interlagos

I've been hellbanned here on HN on at least three different IP addresses and accounts...that I am aware of. Probably more.

In each case nothing I'd ever said would be considered trolling by any rational observer. Here on HN, however, as with most communities where you start to recognize the regulars (tptacek, raganwald, etc), "trolling" is redefined to simply mean "going against the grain".

There was one discussion that I participated where I predicted that Apple would see declining profit margins due to increased competition. Remarkably this completely benign, seemingly obvious observation saw me declared a troll, and shortly thereafter yet another account was hellbanned from HN (whatever the mechanism -- is this the verdict of a bored PG, or has he anointed some particularly under-employed members to apply it? -- it is horribly broken).

Troll is, more often than not, a term used to circle the wagons.

Empirically what has been shown is that if you do an IAMA on Reddit leading up to the release of your "experiment", a lot of people will play along. It does not carry over to any other release, and says absolutely nothing about DRM or atypical release plans.

Lots of people sell videos online without the middle man. Most see no sales.

The Android crash report functionality does send logs to Google, however Google does not forward these to third-party developers.

Third-party apps can request READ_LOG manifest permissions and directly monitor the log, but that is an incredibly rarely used permission that tends to raise flags.

That barely novel gimmick got it front and center of every social news site. Indeed, why are we even talking about this experiment if it were "barely novel"? This submission and every comment in it is a counterpoint to your claim.

The comparison is the hype, delivery, and conclusions. After the initial release of the Plant there was much fanfare about its demonstrated validation of a sales model, yet it was a completely atypical example that earned tremendous publicity and enhanced engagement because it was novel.

It is also an instructive example of novelty. His initial experiment was reported very widely, and tens or hundreds of thousands lined up to "prove it could work", putting their dollars to demonstrate it.

Once the novelty wore off, the viability of the approach disappeared. The opt-in payment ratios started generously, and rapidly approached zero.

Little can be learned from CK's experiment because it was novel -- it got covered far and wide, encouraging a lot of people to "show" that the model works.

Remember The Plant?

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/00/11/30/1238204/stephen-king...

I'm thankful someone wrote this. I've been seeing a lot of people talking about how depressed and/or suicidal and inadequate they feel quite frequently around here lately.

Suicide is a topic that people sometimes "take on" in a hamfisted attempt at some cheap feel-goodism, and the results are almost always counter-productive.

You can't rationalize away suicide via a blog post. More likely it will actually bring to mind something that might not have been front and center.

Forgotten that you're suicidal? Well raganwald is here to remind you.

I may come off as a giant ass downer saying this, but it's the cold hard truth. This does the opposite of good.

Worse, it is an estimate of sales to date of the two markets. The Android market was seriously immature until around a year ago, and it has been exploding since (from a personal perspective, the number of apps worth buying has increased exponentially in the past couple of months). Most recent anecdotes seen on here and on other development boards have found similar current sales rates across Android and iOS. If I'm making an app now, it is meaningless that for three years iOS held a huge headstart.

There are a couple of platform zealot prats rambling on with their standard, dated anti-Android nonsense in here. It is disheartening that they haven't been carpet bombed into the hellban so many voices of reason end of enduring.

You should be downvoted for it, and it's sad that you haven't thus far.

Worthless market share? Zero profit? Such emotionally-driven hubris has no place on HN.

Even my 1st generation HTC Magic+ had an experience absolutely nothing like what you've described. I don't know what sort of broken device you're in possession of, but it has nothing to do with Android. What is being described generally are trivial framerate deviations while animating the UI, not "30 second" pauses.

There was a dark period in Android's existence where a very immature OS came together with underpowered hardware (the GPU in an iPhone 3G demolished the GPU in the Hero) and created a pretty bad experience.

That wasn't what I was talking about. I'm talking about almost imperceptible, frame-or-two jitters that is the current state of Android on virtually any contemporary device. The top selling Android devices are all "buttery smooth" in the perception of their users, even if relative to an iPhone it is herky jerky.

I don't disagree with what you've written, and the relative thing is a problem -- if people feel a bit shameful that their new device isn't as slick as the last generation iPhone, it does hurt love of one's device a bit. That's why Android 4.0 takes big steps in the "be proud to show it off" realm.

However to the relative thing, to most smartphone users the things that matter are can I use Facebook, how is the picture quality, can I share videos, etc. Others want a keyboard, big and bright screen, etc. To normal users -- the ones buying the overwhelming bulk of devices -- this just isn't the big issue that it is on tech boards. It just isn't.

That wasn't at all the focus of the comment that I replied to. I get that you're on this "keyboard/trackball" thing (sidenote -- did you know that Android devices still come out with keyboards and trackballs?), however the difference between the two platforms is largely simple architectural differences having nothing to do with form factor.

>Yet single clicking the home button still instantly gives you the response you expect.

The task manager/switcher is a child of the home screen. This overloaded functionality makes sense that you go to the home screen immediately and if you happen to click again it goes to the secondary mode.

Vlingo on the GS II has nothing to do with the home screen. It is its own world.

Should they have made the very first click instantly go to the home screen anyways (which could involve a lot of busy work given how rich an Android homescreen can be)? Good question. I don't think the two are directly comparable however.

A big part of the delay on the GS II is the Vlingo voice functionality. Did you know (I ask because many people don't know) that if you tap the home button twice it brings up voice mode? The ability to recognize double clicks imposes a certain floor on the responsiveness of that button.

That most certainly does bother me, and I've yet to discover how to disable it so it simply reacts immediately.

How was the iOS decision more "correct"? Android is clearly succeeding despite the lack of UI refinement, so it's hard to hold one as victorious.

There is definitely a different philosophy, though. The Android approach was that it was better to be correct -- if you scroll a page or a webpage, that what scrolls into the viewport needs to be correct, while iOS happily scrolled in a checkerboard. I prefer the stock Android approach (some devices, such as the GS II, sub in the "better to be fast" approach, giving smoother superficial interactivity) so long as there is enough hardware that the result isn't too painful.

This isn't a "follow-up", per se.

Nonetheless, while Android continually works to smooth out the rough edges -- helped along by the march of technology -- this is something that is a bit overblown: Minor jutters of the interface is something that primarily irritates people as a relative thing, not as an absolute thing.

If you are a developer or a reviewer and you regularly use an iOS device and an Android device, the difference is evident and jarring. If you're an end-use it quickly disappears and is a non-issue. It just isn't a real problem for end users.

It's the same as getting an upgrade to your PC, a new video card, etc. You were perfectly happy before, but relative to your new reality the old one seems subpar, and you overestimate how much it interferes with your enjoyment of the device.

On an aside, relating to the performance of these two Firefox technologies, it is interesting that in the battle of the JavaScript engines it is artificial metrics that are driving the game: No one is measuring the number of clocks taken to run the JavaScript on typical pages like Twitter or gmail, or whether the variance is enough to even noticeably matter, but instead we run looping benchmark code entirely unlike anything actually used in practice (SunSpider being the most egregiously invalid test).

I would posit, based upon nothing, that in practice JIT systems can be a net negative to the overwhelming majority of run-once JavaScript encountered across the tubes.

Does the world really need Chrome fanboys selling the religion?

This story has nothing to do with Chrome. Yet like with every single story about Firefox, here's some guy slurring Firefox while praising Chrome.

I'm sure people consented through some random paragraph in a two hundred page long EULA, usually under the guise of quality monitoring.

The meta is pertinent. I expect the sort of knee-jerk reaction among non-software developers. I don't among a more educated in the realm crowd.

There is little chance this company is recording, much less transmitting, everything you type, every message you receive, etc. I would hazard a guess that they do, however, record basic usage patterns to let the carrier know how people are using their devices ("6975 characters average per day, send 256 messages while receiving 12. Spends an average 37 seconds in the dialer.").

??? Really, how so. How are they going to get all of the passwords you typed in? Can you point out where anyone has noted any log on the device of this data?

This whole story is that they have system event hooks. That's it. Maybe a real security researcher will find something deeper, but as is it's a nothing story of limited interest. When people like you carry it further than reality you just add ignorance to the conversation.

>All user data (since it is a keylogger?) being logged and sent to a third party without user knowledge or consent

Where does anyone say that it is being sent to a third party? This rather noob-ish developer noted that they have a keyboard hook, but in no way does that mean that they send all of your keystrokes to a third party.

Honestly I think I expect too much from HN. The level of discourse on here is absolutely no better than any typical blowhard site.

The location data concern was that if anyone got possession of your phone or a copy of your backup, they could discern your entire location history.

With this finding, if someone got possession of your phone, they could apparently discern...nothing. Instead a subset of data is sent to a company contracted by the carriers (or at least one - Sprint) for the purposes of network monitoring/quality monitoring. Of course the carriers already know your location history through time (just as they know every SMS you sent, picture you sent, data you transmitted, voice call you made, etc), whether you're on a smartphone or dumbphone, and everyone knows and is aware of this.

Is this app sending too much data? I guess we'll find out. Is it "1000 times worse" than a forever location log easily exploitable? Not really.

EDIT (while sitting at -4 while the hysterics have their fit of vapours): Moderation in this story has demonstrated to me once and for all that HN is largely populated by ignorant bottom-feeders now. It is a sad state of affairs, and this site desperately needs a turn off moderation from dipshits option for users to toggle.

Yes, no kidding. Gruber is a polarizing figure on HN (largely because he is an unabashed hyper-cheerleader for Apple the corporation -- seriously, his infatuation with AAPL profit levels, margins, and P/E ratios is hilarious), and you just had to drag him into a conversation having nothing whatsoever to do with him. If the populace of HN didn't recognize your name as a guy who lives on HN, you would be living in negative double digit land.

Herein lies the problem with Hacker News -- raganwald may be a regular, but such a completely irrelevant, bizarre reference to John Gruber has zero place in this story. I intentionally left a counterpoint that got the expected downvotes, but how about there be some consistency.

This coddling of the regular names diminishes this site.

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

I would love to see the confirmation for a command like

"Harper has ballet at 4:30 on Thursdays and a Dentist appoint on December 7th at 1pm."

This is identical to how the voice functionality works on my GS II.

-> "text blah blah" -< "Send text message to {blah blah}. Speak your message." -> "Content of message" -< "Message "contents of message". Say send or cancel".

And so on. No hoopla or extravagance, it simply works. Perfectly.

I suppose it is reasonable to judge such an innocuous observation as "critical" on the Gruber scale of Apple commentary.

>We could (unproductively) relitigate whether Apple should police submissions to the app store at all

Transparent false dichotomy. This has nothing to do with curating versus anarchy. It is the standard of a subset of carriers in one country dictating policy for all Apple devices worldwide. Wasn't Apple the one who saved people from carrier influence and control?