Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of "monopoly" - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/work/1460402/google-facebook-and-amazon-benefit-from-an-outdated-definition-of-monopoly/ <comment><USER2> It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused to prevent competition which harms consumers.

What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly.

The reason why anti-trust is based on precise economic definitions is that it leaves as little room as possible for the government to favor friendly players. When you need to prove harm to consumers, the bar is high, as it should be.

Otherwise, any government in power will simply abuse their own monopoly on regulation to favor and transfer wealth from society to friends.

The classic example is: Coca-Cola has a 95% market share of the cola market in some countries. Does it mean it has a monopoly? No.

If it had 100% of the cola market, would it have a monopoly? No.

Because the cola market doesn't exist in isolation. Colas compete with all other sodas, with water, juices, etc. for a share of wallet and a share of stomach.

<comment><USER3> > The classic example is: Coca-Cola has a 95% market share of the cola market > in some countries. Does it mean it has a monopoly? No.

Effectively, yes. Why is the market so disfunctional that a single company has effectively swallowed all competition?

> If it had 100% of the cola market, would it have a monopoly? No.

Err, yes.

> Because the cola market doesn't exist in isolation. Colas compete with all > other sodas, with water, juices, etc. for a share of wallet and a share of > stomach.

And AT&T wasn't a monopoly, since you could just walk to the person you want to talk to. Oh, wait..

<comment><USER4> > Why is the market so disfunctional that a single company has effectively > swallowed all competition?

This is actually pretty common in hypercompetitive commodity markets. The largest player has a slight cost advantage due to economies of scale, so they have the best price and everyone buys from them. But they still have no market power because their market share doesn't come from barriers to entry.

> Err, yes.

It's not necessarily a monopoly even at 100% when there are competitors who _could_ immediately enter the market if the incumbent were to be so audacious as to raise prices by 4%, or do anything else the customer even mildly dislikes -- because that fact keeps them from ever doing it.

Notice that this is _not_ how it works for Comcast, because it's not cheap or quick to wire a city with fiber, so they can get away with a great deal of abuse before anyone else would show up to compete -- even if they only had 50% market share, as long as the other 50% is another company doing all the same abusive stuff.

> And AT&T wasn't a monopoly, since you could just walk to the person you want > to talk to. Oh, wait..

To be a substitute it has to be a practical alternative that can be used for the same purpose at approximately the same cost. Having to spend an hour walking is not the same cost as picking up the phone.

<comment><USER5> > This is actually pretty common in hypercompetitive commodity markets. The > largest player has a slight cost advantage due to economies of scale, so > they have the best price and everyone buys from them.

This is not true at all. Looking at actual competitive commodity markets for things like lumber, oil, copper, etc, we see a lot of players in the market. I can't think of a single commodity market where there is a monopoly.

Those times in history where a monopoly has occurred in commodities markets it has been grossly abused. IAR, from the trusts of the early 1900s to the cornering of the silver market one player controlling a commodity market has not turned out well.

<comment><USER4> > Looking at actual competitive commodity markets for things like lumber, oil, > copper, etc, we see a lot of players in the market.

Those are all things that come from the earth (so inherently have diffuse supply), sell into the global market (so the market is large and diverse, leaving space for upstarts to find a niche) and are of strategic interest to national governments many of which then act to ensure that an independent local industry exists.

Examples of markets where this actually happens: Coca Cola (as discussed), Walmart (in local areas), YKK in zippers, AB inBev in Brazil, Luxottica in eyewear.

It's also common for this to happen with open source software, e.g. Linux on embedded devices, OpenSSH as an ssh client/server, for many years gcc as a compiler for Unix-like systems (until Apple poured money into clang to make it competitive after FSF moved gcc to GPLv3), Android on phones, etc.

<comment><USER5> > Examples of markets where this actually happens: Coca Cola (as discussed), > Walmart (in local areas), YKK in zippers, AB inBev in Brazil, Luxottica in > eyewear.

None of these is the result of the "slight price advantage" and increased efficiencies you claimed. Luxottica is expensive and uses their vertically integrated monopoly power to keep competitors like Oakley out. Warby Parker gained success so quickly largely because of this dysfunctional system. Coke, where it controls the market it does so by controlling distribution, menus, and retail space, not by offering cheaper products.

> It's also common for this to happen with open source software, e.g. Linux on > embedded devices, OpenSSH as an ssh client/server,

These are not monopiles. They are more akin to standards. It's like saying the kilogram has a monopoly. It's kind of true if you play with the meaning of the word a bit, but in terms of markets, there is no monopoly power.

<comment><USER4> > Luxottica is expensive and uses their vertically integrated monopoly power > to keep competitors like Oakley out.

The eyewear market is weird because opticians use free eye exams as a loss leader to sell expensive frames, and if you have insurance then the insurance is paying and customers aren't sensitive to price, so the market selects for expensive high margin frames even though they're an inexpensive commodity with low barriers to entry. (This is a primary reason why healthcare is so expensive in general.)

The scale advantage then isn't low "price" (because the market selects for a specific _high_ price, namely the limit on what insurance will pay), rather the advantage is lower _cost_ which leaves the seller with more to spend on marketing etc.

And this leaves a niche for the likes of Warby Parker to capture the segment of the market which is paying out of pocket and is actually sensitive to price.

> Coke, where it controls the market it does so by controlling distribution, > menus, and retail space, not by offering cheaper products.

But it still sells at competitive prices. Having retail space gives them volume, not pricing power.

> These are not monopiles. They are more akin to standards. It's like saying > the kilogram has a monopoly. It's kind of true if you play with the meaning > of the word a bit, but in terms of markets, there is no monopoly power.

That's the point. They have overwhelming market share but minimal market power. If suddenly Linux cost a lot of money, people would switch to BSD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Look no further than the dozens of examples of major tech companies essentially "dumping" product to kill up and coming startups.

Diapers.com was the ultimate example of this [1]

 _Soon after, Quidsi noticed Amazon dropping prices up to 30 percent on diapers and other baby products. As an experiment, Quidsi executives manipulated their prices and then watched as Amazon's website changed its prices accordingly. Amazon's pricing bots—software that carefully monitors other companies' prices and adjusts Amazon's to match—were tracking Diapers.com._

This is unambiguously Amazon using their Market power to stifle competition.

Now, you might say something like - yea that's just competition, or to the victor go the spoils. However that's the whole point of this kind of advocacy - to prevent companies from taking significant market power and spreading out the competitive landscape. The language may not perfectly fit between "monopoly" or otherwise, but the end result is the same: Small players can't compete. Best thing you can hope for is an acquisition.

This is especially bad in technology, where information advantages grow with the scope of the company.

[1] [https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff- be...](https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went- thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html)

<comment><USER7> Please change my mind on that, but I don't understand the problem with the diapers store example (or any other product for that matter).

Amazon lowers the price, so the consumers will get to buy cheaper diapers (sounds good). Apparently Amazon can sell them at a very low margin, it's just choosing one that's just below what competition can offer. Then of course you have an issue with dumping (selling diapers with profit < $0), but I guess Amazon can afford to sell them at $0+eps profit, so its end game is to sell diapers at a lowest price to outcompete diaper stores on a crazy low margin. Well, maybe there won't be online diapers stores anymore. Most likely Amazon will then bump up the price back.. Well, so the diaper stores will appear again (if the new bumped-up price is above a margin at which an individual store can again operate). What will Amazon do then? Go back to step 1? Great, more cheap diapers at "eps" margin. This, of course, requires the third party stores to have low "startup" costs.

And maybe the bottom-line here is, that there is not going to be diapers.com and alike anymore. Well, maybe online diapers store is not a branch of industry one can enter in 2018 and expect to win big just by having a nicer website, without proposing something truly innovative that a giant like Amazon cannot offer (see how dollar shave club competed with Gilette/Wilkinson etc.)

<comment><USER6> I feel like you outlined the problem pretty well.

Amazon, because they have information and economic advantage, can effectively manipulate the price of any good they want to make it uneconomical for any other company to play.

That's a single company having outsized power to determine the state of the market.

Using your example let's say that no other company can sell diapers online. That means for consumers that either don't want to or can't buy from Amazon, they are materially hurt from the lack of competition. Not only that, if they tried to start their own, they would be crushed just like the others. So in the end it's anti competition and increases friction for new business creation. A fundamental tenet of markets is that diverse competition is the primary forcing mechanism to ensure accessibility and quality.

The only possible argument here is that it's possible to have a singular organization that provides everything better than a diverse competitive market could. Neither history nor theory supports this thesis and the secondary effect on economies and political power compounds the downsides.

<comment><USER7> > Using your example let's say that no other company can sell diapers online. > That means for consumers that either don't want to or can't buy from Amazon, > they are materially hurt from the lack of competition.

If a group of consumers can't or don't want to shop at Amazon, then they've just created a niche in the market (be it due to geography or anti-Amazon sentiment), that would create a demand for a diaper store that would serve those customers, because, by definition, they have just outcompeted Amazon by being more available or appealing to the consumers.

> The only possible argument here is that it's possible to have a singular > organization that provides everything better than a diverse competitive > market could. Neither history nor theory supports this thesis and the > secondary effect on economies and political power compounds the downsides.

I believe history shows that as long as said singular organization it keeps providing everything, it will prevail (in everything). The moment it stops, it collapses and new players come in its place. This is, of course, as long as state doesn't decide to bail it out like it historically did in several heavily regulated industries, which are hard to enter partially because of said regulations. Consumers are rarely hurt in the process, as long as you let the big company take the fall, and let the new better companies grow its place once it stops delivering. If you regulate something like Search, to Google it's just extra operational costs, but as a side effect, Google becomes too big to fall, because no one else can really step in its boots anymore and enter the market.

<comment><USER6> I already addressed your point, that they could just star their own:

 _Not only that, if they tried to start their own, they would be crushed just like the others._

As did you in the original reply. So we're going in circles on that point.

You're missing the broader point though. Even if a firm did everything, it would be bad for the economy because of lack of diversity. That's effectively what the Soviet Union did. It's not because it's the government that things don't work that way, it's because the government doesn't have competition that things fail when centrally managed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> this is a rehashing/summary of the much more in-depth research note by law school student Lina Khan that gained some attention earlier this year: [https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust- parado...](https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox)

changes to the economic definition and legal enforcement of anti-monopoly are one issue, but a general slowdown in the pace of technological innovation combined with globalization/spread of technology is the primary force driving consolidation/horizontal/vertical integration in many industries

<comment><USER9> Khan's piece was incredibly interesting. I learned a ton. It's long (100pp or so) but full of great info, not at all difficult to read. I highly recommend checking it out.

It's my understanding that the Chicago School types were not impressed, but that was probably to be expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> here's what gets me. per the article: >>"Google owns 92% market share of internet searches, Facebook an almost 70% share of social networks. "

but us the searchers and friends are not the customer. FB and google are selling ads, and they are in direct competition with each other. If I want to buy advertising space online, I have plenty of options and the innovation for me to reach my target customers is astounding. The system is working exactly as it should. Or so it goes from a monetary point of view.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm reminded of Peter Thiel's take on this [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iG3YKf1...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iG3YKf1yLKIJ:blakemasters.com/post/21169325300/peter- thiels-cs183-startup-class-4-notes-essay+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

cached because current link is unavailable

<comment><USER12> More durable:

[http://archive.is/ye5RY](http://archive.is/ye5RY)

<comment><USER13> Somewhat ironically, visiting this "more durable" link displayed a Cloudflare Origin DNS error page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In a way the new monopoly is owning the demand but not the fulfillment..

Apple - own device demand, not the apps (or the default search).

Google - own search demand, not the content.

Facebook - own social demand, but not the content.

Airbnb - own lodging demand, but not the real estate.

Uber - own transportation demand, but not any vehicles.

Uber eats - own hunger, but not any food or restaurants

</comment><comment><USER15> BUT the vast majority of buyouts are small and are for the purpose of finding talent, and also the odds of a buyout producing a long-term impact are small. Look at all the acquisitions yahoo has done over the past 2 decades and they, I think, all failed. They bought Mark Cuban's company Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion in 1999, which is now a redirect to the yahoo homepage. Which I think makes it the most expensive domain name ever purchased.

<comment><USER16> HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) owns autonomy.com which redirects to their website. They paid $11.7 billion USD for a company named Autonomy in 2011. HP was forced to make a $8.8B writedown on the purchase already the following year, and today nothing but the domain name remains at HPE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Choice and harm are two different concepts, the first is an economic context that is supposed to punish bad actors, the second is a societal concept of social harm which is an ethical concept like child labour.

In many cases the economic concept of choice is idealized and doesn't work in the real world. For instance what choice does a consumer concerned about privacy have beyond Android and IOS, or in telecom, oil and other polluting industries and other dysfunctional markets? The network effects of social media cannot be ignored and one may often be forced to participate in a damaging environment that does not respect consumers privacy and basic rights.

Consumers may want a privacy respecting Internet and products but there is no way for them to affect that outcome only through choice, so choice on its own is not empowering. You can only choose what is available. And this is where in democratic societies democratic institutions are expected to step in to limit harm.

</comment><comment><USER18> My theory is that apple is intentionally targeting the profitable 10% and ignoring the rest just so they don't have to deal with monopoly laws. They still essentially have a monopoly on profit since they have the most profitable users, but nobody can say that 10% market share is a real monopoly.

<comment><USER7> Tim is first of all targeting the issue of privacy in that linked article (which has nothing to do with monopolies), and it does it because Apple handles that issue the best among the other big players by not being really interested in your personal data (selling $1000 iPhones is good enough). Using Tim's quote as a support for author's further claims seems manipulative. Also, note that more regulation hurts small business more (future Amazons and Googles). Large corporations are usually already profitable and can handle hiring "Privacy Engineers" or whatever the next big issue is going to be, a startup that struggles to be profitable, very often can't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In my view, unfair competition practices begin when investors make a huge pile of money to "out-money" any competition.

For example, how is it fair that a bunch of investors make a pile of money so big that it puts small bookstores out of business?

<comment><USER20> Nobody owed small bookstores a living. If Amazon can give people more choice at the same or better prices, why should the small bookstores survive? They're less efficient and therefore wasting resources.

(Yes, I know, small bookstores provide a whole different experience than shopping on Amazon. The thing is, _nobody cares_. Or at least too few people care to make the small bookstores into viable businesses.)

How did Amazon "out-money" small bookstores in a way that wasn't simply "more efficiently providing a competing service"?

<comment><USER19> > Nobody owed small bookstores a living.

By saying that you're basically throwing the whole concept of "fairness" out of the window, so that's no argument.

In my view, Amazon does provide a more complete service than smaller bookstores, but they achieved this with external money; money obtained from outside the book-selling business.

A similar thing is happening to restaurant owners. Companies like Uber Eats (started through enormous investments) build a portal where people can order food. Suddenly, restaurant owners have to pay a sum of money to these companies to stay in business. This is totally unfair, in my view.

<comment><USER20> > > Nobody owed small bookstores a living.

> By saying that you're basically throwing the whole concept of "fairness" out > of the window, so that's no argument.

Not at all. I'm saying that, if the small bookstores are less efficient at providing books to people, then there is room for a more efficient competitor to drive them out of business without any unfair competition taking place.

> In my view, Amazon does provide a more complete service than smaller > bookstores, but they achieved this with external money; money obtained from > outside the book-selling business.

So what if the money was from outside the book-selling business? You seem to be declaring all outside capital investment to be unfair, which strikes me as a bizarre stance. Were railroads unfair competition to wagons because the railroads had to raise capital on Wall Street?

<comment><USER21> The large failure of your argument is that those competitors are not more actually more efficient. This is why large companies are harmful even before they reach the distinction of monopoly; although as an aside I see people here making arguments that monopolies cannot exist.

Uber for example is not more efficient than RideAustin, the local non-profit ridesharing alternative. What they do have however, is a large amount of funding behind them which allows them to artificially lower the true cost and choke out competitors. Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full control over various parts of a market.

This is the same tactic that Walmart has used in order to destroy many local towns by severely undercutting local businesses into oblivion. We should consider this to be an objectively bad thing, considering if said sole company ends up leaving the area due to profitability reasons they leave the residents with nothing [1].

This is how the 'free market' works in practice. The largest companies with the most money don't actually compete on the same level as local companies and it would be naive to think that small bookstores vanishing is solely due to inefficiency.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what- happene...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened- when-walmart-left)

<comment><USER22> > Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and > benefit from full control over various parts of a market.

A thing that HNers have been speculating will happen for years, but which has so far failed to materialize.

<comment><USER21> Failed to materialize would be objectively wrong. I even gave you a direct example in the tactics that Walmart pulled in order to destroy local stores.

You can also look at how dreadful the situation is for ISPs in America.

<comment><USER22> You did not provide any evidence that Walmart raised its prices after local competition diminished. Please do not say that you did when you did not.

ISPs are often a monopoly, and often a government sanctioned one. I'd not argue against an investigation into their practices.

<comment><USER21> Walmart's tactics are extremely well-known and well-cited but if you're unable to even glance at the Wikipedia page: [1] [2] [3] [4].

You would have to be not arguing in good faith to somehow not be aware of all of the monopolistic and anti-consumer tactics Walmart has pulled, been accused of and has had to legally dealt with over the long period of time they've been active. So if you want to make any arguments about how the free market works, I think you should start by looking deeply at how Walmart is ran.

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20051027020550/http://www.newrul...](https://web.archive.org/web/20051027020550/http://www.newrules.org/retail/news_archive.php?browseby=slug&slugid=165)

[2] [https://web.archive.org/web/20060820080242/http://www.harper...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060820080242/http://www.harpers.org/BreakingTheChain.html)

[3] [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/business/30pharmacy.html?...](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/business/30pharmacy.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin)

[4] [https://ilsr.org/walmart-settles-predatory-pricing- charge/](https://ilsr.org/walmart-settles-predatory-pricing-charge/)

<comment><USER23> None of your links support your claim that "Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full control over various parts of a market." Every one of them support that Walmart is selling goods cheaper than competitors who then file suit.

For example, your last link specifically states Walmart was selling things cheaper than their competitors, the competitors sued, and in the agreement with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, Walmart admitted no wrong doing and was not fined whatsoever.

If you're going to post links supporting your claim that "Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full control over various parts of a market." don't post links with zero support for that. It's a waste of our time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anyone think overaggressive monopoly laws can sometimes harm innovation? For example when Intel was way ahead of AMD by natural instinct it should've wanted to push ahead and "finish off" the company. But perhaps because it feared being labeled a monopoly it took the foot off the pedal and expanded elsewhere instead, harming x86 innovation. However, that's not to say monopolies are ok. I think regulators should do more to stymie their powers but it's difficult for sure.

<comment><USER25> I don't think you've thought that through.

How would Intel destroying AMD be good for innovation?

Once AMD was gone, they'd have no more incentive to innovate _at all_.

<comment><USER24> AMD being destroyed would be bad for innovation in the long term but in the medium term it could create a pattern where Intel only stays barely ahead because going *too far ahead is actually detrimental. Regulations should perhaps be changed so that monopolies are incentivized to innovate and create good value instead of holding back. For a good while there browsers (IE6) were complete crap because MS feared regulations. You can think of the same thing happening to all MS windows software, from paint to windows movie maker. If MS were allowed to make good software for low cost the benefits to society could be pretty large.

However, because MS was close to a monopoly everything they do was suspect. On the other hand modern day apple seems to profit immensely from being NOT a monopoly. By not having a monopoly in a single area they're allowed to vertically expand as much as they want. Imagine if apple weren't allowed to offer siri, or icloud, or facetime, or imessages? The vertical expansion turns out to be more profitable than horizontal domination while at the same time being as abusive as MS ever was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> for further reading on the history of monopolies and the change in approach to limiting them, in addition to the article's author's book, I recommend Cornered by Barry Lynn.

</comment><comment><USER27> It is weird that microsoft is never mentioned in these articles, despite their monopoly on software in public administration, education and healthcare.

<comment><USER28> Microsoft isn't mentioned because the world shifted in such a manner where Microsoft's monopoly is no longer as important. Nobody could have predicted this in the 80s and 90s, and this situation should be a learning lesson as to why antitrust measures should be extremely rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "Many new tech startups never get the chance to compete with the established > companies, because as soon as they prove their technologies, they are > acquired. But startups aren't the only ones suffering."

Some companies are willingly selling to some other companies, so let's forcibly break some companies apart. How is former a problem, and latter, a solution?

</comment><comment><USER29> I find people's short term memory and myopia in this area to be amusing. Not to say that oversight and regulation aren't sometimes needed (probably more often than we get them in the US), but still, we should take a step back every now and then.

I see a lot of people fretting that companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are becoming so powerful that they're crushing their competition and taking over entire industries, and they just can't be stopped unless the government steps in.

Most of the companies people are wringing their hands about today effectively didn't exist 20 years ago. Back then it was another set of companies that were unassailable monopolies who were going to take over the world and rule with an iron fist for 1000 years, ruthlessly crushing all their upstart competitors.

And in another 10-20 years, no one will be concerned about Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and they'll instead be screaming bloody murder for the government to break up the otherwise-unstoppable companies X, Y, and Z before they destroy all that is good in the world.

Yes, yes, I know..."this time it's different!"

So it goes.

</comment><comment><USER30> in a hypothetical scenario where all consumer goods sold via amazon, will amazon be able to get whatever price they want ? the answer is no, because consumer do not have infinite money to pay for it, monopoly or not. ( i.e. will all consumer goods produce via amazon, sold via amazon, and all people living doing job at amazon, works ? )

so on the side note, is there economic simulator, that can simulate such scenario ?

</comment><comment><USER31> Life is good today, people are panicking about tomorrow.

Tech moves too fast, I dont think we will need to worry about a monopoly when FAANG stock starts falling.

<comment><USER32> Will AOL Own Everything? By Lawrence Lessig (Monday, June 19, 2000)

[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997265,...](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997265,00.html)

(sadly paywalled)

<comment><USER33> Pages 9-11 of this pdf [1] have the full text of the article

[1] [https://transition.fcc.gov/transaction/aol- tw/exparte/disney...](https://transition.fcc.gov/transaction/aol- tw/exparte/disney_exparte071100.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> TLDR; Anti-trust laws gets only triggered if consumer welfare might be harmed. The way to measure consumer welfare is by prices. So if price of goods/services remain low then anti-trust lawsuits cannot be brought on. In Internet economy, price of many services provided by BigCos is zero.

Personally I think this is only half of the story because consumer welfare is not just prices but also quality which depends on competition. The suppression of competition was primary clause used for free IE on Windows anti-trust lawsuit.

So I think article is not well researched and is spreading half-truths.

</comment><comment><USER35> The Marxist ideal won't come through violent revolution, but through corporations becoming so influential in daily life and robotics so much more efficient than humans that we no longer work.

For reference, please see Pixar's WALL-E.

</comment><comment><USER12> The change can be traced back further, to judge Richard Posner and "Natural Monopoly and its Regulation" (1968) ([http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2861&context=journal_articles) (PDF)), subsequently published by the anti-regulation, pro-monopoly Cato Institute, and earlier, judge Robert Bork, dating to earlier. In the 1960s, see:

"'Antitrust was defined by Robert Bork. I cannot overstate his influence.''

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/20/antit...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/20/antitrust- was-defined-by-robert-bork-i-cannot-overstate-his-influence/)

[https://www.cato.org/policy-report/julyaugust-1999/cato- book...](https://www.cato.org/policy-report/julyaugust-1999/cato-books-posner- monopolies)

Bork's "landmark" treatise on monopoly remains curiously unavailable at many libraries:

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/antitrust-paradox-a-policy- at...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/antitrust-paradox-a-policy-at-war-with- itself/oclc/884476671?referer=di&ht=edition)

This reflects earlier treatment of monopoly within Libertarian economics texts for popular consumption, notably Harry Hazlitt's _Economics in One Lesson_ , which addresses monopoly by ... dispensing with it virtually entirely:

[https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one- lesson/](https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson/)

Contrast Alfred Marshall, _Principles_ , 8th ed, leading collegiate text at the time, with a 15 page chapter and a multitude of mentions.

[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.149776/page/n4...](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.149776/page/n485)

Barak Y. Orbach, "THE ANTITRUST CONSUMER WELFARE PARADOX":

 _"Consumer welfare" is the only articulated goal of antitrust law in the United States. It became the governing standard following the 1978 publication of Robert Bork 's The Antitrust Paradox. The consumer welfare standard has been instrumental to the implementation and enforcement of antitrust laws. Courts believe they understand this standard, although they do not bother to analyze it. Scholars hold various views about the desirable interpretations of the standard and they selectively use random judicial statements to substantiate opposite views. This article introduces the antitrust consumer welfare paradox: it shows that, under all present interpretations of the term "consumer welfare," there are several sets of circumstances in which the application of antitrust laws may hurt consumers and reduce total social welfare. This article shows that, when Bork used the term "consumer welfare," he obscured basic concepts in economics...._

[https://academic.oup.com/jcle/article- abstract/7/1/133/75097...](https://academic.oup.com/jcle/article- abstract/7/1/133/750979)</comment>


Ron Conway steps back as Y Combinator cuts team funding - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57554351-296/ron-conway-steps-back-as-y-combinator-cuts-team-funding/ <comment><USER2> Does it strike anyone else as odd that the context for this discussion revolves solely around the funding they're given, and that's the only barometer in this discussion?

While I get that it's not the reason being given, it's hard not to infer that this pullback in funding is in some way related to the real-world success rate of recent YC companies.

<comment><USER3> Do you think I lied when I said we wanted the amount to be lower because $150k was causing messy disputes?

To get the number down to $80k, I had to ask all the participants to invest less than they'd originally planned to.

Among the YC partners there are still some who think the amount should be lower than $80k.

<comment><USER4> $80k is still a lot more than the (iirc) initial $5k + $5k/founder.

<comment><USER3> The $80k is not invested by YC. I get the impression from some of the threads about this that people don't realize that.

YC still invests $11k + $3k per founder, as we've done for years. The $80k is a separate, additional investment offered by third parties.

<comment><USER5> The article definitely reads as though YC is, at the very least, completely in charge of this money.

I know that it's not true, as do other older members, but I wouldn't be surprised if new members get the wrong impression.

<comment><USER6> This is an 80k _sight unseen_ investment conditioned solely on acceptance into a YC batch. YC controls it in the sense that they control the batches, but you could fund your own YCXC program that offered $x0,000 to each company in each YC batch. It would succeed or fail to the extent that individual YC companies, all of which completely control their own operations, decided to take you up on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> November 26 - see the full thread of comments on reduction of team funding and rationale behind it here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4861867>

<comment><USER8> More comments on Pg's submission[1], and relevant HN discussion[2]

[1] <http://ycombinator.com/ycvc.html>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4833074>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there a list of failed/doomed YC startups? Maybe with some analysis?

<comment><USER10> <http://yclist.com/> perhaps?

There's also <http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators> which was posted on HN earlier.

<comment><USER11> on yclist it seems 70/84 made it to launch S12, compared to 45/60 for W11.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems insane to cut the best investor out of the group - even if you want to reduce the total investment you still want the best people.

<comment><USER13> From TFA, it seems like he'll still be available for office hours, just not providing $$$

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Makes sense -- that extra $70K or so probably isn't the deciding factor in seeing whether someone has a validated idea and product. Ron Conway probably stepped back in part because now EVERY company is a Ron Conway-backed company and that his backing doesn't have the same cachet as before.

</comment><comment><USER13> How is YC doing financially?

<comment><USER15> Very well. From last year: <http://ycombinator.com/nums.html>

<comment><USER16> The other thing to remember is that YC is growing. Even if YC isn't getting any better at this despite lots of experience, bigger team, etc., they're investing in larger batches (even the most recent decline to <50 is still bigger than until W11). So, assuming a constant distribution of AirBnBs and Dropboxes and Herokus and Cloudkicks and Wufoos, there should be a lot of great companies still in play. (I think Stripe is clearly one of those; Parse and Meteor may be others).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some investors have more of a long-term perspective than others. Always the scary part of investing in early-stage startups has been the need to fund a lot of losers to cast a wide enough net to find the occasional winner. The main YC team will keep refining its procedures for searching out winners who haven't won yet, while screening out losers who won't win even with a YC investment, but that will always be an inexact art.

<comment><USER18> _searching out winners who haven't won yet, while screening out losers who won't win even with_

\-- Ad Hominem Investing. Also worth a second look, as a Thesis.

<comment><USER19> It comes across a bit harsh worded that way, but if you look at it purely from the point of view of a VC looking for a decent ROI, most of will be "losers" - most startups fails, and while many founders will try again and again and many will eventually make it, a large portion will never succeed at getting growth enough for an investor like YC to make a decent return.

If it was meant as a personality judgement, then I agree with your assessment. But if you view it as purely a statement about their odds of success at present time, it's just business.

<comment><USER18> But most startups fail because the product sucks. its not the people that "fail" in the market. The end-market could care less about "the people", in that sense. Its worth sanity checking even good heuristics, occasionally.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you like about Facebook? - <AUTHOR> Facebook usage is on the decline and many on HN have chosen to deactivate/delete their accounts.<p>For those who do still use Facebook, what keeps you coming back to use it besides habit? <comment><USER2> Nothing. Facebook could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't miss it. It's broken ad/spam/lies nest that is probably unfixable at this point. The only reason I still use it is Messenger which is good for cross country, cross platform communication but only because virtually everybody have it at this moment. There are far better solutions out there but Messenger is on every smartphone and most, even non technical people, know how to use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "What do you like about Facebook?"

Nothing...

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you still use it? If so, why?</comment></comment>


Emotion based Captchas: the Civil Rights Captcha - <AUTHOR> http://captcha.civilrightsdefenders.org/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if it is actually an effective way to brainwash reactions into people.

I wouldn't hope to achieve anything net-positive when the "correct" reaction to the fact that some official in Albania said something intolerant is that you are "frightened". Even envy - envy of lack of accountability - would be a more realistic answer, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not connected to the project, but I saw it, and thought it was an interesting approach. The specific instance isn't something I'd use, but reading comprehension for emotional content combined with ordinary CAPTCHA methods may work better against bots.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only thing worse than advertisement captchas is thought crime captchas.

</comment><comment><USER4> this is the wrong way to approach the captchas. you can't just say the right emotion is that of empathy, and anything else is wrong.</comment>


Show HN: Apparel for entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://riskreward.co/

<comment><USER2> People can be proud of a good spirit, quality, attitude and wear something about it to not only show off but also encourage other people. But this is different from bringing your work life into your social life by painting a job title on your tshirt.

IMO it's better to strip the 'Entrepreneurs' part and leave maybe "Let's make shit happen". At least it sounds more cheering to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know what, I think you might be onto something here!

That would instantly make things less show-off and just generally motivating.

I could keep the 'apparel for entrepreneurs' within the brand, just not plaster it all over the front of the tees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to follow up. Perhaps a design more like this - [http://i.imgur.com/Hv2I9m6.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Hv2I9m6.jpg) ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems pretty obnoxious to me, but that's just my own opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Andrew. Thank you for your comment (you put that very politely which I'm grateful for :D).

What specifically turned you off? The site branding, tee designs, the idea of apparel for entrepreneurs?

There is certainly some room to improve all this and narrow down the focus.

I've basically just printed stuff I want to wear (so I don't have to think about what I wear to the office for the next few years).

<comment><USER3> It just seems strange for someone to purchase this unless they are actually a successful business founder (or else they look like a wannabe).

But I don't really feel successful business people should be bragging about how much better they are than anyone else on a T-Shirt.

Don't take it as a personal insult - my culture is probably different to yours. I'm not your target audience anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mmm perhaps you're right, they might be a little show-off.

Maybe the middle ground here would be making them less flashy and focused more to the aspiring founder.

Thank you for the feedback :).

<comment><USER3> Don't take one persons word too strongly. Also, I really like everything about your website and if I had a product, I'd be happy with a site like yours.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Floating GCC Optimization - <AUTHOR> https://thepharo.dev/2020/04/08/a-floating-gcc-optimization/ <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: how to debug a GCC optimization (in this case because of an undefined behaviour). A practical case in the Pharo language virtual machine.</comment>


TechCrunch Tablet Update: Prototype B - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/19/techcrunch-tablet-update-prototype-b/ <comment><USER3> This is the sort of stuff I would be excepeting out of YCombinator startups. Instead we got mostly lame web 2.0 websites with no clear business model. Okay, that was a bit harsh, but still - I think most of the YCombinator applicants don't have enough ambition and the ideas are too focused on the web 2.0 world.

<comment><USER4> Is this really that innovative? for $299, I can get a Dell mini 9 or countless other netbooks (some of which can be hacked to run OSX). In terms of providing value, give me a web 2.0 tool that helps my business or helps me lose weight or whatever... over this thing.

<comment><USER5> The other advantage of a laptop is that it includes a "kickstand" by default (the keyboard). When I'm laying on the couch, I have the laptop on my chest and use a wireless mouse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like they might actually pull it off..

I didn't expect that, it certainly deserves some respect.

<comment><USER5> It's one thing to build a prototype.

It's an entirely different ballgame to put a prototype into production.

Someone has to print out boards, solder stuff on the boards, burn an OS on a drive, order parts from suppliers, and have a rigerous testing program.

Then you need to package up these puppies in pretty boxes and get them shipped out.

Oh, don't forget a crew of folks to man phones and deal with new orders and support issues. Don't forget the salespeople you'll need to get these into the hands of big suppliers.

Prototypes ain't hard. (More accurately: they tend to be inexpensive and you can fit everything you need into your two-car garage.) It's the business model that wraps around it that gets expensive and time-consuming.

Best of luck though to the crew. I like to see new competitors. It pushes everyone's game up.

<comment><USER7> While all this is true, the process of moving from a prototype into production is a more or less solved problem. For example, there are a lot of companies that one can outsource the actual pick-and-place, assembly and packing to. The same goes for support and sales, I'd imagine. If the VC money is in place, this part should just be turning the crank.

<comment><USER8> By your logic, you could have outsourced the design as well.

<comment><USER9> Design is less of a commodity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's not going to work. The major problem I see is that we only have two arms - if both are holding the device, how do you input data into it. If you drop it on the table, then it's flat on the table, which is also uncomfortable to enter data into. You want something that leans towards you.

What they need to do to make this work is:

1\. Drop all the border around the touchscreen. Make the screen almost flush with the plastic around it

2\. Use metal for the edges - like the macbook pro. Pay extreme attention to the external aesthetics

3\. Make it smaller. One should be able to hold it comfortably with one hand and type with the other

4\. Increase the size of the on-screen keyboard

<comment><USER11> 1) I assume they can't get rid of the border because of the camera that comes with it.

3) If you read the article, it will be probably half as thick the final product - this is just a prototype which they left lots of room in it.

With the being flat on a table thing, what about the addition of foldable clips that would put it on an angle (like underneath your keyboard) - <USER2> would fix that problem.

<comment><USER10> It still does not solve the typing problem. You view the thing on an angle, but you want to type on a flat or slightly up tilted surface.

<comment><USER12> In the comments, Arrington mentions that the final product will ship with a stand, and also have a USB, earphones, and power port. I guess you could set it on the table, plug in a USB keyboard, and plug it into power. Then again, now it's a laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why people would want this over a netbook. Having a screen flat on your lap could make things pretty uncomfortable. Whilst holding it in one hand while you type with the other could be equally irritating.

Might be nice to mount on the wall though, for example in the kitchen so you can look up recipes while you cook.

<comment><USER14> Well I could be wrong but it looks like in one of those screenshots it has a USB port; what's stopping someone from just getting a keyboard and using it?

<comment><USER13> How do you hook up the screen into a nice position? The reason laptops work well is because the screen can be positioned well.

<comment><USER15> Apparently you use legos to build a stand.

<comment><USER13> Or as non-Americans call it, "Lego"

</pedantic>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Because the device skips the resource-sucking parts of the operating system > and focuses on one application - the browser - very low end hardware can be > used and still give users a desktop-like Internet browsing experience.

I guess he never looks his Activity Monitor / Task Manager

<comment><USER17> I was thinking the same thing. I know firefox on vista can get up to 1Gb of ram without too much trouble. My understanding is that webkit is a little less resource hungry though.

The article also says, "The software: currently we're running a full install of Ubuntu Linux on the prototype with a custom Webkit browser." Sounds as though they are needlessly limiting themselves in the marketing spiel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You've got to love the LEGO stand they've made for it..

</comment><comment><USER19> It doesn't look bad, but Asus will come with a new generation of their EEE netbooks this year, which could be folded to tablet pc with multitouch (Eee PC T91). So for a few more bucks I will get superset of Crunchpad with much more functions (normal netbook, keyboard, gps, tv receiver etc).

<comment><USER20> you will almost always get more for a few more bucks. the question is if you want/need more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Didn't the original idea post mention that they will make the tablet open- source?

<comment><USER22> I'm sure Big Mike would have no problem going back on that if it looks like this thing could make a mint.

<comment><USER23> Your comment is nothing but an ad-hom. Do you have any evidence to support that he might?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For me, it all comes down to price. I think a lot of people might consider it if it costs 200$, whether they "need" it or not (cf. the netbook effect). For 300$ and above I'm not so shure.

</comment><comment><USER25> I sure hope they don't call it the Techcrunch Tablet...talk about a crappy boring name. They need to call it Crunchpad...at least that has a cool sound, and has a hint of Apple like branding.

Hell you can see that it's a great name, because in the comments half the people are already calling it a Crunchpad.

</comment><comment><USER26> If my damn iPhone would just get flash already, I wouldn't have much need for something like this.

</comment><comment><USER27> They need to make sure they have a very low-power mode. When the tablet is placed in the stand, it should both charge as well as serve as a digital photo frame automatically.

</comment><comment><USER28> Excellent. Another candidate to embed in my wall near light switches to control my X10 stuff.

I'm still rooting for the Picwing guys though.

</comment><comment> tsetse-fly It's a cool toy, but I really can't imagine how/where I would use it in-place of my laptop.

What are some use cases?

<comment><USER11> Give it a stand and use in the kitchen for recipes etc while cooking?

Perhaps as an entry level product for people who don't know how to use a mouse but might want to use the internet.

A basis for some kind of learning device for younger kids (if they get it more robust that is).

<comment> tsetse-fly Seems like an expensive recipe catalog.

I don't think it's a very good idea to use electronics while you're cooking. Getting grease on anything that can't be scrubbed under running water is very irritating. There's a more durable solution to this: paper. You don't have to worry about washing your hands before touching it and if you splatter food on it then it's disposable.

<comment><USER29> I use my netbook for recipes all the time. It's on the bar, I don't keep it next to the fryer--no grease issues.

That said, I think the netbook works better than this tablet, it has a built- in stand and storage so I keep commonly used recipes on it. I have been baking quite a bit lately so recipes actually come in handy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> i think it will work (if not in this iteration then another), it does one thing, and hopefully well. it allows the owner to consume information. which is one of the main tenets of the internet.

<comment><USER30> this would be a killer device for university students aswell, i would love being able to carry this to class vs 4 different massive textbooks, and imagine how much more useful a chemistry/finance etc textbook would be if every page was interactive, imagine quick referencing and word definition

<comment><USER17> Everything you've described could be done with a standard laptop and you wouldn't need to make all the sacrifices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It reminds me UMPC thing from MSFT, but cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'd like to see this running android.

</comment><comment><USER33> I like this one better:

<http://www.ianmikutel.com/storage/CrunchPad.jpg></comment>


WhatsApp and Snapchat could be banned under new surveillance plans - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/whatsapp-and-snapchat-could-be-banned-under-new-surveillance-plans-9973035.html <comment><USER2> Why stop there? I suggest making laws that will enforce strict curfews, limitations on areas of travel and also wearing mandatory unremovable collars that will enable security forces to immediately neutralise any citizen in case they turn out to be a terrorist.

I could say something about how this is exactly how terrorism wins, but that's not really the case. This is just how we lose.

These ideas of sweeping restrictions could be due to the same incompetent thinking that caused the problem in the first place, or might be a cynical leveraging of the situation to quench an unending thirst for more control and power, but whatever the reason, this is the kind of thinking that threatens the foundations on which free societies are built upon.

<comment><USER3> I was thinking these sort of policies are more representative of how democracy and security services are constructed: Politicians just want to show they are doing something, so swipe at an easy target. Security services ask for more information gathering tools for the same reason corporations try to maximise their profit: its their job to do so.

It's not going to change until people truly appreciate the trade-off of freedom vs. security, which probably wont happen until the majority really feel the pinch of losing the former.

<comment><USER2> You are right, but just that as a society we should stay vigilant in detecting and stopping companies that make profits using ways that are detrimental to society, the same should apply to politicians and security forces. There are checks and balances for that in a modern society, but they can't be watertight. One can only hope that society will feel the "pinch" (as you called it) early enough.

<comment><USER3> I guess where my metaphor breaks down is that as you said Corporations are constrained from doing things detrimental to society (at least in theory), and the way we constrain them is via law. Security services and politicians are harder to fix, given they make the laws. The only true influence on their behaviour is public opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is appalling what currently is happening in the aftermath of the crazy Paris attacks.

Some of the biggest offenders of the Freedom of Press are now not battling for the protection of the press, but for being seen by the media as one of the mourners in the first row of the Paris events on the weekend (for a better overview of that see [https://storify.com/tometty/staunch-defenders-of-free- press-...](https://storify.com/tometty/staunch-defenders-of-free-press-attend- solidarity))

Most of these providing their " _condolences_ " have been constantly mocked by CH, have tried to criminalize the work of CH in the past (e.g. German politicians), and are now shamelessly exploiting media attention and believe again that there will be no better time to even further crush the rights of European citizens, some with measures (e.g. further extending telco data retention, dragnet snooping in the UK & Germany) that latest with the events in Paris should again been demonstrated as not effective to protect from such attacks (both measures were already in place and broadly used in France before the attacks).

We can only hope that Cameron's statement in the article linked is solely a political one, fishing for voters in the far right & UKIP spectrum. Otherwise this might be another nail in the coffin of a growing and successful UK Internet industry.

Some additional info: Noam Chomsky on the aftermath / events in Paris - [http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/We-Are-All--- Fill-i...](http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/We-Are-All---Fill-in-the- Blank-20150110-0021.html) Reporters sans Frontieres / Reporters without Borders: [http://en.rsf.org/rwb-condemns-presence-of- predators-11-01-2...](http://en.rsf.org/rwb-condemns-presence-of- predators-11-01-2015,47472.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> UK is just getting worse for internet freedom each year. The country has already curtailed free speech with its libel laws [1,2], internet censorship [3], and newspaper targeting [4].

I wonder if people of UK are like frog in boiling water? Do they not realize that their rights are being removed with each passing law? I hope at least tech companies will move out of UK, prompting the UK government to ponder over its actions.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Chiropractic_Associatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Chiropractic_Association_v_Singh)

[2] No one can make fun of Her Royal Majesty, and UK prime minister was on the parade showing solidarity with dead French satirists

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Unit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom)

[4] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain- targets-g...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/britain-targets- guardian-newspaper-over-intelligence-leaks-related-to-edward- snowden/2013/11/29/1ec3d9c0-581e-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html)

<comment><USER4> Friedrich Goltz's boiling frog experiment with the slow temperature increase to boiling only worked after he removed the brains of the frogs - all others actually jumped out above 25C+ - when you watch various UK TV shows one can certainly assume that at least some of the actors / watchers must have had their brains removed to be able to endure this. I'm not sure if that applies to the majority of the population (yet) ;-)

<comment><USER6> > I'm not sure if that applies to the majority of the population (yet)

Are we living in the same country?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >The Prime Minister said today that he would stop the use of methods of communication that cannot be read by the security services even if they have a warrant.

So now the British wants to outlaw math.

<comment><USER8> maths[1], not math.

[1] [http://www.word-detective.com/2011/05/math-vs-maths/](http://www.word- detective.com/2011/05/math-vs-maths/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is ridiculous, in the fact that, even if they ban well known encrypted chat apps. Terrorist and outlaws could just create their own? I have a phone, I am a developer, I can do whatever I want with it at that point, outlawing apps won't stop outlaws from writing illegal apps with encryption.

<comment><USER3> This is what I have never understood. Granted, my partner works in law enforcement and she says a good portion of criminals are quite dumb (willing to discuss smuggling plans in a public facebook profile, for example) but its not like creating a encrypted messaging system has a high barrier of entry. You could create such using C# Framework libraries in an afternoon! Hell, contract the work out anonymously on Elance for a $100 or so, and you'll be immune to the security services by the end of the day.

<comment><USER10> I'd love to see the cryptographic code that people get from elance for $100. I'd especiallu like to see a quick audit of that code.

<comment><USER11> You could do pretty well just by ripping off some C# RSA example code. Find a moderately competent programmer, pay them for 2-5 hours of work...sure, why not. Just stick to the high-level APIs and you should be fine.

But realistically, nobody will be able to shut down the FOSS tools that already exist. Use Tor or VPNs if necessary in countries with internet censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There appears to be absolutely no proof that such laws would help with their stated purpose. In the cases of Ottawa, Sydney, and now Paris, the perpetrators of their respective nonsense were already well known to authorities, yet this apparently presented no obstacle to them whatsoever.

<comment><USER13> Are you sure there have been no attempts that were disrupted because the communication was intercepted? those that haven't been disclosed to the public?

Also, just because the suspects in the cases you mentioned were well known to the authority doesn't mean their communication was monitored 24/7\. We simply don't know.

<comment><USER14> > Are you sure there have been no attempts that were disrupted because the > communication was intercepted? those that haven't been disclosed to the > public?

You think politicians would stay quiet about them if there were?

<comment><USER15> I think they are, foolishly, staying quiet on some recent victories. They've said as much. It could actually be to their benefit to release more about some of the cases where they don't reveal more about "methods" than the public already knows. But they probably won't, because it goes against their culture of secrecy, they'd rather pretend Snowden never happened.

<comment><USER16> Their victories are few and far between when you weed out false flag and entrapment cases, and also look at all the attacks that actually happened at the same time. With all the press Snowden got, we in the US got no confirmation of any prevented terrorist attacks even though the media and security agencies kept alluding to the dozens they prevented in defense of their spying

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is kind of funny, in a sad way. I mean in the USA the NSA is still saying that the never, never spy on private information, maybe sometimes, in rare cases, on non americans.

While in england they are all like, "No more spying in secret, time to actually take your rights away".

The english are hardcore, the NSA has more freedom in england than in the US. Sad, but funny.

<comment><USER18> I'm not very involved in politics but it looks like I need to go voting to make sure he doesn't get in.

<comment><USER19> [1] is probably the best analysis of the field. Last week on BBC Question Time, the folks on the panel and in the audience all seemed very hostile to limits on freedom of speech - though they noted that those rights are much more robust in the US. Perhaps this is Cameron's attempt to make sure that UKIP doesn't steal away some Conservative votes. UKIP seems most hostile to immigrants, from what I can tell. (I don't live in the UK, so perhaps someone can correct/expand).

[1] [http://may2015.com/](http://may2015.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> He said: "In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which […] we cannot read?"

Yes, we do.

It's awful that he can say we don't want something that would be protected in the US.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm so god damn sick of this. An attack happens, and politicians line up with pre-written, draconian and/or rushed and reactive legislation to further infringe upon our rights. It's been particularly noticeable since 2001.

I'm so glad HN exists because I sometimes I feel I'm the only one who notices it.

</comment><comment><USER22> For anyone reading outside the UK, the chances of him winning the next election are slim to none at all.

<comment><USER23> Can you elaborate a little why do you think so?

<comment><USER22> Full disclosure, I am not a conservative voter. YMMV

But a few things will spring to mind,

1) we tend to vote conservative when the books need balancing, and labour when we feel wealth is not being distributed properly

2) the conservatives always try to "cost save" on the NHS by privatising parts of it. This virtually always leads to decreased performance. We like the NHS (a lot).

3) like in most places in the world, we're in a living standards squeeze. They say they're turning the economy around, but in reality while the books might say that, the poor and middle class haven't noticed the difference. Tax has also not been noticeably reduced which is usually a conservative winner.

4) they formed a coalition government with the lib dems (they did not have a majority). Due to lib dems u-turning on some key points (tuition fees for example), and most lib dem voters are not pro conservative, they are likely to lose a lot of seats. So many so that another coalition seems unlikely.

5) nanny state-ism. An election point in the past here accused labour of this kind of behaviour, but now with their default on porn ban, the snoopers charter and others, it's starting to wash off.

oh and 6) UKIP. Historically the hard right wanted to exit the EU (and stop migration), but the conservatives keep dallying around on the subject(s). They're losing voters and MPs to UKIP who are seen by hard liners as more likely to deliver.

<comment><USER24> Unfortunately you have a rather poor read on the current electorate over here right now. While the Tories are not the most popular party around you have to look at the competition. Labour is a joke and Ed Miliband couldn't get elected to local council at this point; infighting between SNP and Labour in Scotland will mean that while the left will still have heavy support in the north it will not necessarily be to Labour that most MPs owe allegiance. The Lib Dems are done for the next decade. A cycle being ineffective lap dogs to the Tories has pretty much crushed their future. UKIP is picking up a lot of what is more nationalistic than traditional "hard right" and if it comes down to it UKIP would gladly replace the Lib Dems in the coalition; the Tories would prefer this not to happen but having UKIP out there is not quite as bad for them as it seems to most voters, the votes they lose are not going to be supporting a Labour government when all is said and done.

The end result is that you are likely to see the Tories back in power by the end of summer, in a somewhat different coalition and with mildly adjusted policies. Either way, more of the same.

<comment><USER22> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2015_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2015_United_Kingdom_general_election#2015)

<comment><USER24> Exactly. If Labour can't get ahead of the Tories they are doomed and once people actually start seeing Ed's policies it is mostly downhill IMHO. Right now Labour has the advantage of being "not the Conservative party", but that won't get them far. Add up the Tories and UKIP -- if those two together total 50% then nothing else matters and Farage can acquire his pound of flesh if necessary...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't tell whether this is hubris, technical naïveté or just an attempt to garner votes. Possibly all three. But let's assume they are proposing a ban on communications methods that cannot be lawfully intercepted (that's certainly how Cameron words it).

Firstly, we know it's technically infeasible, secondly it would have a serious chilling effect on UK Internet companies and the digital economy, and thirdly it would actually take very popular apps and tools from young voters hands. So does he really think people will be panicked enough by the threat of terrorism to vote for it?

<comment><USER25> It is a wonderful distraction considering the massive budget cuts in the police force. The Met are facing 1.4bn budget cuts. The Border Agency had to cut its budget by 23%. The military are under constant pressure to cut staff and spend less money. Maybe he gives away civil liberties because it doesn't cost him anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> You know that this is one of the oldest constitutional laws. Based on the french constitution, the 4th amendment in the US, and the Art. 10 Abs. 1 Grundgesetz in Germany, and everywhere else.

And even if the UK has no written constitution, they signed the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (the "Convention") into UK law. Article 8(1) of the Convention provides that "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_in_English_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_in_English_law) for more.

Obama does not care a shit about his constitution anymore, and consequently his poodle in the UK neither. So they should just waive the Human Rights Act, and consequently leave the European Union. We pay enough for their cows anyway, and they are way above their tolerable abuses of civil freedom anyway.

</comment><comment><USER27> WhatsApp being banned under these plans would be doubly hilarious, since its encryption is a joke. There's a single hard-coded AES key for everyone. I'm sure SnapChat isn't much better.

<comment><USER28> The static AES key is for local log storage. This is about encrypted communications. They are working together with Open WhisperSystems to bring the e2e-encrypted TextSecure protocol to Whatsapp: [https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/)

<comment><USER29> I don't know why people wouldn't just use TextSecure instead? Then you actually know.

<comment><USER30> Lack of an iOS app, just maybe?

<comment><USER17> If thats the biggest barrior, im happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am all for Camerons plans. It will put a big red sign on everything: "The government is snooping on you!". Hopefully they ban SSL as well.

<comment><USER22> Please watch "Black Mirror" on channel 4. If you haven't seen it I think you'll probably enjoy it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Technology cannot solve Social imbalances.

</comment><comment><USER33> Stopped reading after _if he wins the next election_</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup - Odysci.com - <AUTHOR>

http://www.odysci.com
Odysci is a new and free academic search site. If you used Google Scholar, MS Academic Search or CiteSeer in the past, check out Odysci.
We currently cover papers in the computer science, electronics and math areas, and we plan to expand to other scientific domains later. While our coverage is still not as broad as Google Scholar's, we cover the main journals and conferences in CS/EE and we're continuously adding new papers. We pride ourselves in the quality of our search and relevance of the results (i.e., ranking), for which we have developed our own algorithms.
Besides search, the portal also has information about conference deadlines, lists of best papers and comments by experts in different fields. We also keep a blog (http://blog.odysci.com) where we post new features and discuss stuff that matters to researchers, and a Twitter account (@odysci) with posts on interesting technical news and links to related searches.
Would love to get your feedback on the portal, its usability, quality of ranking, and any other suggestion you may have. Thanks!
Odysci Team <comment><USER2> I think you could be competitive with the other search providers if you focused on a specific topic (i.e. comp scie only). You might be able to eventually provider different portals for each field, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Currently we do focus on computer science, electrical engineering and math areas. There is a lot of overlap between these fields, so it makes sense to group them. As for other domains, we do plan to add them later, and as you point out, having portals or a good way to separate them is a good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> looks good but I am not sure why I would use this more than I would use say Google Scholar?

Also could you explain with an example perhaps how your search results would trump Google Scholar? Such an example of on the home page would help people understand the value proposition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. Let me try to give you a few examples of things we do better than Scholar:

a) Navigation over the results When you search in Scholar you get a list of papers but you cannot navigate through the details of a paper, for example, click on an author to see his/her papers. On the other hand, using Odysci, the search results have all the data linked and right there, so you can click on authors, click on the conference, click on the conference series (to see papers for a all years of a given conference). Along the same lines, we can filter and sort the search results by relevance, date, citations, and publication type (e.g, journal, conference). Scholar does not do that.

b) Advanced Search We have some interesting new ways to search using our operator '@'. For example, you can search for papers by a given author while he/she worked at a given place. Say, you want to search for papers published by Leslie Lamport while working at SRI: you would use as search string 'lamport@SRI'. Or search for papers published at the DAC Conference (Design Automation Conference) when it was held in San Francisco, you would search for 'venue:DAC venue@"San Francisco"'. In Scholar, the advanced search facilities are less powerful.

c) Best Papers We collected the information related to Best Paper Awards at hundreds of conferences and we make that available through advanced search. For example, to find all the Best Papers published at DAC conferences, you would search for 'venue:DAC bp:true'. This is something unique to Odysci.

d) BibTex Generation In Scholar you can generate Bibtex, one paper at a time. This can get very boring if you need to collect multiple references. In Odysci, you can select multiple papers, even through multiple searches, and generate BibTex for all of them in one shot.

e) Handling of accents in non-English words Try searching for an author name with accents in Scholar. You'll see that their handling of accents during search is limited. In Odysci we handle accents seamlessly.

There are other things which we think we have an edge over Scholar but I'll stop here. Your comments are welcome.

Thanks (and I'll follow your advice and add some of these advantages to our home page).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the detailed response. I will keep checking you guys out and best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> linkity: <http://www.odysci.com></comment>


Cure for all types and stages of cancer in four years - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fizvestia.ru%2Fnews%2F668274&edit-text= <comment><USER2> It would be fantastic if it was possible. I am not a doctor but I have several observations: (1) Curing all types of cancer is a huge claim. Cancer might be a catch word for hundred of unrelated diseases. A single cure is unlikely. (2) Cancer cells evolve continuously. Their altered DNA are spread along a spectrum and are changing continuously. (3) Heat shock proteins correct misfolded proteins, what is the relation with cancer? A contrario, why diseases implicating misfolded proteins are not mentioned?</comment>


Why Google's monopoly abuse case in Europe will run and run - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/google-antitrust-case-europe-details-analysis/ <comment><AUTHOR> I found this explained a lot about the anti-trust case that I didn't understand. I'm not making a comment either way on the validity of the case, but it was an interesting read.</comment>


Took 4 years for a Google Engineer to realize consequences of his actions - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwJ0hNl1Fw <comment><AUTHOR> I have a lot of respect for Wael Ghonim for standing up and saying he had no idea what he unleashed via social networks.

I'd like to see Facebook and Twitter do the same. Take responsibility for the costs of an "open and connected" world. A lot of education has to happen. Cause we can't wait for everyone to take 4 years to realize the consequences of what they are doing.</comment>


I Migrated My Blog from GitHub Pages to Netlify - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/my-experience-migrating-my-blog-from-github-pages-to-netlify-92ff6c85fb04 <comment><USER2> I'm sad I can't read the article due the Medium Paywall.</comment>


The 4 Ways People Rationalize Eating Meat - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/06/4-ways-people-rationalize-eating-meat.html?mid=twitter_nymag

<comment><USER2> I've hunted myself - a little. Shot, skinned, butchered, cooked and eaten small game. Mmmmmmmm, rabbit pie.

I have never understood people who eat meat, but can't stomach the idea of killing and preparing it themselves.

<comment><USER3> Take it in context, its not so weird.

I don't like to wash my own dishes - gross. Does that mean I should stop eating entirely?

I won't build my own car either - greasy, hot and dangerous. I don't weave cloth to make my own clothes. I don't cut my own hair. I don't do my own plumbing.

All of these are unpalatable for one reason or another. I guess I'll walk naked, hairy and hungry and dump on the ground.

<comment><USER2> "Does that mean I should stop eating entirely?"

No, but to continue that simile, you should probably stop bitching about people who choose to wash their own dishes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Industrial agriculture also implies an animal death toll, even if only indirectly: [http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ordering- vegeta...](http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ordering-vegetarian- meal-there-s-more-animal-blood-your-hands)</comment>


Salmon fraud frequently occurs at restaurants, grocery stores, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/10/28/salmon-frequently-mislabeled-in-restaurants-and-grocery-stores-study-finds/ <comment><USER2> Very common. Someone on a FB group I belong to ordered the "Alaska king salmon" in a restaurant and got a whole fish on a plate.

[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=alaska+king+salmon](https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=alaska+king+salmon)

Yeah, no.</comment>


Objective-Smalltalk: now serving its own web site - <AUTHOR> http://www.objective.st/ <comment><USER2> Not sure what's up with it now, but Etoile seemed to have a very interesting implementation of an Obj-C runtime: [http://etoileos.com/etoile/features/runtime/](http://etoileos.com/etoile/features/runtime/)

I would have hoped to see something with a more dynamic runtime than we ended up with with Swift. That said, while it feels like a big win to dynamically recompile, say, calls to retain/release into simple atomic increments/decrements, or dynamic calls into direct calls, in practice the wins never seem to appear. Is it just because no-one tried hard enough? :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Superficially glancing through the site, this sounds like my dream language: modern Smalltalk syntax with the immensely useful interop capabilities of Obj-C. Can't wait to use this for something.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting project, but I have a couple of nitpicks about the examples page ([http://www.objective.st/Examples/](http://www.objective.st/Examples/)):

> A method that deletes a file and fades out the icon representing that file:

      -<void>deleteFile:filename {
         thumbs := self thumbsView subviews.
         viewsToRemove := thumbs selectWhereValueForKey:'filename' isEqual:filename.
         aView := viewsToRemove firstObject.

         UIView animateWithDuration:0.4
                animations: { aView setAlpha: 0.0. }
                completion: { aView removeFromSuperview.
                              UIView animateWithDuration: 0.2
                                     animations: { self thumbsView layoutSubviews. }
                                     completion: { 3 }.
                            }.
         url := self urlForFile:aFilename.
         NSFileManager defaultManager removeItemAtURL:url  error:nil.
         self thumbsView afterDelay:0.4 | setNeedsLayout.
      }

> Blocks become significantly more readable with Smalltalk syntax.

I'm not really seeing this–the only thing you're missing is the caret and a parameter list, which is strange because it now seems like you can't name your parameters anymore? Are you forced to use the names that the headers suggest? What if there are none in the prototype? (Also, I'm assuming '|' is a separator to make up for the lack of brackets?)

> As shown in some of the previous examples, Higher Order Messaging (HOM) is > fully supported and helps make code more compact and readable. Take as an > example the following code:

      self view subviews do setNeedsDisplay.

> This code iterates the subviews of the view controllers view and sends each > one the setNeedsDisplay message. In Objective-C the code would probably look > as follows:

      for ( NSView *aView in [[self view] subviews] ) {
          [aView setNeedsDisplay];
      }

> While the code is not that much longer, it obscures the central point of the > code, the setNeedsDisplay message, with the machinery for iterating the > subviews.

Objective-C has -[NSArray makeObjectsPerformSelector:]:

      [self.view.subviews makeObjectsPerformSelector:@selector(setNeedsDisplay)]

Finally, can I actually use this to write an app? From your code examples, it looks like you can interact with UIKit, but can I publish an app with Obejctive-Smalltalk in it to the App Store?

<comment><AUTHOR> > nitpicks

Yeah, the examples page isn't very good right now. Also out of date. I actually didn't expect this to go to the front page quite yet. Ooops.

> [blocks]

There is [http://fuckingblocksyntax.com](http://fuckingblocksyntax.com) ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ But yes, the block examples certainly aren't very revealing. One reason is that I wanted to take examples from actual Objective-Smalltalk "production" code, not just make up good-looking examples, and so the choices were more limited (not that much production code yet...).

One reason is that all these blocks are parameterless blocks, which is also why you don't see parameter lists.

> makeObjectsPerformSelector:

Yes, that was an inspiration for enum-filters, which then turned into HOM. See

[http://www.metaobject.com/papers/HOM- Presentation.pdf](http://www.metaobject.com/papers/HOM-Presentation.pdf) (via [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_order_message](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_order_message))

However, this also obscures the central point of the code, forcing you to put it in an argument of the -makeObjectsPerformSelector: message (the MacHack presentation talks about this a bit). Note also that it says "HOM is fully supported". HOM is actually implemented in/for Objective-C, so you can also use it there:

        [[self.view.subviews do] setNeedsDisplay]
        [self.view.subviews makeObjectsPerformSelector:@selector(setNeedsDisplay)]

You can see more HOM examples in the README for the Docker container script: [https://github.com/mpw/objective-smalltalk- container](https://github.com/mpw/objective-smalltalk-container) It is part of MPWFoundation: [https://github.com/mpw/MPWFoundation](https://github.com/mpw/MPWFoundation) (which also has the ifResponds examples)

       1 to: 100 | reduce + 0

> (Also, I'm assuming '|' is a separator to make up for the lack of brackets?)

No, you can always parenthesise expressions:

       (1 to:100 ) reduce + 0

The | is actually a bit deeper, Objective-Smalltalk integrates support for pipes and filters, via Object Streams/Object Filters ([https://github.com/mpw/MPWFoundation/blob/master/Documentati...](https://github.com/mpw/MPWFoundation/blob/master/Documentation/Streams.md)). This also means that "nested" expressions are treated as chained "expression filters", with the result of the previous expression being "piped" into the next expression as the receiver.

This isn't fully integrated yet, but here's an example of a filter as a script:

       #!/usr/local/bin/stsh
       (stdin -> { $0 stringValue uppercaseString. } -> rawstdout ) run

(Yeah, it uses '->' instead of '|', as I wrote, it isn't fully integrated yet).

The | also solves an oddity/asymmetry in the Smalltalk syntax, which is that the cascade "operator" (;) doesn't have an equivalent for message chains.

       receiver firstmsg;
           secondmsg:arg1;
           thirdmsg:arg2;

All these messages go to the receiver. Let's try the same thing with chaining, meaning each subsequent message goes to the result of the previous message:

        receiver firstmsg
            secondmsg:arg1
            thirdmsg:arg2.

The first message works as expected. However, due to the keyword message syntax, the rest gets interpreted as the single message -secondmsg:arg1 thirgmsg:arg2. Not what we wanted. So you have to use parentheses to disambiguate:

        (receiver firstmsg
            secondmsg:arg1)
            thirdmsg:arg2.

You didn't need them for the unary message -firstmsg and also not for the final one because it's not chained. But let's add another:

        (receiver firstmsg
            secondmsg:arg1)
            thirdmsg:arg2.
            fourthmessage.

That also doesn't work quite right because unary messages bind stronger, so this is actually ... thirdmsg:(arg2 fourthmessage). Yikes.

          receiver firstmsg |
             secondmsg:arg1 |
             thirdmsg: arg2 |
             fourhtmsg.

The fact that you don't have to go back and add parentheses at the front if you add messages at the end is particular helpful in REPLs like stsh.

> can I publish an app with Objective-Smalltalk in it to the App Store?

Yes. BookLightning is in Mac AppStore and written in part in Objective- Smalltalk. Objective-Smalltalk doesn't violate any AppStore rules.

And the syntax page doesn't talk about property paths at all, which generalise properties and allow you to easily create scheme-handlers for Polymorphic Identifiers. See [https://github.com/mpw/Objective- Smalltalk/blob/master/scrip...](https://github.com/mpw/Objective- Smalltalk/blob/master/scripts/sqlitescheme.stsh).

        /:table {
         |= { self dictionariesForQuery: "select * from {table}". }
      }

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me a bit of Objective-J. What ever happened to that (it had a pretty nifty extjs-ish/Cocoa-like framework whose name my brain can't access right now)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cappuccino, Cocoa in the browser with a Keynote clone written in it.

 _Way_ ahead of its time when the idea of writing full-fledged desktop apps in the browser still seemed ludicrous.

In a complete shock to me, the project is active and recently hit 1.0!

[http://www.cappuccino- project.org/blog/2018/04/cappuccino-1-...](http://www.cappuccino- project.org/blog/2018/04/cappuccino-1-0-is-announced.html)

So that's also one of the directions for Objective-Smalltalk: use Cappuccino on the web.

<comment><USER6> > In a complete shock to me, the project is active and recently hit 1.0!

I'm quite surprised too. My guess is that a large company, most likely Apple, have a bunch of internal applications built on it so keep the project active enough with contributions or donations.

<comment><USER7> Apple uses and maintains [https://sproutcore.com](https://sproutcore.com), not Cappuccino. The latter was made by ex-applers a long time ago. Though Apple also isn't monolithic and has many teams independently evaluating Angular, React and others.

Not too coincidentally, the author of Objective-Smalltalk, who said above that he wants to leverage Cappuccino, has also written up his criticism of React here: [https://blog.metaobject.com/2018/12/uis-are-not-pure- functio...](https://blog.metaobject.com/2018/12/uis-are-not-pure-functions-of- model.html)

Related: I've talked to a Cappuccino founder recently too, and my casual observation (which he agreed with) was that had they done Cappuccino all over again, they should have probably dropped Objective-J. Imo it's just a bit too much of a language bikeshedding and I don't think it would have changed framework _that_ much (proof: Swift works well with UIKit and AppKit). Though my opinion was just based on practicality of adoption; if Objective-smalltalk wants to take its time exploring around more than anything else, then I'd say it + cappuccino seems like a nice fit.

I'm really looking forward to Cappuccino staying alive for another ten years (and I wish all the luck to Objective-smalltalk's author) =). Though the recent Cappuccino conf doesn't feature many younger programmers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One wonders what direction iOS development and Cocoa would have gone to if Apple had replaced Swift with something less dissimilar to Objective-C.

<comment><USER9> I would imagine a more polished F-Script[1] or a Ruby with selector syntax. Swift still feels to me like a language designed by people who hate Objective-C.

1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Script_(programming_language...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Script_\(programming_language\))

<comment><AUTHOR> > a more polished F-Script[1]

F-Script was one of the many inspirations for Objective-Smalltalk, it is _way_ cool!

In fact, my first plan was to just extend that, but looking at things more specifically, I noticed it didn't really match up with what I wanted, which was always to have a full-fledged programming language that's a peer.

And after a bit ObjST diverged more into an architecturally-oriented programming language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sorry if I don't know Obj-C well enough, but can you save state like you can with a Smalltalk VM, since this does not have or need a VM?

<comment><USER11> No, that's not a feature built in to the Objective-C runtime (which as you say is not a VM). There is of course support for serializing/deserializing objects in Objective-C Foundation in the form of NSCoding. Disclaimer: I don't know anything about Objective-Smalltalk. I'm speaking only about the (Apple) ObjC runtime itself.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for explaining this. I have been using Pharo, and it is really easy to pick up where I left off with something when starting up the saved image. I dabbled with Objective-C back in the day (I bought an Amiga instead of a NeXT machine!), but left the C world for other languages (J, python, etc.). Is Objective-C going to be buried in the OS by users adopting Swift?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Let's see if it can survive the HN "new" page. :)

<comment><USER12> Is blazing fast for me...like instantaneous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, good to hear it's working as intended.

Mind you, it has no good reason not to be blazingly fast, as it is only serving static HTML+CSS (was previously fully static), but good to see that I didn't screw it up, which is also easy enough.

<comment><USER12> Lol I'm so used to bloated web pages these days. I wish more sites were like yours.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Create your own HN or community with HelloBox - <AUTHOR> http://www.hellobox.co/ <comment><USER2> Sign in box doesn't fit on my screen, and I can't scroll it.

</comment><comment><USER3> ``` Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server. ```

</comment><comment><USER4> What's their business model?</comment>


Attention and Intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/04/attention_and_intelligence.php

<comment><USER2> I would really like to see the effect of attention span increasing drugs on these types of experiments, for example what happens when you give the low performers Adderal or Vyvanse? does their performance improve? What about drugs that expand working memory like Provigil? Is there any research on this that you (the HN collective) recommend?

<comment><USER3> So I think there is the following problem with the experiment as you propose: are these low performers simply deficit in attention management or broader faculties as well. If the former, there's decades of data indicating that clinical level difficulties with attention can indeed be treated (hint: it's called ADHD). That's because ADHD is often in large part a gap between intentionality and action (that gap being executive function, which in "that would be fun, but I should do this" scenario makes the this branch choice possible).

Do people actually use provigil off label to improve memory? That seems like a pretty iffy approach, sleeping wold probably work better!

<comment><USER2> I know more than a few med students who take Provigil to help them study.

<comment><USER3> does it help them?

<comment><USER2> They certainly think it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The n-back task is a working memory task that has been correlated with increasing fluid intelligence in one paper.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back>

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the reference, which includes the neutral point of view, "The paper's methodology has been criticized by David Moody[5]. He draws attention to the fact that different tests were used to evaluate the control and test groups. Due to the way in which the tests were administered, he also questions whether they were valid tests of fluid intelligence."

K. Anders Ericsson has achieved astounding results through training in "digit span," long reputed to correlate well with "general intelligence."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory>

"Whereas most adults can repeat about seven digits in correct order, some individuals have shown impressive enlargements of their digit span--up to 80 digits." The further discussion at this reference about whether the tested task correlates with anything else of interest would apply as well to the n-back task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr To get smarter, you should struggle through the whole article and not skip to the tl;dr.

</comment><comment><USER7> Has anyone found meditation to be useful as a way to increase their attention span? I'd be curious to hear the results. It seems that practicing the ability to focus on nothing may improve your ability to focus on one thing. I have an admittedly shallow understanding of what meditation entails, though.

<comment><USER8> The times I have truly "passed the threshold" during meditation I have successfully been able to concentrate and be calm for hours afterwards. Usually the rest of the day.

The times that this has occurred have been few and far between and this was when I was meditating every day for at least 10 minutes. Sometimes up to 30. It's hard to do, especially at first, but yes I found it to be effective.

Then I had kids and didn't sleep for a year and anytime I tried to meditate I fell asleep. I still do it from time to time but it's rather cumulative. The more daily the practice, the more useful it will become IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you read NurteShock you already know how crucial the ability to focus is. The great news is, you can train this ability and not only increase your Intelligence & Attention Span, but also your game score. [http://www.drjonathanreed.co.uk/wordpress/category/working-m...](http://www.drjonathanreed.co.uk/wordpress/category/working- memory/)

so next time you kill a few bad guys, or conquer another empire (on your screen), do it knowing that you just got a little more intelligent.

<comment><USER10> What is NurteShock?

<comment><USER11> Probably a typo for "NurtureShock", a recently published book: [http://www.amazon.com/btw-you-can-put-anything-here-or- even-...](http://www.amazon.com/btw-you-can-put-anything-here-or-even-omit- it/dp/0446504122)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ayn Rand covers this in her book "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology". In her theory, focus (or selective attention) is the essence of free-will (the ability to direct the object of our consciousness). Focus also (not surprisingly) plays a crucial role in the formation of concepts (or classes), the main theme of the book. She describes intelligence as the capacity to deal with wide abstractions and long conceptual chains (my paraphrase).

</comment><comment><USER13> This probably makes sense for convergent thinking, but there's also divergent thinking. Is the author effectively saying that intelligence = convergent thinking? If so, he is pretty much saying creativity is worthless and obedience is paramount.

</comment><comment><USER14> I knew making myself get back into reading was a good thing.

Further evidence that books may well be a lot better for us than we might otherwise imagine these days. Notice classically, smart people read a lot of books? Maybe they just develop the ability to focus really well (well, in addition to misc. facts and words they pick up)</comment>