Clover: An all-in-one notebook - <AUTHOR> https://cloverapp.co/ <comment><USER2> For what it's worth (and maybe I'm just dumb). It took me a lot of scrolling to realize they weren't selling hardware.

<comment><USER3> Honestly had the exact same thought

<comment><USER4> Me too. I thought it had a new minimalist OS too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where, how and in in which format is my data stored? First question I have ...

<comment><USER6> Same here. If that key question is not answered but instead they try to convince me by showing off customizable colors, I know I'm out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used to be obsessed with trying new note taking apps, but I've been the happiest and most productive using Vim and Markdown on my laptop synced via Syncthing to my phone and editing with Markor. I've used Vim for as long as I could program, so I am embarrassed that it took me so long to set this up (a few months ago) but I finally don't care about note taking apps.

Edit: sometimes I print my notes and for that I use the Vim plugin MarkdownPreview to render to the browser, then print there

<comment><USER8> Me to, then I just stopped. The enabling moment came when I found a free app that backs up Apple Notes in a portable format. I use the iCloud.com web app on my Linux laptops to access notes, and on my copious Apple devices, the Notes app is easy to use.

Some sad history: I spent years carefully making notes and organizing material in Evernote but realized that I spent much more time curating material than ever using it.

<comment><USER9> Can you share that app that backs up Apple Notes?

<comment><USER8> The app is called Exporter.

Try searching the macOS store for "Exporter Notes"

<comment><USER9> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting. This feels like a fusion of my favorite tools: OneNote and Todoist. The command line is a great feature - Todoist executes on it well, also the Outlook app but on macOS only for some reason.

This appears to solve a major gripe with OneNote: it is really hard to style and get things looking like I want them to. It also lacks formatted code display - the whole Office suite is surprisingly very behind here. It's a shame, since I know at least in the past MS used word for their internal technical documentation, so they should be feeling this pain daily.

The competition is fierce, but the offering appears strong enough to overcome my "it's just another note taking app, haven't they heard of OneNote" instinct. As a user I'm hoping that OneNote and Doist will pull an Instagram and copy some or all of these features.

I love using software that inspires me with its design.

<comment><USER11> If you write the code in Visual Studio and paste it into Word, it preserves Visual Studio formatting. This is what's used instead of putting code formatting into Office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> All I want is basically Notion with an API, and the ability to self-host our data to mitigate security and privacy concerns.

<comment><USER13> All I want is Notion with data privacy like Bear.

<comment><USER14> Exactly, something like Notion that keeps my data encrypted on my iCloud like Bear with native iOS and Mac app similar to Things3. I could easily pay 100 bucks for this kind of setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks pretty clean. I wonder about a) pricing / distribution model and b) compatibility with other tools i.e. if you use open formats.

Note: Displaying email addresses in uppercase is bad UX, since emails are mostly, but _not always_ case insensitive.

<comment><USER16> One time only: Yes. Recurring monthly: NEVER.

There are bazillion apps out there, mostly free or comes with free tier. Unless this is $9.99 or lower, I would never consider. Just my opinion.

<comment><USER17> > Recurring monthly: NEVER. [...] Unless this is $9.99 or lower, I would never > consider.

And yet, you likely expect regular updates when the OS is updated, a constant stream of bug fixes, and (probably) some improvements. In other words, you expect regular development for a one-time fee of $9.99 or lower.

$9.99 is the cost of about 5 minutes of a skilled programmer's time.

This is not realistic and definitely not sustainable.

<comment><USER18> And yet, we expect games to be at this price or lower with the same hard constraints and I would argue they take even more work.

That's just the economy of scale. I also think that anything beyond $10 is too pricey. Monthly plan? No way.

<comment><USER17> In other words, we expect "others" to pay for us through economies of scale. This might work for top-tier video games, but it definitely does not work for niche software.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. If you are developing a product you have to make sure that it reaches a sufficient number of people that would pay a certain amount. Number of customers times the price and you get your expected income. If that is too low then don't spend your time on it cause you'll just be losing money.

Consider, if your argument is taken to its absurd extreme, then you would have to pay for full development of any software you use by yourself. Just running Windows or MacOS would cost you millions if not billions of dollars.

Edit, addendum: you can also view it that the money needed for development is then covered distributedly among the customers. Nobody is expecting others to pay for them but the expense is too big for a few customers to cover it (at least for this type of software).

<comment><USER17> > Exactly. If you are developing a product you have to make sure that it > reaches a sufficient number of people that would pay a certain amount. > Number of customers times the price and you get your expected income. If > that is too low then don't spend your time on it cause you'll just be losing > money.

I hope it doesn't come to that. Because then we'd only end up with apps like Fortnite, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Office. All the specialized apps would be gone, and if you need something in an industry that just isn't that large, well tough luck, because at $9.99/app the developers won't ever make a living.

Look, it's fine to only need mass-market apps. But let other people make niche apps and charge an amount that results in sustainable software development, without criticizing them for subscription pricing.

Subscription pricing is the only sustainable way to maintain a niche app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why is there an abundance of note taking apps? Why is it that this particular category of software/apps sees a new one every now and then?

<comment><USER20> TL;DR: I think this is down to the convergence of some perennial dynamics, and the recent success of apps like Notion, as another commenter alluded to.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. As someone for whom research + writing are a primary component of daily work, I'm probably a little too willing to play with new note taking apps :)

I think the recent surge is actually a convergence of several different trends:

1\. There's always been a decent volume of new note taking apps, in large part because of how tempting they are as a project. They feel both approachable (until you try to build one), and they're such a familiar-yet-blank canvas that it's incredibly easy to come up with a "tweak" that makes yours different.

2\. The love people have for Notion, and the so-far success of the company, have made it a more attractive niche for more serious startup-y people. Where you used to see more solo projects, you're now seeing a decent amount of apps built by full teams.

3\. Human nature. While I am the first to evangelize the impact taking better notes can have, it has also been my experience that note taking systems are the ultimate bike shed problem. It's easy to tinker with them and try new apps out, believing that you'll find the perfect system that will unlock your inner genius. I think a lot of project management and productivity software has a similar thing going.

<comment><USER21> re 1. In my experience, it's often the first vague idea for a school project a teacher will give their students.

Personnally, like many things, I've built a custom script _atop git_ to manage my notes. And another to manage a journal. And another, and another. Just building off of git.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It took me a lot of scrolling to realize they don't even have a product yet - it's just a wait list.

</comment><comment><USER23> The command prompt aspect is quite interesting. But it is going to be tough competing with OneNote (free), which is a pretty decent app.

</comment><comment><USER24> Looks pretty cool. Any other information on how this may be different to Notion?

<comment><USER25> My first thought too. I feel this is meant to be more chaotic in someway: being able to put all the information raw and rearrange them easily, whereas Notion feels more like documentation, where your data has to fit a template.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> My all in one notebook:

* Dropbox folder called Notebook

* Has a file called Notebook.md which has links to other files: Tasks.md (to do lists with date headers), Blog.md, etc

* VSC with some markdown extensions

       * Markdown All In One

       * Markdown Preview Enhanced

       * mushan.vscode-paste-image

Doesn't do great as far as mobile note taking, but aside from that, its ability to organize is limitless.

</comment><comment><USER27> Another notes app...?

<comment><USER28> Yeah but this one is an all-in-one notebook for creatives!

<comment><USER29> Because Evernote is too formal? Let me slap-on some ComicSans on my notes...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Congrats to the team, looks very useful. I was an early customer of the Macaw App from the same creator(s?) and was excited for its development and had deeply integrated it into my projects but they got aquihired then all development stopped and bugs frozen in place... honestly didn't feel good and left me wary of new apps like these. Anyways, hopefully this one has a long bright future.

<comment><USER31> I have similar thoughts. I don't see how I could trust my notes to someone else, besides the obvious privacy implications I just don't feel like it makes sense to rely on someone else for something important like this. I want the data on my computer, and I want to be able to use the version of the software I like and not be forced to update to increasingly awful garbage as they try desperately to grow enough for an IPO or whatever the fuck. Yes, I am still very bitter about Evernote, why do you ask?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It looks very pretty, but leaves me wondering what is the problem I'd have where Clover is better than other note-taking apps?

This is a common problem with product landing pages like these. They show off some cool features but don't do a good job connecting them together as a clear vision that demonstrates insight about the intended users' situation.

</comment><comment><USER33> Needs to have browser plugins for desktop and "share to" option from mobile, for noting web content / URLs.

Hopefully it will.

</comment><comment><USER34> Looks like a much more refined and finished product than my own notebook app: [https://github.com/m0ngr31/DailyNotes](https://github.com/m0ngr31/DailyNotes)

I wonder how it compares to Noteplan (my original inspiration).

<comment><USER28> I don't think it is a finished product, hence only a landing page and the fact it's "early access".

</comment></comment><comment> r-w For more info on the company, see here: [https://www.bizapedia.com/ny/clover- software-inc.html](https://www.bizapedia.com/ny/clover-software-inc.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> Is this going to be web-based (electron)?

I'd love for a really good notes app, but everything these days is in electron and I can't deal with the powerhog.

I'm now using Outlinely and Agenda mainly because of this

<comment><USER36> > coming soon to web desktop and mobile

I'd bet so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> another notes app people love in the beginning but eventually abandon

</comment><comment><USER38> I use markdown in Writer and physical notebooks myself.

Both lack the ability to easily add pictures.

Bad iPad integration will be a killer for me though.

Worth a look, I suppose.

<comment><USER39> My best Markdown experience so far on iPad is with Working Copy. It is primarily a Git client.

The preview mode handles pictures well, but for editing you are stuck with a basic code editor. Using the preview mode I can even navigate to other notes in the same repository via links in the notes.

Might not work for your use case. If it sounds interesting, give it a try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Looks like a notion clone but only for ios?

<comment><USER41> At the bottom of the page, it says that it's coming for the web

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> might need a new name

[https://www.firstdata.com/en_us/products/small- business/clov...](https://www.firstdata.com/en_us/products/small- business/clover-pos-solutions.html?placement=Solutions_Nav)

</comment><comment><USER43> Ah crap I was hoping for some kind of phone-laptop hybrid

</comment><comment><USER44> Looks well thought out. Look forward to trying it out.

<comment><USER45> "Well thought out"? There are TWO features listed, some kind of non-straight line writing thing, and the ability to change color. No mention of literally anything else - like, if your notes are stored in accessible format offline or if they are lost when the business goes belly up.

Never, ever take notes into a proprietary cloud silo!

<comment><USER46> I'm not sure how you concluded that there are only two features listed. Going back through the page I see:

* calendar-based navigation (Agenda) * gantt/timeline display * image collages * non-linear organization * command line * dedicated tasks tab * global search * customizable colors, fonts, icons

I'm not saying that Clover is incredible or that your "proprietary cloud silo" paradigm is incorrect, but saying the app mentions literally nothing else is a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER45> I went looking for these things you claim are there, and you're right! They are hidden in the screenshots without nary a mention!

This is what the website SAYS:

"What if we had a tool that could work in straight lines or… well… not straight lines? [...] We built a new style of text editor from the ground up to better support creative thinking. Clover lets you explode traditional documents and work in a more free-form manner for better brainstorming, mind- mapping, and exploration."

Notice the difference between what YOU said, and what the WEBSITE says? You produced a useful list of features; the website blabbers in incomprehensible marketing-speak.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Reports Record Output, but Cuts Prices, and Its Shares Plunge - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/tesla-sales-price-cut.html <comment><USER2> As a non finance layman, this confounds me. Shouldn't it be a case of optimism, as price cut indicates potential sales increase? And pardon my ignorance if I am missing something obvious.</comment>


Revealed: The Secret KGB Manual for Recruiting Spies (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kgb-papers-how-putin-learned-his-spycraft-part-1 <comment><USER2> For everyone not happy with the paywall article: [https://pressfrom.info/us/news/world/-108881-the-kgb- papers-...](https://pressfrom.info/us/news/world/-108881-the-kgb-papers-how- putin-learned-his-spycraft-part-1.html)</comment>


BitTorrent Premieres New Live Streaming Platform - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-new-live-streaming-platform-130312/

<comment><USER2> Very cool. We're in the live streaming business and currently using Wowza to redistribute our content via several distribution layers.

I wonder if they'll release the source eventually...</comment>


All Internet porn will be blocked by default under UK government plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/all-internet-porn-will-be-blocked-to-protect-children-under-uk-government-plan/story-e6frfkui-1225973481287 <comment><USER3> It's not a "government plan". One MP raised the idea. And was quickly put down.

"Devizes Tory MP Claire Perry raised the issue at a special Commons debate, because as a mother-of-three she knew how difficult it was to keep youngsters from seeing inappropriate material.

But Mr Vaizey made it clear ministers will not take any steps to force internet service providers (ISPs) to tackle the problem.

He said: "We believe in an open, lightly regulated internet. The internet is by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy and Government has to be wary about regulating or passing legislation."

The minister suggested it was for parents to take responsibility for what their children see online, rather than the ISPs that make money from pornography."

[http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Request-net-porn- refuse...](http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Request-net-porn-refused- MP/article-2936701-detail/article.html)

<comment><USER4> It may not be a government plan, but the article sure makes it sound like the government is using the threat of legislation to force the ISPs to move. So instead it's some kind of threat maneuver?

<comment><USER3> It was just a debate, and one that seemed fairly well-reasoned to me. A back- bencher (represents a local constituency and nothing more) put the quest forward, and was told "We believe in an open lightly regulated internet. [...] Government have to be wary about regulating or passing legislation".

If you're interested, you can read the transcript verbatim, free of tabloid scandal, at <http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-11-23c.235.0>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about sites that deal with violence or dangerous political ideas? Are we going to censor them by default as well? What about violence in movies which is probably far more damaging to children? Are we going to block that too on the telly? Where do we draw the line?

On a practical note, I can only imagine how many arguments this new legislation would lead to. Typical scenario: Husband openly or secretly wants porn, wife doesn't.

<comment><USER6> I suppose you should define damaging. Presumably you're relating violence to homicide and other violent crime. I can think of an equally plausible (and equally unverified) analysis. Depicted violence is clearly fantasy and generally bears no resemblance to reality (of life in the UK), whereas the relationship with reality of the typically pretty appalling sexual behaviour depicted in pornography is much more ambiguous (especially to young people) and as such more deleterious to behaviour.

In any case movies (or films rather) in the UK are censored for violence on the telly, and generally not shown before 9pm. Although the restrictions are much laxer than previously.

Back to the original point, is depicted violence more damaging? Is that even true, and how much do people value it? Is it something you want for your children or more other people's children? At risk of demagogy, it might be best to think about what people desire. Many people, perhaps most people, fundamentally don't want their children to be exposed to large quantities of pornography - just on the grounds of the potential for awkwardness - <USER2> perhaps don't care so much about an unquantifiable increase in violence in society.

<comment><USER7> Teens are currently _making their own porn_ and texting it to themselves. How is censoring the internet supposed to change this? So now they can't get access to porn on the internet, but they can get access to nude photos of the girl in the next classroom. What have we really 'won' here?

<comment><USER6> Nothing you've written here contradicts what I wrote, because it is a matter of degrees, which you completely fail to acknowledge in your view point.

A proportion of teenagers in some groups in some parts of society texting privately amongst themselves. Nude, consensual photos are arguably 'better' and more natural than typical pornography in any case and almost certainly less extreme and with a natural progression as the participants get older. It is (to me quite blatant) equivocation on your part to say, well A = B, therefore what is the point.

The article mentioned that 1 in 3 children under the age of 10 have seen pornography on the internet. Probably most of them will be fine, but its not probably something they particularly would want (as children, or later as adults) to have happened since there is plenty of time to lose one's innocence.

Finally, what have we won? This is a completely destructive dismissive attitude, again possibly characteristic of the highly partisan nature of American politics. Introduce the scheme, tune it, see how it goes.

In light of the all of the above, it bemuses and somewhat disappoints me that your opinion should be voted up. You can of course disagree, but, in my mind at least, you have to be more nuissanced and acknowledging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is disturbing, and I can't really imagine how they want the ISPs to pull this off.

What counts as a porn site? Who will evaluate it? If I have a photo sharing site and some douche uploads a picture of a naked lady, does that count?

I'm ok with the child protection and all that crap, that should be parent's responsibility to begin with, but I think this is not the answer. They should at least ask everyone about this.

I really feel this is heading towards internet censorship in the UK.

<comment><USER9> I'm all for child protection too. It can't be the parents responsibility though, for purely pragmatic reasons - i mean are there really _any_ parents in the world who are able to put a filter on their net connection their kids can't get past? I'm 99% sure by the time i have a teen son, he'll be more tech savvy than me... Now if they could do this in a way that's open and honest, to allay concerns such as your point above about photo sharing sites. But i worry that it'll be a black box, and people with legit sites will one day discover that they've been blacklisted with no recourse.

<comment><USER10> Parental protection means a lot more than a filter on the internet connection. I know full well my kids can find a way to get what they really want to get whether porn, drugs, or whatever. My wife even found candy hidden away in my five year old's bed the other day (no candy after brushing teeth). Much more important is instilling values and helping them understand the reasons behind the rules. It is almost 100% the parents responsibility to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The funny part is that kids will be the first ones to figure out how to bypass this. Then daddy is going to have to go ask little Timmy how to turn on the real internet whenever he wants to look at some bewbs

<comment><USER12> Maybe this will lead to improved father-son bonding?

Or just lots of akwardness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are two very big assumptions being made here. One is that this is even possible to do, and two that porn is harmful to children. I doubt either of those are true.

<comment><USER7> I doubt that viewing _sex_ is harmful to children, but most porn is not in the realm of reality. As long as children are able to realize that porn is not reality, there should be no issue, but if children are introduced to sex through pornography, then pornography becomes what they believe reality is.

(I should note that, though I am not in the UK, I do _not_ support this action. "Nanny State" indeed.)

{edit=expanding} I think it's all about how children relate to others. Violence definitely has an effect on children, but I think it may have less of an effect on them than viewing pornography does. Why? (well, let me answer that question that I brilliantly asked myself!) Because most of the elements of the violence that you see (I'm not talking about sexual violence here) in media are elements of relationships with other people that most children have already experienced by the time that one would think that they are able to view violent media. Basically they have experienced the reality of relating to people in such a manner, and can easily distinguish the fantasy (e.g. getting angry at someone, vs getting angry at them and then beating them with a baseball bat).

On the other hand, pornography is all about relating to others sexually. Children have no experience with this, so the viewing experience becomes not just entertainment, but education, and I don't think that most porn has life lessons in it that we want to teach children.

Note that this is a _very_ general argument. Even the word 'children' is almost too general to mean anything. A high-schooler and a 3 year old are on very different levels with respect to how they can handle these things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wouldn't it be simpler to just ban children from using the internet? They could just point those CCTV cameras at every computer to keep an eye out for violators. Pretty straight forward actually.

</sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER15> If we're going to make legislation that way maybe we can make everyone a organ donor unless you opt-out? And while where busy changing laws anyway, maybe from now on if you're suspected of a crime you're guilty unless proven innocent. There's to many criminals walking the streets who actually should be in jail...

<comment><USER16> I'm a fan of opt-out organ donors. Unless you have strong feelings (possibly religious beliefs), there's no reason to take it all with you.

Porn, on the other hand, has very few externalities.

<comment> muuh-gnu > there's no reason to take it all with you

Theres no reason to force people to "donate" without bothering to talk to them or their families even once about it. The only reason is to trick them into donating by not telling them they'll be donating, knowing that a large part of them wouldn't donate if they had a fair choice. I think many people _do_ have strong feelings about their physical integrity and the physical integrity of their loved ones, especially in the case of not even being asked.

A silent, deadhearted, mandatory opt-in would be for me a major reason to immediately opt-out without any chance of reconsideration.

<comment><USER17> > Theres no reason to force people to "donate" without bothering to talk to > them or their families even once about it

I would have said a shortage of donor organs would be a reason to force this? Maybe not an acceptable reason to you, but still a fairly strong reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I disagree with this but do agree that there's a problem to be seriously _discussed_.

The Sunday Times ran a big and rather non-judgmental feature on "Generation XXX" today. The stat quoted in the Commons was that 80% of 14-16 year old children "frequently" use Internet pornography. They also interviewed some various teenagers and discovered both that anal sex is now "normalized" (their word, not mine) and almost everyone's shaving their "lady garden" (again, their term) merely because that's what they're seeing in porn.

Without being judgmental about it myself, I find it rather amusing but I can see why people are getting upset.

<comment><USER19> Personally I find it deeply disturbing that anybody has a problem with 14 year olds watching sex. At that age they have already been told what it is and some may have tried it, no doubt many more wish they had.

They shave their private parts? Horror, I say why it may grow back in a few months or, god forbid, they may feel itching. If youre children attacks others in the manner described in the article, it's not because of the pornography, but because _you_ failed at being a parent. If you had any shame left you would have killed you self, but it is no doubt easier to blame porn than for once in your life taking responsibility for the monster you have created.

<comment><USER18> The people whose strawman you're attacking aren't likely to be reading HN, alas (it has "hacker" in the title!)

I suspect that the people getting in a moral outrage aren't doing so over "vanilla" sex. The LSE study quoted in the Times' article (UK Children Go Online, 2005) found that 31% of 9- to 19-year olds were using "violent or gruesome material."

I haven't expressed any judgments here, nor can I get as excited about it as you, but I contest it's not as simple as people who have a "problem with 14 year olds watching sex" - that's a strawman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Probably a contraversial opinion here, but I think it is a good idea. Parents are often behind their kids on this one, and the current status quo is massively out of kilter with the state of, say, TV censorship - which people are reasonably happy with.

As for the, this is the start of censorship debate... it's not groundless, but I don't really buy it. If anything, 'letting' something like this through could be considered appeasement, and become considered as the only grounds for censorship. It works in other mediums, newspapers can be as critical of the government as they want, but cannot be obscene.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, but who gets to decide what the cutoff for "porn" is? Any movie with a naked person in it? What if it's just a bare ass? What if it's a painting or sculpture?

Just like television ratings don't stop kids from watching violent tv, movie ratings don't stop kids from watching certain movies, and video game ratings certainly don't stop kids from violent/adult games, this would accomplish nothing...

It all comes down to the parents. They need to be on top of what their kids are doing online and the last thing we need is more useless censorship that protects nothing.

<comment><USER6> _Yeah, but who gets to decide what the cutoff for "porn" is?_

Somebody, using consensual guidelines. You are perhaps mistaking the UK for America. It isn't a battle between constitutional rights and puritanical religous nuts. People are generally more moderate, and as such any introduced change is likely to remain moderate. (Not that the UK hasn't got its own major problems).

Many people rely on ratings for guidance, they make life a lot easier. For games they do admittedly have less effect, but that is perhaps to do with inertia in society, and the starting point of initial feelings towards games as unrealistic (which in some cases is not so true any more).

If it won't accomplish anything then I don't really see what the objection is. In reality it could well be quite effective. Obviously teenage boys of a certain disposition will circumvent any controls, via private networking, encrypted email attachments ... etc. This has always been true and people aren't that bothered about it. What is more half the fun is in the act of circumvention.

<comment><USER20> The opposition is that we shouldn't be treating people like they are incapable of making reasonable decisions.

You say "If it won't accomplish anything then I don't really see what the objection is." but that's like saying if you have nothing to hide, what's wrong with installing CCTV cameras every 10 feet? The more your step on a person's freedoms, the easier it becomes to do it more and more. You shouldn't have to justify your desire to access pornography to the government or your ISP (or any content that is perfectly legal for that matter) simply because some parents can't watch over their children when it comes to computers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> First they came for the porn industry...

</comment><comment><USER22> Is porn illegal in the UK? I assume not.

Would a UK parent be arrested if their kid found a parent's porn magazine? I assume/hope not.

Finally, where is the evidence/research that this change will have the desired effect, or even that the current state harms kids?

<comment><USER18> On your last point, a key report being cited around this story is "the Witherspoon report": [http://www.winst.org/family_marriage_and_democracy/social_co...](http://www.winst.org/family_marriage_and_democracy/social_costs_of_pornography/project.php)

Maybe it's just me, but there's something overly slick about the promotional site for the report and its various media: <http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if will be easy to opt-out, imagine being old enough to view pornography but then awkwardly asking your parents to enable the 'adult's internet'.

</comment><comment><USER24> as someone who became interested in the topic when it was difficult or time- consuming, i support making it slightly more difficult.

</comment><comment><USER25> The poor guys at Torproject will suffer!

</comment><comment><USER26> good luck with that....seriously there's always page 3 girls</comment>


Google Glass - If I Had Glass - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-to-get-one/ <comment><USER3> Two thoughts:

1) Google is obviously terrified that being seen wearing Glasses will brand you as terribly nerdy. (Compare the 'gargoyle' stigma in /Snow Crash/.) So to control the early perceptions they're doing a heavily-publicised early release to some carefully-selected mobile-phone-company-commercial beautiful people. The ideal candidate will be taking photos for /National Geographic/ while cave-diving for her Rhodes Scholarship. She will also be rather attractive, and not a wearer of prescription glasses. (Compare <http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/05/08/the-sophie-choice> . Courting Steven Levy seems to have turned out pretty poorly for Google, eh?)

2) Glasses looks very promising, but isn't it a bit of a stretch to call what it does Augmented Reality? AR more or less implies a HUD, or some other means of superimposing CGI on what you see of the real world. But the <http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels/> video seems to suggest that instead Glasses takes a "picture-in-picture" approach, and the screen's transparency seems to serve mainly to make it feel less oppressive, and to minimise the amount it obstructs your vision when the whole screen is not in use. Goggles <http://www.google.ie/mobile/goggles/> is more of a true AR system. (I'm not suggesting this is a bad decision: in light of the current problems with head-tracking [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/raster- scan-displays-m...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/raster-scan- displays-more-than-meets-the-eye/) and precise geolocation it seems like a good one.)

<comment><USER4> I disagree that people will be branded as 'nerdy' or like 'gargoyle's in snow- crash. I think they'll be seen more like the people who always have a bluetooth headset on their ear (i.e. douchey).

<comment><USER3> I'm convinced that perceived nerdiness is a hazard for Google. I will accept that perceived douchiness is another one. I'm sure that the marketers are standing by to reject any application that even faintly suggests that you might use the Glasses to photoblog your dinner.

<comment><USER5> I think I disagree.. The rise of the "brogrammer" is proof that nerd culture is not only on the rise, but actually revered as the new "cool".

Look at television for example.. Asthon Kutcher is the highest paid actor on TV, and he basically stars as himself on Two and a Half men. Ashton is a product evangelist + angel investor. He makes nerds look awesome

Another example from (popular culture/TV) is Big Bang Theory. "Toward the end of its run, Friends was topping out around 20 million viewers, meaning Big Bang is now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one of network TV's biggest and longest comedy successes."[1]

Movies like The Social Network + jOBS will further push the perceived nerdiness for Google into a good thing, not a negative thing. Our culture is shifting.

[1]- [http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/big- ban...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/big-bang-theory- ratings/60625/)

<comment> __--__ It hasn't shifted that far. Geek culture itself is still considered "uncool", even in silicon valley. When popular culture uses the term "Geek" they really mean "Hipster." It's the aesthetics that are considered cool, not the substance.

The shift you're perceiving is this: people with geeky hobbies and professions are now allowed the opportunity to be cool. That wasn't an option before the dot com boom. Thanks to the mass amounts of wealth and resources geeks have generated, we've been allowed a seat at the table, provided we behave ourselves. IE: no segways, no VR goggles, no LARP.

That distinction is exactly why Google is taking the tactic they are - <USER2> want the glass associated more with Apple and less with Segway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time I see Google Glass I think "Oh, cool" and then I realize that what I want/need in everyday life is de-augmented reality (i.e. just vanilla reality). I've already got devices buzzing etc. to get my attention for "important thing".

The argument for things like Glass is that they will make the merging of reality and technology seamless which could have great advantages. I fear, however, that it just means I'll have a thing right in front of my face asking for my attention.

The $1B idea with Google Glass is not the technology of putting it in front of your eyes etc., it's figuring out the software that filters down what's shown to the stuff you actually want/need. I don't think we've done that successfully in other domains yet.

<comment><USER7> > _Every time I see Google Glass I think..._

... do I really want fragments of my life to be recorded by total strangers and then shared with God knows who? I really don't.

It's a cool tech, but its social implications are far from being trivial and benign.

<comment><USER8> So I take it you never go outside? CCTV is already omnipresent. I'm not saying I agree with it, just that there are larger surveillance battles to be fought.

<comment><USER9> Most CCTV cameras are private and not monitored. You install them and have them record on a loop - old data is automatically erased to make room for new data. When something bad happens (an accident, a robbery, etc) recording is stopped and the existing data is handed over to relevant parties.

This is _far_ less problematic than an omnipresent, monitored, shared, catalogued and indexed in perpetuity, video system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just to clarify you are not winning anything free here (still an amazing opportunity though):

"Explorers will each need to pre-order a Glass Explorer Edition for $1500 plus tax and attend a special pick-up experience, in person"

<comment><USER11> They need people with cash, otherwise their users won't be able to afford all the horses, planes and balloons necessary to enjoy the full Google Glass experience.

<comment><USER12> You may be right, no one wants their tech demo to be someone standing in line to cash checks.

<comment><USER13> On the other hand, a shoulder surfing app is a concept unique to Google glasses. ( Since taking out an iPhone is too obvious).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Oh man, I wish I was in the US, I've been raving about glass for a while. I really think it opens up new doors.

One way is combing augmented reality and social networking with Glass. There are a number of cool things that come of this.

One is being able to look at someone also using the Glass app and being presented with their profile, plus options to send messages or view more information. It may even be possible even if they don't have Glass using a combo of geolocation and facial recognition. The most exciting bit is sending a message between two glass users because it'd be pretty much like telepathy.

When the 'internet of thing' comes about, it may even be posdible to control all your various devices without lifting a finger. I could look at my kettle from across the room and flick it on!

There are tonnes of possibilities and I think, especially when it's on a contact lens, it will make what's currently considered magical (telepathy, psychokinesis, etc) a reality, just like the plane removed the magic from human flight.

I think wearable computing opens up many exciting doors and the two thoughts above only scratch the surface of the possibilities I imagine.

In fact, I feel so strongly about ot I'd emigrate to the US just to get my hands on this awesome tech. I need to get onto it ASAP.

<comment><USER15> You want to send messages to people you see? There is this other cool tech for that, it's called voice.

<comment><USER16> For a moment I missed the irony and thought this was a real name for a product. I almost got excited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Explorers will each need to pre-order a Glass Explorer Edition for $1500 plus tax and attend a special pick-up experience, in person, in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles." Interesting. Now we gladly apply for the chance to pay a company $1500 plus tax for a product.

<comment><USER18> It's not a product yet. It's a development device and it has a lot of interest. Having to pay $1500 for it will mean that the people who apply will be serious about building things for it.

It's like applying and paying for a development kit to a games console, etc.

<comment><USER17> Fair enough. Nevertheless, a company like Google could certainly afford to be gracious with developers and let them contribute to the future product's success without making them pay a hefty amount.

<comment><USER19> Think this in Google's perspective. If developers are begging to take their money, why would they refuse?

<comment><USER20> I think it's more likely they want to filter for people that are serious about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hope I meet someone wearing this. I'll get really close then say "OK Glass, Google porn". Or better yet, "OK Glass, take a picture and send it to everyone"

<comment><USER22> voice recognition, will not work :P Nice try though!

<comment><USER23> It'll work just fine with "famous" people. All it takes is enough digital audio. I think newsreader/journalist types will have the worst of it, and unfortunately hype has to flow past them, so there are going to be PR issues.

I could imagine entire soundboards being created to spoof people into viewing internet shock sites, etc.

For example, lets pick on Leo Laporte, because I like him and he's famous in the tech journalism community. He must have thousands of hours, tens of thousands of hours, of digital audio free for use on the net. So all you need is a simple audio editor and an audio player to play the spliced commandline and you can spoof him. So at any time in his long recorded career has Leo ever said the words "girls" and "one" and "two" and "image" and "cup" and "google" and "search"? Well, I think he could be shock site'd pretty well with this technique. Not just shock sites, but rickrolls would be funny too.

This takes some planning ahead, but not much.

<comment><USER24> If they're smart, they'll pick up the bone vibrations from the wearer. You know how your voice sounds different when you hear it back from a recording? They should be able to detect when the wearer is saying something in the same way you hear yourself when talking.

<comment><USER25> They're already doing that produce sound. [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/04/google- glass-...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/04/google-glass-bone- vibration)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I saw someone in a store with those glasses and I had to say I felt a bit weirded out by the thought they could be recording things. Does it indicate to other people if it is recording? These things are going to run into some social issues I think.

<comment><USER27> That's an interesting reaction.

You're sort of in public. You're just living your everyday life. The person recording doesn't know you; probably has no interest in you. Why is it a problem that they're recording? (Note that I'm not saying you're wrong! Or that you should change your mind!)

Candid photography has provided some fantastic photographs over the years. There's some amazing social commentary. With a bit of luck we'll get something similar (as well as petabytes of junk) from people recording everyday life.

<comment><USER28> > Why is it a problem that they're recording?

It's a problem because while I don't expect privacy in public, I do expect my presence to be transitory and under my control. The two seconds I spend scratching my arse walking down the street are forgotten by all who saw it instantly, but not if that moment is immortalised in flash memory. When my wife's skirt blows up in an autumn breeze she gets embarrassed, I get amused and the van drivers get titillated. We've all forgotten it minutes later; now some passing pervert with terminator glasses can grab a freeze frame and share her misfortune with the world.

Henri Cartier-Bresson didn't have his camera up to his eye constantly. By the time he'd reacted to her skirt billowing up and readied his camera she'd have yanked it down again.

<comment><USER26> I feel like someone should invent a directed emp pulse weapon so I can disable these permanently whenever I see them. What a horrible future awaits us. I hope Google glass fails. I realize this is inevitable, but I'm not ready, and neither is my family.

<comment><USER27> Let's hope they don't have a pacemaker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Obvious idea: Peril Sensitive Glasses [1] that go opaque at the first sign of danger

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhikers_G...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhikers_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Joo_Janta_200_Super- Chromatic_Peril_Sensitive_Sunglasses)

(Edit: HN is stripping apostrophe in link - should be Hitchhiker's_Guide)

</comment><comment><USER30> Wonder if "US only" means you just have to be there for the in-person pickup. Because I am totally willing to do that ...

That said, I wonder how difficult it would be to modify Glass so it mounts on my regular glasses.

Either way, I applied. I won't be picked, but at least I tried :)

<comment><USER31> No chance unfortunately. Even the IO 2012 signup was only available to US based attendees.

There's regulatory hurdles for them to cover.

<comment><USER30> Regulatory hurdles schmurdles. If we could get the iPad and iPhone years before they were officially available here, we'll find a way to get Glass too :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just finished my first Augmented Reality app, which is rolling out to its intended users as I type, so I'm a bit biased about this .. but personally I think: AR is AMAZING.

I've used the Vuforia SDK, and the ability to track paper with accuracy on the basis of a well-designed customized brand or design layout .. this is fantastic.

So my app is to demonstrate how AR can overlay and track over print, and edit print materials smoothly .. and I'll be damned if it doesn't work just great.

My next app will be for kids to make planes, in fact. Use the iPhone like a Magic Loupe, print out the picture, get a folding guide in 3D. Oops, I guess I gave that idea away for nothin' ..

</comment><comment><USER33> Without denying that it's "neat", I'd like to be on record as looking askance at the fact that a company that makes >90% of revenue from advertising wants to sell me a tiny screen to put an inch in front of my eye.

<comment><USER34> Google is sort of on record on doing cool things for mostly-free simply because they're there to be done.

<comment><USER35> Though Google's a big company, they still have bottom lines to meet. I think the key word in your comment is "mostly", and how much that means to the average Glass user. What you think of as "mostly free" may be preciously expensive to someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> US only? :-(

I am so excited for this I hope they get it fitted for people with bad eyesight.

<comment><USER37> I'm from Israel. Willing to pay for just an opportunity of time slice with Glass.

Have so many ideas about augmented reality that it truly feels like a set back to learn its US only.

<comment><USER22> the ' and live in the U.S. to apply'

always kills it for me :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm really excited about these. Between this, driverless cars, and Google Fiber, I'd say it is safe to say Google has taken over Apple in innovation.

<comment><USER39> Maybe, but I never met anybody wearing Google Glass driving (riding?) a driverless car. Real artists ship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder, when this becomes mainstream, what is going to start happening on the roads? It is already quite dangerous with some drivers texting/talking on their phones while driving. So now they will have yet another thing to look at (other than the road they're on)...

Not saying glass is a bad thing, I think it's really great. Just wonder how (or if) this is going to affect the road safety.

<comment><USER41> I think it could either enhance or diminish road safety. It all comes down to the person using the technology, though.

The sort of person who would use something like Glass to use GPS or a HUD (speedo, tach, clock?) without taking their eyes off of the road will likely be a more safe driver. HUDs have been credited with enhancing aviator safety; this could bring such innovations to the road.

The sort of person who looks for distractions anyway will now be distracted by Glass. I'm not sure if this will constitute new distractions or a new way to consume old ones, though.

<comment><USER8> Some cars already come with HUDs which are projected onto the windscreen. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1s6SZ73i8A>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've always hoped that the Hitchhikers (Zaphod Beeblebrox) method for initiating an interaction with computers (saying "OK [computer]") would catch on.

</comment><comment><USER43> The best useful purpose for headmounted displays is lifelogging. A reasonably high definition stream with audio and video of everything you see during a waking day (call it 16 hours) is only about a hundred gigabytes.

There's no reason not to do it, at this point. Imagine if we could go back and look at the lifelogs of historical figures. In order to achieve that, you basically have to archive everyone, since you don't know in advance if an individual is going to be important later in life.

People complain about the panopticon, but I'm interested in the opposite.

<comment><USER44> You can think of no reason someone wouldn't want to have every waking moment of their life recorded?

<comment><USER43> Yup, I'm assuming that we're neglecting permissions and privacy issues - imagining that nobody but you could ever access it.

<comment><USER45> And, of course, the government if it's stored on Google's servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I really don't care if these look and feel dorky. How often do you get to participate in using something that looks like the future? I want in.

<comment><USER47> Just remember the people in the past warned us about the future!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> must be a US resident... well thanks google, dont you think that foreigners may also be interested, you are a multi-national organisation that operates on a global scale providing a service to users in almost every country, yet only americans can test your product. It almost guarantees that your test base will be predominantly white, male, educated and middle class anyway.

<comment><USER49> Multi-national organisation unable to sell Google Nexus 4/10 in Ireland, where they have their European HQ. Like if they cared about multinational, except to reroute taxes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> So... you are entering a competition to win the privilage of spending $1,500. People will sign up for this? Wowser.

<comment><USER51> It's aimed at developers at the moment ... early access to this technology could give you a small piece of the giant cake that is about to come. Might be worth much more than $1,500.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm not sure how I would stop myself from rage smashing my Glass the first time an ad popped up at an inappropriate/dangerous time. Glass could be really cool, and it could be really, really stupid too.

There will be apps. Will there be free/ad supported apps? I hope not.

<comment><USER53> Hey, it looks like you're on Hacker News. Amazon thinks you'll love this book. Do you want me to open this in a new tab in Google Chrome?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The main thing that Google Glass makes me think of is the movie "Final Cut" starring Robin Williams : <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/>

</comment><comment><USER55> I have no idea of the rendering power available in these things, but a kick- ass alternate reality game with things only glass-wearers can see would be a good start.

Can it overlay reality with giant scary monsters?

<comment><USER51> No, the display is only in the upper right corner of your vision. Not suited for overlaying reality.

<comment><USER55> Aww, shame. Some of the graphics on their site seemed to suggest it was more central.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Shame only in the US. I want to get these into our UK warehouse.

</comment><comment><USER57> I think Google really should be running this as a free promotion. A pair of Google Glass (Glasses? Not sure how to pluralize) is worth less than two shares of GOOG, they can afford it. A contest to win a free pair (or two) would really drum up some buzz, I don't understand the strategy of charging for the winner. It's kind of like those contests where you "win" the chance to buy super bowl tickets.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it me, or a fundamental flaw in it, is that someone who wears normal glasses, can't wear it? It can't act as a stick to a blind man, can it?

<comment><USER58> I think it looks better with glasses: [https://encrypted- tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSQr6-v...](https://encrypted- tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSQr6-vNh5qMQsc7Fm178YcATxtqh7RBX1BWVIyev5eohAM0VDj)

Here is sunglasses on Brin from opposite profile: [https://encrypted- tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTvbW54...](https://encrypted- tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTvbW54qLIkleLXs6mwdqHyA1MuyMgAYd9HuOGeO-_5CZ5x1d7D)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Now away from the fun side, this could be a cool gadget for education also. For example imagine guitar lessons filmed using Glass.

<comment><USER22> true, the tutorial videos would become far more detailed and interactive, than right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> After all that application process including _collecting ideas from people_ , I was really thinking they'd give a pair of glasses to each of those 'selected candidates' for free. Turned out it's not the case. Would I do all that application process when I'll possibly be able to buy it after some time without that for the same money anyway?

</comment><comment><USER61> TL;DR: Google's focus on the mass market, social stuff and slick appearance is precisely the wrong path to be going down for a user interface as novel as this.

[http://gyrovague.com/2013/01/25/dorky-is-ok-google-glass- doe...](http://gyrovague.com/2013/01/25/dorky-is-ok-google-glass-does-not- have-to-be-the-next-iphone/)

</comment><comment><USER62> #ifihadglass i would give you all my ideas for free so you could earn money with it and make me pay for using it

</comment><comment><USER63> So I have to build up an application so I can get invited to pay $1500 for a device I don't really know what it does and probably don't want?

(oh and I wear glasses so I probably couldn't use it even if I wanted to)

<comment><USER64> You don't have to do anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Cool initiative. Too bad I wear glasses already and don't live in the US.

<comment><USER66> Someone was spotted last month wearing a Glass with prescription lenses (I'd looked it up 'cos I'd need that too)

[http://www.roadtovr.com/2012/12/30/google-glass-spotted- in-t...](http://www.roadtovr.com/2012/12/30/google-glass-spotted-in-the-wild- in-nyc-2078)

<comment><USER67> Wow. Thanks! I wear glasses to and it's also my concern. But my problem now, my lens are too thick (my grade is high) to be held up by a half frame. I always need a full framed glass. And I think, that one in the picture is just half framed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Why must I live in the US to apply for each and every hardware beta...

<comment><USER69> Not trying to justify it but just saying it could be privacy laws in other countries.

<comment><USER68> I know, lots of extra issues besides the one they already have when they distribute the technology in the US. It still sucks to be excluded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Was so excited until I read "and live in the U.S. to apply"

</comment><comment><USER71> Please take off your glasses before entering the restroom.

</comment><comment> o0-0o Would anyone here strap a cell phone to their temples? In voice of Arnold... Its not a tumor. Its a Google glass side effect.

<comment><USER72> I would. Mobile phones emit and receive non ionising radiation. They are perfectly safe. Are you worried about the constant radio waves hitting your skull 24/7 from radio, tv, wifi etc?

And who is to say this isn't piggy backing off your phone in your pocket?

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I wonder why Google felt the need to put this out just before the Playstation 4 announcement today.

<comment><USER74> I don't think they care about that. Not like the products overlap much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> When I saw the icon I hoped it is a synthesizer because of the sawtooth wave. Too bad.

</comment><comment><USER76> Seeking Google to at least include Canada :(

</comment><comment><USER77> The POV porn industry is going to love this.</comment>


Intel 8th Gen Core with Radeon RX Vega GPU Presentation - <AUTHOR> https://videocardz.com/74640/intel-8th-gen-core-with-radeon-rx-vega-gpu-presentation-leaked <comment><USER2> I wonder if OEMs will find it easier to design a single 100W cooling system instead of 2 45W cooling systems to fit inside an ultrabook. Hoping for a new XPS15!

</comment><comment><USER3> I mean.. I wouldn't trust those benchmarks at all.

It does seem like good news for AMD though!

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure how good it is for AMD since their Ryzen G series APUs which also aim for the 45-60W target come with a much weaker GPU (11 CUs and no onboard memory).

Sure they would be cheaper but it doesn't really matter that much the OEMs price the laptops too close together now for that to make a difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Only 8x PCI-E 3.0? That's a little on the low side for a regular card, not to mention chips on the same interposer, no?

<comment><USER6> AFAICT, Coffee Lake has 24 PCI-E lanes, 8 of which are used to connect to the chipset. If they used all remaining 16 for the GPU, then NVMe and thunderbolt connections would have to go through the south bridge, affecting latency and throughput.

<comment><USER4> Intel doesn't connect to the chipset with PCIe, it does that with DMI.

Coffee Lake only has 16 PCIE lanes on the CPU, 4 DMI Lanes (about equivalent to 4 PCIE 3.0 lanes) which connect to the PCH and 24 PCIE 3.0 lanes coming from the chipset.

<comment><USER6> I over simplified. DMI is a PCI Express variant. I thought it had increased to 8 lanes in Coffee Lake, but I was mistaken. That makes it even more important to save some of the CPU PCIe lanes for NVMe and thunderbolt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _42% Growth CAGR in Retail Gaming NB Sales over the last 3 years_

What are NB sales?

<comment><USER8> Took awhile to figure it out but it's "Notebook Sales" (as opposed to DT, Desktop).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It looks like Intel won't be selling a socketed version of this, which means this will be available only in laptops and NUCs. I've had trouble with Linux on NUCs in the past. So, I really hope this goes into a new mac mini.

</comment><comment><USER9> ...but! Will it do Meltdown?

<comment><USER10> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.</comment></comment>


Why market competition has not brought down health care costs - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/why-market-competition-has-not-brought-down-health-care-costs-78971 <comment><USER2> Oh look, another attempt to argue that market forces somehow don't apply to medical care.

In this one, the author makes the argument that "competition" leads to a proliferation of firms, a proliferation of firms leads to administrative complexity, and administrative complexity leads to additional cost. Supposedly, removing this cost would save us enough money "to provide health care to all Americans."

It is easy to attempt to verify this claim by looking at actual data.

OECD: "Administration of the US health system alone accounts for about 7% share of total spending. This is on a par with other systems such as France and Germany which also have multipayer systems (even if in some of them there is no or little competition across payers). In comparison, Canada and Japan devote around 4% of health spending on administration."

[https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/49084355.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/49084355.pdf)

So, if we adopted a true single payer system, by this math, the total spend in the US healthcare system would drop by 3%. US healthcare costs have recently been growing by 6% per year, so this would bring our costs all the way down to where they were on election day, 2016.

Next.

<comment><USER3> Price discovery requires the ability to price some customers out of the market. For serious healthcare (the only kind that costs a lot of money) that means life-long disability or death. There is no such thing as a free market without the ability to set prices for maximal profit (vs maximal coverage).

BY DEFINITION a free market in healthcare MUST kill people (or allow them to die of treatable diseases if you prefer). Period. Full-stop. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

A free market means if you are unlucky and born into a poor family, get bonked in the head, and have a retinal detachment then you should go blind. Despite the massive dead-weight economic loss to our society of converting an able- bodied person into one with a life-long disability, if you can't pay for retinal re-attachment then fuck you buddy.

I wish all your free-market healthcare proponents would address this fundamental inescapable fact. I suspect most don't because the idea is repugnant and the argument falls apart. Please don't bring out the charity canard. That's largely how our system functioned in the past (and still does for some people thanks to states refusing Medicaid expansion) and it simply doesn't work.

I don't want to live in a society that so prizes the god of free markets that it is willing to let people suffer and die of completely treatable diseases. I'm happy to seize as much money as required from whoever is required to make non-elective healthcare free for all citizens. Fortunately a minor tax on the top 10% along with a larger tax on the 0.1% is more than enough to cover healthcare. As a member of the top 10% I say that knowing I will pay higher taxes.

<comment><USER4> > BY DEFINITION a free market in healthcare MUST kill people

I'm not sure this is true. Does a free market in food require that some people starve to death? Right-wing ideology says that even the poor have enough to buy food, clothing, shelter and medical insurance. If a poor person buys a mobile phone instead of health insurance, it's because they value the phone more than their health - why should you force someone to buy something that is less valuable?

Perhaps you argue that the poor don't have enough money to buy health insurance. In that case the right-wing answer is to give the poor money with which to buy whatever they prefer. _Hypotheically_ everyone could buy health insurance and noone would die of treatable diseases.

<comment><USER5> Please cut it out with pretending the poor prefer to buy a cellphone instead of health care. The most expensive phone on the market, the iPhone, costs less than _one month_ of health insurance premiums. And most poor people aren't using iPhones - most are using Androids they bought for a few bucks on a plan. That is to say, a modern smartphone costs the same as a landline phone of yore. That's not even getting into the whole discussion of their smartphone is typically the only computer they have. Try navigating our healthcare system without a phone or a computer. Good luck with that.

<comment><USER4> Actually I'm not pretending anything - I'm just stating the right-wing, free- market ideology. I happen to support a single-payer healthcare model because it will reduce overall health costs and maximise long-term GDP. But let me play devils advocate for a minute and respond your your comment about smartphones:

Nobody is claiming that a smartphone would pay the full cost of a persons healthcare. But it would pay for _some_ health insurance - perhaps two or three weeks, by your count. (And don't confuse this with internet access: A 5-year-old smartphone with a cracked screen costs next to nothing on eBay). Therefore anyone who buys a brand new phone - either outright or on a contract - has given up the opportunity to buy a few weeks of health insurance.

And there are many other similar opportunities for poor people, including:

\- If you buy branded goods like Nike or Adidas, buy non-branded clothes and shoes instead

\- If you drink or smoke, stop

\- If you are overweight or obese, eat less

\- If you buy food from convenience stores or restaurants, stop. Instead, make a weekly trip to Costco or Walmart and buy food in bulk.

\- Change your diet to the cheapest foods that still provide nutrition. For example, maybe potatoes are cheaper than bread and just as healthy. Don't like potatoes? Too bad.

\- Typically the best-paid jobs are in a city or town center, while cheapest accommodation is far away. So if your total weekly commute and work time is less than 60 hours per week, live further away from your job to increase your commute time and decrease your rent or mortgage payments.

\- Look up the top 5 cities in the US with the highest wages and lowest unemployment, then move to one of them.

\- If there are less than 2 people per bedroom in your household, take in a paying lodger. If your landlord doesn't allow it, move. If you are a single person then move into a 3-bedroom house with 5 other single people.

You may think that these opportunities are not valid, or that they still would not pay the full cost of health insurance. In that case the right-wing solution is to give money to poor people - and not to force them to buy health insurance or provide government-run healthcare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How much competition is there in health care, really?

An oligopoly controls most of the insurance market, another oligopoly controls most of the hospitals, and medical schools openly collude (through the AAMC) to limit the number of doctors.

All sanctioned by a government run by politicians funded by these organizations.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. That's not an exactly free market to operate in to begin with. Contrast that with the software/hardware markets, or even consumer goods markets, and the difference in terms of outcomes is pretty obvious. The problem with healthcare is that there is no direct "pay for service" system. It's all a mix of insurances, hidden costs, complex pricing systems (with little to no elasticity once fixed) defined by governments and third parties that have nothing to do with the end user.

<comment><USER8> Agreed that it's not exactly a free market right now, but pretending a truly free market would improve things is a little ridiculous. If you fall off a ladder are you going to be shopping around for a good price on an ambulance ride, calling ER's to get the best deal, etc? That assumes there is more than one hospital nearby, more than one ambulance company, etc. Much of the country only has one nearby ER. What happens in a "free" market when you absolutely have to purchase something from a monopoly?

<comment><USER7> it would anyway benefit from being more Free than it is right now, no need to go into philosophical hypotheses of what fully free markets would look like. This is not my poInt at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kenneth Arrow's seminal 1963 paper[1] is what started this line of argument. It's not very long, and most of the technical details are left to the appendix.

[1] [https://web.stanford.edu/~jay/health_class/Readings/Lecture0...](https://web.stanford.edu/~jay/health_class/Readings/Lecture01/arrow.pdf)

Classical economics mostly assumes that all participants in the market have access to relevant information to make the right decisions. Arrow's work on signaling theory really started economics on thinking about what happens when that assumption is broken.

As anyone who's worked with large distributed systems knows, putting information where it's needed is key to making it work.

The economy happens to be a large distributed system.

<comment><USER2> This is definitely true, so far as it goes. For many types of medical care it is unreasonable to expect a patient to act in a price setting capacity on the demand side.

However there are many types of medical care where that is very reasonable! LASIK and cosmetic surgery are classic examples because they elective and have historically not been covered by any insurance. You can see cosmetic surgery prices on ads in the NY city subway. Other kinds of care, such as dentistry, orthodontia, and vision services, also have very well-functioning markets, largely because insurance has historically not covered these things. Lots of non-urgent care (primary medicine, pediatrics, dermatology, psychiatrics, orthopedics, many surgeries) would probably have well-functioning markets if they were separated from the insurance system.

Now, that's all the cheap stuff. The expensive stuff (hospitalizations, cancers, chronic disease) that makes up the bulk of the US health expenditure - yeah. You can't expect a patient to come in and argue with the doctor about whether they really need that saline drip. But in a properly functioning market, there is another entity that can and should (and does) act as a price- setter mechanism on the demand side, and that is the insurance company.

The problems show up when 1\. there is only one supplier in a market 2\. the insurer is required by law to cover a certain thing 3\. the supplier does not face a price control, and through (1) and (2) has unlimited pricing power

This is very acute with prescription drugs. Even generic drugs sometimes only have one supplier because the process of getting FDA approval is so onerous. It is also very acute when you have hospital and physician consolidation within markets, so that medical suppliers can effectively act as a cartel.

So - deal with the supply side problems. Stop the cartel behavior. Make it easier to sell prescription drugs and open hospitals. Allow consumers to act as consumers when it makes sense (by excluding basic medical services from the insurance system) and reserve insurance for the risky, expensive, hairy stuff. This is the path forward, and it all follows very neatly from basic supply and demand.

<comment><USER10> I like your comparison to LASIK and cosmetic surgery, which I agree are functioning markets. But I'm not sure I agree with the rest.

There are two components to healthcare funding: (1) insurance which protects from the serious unforeseen health expenditures; and (2) healthcare, which includes routine health checkups, preventative care, and also, the very common ailments as one gets older. The two are somewhat inter-related (if you're generally unhealthy, you're more likely to have serious ailments), but makes sense to separate the two as separate products.

Even for relatively wealthy people, it's difficult to afford serious medical care out-of-pocket (it can cost >$20k/day in the hospital). So that's one product people can buy, with its own deductibles.

However, routine medical care that everyone needs no matter what is a different product, and the cost of that product could be more closely tied to the value of the services received.

Separating these two products may bring about more competition in each, and perhaps more efficiencies.

<comment><USER9> One large problem with making preventative care a separate market is that people who are too poor to get preventative care and get sick usually end up in an ER, where the rest of society ends up footing the bill.

And a sick person in the ER can easily cost tens to hundreds of times as much as the preventative care would have been in the first place.

So making preventative care mandatory actually saves everyone a lot of money in the long run -- even if the preventative care is run extremely inefficiently and poorly, it would still be cheaper than what we have now, which is socialized medicine that only kicks in after people get incredibly sick and expensive to treat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I always post this in response to articles of this nature.

[https://web.stanford.edu/~jay/health_class/Readings/Lecture0...](https://web.stanford.edu/~jay/health_class/Readings/Lecture01/arrow.pdf)

Which is we knew 50 years ago that markets for healthcare just don't work. And now we have 50 years of evidence they don't work.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately, this article is very light on details and makes some assertions and comparisons without any serious rigor. I wish someone would publish something that were rigorous and easy to understand for the average reader. instead we have either this, or very dry and incomprehensible reports.

According to this article, the main culprit is keeping a for-profit health insurance system and addressing its shortcomings with ever increasing bureaucracy which adds more costs (bureaucratic complexity). I'm sure there is way more to it than that.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is right, the problem with healthcare has to be insurance. The biggest pocket of customers for health care companies don't pay out of pocket. They are covered by their employers. So they don't see money going out of their pocket and in a perverse way the higher the amount the insurance company pays the better the customer might feel thinking they got good service or a great treatment. So there is no incentive for the health care company to reduce costs at all. Since people don't care about the costs of procedures there is no set/prescribed cost for any procedure and everything just gets bloated every year.

More so, these pocket of customers have no idea how the other pocket, that pays out of pocket, feels. They have never experienced it and will never know, so they have no incentive to fight for them. The health care lobby and republicans are putting a good spin that these out of pocket people are causing the costs to rise. IF the majority of the people actually pay out of pocket the costs will immediately come down for everything. Both hospitals, doctors and medicine. I have seen things in India where most of them pay out of pocket and the costs are very low. I heard, these days insurance is screwing things up there as well. Extending that logic, a single payer health care system where one party has the power to negotiate could actually help a lot in bringing the price down.

<comment><USER14> > Extending that logic, a single payer health care system where one party has > the power to negotiate could actually help a lot in bringing the price down.

Which was another big argument for single-payer. Medicare is know for negotiating the lowest prices, and practices prefer higher rate negotiated insurances than Medicare.

<comment><USER15> Medicare does not have market forces guiding it. Consumers are a massive repository of localized knowledge. Once government takes them out of the picture, the industry's dynamism is severely limited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like the free market. However, when something has completely inelastic demand and the people most in need of your product is not your target group (as in, sick people often have problems making ends meet, since they're sick and all) and the economy as a whole is far better off if everyone got the benefits of the system, I think it's super bad to use the free market.

In the US, you spend 17% of your GDP on healthcare, in Sweden we spend 11%. The US has a lower life expectancy, lower survival rate for most heart diseases and types of cancer and has healthcare bills as the leading cause for bankruptcy. It could just be me, but it looks like universal healthcare systems in the Nordic model runs circles around the US system based on all the relevant metrics.

[http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by- subjec...](http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject- area/national-accounts/national-accounts/system-of-health-accounts- sha/pong/statistical-news/system-of-health-accounts-/) [http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/en/](http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/en/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Perhaps we could compare costs for procedures paid for by private or government insurers, vs those that are not covered by insurance i.e. cosmetic procedures. Bottom line is that where there is no 3rd party payer, competition works.

[http://healthblog.ncpa.org/why-cant-the-market-for- medical-c...](http://healthblog.ncpa.org/why-cant-the-market-for-medical-care- work-like-cosmetic-surgery/)

<comment><USER18> There is a large set of non-optional and emergency medical procedures where competition will remain nonexistent. Personally, I hope for AI to provide answers to cost-benefit analysis (treatment costs X, will reduce/improve chances by Y).

<comment><USER10> Not sure how AI is gonna help here. For many of these questions, we have committees of skilled humans with all of the information looking at the details, and they often cannot come to a consensus.

<comment><USER18> Being able to make data-driven healthcare decisions would help to improve the 'last mile' of health care delivery. Not everyone has a committee of experts at their disposal. I hope that we will rely on more on big data to deliver smarter and individualized healthcare. There should be a whole branch of quantitative analysis dedicated to improving outcomes and reducing costs (unnecessary medication, surgeries, tests, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The reason market competition has not brought down health care costs is that the government actively eliminates market competition in health care:

[http://healthblog.ncpa.org/why-cant-the-market-for- medical-c...](http://healthblog.ncpa.org/why-cant-the-market-for-medical-care- work-like-cosmetic-surgery/)

<comment><USER19> And that's why countries with higher government involvement spend less in healthcare and have better results.

<comment><USER15> I provide a lengthy rebuttal to this claim here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14642625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14642625)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The argument seems to be that ever-increasing administration costs are to blame for overall health care costs and increases.

Then it inexplicably turns into a bad appeal for single payer.

<comment><USER21> How is a single-payer not simpler, given that it is exactly as is sounds, a single-payer for healthcare, which is the government.

<comment><USER10> I'm in favor of single-payer, but the main argument against it is that in a government run system, there is little incentive to correct inefficiencies. In a private system, if you become inefficient, you'll fail and cease to exist.

Advocates of single-payer needs to at least recognize this issue and be able to account for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems to me that our US HC system is operating in a manner that optimizes the wrong thing. It currently maximizes jobs and an odd form of wealth redistribution. It should be minimizing costs subject to "good" HC (or "adequate"?) for the target recipients (all citizens?).

Let's name our HC goals (the objective function) and then tackle the strategies.

The methods are wrong too, and spin off unfair side effects. For example, corporations by the (insurance) product, not consumers. This gives companies leverage in employment activities.

Edit-> Some form of tort reform (e.g., limitations of liabilities) would help as well. I don't have a current number, but layers of malpractice insurance drive substantial costs.

</comment><comment><USER23> The healthcare market is not feee enterprise. In fact, it is a government sponsored Trust. Nobody can practice medicine unless the government says so, and no one can take medication unless the government says so. No one can give even medical advice without the governments permission. This is the exact opposite of a free market, and the reason it is so stinking king expensive.

The regulations are passed through fearmongering, and only serve to raise prices unbearably. The government created the problem, now wants to "fix" it with universal healthcare. As with any monopoly, prices will be higher and quality lower than with the free alternative.

The answer to the problem is to introduce the free market to medicine.

</comment><comment><USER24> As someone who has never lived in the US I'm curious as to why there's so little debate about moving towards a single payer or universal system. It seems that the only option ever on the table is tweaking the current system.

<comment><USER25> How can you profit off of that?

<comment><USER26> Why do you need to?

<comment><USER25> To make a few people rich at the expense of many others' health and lives. That clearly is the goal of not having a single payer system and the reason for the private health insurance industry existing in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Has anyone considered that perhaps the cost of treating Americans is going up, too? Notwithstanding existing understood market failures, etc., the growth in medicaid/medicare spending tracks the growth in obesity very well.

<comment><USER28> Well I mean being unable to afford to get your broken ankle re-set when it heals weird the first or spending a life in chronic pain or never getting treatment for sleep apnea etc... all seem like good ways to make obesity grow as a result of in ability to pay for medical care and a good way to eventually find your way to being on disability, poor and in poor health and then on medicaid/medicare.

So you know maybe it's a vicious fucking cycle.

Oh wait actually we know for a damn fact it is and has nothing to do with obesity: preventative care just keeps shit way cheaper that's half the point of the ACA forcing insurance companies to cover at least some of it (the other half being a basic belief in human dignity).

<comment><USER29> The US isn't obese because we all have broken ankles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is that first graph acting super funky for anyone else? I can't really read past it because it seems to keep growing vertically forever (on my iPhone)

</comment><comment><USER31> Too much vested interests, I don't see how that's not obvious.

</comment><comment><USER32> Market competition? As if the US healthcare market was free recently? Nowadays, many educated people believe that without the ACA, the US healthcare market is a laissez faire system, which is why it has so many problems.

This could not be further from reality.

We have more government distortions in our healthcare market than countries with completely socialized healthcare. For example:

Medicare: socialized medicare for the elderly, which alone creates more distortion than a universal program would cause, by inflating demand/prices for non-qualifying citizens.

Medicaid: socialized healthcare for specially qualifying poor people, which creates the same distortion as Medicare.

An oppressive FDA: which, coupled with overly-powered IP laws, grants de-facto monopolies in the medical product industry. We have an incredibly expensive and subjective medical equipment pre-approval process (as compared to a less- terrible FDA that would just be in charge of labeling, preventing fraud, and maintaining accountability in the event of incidents). Then there's the length and flexibility of patent protections in our current system (maybe we could cut those protection times in half, and patent trolling would not be a lucrative industry).

Oppressive occupational licensing: It's way too hard to become a doctor of any kind, even the kinds that don't manually put things into your heart. This will be a major battle as AI comes to the point where it can better diagnose conditions and largely replace generic/non-specialized pediatrics. Of course, the government will not make this easy.

Plus a slew of more minor things like malpractice regulation, and now the ACA (which is not so minor, and which will apparently be replaced with something similar and even messier).

If we cleaned up/removed all of the problems in the above and replaced it with single payer, it would be OK and we would have something similar to Canada/other countries with long wait times, not as much access to specialists, slow innovation, and a system where a government bureaucrat gets to decide who gets the last liver transplant and who dies. That would be a less distorted market than we have today, but ONLY if accompanied by fixing the aforementioned problems.

OR we could try going the free-ish market approach and try to find a much freer balance with the FDA/USDA/occupational-licensing/scrap Medicare/Medicaid,etc., which we do not currently have AT ALL. And maybe even declare health insurance fraudulent and pay everything out of pocket (accident insurance makes more sense as a hedge against risk, which is what insurance is supposed to be, whereas all people are expected to develop health problems at some point, with a probability approaching one).</comment>