ozmbie

I don’t see why this sort of “addictive” design is considered bad when it’s used to drive people toward spending, but it’s “ok” when it’s designed to keep people around so they can be shown ads.

Mobile developers really only have a few choices available to them:

1) Have users pay upfront or pay a subscription. This was how the app stores started and it quickly turned into a race to the bottom for free apps. The market had spoken.

2) keep users around long enough to show them enough ads.

3) keep users around long enough and add enough pain in the progression systems that the users decide to spend.

The whole software/startup approach is currently based on user growth which relies on retention, trigger, actions, and rewards. Long-term investments don’t fit that model so there is no incentive for them to encourage that form of user behaviour.

You're transmitting cryptocurrency, not fiat. So I'm unsure how it works.

Streaming 4K videos (or fitting them onto a 50GB physical disc) requires better video codecs. MPEG2 wouldn't be enough.

Personally, I see the benefit in 4K having a setup to take advantage of it.

It’s worse when you want to store the coins yourself, so you withdraw from an exchange only to realise that the wallets available are either broken or have horrible UX.

I just don’t see how an altcoin without a functioning wallet can have billions of dollars of market cap.

I think proposals such as MAST allow secret contracts, up until that part of the contract is executed (if it ever needs to be executed).

https://medium.com/novamining/mast-smart-contracts-on-bitcoi...

This is a problem with many blockchain ideas. On one hand you get an immutable public record (and smart contracts), but on the other hand you need an incentive to use and mine the network...thus the in-built currency. But if that currency isn't seen as valuable...then the whole system falls apart.

I'm not sure why Kodak didn't piggyback of an existing blockchain like Ethereum.

You can create addresses which require multiple valid signatures (private keys) in order to spend the contents. And other sort of smart-contracts.

But it’s still based around having the correct mathematical keys to unlock an address.

Because they can add functionality over time through software updates. This is their MVP.

Read up on “cargo cults” and “cargo cult agile” and it makes a lot more sense.

There are some genuinely good ideas in SCRUM and other development methodologies. But trying to codify those ideas into a set of rules for newcomers always leads to some degree of misinterpretation.

I don’t know what the solution is, other than to ensure each team has constant input and support from somebody with authority and deep understanding of software development practices...and how often do you find people like that!

Bitcoin is the most popular with the most resources behind it, so it makes sense to leverage off it. There's nothing stopping similar networks occurring on other coins.

There is upfront work (first you need some bitcoin, then you need to make an on-chain transaction to open a payment channel) but after that, lightning payments are trustless, instant, and with small fees (it's designed to support micro-payments).

But right now this is still VERY early in development.

>The real problem is that players are getting tricked into installing a "free" game but later sucked into gambling once they're invested and addicted.

The real problem is that hardly anyone wants to pay for anything upfront.

Developers much prefer to make traditional games with no tricks in them to hook free customers. But take those systems out and charge $1 upfront on the App Store and watch your number of installs fall by orders of magnitude.

The market spoke, and freemium games is what they got.

>The lack of Animoji and front-facing ARKit seems to be a software limitation made for business reasons rather than a hardware limitation.

The A11 chip has dedicated “neural engine” hardware which is used for Animoji and other facial recognition tasks.

How much could be done in the standard CPU on other devices I’m not sure.

It's important for me to separate the principles behind these methodologies, from the industries that spawn up around them to sell guides and certifications and books and conference tickets.

Adhering to the ideas of clear goal-setting, team communication, autonomy, and iterative development have never had bad outcomes for me. But formalising them into a ruleset for any arbitrary team doesn't capture everything.

I find the watch helps, because you distil your digital interactions down to a small number of important ones. Then go about your life without the constant pull of your phone nearby.

The new Series 3 LTE watch has enough battery to get me through the day. The only notifications I have enabled are messages, phone calls, and reminders.

I leave my phone at home but I'm still available for the important things.

>just an endless concatenation of action scenes from different episodes

These videos are basically electronic drug trips for 3 year olds.

There is no teaching going on, just attention and reward psychology. Any form of structure or coherence is removed, leaving just reward-inducing bright colours and fast movement. I really do wonder what affect this has on the human brain when consumed for hours every day.

Don't let an algorithm-controlled, attention hyper optimised marketplace control what your children see.

The same could be said for what you do in your own home with all the curtains pulled.

I've worked in a variety of environments, and the most important thing in my experience is simply to ensure that your team is creating a working, tested, and "shippable" update every ~2 weeks. It amazes me how many teams fail to do this, despite calling themselves "agile" and "customer driven".

Use whatever methodology, technology, and processes you need to accomplish that singular task. Orient your entire organisation around doing that. Your customers don't care how you do it. They just want frequent updates and progress. And if you're not giving them useful updates (you'll know, they'll tell you) then the problem isn't methodology, it's probably your ideas. No methodology will fix that.

The only useful project managers I've ever seen are people who used to be developers, but also have vision for long term strategy. Those people are rare but they amplify the teams they work with.

All the other PMs I've worked with spend their time making schedules, release plans and other "management porn" tasks, which are regularly being updated because they're not based on reality.

HN fits the pattern of addictive behaviour. (Trigger -> Action -> Variable Reward).

You are triggered to come here when you’re bored. Your action is simple loading (or reloading) the page. The variable reward is that you get interesting content and discussions...but you never know what they will be.

Over time this pattern of behaviour becomes habitual. You probably open Hacker News at similar times of the day in similar situations.

This basic pattern applies to all social media products. It’s very well understood and a key part of modern software design.

Some days my phone feels like an LTE modem I have to carry around for the sake of my Apple watch.

Going to work, listening to music, replying to messages, going for a run and then stopping by the shops to pay for things...all using my wrist. It's a great experience. But I have to keep my phone nearby. And LTE watch sounds great.

There are a lot of UX issues with the watch that makes it frustrating at times. But it's getting better and more capable every OS update.

I lived in Singapore as an expat back in 2012, and from my experience, getting drugs (either online or through friend contacts) was not that hard. The penalties stop most people but the stuff still exists.

This is where a good Product Owner/Manager is worthwhile.

They're not there to allocate resources or assign work or create schedules. They're supposed to be in that "higher perspective" headspace most of the time, so that by the time their decisions turn into actionable work...it's been through these mental filters.

Because "The West" includes Europe, which is rather close to Turkey geographically.

Until last year Turkey was in slow but ongoing negotiations to be a member of the European Union.

Apple is a still computer company, because Phones ARE computers.

For the majority of the population in developed countries, and almost all of the population of developing countries, smartphones are the only computer people have or need.

I agree that Apple have shifted focus away from "making tools for people to create things and solve problems" towards consumption-oriented mobile devices. But those devices are still computers, and they're wildly successful.

If Apple devoted their focus to products in proportion to their revenue, then they would be putting 12x as much effort into the iPhone than they would for the entire Mac lineup.

I wont defend the exchanges, but they're exchanges not banks. Keep your bitcoin in your own wallet until you need to convert it another currency.

The White House Press Briefing, brought to you by Skype and McDonalds!

The internet has the ability to be a multi-dimensional "meta" medium. But for the vast majority of people it's a one-way, social media echo chamber feed to scroll through.

Go out in public and watch how people interact with their phones. Especially in developing countries who have had massive technological change thrust into their lives in under a generation.

It's really just a plot device. Suspend your belief for that one part of the movie, and enjoy the rest of the social and political commentary.