Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Work and Name Their Price - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/technology/start-ups/18download.html?hpw <comment><USER2> How to phrase this as gently as possible: I do not think people have been enthusiastically embracing the flash document viewer in the hope that one day they will be able to use the integrated Buy This Copyrighted Content button.

That said, I wish Scribd and their writers the best of luck.

<comment><USER3> They don't have to sell the content. Writers can seek vendors and produce "sponsored content". This is likely to skew and fuck up free literature as we know it, but it's done routinely, and for free: people write tutorials for vendor's services and products with no commission (how much effort has gone into "teaching" Google Adsense by SEO professionals who only wanted to pad their resume? would be nice if google sponsored the texts, but they wont, so it's time for authors to look into less known vendors and introduce their products to the reading masses for a fee.)

Or get a better advertising company: [Shameless, but very muted plug] :-)

[Edit: this is strictly for the non-fiction trade publications, the sort of stuff that you typically see on Scribd. Fiction might have a better future in ebook readers and their associated online shops]

<comment><USER4> For fiction, <http://StoryMash.com> is doing exactly this. Writers earn over 50% for their collaborative content. Today it all comes from advertising, but when the first great internet novel is re-published, the participating authors will see a real payoff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazon pays Kindle authors/publishers 35% of the list price (which is set by the content owner). The _retail_ price is set by Amazon. Scribd's margins are clearly more lucrative. Smashwords (<http://www.smashwords.com>) operates a similar model and pays out 85%. I think this is a great move - high traffic alternatives to Amazon can only be good for the self-publishing ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER6> Let's see how long it takes Apple to open up the iTunes Store to PDF documents.

<comment><USER7> On iTunes, Yale (and I assume others) already distribute a free PDF with most of their educational lectures. The system is there, not sure if anyone has thought to sell just the pdf though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Internauts have to come to the realization that paying for content is only going to help us get the best. Nevertheless every company integrating their own micro-payment system is not going to work. There needs to be a unified platform that will allow us to pay for content on all the different websites we use from one single account.</comment>


Typing 'http://:' into a Skype Message Trashes the Installation Beyond Repair - <AUTHOR> http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/06/03/1237208/typing-http-into-a-skype-message-trashes-the-installation-beyond-repair?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><USER2> I was curious to see how something like this could "trash an installation".

It seems like the issue is that the Skype installation maintains a chat history. If this poison string is in your chat history, something crashes the client (presumably a procedure intended to linkify URLs in chat).

You can delete your chat history, but it is synced from the server on startup, at which point the client crashes again. That's why your only option is to downgrade to a version without the bug.

<comment><USER3> Skype stores chat history in an SQLite database located at %AppData%\Skype\\[Skype Username]\main.db, as far as I know it is not removed when Skype is uninstalled. You may be able to remove main.db by hand, and hope that Skype have configured their servers to flush the string from chat histories.</comment></comment>


Textures.js is a JavaScript library for creating SVG patterns - <AUTHOR> https://riccardoscalco.it/textures/ <comment><USER2> Woah, take's me back to late 80s computing when colors were few but paint programs all used to have patterns in them.

There's a really nice additive effect with patterns that can give a designer a way to show combinations of things together in a way that color really can't (bonus it's better for some visual impairments). For example, take a series of lines for one value:

       \ \ \
        \ \ \
         \ \ \

and a series for another kind of value

         / / /
        / / /
       / / /

put them in the same visual space and simple add them together

       x x x
       x x x
       x x x

You can also add in vertical, horizontal lines and even line width (and even line color over a baseline color) and you can encode a ton of different values into a single graphical area.

<comment><USER3> In heraldry colours can be 'encoded' with specific patterns.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tincture_(heraldry)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tincture_\(heraldry\))

<comment><USER4> Really interesting idea to be aware of, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just want to say how clear and concise this documentation is. Having examples alongside their code snippets is all you need to understand the library.

</comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussions/posts:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224776)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12399964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12399964)

I thought this was pretty awesome when I first saw it posted here, but unfortunately haven't found a good use case for it yet.

Thanks for sharing this again, had been a while since I thought of this library!

<comment><USER7> Board games. Website design. When you start playing board games, you realize how many colorblind people are there! They're everywhere. Modern boardgames are usually designed to accommodate color blindness, but for example Race for the Galaxy only now got a 2nd edition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks great. Now I need to figure out how create a quick project to use this on. Reminds me of work from an Edward Tufte book: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte)

</comment><comment><USER7> Once upon a time someone on HN posted about an old-school book describing patterns for graphs. Very useful for SVG, for website design, for colorblind people. I failed to bookmark it. Can someone help?? How to find that book?

<comment><USER9> This one? [https://archive.org/stream/graphicpresentat00brinrich#page/2...](https://archive.org/stream/graphicpresentat00brinrich#page/2/mode/2up)

<comment><USER8> This PDF is wonderful. Reminds me of Edward Tufte's work: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, I love this. A couple of interesting applications I could think of here:

\- structure preserving hash that automatically distributes categorical data across buckets -- this would be great for dashboards; on the job, we have dashboards with color coded dashboards but some of the colors are way too close for comfort and make visual communication difficult

\- Halftoning for animation -- some of these seem like they'd be really neat if applied towards either CG animation or stationary animation as an alternative (or combined with) cel shading. I wonder if there's existing state of the art here for doing this with shader computation?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is really neat - useful and beautiful. My only minor concern is that thicker/thinner is ambiguous and my first thought would be that they carry out the heavier/lighter functionality. Perhaps denser/sparser would have been more appropriate?

</comment><comment><USER12> Somewhat related I created a we component for CSS3 patterns: [https://github.com/jwillmer/pattern- component](https://github.com/jwillmer/pattern-component)

</comment><comment><USER13> As someone with colorblindness who often struggles with reading colors on maps, this would be a lifesaver if used. I love it.

<comment><USER14> I feel ignorant. I just found out that almost 1/5 of people have some form of color blindness with 1/20 being the better known red-green type.

I guess one reason why people don't talk about it much is that the color blind have good strategies to deal with it? It must be confusing at times?

<comment><USER13> I guess most people don't know what color blindness feels like. Obviously, I can only speak for myself, so YMMV.

It's not that the colors are indistinguishable per se, always. They are hard to distinguish under certain conditions such as:

a) size of the elements of the same color. If half my screen is in one color and the other in different color, it's very easy to distinguish them and say which one is what. If on the other hand you have just a few pixels, it's much harder to say what color they are.

Recommendation for app devs: don't use only 1px red border to show validation errors in forms. It's almost impossible for me to say that the border is red and not black.

b) closeness to each other in terms of distance. Similar colors far away from each other are easier to recognize vs when they are right next to each other (like in the map).

c) Similarity between colors. If the colors are not used for scale, use very distinctive colors. I always take my colors from: [https://colorbrewer2.org/](https://colorbrewer2.org/) based on the use-case. This has already been researched and it works.

d) movement. It does not help in recognizing colors.

These conditions don't occur that often in "real life" when walking, shopping, etc. They are mostly annoying on screen and paper.

Regarding compensation techniques:

If it is not work related, I just don't bother and don't put any effort. There is a cool map on reddit, and I can't read it because of the colors? My loss, not gonna spend time on it.

My biggest pet peeve: sport team outfits. Sometimes certain teams play vs each other and I cannot distinguish who is who. That is maddening. Why would you play black vs red when white vs red would be 100x more distinguishable. There should rules about minimal necessary contrast between the jerseys. I can't watch some matches so I don't watch them. I like teams with blue, yellow, white colors. Maybe that's why GSW is appealing to me :)

When I play FIFA with friends, I need to tell them which jersey variant to choose so I can comfortably play and have some chances. You cannot do it online games :( I wish I could select what I see on my machine. I wish there was a setting to use artificial jerseys of high contrast. Or make my opponent jerseys always black or always white and let me pick the clothing for my side. There are some colorblind options in FIFA but I don't find them good enough. They don't solve the problem fully.

If it is work related and I cannot decipher it, I will politely complain that someone used colors only to encode some information and I cannot process it. I will recommend to use something additional (words, borders, tooltips, patterns, anything that makes sense).

I also notice that kind of issues when our engineers work on dynamic maps or charts, and I try to bring it to people's attention. It's a lost battle in the grand scheme of things, but I keep fighting.

I believe it's easier in big companies because the probability of having a colorblind stakeholder is higher. In small teams (<= 7) you might not have a single colorblind person who could share their perspective and point out the problem.

I guess it works that way with everything: race, gender, translation and localization, and other disabilities, but I can mostly comment on that one thing.

<comment><USER14> Thank you so much for sharing this!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perfect timing, i just started building a tool to create dynamic customized charts without code. Thanks for sharing !

<comment> wes-k Hey I'm working on this too! Nothing to show off yet except for this fun animation I made when playing with the core engine: [https://imgur.com/a/ELhwWo5](https://imgur.com/a/ELhwWo5).

Some existing projects you may want to check out:

* [http://data-illustrator.com/](http://data-illustrator.com/) (dead?)

* [https://charticulator.com/](https://charticulator.com/) (was dead, looks slightly alive now)

* [http://ddg.namwkim.org/](http://ddg.namwkim.org/) (dead?)

My inspiration came from Bret Victor's Drawing Dynamic Visualizations (1). Though I'm taking a slightly different approach. Brett's data is declarative, but drawing is procedural (in steps) where mine is all declarative. I think Brett's approach is more powerful but doesn't lend itself as nicely to normal vector drawing UX.

1: [http://worrydream.com/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalkAddend...](http://worrydream.com/DrawingDynamicVisualizationsTalkAddendum/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why show png's instead of svg's on the webpage when the tech is all about svg? Otherwise, great library! Just thought that it's a missed opportunity to show everyone how awesome svgs are.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is fantastic. Textures are an excellent alternative for quantifying things in cartographic maps and to reduce the often distracting use of color. I wonder how these patterns would perform if imported into Inkscape, which in my experience becomes painfully slow when too many patterns are used.

<comment><USER18> They're a great alternative for color in more general cases as well, especially for material with accessibility concerns!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I made an observable notebook if anyone is interested in playing around with it: [https://observablehq.com/@michals2/textures-js- sandbox](https://observablehq.com/@michals2/textures-js-sandbox)

</comment><comment><USER20> I've had this site bookmarked since 2018, all of the comments on the great design just go to show how far simple and concise execution can take a site, still looks brand new.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is lovely. Just lovely. Reminds me of the Postscript hacks we used to do with early Apple laser printers, back when they were the most powerful computers they shipped. :)

</comment><comment><USER22> Very nice, really like this visual style.

Was a bit disappointed that the Italy and US maps were just PNGs. Can these not be rendered in browser?

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow. It's so good to eyes. Can this also be used as a background on the website? Would it be a good option?

</comment><comment><USER24> This is very cool...

I wish there was a better explanation of the formula for defining your own pattern (the last example).

<comment><USER25> It's just a path command string: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/SVG/Tutorial/Pa...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/SVG/Tutorial/Paths)

Mixed with some string interpolation: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Template_literals)

<comment><USER26> And if you're using the pattern element, you can drop in any svg element.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/SVG/Element/pat...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/SVG/Element/pattern)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It is not clear to me how you can create maps with this.

</comment><comment><USER28> This just screams dnd map builder thing :)

</comment><comment><USER29> add it to javascripting.com's database.

</comment><comment><USER30> This too good!

</comment><comment><USER31> So nice</comment>


Fusion: Power, Water, Food, soon - <AUTHOR> http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-934454

<comment><USER2> > A safe, clean, inexpensive, 100 Megawatt fusion reactor that fits on a > flatbed truck, consumes lithium and sea water, and produces electricity, > heat, pure water, and helium.

I'm not from Missouri, but ... show me.

From another online article ([http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2013/02/lockheeds- skunk-...](http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2013/02/lockheeds-skunk-works- promises-fusion.html)):

> Lockheed's fusion power plant uses radio energy to heat deuterium gas inside > tightly controlled magnetic fields, creating a very high temperature plasma > that's much more stable and well confined than you'd find in something like > a tokamak ...

Note how this device is described -- "fusion power plant uses radio energy to heat deuterium gas". Not "might be able to use radio energy to heat deuterium gas in a future planned device." If this device had moved beyond theory, it would be headlines all over the world. It's a hypothesis, not a device, and certainly not a "fusion power plant". This is hype, and I call shenanigans.

In the original video, the real source for this story talks about it in realistic terms -- it's a hypothesis, an idea that might or might not actually work:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JAsRFVbcyUY#)!

The project is interesting, but it's not reduced to practice as suggested in the text accounts. This represents more irresponsible science journalism.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. While reading the article it seems to be toooo good to be true, but it has too few details and I had not enough time to research. Now I'm sure it's only hype.</comment></comment>


I'm Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/opinion/sunday/marijuana-addiction.html <comment><USER3> One of the upsides of legalization is that a lot of the false claims made about marijuana are going to come under heavy scrutiny.

Some of this will be good for marijuana enthusiasts, but some will be bad.

I've lost count of the times I've been told by marijuana fans that marijuana is not addictive, and that smoking it is not bad for your lungs. I expect both of those myths to be refuted in the coming years.

In particular I expect to see studies demonstrate a link between marijuana smoking and lung cancer, followed by years of denial by marijuana producers and smokers, similar to what happened with cigarettes.

<comment><USER4> Of course it is addictive, otherwise people wouldn't come back to it after the first try.

And as for harm to lungs – does anyone really think that combustion products (regardless of what's burning) can not be harmful for human body?

<comment><USER5> > otherwise people wouldn't come back to it after the first try.

Just repeating an action a second time doesn't suggest an addiction... am I missing something here?

<comment><USER6> You're missing that there are plenty of people who want a scapegoat for their lack of personal responsibility, and plenty of people who will enable them because they're already biased against the scapegoat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I got introduced to pot when I entered grad school to do a STEM Ph.D. I was cool with it - I was never an addict. I smoked a couple of times a year at most. It had to be a quite special occasion for me to smoke marijuana, drink, or do other drugs. Like the author, drugs gave me the courage to do things I would regret later. I did things to hurt my very best girlfriend I could have when I was high. She later left me.

Drugs are the demon that I thought I'm good enough to control -- I have a fucking Ph.D. after all. I know the answer for myself now, that is doing marijuana or any other drug is a losing battle. Most of the times when I am sober, I can hide the asshole person I really am. But when I'm high, all hell breaks loose.

<comment><USER8> Drugs are bad M'kay.

Come on, everyone is different and plenty of people (the majority?) can use them responsibly. And drugs are vastly different as well so classifying them as as such seems fairly counter productive to any discussion.

<comment><USER9> That your response to his personal, non-generalized story is as such in very, very curious and makes me wonder why you're having such a defensive posture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I saw multiple of my most talented high school friends lose their spark to pot. They've now made about 2 years of progress in 20 years' time.

<comment><USER11> Many of the best engineers I've worked with are daily pot smokers, including my former boss who currently runs a team at Facebook.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I think the key word in the parents post is "high school"... studies have shown people who start early have far more issues than functioning adults.

<comment><USER13> To back this up:

[http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.abstract](http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.abstract)

Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Addiction is highly correlated with depression and is a symptom of loosing connection with something important in one's life. It is a from of escape form this life because missing that connection is too painful. [https://thelostconnections.com/](https://thelostconnections.com/) Here are some of the connections we need so that we are not tempted by surrogates: \- connection with others, our tribe, people we can confess with when needed, who we can 'share ourselves' with \- connection with meaningful work \- a healthy value system that is not overly materialistic \- being driven by inner purposes rather than outer ones \- connection with our own subconscious fears and desires \- having hope in the future - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER15> One of my coworkers just quit cannabis after having an addiction for several years. Her and her (unemployed) husband were spending upwards of $300 a week on it, more than 40% of her pay. Had never been able to save for a house or anything, they had to buy in $50/$100 lots as they had so much trouble with money.

Forced herself clean on a holiday (that her parents paid for) and she's doing so well, it's great to see.

<comment><USER16> I wonder how much they would have saved had they switched to vaping long ago. You can get the same effects and avoid part of the lung damage while saving some money by vaping instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is an addictive drug. Much less addictive than alcohol or tobacco, but still addictive.

It's easy for folks like me to slip into using it every day. Never got as far as the author in this, likely because I did always have a day job to hold down, but I spent quite a bit of time baked every evening. I also don't feel it was quite as wasteful of my life as the author does, nor did I embarrass myself like that, but certainly you don't get a lot done whilst constantly stoned.

It's never been too much effort to stop either, the cravings tend to pass very quickly, but if there was any left in the house I'd quickly cave. I do wonder what would happen were it to be legalised here. I'm very, very much in favour of that because the legal situation around drugs in the UK is ridiculous, counterproductive and just stupid. But if cannabis was available at every outlet that currently carries alcohol, would I still be at it every day, making excuses to myself for being tired and groggy in the morning, and in the evening having "well just one more toke before bed"?

</comment><comment><USER18> Addict is the wrong word. He quit cold turkey after a revelation form looking in a car mirror. This is something a heroin addict or even most smokers would never say. You could replace 'smoking pot' with any number of other bad habits and not otherwise change a word of this story. Although I'm oversimplifying, there are few revelations with true physiological addiction, which is a despairingly tenacious neurological disease.

Some people should just stay away from psychoactive substances. Whatever the benefits are, it isn't worth it for them. This is partly a function of what is going on in their lives, but also partly neurobiological. Unfortunately there is only one way to realise you fall into this category. Maybe one day we will be able to predict who is at risk of abusing alcohol or marijuana well enough that you can actually make an informed decision about usage patterns.

<comment><USER17> He quit three weeks later. Lots of people will have similar stories about tobacco.

Whether it's physiologically addictive or 'merely' psychologically addictive is somewhat irrelevant - are you going to belittle gambling addiction as just a "bad habit"?

<comment><USER18> Yes it's hard to generalise of course. But the (lack of) success of quit smoking interventions should tell you that it is different to what is described here.

I don't think it is irrelevant. The point is about how to help someone. Trying to get someone with a physiological addiction to realise the error of their ways is futile, like telling someone to unbreak their leg.

<comment><USER17> > But the (lack of) success of quit smoking interventions should tell you that > it is different to what is described here.

It might tell you that it is quantitively different, but not necessarily that it's qualitatively different.

> Trying to get someone with a physiological addiction to realise the error of > their ways is futile, like telling someone to unbreak their leg.

I think your understanding of addiction is probably lacking here. Many people can and do overcome physiological addictions due to some or other realisation. Conversely many people cannot overcome addictions without a physiological component, like gambling, regardless of how much they realise the error of their ways.

<comment><USER18> It isn't necessarily black and white. Gambling has a physiological component. Dopamine agonists can cause compulsive gambling in people that never cared to gamble in their lives, due to purely biochemical alterations in reward pathways. I don't hope to define psychological addiction as you put it. The distinction to me lies between physiological addictions and other compulsive habitual behaviours. Examples of the latter include things which are clearly not addictions, eg cracking your knuckles, checking you turned off the stove 5 times. Marijuana doesn't have a big physiological component in general. As always, some people quite happily perform behaviours habitually but are not addicted (eg some smokers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is a lack of self-control the same thing as addiction?

<comment><USER19> Lack of self control is absolutely a symptom of addiction.

<comment><USER6> So is this a symptom of addiction, or just lack of discipline? I smoke plenty, but I know when and how to stop.

<comment><USER20> This is a test I did on myself to check if I'm addicted to sugar, so please take it in that context.

Reduce your intake by 50% for about a week. Do you see a craving developing in you that's affecting your day to day life? Such as fatigue (both physical and mental), lack of focus, interest etc.,? If the answer is yes then you are _probably_ on the verge of getting addicted. I'm not a doctor but my guess is that next stage is the lack of awareness or the ability to know when to stop which is a clear sign of addiction.

<comment><USER21> I consider myself addicted to sugar, the good part is that only takes about 3 days of craving to be free of them. After that it's much much easier to keep away from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am all for legalizing marijuana, but the extent to which it appears to be infiltrating the this generations culture is a bit disturbing.

I have seen all too many people who seem to find an identity in pot. All activities and games they play are centered around pot.

Much like alcohol, but it is even harder to participate if you are not one of them. At least with alcohol, I can grab my cider, pretend to also be drinking 'hard liquor' and be a part of the event. Also, alcohol parties always need a couple of sober people as nannys. (This is specific to college aged people)

With pot heads, even if I don't partake in smoking, I am going to come out smelling of weed and inhaling 2nd hand smoke. At least pot heads have good taste in music.

In conclusion, as legal restrictions to marijuana are lifted, now would be a great time to put the role of marijuana in the societal context under scrutiny. It isn't as bad as alcohol, but it isn't as innocuous as some would like us to believe either.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you're looking for like-minded people and a support group, /r/leaves and /r/petioles are good subreddits to check out.

(for a variety of silly reasons all major subreddits that are cannabis related are either botany or lotr puns)

</comment><comment><USER24> I find video games,sugar,caffeine and sex to be a lot more addictive than pot, and I've smoked pot almost daily in 4 years of university

</comment><comment><USER25> Actually, you're an asshole who likes pot and uses it as an excuse to behave badly. My drug use history reads like War and Peace and I don't have any aggressive or obnoxious episodes that I feel terrible about because I always considered that no matter what strange thing I put in my body I was responsible for for my own behavior, inebriated or not.

This person needs help, and the first thing they need to do is take responsibility for who they are.

<comment><USER26> > My drug use history reads like War and Peace

I'm curious about unpacking this since I actually read and enjoyed the book when I was in high school.

Which of the following are you saying? These choices are obviously not exclusive, but I'm curious about your original intent. :)

Your drug use history is:

1\. Long (I think this is the most popular way to use War and Peace)

2\. Boring (Probably the second most popular)

3\. Violent (This is probably ruled out since you said you don't have any aggressive episodes [that you feel terrible about])

4\. Characterized by peaks and lulls in use

5\. Cryptic

6\. Other?

<comment><USER25> 1 & 4, perhaps 2 as well (although I find W&P an enjoyable read). I've never gotten into a fight or anything similar under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> People really love the word addiction. It's like a safety blanket that keeps you from having to feel responsible for your own behavior. There are sex addicts, porn addicts, and food addicts, among others.

More than likely there is just an underlying mental health issue with poor impulse control and behavioral manifestations.

</comment><comment><USER28> Marijuana is pure Soma. The people pushing, fighting for legalization are digging their own grave in one form or another, especially as far as sentiments of freedom are concerned - the government wins one way or another.

You cannot argue against sobriety without appealing to inherent weaknesses of human nature. That alone speaks volumes in regards to the value of this drug.

<comment><USER29> Love what this argument is touching upon, few questions though:

1\. What is Soma?

2\. How does the government win either way?

<comment><USER28> Soma is a fictional drug popularized in Huxley's Brave New World, and used to ritually sedate the populace in seemingly benign but pervasive manner. It's closely associated with with consumerism, in the of form of "feelies" (also from BNW), as Huxley was alive to witness the transition from silent films to "talkies", and didn't respond to the perceived gross spectacle. In my mind, soma is a generalization for all that preys upon human weakness, and for something that is justified, even by intelligent, renowned individuals, via illogicality and appeal to human nature ("it's fun", etc). Rather than consider the value of the intoxicant itself compared to the innate conscious state, you typically see defense of it and claims of its banality and harmlessness. This is cognitive dissonance and justification, nothing more.

The government wins by profiteering either way off of legalization or not. Police states enforcing the war on drugs is profit, and tax revenue from legalization is profit. The people celebrating the current trends as a win are delusional.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you start programming? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a high school senior who wants to get into programming.  Unfortunately, my school offers no computer related classes at all. So, I want to teach myself. Usually whenever someone asks how to start programming, they are looking for a language to start with. I've realized that is a trivial question, and it just spawns those pesky flame wars. What I am looking fo are examples and ideas to gain experience. I've played around at Project Euler a bit, but I doubt that most programmers worry about the number of prime numbers under 1 million in their everyday jobs. How did you get started in programming and what did you use to gain experience? <comment><USER2> Video games. Seriously. Here's why:

1) _Hardware knowledge._ I didn't start programming until I started college, but I quickly realized that, growing up as a pretty avid gamer, I still had one advantage that a lot of the CS majors didn't have: I knew more _about computers_ than they did. Games are some of the most demanding applications being created today, and, as a result, I had spent a lot of time reading hardware reviews and benchmarks. This resulted in my having a somewhat innate understanding of how data is passed around inside a computer and how this affects performance. It takes time to understand on a deep level how your code is interacting with the hardware, but when you see the frame rate tank because you used an inefficient algorithm somewhere, it sticks with you instantly.[1]

2) _Instant gratification_. Much like web programming, game programming allows you to see the result of your work, immediately and incrementally. And it looks good, because you get to use professionally developed resources (models, textures, etc). A side benefit is having _good looking_ programs to put in your portfolio.

3) _Wide variety of problem domains._ Once you get familiar with programming in general, you can then work on pretty much anything you want: 3D graphics, physics simulation, AI, networking, UI / UX , HCI, etc.

4) _It's fun._

Try giving Unity a shot and see how you like it: <http://unity3d.com/unity/download/> . It's multiplatform and has API's in C#, JavaScript, and Python, so you have an element of choice. If you're a Windows user, I know a few people who started out by playing around with XNA, which uses C#. Examples of free commercial game SDK's are Epic's Unreal Development Kit (<http://www.udk.com/>) and Valve's Source Engine SDK, which comes free with any Source Engine-based game.

[1] When working on a graphics project, I accidentally put the function that imports and initializes the texture resources into the draw loop, which meant that new memory was being allocated for them 60+ times per second. Needless to say, I became very aware of the problem when my fans started to spin up like jet engines.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh, nostalgia. I started coding out of curiosity back when I was in 4th grade (back in 1983). It was a helluva lot less main stream than it is today, so some of the things that I wanted to code back then mostly had to do with whatever I was into at the time.

So, in your case, you sound completely not familiar with programming at all. That's an awesome place to be, believe it or not. You sound like you're into mathematics, so think about hacking something trivial in a field that you're passionate about.

My first thing I programmed was a BBS (bulletin board system) on the Apple IIe computer. Called it Warphactor. Fell in love with the fact that I could make my computer's modem ANSWER a phone call, send and receive data. Just kept on building from there.

I code in a bunch of different languages (for recreation and profession) not because I'm some genius, but for two reasons. First, different types of projects demand different languages or platforms. Second, once you've been programming for a while, you realize that there's a LOT of crossover between languages. So don't get too hung up on one language, because once you start doing this stuff in the real world, you'll be pretty flexible and able to pick up new languages without much effort.

Don't run out and buy a bunch of books. You'll find plenty of resources online to learn concepts, and my favorite, BY EXAMPLE. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Most importantly, if you feel like there are concepts that you just can't wrap your head around -- POWER THROUGH until you understand them.

There's always someone out there that has explained it better than the resource you currently have in hand.

One neat resource that, in my opinion, stands above its contemporaries, is stackoverflow.com. Stuck? Compose a well written question, get some very well written answers.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I have noticed that any time I have a question related to programming, there is almost always an answer on stackoverflow.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Story:

I started out playing around with a TI-84 in middle school. Saved myself a lot of annoyance by making it do my homework, saved myself from insanity by programming games in class instead of paying attention. I never got into the ASM stuff, since I didn't have a computer then, but I was at least pushing the limits of what was possible without it. (Wrote a 3D engine in TI-BASIC at one point - intolerably slow but it worked :P)

Then in high school I got a summer internship at a startup with a chemical research lab. I didn't know this going in, but my job ended up essentially being to sit at a desk the entire day and manually type column after column of data into Excel. That pissed me off, so I started messing around with .bat files, trying to automate as much of it as I could (still didn't know how to program anything but a calculator at this point). My boss—apparently an ex kernel hacker—saw this, decided I was wasting my time, gave me a Ruby book, and instead set me loose on a project to revamp their data infrastructure. That was my first exposure to "real" programming, and so far I still consider it the best time of my life.

To summarize, what got me into programming was: (1) trying to automate mundane, repetitive tasks; and (2) just playing around to see how much you can do with a piece of technology.

I would recommend this: look around and imagine what you would want to do if you knew how to program, then try to do it, using books as a reference. From there, follow your natural curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER5> I started to learn how to program while I was 13. The language I started with was Java. My first real program I tried to make was a Simcity clone in Java.

I failed, but even in failure, I learned a lot. The important thing is once you have learned the basics of a language, try and build stuff yourself. You won't learn much by copy/pasting or slightly modifying or retyping examples.

One thing to look out for is a project you can do to start. If you are doing a web language, code a basic blog once you've done the basics to put together what you've learnt.

Another common starter project nowadays is a Twitter client. This used to be a good idea, but it's gotten a bit harder now, and I wouldn't recommend trying to figure out OAuth for your first program.

Another important point is learning different languages. Don't go "I've learned Ruby" then stop. Despite it being my first language, I hardly ever use Java anymore. Different languages lend themselves to different problems, and knowing more languages helps you look at programming problems from a wider perspective. I strongly suggest that you try at least one static language, one dynamically typed language, and one functional language at some point.

A final point is that it can be quite helpful to read blogs o.n programming. I can't suggest any ATM, because the two I always read are more or less at an end.

<comment><AUTHOR> A Twitter client is interesting. I might just try that. I haven't really settled on any language. I have books on Python and Ruby, and I've recently become interested in Haskell. But it seems like you can do almost anything with any language (maybe not efficiently). I figure I'll learn the mindset of programming, and then concentrate on different languages.

<comment><USER6> Throw in C++, C# or Java and you've got all three archtypes covered. Some people still fancy plain C, though I haven't used it for years, it will give you some historical perspective, as it is the granddaddy of many languages today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I learned on the TI-83. You learn skill-sets in chunks. First it was menus. Then holy-shit, variables. Things kinda just go from there.

You never as much learn programming as you "absorb" it. This includes things like syntax, approach, mind-set, etc. This goes for every language, especially if the idioms are different.

Come up with a cool project with small scope and a discernible "end goal," and do whatever it takes to get there. You'll learn more along the way than you expected to. I learned more about call-stacks, memory management, and pointers in front of MS VC++6 compiler and runtime errors than I ever thought I would when "making a game."

Its like learning any other language or math. Learn and understand and atom, and use that to understand another. Its definitely cumulative and you can't learn it "front-to-back" as much as it is in "bits and pieces."

Good luck!

(If its any help - this is the order I learned things in. Not documenting my age or how long I spent learning it as it spans more than a decade)

HTML

TI-Basic (TI-83)

Visual Basic

C++

CSS (finally stopped using homesite)

Java

Python

C

PHP

ActionScript

Ruby

Javascript

</comment><comment><USER8> A practical/immediate suggestion: Forget about reading books and try the following for now.

Don't worry about the language wars. First learn to have fun. Have a go at <http://www.tryruby.org> \- it teaches you to code in Ruby in 15 minutes'ish online. You can type stuff in and try it out immediately. If you like the test drive, then download Ruby and have a go at it.

If you liked that, checkout Google's python class - it has great examples, lectures, and even sample assignments. <http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/>

They're both competing languages (or so the flame wars make it out to be :) and give you a nice introduction to programming super fast!

</comment><comment><USER9> I am a lot like the poster. In fact, HackerNews is one of my homepages and I am reading this post as I read "Head-First Java".. Haha what a good coincidence. I'm hoping if anyone can lend out some guidance on what blogs we should start following and what websites that are out there to help us get started. So far, I'm enjoying this book. But of course, I'm not going to spent $45 on it.. The internet is free :D

Thanks for this post! Looking forward to more comments

</comment><comment><USER10> The good thing about things like project Euler is that it makes you practice solving problems that are easily constrained. I would say most of the real problems you'll encounter day to day are often much simpler but are far more verbose. That makes them good exercises to learn. They are also fun.

</comment><comment><USER11> programming Praxis (<http://programmingpraxis.com>) offers a series of exercises, similar to Project Euler, but with more emphasis on programming and less emphasis on mathematics. There are new exercises every Tuesday and Friday.</comment>


Ask HN: Is the "14-days free trial" mandatory for a b2b SaaS business? - <AUTHOR> It seems to me that lots of b2b SaaS businesses, specially when they starts, include a 14-days or 1-month free trial for each of their plans.
Even without a big knowledge in marketing, I can obviously see the main goal: customers acquisition, transform potential customers into paid customers.
However I think it comes with some drawbacks:
- extra code & logic to handle the trial
- extra terms of service to avoid any legal problem?
- let your competitors spy your product for free
- dismiss your product? Some companies don't take your product seriously if it's cheap
In addition, lots of SaaS businesses don't force any commitment nowadays, companies can cancel their subscription when they want. So you pay one month to try the product and then you cancel if the product doesn't fit your needs.
That being said, I'm wondering if I should include a free trial for my b2b SaaS business?
Maybe the right answer is to A/B test each model (with/without trials) and choose the model that converts best?
I would love to know what is HN opinion about this topic. <comment><USER2> > However I think it comes with some drawbacks:

> \- extra code & logic to handle the trial

An SQL query running once a day that reports/disables old trial accounts hardly counts as "extra code & logic".

> \- extra terms of service to avoid any legal problem?

Like what? Why would trial users be any different from paying customers?

> \- let your competitors spy your product for free

If you only have functions easy to replicate, you'll have hard time anyway. Either you're too small for anybody to bother with you in particular or you're big enough for competition to buy the cheapest plan and check your service anyway.

> \- dismiss your product? Some companies don't take your product seriously if > it's cheap

Being cheap has nothing to do with having a trial.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're competitors really want to spy on you, they would spend the money for one month of your service so I would not worry about that.

Unless your potential customers are pre-sold on your software or they really need your software immediately, it will be difficult to convert them into paying customers. By having the free trial, it makes it easier to try it out without any monetary repercussions. Also, it's difficult to get approval at many companies to try a new software where they have to pay for it. Imagine your solution doesn't fit their needs. All of a sudden, the person that requested your software will look bad in front of colleagues and bosses. This is a very real risk people want to avoid at all cost.

</comment><comment><USER4> From your phrasing, it seems like you've made up your mind that you don't want to offer one - and looking for validation on that thought. That said....

How are you acquiring your customers currently? How much context do they have about the product and how it fits their issues. Do they "stumble on you", search for you, referred by friends, etc? That does matter in their trust of you - and what they're willing to part with.

You can always test options like "buy now, we'll charge in 14 days", "money back guarantee, etc".</comment>


Should RIM's CEOs Go to Jail?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/techwatch/should-rims-ceos-go-jail

<comment><USER2> I don't know about the executives, but I would really like to know how their accountant signed off on that if it went on for a decade.

Or did Arthur Anderson revive while I wasn't looking ?</comment>


Craig Barrett Takes On Vivek Wadhwa In The Tech Education Debate - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/craig-barrett-takes-on-vivek-wadhwa-in-the-tech-education-debate/

<comment><USER2> _"start recognizing that hiring content experts in K-12 is more important than hiring someone who has studied education pedagogy for 4 years. Just imagine how many folks interested in STEM want to take all those School of Education classes to get their teaching certificate."_

This was the best comment in the entire article.

When my wife and I were in grad school (math for her, applied math for me) we were both interested in teaching. But the system put a lot of extra hurdles and disincentives in our way:

\- Certification required an extra year and a half of lame classes, at great out-of-pocket expense.

\- Teaching pays significantly less than engineering, and has less room for advancement and intellectual improvement.

\- Teachers don't get a whole lot of respect from parents, students, or society in general.

\- I spent some time in a public school classroom as a specialist, and was surprised by the lack of professionalism from teachers and administrators. I had an administrator warn me that if I didn't hold specific political views, I'd get yelled at. Sure enough, one teacher angrily demanded to know why I wasn't voting for her favorite candidate (though I'd never said anything to her about it -- that info was spread to her behind my back). It was made very clear to me that I wasn't _personally_ welcome in that environment.

\- Teaching (at least in the public schools) is heavily unionized. Advancement doesn't seem to be directly merit-based. Seniority, politics, and being in with certain "cliques" seem to be important.

After grad school, I spent four years teaching STEM concepts for a museum with a large K-12 outreach program. Based on teacher, parent, and student comments and on performance evaluations, I'm pretty sure I would have been a great classroom teacher. But it simply wasn't worth the extra time, money, and effort to get a low-paying, low-advancement job in a politically hostile environment.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it TRAGIC that investment in science education is seen purely from an economic perspective. Look at the keywords Barret uses: "development, productivity improvements, and growth"! "determinant of economic growth"! "work force expertise in STEM"!

These considerations are NOT what inspired mankind's greatest scientific thinkers and philosophers to devote their lives to their pursuits. The major theme to stress instead should be "the study of reality and truth". We all hunger to know "The Truth". Just ackowledge this basic human tendency then. That's all it takes.

India especially is pissing away its advantage of having a culture that places a high regard on education. At my home we had days set apart in a year where we literally worshipped books! (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Puja#Kerala>)

</comment><comment><USER4> In my observation, it is not the number of engineering graduates that determines technological growth, but rather, the opportunities in technology that determine the number of graduates.

If relative wages in engineering rise, more students will major in engineering fields. Workers and students in non-tech fields will buy a few books, study after hours, and teach themselves to code.

The main problem is that for high ability people, engineering pays less than Wall St, law, medicine, and certain types of government work. Out of my college class, almost no one studied engineering or went into engineering. Instead they went to Wall St, Med School, Law school, or Washington DC.

If society wants to increase technological development, it must end the financial bailouts that create such great profits for bankers, and simplify the legal code to put the lawyers out of work.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wadhwa says "Indian and Chinese engineers and scientists are often national heroes. Here, our kids idolize football players and rock stars."

Yesterday, I had replied to Wadhwa's tweet saying that he was mistaken in this comparison.

In India, cricket players and movie stars are adored and idolized. OTH most Indians wouldn't even be able to name the top scientists/engineers in the country (let alone idolize them).

I think Wadhwa is pointing to a genuine issue (of rock stars and football players being more popular than engineers or scientists), but making bogus claims to raise fear (of Indian or Chinese competition) isn't the right way to address this issue - especially when it should be clear that India is very much alike the US in this respect (though it is "cricket player" instead of "football player" ...)

<comment><USER6> I think Wadhwa is correct. I noticed the same since I moved here in 2001 as an Undergrad for CS.

\- Indians in India do enjoy(or say Worship) Cricket, but out of a population of 1+ Billion ONLY 11 Indians make it to the International team and that's where all the money is (or atleast used to be since India started IPL since last year)

\- In the US, the population is way less and you have multiple sport avenues (Football, Basketball, Baseball, + many more) with multiple teams. So the success factor in pursuing a sports dream is more practical. And even if you don't reach the top, you can still find a descent job with a BS degree, assuming you completed. On the contrary, in India you are pretty much doomed if you put all your energies into sports and it does not pan out your way. The Ratio of the Number of Educated Population to the Number of Jobs is very high.

The top scientists from BARC, ISRO are very well known are literally treated like national heroes. And so are the 11 cricketers from the Indian National Team. Most people don't know the name of Hockey Players(apparently our National Game), ... at the most only 1 person per sport (other sports) might be known by people.

===

I noted another point from the article.

Craig Barret is very right when he says American Kids run after Interest and Indian's go more after the money. It's the same population and competition issue. If India had a 'normal' population, I am pretty sure many would have pursued their interest rather than the Success Formula ...

Engineering (preferred IIT) + MBA (from IIM) = Nice Paying Job

PS: In HS = You NEED to have Physics, Maths, Science to be eligible for Engineering School. This is the same as Freshman level material we do in colleges out here.

Too be honest I think if you(most Indians) end up doing an MBA right after Engineering without any work experience, what is the whole point of slogging through Highschool to get into the Top Engineering Colleges to only end up being into Business School. And Yes, similarly applying to Grad School in US is another way to chase that dream and then apply for PhD. On the contrary my american friends in Undergrad here ONLY pursued a masters/phd if they had a genuine interest in it.

Now with a lot of Immigrants coming, it's indirectly creating the same problem we have in India. Too many educated people, so more competition for the number of jobs and hence people born here might also have to someday stop focusing on their dreams(sports, music, etc whatever it be) and live in a cut throat environment making sure they have a job, which is really sad.

<comment><USER5> >>The top scientists from BARC, ISRO are very well known are literally treated like national heroes. And so are the 11 cricketers from the Indian National Team.

You must be kidding.

This is obviously just an opinion (since I can't point to data), but I'd say that the number of people in India who know the name of a scientist at BARC or ISRO is a tiny fraction of the number of people who know Sachin Tendulkar (cricket) or Shahrukh Khan (movies)

Cricketers and movie stars have millions of fans in India. I'd think that the average Indian wouldn't be able to name a single scientist currently working at ISRO or BARC

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I favor Vivke's point of view, what's lacking in tech research is that a lot of jobs are being outsourced.

The same could be said for non-research jobs, but tech development, support jobs too.</comment>


Empirical Bayes for multiple sample sizes - <AUTHOR> http://chris-said.io/2017/05/03/empirical-bayes-for-multiple-sample-sizes/ <comment><USER2> Although tangentially linked to in the article, David Robinson's Introduction to Empirical Bayes[1] is also an excellent resource. It deals primarily with beta-binomial distributions.

[1] [http://varianceexplained.org/r/empirical-bayes- book/](http://varianceexplained.org/r/empirical-bayes-book/)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an excellent blog post, although it's worth emphasizing that it is designed for the binomial case, where you wish to compute the fraction of occurrences within some events, such as batting averages. For continuous variables, however, it makes more sense to use one of the methods described in the original post.

TL;DR: One blog post is for Rotten Tomatoes and the other is for Metacritic.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely, and thanks for better defining the distinction.

I really just wanted to point out another solid Empirical Bayes resource, as there's not that many about. Yours and David's make a good combination covering different cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That definition of symbols! So good!

<comment><USER4> I know! I love when math books and papers do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stan is great! Glad to see it on HN. Nice write up too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Technical term is overkill. Just use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_average](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_average)

<comment><USER7> Thank you. As a statistician, the fact that mixed effects models (e.g. does this rater tend to rate high?) are overlooked is, IMHO, a death sentence. Too much nomenclature, too early (link to the table within the text, please, and omit needless words), and with too little attention paid to the value of an external citation.

Also, MCMC for ratings? Surely you jest. If the author had touched on mixed models, then maybe it would make sense. But given the sample sizes involved here, and the noise in the variance estimates, I recommend that the author investigate mixed models _tout suite_ if they do in fact care about the sources of shared and unshared effects on variance. Because that is what mixed models do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Please see the section on mixed models in my post. As I mentioned there, I would love if an expert could expand on the relationship between mixed effects and Empirical Bayes.

Regarding MCMC, one of the things I try to emphasize throughout the post is that the best solution depends on your needs (for example if you want a full posterior). In fact, most of the post is devoted to quick and simple methods -- not MCMC -- because they are good enough for most purposes. I welcome your feedback though on how I could make this point clearer.

<comment><USER7> > Author here.

Alright, I'll put on my Reviewer Number 3 hat and say that I learned some neat things from your work, including that the National Swine Improvement Federation. I'll try and do a halfway decent job here.

> I would love if an expert could expand on the relationship between mixed > effects and Empirical Bayes.

A real expert? Here you go:

[http://statweb.stanford.edu/~ckirby/brad/LSI/monograph_CUP.p...](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~ckirby/brad/LSI/monograph_CUP.pdf)

Read it, all of it, but particularly chapter 1, section 2.5, and chapters 8, 10, and 11. Why does testing, effect size estimation, and high-dimensional analysis have anything to do with anything? Because...

1) independence is largely a myth 2) you are likely to have multiple ratings per reviewer on your site, whether your generating distribution is nearly- continuous (0-10, mean-centered) or discrete (0/1, A/B/C). If you discard this, you are throwing away an enormous amount of information, and failing utterly to understand why a person would estimate not just the variance but the covariance _even for a univariate response_.

The second point is the one that matters.

Also, "empirical Bayes" is in modern parlance equivalent to "Bayes". What's the alternative? "Conjectural Bayes"? (Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead, pure frequentists may be lurking somewhere)

> I welcome your feedback though on how I could make this point clearer.

For starters, edit. Your post is too damned long.

Think about where you are getting diminishing returns and why. Is there ever a realistic situation where your ratings site would not keep track of who submitted the rating? (It's certainly not going to be an unbiased sample, if so; the ballot box will get stuffed) So if you have to keep track of who's voting, you automatically have information to decompose the covariance matrix, and everything else logically follows.

A univariate response with a multivariate predictor (say, rating ~ movie*rater) can have multiple sources of variance, and estimating these from small samples is hard. When you use a James-Stein estimator, you trade variance for bias. You're shrinking towards movie-specific variance estimates, but you almost certainly have enough information to shrink towards movie- centric and rater-centric estimates of fixed and random effects, tempered by the number of ratings per movie and the number of ratings per rater. (Obviously you should not have more than one rating per movie per rater, else your sample cannot be unbiased).

I think you will return to this and write a much crisper, more concise, and more useful summary once this sinks in. I could be wrong. But you'll have learned something deeply useful even if I am. I do not think you can lose by it.

<comment><USER8> > Also, "empirical Bayes" is in modern parlance equivalent to "Bayes". What's > the alternative? "Conjectural Bayes"?

My understanding of the difference, as a frequent user of empirical Bayes methods (mainly limma[1]), is that in "empirical Bayes" the prior is derived empirically from the data itself, so that it's not really a "prior" in the strictest sense of being specified _a priori_. I don't know whether this is enough of a difference in practice to warrant a different name, but my guess is that whoever coined the term did so to head off criticisms to the effect of "this isn't _really_ Bayesian".

[1]: [https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/limma.ht...](https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/limma.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dear Microsoft: fsf.org is not a "gambling site"  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/dear-microsoft-fsf.org-is-not-a-gambling-site <comment><USER2> From the article: "Proprietary security software is an oxymoron -- if the user is not fundamentally in control of the software, the user has no security."

I could not agree more.

<comment><USER3> I cannot agree with you. A user, on a given day, interacts with countless interfaces, not all of those interfaces have to do with technology.

If you give everyone 100% control over every interface - this will drive the world crazy. How much control do you have on your house lock - do you take it apart everyday? How much control do you have on temperature regulation in your fridge, except for temperature dial?

People in computing must realize that a computer is just another interface for a user. For a programmer, I agree with you. But if I made cupcakes for a living, I'd want control over my oven, not my computer. As a programmer though, I trust that my oven company did their job and eat food out of it everyday.

<comment><USER4> That's not really a valid analogy. Why? Well, the user of an open source product gets the same sort of interface as the user of a proprietary product. It can be a pretty GUI that only presents the things you care about.

The difference comes when you want to customize its behavior--in the open source version, you could five until the code yourself or, more likely, hire somebody to look into it for you. Similarly, if you were very worried about security, you could run an independent audit of the code yourself. Neither of these options exists for a proprietary product.

Basically, you're arguing against a straw man. Nobody is suggesting giving the user more options in the interface. Rather, the suggestion is to give the user access to the source code in case they want something modified.

The "fundamental control" in question is about who gets to see and use the source code, not about what the average user can do from a GUI.

<comment><USER5> > The difference comes when you want to customize its behavior

What does that have to do with whether the unmodified one must means user has no security?

All you said can mean you can be more sure that open source code is secure. But it does in no way proof that "proprietary security software mean no security at all (EDIT: better be 'proprietary security software mean user has no security')".

<comment><USER6> That was addressed in the parent poster's very next sentence:

 _Similarly, if you were very worried about security, you could run an independent audit of the code yourself. Neither of these options exists for a proprietary product._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Off topic...

      BadVista campaign pages were conspicuously absent from
      Microsoft's live.com search results, even though the same
      pages had been appearing on the first page of "windows
      vista" Google results for some time. Many people contacted
      Microsoft about this, and eventually the pages began
      appearing as one would expect.

I wonder if services like DuckDuckGo, who aggregate search results across multiple providers, are effective at bypassing this kind of censorship[1]? For example if Yahoo started filtering out sites that are negative towards Yahoo, and Microsoft did the same for their brand, and Google did the same for their brand. I think DuckDuckGo would be able to provide a more balanced result set.

(Unfortunately the place where DDG seems to least effective is when I'm looking for a particular article by searching for a certain phrase; Google always seems to find it and with DDG I have to dig around. So hopefully that article isn't anti-Google...)

[1]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship>

</comment><comment><USER8> The software in question appears to be Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway. From the features page [1], it states:

 _"Forefront TMG 2010 blocks malicious sites more effectively by using aggregated data from multiple URL filtering vendors and the anti-phishing and anti-malware technologies that also protect Internet Explorer 8 users. The highly accurate categorization of websites also blocks sites that may violate corporate policies."_

Unless IE8 blocks fsf, then we can assume that the "multiple URL filtering vendors" are the source. Does anyone know who the URL filtering vendors might be?

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server- cloud/forefront/threat...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server- cloud/forefront/threat-management-gateway-features.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems like a Hanlon's razor situation to me. A lot of these lists are purchased from third parties who do this for a living (make blacklists).

While we cannot say anything for certain until Microsoft responds - I think their response will essentially blame a "partner" and release an update which removes the FSF from the gambling blacklist.

<comment><USER10> Honestly I think Grey's Law should apply here.

<comment><USER11> Grey's Law? Because Snidely Whiplash at Microsoft really and fundamentally cares about what the FSF is going to say to people, right? They care so deeply that they're going to unleash a bwa-ha-ha eeeeeevil campaign to call the FSF's site a gambling site?

Or, shock of shocks, maybe one person, working for the third-party that sold Microsoft that particular "dodgy domains" list, clicked the wrong checkbox on that one domain (of many hojillions checked per week).

<comment><USER10> I think you have misunderstood Grey's Law. The point is that it does not really matter if they did not try it.

I think you probably need to calm down though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could someone explain how a mistake like this happens?

If there was a person typing IP addresses into a list I can imagine them making a typo, but obviously that's absurd and these lists are auto-created. So how does a website get labelled as a gambling site?

<comment><USER9> Based on non-Microsoft software, what happens is that uncategorised sites are fed back upstream, so the software provider receives a list of pages.

They will then forward this to a partner likely owned in the West but who out- sources most of the actual work to somewhere cheap: like India or perhaps China.

Then you have a bunch of people who come into work, and work their way through a massive list of web-pages trying to spend no more than few seconds on each (metrics etc) and put them into boxes: \- Adult \- Web Mail \- Social Media \- News \- Entertainment \- Gambling \- et al

These lists are then sold to many companies like Microsoft, firewall vendors like Sonicwall, Parent Software like Netnanny, and also sold on to people who write anti-spam software.

Essentially it is an entire industry.

<comment><USER13> Sounds like machine learning could be competitive here. It shouldn't be very hard to outperform a system that gives false positives for FSF.org

<comment><USER14> Except that no one involved really gives a shit. This is enterprise software bought by some manager to restrict access for the hoi-polloi in order to satisfy some HR rule. It's at least three levels removed from reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Each of these systems are probably different, but the way one vendor's system has been explained to me is that an automated classifier will eventually visit most sites and will come up with a computed category for only the main page. The system does not want to give full access to the site with a lot more potential harm, so if a customer visits one of these automatically classified sites and sees it is restricted, they can submit a classification at which point an employee will verify the classification and unlock the full site. Sometimes the restrictions are bizarre, such as allowing the HTML content to be viewed, but not the CSS. This process takes up to 24 hrs. From what I've seen, these automated classifiers are not always friendly to hostnames tacked onto a domain name (e.g., fsf.org/donate would probably be better than donate.fsf.org). They also routinely prevent visiting new domain names thrown up in Show HN posts until the URL is submitted for classification and gets whitelisted.

</comment><comment><USER16> I read this discussion when it showed up a few days ago, but at my work, fsf.org is accessible. Today, though, I was reading this article on Reacreational SVG (<http://intertwingly.net/blog/2007/02/16/Recreational-SVG>) and find that the linked Open Solutions Alliance page (<http://www.opensolutionsalliance.org/>) is blocked by my employer's filtering (BlueCoat), so I'm somewhat distressed. I gather OSA is a benevolent organization (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Solutions_Alliance>) and certainly not 'Scam/Questionable/Illegal' as the blocking page claims. Ach, schade.

</comment><comment><USER17> > We will avoid attributing this error to malice just yet, and wait for their > correction

That's OK. I'm pretty sure it's malice already.

</comment><comment><USER18> At the end they ask people to ask their employers to stop using Microsoft software like the kind causing this problem.

First, I really doubt all but a handful of companies would actually do this on account of the FSF site being blocked. It's a simple cost benefit analysis. The cost of replacing such software is high and the occurrences of such mistakes that would actually hurt a company are rare. Therefor it's not happening the vast majority of times.

Secondly, I'm surprised the FSF is using a service that has anything to do with proprietary, closed source, non-free software. Given their philosophy you'd think they'd have found some way to collect donations that uses free software from top to bottom. Maybe I'm way off on this but one of my first thoughts was that maybe even complaining about this takes away just a bit of the FSF's credibility. They preach the gospel of free software but when it's time to fundraise they make an exception? Is this a "do as I say, not as I do" situation now?

I'm not trying to be overly critical and I realize this may be a bit pedantic too. It's not a big deal to me, just thought it interesting. Food for thought maybe.

<comment><USER19> When you say mention "a service", are you referring to PayPal? In fairness, there are 0 payment gateways (as far as I know) that are open-source, sadly, so they don't have much choice. I guess the only option they have is Bitcoin, which they accept, however as that hasn't caught on they have little choice other services too.

<comment><USER20> So, when it comes to walking the walk, are you saying FSF is just like everyone else: free software is great, as long as it doesn't stand in the way of making money?

<comment><USER21> If they couldn't raise funding they would be unable to do anything.

They would also have to forego actually purchasing anything incase proprietary software was used anywhere in the supply chain.

It's a bit like the whole "Al-gore/Jet" argument, sometimes you have to make sacrifices of principles for the "bigger picture".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I know this cases from work:

* perl.org => pornography * duckduckgo => web proxy * google images => image sharing * flickr, devianart, youtube, vimeo etc. => media sharing * HN => hacking * securityfocus => gambling

There are more cases, of course. That's why I use tethering to access the internet at work ;)

</comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of working at a place where the Sonicwall filtering service would block the browser "Opera Desktop Blog" link claiming it was a swimsuit/modeling site.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websense#Blocking_errors>

</comment><comment><USER24> _"This reminds me of another situation several years ago, when BadVista campaign pages were conspicuously absent from Microsoft's live.com search results,..."_

If you have poo, fling it now!

<comment><USER24> Humor isn't HN's strong spot :S

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, truth being said, using free software without the support you get from buying Microsoft is a gamble.</comment>


Satellite images from highly oblique angles are pretty mindblowing - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/04/these-oblique-satellite-images-are-pretty-amazing/ <comment><USER2> Looks like a RTS game

</comment><comment><USER3> These look exactly like airplane images.

<comment><USER4> The much larger distance makes the pictures converge to an orthographic projection, like a 3D rendering in a game.

Look at the parallelity of the streets in Ryadh, this is something you would not see from a plane.</comment></comment>


Tablet shipments decline 10.1% in 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/01/idc-tablet-shipments-decline-10-1-in-2015-leaders-apple-and-samsung-both-lose-market-share/ <comment><USER2> This shouldn't be a massive surprise: it is pretty obvious the market hit saturation point where most people who want/need tablet have at least one. The remaining sales are upgrades, replacements due to damage/loss, people buying second/third ones (maybe getting a 7" or 8" as the 10+" is to big to take everywhere in a pocket, or a 10+" because while the 7" is practical carrying- wise a bigger screen is required) and just the occasional fresh person joining the ownership club. With upgrades being the biggest chunk of sales ATM and there not being much revolutionary coming out I'm not surprised sales overall have slumped over the period.

The article doesn't say whether they included phones or hybrids in those figures. Larger phones are replacing small tablet purchases for many (why carry a 7" tablet when you've got a 6" phone screen everywhere you go already?). It does explicitly count hybrids though which some articles I've seen don't, so the decline isn't being exaggerated by people switching from just tablet (or tablet plus bluetooth keyboard) to a hybrid laptop/tablet device.

<comment><USER3> > This shouldn't be a massive surprise

Except for the "economics" "institutes" which extrapolated the first-year sales onto the next 20 years and were adamant that tablets would soon™ replace desktop, laptops, phones, cats, and, finally, hydrogen atoms in the sun, because somehow "infinite growth" and "crash" are the only possible business models.

Same crap as with the netbook "boom" that was supposed to revolutionize EVERYTHING!!1 for about a year.

<comment><USER4> The netbook boom was nipped in the bud by Microsoft licensing. They gave away a free version of windows on it with heavy restrictions. Consequently hardware manufacturers brought out new models but stopped improving them (they topped out at a measly 1GB of RAM, upgradeable to 2).

They quickly died out because of course they did. That's a ridiculous restriction.

After my old one died I scoured for ages trying to find one that didn't adhere to those ridiculous restrictions to no avail. There were ~35 models available with a 2GB RAM restriction and zero without. The next year there were none.

<comment><USER5> I'd argue that the netbook boom was nipped in the bud by the introduction of the tablet. Netbooks, tablets, low-end laptops, and phablets that are too big to fit in a pocket are all the same market. They serve a person who wants to browse the web, check e-mail, instant-message, take notes, and do other information consumption tasks with a device that is small enough to carry around in a handbag or backpack but too large to fit in a pocket.

I suspect that the decline in tablet sales comes from category confusion at the edges of this market. At the low end, people are buying phablets to stick in a handbag instead of 7" tablets. At the high end, some people have gone back to lightweight laptops like the Macbook Air, Microsoft Surface, or equivalents. The "market" \- defined as the group of people with similar needs - continues to grow, but a growing percentage of people are picking products from a different category to satisfy it, as more such products become available.

<comment><USER6> And now Chromebooks are eating some of the tablet market, and are absolutely replacements for the original netbooks, and are the most popular form factor of new notebook sales now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think my own personal anecdote is indicative of the majority's experience. It's telling how long ago all the personal electronics in my house were acquired:

2009- My personal PC. Used heavily and daily, 3 monitors, 2 mice, gaming and development.

2011- iPhone4S, wife's phone still in use today.

2011- Nook Simple Touch.

2013- Dell Haswell i5, wife's laptop.

2015- My phone is an iPhone5S. I love this phone. I was on an upgrade treadmill for the last 5 years though with Android. Having gone through 3 phones in that time. Each with the hope I was getting the 'iPhone' of the Android world and never found it (ended on the Samsung GS3 on Cyanogenmod). Including the infamous HTC Thunderbolt. HTC found a good way to get people to replace their device..

The only thing I intend to replace on this list before it breaks is my personal machine built in 2009. That only for VR (something like this with a video card from this summer's selection [http://pcpartpicker.com/p/m2gN3C](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/m2gN3C)), which may put me on a replacement treadmill again.

If I don't buy a VR headset this year, I'll probably stick with Intel NUCs, particularly Skull Canyon with Iris Pro for the foreseeable future. That may also put me back to more frequent upgrades since the GPU is limited enough to warrant a new NUC in a year or two.

I'm fairly into my devices and there's really little hook IMO for most people to replace anything. Maybe if one has a strong desire for "latest and greatest" but I don't unless I need it. Unless you're on some sort of higher powered gaming treadmill and even then I've been using one from 2009 to this day. Granted, it was born with a $600 Intel 160GB X25-M SSD among other pretty good items that held the test of time.

In Apple's case, they have incentive to have a device last as long as our 4S as the business model is predicated on the AppStore ultimately. Not many businesses are as vertically integrated though so it's a problem when sales decline ~10% for everyone else.

<comment><USER8> > _they have incentive to have a device last as long as our 4S as the business > model is predicated on the AppStore ultimately_

The incentive your touting doesn't really match reality. At the start of 2015, Apple made $7.5B in revenue from the App Store cumulatively ($3B in 2014). Apple made $10B from the iPhone in Q1 2011, and has only been growing from there.

The AppStore, like Apple's many other software departments, contributes a fraction of what the high-margin hardware business brings in.

[https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/01/08App-Store- Rings-i...](https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/01/08App-Store-Rings- in-2015-with-New-Records.html) [http://www.statista.com/statistics/263402/apples-iphone- reve...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/263402/apples-iphone-revenue- since-3rd-quarter-2007/)

<comment><USER7> That's irrelevant to the point made. The incentive existing and being stronger for some more than others, is entirely unrelated to the actual profits brought in currently.

It's a longterm plan, and I believe good for the environment and consumer.

<comment><USER9> So, you concede grandparent's point that Apple's revenue from (smartphone plus tablet) hardware sales is and always has been at least 10 and probably 20 times as much as revenue from the (smartphone and tablet) App Store, but you won't retract your statement that Apple has "an incentive for [their hardware] to last" a long time "as the business model is predicated on the AppStore ultimately"?

Can you point to _any_ statement by a leader at or spokesperson for Apple that suggests that that is Apple's long-term plan?

Apple's cost for manufacturing and delivering to a customer a new iPad or iPhone (and providing post-sale support and warranty service) is only 60 or 70% of the selling price of that iPad or iPhone -- the rest is pure profit for Apple (provided they would have been profitable without that one additional sale -- provided, that is, that revenue is enough to cover the "fixed" costs such as design and engineering). If their "marginal" cost were 99% of the selling price, then it might be different, but the way it is now, surely the more iPads and iPhones Apple sells, the more profit they make. And since that is the case, in what sense does Apple have an "incentive" to make it so that any customer replaces his iPad or iPhone less often?

<comment><USER7> I disagree with the premise that it's a point at all. Certain hardware is hot right now but it won't be forever (ask Dell and HP).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tried to find the data but I could not, but I wonder, what did blender sales look like 15 years after their invention? 40 years? I picked blender because it is a useful appliance that it seems most people have one of today, and some people have had the same one for 30+ years (like my parents).

My point is, I wonder if this is just the typical performance of an appliance -- at first there is a lot of innovation and sales growth, and then it slows down as there just aren't that many new features to add and everyone has one.

<comment><USER11> That's how I feel with smartphones. I've skipped the last 2 generations of Nexus phones (although I had to go back and buy a Nexus 6 to use Google Fi) simply because it works well enough for me and there are no new hardware features that I care about.

I don't plan on upgrading until my phone starts to become a hindrance.

<comment><USER6> I have an S4. I'd consider an S5 if I could nab one for like $150, just to hate slightly better hardware, and possibly stock 6.0 since the S4 won't get it and Cyanogenmod is always a PITA to keep working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This makes sense. My existing second-gen Nexus 7 does everything I want it to (basically, it's my TV when I'm home, and a portable paperback when I'm out & about); I'd get a new one if there were something better, but so far there's not. The Nexus 9 looks _too_ big: I really like that my 7 fits in my back pocket or the inside breast pocket of a coat. The Pixel C looks like a notebook which would be a pain to install Debian on — while it's great to have a keyboard and a mouse, without emacs and a shell what's the point of a notebook?

<comment><USER13> I've read that the closest to a new version of a Nexus 7 is the Nvidia Shield tablet, but frankly I don't really feel the need for anything more powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Problem for tablet producers is they don't follow the 2 year phone contract life cycle.

Neither do watches.

<comment><USER15> Neither do phones now on MOST us carriers. Now we have 2 year leases.

<comment><USER16> Yes, and this will likely show up in shipment volume declines at some point if they don't find a way to mitigate it.

I wonder if their financing plan is seeing strong uptake in the US? If it does, they may be able to boost margins a bit.

<comment><USER17> It's already showing up as shipment volume declines for the iPhone 6S series.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting how smartphone, tablet as well as PC/laptop markets have stopped their growth trajectory or even gone into decline. We seem to have reached some form of market saturation (at least in developed countries) in conjunction with a decline in technical innovation. Producers will need to adapt to the different market dynamics and pressures.

Particularly Apple has not been used to these kind of pressures for a while. Personally, I hope prices will come down a bit. Unsure what else may happen?! A focus on services such as longer warranties or cloud services instead of hardware?

Having said that, my 2+ year old iPhone, 3 year old iPad as well as 2+ year old nexus tablet are still working perfectly fine. Why would I buy a new one if the "old guard" is still more than adequate?

<comment><USER19> The PC market is 40 years old, so it's a fair bet that, in the developed world, pretty much everyone who wants one has one.

The real problem is that a decent PC will now last five years (on average). This means sales of PCs will halve compared to when they lasted 2.5 years, even if usage stays exactly the same.

If smartphones only last 18 months, smartphones will sell at 3x the rate of PCs even if usage is the same ;-)

Otherwise, I disagree somewhat about the "decline in technical innovation" in the PC market. There's been a huge amount of innovation in Windows (adding apps, touch and pen support, voice-controlled AI, cloud integration etc) and in Windows hardware (smartphones, tablets, 2-in-1s, PC-on-a-stick, all-in-ones etc).

Seems to me the innovation is well ahead of user (and developer) adoption, which may be the real problem....

<comment><USER20> >he real problem is that a decent PC will now last five years

The _real_ problem is that there are no killer apps driving a need for faster hardware.

PC 1.0 was an office WP/accounts machine PC 2.0 was a home entertainment, Internet and games machine PC 3.0 was a pocket/handheld version of 2.0, and is still catching up with 2.0

Meanwhile we're still waiting for PC 4.0.

VR might be a good-enough driver, but I'm not yet convinced people want to use a PC with a giant plastic blob clamped to their heads.

If displays shrink to the point where they're light and unobtrusive, and hardware gets fast enough to have local versions of something like Siri (but smarter and better), full VR/AR could definitely become a 4.0 thing.

<comment><USER19> _> The real problem is that there are no killer apps driving a need for faster hardware._

Up to a point ;-)

The modern web is pretty much a killer app. Opening one tab in Chrome now consumes more resources than Microsoft Word...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Same story as the PC in 2001.

[http://www.appliancedesign.com/articles/84637-pc-data- decemb...](http://www.appliancedesign.com/articles/84637-pc-data-december- retail-pc-sales-fall-24-percent-from-1999)

Market saturation.

<comment><USER19> Except that PC sales grew for the next decade....

<comment><USER22> Because PCs kept getting faster for the next decade... and software kept requiring the faster speeds. Once we got to the point of the Intel Core Duo (06-08) the modern processor was fast enough for the majority of the PC fleet. You can take one of those 8 year old PCs and install Windows 10 on it and it will work as long as you have at least 2gb of memory in it. Also, PCs at the time didn't have much horizontal competition yet, notebooks were still pretty expensive, smart phones weren't smart, and tablets didn't really exist.

The current and previous generation or two of tablets do what most people ask of them. Facebook, Youtube, record some crappy video, all still work. If the tablet stops working the user might just stick with their new smartphone with a 6" screen.

<comment><USER23> > Once we got to the point of the Intel Core Duo (06-08) the modern processor > was fast enough for the majority of the PC fleet

Core 2 era was definitely the change-over point for me - before that I was upgrading pretty much on a yearly basis. I then built a Core 2 Quad machine in mid-2008, and stayed with the same hardware until mid-2013. TBH, that upgrade (to a i7-4770K) wasn't really necessary - I only did it because I started doing a fair amount of HD video encoding/editing. The Q6600 was handling everything else fine.

<comment><USER19> After the Core Duo we got integrated graphics, built-in video (etc) support, and lower TDPs that allowed thinner laptops with longer battery life. Oh, and lower prices.

We also got 10-second start-up times via UEFI.

There are more things to PC life than raw single-core performance ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I must be a statistical outlier. I use a 4 1/2 year old MacBook Air and a 6 year old Linux laptop for programming. No hurry to update my laptops that I use for work (except I did buy a $200 Windows 10 laptop to play with, and a Chromebook to see what it is like).

On the other hand, in the last 5 months, I bought the most recent iPad mini and the iPad Pro (giving away my old iPads #1 and #2). I do use iPads for some work. I am an author and I find them fine for research and typing in a few paragraphs. They are great for watching movies, web browsing, and listening to audio books. For some reason I like have the newest iPads but old work-horse laptops are fine.

<comment><USER25> I have a Surface Pro 3 and I use my original Thinkpad Laptop most the time instead. All I do is play a few android games on it or surf a bit (slowly).

Honestly not sure why I bought the SP3 outside of just wanted to try it out. I keep thinking I want handwriting, I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> As an artist the apple pencil has been a complete game changer for me. I don't find tablets particularly useful for much other than drawing, and the apple pencil delivers the most realistic experience to date. It used to be the case that working digitally meant you needed to learn how to apply your skills to the digital environment, but now when I draw / paint on the iPad I'm just doing what I'd normally do; it looks the same.

<comment><USER27> Have you tried one of those wacom drawing tablet/screen things? Is the latency comparable (or even noticeable)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> After the responsive web design movement, I wonder if people will move back to designing for desktop+phablet, forgetting about the tablet forms.

<comment><USER29> But this decline just means people aren't upgrading tablets so often, not that they're not getting used. And tablets would seem to be primarily used for web browsing (moreso a reason why people don't need the latest and greatest features and performance).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I still see no reason to upgrade my iPad 2. I only use it for casual web browsing on the sofa and reading on the airplane. What new features could be useful enough to me to warrant an upgrade? Unless it gets damaged or the battery craps out, I won't be buying a new one for a long time.

<comment><USER31> The iPad 2 was a great machine at the time, but it's saddled with a low-res screen, very little RAM, and a slow processor. A newer iPad would be nicer on your eyes, and would be far less likely to purge non-active browser tabs from memory.

<comment><USER32> I recently switched my iPad 2 for the latest model. The main reason for the switch was a broken screen on my old iPad. The new iPad is fantasic. I will be upgrading my partners iPad 2 later this year.

The latest iPad is so much better. So much more response, you can have 2 apps open at the same time. Web pages are fast and iOS is really snappy. Also, touch id which I always saw as a gimmick turned out to be the handiest thing ever. I now sigh when my thumb doesn't unlock my phone.

The only thing that niggles me a bit is I feel the life of the iPad2 was cut slightly shorter by Apple and it's iOS updates. iOS7 killed the performance. It shouldn't really have had the update or any update after. I am still not sure if Apple gave delivered iOS updates to avoid fragmentation or to slowly kill of the device to encourage new purchases.

I am not convinced either are valid reasons considering the degradation in performance of an otherwise pretty good device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The only reason I'm thinking of upgrading my 1st generation ipad mini is how slow it's become. Lesson learned, never let Apple install major software updates on an older device. The same happened with my iPhone 4 when iOS 7 came out, suddenly it became painfully slow.

</comment><comment><USER34> Android isn't ready for large tablets. It needs a tiling window manager and more apps need more consistent treatment of the clipboard. But if that were to happen I'd rather use native Drive apps than the web ui.

</comment><comment><USER35> Actually the decline is far worse (21.1%) for the classic slate form tablets. Even though they are included in tablets, the iPad Pro or Surface Pro are closer to a laptop in spirit than a tablet.

> IDC argues that the biggest trend to watch for in 2016 is the transition > towards detachable devices. Indeed, pure slate tablets experienced their > greatest annual decline to date of 21.1 percent, while detachable tablets > more than doubled their shipments since the fourth quarter of last year.

</comment><comment><USER36> My 2013 Nexus still does the trick. Same with the S4. There is just no obvious incentive to upgrade unless you play games on it or something

</comment><comment><USER37> Apple shot itself (and everybody else) in the foot by making tablets that last forever. My first gen Air sees quite a bit of use, and it's working fine, so I don't see a reason to upgrade. The only thing I wish it had is the fingerprint sensor. Dazzle me, and I'll upgrade.

<comment><USER38> If computers/tablets finally actually "mature" as a technology, apple might have done the best possible thing ever. That used to be the Mercedes tactic. Make sturdy cars for the first half a century of your existence. Then coast with that reputation for the next five decades.

(It's curious I'm defending Apple on something. Usually I'm anti-fanboy.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This was predicted: [http://a16z.com/2014/02/07/love-affair-with-tablet-is- over/](http://a16z.com/2014/02/07/love-affair-with-tablet-is-over/)

</comment><comment><USER40> The most interesting part to me is that the slate-only tablet form factor appears to be dying. This is surprising given that phones have completely adopted touch over physical keys, and yet tablets seem to be headed back to supporting both.

<comment><USER19> That's really a figment of IDC's decision to count Microsoft Windows tablets and 2-in-1s as tablets when the tablet format is usually more incidental than essential. (1)

It also means that IDC's PC industry numbers are also misleading. If somebody buys a Windows 2-in-1, that gets counted as a tablet and not counted as a PC. This makes the PC market decline look worse than it really is.

(1) "Pure" Windows tablets -- ones with ARM chips that didn't run traditional x86 software -- crashed and burned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> A pity Jolla tablet project failed (I'm waiting for the refund). I doubt I'll be buying any tablet soon, until may be 10nm Intel SoCs will come out and there will be a tablet with such Intel GPU to run it with open drivers.

<comment><USER42> The sad Jolla tale made me seriously ponder about making a full change to Apple. I'm currently testing how an iPad Pro might work for a 95% laptop replacement.

<comment><USER41> _> The sad Jolla tale made me seriously ponder about making a full change to Apple._

I supported Jolla because of their push for mobile Linux. I wouldn't touch anything from Apple with a ten foot pole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The market is saturated. I've bought many of my family's recent iOS devices as second hand. A generation or two old devices are still fast enough for casual use and offer great bang for the buck.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm not surprised. People are buying phablets instead of tablets. I haven't used my iPad in I don't know how long. Don't need two devices.

</comment><comment><USER45> I own an octa-core chinese phone from late 2014 purchased for 300 bucks, it does everything I need in a smartphone. why would I need to buy a new one?

</comment><comment><USER46> Also a thin laptop looks a lot like a tablet with a physical keyboard these days.</comment>


Introducing the JSX Specification - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2014/09/03/introducing-the-jsx-specification.html

<comment><USER2> Quasi-dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8265945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8265945), though I personally feel that this post is more useful.</comment>