skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with you that iOS is the product, but I agree with the GP that the capital-letters App Store has very little to do with it.

To re-use your mom as the argument:

* Go grab her phone and point at any given app, and ask if it's available on Android too.

* Ask her if she knows the differences are between the Play Store and the App Store.

* Ask her if she thinks there is any material difference between getting applications onto an Android phone versus an iPhone.

She presumably doesn't know anything about these things, makes the assumption that apps are apps, and leaves it at that.
This is pretty "new" in terms of some of the devices I've seen. I wonder what it looked like before DTBs were a thing.
he was stuck in the moscow airport (for over a month) after his passport was cancelled en route to equador and was eventually granted asylum
I'm sure Epic would be willing to forgo all those things, if they could have iOS visitors to their own site click a download button, up pops the ol' install app OS dialog (same as now), face ID / passcode, bam, Fortnite is installed.
I think the fundamental idea behind this is that "every decision must be rationalized", which is fine, but in reality it's difficult to pull off in my opinion. Because people (including myself) are so easily fooled, I'm afraid that it's often the case that we deliberately ignore certain (inconvenient) facts or unconsciously distort things. If we are really trying to rationalize ourselves, the decisions have to be reviewed by multiple people.
GRAAL: The search for GRAnd ALgorithms in truly global software markets (2012)
No, I do not consider that to be strong arming. I consider that to be baiting.

As my post says: it's unclear to me which tactic was used with which developers, or how those contracts influenced the promises developers made to preorder customers.

We don't know mostly because those contracts are secret.
I've been intrigued by ADRs for a bit, and this post prompted me to start a conversation with my current team. Quoting something I posted in my internal slack:

> Note that my goal, with ADRs, is not to increase the amount of time we spend on decisions! If the answers are "I didn't think too deeply and I'm going with my gut" it's still better to have that documented. If we find that we're getting bit by bad decisions, we can look at how those decisions were made and how we can improve them at that point, with much more context.
So that kind of kills that whole “consumer harm” argument doesn’t it?
I depend on my phone for a lot more important aspects of my life than my laptop. Seems pretty obvious to me, there are apps for pretty much anything I could want to do, and I believe it's the more secure platform by far, plus I have it on me pretty much always.
That is only because their app stores hold monopoly positions on their respective devices.
Frankly, if you did it right now, I think you'd get away with it. Epic understands the game here, and they aren't going to ruin it.

Note, however, that not just anyone can publish a game on EGS, so you'd have to already be an established developer.
iOS is the platform in the parent's analogy, not the app store.
Am I missing something? I only see a 2-sentence incomplete synopsis. The CSS page is huge by comparison, and it's not doing anything particularly interesting.
For real? In the HN thread about Apple removing Fortnite [1] the Apple apologists seem to vastly outnumber people who are in favour of what Epic did.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24146987
> This is ironic because in the U.S. most people believe the S.A.T. is the most biased portion of the college entrance criteria.

I don't see any evidence either that most people believe that or that it's true.

I personally find it more likely that high school grades and extracurriculars are probably the most biased portions (grades because a large portion of them usually depends on assignments with loose grading rubrics, which are empirically linked to greater racial and other bias for otherwise similar responses, and extracurriculars because both access and evaluation of them is impacted by cultural factors of both the student, the evaluators, and other members of society.
This is true about one of my workplaces. Diversity this, diversity that. As a Director, I remind them that I'm not white. They seem to handwave it away and not count it despite Asian-Americans being underrepresented in this line of work. Such is life.

EDIT: If you're an Asian-American you get used to this kind of "model minority" discrimination / racism. It just is what it is. My guess is it is similar for Jewish people.
Doesn’t that make Amazon and the supermarket down the street black markets, too?
Would this have anything to do with XioMi's announcement for their own transparent TV?

https://blog.mi.com/en/2020/08/11/turning-moment-for-tv-indu...
They are different markets. If you have an iPhone you must use Apple's store, Google's store is not competition for that market. For Google, use of the store is not required, but there's a risk to side-loading because ideally there would be competing stores that also do quality control and security audits, and there aren't. So it isn't a duopoly, it's one absolute monopoly and one near-monopoly.
I'm really interested in a Debian-quality DFSG Android app store. Debian's apt repository is truly the "app store" that I have chosen to trust.
Yes, dollars flow from city to country, and calories flow from country to city. It has always been so.

Best to keep in mind both sides of the equation, because we can only eat one of these things.
To quote Yale themselves[1]

>We estimate that over three quarters of the students who apply for admission to Yale are qualified to do the work here. The great majority of students who are admitted stand out from the rest because a lot of little things, when added up, tip the scale in their favor.

The numbers of people who apply to the school combined with the selectivity of the school all but guarantees that there are top tier candidates of every race who are rejected.

[1] - https://admissions.yale.edu/what-yale-looks-for
Or at the very least unconscious anti-Asian bias on the part of admissions officers.
As a reaction it is a highly silly example of scapegoating that looks for simple solutions. Granted there is ample historical precedent of such anti-intellectual scapegoating. To be frank the behavior resembles a "shit rolls downhill" cycle of abuse where they will blame and harm whomever is weaker but able to be a target of envy.

Lack of progress doesn't make it more sustainable. Very early farming was a semi-sedetary "slash and burn" the forrest and then relocate once the soil is depleted and let the forrest reclaim their abandoned buildings while they go to despoil someplace else.
If your apps are using 20 different minor revisions and 50 different compile flags they prob can't share those libraries anyway? At least if some parts are the same they will dedupe at the block level even if files are different.
But cooling rate is proportional to the temperature difference (see Newton's law of cooling). Thus the hotter water may start cooling faster, once it reaches the initial temperature of the cooler water, it would cool at the same rate as the cooler water did initially. It then couldn't possibly reach freezing point earlier.

But in some conditions it does, which is the surprising result.
Why is everybody going on about 'the lockdown'. There is exactly one city in the world that had a complete lockdown, that's Wuhan, China. Every other place had at best a partial lockdown with a ton of exemptions and a large amount of leeway for emergencies and other edge cases.

As for the suicide factor, yes, there is a chance of increased numbers of suicides, no for now there is no proof that such an increase is actually happening. If previous pandemics - without a lockdown - are any guide then a pandemic has regardless of the measures taken an increased risk of people committing suicide.
> I think that modern work is just about capturing wealth and passing it onto the wealthy, so they can have more control over their time and can enjoy the fruits of our labours.

wether or not that is a concious goal. it defintiely seems the result that is happening in our current culture

sometimes i think of it like a horse and a jockey, somehow the horse was acclimated to allowing someone to ride on its back, tell it where to go, and how fast to run... in return the horse gets a stable, some food and a trough... but even if the horse is compensated for its "work" its still a releationsnip of "rider" and "rode on"
I disagree. This proves that one can be shut out of the almost the entire mobile software market in a single day.

Apple is not a monopoly but Apple and Google together have just shown the incredible power they wield.
<quote>
Preventative Mitigations

NOTE: The mitigations that follow are not meant to protect against the initial access vector. The
mitigations are designed to prevent Drovorub’s persistence and hiding technique only.

Apply Linux Updates

System administrators should continually check for and run the latest version of vendor-supplied software
for computer systems in order to take advantage of software advancements and the latest security
detection and mitigation safeguards (National Security Agency, 2018). System administrators should
update to Linux Kernel 3.7 or later in order to take full advantage of kernel signing enforcement.

Prevent Untrusted Kernel Modules

System owners are advised to configure systems to load only modules with a valid digital signature
making it more difficult for an actor to introduce a malicious kernel module into the system. An adversary
could use a malicious kernel module to control the system, hide, or persist across reboots (National
Security Agency, 2017).

Activating UEFI Secure Boot is necessary to ensure that only signed kernel modules can be loaded. This
requires a UEFI-compliant platform configured in UEFI native mode (not legacy or compatibility modes) in
Thorough or Full enforcement mode. Once enabled, Secure Boot creates an integrity chain at boot by
verifying signatures of firmware, bootloader(s), and Machine Owner Key (MOK). The kernel, initial
filesystem, and kernel modules are then verified by this MOK, which is distributed with Secure Boot-ready
Linux distributions. Components with untrusted or absent signatures are denied from execution by Secure
Boot policy. Enabling Secure Boot may prevent some products from loading, potentially affecting system
functionality, and may require custom configuration (National Security Agency, 2017).
</quote>
If that's the use case, then it would probably be cheaper and easier to put solar panels on your boathouse, and still keep it plugged in. Then you wouldn't lose range to the weight of the panels, either.
Seems pretty rare to hear about Google having humans and not AI bots do the "discussing". Interesting that they don't trust the algorithm when it comes to allowing retailers on its video game store, but the algorithm is a-ok when it comes to performing blanket political censorship for the many millions who watch YouTube.
the idea that conspiracy theories are spurious is a result of mentally ill people irrationally latching onto them and far predates cointelpro. that said, it is trivially true that the world is run by conspiracies -- conspiracy is simply a label for private agreement for coordinated action, which carries negative emotional valence as a result of that association.
Is your iPhone primarily a gaming device? I don't understand how you're seamlessly leaping from "Phone" to "Game console" and making equivalency comparisons. In my ways my phone/computer is an extension of who I am as a person. They are my second brain. Having that functionality dictated by a company feels nightmarish to me. Imagine if you didn't want to be blasted by multiple internet forums, multiple news feeds, or even multiple websites. Why have more than one website on the internet? Have the entire internet be a single website run by someone you trust. That's the natural conclusion of where your preference leads.
After spending some time in TikTok same thing happen to me as it happen to Penny from TBBT episode https://bigbangtheory.fandom.com/wiki/The_Barbarian_Sublimat... .

"In the final scene, Penny's character meets Howard's character in the game and she agrees to go on a quest followed by a drink at a tavern. It's then scared Penny realizes she needs help and tosses her laptop away."

Uninstalled instantly.
This is going to backfire for Epic. I see both sides, however, the App Stores have overhead to support free apps, and they need to be compensated.

If a software developer has an issue with the distribution channel, then they can make their own, including the R&D and operate expense for the hardware. I know, really unpopular take. Bigger question is are Apple and Google (with hardware/software ecosystems) deserving of Bell-style regulation? The US already has a playbook for this.
Emissions laws are put in place by representatives of the people, for the common good.

Apple saying that I'm not allowed to step outside their walled garden on a device I own is restricting my freedom.
No idea what that is supposed to tell me, to be honest.
Android users can still download Fortnite though, they just have to sideload it. Epic isn't truly shut out from that market.
> So the difference in this case is only $2 (while you get $16). That's small potatoes.

Is it? That's 14% extra revenue. And if you were comparing a 30 percent take to a 12 percent take, you'd be going from $14 to $17.60, which is slightly over 25% extra revenue! That could double or triple the profit margin of a healthy business!

> What percentage is reasonable?

I already answered that in a different comment. If I was going to wave a wand right now, with no further time to consider, it would be 25% for the first $20 and 5% after.

So look at something like Hey. Apple right now would charge $30 for a user's first year, then $15 for each year after. My version would be $8.75 for the first year and $5 for each year after. A pretty big difference.

I wouldn't be strongly opposed to a flat 12%, but I'm trying to be generous and give Apple some extra dollars upfront for the service they actually provide. But the service they provide barely increase as the price of an app increases, so they don't deserve 25 or 30 percent of larger amounts.
It cost me $50 to get a 1GB plan in Montreal because they bundled it with a useless 'calling plan' that only worked in the province. There has to be a special place in Hades for the people in charge of Canadian telecoms and banks, I hope.
>> if you don't look at race you're going to have a very wealthy, white, suburban, homogenous class of admitted students.

The data says otherwise. You'll have a HUGE amount of Asians and Asian-Americans. Not whites.
Sandboxing is important, but is only one part of the protections.

There's also:

- App store guidelines on what is and is not permissible in different cases

- Restrictions against using private APIs

- Restrictions against jailbreaking the device

There are a variety of VPN apps available on iOS. Why was Onavo blocked? Because it violated the guidelines on the use of the information, which is the kind of thing that it difficult to automate.

Restrictions against using private APIs are semi-automated, and would be difficult to completely automate.

The fact that you can't get an iOS app that jailbreaks the device in order to do whatever it wants is in part due to human review - if one existed in the store, it would get pulled, and the developer cert would get revoked. Jailbreaks exist, and human review in the app store is one way they are mitigated.

I for one remember the bad old days when playing a CD could (and did!) install a rootkit.
XBOX might let you do some things Apple won’t, but you can’t buy a productivity app for your XBOX. They’re just different restrictions and rules for different devices, the whole point of competition is to be able to do things differently.
They cut the cost by removing Bluetooth, though, so ESP32-S2 might not be the right choice for some scenarios.
> The same thing happens with "culture fit" evaluations at tech companies.

I totally agree, this reminded me of culture fit interview questions as well. I think the evidence is very strong that almost any subjective evaluation is going to devolve down to the evaluator picking whatever confirms their subjective biases, then coming up with ex post facto rationalizations.
Looks interesting. I'm finding that using dbt and the automatically generated docs helps with quite a lot of this. There are other sources of metadata though, so I can see why some might want a tool like this.
One store is great IF you can load apps independently from other sources
Depends on whether society thinks you’re doing it for a good cause. Laws should serve people. If “the people” think they’re unfair, they will allow lots of technically illegal actions to change them.

Mahatma Gandhi did that, and society nowadays thinks he was within his rights.

Uber also did that, but isn’t universally acclaimed for it (¿yet?)

(There’s a large legal difference in that the Gandhi was a person and Uber a company, but Uber somewhat got away with its actions. That’s an indicator that society isn’t unanimous in condemning those actions)

This could and, I think, will be similar. This strong protest by Epic will lead to change.
This short video[1] seems instructive in terms of norms in the former Soviet Union. These are named as bad things in that context: "career builder", "initiative at work", some specific Russian noun for "different thinker". Then punishments for "non-conformity".

Consider the phrase also said to have been popular in the USSR, "Everything Marx said about Capitalism was correct, but everything he said about Communism was wrong."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0g_Pqp7HoA
I agree for the most part. I've met some of my best friends in college while working on lab assignments through the night. But I think that we can't form meaningful communities through online learning platforms only means there are a lot of improvements (=opportunities) to be made in the market.
A lot of the 'alternative' app stores are either for piracy or for heavily fringe content (think NSFW) or open source only like F-droid. There are also app stores that are region specific e.g. east asia or Russian-speaking. It is difficult to find international, mainstream general purpose app stores.
Jews are not necessarily white, it is just a common misconception among Americans because most Jews in the US are from an east European origin, but that's not the case in France or Israel.

Also, what do you mean by merit? who said trying hard and wasting hours and hours to improve high school marks is "merit"? I am not sure the Asian culture of studying signal anything but the ability to invest a lot of time in a young age to solve relatively easy problems. It doesn't signal talent and it might not even signal a particular conscientious in later ages or in the work place.

I think the ivy league know that, they know that those Asians are not going to be anything special and that there are many other parameters and signals they have to look at in order to define this elusive "merit".
What do games consoles have to do with this? I'm showing you a similar walled garden app ecosystem (PlayStation) with a "Pro" label since you went down that path. iPad doesn't have to be a games console to be subject to the same rules.
I'm curious, how do you prevent overfitting, where the model will simply learn the exact formats of the training data? Then it will not generalize to a format it has never seen before?

Unless the training data is an extremely diverse set of invoices, maybe randomly generated?
If they could use a different, off-the-shelf rendering engine (cough Blink cough) that's actually faster and battle-tested, then they aren't losing anything at all. I've been hearing about Servo for years but nothing's come of it. I installed Servo once and it crashed within a few minutes (on Linux). Though I'm not an expert in it, my impression is that development has been blocked. From a business perspective it doesn't make sense to keep a project on board for years and years when it hasn't produced any deliverables.
Sure, we don't know all the details but we do know this:

The developers agreed to the deal. If that meant they had to do something shitty (Like not-provide steam keys to backers who paid for that during a crowdfunding campaign), you should be upset with the developers. They made a promise and then they went back on it.

I don't think it's fair to hold Epic's feet to the fire because a developer took the money. If someone offers you a lot of money to break a promise (and you take it), this is a reflection of your character.

Epic didn't make anyone do anything. They made the choice.
Developers were offered a lot of guaranteed money, which is vital financial support for indie devs.

I'm amazed "feeding starving artists" is turned into a bad thing.
You could just not use Apple products. Crazy talk I know, but many of us get by just fine without them.
That's not how it works in other countries with free college. You have to pass admissions which are very competetive and obviously not everyone gets in.
The alumni admissions point is an interesting one. I wonder how one's propensity to donate is affected by their perception that they were chosen by the institution vs. they were selected by a deterministic process.
Former COO of Wirecard on Interpol list: Jan Mersalek
exactly! Now is the chance for them to show how much better they are than Apple.
I'll try and play devil's advocate for you.

Apple recently rolled out "Sign-In With Apple", which creates burner e-mail address that you can seamlessly use with 3rd party services. As a privacy-conscious consumer, this was great! On top of that, Apple forced all of its developers to support "Sign-In With Apple". This is one of the many reasons I continue to use Apple's phone and OS, because it gives me some peace of mind.

Apple Payments, similarly, gives me some financial peace of mind by providing me with one centralized place where I can view and cancel my subscriptions/purchases. I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to unsubscribe from a service that I don't use. With Apple's in-app payments system, I can keep tabs on everything. It's like a user-friendly financial reconciliation layer.

Both of these Apple services place some amount of burden on the developer, and I'd even argue that the first example was pretty broadly celebrated by privacy-minded HN readers. The strongest devil's advocate argument is that the second example provides the same value to Apple customers, and that's a distinguishing feature of its platform that it ought to be able to maintain.

There's a strong argument to be made that one ought to be able to side-load apps and install competing app stores on their iPhones (I tend to agree), but that's somewhat orthogonal to this particular issue, especially considering the Google Play Store action.
It doesn't matter whether your parents care. My point is that they are separate practices with different pros and cons, so using the benefits of one to justify the other doesn't make sense.
Has apple ever blocked or threatened anyone for developing a rival OS? For an OS that could run on iPhones to be developed, it seems pretty clear that Apple would absolutely have to "support those means" in terms of publishing low level hardware and security chip specs. And distributing secret keys or offering an agnostic signing service.

But what I think you mean to propose is a restriction at the software level, not hardware level. That anyone who sells an operating system must allow any app to be installed within that OS. I think we leave it as an exercise for the reader to define "operating system" when it comes to our increasingly "smart" homes and cars.