The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/history/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy/ <comment><USER2> _> 'There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes were reached.'_

To go off on a tangent...

I have a couple of CFLs that have been going since 1997 in my first apartment while most of the CFLs I purchased after my last move in 2009 have burned out.

None of my LEDs have gone. Not the ridiculously expensive ones from a few years ago or the current "almost, but not quite cheap enough for the whole house" ones I've been testing out.

My impression is that there's a sweet spot in relatively early adoption for many technologies when you can get nearly all the eventual performance with much higher reliability. A point where manufacturers are perhaps over- engineering or at least have not yet dialed in their cost-cutting trade-offs.

Of course, whether this is worth anything depends on the context - my 2004 Linksys AP, 1997 bulbs and 1999 DVD player are fine for my purposes, but my tank-like 2009 Motorola Droid - not so much.

<comment><USER3> Usage patterns are important with CFL's. They are sensitive to many on/off cycles, and last longest when they burn continually. So, it might be interesting to take a moment and consider whether your usage patterns have shifted markedly.

<comment><USER4> Oddly, the ones I abuse the most -- leaving them outdoors in enclosures, frequent on/off -- have lastest the longest, and those I've simply put in normal sockets have failed the quickest.

<comment><USER5> I seem to recall there is an issue with CFL bulbs that has to do with ambient temperature. Recessed sockets get hotter, and shorten CFL life considerably.

<comment><USER6> The circuitry of CFLs (like the circuitry on LEDs) is where the heat is generated (basically the base of the bulb) and can _really_ kill the lifetime of the bulb if they're up in recessed indoor lighting environments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Incandescent light bulbs are cheap. The cost of the electricity over the lifespan of the bulb is much greater than the cost of the bulb. If the cartel was reducing bulb lifespan by making it run hotter thus producing more lumens per watt, then it was actually saving the consumers money by allowing the consumer to select a lower watt bulb. In fact, even today most standard incandescent light bulbs are rated for 1,000 hours or less.

<comment><USER8> This (that lifespan and efficiency are inevitably a tradeoff in incandescent bulbs) is my understanding as well.

You can get "rough service" or "extended life" incandescent bulbs that claim 5,000 hour lifetimes, but they are very obviously dim and orange compared with the standard bulbs.

You can also get newfangled "high efficiency" incandescent bulbs (a 60W bulb's worth of light for ~40W) that package little halogen lamps inside the traditional bulb shape. (I'm a fan, I think they provide the highest quality light you can get right now.) But residential halogen lamps used to mostly claim 2,000 hour lifespans, and these new high efficiency ones only claim 900.

None of that means the cartel had good intentions, though. Sometimes the right thing happens for the wrong reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The reason I believe that there is a conspiracy is that the technology to get a 10,000 hour incandescent bulb is fairly cheap & easy; you need a temperature compensating thermistor, AKA the Bulb-Miser [1]. I've used one before and they really work. I'm now 100% LED.

[1] [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/2007001...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070018922.pdf)

<comment><USER10> That's interesting, thanks for the link.

One thing I have noticed in my house is that incandescent bulbs last longer if their power is ramped up to turn them on. We have this kind of switch in our main room and the bulbs have lasted longer than 8 years of more than 8 hours a day.

They are rarely on full bright so that could be it too.

<comment><USER3> Supposedly hot/cold cycles are bad for incandescent, so if you have dimmers and rarely actually switch the bulb off, that might be the source of improvement.

<comment><USER11> There is also a current surge when the bulb is first turned on, which shortens the lifespan and is also often the final straw that eventually blows the filament.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The oldest (mostly) continuously running light bulb was made in my home town. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light) ... It is featured also in a documentary about "planned obsolescence" quite prominently.

I think it is well known that things that are made well and do cost a little more are available. This reminds me of a guy who shows how to counterfeit his own product - [http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake- bag](http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-bag)

Some things however we've all seem to accept, like light bulbs, razor blades, etc, and its a shame. On one hand, having a newer product that may be better more often is good, and having a lower price for a product that lasts even temporary is also good, but it would be nice if there were more choice, and more awareness, of these kinds of issues in our markets.

<comment> mark-r I once owned a Remington electric razor that just died for no reason one day. I decided to take it apart and see if there was anything obviously wrong with it. There was - the electrical contact with the motor was made by a piece of graphite, and it had worn down to nothing. At that moment I decided to switch to another brand on the hope that it did _not_ practice planned obsolescence, and I've been happy ever since.

<comment><USER13> You've just discovered that Electric motors use brushes on their commutators? Welcome to the 20th century.

Brushes are intended to be replaced, and many manufacturers supply spare brushes in the original packaging.

In the 21st century however the traditional brushes have been replaced by electronic switching.

see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Undervolt your light bulbs just a little bit (add a piece of iron or steel cable to the copper wire) and they last a lot longer. The plural of anecdote is not data, but I do this with light bulbs in my home, which are mostly CFLs except for the LED in my little lab (haven't bought any in two years) and projector bulbs (lasted four years).

[http://robots- everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.Projec...](http://robots- everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.ProjectorLampLifeExtension) Obviously, don't use the capacitor for light bulbs connected to AC!

</comment><comment><USER15> This is really the fundamental problem of Capitalism which we are now regularly butting are heads against. If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing? After the initial flurry of sales, demand would drop off precipitously. And as the world approaches peek population, there would be fewer and fewer sales. And that's just the logistical problem. This story speaks to the further moral dimension in which it is always more profitable to corner a market and force on consumers ever increasing reoccurring cost.

<comment><USER16> _If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing?_

Anybody who wants to get rich.

Let's say that you can sell such a light bulb, and that it's so great that everyone in the world buys one, on average. And say you can sell it for a dollar, but you only make a cent of profit on each one. Why, that'd only leave you with. . . $70,000,000 dollars.

Well that's not too bad, but really not great either. It'd certainly let you retire to a tropical island for the rest of your life. But you could do better. If the light bulb is so great, wouldn't everyone be willing to spend more than a dollar on one? After all, those inferior light bulbs cost about twice as much, so if your bulbs are better than others should be willing to pay at least that much. Let's knock the price up to $2, then. That puts the profit per bulb at $1.01. So then you can simultaneously destroy the light bulb industry (fun!) _and_ put a cool 7 billion dollars in your pocket (profit!).

Who would choose not do do such a thing? Certainly most anybody who's motivated by profit (like, say, a capitalist) would jump at the opportunity.

<comment><USER17> If it took 1 person to make, sell, and distribute those things, then $70 million are enough to retire comfortably. If it takes 100 people, then you could still retire, if you lived somewhere cheap.

More realistically, you might sell a few hundred thousand to the developed world, and then sales fall off a cliff, because it takes a lot of work to distribute outside your home market. Total payoff: Less than 2 months' salary.

That's the concern with the new lights. The industry is built on 1,000-hour bulbs and regular replacements. We currently have a boom as incandescents get replaced by fluorescents and fluorescents get replaced by LEDs (my father hates fluorescent light). Once that is done, who is going to buy bulbs at the rate that the factories can produce them?

<comment><USER18> This thread has gotten way out of hand with the thought experiments that reveal more about the author than the subject... but I can't resist!

If it took 100 people to make/sell/distribute, and you are the owner of the company, you're probably going to still be rich. Figure 99 employees at $150k fully loaded annually would cost you 15 million dollars, leaving 55 million to retire on.

Of course, if you are an employee, you would only have a job for 1 year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A number of years ago I engineered a light engine consisting of 1,500 1W LED's very tightly packed. Excellent thermal design was crucial in making such a device work and remain reliable for years. We ran hundreds of FEA thermal simulations spanning months before arriving at a set of good thermal management solutions. This also extended to the electronics. It was very important to ensure that the tightly packed electronics did not suffer premature failure due to exposure to high temperatures or thermal cycling. The design had over 40 microprocessors driving the array using an innovative and highly efficient (98% if I remember correctly) technology. This was a very interesting project.

I learned that thermal issues can be real killers when it comes to high power LED designs. While I have not analyzed any consumer lighting designs I would not be surprised if thermal issues, either steady-state or cyclic, are at the core of some of the failures over time.

</comment><comment><USER20> Note that this cartel would have been impossible without patent protection.

In fact, this seems to be a purported feature of the patent system, not a bug -- to give inventors monopolistic control of a market for several decades.

<comment><USER21> Such a cartel would still be possible even without patent protection (the article doesn't go into enough detail on whether patents where still only available through GE after WWI). Cartels are always possible when you have massive economies of scale. The (mass) production of light bulbs in this case is sufficiently difficult and expensive, so that any cartel could easily thwart new competitors - even without patent protection. The expertise in the production of light bulbs doesn't lie within the schematics of the light bulbs themselves - it lies within the exact production process, the selection of the suppliers, refinement of materials, etc. Those are enough hurdles to make an entry into this market very difficult and the establishment of a cartel so easy.

In my eyes this article is a very good argument against a pure laissez-faire economy.

<comment><USER22> Corporate cartels are incredibly unstable though, because it is always in a single company's best interests to defect. They tend to last much less time than a patent, and are obviously not legally enforceable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> New lighting technologies like CFL and LED are sold by comparing to incandescent - e.g. "Burns 10x longer than a regular lightbulb!" I wonder how many of those analyses would look if its life wasn't artificially limited in this manner.

<comment><USER24> This was in the 1920s. Modern incandescent bulbs aren't sabotaged.

<comment><USER25> Most incandescent bulbs are literally banned in the United States. So it is kinda pointless talking about a product that is no longer on the market.

<comment><USER26> Been watching fox news again? There is no ban on incandescent light bulbs in the USA and never has there been one nor one proposed. What we do have is a standard of minimum light output per watt, enacted in 2007. This has caused the disappearance of dirt-cheap 60W bulbs which were replaced with 43W bulbs producing the same light.

<comment><USER25> Nope, never been watched Fox News in my life. Just an annoyed customer that when I go to the store I can't find what I would like. And yeah, the proper way to ban something is to set minimum standards of performance that the thing could never meet. That's like Republicans saying "we aren't banning abortion" while creating a series of legislation that makes it extremely hard to impossible to be able to perform abortion.

Either way I said "most."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A great example of why the public delegates regulatory powers to government, flawed though that regulation can be. The interests of consumers and producers are often not aligned, and it is easier for producers to organize than for consumers. Incumbency creates high barriers to market entry in many fields.

Adam Smith recognized this when writing _The Wealth of Nations_ , commenting 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'

<comment><USER28> Isn't the article saying the opposite? The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. A combination of being undercut by low-cost Japanese producers and the outbreak of war between the countries hosting the cartel members.

As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them.

The reduction in the lifespan seems like a side effect of this rather than the goal, even though I feel like the tone of the article is tending towards pushing that as the goal. They were undercut on cost and quality, though, not on lifetime, which seems like if it were achievable, would be a wonderful way to build a business.

<comment><USER29> _The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention._

But the cartel _didn 't_ fall apart 'on its own' due to magic self-regulating properties of the free market. It took WW2 to do it.

For some anecdotal post-war evidence, note that light bulbs in eastern Germany came with twice the lifetime of western models.

In Germany, there also circulates a story about representatives from Osram and Narva (an eastern manufacturer) meeting at Hannover fair, the latter presenting a light bulb with a lifetime of 5000h. The stories goes that the Osram representatives accused the Narva representatives of being imbeciles for cutting into their own profits...

<comment><USER30> An then there is Dieter Binninger[1] who not only build the weirdest clock of Berlin[2] (still working) but also developed a _Langlebensdauerglühlampe_ with a guaranteed life time of 150.000 hours.

[1] [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger) [german]

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I highly recommend NLee the Engineer's reviews on Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=re...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=review) (you can also get it as RSS)

Heavily covered are various light bulbs and rechargeable batteries. That includes checking power against manufacturer claims, noise, dimmability, power factor etc.

</comment><comment><USER29> See also [http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy](http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy) as well as [https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v- gener...](https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-general- electric-co/) (in particular section VII)

</comment><comment><USER32> The ridiculous lightbulb practices of today are even more offensive.

You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so. You can buy a 250 watt outdoor bulb, or a variety of CFL and LED bulbs with a bunch of additional things to worry about (light color, directionality of the light, warranties, shape, etc)

Consumers manage to make rational decisions about car purchases (15mpg SUVs aren't as popular in the era of $4/gallon gasoline), but we must be protected about the incandescent bulb.

<comment><USER33> "You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so."

You can purchase them here: [http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light- bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7P...](http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light- bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7PK)

<comment><USER32> They are no longer manufactured and cannot be imported. You can only purchase them from jobbers -- retailers don't carry them.

Also, the per-bulb price is like 300-400% higher than it was two years ago.

<comment><USER33> Interesting, today I learned they did ban manufacturing of them. Can't say I mourn the loss of them, given their costs to society and the environment. If an irrational consumer choice harms everyone then regulation seems appropriate.

<comment><USER25> Hardly an irrational consumer choice. I miss them so much. At first I though CFLs were a really good idea (less energy used, yaaaay) but after using them i realize they can't compare to incandescent bulbs. The brightness and light quality just suck compared to incandescent bulbs. And yes, I've tried every light bulb under the sun. My bedroom is so dark. I even added an extra lamp to my living room and it is still darker than when I was using incandescent.

I tried using CFLs, I really did. I really wanted to like them.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase- out_of_incandescent_light...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase- out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs)

<comment><USER33> You can still buy incandescents. 100 watt bulbs are phased out currently (though still available), but only those. 100 watt bulbs are incredibly wasteful, I never used them due to the fact that they convert most of their energy to heat and I live in a warm area, so they not only wasted power in irradiated heat, but power from climate control. They also are a fire risk (we had a fire in my house when I was a kid from a lamp with a 100 watt bulb falling over).

I have 60 watt incandescents in my local stores (they're not phased out until 2020), though I don't buy them since CFLs work for me. If you just need illumination, you can buy a 35 watt CFL bulb with as much lumen output as a 120 watt incandescent, though I usually get lower wattage ones and spend a little more to get ones with a color temp I like. If you guy them at a hardware store they have a lot more selection and you can choose your color temperature. Assuming you like warm color temps like incandescents, LED bulbs are still a little pricey, but you can get LEDs in the 3000-4000k range that can output more lumens than a 100 watt incandescent at a 10th the power draw. They last long enough to eventually make up their up front cost in energy savings.

<comment><USER25> Last time I went to the store they weren't there.

And once again "as much lumen output as a 120 watt incandescent" just isn't the case in reality. I've tried every lightbulb at every color temp and nothing works for me. Say that as much as you want but the light output sucks. I spent probably $60 on lightbulbs trying to find one to light my bedroom and the only thing that would help is buying about 2 more lamps. The same lamp worked fine to light my bedroom with an incandescent bulb year ago.

I had done (what I thought at the time was) the good thing and switched over. Now that I am sick of it and I want to go back it is very difficult to find them in the stores and if I bought online I'd pay an arm and a leg.

<comment><USER33> Since I illuminate an aquarium with plants in it I kind of obsess on various types of lamps, their lumen output, and color temp. I checked my notes - I had a 40 watt CFL as an experiment in lighting a tank (I don't think they make 35 watt ones). The output was not that impressive, and it had a very warm almost pink color to it. After looking into it, it had a hardware problem, so I returned it and got a replacement. The output was mind bogglingly bright, and had the expected color temp. (still too warm for my liking). So perhaps you just got a bad one?

If you want the equivalent lumens, just find a build that outputs 1600 lumens. The lumens from a properly functioning 32 watt CFL are 2112, so they put out more light than a 100 watt incandescent, but if somehow that wasn't bright enough, they make 40, 42 and other higher wattage ones that are even brighter. My local Lowes has a huge range, as does WalMart in their lighting area. Think about lighting in terms of desired lumens and desired color temperature (good bulbs list both on their box - crap ones don't) and you'll be able to find something that works for what you want that's more efficient than incandescents.

<comment><USER25> Dunno why you don't believe me but I spent plenty of money on CFLs already and plenty of time researching them and i am still not happy. I have a whole cabinet full of lightbulbs as a result. More than I'll probably ever be able to use. I do and did understand lumens and color temp but the actual results suck in practice. Yes I currently have three 32 watt CFLs in three different rooms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> As always, it is a matter of choice: [http://www.ownitforlife.com/](http://www.ownitforlife.com/)

</comment><comment><USER35> We have tons of lightbulbs in our house that are in shitty fixtures with dimmer switches... none of the bulbs are rated for dimmers. Roommates keep buying more bad light-bulbs.

The ones they keep putting on teh porch during the winter die at least twice as often.

TL:DR; People don't understand how these things work.

</comment><comment><USER36> This was covered recently in the BBC series "The Men Who Made Us Spend"

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who- ma...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-made-us- spend-ep1)

</comment><comment><USER37> The first thing I thought of after reading this article was the Centennial Light which has reportedly been continuously burning since 1901.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light)

<comment><USER38> Was just discussed here recently too [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I used to buy bulbs from 1 month full refunds store. I kept receipts for bulbs and regularly returned the bad ones that lived shorter than advertised lifespan.

At least didn't cost me extra to pay for crap.

<comment><USER40> I always wonder about people like you. How do you manage your receipts for all these things? And what about the additional time to go back and return lightbulbs. Does that not more than cover the money you save from the bulb?

<comment><USER41> Not the original commenter, but:

Not difficult. File folder full of receipts, sorted by "action" date. Cost of gasoline is trivial (~$0.20/mile). Time doesn't cost anything (if you wouldn't otherwise be working).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Banning incandescent bulbs is The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy.

</comment><comment><USER43> Sometimes, there really _are_ people twirling their mustaches and cognac as they conspire against the consumer. See also the great American streetcar fiasco.

</comment><comment><USER44> GE was involved? You don't say. Every single CFL at my local grocery store is a GE product.

</comment><comment><USER45> The retina macbook screen being glued to the battery comes to mind.

<comment><USER46> Um... what?

The display is fused to the glass. The battery is glued to the case.

<comment><USER47> Still, why is it glued at all?

<comment><USER48> Lighter, thinner.

<comment><USER49> and serviceable only by apple, hopefully investing the servicing cost into buying a brand new gizmo instead which comes with a brand new battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The European Union has a ban on the production of incandescent lightbulbs as of 9/1/2012\. You can still buy them, but they are getting rarer. I'm still not sure if this is a scheme from the energy-saving-bulbs-cartel or just eco- lobbyists at work...

</comment><comment><USER51> I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper to manufacture, but the lightbulb companies think they have the right to charge exorbitant prices for them just to maintain their profit margin. If a new product comes around that lasts 10x as long and is 10x cheaper to make, the market is supposed to make sure that you shrink radically in terms of revenue and profit. The belief that they have some divine right to continued levels of high profit is inane.

<comment><USER52> > I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper > to manufacture

Huh? Cheaper compared to what?

Look at this video. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE- gtk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-gtk) It's amazing to me that LED bulbs are priced so inexpensively, considering how complex they are.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who is looking for a co-founder? (Jan 2020) - <AUTHOR> Since the other thread by another poster didn't make it. <comment><USER2> I am a Product/Business Person Looking for a Technical Co-founder in the Bay Area or US to tackle a very interesting, largely unmet need in the area of videogame culture. Not another Twitch, Social Network, Blockchain, eSports, AR/VR-derivative. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Interested in looking for co-founder with skills similar to me like "golang", "mariadb", "graph database", "php", "nodejs" \- if you are looking for co- founder, please shoot me an email at - "ravindrasharmacse [at] gmail.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> upvote</comment>


Use of Samples for Artistic Purposes May Justify an Interference with Copyrights - <AUTHOR> http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2016/bvg16-029.html <comment><AUTHOR> The highly renowned electro band Kraftwerk has sued a well-known German rap artist for using two seconds of their music.

The case had already reached the Federal Court (our highest court in civil matters) twice and has now been remanded back to the Federal Court.</comment>


Obama moves to curb software patent lawsuits - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/president-moves-to-curb-patent-suits.html <comment><USER2> The most obvious reform to me would be triggering an automatic review of any patent asserted in a legal case. That way we wouldn't have to worry too much about all the existing bad patents, since whenever they became an issue the patent office (under whatever the new standards are) would take a closer look and maybe stop the case before it started.

Yet I haven't seen it in any of the proposals/orders coming about over the years mention this sort of feature. Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER3> Doesn't this already happen automatically by default because the first defense is to demand re-examination?

<comment><USER4> Only if the defense will pay for it. However, given that only 1 out of 10 patents will go through a re-examination with all claims intact, paying for re-examination is a working tactic. That is, if one can wait the many years it take for a re-examination to finish.

A better approach would of course be that the PTO did not 9 out of 10 times create a patent that they later will find to be incorrectly issued. That the state has an 88% error rate when issuing 20 years patents should really not be allowed in 2013.

<comment><USER5> I haven't seen the data, but I assume you mean 88% of the patents _that are challenged_ are found to be flawed?

<comment><USER4> Corrected, 88% of the patents grant made by PTO that has been tested through an ex parte reexamination has been found to been incorrectly issued by the PTO.

The data is PTO's own yearly statistics, and is under the heading of issued certificate of reexamination, and one need to compare the period of 2011/09/30 -> 2012/09/30 to get the latest data. A certificate is the concluded decision after all the appeals are done. The statistics cover all types of patents, and all types of industries. Statistics for specific markets (say software) doesn't seem to exist.

The reason I don't bring up unchallenged patents, is that they are of indeterminate quality. The market values them less, and they shares many of the attributes of untested code. It might be good, it might be bad, but until the code is actually run and tested, nothing much can be said. Discussing the quality of untested code seems to me at least as exercise in futility. If we were to try asses the average quality of developed code, would we include untested code too, and if so, how?

On the positive side, patents that are used by entities that try to extract money from patent licensing do tend to get their patent contested. So the patents that are challenged, are also the patents that are in-use at patent suits and patent agreements.

<comment><USER6> I found this document - [http://www.uspto.gov/patents/stats/ex_parte_historical_stats...](http://www.uspto.gov/patents/stats/ex_parte_historical_stats_roll_up_EOY2012.pdf)

Is that what you are referring to? I don't see it saying 88%

Can you clarify or provide an alternate link?

<comment><USER4> That gives the data point for 2012, and the sum from 1981. one need to compare that data point to the previous year of the 2011 report, found at an archive like: [http://ptolitigationcenter.com/2010/02/historical-uspto- reex...](http://ptolitigationcenter.com/2010/02/historical-uspto- reexamination-statistics-and-milestones-for-calculating-pendency/)

It would be interesting to make a graph of the issued certificates, and see if for the last ~5 years, the error rate have been improving or worsening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really enjoyed the most recent This American Life podcast as they revisited the topic of patent trolls (specifically Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures). Fascinating and terrifying.

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/496/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/496/when-patents-attack-part-two)

<comment><USER8> So many mind-blowing revelations in that TAL episode:

* The original filer of the patent featured in the story was not the inventor of the idea but rather a partner in a failed startup around the idea, which was never realized, he then later patented his former partner's ideas, and made a lot of money from that patent since

* Two defendants fought the patent infringement suit and won on a technicality: the patent was filed improperly due to random mention of another contributor to the idea who was not listed as a co-inventor

* ... BUT any of the other 16 infringements defendants who had already agreed to settle their infringement claims out of court are still bound to the terms of their license agreements forever because the language of the license agreement basically asserts that they have to pay the license fees no matter if the patent in question is still valid or not. So anyone that settled out of court are trapped anyway.

* There is an entire economy and market around reselling patents to the point of the current self-proclaimed owners of a given patent can not describe its origins.

After listening to this episode I couldn't help but think that patents can be fixed if:

1\. You should not be allowed to sell a patent. The intent of a patent is to give the inventor(s) enough lead time to develop the idea, not to create a market for ideas.

2\. A patent should not be valid unless you can demonstrate it. You shouldn't be allowed to own ideas that are beyond your means to execute.

3\. There should be very low limits on patent infringement damage claims thereby removing the financial incentive of using patents and anti-competitive and extortion weapons.

<comment><USER9> The patent system badly needs fixing, but hasty solutions lead to new problems.

1\. If you can't sell a patent, but lack capital or the desire to exploit it (perhaps you have invented something more interesting in the meantime, or alternatively you've developed a serious health condition that prevents you from working), the there's a net economic loss to society because the invention languishes undeveloped for 20 years.

2\. You are already required to be able to demonstrate as far as I know. Enforcing this more strictly would allow a different kind of patent trolling by large firms that wanted to grab the inventions of smaller firms/individuals for cheap or nothing by arguing that they weren't sufficiently well resourced to develop the product.

3\. If you make patent infringement into an affordable cost of doing business then you're just encouraging people to infringe and pass the minimal costs along to the consumer.

<comment><USER10> > because the invention languishes undeveloped for 20 years.

This could be fixed. One approach that comes to mind is to require a sub-20-year renewal process that, if not followed, terminates the patent. This might be due to simple non-execution (e.g. patents held by a defunct company, or entities otherwise unable/unwilling to pursue development), failure to pay renewal fees (e.g. you must pay an ongoing lease on your monopoly right), etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From what I understand of the patent office, the problem with their methodology is the test for obviousness: has this already been patented? No? _Then it's non-obvious._

Which of course ignores the possibility that a typical engineer working in this area would assume that the idea is obvious and therefore ineligible for patent. So the ethical engineer doesn't apply, but giganticorp's legal staff pesters their engineering team to patent every possible idea, obvious or not. Which they dutifully do.

Of course, how would the patent office know that the idea is non-obvious to an engineer trained in the state of the art, unless they employ engineers who are trained in the state of the art in _every engineering discipline_?

<comment><USER12> There aren't all that many engineering disciplines, and hiring a hundred well- qualified people to review patents might actually save the government a lot of money that currently goes toward running the legal system (they could hire fewer federal judges).

Being a part-time patent examiner might be a great job for a retired engineer who remembers all the "new ideas" from the last several decades.

<comment><USER13> > _Being a part-time patent examiner might be a great job for a retired > engineer who remembers all the "new ideas" from the last several decades._

Shit, that is a damn fine idea, friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Too bad they ended this article with such a weak quote from Sen. Leahy "Unfortunately, misuse of low-quality patents through patent trolling has tarnished the system's image."

This implies that "the system's image" is the thing he's trying to protect, rather than the livelihoods of people just trying to make a living in a free- market economy. When small businesses are sued for scanning a document and emailing it[1], there's more at stake than "the system's image".

[1][http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/patent-trolls- wan...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/patent-trolls- want-1000-for-using-scanners/)

<comment><USER15> The "system's image" is important because the end to all patents or IP would be absolutely devastating to the U.S. economy, killing way more jobs than patent trolls do. The public needs to trust the patent system.

<comment><USER16> Citation needed; eliminating patents in general or software patents in particular would hurt some companies (notably patent trolls and other companies who make most of their money on patent licensing) and help others (notably those who regularly get sued by those companies, and those who spend time and money writing and filing patents and creating cross-licensing arrangements for defensive purposes).

The question of which of those will have a larger impact on the economy, and for that matter which behavior we would prefer to see encouraged, remains open and does not have a well-known or accepted answer as you've implied.

<comment><USER15> In your example, companies who get sued over patents today, would instead just see their products copied wholesale and sold for much lower prices, since the copying companies have no investment to recoup. Without the possibility of recouping investment, new product development would slow, stifling innovation across the economy. Which in turn would harm companies that exist solely to copy other products, since there would be fewer new products to copy.

<comment><USER16> > In your example, companies who get sued over patents today, would instead > just see their products copied wholesale and sold for much lower prices

I think you mean "companies who sue over patents", not "companies who get sued over patents"; the latter are not the ones looking to prevent copying.

I'd also point out that that issue doesn't apply to software patents, since copyright already handles that issue quite effectively for software.

> Without the possibility of recouping investment, new product development > would slow

Standard patent rhetoric. The corresponding anti-patent rhetoric would be that without the issue of spurious patent lawsuits and workarounds, product development would accelerate. Both claims require evidence, not just assertion.

> Which in turn would harm companies that exist solely to copy other products

Because of course the world is divided solely into companies that love patents and companies that exist solely to copy other products.

There's a large ecosystem of innovative companies that treat patents as overhead and cost rather than value.

<comment><USER15> So any company that gets sued over a patent today doesn't care if its own products get copied? Really?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Killing patent trolls is just a bandaid. Companies that aren't technically trolls can (and do) still engage in troll-like behaviour. There need to be ground-up changes in how patents, especially in technology, work.

</comment><comment><USER18> Also being discussed here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5819222>

Split discussion, both on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER19> "But some big software companies, including Microsoft, expressed dismay at some of the proposals, saying they could themselves stifle innovation."

And what exactly has Microsoft been innovating lately?

<comment><USER20> It's hard to say since they don't expose the internals of their OS or other products, but one must assume that something interesting happened below in the surface in Windows 8 and in Windows Phone. They also manufacture the xbox360 and are probably working on a next-gen console in addition to that. They run a cloud platform (Azure) that again, probably has interesting things going on under the surface. Etc etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Found this interesting:

"Vermont has one of the highest per-capita rates of issued patents in the country."

What could explain that?

</comment><comment> mc-lovin Why is this a matter for the executive branch?

Can someone with more knowledge of US politics explain?

</comment><comment><USER22> crazy.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone suffering from Sciatica? (And how do you manage?) - <AUTHOR>

Pain worsened significantly for me - but I have pains only when sitting. This is a real problem for me, since I'm a programmer. I wonder if there is anybody like me here on HN, and how do you get by?
EDIT:
Symptoms: For some time, I had only some pain in the both buttocks when sitting. Now, I have more severe pain in the both buttocks, plus a severe pain going down only through the left leg - again, when sitting.
I feel best when laying down on my stomach. <comment><USER2> My sciatica went away when my health improved. Not saying this works for everybody, but you really should get a hold of books by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Neal Barnard. Apply their learnings to your own lifestyle and get healthy. That way, even if you still have sciatica, it is much more bearable because you weigh less, and are much more comfortable in your body due to healing all of your chronic nagging health problems.

And if your sciatica does end up being the kind that needs surgery to resolve, you will do much better if you are 100% healthy and non-obese when you undergo that surgery.

Even the standing desk is a lot easier to manage for a person who is healthy and not obese. The above mentioned medical doctors are leading lights in a movement to sift through the medical literature and apply what has been learned to everyday living in a holistic way, taking all of the learnings into account. They, and other doctors who are doing the same thing, can back up every piece of advice that they give. In other words, they teach the science of health not faddism and quackery.

</comment><comment><USER3> My father's sciatica pain was when standing, not sitting, but eventually it was so severe that he had to get surgery to alleviate the pinched nerve.

Have you considered a standing desk?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm thinking about a standing desk. Although, I have fatigue/tiredness in my knees when standing [for some time].

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Much abreviated story... I had pain down my right leg, needed a cane eventually. Then i read the book "walk yourself well" by a physical therapist and found a case like mine. She recommended a couple of odd leg lift type things. I did them, felt nothing, didn't think it would help. Next day 80% of the pain was gone. By the end of the week it was all gone. Call me if you want and I'll describe them to you.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do you have an actual diagnosis or do you just think it is sciatica?

Describe your symptoms in more detail.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I self-diagnosed myself after some research... But I plan to visit a doctor in the near future. I updated the post with my symptoms.

<comment><USER5> Go see a doc. There are many other conditions that can produce similar symptoms, particularly problems with the hamstring tendons.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What tools do you use everyday that make your life easier? - <AUTHOR> I love using https://i3wm.org/ as my tiling window manager and would not be able to go back to Mac because of lack of a good window manager.
I also love 1password.com as it makes managing secure passwords a breeze.
Are there any other tools which you absolutely love and would recommend? <comment><USER2> I use Linked Helper & Follow Liker :)</comment>


The Math of Daily Deals: Can Businesses Profit From Groupons? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rushrez.com/post/10205052405/the-math-of-daily-deals-could-groupons-actually-be <comment><USER2> We (B2brev.com, a YC company) surveyed 2500 merchants that used Groupon, LivingSocial and 18 other daily deal sites. Our data shows that overall, 75%+ would use Groupon and LivingSocial again. This is a decent indications that there are a large number of success stories out there (to magsafe's point).

To address 3 additional points with some data:

* REPEAT CUSTOMERS: We asked a 5-scale question of "How many repeat customers did you get?" with answers being None / Few / Moderate / Many / Tons / Not sure. About 15% of respondent said that Groupon and LivingSocial provided "Many" or "Tons". Anecdotally, many mentioned that a repeat rate of over 10% was very good compared to their expectations. About 18% were "Not sure"

* BARGAIN HUNTING CUSTOMERS: We read and categorized every single open-ended comment (160k words!), and 14% of respondents complained about Groupon/L.S. drawing the bargain hunters. In our opinion, this was lower than expected

* ADVERTISING BENEFIT: Local businesses definitely see a benefit to the daily deals beyond the direct sales. Again, based on the open-ended responses, it was the #2 most mentioned benefit. Anecdotally, many mentioned that they spend money to generate awareness anyway and that it was a very acceptable marketing cost

There is one caveat that many commenters here touched upon, which is that running a successful daily deal really depends on the type of business. For instance, of Restaurants and Shopping businesses, only about 50% would do the daily deal again--and there are wide ranges of satisfaction even within these category buckets.

In a nutshell, there are millions of local businesses and a lot of nuanced marketing needs (i.e., lots of nice opportunities to be addressed).

Link to our blog here to see some charts/tables: <http://blog.b2brev.com/daily-deals-the-merchant-perspective>

You can also buy our research report to get a the most comprehensive picture :).

</comment><comment><USER3> What most of these negative articles are neglecting to mention is 2 things:

1) Businesses that exist _solely_ because of daily deal sites

2) Businesses that have successfully leveraged daily deal sites but won't share their stories

#1 is a lot more common than you realize. I know a photographer who makes 6 figures teaching workshops that would have been impossible to market without daily deals. He essentially created a business based on his deals. There's an old woman in SF's Chinatown who gives "ghost tours" of the neighborhood by selling $25 Groupons. Before the daily deal sites came along, she was a waitress...now she pulls $70-$80k a year setting her own schedule and doing something she loves. Again, impossible to market such a thing without Groupons. I recently attended a class on coffee/tea appreciation. Hugely successful for the owner, and lots of fun for attendees. He told me this was only possible because of daily deals...he had no notion of "regular customers" or "full price" customers before the deal sites came along. His business simply didn't exist.

#2 Businesses who successfully leverage the deals model aren't going to go blog about it or tell you exactly how to replicate their success. They're afraid that if competitors find out their little secret, they'll lose their advantage, formula, etc. The truth is there are lots more businesses who've been successful with this model than there are "victims". You just don't read about them because successfully leveraging daily deals is almost a trade secret of our time.

<comment><USER4> I think (1) is pretty interesting, do you have any more information on this phenomenon? Have there been any articles written?

Very cool, thanks for bringing it up.

<comment><USER3> I doubt any articles have been written about this. Because the people who successfully pull this off are smiling to themselves everytime they read these negative articles thinking "if only they knew.....".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fundamental problem with daily deal sites is that by large and large the customer profile they attract are the LEAST attractive to local merchants.

Who wants a customer who only buys things that are on sale and has no loyalty?

The only time i really see it making sense is if the profit margin is huge that even after the discount and fees, the deal is still profitable. (Imagine something like a portrait photographer with lots of empty appointments...where even a fraction of the normal fee is still better than nothing, and where there is potential to upsell at full margin.)

<comment><USER6> _> The fundamental problem with daily deal sites is that by large and large the customer profile they attract are the LEAST attractive to local merchants.

>Who wants a customer who only buys things that are on sale and has no loyalty?_

I see this assertion a lot. I am on GroupOn. My girlfriend is on GroupOn. We are a DINK (double-income, no-kids) household, the most desirable to any seller. I have numerous peers on GroupOn. Several of them are also DINKs.

A lot of people are on GroupOn because they are looking for interesting things to do that are outside the ordinary. Sure, sometimes we use a GroupOn and never go back. Other times, when we like the experience, we don't hesitate to do it again at full price. That's the whole point of the service.

I'm the first to point out the problems and shortcomings with the daily deals model, but the oft-repeated notion that the only people on such sites are troublesome cheapskates is simply not true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The problem with the current daily deals market is over-saturation with companies that "invest to acquire customers". Consumers are getting unsustainable and unprofitable discounts and this will go on until the investment mania in this sector cools down. After the shake-out the remaining players should be able to tune their models to run profitably.

This is not so different from what happened to original e-retailing back in the nineties.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure you're right. I'll always remember fondly the amazing deals I often got in the late nineties, before most of the dotcoms offering them went bankrupt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A month back we were planning to launch a deal site, to be different than others out there, we changed our business model drastically. So much so that we weren't going to make a lot of profit, however, we still wanted to pursue the business. Our model involved giving the deal to the user for free, customer pays the business directly. We charge the business one time flat fee for running the deal OR charge the business 10% comission based on how many coupons actually got used. This way, no one was holding the businesses money and the customers were out of a buyers remorse.

Well, while talking to a few businesses we've now found that scoutmob is already doing this. and As others have said, this is a sales heavy businesses that requires you to spend the money in order to get a user base. For example, scoutmob recently partnered with budweiser and sponsored FREE happy hours. I've mentioned our first day journey to local merchants in a separate HN post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2994673>

The local businesses will continue to suffer from daily deal sites until the sites stop competing to get the customers.

We are still going to continue our business model of charging the business only a one time flat fee, however, since we are new, we are getting a lot of BLOCK from businesses as they would much rather go with someone who has a huge user base.

</comment><comment><USER10> Overall a better analysis than much of what we've seen previously. However the author still makes the mistake of stilting the data in his favor. For example, I've rarely seen a restaurant offer greater than 50% savings. Further, not only does the 40% "regular" rate sound high, it ignores that the Groupon might have produced an extra or quicker visit. The turnaway rate is probably closer to zero given that at-capacity restaurants are unlikely to run these deals. While the redemption rate is not ultimately factored in, it should be pointed out that Groupon has cleverly finessed the issue by making "expired" Groupons worth their paid value.

Finally, we should begin to take into account that deal economics are beginning to change in the merchant's favor. Savings rates are going down (ie 40% savings) and merchants no longer need to pay Groupon 50% of the difference.

</comment><comment><USER11> We definitely agree that the market for daily deals is over-saturated, and there will be tons of failures/exits (see Facebook, Yelp). That said, the doesn't really change the calculations for small businesses. They are either being helped by the current structure of daily deals or they aren't.

It is obvious that the model needs to be tweaked if these companies actually want to help local businesses. Things like Groupon Now are trying to do that, but the factors we discuss in this post hopefully lay out what small businesses need to be thinking about before they sign up for deal. Opportunity cost is a real cost.

</comment><comment><USER4> For those who don't have the time to read the article, the authors conclude that the following types of businesses are most likely to benefit from running daily deals:

1) New businesses 2) Zero variable cost businesses 3) Under the radar businesses.

One reason I think the daily deal business is so fascinating is because it can really help business (1) and (3) to gain traction - which might just facilitate more local entrepreneurship (new businesses can quickly gain traction - IF they're good) and competition (under the radar businesses can finally get the credit they deserve - again IF they're good).

</comment><comment><USER12> The thing that makes me skeptical of daily deals sites is that apparently a company like groupon takes in the same revenue as all of the stores when running a groupon. Yet despite the fact that running a coupon site should have lower overhead and much higher margins than, say, a restaurant, seemingly they still can't turn a profit. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but this sort of thing sets off some giant alarm bells for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> (Note that rushrez is in a related market, selling Facebook/Google/Yahoo/smartphone ads for restaurants etc when the businesses need more customers.)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a very well balanced look at daily deals. I think it goes to show that there will be a place for daily deals in the future but that it's not going to change how everyone does business. The businesses that it does help will continue to use them, and the others will tail off. Which jives with the stabilization of growth that we are seeing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Are there any real empirical estimates for retention rate? No offense, but the 10% itself seems high.

<comment><USER11> We have not seen any good numbers, so we stuck with the assumption nytimes uses. 10% does seem generous.

<comment><USER4> The following study suggests repeat buyers range from 18% to 30% with an average of 19.9% (depending on the deal site). Loads of other interesting data are in this study.

"How Businesses Fare With Daily Deals: A Multi-Site Analysis of Groupon, LivingSocial, OpenTable, Travelzoo, and BuyWithMe Promotions"

Source: <http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia/>

However, I would apply a haircut since this is based on merchant perceptions, which may be overly positive (people are likely to think more highly of something they've spent money on).</comment></comment></comment>


Things You Might Not Know about jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2353-5-things-you-might-not-know-about-jquery/

<comment><USER2> The first example for the 2nd point is wrong:

       The following two lines have the same effect, for example:

       $('pre').attr("css", {backgroundColor:"gray"})
       $('pre').css({backgroundColor:"gray"})

Not correct. The first line will create an attribute called 'css' while the second line will change the 'style' attribute. The author probably meant something like:

       $('pre').attr("style", {backgroundColor:"gray"})
       $('pre').css({backgroundColor:"gray"})

...but even these two lines are not exactly the same. The first one will _reset_ the style attribute to the given value while the second line will just change the backgroundColor value in the style attribute.

<comment><USER3> He is claiming that the value "css" is special, along with a few others, in that when you call attr with it jQuery actually dispatches to the css method passing the second argument as the value. He claims in the comments that this works with 1.4 ([http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2353-5-things-you-might- not...](http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2353-5-things-you-might-not-know- about-jquery#post_id_4373)), but I can't find it documented anywhere in jQuery's docs, nor can I make it work with the version of jQuery served on the jQuery docs site itself.

<comment><USER4> IIRC from the last time I browsed through jQuery source, attr('css', ...) is used internally but didn't look like it was meant to be exposed as a public method. And I never remember seeing this sort of special case in the docs. So, I wouldn't recommend using it in kosher jQuery code. A lot of things in this article seem a little dated; almost every tutorial now covers the $(function() {}) shortcut, and event binding is something I wouldn't know about jQuery? Really.

Note to jeresig: this article illustrates a beef I remember passing on when the jQuery docs reorganized; it works well as API reference now, but before, introductory text for each section of the docs describing things like event namespacing made for a nicer introduction to beginners like me, as well as the structured sub-organization of methods within each section. Now, it's more of an alphabetical method soup, so a lot of beginners probably never bother to learn that event namespaces exist, or what the jQuery event object does. For example, you can only get to the documentation on the event object from _within_ the documentation for _methods_ like .bind(), which I find odd. (How would a beginner know that it even existed unless they went specifically to the .bind() docs in an alphabetical list of other cooler sounding methods?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first sentence really stops me from reading it

 _jQuery is a very powerful library, but some of its powerful features are obscure, and unless you've ready the jQuery source code, or my new book jQuery Pocket Reference, you may not know about them._

Why don't you give me the article first, let me read it, get amazed by the techniques and then find out about you and your book and feel like I need to read another book.

This way I feel like you are trying to sell me your stuff.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps because you are reading an article in O'Reilly's website, whom sells David Flanagan. That out of the way, I thinkn he's entitled to a little self promotion at any point in the article since this is the man behind such gems as JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, and The Ruby Programing Language.

He is trying to sell you stuff, but honestly you should go right ahead and buy what he's advertising because his books are really that good.

<comment><USER7> Seconded. Advertising for outstandingly good products is not a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _You don't have to use $(document).ready() anymore_

As far as I know, this was always the case. The reason people use $(document).ready() is that it feels more correct, is more consistent. jQuery() supports three distinct behaviors:

        $(function)   => jQuery(document).ready(function)
        $(objects)    => Wrap objects with jQuery functionality
        $("selector") => Find objects, and wrap them with jQuery functionality

One of these is not like the others.

<comment><USER9> Actually, there are four!

        $("<tag>") => Make a DOM element and wrap it

This wild overloading of $ is one of the things I find hard to deal with in jQuery.

<comment><USER8> Doh, that's right, and it is one of the coolest and most fun to abuse features of jQuery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The only thing on this list that I didn't already know was that you could bind "ajaxStart" and "ajaxStop". This will prove very useful in the future.

</comment><comment><USER11> Link to the book: [http://www.amazon.com/jQuery-Pocket-Reference-David- Flanagan...](http://www.amazon.com/jQuery-Pocket-Reference-David- Flanagan/dp/1449397220/)

</comment><comment><USER12> could somebody please post an example to point #1?

<comment><USER2> Instead of:

        $(document).ready(handler);

you can write:

        $(handler);

<comment><USER13> commonly used like this:

        $(function() {
          // write the stuff you normally put in $(document).ready( ... );
        });

<comment><USER2> Just in case anyone finds it useful, use this when you have to mix jQuery with other JavaScript libraries like prototype:

        jQuery(function($) {
          // your code using $
        }(jQuery));

This way you can use $ to reference jQuery in your code even if the other library took control of $ in the global scope.

<comment><USER14> You don't need that jQuery parameter (in fact, I think that makes it invalid JavaScript). ie.

      jQuery(function($) {
        // your code using $
      });

You might be thinking of the recommended method of creating a closure, in which the code is executed immediately rather than upon page load:

      (function($) {
        // your code using $
      })(jQuery);

<comment><USER3> It's not invalid JavaScript, and it does work, but it isn't doing exactly what he thinks it's doing.

You need the jQuery parameter to make sure the $ in your code refers to the jQuery object and not something else. Without it your code is just referencing the global $ object which some other framework could have poached for itself.

But I suspect you already know all that. What his code is actually doing is creating an anonymous function intended to provide a safe place for $-based code, evaluating it immediately, and then passing the return value to the jQuery function. Depending on the return value this may be useful or not, but I'm pretty sure it's not what he intended. His function is evaluated immediately rather than when the DOM is ready.

What you want to do is combine the second part of your example with your already-written code:

        (function($) {
          $(function () {
            // your code to fire when the DOM is ready
          });
        })(jQuery);

<comment><USER2> You are correct. That was a mistake from my part.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


4-Step Sailboat Retrospective for Smooth Sailing - <AUTHOR> https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/4-step-agile-sailboat-retrospective/?utm_content=bufferb8753&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> We call this "Speed Boat", but yes it's a great exercise.</comment>


Ask HN: How to manage long running scripts? - <AUTHOR> Is there a tool that allows me to manage a handful of bash and python scripts that I have running in a better manner? I was hoping for a GUI I could have my non-technical teammates check to see the status or output of a script rather than SSHing into a server and finding the output file.
For example: I have a script that curls icanhazip.com to check if the dynamic DNS IP we get has changed and then writes the time and IP to a simple text file. Ideally I would like the management site to show the contents of the text file and maybe read cron to see when it will run next.
Is there anything like this out there? My usual google-fu is failing me, thanks HN. <comment><USER2> Airflow may be a bit more involved than what you're asking, but it supports also dependencies among scripts, retries, etc.: [https://airflow.apache.org](https://airflow.apache.org)

</comment><comment><USER3> Try [https://wooey.readthedocs.io/en/latest/—](https://wooey.readthedocs.io/en/latest/—) Don't think there's a seamless product out there. I'm working on a Python scripting runtime with built-in dashboard and GUI. Happy to give you a demo.

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.rundeck.org/](https://www.rundeck.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this seems like the best answer for me, for future folks reading this, that URL has been updated to [https://www.rundeck.com/open- source](https://www.rundeck.com/open-source)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In your example why not use cron and have a short job run every minute.

To get that data out there are a number of ways but if you are doing a lot of this stuff consider running logstash, elsaticsearch and kibana (referred to as ELK) to allow anyone to search those logs.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think any solution will carry some kind of automation I recommend checking [https://concourse-ci.org/](https://concourse-ci.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> You seem to be looking for systemd units and some GUI on top of that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the GUI is the hard part it seems. I was hoping there was a solution that made it a bit easier to manage rather than checking the status of a dozen systemd units running and starting/stopping them or adding short lived scripts to cron or running them a single time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Run your scripts in a CI environment like Jenkins or Concourse CI?

</comment><comment><USER9> Now github has a CI environment

</comment><comment><USER10> Nagioscore

</comment><comment><USER11> oh</comment>


Ask HN: Linode servers not responding. Is anyone else having issues? - <AUTHOR>

Some of my Linode servers are not responding. Is anyone else having issues? I see on twitter some people complaining but nothing on their status site. <comment><USER2> You may wish to open a support ticket for assistance if you're experiencing issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> My vps in the Newark facility is cruising along just fine.

</comment><comment><USER4> My dallas VPS seems fine.</comment>


Over 100 Riot Games Employees Walked Out to End Forced Arbitration - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evyz7p/over-100-riot-games-employees-walked-out-today-to-end-forced-arbitration <comment><USER2> Is there an upside of arbitration for employees? From what I read it's mostly for the benefit of the company. How is it even legal to forcefully take away the right of settling matters in court?

<comment><USER3> The upside is lower cost for both parties. Courts mostly require a lawyer to successfully navigate.

The goal of civil court is to enforce contracts. If both parties agree via a contract to solve any disagreements with 3rd party arbitration, why wouldn't that be legal?

<comment><USER4> Generally employer / employee relationship, the employer has vastly more bargaining power. Obviously this is no absolution, but I wouldn't say that forced arbitration is a fair practice under those circumstances is fair practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At first I thought the title meant that Riot "walked them out" ie fired them and walked them out of the building on the spot.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's nice to see a civil protest. Both sides seemed interested in compromise and moving the company forward.

<comment><USER7> Really? It looks more like Riot is doing the absolute minimum to make it look like they are actually interested. They won't get rid of forced arbitration for current or past employees, and new employees only get to opt out(I wonder how many hoops they'll have to jump through for that). Current employees can't even opt out at this point.

<comment><USER8> They don't even get to actually opt out, just "for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims"; the qualifier "individual" is probably doing a lot of heavy lifting too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let me get this straight:

Potential hires were offered an employment contract with terms that included the settling certain disputes through arbitration. They accepted the offer and signed the contract. Now these people are not only are trying to nullify that clause, they're adopting an air of moral superiority because they think that clause should never have existed.

Not only does this seem unsympathetic to me, it seems impractical. Why would you go work for a company that seemingly doesn't share your values only to later take an activist stance to try and change said company?

<comment><USER10> There is often a significant power difference between an employer and someone seeking employment. Once the seeker becomes the employee they have more power and can band with other employees to pool their power. Therefore, there's not a particularly realistic way for someone to negotiate these sorts of things before they are hired.

<comment><USER9> Sure. There's still some missing pieces of the motivation puzzle missing here, such as why this issue, why this point in time, why don't employees exercise this option more often if this is a legit negotiating tactic, etc.

At the risk of being cynical, my guess is that this is a PR stunt as much as it's an employment negotiation. We the outside observers would be the pawns of this tactic that can produce public sentiment to influence Riot. That's why I'm not so quick to categorize this as simply another contract negotiation.

<comment><USER11> > There's still some missing pieces of the motivation puzzle missing here

No there's not, you just haven't bothered to read up on the issue.

Rioters wanted a toxic senior leader fired for well-documented lapses in judgement. Instead he was given 3 months off and re-hired when the dust settled. The employees personally impacted by this are unable to pursue legal recourse thanks to forced arbitration.

<comment><USER9> If you take what people say at face value, then sure, the issue is simple. I think that's an unwise presumption to always make, but YMMV.

But even assuming your explanation is correct, it is incomplete. Why now? This guy has been with the company for a while. He is hardly the only bad actor at the company, so why does his case merit more focus? Have a confluence of factors reached a tipping point? Do employees feel secure enough about their status that they can make this move?

<comment><USER12> I don't understand the argument you're trying to make. The summary of it seems to be "Lots of bad things are happening, so why try to do anything about a particular bad thing?" The answer is because that's how you solve problems. You tackle one subproblem, then move on to the next, and continue until no subproblems remain.

The employees are fighting this particular case of injustice because they care about doing so, and because you don't solve a big problem by doing nothing; you have to start somewhere! This is the start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Give'm hell! That's how you get things done.</comment>


An AI learned to play hide-and-seek. Strategies it came up with were astounding - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/20/20872672/ai-learn-play-hide-and-seek <comment><USER2> These discussions of "unintended consequences of AI" always seem to ignore that those behaviours emerge during the training phase of the models. But then generally you take a trained model and deploy it into production where it doesn't learn any new behaviour anymore.

You train them for a specific ability in a controlled environment that reflects deployment environment and after that the deployed system no longer has an ability to learn and will just fail if the environment is different.

Journalist in particular seem to be blissfully unaware of this distinction and always cast "artificial intelligence" as following similar mechanics then human brains.

<comment><USER3> NLP systems don't "just fail".

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/01/10/508363607...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/01/10/508363607/what-happened-when-dylann-roof-asked-google-for- information-about-race)

<comment><USER4> If you look for terms that are used by bad people and not discussed otherwise, you will find what these bad people write. I don't see how someone would expect Google to police for example topics related to "The Bell Curve". Recently Sam Harris had trouble dealing with that topic.

Should Google suggest "polish concentration camps" when you type "polish concent"? I have no idea.

<comment><USER5> It will look for what you typed, and find top hit of "German concentration camps in occupied Poland" and second is about naming controversy.

Predictable behaviour of a simple statistical debiased algorithm. PageRank is not really an AI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know if these trained AI agents will use the same strategies to immediately win in another map it has never seen before? And that it would get it right the first time on the new map (not blunder about aimlessly and win after millions of plays)?

<comment><USER7> They were given a new random map every iteration of the game, at least in the second experiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember once when OpenAI team chose to not release a particular algorithm because they thought it's too dangerous.

This example would force governments about how to regulate AI

<comment><USER9> And then (earlier this year) some independent researchers replicated the model and found out it wasn't as good as OpenAI "feared" \-- making the whole thing look like a publicity stunt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why don't we have an AI programmer yet? "Write a sorting algorithm" is a well- defined problem, and easy to test for correctness to a reasonable degree of certainty. Why don't we have machines finding us better sorting implementations?

<comment><USER10> As Yann LeCunn observed in a recent interview, program synthesis is a genre of problem that neural nets seem to be horribly inefficient (bad) at. The successful applications of SOTA program synthesis are laughably specific, as a recent HN post from Microsoft on the subject showed.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I was trying to research this idea at the back of my mind, but I didn't even know what to search for. I didn't know the term "program synthesis" existed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Original link with videos playing correctly [https://openai.com/blog/emergent- tool-use/](https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/)

</comment><comment><USER12> More like "ai learned which buttons to press for a given input". Is it still an ai if all it is a trained network that replays a set of button presses that is optimized for a given input?

</comment><comment><USER13> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20996771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20996771)

</comment><comment> mark-r I wonder why the hiders never figured out the strategy of locking the seekers in a box they couldn't escape from?

<comment><USER12> Probably harder to learn. It requires approaching seekers which ends bad if you cant block them.</comment></comment>


Github publishes public keys - x-sam https://github.com/defunkt.keys

<comment><AUTHOR> Surely it doesn't matter though because no one will be able to access anything using those keys without the private keys anyway...

</comment><comment> x-sam I know, they are public, but I don't want to share information about a number of my keys, what exactly keys I do use to push my source code to github and other related things.

<comment><USER2> Why does it matter? Are your fears based on reason or just an uneasy feeling you have about publicizing data that you don't need to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Isn't that required for validating signatures?

</comment><comment><USER4> Sure, that's fine mine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, aint this nice.

</comment><comment><USER6> awesome :D</comment>


Ask HN: What Day/Part-time Job you had in order to fund your startup? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Worked on quite a few startups over the decade.

Each time working for a day job and then investing it on an idea and pursuing it full-time. Currently pursuing: [http://draftss.com](http://draftss.com) for 10 months and have successfully achieved $8k MRR.

Still working on creating more products under Draftss. Launched [http://draftss.com/getfeedback](http://draftss.com/getfeedback) this month. Working on another one for February.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had an understanding co-founder and worked as an AWS instructor which covered some of my income needs and took me away from the startup about 6-9 working days a month. Before that I also was a straight up contractor working about 50% of the time.

I also dug into savings. And eventually departed the startup.

So may not be the best role model. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha you are a good role model! I think most people are contracting/consulting in order to bootstrap their business</comment></comment>


Firefox 3.5 is out, But Are You Dazzled? - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/firefox_35_arrives_today.php

<comment><USER2> It's not about being dazzled. When you go on a road trip, you rotate the tires, check the brakes, wash the windows, change the oil and fill it up with gas - and not because it's dazzling, but because you need to be prepared for the road ahead. Not to mention you must be able to maintain the pace with the other vehicles on the road.

"Dazzling" will come (or so the rumors say) but right now it's about being competitive, useful and functional.

</comment><comment><USER3> The one feature I've noticed so far is that the page renders much faster than it used to. I guess this is the "speculative rendering" changes made to Gecko (FF's layout engine). In fact, it made me realize that a lot of page loading time is probably due to slow-loading ads or scripts, not because the actual website or my connection is slow.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've also noticed that my FF instance uses a LOT less memory. Where the usual 60 tabs would take 400+ MB (and a max of 1gig+ sometimes) of memory, it now hardly goes more than 350 MB and an average of 275-300 MB

<comment><USER4> 60 tabs? WOW. I never use more than 10-15. Right now, I have 12 open, and FF is using a total of 172MB.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe.. This is less because due to a stupid tech support dude, I lost about 100+ of the open tabs

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just want a nice browser, and FF delivers. I don't need the internet reinvented. I like the awesome bar enhancements, too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes!

[http://labs.pimsworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/demo- co...](http://labs.pimsworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/demo-content- aware-image-resizing-2/)

<http://craigmod.com/journal/font-face/>

<http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/pop-art-video/>

</comment><comment><USER7> The whole point of Firefox is to not overload the average user with feature bloat. Yes, Safari and Chrome are slightly faster than Firefox now, and this is something that should be in core. OK. But awesomebar + ubiquity + weave? Other browsers just barely started copying awesomebar, and the others have yet to be copied. How are these not revolutionary?

<comment><USER6> Because they are not ready for prime-time. The Weave platform only has one feature implemented so far (Weave Sync), and Ubiquity just recently (like last week) figured out what kind of parser it was going to use. Sure, they're awesome features (I use both!), but they don't count if they don't get shipped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't see why private browsing should be considered a late copy for Firefox? That feature first appeared as a Firefox extension, and was then copied by IE. Are you saying Firebug should be included with the default Firefox install just b/c IE has their copy of it now?</comment>


Will Spotify go public without an IPO? - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/07/will-spotify-go-public-without-an-ipo/ <comment><USER2> This is the future. The value added by investment banks does not justify 10's or 100's of millions in fees. It's one of the biggest remaining inefficiencies in company growth that needs disruption.

The reason it hasn't happened yet seems straightforward. Companies are hesitant to be beta testers of a new model where so much is at stake. No one ever got fired for running an IPO through Goldmen Sachs.

The principle of people making obscene amounts of money doesn't bother me one bit. It would be nice if teachers had higher salaries, but NBA players make more money than teachers for many objective reasons. This situation is different.

Does anyone think this is the best we can do? One quick example:

[http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/03/11/where- banks...](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/03/11/where-banks-really- make-money-on-ipos)

<comment><USER3> You may be conflating what's going on here with a direct public offering [1]. Google, for example, did not use an underwriter in its DPO-style offering [2]. (Partly as a result, they massively underpriced.)

Spotify isn't doing a DPO nor an IPO. They will simply allow their shares to be traded by third parties. Since Spotify, itself, is raising no cash there isn't a need for an underwriter nor an auction process. Each investor will need to figure out listing, trading, clearing and settlement, _et cetera_ mostly on their own.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_public_offering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_public_offering)

[2] [http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...](http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1534&context=btlj)

<comment><USER4>
      Partly as a result, they massively underpriced

Snapchat had underwriters and popped 50% on opening. Isn't that also massively underpriced? Life insurance and health insurance companies don't make the _obscene_ margins and figures that investment banks do. Investment banks basically rob you silly when they underwrite. It's not insurance. It's clear that you will be underpricing if you want your IPO to be underwritten.

<comment><USER5> > Investment banks basically rob you silly when they underwrite

The cost of taking risks can be very high. There are not inconsiderable likely downsides.

<comment><USER2> This is true and important to understand.

However the point is that after considering this and all other value add, it's still vastly over priced, and is propagated by a happenstance of a few unhealthy market dynamics.

Please, take a look at the link I posted above. Do you agree with how those fees are applied?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A noob question: Why don't companies just bypass the underwriters and offer their stock for sale using a Dutch auction, where the price starts very high and gradually decreases until the most optimistic investors decide to buy? That way, the company always sells at the highest price the market is ready to offer.

<comment><USER7> Dutch auction has notable downsides, namely _the free-rider problem_.

The way it's supposed to work is that a number of investors do due diligence, decide on the price they think it's worth it to them, and make their bids. Once enough pledges been made, the lowest price is given to all bidders.

However an investor may decide to join in without any effort put into due diligence. Instead he will decide to bid high and rely on others to set the fair price.

First, the "honest" investors end up paying for the free riders. Second, the free-riders end up crowding in and bidding up the price above the reasonable level. Consequently the "honest" investors put all the effort into it and end up with nothing to buy at their determined price. In the end "honest" investors end up not participating at all, so the Dutch auction thing just fell apart.

In short, smart money was in charge setting correct price, but smart money was crowded out by dumb money. This problem is not unique to Dutch auctions, but it appears that that's where it is the most acute.

<comment><USER8> Could you explain a bit more? I don't see how free riders are a problem. Anyone who's willing to pay an arbitrarily high price in order to get in on the stock should probably get some stock. If there are enough such actors, they'd significantly raise the sale price, but that's the point, isn't it?

<comment><USER7> Two problems:

1\. Suppose two funds compete, and the both partake in a Dutch auction. They end up with having the same stock at the same price at the dutch auction, and so the same income. However the free-rider gets fewer expenses so his profits are higher. The diligent fund is losing to the free rider in profits. After a while there are no more diligent funds.

2\. The diligent fund prices stock at "proper" value, the free-rider prices it higher hoping to pay the lower, "proper" price but getting ahead of the diligent fund in the queue. If there are many free-riders they all end up in the queue before the diligent fund, so the latter may get less stock, or no stock at all. After a couple of such experiences the diligent funds stop partaking in any new Dutch auctions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Spotify has lost 20% market share in 2 years, in the same time pushing their annual losses to $200m.

Growing your losses whilst losing market share is not an _enormously_ attractive value proposition to investors.

<comment><USER10> Good. They have been so out of touch with what their users want, it's time they wake up.

Examples:

\- Redesigning the client multiple times

\- moving from native clients to essentially a bundled browser

\- removal of lyrics feature

\- can only store 3333 songs offline on a device \- 10000 songs is the limit for the library

\- Still no Hi-Fi option

\- Can't add third party songs to the cloud library

And the competition is definitly rising: For example, Apple Music offers lyrics, a song limit of 100000, can store all of those songs offline, play back on 10 different devices at the same time and store all those songs offline. Also, you can drag and drop the songs that are unavailable into your library, which makes them available on all of your devices.

Once Apple Music releases a web player (or a client for Linux), I'm done with Spotify. For the moment, I need it for my desktop, which runs Linux.

<comment><USER11> I realize that these features are what you want, and sorry that they're not making you happy. But I would bet that a very small minority of users cares about things native clients / bundled browser and Hi-Fi option.

On the other hand, they added things like making discovering new music much easier, like "Daily Mixes" and "Discover Weekly", which - again, I don't have any hard data to back this up - made a ton of users very happy.

<comment><USER12> The first time I used daily mixes I was blown away by how perfect it was.

I use Spotify as much as conceivably possible (~20 hours per week) and haven't heard a peep of discontent from anybody. Totally agree - Spotify is incredible.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I agree. The criticism above is definitely from an engineers perspective. The vast majority of users really won't even notice most of the items on that list. Reminds me of the episode of Silicon Valley where engineers absolutely love their product, but everyone else hates it because of the terrible UX.

<comment><USER14> Three things stick out on that list as things non-engineers care about.

Lyrics; people listen to music and then enjoy singing along. This little thing called karaoke supports a whole industry, for engineers and non-engineers alike, so people can get together and sing songs.

Redesigning the client. New interfaces are scary and different for non- engineers.

Can't add third party songs to cloud library. Non-engineers understand that some licensing nonsense means they can't get Taylor Swift on their Spotify, and then... just don't use Spotify, because all their music is on the Apple.

I'm not including "native client to bundled browser" as something non- engineers care about, but people _do_ ask "why does the new version of $program make my laptop fans get all loud?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "They could also avoid the classic "leave money on the table" scenario, where institutional investors and the other high net worth individuals who have access to IPOs reap all the benefits from the first day's gains."

Main justification of IPO IMHO is greedy banks, early investors, and underwriters aiming to cash out a lot on the first day without giving a crap about the company or its employees in general.

It is a welcoming step and a step in right direction. Cut the middle man out.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm ignorant, but I'm sure many others here are too:

How does one become a publicly owned/traded enterprise without an initial offering of one's shares to the public?

<comment><USER3> There are two stages to most American IPOs: registration and the initial public offering. Registration means your shares can be sold without relying on a Securities Act exemption [1], _e.g._ the rule which lets one sell private shares to accredited investors [2].

When you register, you have to start disclosing certain information, _e.g._ your financials, to the public. This is a hassle and expense most companies delay for as long as possible. Companies must register before an IPO; this is why registration and public offering are commonly conflated.

"IPO" specifically refers to the process by which an underwriting bank buys shares from the company (including, potentially, current investors) at a certain price and then sells those shares to the public at a different-- hopefully higher--price [3]. Some companies cut out the underwriters by directly offering their shares to the public [4]; this is less common.

Spotify appears to be contemplating registering its shares but not issuing any new ones to the public. I presume this is to stop the bleeding from their TPG notes, which penalize them for not going public [5]. This would let existing investors more easily sell their shares. It would not raise new money for Spotify. Depending on the jurisdiction it chooses, reporting requirements may be lighter than the United States'.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/fast- answers/answersregis33htm.html](https://www.sec.gov/fast- answers/answersregis33htm.html)

[2] [https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answers- rule506htm.html](https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answers-rule506htm.html)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_public_offering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_public_offering)

[5] [https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-02-08/spotify...](https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-02-08/spotify- needs-a-little-help-from-its-friends)

<comment><USER17> How would the price be decided for the very first sale of shares? And before that sale, would there be a stock symbol with a "NULL" price? - I hope the stock market tested that corner case :-)

<comment><USER18> I don't know about shares, but for fixed income securities, it's common to have a null price. I know this because my code is littered with checks for them!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They should go mutual and offer shares to their customers.

</comment><comment><USER20> The second part of this quote:

> "It seems short-sighted and very risky," said Barrett Daniels, CEO and > managing partner at Nextstep Advisory Services. "Don't they want money?"

</comment><comment><USER21> Curious why direct lending vs dutch auction like Google.

</comment><comment><USER22> They reason they are not doing an IPO is because they can't. But I think this is a great idea.

<comment><USER23> Out of interest, why can't they?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why not a reverse takeover?

</comment><comment><USER25> The biggest problem with Spotify is that they aren't a company they are a feature. Streaming music is being considered a low margin value add by companies with much deeper pockets like Apple, Google, and Amazon.

None of Spotify's competitors are trying to make a company sustainable profit from music streaming.</comment>


Ask HN: Recourse Against Websites That Fail to Validate Sign-Up Emails? - <AUTHOR> My e-mail address has been used half a dozen times now to sign up for services that I did not authorize. As best I can figure, my e-mail itself has not been compromised (I review the access logs every time this happens)--more likely someone with a similar e-mail address is typing mine by mistake[0]. What seems to be happening instead is that the website sends the sign-up verification email (which I DON'T click), but then site allows the fraudulent account to login anyway.
This has happened even with AWS. When I called Amazon to complain, demonstrating my ownership of the email account and asked why the account was allowed to proceed even though the sign-up was never validated, the Amazon rep said that the validation email was bypassed because the owner validated a phone number instead.
I have brought the fraudulent sign-ups to the attention of several of these websites. Some of them are refusing to delete the accounts, even after I have told them that I did not authorize their creation (probably because the account owner is performing financial transactions with the sites). One in particular simply removed my e-mail from the mailing lists so that I wouldn't get any notifications about the account's activity, but revealed upon being pressed that the account still exists and is accessible.
I would like to know what, if anything, I can do in recourse. I am sick of having my e-mail used fraudulently by sites that are happy to do so as long as the account owner is throwing money at them.
I am aware that I could simply use the "Forgot My Password" option to change the password on these accounts and close them, since I own the e-mail address. However, I am loathe to do this, as doing so would be implicitly acknowledging that it is my account. <comment><AUTHOR> [0] On at least one occasion, the verification e-mail echoed back the login name, and I see that it was registered as foo _._ firstname.lastname@example.com, while my email is email@example.com. I am aware that gmail drops all dots in the names, so foo.bar and foobar should ultimately go to the same inbox. But I refuse to believe that, knowing that, gmail would have allowed firstname.lastname@example.com to have been created in the first place as a distinct email address, so I am forced to conclude that there must still be a typo somewhere and that the user's real email is fooo.bar or foo.barr.</comment>


Wind-up radio Inventor urges patent law change - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm

<comment><USER2> Fine, criminalize patent infringement, but also reduce the government-granted monopoly to 3 years, ban obvious patents that a ten year old kid can think of (probably most of them), and sanction companies that try to introduce such obvious patents with big-ass fines.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think his proposed solution quite solves his problem. Among other things, if he got his wish, then "preponderance of evidence" would no longer suffice; he'd have to provide "evidence beyond a reasonable doubt" every time he wanted to win a case.

</comment><comment> onreact-com Imagine this guy to monopolize wind-up radios for all of the third world.</comment>