Ask HN: Anyone figured out the IE 0-day vulnerability ? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone figured out the IE 0-day vulnerability that was exploited by recent Chinese attacks ?
Microsoft security advisory: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/979352.mspx
"The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference within Internet Explorer. It is possible under certain conditions for the invalid pointer to be accessed after an object is deleted. In a specially-crafted attack, in attempting to access a freed object, Internet Explorer can be caused to allow remote code execution."
Does anyone know infected sites ? <comment><USER2> I don't know much (or anything, really, besides basic some basic concepts to avoid writing vulnerable code in my languages of choice) about vulns (0day or otherwise), however, this doesn't sound like a particularly exciting exploit. Its just a mistake with pointers, albeit one that had some serious consequences.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, mistakes with pointers can lead to remote code execution (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflows>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I had heard earlier indications that it was the Javascript in PDF vulnerability that was partially at fault. That began getting publicized a bit before the Google newsbomb, so there may be some truth to that.</comment>


Show HN: My 3rd Online Product Ever - <AUTHOR> https://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N3000000B4BAdEAN

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love feedback on the listing, I want to make it the best it can be!</comment>


Tell HN: Happy Festivus - <AUTHOR> Happy Festive, everyone.
Now, let's get on with the Airing of Grievances, followed by the Feats of Strength. <comment><USER2> I think you may be two days too late. But happy Festivus to you too - it isn't over until you've pinned me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Better late than never... OTOH, just add _" forgot Festivus"_ to the grievances.</comment></comment>


Light to the Poor, One liter at a time - <AUTHOR> http://uk.reuters.com/video/2011/07/11/bringing-light-to-the-poor-one-liter-at?videoId=216968892&videoChannel=82

<comment><AUTHOR> Sometimes the simplest "technology" can make the biggest difference in the lives of millions. Another link about it that has a few more details, including that it generates 55-60W of light, 10 months out of the year.

[http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/news_asia/2011-07-12/light...](http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/news_asia/2011-07-12/light- to-the-poor-one-liter-at-a-time.html)</comment>


Zero to Hero Series - Erlang on Amazon Web Services - Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.asimihsan.com/articles/zero_to_hero_erlang_on_aws_part_01.html I've also finished Part 2: http://www.asimihsan.com/articles/zero_to_hero_erlang_on_aws_part_02.html
This series is taking me far longer than I anticipated; I haven't even started talking about Erlang or OTP yet because of having to set up all the preamble with respect to using Amazon Web Services.
I think I have about four or five parts left to this series.  Any and all comments are welcome! <comment><AUTHOR> I've also finished Part 2: [http://www.asimihsan.com/articles/zero_to_hero_erlang_on_aws...](http://www.asimihsan.com/articles/zero_to_hero_erlang_on_aws_part_02.html)

This series is taking me far longer than I anticipated; I haven't even started talking about Erlang or OTP yet because of having to set up all the preamble with respect to using Amazon Web Services.

I think I have about four or five parts left to this series. Any and all comments are welcome!</comment>


Mist.io Public Beta Now Available – Manage your cloud servers from anywhere - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mist.io/post/66094970492/mist-io-public-beta-now-available

<comment><USER2> After signing up and receiving the confirmation email there is a slight issue with picking a password.

1\. Click the link in the email

2\. The webpage opens up with a password input field and a confirm password input field in a small popup

3\. After starting to type the password in the input field the popup vanishes thus not allowing me to actually save the password.

Same issue when requesting a password reset (safari on mac os mavericks and on ios 7.0.3).

<comment><AUTHOR> We're looking into it. Thanks for the heads up

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm getting a 404 on this page: [https://mist.io/pricingconfirm](https://mist.io/pricingconfirm), when I try to confirm my registration.

<comment><USER4> oops;) we're fixing it right now -- in the meantime try stripping the "pricing" part of the uri.

thanks for getting back to us!

edit: Should be OK now! Feel free to ping us at email@example.com to if you need any further assistance.

<comment><USER5> Great job fixing it so quick but sadly, seems to be down again.</comment></comment></comment>


WWDC tips from Marco - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/661870733

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going for the first time this year. One thing I'll add that my friend advised me on was using SubEthaEdit. You get to collaborate on notes and can sometimes snag notes on sessions you couldn't attend. Sounds pretty cool, definitely going to try it out.

Now if only I had ordered my MacBook Pro a week earlier I would have had it by now ... 2006 MacBook it is. :/

edit: Oh yeah, Marco also made a WWDC favourites to iCal bookmarklet. What a guy! <http://www.marco.org/658617964></comment>


"The [Silicon Valley] culture is not necessarily friendly to families" - <AUTHOR> https://cake.hr/blog/silicon-valley-companies-are-getting-older/ <comment><USER2> Title: Silicon Valley Companies are Getting Older

Or: Parenting: The New Work-life Balance Challenge in Silicon Valley</comment>


Security Information Event Management (SIEM) in AWS - <AUTHOR> https://www.ibexlabs.com/security-information-event-management-siem-in-aws/ <comment><USER2> This reads like an advertisement for ATT AilenVault.</comment>


"Design Patterns are the disease, Clojure is the cure..." - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thinkrelevance.com/2009/10/19/the-case-for-clojure <comment><USER2> Design Patterns may be the "disease", but Clojure has nothing really to do with this, "the cure". Lisp has been the cure before the term Design Patterns even came into the CS vocabulary.

<comment><USER3> The move from mainstream OO, cast in a mediocre language like C++ or Java, to having some way to talk about higher level combinations [which the language cannot express] is quite an improvement.

After a positive experience with GoF patterns its hard to convince people that these patterns are just a natural part of working in lisp [or clojure] : Not only can you talk in patterns, but your code can be written in patterns in a direct way.

The same of UML and other formal diagramming systems - you get more expressive power much more directly via a 'domain specific language' in lisp. All the big fads are subsumed with a wave of the hand.

Unfortunately some universities take what they think is a pragmatic path of least resistance and teach popular languages such as Java in place of a much more subtle and powerful language.

I wonder at the sheer human waste in leagues of emasculated coders churning out verbose Java/XML/SQL 'business' apps in cubicles, forced by convention to work in an ugly way - those businesses would be much better served in terms of efficiency, quality and innovation by using a good language, and their staff much happier.

Thank Gods and the lords of Kobol for giving us Python, Ruby and Clojure that they might seep through the cracks and weaken the stranglehold of obfuscation and verbosity!

<comment><USER4> _Not only can you talk in patterns, but your code can be written in patterns in a direct way._

I have never bought this argument. What does it even mean? In every language, an implementation of a design pattern can be clearly distinguished as such. This is a good thing: it allows you to easily describe parts of of your application. This part produces objects, that part provides an interface to a bunch of other code, the other part determines which algorithm should currently be used, etc.

<comment><USER3> Sure, it is a matter of degree - we could ask, how much extra crud is needed? I think lisp like languages have less crud, and so the idea is clearer.

This is partly because lisps can act on their own expressions, transform them. This follows from extremely uniform or consistent grammar.

Now you could say C++ can do that, but look at the amount of machinery needed in Boost to add something like a lambda or an accumulator 'pattern' to the language.

Its a matter of degree - sure you can write a DSL in C++ [recursive descent, lex/yac, boost, macros etc] but in lisp this really is just a natural part of the language - syntactic sugar can be manufactured.

Lets take the idea of a callback - this is an excellent design pattern that gives you a great deal of power. You could implement using function pointers in C, or say functor objects with operator() in C++... either way, I contend there is a lot more crud and boilerplate than there is in lisp where a lambda is a fundamental construct of the language.

The more surrounding crud or machinery, the less clear the concept.

In other words, patterns in lisp can be _more_ clearly distinguished as such, because there is less cruft.

Often the name of the concept or pattern actually occurs in the code as a function name, for example.

<comment><USER5> >> "I think lisp like languages have less crud, and so the idea is clearer."

Part of being a good programmer is being able to see through crud. Personally, I don't really care about crud. It doesn't bother me. I think it's a good skill to learn to be able to recognize and understand code that's within a bowl of crud.

<comment><USER6> > I don't really care about crud. It doesn't bother me.

Then you won't mind when a garbage truck unloads its multi-ton cargo into your home.

<comment><USER5> I don't equate crud with garbage. Crud is stuff you ignore after a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Posted this on the article's comments:

I have been following Clojure with some interest lately. I'm still a Common Lisp guy though because Clojure is still in flux and evolving rapidly from what I see.

I also see the fact that all Clojure programs are Java programs as a plus and a minus: a plus because you get access to all the Java libraries and JITs and whatnot out there, but a minus because there can't be any independent Clojure port. In the real world to make an interesting port of Clojure you will also have to port all of Java so applications work. It's like if no one wrote Unix/Linux applications but only Windows and counted on Wine always being there.

With regard to state -- and Paul Barry already touched on this -- I recently started implementing a small app which needs some persistent state. I thought to try doing it in Clojure but found out that while Common Lisp has tools like Rucksack and Elephant and CLSQL, if I wanted it in Clojure I would need first to create all my data structures as Java objects (albeit with (. blahblah) wrappers if I wanted) then run them through some clumsy Java ORM, or deal with raw JDBC or Java Berkeley DB.

If I missed something that's already out there and available I would love to be pointed to it, but it seems to me Clojure could benefit from a native persistence mechanism or library that takes advantage of its concurrency strengths, or at least a native API for something like Berkeley DB that can deal well with it.

<comment><USER8> There is a Berkeley DB wrapper for Clojure. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like the nicest Clojure persistence library I've seen so far.

<http://github.com/gcv/cupboard>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Like most language advocacy, this piece implicitly compares the beloved language to one other. In this case, Java.

"Java sucks, so use language X!". Problem is, this argument works for many values of X.

I think the elevator pitch for Clojure is more like: "Java libraries without Java verbosity". Or: "Lisp finally meets the real world".

(I've played with Clojure, and found a startling contrast in seeing Java objects inside such a friendly, dynamic environment.)

<comment><USER10> My elevator pitch is, "A slow lisp without a real object system."

<comment><AUTHOR> Slow compared to what? Most benchmarks I've seen show that it easily beats most of the other popular dynamic languages if you care about that. In my own experience with macro hackery you can often get very close to Java (2x-3x).

The lack of an object system is a downright feature since it forces you to take a functional approach. Most of the things you would want from an object system (polymorphism, multiple inheritance) are readily available via multimethods/hierarchies.

If you really want something CLOS-like, there's a library for that, <http://code.google.com/p/explorersguild/wiki/XGModelAndGF>.

<comment><USER10> _forces you to take a functional approach_

I don't think Clojure is really a functional langauge, it's more of an imperitive/OO mix with immutable objects. Immutable objects aren't "functional programming", they're simply common sense.

Functional programming is about composing parts of programs ("functions") with generic combinators. I have not seen anyone in Clojure doing this. Haskell is a different story; combinators are very reusable, and there is no way to combine functions (and other "categories") without them. (In Clojure, you combine program fragments by typing a closing paren and then opening a new one. Your program doesn't control its sequence of operations, a Magical Runtime does that for you. Inflexible.)

The reusability in Haskell is quite interesting; for example, application in a monad is defined as "liftM2 ($)", the usual function application operator ("($)", itself a function of two arguments) lifted into a monadic context for functions of two arguments. Cool.

The reusability is everywhere; you use the same Arrow combinators to traverse an XML document as you do to parse plain text. (See HXT and PArrows.) And of course, you compose Arrows with (.) (the function composition function), because (.) works on all Categories, not just functions.

That is functional programming; Clojure is just immutable data and parens. (Both good ideas, mind you. But it's not doing anything that Pure Java can't.)

<comment><USER11> Your definition of "functional programming" is unusual. Wikipedia defines it as:

"A programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data"

Wikipedia goes on to consider Erlang and Scheme functional programming languages, so it would seem your definition of what consists a functional programming language is more narrow than the norm. Most people would consider Clojure to be a functional programming language, just not a _pure_ functional programming language.

I'm also not sure why you describe a language with macros as being "Inflexible". I've used Clojure and Haskell extensively, and Clojure wins on flexibility. It's a dynamically-typed Lisp, after all.

<comment><USER10> I think I am agreeing with Wikipedia's definition. What function is evaluated that makes "foo" execute before "bar" in "(foo) (bar)"?

 _Wikipedia goes on to consider Erlang and Scheme functional programming languages_

Yeah, people have diluted the term to near meaninglessness.

<comment><USER11> Generally, in Clojure you'd write (do (foo) (bar)). The do form tells Clojure to evaluate its arguments in order. Some forms have an implicit do, e.g. (when x y z) is (if x (do x y)), but in general the order in which forms are evaluated depends on the form containing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A pointless self-promotion that lacks any arguments and explanations etc. Catchy title though.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would have been nice if the link named "sample code" linked, to, uh, code rather than a git hub node that one might extract some code from, in maybe fifteen minutes.

All the other links seemed to be announcements for the guy speaking and article itself had no real _meat_. Show me some code does something hard easily and something easy, easily. And _don't make have it be factorial, I know functional programming can do factorial_.

<comment><USER3> I put my hand on my heart and tell you, after programming for 15 years in C and C++ on windows and linux, I am happy to throw it away after seeing how much better the same things can be done in 'lispy' languages [scheme, clojure, ruby]

Have a look at PGs 'on-lisp', 'the little schemer', the SICP book + video lectures, or 'practical common lisp' - they have example after example - finding fixed points, data query language, numerical approximations, symbolic algebra, pattern matching, logic languages, momoizing all expressed very clearly.

An excellent article you might enjoy is 'Functional Programming for the Rest of Us' : <http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/fp.html> [by a YC alumni, Slava]

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 Can anyone link me to (or provide themselves) a comparison of Clojure to Groovy?

I might regret admitting it but functional/dynamic programming is new to me, but I'd love to learn more about it. Groovy and Clojure sound pretty similar to me, minus the Lisp part, so I'm curious what some of the other major differences are.

<comment><USER14> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1314732/scala-vs- groovy-v...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1314732/scala-vs-groovy-vs- clojure)

From what I've read, Groovy is monstrously slow. That alone should rule it out.

<comment><USER15> You'd think it would rule Ruby out as well, but no...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everything has its place in software development, may it be closure or design patterns.</comment>


Basecamp's fresh start on Mail - <AUTHOR> http://Hey.com <comment><USER2> Not so. Nothing fresh about it.

[https://mrtechimist.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/apples-email- an...](https://mrtechimist.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/apples-email-and- basecamps-new-hey-emails-top-20-features/)</comment>


Heroku is down - <AUTHOR> https://status.heroku.com/incidents/711 <comment><AUTHOR> > As a precaution we have put the Heroku into maintenance mode while we deal > with the ongoing issue.

Looks like both production and development environments of heroku have been taken down. No further details so far...</comment>


Movie Color Analysis - Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.smartjava.org/examples/movie-viz/

<comment><USER2> Is there supposed to be a purpose to this? Personally, I don't think (accurate) Colour Analysis can be accomplished simply by taking the mean shades of every other horizontal line on the screen. A massive component of how cinematographers and art directors use colour to illustrate a story or reinforce the strength of a moment is through the alteration of colour. For instance, there are specific scenes in Up wherein a shift of mood is often conveyed through the adjustment of saturation.

Here's where this effect is most prevalent: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvgVsVmusPg>

Pay attention to the colour alteration present in Carl's face and the furnished surroundings after he reads Ellie's 'Stuff I'm Going to Do' scrapbook. It's subtle, but it means a whole lot of difference to viewers and filmmakers alike (the former on a relatively subconscious basis, of course).

Your methodology completely eliminates that variable, so I don't really know what you're expecting to get out of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> A very interesting article about the overuse of the orange and teal coloring seen in the first example: [https://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal- and-orange-h...](https://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange- hollywood-please-stop.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Bolt [1] is an interesting choice as a major plot point is the shift between the real world and the movie within a movie story of the main character.

Within the film they use color-grading as the main means of indicating the switch and you can easily pick out individual scenes from the display.

1 - [http://movies.disney.com/movies/bolt-4ba34c22e00d459e961b966...](http://movies.disney.com/movies/bolt-4ba34c22e00d459e961b9666)

</comment><comment><USER5>
      >In the last couple of months I saw a couple visualizations

Author is probably referring to this: <http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/> or similar

Examples:

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) [http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space-...](http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space- odyssey-1968-prints)

BLADE RUNNER (1982) [http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade- runner-...](http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade- runner-1982-prints)

STAR WARS: COMPLETE SAGA (1977-2005) [http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13347201975/star-wars- co...](http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13347201975/star-wars-complete- saga-1977-2005-prints)

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) [http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the- wizard-of...](http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the-wizard-of- oz-1939-prints)

HARRY POTTER: COMPLETE SERIES (2001-2011) [http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/12390371286/harry- potter...](http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/12390371286/harry-potter- complete-series-2001-2011-prints)

<comment><USER6> I did something similar about a year ago in python using pyffmpeg and PIL.. <https://github.com/ksho/film-fingerprints>

Code is pretty crumby, but it does the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Blue and orange film covers:

[http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie- poster...](http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/)

[http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/features/worst-movie- poste...](http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/features/worst-movie-poster- cliches.php)

</comment><comment><USER8> See also Brendan Dawes' Cinema Redux project, I have one of these hanging on my wall:

<http://brendandawes.com/projects/cinemaredux/>

</comment><comment><USER9> no way is that average colour (what does that even mean?). it's something like the modal colour with saturation shifted to full.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't even know what these moves are. Nice visualization though - could you do a maybe more diverse selection of titles?

</comment><comment><USER11> So what were your thoughts when comparing the films? Will part 2 have a discussion?

</comment><comment><USER12> Shazam for video?</comment>


I got feedback on my idea in Palo Alto today. Stupid? - <AUTHOR>

I literally stood on a street corner in down-town Palo Alto and asked people if they would use my product. One gentleman who claimed himself to be a 'startup guy' seemed to think I was crazy for exposing my idea publicly in PA. Your thoughts? <comment><USER2> "Would you use my product" is really an awful question to ask. At a basic level, sure you get enough responses to see if its worthwhile. But the data is valueless, because its not even close to indicative of whether or not people will pay for it.

People will always tell you "oh sure, sounds like a good idea, I'd use it" because they want to save face and encourage you. There is NO cost to them, real or social, and so they will most often choose that option.

Hell, when I did presales research for a b2b product, I talked with people who told me about their woes, gave great data and indicated that they would pay $X a month for a service that solves their problem. Guess what: none of those people ended up being my first customers, despite telling me they were interested and willing to pay.

I could probably care less about "giving away" my ideas these days, there's just too much that goes on behind execution to care anymore. Entrepeneurs get paid because we deal with problems and bullshit every day; if you want to have the same problems and bullshit I'm facing, go for it. Competition is overrated when it comes to affecting your bottom-line.

That said, just build the damn thing or pretend to have something built where you can measure the amount of people willing to pay for it (not a survey, I mean literal clicks and submissions where people think they're going to go to pay for it).

<comment><USER3> Did the OP say anything about people needing to pay to use his product? Would you pay to use facebook? Probably not, but they have hundreds of millions of users. "using" is a good first step to know whether you should pursue something at all. Figuring out how to monetize is next step - users paying directly may just be one method.

<comment><USER2> No, the poster didn't say whether or not he was selling a product. But generally, if you have to ask an audience if they'd use your hypothetical free product - you're doing it wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." — Howard Aiken

<comment><USER5> That is a great quote that pretty much sums it up. If people are intelligent enough and have the drive to do a start-up it is usually due to passion. Guess what, passionate people think their idea is better than yours and a guy with no vision and a pocket full of money is not going to go through the trouble of stealing a product idea, assembling a team, and building a product. There is plenty of low hanging fruit out there that makes money with little involvement required and those are the opportunities a guy with cash and no vision is going to be looking at.

You run a far larger risk of developing a product, getting good traction and then someone emulating your idea after you have proved the market exists for a product, but when it is an idea on a napkin, it is an idea on a napkin and that's all it is worth. Isolating yourself from early feedback due to fear is the worst thing you can do.

I had an idea for an electromagnetic weight bench once and I have some pretty good connections in the industry. I discussed the idea with the executive group at EAS and Weider, hoping one of them would use the idea as I never had intentions of designing and building it, I just want an electromagnetic weight bench that I can dynamically adjust the weight, with an accelerometer that kills the weight if the bar is dropped to prevent injury.

They all though it was an amazing idea, I even got promises of financial backing if I wanted to pursue it. To this day, I don't have my electromagnetic weight bench because I was too busy at the time to do it myself and my passion lies elsewhere.

My point is, I put a good idea in front of industry leader, they though it was an amazing idea and they still told me, if you want to see it happen then you build it. They where more than willing to put up the money to a person with the vision, but they where not going to pursue assembling the people to make it happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure one person, after hearing your idea, ran home and immediately started working on a competitor.

Seriously though, the "startup guy" doesn't know much. Stealth mode rarely is useful — more useful is getting information and feedback from potential customers, suggestions from other (knowledgable) startup people, and getting the word out about your potential product to encourage critiques and even more feedback. Keep up the good work.

</comment><comment><USER7> You tell us. Did you get any useful information? It's only stupid or crazy if it didn't work, and genius if it did.

You should turn it into an experiment and try at different times of day and locations (you will get vastly different people shopping in the middle of the day, at a bar, or heading to a wifi coffee shop after work)

<comment><USER8> Couldn't agree more. We went to Techcrunch Disrupt and got a table in the startup alley for <http://webpop.com> even though we are not seeking investors and the typical guy there is not really our target.

We were wondering if it was crazy or not, but after a day of spending 9 hours showing our product, explaining what is was all about and pitching the ideas to people we got an amount of information that no doubt made it worth it to us.

As many other say, I don't think exposing your idea or talking to strangers comes with any risk worth planing around, but whether what you did was worth it: I'm pretty sure you already know it yourself by now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't ask them if they'd use your solution, ask them if they have your problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> What is your idea?

</comment><comment><USER11> I would have assumed you had a plan before you stood on the corner asking questions. Maybe you decided:

\- how many people you wanted to talk to \- the type of people (kids, working adults, homeless, men, women, etc) \- the response you were expecting from the interaction \- the number of responses you were expecting

Now, did the results of your experiment meet the criteria for your test and if so, were the responses actionable?

I would say you were crazy and wasted your time if you didn't already have an idea of what you were trying to accomplish. Otherwise, I'd say, "Great! What did you find out".

</comment><comment><USER12> Naw, great idea and approach - gotta make sure you do it properly though (I did market research as a student) otherwise results are useless, so if you haven't done that before just check out a few samples and copy their structure (you'll get a bazillion times better results).

And yeh, if your idea is any good then:

a. You're doubtless not the first person to have had it b. As soon as you publicly execute a heap of people will copy you

So it doesn't matter if everyone knows it, the main thing is whether you can do it better than anyone else... see Zynga :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was on University Av. Essentially I got the impression that most people shy away from giving negative feedback in a face-to-face encounter - so as not to create social awkwardness. I also published at 5 question survey to 200 people asking the same questions I asked in person using <http://askyourtargetmarket.com> (lean startup bundle). The feedback from AYTM was overwhelmingly less positive.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sometimes I think that "Ideas are cheap; show me the end product." (Just like "Talk is cheap; show me the code.")

<comment><USER14> "To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions." -- Derek Sivers (at <http://sivers.org/multiply> )

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> That person you talked to doesn't know what he is talking about. You'll both fail for entirely different reasons. Coffee shops are better than street corners btw. Leave Palo Alto if you want a better slice of real people.

</comment><comment><USER16> Asking people whether they'll use your product or not will not help because people don't know what they want.

Create your product and only then you'll know.

</comment><comment><USER17> Use Amazon mechanical turk to validate your idea.

</comment><comment><USER18> East Palo Alto or West Palo Alto?

<comment><USER10> Probably West somewhere on University Ave. But East Palo Alto may be more representative of the average population.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> mkrecny, how would you rate this method of getting feedback?

</comment><comment><USER20> Depends on the idea and product.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why not ask for feedback on HN?

<comment><USER22> hacker news isn't a reflective sample of the real world? neither is standing on the street corner but it at least might get you out of the tech/startup community.

<comment><USER23> I don't think Palo Alto is the best place to do this if that is your goal.

<comment><USER22> true there are far better places than Palo Alto, but comparitively, if you want to get outside of the tech community, it is still better than here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/04/is-it-time-for-you-to-earn-or-to-learn/

<comment><USER2> People are getting better at doing these equity calculations, and at the same time starting a company has never been easier so early stage companies need to offer more ownership to woo employees who have the "other offer" of their own startup idea...

The net result is that equity shares for the first 10 people in the company seem to be rising.. That's good! And it could also mean that being number 3-10 at a company could be a chance to both learn and earn.</comment>


Main Core - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core

<comment><AUTHOR> _As of 2008 there were reportedly eight million Americans listed in the database as possible threats, often for trivial reasons, whom the government may choose to track, question, or detain in a time of crisis._</comment>


Lively, Google's virtual world, has been a flop - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11968413&subjectID=348963&fsrc=nwl <comment><USER3> it's been out like 3 days. I agree that it seems dumb so far but google has released tons of stuff that seemed half baked and then over time gets better.

I remember everyone hating google talk when it first came out. No one liked Google news when it first came out either.

There is no guarantees but give it six months to a year before you're 100% sure it's dead.

<comment><USER4> To play Devil's Advocate, the difference is that GTalk offers very useful functionality. The Gmail integration was top-notch and the fact that it used Jabber meant that I can use it with iChat alongside AIM without effort. This isn't offering anything useful: virtual worlds add complexity where complexity isn't needed. Used to be Google was great at avoiding useless clutter - <USER2> again Gmail and Gtalk - but as time went on they've slackened, Gmail didn't progress at all - versus their competitors - and even Gtalk isn't really revolutionary, it's just been pushed with other products.

<comment><USER5> I'd love to check out some GMail alternatives, what are some competitors that you think have a better product?

<comment><USER6> A lot of my friends swear by Yahoo! mail, but they also pay for it.

<comment><USER5> I actually hate the Yahoo mail interface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Once again, google stumbles with something remotely social. They really need to stop thinking algorithm is king for non-search products. Also, I've heard many anecdotes of designers being treated as second class citizens. That has to stop.

<comment><USER8> _They really need to stop thinking algorithm is king for non-search products._

Source or Is this just anecdotal evidence? I do agree with you that a better algorithm doesn't guarantee an automatic win.

<comment><USER7> Generally, the company is engineering driven. This is well known.

A product manager / designer friend of mine was asked to code on a white board during an interview. That is retarded.

<comment><USER8> cool. thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I tried using it like 5 times in a span of 2 weeks. Each time it wouldn't connect. It's plauged with bugs, wonky UI and all sorts of things. Not something I expected from Google.

<comment><USER5> It has a major flaw so far: "Requires Windows Vista/XP"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The virtual world thing will work, but these are half-baked non-functional attempts. These are the wright brother prototypes.

But the 3D world is coming, and it will replace our textual web. Many of us here will never change, but the new generation will switch.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, because 3D is so much more useful that 2D for ummmm..... let me think about this one for a while. The 3D virtual world will not be coming for a very, very long time. Until we have a cheap and simple way to do 3D presentation the whole virtual world thing is a non-starter; once that appears you can start to talk about how things might, possibly, change.

<comment><USER10> And 640K will be enough for anyone. There is no point in twitter. Instant Messaging is for kids. The MP3 Player market is saturated. The million dollar homepage is retarded.

<comment><USER11> Rather than cherry picking failed predictions (btw, the million dollar home page is _still_ retarded) you should try to explain what it is that a 3D digital environment offers that makes it so superior to a 2D environment. I guess the difference between us is that I have actually worked for a failed virtual worlds company back in the day (Electric Communities) and so I know both how hard it is to pull this off from a technical side as well as how many of the things you think people might want to do in 3D are really things they will happily do using regular web and internet services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People expected this to get big?

I think it would of been a surprise if it did get big and even though it hasn't had much of a chance, I still don't think it's a good product.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well this is rather obvious. There have been a number of attempts at MMO non- games that were solely for player interaction--but I've never seen one actually work. People play games to have fun, or at least to interact with others to do something that they wouldn't be doing in real life.

Nobody is going to bother installing a multi-gigabyte glorified chatroom.

<comment><USER14> Actually, this is what lots of MMOs end up being anyhow. Being a leader of an alliance in Eve or a merchant, the most used tools are TeamSpeak and the chat rooms. Lots of tabletop Role Playing Games also end up being social gatherings where the primary enjoyment is the resulting laughter, and the game was just a pretext.

<comment><USER15> "[...]and the game was just a pretext."

Which is exactly the point. Without the pretext of the game, less people would show up for the gathering, resulting in a lower "resulting laughter" quotient.

As one of the "shy ones", I can confirm that having a shared activity encourages me to come to the event, and ensures that noone is "left out" (as their character has something to do, even if they personally have nothing to add socially). An interaction within the confines of the 'game' encourages more voluntary interactions, not to mention giving people a pretext for conversation, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It doesn't seem to be doing that bad, actually. Their facebook appliacation has nearly 3000 active monthly users, and seems to be growing nicely.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm all for launching early, but Google could have afforded to keep this internal for awhile. Why release something that the lead engineer admits "is not as complete or polished as planned in designs"?

<comment><USER18> Compare: <http://niniane.org/>

With the July 2006 version: [http://web.archive.org/web/20060715233014/http://niniane.org...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060715233014/http://niniane.org/)

And that's just the oldest one that archive.org even has.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Props to Google for trying things outside their core competencies. It takes guts risk failure, especially when you're a big company.</comment>


Why F1 Steering Wheels Have Over 20 Buttons - And What They All Do - <AUTHOR> http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2011/04/22/steering-wheels/ <comment><USER4> I am surprised that there are not more F1 fans here on HN. It is the best sport to follow if you are a techie or geek - there is so much advanced technology involved in the cars and racing that make what happens off the track and in development just as exciting as the actual races.

These guys are on the cutting edge in a number of fields: materials science, aerodynamics, computer aided design (there is a car this year that was designed and tested all in software with no wind-tunnel), energy recovery systems, fuel performance, tyre compounds, telemetry, computing power and machine learning with strategy, etc. etc. etc.

<comment><USER5> Rabid F1 fan here. What do you think about the introduction of DRS? (DRS is a "drag reduction system" which allows drivers to move the rear wing to reduce drag when passing.)

I like that it's making the race more exciting with more passing, but it doesn't really seem like a fair race at the end. For example, a driver could lead the whole race and then get passed in the last lap due to the unfair advantage of the DRS.

<comment><USER6> I know this will probably sound heretical, but I think that there's no such thing as an "unfair advantage". If we really wanted to see technical innovation in F1, there would be virtually no restrictions on the cars - <USER2> some basic safety stuff for the drivers.

<comment><USER7> But the DRS does have a lot of rules which may deem it unfair. For example, if one car is leading and another following, the following car is allowed to use DRS, but the leading car isn't.

<comment><USER8> well, that's the whole point.

due to the aerodynamics you generally need a 1 to 1.5 second per lap speed advantage to pass a car. as soon as you get close to the car in front you lose a lot of downforce. this would not be a problem if the cars were always moving in a straight line.

to even out the playing field DRS is activated if you are closer to the guy in front than 1 second at a certain point on the track. once activated the DRS system can be deployed beyond a certain point.

the alternative is to keep the wings and have parades with almost no overtaking. or no wings, which would mean no more exciting 5.5g seventh gear turns. which would kinda suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A case in point that experts can handle complex interfaces, as long as they provide more control.

<comment><USER10> And as long as they are properly trained. None of us would be able to simply get into an F1 car and figure out what even half of these buttons do.

<comment><USER11> Likely, none of us would be able to simply get into an F1 car and _even drive it anywhere at all_.

There was a Top Gear episode where Richard Hammond tried to drive an F1 car. I figured with his experience he could make a decent go at it, but apparently the cars are so specifically tuned for going fast that it's all-out, or nothing.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo>

<comment><USER12> Specifically, the problem is braking.

In normal use, a F1 car will never be driven _gently._ It will be driven very, very quickly by a professional, racing against other professionals who are also driving hard. So the tires have a lot less traction when they're cold, and the brakes don't work enormously well either.

Hammond needed to be going much faster, just so the car could work properly; but alas, he's a television show host, not a driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> At first the "Drink bottle" button seemed pretty ridiculous to me. Then I remembered that driving 200mph and having to negotiate a water bottle by hand would probably be impossible.

<comment><USER14> some perspective on how fast f1 cars are:

mostly road-going race cars: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUhu13qp8Oc>

f1 cars: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seget3zOj_8&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seget3zOj_8&feature=player_detailpage#t=11s)

<comment><USER15> Being at a race _in person_ gives you a very different impression than TV. For one thing, video doesn't convey the incredibly ability of an F1 car to change direction.

But maybe the best illustration of your point is obvious at a race. When the pace car is out -- and mind you, this is a top-of-the-line Mercedes sports coupe -- it's going around the track just as fast as it can, tires squealing and the whole works. And the parade of F1 cars is following as if it's a walk in the park, swerving left-and-right in an effort to keep their tires warm at such "slow" speeds.

<comment><USER16> The swerving left and right actually does not keep their tires warm, especially at those lower speeds since they aren't generating enough downforce. What it can do is communicate to the driver what the tires can do right now and provide the confidence when they need it. Accelerating/braking is how they generally put heat into the tires.

<comment><USER15> Upvoted because you're right about the actual heating effect, or lack thereof. However, that doesn't change the fact that heat is the stated reason that drivers are doing it, even if that's (a) only part of the reason, and (b) a superstition. Drivers, as with other sportsmen, can be very superstitious.

<comment><USER17> I think it is to keep mentally active (aka boredom)

Kinda like when you are waiting for a FPS game to load and you just make circles with your mouse pointer.

<comment><USER18> no no no, that's to warm up my arm and get my accuracy up. Same as why I mash buttons right before starting to play SC2. It's all science no superstitions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ha - the turbo boost button is Z, not B (but you have to pick up a mushroom first).

Michael Schumacher was the king of the 'extra controls' on the steering wheel when back at Ferrari, supposedly changing many of the parameters controlling car setup while going round a corner. (Insert 'had them before everyone else' hipster joke here). I'm sure this must have influenced this setup.

However, think of the other side of the coin. Consider the UI design problem of too much information in an emergency for safety critical systems, particularly in the context of this article: <http://en.espnf1.com/williams/motorsport/story/39747.html>

<comment><USER16> To be honest, Barrichello isn't someone you should pay that much attention to on such topics. I think he's the only F1 driver that still uses his right foot for braking when it's proven that left foot braking provides a clear advantage.

Also, F1 highly depends on passive safety systems instead of ones that require driver input, because when things go wrong, there usually isn't much a driver can do to fix it anyways.

<comment><USER20> Do you have a pointer to good info on the left foot braking thing? I wonder if it's applicable to normal driving as well. I remember thinking that right- footed braking seemed dumb when I was learning to drive. The best explanation anyone could give me was that in a panic you might slam on both pedals, which didn't seem like a great argument.

<comment><USER21> When driving a stick shift, you'll frequently need to shift gears while either accelerating or braking, meaning your left foot must always be free to operate the clutch while the right foot is either on the throttle or the brakes.

If you get into the habit of braking with your left foot while driving an automatic, you'll have real problems whenever the need arises to drive a manual. I think that's a much better reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's the Emacs of driving!

<comment><USER23> Doesn't seem to use chording.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. vi4life!

<comment><USER23> It's not too modal, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting to note that the steering wheel alone costs in the region of $40k.

<comment><USER25> Probably because they're not mass-produced. For some enterprise-level prototype printers at Lexmark, it costs around 40-50k to produce one, but once they reach production, the consumer only pays a few thousand for one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> They show the wheel clicking into place after the driver is in. How many contacts do you think they have between wheel and car? Is it some kind of serial protocol where they only need 2 wires? RS-485 maybe

<comment><USER27> Should be no more complex than a laptop dock connector which also clicks in place.

<comment><USER28> except for, you know, the part where it has to fit onto the end of the steering column between the drivers' knees, withstand strong forces without malfunctioning or becoming dangerous, and operate in all weather conditions.

<comment><USER29> An example of the forces involved on the steering wheel - Petrov's crash earlier this year where he jumped the car and the steering column broke: [http://videos.larioja.com/informaciondecontenido.php?con=343...](http://videos.larioja.com/informaciondecontenido.php?con=3437)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The biggest surprise was when he alluded to the fact that when going through a corner you have to change differential settings three times ... I imagine just taking a corner at those speeds would be hard enough, let alone playing around with buttons while doing it.

<comment><USER31> I didn't interpret it like that. I think that while they may fiddle for balance (for example as the fuel burns off, and the weight comes down, or as the tyres wear etc), I'm not sure they change it for each corner. He mentioned there was a setting for "high speed" corners so I think it's a case of getting the optimum setup for a lap, and then running with that for a while.

While there are a lot of switches, it's noticable that the ones they'd want to use a lot, like the KERS, are very close to the fingers in their normal position, whereas the ones which are more "setup" or "fiddle" are closer to the centre of the wheel. I don't think they go through a corner with one hand on the wheel and the other adjusting something in the middle of the steering wheel.

Still I suppose when the xBox "F1 Controller" of "tomorrow" comes out, we'll all find out. (Alas without the G-Forces...)

<comment><USER15> _while they may fiddle for balance (for example as the fuel burns off, and the weight comes down, or as the tyres wear etc), I'm not sure they change it for each corner._

Actually, the setup of the car is not active at all, except for brake bias (which is set via a mechanical lever on the cockpit wall). There is no way to change ride height, stiffness, etc., dynamically.

About 20 years ago there was a period in which everything about the cars were dynamic (culminating in the Williams FW-14B [1]). The ride height and other suspension settings, etc., were all under electronic control, so that the setup could be altered for every corner. And thanks to bidirectional telemetry, these settings were actually controlled remotely from the pits without the driver needing to intervene. However, the arms race of complexity and cost led teams to agree to a ban on this technology. It's a bit of a shame, because the engineering had become every bit as interesting as the racing itself.

[1] <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Williams_FW14>

<comment><USER32> This is typically the case in most types of auto racing. In some cases (the WRC comes to mind), it was pushing manufacturers out of the sport because they couldn't keep up with the costs.

<comment><USER15> _In some cases (the WRC comes to mind), it was pushing manufacturers out of the sport because they couldn't keep up with the costs._

Not that I disagree with your point, but there's another factor in WRC: Sebastian Loeb.

If sponsors want to be associated with winning teams, then there's really no point in sponsoring any team besides Citroen. There's very little chance of anyone other than Loeb winning the championship, and good luck waiting for a podium that he's not standing on.

I think you can see this (albeit less clearly) after late 80s F1. A McLaren team-up of Senna and Prost delivered the best two drivers, plus Honda and McLaren's engineering skill; there was little opportunity for anyone else to compete. The result was a decade of competitive wasteland as the sport recovered (giving such lame drivers as, imho, Damon Hill, an opportunity to win a World Driving Championship). It wasn't until a combination of Schumacher's skill and Ferrari resurgence that things got at all interesting again.

<comment><USER33> Sort of, but I'm not sure I'd quite agree with your history.

Prost and Senna were alone toe-to-toe for 3 years, 1988-90. Senna wasn't a realistic threat before then (neither was Prost in '87), while '86-87 the dominant battle was between Mansell and Piquet at Williams. But, yes, 1988-90, Senna and Prost carved things up between them. After that...

1991, Ferrari (Prost's team) were nowhere, there was a late season challenge to Senna from Mansell's Williams but they'd had too much early season unreliability

1992, Ferrari were worse than nowhere, McLaren were comprehensively trounced too. Mansell walked it for Williams

1993, Prost wins relatively comfortably from Senna with a major car advantage.

1994, Prost retires and Senna dies.

There were then:

* 2 years of Benetton & Schumacher

* 2 years of Williams, Hill then Villeneuve

* 2 years of McLaren & Hakkinen

and we're now a) out of the 10 year window and b) into the Schumacher & Ferrari juggernaut.

Now, I've heard a number of expert commentators suggest that Schumacher's record is flattered by the opposition he faced, I wouldn't disagree that Hakkinen, Hill and in particular Villeneuve are perhaps not the strongest champions F1 ever saw and I'm not sure this period of F1 was necessarily the most competitive. BUT - I definitely don't agree with your characterisation of F1 history there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why can't he show us the back?

<comment><USER21> Teams try not to show anything they don't absolutely have to, whether they have secrets there or not. It's just how they roll.

Mercedes, however, do have something called a "magic paddle". So they do have an actual reason for keeping the back of the steering wheel away from prying eyes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a short video clip of a reporter attempting to get Mercedes GP's team principal Ross Brawn to disclose the details of the "Magic Paddle": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luWuJx2Ukik>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It is interesting to note how F1 technology makes its way into consumer cars.

Take Ferrari, for example. Although first introduced in the F430, the 458 Italia features a steering wheel-mounted manettino dial that allows the driver to configure settings that directly impact the speed of gearbox changes, traction control settings and differential settings.

Starting at about 1:05, this video demonstrates how the various manettino settings are utilized on the 458 Italia, and how they modify the vehicle's driving profile.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLGFP1644aU>

</comment><comment><USER35> Video discussing lotus's steering wheel - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Zkbbfygjw>

and one with Lewis Hamilton discussing his - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMvt0rO20g> \- though he does get talked over in Italian (I think it is).

</comment><comment><USER36> So how does this compare to a NASCAR wheel? ;)

<comment><USER37> A NSACAR wheel is pretty simple. A radio button and that's about it. They put the controls on the dash. Remember a NASCAR car and F1 car have different requirements. An F1 car's goal is to go as fast as possible and nothing else. A NASCAR car's goal is to go pretty fast, but take a beating while doing it.

<comment><USER38> F1 cars tend to go round a few different types of corner as well ;-)

<comment><USER37> And F1 drivers need a special button so they don't speed on pit road. What's your point? They're different types of racing.

<comment><USER39> The point was that NASCAR only turns left, or so the joke goes.

<comment><USER40> Except that they don't. NASCAR has had road courses for as long as I can remember.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is this considered ugly by minimalist (say Apple like) oriented designers? Could an UI like this, to be used by experts most efficiently, be redesigned with a minimalistic mindset, or the complexity of the underlying system has to appear?

<comment><USER42> This _is_ designed to be used by experts most efficiently. This is already minimalist. Single function (non-modal) buttons are the fastest, most fail- proof way of controlling state. Peek into the cockpit next time you get into a plane. I was actually a bit surprised that there is a "Multifunctional Rotary Switch" which appears to be modal.

Don't confuse visual minimalism with actual simplicity. I believe BMW did that with their iDrive system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43>
      B      : Activates Kinetic Energy Recovery System
      Oil    : Activates supplementary oil tank for engine
      PL     : Turn pit lane speed limiter on/off
      Tyre   : Adjust electronics to suit different tyres

Any idea why those aren't automatic? I'd think you'd have some computer- detectable indication for when oil would be useful, pit-lanes are identifiable by detecting location, and send the tire type over wirelessly when changed. And why _wouldn't_ you want KERS running?

Seriously, I'm asking. I'm not an F1 buff.

When you have that much on the wheel, I'd think removing what you can would be important. Especially given the very-early line:

> _This year designers have had to squeeze in buttons for [KERS] and Drag > Reduction Systems along with the usual array of toggles, switches and > levers._

Removing 4 buttons would seem to be an improvement, though a bit of a drop in a bucket.

<comment><USER44> 1\. The radios on these cars go bad all the time - saw the number of backup buttons for when that happens?

2\. KERS - you are limited to use it only for 6.6 seconds per lap - and, the driver gets to decide when to use it. Thus, it has to be a button.

3\. PL: PL ensures that you don't go above or below the 75 KPH or whatever speed limit each track has. This zone is marked by a well defined line at the start and the end of the zone. I don't think that GPS is that accurate to turn this on/off automatically - especially considering the importance hundredths of seconds makes in this sport. Second, you don't want a car suddenly braking automatically or find the accelerator free automatically when the driver's not really prepared for the exact moment.

4\. Oil: I believe this is in place for a 'what-if' scenario.

5\. Tyre: Again, I am sure that this is in place because of the 'what-if- radio-does-not-work' scenario.

There isn't really any space to have levers anywhere else on the car like the hidden bonnet/boot switch and the backups also find their way to the steering wheel! ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I love the user interface design work that goes into the F1 wheels - <USER3> they're all completely custom by each team, for each driver. Great website as well.

</comment><comment><USER46> D - Drink Bottle - Perhaps the most important button? Performance and concentration does increase quite a bit when you're properly hydrated.

<comment><USER47> They've mentioned it breaking in hot muggy countries, I think Coulthard said he lost a few kilos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> So how many more seasons before the drivers become obsolete and the engineer in the pits controls the entire car?

<comment><USER49> Could probably do it now, but no one would watch.

<comment><USER48> F1 robo series maybe?

I agree the driver still has a lot of influence. But, if drones can fly around in the skies then a pilotless F1 car is not so unrealistic. Fans liking robo F1 cars no one really knows for certain but it would be very interesting to see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> One activates the buzzsaw blades, one activates the jump, one sends a robotic messenger bird...

(Yes, I know Speed Racer was rallying and not F1.)

</comment><comment><USER51> I watch F1 regularly, but to hear him speak of getting a gain of "tenths of a second" as a huge thing is still astonishing to me. Must be a frustrating life. Specially speaking as a software developer, where we're getting a free doubling of the speed every 18 months. I'm sure Moore's Law will run out at some point, but I can never quite appreciate exactly how much that helps us. The helps give a little perspective.

<comment><USER52> Just be glad you don't work on high-frequency trading systems if "tenths of a second" seems like a frustratingly small gain. Our office erupts into cheers when we shave a microsecond or even 500 nanoseconds off our loop times. :)

<comment><USER53> Loop of what, some kind of numerical iteration? Sounds like fun, what kind of platform is this on. I assume any kind of OS or HLL is out of the question.

<comment><USER54>
        I assume any kind of OS or HLL is out of the question.

Not really, computers are fast! Per message costs of a few microseconds are pretty standard even in Java/C# stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Someone from Apple needs to visit them. Create the iF1 with one button, capacitive touch screen, and GESTURES!</comment>


It's open-source software that's eating the world - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/12/06/its-actually-open-source-software-thats-eating-the-world/ <comment><USER2> (1) They say that 78% of the companies surveyed use OSS internally. I'll bet it's more like 78% realize or admit it. It would probably be very hard to run a business nowadays without using at least some OSS somewhere.

(2) The author's recommended approach of combining some OSS with proprietary enhancements (commonly called "open core") is certainly not the only way to make money from OSS, and I don't think there's even much evidence that it's a particularly effective approach. _Some_ customers are "more than happy" to pay for an "enterprise grade" version. Others aren't, and that number goes up as the price for the proprietary version increases. They'll go it alone, hire consultants, or switch to competitors.

A recurring-revenue "subscription" model works surprisingly well. (This is where I should add a disclaimer that I work at Red Hat.) Customers will pay a modest amount, year after year, to get easy/timely updates, priority bug fixes, training, certification, indemnification, access to developers, and so on. People will be "more than happy" to pay for a safety net that they never actually use, and it's easier to keep TCO lower than competitors with this model than with the open core "freemium" model. Less immediate revenue per customer, but more customers and more loyalty. I guess "don't be greedy" is the lesson here. ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> What are examples of successful(profitable) open source companies?

<comment><USER4> Canonical, MySQL (now Oracle), Zimbra (now VMware), Zend, Gluster (also acquired, I forgot by who) and a whole bunch of others are or were at some point open source companies.

Pure open source software companies are relatively few in number but companies that contribute to open source and profit from that open source in that they have a lot more people working on the code and taking care of bug spotting and bug fixing is considerable.

One nice example of that is Basecamp.

Open source companies that are successful are acquired at a relatively high rate so they don't usually last as such independently.

<comment><USER5> _Open source companies that are successful are acquired_

Acquisitions aren't success though. It's just "failing upwards" for the founders. Successful companies are self sustaining.

<comment><USER4> That depends on the goals of the founders.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't it just make the _founders and investors_ successful, but not the company? Just look at Carousel and Mailbox today... ;)

<comment><USER4> It can go either way. But an acquisition _can_ be a success. For instance Android.

<comment><USER5> It isn't about _product_ success, it's about _company_ success. Even for one- trick-monkey companies like Android (see how their prior sale to Microsoft went... smashing success)—selling a company is the literal death of the company and the _absence_ of success outside of private financial engineering.

<comment><USER4> I think you're stuck in a groove of your own making. Selling a company is not a 'literal death' because a company never was 'literally alive'. It is merely a convenient fiction that allows multiple people to work together and to somewhat fairly share the proceeds. Survival of a company is never an inherent goal. Survival of a product _can_ be such a goal.

Companies are utterly un-important, they are simply vehicles.

<comment><USER5> It's difficult to buy stock in a product. It's difficult to make an index fund of products. It's difficult to retire on "product dividends."

Companies exist as an attempt to get all the money in the world, and most fail that goal. Apple is pretty close. Refusal to acknowledge failure as _failure_ is pathological insanity. Getting paid to fail (or to "soft land" and save face on an outright failure) doesn't mean the fail didn't happen.

<comment><USER4> > It's difficult to make an index fund of products.

Well, that's what I said, companies are _vehicles_.

> It's difficult to retire on "product dividends.

But you can retire on corporate dividends. And when a companies shares are acquired you either get money _or_ shares in the acquiring company.

> Companies exist as an attempt to get all the money in the world

How do you square that with 'it is hard to retire on product dividends'? Companies pay out dividends to their shareholders.

Companies clearly do not exist to 'get all the money in the world' because then the economy would grind to a halt.

> and most fail that goal.

All companies fail that goal. They fail every time they buy new resources, pay out salaries, rent offices, pay out dividends and so on.

In fact, the _worst_ thing for a company is to have a whole pile of cash and nothing to do with it, that's money that is not currently working for the company in a meaningful way. That's why companies tend to manage their liquid reserves very carefully.

> Apple is pretty close.

Close to getting all the money in the world? No, not even remotely close. And even all that money that Apple has is indirectly owned by the _shareholders_ of Apple. Either Apple will have to spend it or they will have to pay out. Having it sit there does them no good.

> Refusal to acknowledge failure as failure is pathological insanity.

Are you calling me insane in a roundabout way?

> Getting paid to fail (or to "soft land" and save face on an outright > failure) doesn't mean the fail didn't happen.

Oh, that happens. But it's pretty rare. But better than chapter 11 if that's the alternative.

<comment><USER5> _Are you calling me insane in a roundabout way?_

It takes one to know one.

 _But it 's pretty rare._

Pretty rare? That's back to the beginning, because every acquisition means the bought company has explicitly failed to become "real" in a make-more-than-we- spend (and continually grow the "make more") sense.

 _But better than chapter 11 if that 's the alternative._

I'd rather see 20-somethings lose everything and learn tough, introspective, life changing lessons, than see them running around with their "soft landing" $10 million paydays just because they had the right connections.

<comment><USER4> > It takes one to know one.

I think we're done here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Sells AOL Stake Back To Time Warner For $283 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sells-aol-stake-back-to-time-warner-for-283-million-2009-7 <comment><USER2> Everyone is claiming that Google lost $700 million in this deal, which is true, but I think it's more important to notice that by selling now they are avoiding future losses. It always sucks to sell a stock after you've lost money on it, but it sucks even more to ride it down further if there's very little hope of it recovering.

<comment><USER3> It's also important to consider the counterfactual where it was Microsoft who had landed that search/ad deal. If I remember the discussion correctly, many considered this a defensive move on Google's part. I can't imagine that Google had a high opinion of AOL's prospects, so I assume they thought blocking MS was worth the loss.

<comment><USER4> Well, let's see if was -- they did this in December 2005, meaning the $750m works out to about $17m per month of the deal. Does Google make more than $17m per month from its partnership with AOL? Almost certainly, but it probably hurt a lot. They were expecting to be able to spread the cost over a lot longer, I'm pretty sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google already had written this off as a defensive cost to be sure. There's never been a surprise about this deal not being, prima facie, a good equity investment. However since it's been publicly traded, losing three points of market share would have had a much more material effect on the market cap, such that this made perfect sense to do.

As for how much it generated, I'll bet it was breakeven. Assume Google had a 90/10 or 85/15 revshare with AOL, so Google made maybe $100M-$150M off this deal if the prior three years' numbers are correct above.

</comment><comment><USER6> Any ideas how much Google made from the deal? If they did the same that AOL did, they made out okay on their investment despite the lower sell price:

> The Google relationship generated $678 million in revenue for AOL in 2008, > $642 million in 2007, and $573 million in 2006</comment>


Teen Gets Vaccines During Measles Outbreak, Despite Mom's Belief - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/09/692819105/defying-parents-a-teen-decides-to-get-vaccinated <comment><USER2> Herd immunity is immensely important and an underrated benefity in modern society.

We lived near a large religious community in Ohio that does not practice vaccination while my children were too small to be fully vaccinated. Whenever measles or other outbreaks would occur, we had legitimate fears for our children's health.

I wonder if the benefits of non-compliance were offset with more certain negative impacts if more people would be vaccinated. Something like a tax levied for not being vaccinated set at compensating the ongoing care for people who can't (rather than choose to not) be vaccinated and get sick with things herd immunity would prevent.

<comment><USER3> There is an currently an outbreak of Measles in Washington.

Yet the anti-vaxers are still out in force, against any move by the government requiring vaxination.[1]

People with children too young to be vacinated are running scared[2].

its odd. I really wonder sometimes what is driving the anti vax movement. It seems like something that exists with nothing for anyone to gain. I'm all for questioning things, but it seems people aren't able to make the rational decisions and are endangering others.

[1][https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/08/washington-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/08/washington- measles-outbreak-draws-crowd-hearing-vaccine-law)

[2][https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it- wi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it-will-take- off-like-a-wildfire-the-unique-dangers-of-the-washington-state-measles- outbreak/2019/02/06/cfd5088a-28fa-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html)

<comment><USER4> It's a _great thing_ that the anti-vaxers are coming out in force. Ideally on a calm day.

What a lot of people seem to be missing is that the anti-vaxxers are actually _pro-science_. They are sacrificing to reproduce a result that the rest of us consider settled. The quicker they're able to draw a conclusion from their experiment, the better.

<comment><USER5> It's a good thing that these people's young children may contract violent whooping cough, or may die a miserable death, because their parents have freedom? It's good thing that others who can't vaccinate or otherwise benefit from herd immunity are getting sick while we let these parents play out their experiment?

I suspect you didn't mean that, but I think we need to take this more seriously, again, per the grandparent, given the broader public health risk that this movement plays, particularly outside its adherents.

<comment><USER4> What you have said is indeed the _direct implication_ of what I said. And I did mean to say what I said.

I've got to wonder if the sensationalist panic of our times isn't simply due to people not being able to accept mild sarcasm in written form. Humor is a coping mechanism - read some horrible less-mediated truth, shake your head, sigh, and build some consensus based around calming rather than outrage.

What I am plainly sure of is that getting more and more worked up ("take this more seriously") about the actions of people I can't control isn't going to solve the problem either.

<comment><USER6> When multiple people misunderstand you the problem is with your writing, not with their comprehension.

<comment><USER4> I don't think the issue was with understanding, but rather with my comment detracting from the moral panic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This should explicitly be allowed under the law. Right now parents can exempt their children from lifesaving vaccines. Kids should be allowed to override that.

<comment><USER8> More broadly, kids should have some basic rights to self-determination well before 18. In the US, kids have astonishingly few rights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Measles is incredibly bad. What people have found is that the introduction of measles vaccination in a country inevitably leads to a significant decrease in all cause mortality, which doesn't seem to be explained by a reduction in measles cases alone. It has long been known that those recovering from the measles are effectively in an immunocompromised state for several weeks, there is now increasing research pointing to the measles basically knocking out existing acquired immunity and resetting a person back into an immunologically naive state. This "immune shadow" then leaves individuals vulnerable to secondary infections (flu, rotavirus, etc.) which take their own toll and show up in different columns in the statistics down the road. Additionally, a very rare form of encephalitis can develop up to a decade after having the measles and is invariably fatal.

Get vaccinated.

</comment><comment><USER10> What I am really scared of is mutation of certain disease due to a lack of heard immunity. I thought it was logical that mutation of certain viruses poses a threat, even to vaccinated people within the heard, in a population where heard immunity is compromised?

</comment><comment><USER11> As one who cannot get some vaccine shots. I am ever thankful to those that do.

</comment><comment><USER12> Back in my day, the rebels just got tattoos when they were old enough. Maybe this generation will survive.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think the only way to fix this is to create a counter-conspiracy theory. Maybe something like "the anti-vax movement was started by the lizard people to weed out the weakest people so they'd only have the healthiest slaves in their salt mines"

The CDC putting out notices isn't going to help. That just feeds into the rejection of authority at the heart of it. The only hope is to out-crazy them.

<comment><USER14> >The only hope is to out-crazy them.

Or just outlaw all exemptions except medically necessary and block unimmunized children from attending school.

<comment><USER15> They'll homeschool them. In the worst case, you're punishing the kid, not the parent.

<comment><USER14> So be it. Fundamentalist Christians have the highest rate of home schooling now. At least the general public will be protected -- I'll take a slight uptick in home schooling for a huge increase in vaccination. And besides those truly committed to the cause the moms doing this because they're just followers will most likely not home school. Too much trouble.

<comment><USER16> I have blood relatives (not family) into this crap. Both the homeschooling and the fundamentalism. They "protect" their children from everything outside of their narrow worldviews, science being a chief villain. It's an incredible disservice to the kids. Who are alarmingly numerous and approaching voting age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't get it. If you don't feed your child, it's child abuse. Why is not providing vaccines any different? Why isn't this something you can make a CPS neglect case out of?

</comment><comment><USER18> Refusing to vaccinate children should be considered abuse and endangerment. Other than some rare health conditions there are zero legitimate reasons to not vaccinate.

<comment><USER8> It certainly seems like CPS takes kids away from their parents for less already (e.g., independent play or travel).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The only, who are in charge (up to some law cases) in their child health are its parents; if they decide to vaccine or not it's their beef, not ours.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is useless to talk to such people. You are using the scientific framework, they are not. Trust me, I tried.

Funny thing on the side:

Since a vaccination is rarely 100% effective but most people in the western world are vaccinated, more vaccinated people get sick than not vaccinated people. :-)

<comment><USER21> > _" It is useless to talk to such people. You are using the scientific > framework, they are not. Trust me, I tried."_

It's possible to get through to these people if you're willing to argue in terms they understand, which means dropping "scientific framework". You might be unwilling to do that, but if you can stomach it, it works. Constructing persuasive irrational arguments for positions that are correct takes some practice, but it's not exactly difficult.

<comment><USER20> Good luck.

[https://qz.com/1258198/conspiracy-theorists-believe-wild- ide...](https://qz.com/1258198/conspiracy-theorists-believe-wild-ideas- because-they-want-to-feel-special/)

"It's possible to get through to these people if you're willing to argue in terms they understand"

No, because they would lose their feeling of superiority. On what kind of basis do you want to discuss with them? If you present a fact they will just say: "We don't believe this!"

If you present scientific evidence they will say: "We don't accept this! This is not proof! We want proof".

"Proof" is something that is not not inherent in the scientific method, requiring it shows a total lack of understanding of science.

<comment><USER21> > _No, because they would lose their feeling of superiority._

Perhaps you've never gotten the hang of it, but it's possible to persuade people in ways that lead them to believe your idea was theirs. Learning this skill will improve your life, because most people you will encounter on your journey through life are not Spock impersonators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > "God knows how I'm still alive," Lindenberger wrote on Reddit last November.

Seems a bit over-dramatic. "Thank God" for the good luck would make more sense if he wants to say something along these lines; it's not like he defied astronomical odds. Millions of people in poor countries are still surviving without vaccination. Living in Ohio, he also benefits from sanitation and the majority of the community being vaccinated. That last bit is part of the problem -- people see "nobody" is sick anymore and think vaccines aren't needed.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have a Facebook friend who is fairly active in the anti-vaccine community. I don't know much about the science, but the one thing she has posted that has concerned me is that insurers pay doctors significant sums (tens of thousands) if the super-majority or their patients are vaccinated on a certain schedule. She has posted printouts that allege this, and I've not seen any arguments that dispute this claim (there are lots of people disputing other claims of hers, just not this one).

Does anyone know if this is true? It resonated with me because when we were vaccinating our baby, we asked if we could slow down the vaccination schedule and spread out the shots a little. The doctor was very strongly against any spacing, even though she couldn't articulate why. If she's being measured/compensated based on having patients vaccinated on-schedule as my friend claims is the case, this would explain her reaction.

Note: we fully vaccinated our child, despite her having an adverse reaction to the chicken pox vaccine (which we never had as kids, since at that time everyone just got the chicken pox).

<comment><USER5> This is what I hate the most about this anti-vax thing. They've gotten so much publicity and are so wide-spread, that even people who know vaccines don't cause autism, wind up getting trapped into this game where they think they have to compromise for the anti-vax viewpoint.

All they have to do is throw handwavey _bullshit_ out there until enough people doubt and do stupid made-up stuff like spacing out the vaccines for some unknown, unmeasurable benefit.

There are people in my state, in the "best country on Earth", dying from preventable diseases because of OTHER PEOPLES' pseudo-scientific crap and "beliefs". I just can't take it. When are we going to drop what we're doing and pour the billions we need into public education? - funding, reform, curriculum, emphasis on personal finance and logical reasoning skills. Pick a topic - climate change, flat earth, vaccines/autism, all of this irrationality starts with education.

Also, insurance companies go out of their way to incentivize and encourage proactive health measures, especially for younger groups; given all credible scientific research and data, and barring some other weird conspiracy, it seems reasonable to think they're encouraging vaccines because _they keep people from getting preventable diseases and suffering miserable deaths_.

<comment><USER24> > When are we going to drop what we're doing and pour the billions we need > into public education?

Anecdotal, but most of the anti-vaxxers I know are relatively highly educated.

<comment><USER25> Same here. I'm not antivax myself, but in those I know who are, they don't lack education. It seems more to do with distrust of authority in my observation.

<comment><USER26> In my experience it tends to both extremes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm really close to my mom. The difference between us is that I'm a militant atheist (not agnostic, there is a logical reason for that but it's off topic) and she's a hard core jehovahs witness. Imagine the conversations we have.</comment>


The Unexpected Uselessness of Philosophy, The Unexpected Usefulness of Mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://www.isteve.com/Philosophy.htm

<comment><USER2> Article title makes it looks promising but actual content fails to deliver.

Better to read 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences': <http://euler.slu.edu/~srivastava/wigner.pdf>

<comment><USER3> Thanks very much for that reference. That is a very interesting paper and I didn't know about it before.

Here's an html version: <http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html>

<comment><USER4> The article stems from 1960. Compare this citation with the causes of the Chernobyl disaster:

"The probabilistic nature of the "laws of nature" manifests itself in the case of machines also, and can be verified, at least in the case of nuclear reactors, if one runs them at very low power."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome. A lot of people revile Steve Sailer, but I think he's one of the best essayists writing today.

This quote in particular elegantly sums up the history of philosophy:

"To this day, most philosophers suffer from Plato's disease: the assumption that reality fundamentally consists of abstract essences best described by words or geometry. (In truth, reality is largely a probabilistic affair best described by statistics.)"

It's not so much the world that's probabilistic, though, as the human mind and the thoughts and abstractions we impose on the world. Hume was the first philosopher to explicitly argue that the mind works this way, and modern research has supported him.

I think that, as Sailer briefly suggests, there is value in studying the works of skeptical philosophers like Hume: it gives you the tools to see through the kind of bullshit that philosophy is full of. Because you don't just see it in philosophy. It's there whenever people argue about politics or religion, and whenever a dreamy computer scientist rambles about "objects" and "types" and whatnot. It's useful to able to refute these arguments by recognizing their meaninglessness.

<comment><USER6> I only revile Steve Sailer because of his self-marketing campaign of leaving many tiresome comments on the Freakonomics and Malcolm Gladwell blogs, taking the authors to task at length over various issues. I was unaware he was well- known from anywhere else. His essays may be splendid but he behaves like a kook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Before Plato and Heraclitus, Greeks thought reality was essentially chaotic and impossible to understand. You can see this in their creation myths. Heraclitus originated the idea of the Logos, a pattern underlying everything, and Plato built on this.

Articles like Steve's happen when people don't know their history of philosophy or science.

<comment><USER8> Well, the useful parts of philosophy tend to drop off and become other fields...and so what's left becomes "useless" by default.

<comment><USER7> The thing about philosophy is that it ultimately questions everything and is the gateway to every new realm of knowledge. Useless philosophy is just stagnant thinking that has given up on truth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This news.yc meme sucks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which meme?

<comment><USER10> the iSteve spam meme.

<comment><AUTHOR> A meme of two posts?

<comment><USER9> the meme of trashing anything that's not a hard science</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New electric car will do 250 miles on a single charge - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8315947.stm

<comment><USER2> _a specially developed fast charging point with a lead the diameter of a fire hose will fill up the car in just one hour.

You can get half a charge in only 10 minutes. _

That is the most appealing part to me. The thought of pulling into a charging station and pulling out 10 minutes later with 125 miles "in the tank" or stopping at a roadside diner and having the car fully charged by the time dinner is over is quite impressive.

Like with any other green technology, though, they'll have to get the price down to just a small premium over traditional cars.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's still more expensive than a $25,000 25mpg gas-powered sedan + 125,000 miles worth of gasoline @ $3/gal; but it's getting closer to practical.</comment>


Take a stand against patent trolls - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/03/31/take-stand

<comment><USER2> I was going to write up a full article, but I'll just post this here instead.

I was thinking shame might work a little bit. Most people, even lawyers and patent trolls, think of themselves as being good people. Calling them out directly can have quite an affect.

MacroSolve is one of the companies suing iOS developers over forms ([http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/05/macrosolve- joins-...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/05/macrosolve-joins-lodsys- in-suing-mobile-app-developers.php)).

Dr. Dale Schoenefeld, a CS professor and bureaucrat at University of Tulsa ([http://www.utulsa.edu/offices-and-services/information- techn...](http://www.utulsa.edu/offices-and-services/information- technology/about/administration.aspx)), is on the board. He probably doesn't care that I think he's a scumbag, but I imagine he might care how he is perceived by students and his colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER3> In order for this to be effective, defendants need to be able to discover other defendants being sued by the particular troll firm for that particular patent. Then the defense can be funded by multiple companies and the defense becomes more formidable.

This almost screams for a website - a central place to facilitate matchmaking between companies under suit by a particular troll.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately you're not going to see many companies saying "Yeah! We're being sued by that guy too!" because that quickly reduces to "we're being sued!", which never goes over well with investors, shareholders, employees, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Who is fighting to keep software patents as-is? Who are we up against? I have NEVER read anything in their favor. If we live in a society where the laws need to be changed, why are they just not changing? What horrors could actually come from abolishing software patents?

I just don't understand why this is still an argument. Who are we even arguing against? I never see anyone disagreeing with the argument. It's as if everyone hates the same thing yet it continues to exist and all we have to do is change it. So someone just change it.

<comment><USER6> There's a big pharma lobby who love patents and lobby for more of the same.

This is in itself a problem: there is no separation between types of patents, so we can't (easily) get separate policy on software, business methods, pharma etc. I imagine, for example, no one would particularly complain about software patents if they only lasted for 2 years. But the way it is now, that would mean all patents would expire after 2 years, and the pharma lobby would hate that.

Having said all that, best thing is to get rid of _all_ patents, and we'll start again when someone proves that narrow patents in a particular field have a benefit to the economy.

<comment><USER7> Speaking of pharmaceutical patents, I'd like to see two changes:

1\. There should be automatic licensing of the patent to anyone who wishes to make the drug, at a royalty rate on gross sales determined by statute. I'm thinking something around 5%.

2\. The patent term should be extended from 20 years to something like 100 years.

The idea here is that drug companies invest huge amounts in developing new drugs. Many of these don't even pan out. Some make it into production, and they are patented for 20 years. The drug company then has to charge a lot to make up for that huge investment before the patent expires, and the generics come on market.

So, for the first 20 years we consumers pay something like $30-50/month (after insurance--it could be $200 or more a month without insurance) for these drugs until they go generic, then it drops to around $4/month (and that is without insurance!).

Under my proposal, the generics would come out right away, for maybe around $5/month, and the original company would make back its investment over a very long term instead of needing to make it back over a relatively short term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The tacit assumption upon which this argument rests is that the trolls are guaranteed to lose in court (at least after an appeal). While that might be a fair assumption in the most egregious cases, in many circumstances the lower court will not be particularly skilled in patent law and an appeal to a specialized appeals court is by no means certain. A rational businessman might well chose to settle a case even if the probability of losing is just 5% simply because the penalties for patent infringement are so high in comparison to the settlement costs.

<comment><USER9> The OP also argues that the patent could be defeated by a patent review. "Virtually none of the patents that patent trolls buy would be issued today. The vast majority of these patents would not survive a U.S. Patent & Trademark Office patent review. Most were issued during the 1990s when the standards for business process patents were very low."

The OP goes on to say that the victims of patent trolls band together to finance the review to make it cheaper than settling.

<comment><USER10> The MacroSolve patent[1][2] was requested in 2003 and granted in 2010: forms on devices that transmit data to web servers.

The USPTO is broken.

[1][http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/05/worse-than-lodsys- ma...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/05/worse-than-lodsys-macrosolves- sues.html)

[2][http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,822,816.PN.&OS=PN/7,822,816&RS=PN/7,822,816)

<comment><USER11> It is impossible to expect the USPTO to determine novelty and non-obviousness for software patents. Imagine how difficult it would be to examine mechanical engineering patents if millions of people carried machine shops around in their backpacks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always wondered: what if you just responded to a patent troll with "screw you" and refused to play their game? What if you just did the absolute minimum and didn't take their bait to reach settlement? What could you face? Could you go to jail?

<comment><USER13> Patents are a civil matter. You'd end up involved in civil litigation, which means you pay an attorney to defend you, or the plaintiff would win by default. Usually, the goal is to settle prior to litigation, because litigation is incredibly expensive.

If you litigate and the plaintiff wins the case -- or you don't fight and lose by default -- the plaintiff gets a judgement against you. The judge/jury determine what you must pay to the plaintiff. With a judgement in hand, the plaintiff must start collection proceedings. This is a not-so-straight-forward process, and can take months, if not years, depending upon how evasive the defendant is and how aggressive the plaintiff attorney is.

Expect to receive garnishment orders for your pay, as well as other treats, such as having your checking account emptied without notice. Being evasive may also require additional court appearances and court orders. Failure to comply with a court order can result in charges of contempt. This usually means a fine, but can also result in jail time if the act is egregious.

At the end of the day, you may find yourself filing bankruptcy, in which case the trustee will be the one after your assets.

The whole time this is happening, it's very difficult to operate. Having someone chase you while paying thousands of dollars in attorney fees makes life very difficult.

The bottom line is that you cannot simply "refuse to play their game".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> And will Crutchfield be taking that stand? Because posting an article like this and then refusing to follow your own advice is foolhardy at best.

<comment><USER15> There is the EFF: <https://w2.eff.org/patent/>

<comment><USER14> That's not the point. Crutchfield wrote that article. I want to know if Crutchfield is following his own advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While we're on the topic of annoyances that get in the way of worthwhile activities, how about websites that publish interesting articles and then stick eye-catching auto-scrolling displays right next to them? It never ceases to amaze me how rarely it seems to occur to web-based publishers that someone might actually want to read their stuff.

Well, thank goodness for Readable.

Hey, maybe I should patent auto-scrolling ads, and then sue sites like this one. That would be patent trolling with positive social impact as the goal.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wish someone had a patent on the business process of buying patents just to sue companies that actually try to provide some value to the world and then went around suing these parasitic lowlives.

<comment><USER18> IBM may well have such a patent very soon.

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0244837.html></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I come up with numerical metrics for my work experience? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm looking to improve my resume in one key area. I've been submitting resumes to many places in my current job search, and have been turned down by some companies considered high-profile for my area.
After getting my resume reviewed, a common theme I get is that my resume is too "boring", it needs to be spiced up with more results from the actions I've added to my bullet points.
Having read a recent article on the common mistakes of resumes, it seems to resonate more with me. I think I'm doing a good job in avoiding most of the resume cliches, but one piece of advice that I can't help but become frustrated with is, to show numbers/metrics.
The problem I have with my resume's experience section is that everyone says that the best thing you can put there is some numerical metric. Like "improved performance of X by Y%" or "boosted sales of X by Y%". It wrongly assumes most programmers have the same impact to the bottom line as salespeople.
At the places I've worked at, the managers don't use empirical data on performance or output of our software. We just build websites and apps for customers and the feedback is answered with a "is it done (and on time) or not done?" or "is the client happy with the changes?".
So when my experience has only been working at places like these, what do you do to show numbers that made a difference in the company? <comment><USER2> In my opinion, programmers have a very high impact. While salespeople help sell the product, the programming you put into the product is what creates the actual impact.

Something you could do is contact the customers and ask them for numbers. They will most likely know what kind of impact the website or app you helped develop made. You can then use these numbers in your CV.

Another thing I often see people forget: let your uniqueness shine. Include a catchy phrase, a quote or something else personal as the first thing on your CV. This will certainly spice up your CV and make it less boring.</comment>


How to lose half your subscribers in 28 days or less - <AUTHOR> http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/how-to-lose-half-your-subscribers-in-28-days-or-less <comment><USER2> zombies?</comment>