You won't believe how nice Notch's office is - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/5948142/you-wont-believe-how-nice-notchs-office-is <comment><USER2> No, what I admire most isn't the office itself, though it's quite nice, it's the location. I can imagine that you can, for example, get some nice restaurants and few other option to get a real food within a walking distance.

From my window, I can see just three freeways tightly surrounding this place- less office park from each side. And I am hungry, right now, there are just two ugly canteens that close by 2 PM anyway. It makes me feel desperate. Hunger is not nice.

<comment><USER3> Not to brag, but the midtown Manhattan food selection is outstanding.

<http://midtownlunch.com/lunch-by-food-type/>

<comment><USER4> I miss that about New York. If you avoid the tourist traps, you can get great food for reasonable prices.

In Berlin pretty much all the food is cheap, but very little of it is good. The standard of sushi is generally passable, though it's not my favorite thing.

<comment><USER5> Turkish food is really great in Berlin, better than I've had anywhere else in Europe (I assume it's better in Turkey but I've never been).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a (steel & glass) architect I'm certain this is _not_ an expensive office when compared to other tech companies. I think most people are being fooled by the "high-class americana" style, but really this does not cost more than a high-end minimalist office.

Question the style choices, sure, but the assumption that is in anyway more expensive than average is completely false.

<comment><USER7> If the price is about the same, why does anyone go for glass & steel? This is so much better.

<comment><USER6> Personal preferences, design philosophies, lots of reasons. I find that office to be pretty unappealing, personally.

<comment><USER8> Same, I think it looks like they bought a bunch of expensive furniture for a renovated-in-the-90s-rambler. The juxtaposition and lack of dominant style isn't very appealing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You know what the first thing I pick up on is? Everyone is dressed nice. I don't know if that's just for the camera, but I see suits and vests all around. They look classy in a classy office. I wonder how the office would look if notch was wearing cut off shorts and a wife beater.

<comment><USER10> They don't dress that way all the time. From what I've gathered they have "Formal Fridays". At first when I saw Notch mention this on Twitter I was a bit confused, but now I see it goes nicely with the theme of their office.

<comment><USER11> I like the idea of it, especially for companies that have clients/customers outside of tech. We're all comfortable in hoodies all day, but when you all have to turn up to meet at a government office you'll suddenly find that the suit you haven't tried on in over a year doesn't fit right, or has a stain you'd forgotten about.

"Practising being formal" makes sense, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I appreciate seeing an office for a successful indie company that doesn't consist of brick facades, exposed ventilation and a big open room filled with people, computers, video game consoles and foosball tables. I just appreciate the slightly more mature look than I'm used to seeing glorified in office pictorials for tech companies.

That being said, I don't see ANY computers there, so maybe they just didn't picture their brickwork in this photo shoot.

<comment><USER5> isn't that more of an American/English thing? I've never seen that style anywhere in continental Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly OT, but lots of pictures of other offices here: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/>

</comment><comment><USER14> It looks like a prohibition era speakeasy.

</comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of the holodeck. Are they working, or playing characters in a gangster/detective story?

</comment><comment><USER16> An interesting observation, on Kotaku the comments are focusing on a weird jealousy over Notch's success. Comments about people suddenly regretting buying a license to Minecraft, saying how tasteless the offices are, or how bad things are in Africa.

<comment><USER17> Pro tip: Never read the comments on Kotaku.

You're welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't imagine getting any work done there, but since there are no computers, I'm assuming nobody does, and this is really just a set for some HBO drama. To me, this is a huge waste of time and money. Good for the economy though I suppose.

<comment><USER19> There are computers in the room at the back of the third photo, and at the right of it.

Also, I expect many of them use the rest of the space to dream up ideas, plan, and work on laptops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Where are the computers?

<comment><USER21> was thinking the same thing. maybe they pop out of the armrests of those leather chairs?

<comment><USER22> Same thought occured to me.

You can see some to the far left of the second image (the one after the collage). Then if you skip to the final image and note the shelf-unit (at the end of the long table) it snaps into focus - and you can _just_ see the desks behind :)

<comment><USER23> Laptops?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Time will tell, but this is beginning to sound like echos of Ion Storm[1]. We've already got our Deus Ex out of Mojang, though -- my girlfriend and I still regularly play Minecraft together -- so I can't really feel any enmity for them.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Storm>

<comment><USER25> Seems to be quite a different story to me: Mojang has, with minimal expenses, already created an extremely successful (and profitable) game. It seems that they are now using some of that cash to get a really nice office.

Ion Storm on the other hand basically used their fame and some promises of a future product to get a load of cash from investors, and spent that on a very nice office.

<comment><USER26> And now they have non-minimal expenses, and they are unlikely to have another hit of even half Minecraft's success ever again - Minecraft was a HUGE outlier.

<comment><USER27> Erm, 0x10c?[0] That's shaping up to be potential Minecraft-level success, if Notch can deliver what has been promised.

[0] <http://0x10c.com>

<comment><USER28> One can only wonder if this game is going to be too geeky to cross over to significant adoption. I know a lot of people that got into Minecraft that would probably struggle with 0x10c.

<comment><USER27> While I initially assumed the same, I think 0x10c could possibly evolve into a state that allows even casual players to be able to jump in without getting involved in the geekier aspects.

For instance it be possible to have a Minecraft-esque gameplay mechanic on the planets and, as a player, to acquire through some in-game currency a pre- designed spacecraft created by others. So it could be played as an ordinary space trading game to an extent. In this form it'd be an extension of Minecraft.

For others, I can see guilds being set up around exploitation of the programmable computers onboard spacecraft, with guilds developing their own encrypted communications protocols and attempting to break those of their competitors while still engaging in standard space game warfare with the added extra of electronic warfare. This is far geekier, but it has scope for players of varying skill levels occupying different roles without having to learn how to program the DCPU-16. This would be a sort of EVE Online scenario.

There are other combinations that would be available, given a big enough community, a way to exchange items and the right gameplay dynamic. If Mojang gets that right and sells it right then 0x10c may potentially become a huge hit.

Of course what I've described is ambitious in what's required from the game and there are a million things that could go wrong and make it too hard to make a game with this breadth and flexibility. The odds are against Notch and his team, but if they do succeed I think it'll be epic.

Let's not forget that to an outside observer Minecraft is very geeky and quite confusing. It's a game without any gaming like most are used to, yet over time interest snowballed and non-gamers got into it based on recommendations. I hope the same could happen with 0x10c.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "many leather-bound books, and... smells of rich mahogany"

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, I would really want to work in a place like that. I would probably feel more relaxed and creative than in the typical whiteish plain-looking offices.

</comment><comment><USER31> No light No light

This is some kind of ultimate mancave, I can't imagine a girl working in there.

<comment><USER32> Hey, I don't know why you assume Mojang doesn't employ women. They totally have ... uh ... two female employees out of 28?

[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mojang_AB#Current_employee...](http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mojang_AB#Current_employees)

Oh, so that's why.

Incidentally, I don't mean to call you out in particular, but when you call grownup female programmers "girls," lots of very cool women will decide to hang out somewhere else -- sort of for the same reason black men in the US aren't going to love it if someone calls them "boys." Not trying to police your language, just something to think about.

<comment><USER33> > Incidentally, I don't mean to call you out in particular, but when you call > grownup female programmers "girls," lots of very cool women will decide to > hang out somewhere else -- sort of for the same reason black men in the US > aren't going to love it if someone calls them "boys."

I agree with you that calling female programmers and coworkers as girls is demeaning, but it IS NOT the same as calling a black man a boy, which has a long history of racist oppression.

<comment><USER34> The easiest way to insult any male is to refer to him as a boy. For males it carries the sting of naiveté and inadequacy. Females on the other have a very positive attachment with youth and "girls" and clearly spend a lot of energy continuing to identify themselves that way.

<comment><USER33> I wasn't really getting at this. Calling a black man "boy" is extremely racist and doesn't have to do with gender identity. It has to due with systematic culture destruction and oppression as a result of slavery in the United States and conditions in which black folks were placed post slavery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Apparently I live right next doors to their office. Explains why I keep running in to Notch wherever I go, almost started to think he was stalking me :)

Personally I wouldn't had gone in the "gentlemen's club"-direction, feels a bit old and stuffy as well as having some bad connotations (if it isn't meant to be ironic that is) but each to their own I guess :)

<comment><USER36> Can you elaborate on the bad connotations?

Prohibition era gangsters?

<comment><USER35> The theme they picked (this is from an article that ran in swedish media) is a british "Gentlemen's club". I don't know about you but for me that is a male- only upper-class establishment. I'm not so sure that's a vibe you want your indie gaming company to project.

Then again, you can't politize everything and it's probably meant to just be different and be in "good fun", shrug

Guess the good thing about having your own company is that you can do what you want :)

<comment><USER37> The word "Gentlemen" implies the class bit, but clubs and societies exist all over Britain from the humble workers clubs for the miners through to the exclusive clubs in the West End. Very few (perhaps none) are now gender exclusive.

What you're missing is the role of the members clubs in the industrial revolution.

They were instrumental as a place where business leaders could get together, relax, share ideas, views, experiences and do business. Debating the days' news, and enjoying a drink.

From that light... I'd do it too. I'd build part of an office as a club and would encourage other startups and developers to drop-in and share.

Gentleman's clubs were the environment for serendipity of their age. And even with mass communication and global travel, it remains the case that if you can get people together, relaxing, dreaming big ideas and laughing... magic can happen.

Yeah, I'd build a club environment too. And it wouldn't be so I could pretend to be of that class, it would be to construct an environment that was proven to be good for serendipity.

I'd also stock the bar well and subsidise it... helps to grease the wheels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Nice is clearly a matter of opinion.

The space is great, the facilities and the culture they're obviously trying to create through them but let's just say it's not to my taste.

Which is a polite way of saying that to me at least the place looks foul.

<comment> k-mcgrady Foul? What about it do you not like? It seems a bit over the top to me (it's an office not a private club) but interested as to why you dislike it so much.

<comment><USER39> The dark, heavy furniture looks like what (Danish) furniture shops make for the US market, very different from the open, light, and minimalistic Scandinavian (mostly Swedish) design school used for products made for the home market. You know the design from IKEA, but there exists much more expensive (and somewhat higher quality) products.

My first reaction was that this might be a deliberate provocation against what would be considered good taste in Sweden.

<comment><USER40> Or that different people have different tastes. Imagine that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So is there still a reason to why Minecraft is so buggy?

<comment><USER17> How can you even tell if something like Minecraft is buggy or not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Wait, isn't their team like, less than a dozen people right now? Christ that's a lot of chairs. And space.

<comment><USER43> They have close to 30 employees, I think ~24 are in-office. Not sure if the list on the Minecraft wiki is accurate but it's pretty close (they added one maybe two in the recent weeks): <http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mojang>

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if they got the space checked out by an architect, or some kind of inspector. Probably not, as that would be destroying the open platform of building whatever you want.

</comment><comment><USER45> I guess you can save a lot of money not hiring texture artists.

</comment><comment><USER46> Notch = John Ralphio?

Nice office but it's almost too try-hard :P There are better ways to make good work environments than make it look like something out of a sitcom.

</comment><comment><USER47> Eh, the place would be amazing to relax in, but I feel like it would be too distracting to work. Notch might be different though.

<comment><USER48> Yeah, I feel like this would be a huge issue. I can't that kind of office wringing any kind of productivity out of his employees with how it's set up.

Not that providing some entertainment for employees isn't a good thing, however this seems way overboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Something about the lighting makes it look odd - like a showcase at a furniture store.

</comment><comment><USER50> Nice, but it looks more like a place for pleasure than for work.

</comment><comment><USER51> I can't see how any work gets done in this office whatsoever!

</comment><comment><USER52> Nice to see a Kickstarter of this kind alive and kicking after raiding only $25,355. Keep it up!!

<comment><USER53> I think you got the wrong news item, buddy :P</comment></comment>


Nick Dupree Fought to Live 'Like Anyone Else' - happy-go-lucky http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/02/22/516668777/nick-dupree-fought-to-live-like-anyone-else <comment> happy-go-lucky I saw this beautiful quote on his blog at [http://www.nickscrusade.org/about/](http://www.nickscrusade.org/about/)

"I write not because I have the strength to write, but because I do not have the strength to remain silent." — Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook zt'l

A disability rights activist with a severe neuromuscular disease, he had a short but meaningful life. A crusader in his own right.</comment>


Ask HN: What industry needs technical innovation? - <AUTHOR> Today, in the office, we had a brief discussion of some of the industries or fields that seem to have had relatively little technical innovation over the past decade.  Some industries seem to be getting a lot of attention from technical minds these days (e.g. the power grid, alternative fuels, etc.); others seem more stagnant and some may not stand to gain a lot from technological advancements.<p>But, I'm curious to hear others' opinions.  What industries are using technology and practices that are antiquated? <comment><USER2> As someone who works as an IT person in the Mental Health industry I'd nominate that industry. Mental Health has all the problems of regular health care times 10.

To give the most basic example, there is no formalized charting system in the Mental Health Industry. You have standardized notes that are turned into the county but that's about it.

The industry I work in (treatment of abused children who have been removed from the home) has a 96% fail rate in California. That means 96% of the children entrusted to the state end up in jail or dead by the age of 25 (as of 2003). So if ever there was an industry that needed technology's help it's this one.

<comment><USER3> The medical industry needs (good) software that helps with diagnosis. This covers mental health also.

You have symptoms of problem and it helps narrow down. Need a massive database of all known diseases as well as symptoms / remedies. Chart location data for origin of specific disease, (less likely to be rabies if Australia etc) and probability from all factors.

Would require huge amounts of data as well as many man hours to create but a system that does this task would be one of most beneficial medical breakthrough possible right now in my eyes.

Especially in mental health where there are symptoms of many things over many separate disorder, or rare one. It would be a bonus if you could let this information to be fully public, especially if one could direct users to relevant places.

<comment><USER4> You also need doctors to be willing to accept the software. They may not since they may feel that it makes their job look "easy" and will therefore cut into their incomes.

<comment><USER3> Thinking that doctors could be scared that their job looks easy makes me not only excited but all more hungry for this sort of software. This is the same thing labor said as it was mechanized. All sorts of other fields that changed to be technology reliant are the same. The idea that medicine could become "easy" could change this world maybe. Medicine becoming a job for more and more spread out is exciting to me. I hope we can make physicians near obsolete and direct professionals at research to better medicine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Housing & Home Construction

Most house construction in the industrialised world is still done by semi- skilled hand labour. There are few radical advances in materials or methods that have gained traction with the industry. Partly this is because the building industry is held back by antiquated construction codes that specify acceptable means and materials rather than the minimum performance constraints that buildings must exceed to be considered safe. But there is a lot of cultural resistance as well, both from the building trades and from customers.

Home construction is an area where several orders of magnitude improvement in both cost and performance are possible, just by the application of basic engineering principles. Well, basic engineering principles and a willingness to circumvent the established order.

<comment><USER6> May be this has to be first done in a country where it is possible (lax codes; not enforced; with corrupt officials etc - there are plenty of those) and made it a great success. May be after that the First World will catch up. You just have to make sure it doesn't get branded as Third World crap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Presumably the fields that need innovation most are those that have some artificial constraint suppressing it. E.g. the music business, because anything good is _ipso facto_ sued out of existence. Or the nuclear power industry, because the level of regulation becomes a barrier to entry to all but companies so bureaucratic they fit the government like a mold.

So oddly enough, you're most likely to be able to achieve innovation where other people are.

<comment><USER8> Can you give an example of a young company that managed to legally sidestep that sort of regulation?

<comment><USER7> Usually the way you do it is by replacing the whole industry that's regulated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Software development. And no, that's not a joke. We really are roughly where we were in the 70's, we have not been able to make good use of the increase in machine power.

It would be nice to see something really fresh. I'm holding out for 'fleet', or something like it. A radical departure from what we think is 'best practice' and the ways to do things. Something that will turn software development into a true engineering discipline, without the house of cards feeling that we have today.

<comment><USER10> Alan Kay with the Viewpoints Research Institute is doing some interesting work. If you have a chance, you should check out their released papers:

"STEPS Toward The Reinvention of Programming" <http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf>

"STEPS Toward The Reinvention of Programming, 2008 Progress Report Submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF), October 2008" <http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2008004_steps08.pdf>

The idea here is to rebuild the existing software infrastructure that goes into a fully-functioning system such that the source code is at a minimum an order of magnitude smaller than systems are today. To do so, they claim, requires building the software stack on top of the right abstractions. So far, it seems they've made some excellent progress.

<comment><USER11> sounds like lisp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Agriculture. I'm studying an agricultural products distributor, and as much as automation has helped reduce the reliance on labor in the agricultural sector, there are still many areas hugely reliant on inefficient labor -- and many business owners are facing increasing financial difficulty because of a resistance toward automation.

I predict that as the industry consolidates, the more tech-savvy, bigger players with more capital will squeeze the small guys out. And there is an interesting opportunity for tech-savvy people there.

I am thinking specifically about some of the ag sectors which have not already massively consolidated, such as greenhouse-based ag.

</comment><comment><USER13> How about law? Obviously there are non-technical problems there as well, but it seems like there is still a lot that could be done technologically to improve transparency and (maybe more interestingly) reduce expense.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually been thinking about law recently. It seems that, because it is a field that is based on rules, it would lend itself well to a more programmatic solution. Obviously not all law could be serviced programmatically, but there are certainly areas that could be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Immigration processing is one, atleast in US.

I've still not understood why it takes 4-5 years to USCIS office to grant or deny residency of an applicant. How can that process be so slow? All papers and evidences are submitted on day one. Then why it takes 4-5 years to process back-log applications and then process yours.

I know there is quota per country for per year. But not all quotas are full by all countries. Why can't they do shuffling and do dynamic quota management?

This inefficiency is frustrating to many individuals, so definitely need some technical innovation to process things efficiently.

<comment><USER9> That's because it is a deterrent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Business Accounting

The current quarterly system of reporting finances was (I believe) developed as a result of the Great Depression, to help inform the public of company status.

The recent banking meltdown shows how inadequate this system is.

Something more realtime is needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's an interesting idea. I know that quarterly filings are an SEC requirement, but it's at least in part to help shareholders keep abreast of the goings on of the company in which they are part owners. It seems like completely realtime would overwhelm casual investors, but could provide for much more accurate trade decisions than those made on speculation and the current system of quarterly conference calls.

<comment><USER15> Yes.

Another problem with the quarterly focus is that companies end up gaming the system (not in an entirely malicious way) in order to make the quarterly and annual results look good, almost like cramming for a final. It can detract from focusing on healthy long term growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Real estate is one that really chaps my ass.

I don't know what it's like in other countries, but in Canada there's this bizarre mafia of middlemen that take ~6-10% of the value of house when you sell. They self-promote and self-reinforce to maintain an information advantage, but they don't seem to offer a service beyond a list of houses with pictures, and hand-holding.

</comment><comment><USER17> Education

<comment><USER18> they just need to stop teaching useless shit.

Take math for example, why are we teaching kids how to do calculus using a piece of paper, when in the real world they'll be using an Excel spreadsheet?

Math, Chemistry, Physics, Finance, pretty much any course that requires calculations wastes 90% of the course, teaching the kids how to do the calculations by hand, in most cases without even a calculator.

Excel is being widely used in the real world, yet you never see it taught in the classroom. Why? Excel is what the kids will be using in their jobs, shouldn't you be teaching them the skills they'll actually need? Instead of teaching them outdated concepts? Why don't you teach them how to do calculus using an abacus?

<comment><USER19> An abacus is a better idea than you think. Most people struggle with mathematics because it's not presented in a way that people who are not mathematicians will understand. Read the biography for any $FAMOUS_SCIENTIST and you shouldn't be surprised to find "read Euclid's elements at age [5-12]"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Energy. All kind of. More efficient using of existing sources and new sources. Think of it this way: How much worth ALL IT industry- all bright stars- Google, apple, MS, ibm? Something around $1T, right? Now Petrochina alone(!) is around 800B and its just about producing and selling gas in China!

So if you would be able to make technological innovation that would make my car engine say 10% more effective or produce just few %% that my home consumes - that will be HUGE!!!

</comment><comment><USER21> Government. It has a high barrier to entry (win an election/revolution) and a high consumer switching cost (move far away, get a new job, learn a new language). If the governing industry were more competitive, I think its quality of service would be better.

The Peter Thiel-funded Seasteading Institute is trying to decrease the start- up cost and the consumer switching cost. Paul Romer has another approach with the Charter City proposal he's advocating.

</comment><comment><USER22> All of them.

Under that light, the world is full of opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhhhh, that's true, but I guess I was thinking less philosophically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Home.

It should be "standard" to have a single web interface for control over everything in my house.

1) Real-Time monitoring of water, electric and gas consumption.

2) Entertainment. I should be able to login to a website and click "TV's". Then I can see if they are on, what channel is being watched, what is scheduled to be recorded.

3) Security. Doors and Windows. Automation of opening, closing and locking. Plus video surveillance.

4) Upkeep. Sprinkler control. Heat control and lights. Start the dishwasher, start the coffee pot.

Sure, this can all be done with an excessive amount of work, lots of high tech and expensive gadgetry, and custom software setups, but that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. I think the Home needs an overhaul.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to hear a lot more about "smart" appliances than I do now. I know there have been some companies that have worked on developing outlet adapters that allow you to control some basic functionality over a network, but the smart appliance craze seems to have died down as of late.

<comment><USER24> could you give any examples with names of companies that are doing the outlet adapters that you mention? I'd like to view them further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Healthcare, construction, K12 education are three tidepools that a lot of IT innovation has left behind over the last 30 years. None of them need invention, they need to import and adapt working innovations from other fields.

</comment><comment><USER26> Electricity, the power grid... Right now I'm pretty sure power companies can't tell you if the power is on at your house or not...The system is pretty old.

<comment><USER27> The technology is there. If you live in the US then most substations have metering, various indications (transformer monitoring, breaker positions, etc.), and breaker/circuit switcher/motor operated device controls. If there is a fault on your feeder then the utility should know immediately. Chances are if you are served by a larger utility then you will also get an automated time of day meter in the next couple of years. Is the adoption of technology slow compared other industries? Sure, safety and reliability rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Automobile - currently we are under the model slow and steady wins the race and kills the environment. Traffic sucks, gas sucks, texting kills people.

</comment><comment><USER29> Environmental improvement (not necessarily environmentally-friendly, just human environment)

ie <http://www.project10tothe100.com/ideas.html> "Create real-world issue reporting system"

Google's Project 10 to the 100 has a lot of good ideas related to technological innovation.

</comment><comment><USER30> It seems to me the largest industries -- the ones bound by regulation or the way it's always been done are the ones most ripe for change.

News, real estate, health care, automotive and agriculture come to mind. We're seeing some of these change because of technology. Hopefully, the ones that survive will be stronger for it.

</comment><comment><USER31> The third world is craving for low cost technologies ,and there's a huge market potential there. only in the last few years companies have started to become interested ,so there might empty places for startups.

</comment><comment><USER32> Healthcare, plan and simple.

<comment><USER33> more specifically: clinical trials. This is where most money spent on drug development goes. The sooner big pharma figures out if a drug works or not the better. Its still a very paper based industry, which I think is an FDA requirement. So I believe lots can be innovated here

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> reminds me of an article my friend wrote: [http://kcomposite.blogspot.com/2009/06/uniquely- american.htm...](http://kcomposite.blogspot.com/2009/06/uniquely- american.html)

(short answer = taxes and banking)

</comment><comment><USER35> Digital Advertising

</comment><comment><USER36> Agriculture.</comment>


The U.S. Housing Boom Is Coming to an End, Starting in Dallas - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-housing-boom-is-coming-to-an-end-starting-in-dallas-1543248073 <comment><USER3> The post housing crash housing boom was almost entirely the result of the federal government--which has made, guaranteed, or bought significantly more than half the residential mortgages since 2008--deciding there should be a housing boom. If it is indeed coming to an end it is because the federal government collectively has decided not to double down and keep the party going.

This isn't the weather or even the price of gold. This is policy choices by government officials and should reported that way.

I'm not saying (in this post) that it is a good thing or bad thing, but it's what is actually going on and that's what newspapers ought to report.

<comment><USER4> The Federal Reserve (which orchestrates interest rates to manage inflation and achieve full employment [two of its mandates]) is not (edit: a branch) of the US government, and does not set government policy.

Edit: This is incorrect. The Board Of Governors who set interest rates is a part of the federal govrnment as an agency (accountable to Congress), the individual Federal Reserve Banks are not.

<comment><USER5> While it is technically true that the Fed is privately owned, it's not how it runs in actuality. The Fed chairman meets with presidents regularly, and many other politicians. The president also nominates the Chair of the Fed. So hardly independent [1].

[1] [https://mises.org/library/myth-fed- independence](https://mises.org/library/myth-fed-independence)

<comment><USER6> Based on how pissed off Trump is that Powell is raising rates, I would say the Fed Chairman is pretty independent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Housing prices go up: "it's becoming unaffordable!" Housing prices go down: "it's crashing!" Housing prices stay stable: "our leaders need to revitalise downtown!"

<comment><USER8> Housing prices go down: with these interest rates it's becoming even more unaffordable!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fed lowers interest rates with QE and home buying goes up. Fed raises interest rates and home buying goes down. Imagine that.

Almost as if this could have all been predicted[0].

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_business_cycle_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_business_cycle_theory)

<comment><USER10> Of course it's been predicted. Economists have predicted 9 of the last 7 recessions.

But besides that, the Fed doing exactly what is was chartered to do and constantly issues press releases about is not a shocking revelation of hetereodox economics.

<comment><USER9> The Fed isn't doing exactly what it was chartered to do--it has had a dual mandate since 1977 that complicates its purpose. Regardless, the problem in this system seems more attributable to fractional reserve banking, which is force multiplier on the effects of central banks.

<comment><USER11> I believe the Fed's mandate is wrongly placed. The Fed should only be responsible for money supply, not for full employment.

Full employment should be a burden taken on by elected representatives in congress or the executive.

The dual mandate asks a fish to make sure the boat flies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Doesn't surprise me, younger millenials won't have a home to sell and will thus have a hard time affording a home in an inflated market. Compounded with the fact that median wages haven't increased that much the last 30 years. Prices have to fall for that group to afford a home.

<comment><USER13> I really feel like this is it. Debt was introduced to parents of millennials. But it took some time to become institutionalized. Now millennials are in debt right as they get out of college. No matter what college you leave, you can have debt if your parents didn't pay for your tuition. On top of that, wages have been stagnant. Then there is the credit card debt that is very easy to accumulate is you aren't careful with the money that you do have. This younger generation is too busy paying off their debt. Then they are expected to save 5 years worth of salary to pay for house down payment so they can get a mortgage for 30 years. It's possible to make it happen but it requires a lot more effort than it did for our parents or grandparents.

<comment><USER14> Even as a DINK millennial couple with a combined low six figure income a home purchase feels like a poor investment. Not only the down-payment of $100k+ but the property tax increases and then having to pay that mortgage for 30 years. Since we expect mobility and a certain level of future uncertainty it just doesn't make sense for us and many more of our generation to tie ourselves to such and expensive geographic anchor.

<comment><USER10> You can rent out that investment if you move. Paying rent is also expensive where home prices are expensive.

<comment><USER15> If you are lucky you can get money from renting. If you were unlucky and had a house in the rust belt and jobs disappeared then few people could buy or rent your house. So people can get trapped. At least you can expunge your mortgage debt with bankruptcy. Not being able to expunge education debt is what's holding our economy down.

<comment><USER16> Not being able to expunge education debt is what makes education lending possible.

Otherwise, there'd be a line to file strategic bankruptcy after the last tuition payment was due...

<comment><USER17> Revocation of a degree with the dissolving of student loan debt in bankruptcy certainly could work for some.

<comment><USER16> That doesn't make the lender whole, though; there's nothing they can repossess or foreclose on.

It's a mild deterrent for some cases, but for a lot of situations, having the degree isn't anywhere near as valuable as having the education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am quite convinced it would be possible to build a pleasantly-looking development of $25,000 sale-value housing at 50 or 70 miles away from the urbanized area and connect it with a fast transit rail to the main urbanization. Empty land should be cheap. Buyers should be plentiful. The reason why this does not happen, is because the bureaucracy prevents it. There seems to be a strong political necessity to make accommodation unaffordable. It is a deliberate policy, of which homelessness is just an unimportant byproduct. It is your risk and fear of becoming homeless that keeps the system afloat. These dangers enslave you to your employer and to the banksters. Be a good slave!

<comment><USER19> $25,000 can EASILY be spent, and triple that, just on getting well water, septic and electrical services to a rural property. I could buy 20 acres in Okanogan county WA right now for $18,000 but it'll be at the end of a dirt road, with no sewer, no water, and looking at $30k to extend grid electrical to it (or build a $20k off-grid photovoltaic system).

I'm guessing from your comment that you've never actually done the budget on what it costs to turn "cheap" land into somewhere you can build a nice residence.

<comment><USER20> How do you find cheap land like this? I would love to own 20 unimproved acres in rural Washington.

<comment><USER21> Umm, Zillow with the right filters. All the 20 acre plots you want for $20K. You better have a vehicle with some ground clearance.

<comment><USER19> And in many places consider that a road which is passable by a light duty 4x4 or pickup in summer, due to snow, may be snowmobile or snow cat access only in winter. Unless you pave the access road and have it plowed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I just built a home. One thing I noticed: Some builders are really stupid about reading the market and knowing what people are willing to pay. They load homes up with luxury features and then wonder why their homes sit vacant.

My builder has a vacant home in my neighborhood. He ran Ethernet to all rooms, and put in other silly features, and just couldn't comprehend why his price was too high.

<comment><USER23> > He ran Ethernet to all rooms, and put in other silly features

Isn't this normal by now?

My house is only a few years old but wasn't particularly expensive. When I bought it, it was already wired up with ethernet - I just had to replace the wall plates (they were RJ11 outlets instead of RJ45) and hook up an ethernet switch.

From what I've seen of other homes, it appears to be common for electricians to use ethernet for phone lines. Why wouldn't you? The difference in material costs is neglegable.

Why should this significantly increase the cost of a new home? Re-wiring an old home is annoying, but I don't see any reason why it should cost much for a new home.

<comment><USER24> Because 90% of non-tech people don't like wires. Nobody runs ethernet cables to all their devices. They don't want to have to worry about an Ethernet switch in the basement or a closet. Having a Wi-Fi router/cable modem in the bedroom is the most they want to worry about. With wireless networking they can have their devices wherever they want, without extra wires.

<comment><USER25> The number of people that don't even have a real Wifi router and just use the POS combination modem/router that Comcast provides (and charges a frankly usurious rental fee for) them bears this out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Older Millenial here. Bought my house while prices were still low in late 2013. Cashed out in March of this year.

Thought it was crazy it was bubbling like this again. Time will tell if that was dumb or smart but I did pay off all my debt including student loans...

I personally think a crash is coming soonish. But that's just my gut.

<comment><USER6> Almost everyone thinks a crash is coming. There has never been a crash where almost everyone has seen it coming. Therefore there will not be a crash at least in the near future. Prices might pullback but it won't be a crash.

<comment><USER27> Isn't there some logical fallacy about believing that since something has never happened, it will never happen?

<comment><USER28> It's called the Black Swan fallacy. Ironically, it's what happened with the recession and housing crisis in 2008, except back then it was "the housing market isn't a bubble, people will never default on their mortgages en masse".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > As mortgage rates rise, buyers increasingly look for less-expensive homes.

File that under "duh". Home buyers want to get the best house they can afford based on a given monthly payment amount, and as interest rates rise, the home price that you can afford for the same monthly payment decreases. Which gives rise to high interest rates actually being a good thing for prospective home buyers: you end up with lower home prices across the board and eventually you'll be able to refinance into a lower rate.

</comment><comment><USER30> Funnily enough, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported almost the same story - <USER2> the same example region! - last week: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-20/free- vaca...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-20/free- vacations-100-000-discounts-homebuilders-get-desperate)

I wonder if WSJ was chasing Bloomberg? Or if this phenomenon isn't really as strong nationwide as is being implied, but is mostly only in certain parts of Texas?

</comment><comment><USER31> "Some home builders are so desperate to attract interest they are offering agents the chance to win Louis Vuitton handbags or Super Bowl tickets with round-trip airfare, if their clients buy a home."

That seems like a serious conflict of interests.

<comment><USER32> If you'll humor the anecdote for what it is: I worked as a consultant business partner to real estate agencies and property management groups for a few years out of college (friend and I started a handyman company, grew it, sold it, became consultants), the phrase 'serious conflicts of interests' could unironically be adopted, publicly as an industry wide motto for the real estate profession and I don't think a soul would blink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> [https://outline.com/ZCPPvZ](https://outline.com/ZCPPvZ)

<comment><USER34> Why does HN allow intentional bypass of paywalls? It's no different than providing links to pirated software. On the one hand, we complain about aggressive advertising while simultaneously doing everything possible to ensure publications don't earn any money.

<comment><USER35> It isn't _quite_ the same, because these publications _do_ offer their content for free... to the Google indexer. So they're kind of trying to have it both ways.

That said, I agree with the broader point: if you value something that has a price on it then you really ought to pay for it at some point. You can object to anything you want ("there are still ads!", "why can't I pay per article?"), but it's all besides the point. There is a price attached and you can pay it or not pay it, but refusing to pay while still consuming it isn't really defensible, beyond "I can do it and you can't stop me".

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure, but some paid software is provided for free to some reviews or other people... By the same line of thought... Is fine to pirate them?

<comment><USER35> Fair point. I'm not really sure it's a comparison worth exploring too deeply as there are just too many differences. For instance, what's the pirated program equivalent of viewing just one article?

I think (hope?) most people here would agree that a hack providing you with a full WSJ subscription would be inappropriate. But many are fine with a single article. Perhaps that's hypocritical, I dunno.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Things have also cooled off in the Palo Alto area. I've seen houses dropped by $400k in the last few months, typically from nearly $2.5M to a bit under $2M. At first I thought it was just to get a bidding war started, but the homes then sold for not much over the lowered price.

This is still a far cry from "affordable", but it's a change of pace from the last six years.

<comment><USER38> I've toured a couple of houses in Palo Alto in the past month. The agents were practically begging us to make an offer below asking price. I thought it was really weird. Of course, even then the prices would still be about double what I would consider reasonable.

<comment><USER37> I'm curious to see how much things soften after people do their 2018 taxes next year and realize the magnitude of the impact of not being able to deduct property taxes anymore. (In CA, the $10k cap is eaten up by state income taxes, at least for anyone who has enough money to purchase a home.)

<comment><USER39> It is a mix. Housing prices have been going up by about 20% for a while except for this year. 1% interest rate increase is more or less equal to price going up 20% in terms of monthly payment. Add lack of salt, and it falls behind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> A wild thought - How much of this is caused by H1B visa restrictions and higher visa rejection rates? Dallas, and Texas in general, is home to the fourth largest Indian population in US. I reckon that these high paid tech people are abstaining from purchasing any real estate owing to the uncertainity in their existence here.

</comment><comment><USER41> IDK, looks kind of like supply and demand starting to balance out in an area where that's allowed to happen. Mostly through sprawl, rather than other, denser types of development, but it is allowed.

</comment><comment><USER42> The recent tax bill badly hurts the blue states with high local taxes, and limits housing-related deductions for them. Vote next time, please.

</comment><comment><USER43> I believe we are seeing normal corrections in the housing market which has been overheated due to low interest rates. It is not some big conspiracy by the government and it is not a big collapse as some are making it out to be.

1/8th of a percent on a 30 year mortgage equals 80 dollars more per month on a 500k home, over 30 years, that is 28 grand more you are paying. The mortgage rates went from low 3% to high 5%, now even at 6%, in a matter of a few years. Of course this will cool the market a bit, people can do the math that much more in interest is hundreds of thousands.

This is very different from the 2008 crisis where people that had no business owning homes were defaulting on their loans. This is just supply and demand, standard capitalism. Home prices will come down a bit and they will start selling more homes.

</comment><comment><USER44> There was a boom? All I've observed is a crazy growth of prices, making buying anything very prohibitive.

<comment><USER45> >All I've observed is a crazy growth of prices, making buying anything very prohibitive.

If only there were a good word for that...

<comment><USER44> Renting times :)</comment></comment></comment>


Where a 90s tourist guide will take you in 2015 NYC - <AUTHOR> http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/city/city/168771-90s-tourist-guide-nyc <comment><USER2>
        CHIP:
        My father told me, "Chip, my boy,
        There'll come a time when you leave home;
        If you should ever hit New York,
        Be sure to see the Hippodrome."

        HILDY:
        The Hippodrome?

        CHIP:
        The Hippodrome.

        HILDY:
        Did I hear right?
        Did you say the Hippodrome?

        CHIP:
        Yes, you heard right.
        Yes, I said the Hip-

        (Hildy brakes.)

        Hey what did you stop for?

        HILDY:
        It ain't there anymore.
        Aida sang an "A"
        And blew the place away!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQj3sbXivYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQj3sbXivYY)

<comment><USER3> Thank you! I came here to write this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Enjoyable read overall, but his ending slunk into a somewhat currently beaten path of "success but at what cost?" regarding local culture.

There have been many such articles springing up recently decrying the "damage" "gentrification" is doing to the culture of certain areas in the USA. It's a little tiring. The types pushing the narrative whining over the rapid development and investment in some areas then whine over the lack of development and investment in other areas.

Aside from that though it was a good read.

<comment><USER5> "gentrification" == "cleaning up crime"

I for one am glad that I can now safely walk through parts of town I would've never been able to set foot in without being shot, raped, and/or robbed in the 90s.

(I don't live in NYC, but the same thing is happening where I live, and it's the same people whining and acting like lower crime rates are a _bad_ thing)

<comment><USER6> I know places (locally) that I consider gentrified where friends have been beaten up for being the wrong minority. Gentrified doesn't always mean safe.

<comment><USER7> Has the probability of this increased, decreased or stayed the same though?

<comment><USER8> Studies have shown police tend to "over-police" poor neighbourhoods. Disproportionate even to the percentage of crime that exists in those areas.

So I wouldn't be surprised if they spent less time in newly gentrified areas and spent most of their time patrolling the worse areas. Offsetting the crime reduction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apologies for being offtopic but is anyone else getting hideous font rendering in that article?

[http://i.imgur.com/z3sacRc.png](http://i.imgur.com/z3sacRc.png)

Edit: It seems like the administrators here have decided that Chrome 36 is best Chrome and it's the version before Windows font rendering was fixed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Funny my sister found an old restaurant guide to SF a few months ago and gave it to me as a joke. Not sure about the _exact_ date ATM, but I believe sometime around the dotcom bust.

My plan was somewhat similar to the title of the article but I would say about 95% of the restaurants no longer exist.

</comment><comment><USER11> Reubens is gone, NYC will never be the same.</comment>


Replete – a standalone ClojureScript REPL for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mfikes/replete/wiki/Beta <comment><USER2> Author here. Willing to answer questions.

<comment><USER3> If I understand correctly, the ClojureScript compiler was written in Clojure (that is, you had to run the JVM to run the compiler), which spat out JS code and then compiled by Google Closure.

Would you be able to explain, at a high level, how ClojureScript bootstrapped itself, and how Google Closure comes into play?

<comment><USER4> Over the years the language differences between Clojure & ClojureScript have more or less been erased beyond very host specific details like String methods, no multithreading, etc. Clojure 1.7.0 landed reader conditional which permits writing conditional code based on whether the file is being compiled by Clojure or by ClojureScript.

So we simply conditionalized a few key things in the analyzer and then we just point ClojureScript _JVM_ back at its own sources. This part was actually very simple to do. However much more challenging is the issue of macros. As with many Lisps, Clojure has only a few primitive special forms and most of the language is actually written in terms of macros. ClojureScript is no different, the macros files is longer than the analyzer or the compiler.

You can see ClojureScript's meta-circular moment here - [https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/blob/d1d3e866440626...](https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/blob/d1d3e8664406260e07b1549e803cb34b818ea983/src/main/clojure/cljs/core.cljc#L44-L50). The macros file must load itself in order for it to be compiled into JavaScript.

Google Closure was _always_ an additional optimization pass. The bootstrapped code we generate is still Closure compatible making it easy to run it yourself seperately as an optimization pass or to produce a single JavaScript file you can put somewhere on the Internet if you like.

<comment><USER5> Awesome work David!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been wanting to learn Clojure for a while, but I am not an iOS guy.

I do not want to take away mfikes' thunder (super solid and amazing work by the way, sir. Saw your blog post on earlier work on /r/clojure on reddit ... I think, maybe a week or two ago), but how viable is something similar on Android?

I would LOVE to have something like on my Nexus 6 while in the park and outings with the family.

<comment><USER2> It is _extremely_ viable: The core REPL functionality is based on a few ClojureScript lines from Joel Martin's initial work for something similar for Node.

In short, to make an Android version would involve just running a JavaScript engine and hooking up a little bit of UI to send strings to it, and get strings back out of it.

Replete is open source... feel free to steal heavily from it.

Look at how simple and rough the first working version of Replete was (see demo of it at bottom of [http://blog.fikesfarm.com/posts/2015-06-27-replete-a- standal...](http://blog.fikesfarm.com/posts/2015-06-27-replete-a-standalone- ios-cljs-repl.html))

IMHO an Android version is just waiting to be created by someone. :)

<comment><USER6> Very cool. Very nice to see your work. Hope to learn something from you soon.

Maybe I will steal a friend's iPad to play with your stuff. Will keep track of your stuff.

<comment><USER2> Replete is in beta right now, so it simply requires signing up and making use of TestFlight. [https://github.com/mfikes/replete/wiki/Beta](https://github.com/mfikes/replete/wiki/Beta)

Also, it is a slightly older version, but if you want, you can try it directly online here: [https://appetize.io/app/8hf37bv29k2zrj0v2j765xt3jr](https://appetize.io/app/8hf37bv29k2zrj0v2j765xt3jr)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice! I'm busy learning Lisp/Scheme/Racket via CS61AS online and was thinking how nice Lisps would work on Microsoft's TouchDevelop. Have you thought about building a similar UI?

<comment><USER2> A nice aspect of this is that it is making use of a new capability of ClojureScript to bootstrap itself. This means that it can run its own compiler from within JavaScript, thus making it easy to create ClojureScript REPLs in environments where it wasn't previously possible. So long as TouchDevelop runs a JavaScript engine of some sort, it should be feasible. (Replete is evaluating ClojureScript forms directly on the device from within JS, without going to a backend via the network.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there anything like this for javascript? A REPL for iOS that is. I searched for one a few weeks ago and there was nothing as simple as this.

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798158)

<comment><USER10> Since this post is having a discussion and the previous one didn't, we've un- duped it.</comment></comment>


Challenge:  Expression without use of the verb "to be" - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/16/e-prime-change-your-life

<comment><USER2> Like most philosophies of this sort, the ideas are trivially self-refuting. For example, consider the following from the article:

>"Our judgments can only be probabilistic," wrote Allen Walker Read, a Korzybski follower. "Therefore we would do well to avoid finalistic, absolutistic terms. Can we ever find 'perfection' or 'certainty' or 'truth'? No! Then let us stop using such words in our formulations."

This basically amounts to saying that it's certainly true that we can never be certain that anything is true. In any case, avoiding the use of "be" has no real effect on the subjective/objective tone of your language. You can write subjective-sounding sentences using be ("It is in my view a bad idea") and you can express objective-sounding sentences without it ("E-prime sucks"). If for some reason you're concerned not to make objective claims, then don't make objective claims. There aren't any special grammatical tricks required.

I don't know how ideas as bad as this one ever gain any traction. (But then I guess E-Prime never really did.)

</comment><comment><USER3> What about "is not"?</comment>


Cisco, Google Ventures and VMware Back Puppet Labs with $8.5 Million - <AUTHOR> http://m.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/11/cisco-google-ventures-and-vmwa.php <comment><USER2> I tried Puppet because using a real deploy tool seemed like the Right Thing To Do.

When I was on my 10th puppet script, I gave up. My existing mishmash of shell scripts already does the same thing in a fraction of the effort, sans cumbersome DSL. This is with 100+ servers. Maybe when I have 1000 servers, I'll take another look.</comment>


Google Currents - Yet another contribution to the UI-fragmentation of Android - <AUTHOR> http://minming.posterous.com/

<comment><USER2> "Apple set the bar for realistic textured apps. Developers followed."

IMHO, this was to be avoided. I think this move on Apple's part to move towards such literal skeuomorphism was a major step back. After decades of learning that literal analogies on computing devices simply doesn't work all that well, Apple decided to forget about all of that lesson learned stuff and just throw it all away.

Even Gruber can't manage to fake gushing over it

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/against- skeuomor...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/against- skeuomorphism)

 _These themes aren't lies. They're not designed to help users understand how these apps work. They're just decoration. They're per-app branding. Apple no longer endorses system-wide visual uniformity. Special apps are supposed to look special. Why is Find My Friends wrapped in rich Corinthian leather? Because someone at Apple likes (and, sadly, if my guess is right, better said liked, past tense) how it looks._

I'd say in general the design gods are not happy with this move

[http://www.andymangold.com/skeuomorphism-the-opiate-of- the-p...](http://www.andymangold.com/skeuomorphism-the-opiate-of-the-people/)

<http://madebymany.com/blog/apples-aesthetic-dichotomy>

<http://kensegall.com/blog/tag/ical-address-book/>

[http://cushley.net/2011/07/in-depth-os-x-lion-review- part-3-...](http://cushley.net/2011/07/in-depth-os-x-lion-review-part-3-new- visual-changes/)

So in less than half a dozen links this design trend is called cheap "kitsch", "infantile", patronizing lies, "hideous" etc. These are not slight disagreements, these are fighting words.

I agree that Google's Android apps suffer from terrible UI consistency problems, but using Apple's trend towards textured apps as an example of consistency cum success doesn't work here.

A better example might be the pre-OS X guidelines that Apple used to publish. You couldn't tell one company's application from another!

In the end though, I'm not entirely sure that it really matters all that much. Users will learn how to use the apps they want, and they'll think about those apps as tasks, each with discrete ways of doing things. e.g. opening a car door is different than opening a fridge door is different from opening a closet door is different from opening the screen door is different from opening the shower door etc. UI consistency just isn't _that_ important, it's just annoying when you notice it.

<comment><USER3> Two things. First, I think it's pretty universally agreed that Apple's trend toward skeuomporphism is bad. But that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't created a consistent set of UI standards for iOS. Both because of culture and because of the built-in toolkit, UI elements among apps on iOS are very standard. This is especially true of Apple-built apps, which is why the blog post detailing Google's inconsistencies is so strange to me.

Secondly, Apple does in fact still publish Human Interface Guidelines, and while they're not followed to the degree that they were pre-OS X, they are still taken seriously by most developers and designers of Mac software.

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Intro/Intro.html)

<comment><USER2> * Apple does in fact still publish Human Interface Guidelines, and while they're not followed to the degree that they were pre-OS X*

Right, which is the problem IMHO. Even Apple can't muster up enough will to follow them these days with their own apps.

Are the apps generally good looking on their own? Most of them are, there's a few "what were they thinking" moments.

The problem though is that even Apple isn't following the HIG these days and that spells doom and gloom for anybody who wishes to hold them up as the high water mark for design houses to follow. Pre-OS X it was a very solid design language. Pretty much everything looked like everything else, and it all looked pretty good. You really had to work hard to make an ugly piece of software.

 _Both because of culture and because of the built-in toolkit_

And you are also right with this, having a built-in toolkit, with all sorts of good looking, consistent, well-behaved interface elements is the key here. Android gives you layout control (great for different screen sizes/resolution) but doesn't seem to provide anywhere near the level of toolkitting needed, while iOS takes up the lessons learned in the pre-OS X days and provides an awesome toolkit.

Then Apple manages to ignore the whole thing and try to make everything look like something I threw away 15 years ago because computing devices were better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know about fragmentation - a quick look through the examples pulled out in the linked article just makes me think "sloppy".

But I do want to pick up on this idea that touch-based interfaces should all have the same look and feel. That idea made (and to some extent still makes) sense when you have a large desktop shared by a number of different applications, and the user is constantly shifting between them as part of their workflow.

But I think there's been a shift over the last few years. On the desktop we have monolithic applications where the user's workflow is expected to be entirely within the application, and these applications have increasingly adopted their own specialised UI style and assumed that they will run full screen. I first saw this with 3d graphic applications like Blender, but you can also see it in things like Aperture and Lightroom with their inconsistent dark palette.

And I think this is more pronounced on smartphones and particularly on tablets, where the application you are running takes over the whole display. They aren't described as "immersive" for nothing. I'd argue that when an application is something that you completely immerse yourself in, the need for visual consistency is reduced (though not removed). Yes, we need some common visual language, and for people to understand how that relates to common gestures for interaction. But I think the stand-out applications will be the ones that have a visual style that is consistent with the content of the application, and maybe with other applications from the same publisher.

I'd draw a comparison with magazines, particularly as that's representative of the kind of content that is making its way into custom applications on tablets. We don't expect Vogue and Wired to share a consistent font and the same iconography to help the reader navigate - instead we expect each of them to have their own house style consistent from issue to issue, but different from other magazines from the same stable. At the same time we do have certain common expectations that come from the conventions and physical form of the magazine, and we may also notice some common design elements due to them sharing a publisher.

I'd compare this with Apple's use of skeuomorphism in some applications. Maybe we should think of it as Apple's house style for some of its applications, and not seek to ape it in our own. It's quite Ok to develop your own house style building on a common design vocabulary - look at how Tapbots (<http://tapbots.com/>) work their own style into their apps for example. We're still working out what works best on these devices, but I'm not convinced that consistency of visual design is all that important any more.

</comment><comment><USER5> when criticizing android, fragmentation is a word that means something. This isn't what it means. Stop using buzzwords.

<comment><USER6> I agree, the word fragmentation means nothing here. The word he was looking for was inconsistency, but he chose fragmentation because that's the most popular negative buzzword related to Android, even though it makes little sense to use it in this case.

That being said, I agree that Google should strive for even more consistency in their OS and their own apps. I do think they are learning and moving in the right direction, though. They just need to do it faster and even more holistically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Websites all have different looking widgets and it's not considered an atrocity. You can make a unique looking button and as long as it has sufficient visual cues and affordances, it will obviously look like a button.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. People have shown that they are fine jumping from websites (and "web apps") without any common UI guidelines. Uniformity is overrated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article correctly points out that there are inconsistencies between some of Google's apps, but it doesn't demonstrate that it's a problem. Sure, I'd agree that it's something to be avoided, but the only problem pointed out that seems likely to cause confusion is the more button with a different icon.

Presumably there are user tests that show that these apps are straightforward to use.

<comment><USER10> > Presumably there are user tests that show that these apps are > straightforward to use.

What exactly makes you think that? And more importantly, if these were backed by real experimentation why don't they agree on their conclusions?

As stated the biggest problem is that they don't provide a consistent model for how developers should build their apps. And that shows, 3rd Party Android apps are far far less consistent than those on iOS.

<comment><USER9> I'm not saying they attempted consistency then decided against it for usability reasons. I'm saying that inconsistent interfaces can still be usable.

Third party apps on iOS are similarly inconsistent. The Facebook app works very differently from the Twitter app. I think that's okay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I Like these posts. Getting more and more into UX and its clearly something more people should pay attention to

</comment><comment><USER12> I think part of the problem is that all new Google apps want to showcase the newest UI elements and themes. As a techie I do enjoy seeing apps with new UX innovations often. Also from developer point of view its good to see what is possible. But on the long run I do understand the value of UI consistency, especially since I started using IPad a while ago.

Putting more effort on their UI guideline pages might help. It seems its not updated recently to include any of the newer UI elements yet. Since their own apps are using them they should be good enough for the guidelines: [http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/i...](http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't care about the fragmentation, I'm upset that the google currents UX is so awful. I really want something like flipboard for my android phone so I had high hopes for currents.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow. Makes me wonder: Does Apple have a design division that does all the design? I assume that Google does not, ie they have a "Google Maps" division, a "Google Currents" division, etc. that just creates the product, and delivers it. I wonder how these companies differ in this regard?

Thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER15> None of the images load... the irony...

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. From Posterous.com:

"Posterous is unavailable at the moment. We're reloading the site and we'll be back in just a minute or two."

The irony is that I decided to start my blog at Posterous because I got one of those cheap web hosting which I thought would easily crush under load. The irony...</comment></comment>


Working on the Railroad - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2286734/

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... In 2010, with the U.S. economy still wounded and U.S. consumers still wary, cash-rich investors often looked west: All the big returns were in Singapore or Hong Kong or Silicon Valley, they said, so they put their money into hot social-media start-ups and emerging economies. ..."_

Buffet buys into (relatively) 'fuel efficient' bulk transport system, trains. Is the sudden increase in startup funding explained here?</comment>


Ask HN: Has Anyone Switched from SWE to Management Consulting? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to hear you experience. Did you need an MBA?<p>I'm considering this move, mainly for the money and potential career opportunities. The lifetime earning capability of post-MBA graduates at a Big 3 consulting firm (McKinsey, Bain and BCG) far exceeds a software engineer, especially if you make partner. Further, exit opportunities to C-suite of F500 companies (your clients) are quite common. <comment><USER2> I've been in management consulting, albeit with a firm that would probably be #4 or 5 on that list. It was early career so I don't want to overstate my expertise here - take this for what it's worth:

Consider your work-life balance. I know these places always show up on "best places to work" lists, but for the life of me, I have no idea how. Maybe it's because I'm the wrong personality fit, but if you are not a workaholic, it's tough going in consulting. The money may be better in the long run, but it's high burnout for a reason. And even if you do make that exit to the C-suite, those guys work hard too.

Not a definitive answer, just something to consider.</comment>


New book: "My Startup Life" - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/002334.html <comment><USER2> _'... Comcate, went on to become the leading provider of software that enables citizens to communicate with their local governments ...'_ (Stephen Silberman, Education (and Misadventures) of a Next-Generation Leader and Mensch ~ <http://tinyurl.com/2ju3nl> )

So someone has turned govWorks ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com> ) into a profitable company.</comment>


Gell-Mann on Feynman - <AUTHOR> http://www.edge.org/video/dsl/gell-mann.html#

<comment><USER2> I think this is the video Gell-Mann is talking about where Feynman "advocated on national television that people not brush their teeth": [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI&feature=player_embedded) . He doesn't actually advocate it, but uses it as an example of how to look at the world.</comment>


Ask HN: Simple tool to record file history and revert at any time - <AUTHOR> At work, I work on a huge legacy project, with millions lines of undocumented code.
I often have to poke around, change few lines and rely on unit tests to figure out issues.
sometimes, changing certain lines will cause issues, I have to revert back. But I don't remember what I have changed since last time.
we use both git and perforce for source code management. but the problem is, most of the changes I want to remember are my experiments, nothing serious to create a commit or changelist.
and if I do create a changelist in the perforce, my new change will overwrite my old change, I can't see its history and revert.
one solution my friend did was using perforce as the real source code management, and creating local git repository to document local change histories. but still, you need to manually commit changes.
I want to have a simple tool that provides undo/redo/diff between revisions on a text file I specified. it shouldn't be as heavy as git or perforce, shouldn't need a server.
I can't find anything like that, I'm planning writing it myself. but before I do anything, I'd like to ask here just in case.
For example, it can be a command line tool, with the following commands:
mytool -record aaa.txt
/home/hhh/aaa.txt is recorded at rev 0
mytool -showhistory aaa.txt
/home/hhh/aaa.txt has 4 revisions
rev 1 2016/04/34
rev 2 ...
...
mytool -undo aaa.txt
revert /home/hhh/aaa.txt to rev 3
mytool -redo aaa.txt
mytool -diff 4/3 aaa.txt
(will launch an external diff tool to show the difference)
mytool -forget aaa.txt
(get rid off all histories of aaa.txt) <comment><USER2> Some filesystems (like ZFS I think) have history for files which might help.

[http://www.catb.org/~esr/src/](http://www.catb.org/~esr/src/) is another option; its billed as a modern RCS.

</comment><comment><USER3> Git and Hg do exactly what you want. I'm not sure I understand what _heavy_ means in this context, how exactly is git _heavy_? It's a 2MB binary.

        $ du -sch `which git`
        2,0M	/opt/local/bin/git
        2,0M	total

You don't have to push the code to a remote repository just because everybody does. An older alternative which was created to do exactly what you described is rcs[1].

[1] [http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/](http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/)

<comment><AUTHOR> heavy doesn't mean the size of the file.

it means the feature set and complexity of using.

for example, I don't want to track all files under a folder. I just want to track few individual files I specified.

perhaps, I'm not a good user of git. I don't know how to do local history with git. and eventually I need to push my change to a remote repository when my experiments are done.

<comment><USER3> I don't think git is complex. It has a load of features for doing complicated stuff, but that's for those who need them.

In any case, one could create a set of shell aliases to perform the operations needed in any way you see fit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> JetBrains IDEs have a "Local History" feature which does basically what you want.

\- Saves files automatically and saves revisions

\- Allows diffs between version

\- Allows rollback or patches

\- Include event information like unit test results or git actions at each version

I don't think this is available as a CLI tool but when you are using an IDE anyway this might me a solution for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Git doesn't need a server and isn't heavy. You can just commit on a local repo.</comment>


Show HN: Repotools – commands for the Git operations you perform most often - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ctsrc/repotools <comment><USER2> Neat stuff! Have you thought about just implementing this as a bashrc file? Here's a snippet from mine:

        alias gs="git status"
        alias ga="git add .; gs"
        alias gp="git push"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, yes, all of these commands started life as just bash aliases a couple of years back :) but keeping dotfiles in sync across different computers with different operating systems got messy.

Then I created wrapping shell scripts and used symlinks from ~/bin/ to the git repo they lived in. But still it was a bit messy and annoying to set up and keep up to date.

For that reason I made them into commands. On top of that I added a sprinkle of argument handling.

And now all is well and dandy.</comment></comment>


Syrians rebels turn to Skype for communications - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-turn-to-skype-for-communications.html?hp&_r=0

<comment><USER2> Skype is the last thing they should be using to escape Government oppression. Skype is the same program that logged all people's chats in China, and then sent them over to the Chinese Government.

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10056127-83.html></comment>


$500 IED-detecting R/C truck - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/500-rc-truck-is-an-ied-detecting-robot-that-should-be-affordable-for-everyone

<comment><USER2> _Lots_ of discussion from when this story was submitted three days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2850170></comment>


A Monkey's Blueprint - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/2014/08/19/a-monkeys-blueprint/ Related graphic here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic-differences-between-humans-and-other-primates-pervade-the-genome/ <comment><AUTHOR> Related graphic here: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic- diffe...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic-differences- between-humans-and-other-primates-pervade-the-genome/)

</comment><comment><USER2> The title doesn't really do this article justice. The first paragraph does a better job explaining what it's about:

> For a graphic in the September 2014 issue of Scientific American, the > editors challenged me to visually support the statement that we're more like > chimps and bonobos than gorillas, genomically speaking.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another awesome work from Martin, the creator of Circos.</comment>