Why Uber's business model is doomed - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/gig-economy-uber-lyft-insecurity-crisis <comment><USER2> _Only in a world where more profitable opportunities for investment are sorely lacking can such wild bets on far-flung futuristic technologies become massive multinational companies. Corporations and wealthy individuals have accumulated huge sums of money and cannot figure out where to put it because returns on investments are extremely low. The flip side of falling rates of business investment is a slackening pace of economic growth, which economists have termed "secular stagnation." It's this decades-long slowdown that has generated the insecure labour force on which Uber and Lyft rely._

Now that's a very important statement. It's correct.

First, how US-specific is this? Is it true for the EU? Japan? China? India?

Second, _why_ are profitable opportunities for investment lacking? Why are people not building larger solar panels and wind farms in the US? Why is it taking so long to get electric cars going? Why are there no new home appliance companies in the US? Why isn't the return on investment there?

<comment><USER3> >Second, why are profitable opportunities for investment lacking?

Because ambitious technological progress requires coordination between state, business and large scale entities. The cultural shift from the late 70s onward pushed consumer-led economic growth and withdrawal of the government from economic activity.

If you look at inventions like the internet or satellite tech, much of it was military/government-led R&D with all the consumer stuff essentially being a byproduct that fell out of it. Federal r&d budget in the US constituted 12% in 1965 and just about 4% today.

so at the end of the day you have the death of the research lab, fundamental science, large state-led programs and so on in favour of people building smartphone apps because they're cheap to make, you can spread them across the globe a few people get very rich, they build themselves a huge HQ in Silicon Valley and you get the illusion of having 'tech progress' while your scientific and physical infrastructure rots away. It's worse in the US than it is in Europe or Japan because Europe/Japan have at least kept part of their manufacturing culture. China is if anything the only country that looks sort of optimistic on that front, although it also has countless of problems as society gets more affluent.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, what technological investments do you think the government could be making today that would have the impact that satellites and the internet could have?

I ask because the way I see it there are some pretty fundamental differences between now and the 1970s.

The way I see it, progress is made not so much by companies or government but by those individuals with the intellect and gumption to invent the future. All that matters is that there exist organizations, be it corporations or the government, willing to invest money on big bold bets that attract such ambitious individuals and create conditions for them to collaborate.

At times in history, private industry achieved it (Bell Labs, Ford, Google, Facebook, Tesla) at other times the government/military achieved it (Manhattan Project, NASA, DARPA, etc.)

If government got heavily involved it would contribute just by putting more money in the ring, but I don't see how it would achieve more than corporations putting more money in the ring. End of the day, it's the money being put in the ring that matters most, not who is putting the money in the ring.

Not saying, I'm against more money chasing ambitious ideas, I just fail to see the argument that government is any better than private industry here. The one advantage I do see of government is that they'll generally allow money to be spent far more recklessly for longer than private industry and if that's not your money, then that is something that is more likely to produce an occasional great technological outcome.

<comment><USER3> >what technological investments do you think the government could be making today that would have the impact that satellites and the internet could have?

maybe nuclear fission, make it the goal to create cheap, clean and abundant energy, maybe a model city with new modes of transport, Gigabit internet everywhere, a space elevator, an arcology, much more interest in alternative new ways of agricultural production, a DARPA for construction and infrastructure.

There are so many things that essentially work the same way they did 50 years ago. I can't remember who said it but someone said, take the screens out of a room and you can't tell if you're in 1970 or 2020.

Private business _tries_ to tackle some of the things on that list but without backing by a state it never goes anywhere, and they do it more out of vanity or because they have eccentric founders rather than any economic sense, these are societal tasks.

Also foster a culture that admires scientific excellence and inquiry over getting rich and being a celebrity by making science again the focus of the education system. There's also a cultural component to this everything else aside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me that a big problem with the discussions surrounding Uber and Lyft is that so many people claim they know what drivers want, but it's usually based on little or no evidence.

Who should represent drivers' interests? Uber and Lyft? California lawmakers? California voters? Opinion writers? A union?

Even someone who is a driver doesn't necessarily know what other drivers want, since they might not be typical. Different drivers may want different things.

It gets even worse when we talk about _potential_ drivers. Drivers aren't a fixed set of people. There are people who aren't driving now, but might, under the right conditions.

All of these have flaws. I'm pretty sure I don't know what drivers want, and the average person talking confidently about the issue on the Internet probably doesn't know either. As a result, very little commentary has any credibility.

<comment><USER6> > It seems to me that a big problem with the discussions surrounding Uber and > Lyft is that so many people claim they know what drivers want, but it's > usually based on little or no evidence.

The thing is: The requirements that legislators are setting for employers are fundamental social security services.

Whether a worker gets paid sick leave and vacation, health insurance and unemployment insurance is therefore not up for the debate in most Western countries.

Some people may claim that they don't need or want these services, but the reality is that everyone needs them as everyone needs vacation at some point, will get sick or fired.

And because of that it's good that the law requires them to be mandatory. This is also why so many people from low-income households in the US have trouble to afford a visit to the doctor or vacation.

Those things aren't a problem for most workers in European countries.

<comment><USER5> It's up for debate in the US, and I don't see why we shouldn't debate it. Is there no room for innovation in work relationships?

In particular, health insurance being tied to employment seems US-specific and has a lot of drawbacks.

<comment><USER7> The whole system is broken. You are not rewarded for living well and eating healthy or exercising, you're penalized for other people's preventable diseases, obesity being a primary preventable illness that causes other problems. Universal healthcare doesn't care about the causes of illness, it just cares about paying it's working for treating the illness. If there is no requirements for keeping health to receive health insurance, and everyone who destroys their body gets healthcare at the cost of those who don't use it because they're healthy, why would a healthy person with no illnesses want it?

I'd love to see prevention before it goes to healthcare, but try even mandating soda sizes in the US... The only way is to make it unpopular like supersize me (although he was shady and never showed the food logs).

Healthcare should be paternalistic by definition but American culture cares so much about freedoms they won't wear masks during a global pandemic so it's incompatible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's too bad that this whole article never touches on the basics of Uber's business model, like how much money they lose on each ride, how much funding they have to ride out the current economic climate, the crazy fact that Uber Eats is now a larger part of Uber's American business than the drive-me- somewhere Uber business, and so on.

I don't see how Uber's business model is doomed. If Uber and Lyft are forced to be less efficient, they will raise prices. Yes, their business would shrink. But how could they be forced out of business entirely - would people go back to using taxis?? At the very _least_ , Uber could charge the same price as taxis and be superior to taxis because an Uber actually shows up when you want one.

<comment><USER9> There is nothing Uber/Lyft do that any urban taxi company cannot do just as good if not better. The taxi companies also have better economics when it comes to their fleet (you can expect states to start mandating that gig drivers be paid some additional amount for vehicle depreciation any day now...) At the end of the day Uber/Lyft will be just another taxi company, albeit with a less professional set of drivers.

<comment> reading-at-work > At the end of the day Uber/Lyft will be just another taxi company, albeit > with a less professional set of drivers.

What city do you ride taxis in? Because the taxis I've ridden have spanned a range of tolerably annoying to downright abysmal experiences. Uber/Lyft drivers have unequivocally been more friendly, punctual, and professional. No taxi company I've seen can manage to make a halfway decent app or even guarantee that a driver will show up within an hour of me needing one.

Even if Uber/Lyft become the same price as taxis, I'll take Uber/Lyft any day over a traditional cab company.

<comment><USER6> I'm always surprised when I read such statements because I never made such poor experiences with taxis in Europe or Asia.

I think what you are describing is a problem that is very US-specific and it doesn't mean taxis are that bad everywhere in the world.

<comment><USER10> I've taken taxis in many European cities. It's universally a miserable, sketchy experience.

European taxis are the absolute worst for trying to wiggle out of accepting your credit card. Ever time I get in a European taxi I know I have a fight on my hands.

<comment><USER11> It depends on the country and city - here in Ireland the taxis are almost always a class act. My local taxi company allows payment via smartphone and even sends you the invoice via SMS or email if you need it as a business expense. I've even had a driver turn off the metre and show me around once he realised I was new to the city.

And tipping, although appreciated, is not at all mandatory like in the states.

<comment><USER12> German taxis are great.

<comment><USER10> In my experience they get evasive and rude when you try to pay with a card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's not even the underlying business model that's unsound. People will always need to get from point A to B, and the app based ride hailing model has completely revolutionized the fulfillment of this fundamental need. That's not going anywhere. Uber's problem is in their scale. You get essentially zero benefits and all of the drawbacks from massive scale in this industry, with the fact that your technology is trivially replicable by competitors, and brand loyalty is almost non existent. Uber is doomed in its' current incarnation. But my bet is that the future for ride hailing is one of hundreds of different competing local services around the world that focus on their locality, work directly with local officials and regulators, and provide good customer service while keeping overhead extremely low and operating profitably.

<comment><USER14> The model is unsound. Private vehicles on roads in cities cause a ton of pollution (and I don't mean CO2) that is very undesirable. Public/mass transport with good mechanisms for _short_ journeys to and from hubs is a better model. The rise of ebikes and scooters is an encouraging alternative here too.

Yes of course there are times when people need a car, but they are not the majority of the time for the majority of people. And their severe externalities need to be priced in to discourage use.

<comment><USER13> >Public/mass transport with good mechanisms for short journeys to and from hubs is a better model.

Maybe in Europe or Asia. But in the US, private vehicles are the only viable option for a huge portion of the population. Our entire society is built around it. The density simply isn't there for public transit to make any sense, and distances are far too vast for scooters/e-bikes to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I see a "it's doomed" article about a company from any newspaper - I look at previous articles for contrast and found this better reading having just read: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/how- uber-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/how-uber- conquered-london)

Allows me to give the credibility to the article it deserves.

For me Uber already lost a customer for life due to horrendous customer service that showed a corporate culture of the worst once I picked thru it all. So for me they are already dead.

</comment><comment><USER16> At least over the last 2 yrs I was saying that Uber and Lyft should get out of the self driving tech business. Its not who they are, and there is no reason to invest in it when they could easily consume the best tech out there when it becomes available. I now feel even more strongly so. In fact it feels like these companies might themselves be re-evaluating their priorities at this point. I see absolutely no reason to invest in FSD themselves other than to attract talent.

They should instead accept that their value to the world is they unified the taxi system and turned it into a global service that drivers can use. They should focus on their core business and figure out their issues with drivers and employees. They could cut the FSD costs and instead partner with Google or some other company. Or they could wait and also partner with any other car manufacturer out there that gets to FSD market. These companies could be huge buyers of the tech when available and so auto manufacturers will fall over themselves to get their business.

I wouldn't say its doomed though.

<comment><USER9> If FSD had actually turned out to be as easy as some people were suggesting 5+ years ago then there is no way Uber or Lyft could avoid playing in that game; the first company who could mass-produce FSD vehicles would be able to replace Uber/Lyft with no difficulty at all. Once it became apparent that the 'any day now' BS from Musk et al was a lie then both companies should have dropped any efforts in this direction immediately.

<comment><USER17> An MIT study indicated developing their own FSD technology would yield at most a small margin improvement because the technology wouldn't be exclusive for long, and shortly after it would be utterly commodity. [1]

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-self-driving- taxis...](https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-lyft-self-driving-taxis-may- not-help-profitability-mit-2019-5)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Gig work and all that implies would be more tolerable in the US if we had a universal health care system and worked hard to craft policies to make housing affordable (not an investment).

Until that world comes to pass, the slow but growing movement to treat gig workers as employees will only get bigger and bigger.

I doubt even in 20 years we'll have fully autonomous driving cars in every jurisdiction. If I were Uber or another company who relies on gig work to exist, I would be pouring money into lobbying for universal health care. That would ease the pressure considerably.

<comment><USER19> Why should we, as a country, want low paying jobs that only support people with subsidies from others?

I support universal healthcare from a humanitarian perspective. But it doesn't make sense to tax everyone else so that Uber can cut labor costs.

<comment><USER4> > Why should we, as a country, want low paying jobs that only support people > with subsidies from others?

Because the alternative for the people taking those jobs is often no paying jobs where you need to subsidize the entirety of the needs of such people instead of just subsidizing what wasn't covered by the low paying job.

Making low paying jobs illegal doesn't magically result in the creation of well paying jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Uber is very clever. They've been able to automate the task of the slave overseer with the bullwhip. Dropping drivers who don't get enough stars keeps them in fear and working hard. Dropping drivers for refusing rides keeps them ready for work even while they're not being paid.

"Machines should think. People should work" \- no longer the future, it's the present.

</comment><comment><USER20> Pardon the very basic question, but as someone who just casually sees articles pop up about Uber, I genuinely don't understand how the company continues to exist. Is this very rudimentary attempt at understanding of what's happening correct: investors keep adding funding despite regular losses because they're hopeful for a sizable return in the (far?) future?

<comment><USER21> On Uber's platform, the marginal cost for one ride, i.e. the cost for Uber to coordinate a ride, is tiny. Uber's cost of a ride are its server and maintenance costs, its incremental rider/driver customer support costs, and credit card transaction costs. These add up to less than 5% of the rider's total fare cost.

In developed markets, Uber takes a 25% cut of the total fare cost of every ride. The 25% cut far exceeds the 5% marginal cost of the ride. On each ride that occurs on their platform, Uber makes a 20% profit.

The more rides Uber handles, the more money they make. Last year, Uber managed 3 million trips per day on its platform. If Uber did 2-3x the number of rides it did last year, it would be a very profitable company. It has not yet reached this point (investors are still waiting).

However, Uber has very high fixed costs, mostly from its Silicon Valley salaries. Further, trips in developing markets are heavily subsidized and occur at a loss. Uber management has focused on cutting costs to extend runway & make profitability happen sooner.

<comment><USER20> Thank you, but so this doesn't answer my original question: how does Uber then continue to exist, given all the news I see seems to suggest that those fixed costs you're describing are leading to Uber not actually being profitable.

<comment><USER21> The 'rides' division of Uber is profitable, or at least, was profitable before Covid. The rides division brought in a net positive of $742m in 2019. Uber as a whole is not profitable since they lose money on their Eats, Freight, and self driving divisions. The Rides division has only recently been profitable; it lost money for over a decade and started being profitable in 2019.

Rides is profitable because Uber has significantly reduced subsidizing rides. They also have cut expansion in many developing markets. Finally they raised prices in developed markets.

See their 2019 Q4 financials - they now claim to make, on average, a 24% margin on every Uber ride.

[https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release- det...](https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release- details/2020/Uber-Announces-Results-for-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2019/)

Uber as a whole can become profitable at any time by cutting their money- losing divisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> About a year ago I penned a short essay about this exact subject. Central argument is that Uber is the type of organization that should be open to public ownership given that there is no road to profitability for them. Since writing, states like CA have taken firmer stances on gig economy workers and employment status. The alternative is that Uber continues to try and find avenues of financialization instead of continuing to experiment and innovate with their core service model.

Article Link: [https://medium.com/swlh/socializing-uber-for-society- shareho...](https://medium.com/swlh/socializing-uber-for-society- shareholders-5cc4a27d28d4?source=friends_link&sk=8a819492253bd3e990b845861f8f32fc)

</comment><comment><USER23> A lot of people are saying Uber can just raise prices. Sure, they can, but Uber's not like other businesses. If Uber raises prices, then fewer people take rides. If fewer people take rides, then its harder for riders to make money. Even if an equilibrium is reached with fewer drivers and fewer riders at the same cost of labor, it's harder for Uber meet flexible demand and manage driver retention, and what not. It could create a feedback loop where higher prices require higher driver wages resembling economies of scale.

</comment><comment><USER24> Raising prices != Doomed...

Their business model: request a ride, pay for a ride, is not doomed. Their low prices might be. Yes, their economics pitched to investors relied on automation that's not here, but for medium density spaces, cabs have so much more overhead and will struggle to keep up unless they have a platform/brand that is competitive with lyft and uber.

<comment><USER24> Also adding that perhaps the biggest unnoticed feature with uber and lyft is the feedback loop. Good drivers and good riders stay on the platform, which is good for the users. The Cab experience on the other hand is some guy mumbling (best case) into an ear peice the whole ride while accelerating/braking like they are driving an indy car, all while getting into a sticky back seat and needing to settle up akwardly at the end of the ride. If cabs are going to take back some market share, they need to invest in their experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What about a ride-sharing protocol, like IRC? Seems like this is what is needed. We don't need a company here to help us hail a ride, we just need a standard way to hail a ride. We would then need to use our judgment as always. Caveat Emptor. I know there's little money to be made in the creation of an RFC for ride sharing. So much of the current Internet could be standardized in this way.

</comment><comment><USER26> he does not even bother to explain the premise: why uber drivers should be classified as employees. If that makes me really dumb, so be it. They're paid per job and have no exclusivity to work for one employer. How are they different from say, the plumber?

<comment><USER27> Plumbers aren't in the news and wouldn't add much to the state budget with their payroll and unemployment taxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > These companies are trying to survive legal challenges to their illegal > hiring practices

illegal?

</comment><comment><USER29> The hypothesis about self-driving cars doesn't hold water. Anyone doing practical assessment of the idea (as opposed to table talk) knows there won't be any, at least until all the infrastructure and human-driven cars are reorganized to inter-operate with automatic ones. "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad…" — unfortunately, it is possible that people will have to adapt to robots instead of the other way round if everyone decides that it really is the future. It might be that the author believes the general idea of "car sharing" to be correct, and struggles to find the reason why the company loses money. The problem is that the whole thing is a lie.

Their business model is not self-driving taxis. As with other "platforms", it's just blatant cutting down on "irrelevant" expenses wile keeping the good bits to themselves under the pretense that they are just "operating the computer" that allows someone else to do "everything". Uber might have a lot of money to smokescreen it, and keep the image of a middle-class citizen "sharing" the car for a certain price, but in other places competition between taxi companies rapidly "optimizing" and "professionalizing" the market makes it clear that humanity has pompously reinvented the hackney coach. Even worse, the unregulated hackney coach, when poorest peasants ride their carriages to a big city and work endless shifts trying to catch some passenger first to be able to feed themselves for a day, or some rickshaws fight and badmouth each other only to get the tiniest number of coins. A typical driver for a "digital" taxicab is a sleep-deprived immigrant (private person or an employee of an official subcontractor, there's little difference) wielding a number of burner phones running client apps from different companies (BTW, location spoofing solutions market is booming) who is useless without a navigation (hooray for modern bio-robots), but jumps every red light to shave minutes off. The real sharing happens between drivers — they share shifts, devices, accounts, and cars. However, the only important thing is that the big company gets the commission from each and every ride, so it's all good. They seem to make enough money to spend some on remediation when accidents happen, all while keeping their stance on being just a system operator that gratuitously helps clients. None of this is specifically modern. Immigrants working as cab drivers predate computers, and tricks that allow stretching of taxi car shifts are just as old.

Well, you can argue that there are ratings. (John Doe rated this driver 1/5: We both died in a car crash. Would not recommend.) Well, anyone in any kind of "digital marketplace" business can tell you that the whole point of stars, likes, and the like is to make users believe that there is a complex system that protects them in the background, and that their input matters. The fact is, the owner and only the owner of the system decides whether any of that is used, and to what extent. Say, how are upvotes and downvotes on Youtube videos used? They are just a game, something for users to fidget and feel satisfaction from.

</comment><comment><USER30> interesting read.</comment>


Review my startup - BlipSnips - Video tagging & sharing - <AUTHOR> http://blipsnips.com <comment><USER2> The video equivalent of an html anchor tag for your video - a very interesting idea that I could see being used far beyond the technical crowd.

Considering a lot of the clips on Youtube are fairly short, I could see this being really useful for many of the longer duration videos such as the Google Tech Talks (<http://research.google.com/video.html>) or ConFreaks (<http://confreaks.net/>)

I remember seeing a presentation from BlipSnips in Boulder a few months back -- its good see so much progress being made on the product. It's definitely something I'd incorporate into my videos.

A lot of respect for the innovation that you guys are bringing to the space, plus always good to see another quality Rails app being launched.</comment>


New evidence for existence of Planet Nine - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-05-evidence-planet.html <comment><USER2> Pluto has been known about for a long time. #vivapluto ;)</comment>


Ask HN: TailoredFit (New Startup Advice) - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/ZWtX14C There is a quick link for where we're at now.  We are TailoredFit Co, a group of young entrepreneurs participating in Startup Weekend Pittsburgh. We'd love to hear any and all of your thoughts on our concept of a web platform that shops for you by learning your preferences over time, showing you clothing you'll like from brands you are familiar with and finding new recommendations you wouldn't otherwise know about.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> ...why is this an image?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sleep deprivation, mostly.</comment></comment>


Filter and Visualize Data in Seconds with Silk - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/eu/2011/04/28/filter-and-visualize-data-in-seconds-with-silk/

<comment><USER2> Why they use Haskell: <http://blog.typlab.com/2009/09/why-we-use-haskell/>

<comment><USER3> The link gives a good overview of some of the standard benefits of Haskell -- purity, higher order functions, etc.

What I would really like to see is how Haskell has benefitted them, as it relates to their particular problem domain. The reasons given above are generic enough that any start-up could choose to use Haskell and then make this blog post.

To be fair, the article does give two specific reasons:

      * Modeling programs based on what values are, instead of what bits to move where, is much closer to the way we think.

      * Two of us (me and Sebas) are enrolled in the Software Technology master program at Utrecht University, where we often use the programming language Haskell.

Those are good reasons for them to use Haskell - it's what they're used to, and how they think - but not so compelling to someone else evaluating what to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The video is pretty funny, but also somewhat confusing. What's the primary function? Editor? Wiki? Data web search?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't want to find prime ministers born before 1955 with backgrounds in anything.

Usually when I'm visualizing information, it's at work. I want a tool that lets me pull data in from my database, from news aggregators, from emails, and visualize that. Why must ever neat visualization tool be consumer focused? I don't think the market is there, but I _know_ it is for people at work.

<comment><USER6> My last company made that tool. Their business model was setup around providing custom implementations. (The tool will get you 90% of the way there, they consulted the other 10%)</comment></comment>


Brazil eliminated daylight saving time and people aren't happy - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/brazil-eliminated-daylight-saving-time-now-its-light-out-before-5-am-and-people-arent-happy/ar-BBYSQlX <comment><USER2> City people can't get up an hour early unless the Government forces them to?</comment>


From Linux to Windows 10: Why did Munich switch and why does it matter? - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/linux-to-windows-10-why-did-munich-switch-and-why-does-it-matter/ <comment><USER2> > I don't think that after 12 years you can say it didn't work for Munich. It > worked for 12 years and now, for political reasons, it's going back to > Windows.

Very good point. Also, it's really sad to see political agenda driving technological decision making.</comment>


Fail-Safe C - <AUTHOR> http://staff.aist.go.jp/y.oiwa/FailSafeC/index-en.html <comment><USER2> Interesting. I tried to find out how it works to make C safe but did not find anything. As well it seems there is not much activity. Last update was in August 2010.

Would be interesting to see if this compiler has any performance advantages and what are the security advantages.</comment>


Accounting for sample selection in Bayesian analyses - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03856 <comment><AUTHOR> The authors have made the python code for the examples in the paper available here: [https://github.com/samreay/SampleSelection](https://github.com/samreay/SampleSelection)</comment>


Codify: native coding environment for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://twolivesleft.com/Codify/ <comment><USER2> This could effectively be a programming sketchbook - which is not a new idea (see the Processing IDE), but this integrates within a device that's basically the digital equivalent of a notebook. This is such an amazing and beautiful concept.

Say hello to the future. We don't have _hoverboards_ , but we have _codebooks_ \- where sketches come to interactive life within its pages!

<comment><USER3> Who doesn't have hoverboards?! [http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking- tech/a-hoverboard-p...](http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking- tech/a-hoverboard-powered-by-quantum-levitation-video/9065?tag=nl.e660)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> yes yes, a thousand times yes. There is some serious misinformation in this thread though. Apple has allow interpreters on the phone for a while, and the remaining restriction is that you can't download code or bring code in through the app document directory. This app breaks neither of these restrictions. In fact, there have been other lua interpreters running on the ios for a while now, see: <http://www.mobileappsystems.com/products/iluabox>

The difference with this app is that the ide is really a labor of love, and it is super fun to code in. Not that iLuaBox isn't, but all of the little features for tweaking colors and editing sprites are brilliant. The graphics and audio engine don't hurt either.

For those complaining that there isn't a companion engine that you can take the code out of codify and release actual games, you should take a look a corona. The api in codify is not so big that you wouldn't be able to clone anything that you made in it to another platform relatively easily. I do agree that there should be more lua based gl engines for iphone though. I am working on one, but as of yet it is totally for my own use, but only by virtue of the fact that it doesn't come with nice build scripts.

The other thing that some commenters miss is that you can use copy and paste in this app. That will open the gates to sharing code, it is as easy as: select all, copy, switch to safari, go to pastebin, send link to someone else. I suspect that some of the time the app spent in approval was them thinking about that.

\-- edit for not being a jerk to iluabox

<comment><USER5> "3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple's built-in WebKit framework, provided that such scripts and code do not change the primary purpose of the Application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application as submitted to the App Store."

There NO EXCEPTIONS for scripts typed in by users period.

Both iLuaBox and Codify are breaking this rule. Of course Apple has a history of ambiguously enforcing their rules.

For those thinking that Apple relaxed the rules the rule above is the current license dated 10/4/2011. Apple had a more strict rule at one point that said that apps themselves could only be written in C/C++/ObjC/JavaScript. That rule was relaxed.

<comment><USER6> The last sentence makes it clear that the intent behind this rule is to prevent circumvention of the App Store approval process, not to ban executable code itself.

The rule can be read as ambiguous when it comes to executable content that is not part of an app, just the document type that an app edits and displays. For example - you could think of calculating a formula in a spreadsheet as an example of interpreted code. Apple has no reasonable interest in preventing such apps.

When the documents that an app handles become more app-like, such as games, then Apple might decide to step in. They have left themselves enough slack in the wording of the rule to allow that.

I hope that they make the rule more explicit in a future version of the agreement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This app goes against the iOS Devloper Program License Terms.

They specifically state no code or scripts may be executed period unless (a) they bundled in the application's package or (b) use WebKit and WebKit's JavaScript

If Apple is relaxing their policies it would be good to know. Lots of others would like to write apps like this but were told they would be banned.

Maybe they are getting around it by running Lua in JavaScript in WebKit?

<comment><USER8> Rewards go to those who take the risks.

The app did sit in review for quite some time, according to a quick look at their blog. Either the interpreter is implemented entirely in JavaScript and Webkit (it's not terribly speedy), or Apple is now comfortable enough with Lua to let something like this fly.

Either way, it's really great that there's an app like this for the iPad.

Edit: After poking around the app package, it looks like a real Lua interpreter rendered inside a EAGLView, and not some WebKit/Javascript hack.

<comment><USER9> I heard from the guys that work for Apple that Apple has accepted Lua as a language for many of the apps and realise that it can be sandboxed, so do expect that before approving it. Yes Apple is comfortable with Lua.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought Apple would never approve any type of simulator, virtual machine, or app creation platform for iOS itself, since it could be used to generate apps that might not conform with their guidelines. How did they get around this?

<comment><USER6> Sharing games with others would be the problem, as acknowledged by the creator - <http://twitter.com/#!/TwoLivesLeft/status/129304975623995395>

<comment><USER11> Understandable too. I don't want code that hasn't been curated breaking my ipad...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's great to see tools like this start to emerge on iOS but the new 11" MBA is only slightly more trouble to lug around but is infinitely more useful as a development tool than I suspect a tablet will ever be.

<comment><USER13> I bought the iPad 2 the day it came out and was thrilled to use it for about two months.

But over the last four, I've realized: the reason I keep coming back to computers is that I enjoy computers. Learning more about their internals, harnessing that for my own ends, creating solutions to real problems I have, without frameworks or IDEs or buzzwords. I don't so much care for anything about the iPad but iBooks.

I bought the Macbook Air when Apple upgraded it, and now I carry it with me everywhere. There's plenty I can do on it, even without a network connection (i.e., all my coding), and I really feel attached to my featherweight computer.

Mobile coding is really fulfilling, yes. But I will never want to code by touch typing. Since buying the MBA, I haven't once thought about touching the iPad. And I don't see that changing.

<comment><USER14> Good for your adult self. If I was an upper-middle-class 10 year old kid who couldn't afford a nice computer, but could coax my parents into buying an iPad over a game console, I'd be so thrilled to have something that guided me into developing fun little games.

When I was 10-12, I had a freaking AIX PowerPC machine because my dad could get one easily. Did I learn programming with such a fancy machine? absolutely not, I ended up just installing windows NT on it so I could record and play with sounds.

<comment><USER13> A very good point, and I don't disagree with you. I used RPGEditor and GameEditor when I was a kid and couldn't figure out how to use plain C++ to build a game.

The authors of this software have done a really amazing job, that's undeniable.

But I'm thinking here about two things:

\- There is a notion that the only thing stopping tablets from overtaking computers is the fact that you can't develop software on tablets. Under that model of the world, this is a major breakthrough for tablets. But I'm not sure it actually solves the problem of high-quality development.

\- There is also a notion that the iPad is a distillation of the best parts of a computer, the things that give people joy, and it removes "cruft" that people don't want to think about: filesystems, command line access, and the like. I wanted to take this opportunity to say that this isn't the case for a lot of people and that the ability to code on an iPad doesn't mean the iPad can give as much joy to a developer as a real computer can.

My comment was less manifesto, more musing about why I can't get rid of real computers.

<comment><USER9> the biggest issue with tablets is the lack of a compiler and the processing power. With cloud computing and technologies like dropbox, developers can queue their apps and get it to compile on machine with grunt, package it and upload it to testflight and then download it to the mobile devices again... and test it.

True development on a mobile platform.

<comment><USER12> I think the bigger issues are the coarse resolution of the touch interface and lack of usable keyboard. The former prevents the kind of dense, widget-rich UIs you need for a tool as complex as a real IDE. The latter can be ameliorated with an external keyboard but then you've got a combination that's actually more awkward and less portable than a laptop.

To try replace a laptop with a tablet (or vice-versa) is to misunderstand the strengths and limitations of each, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Notably, this fits into YC's "Request for Startups #5: Development on Handlhelds":

<http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html>

<comment><USER16> Only partially. This code isn't portable. This is more analogous to a game engine, it's a development engine. Along with not being portable, the code can't be distributed. If the developer offered some package with their rendering engine for purchase outside the app store, then other devs could publish games using this development engine.

<comment><USER17> It looks like this is something that the developer is already thinking about. <https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/129304975623995395>

<comment><USER16> Oh no I am speaking of licensing the graphics engine underneath to devs so they can distribute their own standalone games in the app store, without users having to download this app.

<comment><USER18> Is there a particular reason why you think this won't happen at some point in the future, too?

<comment><USER16> Any particular reason? I'm not working on this particular project, I have no idea what the dev has planned. I like imagination, but I don't like speculation. So I'm just not in the mood to speculate on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I made a simple particle simulation in Codify in around 30 minutes: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEqTvRd8qMM>

That is, 30 minutes, plus few more minutes pouring over the examples learning LUA syntax (I've never worked in it before but it's basically Python but lazier and more forgiving)

At times it felt a bit frustrating, as some of the code, such as p[i].x = p[i].x + p[i].vx takes forever to write because of the brackets, which are 3 taps each. I think this can be improved upon in the future.

Many examples are provided which is very nice. The graphics is done using opengl-like stack with pops and pushes of transformations.

Overall, the app is very impressive and I'd love to see these kinds of apps used in education. Kids could use it to learn programming, without having to suffer the overhead of file system etc., as on a real computer. Excellent stuff with bright future.

<comment><USER20> Woah, I never expected you would be able to get that kind of performance out of an iPad (2?) with only 30 minutes' work.

Nice sound effects, too. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Some gorgeous work there on making a native code-structure editor rather than a text editor. But it's still text in the end. Baby steps!

</comment><comment><USER22> Chill !!!

This is for FUN! You're not likely to write the next Microsoft Office with Codify, but a lot of kids are going to have heaps of fun! Anyone remember Alan Kay's vision for SketchBook? This has to be the closest yet to that vision.

</comment><comment><USER23> I can hear a Keyboard in the background... So I guess is not that easy to type code on iPad soft keyboard. It's very interesting though.

<comment><USER24> Not at the speed you're seeing there. Also, obviously you're not seeing the keyboard come up blocking the environment :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Somebody forgot to tell these guys that iPads are for content consumption, not creation.

<comment><USER16> I'm just curious, do you feel like this was a meaningful contribution to this discussion? 0 added value, and virtually no insight in your post. Your post has nothing to do with what they've created.

<comment><USER18> It has a huge amount of insight.

When the iPad came out it was (naively) decried as a device that segmented computing into "content consumption" and "content creation". Apps like this continue to prove that wrong.

<comment><USER26> Actually it's true. Apple removed Scratch from their app-store because "Apple wants to focus on consuming media using these devices, not producing media."[1]

[1] [http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/apple-removes- sc...](http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/apple-removes-scratch-from- ipadiphoneitouch/)

<comment><USER18> That's Scratch users speculating on the reason, not an Apple statement. At the time Apple policies were very restrictive about non-approved languages (Flash, etc), but they have since been relaxed.

Ironically I just posted asking if Apple would allow it now: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3161245>

<comment><USER4> also, it wasn't really scratch that they didn't approve, it was a scratch player. The player downloaded and played scratch programs from the website. This continues to be something that is not allowed. I would like to see apple reverse this decision though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> <aside> Diehard VI/Emacs fans are still getting over their aversion to IDEs - now you're going to make them TOUCH! That'll make their heads explode! </aside>

<comment><USER28> I'm a diehard vi fan and I loved what I saw. That IDE makes me want to get an iPad.

<comment><USER29> Don't. iPad is kinda useless gadget for developers, unless you develop for iPad and use it as test target.

Am getting back to my linux netbook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> That looks pretty cool. Real programs tend to require an awful lot of input and tweaking though. I wonder what the development cycle is like? How fast do things compile on an iPad?

<comment><USER16> I would assume compile is very quick, as the only thing happening is the Lua the user writes is being added to the game logic and interpreted. Everything else, the rendering engine and such, comes already done with the app. Lua has very fast execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've been using moai recently, which is a cross-platform Lua-based environment for developing (mostly) 2D style games for Android and iOS, and just last night was talking to a co-developer buddy of mine about the very real possibility that we could use moai to build a moai development environment on the iPad .. and now: this.

So, it looks like this is very feasible, and I have to admit to instantly buying this application the moment I read this HN article .. but I haven't had any chance to grok it yet.

If it works out, this could be the start of a new era for iPad/iOS development - certainly my iPad is good enough for editing lua scripts, and with a delicious framework like moai around (I really, really like it) I think it would be very viable. What an exciting future we iOS developers have!

</comment><comment><USER32> somehow my idea of the ultimate coding platform for touch interfaces would be more symbolic/graphical (eg a few of wouter's languages, see <http://strlen.com/language-design-overview> or scratch from MIT). I know there are many limitations in that approach, but nonetheless it would be neat to push (or nudge) the boundaries of the modern development style.

<comment><USER33> Definitely - Grasshopper (<http://www.grasshopper3d.com/>) has kind of taken over the architecture world for being graphical / patch based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Even though, my introduction to programming was through vi and notepad, often I find that when I'm trying to teach kids how to program, they're turned off by the 'clunkiness' of IDEs and compiling.

Imagine how amazing of an introduction to the world of programming Codify would enable for kids. Teaching computer science in elementary schools will become so much easier and fun. This looks like something kids would love to use. And perhaps, it'll enable a new wave of young hacker/entrepreneurs who'll go on to make more awesome products.

<comment><USER35> I think this is exactly the idea behind projects like BYOB/Scratch (<http://byob.berkeley.edu/>). I think it's pretty successful at introducing people with no previous experience at all to programming at Berkeley, at the very least.

Coincidentally, making a Scratch app for tablets (I suspect Apple may not cooperate, but it could be for Android) would be really neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if Squeak will be allowed back in the AppStore now?

<comment><USER18> Could someone explain the downvotes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Game dev is great, but I'd love to see tools like this that let do more advanced scripting in a visual fashion without the emphasis on the visual aspect, such as sprites or animation. Processing is great at displaying things, but not so great at, you know, processing.

Similarly, I long for an easy to use scripting language environment on the tablet itself that doesn't require one to know HTML, CSS, JQuery, etc. and is not so focused on visualization and sprites, but instead just lets you create a page or tabs, get some data, do something with the data, and display a result while impacting another service. This would empower people to create their own experiences on the tablet instead of hoping some developer hits on their exact combination of needs.

I know, all HN readers are super-programmers, but I think back to the old days when folks wrote simple basic programs on their C64/Atari/Apple/etc. to solve simple problems... and how that's so difficult today on PCs, but could be brought back to life in the consumer-friendly world of tablets...

<comment><USER37> Hypercard for iPad? Brilliant!

<comment><USER36> It's very sad that I wrote that entire comment and didn't think of Hypercard. I agree, it would be interesting to have Hypercard "The Next Gen" on iOS devices... it did have a very good approach to solving what I mentioned above.

<comment><USER38> Check out <http://www.runrev.com>, they have a product called LiveCode which is a modern day HyperCard. It can compile to iOS, Android, Windows, Macs and Linux.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Beautiful work. Seems like this would be great for teaching kids to program.

<comment><USER40> My thoughts exactly. I've been trying to figure out the best way to introduce my kid to programming, when it becomes relevant. Games are probably the most engaging type of software for children.

This app is just what I've been looking for. On a PC, even the best educational programming environment can't get rid of all the PC-related overhead. You can't beat an iPad for simplicity; no need to learn about filesystems, your app runs full screen by default so there are no distractions, etc. You can just pick it up, dive right in and make a game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think that touchdevelop on wp7 feels much more natural for coding on touchscreen. I hate to write on soft keyboards

<comment><USER42> Or use a bluetooth keyboard?

<comment><USER31> Bingo! Apple Wireless keyboard works wonderfully on iPad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just finished porting a javascript fractal tree generator, the javascript version is at

<http://www.mcdaid.eu/labs/codify1>

and the code to run in codify is in the textarea (small)

<comment><USER31> Brilliant! Nice work .. I like the fact that we've got 'typeins' for this already. Just like the good ol' days of waiting for 'new software' to arrive in the mail, in the form of a ZAP magazine or so ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I was thinking before that something like this needs to come to Android, too. Instead of emulating ARM hardware on x86 chips, you could directly build your app on an ARM machine. I suppose you'd still have to emulate other ARM devices, but I think it will work a lot better than on x86 chips.

Maybe Google can work with Eclipse to port it over to ARM/Android. Developers could get hybrid devices like the Asus Transformer to code on them.

<comment><USER31> The moment that moai (<http://getmoai.com>) gets an onboard editor, this will be a reality. I give it a few weeks. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Wow, this looks pretty awesome. Nice job twolivesleft!

<comment><USER46> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The color picker - IDE integration is really slick!

</comment><comment><USER48> "Wouldn't it be nifty to have that color picker in Vim?" a friend posed the question after my showing him the video.

Maybe: [http://www.supaspoida.com/2011/10/26/a-short-story-about- a-t...](http://www.supaspoida.com/2011/10/26/a-short-story-about-a-tweet-a- video-an-idea-and-its-execution.html)

(note: I didn't develop this, just sharing it with you all)

</comment><comment><USER49> Codify's talks about import/export functionality via email coming in an update already submitted to Apple in this thread:

<http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=1975221>

It will be interesting to see if Apple allows them to do this.

</comment><comment><USER50> Reminds me of Klick & Play back in the early 90's: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik>

This app looks like the perfect thing for prospective obj-c devs to get that "I gotta make something cool now" monkey off my back.

</comment><comment><USER51> As a side note. Is Lua as a language any good? Will it continue to be used in the future?

<comment><USER12> Lua is pretty well established in the gaming world as a lightweight but fast scripting engine. It seems to be gaining some momentum in other domains lately too. It's somewhat similar to Python but without the extensive standard library.

It's not going away but it's hard to say how much bigger it will grow. It seems like a good fit for mobile devices. It's used in Corona, for example.

Edit: corrected Cocos2D -> Corona. Thanks!

<comment><USER52> I think you mean Corona, not Cocos2D. The last time I used cocos, it was strictly an objc library to make opengl dev easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Played around with it a bit, very cool.

I would love to see iCloud support and a desktop version. It would be awesome to have something like the Processing IDE with a sketchbook that automatically syncs between my devices (e.g. my iPad and MacBook).

</comment><comment><USER4> this app also brought out some other options, check out paragraf where you can write glsl pixel code. <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paragraf/id422685475?mt=8>

It is the complete opposite in terms of ease of use, but it is still executing code. Also broken glsl code is way more likely to hard crash your phone than broken lua code.

There are some other options mentioned here: [http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/3310-coding-ipad- coder...](http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/3310-coding-ipad-coders- paragraf)

</comment><comment><USER54> This is fantastic. How lovely would it be if Apple bought this up for iOS Xcode. I have a feeling some day there will be a way to write iOS apps on iOS, provided by Apple.

</comment><comment><USER55> I just bought the app and it is pretty simple and cool. My wish came true. I was wondering if I could script without going to learn c objective.

</comment><comment><USER56> Why not go all the way and create a graphical programming environment? I've felt that this is long overdue.

<comment><USER28> The problem with graphical programming is that it is inefficient when it comes to using a large API. There are only so many icons and graphical objects you can fit on a screen, while still making it easy for users to find them.

That's why they are restrictive, they have to choose only a narrow set of methods to expose to the users. By narrowing their available functionality they also become useful for a smaller domain of problems.

Codify does not try to replace text-based programming, but instead to make it easier and sometimes more efficient for graphics-intensive programming. For example, the easy to reach color selector is much faster than having to use a separate tool to get the numbers for the color you want. Same thing for the image selector.

<comment><USER12> The Max/MSP environment gets around this problem by representing most of its rich library of objects as simple rectangles with descriptive names. People do manage to build some pretty sophisticated programs with it.

<http://www.cycling74.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I've love to see <http://moonscript.org> support.

<comment><USER58> I'd love to see something like this for javascript

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I can't see writing text-based Lua scripts on an iPad as anything other than an anachronism.

</comment><comment><USER60> This looks fun. Would be great in schools, even entry level Computer Science classes in Uni.

</comment><comment><USER61> Examples are good,would teach my 8 year old daughter to program in a fun way

<comment><USER61> One word, Impressed :)

Since it is about programming, I would love to have version control do that my kid starts using it as well.

How to share code ? Dropbox integration would be nice

Heroku style deploying the code in server would make it awesome

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> My #1 feature request- support sprite sheets for animated sprites!

</comment><comment><USER62> Seems a smalltalk IDE-like intention. With fingers, though.

</comment><comment><USER63> Beautifully simple single product page. I've recently become a convert to no gradients, flat buttons etc.

</comment><comment><USER64> Great, now I need to do a bunch of screen touching along with my typing. What a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER65> would be cool if it had github support

</comment><comment><USER66> Speaking as someone who's been around a few decades... Oh look, yet another way to create graphical games! I'll just add that to the list, near the end. It's a long list. :)

Purty looking, but color me not impressed. I already can sense what the constraints will be, and they aren't good. And I've gained really nothing new I couldn't already do before.

</comment><comment><USER67> How long until Apple shuts it down for using a language other than Objective-C?

<comment><USER68> Apple already allows JS (and other) interpreters to be embedded as used in projects such as Titanium and Impact game engine.</comment></comment>


2015: The End of the Monolithic JavaScript Framework - <AUTHOR> https://andywalpole.me/#!/blog/142134/2015-the-end-the-monolithic-javascript-framework

<comment><USER2> I found it odd how the article took issue with React, as it is arguably one of the most simple -- yet powerful -- UI __libraries __available.</comment>


Show HN: Gist Noesis, Welcome to the semantic web - <AUTHOR> https://gistnoesis.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, we are proud to introduce Aero, the first bot in our family.

Aero is a semantic search engine in the spiritual lineage of "Knowledge Graph".

We are in beta, so it still is for advanced users, but advanced users will have some fun tinkering with it.

The machine learned natural language processing is not yet plugged in, we are currently collecting more data for it, we will keep you updated when we turn it on.

The technology can scale, but we are not scaling it up yet. In particular, latency and throughput will be improved once we switch to our distributed backend.

Developped under firefox, Not working on IPad, and it has some css quirks on non-Edge IE.

Have fun exploring.

Please give us some feedback.

Thank you

</comment><comment><USER2> Hi, it seems interesting! But I wasn't able to understand how to use it. I believe it's because the "top interface" is not that self explanatory. Is the training only done manually by users? I look forward to try a more advance version!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback.

The top interface is for advanced users, it is not self explanatory but it is very close to the standardized language Sparql (which would get you started). We also worked on the auto-completion to help. You can also learn by example, by using "Grab Spaql" button.

We plan to make some tutorial videos to explain how to use it.

We are using various ways for gathering data including users and mechanical turks. But we also have some semi-supervised algorithms. And we are also working on a fully unsupervised algorithm, but we are not there yet, and we won't disclose more for now.

Thank you again for your interest.</comment></comment>


Peer-To-Peer Sharing with the Karma Go - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@clayallsopp/peer-to-peer-magic-with-the-karma-go-5a06ddf9884f

<comment><USER2> It also works very well at meetups or the dining hall of shopping malls where the in-house wifi guest connection can be spotty :)</comment>


BEAKL – Theory and observations to find the optimal keyboard layout (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://deskthority.net/wiki/BEAKL <comment><USER2> As someone who's learnt both colemak and dvorak in the past, it is my opinion that the utility of being able to use qwerty anywhere, at any computer, without having to adjust settings or install and configure keymaps, far outweighs any purported advantages of either colemak or dvorak or any other exotic layout.

That said, other people's situations will differ from mine, and I can see why you would switch if you were say, writing slabs of prose in seclusion, or lived in a country that is majority non-qwerty already.

<comment><USER3> I learned Colemak on my work machine while using QWERTY on my home machine. It made typing in general rough for a time, but forcibly transitioning back and forth has eventually gotten me to the point that when using my work laptop, my fingers instinctively go into 'Colemak mode', and when using my home laptop, my fingers instinctively go into 'QWERTY mode'. It's an extremely useful switch to be able to manually toggle in my head, as it's no longer crippling to use someone else's keyboard.

<comment><USER4> How long did it take you to feel comfortable switching back and forth? How fast do you type?

I spent a year switching between Colemak and Qwerty (but mostly using Colemak) and the transition never became comfortable for me.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure how long it took to settle - it's one of those things you don't realize has become natural until you actively notice it - but I think it was the scale of a couple of months.

I'm not sure if there's a 'special recipe' to be generalized to all people; unfortunately, I only have my experiences on this to draw on, and the stories of a few others.

Does the transition just feel disjointed for you, like it takes you a few minutes to switch modes fluidly? Or is it longer-term?

<comment><USER4> It's longer term — I have to type one or the other for a few days before it feels like I'm not fighting the keyboard. Glad to hear it's not like that for everyone, though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One day they will come up with an advanced keyboard layout that keep hjkl movement keys, and I'll give it a try.

I wonder how much of a day of typing can be generalized to a keymap that is good for words and prose input, even code input, and how much is meta things like navigation, and editor commands or window manager commands, etc... I also wonder how much varies from person to person. I feel like I do a fairly small amount of prose or code input but a lot of window navigation, scrolling, thinking...

Honestly, though, keeping qwerty and switching to a ErgoDox has made me extremely happy and uninterested in trying another keyboard layout. I have the qwerty layout mostly as it is on all my other devices (Chromebook, laptop, workstation), but I have a bunch of little tweaks for my work environment including customization for work like modifiers for tiling window manager and different layers for coding characters and special functions (mouse paste and browser back).

I have a friend that had it set up so that in insert mode in vi it was Dvorak and in command mode it was qwerty so hjkl worked. Based on people I've seen switching between Dvorak and qwerty, that seems awfully painful.

<comment><USER6> I use Dvorak (5 years total, vs 25 with qwerty), and IMO Dvorak is clearly superior for the specific case of vi motion (hjkl). Dvorak places these keys on 4 separate fingers rather than 3, and their relative positions make just as much sense as with qwerty. I've used vim since 2005, but before that I used emacs for 11 years, 3 of which was on Dvorak keyboards. I similarly found qwerty vs Dvorak to be a wash in the context of the editor.

The only combination that has given me trouble with Dvorak is OS X hotkeys and mouse (can't reach some hotkeys while right hand is on the mouse). OS X and trackpad works fine with Dvorak.

These days I use Dvorak layout even on my Android phone, and my family's computers are configured to easily switch between layouts, so I only rarely find the need to suffer qwerty. This is a strong contrast to 2001, when I last switched back to qwerty.

<comment><USER7> I agree. After 15 years on QWERTY and now over 10 years on Dvorak, I find the navigation in vim with the default hjkl keys in Dvorak better than in QWERTY.

I'm considering switching to Colemak but the vim key mappings concern me.

<comment><USER8> If your fear lies in hjkl, you can try Colemak.

\- h and l are really close, and if you move your fingers a bit you can have index on h and middle on l.

\- j and k are on the same column, with j on top and k on bottom. That reminds me of "natural scrolling".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like my typing speed (80-85wpm) is almost never the limiting factor for my being able to enter data via keyboard. I can see it being an advantage for recording realtime voice conversations (ie. an official transcriber or someone) but I'd guess that for the majority, while the marginal advantage of switching layout may eventually pay off compared with the annoyance of having to relearn to type, the annoyance of having to switch between layouts when using any computer other than your own would make it a net loss overall.

I'm not saying that QWERTY can't be improved upon, just that it's probably "good enough" that it'll stay the standard while keyboards remain relevant (in much the same way that jpeg and mp3 are "good enough" that they're unlikely to be broadly supplanted.)

Edit: Thinking more about it, I don't think you can even evaluate the quality of a keyboard layout without specifying the target user. On one end of the scale, you have a complete novice who's single finger hunt-and-pecking. A hexagonal grid with letters/numbers in alphanumeric order is probably the easiest for such a user (maybe even doing away completely with the concept of a shift key). At the other end of the scale you have an expert touch typist who's willing to devote significant time to training with a new keyboard layout. Such a user could probably benefit somewhat from a fancy new layout such as this, but would already be fast enough using a standard QWERTY layout that they'd see minimal returns.

<comment><USER10> I use Dvorak exclusively at work, and move between QWERTY/Sholes and Dvorak at home. I'm a better typist with Dvorak than I ever was with QWERTY, but I admit that I'm slightly worse at QWERTY since adopting Dvoark.

For me, however, it's much more about comfort than typing speed or accuracy. Two of the touted advantages of Dvorak are: reduced finger travel, by putting frequent letters on the home row; and frequent alternation, by putting all the vowels on one side.

I'm intrigued by the effort grids used in designing BEAKL. I agree intuitively with the idea that the pinkies are much weaker, so perhaps a home block does make more sense than a home row.

<comment><USER11> It is true that main perceived benefits for alternative layouts are a long- term affordance rather than a peak speed, but in my experience the threshold is pretty high, if not non-existent (the professional transcription typically uses a dedicated keyboard layout with lots of common phrases anyway, so the general-purpose layouts are not relevant there).

I'm not a proficient English writer but I had been in a similar debate for Korean keyboard layouts, with a major split between consonant-vowel models (두벌식 "bipartite type") and initial-medial-final models (세벌식 "tripartite type"). For your information, a single Hangul syllable consists of one initial consonant, one medial vowel and an optional final consonant, with clusters possible for each part. Tripartite models can be (at least theoretically) more accurately optimized as frequency distributions for initial and final consonants would be pretty different, at the expense of slightly more keys to fit in. This theoretical consideration, combined with the fact that distinct keyboard layouts were directly tied do distinct typewriters in 70s and standardizing on the existing layout would effectively encourage a single typewriter, made the Korean government to standardize on entirely new layouts [1] with a bipartite basis. Nowadays tripartite layouts are supported in all major OSes but users are hard to find.

I had been a reasonably fast typist both in English and in Korean. I can continuously type Korean at sustained 600--700 strokes per minute [2], both in the standard bipartite layout and in a well-known tripartite layout (though I do feel pain after typing too long in the former). I can also type English at sustained 90--100 wpm in QWERTY. For both cases these peak numbers were highly meaningless even in the most favorable condition; a brain is not _that_ quick. I had even done various transcription works from time to time and the main limiting factor was a recording quality and not the typing speed. (My work is by no way professional, but I have heard that one task was also sent to a professional transcriber and he/she had gave up due to the recording quality.) That's why I finally gave up learning DSK or elks.

[1] The standardized layouts were different for typewriters and computer keyboards; two are similar enough to be considered as a single layout but the former is typically termed quadripartite rather than bipartite.

[2] "Strokes" because consonant and vowel clusters often take multiple keystrokes. Roughly comparable to 100--150 wpm in English. Of course, all these numbers are not directly comparable to those in the typewriter era.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This links to deskthority.net, which says, "BEAKL 9 is currently the recommended layout for general audience." However, there is a link to the shenafu.com, which shows BEAKL 15 as the latest recommended layout.

Looks like this changed last month:

[http://shenafu.com/smf/index.php?topic=89.msg2323;topicseen#...](http://shenafu.com/smf/index.php?topic=89.msg2323;topicseen#msg2323)

</comment><comment><USER12> I would really like to see an analysis for an optimized swipe layout. The biggest goal would be to reduce ambiguity of words.

</comment><comment><USER13> I switched to the optimized QGMLWY once and worked up to 60wpm or so. I could have kept improving except for a couple of deal breakers... not being great at switching back to QWERTY and not having it on my phone. If I could solve either I'd still be on it!

</comment><comment><USER14> So how does this compare to carpalx[0]?

[0] [http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for sharing. Personally, I think BEAKL looks very good:

Firstly, I found that keeping the up/down & left/right keys beneath the index and middle fingers was very comfortable to use with the RSTHD layout[0]. It follows then that I probably will enjoy how BEAKL places it's nav keys. Perhaps I will like it even more, because the Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys are also very important to me too - keys which seem to be positioned very ergonomically with BEAKL.

Secondly, RSTHD attempts to better organize the upper numrow by putting the most used numbers closer to the middle and index fingers. This BEAKL layout doesn't quite do that, but it nearly eliminates the numrow, which is one thing I actually like about the Technomancy's Atreus [1].

Thirdly, because of my experiences with the Atreus, now I'm a fan of mods on the thumb cluster. The designers of BEAKL also seem to be fans of it. To realize this benefit, I would have to find a variant of an ergo keyboard [2], rather than an ortholinear keyboard [3] suitable for it.

These days I use Dvorak most of the time. It is the first keyboard layout that I intentionally tried to learn without printed legends on my keycaps, so it now comes most naturally to me while typing. With QWERTY, I have developed over a long time a habit of looking at the keyboard sometimes, so I have difficulty typing as efficiently with it. Luckily Windows 10 and GNOME on Linux both allow easy switching of keyboard layouts (Win+Space) so it's not difficult for me to use these on a number of computers both at home and at work.

I am curious about trying BEAKL so will put it on my list of things to do. For now, I feel that it would be most important to learn the Steno layout for typing 200+ WPM via Plover [4]. Perhaps a BEAKL keyboard with a Plover function layer might be ideal.

[0] [https://xsznix.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/introducing-the- rsth...](https://xsznix.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/introducing-the-rsthd- layout/)

[1] [https://atreus.technomancy.us/](https://atreus.technomancy.us/)

[2] [https://deskthority.net/wiki/ErgoDox](https://deskthority.net/wiki/ErgoDox)

[3] [https://deskthority.net/wiki/Staggering#Matrix_layout](https://deskthority.net/wiki/Staggering#Matrix_layout)

[4] [https://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/](https://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/)</comment>


Did you know John Roberts is also chief justice of the NSA's surveillance state? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/05/did-you-know-john-roberts-is-also-chief-justice-of-the-nsas-surveillance-state/ <comment><USER2> That's incredible. It's always fascinating to see power centralization in government as it always tends to be abused in favor of expanding government power.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stuff in the US is worse than I thought then...

The point of a republic with several powers and so on, wasn't to not allow someone have so much power?

Noone doubt the already cliche phrase that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

<comment><USER4> Stuff in the US is worse than you thought because Chief Justice of Supreme Court has power to appoint judges on a security review panel? Who should appoint them so that you'd thing the things are better - the President (which is a politician)? The Congress - that created FISC and set the rules of appointment?

<comment><USER3> the "who" must not be a single person.

For example someone (maybe the chief justice anyway) appoint, but the congress has to approve it.

Sometimes this is done even to make valid a vote by the population, and it works well (in Commonwealth countries, the Queen can not approve a election results if she wish so... fortunately this was never needed it seems).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Oh, and one more thing: You have exclusive, unaccountable, lifetime power to shape the surveillance state._

No, he doesn't. This is a directly, overtly inaccurate claim.

John Roberts real exclusive, unaccountable, lifetime powers come from Article III of the US Constitution, which within 50 years of the ratification of the Constitution came to give the Supreme Court the power to review and overturn the laws of Congress and to issue injunctions against presidential administrations.

Ezra Klein in this article isn't referring to Article III courts. He's referring to the FISC, the FISA courts, which aren't Article III courts. Judges on the FISA courts, unlike Article III judges, don't have lifetime tenure, can't hear adversarial cases, and have jurisdiction over a single class of controversies: foreign surveillance requiring cooperation from US entities or which could collect information about US citizens.

The key distinction between FISC and the Article III courts is that FISC is a creation of Congress. The Constitution is silent on the issue of foreign surveillance. Contrary to popular opinion, the Fourth Amendment does not enjoin the US from spying on foreign powers; no industrialized nation in the world (that I can find; correction welcome!) enjoins itself from spying.

Without specific guidance from the Constitution, the rules for spying are simple: Congress passes laws, the President enforces them, and the Supreme Court overturns them if those laws conflict with the Constitution. _That_ is the exclusive power to shape the surveillance state.

What Congress did with FISA was insert an administrative check on the NSA. They chose extremely confusing terminology and a confusing structure to do this with; they created a "court", appointed by the Chief Justice, to conduct internal hearings on the legitimacy of individual surveillance efforts. But that "court" functions unlike any other court in the US, because it isn't a court; it's a review board that happens to be staffed by judges.

John Roberts only authority with that court is to appoint justices, who must come from the federal court system. So far as I can tell, he has no other authority; he cannot, for instance, recall FISC judges.

But, more importantly, if enough Senators or Congresspeople decided to alter the way that FISC worked, John Roberts would have little ability to stop them. Congress could probably ban all foreign surveillance (that might create a Constitutional crisis, since foreign spying is a war power allocated to the Executive). They could certainly pass laws that would punt cases to Article III courts. They simply choose not to.

There is nothing Congress can do to eliminate judicial review. John Roberts has a lifetime power to persuade SCOTUS judges to overturn the laws of Congress. That power is unaccountable; if anyone in the US Government decides that SCOTUS is abusing judicial review (and many people frequently do decide that, which is what they mean when they say the courts are "legislating from the bench"), there's nothing they can do except to ensure that the next judges appointed to the courts are more congenial to their views. And SCOTUS's judicial review powers are exclusive; the President can veto a bill, but Congress can override that veto. Only SCOTUS has the power to take a law that has passed and strike it down. Roberts FISC authority, and the authority of the FISC judges themselves, are nothing like this.

If citizens want to challenge the surveillance state (and they should), they have all the same means to do so as they do in civil rights cases. They can lobby to have laws passed. They can bring suit, and, if they can show that their Fourth Amendment rights are being abused (or, in Google's case, their First Amendment rights), they can have the government enjoined from abusing them. The immediate response to this will be to point out how hard that is to do, but it's as hard as it is with any other civil liberties controversy, and none of the difficulty comes from John Roberts ability to point FISC judges.

<comment><USER6> _John Roberts real exclusive, unaccountable, lifetime powers come from Article III of the US Constitution, which within 50 years of the ratification of the Constitution came to give the Supreme Court the power to review and overturn the laws of Congress and to issue injunctions against presidential administrations._

Not so.

Not exclusive because 8 other justices have equivalent authority on that ground.

Not unaccountable because he cannot exercise it without convincing 4 other justices to go along with him, through reasoning that is published for the world to see and analyze. (Which many do. In great detail.)

By contrast the appointment authority is a lifetime, exclusive power that he does not have to justify to anybody. No matter the legal underpinnings, there is no question that decisions made by his appointees shape the actual surveillance that takes place. The ability to reappoint every 7 years gives him real ability to, if he chooses, order judges to decide a particular way on threat of needing a new career. (It is doubtful that he operates in this way, but he _can_.)

There are limits on this power. It is granted by Congress. And so on. But it is the only power that he, by himself, can exercise with no oversight from anyone else.

<comment><USER7> _Not exclusive because 8 other justices have equivalent authority on that ground._

No they don't. The Chief Justice has additional powers, such as assigning the task of writing the opinion and administering the Court system. His rule includes more than simply deciding cases.

 _By contrast the appointment authority is a lifetime, exclusive power that he does not have to justify to anybody._

Ben, this is simply _not true_. He holds those powers at the pleasure of Congress, in contrast to his powers as a Supreme Court justice.

<comment><USER6> His additional responsibilities/powers do not alter the fact that when it comes to actually deciding cases, his is one vote among 9 equal ones.

As for "lifetime, exclusive power", I think that an implicit qualifier of "under the normal course of affairs" is understood. Of course there are possibilities such as impeachment (yes, the members of the Supreme Court CAN be impeached), voluntary retirement, and change of laws. However there is no particular reason to expect it not to be for his lifetime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one who thinks he reduced the efficacy of his argument significantly by quoting Kanye West?

<comment><USER9> Ezra Klein is a columnist for The Atlantic. They're all about mixing progressive intelligentsia commentary with sly pop culture hipster references.

<comment><USER5> Ezra Klein isn't a columnist for The Atlantic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can someone please give a reasonable explanation as to why a secret court needs to exist in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER11> Let's try to remember that Roberts is appointing individuals from the existing set of federal judges -- i.e., people who have already been appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate as judges.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well, that's fucked up. Not much else to say.</comment>


Female ENIAC Programmers Pioneered the Software Industry - <AUTHOR> http://iq.intel.com/how-female-eniac-programmers-pioneered-the-software-industry/ <comment><USER2> Related documentary _The Computers: The Remarkable Story of the ENIAC Programmers_ :

[https://vimeo.com/ondemand/eniac6](https://vimeo.com/ondemand/eniac6)</comment>


From Andes to Tibet, Covid-19 seems to be sparing populations at high altitudes - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-andes-peru-ecuador-bolivia-tibet-high-altitude/2020/05/31/0b2fbf98-a10d-11ea-be06-af5514ee0385_story.html <comment><USER2> Read my comment history. High NOx pollution? Disaster. High altitude, no NOx pollution? Immunity.</comment>


Athena serverless query service reduced monthly cost from $74 to $0.02 - <AUTHOR> https://read.acloud.guru/how-we-built-a-big-data-analytics-platform-on-aws-for-100-large-users-for-under-2-a-month-b37425b6cc4 <comment><USER2> Is this not very similar as Google BigQuery?

[https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but for AWS. It was more an example of how serverless can cut costs, irrespective of what platform it is on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Page is down and not rendering?

<comment><USER5> Well that is one way to keep costs down.</comment></comment>