The Third & The Seventh (100% CGI) - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/7809605?hd=1

<comment><USER2> If like me your reaction was "I can't believe it's pure CGI", you'll like this

<http://vimeo.com/8200251>

and this too

<http://vimeo.com/8217700>

I found the last video mesmerizing even though (or because) I can't understand 99% of what's going on.

<comment><USER3> My reaction wasn't "I can't believe it's CGI", it was "there is _no_ way it's CGI, this guy is a fake". Thanks for that, I'm blown away now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not all CGI.

The author comments:

"-I think i must make it clear. There are a few non-CG elements in the shortfilm: photographer (shot on greenscreen), pigeons, timelapsed growing flowers, flying airplane and sky backgrounds."</comment>


Nonlinear climate sensitivity and its implications for future greenhouse warming - <AUTHOR> http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/11/e1501923.full <comment><AUTHOR> OK, this is the third submission. But there has been no discussion. Yet this is an important result, I think.

<comment><USER2> How much relevant technical expertise would HN bring to a discussion of the article? How much pre-existing opinion? How are those proportions likely to shape the conversation in ways that look like or unlike typical internet discussions versus what makes HN unique?</comment></comment>


Drawing Holograms by Hand (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://amasci.com/amateur/hand1.html <comment><USER2> Scratch holograms may have led to the invention of stereo photography.

Someone recently found that Charles Wheatstone wrote about this phenomenon first, after noticing it in lathe-turned flat surfaces. Wheatstone looked at it a bit, then taking inspiration from the obvious 3D images, went on to invent stereo drawings, photography, and the stereopticon.

But, Wheatstone never got it. He never realized that we can make our own scratches, and therefore draw any 3D object. "Steampunk holography" remained lost for about 150 years.

"It is curious, than an effect like this, which must have been seen thousands of times, should never have attracted sufficient attention to have been made the subject of [scientific] observation. It was one of the earliest facts which drew my attention to the subject I am now treating." From Wheatstone, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 128, (June 1838) "On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved, Phenomena of Binocular Vision" p371-

The same thing happened again in 1992. Two scientists at Polaroid corp. accidentally made some scratch-patterns producing flat images floating in 3D. They analyzed the scratch geometry. But they missed the secret trick, and never attempted drawing their "holograms" using individual scratches. doi: 10.1364/AO.31.006585

</comment><comment><USER3> I love this article. My first reaction is "no way!", but when you think about it it's obvious that it must be so.

The hologram of a single point of light is a "zone plate": concentric rings. Move a sharp point in concentric circles on a surface and the scratches will form a zone plate which focuses light to a point. An abrading object is just an array of sharp points, so the scratches formed by moving the object in concentric circles will focus light to an array of points, corresponding to the shape of the object: an image of the object. Simple! (but not initially obvious.)

<comment><USER4> Sorry to burst your balloon, but this has nothing to do with zone plates, or even "holography" in the strict sense; no wave interference is taking place. The mechanism is purely geometric: a gleaming scintillation of reflected light in a scratch from a point source will exhibit apparent parallax if the scratch is horizontal and curved. The greater the curvature, the less the scintillation moves, and the less the apparent parallax.

<comment><USER2> ...and that's how we prove that white-light holograms aren't holograms. (Credit-card holograms function just like scratch-holograms, and their 3D image is not created via diffraction.)

[Are these REALLY holograms?]([http://amasci.com/amateur/holo3.html](http://amasci.com/amateur/holo3.html))

<comment><USER4> Interesting. I never quite grokked rainbow holograms, so perhaps there's something in that.

But it's unfair to say all white-light holograms aren't holograms. A normal Denisyuk reflection hologram made with lasers and everything will replay perfectly well under a halogen lamp.

<comment><USER2> > I never quite grokked rainbow holograms,

If you made a scratch hologram, but your compass-point had a small cluster of fifty tiny needles instead of a single big needle, that comes close to the fringe-structure of Benton white-light holograms.

:)

> But it's unfair to say all white-light holograms aren't holograms

True. By "white light" I was referring to Rainbow / credit-card / Benton holograms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It might be better to use the "Scratch Holograms" link at the top of that paper, as it has better exposition and a video. :)

[http://amasci.com/amateur/holo1.html](http://amasci.com/amateur/holo1.html)

<comment><USER2> Latest trick: LP albums, rotating scratch-hologram animations:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLuvkcV2oi4&t=0m26s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLuvkcV2oi4&t=0m26s)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqNF9IWmFQE&list=PL60100E8F3...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqNF9IWmFQE&list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1&index=11)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9gRPtkSOn0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9gRPtkSOn0)

Also gallery artists:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_sjQRYhX4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_sjQRYhX4)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G36kP8g6SrI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G36kP8g6SrI)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reM6XhbkQXM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reM6XhbkQXM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Museum of Math in NYC has a wall with several intricate examples.

[http://momath.org/wp-content/gallery/main- gallery/img_2757.j...](http://momath.org/wp-content/gallery/main- gallery/img_2757.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER7> I've played with this a bit, it was fun.

</comment><comment><USER8> The lazy nerd in me wonders if he can abuse sth like a dot-matrix printer to automate this.

<comment><USER9> This is actually something I did as a university project. We calculated computer generated holograms (CGH). To print them out, we found a ultra-high- DPI fotographic slide printer and got special small-grain film to print on. Then we printed the holograms, shone coherent light through the slides, and... nothing. I think we never found out why it didn't work, probably the contrast was not high enough. However, as a last effort, we used a simple 600dpi inkjet printer on overhead slides, and it actually worked! It seems there is actually enough information in the low-frequency part of the hologram to reconstruct an image.

A couple of things we printed were simple geometric objects, 3d models of ants, and the USS enterprise :-). It was pretty cool, unfortunately I don't have the material any more.

One thing I'm wondering is why nobody is trying to create a 3D holographic display (the Microsoft HoloLens isn't holographic AFAIK). TFT displays are getting in the dpi range where it should be possible. You could easily render the holograms with modern GPUs. (We actually investigated this back then (~2005) and it was then possible by abusing textures and doing things like putting two complex numbers in one ARGB texture. However we did not have more time for the project, and there was no benefit over just running on our cluser. This was before shaders, so it should be even easier now.)

<comment><USER8> The inkjet method sounds like it has reasonable cost. Maybe there is a way to use a laser printer. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Back in the old "Circuit Cellar" magazine era, they made a printer-hologram by photographing it onto film transparency.

I recall that it was a "binary hologram" 300dpi covering a full 11" page, then reduced to a few-mms-wide patch on monochrome slide film. Obviously the main challenge would be in getting the darned thing in focus, so the fine pattern doesn't blur out into gray.

Then, print out a feet-wide paper copy, so the pattern ends up as a few-cm hologram on your slide film.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: WindowsKnowHow – A video guide to Windows 10 - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
I appreciate that HN is probably not my target audience but I just recently launched my own video training course on Windows 10 for beginners and non-techies and would love to get some brutally-honest but constructive feedback from the HN community (e.g. are the course videos too long, too boring, too techie, too pointless etc?).
https://www.WindowsKnowHow.com
There are around 10 sample videos available for free on the homepage, but you can also sign up for a free 7-day trial (no credit card required) and gain access to the entire course (60 videos) by signing up here:
https://www.windowsknowhow.com/signup/free-trial-contact-for....
All fields on the sign-up form are mandatory, but feel free to enter the following dummy info for the fields below:
Company Name: HackerNews; Role: Reviewer; No of users you'd like to train: 1;
You will need to provide a valid email address so that I can send the login details.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Might be more successful publishing them videos on YouTube for free and collecting ad revenue than having people pay for it, as the content presented in this website is already free on YouTube.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yes I was thinking I may go down that route if it fails to take off. I have a few videos on Youtube already, one of which has over 500k views, so that might actually be a feasible option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I watched the example videos and I found it to be well-written and narrated, probably by professional voice actor. While I had my doubt, after watching the video, I found it much better in quality than those found in Youtube. I might recommend it to people who are not technical savvy. What I'd like to see is to be able to know which video I have completed, and also after watching certain sets, get a certificate of completion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Yes I got a professional voice actor to narrate it as my voice is way too dull and I didn't want to send people to sleep ;)

I will definitely plan to auto-mark videos as watched and also produce a completion certificate - these are great ideas, thank you.

I also plan to make the video page layout more like YouTube, with the video window taking up 2/3 width of the page and the list of videos taking up the other 1/3 width down the right hand side. Unfortunately I don't yet have the tech skills to do that, but working on it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Links to the examples are broken at this time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean the sample videos on the home page? All working well for me. What do you get when you click them? They should point to Vimeo and open the video in a lightbox.

<comment><USER4> E.g. on selecting 'Surf the Web with Microsoft Edge' I get a Vimeo page saying "Sorry, we couldn't find that page" for URL [https://vimeo.com/252211328](https://vimeo.com/252211328)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, that could be because I've enabled domain protection so the videos can only be accessed when clicking the link from my site. If you open the link in a new tab for example, you'll most likely get that error. Are you opening in a new window or just regular left-clicking? I think/hope the latter should work.

<comment><USER4> I was left-clicking. I found that it occurs on Chrome and Firefox but not Edge.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah ok thanks. I will definitely investigate. Very strange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Length of videos should be expressed in x:xx, not x.xx

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, thanks. Will amend. It's the little things that count.</comment></comment>


Y Combinator-Funded Start-ups - <AUTHOR> http://ycuniverse.com/startups.php

<comment><AUTHOR> I imported the list from <http://yclist.com> into my own mysql database because I want to be able to improve this list by adding new columns, re- purposing the data, etc.

I also wanted this list, along with all other yc-related information, on <http://ycuniverse.com> , which I am still building out.

Feel free to tell me how I can improve on the list and the site.</comment>


Ask NH: Pandora stations for hours of programming/focus? - <AUTHOR>

What are some good stations/groups/bands/mixes to set up and listen to on Pandora when trying to focus or development/programming? <comment><USER2> <http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/album/The_Last_Resort/140466>

</comment><comment><USER3> I ditched Pandora a long time ago for the sixty one: <http://www.thesixtyone.com/>

I like the moods->remix for when I'm programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> nice, I forgot that I had an account with them, created a lot time ago (11/08). I'll go check them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My Miles Davis station is great for that. The station "Groove Salad" on soma.fm is also a good one--depending on your tastes, they may have some other channels that work better for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> I always lime to listen to my Mogwai station. It's nice because it's all instrumentals with no words.

</comment><comment><USER6> QuickMix of Ratatat and Sound Dimension - All instrumental.</comment>


Ask HN: Confused programmer looking for career advice - <AUTHOR>

Basically, I'm a little frustrated with my current situation. I feel like I'm kind of stuck in a place where I really don't want to be and I'm looking for some career advice.
I'm currently working part-time, but really don't like the work I'm doing (bad development practices, boring work, bad pay, making no progress as a developer, ...). I've been looking for a new job for more than 6 months but got no real offers. I got some interviews, but didn't get a job (I admit selling myself is not my strong side). Where I live the economic situation is bad and job market pretty slow, so few companies are hiring at the moment.
I have a CS degree, cca 4 years of experience developing internal enterprise software projects, mostly with .Net (but no publicly available work to show off with). I don't think I'm some kind of super "ninja-rockstar" programmer but I believe I'm competent enough (I solve problems, get stuff done, follow good practices, read programming blogs, follow tech trends, have 2K reputation on StackOverflow).
I'd really like to work on something more exciting, where I could solve interesting problems and develop cool new products with modern technologies, somewhere where good development practices are encouraged, somewhere in a more startup-like, product oriented environment.
I'm really not sure what to do next, what to focus on to improve my options. Here's some ideas I'm considering about what to try next. Should I
-try and build something cool myself (don't think I'm ready to start my own startup just yet)? -find some open source project and try to contribute? -try to find some work on freelancing sites?
-learn some new technologies that cool kids are using today or improve existing skills? -try to learn/improve some other (non-programming) skills? -look for a job more aggressively, try some foreign job sites, go to community events, meetups,...? -some other stuff that I didn't thought of?
So I'd really like to hear your opinion on what should I focus on. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> It sounds like you already have a few ideas, and in my opinion, all of them are good. But first, you need to figure out _where_ you want to be.

1\. Are you happy with .Net development? Or are you willing to explore something new?

2\. What do like doing? Do you enjoy web development? Then stick to it. Otherwise, maybe a small project in say, a mobile app will tell you if you like that kind of work.

With that said, I have found that attending community events is a great place to start. You get to talk to and mingle with like minded folks, and even if it is a community around a technology/methodology that you have little or no experience with, you can still talk to folks and see what they think. Most communities I am a member of are always helpful. I have also found coding meetups as a great place to get to know people.

But the networking element is very big, and useful. People need to get to know you.

Once you have picked, say .Net, or Ruby, or iOS, try a small project with it. Make a presentation of what you have learned. Again, nothing teaches you like teaching others. And people will remember you.

It seems you are already somewhat of a "producer" (your StackOverflow score) - adding to that never hurts. Whether that is working with someone at a coding session, giving a presentation, writing on your blog about your learnings, or contributing to open source - it helps.

Feel free to experiment a bit - Spent a little time on a mini-project of your own and see if you can turn it into something you like doing (this takes effort and discipline especially if it's using new technologies, and not a very small project). If that that does not work, look for some OSS project to contribute.

My take on this is simple - people admire those who are passionate about what they do. Companies (and tech people higher up on the food chain) are always sniffing around the local groups to find talent (at least that has been my experience).

I personally do a little of everything, and although I do find that I spread myself a little thin, it has helped me. I speak (and help out) at local user groups, I used to host and manage two of my own, I usually have a project (in a new language) of my own. My OSS contribution has been next to nothing, but I am hoping to turn that around soon.

On a final note - learn how to sell yourself. You sound like you already have some very good practices - you just don't know how to "work" it. One of the books I recommend to everyone is "Never Eat Alone" - It truly changed the way I see every relationship and helped me tons along the way.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer! It's true that I don't really know where I'd like to be and that I should figure that out. But I know where I don't want to be anymore (that's where I'm right now) - I don't want to be developing "boring" internal enterprise software that no one really cares about. I'd like to work in a more product-like and startup-like environment and I feel it's pretty hard to make that transition. (probably because of my past work(no public work to show), not enough networking and slow job market)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think it just depends what you ultimately want. All those options you listed are great things you could be doing, but it depends on what you want your goals to be... we can't really decide that for you.

So, do you want to build something? Well, why aren't you ready? Everyone is ready to build something cool. If you want to do it, you'll find a way, even if that involves learning more or finding people to help. However, if you want to take the startup path, you have to know you want that.

Do you want to do freelance work? Well, start now. Get any and all jobs, build your reputation and gain experience. However, again, is that you want? Do you see yourself doing freelance for years? Full-time? Part-time?

Do you want to have another job? This is really option 3 in terms of living and being able to support yourself. You either 1. Start a company, 2. Work for a company, 3. Do freelance. It is very dependent on your values, goals, personality, etc. Do you want to deal with the hard work, stress and risk of a startup? Do you want to work a 9 - 5 for someone else because it's potentially more stable and less stressful?

I think you just need to ask yourself the questions about what you want for your future and then decide from there.

In regards to the other things listed... open source projects, learning more (programming and non-programming, networking, etc. I would say regardless of which option you choose (startup, job, freelance), you should always be doing those things. Learning and developing your skills, be them technical or not, is ALWAYS essential... as is networking.

Anyway, I know didn't really tell you what you should do. However, hopefully I helped you realize that you just need to take a step back and assess what you want out of life and how you will be happy... then do whatever it takes to get that!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer! What I meant when I wrote I'm not ready is that I'm probably not ready to start my own company. But I'd love to work in a more startup-like environment. The main problem is how to escape my current position ("boring" internal business software development) and find something more "exciting". I find it kind of hard to make that transition and I'm asking what to focus on to make it easier...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It depends on what you're interested in.

Do you love web development? Build a web app that makes your life a little easier.

Wanna learn mobile? Make a simple iPhone or Android app and put it in an app store.

Maybe that's not what you're looking to do. Try submitting patches to Firefox or a different open source project.

Not only will you learn a TON by following through on something like an iPhone app or fixing a bug in Firefox, but it'll show potential employers your ability to get shit done.

Just try and think about what will make you a unique hire. If you were looking at your resume next to someone else's, come up with something that you would put on yours that would make you hire yourself.

Remember, the people working the jobs you want to do are your peers.

</comment><comment><USER5> You might be in a strong position with that part-time job, if it covers basic living costs. It leaves extra time that full-timers don't have. With this time, you can try ideas that may or may not pay off, like freelancing, start your own company, or contribute to open source in the hope of gaining a reputation that brings in work / job offers. Often on HN there's talk of quitting a full-time job to start a start-up. That's high-risk unless you're married or in long-term relationship with someone who has a secure job. But working part-time while doing your own thing part-time too sounds potentially good to me, however boring or unsatisfying the part-time job is. And BTW it'd be a lot worse if you had a full-time boring job, right? ;)

</comment><comment><USER6>
      Where I live the economic situation is bad and job market pretty slow,
      so few companies are hiring at the moment.

Surprised no one has mentioned it: why not move?

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't have any concrete advice to add, but I think this is an awesome question and I admire your positive attitude.

Maybe the one thing I would say is, be willing to move if you can. I left my hometown when I was 26 (for grad school in my case), and it was the best thing I ever did.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you sending out resumes and interviewing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I am, but the results are not good. I got some interviews however but my CV probably looks best to companies that I'd not like to work for (internal enterprise development).</comment></comment>


SmartBird - <AUTHOR> http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/11369_11439.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> I find it difficult to believe it's not a rendering of yet another academic research, but apparently this one _is_ real [1].

[1] [http://www.festo.com/net/en_corp/SupportPortal/Downloads/148...](http://www.festo.com/net/en_corp/SupportPortal/Downloads/148194)</comment>


A rundown of the new Gmail - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/gmail/stay-composed-heres-quick-rundown-new-gmail/ <comment><USER2> The most exciting news here is that they're iterating on Gmail again. It was clear that Gmail was stagnating for a while as they were investing in Inbox. It's unfortunate that Inbox didn't take off, but now that it looks like they're putting the effort behind Gmail proper, we'll be seeing continual updates and improvements.

In just the past 6 months we've seen native Gmail add-ons (that work across web and mobile) and now confidential mode, Calendar/Keep/Tasks sidebars, and Material look and feel.

It's more work for us working on the InboxSDK, but I'm gladly willing to make the tradeoff of some extra work for a more robust and vibrant underlying platform.

<comment><USER3> I've been an avid Inbox user for years. Anyone knows what's next for Inbox? Looks like it might be folded back into Gmail and discontinued as standalone?

<comment><USER4> It seems like most of these new features _are_ Inbox, so I won't be surprised if we see it discontinued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I love the new functional features (Calendar view, snooze an email, add an email to your task list, etc.), the new UI has a lot of problems.

First and foremost, the "Feedback" modal dialog is completely broken in Firefox. The menu loads but then immediately disappears. It blinks back into view intermittently every several seconds, but I can't see it long enough to populate the form they provide.

They established a new dock for non-email applications on the right-hand side, but decided to leave the Hangouts interface shoehorned into the lower-left corner. It's too cramped to use and forces them to waste a huge amount of horizontal space to the right of the menu options above it ("Inbox", "Sent", etc.).

I count 5 vertical scrollbars visible on my small screen. The scrollbar in the primary inbox pane is there whether there's overflow or not. I tried selecting the "Compact" display density option and limited the list to 20 emails per page to guarantee that scrolling wouldn't be necessary, but I still have to look at the scrollbar. I also dislike that the inbox tabs ("Primary", "Social", etc.) aren't pinned to the top -- if I accidentally scroll on the inbox pane, they vanish.

<comment> dylan-m Oh gosh, the scrollbars. The scrollbars are more of a disaster than before. I was trying to figure out Gmail for someone with macular degeneration who doesn't want to deal with screen readers or Mutt. Instead she stubbornly uses a magnifier and bumps the font size. It was _impossible_ because Gmail's sidebar ends up taking over the entire screen, the messages pane gets squished into oblivion, and there's no horizontal scrolling. Indeed, there is still no horizontal scrolling for the messages pane, and there are even more things in the way of it.

(Incidentally, I tried setting up a screen reader as an ambient helper to wean her onto the idea, but Gmail's HTML client, which is the only thing that doesn't fall to pieces here, works terribly for screen readers).

This really should be basic stuff for a frontend web developer: the main scrollbar (the one attached to your root html element) should control the scroll position of your main content. No excuses, you lazy gits, we have `position: sticky` now. Inbox has this figured out, and that's probably one of the reasons I like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I really want is a the Smart Reply feature to point out to the user that more than one question was asked of them.

It's so boring to ask two questions and get a reply to one or ask someone to choose one of two options and they reply with "Yes, go ahead".

<comment><USER7> Not sure I'd blame the client for people not reading their emails...

<comment><USER8> Why do you think they were blaming the client? They simply expressed the desire for a feature to help remedy a problem caused by humans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It looks like the good things of Inbox are now in Gmail.

That would explain the lack of updates on the Inbox iOS App (which still doesn't have proper iPhone X support)?

<comment><USER10> > It looks like the good things of Inbox are now in Gmail.

The feature I use most in Inbox is the quick "mark done" which removes the mail from sight but allows searching for it later.

The automatic bundling is not bad but not terribly useful.

<comment><USER11> I find it so strange that people don't find the bundling useful, because to me it's mind-boggling powerful.

Being able to open a custom bundle of Git commits from yesterday, scan them, then archive them all in a single click is huge! Being able to click on a bundle created for my upcoming trip and see all my emails for that trip there (hotel, flights, etc...) is such a time saver. Then being able to snooze those bundles to another date/time is also huge.

I actually want them to expand it more, allow me to bundle multiple emails that I choose together! If I get 3 separate emails about something I need to do next week, I want to be able to make an ad-hoc bundle for those 3, then snooze them all to another time together.

I can absolutely see how it's not for everyone, and I don't want anyone to think i'm implying that it's wrong to not want it, but i'm just amazed that there is such a varied response to them!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ha - that blog post is 26MB large and makes my laptop cry

<comment><USER13> Well, and the page itself is just hideously unusable. 1/3 of the space is covered with noise begging me to leave the article I'm trying to read. The top 1/3 is 80% blank space that keeps popping up and going away as I scroll, making the simple act of scrolling through an article feel unpredictable, as I'm never sure if I'm even going to be able to see the entire animation they want me to look at. Overall the experience of reading this blog is claustrophobic and stress-inducing. I almost thought I was on Medium for a bit.

<comment><USER14> They somehow made the blog post more painful to read than a CNN article. That's talent right there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Actually, the new gmail is: [https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/)

<comment><USER16> Agreed. And: [https://tutanota.com/](https://tutanota.com/)

Gmail used to be good alright, but then it started to ask for my phone number all the time. I've switched to Tutanota recently, much better IMO, particularly the new client: [https://mail.tutanota.com/](https://mail.tutanota.com/)

<comment><USER17> The design with multiple domains is pretty annoying.

So I register email@example.com but forget to register email@example.com and anybody can squat it and impersonate me from the same service?

Not to mention they blocked my IP after registering 3 of the 5 available domains.

<comment><USER18> Same problem with the old GMX. "was that email@example.com or email@example.com" \- I get it, people _should_ be able to differentiate, but they're really not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seems awesome! I'll be switching back once they implement the automatic travel bundle. I've gotten used to it a lot and it's been so helpful. I travel pretty regularly, often with more complex trips than single round trip flight + 1 hotel, their bundling has been super helpful.

I also use it as my travel calendar. Gives me a better view of my coming travel than a calendar.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Finally, a new confidential mode allows you to remove the option to forward, copy, download or print messages—useful for when you have to send sensitive information via email like a tax return or your social security number. You can also make a message expire after a set period of time to help you stay in control of your information."

No, thanks. I like my e-mail archive under my own control.

<comment><USER21> Lame feature. Take screenshot. File / forward to circumvent.

<comment><USER22> "Features" like these are actually worse than useless because they give users a false sense of security.

<comment><USER23> I don't understand the hate. It's still a good way to send a password or some financial information, just because you know that it's going to be deleted soon and if in the future your contact's account is hacked it will be long gone. Basically, it's a secret chat for email.

<comment><USER24> Well, i wonder how they will make other mail providers (or clients, for that matter) to honour this kind of mail headers.

<comment><USER25> My take on the criticism here is that people are ignoring that Google has a lot of customers on GMail and a lot of corporations on GSuite. Intra-office email management is another ballgame and these kinds of features are pretty common in that space (Novell had them in the 90s even).

For users outside of Googles platform the obvious solution is either not to send them or to send a managed link to the message contents via normal email.

It can't be perfect thanks to the analogue hole, but it only has to be a bit better than nothing to provide utility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone able to shed any light on what is Google's strategy regarding the Inbox/Gmail split?

<comment><USER27> look here: [https://www.computerworld.com/article/3269253/enterprise- app...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3269253/enterprise- applications/google-inbox-future.html)

Quote: "With respect to the upcoming Gmail announcement, there are no changes to Inbox by Gmail," a Google spokesperson tells me. "It remains a great product for users with specific workflows and one in which we test innovative features for email."

My opinion: Does not sound confident for me... it will be a always beta product?!

<comment><USER28> Gmail was in beta for over five years ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I can't see the "Try the new Gmail" setting. Is there a geographic/locale restriction? (I tried switching my account to English without luck)

<comment><USER30> Blog post came before they hit the big ol' deploy button.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, they went:

./publish-blog-post.sh

./deploy-gmail.sh

instead of the other way around :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'll probably stick to Inbox because the pin/sweep workflow is really nice, but snoozing was the real game changer for me and it's good that they've put that in Gmail proper now. The follow up thing looks nice too, that'd be nice in Inbox but could be tricky if messages are archived. "This has been pinned for x days" warnings would be neat.

<comment><USER33> When snoozing with Inbox, did it allow you to type in a snooze time that would be interpreted intelligently (e.g., "8 hours" or "3pm May 5")? Or does Inbox only allow you to select from a predefined list of options ("tomorrow", "next week") or use their clunky date picker? Both Streak (a Gmail plugin) and FollowUpThen (an email forwarding service) allowed you to type basically anything, which was way faster.

<comment><USER32> Nope it doesn't have that - I can definitely imagine it being useful but their defaults are pretty good in my experience. They do have "snooze until day of event" which is quite nice for things like train tickets or meetup confirmations. And they have location-based snoozing which is occasionally handy. Sounds like a nicer way to do it though now you mention it!

<comment><USER33> Thanks for the info!

Yea, I think having good defaults and falling back to the date-picker interface (graphical calendar) is a good solution for mobile, but when I'm on a laptop with a keyboard it's way faster to just type.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > _New features on mobile, like high-priority notifications, can notify you of > important messages to help you stay focused without interruption._

Err... wat. Explain again how "high-priority _notifications_ " will help me stay focused "without interruption". This is a new level of newspeak. The ringtone is now LOUDER, which will help you enjoy silence.

Anyway, I don't care about any of this. All I want to know is if I'll still be able to disable conversation view in the new interface.

<comment><USER35> The next sentence says: "Plus, Gmail will start suggesting when to unsubscribe from newsletters or offers you no longer care about."

And the following screenshot: [https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog- publish-prod/ima...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish- prod/images/Gmail_Convergence_Consumer_Image_4.max-1000x1000.png)

Shows: "Try notifications for only your most important emails: Turn on / No thanks".

So in context, the message is not that "high-priority notifications" mean louder ringtones but that (if you accept) Gmail will try to notify you only when an incoming email is important. That hopefully means fewer interruptions from newsletters and other bacn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Oh wow, this is neat! Some features like inline controls are a long time need. Good that they are finally here. I hope they refine further to make it look like a chat app cause that might further speed up conversations IMO!

</comment><comment><USER37> How did they manage the expiring e-mail thing without breaking standards?

<comment><USER38> It probably only works gmail to gmail?

<comment><USER39> Didn't either imap or Exchange also allow for 'withdrawing' emails?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Surprised nobody mentions the availability of Google Tasks for iOS here. Or is that old news?

I use tasks because it lives on top of Google Calendar, which I use and look at every day. Every other task-tracking option has failed because if it's not in front of me then it's not helpful.

The biggest problem, until now, has been the lack of a mobile app for tasks. I, got one, am excited about this.

</comment><comment><USER41> The original gmail was quite clean fast and efficient to use. Something about recent updates seem to increase obfuscation on the desktop with the intent to make you spend more time in the software. Thankfully the mobile clients have to remain uncluttered.

</comment><comment><USER42> What's going to happen to the Inbox app?

It looks like they're converging but there are things like grouping of Trips, grouping by day, and pinning (which also takes emails and attachments offline) which I really like in Inbox...

</comment><comment><USER43> Nothing on inline video playback and embedded YouTube videos. I think many desktop clients have that functionality. That would make possible email news letters that can have the richness of Medium posts.

<comment><USER44> God, I hope this never comes true.

Email is not the right medium for this. Stick to blogs and webpages for this instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> There is reason to be concerned with time expiring messages and other features that fragment the web and email, ultimately making us all more dependent on Google Services.

<comment><USER46> I use gmail as an archive of all the data / communications I've ever received.

Now that messages will expire and be removed from this archive I suppose it's time to look at alternatives.

<comment><USER47> How will that help you? If you receive one of those emails from a Gmail user, it will probably only contain a link, not the content. So you still won't be able to archive it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I don't know but web interfaces are not a thing to me anymore. I am using Airmail for both my personal and work email. Those new features are just meh.

<comment><USER49> Airmail is great until I find that I collect a lot of mail - At that point - it starts becoming extremely buggy.

I tried it a few times - each time worked great at the start and then fell apart once the mail volume grew.

Gmail's web interface, crappy though it may be, seems to be the interface that works best out of the lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> does anyone know the split of these kind of posts on the different blog domains of Google ?

I find more meaninfgul postings on the *.googleblog.com sites (e.g. [https://research.googleblog.com](https://research.googleblog.com) or [https://india.googleblog.com/](https://india.googleblog.com/)) versus the blog.google sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know about the split, but agree that more interesting (and HN relevant) posts are published on the research blog than the more product- oriented blog.google.

This HN domain leaderboard also ranks the research blog domain higher (74 vs 89) over the past year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16692149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16692149)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Something as bare minimum as stemming while searching(ie, if you presently search in Gmail for the string 'orange', the results does not include emails that may only contain the string 'oranges') strings inside emails is yet to be implemented by Google. Any possible reason why something that sounds simple is yet not implemented?

<comment><USER51> Wildcard searches are expensive and gmail has a LOT of data. I bet it would cost them more than you expect.

<comment><USER52> But stemming isn't wildcard...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I think the way the Gmail team implements new features is quite cautious when I compare that, for example, to the recent Reddit redesign.

Progressive and slow changes, so that the users don't notice them and get overwhelmed is the way to go. I bet Google has the manpower and funds to A/B test the usefulness and user acceptance of any such changes.

</comment><comment><USER54> Google is ruining its products with Material Design. The animation is not accessible for people who have difficulty with visual motion. There needs to be a way to turn all animation off. It's bad enough already and keeps getting worse.

Edit: you should learn more about visual motion accessibility before downvoting me.

</comment><comment><USER55> I know they put in a lot of hard work on improving the product... But I wish that they would divert just a minuscule amount of that effort into changing the font to something other than Arial.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just pick "Segoe UI" or "Verdana" like everyone else.

<comment><USER56> Poking at the new UI, it looks like it uses the system default sans-serif font. So you're completely in control. If you want Segoe UI or Verdana, use that as your system default, and Gmail will reflect that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> It appears that the snooze function is straight from Google Inbox (inbox.google.com). Meanwhile, you still can't unmark messages marked as spam in Google Inbox.

I kind of alternate between Gmail and Google Inbox because they present different views. It's all pretty confusing.

</comment><comment><USER58> I can already hear the laptop fans screaming due to all these useless animations.

</comment><comment><USER59> Wish they can add different swipe left/right actions to their mobile APP. It's the only reason I don't use their Gmail APP. Others Mail APP has less real- time sync than the official one.

</comment><comment><USER60> > Plus, Gmail will start suggesting when to unsubscribe from newsletters or > offers you no longer care about.

That sounds great. My only other feature request is an unsubscribe button in the list view actions.

</comment><comment><USER61> Nice features.

That being said the "do more without leaving the inbox" seems like workarounds to the fact that Gmail lacks a 3 pane interface.

A 3 pane interface makes much of the deeper features Gmail is adding on message hover redundant. One could argue that in a 3 pane interface you need to click the message you are interested in to get access to advanced actions but in Gmail you don't. And while this is true, I'd say the need to hover over the message actually makes it harder. The hover needs to be maintained while in the 3 pane interface once you click you don't need to maintain your mouse position. And you have far more context, since the entire email is displayed while still showing you all your other messages and not yanking you out of the inbox.

<comment><USER62> Gmail has had a three pane interface for about 6 years. It's enabled under Labs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I guess there is no incentive for google to support this properly but the web client is completely pointless for anybody who has multiple gmail adresses. I want to see my stuff in a combined inbox.

<comment><USER63> there's an option in gmail labs to activate multiple accounts, I've never tried it though

<comment><USER17> I think I have tried that and have it enabled but the result is completely pointless.

1) it does not combined inboxes (at least I see no option to view the other emails)

2) it only allows you to send emails from the different accounts. Emphasis on the "From" \- the sender will still be the original email address, so that is completely useless for combination of like a public and private email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Oh, so that's the reason why I haven't been getting mail notifications for the past week. The messages just haven't been important enough. Thanks google, you always have my back.

</comment><comment><USER65> I cant find the Button :(

</comment><comment><USER66> Moved off google products completely. A few years ago I would probably have been excited about this but today I can't shake the cynic telling me everything they do is to just spy more efficiently.

<comment><USER67> Was thinking of deleting my Google account completely and moving over to FastMail but I wish they had a free option like email@example.com for no cost. But then again, I do like no ads.

<comment><USER68> Having used and switched between a bunch of free-or-isp-or-university email addresses back in the 90s and even a little bit beyond, I have never been so glad as to have my own vanity domain.

As it is, my email address has now survived three different providers. I'm a happy Fastmail user now, but there's no way I'd accept an @fastmail.com email address.

For me, $5 a month for ad free email that supports push notifications on iOS is pretty nice. The file / web hosting on Fastmail is fun too. Feels like an old school ISP.

<comment><USER67> I should really switch over to Fastmail. I currently have a personal email w/ email@example.com but also a basic G-Suite email w/ firstname.lastname@example.com. I would save $2 a month by doing so and have one email rather than two.

Do you still have an account w/ Google, despite using Fastmail as your email provider? I was thinking of just deleting my entire Google account but I have my personal email address associated w/ so many things.

I also love the old school feel of Fastmail but I don't know, a few user interface tweaks wouldn't hurt.

<comment><USER68> I do still have the account with Google due to having used Google SSO with a few 3rd party services. I've thought about murdering those / changing my sign- in so I could get rid of that account, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Or you know let google photos work with google mail so you can insert a photo without some convoluted work around.

</comment><comment><USER27> No love for Inbox. Great after I switched... I only need bundles working in Gmail and I can switch again :(

</comment><comment><USER70> Oh well, I will keep using Thunderbird.

</comment><comment><USER71> Ah,more "improvements"...

</comment><comment><USER72> This reminds me I still need to get rid of some 3k+ emails in my inbox... thanks Google!

<comment><USER73> Afaiac the whole point of gmail is that you don't have to get rid of anything from your inbox.

<comment><USER74> Your inbox != All your emails. There was this "Inbox Zero" thing/philosophy/cult out there years ago, and some of its tenets are pretty interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Seems like some good new features, but man does it look ugly.

</comment><comment><USER76> A few unnecessary features here or there.

</comment><comment><USER77> Nice try FBI

...it's neat. I'm just making a crack about them copying the disappearing messages functionality from other providers like protonmail.

</comment><comment><USER78> Sounds like exotic features

</comment><comment><USER79> Am I the only one that dreads new product updates recently? I used to be super enthusiastic about every new update for everything(cool! more stuff!) but Android, Youtube and Windows 10 updates especially have made me extremely jaded - it feels like every update I either lose some functionality or something I used every day has now moved to a completely different place for no good reason. I seriously consider disabling firmware updates on my phone for that reason( if not for security updates, I think I would have done it already) - I don't want to re-learn my devices every time there is an update. Youtube interface has changed several times in the last year for me, every time moving some links that I use all the time elsewhere - "my videos" for example is now hidden 3 layers deep, when previously it was on the front page. Just why. I don't want your new shiny interface, I want to keep using the stuff that I know.

<comment><USER80> Each year the internet and its services are less and less for hackers and more and more for the general public. This is reflected in how everything is designed.

The average person has totally different needs and usage patterns than power users. If you want to avoid this phenomena, where the services you use slowly degrade and lose features, favor products that specifically target power users. Products for the general population, like Android, Youtube, and Windows, will over time degrade more and more towards some lowest common denominators.

<comment><USER81> "The average person has totally different needs and usage patterns than power users."

There is no average person. Different person have different use cases and preferences. No person wants known liked things to be removed or made less good.

Apple devices are meant for Apple power users. I use Windows and Linux (KDE) and I am uncomfortable and constraint on Mac OS.

There is a reason why people spend (or spent) hours to discover and learn even their phone or TV software.

<comment><USER82> > No person wants known liked things to be removed or made less good.

Have you missed dozes of HN posts and threads about git being overcomplicated and overengineered? A lot of software engineers would love for git to remove a lot of features they don't use because they find it too complex. (For the record, I personally don't agree with them at all, but it is a very popular opinion).

Hell, many routinely rebase and squash commits for the sake of simplicity, throwing out a truthful development history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> What is good about Gmail? Imap is a nightmare if you travel a lot (Please log- in via Browser), it is a privacy nightmare..If you forget your password, who can you call? What is good about it? Okay, it is free and has the best "search" option.

You can get a domain with Webmail and IMAP for a few bucks.

gandi.net (France)

infomaniak.com (Switzerland)

<comment><USER84> Well, gmail IMAP is terribly terrible. I'm eyeballing fastmail (was using it for a bit and mail/calendar/contacts were working like a charm) but for my usecase I would have to pay 15usd/month (2 domains, and 2 persons, one having accounts on both domains - totalling 3 accounts according to them) which would be quite pricey. Thanks for the hints about infomaniak.com - looks ok. Any comments?

<comment><USER83> I use both.

Informaniak has decent webmail. IMAP is okay, didn't get SMTP to work with k9 android email client. I don't have my domain with them, I buy email/IMAP as a service. I think it is 17 Euros per year.

gandi's IMAP seems more robust.

Infos [https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/1944/ordering- emai...](https://www.infomaniak.com/en/support/faq/1944/ordering-email- addresses-with-infomaniak)

Order (may have to change to English): [https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/e-mail](https://www.infomaniak.com/en/hosting/e-mail)

<comment><USER84> Why IMAP is only ok? Any particular downsides? Any hints on problems with SMTP? Those are my actual two main protocols to use the mail (I use gmail webmail only because their email is funny in terms of 'archiving' [delete & expunge sometimes works]) and k9mail is my main mobile client (Thunderbird on the desktop).

<comment><USER83> I live in China. This could be an IP thing or something.

On my Android k9 client I never got sendmail to work with informaniak.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Old School PC Fonts - <AUTHOR> https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/ <comment><USER2> That's a really impressive resource. I admit to being pretty overwhelmed without e.g. example screenshots of applications and video modes with which I was already familiar.

I remember the first time I used a text editor in one of the higher-resolution editing modes. Was it Turbo C? Anyway it was really uncomfortable in a way. Like if you switched your current monitor into HiDPI mode and your mouse was completely squashed vertically. A mouse cursor seems like it should preserve its aspect ratio.

I tried this again recently with MRed I think? Anyway it was just as jarring. Despite the resolution bump I preferred the old way. Maybe one gets used to it after a while.</comment>


Do Loose Lips Sink Ships? - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/06/do-loose-lips-s.html

<comment><USER2> I can't remember who originally said this, but if an idea is good you don't have to worry about keeping it a secret - you'll actually struggle to have people accept it.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it's largely an execution play, then yes, they do. Otherwise, they don't.

</comment><comment><USER4> but my idea is too valuable!</comment>


Ask HN: How do I find other work from home hackers like me? - <AUTHOR>

I have been a stay at home hacker for 9 years now and while it certainly has benefits, one of the biggest drawbacks is that there are no people I can simply walk over and talk to about my work. Is there a site that will help me find other people who do what I do (other than HN) <comment><USER2> Depending on your location, there may be institutions similar to Dogpatch Labs or Hacker Dojo. These are places where hackers can get cheap temporary 1-2 person spaces to work. I don't know of any outside of the bay area though.

I think a 'find other hackers site' is a great idea. Given that you are a hacker yourself, why don't you make a site like this? If it was well made, I would use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are several physical locations where you can get office space of that sort but I am looking for something online.

I would really like there to already be something out there, it seems those things that are close tend to trend more to the Q&A genre like Stackoverflow and Quora (lots of money in this area right now it seems) but what I imagine is really more about creating connections. Closer to eHarmony than Stackoverflow. If something isnt out there I may try to throw something together if I can figure out how to monetize it, I picked up thenextcubeover.com just because it was the first thing that came to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to see this.

I am a corporate developer. I'm in my tenth year in the industry, and work so much that all I have a passion for anymore is programming, frameworks, algorithms and hardware. It would be great to find other people to hang out with that love the same thing (instead of trying to relate to people that don't). Every time I try to make new friends I feel like the world's most boring alien. Hanging out with work friends is kinda awkward. I used to be able to relate to people on video games and movies, but I don't have time for those anymore :(.

I imagine there are a lot of us, we should have a way to find each other.

I would imagine the biggest challenge something like this would have is keeping the recruiters out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Depending on where you live, there may be a Jelly: <http://workatjelly.com> which is a bunch of work-from-home-ers who get together to cowork in coffee shops.

I live in Chicago, and ours is _the best Jelly_. Beyond words awesome. We meet twice a week and I get/give great advice: <http://jellychicago.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm in the same situation as you (although I've only been working at home for ~6 months so far). Feel free to send me an AIM: comradeb14ck</comment>


Uber fight to dismiss rape lawsuit shows it wont take responsibility for drivers - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/04/07/ubers-fight-to-dismiss-a-lawsuit-over-an-alleged-rape-shows-it-wont-take-responsibility-for-its-drivers/

<comment><USER2> I am very sad for the Indian Startups in this space who are facing a lot of problems because of the rape incident involving Uber. I understand that some things are beyond the control of these companies but incidents like this affect the public opinion about these companies in a very negative way.

1\. TaxiForSure founders have to sell their company to Ola Cabs mainly because of this incident.

2\. Indian Govt has banned all the mobile cab providers in Delhi, the National Capital and is trying to enforce the country wide ban.

[1] [http://www.livemint.com/Companies/t7TozTlZCAmvtSxog3OQ7L/Beh...](http://www.livemint.com/Companies/t7TozTlZCAmvtSxog3OQ7L/Behind- TaxiForSures-sellout.html#nav=most_read)

[2] [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/government-mulls-pan- india...](http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/government-mulls-pan-india-ban-of- uber-ola-and-taxiforsure-apps-678203)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm having a hard time figuring out the legal theory under which Uber _should be_ responsible for the illegal act of an Uber driver, _even if that driver were judged to be an employee (contrary to Uber 's claims & TOS)_.

If I were to rape someone, would my employer be liable?

If I were a "legit" cab driver and raped someone, would the cab company be liable?

If I were staying in a Marriott and got raped by a hotel staffer, would Marriott be liable?

Same case in airbnb. Do people really think that online companies have a higher duty of care or liability than offline equivalents?

<comment><USER4> I mean I can easily think of a reason in which they should be responsible.

If they weren't doing background checks on their employees, or ignoring results from those, or not being thorough in them?

<comment><USER5> I'm not a lawyer and can't comment on if they are liable or not, but I take issue with the idea that they should be. Adding this liability just compounds the current issues where felons are nearly incapable of becoming employed after serving their sentence. If the state determines that a person is safe enough to the general public to be released from prison, why should an employer be expected to investigate beyond that? On the flip side, if a person is a significant threat, the state should be liable for letting them out of prison, not the employer who hired them.</comment></comment></comment>


Freelancer acquires vWorker - <AUTHOR> http://www.vworker.com

<comment><USER2> I remember when rentacoder was a sure fire way to earn an extra couple of hundred bucks a month on the side and freelancer was just a bad joke.

Weird how things change.

<comment><USER3> did freelancer also acquire scriptlance??

<comment><USER4> Yes: [http://blog.freelancer.com/general- announcements/freelancer-...](http://blog.freelancer.com/general- announcements/freelancer-com-acquires-scriptlance/)</comment></comment></comment>


A New Yorker's Guide to Airbnb Pricing [Pre-2020] - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@djsegal/a-new-yorkers-guide-to-airbnb-pricing-59ef9b097478 <comment><AUTHOR> Project is from ongoing work to understand how cities, trains, and rentals interact.

\---

Source code for the javascript-based website is:

▶ [https://github.com/djsegal/pad_pricer](https://github.com/djsegal/pad_pricer)</comment>


Ask HN: Stack to start learning full-stack being a back end developer? - <AUTHOR> After working 3 years as a backend developer mainly with Java8, SQL, NoSQL, Docker and Jenkins writing webs and APIs, I want to keep improving as a whole developer.
I'd like to start learning more on the front-side of things so it'd help understand better my coworkers and understand better the whole picture of software, but I could use a little nudge to get into the right direction of what'd be best to learn.
Which stack's best as front to work with Java as back? Angular, React, just modern JS, another one...?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I just wrote some small apps using a Go back-end and Vuejs front-end. Any changes made in my editor (VS Code) would autosave and both the front-end and back-end would recompile and hot-reload. Awesome ergonomics.

I also use Java/Kotlin for back-ends and the same would work with any filewatcher/build utility.

Vue.js is the front-end framework for back-end devs who don't like front-end frameworks. I also skip the whole Vuex/Redux thing and just use vue-stash for small projects.</comment>


Distributed is not necessarily more scalable than centralized - <AUTHOR> http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2014/07/distributed-is-not-necessarily-more.html <comment><USER2> Dropbox is distributed. According to the article, it uses AWS, which is a Dynamo based system. Among its other features, Dynamo allows you to distribute data across many servers, using a hash of the data's key in order to look it up (each server gets some of the keyspace).

Riak is a similar type system.

Dropbox is "centralized" in the sense that it is one service, but it's not the opposite of distributed which would mean "running all on one computer."

Edit: I said "hash of the data's key" but really it's a hash of the key plus the bucket.

<comment><USER3> I think you missed the point. The big question is, what is "one computer"? It surely isn't just one atom (one point in space). Is something running on a CPU with several ALUs a distributed system? Is something running on a multicore server a distributed system?

So it seems, distributed systems are not defined in terms of spatial or logical distribution of "stuff being done" (because everything is distributed in this sense), but rather by assumption of (un)reliability of the links between the components, and the choice of components. And this may depend on your vantage point, too.

So if that reliability is good enough, you don't need theory of distributed systems, and it all makes the system more efficient. In that sense, Dropbox is more efficient than P2P solution because you have hidden assumption (from the user perspective) that Dropbox servers will always be available.

Edit: Also reliability of components plays a role. Thinking about it more, it really seems to be a question of hierarchy. Distributed systems are less hierarchical than the centralized counterparts; there are less bottlenecks (that may fail) but more coordination required. So the OP is basically arguing that some hierarchy scales better than no hierarchy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems the author is conflating centralized/decentralized with distributed/monolithic. Dropbox is obviously a distributed system.

</comment><comment><USER5> > The student persisted and kept repeating that "Dropbox has a bottleneck > because it is a centralized storage solution, and the distributed solution > doesn't have that bottleneck". I couldn't believe my ears.

The student is correct. Lets ignore the fact that Dropbox is actually distributed and say it is centralized because all nodes of the system belong to one provider. The only way Dropbox could have scaled to 200m users was tons of cash. In a distributed solution where each node is a provider themselves, each additional user could potentially increase the performance of the system. The distributed alternative scales much more gracefully without running into the bottleneck of needing more cash to buy more machines/storage/bandwidth. In this particular frame, distributed is most definitely always more scalable than centralized unless you have unlimited cash.

<comment><USER6> > In a distributed solution where each node is a provider themselves, each > additional user could potentially increase the performance of the system. > The distributed alternative scales much more gracefully without running into > the bottleneck of needing more cash to buy more machines/storage/bandwidth.

Wouldn't each additional user have to potentially buy more hardware to increase the performance/capacity? There's still a cost, there's still a need to buy more capacity to increase capacity -- you've just "distributed" the cost to the (organizational) nodes. Which, okay, can be useful sometimes, but clearly there's a huge market of people who would rather pay someone else to take care of it, than spend that same money (or likely more) on being a "provider themslves".

<comment><USER5> @jrochkind1

The type of distributed storage system that I'm speaking of relies on each node/user being a provider themselves.

For an example checkout [http://storj.io/](http://storj.io/)

<comment><USER6> I understand that, and I believe what I said holds.

<comment><USER5> >clearly there's a huge market of people who would rather pay someone else to take care of it, than spend that same money (or likely more) on being a "provider themslves".

There's a point that you might be missing. Similar to how you have people purchasing and maintaining powerful machines to mine bitcoin, you also have people using their spare HDD space or potentially buying dedicated storage to support the "distributed dropbox" system. The reason is that there is an incentive for doing so. You get paid for the storage/resources you provide. This adds to its scalability because any addition to the system is not only paid for but profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1) Dropbox is distributed.

2) This article doesn't actually make any argument about why a centralized system can scale as well as a distributed one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Related to 2), the answer is hierarchies. Related to 1), the linked article writes: (For those who want to nitpick, I know Dropbox is not fully centralized; it uses AWS S3 for storage and Dropbox-company servers for metadata management. Also, it employs data parallelism in the backend for scalability, but, on the spectrum, it is closer to a centralized architecture than a fully decentralized one.)

The point is to compare a more centralized architecture to a more/fully decentralized architecture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > You can employ Paxos to replicate the centralized server. In contrast, it is > often much harder to design and add fault-tolerance to a distributed system.

Ok am I missing anything. So we are employing Paxos to replicate the centralized server. Are we replicating it to itself? Because if we are not, we got ourselves a "distributed" system.

</comment><comment><USER9> My hunch is that the student is frustrated because Dropbox sync speeds are sometimes less than the network line speed (maybe due to the agent having to scan the filesystem to look for changes, or because the agent is syncing many small files, or because Dropbox or the ISP or anyone in the middle is throttling the connection). This is particularly noticeable if you sync a new computer on a different network from the rest of your Dropbox machines (say, a EC2 VPS, or on a university network away from home) because when you're on the same network, LAN sync is often used for a large portion of the initial sync.

I suspect the student thinks that distributing his/her files among his/her friends and/or multiple services (bittorrent-style) will allow his/her to increase throughput -- however, I suspect it will merely increase complexity (and possibly also cost) without actually making syncing/back-up faster.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dropbox is centralized at the organizational, jurisdictional and other levels whilst technically it may employ distributed resources. It's not incorrect to point at this centralization as risk, both in terms of availability and scalability.

This is really an industry-wide problem begging for a neat solution. Software eats middle management! (Devops => Devmangops? Mmm... mangoes...) Perhaps the world needs an open source tool in the organizational management/risk space that models business-level risk based upon commercial as well as technical infrastructure.

Perhaps the best model for developing such a capacity is a generic exchange protocol with plugins for risk management? My start brainstorming @ [http://www.ifex-project.org/our-proposals/ifex](http://www.ifex- project.org/our-proposals/ifex)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the actual confusion is about a centralized distributed system vs a peer-to-peer distributed system, which is probably what (still totally wrong) PhD student meant.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's not really clear to me what part of dropbox isn't distributed? (in the sense that it's hosted on multiple computers), the data is distributed and the processing is distributed. Do they mean it has a central controller/router or something of that kind?

</comment><comment><USER13> Chatty software able to synchronize state over the open internet using declarative concurrency is a distributed system. A high performance cluster running something like distributed message passing concurrency erlang is a distributed system. A single program written with the complexity of shared state concurrency executing over multiple cores is a distributed system. The concept of concurrency is vital for this, particularly what type of concurrency used. When this person talks about distribution what kind of concurrency is he referring to? I'd like to see this professor reimplement Dropbox for sequential execution on a single CPU to serve the world (you can only use shared state, or any other form of concurrency if you do it on the same CPU). This centralized system then should be fault tolerant. Which it absolutely will not be, as you need at least two machines for fault tolerance. This article was a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Distributed is often much more difficult to scale than centralized esp because you n^2 messages for the system to reach consensus.

Distributed tends to produce higher availability than centralized systems and often that is worth the cost.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yea AWS is not dynamo based. Dropbox uses a bunch of mysql and s3. It is hugely distributed and they have to spend a lot of human resources keeping it up.

<comment><USER16> Actually S3 is internally based on Dynamo, although this is not exposed to the end user. Straight from the horse's mouth:

[http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.h...](http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I sense much confusion in the force...</comment>


Dev says game started selling 400% better on Steam after releasing torrent - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2020/1/13/21063660/danger-gazers-torrent-steam-sales-piracy <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the Hotline Miami dev who posted bug fixes for folks on Pirate Bay

[https://www.polygon.com/2012/10/30/3577726/hotline-miami- dev...](https://www.polygon.com/2012/10/30/3577726/hotline-miami-developer- the-pirate-bay-torrent)

</comment><comment><USER3> Steam does allow free demos. It even directly features free demos on paid game pages. A torrent isn't required just to release a trial.

I guess the thought is that people wanting free stuff may not think to look on Steam, and might only look for torrents.

<comment><USER4> I suspect this is not about free access to the game but the perceived generosity of the devs. Everyone knows a demo is there to suck you in to buy the full version. This appeared different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe a free trial would have the same effect ? It would be really nice to have free trials of every game released;

</comment><comment><USER6> This is not really conclusive. This might suggest that a torrent is better advertising than steam, and then things spread by word of mouth from torrent downloaders to people who for whatever reason weren't ok with torrenting the game.

It's possible that the dev could have done better by finding other avenues to advertise that didn't involve giving his game away for free.

<comment><USER7> No one is claiming that all games offering a free and clear pirated version increases sales for all of those games; the developer of that particular game is saying that after releasing a free and clear version on the pirate bay that their own sales increased 400%.

This article is also not saying that this is the only way to increase sales.

No claim was made otherwise by this article.

The developer here does have the benefit of people saying specifically that offering a free copy (not a demo version) resulted in the sale of a legitimate copy which otherwise would not have been sold.

<comment><USER6> If not making or at least suggesting that claim, what's the point, then?

<comment><USER7> Generally speaking, if an article is trying to lead you to a conclusion, that conclusion is specifically stated. Not everyone knows how to write, though, so sometimes it isn't there. This is typically rare, because people that don't know how to write often state their conclusion 5 times in 5 different ways and don't realize it. That isn't the case, here, anyway.

The point of this article is to give you what could be some surprising information; that giving away a game can, in at least this circumstance, can lead to additional sales.

<comment><USER8> And we're left to speculate on the repeatability of doing something like this and the underlying reasons that it worked.

Personally, I think it's an interesting idea for small developers because it's free publicity. Many people _only_ pirate games, many _never_ pirate games, and both talk to each other about games they like. Making a game available to pirstes before it's popular enough for someone else to do that means they get more eyes on the game that probably wouldn't buy the game anyway, but will recommend it to people that may buy the game if they hear about it.

This probably wouldn't work very well for popular game studios because they already have the marketing done, but it may work for smaller studios. I may consider this if I ever get around to finishing a game, largely because the potential negative is very small (this is a hobby, not my living) and the potential upside is large. And you can always add more content to the game that isn't in the torrent if it gets popular enough to try to capture the business of those on the fence.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Self-Healing Transistors for Chip-Scale Starships - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/devices/selfhealing-transistors-for-chipscale-starships <comment><USER3> "With this "nanoship", travel time to Earth's nearest neighboring stars is reduced to just 20 years, as the chip can travel at one-fifth of the speed of light. ... But 20 years is a huge step up from the expected deep space travel time we're currently capable of. For instance, it would take more than 100 years to get to Alpha Centauri."

So currently we are able to reach Alpha Centauri in 100 years? And now this magical chip can travel at 20% the speed of light? I'm either a horrible reader or this article left some _really_ important details out!

<comment><USER4> I think the author is referring to the usage of light sails coupled with lasers to achieve this.

Obviously this design scales horribly, so you'll want your spacecraft to be as light as possible.

As for the numbers they look as if he, pardon my french, pulled them out of his ass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems complicated to let our materials get damaged and then try to fix them on the fly. The earth protects itself from charged particles via a gigantic dipole field. Could the same be done with nano-electronics?

Boards could be designed to generate magnetic fields via embedded current loops. Instead of having a wire connect two components in a straight line (shortest path approach), it could be done in a way that meanders around, intentionally creating large curls. Since we're talking about scales of 1e-9m, these fields would probably be pretty strong.

Now, I don't know too much about superconductors, but vacuum tends to be pretty fucking cold (2K -- surely, lower than the critical temperature for many superconducting materials). It might even be possible to create a Meissner cage around the important components, in a way that protects our components from self-harm, while still protecting them from external charged particles.

Has this theory been tested? After all, it works for the Earth. I am afraid doing that might also be detrimental to our electronic components (unless we can somehow create a diamagnetic cage to selectively protect our components).

<comment><USER6> I think the main problem is of scale. The Earth's field isn't too strong, but it is _huge_ in expanse. That's a lot of distance to deflect and decelerate. Going from a million meter diameter to a billionth likely requires a honking big*large field strength to deflect as hard.

Also while space has a very low temperature, it's an impressively terrible conductor of heat and thus a garbage cold sink. To keep things cool you either have to wait for the heat to radiate out or to off gas your coolant. You could generate radiative fins for the chips, but I don't know how effective that is in space; I would assume they would be so gossamer it would be hard to keep them from corroding in the solar wind.

But maybe that's just an engineering problem.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.google.ch/patents/US7157290](https://www.google.ch/patents/US7157290)

It looks like these people have patented a classical/macroscopic version of a similar idea. They talk about using a completely separate solenoid to deflect incoming ions. Unfortunately they don't do any calculations (none that I could find) to see if it would even work?

What I'm suggesting is a bit different - a change to the transistor and microscopic wire structure so that components would be protected from external charges via self produced magnetic fields.

So, it would look like a bunch of little spins on a grid, some activated, some not activated, like 2D-Ising pretty much, but not random -- the directions are defined by the logic running on the board.

I think you are right, though. These B fields act over too short a distance in order to allow a relativistic particle to radiate an appreciable amount of energy before doing damage.

<comment><USER6> There's definitely an effect, but from my intuition I'd guess it'd have to be fairly strong. But maybe if they're cheap enough to produce and easy enough to mass up, you don't have to even be that effective.

Here's where my intuition is anchored, and you can figure if it's applicable (because I worked in a very different field). In magnetron sputtering, you ionize a gas as it passes through a strong magnetic field (harddrive magnet strength). Once the molecule ionizes (since it's moving at sonic speeds in the vacuum), it whips around and slams into some target, blasting molecules back from the target like a shotgun to a pile of dirt. These sputtered molecules/bits of material may be slightly charged, and when they hit the substrate will carry that charge and deposit it onto the substrate. Over time an insulating substrate (like glass) will charge up a bit, and this will begin to repulse incomming splattered charged bits. It'd be called something like 'biasing' and slows down the deposition rate, since the incomming material may slow too much to properly embed itself on the substrate. The magnets behind the target also trap electrons (in what is often called a racetrack), which helps amplifies ionizing the gases (since a strong field may not ionize the incoming gas molecules, but plonking an extra electron onto it will).

It tends to be a game of small effects in big numbers. Any individual interaction can vary wildly from one interaction to another, but over many trillions of trillions of events it averages out like you'd expect scales similar to Avagadro's number to. So if we could fabricate stupefying amouts of these gizmos, you wouldn't need it to be completely effective; just enough biasing or field strength to tilt the odds a bit in your favor and a lot of the little chips could survive. And if you have enough, you win! Sure the solor wind may clobber a few chips, but if you have billions enough of them, perhaps enough survive to keep effective.

This is part of the approach to some MEMS gizmos, where you play the odds and make huge numbers of the gizmos with a cheap fast process and filter out the working ones. Ideally you'd be smart and just have a really good process, but if your fabrication process is messy or too hard to control and the gizmo valuable enough you can take the losses. (I mean, you don't do that - <USER2> engineer good processes! But... well, that can be expensive. And sometimes waste is cheaper.)

EDIT: I'm thinking of the spherical cow equivalent of a gizmo here, too. You prolly wouldn't make billions of little computers and hork them at another star system unless you could essentially replicate them chemically. But not with a photolithographic process typical to chip designs. You can get millions, not trillions of trillions. Have something that self-assembles in a beaker and then perhaps it becomes an option. But that's sort of like hurling a viral infection at another star system, and... well, kinda gunks the idea too.

<comment><USER5> Your example (sputtering charge onto insulator) is of a similar flavor (but with E fields). The OP article seems like a monkey-patch way of "self-repair". Should we also create a self-repairer for the self-repairer? Little arms repairing other little arms repairing other little arms which are repairing a Raspberry PI. It's a cute, steampunk-y image -- what I imagine Leonardo Da Vinci would have jotted down in a book somewhere.

Alternatively, what you said: we could just send out a large number of duplicated devices. This might be easier, but more expensive.

How are computers even designed? If a single part fails, the entire thing can still function, more or less -- true or false? What about a brain? A body? Organs? My hand would still work, even if I ripped off a significant chunk of skin and flesh. It will even repair itself over time (the flavor of the OP article). If I cut a biofilm or an earthworm in half, both halves will "work".

Now, I am not a computer scientist, computers obviously aren't like biofilms -- but I am not familiar with the extent of this dissimilarity. For example, if I randomly remove 2,000 transistors from a computer (simulating solar wind), what is the probability that the computer will be rendered useless?

The second way I interpret what you say is that we actually redesign our computers, inspired more by biology, to be able to still work even if some computing elements or memory elements are flipped or destroyed. This is probably way outside of my lifetime, though.

But we are already seeing this in the ML community, with things like dropout. If I removed a random set of nodes from a deep learning network, the network would still work fine, more or less...

Edit 2: So, if we had something like that glass with the charged layer (i.e. maybe transistors which created a small magnetic dipole, so the entire device was effectively a ferro magnet), some elements would cop-out and the system would be rendered useless unless it was designed to be robust like an organ losing some cells. But that sounds really hard. We want the transistor or component to maintain some internal state, while being a magnetically shielded box. Hmm... almost like a topological insulator with a doped body.

<comment><USER6> Robustness really depends on the computer these days, I think. Flash drives already route around bad sectors, and most computer chips are capable of gracefully degrading performance as sections fail (one of the ways chip yields go up: over build the chip so failures can be routed and sold as a cheaper variant).

To your first line, the micromachine-for-micromachines idea often reminds of Feynman's talk "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" [0], which is great at least in how long ago it was made. Turns out it's a really hard problem. There have been some functional versions of the micro arm-onna-arm designs, but they're just stupendously hard to control. I'd love to see some progress on that front, though, because it really is cool when it works.

[0] [http://www.pa.msu.edu/~yang/RFeynman_plentySpace.pdf](http://www.pa.msu.edu/~yang/RFeynman_plentySpace.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Was this the paper that made Feynman the father of "nanotechnology"? This paper's spirit reminds me of Leonardo Da Vinci's futuristic drawings. Incredible that this was written in 1959. I keep thinking to myself when reading this -- only if Feynman was around to see AFM and STM. I think those were created just before he died. I wish he had more time to play around with those, he probably would have loved them. Feynman had truly a deep imagination.

I intended the arm-on-an-arm expression to be conceptual imagery, more so in- line with your link, less with OP article. What do you mean by "some functional versions" of this? Please link!

<comment><USER6> I've been out of the field for a while, so I don't really know the state of the art anymore. But I had the pleasure of visiting what was then called the Texas Microfactory. It's basically a sort of microvoxel printer, capable of moving components around on a small stage.

Here's a link to a paper on the machine, I think: [https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-00417722/document](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-00417722/document)

And a thesis on the gizmo: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.599...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.599.6325&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

I haven't read it, but it does have some cool pictures around page 40.

As you might imagine, control is the hard part. Damn thing was wobbly like all get out, to the point that it building anything at all was the impressive part. And it did - it wasn't practical for mass production, but it certainly could do cool things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What would the chip do once it got to the star? Seems pretty useless without a power source, transmitter and an antenna.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention it wouldn't be able to point at the star without some actuators.

<comment><USER9> The starship concept involves solar powered chips launched initially into orbit, then boosted to 0.2C by a ground based laser. They're cheap and tiny and launched in the thousands over the entire period the first probes are in flight, so you have a continuous chain of probes. The return signal is passed back along the chain to Earth. The probes steer using thermal effects and solar wind. Many probes work together to form a synthetic aperture array.

<comment><USER7> Since its 4.47 x 9.5 x 10 to the 15th power meters to alpha century, it doesn't seem feasible to form a communication chain of such tiny devices. How are they powered in deep space?

<comment><USER10> Presumably using light from the laser. I forget the exact numbers, but the proposed laser is on the order of hundreds of gigawatts. Even at 4 ly away, there should still be appreciable illumination from Earth.

<comment><USER11> Hundreds of gigawatts!? To my knowledge, there's never been a laser remotely that powerful that can emit for any constant duration.

The highest power laser [0] in the world currently is 2 petawatts and it can only fire for _one trillionth of a second_. Per the same article (not sure on validity) the entire world electricity usage is somewhere around 2 terawatts, so something producing a continuous 0.1+ terawatt beam would be an incredible cost that's simply impractical proposition any time soon.

[0] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3179045/The-D...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3179045/The- Death-Star-weapon-Japan-just-fired-world-s-powerful-laser.html)

<comment><USER12> I'm just jumping in here, but while we're in sci-fi land let me point out that this is usually not done from the Earth's surface (pushing 100 GW through the atmosphere is sub-optimal) but instead in near-Earth orbit, or from the Moon's surface, or something.

So, the power output of the Earth is not 100% relevant, it wouldn't be a load on the planetary grid.

<comment><USER11> Which makes it an even crazier proposition! The existing ultra high power lasers are so big in size that they'd currently be impractical bordering on implausible in space. To power it, we'd have to take every nuclear power plant on earth (plus another 2-3x more) and put them up in space. Seems likely, no? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does the technology exist which could accelerate a nanoship to "one-fifth the speed of light", or perhaps more importantly, course-correct and slow it down as it nears its destination?

<comment><USER14> Not yet, but Breakthrough Starshot is working on it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot)

The numbers they are putting out are probably more than a little on the optimistic side, but the project is definitely a serious attempt and I'd love to see it succeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I didn't get a clear sense of what exactly 'chip-scale' would mean from reading the article - presumably on the order of centimeters?

</comment><comment><USER16> Moon is a hell of a last name for a NASA scientist.

</comment><comment><USER17> tech could do a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Poorly written title/article (if you can call it that). At least it contains a link to ieee.org with more content [1]. See also arstechnica [2][3] for some earlier coverage.

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech- talk/semiconductors/devices/se...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech- talk/semiconductors/devices/selfhealing-transistors-for-chipscale-starships)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/breakthrough- starshot...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/breakthrough-starshot- announces-plans-to-send-ship-to-alpha-centauri/)

[3] [http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/could-breakthrough- st...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/could-breakthrough-starshots- ships-survive-the-trip/)

<comment><USER19> Thanks, we've updated the link from [https://futurism.com/this-self-healing- tech-could-let-us-rea...](https://futurism.com/this-self-healing-tech-could- let-us-reach-the-closest-alien-stars-in-just-20-years/).

<comment><USER20> Are you saying you work at futurism? Can you address the annoying newsletter nag that happens when you load the page the first time? It may be mostly "inconsequential" but in an internet where we are constantly bombarded with annoying forms interrupting our reading, bothering us to give up our information, can't you try to be better than that?

<comment><USER19> Ah, I see the ambiguity here. I work on Hacker News, so I updated the link of this submission to the ieee.org article, which was linked to by the futurism.com one. (Sorry to disappoint about the nags)

<comment><USER21> I'm sure spectrum.ieee.org will be very happy to see who exactly was responsible for their site being down ;)

The other links still work though...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>