It's About The Hashbangs - <AUTHOR> http://danwebb.net/2011/5/28/it-is-about-the-hashbangs

<comment><USER2> This is a very old post and I thought we were past this. It guess it may seem relevant due to the recent change in Twitter's client side architecture (Dan works there). As far as I know Dan is implementing real urls without hash bangs but will use pushState on supported browsers. The end result will basically be the same but with an optimized initial page load since the whole URL is delivered to the server.

<comment><USER3> I think the post is relavant (today) considering Dan (the author) was instrumental in removing the hashbangs. Twitter's Engineering Blog Post from today: [http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/05/improving- performance...](http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/05/improving-performance- on-twittercom.html)

<comment><USER4> Weird thing they seem to have completely misidentified the reason why their architecture was slow:

 _The bottom line is that a client-side architecture leads to slower performance because most of the code is being executed on our user's machines rather than our own._

From a brief look I had at it a few months ago they were sending a 1.5Mb javascript file which contained a template for every single action you could ever perform on twitter. Because it was squished I assume it got invalidated a lot as they made any tweak to their UI. That seemed to be the greater problem rather than these mysterious execution times.

Seriously, who has ever had a performance problem transforming a bit of JSON with something like jQuery.tmpl or mustache? They ultimately seem to have thrown the baby out with the bath water.

Then again we had this discussion about client v server rendering when 37signals posted their new architecture, I understand there are advantage of doing the template transforms serverside.

<comment><USER5> "Seriously, who has ever had a performance problem transforming a bit of JSON with something like jQuery.tmpl or mustache?"

Mobile devices. Just parsing and executing a big chunk of JavaScript (like the jQuery library itself) can take the best part of a second on many mobile phones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, it is rare that you see a site look so nice when JavaScript is disabled. More often than not when I click a link on HN I have to enable a ton of domains in NoScript and RequestPolicy in order to get a sane rendering.

Hat tip to dan webb.

</comment><comment><USER7> Using push state and using non-hash banged urls is the right move. Twitter is pretty much unusable without javascript, and it doesn't look like they ever got around to implementing a non-js fallback for the site. Best solution is to have both (JSON and static) representations or use something like pjax <https://github.com/defunkt/jquery-pjax>.

</comment><comment><USER8> I recently came across history.js <https://github.com/balupton/History.js/> which will use pushState where supported and falls back to hashbangs otherwise. It was overkill for my project, (we were already relying on several other advanced html5 features so most users should have pushState) but it certainly seems useful.

</comment><comment><USER9> I share your basic feeling that something with hashbangs are not right and I do think that improper use can create issues. However, I do think it is possible to utilize them effectively. I like the idea of using hashbang and the javascript single page architecture for the heavy duty "app" portion of your website (fyi which you likely would not want users to bookmark and link to directly anyways) and then still have clean URL and server side code generating the landing pages and static content. I think this is the best of both worlds.

</comment><comment><USER10> Funny this was written just before Old Twitter (that did not use hashbangs) was removed: <http://goodmorninggeek.com/archives/1766>

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be nice to have a little background on exactly what "hashbangs" do and why they are used.

Then it would be nice to have some background on what pushState is (or will be) and what its purpose is.

<comment><USER12> pushState is a way of going to a new page within a site without reloading everything. If you go to twitter/posts/1 to twitter/posts/2, then all the HTML and the twitter assets (images, css, javascript files, etc) will be reloaded. (OK, there's caching, but ... it can still be slow).

pushState lets you rewrite the bits of the page you want to change using javascript, without reloading anything inessential.

Hashtags do the same thing, because technically, hashtagged urls (twitter/posts#1 vs twitter/posts#2) are on the same page. It's a way of changing the URL in the address bar without technically changing the page.

<comment><USER13> Thanks!

<comment><USER12> OK, in retrospect that was confusing.

Both hashtags and pushState are ways of changing the page _and_ the URL using Javascript. pushState is the "legal" way, which changes the page's URL (i.e. twitter/posts/1 -> twitter/posts/2). hashtags technically don't change the page, they change the part of the URL after the hash (i.e. twitter/posts#1 -> twitter/posts#2).

hashtags are used because older browsers don't let you use pushState. pushState is used because it's more correct, and doesn't exploit a hacky loophole.

Both are used because they are faster than a whole new page request, and they let you share the post by cutting and pasting the URL in your address bar.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Genetic Programming Approach to Automated Software Repair - <AUTHOR> http://www.genetic-programming.org/hc2009/1-Forrest/Forrest-Paper-on-Repair.pdf

<comment><USER2> This research group has made a great deal of progress since the writing of that paper. They have repaired much larger programs (most referenced here are unix utilities) using many more (100s) of positive test cases. As someone who is in a position to know a bit about their work, I find it very exciting.

As some comments seem to have slightly misinterpreted the work, I'd like to clarify that the genetic algorithm does not find undocumented bugs. One needs, at minimum, a negative test case and some number of positive cases to begin the repair process. While the ga's fitness function attempts to ensure that no new bugs are introduced, this is of course impossible to establish with certainty. As the number of available and independent positive test cases increases, the repair becomes increasingly robust.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Winner of the GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE award: <http://www.genetic-programming.org/hc2009/cfe2009.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't read the entire report but it looks really cool. If I understand it correctly it can automatically detect and fix bugs previously found in other software. Would be really cool if you would have a huge database of known bugs which you can detect automatically. Kind of like collaborative unit-testing.

<comment><USER4> It uses existing unit tests, so it doesn't find bugs by itself. I _does_ try to find which code is responsible, if that's what you mean.</comment></comment>


US Marine's website hacked  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/syria/syrian-electronic-army-hacks-us-marine-website

<comment><USER2> Wait, what? The story is not about a "US Marine's website", it is about the hacking of the "US Marine Corps' recruiting website." Not _a marine_ , but _the marines_.</comment>


Regarding Zoom - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2020/03/regarding_zoom <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, none of this will change much. Maybe for small companies.

This type of software tends to come from top down.</comment>


Ad Blocking Raises Alarm Among Firms Like Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/technology/ad-blocking-raises-alarm-among-firms-like-google.html?ref=global-home

<comment><USER2> I know this is a bit off topic, but I find Ad-Blocking to be an interesting problem. On the one hand, it's a person's choice and anyone blocking ads was likely not to click on them anyway. At the same time though, it's clear that if Ad-Blocking were to go truly mainstream, especially if ISPs started to block ads themselves, a major portion of the internet as it stands today would be financially unsustainable, especially when it comes to content sites. Even my mom (non-tech savvy in any way) asked me if there was a way to block the ads on Google the other day. She didn't like how they had started to add pictures for products but all the products were just ads for all the more expensive ones when she could find better deals elsewhere. Her exact quote was "Why do I have to scroll past all these ads to find the better deals down below..."

I think outside of ISP issues like those discussed in the article, sites like Google are actually hastening the average users desire to ad block. I think it's possible that with the addition of things like the product ads for a product search and the fact that Google is the default jump off site for many people, they could be exacerbating the ad fatigue of their own users. I bet Google will have a tough time finding a sympathetic ear if Ad-Blocking goes more mainstream...

At the same time though, I despise the ISPs that take user money and then complain that Google should also pay before they deliver me what I paid for. That's just ridiculous, and I hope Net neutrality can get in place before it's more mainstream of a practice.

<comment><USER3> > _if Ad-Blocking were to go truly mainstream, especially if ISPs started to > block ads themselves, a major portion of the internet as it stands today > would be financially unsustainable, especially when it comes to content > sites._

It your business model doesn't work anymore, you have to move on. That's what the music and movie industry should learn. Maybe Google will have to learn it too. The NYT paywall is working pretty well.

Maybe you're worrying that paywalls will be raised everywhere. I don't think so. There will always be free content. Also, maybe we need some P2P protocol instead of HTTP, so content can be delivered for cheap.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, I did say "as it stands today." Sites would adapt to the new reality and those who didn't would get buried.

I do think though that people who adblock now do so cause it's relatively fringe and they feel like they are a drop in the bucket and not harmful to the site. If it was suddenly mainstream, I think a lot of folks would realize the old ads weren't so bad as the new paradigm and would opt for ads over paywalls.

<comment><USER4> Contrary, I rather have paywalls.

When data is being sent to my device, I want to be allowed to decide if it is shown on the screen. If executable code is sent to the computer, I want to decide if it will run. If code design to track and monitor my is being sent to my computer, I want to decide if it will be running or blocked.

When people have ownership of their device with the option to block ads, people will block ads. The only way to enforce ad-viewing is to take away that ownership. In that world, I rather take paywalls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, Free sounds pretty amazing, other than the whole anti-net neutrality and auto ad-blocking thing. They are the largest native IPv6 ISP in the world and the largest IPTV provider in the world.

Free includes the Freebox Server (for free), which features:

        ADSL modem, router, WiFi
        NAS (250GB)
        External HDD support
        DVR
        Supports a lot of media formats, including mkv
        IPTV to any computer on the network (including VLC on Linux is seems)
        Time Machine and AirPlay compatible
        BitTorrent (seriously, an ISP that includes BT on their router)
        VoIP (SIP) server/proxy with support for:
            Wired RJ11 phone
            Built-in cordless base station (DECT)
            Smartphone or computer VoIP
            Free calling to phones in France, including mobile
            Free SMS/MMS in France

Then there is the Freebox Player (which connects to a TV) that adds:

        Blu-ray/DVD player
        VLC Player for playing nearly any media type
        Plays media from Freebox Server, networked computer, or USB drive
        Web and email on the TV
        Games, with includes gamepad
        RF remote, and phone/tablet control apps

You get all of that, internet, TV, and phone, for 35 EUR/month.

Dare I say, maybe they should charge their customers more, and not blame Google.

BTW, the ad-blocking will be disabled on Monday (<http://www.freebox-v6.fr/index.php>). The ad-blocking is done by the Freebox Server (which is the home router). Open source code is here: <http://floss.freebox.fr/>

<comment><USER6> It's a shame that they didn't manage to bring an amazing experience from this set top box. Most of their revolutionary features (apps, games, video broadcasting, etc.) haven't had any success, maybe because polish had been lacking.

Or maybe they should have partnered with other (e.g. skype for video conferencing, google for apps, etc.).

Edit: also worth mentioning that Free makes a 40% margin (at least in the adsl business), so it's not like they are not already a very profitable business. The issue is that they might like Google-like revenue, getting payed for eyeball is one way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have never used an ad blocking service before as my general stance is that if it helps subsidize content presentation, I think it's perfectly fair for the provider to serve ads.

To be honest, I normally pay them no mind in the first place, which might be overall more harmful.

<comment><USER8> I don't think Adblock is really any worse than fast-forwarding past ads on my PVR (especially having never once clicked on an ad on the internet).

But an ISP blocking ads is very dodgy... An ISP tampering with web pages at all is wrong - I think an their job is to deliver only, and _exactly_ what the web server gives them to the person who requested it, who is then free to choose what part of the page they see. All the more reason for more web sites to use SSL/TLS.

<comment><USER9> When you skip a commercial on your DVR that ad has already been paid for. That content provider has been paid.

When you block an ad on the web it's not being counted as an impression and the content provider is not being paid (if CPM).

They're very different in terms of money-flow. It doesn't mean devaluing an advertiser is better, but they're two different outcomes, even if it just means "no ads" to user/viewer.

<comment><USER10> > When you block an ad on the web it's not being counted as an impression and > the content provider is not being paid (if CPM).

it depends on how the ad is actually served, but i would assume that a smarter adblocking tool would "fake" the ad request, so that an ad provider would not be able to tell the difference between a user seeing the impression or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This double dipping by ISPs annoys the hell out of me. Who should pay for bandwidth: the ISPs or content producers? How about--oh I don't know--the ISPs' _customers_ who are _already_ paying for bandwidth?

If there is any compelling argument for net neutrality it's this: don't let regional monopolies decide what sites their customers can access based on what kickbacks the ISP receives.

Widespread opt-out ad blocking will likely end in content producers blocking offending ISPs.

As for the particular case mentioned (YouTube bandwidth for Free) I would like to know if the take advantage of the edge caching available.

All in a this reads as a pro-ISP fluff piece.

<comment><USER12> I'm in favour of a more market based solution. If an ISP can show that there is meaningful competition for a customer then they can do whatever they want right up to charging more for access to particular content/services. This will encourage experimentation with pricing and access and would be very helpful.

But where there is no meaningful competition the ISP does not get to pick winners and losers - they should be a dumb pipe that does not discriminate.

Of course there isn't meaningful competition in most of the US.

<comment><USER13> >If an ISP can show that there is meaningful competition for a customer then they can do whatever they want right up to charging more for access to particular content/services.

This would be one thing if you're talking about them charging their own customers for such things. Though the idea that any ISP that actually tried this in a competitive market would still have any customers left by the end of the week seems mighty suspicious.

But there is another point if we're talking about peering. Each consumer-level ISP has a hard monopoly over its own customers. There is no competition for access to those customers. If you want to reach them all, you (or your network provider) has got to come to terms with each and every one of those ISPs. And the only way you have any leverage is if you're a big fish whose services are too important for the ISP not to provide its customers high speed access to.

The little fish need network neutrality or they're screwed. Regional competition between ISPs wouldn't even fix it if we had any plausible way to bring it about.

<comment><USER12> > Though the idea that any ISP that actually tried this in a competitive > market would still have any customers left by the end of the week seems > mighty suspicious.

I'm fine with letting them try because meaningful competition means consumers can go elsewhere. I hope there are some interesting business models to discover such as ISP side security filtering, ISP prioritisation of traffic, cheaper prices for consumer concessions, allowing content providers to pay for priority etc.

<comment><USER13> Two things. First, I'm as up for a theoretical discussion as the next guy, but if we're going to have a serious conversation about what would happen if the regional market for internet service was highly competitive, shouldn't we have some kind of at least theoretical non-ridiculous mechanism of actually achieving that? Because "run twelve or more redundant sets of wires to every home" fails the non-ridiculousness bar, and "continue to have only one or two wires" fails the "highly competitive" test, so where does that leave us?

Second, you're still not solving the problem of ISPs having monopolies over their own customers. We don't want ISPs with customer block monopolies charging content providers for prioritization -- they'll charge monopoly prices and suck every ounce of margin they can out of the already-struggling content production business. Even if we had competition between ISPs at the regional level, they would each still have a monopoly over their customers from the perspective of content distributors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So rather than charge its customers what they really cost the business, this ISP wants somebody else to fund them? I want telemarketers to pay my phone bill, since they use it the most, anyway.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think these sorts of things will drive the debate about value forward which is a good thing. Clearly ISPs that block advertisements will end up with their customers unable to access advertising supported services. Then people will stop using the ISP because they can't use the services they want to use.

Information has never been free, it has been over charged for, but its existence is the result of money flowing into the information producer. No money, no information. Not everyone 'gets' that yet, but things like the NYT Paywall are demonstrating that there are actual stable markets for information.

Of course there is no place you can sit down and talk to the whole world about this sort of thing, so we end up with these kinds of events, and their response, which shape the future. Fun times.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I taking this too far out of context, or is this abhorrent journalism?:

> Google, have based their entire business models on providing free content to > consumers by festooning Web pages with paid advertisements

That's more than a little misleading.

</comment><comment><USER17> If websites are worried, why not just use TLS, which should prevent this sort of thing? This is not ABP, it is just an ISP being naughty (albeit in a way that its customers probably like).

<comment><USER18> My impression from the article is that the ad-blocking is done at the client, when they use the ISP's standard software install. So TLS/HTTPS won't help.

<comment><USER10> in this day and age, requiring installation of software from the ISP to get online is very suspicious, and should be frowned up on.

I would explain to a non-technical person by analogy - imagine the telco needed you to use _their_ particular telephone when you make/recieve calls.

<comment><USER19> It shouldn't be hard to imagine for a lot of people who lived before the mid 80's.

The Bell monopoly required you to not only use their handsets, you usually had to lease the phone from them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Doesn't ISPs making a decision between two different pieces of traffic fall under Net Neutrality?

Just because people don't generally like the ads, Free is deciding which content gets through its system. If it's going to do this, then why can't it decide not to allow particular news through because 'the news provider should pay for the bandwidth'?

</comment><comment><USER21> Any way sites could refuse to serve content to Free's customers?

<comment><USER22> Sure, but that way you're punishing the users, not Free.

Simply block their IP ranges in your firewall.

<comment><USER23> I don't think content providers are interested in providing services for users who won't pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My "big" startup project is tangentially related to this problem.

That is: users _hate_ ads. But someone has to pay for all this stuff.

The obvious model -- user pays -- has never really worked. There's been lots of variations on micropayments but so far they've all sucked.

Naturally I am taking no account of the horrendous base rates in this area and am crawling ahead anyhow.

<comment><USER25> > That is: users hate ads. But someone has to pay for all this stuff.

Curious if this is actually the case. I certainly don't hate ads, except when they are obnoxiously annoying but that is getting rare these days.

<comment><USER24> It depends on the ad. Search-based ads are probably welcome.

Display ads, less so. It's an arms race between advertisers and readers. Advertisers want a slice of a fixed supply of reader attention; readers presumably want to read/watch whatever they came to the site for. It's a zero sum game, so anything the advertiser gains is lost from the reader.

So readers develop countermeasures (ignoring ads in certain positions) and advertisers counter-countermeasures (sound, movement, popovers) and so on it goes in a continuous spiral.

The operator of Free can make the case that he is taking payment from users to enter the contest on their side. That it saves him a bunch of bandwidth is gravy.

<comment><USER10> > It's an arms race between advertisers and readers. Advertisers want a slice > of a fixed supply of reader attention; readers presumably want to read/watch > whatever they came to the site for. It's a zero sum game, so anything the > advertiser gains is lost from the reader.

interesting that you put it this way. Perhaps instead of ads that mimic television ads on the internet, there should be new forms of advertising. The internet is an interactive medium, and why should it copy TV?

If an advertiser made an addictive game that brands the product, people would come willingly to play that game, and in the process, be exposed to the branding message.

They could create ARG (altertnate reality game), which promotes word of mouth advertising (see how well this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Bees> did).

I think there is no place for traditional "one way" advertising on the internet, because the internet isn't Tv.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The customer is paying for their bandwith. Google is paying for their bandwith. What more does this scum bag want? Fuck him.

Unfortunately the general public, and maybe even politicians, don't understand this and believe the lie that google is freeloading.

</comment><comment><USER27> Slightly of topic but Google has brought a lot of it upon itself; for example is near impossible to use without a lot of scrolling to avoid ads. I know they're ads due to my daily work but "regular" people will probably not notice them as ads due to almost identical background color and layout. Ads may be relevant but there's more to it then relevancy (price for one.) Sneaky and very bad long term.</comment>


Twitter's community verification system will be a disaster - <AUTHOR> https://easydns.com/blog/2020/02/24/bias-and-b-s-would-be-baked-into-twitters-proposed-community-verification-system/ <comment><USER2> The post goes into it but I just want to double assert that the blue check mark system is rather absurdly arbitrary. Not only is there a bias towards "Lefty" (quotes) views, but it's often handed out to people who have no worry about impersonation because they are not a personality in of themselves.

Not only that, they (as a group) are not immune to spreading significant amounts of misinformation[0].

Who watches the watchers?

[0]: [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/twitter- verifie...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/twitter-verified- accounts-misinformation/)

<comment><USER3> > Not only is there a bias towards "Lefty" (quotes) views...

Is there a source for this? While it sounds credible, I don't think I've seen any data on it, and I've certainly seen a lot of "Righty" folks with blue checkmarks. (The ones the article you linked to talks about are entirely on the far right, in fact, although of course that article is in _Mother Jones,_ which is...not on the far right.)

<comment><USER4> Getting a blue check is pretty much standard starting procedure for any new journalist at vice/buzzfeed/vox/etc. It's like part of the on-boarding process.

Even if you don't have much of a following, your colleagues email someone they know at Twitter and your verified check follows soon after.

Twitter's most important and most active users are journalists and they've made that abundantly clear.

<comment><USER5> On an aside...maybe it's just me, but being a journalist on Twitter and sharing your personal opinions / philosophies / politics seems like a bad idea to me.

We trust journalists - the standard, non-opinion column ones - to be something of an impartial, truth-telling messenger on the state of the world.

When I go on a journalist's Twitter page and see that she's a staunch Marxist or hardcore Randian libertarian, I can't help but wonder if that strong bias has seeped into her articles...both in what she's writing to me, and in what she's omitting.

<comment><USER3> A lot of journalists cite pressure from their employers to be online and "engaged." I think it's probably a bad idea -- possibly in general, but particularly for journalists/columnists -- to say anything on Twitter that you wouldn't say in an an article or column. That doesn't necessarily preclude sharing opinions, philosophies, and politics, but it definitely entails a certain measure of restraint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is a really terribly-written article. You'd imagine a company that had been around for 20 years would have a sense of professionalism or something. When someone is able to pinpoint your exact political alignment and the news outlets you read from a corporate blog post, you're probably doing something wrong.

Then again, the guy links to his book (with a subtitle of "Protect Yourself from Deplatform Attacks, Cancel-Culture and other Online Disasters" no less) at the end of the post, so this was probably intentional.

I share more or less the same political views as him, but this is ridiculous.

<comment><USER7> Ah, there's the comment I was expecting to find. Somebody assuming the author's political alignment based on the (awful) Tweets they chose to highlight. You claim to hold the same political views as him, so what are you trying to achieve? More internet points?

I found the article to be objective, included good sourced examples, and addressed a serious problem that has been discussed on HN many times before. The blue check mark system is terrible. It unconsciously makes readers trust the claims and assertions made by those that wield them. And as demonstrated in the article, blue-check-marked Tweeter often make horribly unverified claims, or incite outright violence. Both of these things I hope would be condemned by every side of the political spectrum, regardless or who is saying them.

<comment><USER6> He takes several _obvious_ and _blatant_ jokes seriously, and he does this because not long ago, two right- and right-libertarian outlets with relatively large audiences posted pieces _intentionally_ misinterpreting them, practically admitting to doing so in the pieces. At best, the bad faith seems to be lost on him, of course.

The only thing worse than someone on an opposing side to you making a horrendous argument is someone on your own side making a grotesque one, and that's what he's doing here.

His "point" is completely invalidated by the examples he used, which (notably) are all jokes, bar one. It only takes someone with the most basic amount of social competency to tell that. It, later, is invalidated further by his claim that "rubes can figure out how to sift through b/s," which he demonstrates to be wrong with the contents of his post.

I don't think that twitter should be creating hierarchy on its site, and I'm far from against him politically: an _abhorrent_ argument is still an abhorrent argument, though, and anti-intellectualism like this should be spoken out against wherever it appears, regardless of whose side it's on. This type of person making this type of argument devalues the side they're on as a whole, and should be strongly pushed out.

And that's not even getting into the idea that a corporate blog should stray away from overtly-political posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> _--__--__ Not only does Twitter frequently verify users that are not noteworthy (online or off) or likely to be impersonated, the last I had seen they hadn't even addressed the absurdly common fake Elon Musks shilling crypto scams. Even if this has been fixed since the last time I saw it, it's much more likely that they just trigger manual review of any account that uses a name/avatar similar to Musk instead of actually fixing the real problems.

The bad behavior of the blue ticks is widely recognized independent of ideological bend, and I predict that many of the accounts of actual value will wear these scarlet letters as badges of honor if this system actually gets implemented.

<comment><USER8> For a little while putting Elon Musk in your display name got your account automatically suspended, I think when the crypto scam thing was at its worst. I haven't seen anyone talk about that scam lately so they may have moved on to better ones (like the relatively new scam where if someone asks you for a paypal donate URL, a bot impersonates you and posts one in the replies almost instantly)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I particularly enjoy Arthur the Aardvark's take on false information on the internet[1].

The author is right. Letting the community decide what is true will be a disaster. Really, truth (or lack there of) is outside Twitter's scope. Twitter exists to allow users to communicate. Not to educate users on critical thinking, or arbitrate truth. Even if they "democratize" truth.

1 - [https://youtu.be/YWdD206eSv0](https://youtu.be/YWdD206eSv0)

<comment><USER10> The very fact that people continue to use Twitter demonstrates that we collectively are not good at filtering anything. The author writes as if they themselves are somehow immune from something they clearly aren't.

I do think putting this power into the hands of blue checks is a mistake. But then, I think using Twitter is a mistake.

<comment><USER11> I don't see how that follows neccessarily, many aren't there for the filtering or truth but access to the content. It is theoretically possible to filter or avoid the BS.

I think they are trapped in a fool's errand no matter what personally given the precedents set up and the problem being humanity which stubbornly refuses to accept it or that there are no good solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _Ryan Broderick, a self-professed hebephile_

It's pretty clear that the tweet in question was satirizing people who use terms like "hebephiles" to defend themselves. While you can argue in good faith whether the satire worked, was a good idea, was appropriate, etc., taking the tweet at face value and saying that he's a "self-professed hebephile" is not arguing in good faith.

So either the author doesn't understand what was going on or is choosing to lie about it for rhetorical purposes - either way the author isn't a credible voice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, no, that is not clear at all. What is clear is that Ryan Broderick demonstrated ideation of a sexual nature with underage children on multiple posts.

There were numerous other items from his tumblr and instagram which make it clear broderick was not being satirical.

See the screengrabs captured here

[https://www.cernovich.com/ryan-broderick-racist-tweets- vile-...](https://www.cernovich.com/ryan-broderick-racist-tweets-vile-jokes/)

OR here

[https://www.zerohedge.com/political/buzzfeed-journo- reported...](https://www.zerohedge.com/political/buzzfeed-journo-reportedly- blogged-about-pedo-fantasies-rape-jokes-and-doxing)

But it looks like you're willing to give a lefty a pass on behaviour that would be career ending from a conservative, which is par for the course.

<comment><USER12> 1\. None of that makes it clear he was not being satirical to me. Can you explain? Again, it all seems like extremely questionable humor, and you can question the humor in good faith (and you can also argue that ironic humor still has harmful effects, etc.), and you can certainly say in good faith, "Someone who makes these kinds of jokes should not have a moderation role at Twitter." But saying that _it was not humor_ \- that Broderick was genuinely claiming to be a hebephile - is a large logical leap that seems unjustified to me. Can you justify it?

(As it happens, I did read Cernovich's page to confirm that I had the correct understand of the tweet before I commented. I am _more_ confident in my comment having read it.)

2\. I'm not sure this would be career-ending for a conservative, why would it be?

3\. Par for what course?

<comment><AUTHOR> How is taking a person who describes himself as "us hebephiles" a huge leap? Either people say what they mean or they don't.

If they don't, then you _also_ have to give a pass to every conservative off- hand remark that got their career derailed.

<comment><USER12> > _How is taking a person who describes himself as "us hebephiles" a huge > leap? Either people say what they mean or they don't._

Genuine question. Are you familiar with the concept of jokes?

Again, I am not saying it is a good joke, or a funny joke, or an appropriate joke, or a joke that should merit employment from BuzzFeed, or any such thing. I am simply saying it was intended as a joke. Do you genuinely believe that the point of that post was to earnestly petition the president?

> _If they don 't, then you also have to give a pass to every conservative > off-hand remark that got their career derailed._

Sure, okay, pass given.

<comment><AUTHOR> How about this one,

[https://web.archive.org/web/20181223004937/https://ryanhates...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181223004937/https://ryanhatesthis.tumblr.com/post/1315924928/veronicathenoseylady- thosekidssuck-i-dont)

I'm sure he's just riffing, right?

<comment><USER12> OK, so, you're not familiar with the concept of a joke, in fact.

Again - if you wanted to argue that Broderick's posts were in bad taste, sure, that's a defensible argument (and I might even agree with you). But that's not what you said. You said he's a self-proclaimed hebephile.

Of course, I don't expect everyone to be familiar with 4chan-style humor. Oprah once earnestly warned her viewers about a message she received about "over 9000 penises": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7liYfhRgXGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7liYfhRgXGk) Last month, Congressional candidate Regina Marston started reporting the Navy SEAL copypasta to the FBI: [https://twitter.com/samosu_/status/1224169132410753024](https://twitter.com/samosu_/status/1224169132410753024) But if you're running a popular DNS host and writing books about how to protect yourself from cancel culture... yes, I expect you in particular to understand what's going on here, and I stand by my claim that you're not a credible voice.

<comment><USER13> It is _very_ clear the argument isn't being made in good faith. It's really not worth pursuing further - I assume the aim of these accusations are basically just hoping no one actually looks at the evidence. How could anyone view a twitter post making a personal request to the president as anything other than satirical?

They couldn't. They don't. Its not worth talking about beyond that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _Us rubes can figure out how to sift through b /s and make our own > determinations on what passes the smell test._

Yeah, no. If "smell tests" worked, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yeah, who doesn't think this will devolve into voting rings and positive re- enforcement loops?

I don't see how this will turn out well.

I think they are better off with self-regulated groups ala Flickr and Reddit with some appeals system (like Flickr). Otherwise it will be abused because it's set up that way.

</comment><comment><USER7> The blue check mark should mean nothing other than "this account belongs to who it says it does". And that's it.

Unfortunately, Twitter has reinforced the incorrect unconscious bias of treating the blue tick as meaning "credibility/reliability", by removing it from people who state opinions and hold views that Twitter (the company) doesn't like. This has led to a severe imbalance on the political spectrum of who holds blue ticks, and increases the ability for the celebrities and journalists to control the narrative online.

This should only be seen as a bad thing for everybody, regardless of your political alignment.

</comment><comment><USER16> Twitter verified is inherently a flawed system. I personally know people who got it simply because they knew people who worked at Twitter.

Let's not kid ourselves that most high-tech companies based out the bay area are going to have very heavily biased political beliefs and opinions. Remember the Twitter employee (now-ex) that deleted Trump's twitter account?

<comment><USER11> I don't think not being biased is possible except /maybe/ an absolute null set.

Any position on a mapping qualifies as a bias technically, it just may not map to something considered such or sensible. What is meant most of the time is if it is contentious or controversial which is utterly orthogonal to morals and reality. If enough people dogmatically insist that using punctuation is intellectual elitism or acknowledging gravity is then it may become a "political issue". They would be objectively wrong in every stance but by definition would be right about it being political. A cat walking across a keyboard is biased compared to anyone actually writing even including the worst typists chemically impaired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >In other words, and this applies to all tech platforms, don't worry about me. Don't worry about anybody. Us rubes can figure out how to sift through b/s and make our own determinations on what passes the smell test.

Does this guy have memory loss or something. There is a reason why twitter is looking at these changes and just saying "Oh yeah go back to how it used to be" is not a sensible response to this.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am quite excited to see facebook and Twitter's opposing takes on this problem play out over the next few years.

</comment><comment><USER18> From Twitter's perspective, it won't be a disaster, it will work exactly as they plan.

</comment><comment><USER19> If easydns can't survive a HN flood then I wouldn't want to be a customer of theirs.

<comment><USER20> I've never had a problem with their DNS service (only service I use). I don't always agree with Mark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > If somebody else has an issue with somebody's tweets, I don't know, maybe > there could be some sort of "reply" function or something where somebody > could rebut the contents of a tweet.

The problem is the asymmetric nature of the costs of producing bullshit vs the costs of providing carefully reasoned rebuttals.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_principle)</comment>


South Africa: more than 950 gold miners trapped underground - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/02/south-africa-gold-miners-trapped-underground-power-sibanye-stillwater <comment><USER2> I get that we waste a ton of electricity on Proof of Work for cryptocoins.... lots are working towards moving away from that. But we still rip holes in the earth and risk lives to search for gold as well.... which also has a very real environmental cost.

<comment><USER3> Is your end goal that we should stop all activities with a negative environmental cost?

Or is your goal to argue that people should pay less attention to the negative environment impact of cryptocoins because other industries also pollute?

If it's the latter, then I don't think it's a strong argument because it suggests we should only focus on the industries with the absolute worst pollution.

It's kind of like saying that I shouldn't complain as much about my neighbor's dog pooping on my yard since after all pig wastes cause much more air pollution and environmental damage.

<comment><USER2> It's mainly just to point out to those who constantly bring it up as if Crypto is somehow worthless because it uses so much electricity.... that gold, and fiat have very real costs as well.

<comment><USER3> As I recall, credit/debit card transfers require much less electricity than cryptocurrency, so if environmental impact were your real concern then you would be arguing against cryptocurrency.

Or you would be arguing that the social benefit of cryptocurrency is worth the environmental damage, rather than simply pointing out that other industries also cause environmental damage.

FWIW, I believe the lead mining industry contributes much more to environmental pollution than the (non-artisanal) gold mining done in South Africa at mines like this. Oil and coal as well.

As it stands, it feels like you are using the plight of 950+ miners, and the lack of sufficient backup systems by the mine operators, as a rather stretched blame avoidance technique. Repeating what I wrote earlier:

"It's kind of like saying that I shouldn't complain as much about my neighbor's dog pooping on my yard since after all pig wastes cause much more air pollution and environmental damage. "

Or do you think that cryptocoins can substitute for gold, with an overall reduction in environmental damage? If so, how?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should you use Profounder to fund your startup? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrl1NzsXrhw&feature=player_embedded I'm fascinated with crowdfunding of startups/projects/etc. So I had the founders of Profounder and Crowdrise on This week in Startups<p>The roundtable starts about five or six minutes in (if you want to skip my banter with Tyler about turning 40!). Thanks to .co and sendgrid for sponsoring this episode! <comment><USER2> As I discuss on Quora, there are significant securities-law issues that must be addressed (see <http://bit.ly/egcdr5>). My advice to all startups is to be very careful with these kinds of sites. I have gotten calls from several entrepreneurs who have run into problems with securities regulators. Thanks, Scott (@ScottEdWalker)

<comment><USER3> you might watch the interview for quite a bit more insight into their approach. It seems they have spent quite a bit of time/money making sure everything is kosher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks interesting for sure. I signed up while I was watching the interview yesterday, but didn't see anywhere on the site where I could actually submit information about my startup for funding... it just gave me an investor profile.</comment>


A guide to implementing 2D platformers - <AUTHOR> http://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the-guide-to-implementing-2d-platformers/ <comment><USER2> > _Before anything on the scene is stepped, determine whether the character is > standing on a moving platform. This can be done by checking, for example, > whether his center-bottom pixel is just one pixel above the surface of the > platform. If it is, store a handle to the platform and its current position > inside the character._

I implemented a 2D platformer with moving platforms once; we solved this simply by using another rule in the article — the one for ladders:

> _when you're in a ladder, you ignore most of the standard collision system, > and replace it with a new set of rules._

There was a special flag on the entity for "is on a platform" (and _which_ platform, too); thus, you trivially knew if something was on the platform. During normal collision detection, if you found yourself falling through a platform, your fall was truncated, and you were affixed to the platform. (An entity's platform variable became, essentially, Some(a_ref_to_the_platform).) The affixing was two-way, IIRC: the platform knew about you, mainly s.t. when it moved, it could update linked entities. And if it was destroyed — which could happen — then it could unref itself from whatever was on it; really, one had a weakref to the other, but I was not that good a programmer then, so it was more manually implemented.

It worked quite well. We tried the whole pixel business, but it was troublesome; the game engine itself needed to deal with characters falling >1px per game state step, so it already knew "you are falling into a platform" bit.

<comment><USER3> I've kept a list of 'touching' entities (and where they are touching) on each entity before. Every frame this was cleared and rebuild as collision detection is performed.

The moving platform's update code will then move any entity that was touching it's top.

Having this list available was also handy for other gameplay too, so I'm a fan of this solution, even if it has some overhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's fairly disingenuous to say that implementing polygon-based (the article calls it "vectorial") collision detection on platforms is "very difficult to implement properly" without a physics engine.

The collision detection code for this can be done in probably less than a thousand lines (probably less if everything is OBBs). Adding support for arcs, and even bezier curves becomes much, much easier as well (for both, probably another thousand lines, at most). It is also easier to add support for continuous collision detection this way, should that be something you want (although this would increase the amount of code a fair amount).

FWIW, I used to go the pixel-based route, but after having done it this way I'm not sure I would do it again. It ends up being much cleaner, more robust, and easier to extend. I'd go as far as to say that your collision detection and physics code shouldn't have any knowledge of pixels, only your renderer (and _maybe_ the gameplay code, if you insist) should have an idea about these.

I will say that it requires a stronger math background, however, but in all honesty, probably not that much stronger than is required to make the rest of a game.

<comment><USER4> Could you recommend some resources or a good place to start for this approach?

I've experimented some with what I consider to be "hack" solutions where your character is basically covered in collision shapes and sensors and I've yet to feel it is robust compared to a solution that uses actual math. My reference point for "great controls" would have to be Super Meat Boy and N+ -- though for all I know they've taken an approach described in the article.

<comment><USER5> N+ (and I believe Super Meat boy as well) don't use pixel-level physics and rely on AABB collisions and computations. There's even a tutorial published on how the original N game resolved basic collisions and physics:

[http://www.metanetsoftware.com/technique/tutorialA.html](http://www.metanetsoftware.com/technique/tutorialA.html)

<comment><USER4> Awesome, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Matt Thorson, the developer of Towerfall, also has some notes on implementing robust platformer physics: [http://mattmakesgames.tumblr.com/post/127890619821/towerfall...](http://mattmakesgames.tumblr.com/post/127890619821/towerfall- physics).

The overall idea is to use integer pixel coordinates (to avoid floating point error accumulation) and to step all physics by one pixel at a time (to avoid fast-moving objects passing through the environment).

</comment><comment><USER7> I think I have implemented all of those methods for various projects.

An extra method of doing platforms that I have used in the past is a simple functional approach, All scene objects return a value for their floor level at a given X. It comes out as similar to the vector approach, but can be more dynamic. Anything standing on a floor is standing on an object so everything is effectively a moving platform, just with most of them stationary. Makes undulating floors easy

</comment><comment><USER8> Did some really cool stuff with "pixel-perfect bitmask collision" back in the day:

1\. You treat 64-bit unsigned longs as 8x8 pixel squares.

2\. You do "bit magic" (shifts etc.) to align the mask of your character/entities with the landscape.

3\. AND the two masks.

4\. Nonzero = collision.

I never really used it for anything (wasn't sure if it was faster than more naive approaches), but it was a neat concept/challenge. I guess it would help if you were on a resource-constrained environment (NES etc.).

<comment><USER9> I used it. It's not as fast an approach as it sounds; you want to do hitbox collision first. But if there's a better way to really do pixel-perfect collision, I couldn't figure it out - maybe subdividing hitboxes would have been, but how does that work when the sprites change? I always thought of plain old hitboxes as being unnecessarily cruel - the player can't see them - but if you were on the NES, you probably wouldn't have CPU time for much of anything better.

Fortunately, I was on something less basic. Unfortunately, I was working on a bitplane mode (for my sins); the CPU didn't have a barrel shifter (so, for speed, one needed to store pre-shifted copies of sprites and masks); and, because the assembly instruction of course wants to modify the output, I ended up copying the dest mask and doing the source as self-modifying code with chains of unrolled andi.l #<character mask>,-(a0) / bne.w pairs; if the chain falls through, the player's just scraped by a mob.

This was of course back in the day that one didn't have to worry about pipeline or cache invalidation, because one simply didn't have the luxury of such things. The naïve loop/temp register implementation would be faster now (and, thanks to µcode and register renaming, would be what the CPU really does inside anyway).

Incidentally, you want to _really_ look out for your animation code in games like this, because it impacts directly on game logic. Anything that might reset the animation counters will have side effects. I'm not sure if it was intended that Tiki - despite being a flightless kiwi - from Taito's _The NewZealand Story_ actually _can_ fly with repeated pushes of up mid-jump, for example (although the presence of secret level design elements catering for it suggests it may be, and could actually be a huge easter egg considering it wasn't documented!).

Similarly, Turrican II has a trick involving what happens if you fire and let off a smart bomb (space) at the same time while jumping, and then jump again - and I don't know if that's intended, but there's at least a couple of platforms with some nice goodies I don't think you can get to any other way.

<comment><USER10> IMO plain hitboxes are actually less cruel. Pixel perfect collision doesn't distinguish between solid parts of the object and things like cloth/hair/grass/feathers that would brush past without a real collision, or small loose items that would be knocked aside without the whole object catching. Hitboxes better represent these types of collisions, and you easily get a feel for where they are. Pixel perfect collision feels unfair when you collide on a single stray pixel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you want to watch a game being built, follow this project: [https://handmadehero.org](https://handmadehero.org)

<comment><USER12> Great idea, but an advance warning based on the earliest videos: it's windows- based programming. Just in case that puts you off (which it did me, I'm afraid).

<comment><USER13> I hate to tell you this but a large majority of game development is done on Windows.

<comment><USER14> Sadly agreeing here. I'm a Mac person and the only thing I still use Windows for is game development. I do my game development on a mix of Windows and Mac, but the reality is just that some of the tools I need/use are Windows only.

The situation is much better than it was 5 years ago and it is certainly possible for people to develop games without using Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-V-Mfmd...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-V-Mfmd743UJ:higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/20/the- guide-to-implementing-2d-platformers/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=ubuntu)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've actually been looking to explore this for literally ages... I hope to play with this sort of thing someday at both ends of the spectrum, to get a bit of a practical education on how architectures have developed over the past two dozen years or so, and hopefully to have a bit of fun.

On the one hand, I'm really, really interested to understand how the pieces fit together such that it was possible to have supersmooth sidescrolling on the 4MHz CPU in a Game Boy.

On the other hand, I want to learn how to best optimize for the CPU/GPU targets in current- and next-gen desktop and portable devices (PCs, laptops, phones, tablets, etc). It might sound bizarre to want to get the most out of even a 4k-core GPU just for 2D (with maybe some fancy parallax), but 3x4K is going to be a thing more frequently than not going forward... and a pixel- perfect 144fps sidescroller would look _truly amazing_ on something like that.

I want to understand both sides of the coin in-depth so I can optimize for each but also maintain a sense of balance: the majority of game engines are overwhelmingly future-oriented, and when presented with older hardware something like Unity will invariably choke or at least stutter, and Box2D likely would as well.

I do at least realize the complexity in building a game engine from the ground up - like I said before, this is purely for fun and education - but I have no idea where to actually start, no knowledge of older architectures (and their quirks), I still need to learn assembly language (!!) and machine code (it's on the todo list... has been for months...), etc etc.

Advice will truly be hugely appreciated.

<comment><USER17> I'm fairly certain scrolling on all Nintendo devices was a hardware thing. You were responsible for the tiles not for the pixel level scrolling.

[http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/PPU_scrolling](http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/PPU_scrolling)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For vector based levels I would put Elasto Mania as an early example. I don't know how much it fits into the "platformer" category though. It obviously provides the benefit of having the surface normals naturally compared to the bitmask model.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sadly the blog was abandoned back in 2012, and never saw any other cool updates.

</comment><comment><USER20> Great read! I'm a web developer but I play the hell out of video games. I really liked how the author explained what effects you're trying to mitigate in the collision detection algorithms. It instantly put it into a very clear and familiar context for me - I haven't programmed under these conditions, but I've definitely played games and seen silly things like this happen:

> _This will prevent characters from "popping" through the slope from the > opposite side._

> _If you don't ensure this, the player will move horizontally right off the > ramp for a while, until gravity catches up and drags him down, making him > bounce on the ramp, instead of smoothly descending it._</comment>


Surface: Between a Rock and a Hardware Place - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2012/06/surface_between_rock_and_hardware_place

<comment><USER2>
       Microsoft this week showed itself willing to do what was once unthinkable: design and sell its own computer hardware

What about the Zune, Kin and Xbox. Two of them might have been disasters, but clearly MS has a history of designing hardware.

They are giving too much choice (1). To me, the real issue is availability. They shouldn't have had the press conference until the device was available on the same day. They _always_ do this, and it rarely works out. They would have sold more devices in the first week, had it been available immediately, then they now will in a quarter.

(1) [http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...](http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html)

<comment><USER3> The Zune, Kin an Xbox weren't devices sold in Microsofts primary market.

And you can see how they have done what they can in order to not screw over the hardware manufacturers, by promising to only sell the device through their retails stores.

..and now HP and Mark Hurds initial strategy with WebOS doesn't seem so stupid after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These stories about the "post-PC future" always make me laugh, I still dont see people working on iPads in real offices where you do REAL work.

The future of computing is going to be fragmented. Not unified by a single tablet model.

Every time something new comes up we always get the same BS: "netbooks are going to replace computers". "iPhones are going to replace computers", "ipads are going to replace computers".

Give me a break.

<comment><USER5> I agree with your idea that the future will be a fragmented one. And obviously there are still a lot of desktops and laptops at offices.

In my work for a digital agency we have a lot of projects going with tablets (well let's be honest it's all iPads) to work as replacement for laptops for certain processes and situations. There are so many real-life processes happening today where toting a laptop around is really not ideal and tablets have some awesome characteristics which make them a great second or third device for some job descriptions, but also a first device for others.

For pump installers for instance a laptop is a pain in the ass. They all have one, but they never bring it out of the car with them because it's heavy, has poor battery life and is really impractical when you're working in a dusty, dark environment. A tablet on the other hand serves them well. They can bring it with them. Hang it on a pipe somewhere and watch that installation video or look up that manual that they are needing. Battery life is so that they don't have to charge it all week. Everybody wins.

Don't mean to get carried away, but the world is really full of people doing "real work" where laptops and desktops are just not the best solution.

<comment><USER4> > Don't mean to get carried away, but the world is really full of people doing > "real work" where laptops and desktops are just not the best solution.

I'm sure there is. But by far, most businesses still need laptops and proper desktops to work. Sometime you need a big screen. Most of the time you want to have a keyboard, a good one, to type fast. You want to have the precision of the mouse of do things on screen. ANd you need power. A portable device, no matter how good it is, is constrained by ventilation, temperature limits, processor speed, space, and so on. For the price of an iPad you get a much more powerful desktop computer.

Tablets have advantages as consumer devices, as presentation devices, as "reader / browsing" devices. They are convenient. I do not deny that. But they simply won't replace everything else.

And the reason why the iPad sells so well is because it's a disposable device at heart. Whenever a new iPad comes out, most of the previous iPad owners drop their older version to get the new one. (same for the iPhone, by the way). Usually computer users keep their PCs active for way longer than that.

<comment><USER6> "But by far, most businesses still need laptops and proper desktops to work. Sometime you need a big screen. Most of the time you want to have a keyboard, a good one, to type fast. You want to have the precision of the mouse of do things on screen."

Absolutely, _I_ need those things... for about 15% of my working time.

I suspect lot of people in roles where access to information is needed with minimal modification or addition to the data could work with other devices.

<comment><USER4> > Absolutely, I need those things... for about 15% of my working time.

By curiosity, what do you do the rest of your working time?

<comment><USER6> I talk to people. (I'm a teacher)

<comment><USER4> Allright. In that case I cannot argue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Skepticism about these things doesn't require knee-jerk Apple fandom. It > simply requires an open set of eyeballs.

This is why I don't read Daring Fireball regularly. It's a blog solely focused on being skeptical about everything. The whole premise seems to be to find flaws in products/services and tell the world about them. I don't mind skepticism, but there's a difference between "it has these cool concepts, but it ain't perfect and probably will fail" and "it's going to fail because of A, B, C, D, … Z"

Gruber might be accurate, but in my daily reading I prefer people with a bit more positive thoughts.

<comment><USER8> Different reasons to avoid him for me. The 5by5 shenanigans put me right off him.

<comment><USER9> for anyone like me who had no idea what 5by5 was, it seems like it's a talk show that Gruber was part of, then he left to do another, or something like that. meh

was unable to find reference to said shenanigans though, which was disappointing

<comment><USER10> Here[[http://www.candlerblog.com/2012/05/18/where-did-the-talk- sho...](http://www.candlerblog.com/2012/05/18/where-did-the-talk-show-go/)] and [<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3993649>] .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _So Microsoft faces a dilemma. Their business model of expensive software on > cheap hardware is not sustainable. The future is nearly free software > integrated into moderately priced hardware._

Apple, for all that's said about their software being excellent (and maybe it is) is a hardware maker. As such, they try to commoditize software: make complements to their own products as cheap as possible, so that the overall cost of buying Apple is as low as possible (while keeping their part of the profits as high as possible).

They have been immensely successful at this, obviously; but that doesn't mean "the future is nearly free software"! It means, Apple is trying to commoditize software and is doing a fantastic job at it. (Much better than what Sun tried to do for example).

But the answer to this, is that software makers should try to commoditize hardware. Of course, this is much harder, since the marginal price of a piece of hardware is non-zero. It may even be impossible, but that's still what Microsoft is trying to do -- it's not trying to jump into hardware making because "that's where profits are", it's trying to attack the hardware value proposition.

> _the radical shift in Microsoft's strategy is about the fight over the > profits that remain after Apple's_

No, it really isn't. (Profits are the whole point, yes -- but the question is, what kind of profits are we talking about). Microsoft wants to bring the whole value of hardware down -- it doesn't want to take hardware profits for itself, it wants to make hardware profits disappear _for everybody_.

(It should give the Surface away for free.)

<comment><USER12> The problem with your scenario is quite obvious.

Consumers do not see profit, they see price tag. Hardware comes with a price tag, so the options are sell at cost or find a way to subside the hardware.

With Apple pushing for ever so cheap App Store software so much so it is willing to drastically cut its own premium software's price. The potential for a software subsided hardware business is diminishing fast. While Apple may forever lost the ability to sell hardware at 100% markup, Microsoft in the mean time is losing the ability to sell software for $100 and more . It is already reality in consumer space, and the price structure is collapsing too in the business world.

Microsoft has the money to give millions of Surfaces away for free, then what? It kills all its OEM in the process and can not make the money back on 30% software sales cut. And next year Apple brings out fucking iPad 4... Genius plan then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yes, it really looks like Microsoft wants to be Apple. Based on what Elop does in Nokia I believe that Microsoft wants to buy Nokia as well. There are lot of steps that makes Nokia unattractive company for other companies (e.g. "patent trolling" accuses from Google to Nokia), other steps (MeeGo and Meltemi termination, Symbian support moved to Accenture) that leaves Nokia only with WP and outdated feature phones (what makes Nokia unattractive target again unless you are Microsoft).

Other companies might consider buying Nokia only to prevent Microsoft doing that what would be quite fun to watch actually.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not really sure what this post is trying to say. Is it trying to criticize Microsoft? It doesn't really feel like it. Is it just a "this is a very important time for MS" post?

I think that's obvious. It IS a very important time for MS and Windows 8 needs to do well. I think the post misses an important angle to Surface though: in large part it is meant to make OEMs step their game up. It shows what Microsoft envisions can be done with a good formfactor and Win8. OEMs need to step up to the plate and make similar hardware. Not necesarily identical but very much in the same spirit.

A well execution should dent iPad sales because on paper, Windows 8 with a good form factor destroys the iPad every time.

Side note: I thought the keynote was actually fine. I completely agree that something seemed rather off about Sinofsky. He did seem nervous and he usually delivers quite solid keynotes. It was strange. I think everyone else performed fine. I actually liked the way the keynote was set up. At first it's just a tablet which is cool in of itself. Then it has a kickstand. And then it has a keyboard. Surprise after surprise.

Re: "Design is about making decisions, and Microsoft could not decide. ARM or Intel? Who should be on stage? Soft or hard keys on the keyboard cover? They went with 'all of the above'."

Windows has always been about having a lot of options. I think it's wonderful that there will be both an ARM version and an x86 version.

<comment><USER15> There is an implicit assumption that OEM's are just lining up waiting for Microsoft to release an OS for them. But with Android being both _free_ and successful, OEMs have little reason to risk building top of the line devices for Microsoft. I suspect very few people could name off any of the dozen Windows Phone's other than the Lumina.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a regular Apple user (iphone/ipad/macbook air are my main tools), in my eyes Gruber is jumping the shark here. He comments on the structure of the event, his own feelings watching it. He comments on what information that has not yet been released. He clearly wants to move focus away from the hardware itself. Perhaps because it is just a little too awesome to come from MS?

<comment><USER17> It appears to be really good, but MS doesn't really have anything yet. You can't buy it, you can't pre-order and it appears that no journalist had any hands-on time with the keyboard. All we have are promises and anyone can do that.

<comment><USER16> I disagree wholeheartedly. Vision is also hard. Making and communicating a promise that gets people excited, is really really tough. There are thousands of product videos published every month trying to make promises people care about. Living up to the promises is also a great challenge. But to me, vision is not as easy as you describe it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think they did rush the demo, but they needed to.

They'd revealed Windows 8 and had mixed reactions about teh touch interface, and both users and developers were skeptical about it. They needed to show off this hardware for everything to make sense. When I saw the presentation, I had this 'Ohhhhh....' moment where it all made sense - the interface, the hardware, their strategy.

They pushed this launch forward to show they actually had a plan.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think Surface could be a pretty compelling product if all the stars align, but the fact that Microsoft wouldn't even let members of the press touch a working keyboard and the overall fragmented quality of the launch does not bode well.

<comment><USER20> I question the timing; it seemed rushed to get in front of Google I/O. The press had to stand behind a roped-off table of Surfaces to take photos. Clearly the hardware and software is not ready--nor does it have to be for an October-ish launch. But why did they _have to demo it now_ when the press couldn't have their way with it?

All that said: take my money. I want one of each.

<comment><USER14> I imagine part of it might be to just get more excitement about Windows 8 both in the consumer and developer community. Perhaps they thought that it might make more developers begin to make apps for Win8? Anyone who was thinking about it should probably be convinced by now that it's a good platform...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Android (which no one wants on anything other than phones)_

Oh? Now Gruber says people want Android on phones?

Sorry, we're doing Apple vs. Microsoft here. I'll try to not get distracted.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Surface is a bold move, and classic Microsoft. If the OEMs don't like it — and they do not — what are they going to do? Turn to Linux (which no one wants) ... ?"

I want Linux over Mac OSX and Windows 7. Imagine how fast Linux would grow if they got the OEMs's support.

<comment><USER23> Maybe he meant "which no one [of the OEMs] wants"?

I would love to buy laptops et al. with good Linux support. In fact, I once bought a glorious Dell XPS M1330 ... with a horribly outdated Ubuntu install.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I clicked on this story expecting the usual blatantly biased and totally pointless drivel from this guy. I wasn't disappointed. He keeps raising the bar for embarrassing tech commentary and that's why I will keep reading him knowing full well I shouldn't waste my time on that kind of trolling.

Now I'm even wasting your time by commenting on it. Please vote me down to -10 or I'll have to fagellate myself for an entire week!

<comment><USER25> I didn't downvote you but it would be helpful you cited flaws in the article.

<comment><USER24> The flaws in this post are the same as in every single one of his posts. He makes it sound like he was doing some kind of analysis when it's really just a tortured justification for his preconceptions. It's disingenuous.

What he usually does when he writes about Apple technologies is to look for the good even in the obviously bad. In this piece about a Microsoft technology, he goes out of his way to ignore everything that might potentially be good or interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure I follow Gruber's post here, which ironically points out how Microsoft's presentation this week for a tablet was incoherent and all over the map (kind of like this post.) I guess he's trying to assess Microsoft's position in the market by comparing their product announcement presentation skills to Apple's.

Really, when will the likes of Gruber learn that consumers will decide if they like those products, and they'll do so with their wallets. Surely he doesn't believe that Apple's success with i{whatever} is due to slick, coherent stories told onstage at some event they couldn't get into.

The truth is that the masses who buy these devices could care less about product announcements, Apple included. Apple customers will line up for the next item, no matter what it is. Microsoft customers -- well, not quite sure what floats their boat, but they'll do their thing.

These announcements are for lighting up the third-parties who like to consider themselves quasi-insiders. Like Gruber, for instance.

<comment><USER27> _I'm not sure I follow Gruber's post here..._

I thought Gruber's point was very clear: Consumer expectations have shifted such that companies which survive (read: profit) are those which make money from reasonably priced hardware while the software is sold at low, low prices. The phenomenal, decades-long profitability of Microsoft has been based on consumers behaving in an opposite way: paying bare-minimum prices for hardware but a premium for software.

The computer hardware industry is lined up to favor the hardware makers. They can also make the software (like Apple does with iOS) or they can acquire it at low cost (like Samsung using Android), but the profits come from hardware. The Surface, no matter how good it may or may not be since no can reasonably evaluate it yet, is a testament to Microsoft recognizing this shift.

Really, the details of the market shift are irrelevant. The point is that the market is moving away from what has made Microsoft profitable, and the company has publicly (if in some ways indirectly) shown it understands this. The Surface (and Windows 8), despite how important it may be to the future of Microsoft, is most notable for the change it represents Microsoft making in its approach to profitability.

<comment><USER26> I agree with your points, but I didn't think Gruber made that argument. He referenced others who commented on the subject, but he could have made his point without spending so much time comparing product announcement logistics of the two companies.

I think the shift to their own hardware, for this Surface product, is more about trying to achieve a user experience on par with Apple. It's obvious they haven't learned from Apple in that the user's experience includes first hearing/seeing the product on stage, immediate availability, etc. so the rollout isn't polished (far from it.)

I'm just not sure Microsoft is all-in on recognizing the full profitability shift where their software is essentially a loss leader. If Microsoft releases their own high-end desktop PC and phone with Windows 8 sometime in the next 12 months, then I'll believe they've made that mental leap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Isn't there a contradiction between Apple taking all the profits in PCs and Microsoft's taking of 78 dollars from every PC sold (and maybe half that for every mac with office)? I think he's been confused by the Apple world's tendency to compare Apple to hardware manufacturers and conveniently forget to include Microsoft and Google's profits in their pretty charts.

Also odd to see him still claiming that no-one but Apple could have made Samsung's A4 chip.

</comment><comment><USER29> "Microsoft this week showed itself willing to do what was once unthinkable: design and sell its own PC hardware. ... But make no mistake: for better or for worse, Surface marks a watershed moment in PC industry history."

That remains to be seen, and depends on Microsoft being willing and able to stick with the Surface. They could easily screw this up, like the Kin, or lose interest and energy like the Zune.

</comment><comment><USER30> Are people really using their tablets much? Sure, Apple/Jobs made us want one, but I am still looking for a killer app. My Android tablet mostly gets used for Skype, which is great, but hardly worth the price.</comment>


What's your favorite "programmer" cartoon - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/84556/whats-your-favorite-programmer-cartoon

<comment><USER2> Would be slightly better if the good ones listed weren't almost all Dilbert or xkcd comics (which aren't as funny without the mouseover imo).

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing this is more of a product of the lack of programming comics. I can't think of too many others besides those two.

<comment><USER4> Some have programmers in them, like Achewood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The correct answer is XKCD.

<comment><USER6> Final answer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fail. Not one crunchy.

[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/math- out.html#crunchly73-0...](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/math- out.html#crunchly73-05-18)

</comment><comment><USER8> I thought stack overflow was for programming problems. is it just another digg/reddit/HN with pictures after all?

Do we all have to migrate now, yet again?

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know that comic, where two voices discuss society's need to have some class to look down on, and then at the end we hear:

"...and _that's_ where we come in. But it's not all bad - in what other society could a toaster and kettle even be having this conversation?"

It's not specifically a programmer cartoon, more AI philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it just at my workstation, or did they somehow manage to disable page- up/down and arrow buttons on the question pages?

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://www.mnftiu.cc/2002/11/26/filing-055/></comment>


Ask HN: Can an early-stage startup hire really good engineers? - <AUTHOR> Do you think it is possible to attract outstanding engineers to work with you at an early stage? (Meaning you can't pay them Silicon Valley salary). <comment><USER2> I can say as a person who tried to find a startup with good conditions but eventually accepted offer from one of the FANG companies.

Most of startups I contacted pay peanuts, and they don't compensate for this with equity. The equity is really stingy. I don't know why the think that their ideas are so valuable, but people they hire to implement them cost so little.

Don't behave like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> You have to give them a ton of equity, like multiple percentage points (or even 10% if you havent raised money yet). Or you need to source them from another country, probably Eastern Europe or India. Good engineer capable of working at FAANG can make 300k easily.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think building a remote team should be more helpful in this case? Do you have experience hiring remote developers? Any advice?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a niche market consisting of experienced Developers living in countries with low cost of living, that work remotely for compensation below US market and above their local market. I used to be one, prior to moving to the US. I also helped to hire and staff a foreign digital marketing agency with remote developers. I'd be happy to hop on a call and give you some advice and share my experiences if you'd like?

</comment><comment><USER5> What kind of "outstanding engineers?"

Some startups need applications programmers, others need systems programmers or "data scientists", all of which are different markets.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I'm talking more of senior backend and frontend engineers here. No need for DS yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a friend who is a seasoned engineer, and he has worked for a few startups. He lives in the middle of the country, so the cost of living is much less.

I think you can find outstanding engineers if your willing to offer them the option to work remotely.

Remote teams have other challenges, but if you have managed them, you will have no issues.

</comment><comment><USER7> Absolutely. Try a remote team.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking about it. Do you have experience hiring a remote team?

<comment><USER8> I'm a bit assumed to see the company running a "platform where tech startups hire the best remote engineers and designers. This is why I decided to create a product for remote community" doesn't have experience with remote teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> you can get great young engineers who are very smart and work hard for early stage (ie crappy) wages. but you need at least one seasoned expensive grownup in the room and they will be extremely hard to attract even with competitive wages because of work hours and stability.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think hiring young professionals is not the best option for a startup. They consume a lot of your time and energy and can't be as productive as middle or senior specialist.</comment></comment>