What No One Is Reporting About Caster Semenya: She Has XY Chromosomes - <AUTHOR> https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/05/what-no-one-is-telling-you-about-caster-semenya-she-has-xy-chromosomes/ <comment><USER2> Just having XY chromosomes is not enough to actually make someone a male, despite the insinuations of this (rather biased) article. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), for example, results when the body's cells do not respond at all to testosterone. A person with CAIS develops as a female (albeit sterile), no matter how much testosterone they have.

The exact nature of Caster's biology have not been publicly disclosed, but it's clear that it's not enough to simply say she's an XY female. Because of this, the properly cautious approach (which most news organizations have adopted) is to avoid saying anything about her actual biological condition.

This article is unnecessarily inflammatory, and insinuates pretty strongly that the mere presence of Y chromosomes should subject Caster to scrutiny; the reality is likely a lot more nuanced.

<comment><USER3> > but it's clear that it's not enough to simply say she's an XY female.

The article explicitly states several times Caster Semenya is not male or female but intersex female with male characteristics -- no womb, ovaries but internal testes.

> insinuates pretty strongly that the mere presence of Y chromosomes should > subject Caster to scrutiny

The article praises Caster and does not "insinuate" she should be subjected to elevated scrutiny, it instead singles out reporters for over-simplifying the situation and omitting important biological facts; it insinuates reporters are taking a social justice angle (woman with high levels of testosterone not allowed to compete) when Caster is more appropriately described as intersex, and unfortunately the Olympics do not have an intersex category.

It's not critical of Caster at all and struck me as a balanced, well-written take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole debacle is just sad. No matter what they do it's unfair to someone.

<comment><USER5> Well, life is "unfair" (see the just world fallacy). Of course we can try to find the most fair solution and then call that fair.

Fairness is not absolute, the intent, effort, consideration (of past effects, and possible and likely outcomes) matters.

Sometimes making a race more interesting is more important, than allowing someone to dominate it for decades. However, that sounds like a pretty serious difference in rules. But. But we should consider that we already have a lot of complex rules (doping rules are not completely fair either, because biology is complex), and similarly the problem of how to separate males and females for competitions is not new, and never was simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _It's absolutely mind-boggling that virtually every major outlet in the world reporting the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling yesterday has failed to mention one of the most important facts of the entire case. Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes._

Not really.

Genetics is generally a poorly understood subject. Even in online discussion groups for people with genetic disorders, basic information about genetics is often not well understood by many of the members, even though almost all will be there because either they or an immediate family member has a genetic disorder.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure leaving out relevant details because they are poorly understood is good journalistic practice, especially when those details are central to what's being discussed. It would only take a paragraph to clarify what XX, XY, and intersex means. It's exactly what the writer of the linked article did.

<comment><USER6> Ah, I see the misunderstanding. You think I meant they did it on purpose to pander to an uneducated audience.

Au contraire.

I'm saying the reporters probably didn't really get it.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps Hanlon's Razor is the right approach to judging the way this is handled in much of the media. You might be right, in which case the responsibility is on the editors and fact checkers at those newspapers to ensure that reporters don't make such mistakes.

<comment><USER6> That presumes they understand it.

I will make one last attempt to make my original point:

I have a homozygous recessive genetic disorder, as does my oldest son. Genetics 101 tells me that my other son and ex husband are both carriers.

People who have the same genetic disorder or who are caring for a child with the same genetic disorder have asked me how I know these immediate relatives are carriers.

So my confidence that most people know anything about basic genetics is pretty low -- even if they happen to be reporters, editors, etc.

<comment><USER7> No, I understand your point. My point is that they have a responsibility to educate themselves or talk to subject-matter experts before they publish. Ignorance isn't a defence or mitigation. It's literally their job to pick up the phone and talk to people who understand the issues at hand before publishing misleading articles read by millions.

<comment><USER6> Point taken.

Though writing simply doesn't pay well these days, if at all. That fact is undermining the quality of the writing we are seeing.

Newspapers and all kinds of other writing is being squeezed financially. Ad revenue is way down. Local papers are shutting down left and right.

Etc.

As a poverty-stricken writer myself who gets told to quit my bitching and _get a real job,_ I'm not super sympathetic to the world's demands for good writing that is also magically completely free.

<comment><USER7> I'm also a writer (ghostwriting mostly) so I sympathize with that view, but not when it comes to major newspapers publishing misleading content, especially when the "mistakes" seem coordinated to support an emotive or political agenda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One should really dig the fact that she is legally a female, maybe to the appearances of her outer sex organs, and in sports classified as male, due to her having testicles, XY chromosomes and therefore too much testosteron.

What she choose as legal gender should not care much, as nowadays it's much easier to choose that. Good so. What is more important to her is what the sports classification panel put her in, because that's what's her income is. She can easily run in men competitions, no one forbids that. Letting her run with women was unfair to all other women. And you cannot compare that to the former hormone-doped women (e.g. the former east european runners). They had no testicles and no XY chromosomes.

</comment><comment><USER9> Specifically, [https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/8538/46-xy- disord...](https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/8538/46-xy-disorders-of- sexual-development)

</comment><comment><USER10> >It's absolutely mind-boggling that virtually every major outlet in the world reporting the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling yesterday has failed to mention one of the most important facts of the entire case. Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes.

This is a minefield of an offensive topic, but I will give it a shot.

Each outlet has a narrative that all stories support. "Right wing" outlets like Breitbart run the narrative that women are being pushed out of their own sports organizations by (insert polite term for all of the recent expansions to the definition of women here.) Most others run the narrative that this expanding definition has no negative consequences and we all accept it with jubilation. Reporting the XY chromosome detail could cause some readers to support the opposing narrative.

<comment><USER11> This is the obvious reality that people still have a hard time processing: "My opponents news is obviously biased, but my own is not"

There's a massive intersectional narrative at stake whereupon reality can be bent if need be in this case.

My original encounter with this story was the IOC's decision to allow Caster to compete: the NYT had a story supporting it, I thought it was enlightening. Until my bias radar went off and I did further research and found 'the most relevant facts' changed the story quite dramatically.

The NYT left out the fact she was intersex / hermaphrodite entirely!

So why would even the NYT leave out such critical information?

Google 'caster semeny new york times' for the latest headlines. Among them you'll find 'The Myth of Testosterone' \- trying to convince us that we really don't have any advantage due to testosterone!

It's interesting but ultimately maligned, so one must wonder why they'd take up such a position that should undermine their credibility?

The issue is identity: reality seems to be less important than people's right to choose their own expression, which is a current 'rights' issue ... and so the truth gets utterly muddled.

It's one thing when it has no consequence, it's another thing altogether when power/rights are bestowed due to it.

We're tricked with language: 'women' to most has biological implications, though we recognized not always. But when headlines such as this appear (in Quartz):

"The demonization of Caster Semenya's womanhood is part of a dark history in female athletics"

And this classic from Vox:

"I am a woman and I am fast: what Caster Semenya's story says about gender and race in sports The constant scrutiny into the runner's medical history reveals what happens to women who don't conform to stereotypes."

I think this headline really summarized the root of misinformation:

Caster is a woman by choice. She could have ostensibly chosen the male identity. She has utterly fundamental biological differences that are material in sport. Which in her life, is her business of course; but in sport, it becomes another issue.

So when they refer to her as 'female' and then reference the antagonism to her, it's a terrible straw-man.

Caster is not just a woman who 'doesn't conform to stereotypes'. Having male sex apparatus, XY chromosomes, and the testosterone of a male athlete which endows her with considerable and obvious advantage ... is not a 'stereotype'.

Effectively, a false parallel is drawn between trans people under scrutiny for 'non conforming identity' issues, into Caster's situation, where there are material differences to be addressed.

It's an information war unfortunately.

<comment><USER5> The NYT article seems simple, what are they leaving out? It mentions that mid- distance running seems to be testosterone independent, yet the ruling mandates to lower her levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't splitting Olympic Games by 2 (or more?) dimensions is in general a sort of propaganda of gender inequality?

<comment><USER13> It isn't propaganda to acknowledge that elite male athletes are _better_ than elite female athletes, for any reasonable definition of _better_.

Therefore, if we want any women participation in the Olympics, we have to have more than one category.

<comment><USER14> The solution is to define the categories by the specific physical traits that are beneficial to the competition (sort of like the weight classes used in boxing). Gender is an indirect indicator. Instead of dividing in to [men, women, ...(other?)...], divide by e.g, size, weight, allele, etc.

<comment><USER15> It's an interesting idea, but what criteria would you use to group people for running?

<comment><USER16> Personal best time at competing distance.

<comment><USER3> How would this work? Some Olympic distances are:

-Sprints (100m, 200m, 400m),

-Middle distance (800m, 1500m)

-Long distance (3000m Steeplechase, 5000m, 10,000m)

-Hurdles (110/100m, 400m)

-Relays (4x100m, 4x400m)

Men would dominate every distance, you'd have no women competing.

More cynically I'd point out that all high-level athletics are really television shows and the audience (deservedly) wants women's sports.

To me the solution is a new intersex category.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Harry Eng, the Master of the "Impossible Bottle" - <AUTHOR> https://www.puzzlemuseum.com/puzzles/amb/eng_botts/harry-eng.htm <comment> noman-land I love impossible objects. I've been obsessed with them since discovering them in the late 90s. Eng is a legend in the field.

My favorite part of this hobby is that no one will tell you how they made their bottles unless you're a fellow bottle maker. The whole point is to encourage people to try their own ideas.

I was inspired to make a number of these myself out of curiosity. I used to email these guys as a teenager and exchange techniques.

Deck of cards in a bottle is really fun and impressive. Total mind f. The ones with the cellophane wrapper still in are just great.

[http://bottlemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cards- in-B...](http://bottlemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cards-in- Bottle-1-1.jpg)

Rubik's cube in a jar is a great one.

[http://images.penguinmagic.com/images/products/original/1258...](http://images.penguinmagic.com/images/products/original/12586a-5845872a9ed5d.jpg)

And I think my favorite of all, the baseball in the salsa jar. Maybe my favorite art object in the world.

[http://bottlemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/MLB-in- Sal...](http://bottlemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/MLB-in-Salsa- Jar-3-.jpg)

Also a really fun conversation piece to have on a desk or at home. You have no idea how angry people get when you won't confirm or deny their theories and tell them to try it themselves. No you can't just push the baseball in by force.

Just to give you an idea of how insane these people are in their quest. It is said that Eng invented a tiny vice that could be disassembled, fed piece by piece into a bottle and reassembled inside. A bent coin would be fed through the neck of the bottle and the vice would be used to unbend the coin inside the bottle. The vice is then disassembled and removed.

<comment><USER2> Cool, no idea how they are done. It's always fun discussing how such objects are made.

I've spent some time making impossible objects as well. A different kind of impossible, where the object changes appearance based on where it's viewed from.

[https://github.com/Matsemann/impossible- objects](https://github.com/Matsemann/impossible-objects)

<comment><USER3> This blows my mind – well done and thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The big wooden sign in the jar is jaw dropping. I figure he must have cut it into sticks, fed them in, then glue it together then sand down and finish the outside to hide the lines.

I assume the padlock had to be disassembled and then reassembled inside the jar as well.

<comment><USER5> The wooden sign is even more astonishing. Assuming that your guess is correct (sliced, inserted, glued), then the engraving on the front would need to take the kerf of the saw cut into account, or else it would show.

Wait, now that I think about it, I bet it was split rather than sawed. The photo on the site is fairly lo-res, but it does look like straight-grained wood that would split straight, and would seamlessly glue back up. And it would reduce the amount of surface work needed afterward. Each piece would key into the next.

<comment><USER6> How would you split it without leaving tooling marks at the top though?

<comment><USER5> Split it, then remove the tooling marks by slicing off a bit of all the slices, then insert into the bottle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Side note: "eng" means narrow, tight or cramped in German.

...fitting.

<comment><USER8> And 'fitting' is, of course, the only adjective that could be used here. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> See also the classic spirit bottle with a pear inside: [https://www.instructables.com/id/Grow-a-Pear-in-a- Bottle/](https://www.instructables.com/id/Grow-a-Pear-in-a-Bottle/). My neighbors did a couple some times ago, it's actually quite tricky gardening- wise, you need to trim the pear buds, need to shade it partially during shiny days for it not to rot etc.

<comment> noman-land I've always wanted to try this. Such a cool effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow! Thanks for putting links up to my website. I r've been making Impossible Bottles for over 20 years. Harry Eng is my inspiration and I'm following in his footsteps. I've even duplicated 7 of his bottles so far. They are fun yet do take time to make.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the site! For us upvoting your site it'll only be fair if you share with us how you duplicated those 7 bottles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if these bottles can get past a TSA airport security check without breaking them open.

</comment><comment> rv-de won't most people just outright dismiss the challenge by assuming the bottom was cut off and reattached?

[https://www.puzzlemuseum.com/puzzles/amb/eng_botts/images/en...](https://www.puzzlemuseum.com/puzzles/amb/eng_botts/images/eng- bot05.jpg)

There must be a general idea how this has been done if not through bottom off and on.

</comment><comment><USER11> The obvious explanation is we're living in a simulation and the modellers are just having some fun. Very interesting article btw!

</comment><comment><USER13> Fraud, involving a means of removing and reattaching the bottle base, is much more likely than any of the methods I see suggested here.

<comment><USER14> Unless you're making a legally binding agreement (or for example, advertising) that the bottle has not been cut, it's not fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't believe it. If there were a mastery to this, it would be shared. All that's happening is they are cutting the bottom off and sealing. If I'm wrong show me a method for one of the simpler designs.

<comment><USER16> I think the simplest design would be the classic, literal, 'ship model built in a bottle'. And with that, it's literally all about manual dexterity in gluing together a model of a boat with all the parts glued on from the end of long tweezers and similar tools. In that case there's nothing 'impossible', it's just an incredibly tedious and painstaking process, and that's the only point of it.

<comment><USER17> It's like pulling teeth through the anus. Theoretically possible, but very, very difficult.</comment></comment></comment>


What wireless router would you use for a party of 100? - <AUTHOR>

If you had a LAN party with a hundred people (100 devices; turn your damn cell phones off wifi) what router would you choose?  Assume that you have as much bandwidth as you need from your ISP and you don't want to spend more than $500 (to be specific). <comment><USER2> I'd set aside enough time/money to allow as many of them as possible to be wired, if they want to be. Cisco [1] do 24 ports for $157, there are cheaper non-gigabit on Amazon.

[http://www.telephonyware.com/telephonyware/products/cisco- sr...](http://www.telephonyware.com/telephonyware/products/cisco- sr224g.html?mv_pc=A00034&utm_source=bizrate&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=tw00939)

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably four simultaneous dual-band APs on seven different channels. Look at <http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view></comment>


Linux Now Has Its First Open Source RISC-V Processor - <AUTHOR> https://www.designnews.com/content/linux-now-has-its-first-open-source-risc-v-processor/71646867257598 <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe should have linked here directly: [https://www.sifive.com/products/coreplex-risc-v- ip/u54-mc/](https://www.sifive.com/products/coreplex-risc-v-ip/u54-mc/)

<comment><USER2> Which was discussed few days ago here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would be nice if there was a summary page describing what "open source processor" means in this context.

I understand the ISA is open source, but SiFive does appear to be selling their IP.

[https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v- ip/buy/](https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v-ip/buy/)

Royalty-free seems like a better term to describe what they are offering than "open source".

<comment><USER4> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15400217)

> I understand the ISA is open source, but SiFive does appear to be selling > their IP. > > [https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v- > ip/buy/](https://dev.sifive.com/coreplex-risc-v-ip/buy/)

IIUC, SiFive is selling the ready-made "hard IP" [1], that means a compiled netlist that has been laid out at a slightly-abstract-but-almost-mask level.

All this is manual work done on top of a netlist generated using the open- source Rocket chip generator [2,3] (SiFive people contribute to the upstream repository).

Let's make a Wordpress analogy: SiFive is a big contributor to Wordpress and does most of the work upstream. At the same time they sell you preconfigured server images for your blog with Wordpress, nginx, varnish and postfix almost ready to go (few settings like IP, hostname and WP theme are still missing).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_intellectual_pro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_intellectual_property_core#Hard_cores)

[2] [https://bar.eecs.berkeley.edu/projects/2014-rocket_chip.html](https://bar.eecs.berkeley.edu/projects/2014-rocket_chip.html)

[3] [https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket- chip](https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket-chip)

<comment><USER5> Also they resell IP that is not theirs to give away, sadly. They are working on putting this chip in workstation class hardware, and when they do it will support PCIe, DDR4, USB3, etc. using off the shelf solutions they have licensed and integrated.

<comment><USER6> Will this all be on a SOC? Are these plans public?

It'd be great to get some single board computers on the market based on this architecture...

<comment><USER5> [https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom/](https://www.sifive.com/products/freedom/)

Scroll down to "Freedom Unleashed".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A better written article: [https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332398](https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332398)

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe I'm missing the relevant nexus between Linux, Open Source, and RISC-V, but I'm pretty sure BOOM [1] was already running Linux ~2 years ago.

[1] [https://github.com/ucb-bar/riscv-boom](https://github.com/ucb-bar/riscv- boom)

<comment><USER9> BOOM is built on top of rocket-chip, both going back to 2011-2012 at Berkeley. The rocket-chip devs graduated Berkeley and started SiFive.

SiFive still use, update, and commit back to the rocket-chip code base and have spent resources on verifying the rocket-chip code base and on integrating other industry IP into their branch of rocket-chip to fit their costumers' needs.

<comment><USER10> Mad props to them. That's impressive and very community-minded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Where can I buy a board with this?

</comment><comment><USER12> Not open. Hardware design is closed and only for sale as a netlist.</comment>


1929-2014 Stan Kelly-Bootle, a founding father of modern computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Stan-Kelly-Stan-Bootle-obituary-Liverpool-Lullaby

<comment><USER2> Stan was unique; a polymath polyglot, easy-going and charismatic, well-liked everywhere he went, highly learned and interested in everything, a linguist, mathematician, singer, and songwriter.

He had the world's first postgraduate diploma in computer science, and is perhaps particularly famous for his long-running erudite humor column in Unix Review, "The Devil's Advocate".

From wikipedia: "his best-known song is the "Liverpool Lullaby (Oh you are a mucky kid)", which Judy Collins recorded in 1966 for her album, In My Life"

Many of his witticisms from his book, "The Devil's DP Dictionary", are still widely quoted, such as this one that appeared on Hacker News last year:

        "There are three things a man must do
        before his life is done;
        Write two lines in APL,
        And make the buggers run."
        -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, 'The Devil's DP Dictionary'

I attended a local APL user's group meeting in recent years to take notes on a topic of interest for Stan, who had moved back to his home town of Liverpool and could not attend, and when I said so at the start of the meeting, they all knew Stan and asked how he was doing and exchanged old anecdotes about him.

Long ago I worked for him, before Unix Review and again with him at Unix Review, and we had been friends outside of work ever since.

I will miss him, as will his countless friends and audiences appreciative of his talent and humor.</comment>


The $2,000 Customer Service Call - <AUTHOR> http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-2000-customer-service-call.html

<comment><USER2> Is this really what we want to be encouraging, though? I mean, to look at it in another light, Chris was taken advantage of. He was in a somewhat stressful situation, and after bailing him out, GEICO immediately turns around and starts upselling him? Is that really ethical? I feel like if I was Chris' place, the last thing I'd want to talk about is spending more money, with the prospect of a $2000 or more transmission rebuild on the horizon.</comment>


An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S39fhrGjr4U <comment><USER2> Remember the "maker movement"? "Maker Spaces?" That was supposed to help restart hardware prototyping in the US. It didn't.

The original TechShop in Silicon Valley was kind of like that. People were making rocket components for the X-Prize. But over time, it turned into a factory for Etsy junk. The concept of "hand made" items made on a CNC laser cutter was a bit much, but it kept about eight laser cutters busy at the San Francisco TechShop. Then Etsy dropped the requirement that you had to make it yourself, and allowed outsourcing. The successor to the bankrupt TechShop has most of the same laser cutters, but they're mostly idle or broken.

People made Burning Man stuff, repaired bicycles, and made furniture. OK hobbies, but not going to change the world or even create a manufacturable product.

I don't know of a single maker space in Silicon Valley with decent electronics prototyping tools. Ardunio hacking, yes. Surface mount soldering and pick and place, no. The commercial maker space in San Jose and San Franciso has cast- off CRT oscilloscopes. About half the right stuff is there, half-broken and gathering dust. I'm waiting to see if the new nonprofits starting up can get their act together and actually open.

What's left of "maker spaces" has turned into "STEM" programs that parents push their kids through so they can improve their resume for college.

<comment><USER3> I generally agree with your sentiment, but I can think of at least one counter-example: Tile, which is definitely a new, U.S. based hardware company. I know the founders and used to work with them at a previous company. We had access to tons of embedded equipment and everyone who worked there had a little maker studio at home (one made robotic espresso machines, another did something similar to Google earth but with hourly weather government imagery, another made specialized text-to-speech software for playwrights).

Maker spaces may not have become a thing, but that's okay as long as the makers are still out there. In the U.S. at least, the true maker space is still in your basement or garage.

<comment><USER2> That doesn't scale. Watch some videos of Huaqiangbei.

<comment><USER3> >> In the U.S. at least, the true maker space is still in your basement or garage.

> That doesn't scale.

It most definitely can scale. If there is a strong national or regional social norm that encourages tinkering in your current garage, basement, or dorm room, it can reach a far broader scale than forcing folks to make things in pre- defined maker spaces that require memberships and monthly fees.

Maker spaces have benefits, like increased connectivity and collaboration as well as efficiently dividing the cost of larger pieces of equipment. However, they also introduce costs, like monthly fees, forced social connections, and engendering group-think. It can be far more beneficial for a group of students/colleagues/friends to meet in their parent's basement or garage than to each sign up for a maker space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's great to see someone advocating for alternative points of view with respect to IP.

It's a moot point though. Artisanal hardware is an intellectual dead end. Cost and IP and economics and whatever are a bunch of red herrings.

Hardware standardization is pretty much _always_ superior to fragmentation. I've never heard a hardware engineer advocate for fragmentation! Bunnie Huang should be advocating for the artisanal manufacture of software.

Then again, it really begs the question, why don't we use any _software_ that comes out of east Asia? Or let's say you buy into sales and profit and economics and mom-and-pop artisanal crafts and whatever as being in and of themselves valuable. It's not happening in Shenzhen with respect to software.

The answer is not as simple as localization. Bunnie is having a particularly reductive IP conversation, where there's no law and it's just whatever unwritten cultural norms you personally favor rule the land and can be enforced violently. The IP conversation must be bigger than that, because we live in a world where all the major tech companies, not just Chinese ones, are copying each other's features. And yet, nobody's calling that a lawless Shenzhen world. It's not really about copying or original inventions or any of what he's talking about!

So lemme ask you this: would you rather subscribe to an IP policy in the service of an idiosyncratic electronics hardware community? Or would you rather subscribe to whatever IP theory lets you write good software?

I'd choose the later. That theory is "Whatever the license says," and the diversity of licenses and their social impact speaks for themselves. For that to work, you have to respect the rule of law. Which isn't saying much!

More importantly, lawyers are innovative too. That legal work around OSS licenses has had a much bigger, much more positive impact on the quality of software than a fuck-the-IP-law attitude going on in Shenzhen.

<comment><USER5> > But artisanal hardware is an intellectual dead end.

I agree that this model of iterative improvement won't yield the next big technological breakthrough. But the big consumer electronics manufacturers aren't really innovating either. They might make a product a little bit flatter or give it another camera, but I can't think of a real game changer in the last five years.

Once all the technology is there and just improves iteratively the described model seems to be better suited to find as many local optima in the possible product space as possible (and not just a few big ones).

I could see how a lack of patents would lead to more secrecy in R&D labs. If what you are doing is truly novel and complicated (like developing a smaller node type in processor manufacturing) keeping the research secret would keep you as safe from competitors as patents. And if you aren't (like inventing rounded corners on smartphones) then you shouldn't have gotten the patent in the first place imho.

<comment><USER6> Well; the entire modern smartphone (post iPhone) industry is only a decade old. Expecting another revolution on par with the first in 5 years seems a pretty high bar to cross.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This model is definitely better at serving niche markets.

For example there are phone manufacturers in China that don't follow the silly trend of making phones slimmer, more fragile and with smaller batteries. Another example are mini notebooks like the GPD Pocket and its many clones which you can (could? haven't looked in a while) only get from china.

I'm a happy user of both product categories and don't think any western company could have been convinced to build these. The market is just too small.

Since I find myself in these small markets quite often (I love robust/rugged devices, phones with hardware keyboards, open hardware, ...) that's a super useful development for me. And I think there are more people like me, maybe with different wishes, but in similarly small markets, that would profit from more product diversity and easier customization of products.

<comment><USER7> First I've heard of that Pocket, it kinda reminds me of this [https://habr.com/en/post/437912/](https://habr.com/en/post/437912/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> this only works in an ecosystem where the 'race to the bottom' is futile, because you are already at the bottom. Hence why it works in China, no one is going to take your idea and produce it cheaper because everyone is already functioning in the most efficient manufacturing space possible.

In the western world, this is unfortunately not the case. Getting something produced is very expensive because our labor, machine, and real estate costs. Outsourcing makes it cheaper, once you have that pipeline in place. So if I innovate here without protection but pay the expensive price to have produced here, there is a significant advantage for person #2 with the China factory pipeline in place to steal my invention and significantly undercut my costs.

I do like his idea and wish our 'prototype' maker economy was more efficient in the US, but China has paid a high environmental toll to be in that place and it is a price we are not willing to pay here in the U.S.

<comment><USER9> Software works like this. Language package management and open-source libs are a really close analogue to these little factories and markets full of parts. (I also think we do it with practical knowledge when people change jobs, and I think the short tenures in SV are an undersold competitive advantage.)

For things like UI patterns and non-trademarkable design decisions, I think letting good ideas spread quickly is great for the pace of innovation. Good ideas of those kinds more quickly become table-stakes, and the scales tilt further towards "can execute" and "can consistently innovate" over "had a great idea".

<comment><USER10> Maybe a western maker space should have a co-maker space in the east, constantly connected by a always on vidchat wall. Stop stalking the past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 30-40% Westerners/world uses electronic devices from east. Not because they are good, but because there is no alternative to Chinese products. They could easily pay 20-30% more for its west alternative IF AT ALL its available. I think apple and other alikes should hit this opportunity and start making replica (as they say improved version) of mi/oppo/hauwei products. Without compromising on security and quality which is easy thing to achieve. And powerfull apple/google ecosystem would always be plus. Now innovation could only come out of mess, by getting hands dirty.

Thats what Steve might have imagined....apple tooth brush, apple car, apple air/water coolers, apple shoes may be. Making phone bigger and edge to edge won't help. Every product, every domain needs to be explored. Current "WRITERS BLOCKS" of new fresh idea could only be crossed by just going with flow and just make better version of every chinese stuff...Who knows what product might strike the market.

</comment><comment><USER12> One way to think about the current state of hardware design is that we are super reliant upon chip vendors. But in this case the parts are poorly documented or require lots of manual work to get the most out of them, or the documentation is only given to some people, and the interplay between these parts and other parts is unclear. So many people who are ignored by the mainstream companies want that same information and once they get it will share with others. Simultaneously the people who get good support from the companies still work very hard to get their idea working. So they are not motivated to give that away. Is there a huge amount of innovation happening? Sometimes, sometimes not.

So I would say having a culture within the HW community that helps support people who want to use chips that are inaccessible to most people because documentation and support is hard for a small company then that is great.

But advocating that somebody who figures out how to make a novel device that uses a complex set of parts that dramatically changes the paradigm and takes years to develop is then immediately copied then we need to protect that. 20 years for a patent? Maybe that's too long for some areas.. maybe 5 years but then enforce patents more strongly for obvious copy cats?

<comment><USER13> > But in this case the parts are poorly documented or require lots of manual > work to get the most out of them, or the documentation is only given to some > people, and the interplay between these parts and other parts is unclear.

Then I would tell you to quit doing business with such companies. There are lots of companies that are quite happy to give you information (I would cite TI, for example).

If you don't like these kinds of policies, then, for example, do your work on a Beaglebone (TI, with almost everything documented) instead of an RPi (Broadcom, good luck with that).

Now, I will say that sometimes documentation is just terrible. But, sadly, even big customers can't always avoid that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pretty sure that's the guy that scaled a small building to show me the MIT apartment he wanted me to rent with him about 15 years ago. Deja-vu moment. Cool guy; couldn't find a third.

Do most of these 'factory' startups make a profit? How do they get investment? It seems like this is only possible in an export-driven economy.

</comment><comment><USER15> Patents punishes everyone who is not first. Why would anyone innovate when the rewards are 2 lotto away: 1. innovation itself, 2. be 1st among 7B ?

Patents might have been fine in local economy of 25M 100 years ago but they are definitely are not in global economy of 7B today.

</comment><comment><USER16> I certainly agree with what he is saying; but I believe the American way lends itself to developing better premium products.

</comment><comment><USER17> None of the products shown _would even exist_ without American innovation.</comment>


Satirical description of the future (OP-ED 1997) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/21/opinion/when-wal-mart-makes-us-weepy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Just for a little context: this article was written in the immediate wake of Woolworth's department stores closing for business. Woolworth's was a US institution for over 100 years and shared some similarities with what Walmart is in 2017.</comment>


Tesla loses plot, sues Top Gear - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/tesla-sues-top-gear-for-libel-new-stig-unavailable-for-comment/

<comment><USER2> It'd be good if Top Gear was more clearly 'labelled' as fictionalised entertainment. In the UK the brand/programme name still carries the associations of 'old' Top Gear, which was a factual motor review programme (which was cancelled, the format - but not name - sold to Channel 5, and then relaunched with the new format). Most of their challenges are staged, and I don't think they'd lose entertainment value by being clearer that it's fiction.

It'd also be good if they stopped pandering to Daily-Mail-reading-racists. The Mexican stuff in the last series was horrific. I wish BBC America had had the balls to include it in their version, if only so they'd have to deal with the enraged viewers.

<comment><USER3> They play conkers with caravans, do you think it really needs pointing out that this is an entertainment show?

<comment><USER2> No, but it needs to be pointed out that it's fictional entertainment.

They have races and competitions between each other which are staged and adapted for dramatic results. The few car reviews they do are similarly dramatised. Does the viewer understand that the car didn't break down, that the person on the motorbike didn't coincidentally reach the same point as the person in the car, or whatever?

I suspect that most people don't realise that Top Gear is fictional entertainment instead of factual entertainment, because the extremely long- running brand of the show is rooted in factual entertainment.

Suing them over a fictional review is foolish, but if you were expecting an honest review of your product and got back a dramatised narrative you'd probably be pissed off too.

<comment><USER3> > If you were expecting an honest review of your product and got back a > dramatised narrative you'd probably be pissed off too.

We're talking about a car company here. Are you suggesting that a car company are going to not understand what Top Gear is about? The sort of show it is and the significant chance that the review will be dramatised and tongue in cheek?

If Tesla sent them a car believing that then they should fire their marketing people who should have made it absolutely clear and then resign themselves for ignoring what 15 seconds thought would have told them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm. I don't recall what I'd call "lambasting" - most viewers came away with a very positive impression of the Tesla - especially as it outperformed the Lotus in some areas. The bit about pushing it into the garage was obviously staged, and for humorous effect.

And to claim that providing two cars to the TV crew invalidates the point about range is a little bit outrageous. It's like saying "they cheated by not letting us cheat."

<comment><USER5> Little weird they would be bothering, if Tesla won this case a large amount of the cars featured on the show could surely win similar cases. It's part of the show to pickup on cars flaws and over emphasise them.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, that Bentley they had in Albania completely put me off ever buying one!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An auto company targeting auto enthusiasts suing Top Gear is like a tech startup suing YCombinator. In nine cases out of ten the loss of goodwill is going to make this a losing proposition.

<comment><USER7> This suit has parallels to Dan Snyder (NFL team owner - Washngton Redskins) suing a local city paper for a rather humorous (and factual) A-Z account of his mismanagement. The original post: [http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40063/the- cranky...](http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40063/the-cranky- redskins-fans-guide-to-dan-snyder/)

The suit: [http://www.tbd.com/articles/2011/02/dan-snyder-lawsuit-a- com...](http://www.tbd.com/articles/2011/02/dan-snyder-lawsuit-a-complete- analysis-49871.html)

<comment><USER8> Except all the stuff about Dan Snyder was AFAIK true. While it's entirely possible that the Top Gear guys, ahem, exaggerated some of Tesla's failings.

Edit: Still, it seems rather boneheaded to try to solve a minor PR problem from two years ago with a lawsuit that is certain to be very public.

<comment><USER9> >Edit: Still, it seems rather boneheaded to try to solve a minor PR problem from two years ago with a lawsuit that is certain to be very public.

Actually, I don't think this is boneheaded.

Tesla are probably finding no-one is touching them because somehow, _ahem_ Top Gear, everyone has the impression that the car will run for 50miles and then pack in and your only option will be to tow it home and charge it for 16hours to get another 50miles.

This suit will at the very least raise the point that Top Gear misrepresented the mileage that one can expect to get and that they failed to mention fast- charging schemes. It's likely to get mentioned on Top Gear and in just about every motoring magazine and on every tech site everywhere. I think even a few million on the suit would be better spent than trying to reverse this perception through advertising.

If I were in Tesla's target population then learning that Top Gear lied and that the mileage is actually a lot better than it appeared would probably put me back on track for a sale whilst learning that Tesla is suing Top Gear wouldn't negatively affect my purchase decision.

TL;DR I think this is a win for Tesla overall.

<comment><USER8> I understand what you're saying but IMHO a two year old episode of Top Gear is has literally no effect on any sales problems Tesla may or may not be having.

<comment><USER9> You're almost certainly right, now. But for the last two years, one of the biggest voices and possibly the only popular UK TV show to focus on "supercars"/"performance cars" ... if there has been no effect I'd be a little surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Surely they are deliberately going for the Streisand effect, to raise awareness of their existence by doing something the show's enthusiasts will always remember them for and getting wider publicity into the bargain.

ADDED IN EDIT: Is someone going around downvoting all my comments? This is really strange. Please, if you downvoted this let me know why so I can adjust my actions accordingly.

<FX: retreats, shaking head in confusion>

<comment><USER11> So does that mean you own a Morris Marina?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> wow these guys are such whiners.

Top Gear makes fun of everyone...and it's not like they hinted at something that would never happen

Other manufacturers are mature enough to understand that TG is a comedy show about cars, and their stunts are covered by satire.

And of course Top Gear will retaliate...they always do in cases like this.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but....

The show's main presenter has been well known as having politically conservative views for many, many years. If you watch, the vast bulk of his output is joking in that general direction when it's joking. Frankly, if I were Tesla, I wouldn't have let my car appear; it smacked of a set-up against the green bogeyman who was trying to stop their fun.

There seems to be a growing tendency at the moment in the UK at least for people with politically conservative views to express these loudly, prominently and repeatedly in a more forceful tone than they could otherwise use, with an _I'm only having a bit of fun, it's just a joke, can't you just grow up and take it?_ tacked on to the end, trying to belittle those who might take offence at their assertions. If these people want to express their views from such a platform (by which I mean a prominent one, the fact of this being on the BBC isn't an issue for me), they should have the nerve to stand behind it.

<comment><USER13> "they should have the nerve to stand behind it"

So summarise, are you saying Jeremy Clarkson doesn't stand behind his political statements? That's simply not true, have you never seen his columns in the Times? Clarkson gets a terribly hard time for his views and he doesn't waver a bit, whether you agree with him or not, you have to give him some credit.

<comment><USER12> I agree, I've seen his columns and he's firmly standing behind his ill- informed bigotry. A pity, because if you see some of his writing as a younger man 25 years ago he was interesting, funny and observant while still demonstrably holding the same political views; now far more he's a frustrated bigot railing against the modern world.

Watch Top Gear though (which I do and largely enjoy), and there's a relatively regular stream of reactionary material with a 'boys will be boys' tongue in cheek. The problem is, it's consistently in the same direction and at the same targets; it's using a cover of comedy and his TV persona to make attacks he couldn't otherwise make in such a platform. Jeremy Clarkson the newspaper columnist stands behind his positions, I agree; Jeremy Clarkson the TV character often tries to make much the same attacks while laughing them off as 'just a bit of fun'. That isn't intellectually honest.

<comment><USER13> "Jeremy Clarkson the TV character often tries to make much the same attacks while laughing them off as 'just a bit of fun'. That isn't intellectually honest."

Are you talking about the more extreme rubbish like "all lorry drivers are prostitute murderers"? His genuine political opinions like the ones he has on bendy buses, speed cameras, the M4 bus lane etc. strike me as genuine and not veiled in the 'boys will be boys' disguise you talk of.

I should probably bail from this conversation lest people mistake me as a JC supporter, I just think you're being a little unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't want to dog pile on them because Tesla seems like such a promising company, and despite this PR disaster, I hope they pull through to profitability. They're trying to push the technology for electric vehicles forward, and they're going to use the vacated NUMMI plant in Freemont, which is commendable. So I'll cut them some slack. A lot of slack.

<comment><USER15> Sorry to rain on your parade but battery-only powered electric cars still have too limited a range and take too long to recharge to be practical for most people. They may find a niche with people who can afford to have a separate car for a modest daily commute, but most people don't have the cash to tie up in an extra car just to be "green" (which electric cars aren't, really).

<comment><USER16> Have you seen www.betterplace.com

They have an answer for the range/recharge complaints (switching stations)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As an aside under the proposed new English libel laws this case couldn't be bought as they've waited two years from first publication (the new laws place a limit of a year).

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm not sure what's wrong with this really. Top Gear (pretends to be) is a car reviewer, and they made false claims in a car review. They are surely a comedy show but that segment was just astonishing.

</comment><comment><USER18> Normally Tesla's lawyers are busy in Washington, D.C., fleecing U.S. taxpayers for handouts. The company is one of the biggest welfare queens in America, they have almost no revenue and yet the government has given them hundreds of millions in unsecured loans.

<comment><USER19> BP got far more in government handouts to pay for their Gulf oil rig blowout disaster. In a free market, BP would now be bankrupt as it would have had to pay for the cleanup of hundreds and hundreds of miles of damaged coastal property as well as compensating fishermen for millions (or billions?) in lost revenue.

Just to give one example. Just saying.

We live in a welfare state. Criticizing people for accepting welfare in a welfare state is like criticizing people for speeding at Nascar. _Everybody_ does it. Every major corporation has lawyers and lobbyists in Washington to get as much pork as they possibly can.

<comment><USER20> > Criticizing people for accepting welfare in a welfare state is like > criticizing people for speeding at Nascar. Everybody does it.

Actually, "everybody" doesn't do it. You can't subsidize everyone because you run out of money long before that. The vast majority of us don't get subsidies.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You can't drop lithium ion batteries much below 25% charge or they start to die. If you fully discharge a lithium ion battery it's dead forever. That's how the Tesla engineers knew it didn't drop below 25% charge because otherwise the car would be undrivable. Why is it unbelievable that a car with a normal range of 200 miles would only get 55 on a track? If your car normally gets 400 miles to a tank it would not be unreasonable to expect 100 miles during a track day.

<comment><USER22> That's also why lithium batteries include circuitry to shut down when they get to x%. When they say they are at 25% then they are really at 25% of what is "safe" for the technology. It's not like if your laptop drops to 0% you can't boot it again. Don't you think that when they say it had 25% charge they are talking about what the battery was reporting?

<comment><USER21> Knowing lawyers, probably not. Look at the crap SCEA is putting infront of the court against an 18 year old kid. Also, 25% is known as a quarter tank where people who don't like to run out of gas decide that it's time to fill up, since you can't 'fill up' a Tesla, that means you have to go home. It also means that if you drive your car 55 miles away from home in track like conditions you'll be pushing your car home.

<comment><USER9> >It also means that if you drive your car 55 miles away from home in track like conditions you'll be pushing your car home.

In the UK you'd probably have been stopped by the police and have several speeding tickets if you were lucky enough to do the 55 miles on public roads at track speeds (0-60mph in 3.7s, limiter hits at 125mph) without killing anyone or wrecking the car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Its such a PR flop. The thing I can't understand is why they'd want to draw attention to the fact a very well read/watched/trusted program wrote a very poor review of your product.

Why on earth would you give it a second life?

</comment><comment><USER24> here's hoping they do nice segment tearing tesla apart in their usual witty style :)

<comment><USER9> Yeah they can go all out on how it's got a far better range than Top Gear presented it having and how it can be charge under best conditions in 4 hours. Tesla will cry all the way to the bank ...

<comment><USER25> More like "oh, you've got a Tesla? Isn't that the car company that sued Top Gear? Hahaha!"

<comment><USER9> [possible response] "Yeah, it's the one that whipped the Lotus' ass so bad that Jeremy got scared and had to lie to make it look crippled. Apparently the BBC still haven't learnt about not lying on public funds ... Hey ho, wanna race?".

<comment><USER26> "Sure. My pit crew will use a gas pump, yours will use a charging station."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


IPhone 4 Clone: GooApple from China - <AUTHOR> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjczODA2NTIw.html

<comment><USER2> With all the effort they put into cloning the iPhone case and UI, you think they would try to create something new and innovative.</comment>


The patent system isn't broken — we are - <AUTHOR> http://thisismynext.com/2011/08/11/broken-patent-system/ <comment><USER2> >If "the patent system is broken" is a lazy rhetorical cheat, then "software patents shouldn't be allowed" is the most completely vacuous intellectual cop- out possible.

What an insulting and unfounded statement. The arguments against software patents are strong and coherent. Intelligent people can disagree in good faith about the issue, but labeling the anti-software patent position a "completely vacuous cop-out" is unjustified rhetoric. So far as I can see, he doesn't really provide anything other than "math is hard, companies spend money on it" to support a contrary position, and the philosophical point that physical inventions are based on mathematical physics is true but outside the scope of legal reasoning.

The whole piece irritates me, because it is really just repeating the standard arguments for the utility of the patent system in general which all serious participants in the debate already know. The implication is that opponents of software patents are just too ignorant to know the basic issues - which may be true enough of Random Internet Commentators, but is certainly not true of the many experts who are opposed to software patents.

<comment><USER3> I particularly enjoyed the bit where he starts with, "What we keep calling 'software patents' are just regular old patents", then spends several paragraphs discussing the history of software patents and how they've been treated differently than others.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a difference between patents that happen to cover software and a carved-out subsection of patents designated specifically for software by law. We currently have the former - Niley believes we _should have_ the latter.

<comment><USER3> That's certainly true, but as I understood it, he's arguing that patents that happen to cover software are no different from patents that happen to cover anything else, and then he goes on to describe in detail how patents that happen to cover software are different from others.

<comment><USER4> I'll attempt to clarify, but these my own words, not Nilay's:

1\. There is nothing inherent about "software" that suggests you can't create a patentable invention with it, therefore statements like "software patents shouldn't be allowed" are wrong, or at least equivalent to "patents shouldn't be allowed".

2\. Software has certain properties that result in undesirable side-effects or ambiguities under the patent system at present, therefore we should adjust the treatment of patents on software to mitigate those effects and clarify those ambiguities. An example would be reducing term lengths to something more compatible with the pace of innovation.

<comment><USER3> > 1\. There is nothing inherent about "software" that suggests you can't > create a patentable invention with it, therefore statements like "software > patents shouldn't be allowed" are wrong, or at least equivalent to "patents > shouldn't be allowed".

I don't understand, how does that work? Let's get rid of the word "software" for a moment. Say I think that patents involving ducks shouldn't be allowed, for whatever reason. There's nothing inherent about ducks that means you can't make a patentable invention with a duck. But that by no means implies that my stance against duck patents means I'm against patents as a whole.

<comment><USER4> "One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if you're against duck patents, you're against patents in general. Gradually our machines consist more and more of ducks. Things that used to be done with levers and cams and gears are now done with bills and feathers and webbed feet. There's nothing special about mechanical embodiments of control systems that should make them patentable, and the duck equivalent not." -- <http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html>

I would also point out the other possibility in what I said before: that statements like "duck patents shouldn't be allowed" are wrong. Maybe "wrong" sounds too absolute, so substitute "incomplete" if you like. " _Some_ duck patents shouldn't be allowed" is a different proposition, and probably closer to what most people actually think, but Nilay is specifically addressing the absolutist rhetorical frenzy on you see on sites like Quacker News.

<comment><USER3> The ubiquity of software (or ducks) in modern machines isn't really relevant to the implications of the positions people hold. Just because software is used everywhere doesn't mean that being against software patents implies being against all patents. I think what you and others are trying to say here is that if you're against software patents, you _should_ be against all patents, but that's substantially different. It's taking an invalid rhetorical shortcut of assuming the other person has no good reason to make the distinction, rather than actually asking whether he does.

As for "some", you may be right, but I'm hard-pressed to think of any worthwhile software patents. Really, the fix for software patents is probably to reduce the term and vastly increase the requirements for novelty rather than eliminating them altogether, but on the other hand I really don't see much downside to simply disallowing it completely. Maybe I'm missing it, but patents don't really seem to be a requirement for software innovation.

<comment><USER4> That isn't what's being said in that paragraph at all. You're fixating one one sentence (the second) and completely ignoring the latter two. It's not about ubiquity, it's about software and mechanical parts being equivalent in their ability to comprise inventions. They're just different materials you can build inventions out of. It speaks no more about the merits of an invention than any other material.

Put another way: What's so special about "not-software" or "not-duck" that excludes it from the issue you have with software or duck patents?

<comment><USER3> > Put another way: What's so special about "not-software" or "not-duck" that > excludes it from the issue you have with software or duck patents?

That's pretty much my point. The original construction assumes that not only is there nothing special, but that the person arguing against software (duck) patents thinks that there is nothing special.

My real complaint is phrasing it by saying that a person who argues against software patents _must be_ opposed to all patents, when it would be much more correct and much less insulting to say that this person _should be_ opposed to all patents. One reduces the other person's argument to an absurd degree without allowing for any possibility that they might have a point, and the other just states why _you_ (or whoever) think they're wrong.

<comment><USER4> I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry you were insulted by something I didn't say, and that you feel the argument you didn't make was unfairly reduced to absurdity. I was only trying to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a rubbish article. It attempts to paper over obvious, horrible problems by blaming the people who try to game the system. It also attempts to marginalize objections to the current patent system by blaming people.

For starters, the anti-patent (or even anti-"Intellectual Property") position is _not_ a default mindset, even today. The anti-patent viewpoint is not an "intellectual cheat", if the arguers back up the position with research, facts and examples, which, oddly, this article even gives.

Secondarily, the article even raises the basis for patents in the USA: to promote progress in science and engineering. If the patent system doesn't do that, then what is it's purpose? If the patent system just ends up giving incumbents in the market ways to limit competition,the it is indeed well and truly broken.

<comment><USER6> Very well said, this article is misleading to say the least.

I take issue with article suggesting that all anti-patent views want that patent system abolished. That is absolutely not the case. The patent system should be brought into line with the rate at which industry is capable of innovating today. Furthermore, software patents need special treatment in their own right. They are simply not specific enough, and it is the generalisation that stifles innovation.

Again, I refer to Martin Fowler's excellent blog post on the subject of software patents <http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SoftwarePatent.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone summarize what the hell this guy's point is? I read 5 different paragraphs closely and skimmed the rest (he needs an editor) and can't figure out what he's saying, besides calling people who have a beef with software patents "lazy".

What's his solution to Intellectual Ventures, et al? One of the paragraphs I did read compared them to buying up land in the middle of town and setting up a strip mine. Which isn't a favorable comparison and, incidentally, we have zoning laws against that.

<comment><USER8> His main idea is that the way software patents are classified now does not make sense. He then suggests that a new class of patents be created just for software with special rules and regulation.

I'm not too sure why his title blames people because in the end he ends up blaming the current laws.

<comment><USER9> Also, he talks about how patents of well known things aren't a problem, because current law prohibits that.

EDIT: Of course, I don't agree.

<comment><USER7> And unironically provides a trivial math equation land-grab by Apple as proof that patents are providing value to society, on the other hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently asked a patent lawyer acquaintance of mine the question: "Do you think patents encourage innovation?"

His answer was: "There's absolutely no question at all whatsoever."

Which I was certainly a bit suprised by.

Maybe the truest conclusion I can come to is that, well, because he's a patent lawyer and his livelihood is based on that being true, he has every incentive to believe it.

I think it's worth pointing out that Nilay Patel is a laywer. [EDIT: non- practicing lawyer, never a patent lawyer] It's clear to me when I read his writing on the subject as well as when I hear him talk about it on the podcast that he's so far from my own thinking on this as to be almost incomprehensible.

I've slowly been reading this: <http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm>

But it seems to be light on data. Seems to me that theoretical arguments are well established and fairly strong on both sides at this point. Does anyone know of any empirical studies that have been done on the subject? Is that even possible? Any strong natural experiments?

<comment><USER5> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

        --Upton Sinclair

My own observation is that "The Law" (that class of people in charge of creating, extending and defending laws and legal systems) in the USA has crawled inside itself. The legalists like your patent lawyer and others will give very persuasive and logical arguments for laws and the current implementaton of laws. Unfortunately, the non-logical axioms and symbols they start with are all legal. The Law has come unstuck from reality. This un- reality is a bit more subtle than trying to legislate the numerical value of Pi, probably because they've dropped the axiom that The Law exists to serve society.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I've been thinking about how perverse legal systems are by fundamental nature.

Laws are made (to some large degree), argued, and adjudicated by lawyers. The more laws there are, and the more complex legal system as a whole gets, the more we need lawyers and the more lawyers we need.

Seems to me like the definition of a vicious cycle. There are no controls. Are controls even possible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In response to Nillay I left this brief comment:

Nilay, I think your patent exchange misses a key point in software. No one reads them. Nobody reads patents. In fact, go talk to a Microsoft and Apple engineer about patents and they'll tell you that not only do they not read them, their corporate policy does NOT allow engineers to read patents. Apparently it drastically increases the likelihood of treble damages for the company.

You give the PageRank example, missing though that there was work from IBM that was very similar. See this classic paper, "Authorative Sources in a HyperLinked Environment" from 1997(<http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home...>. The genius/luck of Google was continuing to push this idea of search, when no one else seemed all that interested (recall AltaVista, Yahoo, and Lycos had all seen Google's results and were offered a chance to buy the company -- they all passed. Their genius was in persisting and not giving up and getting their PhD.)

The Apple patent you show is an example of what I call, "Being the first to ask the question". I'm not sure how else you'd solve the problem besides how they did it. It's the obvious way to do it. They probably lucked out because they were the first company to be faced with the question. This has become rampant in the mobile industry. Whenever you have a new form factor, there are new problems. They aren't necessarily hard, but they're new. And the fact that they're new problems means there's no prior art. You can suddenly file a bunch of patents based on your solutions, 99% of whcih are the same solutions the guy across the street would come up with in six months when he happens to hit the same problem. That's not innovation -- that's blocking innovation as it ensures your six month advantage becomes a 15 year advantage (or however long patents expire).

Nobody in SW reads patents. Furthermore patents are actually very hard for those in the field to follow. They use non-standard jargon. I'd much rather read source code or a CS paper to get the ideas -- as those are usually written just by the actual developer, and not translated by the lawyer.

And an unrelated, but important point, IMO. SW, unlike most other endeavors, is something that people rapidly build on. People still take aspirin today, in the exact same form as 50 years ago. No one uses a piece of software in the exact same form as 50 years ago. The closest is probably vi, but even vi has had significant code churn over the past 30 years -- it's quite possible that it currently shares no lines of code from the original version. SW evolves rapidly. Patents seem much better suited for fields where inventions can stand on their own for significant periods of time.

<comment><USER4> _No one reads them. Nobody reads patents._

I do. I do with some regularity, and each time I come away more convinced that the majority of the press and discussion on the subject is complete garbage precisely because people don't bother to read them.

 _You give the PageRank example, missing though that there was work from IBM that was very similar._

There was a lot of similar work. There is always similar work. You'll find examples of it in the references section of the patent that nobody reads. Including:

'Jon M. Kleinberg, "Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment," 1998, Proc. Of the 9.sup.th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 668-677.'

<comment><USER12> And what do you do after you read a patent? Clearly, not building useful products that use those ideas, because a patent expressly prohibits you from doing that.

The part of the argument you're missing is that patent were intended to "promote the progress of science and useful arts" and, as they're practiced today, are doing the exact opposite: delay the progress and useful arts.

In software, if I can't use an idea for 20 years, it's useless. I would rather take my chances, think about the problem and come up with my own solution. Unfortunately, because of onslaught of patents, that solution is more and more likely to have been patented by someone else.

As a practitioner of software arts and science, I not only don't have the time to sift through thousands of patents, but I also risk potentially fatal damages by independently coming up with ideas of my own.

That is the cost of patents and it's becoming unbearable.

<comment><USER13> I agree completely. One of the key problems with software patents is the very idea that an algorithm is deemed worthy of patent protection simply because it is not obvious to the "average practitioner" of the art. But what skills/level of creativity constitute "average"? What if you have a company, like Google, whose core hiring principle is to find people who have above average skill and creativity? This seems to set up a perverse disincentive to hire smart people because the smarter they are, the more likely they are to rediscover on their own an idea that is already patented and thus violate it.

The fact is that if the idea patented truly is the best way of doing something then a lot of smart and above average developers are likely to unknowingly bump into that idea out of necessity. And this seems to be a problem that is unique to software patents precisely because of the closeness of software to mathematics itself. Some algorithms are provably optimal for a particular problem which means that everybody smart enough that faces that problem will solve it the same way. If you're smart enough to come up with the best way of doing something on your own but can not use it because it was patented then you're forced into a wasteful outlay of creativity just trying to work around the patent. I don't see this as spurring innovation or at least not worthwhile innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Declaring opposing opinions to be knee-jerk must be the oldest trick in the world.

Phrases like these infuriate me: "lazy conventional wisdom that the patent system is broken beyond repair". No, it's not lazy. Smart people have devoted a lot of thought to this, and while some arrive at the conclusion that patents are a net benefit, that is far from the only conclusion that thinking people would be able to reach.

<comment><USER15> In addition, those phrases just make it difficult for the people who you are trying to persuade to listen to you. I really struggled to read this article, but it's hard to think clearly when the author is constantly calling you a lazy moron.

In the end, the only people who finish the article are the people who already agree with you, now even more confident that they are right and the opposition are all idiots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of his supporting arguments cuts both ways.

Apple's patent on "hand scaling velocity" simply gives a mathematical formula for the sentence: "scale at a speed proportional to how fast the fingers are moving."

There is nothing groundbreaking or advanced about the math here, or the idea behind it. Anyone implementing a multi-touch screen is likely to come to discover that a fixed scaling speed sometimes feels sluggish or awkwardly fast, and so that speed should adjust based on user input. And now, without realizing it, they've infringed on Apple's IP and are open to being sued.

<comment><USER17> Yes, the math he shows there from Apple's patent looks very obvious. Anyone looking to implement detection of multiple touches on a touchscreen would end up with basically those equations, or others that are functionally equivalent to them.

I want to give TFA's author more credit, but I worry that he is just copy- pasting some math, in hopes that math will just look incomprehensible and hence novel. But that a patent has some equations in it doesn't make it novel. This math certainly isn't.

If you want an example of a patent that actually _does_ have nontrivial math, then the MP3 patents for example qualify. (Whether you think even that should be patentable is of course still an open question - but at least the math in the MP3 patents isn't obvious.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> An interesting article, but I think its main point can be summed up as "Look at all these dumbos holding signs saying to end slavery, when interviewed they can't even give good reasons! Haha, here's a few reasons why slavery is actually _good_!"

Nearly every big cause, right or wrong, has its supporters that may have just happened to be on that side, or thought about it seriously once and have since forgotten the details, or indeed have written many essays or books about the subject. I'm sure there are pieces more elegant and detailed than this that argue for abolishing the patent system; characterizing a position by the existence of uninformed supporters seems useless to me since pretty much all positions have those. The sentiment of educating the masses is nice, and I can agree with it, but on the other hand this is why we have skill specialization --I can give some money to someone who has spent lots and lots of time on the issues to continue their fight, I don't have to spend the same amount of time myself.

I know basic algebra looks brilliant to most ordinary people scared of math but I thought "Patents publicly disclose some of the most advanced work ever done by some of the most creative and resourceful people in history, and it'll all be free for the taking in several years" particularly amusing after the Apple screenshot. For startups and other companies outside the Valley (where there's a strong sense of sharing), how often do actual game-changing things get patented instead of made into a trade secret?

</comment><comment><USER19> > [disclosure is] an important way the patent system encourages innovation, > actually: it forces inventors to build alternative ways to do things

Are you sure it is not just a way of forcing people to waste effort making something different when there is a perfectly good solution ready to use? Is it not better to be building _on_ things rather than _around_ them? and having invention driven primarily by demand not by obstacles?

> Stop offering patent protection and there's no more required disclosure -- > all this stuff stays locked up as trade secrets

Are you sure it is not the likeliness of keeping the secret that dominates here? That is, if you think you _can_ keep an invention secret for longer than a patent term, you will choose that instead of a patent -- since it will give you a longer monopoly. And if you think you _cannot_ keep the secret, patent disclosure does not help anyone else that much, since the secret was going to leak anyway.

The supposed rational is one thing. Whether it actually works that way is another -- and there is no clear proof that it _does_ work.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Because getting a patent means accepting a time-limited monopoly on your invention, anyone will be able to use this specification to build their own search engine when the patent expires in 2018."

This paragraph from the article points out one of the larger issues I have with patents in high-tech, which is the length of the grant. Even ignoring the fact that simply reading patent claims is a VERY long way away from working code and related infrastructure, the lapse of the patent plus the knowledge from the patent would only be good for helping you to implement Google's algorithm as it existed in 1998(!). Forget about 2018, Google's algorithms (while still built on similar concepts) are known to be very different today or even 4 years ago than they were in 1998.

By granting such a long term to patents you are not just blocking competitors from the core claim, but also any innovations you make while the patent is active, assuming enough of the original invention remains that anything else that uses your non-filed tweaks would still be in violation of the original process.

Result? You could (assuming reading a patent magically allowed you to actually recreate the system) recreate 1998 Google in 2018. Approximate value of that 'knowledge gift to society' IN 2018? $0! You're 2 decades behind where you need to be if you're starting at the original core invention.

BTW, I don't mean for any of this to be a knock on Google, PageRank is simply the example the original article decided to use. Google remains one of the only big software-related corporations whose patent usage/enforcement hasn't yet been destructive to the industry as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER9> If Title 35 was a good description of what the US patent system was like in practice then our patent system would still be working.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think this is a healthy perspective. Far better than the knee-jerk "patents are evil" perspective we see so much of today.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thank god someone is actually thinking about it in an informed way and fighting back against a dogmatic (and frequently extremely poorly informed) abolitionist position.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is an extremely well-thought-out defense of the value of patents, and it presents the issues as nuanced problems that need to be resolved with careful thought.

I have long thought, as the author does, that a ban on "software patents" is extremely short-sighted, given that pretty much any physical object can be represented by equations or software. I really love his example of a beer bottle with a particular neck shape dictated by fluid mechanics equations.

His thoughts on patent trolls are also very welcome -- if we truly believe that intellectual property has value, then we have to allow it to be bought, sold and asserted. But, it does seem reasonable to tie damages to lost revenue or other actual business costs, which non-practicing entities would not have.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure what the title is supposed to mean. FTA "The solution is simple, of course: we just have to add a real software patent section to Title 35. " I guess he's trying to say the patent system isn't broken, but here's how I would go about fixing it.

</comment><comment><USER25> > most important and disruptive inventions in the history of the world

Hyperbole much? PageRank, really? The Internet, yes is one of the most important and disruptive inventions. One companies algorithm for sorting search results. A company that's only been around for a decade or so. Search is huge, Google is huge, but they and esp their pagerank agol ain't close to being one of the most important and disruptive inventions in the world.

</comment><comment><USER26> Summary by one sentence of the article: "Now, I'm not a software developer, mathematician, or patent expert". That reads in other parts of the text... and even in the poor choice of patent excerpts.

Some parts are naive at a rare level, e.g.: "Those rules might actually solve the software patent dilemma for us if we just wait long enough: the gold rush to patent all these fundamental software technologies means that they'll all be public domain prior art in a few years, and any obvious improvements won't be patentable. The pendulum swings both ways."

And the long rant about software patent not being explicitly defined in the law and that fact being considered as an important advance in the discussion -- well did anybody did not know that? And even if it was the case, does that make the general discussion about the goodness or badness of patenting software irrelevant in any way?

</comment><comment><USER27> If a system does not work for the population it is intended for, who is to blame? The population, or the system?

It does not matter. In any case, to make it work, you need to change either the system or the population. I am quite sure that changing the population is not realistic at all.

Note that this leaves aside the concrete issue, in which I believe that the blame rests mostly on the system, which failed to understand the motivation of people. It does not matter, though (see above).

</comment><comment><USER28> "is broken" equates to "allows or encourages something that wasn't originally intended". That's an apt description of the patent system and the current situation.

</comment><comment><USER25> IP is the problem. Software patents are a mess cause we've convinced ourselves that owning intangible thoughts and ideas is keen!

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow. the equation for computing of the hand scaling velocity is a gem. It computes, when translated, how much the distance between the fingers changed per the time interval... or... yes, hand scaling velocity!

I hesitate to call this an "advanced technology". It's a kind of calculation we'd have done during what amounts to college years in the US.

I stopped reading there.

<comment><USER30> Yes, he seems to think Apple's got some magic system in there, not realizing that it's just a basic calculation that anyone else solving that problem would have come up with.

I bet if you put 10 decent programmers in a room, more than half come up with the same thing. That's true of SO many software patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Out of all the articles about patents that get posted on HN, this is one of the most knowledgeably written I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER32> I read most of the article, and I think it is as flawed as his title. Of course, we aren't broken. If anything is broken, it is the system. If there is a problem between us and the system that we have created, then it is the system that we should change, not us.

</comment><comment><USER33> can anyone tell me what are repercussions of simply disallowing selling of patents?

I mean if they just allow only inventors themselves to license their patents and don't allow IV/Lodsys kind of companies to own patents they didn't invent.

Won't that solve half of the problems?

<comment><USER15> This would prevent the economic separation of inventor from producer. That separation is key for specialization and therefore economic efficiency.

There's no reason that a scientist/inventor in a laboratory is going to be any good at running a business selling his invention, just like there's no reason a farmer is (or should be) any good at running a grocery store. It's much more efficient for the farmer to simply sell his produce wholesale to the distributors so he can concentrate on _farming_.

Don't take offense at this, but I think this idea (that the problem with the patent system is the separation of inventor and producer) is especially prevalent within the start-up community. Such entrepreneurs are used to thinking of the entire process as occurring in their figurative basement: identification of the problem, invention, patenting, production, and sales. When this is possible, it's _awesome_...but it's not usually possible. In many industries/disciplies, _each_ one of these steps is done by a different person (who are very good at it because they are specialized) so it is crucial that they are able to capture their value-added at each step.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I could not follow all the ramble, but he seems to think that patents are just fine, and all we have to do is implement the law better. But if the law isn't implementable or understandable by mere mortals, the law is _wrong_.

</comment><comment><USER35> Tl;dr version: Look at all this useful math disclosed thanks to software patents.

<comment><USER8> Thanks to Apple I will never have to re-derive first order finite difference formulas!

<comment><USER36> Is it me or is there a mistake in the cited part of that patent too:

"where d(FI[n],FO[n]) is the squared Euclidean distance between the fingers"

The formula that is then given is under a square root, i.e. it is the Euclidean distance NOT the squared Euclidean distance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> [http://thisismynext.com/2011/08/11/broken-patent- system/#com...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/08/11/broken-patent- system/#comment-283799490)

</comment><comment><USER38> Random idea: What if all software patents were required to include an executable code example demonstrating the patented concept?

<comment><USER39> I don't think the problem with software patents is that the inventor didn't necessarily made the code before.

Quite the contrary, some of the most controversial software patents are in fact so simple that you learn that in CS 101 or by yourself. Some other are just plain common sense.

But I agree it could help a tiny little bit with claims such as: "1) A mean of broadcasting current mood and menial activities using text messages. 2) 1 over the internet. 3) 1 over a portable device" (fictious, or maybe not?)

But still, my friend told me he could have made Twitter in two days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The ideas that Nilay puts forth as good examples of patents are held up here to be bad examples.

Why is that?

Because Nilay doesn't understand why these patents are obvious.

Which is the whole fucking problem with the patent system Nilay:

People like _you_ saying "Well, these patents look reasonable to me, so why are you people who do this for a living complaining?"</comment>


Ask HN: Why is there no hosted cross domain request access provider? - wh-uws

I would gladly pay a monthly fee for this service. <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted this as well. But, the business model might be hard to sustain. Most of us might use it for prototyping and then move to server-side for production. Or, the original API provider might support CORS sooner or later.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't follow you - can you elaborate?

<comment> wh-uws Basically a service that makes it so you dont have to setup your own reverse proxy to make requests to apis that dont have cors enabled

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> crossorigin.me

<comment> wh-uws Sadly doesnt support the PUT or DELETE http verbs so I'll have to setup my own proxy :/</comment></comment>


ManageTwitter - Fast & Easy Unfollowing - <AUTHOR> http://www.managetwitter.com/

<comment><USER2> Doesn't tell me enough about what it actually does before asking me for my password, so I bailed. Sorry!

It searches my stream, but for what? Anything I'm looking for? Or follower- specific info?

How does it manage people I follow that is different to Twitter's implementation? Does it include info like etact does for email/SMS (follower vs following, number of RTs, most recent DM)? Does it just provide more items per page? Does it provide shortcuts like "people I'm following who aren't following me" or "people who were following me, but aren't any longer"?

I think you need to spell it out a lot more before you ask for a password.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's essentially a fast interface for viewing, grouping and sorting people you follow. It shows people you follow in groups of 100 and allows you to filter by; "not following back", "inactive", "talkative" and "quiet". It allows you to filter only people who have mentioned a word in their last tweet. It allows you to instantly unfollow blocks of people (background processes actually do the talking to twitter so you don't have to wait).

Also if you screw something up, it lets you undo all your unfollows :)

The lack of information was a design choice. One button on the page, few distractions. The tool essentially does one thing - makes it easy to unfollow people. Admittedly trust is an issue, but I'm not sure how to compromise on that.

<comment><USER2> All I can do is give you feedback. If there was more info up front, I would've considered coughing up the password to give it a shot, but not with what's up there now.

You can call it a design choice, but I can only tell you that it didn't work for me. Your second click seems a bit wasteful too? You could easily add 4-5 bullet points up front.

Just checked the site again and see that you've added bullets and a screenshot - what happened to the design choice of two lines of text and a button? ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Your post happened :)

I did see a decrease in bounces, thanks.

<comment><USER2> Cool - I think there is a balance between too much and too little content and I think you're closer to the mark now than before. Good luck and hopefully it works out for you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just launched this yesterday. Managing the people I was following on twitter was always a massive pain for myself and quite a few people I talked to, so I decided to do something about it :)

Went through quite a few UI iterations trying to balance ease of use & power. Feedback welcome :)

<comment><USER3> Nice work. I showed this to a coworker, who was looking for a way to clean out a bunch of people one of our accounts follows. Unfortunately, he got an error during that initialization phase it seems to go through after login.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I had one other report of this so added some better error handling. Will have to log this stuff a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does this publish anything to my Twitter feed? I've had services unexpectedly do this in the past, to the point where I think new Twitter-related services need a disclaimer that says "we won't publish anything to your feed without your explicit approval - we hate that stuff too."

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it does not publish anything unless you explicitly say so (double confirm).

<comment><USER4> Cool. I'd stick that prior to the OAuth.

The UI looks terrific, and the service was easy to use. My only comment: I might evaluate 'quiet' and 'talkative' using a shorter window than 'since account creation'. Every once in a while a nice, useful-updates-only service I follow hires a community manager and then their Twitter feed goes all to hell. ManageTwitter still considers these feeds 'quiet' although they've recently become all-too-talkative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't get a good feeling about this. I checked out Melon Media and they are outside the USA, so the law for me is a little tougher in punishing them if they do wrong. Then, they are an email marketing firm, and I would be giving them vital access into my Twitter feed.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a good idea to avoid using trademarks (like "twitter") in your site's name.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use <https://filttr.com/> :)

</comment><comment><USER8> says "talking to twitter....." done... then "talking to twitter....." done... and then "talking to twitter....." done...

again and again... never goes anywhere. fail.</comment>


A chef for your startup? Might just be your most important hire. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/f84c854d83

<comment><AUTHOR> Silicon valley extravagance or sound biz decision? And how's the food at your startup? Best I've had was at DropBox.</comment>


Farms of the Future Will Run on Robots and Drones - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/farming-with-robotics-automation-and-sensors/ <comment><USER2> Pretty much everything in the future will run on drones and robots.</comment>


Good blog on python programming - <AUTHOR> http://intermediatepythonista.com <comment><USER2> >>...the python programming _language_ as documented in the _langauge_ reference. There is no official language specification but the _langugage_ reference.

Hope you proof-read your code better than you do your prose!</comment>