OO languages spend most effort addressing a minority use case - <AUTHOR> http://250bpm.com/blog:59 <comment><USER2> The issue is that there are so many ways to do one thing with OOP. Programmers tend to add complexity when they can do OOP, so it's not the fault of OOP, but it's hard to teach good practices. In a way the problem is that OOP is too permissive. When you use a language, a nice feature is readability, but it's because the language encourages some practices.

In that regard, C++ is fine. Java is not.

Also a bothersome issue is people arguing that OOP is reusable, so that they invent all sorts of things that will be extendable, and then you see their code never being used ever again.

My opinion: don't teach OOP, teach software design. PLEASE.

<comment><USER3> > In that regard, C++ is fine. Java is not.

You realize C++ is much more permissive than Java?

<comment><USER2> java encourages OOP. C++ only allows it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What a straw man. Saying that OO is all about inheritance is like saying that a Tesla cars are all about having a big touch screen dashboard.

<comment><USER5> The best definition of object orientation I've come across recently is this one:

[http://wcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/proposal-for- simplified-...](http://wcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/proposal-for-simplified- modern.html)

Which identifies two defining attributes of objects as a particular kind of value: they are collections of behaviours, and invocations of their behaviours are dynamically dispatched. Inheritance isn't required; it's polymorphism that's important, and inheritance is just one way to approach polymorphism.

<comment><USER6> In what way would that be different from the use of simple closures. Given that they predated them by a couple of decades am interested in what new or different idea (or even practice) that OOP brings to the table. My question is sincere and genuine.

<comment><USER5> Well, Guy Steele suggested [0] that

> A closure is an object that supports exactly one method: "apply".

In which understanding, what objects add is the ability to have multiple methods associated with one bit of closed-over state.

Now, you can do that without objects by creating several closures in one context and putting them all in a record to give them names. But at that point, you've just implemented objects. Hence the famous aphorism quoted in Steele's email: _objects are a poor man 's closures; closures are a poor man's objects_.

[0] [http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive- html/m...](http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive- html/msg03269.html)

<comment><USER6> I prefer the second idiom: Create a tuple of different functions that are closed over a common state. You get privacy and data abstraction for free. This is nothing new or ground breaking, neither in theory nor in practice. This idiom will be familiar to everyone taking a 101. So I am yet to find what is it that OOP brings to the table. Some OOP fans seem to have a large chip on their shoulder, as if they saved the world. Want to understand what's all that about.

<comment><USER5> When you create a tuple of different functions closed over a common state, that _is_ object oriented programming. If that's something you find useful, then you _already understand_ what object oriented programming brings to the table.

<comment><USER6> But that's my point, this has been a common practice decades before OOP fanboyism came to town telling everyone they have this new solution for all software problems of the world. And all they were selling as this _new_ paradigm was not only old hat but a special case among the many in which closures can be useful. One uses it when it matches the problem domain. The overblown fuss around it and raising it to the grand position as _the_ solution to everything, and the assertion that you are doing it wrong if your code is not OOP, keeps me permanently mystified.

<comment><USER7> That never happened though, not in the 80s/90s when OO was considered new (everyone had experience with objects before they were called objects). It is something people imagine a lot, probably so they can feel more smug hating on OOP. But really, any new technology will attract clueless fanboys who think they are working with something brand new (again, to support their smugness in pretending to be a pioneer). And let's not get started with the FP fanboys, who think they are "doing functional programming" when it's obvious from looking at their actual code that they are thinking in terms of objects and don't really get FP at all.

<comment><USER6> Agreed in full about FP fanboyism, and exactly as you said, some write Java code in their shiny new language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I started using python I wondered why classes were not so prevalent. I was just coming out of several years of C# (I had scaled the MVVM WPF mountain. Interfaces everywhere). Since then I realize that I rarely use classes except to store a basic model. And then, unless there's logic around how to convert a value from one thing to another (full name by combining first name and last name as a simple example) I've started moving things like validation and non basic business logic into their own modules. This makes using it across systems easier and allows me to scale the complexities better. Almost no OOP used basically. This has been pretty liberating as far as development and testing goes.

(Of course in 2 years I'll understand the cons of this approach and will think back on these times and wonder how I could have been so naive. :D )

</comment><comment><USER9> Just because a language supports OO doesn't mean that you are somehow trapped using only the OO paradigm. OO is a feature that gives you, amongst others, the possibility of expressing an inheritance relationship.

Most code I write in C# is OO in that it leverages encapsulation, but is generally written in a functional style (thanks LINQ) and uses inheritance for maybe two out of a hundred classes.

Most popular languages now are multiparadigm, so there's little point in criticising particular paradigms as if we're somehow stuck working with them and them only.

<comment><USER10> You're trapped when coworkers use (and demand) OOP, not to mention libraries which require it.

Like when your coworkers become religious about the ORM ("How DARE you write SQL!") when the database people actually have the superior model (relational) to the programmers (OOP).

Also, many languages have an explicit critique of OOP. Take Rich Hickey's discussion of how OOP complects a bunch of features which can be available a la carte.

<comment><USER11> Link?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sure. I've recently finished writing 18,000 programming language statements in Visual Basic .NET on 80,000 lines of typing, including comments and blank lines, and so far I have never even once used inheritance, either single or multiple. I don't even know how they would handle naming conflicts with multiple inheritance. Maybe Microsoft's many classes in .NET are making heavy use of inheritance, but I don't.

So, inheritance is okay, but I don't use it directly. It just isn't a tool I use; it stays in the bottom of my toolbox.

I use classes much like structs in C or structures in PL/I. Yes, classes are a little more general, and I do make use of some of that generality.

But, PL/I structures are quite a bit more general than structs in C and, really, nearly as useful as classes. And, for "addressing" as in the OP, the array addressing in PL/I structures is much more efficient than addressing in classes.

The OP is correct: I don't think of classes and inheritance as _representing_ a is-a relationship. Sorry, I just don't do that. Don't need it. Or, I'm big on collection classes (hopefully based on AVL or red-black trees) and did write my own key-value store for session state storage for my Web site, and that usage can be regarded as using is-a, but, again, I don't get is-a from class inheritance -- just don't need that.

And the OP is correct: A lot that is in my code has its meaning clear only in the comments. The code is like the displayed equations in a calculus or physics book, and the text between the displayed equations is like the comments. Both the text in those books and the comments in the code are crucial.

Yes, the _meaning_ of the code is crucial, but for _meaning_ I want to use a natural language, e.g., English, in the comments.

<comment><USER11> But why not use assembly with a lot of comments then?

Higher level languages aspire to take at least some of the "meaning" stuff that would otherwise be in comments and represent it using in-language constructs.

<comment><USER12> Good observation.

Likely the answer is, again, similar to what is done in a calculus or physics book: E.g., in a calculus book, there's a lot behind the Riemann integral, and in physics, behind the electric field, so in those books we don't express everything as just simple arithmetic with comments.

And, yes, in my code, when I write a function or subroutine, I give it a mnemonic name and have it do some work that has _meaning_ that is described in the comments.

But here is for me a telling point: In grad school, my best math prof just stated that math is written in complete sentences. So, the mathematical symbols do not replace the natural language, e.g., English in the sentences, paragraphs, sections, chapters, etc. Usually good mathematical notation has some mnemonic hints of the meaning, but, still, the meaning is in the text, not the symbols. So, net, there is limited utility and future in trying to have programming language syntax replace the English language for communicating the meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've always wondered why (implementation) inheritance is a first class construct while delegation has to be painstakingly implemented manually.

<comment><USER14> I guess you could do this in a higher-level language like Ruby, though you either have to use a mixin or monkey-patch a core class, which isn't as clean cut as a first-class construct. With Lisp, you could just create the construct if it isn't there already.

No such luck in Java et al.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >>OO folks are wasting their time discussing minutiae of their little peculiar use case, such as, say, single vs. multiple inheritance, while at the same time nobody is paying attention to what is needed in majority of cases.

Maybe they were fifteen years ago, I don't think that is the case now, the two most popular OO languages (Java and C#) don't even support multiple inheritance.

<comment><USER16> well, with default implementation in interfaces, now java support (something resembling) multiple inheritance

<comment><USER17> I think you and tonyedgecombe have different definitions of support. In my understanding, default implementation was included to allow adding methods to interfaces without updating the classes that implement them. You can use this feature to do something like multiple inheritance, but I haven't heard anyone recommend it.

<comment><USER16> Well, I hardly know anyone recommend multiple inheritance, whatever the language is :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Held me up until a C++ rant. Among multiple ways of using C++, an OOP way is the least important. It is not an OO language, so most of the legitimate anti- OOP criticism simply does not apply to C++.

<comment><USER19> > It is not an OO language

That seems really outlandish and obviously flat-out wrong. I assume, then, that you have good reasons to have this contrarian position, and I am really curious to hear what they are :).

When I think of C++ I think of "C with classes." In other words... C with objects. And... a bunch of other stuff tacked on over the years. Which is not to discount that stuff---maybe that is what your argument rests on; if so, that's fine.

<comment><USER20> C++ can be OO, but isn't always OO. If OO is defined as having polymorphic runtime function invocation, then C++ allows you to opt-in to this behavior with 'virtual' and heap allocation, vs. Java which requires you to opt-out with 'final' and all objects are always heap allocated.

My biggest thing in support of OO is that it encourages DRY more affectively than other paradigms, IMO. But I am finding Rust's balancing of functional w/ OO allows for you to pick the best method to DRY (don't repeat yourself).

Anyone who doesn't practice DRY programming doesn't understand the cost of maintaining production code and technical debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> His articles about C vs C++ are also interesting

[http://250bpm.com/blog:4](http://250bpm.com/blog:4)

[http://250bpm.com/blog:8](http://250bpm.com/blog:8)

<comment><USER22> He seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water here a bit. Exceptions are a failure and a bit of a mine field in C++; I have no arguments there but you also don't need to use them.

The list example is a bit contrived too. A simple templated class for the list node could give both encapsulation and the exact same speed and allocation characteristics as the C code.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I should have mentioned to read the comments, lots of good points raised there to balance things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is one side of the Expression Problem.

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExpressionProblem](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExpressionProblem)

</comment><comment><USER24> Most OO languages are incorporating features from functional languages and generic programming, so the author's rant is kind of misdirected. Maybe he's talking about Smalltalk or Java 1.0?

Besides, in OO languages, people are coming around to the idea of favoring composition over inheritance anyway.

So this person is basically arguing against a strawman.

</comment><comment><USER25> multiple inheritance is often misguided. Back in the day that was the major selling point of OO. These days decent languages have composition via roles or traits.

<comment><USER26> So basically the "progress" of OOP wrt. multiple inheritance looked like this: first we throw it away because it's too dangerous, then we realize it's actually needed for good architecture, so we slowly try to smuggle it in under different names ("traits", "roles", "mixins") hoping nobody will notice.

<comment><USER21> Too much sarcasm. MI was too general, to the point of being more harm than good, so it had to be toned down to find the sweetspot.

<comment><USER26> I'm being sarcastic not because I don't understand the rationale, but because of the dogmatic approach of the loudest proponents of those changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I can't make myself read something which has such an evidently wrong title. Must we ignore reality to push our alternative paradigm nowadays?

<comment><USER28> You should try to be open to it, OP tries to make a point and not just rant. Typical OO structures don't fit the way some (small majority?) of programmers think. Is becoming proficient at OOP an exercise in brain rewiring? Or should we reject it, since it doesn't come naturally? Worthy of discussion and not just outright dismissal IMO.

<comment><USER29> The problem is that he really doesn't have a point - only a straw man. He doesn't like inheritance, but he likes message passing. Well, guess what - Alan Kay, the founder of the OO paradigm, also consider message passing to be the most important part.

This is at most a rant against the misguided implementation in certain mainstream languages. Not against OO in general.

<comment><USER11> True. But in reality, when you hear term "OO" people mean Java and C++, not the orginal Alan Kay's concept. Sad but true.

<comment><USER30> When you look at books that introduce OO, and languages that incorporate it, it's usually presented as is-a and extends and inheritance.

The fact that Alan Kay meant something different is irrelevant.

While you can build messaging and composition into most languages, they're usually considered application models in their own right, not core features. (Objective C is an exception, among a handful of others.)

So I think it's a valid question - why do mainstream languages still present this model _as a core feature_ when other models are less rigid, more expressive, easier to work with, and better candidates for language fundamentals?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Eh? Holding a reference is the arrow

<comment><USER8> The point here (pun intended) is that reference is not an OOP specified feature. Polymorphism is.</comment></comment>


California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/us/california-imposes-first-ever-water-restrictions-to-deal-with-drought.html <comment><USER2> We learned yesterday that 80% of water consumption in California is by agriculture[1]. Yet this executive order does nothing to reduce agriculture's use of water[2]. It only refers to use of urban water, lawns, landscaping, and cemeteries. Agricultural users just need to submit vague "plans."

1\. [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how- growers...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how-growers- gamed-california-s-drought.html) 2\. [http://gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf](http://gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Many farmers are getting no [0] water this year and are relying on ground water to keep trees alive or not planting seasonal crops. Others get a very small fraction of their typical allotment [1]. California water rights are complicated...

[0] [http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article11355200...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article11355200.html)

[1] [http://hanfordsentinel.com/news/in_focus/california_drought/...](http://hanfordsentinel.com/news/in_focus/california_drought/state- water-project-growers-get- percent/article_18eaa03b-36d3-52ce-a15f-5e230a991c84.html)

<comment><USER4> The trees they're trying to keep alive have ridiculously high water consumption, almonds for instance consume 10s of litres of water for each _individual_ almond.

They need to stop growing trees like that in a desert, which is what they're doing.

The wells they are digging are tapping into the underlying aquifers that are the last resort, so they are in fact getting _free_ water while complaining about the cost. In essence they are stealing the water that other californians pay for.

At the same time they are asking for subsidies, to support a business model built on the ridiculously stupid idea of growing high water use crops in a _desert_.

The solution is to actually treat this as a free market (as most HN commenters seem to believe is the solution to everything), everyone pays the same amount for water, including farmers. This would mean farmers would actually make sane use of their water - maybe they can't grow almonds for a profit anymore, and switch to something else. They will probably fairly quickly find some new food stuff that people really want to pay lots of money for, but uses less water.

That's how things work.

<comment><USER3> I know this is all straw man, but interesting stuff...

Many crops use much more water than Almonds [0], I guess they're just fun to pick on. It'd be interesting to see a calorie/water comparison of many foods.

Also, my family's farm spends more money on well water than the government supplied water due to the high cost of electricity for pumping.

I do agree that a real market for water might help. The root of the problem really is that we are farming in a desert and relying on water from other locations. However, the desert does otherwise provide a great climate for efficiently/consistently producing many crops.

[0] [http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gleason-almond- fa...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gleason-almond- farmer-20150326-story.html)

<comment><USER5> Do you think if the state gave incentives to use more efficient water usage methods would help. The reality is agriculture is 80% of water consumption while 2% of the state GDP. It would be more efficient for farmers to conserve water and everyone else pitching in to subsidize it.

<comment><USER3> % of GDP is one lens to look through when thinking about water rights. Having access to affordable/local/healthy food is another.

I think incentives would help, yes. There is also a "use it or lose it" system builtin to many of the water rights contracts that are toxic. Much like big corporate budgets, farmers find a way to use the water just in case they need it the next year.

The reality is it is very expensive to change irrigation systems in established orchards. Incentives to do that would certainly be well received by the tree farmers I know.

<comment><USER5> My point about the GDP is that it is such a small part of the overall economy that it is feasible to share the burden to improving the irrigation systems across the full population. And perhaps the "use it or lose it" penalties could be put on hold during a prolonged drought situation till hopefully things improve.

Also in your opinion, are the high water usage due to primarily the irrigation methods or that the crops need lot of water? Like almonds for example?

<comment><USER3> Irrigation methods can significantly reduce water usage for some crops. Others require gobs of water. I don't know the numbers for each crop, though.

The Almond Board of California has some info on this for Almonds. Obviously, take this as you will, given the source: [http://www.almonds.com/pdfs/waterfactsheet315.pdf](http://www.almonds.com/pdfs/waterfactsheet315.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are limits to the governor's powers here. Much of the agricultural water comes from "rights" or easements attached to specific land. Ownership of farm X comes with the right to water from river Y. This is the "free" water often mentioned in news reports. Any reduction in these rights is viewed as a legal "taking" or condemnation of a property right by the state. Lawsuits for compensation will result. And they will likely win. That is why the order avoids mention of agricultural uses.

<comment><USER7> You can't give away what you down own.

When the state gave rights to water to land holders it was well before we had the technology to meaningfully impact water levels and thereby impact other peoples access to water.

Since Roman times land ownership went from the highest heavens to the the deepest deeps, but the law was changed after blimps and other aircraft needed it and they certainly didn't need to pay off millions of people in Italy or anywhere else for that matter.

Same goes for pollution. When there are measurable impacts to other people (ie, my small use, home well went dry and now I need to ship in water at a _much_ higher cost), farmers don't get to claim compensation.

<comment><USER8> _When the state gave rights to water to land holders it was well before we had the technology to meaningfully impact water levels and thereby impact other peoples access to water._

Droughts, floods, dams, and aqueducts are older than any currently standing government. If water rights laws can already consider those events and structures, they can be adjusted to incorporate manmade climate change as well.

<comment><USER6> That would be true if there was a "water rights law". The problem is that there is no single law. Water rights are tied to real property law, especially when farming is involved. The American legal tradition, as adopted from the brits, places the property owner as a king on his land. It has great trouble allowing others, non-landowners, to tell that king what he can and cannot do with his land.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> California needs to raise the price of water.

Isn't it ironic that water in Seattle (which has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fresh water) is more expensive than it is in SF and LA?

[http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp- content/uploads/201...](http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp- content/uploads/2010/04/allstats590.jpg)

If you want people to use less water, simply raise the price.

<comment><USER5> The other way is if other states would grow more agriculture so there is more diversity.

<comment><USER10> Other states might grow more if their California competition wasn't subsidized so heavily with water.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any evidence of this that they are not growing more because California subsidizes water usage?

<comment><USER10> Just basic economics. Subsidies increase supply which reduces prices. Lower prices discourage production. Net result is that production shifts to the place with the subsidies.

<comment><USER5> So your suggestion is to get rid of the subsidies?

<comment><USER10> My suggestion is that we'd be better off if they weren't there. That doesn't necessarily suggest a plan of action, though, since just dropping long- existing subsidies can cause a lot of problems. I don't know what the solution is, but I think the goal should be to charge farmers something like the fair value of the water they consume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why isn't california using the same technology people use for almost every other scarce resource? Markets. If you raise the price of water, people will start using less. I suspect there are some political reasons why this is not happening.

<comment><USER12> There's a good post on marginal revolution that puts California in some perspective.

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the- california-water-shortage-again.html)

> As David Zetland points out in an excellent interview with Russ Roberts, > people in San Diego county use around 150 gallons of water a day. Meanwhile > in Sydney Australia, with a roughly comparable climate and standard of > living, people use about half that amount. Trust me, no one in Sydney is > going thirsty.

> So how much are people in San Diego paying for their daily use of 150 > gallons of water? About 78 cents.

<comment><USER13> That is indeed quite cheap if water is supposed to be scarce. (I don't quite see why you're downvoted.)

78 cents per 150 gallons is $1.37 per cubic meter. Here in North Europe, where we have no shortage of water whatsoever, we pay €1.34 per cubic meter. _In addition to that_ we pay €1.66 per cubic meter as "wastewater management fee" (and yes, you have to pay wastewater management fee even for water that you use for watering plants, something that doesn't need wastewater management at all).

So, San Diego residents pay less than half the price of here? Wow.

(Not that the more than double cost would be a problem here, as the average consumption per person is 100-150 litres depending on whether people live in detached houses or blocks of flats. People in blocks of flats consume much more water on average, and even that is only about a quarter of the San Diego figure you quoted.)

<comment><USER14> On residential water bills the wastewater fees are a separate line item. In Santa Cruz there is a fixed fee for water delivery based on the size of the pipe (fee is independent of how much water you consume), a tiered fee based on consumption, and another fee for wastewater that is fixed tied to the household.

The fixed fees are very high. If I halved my water consumption then it would only save a dollar or so a month. The net effect is that the people who consume the least pay the most for the water they consume because of the high fixed fees. Here is my municipal bill for June last year:

        17.41 Water - Ready to Serve 5/8"
         4.71 Water Consumption Charges (3 CCF): 3 CCF @ 1.57
        42.30 Sewer - Single Family
        26.05 Refuse - 32 Gallon Cart
         7.69 Utility Tax @8.5%
         5.06 Franchise Tax - Water 3%,Sewer 3%,Refuse 12%

The water consumption does have tiered pricing, with a penalty above 10 CCF/month. As you can clearly see there isn't any incentive to save. I was also renting at the time, and couldn't do things like install more water efficient plumbing, fixtures and appliances (standard limits in rental agreements).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Too little too late. Here's things Jerry could have done but didn't.

\- Ban the export of bottled water from California. If the drought is as bad as they say we shouldn't be shipping any of it out of state. Sorry Arrowhead.

\- Introduce tax breaks for installing water efficient appliances.

\- Introduce tax breaks for the removal of sprinkler systems and replacing plants with ones that require less water.

\- Introduce a market for water so that everybody from homeowners, farmers, and business all pay the same market rate.

\- Provide tax breaks to allow agriculture to transition to crops that require less water. Convert these to fines after 5-10 years so that any holdouts get the hint.

This is one of those cases where everybody has got to give up something.

<comment><USER16> Those all seem like pretty reasonable things. But how on earth aren't there already tax breaks for water efficient appliances? That seems like such an obvious and trivial improvement...

<comment><USER17> It does exist on a county/city level, Santa Cruz will give you money if you get a high efficiency washing machine.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. EBMUD runs a rebate program for clothes washers[1]. This is why it's nonsense for people to keep talking about this problem at the state level.

1: [https://www.ebmud.com/for-customers/for-residential- customer...](https://www.ebmud.com/for-customers/for-residential- customers/conservation-rebates-and-incentives/high-efficiency-clothes-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's water, and then there's water. You can put just about any water on a farm field or orchard, but not into someone's tap. Water for taps has to be treated.

This means that you can have more than one kind of water shortage. There's shortage of water, and shortage of treatable/treated water.

What's more, water is difficult to (efficiently) transport long distances. Aquaducts are about the only way to do it. This means you can have a shortage of water in one place, and water available somewhere else, and not be able to fix things.

Then, as Joel Garreau pointed out in "The Nine Nations of North America", there's the difference in viewpoint between northern and southern California. Southern California (think LA) believes in development, growth, conquering nature. Northern California believes in harmony with nature, and leaving things unspoiled. This means that in LA, "letting a river flow unchecked into the sea is a waste, a sin. In San Fransisco, it's a blow struck for God's original plan for the land." This makes it very difficult to find political consensus for a plan of action.

And, on a bit more specific topic, I see people talking about orchards. Let's say you've got an orchard that takes lots of water. People are screaming at you to turn off the taps because things are so dry. But your trees are, say, 30 years old. That means if you turn of the water because this is a dry year, it's going to take you _30 years_ to fully recover from that move. So you're going to do _everything_ you can not to have to turn the water off to your trees.

<comment><USER18> I think this is one of the better posts on this thread but I take issue with two things. First, I think it's hilarious that you think northern californians live in harmony with nature. I would say the nature harmony declines as you go north, terminating in the "state of jefferson" region where all they want is to clear cut every single tree. Secondly, because of the almond rush there are comparatively few 30-year-old almond orchards, and those that do exist are in the wetter orchard regions like Butte or Glenn county, while the recently planted orchards (which constitute the majority of them) are in the San Joaquin valley.

<comment><USER19> Thanks! Replying to your two points:

Taking the city of San Francisco and comparing it to the city of Los Angeles, I think that SF has a considerably stronger environmental movement, so the statement was not complete nonsense. It may not reflect the whole of Northern California.

As to the orchards: I pulled "30 years" out of thin air; I have no particular attachment to that number. My point was that the orchard loses considerably more than this year's crop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A state with questionably the highest concentration of some of the most intelligent people in the U.S and some of the dumbest politicians in the U.S. Question : What were all of the Californian's doing when the state was running out of water for years? Why do you elect bozos? Too busy making apps to be concerned with where you're going to get water from?

Ever wonder where all that tax revenue goes? Apparently not to important issues.. Planning ahead.. wtf is that?

Yes, Agriculture burns up 80% of the water supply... California is a desert yet attempts to be the source of the nation's agriculture .. $$$

Every step of the way, money is a motivator over survival. As a result, even with the current order, it wont go far in way of solving the water issues. In all honesty, it seems no one in that state is going to wake up until all of its gone. Maybe then people will wake up. 194 comments and counting about doing everything under the sun and nothing of value is done about it. Where's Zuckerberg? Where's Google? What are the problem solvers of the world in that state doing? Exactly....

Good luck California. You elected these bozos and sit by worrying about everything but what's important. The very nature that attracts people to the state and the lifeblood of habitability is under threat and no one has bat an eye for years... You can't get Zuckerberg to shut up about flooding an already flooded workforce with outsiders. Yet, the whole state's water supply is under threat and no one has said a word. Not one person from the 'leadership'... Gotta love the times we live in.

<comment><USER21> Zuckerberg is not a leader of anything except Facebook, so it seems kind of silly to expect him to do anything about it.

California actually passed a bond measure last year to improve the water situation[1]. It's easy to sit back and say how dumb everyone is, but I would say most states don't do so well planning for events that may or may not happen every 40 years.

[1] [http://www.acwa.com/spotlight/2014-water- bond](http://www.acwa.com/spotlight/2014-water-bond)

<comment><USER20> As I recall, this drought has been ongoing for 5 years+. It is easier to be myopic it seems. Best of luck. I'm sure when the water finally runs out, everybody will want to get a word in

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wait, they _just_ imposed water restrictions? Wouldn't have that made sense to start like... near the beginning of all of this?

<comment><USER23> I was kind of surprised by that too. Even down here in Tea Party HQ (TX), at least Austin and San Antonio have had water restrictions for years if not decades.

<comment><USER21> Well, Texas is probably drier on average than California. California has wide swings between very wet winters and very dry winters. See this chart of Fresno, which is pretty dry on average, but ranges from a high of 22" in a year to a low of 4" over the last 80 years or so. [http://www.bytemuse.com/post/drought-historical-rainfall- cal...](http://www.bytemuse.com/post/drought-historical-rainfall-california/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think California and other drought affected areas could take a leaf out of Australia's book. Here in Australia drought isn't a new thing. We aren't exactly the worlds greatest and most drought resilient country (it still has an effect), but I grew up with water restrictions being the norm. Only being allowed to wash your car with a bucket or regulated car wash, recommended shower priod of 3 minutes (the Government handed out free sand hourglass timers a few years ago) and only being allowed to water your gardens on specific days of the week (or not at all) were some of the things I recall as a kid.

Depending on the state (I am from Queensland) there are various stages of drought action. We have seven levels, some states/territories have 3 or 4. In Queensland from stage 2 onwards sprinklers are banned. Stage 3 onwards hosing is banned (no hosing gardens, cleaning using a hose). Stage 7 is the worse and it means no external water usage without a permit permitting so (or the fines are astronomical). Sounds to me like California is probably at a stage 6 or 7 on our drought scale.

I am surprised that it took this long and for things to get this bad before they considered water restrictions. Heck, the Australian government has even bought back water allocations from land owners to save river systems. I think California should have been doing more sooner than they are.

</comment><comment><USER25> In Sunnyvale as recently as a year ago at least, public parks and schools were seriously over-watering their fields. The drought was already a serious concern and I called the school district to point out that their sprinkler systems were running even on rainy days and ran long enough to make the ground marshy even on a dry day. They didn't care. I'm pretty disgusted by how long it's taken for more action to be taken. Water rights is the first time I've heard of California state giving a crap about property rights.

</comment><comment><USER26> Israel produces about one-third of its water from desalination. Its largest plant produces 165 million gallons per day. The firm that built and runs that plant is building one in Carlsbad, CA going on-line in 2016 and producing 50 million gallons per day.

</comment><comment><USER27> Ahhh, water. The one thing that The West hasn't got and that we all need. I grew up in the Bay Area and honestly, it is great to see a bunch of people on HN who are not from here trying to wrap their minds around this. Make a De-sal plant! Make Markets! Almonds cost too much water! (By the way, the correct pronunciation is Amm-ond when they are off the tree, AL-mond when they are on it, as you "knock the 'll out of them").

There are no politics in The West unless you talk about water politics. Full- stop.

Sure, abortion, gay marriage, budgets. These are all distractions from the real nitty gritty politics of The West. From Nebraska to Califronia, it is ONLY about water. The history of The West can largely be written by the history of how to control the water in The West, and who is doing the controlling.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars) This should give a barest introduction into the viciousness and fingernail clawing politics of water out here.

So, welcome to the REAL politics of The West. _Now_ things matter.

EDIT: By the way, pro-tip: Up your water usage today. They usually calculate these percentage reductions based on the last month's water usage, hence the April 1st date. Whatever you do, use more water and pay the bill. That way you don't end up with an allotment of 8 gallons per day or something crazy. You need to be able to cook spaghetti if things get bad. I remember the late '80s and the drought then. Rule was: If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down; much to the outcry of public health workers. Note this, things have gotten bad before in Cali, and that was the result; things are much worse now and the results will be much worse.

</comment><comment><USER28> The first picture that pops into my head when I think of California is sprinklers on people's lawns. We don't really have them in Germany. I mean, of course we do, but people are hesitant to put them up because the first thing that will happen is your neighbours standing at the fence judging you for being so goddamn wasteful (seriously). Now, I'm not a huge fan of judging people (that's a lie), but I can't help but notice that americans _(seem to)_ completely lack this sense of responsibility/playing your part/restraining yourself for the greater good/whatever. Another thing we don't really have is air conditioning (might be a climate thing). It's insanely wasteful and chances are you'll be sweaty anyway. So we don't use them.

Unfortunately I have a hard time finding numbers on how much water is actually wasted. I.e., with a somewhat reasonable definition of "wasted."

<comment><USER29> > I can't help but notice that americans (seem to) completely lack this sense > of responsibility/playing your part/restraining yourself for the greater > good/whatever

Of course there are exceptions, but in general Americans are much more oriented to the rights of the individual and much less to collectivism and the 'greater good' than Germans. We tend to view collectivism as an inherently oppressive and dictatorial mode of social organization, a cruel enslavement and subjugation of the individual, who is prohibited from doing anything but following the mandates of the collective handed down by some vast inhuman and opaque bureaucracy.

This attitude is less prevalent in more leftist areas such as California and Massachusettes, but I think it's safe to say that it's fairly representative of the average American overall.

I had the reverse experience in Germany: I was amazed at the degree to which many Germans obsess extensively over the minutiae of trivial decisions (such as how far to open the water tap while washing dishes) in terms of what (vanishingly inconsequential in most cases) effect it will speculatively have on the collective good.

Moreover, this seems to be cast in terms of what other people will think of you. Americans care far less about what others will think of them. We tend more towards a philosophy that says if you are not (directly) harming someone else, it's nobody else's business what you do. Germans sort their recycling into 9 seperate bins by color and composition. They could easily put everything in 1 bin and make machines to sort it automatically, or hire someone to do it by hand, but instead it is set up so everyone has to do it themselves -- so your neighbors can see that you are or are not complying with the dictates of society.

Another seperate factor is that natural resources in general are far more abundant in the US than Germany. Relative to the US, Germany is a tiny country with a huge population packed into a very small space.

Meticulously conserving resources is imperative when you have a high population to resource ratio, but less important when you have a huge land area with a very low average population density and so vast amounts of resources available for each person. We are just recently starting to reach the limits of what the natural available resources can support in the US. The local limit in Germany was reached centuries ago, forcing more efficient use of what was available.

<comment><USER30> > Americans care far less about what others will think of them

As a European expat in the US, I find this statement to be very accurate. It can be maddening at times but I've grown to find this characteristic one of the main attractions of life in the U.S. It can be summed up as "I don't feel guilty about anything I don't have direct control over because it makes life much more enjoyable and it always works out in the end."

<comment><USER29> I believe this derives from the many immigrant groups that have come to the US over the centuries, each with a very different cultural view of what constitutes "correct" behavior. The only way to avoid constant fighting in that situation is for most people to say, "OK, as long as you are not directly harming me, you do what you want and I will ignore it."

Europe, by contrast, is far more ethnically homogenous than the US within individual countries. Most people in most places share a very similar cultural background and very similar views of what is "correct," so the pressure to conform is greater.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've been hearing this on the news for at least a year now, and they're _just now_ imposing restrictions?

<comment><USER18> This is on the state level. Most water districts have been imposing restrictions and raising prices for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Read "The King of California" ( [http://www.amazon.com/The-King-Of-California- American/dp/158...](http://www.amazon.com/The-King-Of-California- American/dp/1586482815) ) for insight on what became of Central Valley's Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater body in the United States West of the Mississippi. The lake is gone, but its footprint is now the world's largest cotton plantation, JG Boswell Company (ticker BWEL), which owns rights to millions of acre feet of Central Valley's ground water. J.G. Boswell II, who died several years ago, pioneered the use of laser-levelers, GMOs, etc., whereas his predecessor, J.G. Boswell, was an unsophisticated Georgia cotton farmer who relied on post-Reconstruction black slaves to create an empire in the heart of California.

Fascinating read. Recommended.

</comment><comment><USER33> Please let the governor know what you think. Everyone who reads this site is at least tangentially affected by it, and at most live in California.

[http://www.gov.ca.gov/home.php](http://www.gov.ca.gov/home.php)

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't wanna sound like an annoying libertarian, but would it be the same if water was privatized in CA?

Seems reasonable to assume a private company would solely increase the price of water and gradually try to find other ways to solve the problem.

<comment><USER35> Ah, the classic naive geek. All it would take to implement your plan is:

1) Become dictator of all California via military coup. 2) Create water monopoly that has rights over all water sources. 3) Regulate said water utility.

Totally reasonable.

<comment><USER34> That's not the implementation of something like that. Actually, apart from military coup, your plan looks exactly like the current system.

I can't tell if that was an irony...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> ...oh, California, your "rainy days" have finally come?

On a more serious note, if I remember correctly, there are technical solutions to precipitation control. Cloud seeding had been tried repeatedly and provided results (sometimes surpassing the estimations by a large degree). Is this political too? Should California stay sunny even now?

</comment><comment><USER37> [http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/may/26/california- fails-...](http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/may/26/california-fails-to- adequately-track-water-use/)

</comment><comment><USER38> I simply do not understand california's water shortage problem. They are by a frickin ocean. It's sunny nearly all year round. Solar powered or wave powered desalination is a fairly straight forward solution to this problem.

<comment><USER39> Why desalination isn't the answer... [http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/why- isnt-desalination-th...](http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/why-isnt- desalination-the-answer-to-all-californias-water-problems/)

<comment><USER40> Why aren't they simply boiling the water, nuclear powered? That article says membrane desal leaves half the water extra salty, is that right? Does boiling it leave that much? I'd imagine there'd just be a concentrated, mostly-solid byproduct.

I'm probably wrong else everyone would already be doing this. OTOH, many people and places seem to be going against nuclear power, so perhaps it isn't just a technical issue. At any rate, that article just left more questions than answers.

<comment><USER41> Is nuclear cheaper per joule than other energy on the grid?

They'd essentially be running a nuclear powerplant, which wouldn't turn out any resellable power, just water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf I have a lot of fun pondering the effects of a longer term drought. Will populations shift north to Oregon and Washington? Will desalination technologies advance to significantly reduce the cost?

<comment><USER42> They have a huge desalination plant coming online soon in San Diego.[1] There are about 15 others that are proposed. With California's vast coastline and huge concentration of population along the coast, it seems logical to build more of these plants. However, they do use a lot of energy (which could be supplied by solar and wave power) and may have deleterious effects on sea life in the vicinity of the salty output. But what choices do they have, really? Until people move northward or eastward, as you suggest, or other ways to conserve are implemented, they're in a very tight spot right now. I think desal is the best option.

New desalination technologies may also provide the key, such as the RO/PRO so- called "reverse osmosis" approach[2]. The Israelis have a giant plant "Sorek"[3] that is purifying seawater on a large scale and using advanced technology to reduce the energy cost and improve efficiency. So there's some hope for this approach to providing purified water on a large scale.

1\. [http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations- large...](http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest- ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near)

2\. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150217144246.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150217144246.htm)

3\. [http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megasca...](http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megascale- desalination/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> You our humble audience, You will finally see, What it's like when people can't pee free

\- Urinetown

</comment><comment><USER44> they should probably impose [http://treetpee.com/](http://treetpee.com/) as a requirement for agriculture

</comment><comment><USER45> How come I never hear any talk of building a new water pipeline from Alaska.

<comment><USER46> Because that would be ridiculous? The distance between Alaska and California is _huge_ ; there is tons of fresh water that is closer to California than Alaska.

<comment><USER31> From what I understand, there are massive pipelines sending water to the LA basin. And the people who live where those pipelines originate are upset over sending water to what is really a desert. So going further afield in the search of water is likely to exacerbate the tensions.

And I'm not sure where'd they go that they haven't already. Las Vegas? (it has even less water) Yosemite? (probably already feeding water to the central valley) Oregon? (move construction of the Keystone XL westward?)

<comment><USER46> Oregon would make much more sense than Alaska.

The distance between Los Angeles and the southernmost point of Alaska's panhandle down the side of Canada^ is comparable to the distance between Los Angeles and New Orleans. Terrain aside, it'd make as much sense for Los Angeles to tap the Mississippi.

Really what California needs to do is suck it up and build desalination plants. They are used in many other parts of the world, despite what some Californian pundits claim about the cost of desalination. Leaching off neighbors is not a long-term solution. Californians need to break themselves of that habit ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars)).

^(And I suspect you'd need to go way further north in Alaska than that to find a Californian-sized fresh water supply...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Continuing to read these articles about water shortages, particularly in the Central Valley, definitely makes me feel fortunate that the water supply for Imperial County (we're located in the bottom right of California) comes directly from Colorado and the All-American Canal and we're not as subject to the issues a lot of the rest of the state is facing (I'm sure we have our own issues, but for the most part, water isn't really something we have to worry about down here).

Additionally, a recent Opinion piece in the local paper put it quite nicely: "Valley has reason to honor National Ag Day Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, CA) - Friday, March 20, 2015

Despite the obvious presence and abundance of the Valley's agricultural commodities, their true significance can be easy to overlook. Thankfully, National Ag Day aims to correct that.

National Ag Day, which is typically commemorated in March, and this year was celebrated on Wednesday, has the commendable purpose of highlighting the contributions of the nation's agricultural community. It dates back to 1973, when the nonprofit Agriculture Council of America launched its National Ag Day program.

We too have tried to do our part through the years to highlight the important role ag plays here as well as in the far-flung markets that it has tapped into. Luckily, there hasn't been any shortage of examples, or eye-popping statistics, that we have been able to cite in the past to emphasize the significance of Valley agriculture, or mention now in honor of National Ag Day.

One of our favorites to cite is the fact that about 95 percent of the fresh vegetables consumed in the nation are produced in Imperial County and Yuma between the months of November and March. Another rather astounding statistic is that of the nation's 3,079 counties, Imperial County ranked No. 8 in total annual agricultural production, according to the US Department of Agriculture's 2012 Census of Agriculture.

It should also be noted that in 2010, American agricultural products worth an estimated $115 billion were exported throughout the world, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Yet, no commemoration of National Ag Day is complete without noting the some of the concerns that threaten to take productive farmland offline. Whether it's unforgiving forces of nature, cumbersome regulations or development trends that increase the pressure to transfer water from rural areas to more populous metro areas. Here in the Valley, we have already heard some concern about the amount of farmland that has been converted to house renewable energy projects. Concerns such as these aren't likely to disappear, unless they are addressed in a meaningful way, which hopefully does take place.

THE ISSUE: National Ag Day

WE SAY: Be proud of local ag roots."

Growing up down here you don't usually here too much about how crazy big ag is locally, but it certainly is an interesting thing to read about and learn that your community produces so much of the nation's fresh veggies.

As another person commented in this thread though, California water rights are complicated (I just feel fortunate that for the most part I don't have to worry about how much water I'm using...especially out in the country outside city limits where I live where we only have to pay a flat fee every 6 months and get our water pumped directly out of the nearby canal).</comment>


Show HN: Daily executive summary of your Slack channels - <AUTHOR> http://enterprise.brighty.io/ <comment><USER2> "We do not collect any information from any channels nor do we collect any direct messages that you send to us"

Nitpicky but you are obviously collecting all the messages in the channel onto your server in order to process them. Not collecting any information implies that it is either self-hosted or a client-side operation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for raising this concern. To make it clearer, we do collect the data to do processing but then we delete the conversations and the executive summaries we generate after sending them to our users.

<comment><USER3> Parent commenter is very modest to call it "nitpicky" \- I don't think it is at all.

You might not _store_ the data, but you absolutely do "collect" it.

(Nitpicky would be "well... you do store it at least a little while; even if only in RAM".)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are absolutely right. I am going to update our privacy policy to make sure it is clear to users.

<comment><USER4> Not to necro-post, but your landing page still claims you don't collect any conversations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I pushed the changes today. Corrected content should be live now. Thanks for the note!

<comment><USER3> That diff must look hilarious..

        - we do not collect your information
        + we collect your information

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks very cool!

But I just closed the tab on your signup form because it doesn't tell me whether there is a free trial. Thought I would mention it since I'm sure others may have the same reaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi gassk929, there's a two-week free trial! You can just put your HN id somewhere in the signup form and we will give you access to this to try out. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bBMzhiV...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bBMzhiVYyiwJ:enterprise.brighty.io/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of FOMO bot by Thoughtbot [https://github.com/thoughtbot/FOMObot](https://github.com/thoughtbot/FOMObot)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, haven't heard of it before. Thanks for the link! Afer reading their Github page, the differentiation between Brighty and FOMO is that Brighty consolidates messages into structure information. This helps users read only the important information with little effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You spelled "you're" wrong. It should be "your."

[http://www.angryflower.com/247.html](http://www.angryflower.com/247.html)

Your tense on "RELAXED" is wrong, it should be "RELAX"

"SIT BACK AND RELAXED

You can sit back and relax while Brighty summarizes all your messages. At the end of the day you're executive summary will be ready."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you late2part for catching these errors. We obviously didn't do a good job proofreading our content. We just updated the website right now. Thanks again :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Look pretty cool! Somehow between work and personal groups, the number of Slack teams I'm on has multiplied greatly. I'm guessing this might be more for intra-team Slack summaries but if it ever lives across teams, it would be awesome! I miss messages constantly.

</comment><comment><USER10> How much time can you save me each day? What format do I get the summaries in?

<comment><AUTHOR> We save managers around an hour per day. We message you directly via a bot. Check out this example: [http://enterprise.brighty.io/#features](http://enterprise.brighty.io/#features)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Small typo on the homepage - it should be "At the end of the day your executive summary will be ready."

Sorry this comment had to be about grammatical errors - otherwise great concept

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for catching this! :) We would love to have you try out our product. Just put your HN id somewhere in the signup form and we will give you access immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is exactly what I have been looking for! I wonder whether this is all NLP or it's a combination of NLP and operators?

<comment><AUTHOR> We do a combination of both to ensure the accuracy of our summaries. We want to enable users like you to stay on top of information without having to read and filter a lot of noises. Give it a try and let us help you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do you have a free trial that I can check out?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you can just fill out the form and we will give you a two-week trial to check out our product!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One more small typo - "SIT BACK AND RELAXED". Should be Relax.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks gsharma! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congrats! It looks promising!</comment>


Apple betrayed by its own law firm - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/apple-betrayed-by-its-own-law-firm/ <comment><USER2> > And how many other big-firm lawyers are entwined with "start-ups" that are > actually holding companies, created to attack the very corporations they are > supposed to be defending?

Considering you can't even by stock at a large firm without clearing it, I'm going to guess: almost nobody.

There is no way mlb knew about the nature of this business. Firms survive on reputation. Nobody hires a firm with a bad reputation for keeping client confidences. Why would the other partners risk their income so this guy's wife could make a buck? It makes no sense, especially considering how much money there is in representing apple as a repeat customer.

<comment><USER3> He notified the lead counsel at his employer before and after suing Apple. So the question is, why did he still work there until recently?

<comment><USER4> The article does not say this. It says "He had told Morgan Lewis' general counsel at the time about the lawsuit"

It doesn't cite a source. The rest around it is in quotes, so it's not clear if this is the article author's interpretation of what John McAleese's said, or the article author's personal view. If it's the former, you have to be very very careful, because they are all lawyers.

The literal wording is "He had told Morgan Lewis' general counsel at the time about the lawsuit". It does not say "He had told Morgan Lewis' general counsel at the time of _his involvement_ in the lawsuit".

He could have emailed the general counsel saying "Hey, it looks like apple got sued again. I bet we'll make some money from them on this!"

etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've only read the linked-to article once, but this doesn't seem nearly as bad as it sounds (minus the patent trolling aspect).

Here's how I think it happened -- and, for sake of clarity, I worked at a large-ish law firm, have a bunch of friends who worked in the huge ones, and even know a partner at the named firm.

1) Lawyer and his wife start (with others) a company. Company invents something (kind of) and lawyer, being a lawyer, files for a patent.

2) Someone else comes along and creates something kind of/sort of like what they did. They have a patent so they look at suing the other company.

3) Lawyer works at a law firm which represents the target company. The law firm has 1,300 lawyers and two dozen offices around the world. He tells his firm's general counsel about the issue, likely to set up "chinese walls" as to not run afoul of any ethical obligations. Note that he's kind of stuck otherwise -- his company is going to be adverse to the law firm's client, and he's stuck in the middle.

4) When the firm's client hears about this, they freak the eff out and demand that the attorney in question be fired. He's fired.

</comment><comment><USER6> This guy should be disbarred, he and his wife should end up paying Apple damages to cover all the costs in all lawsuits that this company was involved in. Good luck getting any of that to happen.

As for the schadenfreude in this thread: I don't like Apple much, they've done a lot of bad things in the last couple of years but I see absolutely no reason to wish any of this on them.

<comment><USER7> That seems pretty harsh considering the attorney in question didn't work on anything remotely related to Apple (or even patents). There are 1,300 attorneys at his firm, I'm sure you could find a conflict with nearly any investment.

Now if he were billing to Apple's account while also running the lawsuits that he was defending, that would be something worth discussion. Alas, he was not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My reading is that what appears, on the allegations, to be a breach of fiduciary duty by various lawyers and firms will give Apple some more space for tactical manoeuvering. They can use it to delay or restart various aspects of the case.

But it won't necessarily break the patent in question. Eventually it'll come to trial.

(IANAL, TINLA)

<comment><USER9> It very well may be that this what you said and to make the McAleeses incur more litigation costs. Sadly, the only way to fight these "troll patent companies" (as Jennifer McAleese states) is to wrap the cases up in endless movements, discovery, witnesses, etc. so that some minor detail comes to light eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like this lawyer is going to find it hard to find work. Ever again.

<comment><USER4> You are confused. He is an environmental litigator. He will wait 5 months, and then be a partner somewhere else, at worst, on a different coast. No one will care.

At most, he'll be censured.

But he's from their philadelphia office, so my guess is PA will do nothing.

If he's licensed in Maryland, he may face real problems (Maryland takes this kind of thing very seriously in a way most states do not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I predict this is going to be as much fun to watch as the Prenda Law case!

<comment><USER12> I certainly hope so...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like it was one lawyer, which the firm then kicked out.

<comment><USER11> But more interestingly, it appears that the law firm may have known about the activities of this lawyer and not done anything about it.

<comment><USER4> You have to remember these guys are lawyers, and so they represent what happened in whatever the best light to them is.

IE when you read "He says he informed the firms general counsel about it", you may think this means "he emailed the firm's general counsel with details about a pending lawsuit he had against one of the clients". It may in fact mean "he texted the general counsel's broken cell phone at 3am while drunk, saying that he was suing someone that mattered, with half the words misspelled"

This was an environmental litigator. One who should be disbarred for this but won't be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> tldr of various reactions to the troll looking for partners:

Google: did not answer

Nokia: sounded super interested

<comment><USER15> They say that litigation is often a last ditch effort by companies that know that they are in trouble in the long run. Google and Nokia's respective behaviors certainly reflect their current predicaments accurately.

<comment><USER10> Or they want to know who they are dealing with, and are reeling them in to find out more about who might sue _them_ next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is pretty egregious. I wonder if there is going to be a great "cleansing" and anyone not completely spotless in the big firms will find themselves on the outs.

Something strange about how long it persisted though. I've worked with one of the big firms as an expert, Quinn Emmanuel, and they were very very strict about communications. I presumed this was standard practice.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can this act be called unethical? This is bad. Using law for profit is like pimping.

</comment><comment><USER18> If only we devs can learn how to do this, we'd actually could become rich.

<comment><USER19> You're experiencing observation bias. Crime sometimes does pay, but in many cases it does not, and these cases are usually aren't reported as widely because they are routine and uninteresting. If you try to abuse your position for personal profit, you might get rich, but most probable outcome would be you initially get somewhat rich and then ruin the rest of your life. And you only have one. Do you think it's worth it?

<comment><USER18> This is not a crime.

<comment><USER19> It is not (always) a legal crime, but it is a breach of trust comparable to crime and would have similar consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is certainly a bad thing that shouldn't happen to any company, but at the same time I can't help but think this is some kind of _poetic justice_ Apple is receiving for all the "patent trolling" they've done over the past few years with some very bogus claims. Maybe karma is real. When you breed a certain kind of culture in the industry or in your company, this is what you get out of it.

<comment><USER21> I find your comment to be incredibly immature, in a very sad way. There are so many interesting things to discuss about this case, and yet you couldn't find anything to say other than "haha, I love how they are being given a taste of their own medicine!!!"

edit: bring on the downvotes. The HN crowd certainly loves brainless cheerleading.

<comment><USER22> I second your opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Aaron Patzer, founder, Mint - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/5178521655

<comment><AUTHOR> Solve a real problem and the world is yours.

\- Aaron Patzer (@apatzer)

<http://startupquote.com/post/5178521655></comment>