A Brief History of the College Textbook Pricing Racket - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-college-textbook-pricing-racket <comment><USER2> One point that is often undiscussed: what defines a textbook has expanded greatly. It used to be that a textbook was just a book. But now a textbook is the book plus a huge collection of other resources, most of which the student never sees. A modern textbook includes tests with answer keys, a teaching guide that a grad student TA can use to teach an entire course, flash cards, supporting videos, handouts for class, online exercises, etc etc.

The dirty secret of modern textbooks is that there has been a huge arms race in developing material that makes it easier to teach a course with less work. I don't really think that truly benefits students, since most of this material isn't for the student, it's for the professor (or more cynically for the free labor of grad students used to do a lot of the teaching). But you can't sell a textbook these days without it. I wish there was a universe in which you could sell a simple Psych 101 textbook for $50 and have that be that. But the market won't adopt a simple book like that without the myriad of extras. And since the market here is wonky, meaning the person making the decision (the professor) doesn't bear any of the cost (and might in fact benefit if it's her book), we end up where we are.

This isn't to say that the whole new edition thing isn't worth criticism. Or that there aren't all sorts of things wrong with the industry. But the percentage increase you see in the cost of a textbook for students doesn't just equate to the same percentage increase in the profit margin of textbook publishers. They're not just making the same product from 40 years ago and jacking up the prices 1,000% as the article implies. The product is a whole different beast.

(source: I sit on the board of my family's textbook publishing company)

<comment><USER3> Seriously? some professors actually use all that crap? Over the last five years, I've been a grad student / teaching assistant at both a large state school and an ivy, and I've never once seen anyone make use of supplied handouts or tests. The professor I work for now has written a book which he never assigns, updating his handouts each year to keep current with changes. There might be more room for that $50 textbook than you think.

<comment><USER4> This semester we have switched to an OER (it is only the second week so I don't know how well it is working)but the last two years we have used a book from Cengage. The powerpoint slides and test questions that they provided were of terrible quality. I did base my powerpoint slides off of them but changed them quite a bit - including basic things like fix typos. The course was taught by several people and we came together to make a test bank and some of the questions from Cengage may have made it into that.

More than that, however, Cengage (and I'm sure the other publishers as well) have been making a hard sell for their online interactive stuff and their ebooks. A year or so ago they came and made a pitch to us talking about how much cheaper they are for students (of course the students can't sell the ebooks back and can't buy used copies and their access to the book goes away after a year...) and how awesome the interactive online stuff was.

Luckily, the course director is kind of a self-professed Luddite and didn't really care for it but other people at the meeting bought the sales pitch completely so if we had a different course director I could see being forced to use this drmed junk.

<comment><USER5> This is a little depressing. I'm a lowly adjunct at one school and this is my last semester teaching chem with just an old-fashioned textbook (which is already overpriced).

The department head has decided to switch us over to Cengage (with all of its interactive features) next semester.

My suspicion is that the students aren't going to use any of interactive products.

Do the schools get some kind of kickback from the publishers?

<comment><USER4> No. To the best of my knowledge there is no kickback (they did give us a Panera box lunhox and a totebag...).

Like I said the sales pitch convinces them how awesome it is and how it saves money. I also think the fact that a lot of the online stuff can automatically be graded is appealing to some profs.

I also think that some people are not that tech savvy so they don't see the downsides of drm that are so clear to most of us that read hacker news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a student, I've been fortunate in that most of the time I can find pdfs of the books I need, saving me a dime and the pain of the weight of a normal textbook. The two books I had to buy this semester were books I still bought online, and I still hate them: they're slow, don't work without the internet, constantly log me out (b/c timeouts), and why the fuck can't I cntl-C? Chemistry nomenclature is a bitch. Give me a pdf for use in my favorite pdf reader damnit!

The other stuff I _fucking_ hate is the free resources given to professors (yay, fiscal budgeting!), but shifts the revenue stream to the student. For example, iClicker, which provides the server for free to the professor but makes the students buy a physical clicker ($50); when this service could just use the _fucking_ web-browser and make the professor/university I pay tuition purchase this _REQUIRED_ part of the course pay for the software. Or the online homework, which is also a purchased item (like $60-70 too). I don't pay for the organic chem lab equipment (and couldn't; that stuff is _expensive_!).

To be clear, I have not a problem with using these materials. I also don't mind paying for them. But I _ONLY_ want to pay for it through tuition!

Also, why don't publishers work directly with universities so that every student is provided with a copy of textbook/homework? It seems to me that that would be a sure fire way to prevent lost sales due to the used textbook market/pirating. They could just get the university to purchase pdfs of the textbook for each student every year: it would drive down the incentive to pirate and would mean they didn't need to develop their own _shitty-af_ reader. A win-win.

Anyway, to those still reading: sorry 'bout the language. This status quo drives me absolutely bonkers.

<comment><USER7> How's reading PDF textbooks on an e-reader for you? Personally, I've found them a nuisance because you are not able to skim through pages quickly as you can with a traditional textbook. Let's not forget the small screen size.

<comment><USER6> It ain't bad, but I have a Surface Pro 3 (the Surface's are awesome, btw).

Yeah, it's massive drawback. I prefer it anyway as it incentivises better features (at least I want it to): I can envision a reader that shows the edges of the pages so you can flip through many at a time (ie think of how the pages don't line up when the book is opened flat). I use the Microsoft Reader so I can use the pen so probably no such luck for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember coming to US to go to High School then to University and noticed the books huge, heavy things. Full of pictures and shiny pages, yet content sucked and was spread out unnecessarily. Everything could have been condensed to a 1/3 or 1/4 size. Then when I got to University also happened to notice they cost an arm and a leg.

So I was thinking, I'll just sell them back when I am done and get the money back. Nope, it cost only a small fraction of original price I paid. Because a new version was out already.

Ever since I consider publishers of those books scam artists and crooks. In college I had a meager stipend, and only later got a job on campus for minimum wage -- I had work extra hours at night to make sure to have enough for next quarter when an unpredictable (but high) amount of money would be needed to pay for books.

<comment><USER9> Amen on the content being awful. I'm in school right now, and have noticed a distinctly inverse relationship between the size of the textbook and the clarity of its instruction.

 _Especially_ in math books.

<comment><USER10> Imagine you're the author, and you have to explain derivatives in 100 pages, because your boss asked you to make the book 1000+ pages long. Including definitions, formulas, examples, and problems, you could get to 30 pages. You'd think it's impossible to write 70pp of padding, yet somehow they make it happen...

So students are double the victims: they pay through the nose, and they get 100pp of crappy explanations, where 30pp would do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, I don't understand what is the goal of the teachers by making their students buy textbooks a hundred of $.

In my engineering school (France), teachers write their own textbooks and make them available to us as PDFs. You can pay for paper version at the school's printer (~150€ per year, and then you'll have all the textbooks for your year, and trust me, many students find that very expensive, especially when you only get 3-4 textbooks some years). In the university I went, it was the same, except that the only teacher who had written a textbook gave it to us for free (300 pages). The rest of them gave us their PDFs.

That's why, would a teacher ask us to buy a book some insane amount of money, students would not understand, and at the end, not buy the book. Moreover, what do the US teachers gain from this? I truly don't understand how they support this racket.

<comment><USER12> Also, many textbooks come with teaching material, incl. slides and handouts, short tests, etc. If you have to teach a course for the first time, it is super easy to get up and running with little prep work.

<comment><USER11> Interesting. But then, I would say it's part of the teacher's job to prepare his slides and exams, he shouldn't charge the students because he didn't have time to do his job. If he wants some ease in his teaching preparation, fine, but he should be the one paying for it. I mean, if the textbook has everything, the teacher could as well not even bother to come and teach the class, since the students already paid for everything.

In our high schools, exercise books are mandatory, but they are bought by the school and usually last more than 5 years (you don't keep them). Couldn't it be the case in US colleges, if teachers really want to rely on some textbook?

Also, to answer the other comment, making students pay for your own textbook is completely unethical, especially for academics who are supposed to hold to a minimum of work ethics. So, I'm surprised it's so widespread.

I know that I don't live in the US and that mentalities are different in every country, but here I see that teachers make students pay because they don't want to prepare their classes and because they receive royalties for every sold textbook.

<comment><USER13> Some professors in US colleges are focused on research and publishing. Their pay and whether or not they get tenure is based somewhat on the amount of research they have published and the amount of grants they have gotten.

So teaching isn't a high priority for some professors as teaching is time that you could have spent doing research.

Some classes are taught - at least in part - by TAs or graduate students. TAs also grade most of the homework. In my school at least, I think the professors graded the tests.

Now that I think about it the TAs might benefit the most from these pre-made slides and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes, textbook pricing is totally out of whack. Also, the need to legitimize the higher sticker prices forces publishers to make books that are bloated, repetitive, and waaay too long. Who has time to read 1000+ pages? The textbook racket and bad quality of explanations is precisely why I started a publishing company: we make science textbooks that don't suck.

[1] No bullshit guide to math & physics => [http://www.lulu.com/shop/ivan- savov/no-bullshit-guide-to-mat...](http://www.lulu.com/shop/ivan-savov/no- bullshit-guide-to-math-and-physics/paperback/product-22839889.html) (recently released v5.1)

[2] No bullshit guide to linear algebra => [http://gum.co/noBSLA](http://gum.co/noBSLA)

There are also really good free books out there, with my favourite "gems" being really old books like this one on basic math [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41568/41568-pdf.pdf#page=3](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41568/41568-pdf.pdf#page=3) and this one on calculus [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf#page=3](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf#page=3) The calculus book is tiny, yet it covers the same material as a mainstream calculus book.

<comment><USER14> I realize this is self promotion for your textbook company (who's goals I laud! Acessible knowledge is a good thing), but the idea that a text book is "too long" is...odd. I've never been expected to read a textbook cover to cover before, and all the extra content a textbook has makes it a remarkable resource for referencing even after the class has finished. While the basics of knowledge can be disseminated in far fewer pages, the upsides of having extra examples and asides in a textbook pretty easily outweighs the downsides (unless you count pricing).

<comment><USER10> I agree that examples and asides are useful. What I had in mind is certain chapters in physics or math books that are fully boil down to one equation, but somehow end up stretching the narrative out to fill dozens of pages.

Just the other day I was looking for the statement of Stokes theorem in a mainstream calculus textbook, and fell upon two special formulations, one 'outline' of a derivation, before finally finding the theorem. Even though I knew exactly what I was looking for it took me minutes. What would a student remember from this chapter?

A much better structure would be to state the Stokes' theorem upfront and then give a few examples, and maybe show the derivation, then end the chapter. Short and sweet; something the reader will remember.

<comment><USER15> You can skim of its too easy. Another student can't conjure more detail if it is too hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it shocking to realise, reading these comments, that the university is _requiring_ you to buy these books in order to pass.

I didn't buy a single textbook for my entire Maths/Comp Sci degree (only about 5 years ago, at University of Sydney). The maths dept generally didn't use them (they had optional notes books that were just dense maths, generally written by the professor, and cost about $20), and the IT dept...I think had them but I didn't need them and we were never assigned homework from them.

The one case where I had an assignment (read: something that was worth marks) assigned from a book, I complained and the professor provided me with a copy of the relevant question.

I can understand recommended texts. But I can't understand requiring you to make an additional purchase just to complete assigned work...at that point you're effectively just paying for marks.

<comment><USER15> Oh you don't have to buy the books. You just have to buy a license key so you can submit your homework for credit!

<comment><AUTHOR> The cost is not just the purchase of the key. To work effectively at this, you would also have to get access to the a computer and the internet. Both of which are not ubiquitous as, say, electricity and cost money. I understand that this is a 1st world situation, but even in the 1st world, access to a computer and the internet is always possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The ultimate bullshit textbook is the "Mercury Reader" and it's ilk. It's frequently assigned to English Comp 1 & 2 classes and is basically a collection of short stories or books, a mixture of licensed and public domain works.

When my dad taught it last year, it was $90, and all of the assigned reading could be obtained from project Gutenberg. He told the class to return the book and get the material online, and got a stern talk from the department chair (he's an adjunct)

</comment><comment><USER18> The textbook price increases were once thought to be a genius way to increase profit margins. However like all goods and services, even those with the most inelastic demand curves have a point at which people will begin to substitute them for another good. Textbook piracy is at an all time high and publishers profits have fallen significantly. The long run solution is subscription - access to all the content required by the students at an affordable monthly price. I'm one of the co-founders of Bibliotech the Spotify for Textbooks (www.bibliotech.education). We are working with Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis and Cambridge University Press to achieve exactly that. Our challenge is convincing publishers to provide the necessary content under a subscription model

<comment><USER19> This is an interesting angle - have you had any feedback from colleges themselves? What's your expected price-per-semester for an average student without the 14-day-free trial?

<comment><USER20> With regards to the UK universities/colleges which we currently in the feedback is generally super positive since we can provide books in a more accessible format with a much lower upfront cost. Regarding price point (converted from GBP to USD) we currently have in Chemistry: 1) A premium plan with all the textbooks a student currently buys for ~$17/month ($102/sem) plus all optional reading 2) All optional reading for ~$4/month ($24/sem)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The duo noted the picture-free material tended to be comprehended just as > well as material with pictures, but students preferred the more vibrant > option.

I wonder why students' preferences are even a consideration: if they learn just as well with older, pictureless books … why not use those?

> But it's worth asking—if professors know these textbooks are absurdly > expensive, why assign them? Well, the answer involves a couple of factors, > basically: Many professors simply don't know the prices of the textbooks, > and, far less frequently, sometimes the professors themselves wrote the > book.

FWIW, when I was in school I recall one professor doing his best to ensure that our bill for each of his classes was never more than $50. I think that all of our professors exercised some care in that regard — but ours was a small liberal arts college, with every class taught by a professor or associate professor.

<comment><USER15> The best thing about these book scams is that it is clear signalling: a professor who forces you to use them is either a bad prof, or trapped at a bad school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here are some hits

$181 Campbell Biology: Concepts & Connections [0]

$275 Fundamentals of Financial Management [1]

$201 Psychology, 11th Edition [2]

$248 Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm (14th Edition) [3]

$254 Marketing Management (15th Edition) [4]

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Concepts- Connections...](https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Concepts- Connections-8th/dp/0321885325)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Financial-Management- Fin...](https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Financial-Management-Finance- Brigham/dp/1285867971)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-11th-David-G- Myers/dp/1464...](https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-11th-David-G- Myers/dp/1464140812)

[3] [https://www.amazon.com/Management-Information-Systems- Managi...](https://www.amazon.com/Management-Information-Systems-Managing- Digital/dp/0133898164)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-15th-Philip- Kotl...](https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-15th-Philip- Kotler/dp/0133856461)

<comment><USER23> I never purchased any textbooks in my 4 years of a Computer Science degree. I always found them online or the professor would be smart and have his/her own material online. The only books I had were for some of my humanities classes because they were actual books (novels, nonfiction) that were good.

<comment><USER13> If it weren't for the online codes it would be a lot easier to get through college without purchasing textbooks. The books are easy to find but the most of the cost has been shifted to the online codes.

Most of the early math/phys/chem classes require codes to access the online homework.

<comment><USER23> Are those more common in big universities? Mine had 15-25 average class size and we never had to do anything online.

<comment><USER13> My "Chemistry for Scientists and Engineers" class had 600 people in it and my "Intro to Programming" had another 600 people.

I've been told that with the amount of students it wouldn't be possible to grade stuff like that by hand.

As far as the online grading goes it is mostly the early STEM classes that have the online grading. The non-STEM classes were mostly "read this and do an essay" and the tests were graded on scantrons. After you move past the courses with no pre-reqs and weed-out classes there are less people left and the professors don't really rely on the online grading as often.

<comment><USER24> >I've been told that with the amount of students it wouldn't be possible to grade stuff like that by hand./< This is a pretty lame excuse. Far greater numbers of students have a far larger volume of work to submit at schools and yet that is all marked by humans, or at least it is where I am. Some could be very easily scripted. The rest (hand writing comes to mind) cannot be assessed by human or machine.

<comment><USER13> Well that is just what I was told.

Another possible reason is that it is much easier to let MyMathLab grade everything and then spit out a grade at the end of the semester. Though I'm the one paying $140 for a license code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wish it was only the college textbook market that was the victim of the racket.

I know of 12 year olds who have 10 kg of school books. No one cares.

<comment><USER26> Add me to that list. We had to carry them all due to a locker ban after kids kept bringing guns to school. Backpack was as long as about half my height. Enormous strain on shoulders plus 8 books slamming into by spine for years. Weight broke backpack's straps repeatedly. Many of us have back pain and inability to get comfortable easily for rest of our lives.

So, yeah, it's nice if textbook makers or those acquiring something in school remember the physical impact of books getting as thick as possible. Cheap, locked-down e-Readers might make a decent startup idea for improving poor's conditions. Along the lines of OLPC.

<comment><USER27> > Enormous strain on shoulders plus 8 books slamming into by spine for years. > Weight broke backpack's straps repeatedly. Many of us have back pain and > inability to get comfortable easily for rest of our lives.

Seriously, get a wheeled backpack. No need to make things worse for yourself.

<comment><USER26> I think I saw one or two of those. Ostracized, "checked," or beat down more than most. I was still trying to fit in at the time. Wasn't a solution although great in retrospect. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I seem to remember that the IRS changed the tax law on book publishers in the late '70s. Before the change, publishers made large printing runs of well respected texts and kept the unsold and warehoused books on their ledgers as raw materials. The IRS changed the law and required the unsold books to be counted as assets at the wholesale price, and taxes paid on those assets. This started the current new-edition-every-year model of publishing textbooks that has spiraled into the current situation.

<comment><USER29> Can you share a bit more information about this? I was unaware that assets sitting in a warehouse were taxed at all. Indeed, assets are typically depreciated in order to claim tax deductions.

<comment><USER28> I wish I could be definitive. This the explanation I was given by one of my professors. As I understand it most large businesses use accrual accounting, instead of cash accounting that a small business might use. In accrual accounting money is recorded in the ledger (I would say put on the books, but that could be confusing given the topic.) when a sale is made, even though the cash may not have yet been received. So, you have a profit on paper even though you don't have the cash in hand. The IRS ruled that all the books the publisher printed had to go in the ledger at face value when printed instead of waiting for a sale. That means that on paper, via accrual accounting, there is a profit that is taxed whether the publisher has the cash in hand or not. Publishers could record sales and make there quarterly tax payments knowing that they would get the cash in hand next quarter, but recording the printing of the books as sales and paying taxes that quarter when they might not actually sell the books for years was to much of a burden. Publishers started producing just the number books they thought they would need for the year. And, next year, if you are setting up a whole new printing run why not make corrections and updates, that is, print a new edition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Pay a company to make the "book", dont print any copies, put it online for any school to use and charge like 50 cents a download. School requires to see your reciept so they know its legit, prices drop. Thing is they arent really serious about lowering the cost of education.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why shoot the duck that lays the golden egg?

But seriously, I would have thought the second hand market for used text books would huge as the course contents rarely change from year to year. It looks like this is ripe for a disruption.

<comment><USER13> Part of the problem is with the codes that are required for homework.

A class that I'm taking right now has a code for $110 and a code and textbook for $135. So the textbook isn't really worth very much secondhand. The code is the only required part of the class and is essential for the homework.

After the basic GenEds and weed-out classes are over there doesn't seem to be that much use of online grading. Possibly due to the amount of students that are left over at that point. Then you have more leeway on buying a used or earlier edition.

In my Chemistry class there were 600 students and we had to purchase a code for the online homework. I've been told that there is no other way to grade that much homework.

Non-STEM (like English Literature) classes seem to have less of a problem with purchasing codes for homework. The English Literature classes I've had in the past just require you to read a certain book and write a paper on it. But there wasn't any problem getting an older book or a used book.

Also if you need to do problems out of the book you need to have the right book to do the right problems. The professor will tell you what chapter and what questions but not what the text of the questions. Though you could copy the questions from someone else's book.

<comment><USER30> Help me understand if you would. The code is the same code for everyone ? so if it was open source you could just download it ?

<comment><USER13> I don't know if I explained it very well but I'll try to improve a bit.

The homework in large classes that have hundreds of students are usually graded online on the book publishers website.

For example Pearson publishes a Calculus textbook. In order to do the required homework in class you need to buy a license to the online software which is about $110. The license can only be used once for one book and expires after a set amount of time.

So the textbook is not really worth very much. Because it's the license code that is the requirement.

I see you were thinking about code as in software. I was talking about a license code. A code similar to the Windows activation code/serial/key etc.

<comment><USER30> Thank you, I think it was just me not understanding because I havent been in school in a long time. Thanks for explaining. The more I find out how schools work right now the more it seems like a scam lol Best wishes with your studies!

<comment><USER31> Are you Eric, formerly of QSC?

<comment><USER30> No I am not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think it's a little disingenuous to call openstax "the Napster model", but it's still a good article nevertheless.

</comment><comment><USER33> Everyone pirates textbooks. The fuckers at the textbook companies can go dig their own graves. Artificial scarcity is their only hope, and they can't resell calculus and Newton's laws forever... it's not like they've changed in the past few years.

I can imagine a parody commercial... _I saved hundreds of dollars this semester by switching to BitTorrent!_

<comment><USER34> I don't even understand why some college students still lug around tons of worthless paper textbooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Gen.lib.rus.ec

It has really an impressive selection on textbooks of any kind.</comment>


Ask HN: What is true north KPI of a SaaS business? - <AUTHOR> I am running a bootstrapped SaaS venture for 3+ years and I am planning to share KPIs with some experienced entrepreneurs. Before I share, I was looking for metrics others share, one of the KPIs I couldn't understand is true north? How to calculate it. <comment><AUTHOR> This provides a fair bit of an idea: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three- true-north-metrics-your...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-true-north- metrics-your-product-business-need-itamar-gilad/)

</comment><comment><USER2> ARR, Cash, Churn, Growth Rate, A usage KPI, Support Time-to-close</comment>


Generating Music (with an algorithm) - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.bozho.net/?p=1021 <comment><USER2> There are at least two major areas of music composition which the algorythmic attempts fall vastly short of humans.

One is that real music composition is never done where the timbres are separated from the composition. Classically notated music looks kind of like this, but it's really just a shorthand. A composer knows intimately the sounds she is working with.

For pop music, the timbre itself is a mode of creative expression. Innovation in musical timbres and sounds is an expected part of pop music. (I'm using "pop" in the most general sense, covering a large amount of contemporary genres). The meaning of the music is not captured by simplistic reference to musical notation concepts.

The other major limitation of generated music, to my ears, is that of overall compositional structure. The units of composition usually are short, and only locally referenced. So the compositions lack interesting shape over the course of time.

If you think of a composition as a story, it's as if a bunch of plausible paragraph that are coherent within them selves are strung together with only loose reference to each other. So a longer "plot" doesn't emerge.

<comment><USER3> > One is that real music composition is never done where the timbres are > separated from the composition.

It's true that composers almost always have a sound in mind when they write the notes, but it's very common to perform compositions using entirely different instrumentation to that originally envisaged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In 1995 Douglas Hofstadter wrote a short essay that describes his amazement with a piece of music composed by a program. Interesting reading: [http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse403/03su/m...](http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse403/03su/materials/Essay- Douglas-Hofstadter.htm)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great. The composer doesn't need to have gone through emotional breakdown, drugs, or whatever, to create beautiful music. He just needs talant. And I think talant may be at some point expressed in zeroes and ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best one I've ever heard was AlgoMusic[0] on the Amiga by Thomas Schürger. I used to spend hours listening to it. And it was a pleasant surprise while searching for it now, to find out that the author has a brand new project called SoundHelix[1] that has all the awesomeness of AlgoMusic, and sounds even more incredible. You should listen to the examples[2].

[0]: <http://aminet.net/package/mus/misc/AlgoMusic2_4>

[1]: <http://www.soundhelix.com/>

[2]: <http://www.soundhelix.com/audio-examples>

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been wondering how long it would be until web sites like this started showing up, where you can listen to automatically generated music on demand.

Hopefully they keep improving until they make the best human composers look mediocre, despite being millions of times faster. Unbounded amounts of new high quality low cost music? Yes please.

<comment><USER7> Have you seen DarwinTunes?

(<http://darwintunes.org/>)

<comment><USER2> Just checked it out, very interesting concept. But from what I heard the music doesn't seem to be evolving much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have generated quite a bit of music using evolutionary algorithms. My research is mostly about figuring out representations that are not at too low a level (eg 1 "gene" per note). I like representations that in some way represent the patterns, oscillations, and processes that seem to drive music forward over time.

A paper: <http://ncra.ucd.ie/papers/gecco2011_jmcdermott.pdf>

Some short mp3s: [http://www.skynet.ie/~jmmcd/software/GraphMusicDemoPieces.tg...](http://www.skynet.ie/~jmmcd/software/GraphMusicDemoPieces.tgz)

Longer, slow-developing stuff on soundcloud (using slightly different software): <http://soundcloud.com/jmmcd/tomorrow-is-a-new-day>

<comment><AUTHOR> they sound pretty nice :) will read the paper immediately

<comment><USER8> Thanks -- I think they're kind of nice at a "local" level, but they don't have the more "global" coherent movement that yours have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is probably one of the best algorithmic music generators I've heard. It has a lot more feel of composition to it than most I've heard.

</comment><comment><USER10> The music at any given point sounds great, like classic video game bgm, but theres one thing that irks me. I don't feel a clear start and end to the music, it just seems abrupt both ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> true that, I'll try to improve the general structure, so that it sounds complete

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The program might benefit a lot from better timbres. It's hard to appreciate (or not) other features when the tones are so pallid, so impoverished.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice work. Is anybody aware of automatic music performing software? I think that this is similar to automatic generation of music but more structured and therefore easier to implement. I remember reading some studies about software performing classical compositions, but never found working prototype to play with.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've read some papers about software used to help live performers, some sort of co-performer, or accompanying robot. But I can't find the paper right now..

<comment><USER12> Yap, there is a bunch of papers, but no publicly available prototype to try. Imagine having a python module:

from imaginary_music_module import piano_performer as p

p.play("chopin.ly", style="Pogorelich")

That would be nice :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Terrific, I guess the first virtual minds will love these first algorithmic songs; from an historical point of view.

</comment><comment><USER14> Have you ever thought of using some more complicated algorithm for randomness, e.g., genetic algorithm?

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=genetic+algorithm+music+...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=genetic+algorithm+music+generation&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C1)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have indeed looked at some genetic algorithms and a lot of papers on the topic (in fact, my former university has a course about that, so I read the coursebook). Most of what I have read is either included, attempted, or in TODO. And obviously, I need to read some more.

<comment><USER14> That interactive thing looks useful. It might be possible to build a music composer (website) using collective intelligence, i.e., producing music by taking people's response into consideration?

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea of "liking" and "disliking" is to: 1\. Get a collection of 'best' tracks that sort-of advertises the successful parts of the algorithm 2\. To let me analyze which intermediate decisions in the generation process are good and which not, so that I can make the good ones happen more often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I took part in a "create a game in a day" event recently. Some of the compositions sounded like they would have been perfect for the game, which leads to the strange question: what is the copyright on music composed by the algorithm?

<comment><AUTHOR> Creative Commons is the one I picked

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is Wolfram Tones: <http://tones.wolfram.com/>

It makes the mistake of trying to generate in established genres. None of the genres I care for were anywhere near the mark.

</comment><comment><USER17> Man, that is some pretty crappy music. Good effort though. Algorithm needs more theory. Good music isn't that random. You are missing phrasing, repetition, rhythm.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not missing it - all three things are encoded there. They might not be that "visible", which is a point of improvement, but the theory is there. As I wrote in the blog "random" generates noise. That's why composition rules are needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hmm, no mention of Prof. Cope at UCSC

<http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/experiments.htm>

<comment><USER19> My thoughts exactly. Virtual Music gives a great insight into Cope's ideas: <http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/virtual-music>

Sadly his code (lisp if I remember correctly) isn't on github either...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Also see:

<http://musicalgorithms.ewu.edu/algorithms/import.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> I deliberately made it generate/play tracks with 0 user input. This thing might be good, but I couldn't make it play anything meaningful

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another one, with a pretty bizarre UI: <http://www.melomics.com>.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does not work for me in Chrome. Works in Safari. I'm on a Macbook Pro.

<comment><AUTHOR> strange. It works on chrome on windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> it sounds like i expected it would :)

<comment><AUTHOR> bad, or artificial? If "artificial" - that's the performance side, and it depends on the soundbank. If a real performer plays the same score, it would sound better. The point is to have nice compositions first :)

<comment><USER23> sounds are ok (to my untrained ear), and great effort building this!

still, a little too random

since it's algoritmic, maybe you can go for a little "coherence" throughout a piece, if it makes sense?

<comment><AUTHOR> sure, any feedback is welcome. The thing is still in an experimental phase, and I'm trying to improve it bit by bit

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You need better instruments sounds, they sound worse than S3M instruments that I messed with in the 90's.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will look for a better soundbank, indeed</comment></comment>


Joining a billion rows 20x faster than Apache Spark - <AUTHOR> http://www.snappydata.io/blog/joining-billion-rows-faster-than-apache-spark <comment><USER2> Am I reading this correctly? The testbed was a single laptop? A big part of spark is the distributed in-memory aspect so I'm not sure I understand why any of these numbers mean anything.

<comment><USER3> This paper is a must read: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6753/959eed800e9fad9e330daa...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6753/959eed800e9fad9e330daae43f81b7a48017.pdf)

People keep stumbling upon the same thing over and over which is that the ability to scale has significant overhead.

<comment><USER4> Back in '10, I needed a three or four node Hadoop cluster just to match the performance I was getting using a spare Mac mini in development mode when I was doing a lot of work in Cascalog, which is based on Cascading.

Most problems are not Big Data problems. The size a problem must be before it qualifies as a Big-Data problem grows larger every day with the availability of machines with ever-more cores and memory. `Sed`, `awk`, `grep`, `sort`, `join`, and so forth are some of the least appreciated tools in the Unix toolbox.

People want to think they have Big Data problems but they probably just have plain old normal-data problems. I have had to unwind the ridiculous, heavy- weight, Big Data solutions to normal-data problems that "kids today" love.

If you don't work for Netflix or Google or Facebook or insert maybe a hundred other companies here, you probably do not have a Big Data problem.

<comment><USER5> Amen. Also said as: too big for excel is not big data. See also [https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/hadoop_hatred.html](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/hadoop_hatred.html)

<comment><USER4> Amen right back at ya! (I love the O'Reilly book cover.) I highly recommend people read your blog post. And there's also this classic:

[https://aadrake.com/command-line-tools-can-be-235x-faster- th...](https://aadrake.com/command-line-tools-can-be-235x-faster-than-your- hadoop-cluster.html)

I'll also take this opportunity to plug Make and Drake for manipulating data in a replicable way:

[https://bost.ocks.org/mike/make/](https://bost.ocks.org/mike/make/)

[https://github.com/Factual/drake](https://github.com/Factual/drake)

If you're processing data using tools that cannot trace their ancestry directly to some time before 1985, you're probably wasting your own and your colleagues' time.

<comment><USER5> Just for clarification, I'm not the original blogger. +10 for the other link and using make ! I don't know Drake however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I apologize in advance, but whenever people claim to use a in-memory big-data system, how exactly does this end up working?

You can only stuff so much into memory, so you can scale up vertically in- terms of memory, unless you buy a massive big-iron POWER box, you scale out horizontally. But with each of these in-memory appliances, what happens when you need to spill out to disk?

In essence why should one bother with these in-memory appliances as opposed to buying boxes with fast SSD's instead? Sure you spill out to disk, but do you take that big of a hit compared to the enormous cost of keeping everything in memory?

<comment><USER7> I think there are many use cases. Fraud detection, risk analysis in finance, weather simulations, etc. These don't need to spill out to disk and are a perfect use case for these systems.

A friend of mine works for a company that does high speed weather analysis to make predictions for energy brokers, to predict prices of wind / solar energy on the market. They use these kind of systems extensively, because of the speed and volatility of the data. Fascinating stuff.

<comment><USER8> You can also measure cloud oktas from satellite imagery of you want to get fancy in terms of solar energy supply side forecasting: [https://axibase.com/calculating-cloud- oktas/](https://axibase.com/calculating-cloud-oktas/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lol was hoping it was a combination of awk and paste :)

That always makes me chuckle.

Honestly though ... Jenkins + bash + cloud storage and you'll be surprised at how many big data problems you can solve with a fraction of the complexity.

<comment><USER5> Pardon my ignorance but what would you use Jenkins for ? Scheduling ?

<comment><USER10> Jenkins in such a setting gives you two good things: i) scheduling. and ii) access control. The ability to give random dude X the ability to trigger computation Y, Z, and A, without the ability to change said computations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems like impressive stats about a relational database technology. But the scrolling on their website doesn't work on mobile. So in grand HN tradition, I left and now tell you all about it here, instead of the main point of their invention :)

<comment><USER12> It worked for me but the nav of the browser didn't hide, which I recognize as messing around with absolute/fixed positioning and/or overflows. I'd recommend to use media queries to show a simple site on mobile and leave all the fancy stuff they are surely doing in the desktop for the desktop only.

Edit: on a second check, it might have to do with that nav that moves the whole page down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate these comments, the site did not go through much testing before being deployed. Overflowing was modified to eliminate horizontal scroll on mobile but it looks like there were some vertical issues as well. We will get this fixed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What is the algorithm used to join the tables? Is it a hash join on `id` and `k` or using the fact that the ids are sorted and using a kind of galloping approach?

<comment><USER14> Yes, it is a hash join.

<comment><USER13> I will need to dig into the implementation of the hash function, it must be a nice read as the speed shows that it is definitely well optimized! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Python 2.7 can do it in 0.0867 usec (Intel i7);

        $ python2.7 -m timeit 'n=10**9; (n*n + n) / 2'
        10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0867 usec per loop

(Admittedly, I killed `n=10 __9; sum(range(1,n+1))`.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Great article, actually. Typical HN comments on performance optimizations are complaints like "this isn't a real world use case" or things like that. Most of which, they miss that comparing baseline performance metrics against two systems is still genuinely interesting in and of by itself, and acts as a huge learning catalyst to understanding what is going on. I think this article did a great job of making an honest comparison and discussing what is going on, so props to the team! (We did something similar as well, where we compared cached read performance against Redis, and were 50X faster - here: [https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/100000-ops-sec-in- IE6-on-2...](https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/100000-ops-sec-in-IE6-on-2GB- Atom-CPU) ).

<comment><USER2> The problem is what "baseline" means. For example, a multithreaded program will always run slower than a single threaded one on one thread by definition. It has to do work in order to coordinate the threads. Obviously, this doesn't mean we avoid multithreaded code.

In this case, the software being tested was explicitly written to manage the coordination of data on many nodes, so why is the definition of "baseline" a single laptop? Seems specious.

<comment><USER16> Yes, but that is exactly why I think these types of articles and discussions are useful - people who understand what is going on often times assume that so do others, but for many people it all looks like magic.

How many people out there (genuine question here) assume the opposite of what you know / that they are ignorant of it? How many people do you think that when they hear "multithreaded" that they associate that with being faster?

Now assume the people who know there is overhead work to split up and divide the work across threads... because they have this knowledge, also "see everything as a nail because they have a hammer"? That sometimes the right solution is to simply run a single threaded operation, not parallelize everything?

I think there are interesting merits to all of that, even if it means "hyperbolic" articles or cliche not-realistic world tests. They challenge our thinking, our assumptions, our approach. And then separately, there should be articles/discussions on real-world tests and use cases.

<comment><USER17> You guys should realize that this is a commercial company promoting its own product. They're just doing the test that makes them look good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I know its just a benchmark for comparison, and it is awesome. I love seeing cool comparisons like this, but why do I care that this particular benchmark is faster than Spark? What sort of analytics will be affected by this improvement, and will it actually be saving me time on real world use cases?

<comment><USER19> it's literally impossible to test every possible workload for a tool like Spark so... what's the point of asking? Stand up a testing cluster, run some of your jobs and you'll get the answer.

<comment><USER18> I am not asking about every workload. I was just curious about an example workload where this benchmark matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> why would you choose values between 1 and 1000 for the right side? why not 1000 values between 1 and 1 billion?

</comment><comment><USER21> In case the author reads this: I can't read well with that font, unless I zoom in all the way. Doesn't happen with anything else (Win10, 14in laptop, Chrome)

<comment><AUTHOR> The font in the embedded gists or the font on the page?

<comment><USER22> Likely the font on the page.

A web design QA note for all: thin fonts (e.g 300-400 weight) as a body font but work fine on macOS due to better font rendering, but do not work well on Windows.

<comment><USER23> Is it better on Mac? Whenever I boot into Win10 Im struck by how crisp text looks compared to mac.

<comment><USER24> Prob the retina display the high PPI makes fonts much easier to read.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacker3000 - what would you build for $3000? - <AUTHOR>

Hi there,
I had the idea for a site where hackers could post projects that they'd build for $3000 - life fiverr.com but for IT projects at $3000.
Would you use such a site? <comment><USER3> too much or too less for a hacker, either I do my projects with used stuff or with very exclusive stuff. This means: 100$ > myprojects > 10.000$

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want to build site, I will pay you and we could work together on it. Maybe have it accept bitcoin transactions??

<comment><USER3> you have to ask yourself which alternatives are already there. From scratch I know <http://www.instructables.com/> and the Evil Genius book series. Many specialized forums will probably exist. You have to ask yourself if you want to create a funding market for the brainiacs to improve science/patent mining or HR networking.

There is no email adress on your personal page and twitter is inactive - <USER2> can find me by the same name on skype or twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Project not a priority right now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hologram Within a Hologram Hints at Fate of Black Holes - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/hologram-within-a-hologram-hints-at-fate-of-black-holes <comment><USER2> I feel like articles like this quickly devolve into pseudo physics nonsense in attempting to explain such higher level, poorly understood, abstract ideas to laymen, as they're barely just skimming the surface of ideas that only really exist as high level math.

Not necessarily a fault of the journalist, it's just that words really cannot capture the breadth of information or the inquisitive power of what the physicists derived without some understanding of the symbolic system involved.

<comment><USER3> As a layman, it makes me wonder what a hologram within a hologram within a hologram can explain.

<comment><USER4> You can think of it as information within other information within still other information...

Simple 2D example (for programmers) -- you have a binary string, which can be looked at as a series of 1's and 0's, or as a series of 8-bit bytes.

Well if we look at it as a series of bytes (think of that as the first "holographic" dimension, because the bytes don't really exist -- that is, all they really are is repeated groupings of 8-bits -- CPU's and programs and memory might work with data of that length and "see" them, but in essence, the string is is just 1's and 0's.

So that's the first "holographic" dimension... bytes. But now, inside of that string are substrings -- discrete runs of shorter information. Let's think of those substrings as "holographic" dimension 2.

From here, there could be even higher "holographic" dimensions, that is, let's say we observe only some substrings relative to a mathematical pattern, f(x).

Well, you can think of f(x) -- and the resulting data it produces as a result of reading specific substrings in a specific order -- as living in a higher dimension, a "higher dimensional" "observer", if you will...

Whenever you see the word "black hole" or "hologram" \-- replace that with the word "information", and think about it from that perspective... usually there's something there...

(It's also equally-and-oppositely possible that I'm a crackpot and don't know what I'm talking about -- take this explanation with the proverbial grain of salt... <g>)

<comment><USER5> I beg to differ on the proposition that you're a crackpot. That seems to me a perfectly mathematical way of thinking. If you're a crackpot, it's because all mathematicians are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It the paragraph setting the premise correct?

"The problem is this: The laws of quantum mechanics insist that information about the past is never lost, including the record of whatever fell into a black hole. But Hawking's calculation contradicted this. He applied both quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein's theory of gravity to the space around a black hole and found that quantum jitters cause the black hole to emit radiation that's perfectly random, carrying no information. " I always thought that amount of information about current description of it must be conserved. It's differet than history of the state evolution. IMO simplest QM experiment contradicts this statement: if you pass a linearly polarized filter on a rotated filter you get a random result. You can't infer original state. It's like mas conservation in box of eggs. If you shake it, the amount of eggs is the same, it's state is different and untrackable.

So in my understanding the blackhole was a perfect scrambler. It carries the same amount of information is distribution random. Or the number of bits must stay the same but their distribution changes. That might be slightly different from amount information definition in Shannon sense.

Was my understanding wrong all along?

<comment><USER7> I'd hazard to guess that "information" implies "not uniformly random", and "uniformly random" implies "no information". That the black hole ripples random implies that the input is in part "converted" to uniformly random and thus by the implications above that information is lost.

At least that's how I'd interpret your paragraph.

<comment><USER8> > "uniformly random" implies "no information"

You can have something that when observed appears to be uniformly random but can be transformed into something that is not. Consider a Hadamard transform applied to |+>.

<comment><USER9> Or decryption?

<comment><USER10> Possibly - though decryption relies on other information held elsewhere (the keys), so I imagine within physics it then turns into a hidden variable problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's a video that made me feel like I almost half-way understood one of the main underlying principles (AdS/CFT correspondence) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8)

re: "Following the discovery of this duality by Juan Maldacena"

Semi-unrelated: If you like articles like this, I bet you'll love that whole channel.

</comment><comment><USER12> "They found that at first, as the black hole gobbles up matter and gets bigger, its information content increases. But then, in its old age, as radiation starts spitting data back out, its information content decreases, diverging from Hawking's description."

How does this differ from Hawkings conclusions?

<comment><USER13> It doesn't, really, I guess they were trying to say that Hawking's predictions don't give us a clue what's going on with the information – if the black hole radiates like a black body it can't really push the information out through it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That 2D approach sounds interesting, I'm wondering if a game could be created to give people better intuitive understanding of this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> Excerpt:

"The problem is this: The laws of quantum mechanics insist that information about the past is never lost, including the record of whatever fell into a black hole. But Hawking's calculation contradicted this. He applied both quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein's theory of gravity to the space around a black hole and found that quantum jitters cause the black hole to emit radiation that's perfectly random, carrying no information."

IF Hawking was wrong (remember, I said "if"), then the following identity would hold:

Radiation = Information

Also... There's an interesting philosophical question brought up by this... what is randonimity? How does one mathematically determine that something is random? Perhaps "random" is just a human word we use to explain/label a pattern that we as-of-yet don't understand... The history of mathematics is a history of patterns that were not understood at certain points in time, that became well understood at later points in time... So I ask the mathematical community: "define random". If "random" is just a series of numbers which have no apparent pattern, yet fall into a statistical distribution, then I'll bet that a future mathematician will show that the digits of Pi (or groupings thereof) to fall into the same statistical distribution as a "random" sequence of numbers... In other words, if this were proven, then if someone looked at Pi as that statistical distribution (without knowing anything else about Pi), they'd assert that the number series was random, when in fact it was not, that is, it was generated by an algorithm, the algorithm for Pi... which can be thought of as _Information_ , whether you look at that information in algorithm form or outputted digits form...

<comment><USER15> It is widely believed, but not proven [0], that Pi is normal. Nobody who knows what they're talking about would confuse this with it being random.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number)</comment></comment>


Why Industrial Farms Are Good for the Environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/why-industrial-farms-are-good-for-the-environment.html <comment><AUTHOR> This part surprised me:

 _Many food shoppers have difficulty comprehending the scale and complexity facing modern farmers, especially those who compete in a global marketplace. For example, the median lettuce field is managed by a farmer who has 1,373 football fields of that plant to oversee._</comment>


Ted Cruz's H1-B Reform Bill to Require $110K Minimum Salary - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3014289/it-careers/sen-ted-cruz-wants-minimum-h-1b-wage-of-110000.html?google_editors_picks=true <comment><USER2> I wonder what percentage of H1-B holders make >= 110k. All the people I know who aren't in the tech industry and have H1-B don't make anywhere near that... That's one way to deal with the cap.

Eliminating OPT is going to make getting an H1-B visa harder too, that's how foreign students get experience and can get closer to making the 110k... No one is going to hire an inexperienced student and pay them 110k+ right away. Obama once said something along the lines of: "We're giving foreigners the best education and then we send them back home..." that isn't beneficial to anyone.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you're not in Silicon Valley, forget hiring any H1-Bs. Most software developers outside major tech hubs don't make that much.</comment>


Patent trolls put brakes on S.F. transit app - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Patent-trolls-put-brakes-on-S-F-transit-app-4778304.php

<comment><USER2> A patent is a deal the public makes with an inventor: publish your invention and we'll grant you a time-limited monopoly on it. In order for this to be a good trade, the invention has to make a real intellectual contribution to the art. The problem we have is that no one is unambiguously empowered to ensure that it does so. The PTO does some of this, but has neither the bandwidth to do a good job nor a clear mandate to be hard-ass about it. And then once a patent is granted, the courts tend to defer to the PTO on its validity.

I haven't read the patents in question here, but I nonetheless feel safe in saying that "technologies for tracking vehicles and providing users with electronic updates" cannot possibly make a contribution to the art significant enough to counterbalance the societal cost of the monopoly the patent holder has been granted. I'm sure there are thousands of engineers here on HN that could design and build such a system using well-known techniques.

In some domains, the determination of how much of an intellectual contribution an invention makes is fairly straightforward. If a novel molecule is synthesized -- the chemical and pharmaceutical industries keep a record, I gather, of all molecules whose structures have been worked out, so it's possible to know when a new one appears -- and then proves useful for some medical purpose, it's pretty clear that a contribution has been made, and what that contribution consists of. In software, it's much harder. The field is massive and sprawling, and no one can keep up with all of it.

That's why I'm convinced the only solution is to amend the patent laws to require _objective evidence of nonobviousness_ \-- objective evidence that the invention makes a real intellectual contribution -- in order for a patent holder to successfully sue for infringement. Such evidence could come, for example, in the form of publication in a peer-reviewed journal or conference proceedings. Absent such evidence, the law should direct the court to invalidate the patent.

An advantage of this approach is that it requires no special-case rule for software patents, which run into the difficulty of defining the term "software patent" precisely. Rather, in domains other than software, the required evidence is generally not hard to come by. So the rule is domain-independent in definition -- and defensible as such, I believe -- but would have by far the greatest impact in the software domain.

<comment><USER3> "If a novel molecule is synthesized ... and then proves useful for some medical purpose, it's pretty clear that a contribution has been made, and what that contribution consists of."

That's not the case. There might be one person who thought of the scaffold, another three involved with trying different variations of the side-group, a fifth who had to solve problems when synthesizing it, and so on. Even on the far end, after it's in trials, there's the chance that it's useful for some other effect altogether. That's how Viagra's most notable use was discovered.

See [http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2013/07/17/will- pa...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2013/07/17/will-payments-to- scientists-for-new-drugs-improve-gsks-rd-productivity/) for a recent commentary on the difficulty of figuring out who made "the" contribution.

<comment><USER2> Oh, I'm well aware that it can be hard to figure out _who_ made the contribution.

But I didn't say anything to contradict that. Reread the sentence you quoted: all I said was that it was clear that a contribution _had been made_ : a previously unknown molecule had been synthesized, and a medical use found for it. This is all that matters for the question of _whether_ a patent should be granted. The question of _to whom_ it should be granted is not one I'm considering here.

<comment><USER3> I did misread your statement. I interpreted "a contribution has been made, and what that contribution consists of" as "a contribution _by specific people_ " not "a contribution _to humanity_." I apologize.

However, that does not change the overall intent of my reply, which is that drug discovery is not so clear-cut as you make it out to be.

Take "A previously unknown molecule had been synthesized". Part of drug development includes finding previously known molecules which have new and unexpected actions. Again I point out sildenafil, which was synthesized for use in hypertension and angina pectoris. It was a nurse, during phase I trials, who discovered that was an effective against erectile dysfunction.

As another example, insulin is found in the body. It was first synthesized in the 1960s, but diabetics had to use insulin from animal sources, which was expensive and hard to acquire. Genentech, in 1982, started selling insulin made using E. coli genetically modified with human DNA. Now insulin is relatively inexpensive.

Insulin was not new. The medical use of the chemical was not new. But the method of creating the chemical _was_ new, and for that Genentech received a patent, and a lot of money. This case does not fit your description of how the drug discovery market.

Then there's combination therapies, where the use of two different and already existing drugs has a synergistic effect. Here's a list of some combination therapies which were patented in 2011: [http://sciclips.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/recent- combination-...](http://sciclips.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/recent-combination- therapy-patents/) . Again, these are known chemical compounds, while you've twice asserted that the chemicals has to be "previously unknown" in order to be patented.

To summarize: getting a drug patent does not mean that the chemical has never been seen before.

Then again, your thesis doesn't require that it be unique. You point to drug patents because you believe they must have an "objective evidence of nonobviousness", and you want patents to have the same requirement.

However, that non-obviousness criterion is already required to get a patent. Quoting from Wikipedia: "In modern usage, the term patent usually refers to the right granted to anyone who invents any new, useful, and non-obvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter."

It looks like you want patents to have an additional burden of proof of non- obviousness. For example, "publication in a peer-reviewed journal or conference proceedings" may count. However, you don't realize how easy that is to achieve. Peer review is a relatively low bar. There are any number of so- called 'predatory journals' which are advertised as peer-review, and which take your money and publish, but which don't have an meaningful peer-review system. Someone who pays $10,000 to get a patent will not find it difficult to spend another $1,000 to publish in one of these journals.

It's trivial to start a new academic journal, and have it staffed by friends of yours. In that way, everyone can published peer-reviewed literature. And "conference proceedings"? That's an almost trivial bar.

Your proposal is so easily gamed as to be worthless. How much do you know about the patent system? How much do you know about drug development?

<comment><USER2> I really need to write a much longer essay to develop my argument here. I was trying to express its broad outlines very succinctly. That tends to work only with a sympathetic audience.

My reference to drug patents was intended as an example of a typical case, not an exhaustive exposition of how all such inventions are made.

> It looks like you want patents to have an additional burden of proof of non- > obviousness.

Actually I want to shift the burden of proof. Instead of the PTO or a alleged infringer having to prove that a patent is obvious, I want the burden to be on the applicant to prove that it is nonobvious. I also want objective evidence to be required so the question isn't just a judgment call.

The suggestion that publication could serve as _prima facie_ evidence of nonobviousness was also an example. (For more examples, look up "Graham factors".) That said, I don't accept your criticism. I think courts can tell the difference between well-established, prestigious journals and fly-by-night operations.

Do you have a counterproposal? What do you think should be done, if anything?

<comment><USER3> "My reference to drug patents was intended as an example of a typical case"

Drug patents are perhaps the most unusual type of patent. They have special time extensions, in part because they have an extremely high burden of proof before they can be released, and information about the drug is public long before it can be sold. There are also special exceptions to allow countries to use a patented drug in case of an epidemic.

So I don't think it's useful to regard drug patents as 'a typical case.'

"I want the burden to be on the applicant to prove that it is nonobvious"

As I said, that requirement is already present. In that Graham v John Deer case you mentioned: "The determination of "nonobviousness" is made after establishing the scope and content of prior art, the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue, and the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art."

In that sentence you included "alleged infringer". I think you've mixed two different phases. In the first phase, the patent office must be satisfied that the patent is non-obvious. Once done, the applicant is granted the limited monopoly and the right to sue infringers. The only defense of the alleged infringer is to show that the patent office's determination was incorrect, and one way is to show that it was obvious.

Why should the person with the patent grant have to re-establish non- obviousness when the patent office has already certified that it's non- obvious? More specifically, couldn't the patent grantee simply resend the same information used to get the patent in the first place?

"I also want objective evidence to be required so the question isn't just a judgment call."

Here's the relevant citation from Graham:

> This is not to say, however, that there will not be difficulties in applying > the nonobviousness test. What is obvious is not a question upon which there > is likely to be uniformity of thought in every given factual context. The > difficulties, however, are comparable to those encountered daily by the > courts in such frames of reference as negligence and scienter, and should be > amenable to a case-by-case development. We believe that strict observance of > the requirements laid down here will result in that uniformity and > definiteness which Congress called for in the 1952 Act.

The courts seem to believe (at least in 1966) that the current factors _are_ reasonably objective.

This is all the more interesting because, on the topic of journals you wrote "I think courts can tell the difference between well-established, prestigious journals and fly-by-night operations."

I agree with you. But means that a court uses to make that judgement with a journal is the same means that a court uses to judge non-obviousness in a patent, so you've only redirected the burden of proof, not made it higher.

"Do you have a counterproposal?"

Most assuredly I do not. My attempts at understanding the complexity of the patent system flounder every time.

For example, if the patent lifetime is reduced to 10 years, then I don't know how to handle drug patents, which have a high cost and long public exposure before they can be sold. Perhaps there's a viable alternative business model, but it calls for a huge shift in the industry.

And so on, with more variations than I care to discuss.

<comment><USER2> > I don't think it's useful to regard drug patents as 'a typical case.'

Okay, point taken.

> Why should the person with the patent grant have to re-establish non- > obviousness when the patent office has already certified that it's non- > obvious?

I already addressed that in my initial post (first paragraph).

There's another reason as well. One of the Graham factors is commercial success. At application time, there has not been time to establish the commercial value of the invention. The PTO has to give the applicant the benefit of the doubt. Assuming that most patent litigation doesn't reach trial until several years after the patent is granted, more information will be available then.

> My attempts at understanding the complexity of the patent system flounder > every time.

You're getting bogged down in details. You need to back up and look at the big picture.

Anyway, if you don't like my proposal, here's another one by someone with actual credentials[0]. They're not mutually exclusive, though, and I'm inclined to think both could be valuable.

Gotta run -- more later.

[0] [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117302](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117302)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In many ways the US patent system gives non-US software companies a leg up. It seems as though foreign software companies are rarely (if ever) sued by these "non-practicing entities".

Patent trolls are the #1 reason why I have no intention of opening up shop in the US, at least until the software patent boogeyman goes away.

<comment><USER5> You can be sued anywhere for anything - you are just saying 'words' without giving any facts. People are sued in many countries for intellectual property issues. USA is not alone. The #1 reason you have no intention of opening up shop in the US is probably something else - ie. you are not a US citizen or you wouldn't even know how to incorporate if you tried - come on.

<comment><USER4> I'm very well aware of how to incorporate a company in multiple jurisdictions; it's not hard and rarely expensive. Being a US-citizen isn't necessarily a barrier to opening a company in the US either; there are are whole battery of appropriate visa categories for entrepreneurs.

Indeed you can be sued anywhere for anything, but the matter of jurisdiction arises quite quickly in many cases. Also, American patent trolls don't seem to attempt to sue foreign companies that don't have a presence in the US.

<comment><USER5> Again - words - not facts.

"American patent trolls don't seem..." where did you pull that out of... sounds pretty but you got nothing to back up that statement.

<comment><USER4> You're asking me to prove a negative. I can't find any instances of a US-based patent troll suing, say, a British or Irish or German software company that has no offices, etc in the US, and this is what I'm basing my non-absolute statements on.

Anyway, you appear to be a troll of the internet variety, so I'll leave you in peace because you're in no way trying to debate, but antagonize.

<comment><USER5> I'm a troll because I disagree?

Have you searched the US Court Databases?

As an attorney - I have. Check out lexisnexis for case law. There are hundreds of cases of US owners of patents suing and litigating against international infringers... literally hundreds.

Also, you are totally discrediting the monopolies that run the world and how they have prevented other companies from entering their markets via other aggressive methods or patent purchasing...

<comment><USER4> Those monopolies you're talking of (IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, etc) are subject to US laws and courts because they are US corporations. Other large companies likely also have a presence in the US, which again subjects them to US laws and courts.

Why don't you cite a handful of recent cases (<5 years) in which a British or German software company has been successfully sued in the US for infringing upon a US-registered software patent by a US patent troll? I'm not saying you're wrong, and of course just because I haven't found anything doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but the odds of being successfully sued by a patent troll as a foreign business are vastly less than being sued as a US company. Even if a patent troll were successful in securing judgment (perhaps by default), enforcing a judgment against a foreign company is vastly harder than a domestic one; patent trolls like easy wins.

Nobody in Europe is complaining about US patent trolls suing them because to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't happen. If it does, it's so infrequent that it's a non-issue.

I assume you're a troll because of your comment history. I mean, c'mon, you pretended to be able to read my mind and asserted that my lack of desire to open up an office or business in the US was not because of the risk and costs of a patent troll's attempt at a shake-down, but rather because I don't know how to form a company, or that I'm not a US citizen! If you're really a lawyer I doubt you'd be making such claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How about a crowd sourcing website for patent invalidation. Make it proactive. You get sued or threatened. You go online and post the patent. Maybe other people in the same situation, including once who have yet to be sued, can pitch in. There is one thing that most patent trolls are terrified of, and it's a well researched and filed invalidation claim.

My other suggestion, if you think you might get sued for a particular aspect of your app, try to isolate it as much as possible. For instance, if you have an app that makes money through ads. Form one company that makes the app and another that pays a nominal fee to display ads in that app. One Company makes the money, the other "infringes."

Finally, get any lawyer, any one that will agree to represent you and file a declarative action in your jurisdiction to invalidate your claim.

Just my 2 cents. Maybe some real patent lawyers can chime in.

<comment><USER7> Stack Overflow has a site for that: [http://askpatents.com/](http://askpatents.com/)

They had their first (major) success: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Such a depressing situation. I shudder to think of such a letter arriving to my small (tiny) business. And yet I know it could happen any time. There's simply no way for me to avoid it - I can't possibly anticipate what bogus patent might be thrown at me, it may even be nothing to do with my business. It would probably be game over, shut down, years of hard work down the drain. And even then, I worry that they would sue for damages from past sales, so I may still be screwed.

How do others deal with this risk? Just ignore it and hope for the best? Is it still statistically low enough chance that that is a reasonable thing to do? Incorporate and protect assets so if you are sued you can at least back out without personal financial devastation?

<comment><USER9> Beware, IANAL. Yes, incorporate. Then, if the business isn't worth much and it's just you, ignore any patent trolls. In the unlikely event any take you to court, don't show up or otherwise waste your money on the suit, and if they win then continue to ignore them. In the worst case you go out of business and start another business with the same technology.

<comment><USER4> Ignoring a properly filed lawsuit is pretty much the dumbest thing you can do. If they win by default (which is what happens if you ignore it) they can still successfully come after assets.

<comment><USER9> It's not the dumbest thing you can do when acting on it costs more. They cannot come after your personal assets in the case I described, and the business is not worth much. They are smart enough to not spend more money than they can seize in assets, so it's unlikely to happen.

<comment><USER5> No - it is the dumbest thing you can do. They can win by default... you lose... you don't get to be 're-heard'

<comment><USER4> Are you sure you're a lawyer, as you've claimed elsewhere? I have strong doubts given the way you debate and write.

As a lawyer you should know that (at least in the US) relief from a default judgment is available. Such relief requires a showing of good cause, but the standard for "good cause" doesn't appear to be especially high.

<comment><USER5> a lawyer and owner of a tech patent - not a troll- [http://patents.justia.com/inventor/peter-a- groverman](http://patents.justia.com/inventor/peter-a-groverman)

<comment><USER10> That patent is a fucking joke. You didn't invent anything, and the claims section reads like a parody, buzzword combination without thought or insight.

So you want to profiteer on a broken system? Cool. But don't hang out here, handing out advice and pretending that you're anything but part of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The complexity of software patents has grown beyond the capacity of the patent system to properly evaluate them. As such, it this subsection of the patent system is susceptible to rampant abuse, and can no longer effectively serve the purpose for which it is originally intended.

If this were an engineering problem, the solution would be obvious. Unfortunately, it is political, and therefore a well-dressed circus.

</comment><comment><USER12> Intellectual property should be taxed. If a company is sitting on a patent waiting for someone to violate it so they can sue for $X amount, the company should be taxed for $X amount of property. It would make owning tons of patents and doing nothing with them practically infeasible.

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought BART trip planning was a solved problem, anyway:

[http://worrydream.com/bartwidget/](http://worrydream.com/bartwidget/)

<comment><USER14> If I understood correctly, this included the whole MUNI bus system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone have practical advice for convincing business people not to pursue software patents? Stating it will give you no real protection and is a waste of money is not enough, even when coming from the attorneys.

<comment><USER16> Here is a good resource: [http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.shtml](http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The reality is this is the Patent Law of our Country - if we did NOT have it - everyone here would be saying the exact opposite.

It is 100% necessary - and though there might be casualties such as what is going on here - if we did not have Intellectual Property Rights - we would be at a disadvantage.

My suggestion is anyone being sued connect with the individual suing them and work out terms - everything is negotiable. Why not cut the owners of the patents in on a % of revenues?

<comment><USER17> > My suggestion is anyone being sued connect with the individual suing them > and work out terms - everything is negotiable.

You are condoning extortion. Perhaps, indeed, the individual should negotiate terms -- but for the same reason that if the Mafia showed up to your doorstep, packing heat, then it would be wise to take their demands seriously.

<comment><USER5> Extortion? No. Please. We have a legal process. It was created and it is constantly being developed and reformed. I am supporting our legal process which is not perfect but it is the best we have at the moment.

Love it or not - it is the rules of the game. Someone came up with the idea before you and they registered that idea before you. Vague or not - they had the foresight - and they are indeed entitled to being proprietary.

If you do not like it - challenge it. If you can not afford to challenge it - negotiate for 'fair-use'.

If you think otherwise - you are an amateur.

<comment><USER18> > Love it or not - it is the rules of the game. Someone came up with the idea > before you and they registered that idea before you. Vague or not - they had > the foresight - and they are indeed entitled to being proprietary.

No, they aren't. Upthread you claimed to be an attorney -- you should know better than to suggest that patents cover ideas. They don't. They cover implementations. Having an idea and going "ME FIRST" does nothing to get you protection.

Software patents are patents on ideas. They are a perversion of the patent system and are a plague. Using them to try to get licensing deals is blatantly extortion, and patent trolls know this; setting their settlement costs just shy of what it would cost to mount a competent defense. There is nothing good about this and it isn't even consistent with the rules of 'the game' you love so much.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Android is Google's Agent Smith - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/android-is-googles-agent-smith

<comment><USER2> uhhhh .. I think the majority of the people don't know what version of android is on their phone, don't know why it matters, and don't care. The branding for the various android phones so far is tied to the carrier and the phone manufacturer, not the phone. There is no AndroidPhone. There is the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid.

People just want a phone that's fun and easy to use. If they don't like the phone they have, they will buy a new one when the contract is up, which likely will have a new version (the number of which they won't know or care about) and will work better.

Fragmentation is a big pain for developers and so on, but users don't care and shouldn't need to care.

<comment><USER3> As a user, I care about what OS version I have because that determines the features my phone has, its performance, its compatibility, and its stability. What you describe is the ideal for the manufacturers and the carriers -- they want to keep people in the dark about the software. But the reality is that everyone knows, every phone review includes it, and it's critically important to the end user.

Every Android user I've talked to knows exactly what version their phone runs. Many are patiently waiting for upgrades. Every single phone review tells me exactly what OS version the HTC EVO, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Droid run and I doubt anyone here wouldn't consider that piece of information extremely important in their purchasing decision.

<comment><USER4> Plenty of users buy phones without knowing what Android is or even what an "operating system" is. All thee know is compared to their old phone with a random proprietary OS, this phone has a much more polished interface and apps similar to their friends iPhone.

I'm sure most of the people that read HN care about the details you listed, but I wouldn't assume your average mall-shopper that walks into a cell phone store not knowing the difference between any two phones knows or cares about version numbers or compatibility.

Most non-technical people I've talked to about it have been so confused about the marketing of a phone named "droid" that they think any reference to "android" means that phone.

<comment><USER3> I disagree with your top statement. Every user knows what an operating system is -- they've been educated on that fact for decades. And any user of a "smartphone" knows they're really getting a little computer. The iPhone probably has the broadest market of non-technical users and even they periodically get OS upgrades -- you think their users don't know what that is?

The problem with this conversation is lumping together mobile phones and smartphones. There are very few Android phones marketed to "non-technical people". But they will come, they will be cheap, and nobody will care what OS they run. But the top of line phones, the expensive phones, and the profitable phones will be sold to semi-technical people who know what they're getting.

<comment><USER5> I worked as Nokia's UK and Ireland technical support, both tier 1 and 2, and you are entirely wrong.

Almost no users, including people buying smartphones, have any idea what a phone operating system is. Most users, including people buying smartphones, struggle to tell you what their computer operating system is.

Phones, including smartphones, are not sold like computers. Lots of people buy smartphones because they have the best cameras, or because they're the 'top end' phone, or because 'they want a blackberry' and can't tell a Nokia E61 from a BlackBerry device.

Also, at least in the UK, there's a lot of smartphones - including Android devices - being marketed at the general consumer market. There's not really any phones sold to 'technical' people - the distinction you want to make is 'consumer' versus 'business'. Windows Mobile and BlackBerry are 'business' (traditionally). The iPhone is 'consumer', albeit high-end.

Android phones tend to be consumer-focussed, competing against the iPhone. There's a few Android phones that are priced to the mid- and low-end of the market, and there's a lot of Nokia S60 smartphones in this range. (A lot more than Android or iOS, actually. Nokia are still the #1 smartphone manufacturer.) Most people buying these devices are 'non-technical' and if they understand the difference between 'Android 1.5' and 'Android 2.1', they just don't care.

<comment><USER3> This idea that everyone is an idiot and nothing matters is somewhat depressing. There is no point in designing anything for intelligent people -- there aren't enough of them to matter. People, in general, aren't discriminating at all. It sounds like if you put two items in identical shiny cases, they'll just pick them at random. Putting any effort into making one item better (rather than shinier) is simply wasted.

I can't argue with your evidence -- the fact that Nokia still manages to sell smartphones at all proves nobody is looking too deeply.

<comment><USER6> The idea that people maybe called idiots just because they dont care what os runs their phone is depressing all the more.

I would go on a limb here and hazard to say, that just because certain people don't care about version numbers and esoteric features, doesn't mean they are not intelligent.

People discriminate in accordance to their passions. I can't make much of current shoe fashions and advanced textile materials, nor do I care, I hope that doesn't qualify me as an idiot.

<comment><USER3> I know nothing about photography, but before I drop a couple hundred bucks on a camera I'm going to learn about it and compare its features to other models. I don't know much about cars either but I spend the time researching the details and making comparisons before I make that kind of purchase too. I'm not passionate about photography or cars but I am an informed consumer. I'd like to think that most people are the same.

The comments here are that version numbers are some insignificant detail that _nobody_ cares about. I don't think the version of Android your phone runs is an _esoteric_ detail -- it's pretty fundamental to the capability and enjoyment of the device. I'm not sure why people comparing Android phones to purchase wouldn't consider that a detail worth knowing about.

Now this _is_ a recent development; it used to be that the latest phone in existence had the latest OS. You didn't have to think about it. But Google is pumping out Android versions very quickly and new phones can run anywhere from 1.6 to 2.2. So now it is a point of comparison where it might not have been for old Nokia phones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this author and a lot of other bloggers are missing the point. Android was Google's attempt to get people on the web (an Internet where Google controls the lion's share of the ad market) with their phones. Google doesn't care about "liberating the masses" from the shackles of the carriers.

The reason why Google went with Android and didn't stick to Apple was because Apple didn't really share that interest. Apple wanted to sell iPhones and apps, so they were okay with reducing their market by charging a premium price. That wouldn't get as many people onto the web as a free/cheap, widely available and customizable OS that appeals to carriers and hardware manufacturers.

If you look at the Nexus One through this prism, it also kind of makes sense. The N1 was designed to push hardware specs to a point where multimedia on the Web could function at a satisfactory level, so then people would have more of a reason to buy a smartphone.

</comment><comment><USER4> The summarizing line of the article:

 _For things to really work for them, maybe there should be one kind of device, one OS version and one App store (sounds familiar?)._

I'm not saying I agree, I was disappointed with the author's opinions.

</comment><comment><USER8> What the author seems to be missing is that Google created Android to prevent Apple controlling the mobile space and locking them out. Fragmentation may not be the goal but its inevitable however google doesn't care. Google makes just as much money from iphones and ipads as it does from fragmented android phones. The goal is to ensure Apple doesn't have ultimate control of the mobile space because then they would just cut google out.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think there is a really exciting opportunity for a startup to write some simple desktop software that would allow novice users to root their phone (any android compatible phone) and then choose from a selection of fun, interesting or just more up-to-date os's.

<comment><USER10> And if you think the folks at unrEVOked aren't doing their damnedest to achieve that goal, then I think you're mistaken.

However, the reason they don't have that toy (and the same reason another random startup won't) is because the process does carry some non-zero risk and complexity when viewed across the spectrum of all devices. It is my opinion that the risk is only going to get worse over time, given the animosity that hardware manufacturers feel toward the hacker community.

Jailbreakme.com is outstanding, but they only had to deal with a small microcosm of hardware/OS tuples (which, if I'm not mistaken, is actually the topic under discussion right now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's going to be very interesting to see how aggressive Microsoft gets pushing Bing as the default search on Android phones. The rumor was VZ cost them $500-$600M. T-Mobile & Sprint are going to be much cheaper. So it seems for only about $1B they can capture a huge chunk of mobile search. It's way too late for Google to make some big anti-competitive push to ice out Bing. They'll have to pay their way onto their own platform. That's rough.

<comment><USER12> Consumers aren't going to tolerate that kind of lock-in, and in many cases will use Google just the same.

In order for Microsoft to actually get anything out of this, they're going to have to treat Android as a first-class platform, and beat the user experience of Google Maps, Search, Voice Search, Gmail, Goggles, and so on on Android.

Microsoft doesn't have those kind of engineering chops. They can barely even manage a decent UX on Windows Desktop. (We'll see about Windows Phone 7, but I will be very surprised if it's legitimately better than Android, even Android with Bing baked-in.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Over the past few months, the Tech world has been imploding over Android's openness._

No wonder this office is staring to feel kind of cramped.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why would Google care about fragmentation so long as apps in every version can display ads? I don't really see the author's point.

</comment><comment><USER15> One OS, one device (or a small handful of very similar devices), and one app store is simpler, but not necessary. What didn't work was the crazy panoply of design options of the windows mobile world, where screens could vary from a large HTC device to a tiny clamshell screen and where you could have a number pad on one phone, a full hw keyboard on another, and a touch screen on another. That degree of diversity is difficult to make high quality apps for. However, android is a bit better, there is less diversity and especially fewer giant gaps in capabilities. The amount of additional effort it takes to write an app that works well on a Droid 2 as well as a Galaxy S is insignificant next to the comparable effort for targeting both an HTC 8525 and a tiny clamshell phone with no kb, no touchscreen, and a 120px resolution screen. The desktop PC world manages this challenge just fine.

And ultimately catering to users' particular individual needs is likely to be a better market strategy in the long term compared to the "one true device for everyone!" ideal of Apple.

</comment><comment><USER16> Android is Google's attempt to destroy Apple's App Store model.

<comment><USER17> No, no it isn't.</comment></comment>


How I posted my résumé on Monster, then wrote a Cocoa app. - <AUTHOR> http://acktechnology.posterous.com/how-i-posted-my-resume-on-monster-then-ended#!/

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, I knew I should have put something in about 900 lines of code in a night. Oh well. ;-)</comment>


Saussure: The accidental father of structuralism - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/ferdinand-de-saussure-accidental-father-structuralism/ <comment><USER2> I wish that when structuralist and post- philosophy was breezed over in some college course in the late 90s, I had been prompted to trace the thread back to Saussure. We spent quite enough time on Lévi-Strauss, IMHO...

</comment><comment><USER3> Obligatory joke: I used to be a structuralist, but now I'm not Saussure.

(It also gives clues how to pronounce his name.)

<comment><USER4> Well, good and bad clues, since it's SO-syur, not SO-shure.</comment></comment>