The demise of the dollar - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting threat, and one that we're going to have to keep out eye on. But I have reservations about how effective multinational cooperation on international monetary policy can be.

One of the reasons that the dollar is the global reserve currency is because there is so much of it in circulation. No other currency is as liquid. Moving oil purchases of a bloc of countries to a non-dollar basket of currencies ought to be a significant hit to global demand for the dollar. But those same countries will have to correspondingly increase the amount of their own currency in global circulation, if the basket is to be used for international trade contracts. Despite being a strong currency and having a strong central bank, the EU has not pursued a policy of making the Euro a globally viable reserve currency, precisely because they do not want to have to deal with the problems that stem from creating the massive amounts of currency in circulation necessary for global use.

However, something similar was done in the past in Europe. During the transition to the Euro, the currency was brought into existence for use in financial transactions three years before it was brought into physical circulation ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_of_the_euro#Prepar...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_of_the_euro#Preparation_for_transition_to_the_euro)). So the euro existed really as a reified basket of national currencies fixed against each other in certain proportions. This was possible because of the end goal of bringing into being a fully unified monetary system and because of the close political integration of all the major players, who were subject to the financial constraints necessary to keep their currency locked into a fixed ratio with the others.

It's not clear to me that the Arab nations, Iran, Russia, and China can sustain the level of economic cooperation necessary to make their basket of currencies stick. Further, it's not clear that they can maintain stable financial policies at home, while allowing enough of their currency to be used abroad. Secondary foreign markets for a nation's currency can have difficult- to-predict effects (e.g. the Eurodollar market: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurodollar>). For a nation like China, who keeps very close control over their currency, won't allow it to float, and doesn't allow full convertibility ([http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2009-09/18/content_87...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2009-09/18/content_8706002.htm)), it will be quite difficult for it to seriously play a role in supplanting the dollar.

Having one actor (the Fed) is far less prone to problems than having half a dozen or more actors facing coordination and cooperation problems when faced with currency speculators operating in secondary currency markets. Just look at how Soros was able to tear the Pound Sterling out of the ERM by massively shorting it ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Exchange_Rate_Mechanis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Exchange_Rate_Mechanism#Pound_sterling.27s_forced_withdrawal_from_the_ERM)).

<comment><USER3> Great insights, but I think we have to do more than keep our eye on it. I think it's imperative that we transition significantly to non-oil based energy consumption (as the Obama administration is encouraging). The problem is we've allowed ourselves to become too dependent on spending, accounting for 70% of our economy. Americans have become accustomed to cheap products, and gas, while at the same time turning a nose up at menial jobs. If we truly want to keep ourselves safer, from needing to go to war in the Middle East, then maintaining reliance/placing value on oil means gas prices comfortably around $10 (or more) along with the corresponding inflation and further vanishment of any middle class. An unemployment rate of 10% would begin to look normal.

I think we need to do two major things: 1. increase the transition to high mpg/non-gas cars; 2. Begin to make things again and increase exports taking advantage of increased purchasing power abroad. (cheaper electricity would be third)

<comment><USER4> I wish we would make things again. I really do. There's so much tech that can be invested in to make a cleaner, more beautiful America - and yet all the factories for it are going overseas (Germany, Taiwan, and so forth). Why are we so far behind on the high-tech manufacturing curve? Did we just rest on our laurels for too long, or is something more nefarious afoot?

<comment><USER5> It's a question that's easy enough to answer.

Pick a product. Then go do the research and work to determine how much it would take to make it here. Then repeat that process with somewhere else.

This is the same process that companies go through. There's nothing mysterious about it.

<comment><USER4> Why is it more expensive here than in, say, Germany? Is it just the unions? Can't be, 'cause Germany has trade unions too. If anything, they're bigger there - The German Confederate of Trade Unions claims 25% of the working populace as members. Is it the healthcare? Oh, wait. Is it the education? Hrm. Is it pork? Is it 'cause we've got a lot of tornados, or is it the hurricanes?

It just doesn't make much sense. What makes it cheaper to operate a chip or solar panel factory in Dresden than in, say, North Carolina?

<comment><USER3> I have to agree with DanielBMarkham, and say a factory movement conspiracy is less likely than real world circumstances. (I'm not saying other conspiracies are as unlikely) I was in a store years ago talking with a guy doing contract work there, changing lighting etc. As the owner he was doing it himself complaining that "no one wants to work."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My own take on this is that, while it's possible for a bunch of countries to invent a new pseudo-currency, it's probably easier to use an existing pseudo- currency, and I think the IMF's XDR is a likely candidate:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Drawing_Rights>

This is a weighted average of several currencies, in addition to the USD. I think it's much more likely that, if oil is to be traded in any non-USD currency, it will first be traded in a pseudo-currency that includes the USD.

</comment><comment><USER7> Fisk has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. I think he's a fantastic reporter, but I'm little skeptical of his analytical abilities. Of course, he has earned the right to be cynical, but in his editorial pieces it's sometimes hard to tell if he's watching or wishing.

The flaw in the theory here is that the US basically guarantees Europe's military security and so there's a tradeoff with our economic security. This is one reason that the US, while occasionally grumbling about the huge cost of maintaining a nuclear umbrella, makes few moves to encourage any kind of pan- European security force.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ugh. "The dollar is falling! The dollar is falling!" is one of the four memes of the redditocolypse. It's one of those things that people don't have rational discussions about, and nothing ever gets resolved.

</comment><comment><USER9> A lot can and will happen between now and 2018. True, Britain will likely be a Euro state, but China's inevitable slowdown over the next decade will likely stall the transition away from the dollar.

<comment><USER10> "China's inevitable slowdown" - what is the basis of that prediction?

<comment><USER11> oh thats an easy call. even as we speak they are engaged in a stimulus program every bit as strange as our own and even stranger - their banks are FORCED to make loans!

the pressure to keep the growth machine going in china has been immense...but nothing grows to the sky, particularly in a global recession. the chinese will learn the hard way, as we are, not to fight economic cycles.

its not an issue of when china will have a major crash, but when and how deep

<comment><USER10> I agree - the question always IS when and not whether:) slowdown has a non- zero probability and will happen - the nontrivial part is predicting whether in a decade or five?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> these oil-valuing articles have been coming out nonstop over the last few years. i'd be amazed if anything comes of it. washington simply cannot allow the dollar to be usurped, and frankly neither can these other nations. the dollar may be a toilet-paper currency, but everyone is holding it...who can afford to have the dollar lose substantial value? no one. i have to give the Fed credit, they've made america's problems the world's problems.</comment>


The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119596/appetite-wonder-review-closed-mind-richard-dawkins

<comment><USER2> Great article. I agree with a lot of what John Gray says. There is a sort-of rebuttal here : [http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/john- gray...](http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/john-grays- scurrilous-attack-on-dawkins/)</comment>


The Hydrogen Myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/stephenfleming/the-hydrogen-myth-presentation

<comment><USER2> A 38 page powerpoint presentation. Very illuminating. Who knew such things as:

Liquid hydrogen leaks can be ignited by the static spark set off by the leak itself?

Hydrogen flames are _not_ visible (see slide 16: hydrogen refinery would look same _when on fire_ as when not.

Compressed H2 gas or Liq H2 have only about 15% or 30% of the energy-per- gallon as gasoline.

And on and on... Sure casts doubt on feasibility of H2 as a medium for energy storage.

<comment><USER3> _hydrogen refinery would look same when on fire as when not._ \- except for the heat wave distortion, plumes of smoke from burning paint, drooping steel gangways, showers of electrical sparks from the shorting electrical system, and workers leaping from the upper levels.

<comment><USER4> And if the fuel in a hydrogen car decided to burn, everyone in its vicinity will find out in a real hurry - a fire that looks different is still a fire.

Though his point is valid - hydrogen _will_ burn extremely quickly, we used to do these as demonstrations in school. Where a pool of gasoline will burn over a period of time, a tank full of hydrogen will burn almost instantaneously to disastrous effect - forget about rescue, the only sort of "rescue" will be body retrieval of whatever is left.

<comment><USER5> However, hydrogen will not pool like gasoline. If it doesn't ignite, it will just fly off into space. This mitigates some of the risk (i.e. if there is an accident, a fuel leak will either kill you quickly, or it won't)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I completely agree with the content in this sideshow, except I think he left out a important part of the H2 discussion.

H2 is a complicated/inefficient/explosive way to move energy, but it's very clean (as a energy transfer medium). At the moment, the way H2 is generated is very unclean (using Methane, or using the power from coal and other dirty power sources).

But if the origin of the energy is totally clean (hydroelectric, wind, solar), you can use that energy to break water down, then transfer that hydrogen in to the vehicle. Breaking down water is not so efficient, but it's still clean. I think this is the ideal (maybe dreamlike) goal of the H2 Camp.

<comment><USER7> Given the low density, it's questionable to me whether it's better to use electricity to make hydrogen and put it in a tank compared to just putting it in a battery in a car. Bypasses the production losses and the low ICE efficiency.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you entirely - converting clean electricity into a finicky form of transport seems ill-advised. That being said, battery technology has a long way to go before being able to power a car entirely.

For one thing, energy density needs to improvement by an order of magnitude to make mass application useful, and the average lifetime of the battery I would say would have to increase 2-3x. Batteries are expensive to manufacture and the ecological impact of disposal is also extremely high - better to make longer-lasting batteries than cheap crap.

<comment> bjelkeman-again Just saying that "the ecological impact of disposal [of batteries] is also extremely high" without differentiating between battery types is to simplify the issue too much I think. Some batteries are bad to throw away, others are less bad, but you can also recycle batteries.

"Lithium Ion batteries are classified by the federal government as non- hazardous waste and are safe for disposal in the normal municipal waste stream," says Kate Krebs at the National Recycling Coalition. <http://bit.ly/wS344>

In general, throwing away stuff that isn't naturally occuring in the eco system is often bad, and sometimes too much of something natural can be bad too. But blanket statements that something is bad don't help. The battery system would be replacing something else, like a petrol driven engine, which also has an environmental impact and is much less efficient.

<comment><USER5> Furthermore, lead-acid (car) batteries are extremely easy to recycle (and are valuable; you almost always get a trade-in discount).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The first and second law of Thermodynamics:

1\. You can't win

2\. You can't even break even"

<comment><USER9> And doesn't the third translate to "3. You can't get out of the game"?

<comment><USER10> And the zeroth?

<comment><USER9> Er, "We are all in this together?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is what Don Lancaster at <http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.asp> has been saying for a long time. One quote "Please also note that because of the staggering loss of exergy, use of electrolysis for bulk hydrogen apps is a really, really dumb thing to do. It is the equivalent of exchanging two US dollars for one Mexican peso."

</comment><comment><USER11> I want a nuclear car: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon>

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm confused about something he says in slide 22: "Solar and wind power are rounding errors"

Is he saying that they are currently just very limited compared to other energy generation methods in use, or that they're completely unviable?

<comment><USER4> I can't speak for the author - but there is some evidence that, to produce our power needs via wind/tidal means on a large scale (i.e. an appreciable portion of total production) would cause as of yet hard to predict ecological impact. You sap the energy out of your tide and wind and bad juju will happen to your environment.

<comment><USER13> "Hard to predict" is an understatement. For all we know, extracting energy from wind and waves could counter the recent perceived increase in hurricanes and tropical storms, or it could restore weather patterns to what they were prior to deforestation.

<comment><USER14> > For all we know, extracting energy from wind and waves could counter the > recent perceived increase in hurricanes and tropical storms

The recent trend in hurricanes has been a decrease. (We can spot storms in places that we couldn't look before, but if we look just where we could look before, there's a decrease.)

The middle of the 20th century was far worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing I can't stand about the hydrogen debate is how people link it to "fuel cells are bad." Solid Oxide fuel cells happen to be quite economical and successful by using other fuels like propane and gasoline. There are disadvantages with every energy technology, but the trick is using them in the right combination that makes the most sense. No need for unproductive flame wars.

And the quotes from "smart people" are ridiculous. Wow, you quoted someone else (and most likely out of context) to make your point stronger. Good for you. Do you want a cookie?

<comment><USER16> Nope, got plenty of Oreos, right here.

Other people may have looked at the unfavorable characteristics and conclude "fuel cells are bad." That would be sloppy and stupid.

My message would be that "HYDROGEN fuel cells are bad, especially for automotive use." I like fuel cells in general; my employer has some great work going on with methanol fuel cells.

As far as the quotes being out of context... you've got Google, right there in your toolbar. Look 'em up.

<comment><USER15> I have no problem with your content (with the exception that you failed to mention which technologies COULD be commercialized rather easily). I believe you gave all accurate information. I just didn't like your presentation.

So some critiques, if I may:

1) Slide 2 - Why? I know you're trying to demonstrate your credibility, but this just seems like bragging. Who cares if you achieved highest honors.

2) Slides 2,6,9,13,14,15,19,22,28,29,37 - waaaaay too verbose. If you came to give a seminar at my school, I would have been drawing stick figures by now. Brevity is key.

3) I still stand by my criticism of your quotes. They add absolutely nothing to your presentation. What are they supposed to accomplish? And I assumed you were giving this talk in front of a group of people...so which toolbar are you referring to...the one on my iphone?</comment></comment></comment>


Some things I've learned about memory - <AUTHOR> http://www.neugierig.org/software/blog/2011/05/memory.html <comment><USER2> > For the best picture I recommend smem, a tool that was written by the same > person who added the hooks to the kernel to make PSS computation possible: > sudo apt-get install smem.

Who's that? Feels to me like he or she is due some credit.

<comment><USER3> # yum info smem | grep URL

URL : <http://www.selenic.com/smem/>

First changelog entry is by "Matt Mackall":

<http://selenic.com/repo/smem/shortlog/61?revcount=120>

<comment><USER4> ... the lead developer and creator of the Mercurial DVCS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Offtopic, related to the submission:

Is anyone here able to guess (or even state as fact) what this blog is based on? I'm trying to get into blogging for a long time and this is the cleanest and (by _far_, being used to Europe's internet speed I'm often cringing here) fastest site I've seen on HN for a long time. What's the secret sauce, if the author isn't just creating static html files manually..?

<comment><USER6> Thanks!

The other guesses are correct. The code is here, but it's undocumented and specific to the site. <https://github.com/martine/cms>

It's pretty straightforward to write your own such thing (though you must be careful about the details when generating a feed) or use one of the many other static site generators like Jekyll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a good article about memory for anybody who doesn't understand it.

Bear in mind that there are many ways that memory can be used, including (in the case of some applications) specialized memory allocators that look after memory within a process. For example SLAB allocation etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> He mentions running out of memory addresses when there's still ample physical memory available.

The obvious thought is: We need to create more addressable space to take advantage of this plentiful physical memory.

The less obvious thought is: Given that we have such plentiful physical memory, why are we using an old hack that was designed for a problem that no longer exists?[1] The name of the problem: Not enough physical memory to keep processes in their own space. The name of the hack: Shared memory and dynamic linking.

1\. Of course, we can keep making software larger and more resource intensive to perpetuate the problem and thus justify the ongoing use of the solution (shared memory). A comparative example might be disk space. We have so much disk space that we can keep making files larger (e.g. programs, operating systems, document/media files, data collection) to justify a need for more space.

Commence downvoting.

<comment><USER9> Dynamic linking addressed was a solution to a lot more issues than just not having enough physical memory. It provided convenient ways to ensure consistent modules between otherwise unrelated processes, to upgrade functionality on all processes on a platform without altering them, to insulate programs from changes to the underlying platform, etc.

<comment><USER8> What is dll/dependency hell?

<comment><USER9> Just 'cause it is a solution, doesn't mean it doesn't create its own problems. ;-)

I do agree that we may be ready to have something cleaner than the old shared library model. Just don't suggest it was a one trick pony.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Strong Opinions Loosely Held Might Be the Worst Idea in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://blog.glowforge.com/strong-opinions-loosely-held-might-be-the-worst-idea-in-tech/ <comment><USER5> It's depressing the term has become that. "Strong opinion" _used_ to mean "I've looked at the arguments and the counterarguments closely, and I've developed the arguments to the point where I'm convinced this is the right answer".

Not "I shout the loudest about it".

And "weakly held" meant "I am willing to believe there's data out there showing I'm wrong, and I will look at any new data with an open mind". Not "I'll flip if somebody shouts louder".

And sure, on the face of it, the proposed solution here addresses that, but... we don't know "how sure" we are of something. It's a made up number. And I'm willing to take bets that the same people who do the loud shouting will be the ones who just declare every certainty 100%. (The smarter ones will pick 98%).

The key to making this work is openness to new data.

If you want a rhetorical trick to facilitate debate, I prefer the old "Tell me what I'm missing" \- it presupposes you don't have all the data, nudging you to be open to counterpoints and validating people who might want to offer counterpoints.

<comment><USER6> This is what happens when society views itself through a prism of most popular (i.e. social media). Certain topics and ways of communicating are more viral so they "win." Signaling allegiance and conviction without accompanying reasoning is easy to do, easy to digest, and contributes to the ongoing popularity of the desired message. It is a great strategy and is effective to the point of being required. If your opponents do it and you don't you will lose. The real problem is people thinking (and being lead to think) that the social media discourse corresponds to reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've learned the hard way that you always need to be cognizant of other people's defaults in conversation. Willingness to have a vigorous debate is never the assumed default, so even if you are receptive to criticism, other people wont give it. The concept of the percent certainty is intriguing to me, since thinking back on it, it makes a lot of sense that posturing with certainty ("strong opinion") actually likely sends the signal that I am not receptive to criticism- otherwise I would have the self awareness to include in my original statement of opinion that I might be wrong by putting that acknowledgement of uncertainty in. Perhaps even that isn't enough? What I do now is explicitly say "I want your criticism on this" or "your job is to push back" or something since explicitly laying out the expected culture seems to help. Would people naturally interpret the statement of uncertainty as an invitation to disagree or is even that assumption based on a set of social norms around where the author lives? Wouldn't people just get attached to the number for percent certainty and feel insecure challenging that? I wonder if it's simply not explicit enough to set the lind of culture you would want.

<comment><USER8> >What I do now is explicitly say "I want your criticism on this" or "your job is to push back" or something since explicitly laying out the expected culture seems to help.

Not as much as you'd like. For many, "your job to push back" is saying "Your job is to argue." Many people want to discuss, not argue. Regarding "I want your criticism":

I took a communications workshop, and we discussed this. Make a statement/claim, then follow it up with "Let me know if I got anything wrong." Half the class thought it was a good idea, and the other half said it wasn't (and likely wouldn't engage). The reason was that too many of them had seen the tactic used by insincere, argumentative people, and the very phrasing comes off as adverserial to many (like "show me how I'm wrong!").

The other half of the class was completely surprised by this ("When I say it, I'm sincere!").

The phrase that didn't trigger any problems is "This is how I see it. What do you think?" or "This is how I see it. What is your perspective on it?" or even better "This is how I see it. I'd like to hear your perspective."

<comment><USER9> Your communications workshop experience jives well with my observations. Over the last decade or so, I've evolved my expression style to a much more discussion oriented tone (de-escalating the situation) rather than a debate oriented one (trying to prove yourself right, often escalating tensions). If a subject is worth talking about with someone, I hold a frame of mind that they might have something new to say which will augment my understanding of the situation. IME, that makes people much more open to communicate -- they listen to you with an open mind, consider what you're saying, and respond with their perspective. I much prefer this mode of operation, because my perspective had diversified significantly from the things I've learned and I consider it as bringing out the best in the people I communicate with. Conversations are now a collaborative discovery process.

"Strong opinions, weakly held" (in it's best spirit) is often a crutch for people who feel paralyzed by ambiguity. This mindset lets them sweep uncertainty under the rug and continue operating ("bias for action") till feedback requires them to change their mind. The problem with that assumption is that the willingness of people around them to express feedback is inversely proportional to the confidence they express.

On the topic of being comfortable with ambiguity, I feel Feynman puts it best: [https://youtu.be/_MmpUWEW6Is](https://youtu.be/_MmpUWEW6Is)

<comment><USER10> > Over the last decade or so, I've evolved my expression style to a much more > discussion oriented tone (de-escalating the situation) rather than a debate > oriented one (trying to prove yourself right, often escalating tensions).

I've been heading this way over time, and as you clearly have experience that it works I'll make an effort to try harder. Nothing like learning from other people's wisdom - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree that the behavior described in this article is toxic. But I'm surprised the author attributes it to this saying. Maybe I've just missed the aphorism being used as an excuse for bullying. That seems to hang entirely on the word "strong" and miss the other half of the saying entirely, but whatever. If it's being used in a toxic way, then sure, let's stop saying it.

But there's a valuable philosophy locked up in the meaning I've always attributed to this saying. Namely, that many--maybe most--architectural decisions in tech don't actually have a correct answer. And so it's more important to pick an approach and stick to it, unless and until there's some compelling reason to change strategy. BUT, when that reason does appear, follow it, and change your mind.

<comment><USER12> There's nothing necessarily toxic about being unequivocal. In some situations, people have experience and know better.

It's toxic to be unequivocal in situations that are inherently ambiguous and require input.

Also, there's something powerful about orienting towards action; often, what matters is less architecture but simply moving forward at a reasonable pace. A mediocre decision is usually better than no decision.

<comment><USER8> >It's toxic to be unequivocal in situations that are inherently ambiguous and require input.

The catch is that people will not agree with what is ambiguous and what isn't. Don't assume that something that seems unambiguous is.

The other thing not mentioned in the article: The likelihood of misunderstandings and miscommunications. The issue could be as black and white as "This functions gives the wrong answer with this input." It's simple, right? We both agree on the answer it should give. Just run the function and see. How much more unambiguous can you get?

What I've found is that a significant percentage of these discussions aren't about what I think they are. Yes, I can insist that the function gives the wrong value. And no, that's _not_ what the other person is even discussing, and neither of us has realized that we're both talking about different things. Stating it unequivocally is a barrier to the discovery process for realizing we're not on the same page.

Some people are good at verbal debate. But many don't revel in it, and it's always a pain point for them. They don't want to work with a constant debater. I know in a lot of tech culture, we set the expectation on _them_ to speak up, but that culture is working against human nature - and often results in losing talent that doesn't fit in.

<comment><USER12> "Don't assume that something that seems unambiguous is."

Don't make assumptions about what we assume :).

There are innumerable situations wherein there is legitimate experience and authority for people to make fairly clear and unambiguous decisions.

It's patently wrong to suggest that unequivocal positions are inherently toxic.

<comment><USER8> >It's patently wrong to suggest that unequivocal positions are inherently toxic.

I'm reading your comment and kinda wondering what it has to do with my comment that you're replying to. I never suggested such a thing.

>There are innumerable situations wherein there is legitimate experience and authority for people to make fairly clear and unambiguous decisions.

I'm not disputing that. The context of my comment is the discussion around it. My question is: If that is the case, does there need to be any discussion around it at all? Just make the decision. It kind of gets to the point of the article. If it's unambiguous and you're sure about the decision, you can present it that way and close any room for disagreement. If you actually _want_ people to express disagreement, then it means you are willing to consider your analysis of ambiguity would be wrong.

My counter would be:

There are innumerable situations where people's belief that the situation allows for clear and unambiguous decisions is wrong.

I'm not saying your scenarios don't exist. I'm arguing about Type I vs Type II errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The way I see it, there are two choices:

Choice #1 is debating with engineers who have strong but loosely held opinions. This path is the way of 'moving fast and breaking things'.

Choice #2 is debating with engineers who have mild convictions at best. This is the path of endless bike-shedding and yak-shaving.

Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter and has good reason to be confident in their approach.

Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all.

Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers will know what I mean.

<comment><USER8> Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion", and I thought quite a bit about whether I should bother to engage. And this is precisely what people will do when you state something they don't agree with: "Is it worth my time to engage with you?"

>Option 1 implies that people aren't afraid to take leadership of an idea and accept responsibility for its consequences if things go wrong, which is conducive to iterative development and innovation. It implies that the person making the strong case for a decision has done thorough research on the matter and has good reason to be confident in their approach.

Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #1, and have not done enough due diligence in their research, and whose reasons are strongly biased towards their own comfort.

>Option 2 is more of an ego-preservation mechanism where people hedge their opinions to protect themselves from criticism if things go wrong. You don't know how they really feel about the matter because everyone is walking on eggshells in order to preserve one another's egos. People don't want to say anything with conviction and most of the time would rather say nothing at all.

Yet I've come across too many people who have identical behavior to Choice #2 who don't have any egos at stake - they just do not speak in a confidence signaling manner. Their tone is no reflection of the accuracy of what they say.

>Anyone who has ever tried to elicit candid feedback from option 2's engineers will know what I mean.

I have, and have often succeeded.

Anyone who has tried and failed with option 2 is strongly encouraged to study the art of communication. I assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior.

Your description of the situation is incomplete, and is missing quite a few other Choices. Amusingly enough, in the book Crucial Conversations, they start off early with people who have the same view as you on Option 2. They call it The Fool's Choice: "Either I state what I think and damage the relationship, or I preserve the relationship at the cost of not getting what I want." They discuss it early in the book because people will simply not become better communicators while they believe in the Fool's Choice.

After reading 2-3 different books on communications, you'll generally see communication problems in the wild as, frankly, textbook examples of bad communications. Almost all scenarios are in one of these books.

<comment><USER13> > Your comment is a classic example of a "strong opinion"

What can I say, I practice what I preach ;)

I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - <USER3> assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion. If you had instead said something like "The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior... but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead-locking opinions at best.

With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved). One should be free to state strong opinions in the best interest of the organization, but not be afraid to back down in the face of contradicting evidence. It should also not be about 'getting what _I_ want', but 'getting what's best for the organization'.

<comment><USER8> >I'd like to point out that your comment has many characteristics of a "strong opinion" as well, which I appreciate. For example, strong statements "i.e - <USER3> assure you: The failure is not on the part of the people who exhibit this behavior" and research based evidence. It will be of use to me in formulating a judgement on my own strongly expressed opinion.

Well, I come from an academic background, which is rife with debate. The style you prefer is natural to me.

And yet, despite that, I had to think and see whether it is worth the effort to engage with you. If someone who enjoys debate has that thought, then people who do not enjoy debates are even less likely to engage with you. That's the point I'm trying to get across.

For me, debate has a low cognitive load. For most humans, that's likely not true. Yet for most people, simple _discussions_ have low cognitive load. So in general you'll get more out of people if things are not framed as a debate. Putting the onus on the other party to counter is framing at as a debate and is working against human nature.

I also want to touch on:

>but this is based solely on my own personal experience and might not apply here", it would have been a much less convincing argument leading to dead- locking opinions at best.

It need not lead to deadlock. You're allowed to disagree with people. You're allowed to say "This sounds like your world view, which doesn't match mine. Do you have any resources to support your view?" (Also, bearing in mind whether you have any to support your own). And at the end, "It seems this is a matter of opinion, and at the moment I am going with X. Thanks for your input."

(Not saying it's easy to talk like that if not used to, even I don't do it all the time - or even 50% of the time - but people do learn it and become good at it).

And even worse than a deadlock is people simply electing not to give you their opinion, an option I almost took.

One last tangential point. People in the HN crowd tend to have very strong analytical skills. One thing I've learned to be mindful of is if someone doesn't have good arguments for their position _it does not mean they are wrong_. Lack of good arguments from a person is a very poor signal of whether they are correct! I learned the hard way when on a number of occasions, I turned out to be wrong, and yet someone had told me the correct thing - <USER4> just were not good at articulating their reasons. I've realized that, time permitting, it is _my_ responsibility to explore _their_ suggestions. I cannot hide behind "Yes, he didn't explain it well."

>With respect to your point about The Fool's Choice, I would think that in an ideal world, stating what one thinks about a technical matter should not be damaging to a relationship at all (unless truly fragile egos are involved).

That is what the Fool's Choice says: One should believe they can state their perspective without hurting relationships. The problem often arises in the purpose or intent. Is your goal to state your perspective, or to get feedback on it? What you've described is the former. Is your goal to tell people, or to have a discussion? For a lot of people, unless it is clearly phrased as the latter, they will assume the former, even if it wasn't your intent.

We don't live in an ideal world.

(Off topic, but I had a manager who often said "In an ideal world, we would...". At some point I cut him off and said "In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to work". Ideality has its degrees.)

<comment><USER13> This is good food for thought, thanks for the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This title is a prime example of what he denigrates in his essay. He should change it to: "I am 75% sure Strong Opinions Loosely Held Might Be the Worst Idea in Tech"

<comment><USER15> It's pure clickbait. "Worst X in Y" is one of the prototypical clickbait phrases.

<comment><USER16> Complete with a "click to tweet quote" to spoon-feed you the exact phrase that you should be sharing on social media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Among my favorite non-engineering books to help engineers is Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets (referenced in the article). It approaches probabilistic thinking systematically (some of the book reflects my own trial-and-error learnings but with far more rigor). It also cites a lot of literature on decision making if you feel like doing a depth first search.

For example: One new tool for me: the _pre_ -mortem. Given a major deliverable or initiative, pretend it's, say, 90 days from now, and the project is a flaming crater. Go around the room with everyone throwing out ideas of what "went" wrong. Then assign probabilities to the various issues and discuss possible motivations. It's difficult to overstate how valuable this tool is. It also gamifies what can be considered negative thinking or nay-saying.

Or, get 60% of the benefit by listening to this interview with her: [https://overcast.fm/+Ei1D2qbQQ](https://overcast.fm/+Ei1D2qbQQ)

If that doesn't grab you within 15 minutes, bail. But if this topic is interesting to you, I suspect you'll easily devour the whole thing.

(Edited to add pre-mortem)

</comment><comment><USER18> I suspect "strong opinions, loosely held" used to be very common in hacker culture (although personally I've never actually heard the phrase used before this other than Jeff Atwood: [https://blog.codinghorror.com/strong-opinions- weakly-held/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/strong-opinions-weakly-held/)), but as time marched on and the makeup of people working in technology (and people on the internet in general) changed, the younger generations increasingly only saw the "strong opinions" part, and now that's mostly all we have left.

My perception is that open-mindedness and nuance in discussions have been steadily decreasing, replaced with hyper-confidence and binary thinking, and the rate of that decrease is accelerating. I wonder if anyone other than me has noticed this change in the nature of forum discussions (here and elsewhere?

> Even if someone does have the courage to push back, in practice the original > speaker isn't likely to be holding their opinion as loosely as they think.

"isn't likely" is a massive understatement in my personal experience, not only when the topic of discussion is technology, but even more so when the topic is politics.

> So, what about the situation where someone else goes first and makes an > absolute statement? There is a simple ninja move! Just say "It sounds like > you are 100% sure of that, is that right?" If the answer is yes, you can ask > them to explain why they are certain and see if they have any data to back > it up....

This does seem like quite the ninja move, I like it.

> ...If not, you'll have prompted them to assess their actual level of > conviction, sharpen their thinking, and open up the conversation. It is a > simple, kind way of helping them develop a style of thinking and > communication that will improve your organization.

I am very curious if this ninja move will indeed be received/interpreted in the real world as a "simple, kind way of helping them develop a style of thinking and communication that will improve your organization." I predict (80% certainty) that kind of reception will be quite rare (<50%).

<comment><USER19> A while back I was reading a memoir by someone who consulted for DEC in the 70s and 80s, and he was astounded that engineering meetings were sometimes full of people shouting at each other. Apparently this was considered a normal way to find consensus. So - things may not have changed as much as you say. (See also Usenet in the 90s.)

What has changed is YouTube culture, which seems to have a scary number of people SHOUTING and EMOTING in VERY EXTROVERT WAYS DIRECT TO CAMERA with plenty of FAST CUTS and ASIDES, even when making videos about technical content.

Sometimes it's entertaining, but just as often it's tiresome and distracting. I wouldn't object if it was toned down.

<comment><USER18> > and he was astounded that engineering meetings were sometimes full of people > shouting at each other.

I'd bet (there's no way of really knowing obviously) that back then, that worked perfectly fine because those people for the most part actually held their opinions loosely. Oh, they wouldn't give them up without a fight, but what was Correct trumped personal opinion. I don't think there's very much left of this in modern culture, even among those who _think_ they behave this way, at least on certain topics. Distinguishing between reality and one's _perception_ of reality does not come naturally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thread from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878830)

</comment><comment><USER21> Isn't the proposed "solution" obvious? Isn't it just normal, decent human behavior in social situations with potentially conflicting views? Does anyone actually speak in absolutes similar to the ones in the article?

<comment><USER22> Many thought leaders on social media do.

They also write like this.

Short sentences, free of uncertainty.

They give direct orders, separated by 3 newline characters.

Beginners are surprised.

If you don't do the same, you cannot count yourself among the best.

 _(This is satire, but if you 're online enough to discover this group, you'll recognize them.)_

<comment><USER16> You mean like this?

[https://overreacted.io/name-it-and-they-will- come/](https://overreacted.io/name-it-and-they-will-come/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've always taken this phrase to be a contradiction. If you're always certain but frequently changing your mind, shouldn't it lead you to, gradually, understand that you need to reserve a shred of doubt?

<comment><USER24> I'm also sometimes confused by how people don't get this. Anybody honest with themselves should realize their phenomenal fallibility. Life necessarily involves drawing conclusions from incomplete data. I can't see how it's reasonable to not be intellectually humble in the face of that fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The situation described in the article is at least partially caused by people acting without understanding their motivations, or how to concert them.

It can be drilled many layers into, or it can simply stated as having this work on your team requires everyone meet a certain level of maturity.

If every team member understands the axiom that the singular reason for anyone's participation in the discussion of the idea/topic is strengthening the idea/collective understanding of the topic and can maintain that as their primary motivator when deciding how to act then you will find that what was interpreted as toxicity before is then interpreted as passion, and that the toxicity previously motivated by fear of looking bad is now reasoned into nonexistence because engaging in reasonable discussion via admitting to a blindspot is in service of the ultimate goal.

You need some combination of things that get you the end result of everyone cognitively keeping their emotional reactions at bay if you want this style of thing to work on your team.

edit: also, IMO the whole adding a percentage certainty qualifier to your statements misses the point, bless its heart. The reason discussion gets better results is because you get more data. Slapping a percentage estimator to your certainty implies that you know about how much data you already have (true) and that you know how much data is all the data (false). No one knows that. This is another axiom that's very helpful in diverting the emotional shrapnel that this style of debate can otherwise toss out because it allows everyone to be comfortably humble. Comfortably so because they will not be humbled by another person, but rather by the undeniable infinity of the universe, which some might call God.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have been in a number of workplace situations where I try to accurately convey uncertainty of outcomes and people latch onto that part, and not the ~95% accurate core message I am really saying.

Then they go to ask an overconfident jerk who is maybe 10-20% correct, but expresses it as 100% certain.

Then I get the reputation for being the one who never knows what he is talking about, and the next time something comes up they won't even ask me, they will go straight to the overconfident one who consistently gives bad advice with no room for doubt.

So I guess the short way of saying it: I think it's great to communicate when you are not sure, but you need buy-in from everyone that this is what everybody does. You can't have people that assume uncertainty is weakness, or expect that the world is more certain than it is. And it can get troublesome when you have a mix of different levels of honesty and humility. People get shafted for being honest.

<comment><USER26> When I was a just getting out of being a teen (17-19 ish?), I started a challenge (ideology? creed?) for myself. It was to "never be wrong". To do this I would have to be realistic of my certainties, be brutally honest with myself about what I thought I knew, how I knew it, and the likelyhoods of each. I had hoped I'd build up over time, a blurrier, but more accurate view of the world.

I learned this lesson myself, people interpret uncertainty as simply "not knowing", if you "not know" enough you're considered not knowledgeable. I had thought stating my certainty would mean when I was very certain, people would take that information seriously. It was the exact opposite. Simply being uncertain means you arn't reliable and can't be trusted.

I've mostly abandoned this way of thinking now. I don't even think like that internally any more either. It was not a useful challenge/ideology/creed for me. I take comfort that I'm at least no worse than anyone else.

<comment><USER25> "Never to be wrong" sounds like a big source of anxiety. I think for me it was always to admit that my mind isn't perfect, that it's always possible that the model built from assemblage of facts could be faulty. And a polite deference to opposing ideas.

Some people in corporate politics will walk all over you for allowing such things. But I would call it not being a jerk.

<comment><USER26> I don't suffer much from that kind of anxiety. I found the challenge pretty compelling actually. Built in was the recognition "You're certain of this, but why? Is your tower built on shaky foundations? Check it again, because if you're wrong you'll fail the challenge". Does that seem like anxiety? It didn't feel that way to me, because I could always just pair back my certainty in such cases.

Again, I enjoyed the challenge, I just didn't enjoy the effect it had on me socially, or in my career. I'd rather have friends who believe I'm smart and competent on a good career path than always be right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Makes me think of this essay [1] by the CIA comparing different common speech words to their probability. Some people might say "absolutely" and mean 95%, and 95% to them really only mans 80%. It is just important to explain why you think what you do, but also to not penalize people for a wrong estimate or they will stop trying at all. Otherwise, you will just get a stratified upper staff layer that has too much power to be removed that is "100% sure" about everything because it is better to be a yes-man than to be uncertain.

[1]: [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/sherman-kent-and-the-board- of-national-estimates-collected-essays/6words.html#top)

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't know if the solution proposed here is the answer, although I use it every day of my life. In fact, I've started to resent having to use it as it should be the understood default. But then I'm not prone to puffery.

I can say that "strong opinions loosely held" is basically an oxymoron and never works in practice, assuming it actually means anything in the first place. The few places I've seen proudly proclaim this motto have been the most toxic, poorly managed businesses I've seen. That phrase has, to me, come to represent a big, giant glowing neon warning sign to stay far, far away.

</comment><comment><USER29> The problem described here is basically exaggeration, and it's not limited to tech, it's become a very common cliche on Twitter to exaggerate for effect. It has also taken over many topics on Hacker News. (You might as well skip most discussion of privacy issues, for example.)

I wonder what it would take to start a community where we downvote exaggeration, much like we do jokes on Hacker News?

</comment><comment><USER30> > What really happens? The loudest, most bombastic engineer states their case > with certainty, and that shuts down discussion.

Oh neat, he's talking about me.

I'm terrible for this. I know it. I struggle with it. And I hope that over time I improve, get better at it. Because I've met people like me, ones who don't know it's a problem, and they're very difficult to work with.

<comment><USER31> I believe that I used to be guilty of this, as well. Maybe I still am, but I haven't gotten much feedback on it in a long while (and I try to elicit feedback on these things _very_ frequently -- weekly).

What I've done is to take a step back and try to channel communications into asynchronous channels. I find it very challenging, if not outright impossible (again, this may just be me and my personality talking) to try to explain my thoughts and opinions in real-time in a room, or worse a video conference, where you're forced to make all manner of assumptions about other peoples understandings of what you are saying. When it goes async, you can lay out the foundation and point towards specific points in the sort of nuanced and context-rich environment that technical conversations demand.

On the team that I lead, this looks like Slack, email, Confluence, and Jira. Decisions are distilled down from all of these sources and worked on in shared documents, maintained in a decisions log that people can be pointed towards to get a better understanding of the projects. This documentation is very useful for rooting out incorrect assumptions, inaccuracies, confusion, etc..., in the topics that we talk about. It takes a lot of work, of course, but I think the outcome is better. This team has much more cohesion and a higher degree of collaboration (as in boosting each other up vs. simple cooperation) than the other teams I've been part of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think there is a really interesting subtext is that the certainty attitude also has severe communications challenges with people who are not self- confident and loud engineers (Usually minorities and introverts get shut down in this process).

<comment><USER32> Ironically, one reason I think this gets adopted not because in in-team dynamics, but rather managing upwards dynamics. Speaking without qualification and with certainty is often the only way to survive in management structures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> People who do that kind of thing are just intellectually lazy and most likely prefer an environment where game playing and politics is more important than clear thinking and rationality.

Life is too short to work with stupid, intellectually lazy people.

</comment><comment><USER34> Then ever so often the opinions are about decisions that came into existence for the sake of making a decision. Solving problems that never existed.

</comment><comment><USER35> Having a strong opinion is not the same as being a dismissive asshole.

Be informed and educated, trust your judgement, and be willing to change and adapt as needed.

</comment><comment><USER36> This describes my manager pretty well. The solution described in this article did not work for me. I am going to quit in about a month.

</comment><comment><USER37> Strong opinions loosely held is for leadership, but possibly not for polishing theory with colleagues on distributed computation.

</comment><comment><USER38> Strong Opinions Loosely Held goes right along with Move Fast and Break Things. The bottom line is that if your team can afford to have either one of these attitudes, you aren't doing anything important. Your strong opinion doesn't matter, and you should stop having strong opinions about things you can't explain. It's obnoxious.

</comment><comment><USER39> "Stroll through an engineering office and you are likely to hear the (mostly white, mostly male) denizens making statements"

Wait, what? Why would the author go so far to generalize something like that based on sex and race?

<comment><USER40> It's not really a stretch to suggest that your average engineering office is mostly white and mostly male.

Unnecessary, perhaps, but not inaccurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Tldr: Explicit uncertainty is the solution</comment>


Ask HN: What do you consider too long for a domain address? - <AUTHOR>

HNers,
I've been looking for a good domain name for my recent project.  After going through all my top ideas (noticing that they are taken and put to no use), I'm starting to play around with words to find something good (after all a good name is important, right?!).
However, it appears that all of the names that i am finding are long, or at least I think that they are long.  So I have a few questions as I am sure a lot of you have had to deal with something similar.
1)What's considered too long of a domain name?
2)When it comes to domain name length and quality(witty, catchy, meaningful), which do you sacrifice for the other?
3)What do you look for in a name, anyways? Wit? Catchiness? Meaning?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> It really depends on what you're doing, and what your strategy is.

If you're playing for a mobile audience and expecting much of your first time traffic to come from direct navigation (someone typing the URL into a browser), then a short, memorable, easily spelled domain name is a priority.

If you're doing some sort of long-tail content play, then it's more important that your domain have good SEO characteristics and help your site rank for the appropriate keywords.

There's no right answer; only answers that are right for a given context and budget. But from what we've seen so far functionality and effectiveness trump the domain name. You can be a raging success with a goofy domain name (e.g. google.com, del.icio.us, 37signals.com) and a huge flop with an awesome domain (colors.com).</comment>


Windows Phone is failing because the seeds were planted elsewhere - <AUTHOR> http://www.bradlanders.com/2012/01/03/windows-phone-is-failing-because-the-seeds-were-planted-elsewhere/ <comment><USER2> Windows Phone is failing because it arrived three years too late, and offers too little innovation over iOS or Android. This is not a matter of Microsoft "losing the mobile market"... they simply never had it.

They don't have the developer support (how often do you see your bank, or web sites, advertising their "Windows Mobile App"?) They don't have the users. Even if their product was materially better than the iPhone or Android, they still wouldn't be gaining traction.

You can't arrive three to four years late with a "me too" product at a "me too" price point, lacking the app ecosystem of your competitors, and honestly expect success.

<comment><USER3> _You can't arrive three to four years late with a "me too" product at a "me too" price point, lacking the app ecosystem of your competitors, and honestly expect success._

Funny, if you replace "three to four" with "two to three", that's almost exactly what people said about Android.

<comment><USER4> Android phones are not at a "me too" price point compared to iPhones.

<comment><USER5> Most of the real headline grabbing ones are. Droid Razr, Galaxy Nexus, Sensation XE, Galaxy S2, they're all in and around the same price point. And these are the ones the marketing material uses to pitch against the iPhone for the top end.

<comment><USER6> _they're all in and around the same price point_

Not quite. The current top-of-the-line android (Nexus) is 20% cheaper than the iPhone 4S right on release.

Android handsets also tend to fall in price rather quickly because they go through 2-3 release-cycles during one iPhone release-cycle. The Nexus will likely drop to half of today's price before the next iPhone is released.

<comment><USER5> Those weren't the prices I saw in the US or here in the UK.

Verizon launch price for Galaxy Nexus: $299 on 24-month contract. Verizon launch price for iPhone 4S: $199 [16GB], $299 [32GB] on 24-month contract.

Sim-free pricing in UK was £500 for Galaxy Nexus and £500 for 16GB iPhone 4S.

I do agree that Android phones don't keep their value as well as the iPhone line does. And obviously carriers and retailers are less likely to do iPhone 'deals'. I'm not picking sides for any OS here, just saying that the top end Android phones are no cheaper than the iPhone.

<comment><USER6> Interesting, in germany the prices are (converted from €): Nexus = £415, iPhone4 = £522.

I had assumed the price-delta would be similar in other countries.

Either way, I think we can agree that in the midst of an iPhone cycle (~6mo after release) you are pretty much guaranteed to get superior android hardware for the same money.

This is not new and has been irrelevant for the longest time because the Android-OS was never a match to iOS. However, this latter part has now changed with ICS (and I'm saying that as the guy who ranted about the android shortcomings to no end).

The next iPhone will need to be a significant upgrade if Apple wants to retain their dominance in the premium segment. Another Siri is not going to cut it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At this point I kind of wonder if the best chance for success Microsoft has in these sorts of markets is to create one or more aggressive well-funded, startup-scale companies comprised of some bright people they already have and unleash them on the competition.

If they're prepared to dump a few billion on the next Xbox, they could probably get ten or twenty amazingly hot start-ups for the same price.

They're like a fat old bear now. Cranky, slow, but still enormously powerful, just lacking reach.

Being forced to exist in Microsoft's stiflingly bureaucratic organization can't help anyone. The original Xbox team fought to stay independent. The Bing team had to go rogue to get anything done quickly. Both got re-assimilated before they could achieve their full potential.

</comment><comment><USER8> A good point. MS is trying to play by Apple's rules (or pretty close), but you never win that way. This should be a lesson to the people who claim that HP/RIM/etc. would be successful if only they'd copy Apple's playbook.

<comment><USER9> If WP7 was released at the same time Android was, it might have taken off. No one is talking about the 500lb gorilla in the room... carriers. Verizon launched Android into the mainstream with the Droid commercials as a hedge against iPhones. Many people call even other Android phones the Droid phones. Similar interest in WP7 is lacking from carriers.

<comment><USER10> good point, WP7 came too late and the marketing is not as good as the other two phones.

I haven't seen a single WP7 commercial in Mexico yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This guy ignores the fact that Microsoft has a fair bit of experience being the latecomer to a ( admittedly less dynamic and crowded) party.

The first Xbox was just a stake in the ground, a declaration of micrsofts intention to play in a field that was already quite competitive and saturated. It won a few people over but it didn't win the market. Then they released the 360 and the main consoles in the market are now in a 3 way battle, instead of a two way one. Microsoft are, I hope, playing a long game that recognizes that people don't stay with their current phone forever.

<comment><USER12> People bought an XBox because you had to if you wanted to play Halo.

I'm not seeing a similarly good reason to buy a WinPhone.

<comment><USER13> Wait until Microsoft spend $500 million on a WP7 exclusive app...

Well, maybe not $500 million, but Office for WP7 will be better than Office for Android or iOS equivalents, even if it means MS have to buy those developers first :)

<comment><USER12> Yup, if they can do something like that, then they'll get a big chunk of the business market.

Provided nobody else can easily copy it, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Brad's post and the industry at large is accurately describing the outlook. Right now. It's a mistake (IMO) to ignore the long term.

The Nokia angle is huge - people have and will buy a Nokia device just for Maps and Drive. Nokia know this so have spent a lot of energy in getting it right on the Lumia. Their killer feature is directions using public transport. This will pay off for them, and consequently for Microsoft.

Some comments here say WP7 should aim for the gaming market. It already does. I watched a 12-year-old kid pick up a WP7 phone a few weeks ago - he went ballistic when he saw the Xbox tile on the home screen. His dad bought him a WP7 for xmas.

Some comments here also say that WP7 should aim at the business user. This it also already does. WP7 and the forthcoming Windows 8 tablets are going to the the only phone/tablet combination that intergrate natively with Active Directory, System Centre, Office and Office 365, DirectAccess, and so on. That is a very compelling sell into a corporate market that is finding it difficult to integrate and secure iPhones and Android phones in "the enterprise."

The last point I think is worth making is that for app developers WP offers a very profitable marketplace.

The five-year plan is very familiar and comfortable territory for Microsoft, and has historically shown it's effectiveness (IE/Netscape, Word/WordPerfect, Xbox/PS, and so on).

</comment><comment><USER15> One other fact that backs up the author's point is that while Apple has a low percentage of the computer market as a whole, they have >90% marketshare for PCs over $1000. That gives them a lot of loyal, high-end, customers who also happen to be the early adopters for new technologies.

[http://betanews.com/2009/07/22/apple-has-91-of-market- for-1-...](http://betanews.com/2009/07/22/apple-has-91-of-market- for-1-000-pcs-says-npd/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Here are two great steps for MS to put WP7 in the race:

1\. treat it like a game console. Make all your 1st party companies (Rare, Halo company, etc) make killer games for it and put them on the market for FREE. make money thru microtransactions if they have to.

2\. DOMINATE video editing and sharing ON THE DEVICE.

I think these two wedges will be enough to get the ball rolling to critical mass in 2013 if they manage to do it mid 2012.

<comment><USER17> 1\. A phone isn't really a hard-core gaming device which is the type of games their 1st party companies make. They're not going to make an Angry Birds or a Tiny Wings.

2\. This is easily copied by Apple/Android -- Apple probably even has a head start on it.

I think WP7 needs to stop concentrating on the consumer side and focus on the business side. RIM is about to implode and Apple doesn't have a strong presence in that area. Microsoft already has the necessary presence with exchange and active directory. Windows 8 will unify their UI experience. They are just wasting effort, time, and money trying to take on Apple and Android on their turf.

<comment><USER18> Re: 1. iOS runs the Unreal Engine 3 as well as iD's RAGE engine. Look at games like Infinity Blade [1] and Rage HD [2], then try telling me that's not serious gaming.

Re: 2. Yes, iMovie for iOS has been out for 18 months [3]. It's pretty darn good.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDvPIhCd8N4>

[2] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl2bAiloQwQ>

[3] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j69pZU5d2cs>

<comment><USER17> The iPhone is a very powerful gaming device, hardware wise, for sure. But the real question is, how well do those games actually sell? I just don't think you can save a phone platform by making it a serious game platform.

<comment><USER18> Over half of all iOS apps sold are games. RAGE HD and Infinity Blade are best selling titles, grossing millions.

That's not to say gaming is the answer for Windows Phone, I'm simply objecting to the notion that mobile OSes don't have anything to offer to serious gamers.

<comment><USER17> Yes, it wasn't my intention to imply that mobile OSes don't have anything to offer serious gamers. It was more that serious gamers don't have much to offer to mobile OSes. While people who have phones buy games, I don't think they'd buy a phone _just_ for that -- at least not in quantities enough to make it viable strategy.

<comment><USER18> I agree, the percentage of smartphone buyers who are serious gamers must be in the single digits.

I have no clue how MS could improve Windows Phone so that it will attract iOS and Android users. I also don't see how manufacturers of dumb phones would choose Windows Phone over Android, unless they're offered large sums of cash (like Nokia). IMHO, Windows Phone is screwed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It would be interesting if Microsoft "changed the game". Renamed it to the xPhone and made it the best portable gaming device to the point of trying to make it the replacement for the xbox 360. Give it some sort of reason to exist, some reason why users might choose it.

<comment><USER20> Personally I think they should have gone after the enterprise and business users. They should have attacked RIM and they should have strengthened their own position in areas like point of sale, medical, inventory, and so on.

It's too late now for the business users (a surprising number of corporate shops are supporting (or looking to support) iphones).

As for POS/Medical/Inventory..it continues to be an ignored market segment which is, unbelievably, still best served by pre WP7 windows devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> With iOS and Android there simply is no really good reason for WP7 to even exist in its current form. They will need to distinguish themselves to survive.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is very relevant (How great leaders inspire action):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4>

Hint: It's all about the beliefs of a company and how consumers associate their beliefs with a company's beliefs. We know what Apple stands for (higher quality and more beautiful products). We know what Google stands for (more openess, more user freedom).

What does Microsoft stand for? Can you answer it quickly? The only answer that comes fast enough is "money". I don't think Microsoft has an inbred culture inside the company for much else, at least not anymore.

I also agree with the ending conclusion of the post, about Microsoft trying to cater to the "people in the middle", like not wanting to be close enough like Apple to deliver a great user experience, but not open enough like Android, too. In fact WP7 is even much stricter than desktop Windows. So they aren't addressing neither the Apple users, nor the Android users with this "mediocrity" strategy.

Seth Godin likes to talk about how mediocrity is a bad place to be in, too:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqK6M_rTR40>

<comment><USER23> 95%+ of phone buyers couldn't care less about the company beliefs, forget about even knowing them. They go to their carrier store, where they see 10 Android phones and 1 Windows Phone in the corner which the salesmen steer them away from.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with the first part of your statement, depending on your definition of "company beliefs". Corporate culture is pretty far from most consumer's minds at the time of purchase.

You have to ask questions regarding the second half of your statement though:

1) Why are there 10 Android phones and 1 Windows phone?

2) Why do salesmen steer consumers way from Windows Phone?

In my view, the first has to do with Microsoft's approach to Windows phone. Like Apple, and in contrast to Google, want tight control over the end-user experience. This combined with the fact that they were late to the market is creating a negative incentive for carrier's to put WP7 on handsets.

I still maintain that the second has to do with the enormous momentum of consumer sentiment at this point. Phone salesmen spend a lot of time around phones. Many of them are "in to phones", so they're more acutely aware, albeit often misinformed, of the tech-punditry's view of these devices and the types of consumers that buy them. WP7 also lacked a strong device at launch, so a lackluster start resulted in negative feedback. The salesman is going to push what he likes, and gadget people like Android devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> He's right about how Apple users (like me) think and act. I like this analysis.

</comment><comment><USER25> Windows Phone is failing because people are not putting it on handsets, and people are not putting it on handsets because Microsoft charges a licensing fee that needs to be pre-paid and that reduces already pretty thin margins.

</comment><comment><USER23> I disagree. At the very most 3 to 5% of Android users use Android for the openness. I believe the pundits need to spend more time with normal people and not just geeks.

My friend has her iPhone 4 with the same OS as when she bought it a year ago(never updated it), there are always 30 to 40 updates pending for the apps which she never does. Talk to many Android users about what Android version they're running and their eyes glaze over and they've never heard of Gingerbread or ICS, forget about choosing Android for openness.

<comment><USER26> I disagree with you - "normal people" love their live screensavers and wallpapers and the countless other tweaks they can do that are prohibited on both iOS and WinMo ;-) "normal people" also love that they can install software from third-party sources. It does have the downside that piracy is a problem, but we aren't talking about publishers here and normal people consider this a bonus.

Also normal people buy Android phones _because of_ openness, even though they may be unaware of it - because Android is open, carriers and phone makers also love it. This is one thing iOS fans hate about Android and for some valid reasons too, but if carriers/phone makers where too restricted in what they could do with Android, then Android wouldn't be open, or as popular as it is.

<comment><USER27> No, he's right. Nearly no one is buying an "Android" phone. They're buying Sony Ericsson, Samsung, HTC, etc. The're buying brands they trust.

Honestly, if MS could just see this is and would make a nice deal with these phone vendors to get Windows on their phones I think Android would be down to a few percentage market share within a year.

<comment><USER26> In my country, Vodafone and Orange, the biggest mobile carriers in Europe are doing commercials for Android phones like crazy.

And in every commercials I've seen, the Android brand is emphasized, which doesn't happen when they are promoting feature phones with Symbian or whatever.

That people aren't buying Androids, that's a myth promoted here on HN that I haven't seen in the wild.

<comment><USER27> Companies may be advertising it, but users don't know and don't care. I know tons of people who own Android phones and not one of them bought it because it was "Android". They all bought out of brand loyalty or physical specs. Half of them didn't even know what "Android" meant.

When they see the same brand they trust with a much more polished, professional looking OS that has much better games, etc., they'll jump in a heartbeat. MS just has to get the price low enough that the vendors will feel compelled to push it at least half as hard as they're trying to ram Android down everyone's throats.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google's stores are a lame challenge to Apple's - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2013/11/21/googles-stores-are-a-lame-challenge-to-the-magic-of-apples-retail-stores/?wprss=rss_technology <comment><USER2> In my opinion, Apple receives way too much credit for their retail experience.

Going to the Apple Store is almost always an unpleasant experience. First, the small number of locations means that getting to an Apple Store can be onerous. Moreover, the majority of stores are massively overcrowded. On weekends, I literally can't get into my local Apple Store because of overcrowding. There are simply too many people to physically navigate the store. Imagine riding a crowded public bus. That is the level of crowding.

Moreover, the setup of the Apple Store encourages people to linger and leisurely use the devices. In practice, this means that people (particularly little kids) will spend upwards of thirty minutes playing some asinine game on the display devices. There are no limits enforced, and the chronic overcrowding means that even getting to look at a device is difficult.

If you happen to go during a weekday when there isn't overcrowding, you get overwhelmed by Apple staff. Effectively every time I enter an Apple Store I get accosted by no less than three employees, not to mention the "concierge" that guards the entryway to the store. When shopping, I don't want to be berated by staff. It's very reminiscent of the episode of The Office where Dwight gets fired and takes up a position at Staples. When a woman comes into his department to shop, Dwight stands five feet away from her and just glares at her the entire time.

Deciding whether or not to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a device is already mentally taxing; having Apple staff constantly interject does not make the experience any easier. I don't think I've ever heard anyone I know speak positively of an experience at the Apple Store, particularly because they feel absolutely overwhelmed by the way the staff treat them.

I'm not sure if these problems are pervasive or specific only to my local store, but in my experience, the notion that the service at the Apple Store is "magical" is downright laughable.

<comment><USER3> Typical hate from the HN crowd: Assume that everyone is as technically competent as you are and that your outlook on a product or experience is the only one that matters.

Receiving too much credit? Are you asinine? Perhaps you don't remember the days before the Apple Store. Purchasing a computer involved going to retail outlets like CompUSA or Circuit City that cared more about their bottom line then paying attention to the dilapidated surroundings. If you did choose to go to a slightly nicer place like Best Buy, good luck buying a computer that didn't come with tons of manufacturer adware that the "GEEKS" felt the need to either clean for a ridiculous fee or install more on top of. Or my favorite, you could go to Gateway Country, and get the worst of retail annoyances and overpricing with the annoyance of waiting provided by online shopping!

In fact, the misguided nature of your post is pretty well evident if you simply replace all instances of [Apple Store] with [holiday shopping]. It's difficult to get into most any shopping center retailer, especially those that have a single location in a major metro area.

Oh, and how dare any retail store allow potential customers to spend time getting familiar with the devices they're about to drop hundreds of dollars on. Nope, some self-entitled guy on HN thinks your game is asinine, yet lacks the basic social cues to politely ask to see a device or god-forbid queue for it, so curse Apple for not enforcing limits. (For the record, they do enforce limits in highly specific circumstances where people are actually abusing the privilege, but I'd like to see you try to deal with angry shoppers during the holidays).

And yet, when Apple staffers do approach you, to ya know, maybe inquire if you'd like to check out a device yourself, they're berating you.

Which is the whole point: Apple gets credit in retail because they do the best job of providing a great buying experience to customers in an industry that is inherently difficult, whereas MS, Samsung, Google and others just seem to copy poorly. Since your own insecurities seem to be the problem, just neckbeard it up for some online shopping at home, which is the most pleasant experience anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Magic? I work in downtown Chicago very near the Apple store on Michigan ave. I step in, its a mob scene of people dicking around with the apple equipment, highly priced accessories, and this "70's basement" stained wood look everywhere. Its kinda boring. Its like buying a Model T. Here's this mass produced item, they all look kinda the same, and you buy the exact same thing your friends have and off you go.

Err, its nice I guess, in a "we're kinda different" way, but no where am I thinking its magical or a positive shopping experience. Staff there tend to be borderline short with me, obviously because they're busy with other customers. Staff at the genius bar look depressed and over-worked. One genius borderline yelled at me when I told him I'll need my ac cable back from my imac after service. He snottily said "well I can't prove you didn't bring one" and practically threw one at me.

Retail has moved to this aesthetic, which is also interesting in a way, but at the end of the day I'm exchanging money for product. Who has mastered the art of making the prettiest store and who is merely just "good" at it really doesn't make much difference to me, and I imagine, to many others. Value for my money and decent return policies are all I really care about.

Anyway, its all incredibly inferior to ordering online. That's the dirty little secret that scares the retail industry.

<comment><USER5> > Its like buying a Model T. Here's this mass produced item

Is there some great source of bespoke computers that you buy from?

I think it was in William Gibson's Idoru that the main character had some mobile computer with a handmade jeweled case made by some small co-op or other. I've been waiting for the rise of these groups.

<comment><USER4> No. I just don't consider consumer crap like phones and computers magical. They're tools and fairly boring ones at that. This worship of consumer electronics and deifying the CEOs and executives involved is asinine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Meh, the stores aren't the problem, they're fine as far as I can tell. The problem is that you can't build a hip, happening, retail establishment without hip, happening products.

I think the author's criticisms are off base. It doesn't really matter if the store is hosted below the High Line or in a slick loft in Chelsea, or in Bryant Park as it is currently, because the Cool Factor would be borrowed. People are extremely good at spotting inauthenticity, trying to borrow that Cool Factor is just going to look lame and desperate (see: Microsoft store in Times Square).

Most Apple Stores are in extremely normal, even boring, places. Their attractiveness to shoppers isn't borrowed from their location, it's inherent in the products stocked within.

In other words, before you can have that slick, zen-like, all-glass Apple Store, you first need to invent the iPod. The headline-grabbing, head-turning products need to come _first_ , before you build a store to house it in. As much as I like the Nexus products, they're not it.

<comment><USER4> >People are extremely good at spotting inauthenticity, trying to borrow that Cool Factor

What's so cool about some mass produced disposable widget that gets sold to grandmas at Walmart? This isn't the Apple of 2002. Cool is about exclusivity and membership into something grandma can't be a member of. Marketing telling you something is cool is actually uncool.

>As much as I like the Nexus products, they're not it.

I'm glad it lacks the pretensions you describe. Its a phone, not a religion.

<comment><USER7> You're saying the iPod in 2002 _wasn 't_ a mass produced disposable widget? The iPod was never about exclusivity or membership, it was always "for everyone."

In fact I think the primary factor for its enduring success (and that of the new Apple era as a whole) is that they managed to be "cool" and popular at the same time. They had the marketing that told you it was cool (dancing silhouettes, etc), and everyone from hip indie kids to grandmas said "yeah, that is cool."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Magic?? There is no hope for the future generations if we keep calling stores and products that are sold in them magical and revolutionary.

<comment><USER9> > Magic?? There is no hope for the future generations if we keep calling > stores and products that are sold in them magical and revolutionary.

Magic always comes with a price.

Revolutions, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always thought the windows stores were copying apple also. They all have big open spaces with wood floors or stands with minimal furniture/shelves and accessories on the walls.

</comment><comment><USER11> Highly editorialized title (of the original article). The content is a bit lame.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's a better view of the Winter Wonderlab in NYC:

[http://winterwonderlab.withgoogle.com/finder](http://winterwonderlab.withgoogle.com/finder)

Strangely, it was near the bottom of the second page of (Google) results for "Google Winter Wonderlab".

</comment><comment><USER13> So so many Apple zealots here on [Y]. You lost, get over it.</comment>


Modern typefaces vs. the Massachusetts court system - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/11/01/modern-typefaces-massachusetts-court-system/PEx8IKSWOINdAUnf5fv1OJ/story.html

<comment><USER2> I smiled when I saw the Courier example with an "ff" ligature.</comment>


Henry Blodget: How We're Doing Versus 1929, 1974, and 2002 - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-how-were-doing-versus-1929-1974-and-2002-real-2009-8

<comment><USER2> I was going to post a pithy comment about this but a commentor on the article already summed it up much better:

 _This chart says two things... 1) We recover. 2) Or we dont.

odds based on past events that resemble today are 2/3's we recover?_</comment>


NeXT Employee Story: Steve Jobs encountered the iPhone's key features in 1994 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cake.co/conversations/6bNY8PD/that-time-in-1994-when-steve-jobs-got-to-use-a-device-like-an-iphone <comment><USER2> He got to play with the touchscreen virtual keyboard for 2 weeks and told Andy Hertzfeld that he thought it was a good design choice.</comment>


New leaked images of upcoming Nokia E75 - <AUTHOR> http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/11/24/leaked-images-of-upcoming-nokia-e75/ <comment><USER2> That's one ugly phone. Times are changing, let's hope Nokia does not get stuck in the past.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I missing something? This phone doesn't look particularly attractive.

<comment><USER4> It's got a QWERTY-slider.

 _Features are more important than attractiveness._

<comment><USER3> As in, a phone that slides out to reveal a QWERTY keyboard? Because I've definitely seen phones with very similar features. If this is at all new then it's a _very_ incremental change.

 _Features are more important than attractiveness_

First off, there don't seem to be any new features here. That's why I was curious about its being on Hacker News. Second: there's a counterstatement to your claim, which goes something like "If they can't make the external nice, don't trust them with the internals either."</comment></comment></comment>


Intel recalls Basis Peak watches - <AUTHOR> http://semiaccurate.com/2016/08/04/intel-right-basis-peak-watch-recall/ <comment><USER2> refreshingly and surprisingly positive article about something that normally would be taken with much more negativity</comment>


Ask HN: Does immigration to the US hurt developing countries? - <AUTHOR> I ask this because my friend from Pakistan, who has studied in the United States, was telling me that she constantly has to struggle with the decision between living in Pakistan or moving to the US or Canada as her sister had done.
In her words, "who will help Pakistan develop if the educated leave at the first opportunity?"
We encourage immigration to the United States, but I believe in the grand scheme of things we are hurting other nations by draining them of their best talent.
As an American I obviously benefit from this arrangement, but I can't help but feel guilty about it.
Would increased restrictions on immigration into the US actually help other countries? Are people who want increased immigration into the US inadvertently hurting the chances of developing nations to fully develop? <comment><USER2> See

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight)

As an American you may or not benefit. If foreigners can get educated inexpensively, but Americans have to deal with a cartel and pay dramatically more, it lowers the return on investment of a college education.

Older people (who often hate immigration because it means change) generally benefit from immigration because of increased tax revenue. For younger people it is less certain.</comment>


Barebones text editor in 150 lines of Clojure - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rohitpaulk/simple-editor <comment><USER2> In your main file, you should hoist your require clauses into your ns declaration.

e.g.

        (ns simple-editor.core
            (:require [clojure.string :as str]
                      [lanterna.terminal :as t]
                      [taoensso.encore :as encore]))</comment>


Bill Gates – Deposition Part 4 of 12 - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhdDZk45HDI

<comment><USER2> Netscape was a threat because Microsoft could not control the web browser, so they countered by making Internet Explorer and then bundling it with Windows.

Java Microsoft made their own version of it, but made J++ and J# that compiled Java code to native code. Sun and others made APIs to it, and eventually Sun sued Microsoft and Microsoft abandoned J++ and J# and made C# in 2001/2002 to replace it with Java like syntax.

Java as a language was not a threat, Java as a platform in mobile devices and operating systems was a threat. Java was being developed into an operating system at the time for that Network Computer that used Netscape as a web browser.

You can see the worry on Gate's face and how he is thinking each question carefully before answering. It was all about what Gates can recall not what might be possible.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. It seems like both threats were real – just not clearly realized in the market until recent years. Android is now a huge operating system written largely in java, and IE as a web browser has more or less been whittled away by chrome, firefox, and others.</comment></comment>