and unusual" as a turn of phrase, rather than to mean it's dictionary definition. I'll admit I'll happily use it in conversation - but perhaps I should have been more careful online where things are taken somewhat more literally.

I do feel that forcing Apple to link to a competitor, and advertise for them, is a form of punishment though.

<comment><USER31> _> I'm sorry you took such offence..._

You're sorry he took offence? That's a pretty passive-aggressive apology isn't it?

You used the phrase wrong. He corrected you. I don't think you're allowed to claim any high ground here.

 _> I do feel that forcing Apple to link to a competitor, and advertise for them, is a form of punishment though._

That's supposed to be the whole point, I think.

<comment><USER32> > You used the phrase wrong. He corrected you.

wow, really? that phrase is used all the time in a lax, colloquial manner, he didn't 'use it wrong' at all.

why is everyone jumping to wikipedia over this? nothing better to do today?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Book Discussion: Daemon - <AUTHOR>

I just finished reading Daemon ( http://www.thedaemon.com/ ) and I found it so thought-provoking that I wanted to both recommend it to the larger Hacker News community, and also to discuss its significance with all of you bright people.  Who here has read it, and what were your thoughts?<p>SPOILER NOTICE: I'm hoping this thread dives into the book's details, so don't read below if you haven't read it.  Just go read it! <comment><USER2> I have been recommending it to many. I bought the audio CD last year, and am anxiously waiting for Freedom to come out on Audio CD, as well. Makes the commute so much nicer :)

The technical details are accurate, to the best of my knowledge, making it a much more enjoyable high tech thriller to me. Driving story line, as well.

I just picked up Freedom in hard bound, so I may disappear (yet again) for awhile.

<comment><USER2> And now being halfway through Freedom TM, I can also recommend it.

I would not be surprised if Daniel Suarez is a member of HN. He is incorporating game theory, reputation, our current fiscal mess, and social upheaval - Very good read!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> An outstanding read (or listen if you have the audio CD), IMHO. The technological basis is plausible and the conflicts within the plot are engaging. I did not find it prescient as I did Snowcrash, Enders Game, and some of Gibsons darker books, but it did get me thinking.</comment>


The Bonsai Kid - <AUTHOR> http://craftsmanship.net/the-bonsai-kid/ <comment><USER2> The most interesting parts of the article to me:

"For a skill as rarified as bonsai, these services can be lucrative. On the teaching front, for example, Neil typically has about 80 students who pay between $1600 and $2400 a year for the privilege of spending several days at Mirai during periods when the trees need a lot of work. Then there are Mirai's sales, which average 20 to 30 trees a year, with prices ranging from about $1,200 to tens of thousands. On the other side of the ledger, Neil admits, "our overhead is very high. We've already spent about $45,000 on pots this year. I think we showed a profit for the first time last year, our fourth year in a business.""

"Another tree, which some sources have estimated to be up to 800 years old, has reportedly commanded the highest price ever paid for a bonsai: $1.3 million."

All of the photos of those trees? They are art.

<comment><USER3> certainly they are art.

it's interesting to me that you mention photos of the trees, it seems like an easy and effective source of revenue to sell prints/photos of the trees (for those who appreciate them but can't handle or afford the upkeep on an actual bonsai), but there's none on his website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The japanese bonzai derives from chinese "penjing" but it is not quite the same: the chinese (and vietnamese) do much more of the full landscape-on-a- plate kind, where the trees are only a part of the work. This, to me, is closer to the original intent of the thing: when you are too poor to have a nice garden, you can still grab a stone and make a mock-up mountain in your room. Then, with a bit of imagination, while looking at your penjing, you'll have the most incredible trecks ever.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Unfortunately, given how slowly bonsai trees grow, this is not an event that > can be staged annually. If it were, every artisan's top trees would become > redundant.

It's refreshing to feel the scale of slower-paced rewards compared to today's expectations of near-instantaneous rewards.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been getting into bonsai, and had the pleasure of attending the show they put on in Portland this fall. It really was world-class, for all I can tell.

If you want a relaxing way to get a grasp on the hobby, this YouTube series is awesome. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8VbKcOcYctk](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8VbKcOcYctk)

</comment><comment><USER7> I know they are just plants, but part of me doesn't enjoy watching trees be tortured into artificial shapes. I thought it was all about pruning, not burning with chemicals. I had not realized exactly how mean one had to be to create these things. I now see less art and beauty and more grotesque deformation.

<comment><USER8> If you think that's cruel, what could you possibly be eating?

<comment> j-pb To be fair, there is a difference though, between cruelty for "art"s sake, and killing to survive.

<comment><USER9> and there is a diffrence between killing to survive and the cruelty that most (USA) food animals endure in factory farms.

<comment> j-pb This comment was in regard to cruelty on plants that you eat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In case anyone wants a bonsai tree but is put off by this, you can get bonsai trees in all shapes, sizes and budgets. I've had a small one once, but I didn't water it enough. It still looked pretty when dead and dried out though. (That actually is another type of decoration, I've seen them in glass display cases)

</comment><comment><USER11> I didn't know how ... artificial this practice was. I didn't know they literally wired up the trees to hold them in position.

<comment><USER12> Back when I was a teenager, I was really into bonsai for a bit, but was quickly put off by how..."foot-binding-esque"...the art seemed.

I forget a lot of the details, but I do remember that there were some bonsai styles, perhaps more modern than others (I am not sure about this), that focused on limiting what tools one was allowed to use to shape the tree's growth, and letting the plant grow naturally.

Perhaps others who know better can comment on what these bonsai styles are called.

Anyway, even if I could recognize that bonsai were beautiful, I was way too impatient to stick with it!

<comment><USER13> If you are interested in bonsai at a faster pace, you can bonsai other kinds of plants. A favourite is chrysanthemum. Instead of pruning twice a year, you are doing it every week or so. They are very demanding, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-pb That video send shivers down my spine. Just watch it and imagine, that the guy was a professional torturer.

The way he talks about the dance between manipulating and not killing the thing, about walking the line of live and death for art's sake, while at the same time pushing his desk full of pliers, chisels and wires to his "victim".

</comment><comment><USER14> This site is a goldmine of interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is nothing like Bonsai Kitten, complete click bait.</comment>


Show HN: RealtyHop - NYC Investment Real Estate Sorted by Yield - <AUTHOR> http://www.realtyhop.com/search/new-york-city-ny

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN! First off, there are already some things I know we need (or at least they are frequently requested):

1.) Ability to customize mortgage rate and possibly apply a haircut on the rental income to account for vacancy.

2.) Model the tax savings from mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and interest on co-op common charges.

3.) Filter specifically for condo vs co-op vs HDFC vs tenant-in-place

Also a question: we are struggling with how to allow power users to see all the data they need without overwhelming the first-time user. Is there a site you can recommend that does a great job with the power user vs first-time user experience, and is fairly data analysis heavy?</comment>


Ask HN: Tips for teaching computer proficiency to novice adults - <AUTHOR> Trying to help my mom learn to use a computer so she can effectively apply to jobs. She's a nurse and has never had to use on one on the job. I'm looking for classes, tips anything here. I live far away so I've been doing Google Hangout sessions and walking her through things, but do you know of a better way? <comment><USER2> Cross your hands in your back and never use them!

One common error is to show how things are done, and type and use the mouse while the students looks at you. It's much better if you explain what the student must do, while s/he uses the mouse and keyboard.

(Sometimes you will not remember how to do something and explore, or try your muscle memory. In this case do the task until it's almost finished, and then undo it quickly. Then Cross your hands in your back and give the student the instructions. (They will scream at you. Ignore them.))

What are the topics she is interested? People learn much more when they can do something interesting (for them).</comment>


Supreme Court Rules Against Apple in App Store Antitrust Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/supreme-court-rules-against-apple-in-app-store-antitrust-case.html <comment><USER2> Aggressive headline. The ruling [1] was simply that the case is allowed to proceed.

"The plaintiffs purchased apps directly from Apple and therefore are direct purchas- ers under Illinois Brick. At this early pleadings stage of the litigation, we do not assess the merits of the plaintiffs' antitrust claims against Apple, nor do we consider any other defenses Apple might have. We merely hold that the Illinois Brick direct-purchaser rule does not bar these plaintiffs from suing Apple under the antitrust laws."

[1] [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-204_bq7d.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-204_bq7d.pdf)

<comment><USER3> It's not aggressive. The case being allowed to proceed is a huge loss for Apple here. Precedent was clearly on their side, etc.

Speaking as a lawyer, the merits of this one are an almost foregone conclusion.

(It's possible apple wins - that possibility is very small)

<comment><USER4> Does it set precedence in other similar cases?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's the link to the actual ruling: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-204_bq7d.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-204_bq7d.pdf)

As a non-lawyer, it's a suprisingly easy read in what seems like plain English.

> KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINS-BURG, > BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. GORSUCH, J., filed a dissenting > opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined.

The 5-4 split is also interesting with Kavanaugh siding with the liberal justices.

<comment><USER6> I'm blown away that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are at ends, it's frankly nice to see that there will still be diversity of thought on the court.

<comment><USER7> Kavanaugh seems to be interested in diving into the implications and results of law / decisions.

Gorsuch seems more interested in just the letter of the law, regardless if that results in absurdities.

<comment><USER8> Gorsuch's approach is the better one. We have a legislature for a reason. Letting judges interpret the law so that a given end is achieved leads to chaos as no one can know what the law means until you've personally been subjected to lawsuits.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty skeptical about complaints about when judges "interpret" the law. No law coverall the circumstances or outcomes that may happen in life or absurdities that could come from it.

I'm also skeptical about those complaints as they typically just are translated "this should be read strictly because the outcome is what I want".

<comment><USER8> Consider DACA. It is not legislation It is an executive order by a prior president ordering ICE to create a system in which people who meet certain criteria are given effective amnesty. Obama had no authority to do this beyond simple prosecutorial discretion. Spending money on administering such a program without legislative approval, creating non-individualized discretion decisions, the law does not give the president this power. When the Trump administration attempted to end the program, at least two judges said no the program must continue to be operated.

There is no authority by which judges can promote executive orders to the status of law, and then proceed order that the government spend money on the program. This was precisely a situation where the judges were uncomfortable with the outcome so they legislated from the bench.

<comment><USER7> >Obama had no authority to do this beyond simple prosecutorial discretion.

DACA was differed action, it was not amnesty.

>creating non-individualized discretion decisions

Prioritizing deportations and prosecution based on criminal history has been done for ages, that doesn't seem much different and isn't questioned much at all...

<comment><USER8> > DACA was differed action, it was not amnesty.

When was action going to be taken? Under DACA participants can renew every two years with no limit on how many renewals they can do. That's amnesty.

Regardless, there is nothing in the constitution that says an executive order cannot be reversed by a later president. The courts acted as if there is and ordered the continued implementation of DACA.

<comment><USER7> You don't have to set a date for action to be taken... that still isn't amnesty.

Just because a president can reverse a decision doesn't mean they always can.

The case that kept DACA going was on behalf of those participating right? So it would seem something related to that was the reason for continuing the program.

<comment><USER8> > You don't have to set a date for action to be taken... that still isn't > amnesty.

I clearly stated "effective amnesty" in my original post. If the day of action can be indefinitely put off, then it's effective amnesty.

>Just because a president can reverse a decision doesn't mean they always can.

What is the constitutional basis for a prior president's executive orders being irreversible by a later president?

>The case that kept DACA going was on behalf of those participating right? So it would seem something related to that was the reason for continuing the program.

What's the constitutional, or statutory, basis for non-citizens who have no lawful status in the country, to have a right to remain in the country?

<comment><USER7> I feel like you could answer most of your questions by simply reading the decision(s) related to the DACA case.

You're understanding or at least shifting statements that revolve around this being purely a case where a president has the right to change course is simply not the only factor at play.

You seem more concerned about the question of immigration rather than the actual law / decisions in play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's not really clear from the article, but the prize here doesn't appear to be forcing Apple to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of penalties. (The court didn't even award penalties, but merely cleared the way for end-users to sue Apple under anti-trust regulations.)

The real prize is forcing Apple to allow users to install software from any source:

> Apple Inc. v. Robert Pepper is the latest salvo in a legal fight over > Apple's iOS App Store. A group of iPhone buyers are claiming that Apple's > locked-down ecosystem artificially inflates the prices of apps because all > developers must go through a single store that takes a cut of their revenue. > The buyers argue that Apple has established an unlawful monopoly over iOS > apps, and they're asking the courts to make Apple allow third-party iOS > apps, in addition to repaying every iOS user it's overcharged in the past.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17479480/supreme-court- ap...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17479480/supreme-court-apple-vs- pepper-antitrust-lawsuit-standing-explainer)

By extension, any company maintaining a walled garden could be sued for anti- trust violations by end users. That hasn't been possible until now due to a previous Supreme Court ruling called "Illinois Brick":

> Arguing for Apple, lawyer Daniel Wall told the justices that the iPhone > users' claim is exactly the kind of claim that is prohibited under the > Supreme Court's 1977 decision in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, which held > that only consumers who are direct purchasers of a product can bring a > lawsuit seeking the triple damages available for violations of federal > antitrust laws: Here, Wall said, the only theory of damages in the case is > that Apple charges app developers a 30-percent commission, which in turn > causes the developers to increase the prices that consumers pay for apps. > Therefore, Wall argued, it is the app developers, not the iPhone users, who > are direct purchasers under Illinois Brick.

[https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/11/argument-analysis- justice...](https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/11/argument-analysis-justices- poised-to-allow-antitrust-dispute-against-apple-over-apps-to-go-forward/)

<comment><USER10> Yes, the people saying this is no big deal I think have failed to notice that SCOTUS just overturned a major previous SCOTUS decision that has stood for over 40 years and which is going to have a massive influence on a large category of class action lawsuits in the future. That this is understood to be an important decision is verified by the stock market response which was to immediately go into freefall. The reaction was swift and not anticipated in advance by market uncertainty because this decision was a huge surprise since no one thought they had the votes, the assumption being that conservative Kavanaugh would side with the conservative majority on issues of unquestioned corporate power. This may be an indicator that in many other cases involving corporations there exists a SCOTUS majority that will be overturning other past decisions and in general not be automatically deferential to business interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reading over the opinion and the dissent ([https://www.scribd.com/document/409788583/Apple-Supreme- Cour...](https://www.scribd.com/document/409788583/Apple-Supreme-Court- ruling)), I think the crux for the majority is that the customers purchase the app _through Apple_.

The Illinois Brick ruling prevents "pass-through" claims of damagers. So if I buy something from Company A, and they bought something from Company B required to make my item, and Company B is a monopoly, I cannot claim damages as a "pass-through." Company A has to claim damages. The majority's point is clear:

 _" In this case, unlike in Illinois Brick, the iPhone owners are not consumers at the bottom of a vertical distribution chain who are attempting to sue manufacturers at the top of the chain. There is no intermediary in the distribution chain between Apple and the consumer. The iPhone owners purchase apps directly from the retailer Apple, who is the alleged antitrust violator. The iPhone owners pay the alleged overcharge directly to Apple. The absence of an intermediary is dispositive. Under Illinois Brick, the iPhone owners are direct purchasers from Apple and are proper plaintiffs to maintain this antitrust suit."_

</comment><comment><USER12> Eventually it will be illegal for Apple to prevent competitive app stores. That will also be the beginning of when Grandma can get viruses again (or spyware battery apps like on Android).

Not sure the best way to weigh the benefits/risks.

</comment><comment><USER13> Huh. All market places charge this 30% though, right? The Amazon Fire/Music stores and Google Play all take ~30%. (If you really want to support a band, BandCamp only takes 15%).

Could this open the floodgates for finally getting rid of ridiculous commissions for digital works of these digital stores? I don't think Amazon/Google/Apple will really hurt that much if this becomes the case, and creators could early quite a bit more for their works.

Or is this case very limited to Apple and their monopoly based on their control of Apple devices?

<comment><USER14> You can install 3rd party app stores on Android devices.

Apple forces all developers to only use their app store, and then makes them pay 30%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems that the Supreme Court only ruled that users can bring the case against Apple (not only developers), not that Apple's 30% fee was a case of monopoly abuse.

<comment><USER3> That is true, but that part is an almost foregone conclusion on the merits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Skip the "analysis": [https://www.scribd.com/document/409788583/Apple-Supreme- Cour...](https://www.scribd.com/document/409788583/Apple-Supreme-Court-ruling)

</comment><comment><USER17> HN submission of the actual rulling: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19899373](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19899373)</comment>


Quantum radar has been demonstrated for the first time - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614160/quantum-radar-has-been-demonstrated-for-the-first-time/ <comment><USER2> Here's some background on the concept: [https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/18](https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/18)

Basic idea is that you send out a microwave signal and at the same time send entangled microwaves/photons (in the microwave band) into a trap where they basically spin around "idling"/waiting for the potential weak signal to come back. You then feed both the returned signal which is super weak and the idled signal into a josephsen parametric converter. Basically an amplifier based upon a Josephsen junction. The result is that using that type of amplifier it amplifies signals that are quantum entangled more than it amplifies non entangled signals. And you get increased SNR on your signal you get back. So the microwave still has to hit the target and bounce back to you / receiver station you just can use a much weaker signal to transmit the microwave and as a result it acts similarly to passive radar that uses ambient RF to detects objects in the air.

<comment><USER3> Makes me wonder if this could be applied to cameras? With visible light instead of microwaves.

<comment><USER4> Don't understand it, but one guy interviewed on the subject said resolution is a function of all the entangled photons. That seems to mean you circumvent the diffraction limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First published result? There were reports of military work before: [https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy- defence/article/21...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy- defence/article/2151086/chinas-latest-quantum-radar-wont-just-track-stealth) This publication gave some credibility to the earlier reports of presumably classified work.

</comment><comment><USER6> >The researchers go on to compare their quantum radar with conventional systems operating with similarly low numbers of photons and say it significantly outperforms them, albeit only over relatively short distances.

No rendering stealth aircraft obsolete just yet

<comment><USER7> Only over short distances? Is this because entangled photons decohere as they go longer?

<comment><USER8> Yes, exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some more recent discussion: [https://hackaday.com/2019/08/26/quantum-radar- hides-in-plain...](https://hackaday.com/2019/08/26/quantum-radar-hides-in- plain-sight/)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20820196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20820196)</comment>


Show HN: A tiny web auditor with strong opinions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/woodruffw/twa <comment><USER2> The example seems weird: google.com almost certainly does redirect to HTTPS and send HSTS headers, so why does your tool think otherwise?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not for me:

        $ curl -I http://google.com
        HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
        Location: http://www.google.com/
        Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
        Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2018 13:56:53 GMT
        Expires: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 13:56:53 GMT
        Cache-Control: public, max-age=2592000
        Server: gws
        Content-Length: 219
        X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
        X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN

`curl`ing www.google.com also doesn't redirect -- it serves the HTTP page directly. Similarly, I don't see Strict-Transport-Security headers with either HTTP or HTTPS requests.</comment></comment>


HTML5 Timeline Reader - AP Labs - <AUTHOR> http://html5.labs.ap.org/

<comment><USER2> I really think they did a fantastic job here. They made the best of the medium, too: They used a narrow column for text (which, being a news company, they write for — this is part of why newspapers often have 1-sentence paragraphs). The narrow column makes it easier to quickly read and skim. Then this frees up a lot of space for a photo, much bigger than they could afford in print. The way you can filter categories, and the colors (no b&w print here) used to identify them are really playing to the strengths of the web format, too. A+

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't 2 finger scroll the main area. Which is a pain.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks great, really slow on the iPad though

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks bad on Safari showing an extra scroll bar in the center of the text field when continuing on to the full content. Strange.</comment>


Confirmed: Ice on Mars.  News broken by Twitter. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/mars-phoenix-tw.html

<comment><USER2> I assume they measured the temperature and atmospheric pressure at the rover and have done the calculations to make sure it's actually _possible_ that this was frozen H20 that sublimed? NASA is pretty smart, right?

At least here on Earth I would expect that a solid white material that sublimed was C02. Of course Mars is very different temperature and atmosphere- wise.

<comment><USER2> To answer my own question, according to Wikipedia, Mars' surface temperature is between −87 °C and −5 °C, and the atmospheric pressure is around 0.007 atm to 0.009 atm.

And according to this ([http://bhs.smuhsd.org/science- dept/marcan/apchemistry/h2opha...](http://bhs.smuhsd.org/science- dept/marcan/apchemistry/h2ophase.gif)) phase diagram for water, sublimation occurs at pressure less than 0.006 atm and temperature less than 0.01 °C.

So while the pressure on Mars might be a little too high, it's pretty darn close. Wikipedia or that phase diagram could be wrong.

Also, I just came across this:

 _The atmospheric pressure on Mars is just a bit below the triple-point pressure. That's why the textbooks all say liquid water is unstable on the surface of Mars. Any liquid water will rapidly evaporate and the rest, cooled by evaporation, will freeze. Low spots on Mars may have pressures above the triple-point pressure, but are usually far too cold. Even if you did somehow get above 0 C on Mars and into the liquid field, you're so close to the vapor curve that water would rapidly evaporate. Even solid ice would quickly sublimate on Mars except in the very coldest areas._

<http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/petrolgy/Ice%20Structure.HTM>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In other words, news broke out on twitter 2 1/2 years after ice was found on mars.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4479612.stm>

<comment><USER4> So that's why it was so easy to decide it was ice... the collective unconscious sure has a short memory when it gets excited about something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just had a thought.. is it possible the chunks could have just been blown away by martian wind?

.. that sounded worse than I intended. :P

<comment><USER6> Blown out from the bottom of a trench? Without the trench getting filled in?

<comment><USER7> The KaBoom! Where's the Earth-shattering KaBoom!?

<comment><USER8> You laugh. Check out the mission patch for the mars rover mission:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nasa_mer_marvin.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why the second half of the title? I could give it a ____less if it was "broken" by Digg or Twitter or Slashdot or email - the only thing that matters is whether there is ice or not on Mars. You don't see CNN headlines suffixed with "as AP told us" or "and Reuters had it first!" etc.

<comment><USER10> It's interesting because it's unusual... People use Twitter to announce minutia like what movie they're currently watching, not significant scientific discoveries.

Likewise, if a politician used their SNL guest spot to announce their intention to withdraw from the presidential race, you can bet most headlines on the topic would include the words "on SNL".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This epitomizes why twitter is going to get big.

<comment><USER12> I can't fathom if you're being sarcastic or what. If not, why do you think this has any bearing on widespread twitter usage?

I'd say it's more likely it'd get big if celebrities were using it, or people on the big brother show or something, but news from mars lander? :/

<comment><USER11> Yeah I was being sarcastic and I 100% agree with the celebrity comment, even if it is a sad reality. Mars reporting via twitter isn't going to entice Joe Public to sign up for twitter. Real time reporting on celebrity nip slips and Brad and Angelina's children will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is big news - I think we all need to stop, collaborate and listen.

<comment><USER14> Cause you're back with a brand new invention?

<comment><USER14> (look up vanilla ice lyrics if you don't get it..geez, the young'uns)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "broken by Twitter". Best headline ever.

<comment><USER15> And NASA scientists say "w00t"?!?</comment></comment>


Happy Anniversary to the Early Internet's First Network-Wide Crash - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/happy-anniversary-to-the-early-internets-first-network-wide-crash

<comment><USER2> No, there were earlier ARPANET-wide failures. The reassembly lockup on December 21, 1973, for example. See "[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc626"](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc626")

The ARPANET protocols and IMPs provided a guaranteed delivery system. They did not drop packets in congested situations. They had flow control back to the host, so they could prevent hosts from flooding the network. This left the possibility of network-wide deadlocks where all buffers were in use and nothing could be forwarded. That happened several times in the ARPANET's history.

That's why the Internet does not guarantee delivery of IP datagrams.

</comment><comment><USER3> I got to see an IMP get installed at McClellan AFB in 1986. I had no idea what it was at the time, but these days .. wow, pretty cool bit of history.

</comment><comment><USER4> Was this the precursor to the reason why TCP/IP included the TTL field?

</comment><comment><USER5> I found "...was dropping bits (slivers of binary information)" hilarious. Would there be anybody reading this article who doesn't know what a bit is? Especially since a couple of sentences later they use "timestamp" without any exposition on what that means.</comment>


Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs - <AUTHOR> https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2019/09/sorry-mac-users-apple-doesnt-care-about-us-devs/ <comment><USER3> As someone who recently worked in game dev I'm not sure why 32 bit was even a factor as 64 bit is likely your default target anyway - has been for awhile. So, killing 32 bit is not a real issue.

Notorizing can be seen as just another cost of targeting a platform. So do it. You will need at least one machine anyway to do basic testing on. So use that. Get the cheapest imac or whatever you require. So, mac hardware isn't a real issue.

I found the statistics a bit strange as well. Sales were 2% linux, 4% mac, 94% windows. Yet support was divided 30% linux, 50% mac and 20% windows. This suggests linux is more problematic per sale than mac. Yet he has no issue with linux. If this was me, I'd be wanting to know exactly why linux/mac was generating so many tickets. The answer will likely help the overall product.

Personally, you need to jump through so many hoops to release software that none of these thus far mentioned should be big enough to stop you. The real reasons should be: is there a demand in this target market; will that demand generate sufficient profit?

As I'm starting my own journey on this I see all the platforms and app stores have various issues. Everything has tradeoffs. The article's author needs to come up with better arguments. I just don't see his reasons as relevant in comparison to the other much larger costs associated with development.

I'd actually recommend targeting multiple platforms just to force bugs to come out. Different platforms / compilers see and expose different issues in your codebase. So far I'm quite happy to have cross platform support even when i don't necessarily release on those platforms yet.

I find art, sound and game assets are more expensive than an apple dev account or even a mac computer. Others have written in more detail on this. Even generic business costs exceed the subscription/computer costs he's stating as being barriers.

<comment><USER4> What surprises me is the fact that the author doesn't talk about the craziest of Apple's recent choices: the deprecation of OpenGL. This is much worse than the deprecation of 32 bit and, IMHO, it's just Apple giving up on being a relevant gaming platform. This, plus the lack of nvidia drivers and of support for Vulkan.

All the small issues here show, together, that indeed Apple doesn't give a shit about gaming and about interoperability with other platforms. They want developers to be faithful to their locked garden and their technologies.

<comment><USER5> > All the small issues here show, together, that indeed Apple doesn't give a > shit about gaming and about interoperability with other platforms. They want > developers to be faithful to their locked garden and their technologies.

Especially if it's only 4% of your sales. If 4% of your sales doesn't cover the cost of a Mac, code signing, and the cost of support on the Mac then it's a _net negative_ - you'll make more money not being on the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Notarization and needing a paid developer account doesn't change the requirement for running software on OSX relative to the previous version.

Before, you needed to sign with a "developer ID distribution" certificate if you wanted to avoid having to tell users to "ctrl-click DMG then click open" to bypass gatekeeper. This certificate required a paid developer account.

Now you can still distribute un-signed, un-notarized software and tell users to ctrl-click open to bypass gatekeeper. All this does is require notarization (Apple running malware analysis) to have it run without a ctrl-click.

<comment><USER7> I imagine Steam doesn't allow Gatekeeper bypasses. Still, notarization is designed to be easy to script: [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_y...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/customizing_the_notarization_workflow) \- so it really shouldn't be an issue.

<comment><USER6> The only issue is it can take an hour or more - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21110622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21110622) polling for the status to finalize would waste build minutes on your CI.

<comment><USER8> Well but you don't need to notarize all builds, just those that went through internal QA

Split the build process so that you can click "version 1.2.3" and have it notarized (this is doable in Jenkins for example)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yikes. If you can't figure out how to make your code 64-bit safe, or how to make code signing work, you are effective requiring your users to give you root access. Completely unacceptable for a game.

<comment><USER10> 1\. You also need to pay apple a subscription, update your hardware, change your build process. I think there is also a review step during the build.

2\. All the existing tooling (not the game, but the build process) will need to be 64 bit to run on this new hardware. So the build needs to be re-worked

3\. People on Mac require more support, which is harder because dev is not a Mac user.

<comment><USER11> Do these guys complain this much about releasing games on consoles too?

<comment><USER12> That's a fundamentally different platform I think.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h In some ways, it isn't that different; consoles are just computers with some platform-weirdness. But I do actually agree insofar as that I can reasonably target NT, Darwin, and Linux from one machine (so long as it's a mac or I'm willing to break the Apple EULA), but to target consoles, so far as I know, requires purchasing additional hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I certainly don't blame the developer for not supporting macOS, but the reasoning he outlines in his post aren't particularly compelling to me. It seems to me porting his game over to MacOS in itself would be a larger undertaking and more valid complaint than the ones he's listed.

The notarization process potentially reducing the number of builds he can push to users in a day from 6 to something less seems like a feature, not a negative.

</comment><comment><USER14> the first commercial downloadable game I released back in 2015, that let me become a full-time indie developer, has done roughly 25% of its revenue over the last four years on Mac. This is adding together the % of copies sold on Steam for Mac users, and the Apple Mac Store, where my game was featured on the main page for three months. Notarization, and 64-bit support, and all that aside, the audience on Mac that you can sell to is massive, especially since a lot of developers just ignore the platform - I'm fully expecting to support as many macOS devices as I can for my next game.

<comment> crooked-v I feel like there's also something of a snowball effect here because in certain genres the available set of games are good enough to rarely need to reboot into Windows. All the Paradox strategy games, X-COM, a variety of indie games built on Unity, etc. It feels like the only thing I'm ever consistently missing out on is FPS games, and even then there's been workable ports of stuff like Deus Ex.

<comment><USER5> Anything requiring more than Intel integrated graphics tends to not work well on the Mac. The vast majority of Mac models can't even take a dedicated GPU upgrade, so you're stuck with whatever Apple soldered to your motherboard and at their mercy for graphics driver upgrades.

The only time I've seen anyone try to seriously game on the Mac was a friend of mine that built a Hackintosh with a (brand new at the time) nVidia GeForce 1080ti. He couldn't even maintain 60+ FPS on Rocket League. So there's no wonder why games that require that level of GPU performance don't sell well on the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So the major points are dropping 32bit support and Apple forcing you to sign your executable? The author claims that you need to pay Apple for the signing. as far as I know this is not true. You just need to pay for being on the application stores ...

<comment><USER16> You have to pay for the signing. You also have to wait several minutes for the notarization process to finish, and submit every program to Apple.

<comment><USER17> All malware checkers must read the app binary to be effective. Apple forces the app to be scanned once, not one million times on one million desktops.

<comment><USER16> Apple also forces every single app for macOS to be submitted to them. Seeing as how Apple has historically been willing to compete with the applications on their platform, that seems to at least have the potential to be a problem.

<comment><USER18> If they want to use your compiled binary to compete with you somehow, buying one copy per app they want to put out of business seems like a better option instead of setting up a whole notirization scheme to trick you into uploading it to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 64-bit support first arrived in Leopard in 2007. Everyone has had plenty of time.

<comment><USER20> That's what I don't understand about this. He's using 32-bit deprecation as one of his main reasons for dropping macOS support, yet his decision to exclusively use the older architecture arguably makes the user experience worse. Of course they would like new features, but a modern 64-bit foundation should not be out of the question. It's almost like Microsoft has incentivized this by supporting the older architecture. I know that probably isn't the case, but it seems like this developer should modernize his program.

Edit: take my words with a grain of salt-- I'm not an experienced developer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm glad Apple is locking down binaries. It's terrifying what malicious binaries are capable of.

For games in particular there should be better sand boxing options.

<comment><USER22> Signed binaries don't stop malicious binaries. It can help prevent the spread of malicious binaries once they've been identified as malicious, but it does nothing to stop the initial mayhem.

<comment><USER21> That's not true. Apple prevents unsigned binaries from being executed at all.

<comment><USER23> That's not true. You can bypass that.

<comment><USER21> Well of course it can be bypassed, but it certainly doesn't "step in" at some point either as was suggested. It blocks all unsigned binaries regardless of any damage they've caused.

Though this morning I realized I misunderstood the point of the grandparent here. He was saying you can have a signed binary that is still malicious. I thought they were talking about what apple does in the case of unsigned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Of course Mac support request ratios will vary by game due to architecture > and player base, but there's little question that they're higher in general, > ...

Why? What is the nature of these support requests? Are they specific to your game? Could it be because your game was not properly made for macOS to begin with?

<comment><USER5> In the minds of Apple, anything not programmed solely for the Mac is 'not properly made for macOS'. It's shades of "you're holding it wrong" again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Seriously, OS X went 64bit 12 _years_ ago. X86 has been 64bit for longer.

Maybe, just maybe, the problem is developers refusing to actually move forward.

It's especially galling given game devs are the group that most prominently complains about OS X being behind the times.

As for "needlessly" dropping 32bit: if your poorly written 32bit app starts up you necessarily force OS X (and the user's machine) to pull in 32bit variants of almost the entire platform. Thanks for that. It also means Apple has to maintain 32bit versions of every framework. I can speak from experience here: maintaining a 32bit version of javascriptcore was a massive amount of work. Every new JS feature needs duplicated JIT work, and needlessly complicates the entire JSC codebase.

That aside, Apple manages to do this - and I can't imagine your game approaches the complexity of an entire OS -so if you can't make your software work on a 64bit system then the problem is your code, not Apple.

<comment><USER26> The number of 32bit intel macs is surprisingly small, too. Core Solo/Duo models ran from January to November 2006 (bar one mac mini model that survived into 2007).

I'd be very surprised if there's a 32bit mac that'll run their game acceptably well. I'd be surprised if it's ever actually supported 32bit macs. So why was it 32bit in the first place?

<comment><USER27> It's a Windows game. People are asking him about the possibility of a Mac port.

<comment><USER25> Ok, but if the game is only a few years old why didn't it compile for 64bit?

I recognize MS insisted on screwing the market by selling 32 vs 64 bit as separate versions of Windows for many years, but even then surely most windows machines have been running 64 by default for a decade?

But seriously: if you make a new piece of software in the last 15 years that only works in 32bit, then you made a choice to target an obsolete platform with worse performance (again, game developers complaining about perf while only building 32bit so throwing away 10-20% perf for no reason strikes me as hollow)

<comment><USER28> I mean, I agree with you completely but what I've found is that a lot of games, whilst are 64-bit themselves, often have a lot of dependencies that, for whatever reason, still have 32-bit binaries in there somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This article fails to address two key points that could significantly weaken its core arguments if answered. Those points and the questions that arise from each are:

1) Apple charges a flat rate of $100/year for notarization access. Steam and Mac App Store take 15-30%. What additional percentage of Mac sales (either subscription and/or one-time) is being spent on this annually by this developer?

$100/year & 100 units/year = $1.00/unit

$100/year & 1000 units/year = $0.10/unit

$100/year & 10000 units/year = $0.01/unit

EDIT: Steam indicates that this game has sold 0-20,000 units (max 168 concurrent players), between May 2015 and September 2019, so using a straight flatline average of the best-case scenario for sales, the cost to date per unit is:

$500/5y & 23000 units/5y = $0.22/unit

2) Notarization can be added to command-line build scripts and Makefiles and third-party processes, so that it is simple to ensure that builds are notarized as part of releases to Steam. What, if any, engineering obstacles in the developer's build process blocked this integration? [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_y...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/customizing_the_notarization_workflow)

<comment><USER30> The argument from the article is that in non-Apple ecosystem, the ongoing fee is 0, which is smaller than all 3 of your listed examples. Also, as opposed to "simple command-line build scripts", in non-Apple ecosystem, there is no script required to release versions. I don't see the argument weakened, but rather strengthened.

<comment><USER6> If Windows also required code signing as a deterrent to malware being distributed, we'd see similar prices (depending on the code signing reseller, currently cheapest is $59/year for 3 years). Instead, we have a huge third- party antivirus market that only deals with malware after the fact. Notarization is Apple's approach to pre-screening applications and will certainly be constantly improving its detection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does Apple have to sign games distributed through Steam? I thought that only applied to their own app store.

<comment><USER32> Mojave and Catalina added more restrictions around non-App Store programs where you need to sign and notarize.

I know I'll probably catch downvotes for it but I think this is a good thing for the average user as someone in security. I know it makes it more of a walled garden but I also know that the harder it is to run untrusted code, the better for the average user.

The "terrible burden" is a couple of extra button clicks if working in Xcode or you could automate it with a script. I did the latter for the project I work on and it's been fine.

That probably drives a lot of folks to Linux and that's okay. I'm for diversity in platforms but I'm also for strong protections for the users.

<comment><USER33> Letting megacorporations decide what you do and do not get to do with your personal property isn't really what I would count as a "good thing" in any circumstance.

Apple has gotten away with eliminating user freedoms time and time again under the guise of security. In many scenarios Apple's attitude towards its end- users increases perceived security while causing significant hurdles for actual security, such as how iOS no longer allows you to turn off Bluetooth or WiFi from the Control Center. Somehow I've never really seen an explanation for why this is better for security for the vast majority of people.

<comment><USER34> You are still able to run unsigned (and now unnotarized) software. It requires holding down a _single_ key when first launching it. I'm pretty sure the trade off here - to prevent the average, relatively uninformed user - <USER2> downloading and running random software is very much a worthwhile trade off for malware protection etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As a Mac user why should I care about this developer who's never released Mac software and probably wouldn't have anyway?

When someone like the Omni Group or Panic writes a similar screed than it will be newsworthy. This? Hardly...

</comment><comment><USER36> As an active Apple dev with five commercial apps, I agree with the sentiment in the article. I'm ready to leave Apple the moment something better comes along.

Since Steve died, every decision at Apple has been anti-dev and anti-user.

The price/performance of the hardware is awful. Apple is the current tech leader in planned obsolescence. Old hardware is iCloud locked by default with no option to contact the registered owner to tell them that they forgot to unlock it. Now they want to extend that practice to laptops. The developer documentation is universally awful. The version changes in Swift are so drastic and frequent that you can't find solutions for the current version because the Internet is polluted with information about previous versions. They are glacially slow to fix bugs. They have removed basic networking functionality covered in the RFCs. They instantly kill backgrounded apps in a mad race for style over function.

I. Could. Go. On.

TL;dr I hate Apple with a burning passion and only inertia keeps me in the Apple dev world.

</comment><comment><USER37> why is dropping 32-bit support even a consideration?

<comment><USER38> Maybe Cogmind depends on libraries which don't support 64 bit? I agree though, it's a bit weird. Maybe it's harder for game-related libraries to switch, compared to the ones I'm used to using in my apps.

<comment><USER39> Does this mean they are using unmaintained gaming libraries? Or is it just turtles all the way down of people not wanting to take responsibility to switch to 64bit because some random thing they depend on didn't upgrade so they aren't to blame?

And this chain of side stepping of an obvious issue went on for well over a decade?

I know it's in human behaviour to delay things until they absolutely have to do something. Like we all learned in school doing less important homework. But in software there are always dialing pressures to modernize while supporting backwards compatibility.

10yr timeframes are sufficient here and from there if you want to use old stuff then it's on both the user or the publisher to use some virtualization solution to provide long term support beyond this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It seems better to just say it isn't worth the effort because you're a small indy dev who doesnt have time to handle a bunch of heterogenous platforms. None of those things seem that bad if you had > 1 people contributing

</comment><comment><USER41> Aging thread by now, but had to chime in with some clarifications as an indie dev dealing with similar issues, to respond to those saying stuff like 'you're a bad dev if your app isn't 64-bit by now'. I am a company of 1 humbly maintaining a cross platform app that's been around long enough to predate the 64-bit era. It's about 70%/30% Windows/Mac sales. When the majority of machines out there became 64-bit years ago, I happily optimized the components of my app that stood to benefit from 64-bit, such as intensive media processing tasks and other bottlenecks. But since a lot of computing tasks just don't need what 64-bit offers, parts of my app that were working well enough using 32-bit components stayed that way, and users never knew the difference or cared because over the years I strategically targeted the areas to rewrite as 64-bit without having to reinvent the wheel and devote resources to rewriting everything.

Since the 64-bit x86 instruction set was implemented to sit on top of the legacy 32-bit one, it is literally impossible for x86 hardware to cease supporting 32-bit into the future. So we have Apple here making the choice to cease _software_ support of this backward compatibility feature already baked into the cpu, to save a few bucks or whatever. There is no performance benefit to abandoning 32-bit. Your Mac won't be faster on Catalina because 32-bit support is gone, despite what Apple is trying to imply in their marketing, because the cpus they use are still built from the ground up to support 32-bit. A negligible-by-today's-standards amount of RAM and disk space used by the system will be conserved, but that's really it. So Apple, the wealthiest software company ever, has decided to stop funding software support of a feature already present in the hardware they are selling you at ungodly markups, thus screwing over both customers out of legacy app support, and indie devs with costly extra refactoring work that in many cases offers no perceivable benefits to end users. This is why it is infuriating to be an indie dev supporting Mac right now.

As for my specific case, my software, under the hood a combination of several 32-bit and 64-bit processes, still runs happily on Windows, and most of my customers are on Windows, particularly large organizations that purchase site licenses and sponsor new features or customization projects. But in order for it to be 100% 64-bit, so much of it would have to change due to old dependencies as to require rewriting a huge chunk of it from scratch. This is my technical debt to bear. When it became apparent a few years ago that Mac would phase out 32-bit support, I began work on a full 64-bit rewrite, but I've been sidetracked as customization projects and consulting gigs from Windows-only customers continued to pour in and with limited resources as a small company I had to choose to prioritize those projects which added tangible features to my software _right now_ at the expense of making progress on the 64-bit rewrite. I continue to work on the rewrite project so that I can continue to support the Mac platform, but it sure feels like a whole lot of work to port features to 64-bit that won't have any noticeable improvement to end users! In the mean time I feel terrible that Mac users who upgrade won't be able to use my software until I get around to completing the 64-bit version. But it just never made sense for a company of my scale to devote resources to racing to complete a 64-bit rewrite for the sake of those 30% of sales. These are the kinds of choices that a small business must make and thus is the position I find myself in as an indie Mac developer.

I hope this provides an understandable real world answer to the question of "how can any app under active development in 2019 still be relying on 32-bit?".</comment>