What Happens After Amazon's Domination Is Complete? Its Bookstore Offers Clues - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/technology/amazon-domination-bookstore-books.html <comment><USER2> Shit, Amazon's already doing this with other stuff. They have a giant counterfeiting problem across the board, and internal systems that only make it worse by fulfilling an order from one vendor with stock from a different one if that happens to be closer to the customer.

I first started hearing about it around the 2017 eclipse, when people ordering glasses designed to let you safely stare into the sun got fakes that wouldn't do the job properly, but it seemed to already be pretty widespread by now.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/13/how- to-p...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/13/how-to-protect- your-family-from-dangerous-fakes-on-amazon-this-holiday-season/#31bab2217cf1)

<comment><USER3> The counterfeit climbing gear with fake safety logos in particular bothers me...

<comment><USER4> That sounds extremely terrifying. Got a source, please?

A quick search resulted only in less safety critical gear like maps, clothing etc.. Not saying that this isn't dangerous, too, but are their fake carabiners, ropes and helmets?

<comment><USER3> [https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/online_budget_g...](https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/online_budget_gear_- _the_perils_of_the_bargain_buy-11904)

Which talks about fake safety logos and [https://www.outsideonline.com/2073311/dangerous-climbing- har...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2073311/dangerous-climbing-harnesses- being-sold-ebay) which is about eBay rather than Amazon. My personal experience is that Amazon suggests obviously sketchy, NON-UIAA / CE gear rather than established brands. I've bought a lot of caving, climbing, and mountaineering equipment on Amazon and haven't had a problem yet buying Petzl, Elderid, BD etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's very simple, amazon and all such stores should be held liable for the fraud and lost business as if they themselves created the counterfeit goods. macys wouldn't be given a free pass if it sold counterfeit nikes in their B&M store. so why does amazon get one, they take a 15% cut just like macys does.

<comment><USER6> It is very hard to eliminate false-positives without introducing a raft of false-negatives as well. If you held Amazon liable for anything bad a 3rd party merchant ever does, they will react by clamping down on all unverified merchants, and a lot of small/medium businesses will find themselves caught in the crossfire. Especially those who don't fall under the umbrella of Amazon's good graces. Is that really what you want?

More generally speaking, do we believe there's any value in having open platforms with platform-owners who aren't trying to police every single actor using the platform? There have certainly been many politicians who wanted to regulate the internet as a whole, similar to how you've asked for Amazon to be regulated. Would society be better off if ISPs were held liable for any fraud/unlawful behavior that happens on their networks, and were expected to police all internet traffic they were routing?

<comment><USER7> > Would society be better off if ISPs were held liable for any fraud/unlawful > behavior

Not a good analogy, ISPs are dumb pipes. Amazon boosts and profits from bad actors. None of them would have a chance to get the reach Amazon provides them. Of course Amazon should be held accountable. I don't buy the "open platform" angle when it comes to FB, Google, etc.

<comment><USER8> Sure, but we're talking about directional shifts. Do you want Amazon to move in the direction of being a laissez faire platform that is open to everyone? Or do you want it to move in the direction of being a tightly controlled ecosystem where all merchants are at the whims of Amazon's corporate overlords? Your suggestion would move Amazon towards the latter

<comment><USER7> > where all merchants are at the whims of Amazon's corporate overlords

Very dramatic. If you don't want to be subject to Amazon, run your own shop. It's easier than ever before. I really don't understand how counter-fitters should be under any kind of protection by Amazon. And why Amazon should not be held to a standard that does not make them accomplices to black sheep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you have a brick and mortar store and you repeatedly sell counterfeit goods, you'll be repeatedly raided and probably shut down by some authority.

It's strange (ok, not really, and not surprising) that one of the biggest, richest, smartest companies is given a pass on following the same rules that little people have to follow.

Amazon has no legitimate excuse, period. And if Bezos is the high performing micromanager that we've read about, then it's a certainty that he knows that they are flagrantly selling (or facilitating the sale of) counterfeit goods.

Let's put this a different way: If some of the products on Amazon were known to be hollow shells filled with drugs, you can bet that Amazon would suddenly become capable of identifying and preventing the sale of illegal products.

<comment><USER10> > drugs, you can bet that Amazon would suddenly become capable of identifying > and preventing the sale of illegal products.

Although they probably still wouldn't face any legal liability, going back to your parenthetical comment "not surprising".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honest question: With so many alternatives to Amazon (direct brand retail, Walmart, Target, regional competitors) probably offering lesser fake products and still failing, doesn't it mean that the overall consumer base is not as concerned about the fake product issue?

It could be because:

1) Fake product issue is not as widespread (per user, seller or per transaction)

2) Fake product cases are usually resolved in a satisfactory enough way to dissuade the consumer/seller from seeking alternatives

3) The annoyance of getting a fake product is outweighed by other conveniences offered

If any of the above is true, well, there is not a real problem for Amazon to address.

Of course, the assumption is that there are theoretical alternatives to Amazon for getting stuff you need, minus the convenience perhaps, but with higher degree of trust in product quality.

<comment><USER12> I suspect a lot of people just have no idea they received a fake item.

<comment><USER13> this! 100 times this! In a totally unregulated market consumers have very little access to information to make a proper decision. some markets should not be free EDIT: alternative is to limit size of companies so there is proper competition

<comment><USER14> If the consumer has no idea it received a fake product how is the proper decision not getting the cheaper conterfeit?

<comment><USER15> I commented something similar on an article here about a year ago, and people had some good points[0]:

> Heavy metal poisoning may take years to show effects.

> Shoddily made laptop chargers may be a fire/shock hazard that kill in > 100/1,000,000 instead of 1/1,000,000 cases.

> Not every dangerous counterfeit is immediately obvious as such.

> If you're slathering it all over your body but you have no idea where or how > it was made, do you suppose that you might suffer from deferred regret at > some point in the future?

So, yeah, if the counterfeit is just as good, then fantastic. If it's not, that's a problem. If it's not in a non-obvious way that affects health or safety, that's a big problem.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17526538](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17526538)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe a good indicator for other IP/copyright centric business models. Where "product", a.k.a. data, is artificially made hard to access. That is going to die as a business model at some point, including for Amazon, and that day can't come soon enough. If you're heart is still in that business, you had better enjoy lobbying, because that's your purpose, and you better not care about improving society, because you're not making the world a better place when you succeed.

I don't think books are a good indicator of what will befall real products. There's no doubt Amazon is causing major pains in that area, but I don't think they'll ever "complete" that domination.

<comment><USER17> > Where "product", a.k.a. data, is artificially made hard to access. That is > going to die as a business model at some point

I actually see a different future. Artificial scarcity becomes easier with improvements to cryptography. I think the future is full of artificially scarce goods, such as music, video, crypto kitties, etc.

<comment><USER18> Cory Doctorow argues that you can't encrypt people's media and also hand them the decryption keys they need in order to consume it, and not expect those decryption keys to leak.

[https://corydoctorow.miraheze.org/wiki/DRM_and_MSFT:_A_Produ...](https://corydoctorow.miraheze.org/wiki/DRM_and_MSFT:_A_Product_No_Customer_Wants#DRM_systems_don.27t_work)

<comment><USER19> This is only possible if the user can examine what their computers are doing. These days we have restricted boot ("secure boot") and "trusted platform modules" (which can be used for good though) that allow computers to do decryption without the user being able to see it.

For example my Galaxy S9 phone has a locked bootloader. It only boots software signed by Samsung's private key. Google makes DRM software, Netflix and co. sign on, Samsung puts the DRM in their phones because they're useless without Netflix.

The only way to find out how to decrypt the video is to crack the hardware. And some companies might make shitty hardware, but Apple has shown that it's very possible to make a locked down device that takes millions+ of dollars to hack.

Intel iirc had special paths in their processors for video DRM. Google's Widewine DRM is available in all the major browsers. MS has been pushing restricted boot for a while. All that's left is for them to make it mandatory.

Of course none of this matters because you can just record the screen or the speakers... If you're serving content into Bob's eyes or ears then he can use fake eyes or ears to record it.

<comment><USER20> There's also the analog loopback, which for audio, has way less signal degradation than the compression consumers readily accept. For video, they already tried to restrict any analog outputs with DRM, but for audio, that would hurt much more.

<comment><USER21> Give it 30 years - iphones done have 3.5mm jacks any more, apple have patents on shutting down cameras with certain invisible patterns on a screen

<comment><USER20> Presumably the people who siphon media out from a walled garden on a large scale wouldn't do it on mobile, but given your timeframe of 30 years, who knows if we even have general purpose computers then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> tl;dr: because they've already won, Amazon has zero reason (financial or moral) to fight counterfeit products. Nothing the consumer says or does can meaningfully impact Amazon's bottom line, and no regulation exists (nor is likely to exist in the future) to force them to "fix their shit".

Unlike banks, Amazon is now simply too big to fail.

(Because unlike banks, Amazon has a million and one services that all more than compensate for each other. Amazon, the website, is barely a fraction of Amazon, the corporation)

<comment><USER23> > Unlike banks, Amazon is now simply too big to fail.

A generation ago, you could have said that about Microsoft. Somebody can indeed force them to "fix their shit" \-- government. ...and they will. You can already see some ripples on the pond. Watch out, though, because the government can have a heavy hand and often the cure is worse than the disease.

<comment><USER24> Well, wake me up when Microsoft get to fix their shit.

<comment><USER20> You may not like MS products, but I think their capability to seek rent is much, much lower than the antitrust days. The story looks like the competition did it instead of regulation, but who knows if an undeterred, ruthless Microsoft would have fought back better and dirtier.

<comment><USER24> > their capability to seek rent is much, much lower than the antitrust days

Well, I do agree with that, with two large caveats:

\- their capability to seek rent is still enormous, they are still one of the most powerful companies in the world on that;

\- and I have no idea how much of that loss comes from government intervention and competition, instead of previous bad management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > An Amazon spokeswoman denied that counterfeiting of books was a problem, > saying, "This report cites a handful of complaints, but even a handful is > too many and we will keep working until it's zero." The company said it > strictly prohibited counterfeit products and last year denied accounts to > more than one million suspected "bad actors."

If it were just a handful of cases, you wouldn't have a million "bad actors" getting caught. You'd have a handful. A million people a year aren't trying this because it's _un_ profitable.

<comment><USER26> I believe they're saying there were a handful of cases where they didn't catch it.

<comment><USER25> Sure, and I'm saying that doesn't pass the smell test.

A million accounts a year being banned means folks are seeing all that trouble (it's not anywhere near as easy a process as just signing up for a consumer Amazon account) as worthwhile.

<comment><USER27> A million accounts can be made by a handful of bad actors.

<comment><USER28> Maybe Amazon should know more about who their sellers actually are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Honestly I don't understand why this is so hard to solve, unless amazon is willfully ignoring it.

If the item is shipped by a third party directly, tracing the counterfeit origin is easy.

It's the comingling at the Amazon fulfillment centers that muddies the water. However, why not just tag each individual item with the supplying vendor as it arrives? You must of course credit them with stock, so just assign a code for that unit or box or pallet connected to that seller. They can still cross- fulfill (though I don't think they should) and record the origin code with each order as it's packed. Don't tell me this is too complicated for Amazon. It's an extra code like a second SKU per item, not conceptually challenging. Of course there are process issues to solve, but this should be a huge internal priority for Amazon. I see it as a weak spot that leaves room for a competitor to do better.

Of course identifying fakes is still a challenge, manufacturers have long had systems for verifying authentic units. If a $20 webcam has a unique serial number I don't see why we couldn't have one for an $80 board game.

<comment><USER30> They do already offer this, but it's not free, and you have to re-label each item with your barcode, and cover up any UPC codes, if possible.

The base problem is that UPC. Amazon wants to use it to identify everything, as it's already there, and easy to use. However, it's also easy to counterfeit along with the item.

It would also be a significant technical challenge, as it would increase the size of Amazon's item database by at least an order of magnitude, and would increase the amount of unique bins they need to maintain in the warehouse by a lot too.

They clearly need to do something, but understand why they don't want to go down the road of tagging per-vendor if they can avoid it. On more expensive items, they seem to be trying the alternative of allowing vendors that control their supply chains to also exercise control of the amazon supply chain. It's starting to hit for more prominent vendors. I can no longer sell used Canon lenses on Amazon anymore. To do so, I need approval, which consists of "At least 1 purchase invoice for products from a manufacturer or distributor, 1 letter from Canon authorizing you to sell their products". (Note, this is for selling used gear, not new, or like-new. Just normal, used camera lenses that I bought and no longer need.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Slightly OT but I just won a bet with a buddy of mine who works at Wholefoods. Somewhat knowing Amazon for huge variety of products, he assumed Amazon will even add more products to Wholefoods palette. I told him to the contrary - Amazon is a hard core analytics company with simple website [todays standards] and incredibly rich physical delivery network. We bet $100. Yesterday I visited him at work. Year later Amazon hs cut off its 365 brand of awesome organic stuff unique to Wholefoods and is on plan to cut 20% more products according to internal email he received. Whatever didn't hit "moving average" high enough is getting sliced - no more 25 types of meat, just one vacuum packed not even prepared at Wholefoods. Amazon is on its path to destroy the brand. Soon there won't be anything there that you canmt buy at Wallmart at 10% discount. / rant

<comment><USER32> You can please 80% of customers with 20% of products, but that 20% is different for every customer.

<comment><USER33> Sure but there is always a tension between being able to address as much of the potential customer base as possible and profitability. On one end of the spectrum you have grocers like Aldi or Lidl that have slashed prices and margins by reducing SKUs (among other cost saving measures). Whole Foods probably has some room to shed unprofitable inventory so long as it preserves its upscale, ecologically conscious brand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm confused how there isn't a huge opportunity for an online dept store with 100% vetted goods here. Does such a thing exist? If not why not? If so how can one find it? What keywords point to it? They win if they can get that keyword into the minds of the general public.

<comment><USER35> Walmart. I've been Amazon Prime for years, but whenever I need to buy something with a high risk of being counterfeit (printer ink is the most common one for me), I use Walmart - and it's free shipping from them anyway. Really the only difference is that Amazon usually gets it to my door faster.

<comment><USER36> I don't know the details, but Walmart is also moving towards more of being an online marketplace: [https://marketplace.walmart.com/](https://marketplace.walmart.com/)

Is the inventory commingled, are the sellers better vetted, is it obvious that you are buying from a 3rd party and not Walmart, all that I don't know. Just pointing this out.

<comment><USER37> Target.com is okay for now, but supposedly they are going to start going that way also. These days, I look to purchase on the official brand's website first, or whichever seller they link to on the brand's website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Yet another problem that hasn't been solved by letting companies run unregulated to do whatever is most profitable. What a surprise!

<comment><USER39> Your point stands regardless, but Amazon famously _doesn 't_ do what is most profitable. Their profits as a business (ignoring AWS) are woeful.

<comment><USER38> That seems like a fairly short-sighted view. Much of Amazon's strategy seems to be giving up short term profit to establish a monopoly for much larger long-term profit. They aren't perfect, and have certainly made some unprofitable decisions over the years, but I think that their overall strategy is VERY profitable, even if it hasn't yet yielded all the profits it is going to.

<comment><USER39> Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994. They have yet to produce an impressive profit margin (outside web services which isn't really relevant to this specific thread). How long sighted are we talking here?

The raw numbers are impressive, but they clearly aren't in the game of profit maximisation as we knew it back in the 80s. That is why nobody is really managing to compete with them.

I don't really see how they could maintain a monopoly and a margin at the same time. If they had actual profit margins then other companies would compete with them. The reason they look like a monopoly at the moment is because they have no margins. If they change that, competition will spring up like mushrooms.

Amazon is basically a web services provider by profit. All the other stuff they do is a mysterious distraction. If you want a company making for-profit decisions, look at how Apple runs itself.

<comment><USER38> > How long sighted are we talking here?

As long as it takes to get the monopoly.

This can't be rushed. Their competition is from i.e. Walmart. These competitors are big and a single major event isn't going to take them down. It requires a series of major events for a company of that size to fall out of serious competition. But it does happen: look at Sears. It took almost three decades, starting with a pricing scandal in 1992 to declaring bankruptcy in 2018, with many mis-steps along the way, but they did eventually fall.

> I don't really see how they could maintain a monopoly and a margin at the > same time. If they had actual profit margins then other companies would > compete with them.

By that logic, monopolies can't be profitable, but they clearly are profitable, so your logic must be faulty.

Once a company reaches a certain scale, it becomes very difficult to start a competing company for a bunch of reasons:

1\. First to market advantage: name recognition. Amazon is a household name. A new company isn't. A new company could overcome this with marketing, but marketing costs money, and then they have to pass that cost on to consumers, and Amazon will win on price.

2\. First to market advantage: pre-existing infrastructure. Amazon has warehouses everywhere, so they can deliver to most places quickly. In places like NYC or SF they can deliver something from a few miles away, so they can deliver it on the same day. They have already spent this money, so they can provide this speed at a lower cost. A new company could overcome this by building out their own infrastructure, but this costs money which they have to pass on to consumers, and again Amazon wins on price.

3\. Efficiencies of scale: Amazon is already huge. If it costs them $10 to write a line of code or lay a brick, that cost is amortized across millions of purchases that occur each day. A new company has to write the same line of code and lay the same brick to provide the same feature or distribution center, but that cost is amortized across only a few hundred purchases a day when they're new.

There are more reasons, but basically, Amazon is well past the point where new companies could pop up and reasonably compete with them based on profit margins alone. They still have competition, but it's from the likes of Walmart --other giant companies that already have some of the same advantages Amazon does. It would be possible for a newcomer to compete, but it would require an extraordinary innovation which is highly unlikely.

> The reason they look like a monopoly at the moment is because they have no > margins. If they change that, competition will spring up like mushrooms.

They don't look like a monopoly because they aren't yet. They have major competition with, for example, Walmart.

<comment><USER39> > As long as it takes to get the monopoly.

They aren't going to get a monopoly. They are operating in a market that is famously cut-throat and competitive that any motivated person can succeed in by cutting prices far enough.

> By that logic, monopolies can't be profitable, but they clearly are > profitable, so your logic must be faulty.

My logic is fine. They are a middleman in a free market - monopoly is practically impossible. I don't see what is stopping anyone, including myself, jumping in to the same market as Amazon except for the fact there is no margin to be made because Amazon is the cheapest provider.

Monopoly (funny to say) isn't a reflection of number of providers in a market even though that is the outcome. Monopoly captures the idea of how easy it is for new entrants to move in to a market. Building a new company isn't easy, but it isn't especially hard.

> Once a company reaches a certain scale, it becomes very difficult to start a > competing ...

These points are all off topic for monopolies. Having economies of scale (which is what you list) gives competitive advantages but it isn't going to let Amazon take the market somewhere it doesn't want to go. If Amazon isn't fulfilling a need, someone else will. If Amazon is fulfilling the need at a low price, they aren't an abusive monopoly they are a success story we are all grateful for. 'Monopolies' that brutally suppress the price of goods for decades on end are a good outcome. More to the point, they aren't monopolies, they are just effective competitors - because as you point out a monopoly should be profitable.

Amazon isn't in a market where it is possible to build a monopoly, and if they do the government can squelch it when they get there. And making sane decisions to build a competitive advantage at scale isn't monopolistic, it is an encouraged feature of most serious companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Plot twist: the publisher is selling the counterfeits too. Why sell one good book when you can sell one bad one through Amazon and _then_ one good one directly from your site?

Ok, probably not, but if we're talking about the dystopian end state of a system where the middlemen have gotten out of control then maybe we should look out for things like that.

In _Anathem_ (a sci-fi novel) Stephenson describes a future where for every authentic version of a document on the net there are millions of fake ones-- bogons, they call them. The history of how the bogons (and the defence system that successfully ignores them most of the time) is somewhat left to the imagination, but I imagined it like this:

\- Content creators set up special channels where they can get paid for access to the content.

\- Parasites infiltrate the channels and resell access the content, undercutting the Creators.

\- The Creators ban the Parasites from the channels, so they can't make copies of the content.

\- The Parasites re-infiltrate without much delay.

\- The Creators stop banning the Parasites, and instead--after identifying them--serve them slightly degraded content, so rather than having to compete with themselves, the Creators now compete with a slightly shittier version of themselves. They hope the Parasites don't notice the content degradation.

\- The Parasites notice the degradation and get new identities, and continue reselling the original content.

\- There arms race between these parties produces better and better fakes, to the point where there's so much fake news (or whatever content) that the only way to verify its authenticity is to re-do the journalism yourself to see what you find.

In my version, the Creators win by establishing an economy of trust (part PGP, part cryptocurrency) where being a parasite is less profitable than either making good content or helping distribute good content (in a way that benefits the creator and gives the consumer reason to believe that they're not being lied to).

I'm not sure if I think this will actually happen, but if it does then we'll have to go through the pre-web-of-trust darkness (where the light of truth is occluded by bogons) before things are reliably authentic again.

</comment><comment><USER41> It sounds like there are a million deceived customers and cheated small businesses, but no individual customer or small business can take on Amazon. How about a kickstarter or other crowdfunding plan to raise money from everyone who's suffered due to Amazon's apparent tolerance of counterfeits? I.e., if you received a counterfeit product, or if your product or book was counterfeited and sold on Amazon (like the Antimicrobial Therapy handbook)?

The kickstarter plan would be to either sue Amazon as class, or sue based on the best individual cases in all available jurisdictions, or failing all of that, to lobby the government to bring Amazon under control. Assuming it got enough funding, is there any chance that the lawsuits or lobbying would work?

<comment><USER42> Well, I think lawyers in class action suits typically work on contingency, so there wouldn't be any up-front cost to suing, and they would just take a big chunk of the settlement or judgement instead as a fee.

However, as is the trend nowadays, Amazon's Conditions of Use[1] include an arbitration clause, so that will probably make it rather difficult to bring a suit anyway.

EDIT: clarification

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201909000)

<comment><USER43> It's such bullshit that they can do that, especially as they're so dominant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Unfortunately, I only see a way to solve this for fungible goods where you would still need to get every actor involved in the supply chain to upgrade to the same secure tracking solution. It could be done in theory with crypto and tamper-proof packaging, but overcoming the network effect of today's archaic supply chains would be a huge undertaking.

The article points out how sellers are creating unique, non-fungible goods. So how does a customer even initially know that they're discovering 'the original' and not something that has been re-branded? With a Lamborghini, re- naming the car to another brand isn't a problem since the customer won't find it (and a supply chain integrity solution might work.) But how would you solve the Amazon problem?

I suppose you could have a time-locked escrow account where sale funds had to be locked there for N days. That way there would be time to challenge counterfeit sales and re-distribute the funds to the original authors (and / or make customers whole) when fraud was detected. But I am pretty sure people would hate that. Everyone would have to agree to use it for it to work and it wouldn't stop the potential for brand damage from low-quality counterfeits.

If it were a short enough time-lock though, it might work? High enough that it removes the incentive for fraud, low enough that it doesn't frustrate vendors.

</comment><comment><USER45> Also Amazon is increasingly painful to use. It's a good time to start the new product search engine.

<comment><USER46> I agree. There are some really great product search engines available in Germany (geizhals.de and idealo.de) that allow you to search many many articles by custom criteria (depending on their category) and then do a price comparison.

Amazon lacks basic search filters. And it has a lot of other annoyances. For example when I search for shoes in my size, Amazon won't display the price of the shoes in my size until I click on the shoes. Instead of shows the price range for all sizes in the list of shoes. Makes it a huge hassle to browse through a lot of shoes.

<comment><USER47> Exactly. Anything with options on Amazon is a terrible user experience now. One hack I found is the mobile app will give you the price along with the option. Why the desktop site is now worse than mobile I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> > This is not really negligence on Amazon's part. It is the company's business > model.

Still sounds like negligence. Obviously non-trivial to fix too.

Still, it's Amazons responsibility to do so.

<comment><USER49> Knowing that someone is breaking the law (with your support, even!) is not negligence.

Amazing mental gymnastics over there :-)

<comment><USER48> Well, it's either negligence, or active assistance. ;)

<comment><USER49> It can also be passive: they're making money from it, the threat of lawsuits to counterbalance the money they're making seems to be low right now, so they just turn a blind eye to it.

I refuse to believe that a company with these values: [https://www.amazon.jobs/en-gb/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en- gb/principles), a pretty thorough recruitment process, probably 100k engineers (including many, many data engineers) on their payroll, etc. can't do better about identifying fakes.

It's just not in their interest because $$$.

<comment><USER48> > It's just not in their interest because $$$.

Meh, I'd call that negligence. They're knowingly allowing harm to come to others, through putting in a token effort (CYA style) rather than instituting meaningful change.

And it's their marketplace, so they get to set the rules, and they have significant resources if they actually wanted to engage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is why the FTC should be taking a close, hard look at these guys. The FTC has many tools it can use. They could force Amazon to institute fraud control that actually passes a blush test, or face massive penalties for not complying. Having a monopoly is bad enough. Having an unaccountable, unregulated monopoly is intolerable.

</comment><comment><USER51> Idk how closely you guys are watching but industry around Amazon affiliates is huge and getting bigger. Amazon is basically outsourcing discovery to third party which means their AI can't keep up. I believe Amazon could be disrupted by niche player who do discovery and quality right.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's interesting to note that the screenshot of the review of Murder On the Orient express is complaining about CreateSpace [1] an Amazon subsidiary that does print-on-demand stuff.

[1] [https://www.createspace.com/](https://www.createspace.com/)

</comment><comment><USER53> Counterfeiting killed reliable brands. Try to find a good charger or surge protector: on amazon they all are fake and nobody else is selling them - it's impossible to compete with amazon's fakes.

</comment><comment><USER54> Laissez-faire attitude toward counterfeiting + prescription drugs = what could possibly go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER55> Reminds me of this post by Richard Stallman:

[https://stallman.org/amazon.html](https://stallman.org/amazon.html)

And it looks like the list needs to be extended.

</comment><comment><USER56> Anecdotally, I just cancelled Amazon Prime. Domination won't be --complete-- until they get me back.

</comment><comment><USER57> Yeah, don't buy it on Amazon if you don't literally want to purchase the knock-off version.

</comment><comment><USER58> The solution is pretty simple: stop buying stuff from amazon 'because of the convenience'.

</comment><comment><USER59> Couldn't read the article because NYTimes blocks my incognito browser mode. Times are changing.

</comment><comment><USER60> the digital nature of information removes the need of exclusive ownership. we must find a way to make a marketplace function without exclusive ownership.

<comment><USER61> Prepayment instead of post-payment could work.

An author asks for money upfront. This amount is going to fund the creation of the work. Then a copy goes to the preparers to do as they wish (including making copies to distribute). I foresee crowd funded prepayments to be the norm in the future, and also sponsorships (like patreon) style payments would be the alternative model.

<comment><USER62> Prepayment can't work for the first creation produced. By induction prepayment can't work for new authors.

<comment><USER61> > Prepayment can't work for the first creation produced.

why would this be necessarily true? And prepayment could work if the payment is discounted enough for unknown creators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> From a product quality point of view, they have long peaked. From a customer service point of view, I've yet to see something better in the consumer space.

</comment><comment><USER64> I really don't see how Amazon is any different to Pirate Bay here.

I take it there aren't too many pirate movies being sold so that Hollywood won't get involved.

<comment><USER65> An irony here is that it looks like you are increasingly more likely to get the real book if you go to Libgen rather than Amazon.

<comment><USER66> The old Yo Ho has rarely gotten me anything not as described. The same cannot be said for amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> sounds like there is a niche for a store with proper quality control

</comment><comment><USER67> So counterfeits are an invention of Amazon? Amazon's business model is counterfeits, and they have no interest of curbing the practice?

What a bullshit article, in the usual fashion: collecting a bunch of anecdotes, to convince readers "emotionally" that Amazon is the devil.

The reality is probably that at the scale of Amazon, some issues are bound to happen. "Journalists" looking for "evidence" can always find some anecdotes to relay.

Counterfeiting is big business in China and other places. It's presumably a difficult problem. It would exist with or without Amazon. Article does not give any indication that it would be easier for Amazon to fight it.

</comment><comment><USER68> Darn I clicked the link, I gave NYT money due to my fear.

Although this doesnt change anything. Given how easy it would be for a competitor Fortune 500 to dump resources and marketing into a competing store, they could never 'get away with murder'.

FAANG has more to worry about the tech bubble, than the world with FAANG.

</comment><comment><USER69> We've been told that the antidote to deep fakes is supply chain security. It's troubling to hear that supply chain security is already broken and by fairly unsophisticated attackers from the sounds of it.

<comment><USER70> Is the term "deep fakes" commonly used to refer to counterfeit merchandise? I hadn't heard it used that way before.

<comment><USER61> I would not use deep fakes to refer to counterfeit goods. Deep fakes refers only to artificially generated videos of a real person (usually face, but it could include voice).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> > But Amazon takes a hands-off approach to what goes on in its bookstore, > never checking the authenticity, much less the quality, of what it sells. It > does not oversee the sellers who have flocked to its site in any organized > way

Uh... this seems like an unsubstantiated claim. It's my understanding Amazon has multiple team actively working on manual and automated anti-fraud including for counterfeit.

I think there's more inherent problems to this:

1\. Making it easier for sellers to sell, mean it's also easier for fraudsters to do so. 2\. Being so popular and central means all fraudsters focus their energy on it.

</comment><comment><USER72> "Counterfeit" is a good thing in my book, as long as there's a way to know the quality of the product before you buy it.

Saying that there's zero counterfeit implies that quality is always the same (good quality, most of the time).

By not acknowledging the existance of counterfeit, Amazon doesn't allow us to publicize and hence compare the quality of different sellers.

<comment><USER73> The article talks about a medical handbook whose dosage recommendations might be affected by OCR errors. You want that to come straight from the source and not a scanned copy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I for one really enjoy Amazon's dominion. If your old enough to remember the Bell System before it was broken up, the airlines before they were deregulated, Amtrak before they lost government funding, or the postal service before they had to sell out to all the direct mailers to turn a profit — I'd say every once in a while the economists and political scientists can step back and take a break. Seriously. Fly Emirates, ride Eurorail, switch to T-Mobile, burn your mailbox - I think that is about as close as you can get these days. Since the US stopped subsidizing the dairy industry, the snap crackle pop of my cocoa crispies cost as much as a real breakfast. Two industries I'd love to see Amazon disrupt next are healthcare and car rentals. They are both overrun with vested interests and old fogies that have forgotten what a customer is. Amazon could be the first company to have an significant and quantifiable interest in their customers not dying AND do something about it. What customer would be more loyal then the one whose life you literally saved? I'm also pretty sure the entire IRS could be an Alexa skill and I wouldn't shed a tear if it were. How is democracy working out for us these days? I kinda think it's been swirling since about 1963, give or take, maybe Jeff Bezos should be King? Sure some people won't be happy but no matter what you do some people never will be.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you share programming knowledge in your team? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> We share knowledge (in general) via pair programming and lunch-and-learn presentations. Emails and code review also facilitate this sharing to a lesser extent.

<comment><AUTHOR> If there's a specific knowledge to some of your projects, do you write it down somewhere?

One can always use readmes + comments but we struggle with the fact that readmes aren't dynamic and people don't update them, and comments are basically part of the code, so they are buried in the codebase.

<comment><USER2> Team members on our oncall rotation make use of, and update, runbooks. These have the frequently-occurring issues and resolutions that responders need to be aware of. We make sure these get updated as our knowledge expands.

General project knowledge is somewhat scattered between Confluence and Dropbox Paper. Important docs may be linked from the code, but we haven't done a great job of, for example, ensuring future developers know where to find design/decision documents. I have seen some teams implement readmes or automatically pull some specially-commented code into Confluence, but that has mostly been for code at the infrastructure/framework level that does not change frequently.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Did Zynga Tank After Facebook IPOed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/why-did-zynga-drop-after-facebooks-ipo/257395/

<comment><USER2> The reason is obvious to me. In fact it is so obvious now that I am kicking myself for not finding a way to make money out of it.

It is related to the reasoning proferred by the Atlantic, but it is not exactly it. It is true that Zynga and facebook are very related. And for that reason, it seems to me that a lot of Zynga shareholders were holding Zynga shares not because they want to own Zynga, but because they want to own Facebook and there was no way to buy Facebook on the public markets until today.

So a lot of Zynga shareholders were merely holding Zynga as a proxy for Facebook. Once Facebook was offered all those people decided to sell Zynga to buy Facebook. And Zynga tanked accordingly.

Now of course you will ask, why did Facebook seem to tank at the same time. If my theory about Zynga was true would that not mean that Facebook should go up as Zynga tanks. Yes, if all other things are equal. But in this case they were not. Facebook went down for a different reason. The reason Facebook went down is the usual immediate post IPO sell-off when a bunch of people that got into the IPO sell their shares immediately to make some quick profit.

So yeah, I wish I had thought about that yesterday.

<comment><USER3> While this is a nice theory in principle, I think it falls down because of the timing of the ZNGA drop. The drop happened exactly when the FB shares were made available to trade (11.30 - 11.38), before this time they had been trading fine (in big volumes). You would expect the people that were holding these shares as a proxy for FB to have anticipated that others like them would have wanted to sell that morning and done so before the moment arrived. In fact, there is evidence that this did happen in that there was big movement of ZNGA in the first hour of trading and at around 10.50.

This means that is was much more likely that it was down to bad trading algorithms. Or that is how I see it anyway...

<comment><USER4> If you were an ZNGA owner who's also interested in FB, you won't necessarily sell ZNGA before actually buying FB, because you don't actually know that you can get FB at a price acceptable to you until trading opens. In other words, human beings could contribute to the ZNGA price, not just trading algorithms.

<comment><USER3> Good point. But if you were a ZNGA owner who wanted to buy FB at a lower price than the expected one, you would know that as soon as the FB price was lower than expected, the ZNGA stock would slide (as everyone was using it as a proxy). Subsequently, unless you sold within 2 minutes of the FB price being known, it wouldn't be a good strategy (as you would end up loosing money on the ZNGA sell).

That said, as long as you acted fast enough, that strategy was win-win. Either FB stock was too high and ZNGA rose too, or FB was affordable and you could quickly change to that, before ZNGA fell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We know that Morgan Stanley propped up Facebook's share price to keep it from falling below $38.

To prop up the price, Morgan had to buy a truckload of shares.

How else would you hedge your exposure to all those Facebook shares than to short Zynga and Google?

<comment><USER6> > We know that Morgan Stanley propped up Facebook's share price to keep it > from falling below $38.

Why exactly do they wanna do that? If they're artificially holding it up, doesn't that mean they'll lose a lot of money in the next weeks when it goes back to an non-artificial price?

<comment><USER5> Here's why:

"Buyers did not rush into the market to snap up shares of the social networker. And the big Wall Street banks that brought Facebook public scrambled to prevent the stock from collapsing into declines."

"The underwriters averted a potential debacle by scooping up shares of the company during the Nasdaq debut. This propped up the stock, keeping it above the $38 offering price through most of the day."

"When a deal gets priced and breaks price on the first day, that's definitely a major embarrassment," said trader Andrew Frankel, co-president of Stuart Frankel & Co.

"The practice is pretty standard during IPOs, especially high-profile ones like Facebook. The big banks buy into a wave of selling as a way to prevent their customers from suffering big losses."

Source: [http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn- facebook...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook- trading-20120518,0,6622700.story)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is another possibility and that is dealers were desperately trying to maintain facebooks price above the Ipo price, especially given the significant lower fees taken on this Ipo and the greenshoe option. Without this dealer intervention it is possible facebooks price would have correlated more with zynga's price short. The greenshoe option <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenshoe> could also have something to do with these trading patterns. Given facebooks stock performance this is not positive for future Internet IPOs.

<comment><USER8> This isn't a "possibility", it's the duty of the underwriter.

<comment><USER7> The underwriter has no legal obligation or "duty" to guarantee or support the original issue price. Definitely, they have an economic and business incentive to ensure the price stays above the issue price. Failure to keep the IPO above this price could lead to a loss of credibility with their large institutional buyers and also with the issuer and their participation in future IPOs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think anyone in the startup/tech world believes in Zynga's ability to be a (public) company that can seriously grow revenues and create sustainable products.

<comment><USER10> Can you explain why?

<comment><USER11> I'll try: they're sharecroppers (e.g., [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I wonder what effect trading on Second Market had on FB's IPO. It could well be that people were gobbling up FB stock in expectation of the IPO pop. When that fizzled, they may well have dumped that stock, leading to the later depressed pricing.

Now, this is all contingent upon how much stock was being moved on SM, and the blackout period I suspect was in place preventing its trading. Still, I'd be interested in an analysis of SM's impact.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this article got many points right, but it failed to mention that ZNGA trading got halted, which could largely explain the semi-recovery of the price. You don't need to invoke the computer algorithms argument to explain that.

</comment><comment><USER13> It looks like pair trading.</comment>


Scientists should learn to program - <AUTHOR> http://cns2.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-11.html#e2007-11-20T13_28_03.htm <comment><USER3> If scientists should learn programming, we should meet them halfway and learn some science.

I've always wanted to do cool numerical stuff like n-body codes, computational fluid dynamics, etc, but I never really knew where to get started.

It doesn't help that most example code out there is spaghetti garbage written in Fortran.

<comment><USER4> It would be kind of fun to "pair program" with a scientist like that. Each learning from each other. You know the details to keep the machine happy, he knows the details to get the formulas right. Together == cool things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a good post (and other posts below). But... "scientists" is not a descriptive word. If you are talking about biologists, they'd gain more from knowing high school math than from programming. Math majors on the other hand need to program if they want to find jobs outside the actuarial field. Same for physics and chemistry. A regular C++/Java course should be enough to get started.

</comment><comment><USER6> As far as I've seen, most scientists work with R for statistics and TeX for papers; it sounds like this reduces to "Scientists should learn powerful tools.".

<comment><USER7> I agree, and in fact that's generally the attitude I see. Tools I've seen used: Matlab, Python, Visual Basic, Java, C++. Often scientists seem as eager to play with programming as programmers are eager to play with (or at least read and talk about) research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't believe anyone who says programming is hard.

Learning to write small programs in a high-level language such as python is much easier than learning a natural language.

The former you can do in a week or less. The latter requires years.

<comment><USER9> When you learn a natural language, you can speak with a native speaker even if you make a lot of mistakes; he'll still understand you (and maybe try to help you improve).

Computer languages "feedback" (error messages, etc.) is poor. It's interesting: you can find hundreds of blog posts about syntax, garbage collections, string libraries or whatever but nobody seems to care about error/warning messages. It's a thing that hasn't evolved since a long time.

<comment><USER5> >When you learn a natural language, you can speak with a native speaker even if you make a lot of mistakes; he'll still understand you...

This is simply not true, especially the last part. This comes from experience, on both ends.

<comment><USER9> I not am in agree to you.

<comment><USER5> >I not am in agree to you.

This is "translated" from English!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> i'm a scientist and i think that they/we should learn to program. the problem is diminishing returns and relevence. e.g. i can spend 100 hours learning how to say hello world and figure out if something is a prime number OR spend some time in the lab and maybe write a paper/presentation. i've kept an eye on programming for a while now but always find myself bored with if/elif but not able to figure out how to make the leap to the stuff that i want to do - <USER2> then not having the time to dive in fully. catch 22 i guess. would be happy to comment further if anyone's interested.</comment>


Bought two domains yesterday: Facebook-image.com and Facebook-images.com - <AUTHOR>

What should I do with them? :)
I thought of 2 ways currently:

  1. download photos/albums from facebook
  2. edit/change photo/cover on facebook
 I feel that these domains should be popular enough and I could make good money from them but don't think that I have a good idea for them..
Sorry for dumb question.. just don't know whom to ask else. <comment><USER2> You'd better lawyer up real quick if you think of making money from this. If you're lucky you'll just get a cease-and-desist letter really soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Under [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act)

"The ACPA does not prevent the fair use of trademarks or any use protected by the First Amendment, which includes gripe sites"

<comment><USER2> I don't think that will stop facebook's lawyer from starting proceedings. But then again, IANAL

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't spend time on building a product. facebook will sue or cease&desist you for using their name, especially if you plan to make money.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's again law to use domains with trademarks in name - then why do domain registrators allow their registering?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook will not like this idea</comment>


The "Anyone But Richard M Stallman" (ABRMS) License - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/landondyer/kasm/blob/master/LICENSE <comment><USER2> Here's the announcement blog post for the containing project:

> > [http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=2106](http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=2106)

The license author goes into the reason for the license and his thoughts on RMS in a comment on that blog post:

> It's not about hating free software. I'm a believer in that; I released my > first game for free in 1982. Note that the github thing I put up is > essentially totally free (something I would have been restricted from doing, > by my employer, up to a year ago).

> I have a personal dislike for RMS and I think that his philosophy of economy > is at best naïve and dangerously unworkable. 25 years ago he was exhorting > me to quit my job in protest to support some of his politics and he wasn't > pleasant about it. Thus, ABRMS.

> If RMS really wants a miserable little 6502 assembler I can always amend the > license. I'm not unreasonable. But he has to ask. :-)

<comment><USER3> Crazy? Probably yes.

But we all owe RMS because he serves as the radical counterbalance to closed source interests.

Maybe he's a little extreme, but he does well with advocating for that end of the FOSS spectrum.

We need a RMS, whether we like him or collectively agree with his opinions.

<comment><USER4> And this license, which I still contend is self-evidently satirical, does nothing to hinder RMS from his views. If anything, it helps maintains RMS' mantle within the software licensing zeitgeist. After all, we're talking about it now.

<comment><USER3> Eh, it stands that it's still kinda lame to skewer the guy.

But, if you subscribe to the 'any press is good press' mentality, I guess it's a win...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a pitiful small child behavior.

<comment><USER4> That might be a valid (albeit ironically immature) response, except that the license is self-evidently satirical.

<comment><USER6> That's the thing about satire, it's not always self-evident (to everyone).

<comment><USER4> I see it as self-evidently satirical because RMS wouldn't object to being singled out; he'd object to the license not qualifying under his definition of free software.

(Being absurd and arbitrary, it's also funny in the same way as _The Ancient Mystic Society of No Homers_ was in an early _Simpsons_ episode.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not a fan of this license. I'm going to avoid software with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Note that this license is not Free or OSS, as neither definitions allow these kinds of restrictions.

<comment><USER9> There are other uses of the word "Free" outside of the GNUniverse. If he wants to call this "free software", he's just as entitled to do so as RMS was when he redefined the term.

<comment><USER8> Sure, but using Free (especially with the capital) is misleading, since the term already has quite a bit of precedent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As the author of the license:

\- Yes, it's satire

\- No, I'm not going to amend it

Reactions are mixed, from "this is hilarious" to "this is awful and childish." Which is pretty much what I intended. More people seem to find it funny than not.

I'm happy with dissent.

</comment><comment><USER11> Are any projects under this license?

<comment><USER12> I hope not. This is terrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is bullying

<comment><USER14> How in the world is it bullying? I personally find it hilarious but I could see calling it mean, or immature, or silly. But bullying?

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord For the most part I support the views of RMS, but I'm not a particular fan of the copyleft model in all cases. I prefer using a BSD license, instead.

</comment><comment><USER15> this guy is a dumbass troll. don't give any more attention to his shitty code

<comment><USER16> He worked at Atari during the 80s. He's debugged programs using a print readout of CPU registers. He has done more work then you. He has worked with the FBI at one point. He knows his code, otherwise Valve wouldn't have hired him.

Jealous much? (;</comment></comment>


CongressEdits - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/congressedits <comment><USER2> Interesting to see that someone in Congress (or more likely one of their employees or interns) has taken the time to edit the Wikipedia entry on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:

[https://twitter.com/congressedits/status/674985183204913153](https://twitter.com/congressedits/status/674985183204913153)</comment>


Have any of you started a succuessful company because of Mr. Graham's writing or the early reddit entrepreneurial community? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I am too embarrassed to even mention why I read pg's essays before he got into writing on entrepreneurship. Rest assured, it was still to achieve an entrepreneurial end.

Perhaps someday I'll share with him:)

<comment><USER3> I first read pg for spam filtering stuff. I already had a company that I'd founded (not particularly successful, though it did pay my bills for seven years and buy me a nice car).

His entrepreneurial writing did inspire my current company, however, and I expect very good results. His essays, along with a few good bits from other sources, provided a clarity of focus, and a depth of understanding, that I lacked before.</comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi Jukebox Based on Mopidy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pimusicbox/pimusicbox <comment><USER2> Project Website: [http://www.pimusicbox.com/](http://www.pimusicbox.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> been using it for a few month now on a raspi2. stable and pain free. the only thing i ponder changing is the mopidy gui as the default one has some usability issues.</comment>


So you wanna be a writer: What Anthony Bourdain can tell you - <AUTHOR> http://jseliger.com/2010/09/20/so-you-wanna-be-a-writer-what-anthony-bourdain-can-tell-you-even-when-hes-not-talking-about-writing/ <comment><AUTHOR> Note: "So you wanna be a writer" is based off this HN link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1709693> .</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do while your code compiles? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Figure out why it's taking so long to compile and what can be done to either shorten it or automate the build and testing process so I'm not waiting for it anymore.

Move things to unit tests with smaller compilation units (so I can compile foo.cpp and a handful of other dependencies, but not the full system) so, other than for deployment or integration testing, my feedback loop is much shorter.

Or if it can't be made shorter, work on another project or read something (presently non-practical/actionable, _Weapons of Math Destruction_ , but typically more practically technically oriented).

<comment><USER3> A project I'm working on now relies on a third party platform that takes fairly long to reload after changes. I've managed to run some parts standalone which has been super helpful but in general there's a lot of waiting.

In the meantime I do small and very easy coding exercises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sword fight with my co-worker!

<comment><USER5> For the uninitiated: [https://xkcd.com/303/](https://xkcd.com/303/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I guess that's one of the advantages of interpreted languages over compiled languages.

I spend no time waiting for compilation to happen (ruby). I used to spend a lot in my previous job (C#), where the time was utilised (wasted) in going through blogs/articles.

<comment><USER2> (NB: Not a criticism of interpreted languages, they add a lot of value)

While long compilation times are incredibly annoying, compilation offers a first pass test on code: Is this code syntactically correct? Do (at least some of) the semantics make sense?

With an interpreted language, you may be able to test for syntactic correctness with a simple scan over the language, but you're approaching compilation at that point. More likely, syntactic correctness is verified by a test suite that's sufficient to provide 100% code coverage (which can be hard to build and maintain).

It's also harder to know if a reference to _foo_ is valid at any point, until it's executed. Which is where the semantic validity and verification of compilation comes in handy. A tool which can do this for your interpreted language is most of the way to being a compiler, it's simply lacking the translation step.

The nice thing with interpreted languages is that you could put off a lot of this verification/validation, similar to the distinction between dynamic and static typing, until you actually need it. The debate is when you need it and how much value is added by putting it at the start. But languages like go and incremental compilation being adopted by more compiler/toolchain developers is at least cutting down on the time to reduce the time spent idling (as a developer) in the feedback loop.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I laugh every time someone says interpreted languages remove the "compile time" step. Once you decide to start working at scale you have to come back and hack in all the static checks the compiler would have given you for free and in my experience those tend to be 10x slower. I know running the python linter + test suite on our basic enterprise CRUD takes longer than all but the biggest C++ projects I've ever seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Android Studio users-----> Modify the HEAP_SIZE in the gradle file. It will shorten build times by a factor of 3-4.

</comment><comment><USER9> Carry on as usual.

My code gets offloaded to a build agent, so I don't have to worry about it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I read through my code to debug it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Write tests, Run the "compile" & "test" in the background. Than you can continue working on your tasks (even other tasks while they are working).

Even better, just have a CI that will run it not on your environment.

</comment><comment><USER12> The largest personal projects i worked on were in the range of 100k lines, which takes 3-4 seconds to fully compile.

So, i dunno. Stare at the screen?

</comment><comment><USER13> If I'm feeling like being productive, switch to another instance of my dev environment working on a different branch of the source code, in which I'm working on a different problem entirely. It's just two (or more) branches being developed on the same machine in two instance sets of my dev env, side by side.

Usually, though, I do that thing where you open your mouth in different shapes and smack the sides of your face to make noises. I'm trying to play "The Entertainer".

</comment><comment><USER14> Since my computer's working but I am not, I do something NSFW.

</comment><comment><USER15> Browse HN, d'uh!

</comment><comment><USER16> Being here in HN!

</comment><comment><USER17> This.

</comment><comment><USER18> Minesweeper

</comment><comment><USER19> Any opportunity to post an XKCD comic...

[https://xkcd.com/303/](https://xkcd.com/303/)

</comment><comment><USER20> i take a nap

</comment><comment><USER21> make -j8</comment>


Commercial Joomla Extension Business Review (2010, 2011, and 2012) - <AUTHOR>

I've been wanting to write for a while now about how business has been going for me, mainly because I see occasional articles on Hacker News about software earnings from independent developers (for example, Patrick McKenzie) but I don't really see the same type of writing over in the Joomlasphere from commercial extension developers (essentially, it's a bit of a mystery how much those companies actually make, though in some cases one can kind of estimate from their userbase and average product/subscription cost).
The rest of the article can be found here: http://www.orware.com/blog/joomla-business/2012-business-review
Feel free to ask any questions here on HN (this is my first submission :-)!
-Omar <comment><USER2> reShared as a link here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5007681></comment>


Amazon Just Invented Borders Books - <AUTHOR> https://500ish.com/amazon-just-invented-borders-books-d2d6c933b133 <comment><USER2> Retailers in Sydney are worried. Some of them at least. Apparently Amazon is coming soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> Non-closable pop-up window.</comment>


Tesla's head of production is going to EV startup Lucid Motors - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2019/07/01/tesla-head-of-production-ev-startup-lucid-motors/ <comment><USER2> > Lucid Motors has kind of spun out of Tesla. It was started by a former Tesla > board member and executive and it is led by Peter Rawlinson, the former > chief engineer of the Tesla Model S.

> Several other Tesla engineers and executives have also joined the startup > and they are now also adding Hochholdinger to the team

<comment><USER3> What's with this recent trend of simply posting quotes from the article in HN? Haven't we all just finished reading those exact words, what value is this adding to the discussion?

<comment><USER4> I rarely read the article, this comment surfaced an interesting aspect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hot take: Tesla isn't actually a car company, it's a battery company. The Model S and Model 3 are functionally equivalent to Google Nexus devices - their purpose isn't particularly to sell a lot of units, but to provide a proof-of-concept for other companies to emulate. Tesla Motors fails if it dies, but it succeeds if it's killed by other EV companies. Selling cars to consumers is fundamentally less scalable than selling batteries to car manufacturers; you don't need dealerships, you don't need marketing, you don't need a complex supply chain for thousands of complex parts, you just need a couple of huge factories and some proprietary chemistry.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't Panasonic make the batteries for Tesla?

<comment><USER5> Tesla own the Gigafactory but lease the manufacturing equipment from Panasonic on a per-cell-manufactured basis. Tesla have just bought Maxwell, a lithium cell and supercapacitor IP company.

Panasonic effectively make the _cells_ (through quite a convoluted financial arrangement with Tesla), but Tesla make the _batteries_ , which is a crucial distinction. An EV battery pack is inordinately more complex than a bundle of li-ion cells.

[https://electrek.co/2019/05/16/tesla-completes-maxwell- acqui...](https://electrek.co/2019/05/16/tesla-completes-maxwell-acquisition- battery-technology/)

<comment><USER7> Do you have any links on how the batteries are more than complex than a bundle of li-ion cells? Is the complexity in the systems to monitor voltage, temp, resistance and such of each cell and distribute load or outright fuse off weakened cells?

I don't doubt you, but I would love to learn more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this sort of how they're trying to make a Tesla without Musk? By just leaving one by one and recreating the company without Musk, instead of just firing him?

Really curious as to what the motivations might be here for all these people to leave (apart from the monetary benefits of joining another "Tesla" even earlier).

<comment><AUTHOR> Most Tesla employees want to work on EVs, and it is a natural inclination for employees to move towards newer, shinier projects and want to switch company at some point.

Lucid probably makes that choice super easy, since you'll be working with familiar faces.

The early employees are likely the best to create a new electric car company, since they were the foundation of the current industry leader.

<comment><USER8> I agree – I'm just wondering what the draw is. Maybe Tesla has gone into maintenance mode with refinements to their cars, and these folks are fundamentally builders and want to build something radically different.

But when you look at it, they're building another Model S.

<comment><USER9> Probably more like a natural time to leave - Model 3 is past the initial hell and shipping more regularly, etc. And in this process have learned how to take a vehicle from end to end. So instead of working on a brand new car inside of Tesla, why not do the same thing on their own with a greater ownership stake?

Not always the best decision, but usually the kind of thought process one goes though.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Could also be that despite being past Model 3 production hell, they are still not profitable ($700M loss in Q1 '19), and they are betting the farm on autonomous somehow turning that into a profit? Color me skeptical, but if I was an engineer at Tesla I'd be looking for an exit as well.

<comment><USER10> OTOH, FCF has turned positive for at least the trailing 12 months, and they are guiding for it to remain positive for the remainder of the year.

For sure, there are many struggles that continue for Tesla, but I'm not sure that a new startup building cars from scratch is a way out of that. It looks like jumping out of the pot and into an inferno to me.

But the sorts of people doing this seem to be the ones that might enjoy the challenge involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing I like the most about Tesla is the cars look futuristic without going _too far_. I feel like every other luxury EV company just goes off the deep end. The 3 and the modern S are the perfect design imo.

<comment><USER12> I think they went overboard with the "everything must happen via the center console" interface strategy. From an aesthetic perspective, it is Very Pretty, but it's kind of hard to accept that the way to open a glove compartment is a button, on a screen, two feet and some menus away from the compartment itself.

<comment><USER13> It's not primarily an aesthetic choice it is about part count more than anything. The LCD is 10 parts and a lot of wiring. The same stuff in a trad vehicle is a thousand parts and all the same wiring and probably a display or two. It's just more expensive to make.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't hold up, at least with my example. The glovebox latch on most vehicles is a couple of bits of stamped metal and a spring. By making it electrically actuated, Telsa necessitated adding a branch to the wiring harness, along with extra crimps and connectors to keep track of, and an actuator. This is all in addition to the latch mechanicals that would have been present already.

<comment><USER13> Now factor in assembly time. Now factor in some fixed cost from the more complex supply chain. Now factor in floor space in Fremont, which will determine whether a new line can be built without a capital expenditure for property.

"Part count" is a reasonable proxy for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting the lucid motors website is available in English and Chinese.

I wonder if they're hoping for China to be their main market, or to attract investment from there?

<comment><USER15> There has been Chinese money backing lucid motors since their early stages. I've seen several articles over the past few years. Seemingly, they are working with a Chinese bus company as well...

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/21/18235019/lucid-motors- ele...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/21/18235019/lucid-motors-electric-suv- ev-saudi-arabia) [https://electrek.co/guides/lucid- motors/](https://electrek.co/guides/lucid-motors/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Lucid Motors looks like an almost exact clone of Tesla... The strategy, the design, etc.

I wonder how they expect to be better?

<comment><USER16> There often is an advantage to being a second mover. I am sure Tesla made a lot of expensive mistakes that a newcomer can avoid and save a lot of money.

The same would apply for SpaceX. They could study a lot of the successful and unsuccessful things other rocket makers had made and then do better.

<comment><USER17> Being the last mover is preferable.

To illustrate the point: Google search, the last search engine. Facebook, the last social network.

<comment><USER18> This is only true in certain industries.

The examples you cite are Internet companies. Internet companies are peculiar because they exploit the economies of scale of the Internet to primarily offer services, not goods (read physical products).

If being last mover offered an advantage to players selling goods, then Windows Phone ought to have trounced Apple iPhone and Google Android since they were a late entrant in the smartphone movement when the paradigm shifted from physical keyboards to touchscreens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is reminiscent of Shockley and the traitorous eight.

</comment><comment><USER20> Interesting name: "Lucid"

This implies clarity. I personally think Tesla vehicles may fit the needs of a small percentage of the population (kind of like the new Mac Pro), but are overkill for everyone else, and the excitement in EV's is changing the world for future generations. This requires a car you can sell to everyone, not just those who would drop $80k on a car (or even $40k). I believe the core of what Tesla could be, a great EV, is obfuscated by things like AutoPilot. Interestingly enough, that's where most of the issues and headlines are as well.

<comment><USER21> Except Lucid's first car is an over top luxury car that even has an option for exec stye seats in the back for those that have a driver. Their car is a Mac Pro and Tesla is just the 5K iMac.

[https://lucidmotors.com](https://lucidmotors.com)

<comment><USER22> Having taken a first look at images of the car on their site, I'll say one thing: Lucid has managed a much higher level of aesthetic refinement in their design than Tesla.

I'm a huge fan of Tesla overall, and especially their engineering. Unfortunately, despite the pedigree of their design team, I find the aesthetics wanting. In comparison, the Lucid "Air" (as their model is known), seems to rival the best German manufacturers for aesthetics. It has the crispness and ease of a design from a mature luxury car company. So hats off to that achievement, whatever their market or price point.

Tesla's sheet metal and interiors are somewhat clumsy in comparison. (It's never a good sign when your car looks best in the curve-hiding color black.)

<comment><USER3> As usual, a matter of taste. I find the design over-the-top especially with the massive shiny rims (and good luck with ride comfort). Tesla intentionally aims to be futuristic-but-not-too-much to appeal to a wider audience.

<comment><USER22> Great point about the wider appeal of the Tesla design language. Also, I'll amend my statement in regards to the Lucid's nose, which looks awkward in some angles. Cars are best viewed in person, of course. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unix Home Field Advantage - vim and awk - <AUTHOR> http://shebang.brandonmintern.com/unix-home-field-advantage-vim-and-awk

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the beginnings of my first serious blog. Let me know if you find it helpful. I'm specifically interested in feedback related to clarity and appropriateness of detail.

I'd also love to hear about any Unix-related topics you would be interested in having me cover in future blog posts.</comment>


Increasing the design efficiency of airline boarding passes - <AUTHOR> http://passfail.squarespace.com/

<comment><USER3> I've honestly never had a problem with a boarding pass - regardless of the format it's pretty easy to decipher.

His boarding pass is flawed in a number of ways

\- It lists a time - is that the boarding time or time the flight is due to depart? (The one linked below has got this covered though)

\- The time is stated in 12 hour clock format. Every single time you find in an airport is listed in the 24h format - the quickest way to hunt for your flight in my experience on the boards is to first find the time as that's what they're ordered by

\- A lot of flights have 4 numbers - I'm not sure he could fit 4 in the tear off strip

\- These days, most people print their boarding pass at home. I'd be really annoyed if this is what I was presented with, it's a colossal waste of ink and if (as I do) you have B&W printer, the contrast is not great

\- His last design is frankly laughable. He shows a map of the States with JFK -> SEA. The JFK is on the left and SEA is on the right... doh

\- He has not included anywhere the airport terminal of either departure or destination airport. It's a good sanity check when you get to the airport (if you've printed your own boarding pass) and also it's a good sanity check when you arrive at the airport and you then need to get a connecting flight - <USER2> remember which terminal you're in and the need to change

<comment><USER4> I totally agree with your criticism. His designs look nice, but it seems like that has been the focus rather than conveying the important information. Something like the missing terminal is an excellent example of this.

Also, why have a map of the US? Would he have a map of the world for international flights? There would be an awful lot of white space where the font wouldn't show up.

On all the trips I've taken the past few years I have checked in at home, and printed the boarding pass. The next time I will definitely use the 2D bar code on my cellphone. It's nice to have the information available, but I have that in the confirmation email, the boarding pass is (to me) just to prove that I'm allowed to get on the flight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I didn't like that first design. Whatever typeface that is that is long and tall makes it hard to read.

I was surprised (or maybe not so surprised) that none of the designs cut the length in half, like the Virgin America boarding tickets. When I flew Virgin for the first time, I found it pleasantly nice that I could fit the entire boarding pass in my pocket without it flapping out awkwardly and me worrying that the tab will come off.

Design is how it works, no?

<comment><USER6> Oh god yes, this would be nice... my ticket ends up beaten all to hell by the time I finally get through security, mostly because I've got nowhere to put it but in my pocket.

But more than ticket designs, airlines _really_ need to streamline their operations.

I just arrived back in California from Tokyo today, and about four hours of my travel time was spent negotiating with the airline, because they didn't believe that I actually had a ticket. Even though I bought the ticket by actually calling United and booking it, because I had some credit from a previous canceled trip.

They had a reservation in their system for the correct flight, but no actual ticket, and this was apparently confusing enough to everybody involved that I was able to actually fly from NRT to SMF via SFO without having what amounted to an actual plane ticket.

The above four hours doesn't include the two phone calls that it initially required to book the ticket; apparently, they've got a big problem with their outsourced call centers not actually issuing tickets to passengers. Or the fact that my return flight to Japan had the wrong date.

Let's not also forget that every ticket change incurs a fee of $250, no matter what the cause, and that they've pulled all the in-seat entertainment systems, and offer no power ports in Economy.

Nothing says 'take your money elsewhere' like a system that's inflexible, impossible to navigate, filled with opportunities for human error, _and_ expensive.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk>

<comment><USER6> I guess I'm just not happy because everything isn't as amazing as it could be.

This is probably why I like programming and tinkering so much, because it gives me a chance to make the world around me a little bit more amazing than it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked on this for Air New Zealand, it downloads your flights to your phone and displays a barcode that can be scanned at the check-in kiosks and at the gate.

iPhone App: [http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-new-zealand- mpass/id30485120...](http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-new-zealand- mpass/id304851207?mt=8) J2ME app: <http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I think there's also the option (and, it appears, space) for some ongoing marketing, even if it's just their website.

Most boarding passes of mine end up as bookmarks in whatever I'm reading on the flight. I've come back to books years later and discovered I was reading that on my 2005 Sydney trip or 2006 Port Douglas holiday etc. (OT - Adds to my connection with the book!)

Can't hurt to remember this document may not be single use - add extra brand value.

<comment><USER6> I thought I was the only person that did that...

<comment><USER10> I use mine to clean my ears. So, by the end of the flight, its...completely ready to be your bookmark :-)

Personally, I like the last one by Davin Yoon. It separates graphically according to takeoff, flight and landing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One advantage the original design has is its low cost of ink. Just look at SquareSpace's redesigns and those huge blocks of black, red, and blue. Just trying to eye it, I would estimate anywhere from an 800% to 1000% increase in ink. Multiply that with the enormous amount of tickets printed, and that's a lot of ink....and a lot of money.

Yes, they are prettier, easier to use, but I'd be interested to see a design effort with this additional parameter of saving cost on ink or paper.

Notice how, while Virgin America does seem to be printing a lot of colors on the backside of their tickets, their ticket size is about half the size of standard tickets, thus, saving money on paper stock.

Edit: looks like some of the updates from other designers have addressed a more minimal use of ink. I think the Wallet Size one in particular wins for me. There's just no convenient place to carry standard-size tickets.

<comment><USER3> Wallet size has no tear off to be collected by the gate agent so it's no good.

Also wallet size is only good if you print your boarding pass at the airport - if you print at home, you don't really want a flimsy piece of paper that small - and you would then have to cut to size.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps it is each airlines particular systems or operations that requires the torn tickets. Virgin America's tickets don't come with any part to tear. At boarding, they scan it in and hand it back to you. That would work for a wallet size as well. For people printing a pass, well, they're using a full sheet of paper anyways, so there could be a different design for printed tickets, the same way printed concert ticket designs are different than official tickets that are mailed to you.

Also want to note that I missed the part about the thermal printing, which would nullify the ink cost issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This was on HN before... but I can't seem to find it. This was another design based off of it that I thought was interesting - [http://blog.timoni.org/post/318322031/a-practical- boarding-p...](http://blog.timoni.org/post/318322031/a-practical-boarding- pass-redesign)

</comment><comment><USER13> One thing I really liked about Northwest was that just before they were bought out, they had redesigned their boarding passes to print all your flights on one sheet. Seems Delta has chosen not to run with that, though.

The old NW boarding cards had an easy to read table that showed your flight number, seat, and departure date/time for each connection, with the confirmation number, FF#, etc across the bottom. A lot easier to read, and less paperwork to fish out of my travel bag.

</comment><comment><USER14> My favorite of them all is the one by JJ at Graphicology (the one with a verbose text).

I think a lot of the tickets are expensive (given the large size fonts and I'm not sure but large blocks of even black ink).

The one with JJ is so, so easy to understand and maintains ink cost.

<comment><USER15> I only skimmed, but that was also the one that stuck in my head.

I think it's because I interact with boarding passes so infrequently that the data alone isn't enough for me to glean information – I need the explanation of what I'm looking at.

E.g., I know _(555) 492-2882_ (in the U.S.) is a phone number without it being labeled because I use phones enough to learn the format. I don't immediately know that _Zone 5_ is a seating schedule or a gate, because I don't fly enough.

I could see the design slowing down experienced fliers though (verbose UI tends to do that). It looks like the data is repeated in a just-the-facts style in the right column (maybe for that exact reason), but rather than repeating everything I think it'd be cool if the descriptive section was rearranged so the numbers all line up vertically or something for even easier scanning for those who know what the numbers mean.

I'm really impressed with that design solution though, and how JJ approached it differently from everyone else.

<comment><USER16> I think we need to remember that boarding passes aren't just for the traveler, but are required by various staff members frequently (any inquiries being made, security checkpoints, etc).

For that reason I think any boarding pass that is to be successful needs to have the same information in the same places - the guy at the X-ray machine should not be reading entire paragraphs just to verify which flight you're on, nor should the gate agent you're asking question to.

<comment><USER14> If you take a look at that ticket again: the only data that is variable-sized, is on a separate line - viz the Full Name of the passenger. I do not think the positions of any other information would ever change - which means it would be staff friendly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Stolen MacBook just showed up in Vietnam. Am I screwed? - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/5t695mvx589br1a/Vietnam.PNG

<comment><USER2> can you remote wipe it? [http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2701](http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2701)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've locked it. I'm not too concerned about remote wiping it. I have all my stuff backed up and I'm sure they are about to wipe it. It has already gone 'offline'.</comment></comment>


The Man Who Invented the World's Most Important Number - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-29/the-man-who-invented-libor-iw3fpmed <comment><USER2> I was imagining this was going to be about Leonhard Euler.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_\(mathematical_constant\))

<comment><USER3> e is far more important than some interest rate which is proabaly calculated with continuous compounding anyway

<comment><USER4> Technically, it isn't a number. It's a calculated value. It's a different number every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > From his sitting room in Kalyves, Zombanakis can see the house where he grew > up. He says he sometimes struggles to recognize the modern world of > investment banking, where traders take home multimillion-pound bonuses and > cheat their clients at the drop of a hat.

> "Back then the market was small and run by a few gentlemen," Zombanakis > says. "We took it for granted that gentlemen wouldn't try to manipulate > things like that. But as the market was getting bigger, you couldn't trust > it. You couldn't control it.

> Banking now is like a prostitution racket run by pimps. There's just too > much money involved."

This.

</comment><comment><USER6> (off topic) this article has awesome "graceful degradation": It includes a super-low-resolution version of the pictures, which are then replaced with a high-resolution version.

<comment><USER7> Is that sarcastic? If you're browsing without JS, or even without first-party JS, the images are basically worthless. I'd much rather they used CSS to accomplish whatever they were going for there.

<comment><USER6> No, actually, I was not sarcastic. I was browsing this on mobile with almost zero bandwidth, and I got the text quickly and a crude image -- but clear enough to know I don't actually care about it.

For many sites, the entire site is often delayed because of pictures, or gets several layout events as the pictures trickle through (or, they never do, and it's not always clear if there should or shouldn't be an image).

What's your preference for a placeholder? Nothing? Broken image? That's fine, but I prefer Bloomberg's low quality version.

<comment><USER7> My preference would be something CSS or HTML based where if JS is off it still displays an image. I am not a super web developer or anything, but how about a fixed-size <div> block with the background set to the low-resolution version that contains the high-resolution version? Or just both images, stacked on top of one another with the high-resolution version positioned higher in the z-stack?

Looks like they didn't even add a <noscript> tag (though generally I think uMatrix doesn't play nicely with noscript because scripting is selectively disabled, not entirely disabled), which would be at least a token effort towards alleviating the problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


China's military power may surpass the US's - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-military-power-surpass-the-us-faster-than-you-think-2019-8 <comment><AUTHOR> Business Insider's article explains how China's technological advantage may overtake the United States' military, even with superior hard power.</comment>