How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property without Law - <AUTHOR> http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/intellectual-property-and-magicians

<comment><USER2> From the article:

"Recently legal scholars have started looking harder at such fields, hoping to find mechanisms that can support innovation without the cost and complexity of conventional intellectual property law, and wondering how broadly those alternative mechanisms might be applied."

Honest question: how much innovation is there in this field? Is there a steady stream of new magic tricks? Assuming there is, and I have no idea one way or the other, it might serve as a interesting counterexample to the claim that patent laws are essential to innovation.

The extralegal protection system they've developed - essentially a guild system - doesn't seem like a terribly promising candidate for broad application. Among other things, it's more effective than the patent system at stopping ideas getting into the public domain, ever. Whatever its other drawbacks, a patent means an idea will eventually make its way into the public domain.

edit: grammar

<comment><AUTHOR> _"Honest question: how much innovation is there in this field? Is there a steady stream of new magic tricks?"_

There's a _huge_ amount of innovation going on in magic, and there are new tricks coming out all the time. Especially with the advances in technology and science these days, there are a lot of fresh effects being developed constantly.

Of course, many of those tend to be new approaches to old problems: a new method to levitate something, a new way to make something disappear or reappear, etc..

Some magicians prefer to stick with the tried and true, century-old (or even millennia-old) tools and techniques. But others (especially the younger generation) really embrace new developments and new technology.

There's a real thirst for making one's act fresh and original, and for amazing the audience with things they've never seen before. And magic suppliers and magicians are constantly developing new products to fill those needs.

 _"The extralegal protection system they've developed - essentially a guild system - doesn't seem like a terribly promising candidate for broad application. Among other things, it's more effective than the patent system at stopping ideas getting into the public domain, ever. Whatever its other drawbacks, a patent means an idea will eventually make its way into the public domain."_

If a patent is of something truly original and of something that really would not have been easily developed by someone else, then yes, patents could potentially have value to the public.

But unfortunately, patents are constantly granted for things which are really obvious and for which prior art existed, or which would have easily been developed anyway as soon as anyone with half a clue set their mind to it.

Also, at least in the case of the fast-paced computer field, by the time patents expire the technology that was patented is often completely obsolete and useless. Who really cares if the patents on punch card technology has expired by now? We've moved far beyond that to the extent that it's useless.

This isn't quite true in the magic world, where ancient tricks still retain the ability to shock and amaze people who've never seen them before. Of course, there are fads in magic, and certain tricks become so popular that they're useless... for a period of time, until someone rediscovers them again. And, despite the best efforts of magicians, there are many many copycats. A hot new trick will often be duplicated and reverse engineered in no time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I guess they can just use magic to protect their ideas.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't see the cause for ridicule here. Putting aside the medieval connotations, a guild is simply a mechanism for sharing trade secrets among a select few. Trade secrets are very effective ways of protecting intellectual property. They've worked well for Coca Cola and KFC. Coca Cola chose to keep their recipe _secret_ rather than announce it to the whole world in a patent disclosure.

And what's this talk about benefiting "society"? If someone invents a magic trick, he owns that intellectual property. He has no obligation to give that property away to any other individual, ever.

<comment><USER5> _And what's this talk about benefiting "society"? If someone invents a magic trick, he owns that intellectual property._

If not for the benefit of society, then please explain your theory of why society should tolerate or enforce intellectual property.

<comment><USER4> First I'll speak of property in general, not just intellectual property.

Property is for the benefit of its owner. Roughly speaking, you own something if you produce it yourself or acquire it in rightful trade from its previous owner.

Society is a group of individuals. Any individual who does not "tolerate" other people owning property is behaving very rudely.

I won't bore you with my views on intellectual property specifically, but I'll just say that I think people can manage it contractually.

<comment><USER5> _Property is for the benefit of its owner._

But _property_ , as a concept and related body of law, exists for the benefit of society—we tacitly agree not to take each other's stuff because lacking that rule would suck for (most of) us.

 _Intellectual property_ as a concept is a recent attempt to recast things like copyrights, trademarks, and patents—government granted monopolies intended to serve specific purposes, and tolerated for the benefit of society—as some sort of Lockean natural right.

However, if you are trying to reconcile the two concepts, you must face the fact that _intellectual property_ restricts each of us from full enjoyment of our actual property.

(For instance, I can't lawfully use my own computer to copy someone else's copyrighted book, my garage-full of parts to implement someone else's patented invention, or even my own pens and paper to market products under someone else's registered trademark.)

"Manag[ing] it contractually", as you put it, would prevent this from being a problem. (Whether an opt-in scheme would be very effective is another story). However, this position relies on the right to contract, not any inherent right to intellectual property, contrary to what your earlier post implied.

<comment><USER4> Yes -- I hesitate even to use the term "intellectual property" because of the possible misunderstandings. To be clear: I oppose the granting of monopolies, maintained by force, as in the patent system. I view this exactly as you do: as a restriction of your rights to use your own property.

To me, intellectual property has nothing to do with owning "ideas." I think purely in terms of physics -- mere arrangements of atoms and electrons. For example, when I publish computer source code, I think about that act in very primitive physical terms, as follows.

I publish my code on a server. The physical particles of that server are now arranged in a different way. I have also physically configured the server so that another individual somewhere in the universe can observe its structure, up to a point.

When the other individual observes the state of the server, she alters the physical structure of a device that she owns, for example a digital computer or her own brain. That device is her _property_.

So, by publishing the code in that way, I have taken an explicit, deliberate, and voluntary action which enabled the other individual to alter the physical state of a device she _owns_ in a specific way. That device was her property before she altered it, and it remains her property after the she altered it. If I did not want that individual to alter her property in that way, I should not have made it possible. It was my choice.

I concur with your emphasis on the right of contract. After all, that is how people transfer property rights between each other. All I am saying that so- called "intellectual" property should be no different -- since it too is all about the configuration and movement of physical devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most illusionists (I'm with James Randi on not calling such people "magicians") can't support themselves as a illusionists. They work kids birthday parties, making ends meet with other part-time and full-time jobs. The same is true for musicians, we all know the old joke, "I'm a musician, or rather, I'm an unemployed musician currently working as a waiter". There is a huge difference between the demand (very low) and supply (extremely high) for such people. The David Copperfields and U2s and Christian Lacroixs of the world are few and far between.

Consider that teenagers are capable of becoming competent enough at illusion and music to fill the birthday-party entertainer role. You're going to be hard-pressed to find a teenager that is competent enough at programming to work in this industry. Not saying they don't exist, but I am incredibly skeptical anytime someone claims to be one. I know I thought I was at the time, and I know much better now.

Almost every project I've worked on in the last five years has had some element of "don't screw up or people could die/crimes could happen." One of my previous projects was an industrial crane lift simulator for operators to use to plan safe lifts. Another one was a logistics system to track shipments of high explosives across the country, giving alerts and suggestions for extra security details when near high-value urban infrastructure elements. I'm currently working on a federal drug law compliance system; my clients want to know if their sales reps are using drug samples in illegal drug trade.

This work is far too important to trust to part-timers and there is way too much of the dangerous work to fill by a handful of rock stars. Toyota brake controller anyone? And that was from professional engineers! Would you let a part-time doctor diagnose a lump in your breast or testicle? People don't die if a bar-gig guitarist misses a beat or a clown doesn't pull a coin out of a kid's ear, but we routinely put straight-out-of-college developers on critical systems.

Long story short, illusion and legerdemain are not comparable to software development. We don't need a rock-star model for software developers. We need more of a professional craft approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"Most illusionists (I'm with James Randi on not calling such people "magicians") can't support themselves as a illusionists. They work kids birthday parties, making ends meet with other part-time and full-time jobs."_

Do you actually know any magicians? It's quite possible to make a decent living performing magic, and you don't have to be a rock star to do it.

You also don't have to do kid's birthday parties if that's not your thing (though some people actually enjoy them, and they can be well compensated, as there's a lot of demand for this type of work). There are lots of people doing restaurant magic, and the going rates are well over $100 (sometimes over $200, depending on the region of the country you're in) per hour. Magicians doing trade shows and convention or corporate magic are also usually quite well compensated, and they don't have to be named Blaine or Copperfield.

Magic used to be a lot more underground, but in the last decade or so it's become much more mainstream and accepted, and the demand for magic has been rising along with this trend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They make you disappear if you try anything funny with their tricks?

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this guy seriously wondering if GUILDS are better than IP Law?

/me facepalms

<comment><USER9> Is this guy seriously declaring a legitimate question to be absurd a priori, without any discussion or supporting ideas?

/me facepalms

<comment><USER10> The economic inferiority of guilds over higher-level rule of law systems has been documented a lot in economic literature. That is not to say that questions can't be re-evaluated every now and then. The problem is that this article isn't trying to do that, or to form an objective opinion - it's reasoning backwards from 'IP law is bad!', and trying to form as many supporting arguments supporting that a priori standpoint as it can find.</comment></comment></comment>


Fonts for hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.xobni.com/bryan/?p=12

<comment><USER2> Monotype fonts are tough to get right. The Latin alphabet evolved "off the grid", as did all of its prominent variations -- for example black letter (sometimes called "gothic"), humanist (the fore-runner of our "roman type"), and chancery cursive (the fore-runner of our "italic"). The only precursor for monotype is the large, decorated capitals at the beginning of chapters and sections -- "illuminated letters" -- that were approximately square.

Some consequence: the poor spacing of the letters 'i' and 'l', and the squashed, dark appearance of the 'm' and 'w' in monotype fonts. There is something of a hopeless in the task, though, since any good monotype font will have hundreds of characters in it: punctuation, numbers, European letters, mathematical marks...

Making them all look right together, with the additional constraint of identical size, is a Herculean task.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like anti-aliased Monaco 14 pt (I know, it's large, but I'm trying to save my eyes) on Terminal.app for the Mac.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, Monaco 12 in Textmate is pretty darn comfortable. I wish I could turn on AA in Terminal.app...

<comment><USER3> Why can't you?

<comment><USER4> Howdoyalikethat? Turns out I can! Monaco 9 AA, line-height at 0.8x is quite nice for log file monitoring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the look of Proggy, but it's bitmapped at 10px. My screen is 15.4"/1680x1050. I have pretty good vision, but looking at fonts that small all day will make my eyes bleed.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been using this for a number of years and still like it:

-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

BTW, after thinking about this, I thought it would be fun to share actual screen shots:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=74605>

</comment><comment><USER7> I just ditched monotype fonts a few weeks ago or so, and am not thinking about going back. Looks so much nicer, and so far I have never had any text I could not to line up neatly enough.

I am currently using "Vrinda" size 10 on my Windows Vista laptop with ClearType -- will probably use a bigger font once I buy a proper monitor.

Some nice discussion and inllustrations around this theme at Coding Horror: <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html>

<comment><USER8> You use variable width fonts for programming?!

I just hope I never have work on the same code with you.

There's just so many cases where having monospaced font is useful and easier to read when dealing with code.

<comment><USER7> You bet I do!

And I have not changed anything in my code due to this, so I think you could work with me just fine. There's tabs for indentation, and there's... well, code. What else do you need?

Could you give some examples of these cases? I really haven't come up with any in the past few weeks, and the readability is so much better with variable width.

<comment><USER8> In programming languages every character is just as important as every other character (on average), so each character should get the same amount of space.

For example, looking at this: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/programming- fonts-2-...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/programming- fonts-2-comicsans.png)

...the "!" in the conditional is squished into about 3 pixels, but it has just as much importance as any other character, if not more. Glancing at this code you might not even notice it. In normal text it is also important, but would appear at the end of a sentence, which would be hard to miss...but wedged in there between the "(" and "O" it gets lost.

Another example is trying to line up things. This is sort of a style preference, but sometimes I like doing things like this:

float percent = 0.4f;

int width = 640,

height = 480;

char flag = 'A';

Now, when I typed that the text field was using a monospaced font and everything was lined up perfectly. Chances are, you're viewing it with a variable width font... is it lined up? Not really. (edit: ok in this case multiple whitespace characters are converted to a single point but you get the idea)

What about this:

        float percent = 0.4f;
        int   width   = 640,
              height  = 480;
        char  flag    = 'A';

Much nicer, eh?

Variable width fonts are optimized for readability of free flowing text like books, articles, etc. Code is highly structured, and lining things up and that sort of thing can help the readability.

Can you give me cases where variable width font in code is better?

<comment><USER7> Sorry to reply so slowly, I read your comment already quite a bit earlier...

So you have these two points, right?

1\. Each character is important

2\. Lining up things

As a disclaimer, I must say that naturally this is really up to personal taste more than anything.

About 1), I'd say that you are correct, but that depends on the type of thing one is working on. I guess working on some obscure Perl code (that's where I have seen most examples with lots of code that looks like !%&[$tes]) you need to focus much more on single characters than working on for example C++ code with long named variables/function names and mostly calls to them. I am working on the latter, and have found that code like this is easier to read with variable width:

\---

TFileName refName;

TXxxYyyInfo* info = iXxx->info->GetPathAndName(refName);

refName.ZeroTerminate();

\---

Ok, not too good examples, but maybe you get my point?

2) is something I totally do not care about. I am way too lazy to start lining up anything by hand -- I want my editor to line up my code automatically. And it does a nice job, and I use external tools if I have to work in an environment where I can't select my editor. I don't thins my time should be spent adding spaces.

So to summarize: 1) doesn't seem to matter for me, and if code tends to have many special characters after each other it is probably better to rewrite it for readability anyway. And I don't want to do any lining up by hand anyway.

And descriptive (i.e. quite long) variable names are easier to read with variable width font.

YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I prefer Terminus or DejaVu Sans Mono.

<comment><USER10> Terminus is my font of choice.

<http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/jimmy-en.html>

<comment><USER9> I wish it had more glyphs, though. I like typing math symbols into my code comments. Terminus can't display them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel dirty using anti-aliased monospaced fonts in shells and text editors.

Apparently there's no good way to turn off anti-aliasing in Eclipse on OS X, which drove me absolutely nuts, but this guy came up with a genius (but ugly) hack to fake it:

[http://www.partlyhuman.com/blog/roger/aliased-text-mac- eclip...](http://www.partlyhuman.com/blog/roger/aliased-text-mac-eclipse)

</comment><comment><USER11> I prefer Webdings: [http://www.zakie.fsnet.co.uk/ChatRoomsStuff/Help/wingdingsfo...](http://www.zakie.fsnet.co.uk/ChatRoomsStuff/Help/wingdingsfontchart.htm)

Admittedly, there's a bit of a learning curve, but once you've gotten over the hump, it's much more pleasant to code "heart smiley lightning-bolt" than all those ugly letters and numbers.

</comment><comment><USER12> long ago when i started programming i used OCR. it's a terrible font, designed to be easy for machines to read, "Optical Character Recognition." but at the time i didn't know that, and didn't care. i was young and wild

a few months ago i tried setting Vim to use OCR, but for whatever reason it didn't wanna. luckily in my quest i found a free package of fonts: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web#The_font...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web#The_fonts) these are professional fonts that you'd normally have to pay $20 a pop for, but for legal reasons they're free in their packaged form

one of the fonts is Andale Mono, which Vim didn't reject. it felt odd at first compared to Courier, mainly because Courier is quite heavy. but Andale grew on me quick and it remains my font. since then there have been times i've thought my code actually looked aesthetically beautiful

<comment><USER13> I got an Andale Mono install for Windows about 10 years ago, and have transferred it to computer to computer ever since. Another vote for Andale Mono.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really like DejaVu Sans Mono. I've found it's most readable for me on an AntiqueWhite background (sort of off-white). From my .Xdefaults:

Emacs.font: DejaVu Sans Mono-12 Emacs.background: AntiqueWhite

You'll need emacs from CVS, but it is a huge improvement over previous versions if only for the better font support.

</comment><comment><USER15> IMO, nothing beats Lucida Console 10pts.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 14pt for about a month now and like it quite a bit.

[http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering/products/dev_fonts/v...](http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering/products/dev_fonts/vera.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> It needs to be dina for me.

<http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER18> For Consolas without Visual Studio 2005 check:

<http://geekfriendly.org/crap/Consolas/Microsoft/>

</comment><comment><USER19> profonts are quite nice as well. <http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/>

</comment><comment><USER20> Another vote for monaco on Carbon Emacs (OS X). White text on black background, obviously :)

</comment><comment><USER21> i use 10pt monaco on windows with ClearType turned on</comment>


How IE8 claims full CSS support is beyond me. - <AUTHOR> http://jhop.me/browsers/ie8-browsers/update

<comment><USER2> And they wonder why people laugh at initiatives like Azure.

Seriously, folks, making a standards-compliant browser is a critical path item to _not losing the 21st century to Google_. Hop on it, Redmond.

<comment><USER3> Who laughs at Azure? I have checked out the public beta and it seemed like a reasonably good service to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In comparison to IE6, sure it does! In all honesty though, IE8 has many less issues than IE6 and even IE7.

</comment><comment><USER5> Going through the list of bugs (<http://jhop.me/ie8-bugs>) I'm surprised at how many Microsoft has stated they have no plans on fixing.

<comment><USER6> I sincerely wished that 'wontfix' is a thing that only applied to closed source software. The number of 'wontfix' known bugs out there in the open source world is beyond counting, and in some pretty popular applications too. I don't really understand the rationale behind the whole 'wontfix' thing, essentially it is giving the finger to the user that took the time and trouble to report a bug.

Another pet peeve is to relable things that are clearly bugs as 'request for enhancement'.

The degree to which users have become conditioned to accept the presence of bugs in production software is no doubt a part of this, but there is also a serious lack of pride in workmanship on the part of the coding community.

No doubt every piece of software I ever wrote contains bugs, but if you point one out to me I won't rest until it is squashed.

<comment><USER7> _I don't really understand the rationale behind the whole 'wontfix' thing_

There are lots of legitimate reasons for labeling something "wontfix": backward compatibility, conformance to standards, not actually or unambiguously wrong behavior, and so on. Whether the majority of "wontfix" bugs fall into these categories isn't clear, but it's not all a matter of giving the user the finger: in my experience, _most_ reported issues are not actually bugs.

<comment><USER8> There is another reason to label something wontfix: If it falls too low on the priorities. If you know that you do not have sufficient time to do everything, and that you have issues that are far more important, you might as well just mark the punted issues wontfix.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Multiplication: Finding the Greatest Product - <AUTHOR> http://fawnnguyen.com/multiplication-finding-the-greatest-product/

<comment><USER2> The real gem, for me, was the final quote from one of the children. Any math teacher than can achieve this mindset in the students, is worthy of great praise.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice problem! I tried to find an algorithm that would solve the general case with arbitrarily many digits, some of them equal. Here's what I ended up with:

        def maximize_product(m, n, digits):
          if m < 1 or n < 1 or m + n != len(digits):
            raise Exception
          flipped = m > n
          if flipped:
            m, n = n, m
          digits = sorted(digits)
          a, b = [], []
          while len(a) < m:
            a.append(digits.pop())
            b.append(digits.pop())
            if a[-1] != b[-1]:
              break
          while len(a) < m:
            b.append(digits.pop())
            a.append(digits.pop())
          while len(b) < n:
            b.append(digits.pop())
          if flipped:
            a, b = b, a
          return a, b

        print maximize_product(3, 2, [8, 4, 2, 7, 5])

I think I have a proof that it gives the right answer, but won't spell it out here.

<comment><USER4> You can cut a lot of the boilerplate in your code by using existing functions (apologies if I get the argument orders wrong):

        def best_digit_choice_to_maximize_product(n, digits):
          numer = lambda d: reduce(
              sorted(d, reverse=True),
              0,
              lambda a, e: a*10 + e)
          return max(
              itertools.combinations(digits, n),
              key = lambda e: numer(e) * numer(set(digits) - set(e)))

<comment><USER3> My code runs in O(n log n) time and can deal with repeated digits. You converted it to something that takes exponential time and chokes on repeated digits.

(BTW, I just realized that my code can be made O(n), by replacing the default sort with a counting sort :-))

<comment><USER4> Hm, embarrassing, I just assumed you were doing the naive brute force. You're de-interleaving the digits with an order swap when the digits first start to differ.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's pretty much it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this also makes a good tie-in for teaching algebra.

Once you figure out that the most significant digits should be the largest ones, and the 3rd and 4th largest digits should be in the 2nd most significant place, you end up with a situation like this:

          A C E
        *   B D

To make it more clear what to do next, you can just append a zero onto the number "BD" and still solve the same problem, because instead of multiplying "ACE" * "BD", you are multiplying "ACE" * "BD0" = ("ACE" * "BD") * 10:

          A C E
        * B D 0

Now, to figure out which of the two greatest digits are A and B, and which of the next two greatest are C and D, you can apply the identity (x + y) * (x - y) = x^2 - y^2 to this. Since "ABC" * "BD0" = (x + y) * (x - y), then equating "ABC" = x + y and "BD0" = x - y, you can solve to get x = ("ACE" \+ "BD0") / 2, which is the same number no matter the order between A and B, or between C and D. Then maximizing (x + y) * (x - y) means minimizing y^2; or, making the two numbers "ACE" and "BD0" as close together as possible, which leads to the given solution.

<comment><USER6> Well done. (You have a couple of typos in your last paragraph, where you say "ABC", when you mean "ACE", but your logic makes it clear they are just typos.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It should be noticed that the title refers to a _mathematical_ product, which is an important distinction especially on Hacker News. :P

<comment><USER8> Agreed, but this is funny: I am now a product manager so I clicked on it thinking it's going to be interesting in that way. But I work at an education nonprofit and it kicked butt in that way :-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see that the challenge to the students in this exercise comes from randomizing the numbers involved. I should do this as a review for my math students, who usually are working on harder problems. This is a good way to reality-check whether students really understand place-value numerals or not.</comment>


What's Hot, What's Not, in Pots and Pans (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/08curi.html?mtrref=topics.nytimes.com&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&_r=0 <comment><USER3> _" I dropped a cold steak on the surface, then checked the pan temperature under the steak after a few smoking minutes."_

This is wrong. Of course, temperature will even out after _few minutes_ , but for steaks (and other food you want to sear) the initial temperature drop is important -- the higher it is, the higher chance that your steak will be steamed, not seared. Heavier pans retain more heat (that's why heavy copper, cast iron and stainless steel pans took longer to heat during the first experiment), but that's a _good thing_ when making food. Also, what this article didn't mention, is that light, cheap pans tend to deform as soon as after few uses, what makes cooking food evenly nearly impossible on a flat surface. Cast iron and stainless steel pans, on the other hand, are nearly indestructible if used correctly, I know cases when people still use their >100 years old cast iron pans from their grand-grand fathers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I highly recommend a Scanpan ceramic titanium frypan.

Built tough, can't be scratched or warped. Not too expensive either.

Impressive pressure cast technology goes into its construction where compressed aluminium is bonded with ceramic titanium and a non stick compound which can't be scraped away. The aluminium is completely internal, encased in the ceramic titanium so there's no danger with exposing the aluminium - <USER2> for its heat transfer properties.

I've had mine for ages and the non-stick surface is as good as ever. I've abused the frypan, and it takes anything you throw at it. I will never go back to stainless steel frypan.

</comment><comment><USER5> > I started by timing how long it took the pans to bring a cup of water to a > boil over the maximum gas flame on my stovetop. The copper and the cast iron > each took 3 minutes, the aluminum-stainless combination 2.5, and the thin > nonstick aluminum just 2 minutes. Light and cheap win for speed.

Not sure that's the right test... speed isn't what you're going for. For example, aluminum foil would very quickly conduct heat straight to the water opposite the flame, rather than distribute it broadly across the surface.

Because heat transfers fastest across the gradient where the temperature difference is greatest, foil would win the day even though it's a terrible cooking surface.

A heavy copper pan would evenly distribute the heat it's given to the sides and all over the bottom rather than straight to the bottom. That's kind of the point.

<comment><USER6> > The heavy copper and the light aluminum pans produced evenly toasted heat > maps. The stainless-clad aluminum did pretty well, too. But the cast-iron > pan scorched a small area, and the pattern was familiar.

Two paragraphs later in the article the author talks about the heat gradients of the different pans.</comment></comment>


John Gruber jumps the shark - <AUTHOR> http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/john-gruber-jumps-shark.html <comment><USER2> The author writes an entire article accusing Gruber of failing to follow his assumptions to a truthful conclusion without giving a single example of him doing so.

I think that there's a lot of criticism toward Gruber because his opinions are not a carbon-copy of the unified public geek opinion that you'd see on a site like Slashdot. I think it's refreshing to see a solitary source of Apple commentary in which the author actually attempts to understand Apple's motivations rather than blindly lambast them. Gruber is not afraid to criticize Apple (I've read dozens of criticisms of the app store approval process, for example).

And that's always been his attitude: The opinions from someone who is a long- time fan of Apple products and does not instantly overreact to every news story about them like most tech sites. You can't accuse someone of jumping the shark for consistently doing what they've been doing for years.

<comment><USER3> I would add that you also have to judge DF's trajectory against Apple's.

In the six or so years that DF has been running, Apple's product range, market share, mind share, and market capitalization have all grown remarkably (if not their own internal attitude), and with that has come a flood of both supporters and critics.

DF is not commenting on fringe products such as OSX 10.3 anymore. He's commenting on a major mobile phone manufacturer and the maker of an popular and unusual new computing tablet.

I would venture that Gruber feels no need to feed the Apple supporters, but he does feel a need to call the critics out when they just don't understand Apple or advise Apple to behave more like other tech companies.

<comment><USER4> In this light, maybe people have started to be annoyed more by Gruber because, although his style and opinions haven't changed, he's suddenly for the Empire instead of the underdog. I have a feeling there would be much less anti-Gruber vitriol if he were defending an Apple that still seemed to be the "alternative" rather than the "mainstream".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Funnily enough, my own thoughts about Gruber becoming annoying recently (after reading him for years) is because Gruber has started commenting on things he doesn't understand the facts of e.g. codec patents. He'll just come up with some pro-Apple spin and go with that, actual reality is often replaced with spiteful snark.

e.g.

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android- battery-...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/android-battery-life)

The first thing I did with my iPhone 3G was turn off some battery draining options I didn't need. Some people, not me, actually turned off 3G altogether. No, it wasn't fun. iPhone and smartphone battery life is an issue for everyone.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/google-pictures>

Actually Bing shows a random professional image, not one of your choice from your photo album. Is that not an important enough difference to stand in the way of publishing this _hilarious_ jab at Google.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/21/webm-patents>

Uncritically passing on patent threats just because it suits Apple's strategic posturing? Adding commentary to make it seem like a done deal rather than posturing? Ignoring the fact that they'd said they would do this before Google even announced VP8 and indeed have said similar about Vorbis for a decade?.

Also, much like Steve Jobs's one liners, you do get the feeling that cutting and pasting a link is such hard work on the iPad that you're luck to get more than a couple of words of commentary.

<comment><USER6> Also (from right now) it seems that Gruber doesn't know what browser sniffing is (or at least pretends to), but still has an opinion:

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari- ope...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/html5-safari-opera)

<comment><USER6> But he does now (a couple of hours later):

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/modernizr>

Apparently after reading HN:

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/04/df-hn>

<comment><USER7> More likely from seeing my tweet: <http://twitter.com/KuraFire/status/15401140612>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Like all prominent bloggers, Gruber could use some insightful criticism. Too bad this post doesn't offer any. A thousand words that add up to "I can't really put my finger on it or name any specifics, but Daring Fireball seems more uncritically approving of Apple lately" is fine for pub conversation, but it's not much use as reasoned argument. How could Gruber respond to this?

The only specific point of Gruber's that the author cites is "iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way." I'm sure there's something to criticize in that statement, but it's a pretty slender reed on which to hang a blanket condemnation of dozens of articles.

<comment><USER9> I agree 100%. I think the reality is probably closer to this.

In the past, Hank probably agreed with John more than he disagreed, so it was easy for him to resolve any internal conflict; there was little of it. This was during a time when Apple primarily made desktop/laptop computers with a standard desktop operating system -- as opposed to operating systems like iPhone OS -- that was sufficiently Unix-like to please most geeks with a bend toward the Unix mindset.

The conflict comes in the fact that the Unix mindset allied with the hacker mindset. Some would argue they're one and the same. Apple's new direction (iPhone OS) cuts the hacker off from the Unix-y underpinnings of the device. To take it a step further, you can't easily run native software you developed yourself on a variety of devices. So there's a cognitive dissonance developing within many Mac users. Their Mac-self wants to continue to enjoy the use of tools from the one company who seems to share the same values as them (well- built products, Unix-y ideas), but their geek-self is struggling with the loss of access to the parts that satisfy the hacker inside.

I can identify with Hank, because despite finding no logical flaw with Gruber's arguments, I disagree with him. There is an indisputable subjective component to selecting tools. Gruber's inner-hacker is also offended by Apple's stance of the walled garden, but he recognizes that this offense is separate and unrelated to whether or not the product is a "good product", and he realizes that most of the world aren't hackers. This leads him to generally positive-leaning comments. At least in the context of potential market success. To put it simply, most people don't care that they can't get to a shell prompt on their iPad. They're perfectly happy browsing their iTunes library, watching YouTube, and reading web pages.

I wish I had a good wrap-up/ending, but I just kind of hammered that out on the fly. Maybe I'll use it as the basis for a blog post.

<comment><USER10> I agree wholeheartedly with the inner conflict aspect, but I wonder about Gruber's inner hacker as it applies to the App Store.

From his projects page, it seems that Gruber works on small command-line tools and extensions to other people's software. I'm not trying to impugn his coding credentials; his writing doesn't hinge on how far he's made it past HELLO WORLD. But none of the software he writes would be the sort of thing that would make it on to the App Store even if Apple fired their reviewers and opened the floodgates.

He takes the "Apple does X because it's in their best interests to do X" stance because his livelihood doesn't hinge on whether the App Store is open, closed, or purple.

I suspect we'd have a very different Daring Fireball if he finished his dream mail app "Letters" and tried to release it on the App Store. Would it be rejected because it "duplicates existing functionality?" Or because someone can use it to e-mail the Kama Sutra? Or some other arbitrary rule Apple has yet to invent? Or would he not even bother, for fear of wasting time developing software that he couldn't sell?

<comment><USER9> Despite John being one of the two people behind Markdown (a pretty significant programming contribution), I see what you mean about him being in a "I don't have a horse in this race" position. However, I think that allows him to objectify a little bit more than others... I can almost feel the rumble of the laughter in the audience. Let me provide some examples.

John _doesn't like the way the App Store functions in its current state_ , but he understands why Apple operates it the way they do. As evidence that he doesn't like it, I'll offer some excerpts:

<http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_os_too_closed>

Jason Snell: "All Apple needs to do is add a new feature, buried several menu items down in the Settings app, that mirrors the one found on Android devices: an option that lets you install Apps from 'unknown sources.'"

John Gruber response: "Personally, I'd welcome such a move, but I don't think it would have the effect Snell envisions."

A lot of what John Gruber says could be interpreted as back-handed agreement, were you not to trust him. But the body of his writing suggest that he's genuine.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

<http://daringfireball.net/2010/05/nack_control>

John Nack: "The effect on product development and innovation can be chilling. Yes, it's easy to point to 200,000 apps on the App Store; it's harder to note all those that aren't there — serious apps that will be created only if developers know they'll get a truly fair shot to innovate and compete."

John Gruber: "I agree with much of this piece by John Nack today, regarding what everyone — developers, users, and even Apple itself — is missing out on because of Apple's tight control and management of the App Store"

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Back from 2008: <http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion>

Fraser Speirs: "Apple's current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle — submission to the App Store — is disastrous for investor confidence."

John Gruber: "Exactly right. If you only find out at the end of the development process that your app has been rejected — not for a technical problem that you can address but because Apple deems the entire concept to be out of bounds — then who is going to put serious time and talent into an iPhone app?"

John Gruber conclusion: "Either way, something is seriously wrong."

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

<http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/middleware_and_section_311>

John Gruber: "I don't know that Apple is right. As I said above, de Icaza's perspective — that these decisions and risks should be up to individual developers to make — is utterly sensible. Siracusa is exactly right that this is a wager from Apple. Apple is betting its entire mobile future that their developer platform is better than everyone else's."

It's especially evident that he's conflicted here. He doesn't necessarily agree, but he understands Apple's position.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

There are a myriad of other places where he's been critical, yet understanding of the forces driving Apple. What's concerning is that recently, John has been reconciling this conflict -- seemingly as much for himself as for his audience -- by pushing the Web Apps as an alternative approach. I'd love to provide a link to support that, but it's more of a tone than a specific rant.

Based on the nine occurrences of "Web App" on Daring Fireball right now, as well as the injection of some links supporting criticism of the lack of a robust Web App IDE, I'd suspect that a thoroughly vetted rant is in the works.

<comment><USER10> Wonderful list of quotes. I read DF a lot, often gritting my teeth, and this is an accurate summary of his points regarding the App Store.

I agree on John's recent insistence that web apps are the solution to App Store woes. But that feels like a cop-out. Apple hasn't fixed the three problems Gruber identified in October 2008 from his article on "The Fear", which are:

(1) App Ideas Are Rejected Only After the Apps Are Actually Built; (2) There Exist Secret Unpublished Rules Regarding What Is Allowed; and (3) When Apps Are Rejected for Violating the Unpublished Rules, Apple Refuses to State Just What These Rules Are

<http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear>

They've gotten a little better on point 3. When My Frame was rejected, the developer did get a phone call and an e-mail from Steve jobs saying that they now refuse an entire category of apps. It's not much better, as Apple didn't give any justification for why they sent this rejection. Are they planning their own desktop environment? Do they think the app competes with the built- in photo frame functionality of the iPad? Who knows?

It depresses me that Gruber doesn't see the "build your software as a web app" angle as a cop-out. Instead of fixing these reasonable problems with the App Store that it would be in Apple's best interests to fix, Apple ignores them and highlights an entirely other method of delivering content to users.

I imagine a restaurant with chicken and fish on the menu. The chicken will randomly come out poisoned, but the fish always comes out fine. When someone complains about being sickened by the chicken, the owner says, "just order the fish."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nit: "Jumped the shark" or "Jumping the Shark" does not mean "Has started to suck." It's a specific subset of suckage where the subject is clearly aware that they have no new ideas and resorts to ever-more desperate tricks to try to appear fresh and new.

<comment><USER12> I know (especially by the quick upvotes) that you are preaching to the choir here, but I have noticed a lot of non-thechnical, non-geek, never-even-heard- of-happy-days types beginning to use this phrase (incorrectly) just in the past few months. I've given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted this new reality.

Once a meme goes mainstream, the primary idiom dilutes with use until its just a curios catch phrase.

I just nod, smile and go to my happy place where there's a guy water-skiing in a leather jacket...

<comment><USER11> Well, I don't mind so much that the origin is lost, it becomes a pleasant bit of trivia I will inflict upon my hapless colleagues one day, just as I now explain exactly what the phrase "core dump" really means.

But in this case I do like keeping true to the specific meaning even if the origin is lost in antiquity. I feel it's a useful distinction to make. As an example, I would say that some years ago John Dvorak jumped the shark when he turned his public personal into a troll. As a counter-example, Joel Spolsky didn't jump the shark: He woke up one day and decided that his blog had run its course.

I hope we are able to save some of its distinct meaning until some other phrase comes along with a similar usage.

<comment><USER13> A few years ago I heard Henry Winkler (who played "the Fonz," for those who don't know) give an interview on some radio show (probably NPR). They asked him about the phrase, and he said what was interesting to him about it was that after the "jump the shark" episode the show began attaining its highest ratings ever.

<comment><USER14> To me, that's a critical aspect of the term. They are out of ideas, they know it, and they shoot straight for pandering.

People pander for a reason. It _works_.

There's also a signaling mechanism involved in the use of the term, which is probably part of why everyone leaps so fast to declare that everything has jumped the shark. "I, sophisticated me, have noticed that X is out of ideas and is now just pandering and spinning. You, the plebians, may still tune in for a while, but I in my sophistication have already noticed the downfall beginning." In my opinion, to really know for sure when a shark was jumped takes time. It's like trying to declare five days after an album comes out that people will consider it a classic in 30 years; you really can't do that, or at least you can't actually be sure. The only way to apply the test of time is with time.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you about signaling, but I thought there might be another effect here. The people that started the term sounded like they watched the show when they were young. It could have simply been that they revisited the show when they were a bit older, and realized "it sucks." Not because the show was very different, but because _they_ were.

I didn't watch the show (although I was/am the right age to have done so), so I don't have an opinion as to whether the show got better, worse, or stayed the same after that episode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said:

iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way."

That line actually bothered me too, but for me it was triggered by John's recent decision to start attacking Android for somehow using private APIs on the sly because he couldn't be bothered to A. understand the basic architecture of Android (those pesky facts; things that anybody who'd spent 20 minutes skimming the intro to the Android SDK could tell you) and B. the fact that he almost willfully ignores that Android is architected differently than the iPhone, and that things that _would_ be system-level calls on the iPhone are handled at the application level via public system calls, even for Google's own applications.

This just happens to be something I can put my finger on; like the article's author, there's just been something about his tone recently that's been kind of off-putting to me. He seems quicker to jump at things simply for the sake of snark over correctness, which is a little bothersome for somebody who has a reputation for being a stickler for detail. It sucks because he's somebody that in the past I saw as being able to trust to get a take on things that was at least fair, even if I disagreed with him. Lately I find myself rolling my eyes at his posts often as not.

<comment><USER16> I guess I take it a bit differently -- the stuff he's usually responding to is from "respected industry commentators" like Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott and, well, the record kinda speaks for itself. Mainstream coverage tends to pretty consistently publish a lot of things which are flat-out not true (e.g., the oft-repeated claim that iPods can only play music purchased from the iTunes store). And, for better or worse, that's what Gruber is typically harping on.

<comment><USER17> I'm under the impression that the amount of writing about other tech writers on Daring Fireball has increased during the last few months at the expense of writing about, well, tech.

Which makes the site less pleasant to read for me.

And in a sense it's "jumping the shark" - having run out of ideas, the John Gruber show is starting to fill episodes with unlikely, contrived subplots that have nothing to do with the original premise of the show, which was to write, in depth, about Apple products.

<comment><USER16> I don't agree that there's been an _abnormal_ increase recently; any time Apple launches something major, there's always a followup period in which Gruber does a bunch of his "claim chowder" or similar posts. Similarly, there's usually a short burst of them around quarterly-filing dates, going after market commentators. And, true to form, he's been doing a lot of that lately with iPad coverage, and those posts will probably start tailing off soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _It was probably an off-hand comment, but it speaks volumes about where John's current psyche is. He said:

iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way._

It does say a lot about John's thinking. He's thinking that there is a lot of criticism of the iPhone is not based on facts. Not only did he link to an earlier article that very day that had 10 reasons not to buy an iPad that Gruber says got 9 out of 10 reasons factually wrong (<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/03/warman>), but the very same article that quote appears in discusses misconceptions about the iPhone that are factually wrong. ( _Can I load my own videos and music on it, or only stuff I buy from Apple?_ )

<comment><USER19> Here's the full context:

"Snell's argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics would still harp on the closed App Store. iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, Protip: The word "fanboi" is as ridiculous and juvenile as "M$", "demorat", "republiscams", or any other goofy little pun moniker. I half expected the final paragraph to close with an "All Your Base" reference after seeing the word "fanboi".

I know people don't read Hank for the cleverly barbed and expertly crafted prose... but, really? Fanboi?

<comment><USER21> _shrug_ , I feel the same way about "Protip"

<comment><USER20> I feel the same way about saying physical gestures like " _shrug_ ". And also about "Wow. Just Wow." But I can master my distaste for those; they're not why I mentioned it. Who knows what the line is?

Maybe it's more because using gay terms as pejoratives is a nasty habit and we should stamp it out rather than try and equivocate just because they're familiar.

<comment><USER22> I don't believe the gay community has a monopoly on the use of the misspelling "boi", if that's what you're trying to suggest. It's certainly not the context in which I first saw it commonly used.

<comment><USER20> I don't think you understand what fanboi originally meant. Go read the definition and think about it. "Mac Fanboi" was originally part of the "Macs are for fags" school of insults.

<comment><USER22> No, I guess I don't. Could you provide a link to the definition you have in mind or some discussion of the etymology of the term?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way.

Essentially, anyone who has criticized the iPhone, or presumably Apple is just someone not dealing with the facts._

Hank, your critique falls apart when you switch what should be an existential quantifier with a universal quantifier.

<comment><USER24> No, the error there is Gruber's.

"Americans rarely get any exercise."

"French people rarely bathe."

If Gruber doesn't want it to be taken as "all iPhone critics," he should specify.

<comment><USER23> No, the error is Hank's, for not reading that sentence in context. John is addressing an existential claim made by Jason Snell:

 _Snell's argument is that Apple should do this to nip the argument that the iPhone is too closed. But if Apple did exactly what Snell argues, critics would still harp on the closed App Store._

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence. If you're saying Gruber is referring to those critics in particular (rather than all critics, or critics in general), he should have started his sentence with "These iPhone critics..." Or, to add context to my test sentences:

"John Smith weighs in at an astounding 350 pounds, but that's not hard to understand. Americans rarely get any exercise."

The second sentence still means what it meant before.

<comment><USER23> _I'm not sure how that context changes the sentence._

The context makes it obvious which sentences are part of the author's thesis, and which are snark. Quoting the snark in isolation tells you only that Gruber is capable of sarcasm.

Edit: what's most interesting to me here is that Hank doesn't seem at all interested in Gruber's thesis, let alone in attacking it. He just seems interested in attacking Gruber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Gruber does approach technology from a pro-Apple viewpoint, but many of his articles are at least organized around verifiable facts, though some may argue with his opinions or conclusions. In most (though not all) Gruber articles, it is at least not hard to tell which part is the facts he started with and which part is the opinion that some may disagree with. This is so basic, but most blogs are a complete muddle.

<comment><USER26> It wouldn't be gauche to accuse him of reaching the viewpoints because of his reasoning rather than the other way around, as tempting as it is to pin some predicate related to Apple on him. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd just want to quibble a bit about the 'jumping point.'

Rather than the extended MacBook hack, the more recent breast-beating defense of Apple's questionable behavior about the lost iPhone prototype fiasco is what got me to suspect the shark has been left aways behind by DF.

The guy's not a legal scholar and I doubt he'd claim any expertise in this dept. but yet EARLY ON in the ordeal was parroting the legal talking points that law-and-order types were breaking out about how Gizmodo was way out of its journalistic bounds and ever-so-guilty of outrageous criminal activity.

The actual circumstance of a friggin' cell phone being left in a bar by a drunk employee wouldn't produce much notice from anyone but this stupid incident managed to get folks to line up defending one side or the other in a matter that will be obviously moot in a matter of weeks. Then and now.

What's the BFD, I gotta ask Gruber? But he's gotten quite defensive of late. Like today about this thread.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you're going to accuse someone of writing weak arguments, you should probably make sure that your own argument is really well supported.

</comment><comment><USER29> Gruber hasn't changed in the slightest. The only thing that has changed is sentiment here towards Apple. Because you disagree with him, you're more likely to judge him harshly.

I don't agree with him entirely often either, but god am I glad there's someone making the case _for_ the App Store, mostly coherently.

Tech is driven by sentiment much more than people would like to admit. Android was a not-quite-there until IO 2010, now it's the new hot. What changed? Very little, technically. A lot, rhetorically.

Same here.

<comment><USER26> I have grown to like Gruber more in the last couple of months---heck, I've just grown to like him at all. I don't think it has anything to do with him changing, but rather myself or my perception of him. It could be both, too, of course.

I still think he should refrain from talking about politics, though, but the idiosyncrasy of the blog is also a part of its charm. I just wish he would ditch this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think another interesting quote is:

"I used to trust John Gruber. Now I will just read him."

I'm not certain what there is to trust about Gruber--follow the links and read things through if it is interesting. I'm mostly a fan of "claim chowder," so maybe the author is focused on other things.

<comment><USER19> Wow, I hate the "claim chowder". The worst kind of journalism.

<comment><USER31> Why? Shouldn't journalists (including Gruber) be held to some kind of truthy standard about their claims?

<comment><USER19> He spends a lot time calling out predictions by financial analysts. I'm not sure what the point of that is. It's just like, "Ha! iPad was not a failure, in your face for predicting it would do poorly!"

<comment><USER32> The point is how many news agencies, blogs, and pundits quote these same analysts day after day without questioning their track record, motives, or experience. I think its good to have someone calling them on their "expertise" from time to time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What I love most about Gruber is his inexplicable nature to post links without commenting on it. The sheer brilliance of it is amazing.

It's like an escape hatch—it gives him the opportunity to say whatever he wants without owning up to anything. Like the Foxconn suicides.

"I linked to the "hey, Foxconn's suicide rate sounds high but it's lower than China's overall rate" thing not as proof that everything is just fine at Foxconn, but for context"

Right, sure pal. Whatever you say.

<comment><USER31> This almost isn't worth replying to, but if you don't know the history of Daring Fireball, you might be correctly confused.

He used to split his feeds into an occasional commentary and sometimes several-times daily links. He combined them a while back, so now you get mostly links mixed in with very occasional commentary in a single feed. I.e., nothing has really changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Gruber is so angry these days. There's no more excitement. It's all defensive and pissed-off writing.

<comment><USER35> I'm guessing you didn't read DF after the iPad announcement. The sense I got from Gruber was that he knew it was world-changing, but until you've used it you don't really understand why. He was thrilled about the potential but couldn't explain it to anyone. He was very excited, make no mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> (all from gruber in 2007) <http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote>

Web Apps as the Route for iPhone Development

[...]

It's insulting, because it's not a way to write iPhone apps, and you can't bullshit developers. It's a matter of spin.

[..]

If all you have to offer is a shit sandwich, just say it. Don't tell us how lucky we are and that it's going to taste delicious.

(compare to anything from gruber on web apps in 2010) <http://daringfireball.net/>

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm not at all sure I see the difference in Gruber saying _"iPhone critics have seldom let facts get in their way."_ and Williams saying _"Of course in the current climate, conservatism seems to be becoming more "fact free" (think Obama birth certificate and death panels), so there are fewer reasonably argued ideas to embrace."_

<comment><USER38> Well, to be pedantic, one is an absolute judgment, the other is a relative one. "Seldom" implies that a significant majority of iPhone critics do not let facts get in their way. "Becoming more" implies that there is a trend towards freedom from facts, but does not place a judgment on the absolute degree of fact-freedom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Y'know, I used to think he was a blow-hard, but his writing style has really grown on me. The guy is thorough, and thoughtful (if sometimes extremely caustic), and I think he helps raise the bar of commentary by way of example as well as ridicule.

I wonder how many of his detractors have actually unsubscribed from DF in their feed readers?

</comment><comment><USER40> I started feeling the same way a few months ago. It is hard to define exactly what changed. Some of the time I question whether it might have been me that changed rather than Gruber. It's validating that other's are starting to feel the same way though.

</comment><comment><USER41> My uninvited opinion posted on Hank's blog, and adding here (based on Gruber's recent post pointing here): Gruber is a smart, measured and often witty commentator, but if you want him at his irrational best, look not for Apple apologia, but his vacant WordPress sneers and attacks (themselves stand-ins for animus towards the GPL, I think).

(here's my comment on one such instance: [http://ahren.org/code/bit/john- grubers-15-minutes-of-schaden...](http://ahren.org/code/bit/john- grubers-15-minutes-of-schadenfreude))

</comment><comment><USER32> The difference between Gruber and Williams? Gruber makes very clear (in his columns and Twitter feed) that he is brutally honest about his subjectivity on all issues. Willams pretends he is "objective", the same way Paul Thurrott, John Dvorak, Rob Enderle and Joe Wilcox all claim to be "objective" about Apple specifically, and other issues in general. Who has jumped the shark?

</comment><comment><USER42> Bloviating waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER43> > To be clear I am not suggesting Gruber is being in any way disingenuous in > his arguments

Yes, you are. That is in fact exactly what you are doing.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's pretty bad when the author continuously does what he is accusing the rest of the world of doing wrong.

</comment><comment><USER45> For me, the Gruber-bot jumped the shark a long time ago.

I really don't get the appeal of his writing — other than an occasional Apple apologetic, it appears to be nothing more than a tumblelog of Apple bits, but yet he's paid a premium for it, due to high profile linkage…

</comment><comment><USER33> What was it that Gruber called web apps? Oh, right. Shit sandwiches.

</comment><comment><USER46> My take on DF:

<http://bananaranha.com/post/285263169/can-you-guess-the-blog>

</comment><comment><USER47> Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog like it still has only a few thousand hits a day.

<comment><USER48> Yeah, what a waste. You should cancel your subscription to save all the money you wasted by reading those 20-word snippets of text.

What? It's still free? And people are still allowed to write about what they want to, and not what YOU want them to?

That IS weird.

<comment><USER47> Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass. This is why most blogs aren't considered real journalism and require, as Jobs said this week, "oversight" to be considered fully legit.

If Walt Mossberg suddenly digressed into his favorite movie or what he likes for dinner while he's reviewing a product, I would call that unprofessional.

So what it means is people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists who are mixing amateurish diary entries about their personal life and topics they don't know about along with the commentary that actually brought them alot of hits in the first place.

And don't even get started about "free". Because it's not subscription but he gets paid thousands through advertising, but I'm not "paying for it"? Just like more legit journalists do. And if something's free I can't complain I suppose...

case closed.

<comment><USER49> "Gruber continually comments about topics unrelated to why people are reading his blog. It's like, great dude, you like Stanley Kubrick. Great dude, you're a liberal. Great dude, you like baseball. No one gives a fuck! Write about apple and tech. DF is too popular to digress and distract into a personal blog like it still has only a few thousand hits a day." An epic fail col_kurtz because you were overly snide and because you failed to see the elucidation to your gripe within your own missive.

"Because staying on point isn't a civil rights issue, jackass" ... not only vapid, but again, anomalous. If staying on point is of no consequence why get soooo perturbed about it?

Does Gruber randomly digress during a product review? I personally have never noticed any such skylarking, besides, even if he has occasionally or even if he did habitually, so what? that would be his MO and thus would partially explain why you either enjoy his discourse or not, evidently you don't.

"most blogs aren't considered real journalism". "people like Gruber are pseudo-professional journalists" "legit journalists do" (as in get paid?? I think??)

It is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, obviously, just because a writer is paid to write does not imply that that writer is good (look up the word "good" in a dictionary as it covers a lot of ground, seriously look it up) and just because a writer is not paid does not automatically deem them to be bad (see dictionary for "bad")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The phrase "jumped the shark" has definitely jumped the shark.

</comment><comment><USER51> One Apple blogger accusing another Apple blogger of being a fanboi? Does this really need to be top of HN?

Edit: Can you at least reply when you down vote? I know this was voted to the top of HN so it deserves to be there.

<comment><USER52> > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate > for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going > to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; > there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also > comment that you did.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> From the comments:

'Gruber even edits his posts without disclosing it. I saw him call Apple's decision to ban an app as a "nameless individual App Store reviewer" fault and not Apple's!'

The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his app rejection.

<comment><USER54> > The irony is that Gruber's fame originates from the outrage related to his > app rejection.

Huh? Gruber's fame, such as it is, originates from the fact that for years he has been writing a blog filled with mostly-Apple-related stuff that lots of people (mostly Apple users) like reading. Daring Fireball has been a big noise in Apple-land since before there even was an App Store.

<comment><USER53> I stand corrected. Thanks for the info. I came to know about the site after that app rejection. Thought the site came into light after that issue. My bad.

<comment><USER55> Gruber never had an app rejected and he doesn't have any apps in the AppStore. Are you sure you're thinking of the same site?

<comment><USER54> He's posted quite a lot about some App Store rejections. I expect some people first heard about him in that context.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicle Subsidies - <AUTHOR> https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/short-circuit-high-cost-electric-vehicle-subsidies-11241.html <comment><USER2> Everytime I read one of these pieces they seem to all miss one of the biggest reasons I personally favor electric vehicles; concentrated traffic of combustion vehicles and local pollution.

The health and local environmental effects of vehicle pollution in cities are very real, noise too when it comes to buses and heavy vehicles. This is yet another area where we see a urban vs rural divide.

Combustion vehicles also can get less efficient and more polluting over their lifespan where EVs can have cleaner energy sources without needing to alter the vehicle.

</comment><comment><USER3> It isn't worth taking the time to rebut yet another "study" from yet another of Rebekah Mercer's "think tanks" that want to destroy government so that plutocrats can rule without opposition. That's what this is.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Broad-based adoption of ZEVs will increase overall emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and particulates, compared with the same number of new internal combustion engines._

interesting.

on the plus side, i'm guessing that hundreds of thousands of people who live near freeways and busy highways will benefit from reduced _local_ pollution.

OTOH, i have no idea how many people live near the power plants which will be emitting more sulfur dioxide and other pollutants.

<comment><USER2> I agree, but I tend to think it's easier to make power generation less impactful than to replace thousands of privately owned vehicles. Maybe I'm wrong there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1% of a really big number isn't "essentially zero".

</comment><comment><USER6> Probably safe to auto-flag any content from the Manhattan Institute.

</comment><comment><USER7> This appears to be a ideology based study from a right wing think tank. Reference: www.sourcewatch.org

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh right, because continuing on with the status quo of spewing gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere will be so cheap to remedy. Who's buying this kind of false economy any more?</comment>


Ask HN: What's up in Paris? - <AUTHOR>

I am in Paris setting up my show at the Photo-Levallois: http://www.photo-levallois.org/accueil.html
Any recommendations for food or interesting things to do?
Thank you. <comment><USER2> If you like a good hot chocolate and cakes go to Plaza Athénée it is expensive I wouldn't miss it

Go to Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre and enjoy Paris from there you must do that

Go to Egyptian session at Luvre Museum it is fabulous

Be aware with ring scam around Eifel tower Romenians folow you and trow away a ring in front of you and try to get someting from you avoid them

have a nice trip

and follow me @bomdelata

</comment><comment><USER3> It's _Paris_ , man. You don't need recommendations. It's mind-blowing, sensory overload everywhere. Just walk down the street.</comment>


Patio11 Wrote A Book On Conversion Optimization For Software Companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/21/i-wrote-a-book-on-conversion-optimization-for-software-companies/ <comment><USER2> I really have to say that books (fiction or non-fiction) are one of the best values that exist.

For the same money that you would spend seeing a movie that will be over in two hours, you can purchase a novel that will provide more hours of enjoyment, more depth, and the option to return at any time.

For a fraction of the money you could spend on a scammy info product that constantly upsells you and pushes you to promote the author (via fb likes, tweets, etc), you can have the result of months or years of effort from one of the greatest minds in history.

I'm sure Patrick doesn't need any help selling his products here, but I'll say it anyway-- books are an incredible value, especially from someone like him who has shared so much before and from whom you have an idea what you'll be getting! Buy it.

I'm totally broke and could still easily justify this kind of purchase -- skip one trip to Chipotle and it's paid for!

<comment><USER3> At the prices I normally pay, a book is about 1/4 the cost of a movie... (~$4-5 for a book, ~$18 for a movie)

I read slowly, so the value ratio is something incredible... :]

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, Patrick!

I don't know how many times I've read one of your Hacker News comments or blog posts and thought, "Wow, this guy really cuts to the chase." Then I bookmark it but never return.

I'm hoping that this is kinda like a "Best of Patio11", giving busy people like me a chance to have it all in one place on my hard disk. If so, $9.99 is a bargain.

Downloaded, up to Page 14 of 136. I guess dinner will be late tonight.

<comment><USER4> And thanks for posting it here man. Also, just so you know, I spent some major time reading your 'best-of' <http://edweissman.com/53640595>. There are plenty of gems over there .

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So I feel sort of morally obligated to comment here and yet don't want to sell my book, so instead, can I sell Hyperink? They were fantastic to work with, and successfully convinced me on why I should try publishing through them rather than trying to e.g. go through a traditional publisher or even one of the smarter tech-specific presses.

I've been asked to write a book for a few years by potential readers, and a few times by potential publishers, but I was very disinterested in doing so. For most people capable of writing tech books, writing books is a very poor use of time under any economic calculus. The typical model is that you and the publisher agree to do the book, then you're paid an advance (sometimes in installments contingent on milestones). You earn a royalty on each sale of the book, with the royalties first going to pay back ("earn out") the advance, and then being paid to you quarterly.

This sounds reasonable, until you hear the numbers (typical advance for a tech book from a first time author: $5k, typical royalty percentage: 8% on a physical copy, 15% on an ebook). They're not universally that bad -- an author or two from Apress and Pragmatic Programmer wrote me to say they were genuinely happy with their experiences -- but that's sort of the general flavor of things.

If you do the math, it is highly unlikely your book will recoup the advance, and that is indeed what happens to most tech books. So you've traded months of full-time labor writing and rewriting, plus additional months of part-time work hawking the book to anyone who will listen, in return for $5k. That is not a rational use of time for anybody who can e.g. do contract programming, which (one would assume) virtually all tech book writers could do.

When I said as much to publishers who asked me to write things, they said "Ahh, but the book will allow you to establish your bona fides", and I do not believe that making stupid decisions for my business successfully demonstrates to clients that I will make smart decisions for theirs. To my view of things, I'd rather have lots of folks be able to read my writing than have it blessed by a gatekeeper but widely unavailable.

But blog posts do leave a lot to be desired for teaching people. For one, my blog is very disorganized, since I have six years of back-issues which appear in order of "what I was working on that week", and they're of varying quality and relevance, particularly early in my career. Something with a bit of structure and curation seemed like it would add value. Plus, I am spelling- and design-challenged, so having an editor and someone with a sense of style would be a plus.

That's basically what Hyperink pitched: curating the best of the blog into a book, complete with editing and design help, with some extra essays added. It's far less work than scratch-writing a book, the terms are more equitable (no advance, equitable royalty split), and it provides incremental value to readers over the blog.

I don't expect to make a huge amount of money on it, relative to the business in general, but the idea sounded attractive enough to try it as an experiment.

<comment><USER6> I think you're not giving authorship enough credit. Being an author under a well-known publisher gives credibility, shows competence, and may confer the "expert" title.

Considering the other ways to this path take years (working ones way up the corporate ladder), money (a university degree) or risk (launching a startup), losing a few months and earning 5k may be worth it. I'd imagine this publisher validation is built in to the price you are paid.

I have a few personal friends who have written tech books and it is a large part of what helped them leapfrog their peers in job position and compensation.

<comment><USER7> This is indeed the pitch that publishers use to get subject matter experts to write books. But as Patrick keeps saying, if you're in a position to successfully pitch yourself as a subject matter expert for a book, you can make the same pitch for something more lucrative.

For the amount of effort that goes into writing a book, the deal major publishers get from authors borders on predatory. I have a lot of friends who have written books, and I'm not sure any of them really benefited from it.

<comment><USER8> "But as Patrick keeps saying, if you're in a position to successfully pitch yourself as a subject matter expert for a book, you can make the same pitch for something more lucrative."

Having your ticket punched opens doors plain and simple. In general being published by a major house will open doors just like a Harvard degree will. Doesn't mean there aren't ways around that. Doesn't mean for anyone. But I don't agree that you can make the same pitch for something more lucrative.

Also with that statement you have to make a distinction between the traditional world and the online world. Being a top ranked commenter online means something online but it probably won't get you on 60 Minutes or (as easily) quoted in the WSJ or NY Times etc. I mean if I was in PR I could certainly pitch it that way and perhaps I would succeed. But my job would be much easier if you had been blessed by a major publisher.

"For the amount of effort that goes into writing a book, the deal major publishers"

I've been meaning to ask you this for quite some time. By your karma ranking you obviously put much time into HN. There is no doubt that this has paid off for you. Did you ever wonder or tally up that time and have any idea of how that effort would have paid off if you had followed another route?

<comment><USER7> My karma is pretty simple to understand: I don't irc, game, or blog (and used to blog a lot), and I tend to own the tops of security threads. Now that I have name recognition, you can safely assume anything I write here "unfairly" receives 2x-3x as many upvotes as it should. Except on security threads, where HN tends to be full of crazy people.

But to the point at hand: I can easily make a case for my HN comments being more lucrative than any book I could have written. Easily. There is no way a book would have been as valuable as recruiting vector, for instance; I've hired more people from HN than any other source.

<comment><USER8> The only time I spend online (other than a small bit on HN) is on a VC's blog where I have become the go to person (by the VC that is) for anything related to what I am expert in. He's asked me to write a guest post (which I've declined to do) I started (with no expectation) about 2 years ago. Over the last year he's sent me consulting referrals (which I never asked for it was more "can you help this startup with..."). The pay doesn't make sense I can make more by concentrating on what I actually do rather than giving advice and being paid by project or hourly. Writing the guest blog post I could easily transition into doing more consulting and approach other VC's but I don't want to do that and get sucked into being a consultant.

I can easily see how in the case of someone being as active as you are, and at the top of the heap, how this pays off for you (and before I posted my comment I almost said that). But I suspect there are many others that spend a fair amount of time that, while enjoyable and with benefit, might not fall into that category.

I'm wondering if you've ever thought about leaving HN and forming your own, um "family" if you get my drift. I'd put some seed funding into that family. You already have the gold medal, why not try to do something new? My guess is that others would follow.

<comment><USER7> I'm here until Paul Graham offers me a YC slot just to get me to shut up.

<comment><USER8> A few things come to mind, strictly for discussion/entertainment and w/o knowing the level of seriousness in your comment. Although there is a hint of truth obviously I'd love to be part of YC as well.

The first is "why buy the cow if the milk is for free"? The second is how I'm reminded of women that never get their long time boyfriend to marry them because there is no line in the sand, no deadline, no imperative to make a decision or do anything.

To wit: "I'm here until Paul Graham offers me...". People need a reason to make a decision and to do something. (Not that you can say "if/then" or anything.)

For all I know of course you have had discussions with Paul or someone else about a YC slot or are totally joking. (I can only speculate and offer thoughts in case anyone is still awake in the thread my thoughts).

I do plenty negotiating and I've never closed a deal w/o having a time limit (in which of course the bluff sometimes goes bust obviously but that's the risk of the game). I never ever leave something open ended unless I don't want someone to make a decision because I am trying to buy some time while waiting for someone else.

My point of course is not that you could ever say "make me YC or..". Just that there is no clear reason for PG to do anything and make a decision.

<comment><USER7> I'm kidding. The short answer to why I don't set up my own site is, I'm here almost entirely because I wanted to avoid having a site tied around my own identity / personal brand. I had a reasonably popular blog before HN, and fled to HN from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do you get a bigger cut if I buy via Amazon Kindle or buy a .mobi (which Kindle supports) via Hyperink?

<comment><USER5> Good question. Not sure. It must be the case that Hyperink gets a higher cut if Amazon is not in the equation, so to the extent that you want to do someone a solid I'd suggest buying from them directly (they're a startup, too), but whatever works for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _I'd suggest actually having a working product, this book doesn't cover product development..._

Excellent! Having researched what it'd be like to build a product before having done so, I found so much emphasis on the development side ... building, launching, iterating, etc. I didn't find a whole lot that covered marketing, sales, and conversion. W/my product launched and getting good reviews from those that use it, I have every intention of using 2013 to focus on it's growth and conversion.

So this turns out to be such a timely offering. Thank you for offering this up at a great price, and for recommending Hyperink (I have a deep interest in writing an ebook in 2013, I'll check them out).

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't really need this book for my current job, but will probably buy it simply as a way to pay Patrick for all the valuable and free content he's provided over the past 5+ years.

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty confident that I'll get significant value out of this book for my current job, but I also agree with this sentiment. For all of the value that I have received from Patrick's posts, comments, podcasts, etc. over the years this is the least I can do. Buying it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Congrats on the book, Patrick! I think that is a feat that a lot of hacker news readers hope to accomplish one day. I know I fall in that category.

Anyway, I really appreciate the earnest care you took in talking about the book in this linked-to post. You didn't publish "20 blog posts" in the book. You published "20 essays that appeared in your blog." Now I haven't read all of your blog. And for a few parts of a second, reading the word "essays" (instead of "blog posts") made me think you had some kind of book-marketer coach this enunciation. But, I have read enough of your blog where I think I know what you mean. I have definitely made posts in my own blog because I have felt it's been too long and I have needed to make a post. But, on the other hand, I have also had a teensy-handful of posts because I had something itching at the back of my head that needed to come out. Maybe I would call these essays. I would definitely try to distinguish them in my mind from just another "blog post."

</comment><comment><USER14> Bought yesterday and almost finished reading.

Although I could've read almost all of it through the blog (except for the few new articles), I find it much more comfortable to have everything compiled into a single file; pure content without other distractions.

I just started dabbling into software marketing and would much rather take advice from Patrick than general-level marketing advice.

The book (I used the pdf version) is pretty well typeset, so reading it is not headache-inducing (for the ppl worrying they might not enjoy it and would rather wait for a printed version).

</comment><comment><USER15> Just bought the book.

This is more of a comment about Hyperink: It looks like a really nice platform, and seems like they do good marketing too. The only confusing part with the purchase process initially was that they only show iPad and PDF highlighted as available formats. Nook and Kindle look greyed-out (??). I was just hoping to get an ePub, so wasn't sure if I'll get one. Eventually it gave me a much clearer list of options to download from: pdf, epub and mobi.

Why not simply showing those options with the same terminology in the first place??

</comment><comment><USER16> @patio11: Stupid question time, and this may be from hyperink more than you. You state:

 _You can buy it here (Kindle, iPad, Nook, PDF) or on Amazon (Kindle)._

Does that mean I would get an ePub version? Device-specific is great for non- technical people, but I have a Kobo (ePub/PDF) and it's not in the list, so I'm not sure what formats I'm being given (Hyperink's FAQ doesn't answer this either).

<comment><USER17> The nook format is usually ePub.

<comment><USER16> Funny enough, I searched the Wikipedia entry on the Nook and there's no mention of "format" so I figured it was proprietary.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have no professional need for a book like this, but I enjoy Patrick's writings and have learned many things I can apply to my "real" work (internal BigCo applications). I may not buy this any time soon, but for anyone on the fence for whom this book is directly related to your work, buy it immediately and don't put it down until you're done.

</comment><comment><USER19> Patrick, don't get it the wrong way: I love your blog and podcast and bought your book. But ...

if you're so good with marketing software why don't you market your software but go the consulting route instead? Isn't there more potential profit in selling your products than offering your services as a consultant?

That's something I've been asking myself for some time.

<comment><USER20> He does market his software, and practices everything he preaches on his own software too. But let's look at some numbers.

Let's say that Patrick's techniques can increase profits by 10% compared to an "unoptimized" website. If the bingo card business is worth $X0,000, by selling his own products on optimized webpages Patrick makes an extra $X,000.

If instead Patrick consults for a company that does $X0,000,000 his techniques are now worth $X,000,000. If he gets a percentage of those new profits, he is doing much better than if he had sold more of his own product.

Since creating a business which does $X0,000,000 in sales is hard, Patrick can make better use of his time by finding those existing companies and offering his services that by selling more of his (comparatively low value) product himself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So %80 percent of the content comes directly from his blog posts. Seems like he really likes conversion :)

<comment><USER22> I would assume patio11 doesn't intend to directly make a lot of money off of this book. Instead, he wants to be able to tell potential clients he has written a book on conversion optimization, which allows him to charge a higher rate.

<comment><USER5> Honestly? Primarily non-economic reasons. (People asked me for it, the Hyperink guys seemed great, "published author" beats "owns a software company" in the McKenzie Family List of Approved Jobs, etc.)

It is possible that there are some markets and consultancies for which publishing a book would be a great credibility enhancer, but I sort of doubt I'm in one of them. I do something which is very quantifiable, with very few people available who do it, and which empirically produces absolutely stupid ROI some of the time. Books are not required to raise rates. (And, if I ran into a company that was unpersuaded by "I made $FIRM $X million in two weeks by running a series of A/B tests" but really responded to "... and I wrote a book!", I'd run screaming from that engagement, because that client sounds like they're going to be a lot more stress than my savvier clients.)

<comment><USER23> "The Black Arts of SaaS Pricing" - copywriting hat tip ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Although I'm generally hesitant to purchase books, this appears to be a fairly interesting product. I'd likely buy it immediately were I in an economic position to do so. Unfortunately, I'm simply unable to justify such an expenditure...

<comment><USER25> Can I buy it for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> @Patio11 A dumb but important question. Is this book about latest buzz, "Growth Hacking" or Market Research(Finding a Niche/Market) for your next product by using available tools?

Please clarify.

</comment><comment><USER27> Would someone mind finding and turning the posts in the table of contents he posted into links? I'll do it tomorrow if no one does it before then.

</comment><comment><USER28> Don't seem to be able to buy it on Amazon:

<http://oi48.tinypic.com/2cofv3o.jpg>

<comment><USER29> See the green box on the right? You're in the wrong Amazon shop. Go to amazon.co.uk and search for his book there. This works at least on amazon.de (same green info box in the US-store).

<comment><USER28> Odd, I thought that might be the case and I clicked on the green box and it just took me to Amazon's UK homepage so I just assumed it was just a generic "would you like to shop at Amazon UK" link rather than something related to the availability of the item in question.

But if I search Amazon UK for the title it comes up correctly and I can buy it.

Pretty poor UX really.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, UX is really poor. I don't know why they can't put a direct link to the product there - or at least trigger a search for the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The book looks great. Just bought it on Kindle and started reading. It immediately gets down to business. I like that.

</comment><comment><USER31> I met patio11 at TwilioCon, and just chatting less that 20 minutes with him I learned a ton.

Needless to say, I just bought the book.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can't wait to apply these insights Patrick. Keep up the teaching/sharing - your material is fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER33> Honest price, not $100 and bundled with some garbage videos I don't even want, like I've seen around here.

Thanks Patrick, for not pricing it to squeeze every single penny you can from me. It's an easy sale.

<comment><USER5> You're entitled to not buy anything you feel like, but I'm strongly of the opinion that all arms-length prices are honest prices.

The economics of producing things for businesses are very different than the economics of producing them for individuals, particularly because businesses are relatively price insensitive and not very numerous. I can price this at $10 because it receives implicit subsidy from everything else I do.

If making businesses money through training was my livelihood and not a fun hobby, I would certainly explore packaging options and price points that made sense even if I only sold a few hundred copies. (And, n.b., if you were a SaaS company trying to buy advice on lifecycle emails from me that would run $500 to $X0,000. There aren't enough customers in that niche to make $7 a sale sane. Also, seen from the customer's perspective, the information will routinely be used to make five to six figures)

I respect that this can make commerce difficult for goods which are dual-use between for-profit businesses and hobbyists, at least for folks whose purchase would be more aspirational in nature. As somebody who started out as a hobbyist with a $60 budget, I have great appreciation for expensive business tools not being in the budget, but wouldn't cast aspersions on them simply because they're not in the budget. Many worthwhile things like e.g. employees are similarly not in the budget, and the answer is probably "Do without and bootstrap until you can afford them" rather than worrying overmuch about the pricing structure of businesses other than one's own.

<comment><USER2> > _I'm strongly of the opinion that all arms-length prices are honest prices._

As I understand it, "arms-length" prices just mean "the price at which two unrelated and non-desperate parties would agree to a transaction". And, obviously factors such as the presence of manipulation, coercion, informational asymmetry and variance between the product and the promises of its marketing have an effect on how "honest" a price is.

Selling a car for $50k that we both know is crap is different from selling one that I know but haven't told you is crap is different from selling one through very persuasive and reassuring marketing and removing all liability through legalease incomprehensible to the customer. Selling a luxury car as a risky investment plan to a non-savvy retiree would be still worse, and selling a car with safety flaws would be downright reprehensible, even if both parties agreed on the price.

People of different cultures and political leanings draw the line in different places, but it's certainly not a simple black and white rule that anything you can get someone to agree to buy is ethical at any price. There's spectrum that goes from saintly and honest to illegal and evil.

My definition of an honest price: an honest attempt to provide at least as much value as you extract. (which the B2B business examples you listed above would be doing)

<comment><USER34> I would regard "arms-length" as a situation where both buyer and seller are aware of other options in the market and there is no dirty dealing going on. To use your vehicle analogy, I recently purchased a new truck. I purchased the one with the fancy seats and all the bells and whistles, while being perfectly aware that I could have saved 20% on the cost of the truck had I purchased a more plain but functionally identical vehicle.

I wanted the fancy one, so I bought it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>