Open Food Facts - <AUTHOR> https://world.openfoodfacts.org/ <comment><USER3> I was once at a Coffee place, reading a book. There was a 50-ish guy at the adjacent table, explaining cryptography to a bunch of young 20-30 odds (perhaps first-time entrepreneurs). I could not help myself overhear them for 30+ minutes. When they ended their meeting, I asked the guy if I can take some more of his extra time to talk "interesting tech." He was elated, and we spent an additional hour or so just talking. I let him talk most of the time, interrupting him with "my usual dumb questions."

He was part of a Startup sometime back that did some optical etching on medicines. With this, a standard Smartphone app can point to the medicine (tablets, etc.) and be able to track all the info on it. Any attempt to alter the data will result in, of course, corrupted/frauded data.

So, I asked him if the machine do it for food. He was confident that it could be done but will likely be too costly for food items.

I walked out happy, being able to talk to an interesting person. I'm not sure of any information or links, though. If this is something that interesting, it presents a lot of possibilities -- etch an "invisible barcode" on our food, that I can fish out my phone and track every detail about the food.

<comment><USER4> This is actually a really cool idea, thanks for sharing! With pubkey authentication you could even generate a new QR code for each box of food and sign it against the master for a company. Really cool!

<comment><USER5> The problem with this (and GPs idea) is that you can copy a valid code from somewhere else; a "replay attack" of sorts. You have to somehow tie the signature to a verifiable but uncopyiable trait which is much, much harder than you'd expect.

<comment><USER4> I'm not 100% sure this would work but possibly you could see a chain of custody of the product. If it says "I was delivered to Kroger yesterday. I was distributed by Kroger to grocery store #123 today. I was placed on the shelf by employee Bobby Circuits two hours ago." it would be hard to fake this

<comment><USER5> Only if every participant along the way played along and was dependable. You are talking 10 distribution levels and hundreds of employees. Good luck with establishing such a system, blockchain or not.

Bitcoin works because you don't need trust, not because everyone is trustworthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to see this data glued to an open source nutrition tracking app of some kind. Most nutrition tracking apps are designed for weight loss, use a limited proprietary database, and make questionable quality/design decisions.

MyFitnessPal is probably the most complete platform in this space, but their backend code seems to be declining in quality recently, and their app does annoying comical things like shaming you for eating the exactly the amount you specified in your goal macros. Actively tracking your calories without developing an eating disorder is challenging enough, but they all seem to be hell bent on keeping users actively engaged instead of actually helping them hit their goals.

I've halfway started on the project I want to exist, but it's one of those side projects I might touch every month or two, and I'm a long way from having any kind of viable product.

<comment><USER7> Shameless plug (from one of the developers) - you might want to give a try to our app/website - <USER2> [https://www.mynetdiary.com](https://www.mynetdiary.com) .

1) We prioritize user experience and health over profits - there are no ads, no user data sharing, even account creation is optional, and all advice, all materials are carefully prepared and reviewed by RDs and CDEs.

2) Technology-wise it's as state-of-the-art as it gets - fully re-written in Swift 5, modern UX, ruthlessly optimized for minimum of taps, fully configurable (even the Dashboard), with awesome apps for Apple Watch and iMessage, with AR Grocery Check tool, etc.

3) Food database (805,000 items) is our crown jewel – if something is not correct or missing, users can send photos of food packages and nutrition facts from the app, we will verify and correct or add the food to the database. Thus, the database has no duplicates and as complete information as available. This is a free service for our users.

The Android app and web app are on par.

<comment><USER6> The easiest way to get a correct answer on the internet is to post an incorrect answer. You might have already solved this problem. I will definitely check this out, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What would really solve the problem of food tracking and diet apps is a QR code containing all nutritional values on the package of every food product. I really can't believe this is not implemented yet. It's law to put all nutritional values on the package (in Europe at least), so why not go a step further and make it machine readable?

<comment><USER9> What's the improvement of a QR code over the universally-present UPC barcode that is already in place?

<comment><USER10> You need a database to link the UPC to the nutritional values. And the UPC needs to be in the database, which not every product will be.

Grandparents wish was for the nutritional values to be encoded directly in the QR code.

<comment><USER11> You can mandate manufacturers write the values to the database the same way you'd mandate that they print values on the packaging.

You would probably use EAN or even GTIN rather than UPC to be more universal while you're at it.

Edited to add:

Using GTINs on actual articles might have made a slightly incremental improvement to life in current turmoil. Ordinarily of course competing supermarket brands in the UK aren't allowed to work together - that's a competition rules violation. But right now four half-empty trucks to four supermarkets makes no sense, so send two full trucks and you've got two other trucks to take stuff elsewhere. But the result is my local Brand X supermarket has Brand Y "own brand" products on some shelves. If a truck full of frozen vegetables arrives, and they're Brand Y vegetables, well, too bad, customers want food, they'll buy those just the same. But the codes for them don't work because each supermarket uses its own short (EAN-8) codes, since they never expect them to be used in other companies. So I can't easily buy those vegetables. I still will of course because I want food, there are _queues_ to buy food now. But if they used longer codes they could just share all the data across all the big supermarkets and it would Just Work™.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always get a little irritated, perhaps irrationally so, when I find another "open" project that uses a new or obscure content licensing scheme. In this case, they are using ones from the "Open Database" family, of which I am not familiar.

Can someone clarify what, if any, advantages for consumers/users this has over one of the Creative Commons content licenses? If there is a code aspect to it, then please similarly explain the advantage it has over one of the BSD, MIT, Apache, or A/GPL-compatible licenses.

License proliferation has been a real pain of late (past few years) and has muddied the waters significantly whereas many of these above-mentioned ones have largely stood the test of time and already serve a huge swath of the content world.

<comment><USER13> In 2012 OpenStreetMap switched from CC-BY-SA to Open Database Licence.

I think the most important is the provision that "produced works" need only to attribute the authors, and if you don't modify the source database then the license is non-viral.

<comment><USER14> A summary of the reason for their change is here: [https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Historic/We_Are_...](https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Historic/We_Are_Changing_The_License)

Also worth noting is that OSM was on CC-BY-SA version 2 prior to the change. If I'm remembering correctly, version 3 or 4 of the CC licenses made it more amenable to databases, but I'll have to do a little more digging to see if my memory is serving me correctly...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Founder of a food related robotics company here. There are a number of databases out there covering this sort of thing already, eg. USDA's NNDB. Some of the issues: not global in coverage, static entries where product formulae change, raw entries where products are typically cooked, variable cooking times, variable ingredients, new brand names/mergers, unknown products. Frankly if you want to know what is in your food precisely, the best way is to grow it in an environment that you control, and eat it directly instead of packaging, storing, preserving or transporting.

</comment><comment><USER16> My son has a handful of food allergies (peanuts, Cashews, pistachios and unfortunately milk). When you say "traces" is that like the equivalent of "Made in a facility with X"?

IMO, this could be very useful for people ordering phone online, but the packaging and definitions should probably be pulled directly from the manufacturer.

For example, "Made in a facility with X, but we clean our machines every day to ensure no cross contamination" is a lot better than "Made on a shared machine with products that contain X".

<comment><USER17> I would not trust any online source for this. Some years ago I was buying chocolate for my daughter who has a peanut allergy. On a single grocery store shelf, some Hershey bars had peanut warnings and others didn't. I called the company and learned that some of their facilities are shared and some aren't, so you always have to check the packaging, even if it's the same product you've bought before.

<comment><USER18> That's true. Two other situations that can trip you up is when a company changes the ingredients, without clearly advertising it, and restaurant chains with different preparation procedures.

An ingredient change in Sweden that was minor, but still led to some confusion, was when the Marianne candy [1] changed the text from "May contain traces of milk" to "Contains <0.05 g of milk". Some vegans eat products with traces of milk, but the latter made it sound like it was something that was specifically added. Dairy products can also be completely added or removed from products without any other notice, which is something I'm not too bothered by if I make a mistake, but if I had a real allergy I might need to be more careful.

Fast-food chains sometimes prepare the food differently between restaurants. The Max hamburger chain (or if it was Burger King, I don't remember) usually prepare the vegan options separately. But in some restaurants, due to space constraints, they fry the vegan products together with chicken products, or use the same counter space for preparation for vegan options and cheese. So if you care about this, you need to ask specifically in each restaurant, because they can't guarantee that they never come in contact in all restaurants. It's not enough to just look at the list of ingredients.

[1] [https://en.fazer.com/collections/marianne/products/marianne-...](https://en.fazer.com/collections/marianne/products/marianne-120-g-original- bag)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Used by many product checking apps. In France, Yuka seems to be the leader app ( [https://yuka.io/en/](https://yuka.io/en/) ). Yuka uses the open food facts database to fill its own datatabase. This kind of app is used a lot here to verify the chemicals in a product. It already started to force food companies to change their recipes and to remove bad chemicals they usually put into their products.

</comment><comment><USER20> Personally, I like my food data normalized to a given calorie quantity so i can easily make comparisons and rank foods/recipes easily. I like to search for foods based on their nutritional content: micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. i couldn't find anything like that on the web. anyways, so i created: [https://kale.world/c](https://kale.world/c). (shameless plug, i know)

</comment><comment><USER21> Out of nostalgia for German foods I grew up with I clicked on two: a packaged whole grain bread and some Liverwurst, I would love to eat those two together. First gets an "A", second gets an "F". I guess I average out - awesome.

<comment><USER22> I guess the liverwurst got an F, and that's because of the fat contents? I'm eating keto-like and most of what I eat have terrible nutriscores because of fat contents. Meanwhile useless stuff like white sliced bread gets a B.

<comment><USER21> High fat but also lots of preservatives, I think that's the killer. I've been planning on making my own, here in the US you can get "Braunschweiger", which is great, but in Germany any decent supermarket will have a dozen different Liverwurst varieties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My personal interest in such a thing would be health related, a la "Let your food be your medicine." Talking about medicinal uses of food tends to be highly controversial, and never mind the endless studies into health effects of various foods and the constant interest in diet and health.

I don't readily see what kinds of "facts" about food they specifically desire or will accept. They may want to address that before someone comes along and starts adding facts that other people would object to for various reasons.

</comment><comment><USER24> I work for a diabetes prevention startup, and we found that [https://myfitnesspal.com](https://myfitnesspal.com) and [https://www.wikicalories.com](https://www.wikicalories.com) have most of the foods facts at least for the UK. However we also found that such crowdsourced info is often not reliable.

</comment><comment><USER25> The USDA also maintains a big database of nutrition information. The older version had better features but unfortunately they rewrote everything and lost some of those features. [https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Looks fantastic! But why no price information? I'd suspect maybe for legal reasons, but there are other websites tracking prices in supermarkets...

<comment><USER27> I agree that this would be the ultimate tool for consumers, but think how hard if a problem this is. Do you track the price for every grocery store in the world. Where does that data come from?

I think for starters that receipts should be provided in a format that's useful for consumers. Consumers could then contribute to keeping this database up to date. There is absolutely no consistency in the way stores print receipts and I'm pretty sure that's by design.

The way business work is they want to be able to track you without you being able to track them.

<comment><USER26> It's already a collaborative database using tons of user supplied data. How hard would it be to add another entry for (price, date, supermarket, location)? For example (€4.99, 25/3/19, Lidl, Berlin DE)

There's already an app with a scanner, you could just walk down the supermarket and scan a few things and when you do you see the price displayed for your location (if available), if it's significantly different you can change it.

<comment><USER28> I don't think price would be very meaningful, since the price will be dependent on area. A major metropolitan area with a high cost of living will have higher prices, as will a small town that's 30 minutes from the nearest small city. And across countries, not only is there different tax rates, whether the tax is included in the price (US: no, Europe: yes, I believe), there is also the variation in exchange rate, which could be substantial. Then some stores may use the product as a loss leader, while others do not.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Doesn't Google Consolidate Login Procedures? - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/google-consolidate-login-procedures <comment><USER2> I think it might have to do with different teams in google having different views about how security on their different projects might have different needs.

\- Letting each team have their own policy is a good idea because it allows the people who built it ; to protect it.

\- The only people who notice are those who are over thinking it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I too have frequently wondered why I can't adjust settings for such things. I also have wondered why I sometimes I have to re-login to groups when I go there, even tho I am currently using gmail in a different tab.

Even more than that tho, I would like to see a modern ident protocol, preferably one that is tied into a PKI and cryptographically secure. Then I wouldn't have to care about this.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm guessing because project teams are more independent than one might think. Perhaps they're of the mind that too much central management will stifle innovation?</comment>


Kyle Bass Says ICO Investors Will Get Wiped Out in Crypto 'Mania' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-06/bass-says-ico-investors-will-get-wiped-out-in-crypto-mania <comment><USER2> I wonder how many ico investors are really just bitcoin millionaires?</comment>


Mobile taking market share from the desktop - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cedowin.com/2011/01/mobile-future-taking-market-share-from.html

<comment><USER2> Also related... Morgan Stanley: "Mobile Internet Market Will Be Twice The Size of Desktop Internet"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2092317></comment>


MySQL fulltext search:  - <AUTHOR> http://www.artfulcode.net/articles/full-text-searching-mysql/

<comment><USER2> This posts neglects to mention a few key points about the FULLTEXT search....

1\. You have to use MyISAM tables which dosen't support transactions like InnoDB tables do.

2\. You need to make sure you adjust the FT MAX LENGTH parameter which I believe is 4 by default meaning you can search on 3 letter words like say "USB" for example

</comment><comment><USER3> Better, use Sphinx with MySQL (easy to set-up!)

<http://www.sphinxsearch.com/>

If you are using Rails, check out ThinkingSphinx:

<http://ts.freelancing-gods.com/>

<comment><USER4> Why would a 3rd party daemon be better than a built-in fulltext search engine?

<comment><USER3> in addition to the peer comment to this one, using a 3rd party daemon is a way of taking load off your database. in addition, updates to the 3rd party daemon can be incremental ("deltas") or flat-out swapped. further, as the amount of information increases, searching all of it slows down. Sphinx lets you create clusters where the data is partitioned, the search executed on all of the boxes, and the results put together in the right order (with easy setup!) Further still, you can do impressive things like fulltext search on complex joins _very_ fast. This is fast because you are actually doing the join ahead of time (google ETL) and then just searching on the combined, denormalized, data. This doesn't muddle up your schema and is very very fast.

<comment><USER4> thanks, good reasons

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few additional alternatives if you're using InnoDB:

1\. Lucene 2\. Sphinx (already mentioned below - really easy to work with) 3\. SOLR (built on Lucene and also very nice to work with)

If you're indexing Asian language content and doing things like keyword density analysis, etc. then the above will only get you so far without additional work. If you're only working on latin based languages, you should be fine.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sweet! This is exactly what I needed for a little project I'm working on right now.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ummm... since no one seems to have mentioned this,

Use Postgres. Integrated FTS (with the new 8.2 i think versions). Complete transaction support, full ACID support, more obvious behavior and drastically better scaling.</comment>


At Alibaba, the Founder Is Squarely in Charge - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/business/international/at-alibaba-the-founder-is-squarely-in-charge.html?ref=technology&_r=0

<comment><USER2> Is Alibaba equivalent to Proctor & Gamble? If so, what is the vision of Jack Ma? I'm still not sure how one articulates a vision for such a conglomerate.

<comment><USER3> No. Alibaba is like Amazon+Ebay on steroids.

<comment><USER2> So when you're the CEO of this group do you tell your board "I'd like to own everything that falls under consumer-facing e-commerce"? I am thinking in cases like this the vision is to plain make as much money as possible. Everything else is just a mechanism to achieve that. This is no different than running a hedge-fund group where you make money off of your portfolio.

<comment><USER4> From Jack Ma's recent letter ([http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54a53a50-353d-11e4-aa47-00144feabd...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54a53a50-353d-11e4-aa47-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3CicANM9r))

>Our Mission and Vision

Alibaba is a values-based company driven by our mission "to make it easy to do business anywhere."

>we will put "customers first, employees second, and shareholders third."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _With the relationship souring, Mr. Ma transferred ownership of Alibaba's fast-growing online payment service, Alipay, to an entity that he controlled. He didn't get the permission of Alibaba's board. He just went ahead and did it._

This is one thing I love about Asia, when it comes to business. (There are many things not to love, but I'll avoid those for now.) People _act_ instead of playing the emasculating permission-seeking games you see around here.

In North America-- and it's worst in the supposedly "entrepreneurial" VC- funded ecosystem-- business people have this effete need to manicure their reputations, which means they'll never go all-in on one strategy or business. The "This is right, I'm fucking doing it" impulse is not something you see in the U.S. where "failure" means "$350k/year EIR gig" [0]. In that situation, people are more inclined to play nice and let themselves lose.

[0] There are, of course, plenty of actually poor people in the U.S. for whom failure means something worse than $350k/year EIR gig-- in fact, that's probably 99.5% of Americans-- but the U.S. class system is pretty smooth- running at this point and keeps those actually poor people away from decisions that matter. For people who actually get to make business decisions in the U.S., failure has no real consequences. Conversely, if there's any chance that you might have a real stake in winning or something to lose in failure, the U.S. class system is pretty good at making sure you _don 't_ get any real power.

On the other hand, if you grew up in a place where failure has actual painful consequences (beyond mild embarrassment) you're more likely to play to win, rather than asking "How will this affect my reputation and my buddies?" and settle for a draw.

In the U.S., people play permission-seeking games because their goals aren't to win in business, but to get on the boards of prestigious non-profits and get their children into prep schools (which means that "just fucking do it" business moves are too risky; you might compete too hard against someone on the board of something important, like the museum where the deans of various prep schools are also on the board). In Asia, they play to win (like Ma) because they're only a generation or two removed from having no other choice.

I tend to have more respect for people who act swiftly out of a sense of self- preservation than I do for U.S.-style social climbers who decline to act boldly because they're afraid it'll keep their kids out of MBA school.

<comment><USER6> Acting unilaterally when your decisions affect others deserves no praise. It's the kind of egocentric dick-waving we saw in the US in the 90s (again in the 2.0 bubble), and plenty of companies crashed and burned because of it. We need fewer glorious cult-leaders in business, not more.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Mobile and Laptop for Development - <AUTHOR> I am a hard core apple fan and have used every iPhone since iphone 4 and have updated my mac thrice in last 6-7 years. Currently owning an iPhone 8+ and macbook pro 15 inch 2017 edition.
I am extremely sad on how bad the hardware is on my recent devices, my keyboard is a NIGHT mare (I cant code without external keyboard)  and iPhone back glass cracked with a single 1.5-2 m fall and the wire quality is very bad, with other issues slowly cropping up.
I have spent a good deal on these devices and I really expect a better hardware.
I have decided to move out of this apple eco-system, can someone point towards a BRILLIANT piece of hardware (preference would be linux based system for laptop) and a mobile device that is open in true sense (I can tinker with it and it has a good hardware). Price is not an issue, I am just looking for an open and robust device. <comment><USER2> Take a look at Lenovo Thinkpad P53 or if you want something smaller/lighter thinkpad x1 carbon or thinkpad x1 extreme.

</comment><comment><USER3>
        my keyboard is a NIGHT mare (I cant code without external keyboard)

Your keyboard is broken, then. Get it fixed and stop whining about it.</comment>


How the iPhone Got Tail Fins – Part 2 of 2 - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2011/10/20/how-the-iphone-got-tail-fins-%e2%80%93-part-2-of-2/ <comment><USER2> Initially I wasn't really grokking the author's point, but I think it comes down to a single disagreement in terminology:

"GM had figured out how to take a product which solved a problem – cheap transportation – and transform it into a need."

Specifically, the use of the term "need". Needs are things that we can't do without. Basic (cheap) transportation, is a "need" for many people, but it doesn't represent the type of marketing shift that the author outlines in the article. I'd turn the statement on it's head:

GM had figured out how to take a product which solved a problem – cheap transportation – and transform it into an object of lust.

The message is the same. I don't think I disagree entirely with what Steve is saying, but I found the use of the term "need" jarring in that context.

I think Apple's formula is a mixture of the "bigger fins" strategy, as well as genuine product enhancements. If you buy a phone for "needs" (cheap communication), I'm not sure you're buying an iPhone. You buy an iPhone (or any smartphone) because you want more than the basic needs. In some cases, people buy them simply as jewelry, but I think that angle is way overplayed. A pre-requisite for the "jewelry" claim is that the owner not utilize the phone for its actual utilitarian features (apps, browsing, email, camera, video, mms, etc). I'm sure the jewelry aspect comes in to play getting people in the door, but I'm not sure they stay that way for long.</comment>


The Bugs in Our Mindware - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-bugs-in-our-mindware <comment> mark-r They lost me at the basketball story. The point would be valid if the scoring baskets were uncorrelated events, but they're not - a player's physical and mental state on the day of play will be similar for all of them, and different than on another day.

Then immediately after he talks about the probability of dice rolls, without realizing that rolling a 7 is much more likely than rolling a 2 if you're using a pair of dice.

<comment><USER2> And immediately follows that with an example where "four hits is no less likely to happen by chance than two hits and two misses or three hits and one miss" (perhaps if he said "two hits followed by two misses", but that would make no sense in the context, so I think he meant exactly what he wrote, i.e. that having 2 hits out of 4 is as likely as having 4 out of 4.)

Honestly, this is just ridiculous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why does this site show up so much on HN? It seems to be the same few pop- science topics repeated and stretched out in new ways with questionable studies and whatever flimsy thing they can use to grab attention with a new headline.

<comment><USER4> Most of the comparable sites are penalized * on HN, but Nautilus isn't because we had the impression that their articles were of higher quality. Wrong?

* This penalty doesn't prevent stories from making the front page, it just requires more votes to do it, or a moderator to waive the penalty. It's the solution we came up with for media websites that put out reams of fluff but also the occasional solid story.

<comment><USER2> Well, I'm not sure about other articles, but this one is rather bad (for example, as noted in some comments here, statistical examples are fundamentally wrong, and they are being used to support a substantial part of the argument).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Those are not bugs they're just um...

Look over there! _my brain runs away giggling_

It's always struck me that it's odd we don't teach kids how to think. Basic literacy and numeracy, no problems. Basic thinkacy? Unthinkable.

<comment><USER6> For years I've talked to people about getting basic logic skills taught in school. Everyone looks at me like I have a number of heads between 1 and 3.

<comment><USER7> Let's hope they at least go for integers. Otherwise you're in real trouble... Logic really should be taught in school, but it is not in the best interest of the teachers to create an army of little lawyers that will then apply this new skill to each and every decision made by the school. Schools prefer obedient little children, not children that think for themselves.

<comment><USER6> "I will volunteer to teach at this school," said Diablo, while cackling madly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

</comment><comment><USER9> The author doesn't seem to spend any time addressing "Umpire #3", whose views would apply important caveats to the rest of the article.</comment>


Does Economics Violate the Laws of Physics? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-economics-violate-th

<comment><USER2> "Why should economics be a social science, because it's about stuff?" Yeah, right. For example, and I build "stuff" (from something like "bit substance", I take it?) for a living...

Economics is not related much to physics. On the contrary, it's pretty much metaphysics as its quant is money, which is socially constructed.

It is fallacious to assume that economic growth will lead to growth in energy use. Quality, not only quantity generates value. In other words, if a baker keeps baking better-tasting bread, and a piano maker keeps making better- sounding pianos, the economy will grow. Improving quality does not necessarily need extra energy.

<comment><USER3> _In other words, if a baker keeps baking better-tasting bread, and a piano maker keeps making better-sounding pianos, the economy will grow._

This is true, but only to a point. Market saturation also plays a role, plus the theoretical and practical limits to quality in both of those cases. Costs do not scale linearly with quality increases. There is a limit to the quality differences people can differentiate, so at some point people will stop paying for better bread and pianos because a) they better versions are too expensive, and/or b) they can't tell the difference between that and what they already have.

How many people do you know who wish they had a piano but they can't find one that's of high enough quality?

<comment><USER4> Quite so. Here's an article about a long-running strike that recently ended at an american factory specializing in trumpets, which has been unable to compete with those made in China: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/25/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/25/BUNO1A7BM4.DTL)

I have no doubt that years of experience can lead to a superior instrument, but the market for such a device is limited to the few musicians who are able to play at a superior level. you can also see this closer to our home in the commodification of computer hardware; the resolution ability audio technology (as used in soundcards) passed beyond the threshold of human hearing ability some time ago, so competition has shifted towards features, design and branding.

I do agree with the article's suggestion that economics should adjust to the idea of energy as the fundamental quantum of value, but given the general public's poor understanding of economics it might be argued that there's insufficient demand to drive such innovation in the shot term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The whole point of economics is studying the allocation of scarce resources. _Individual_ economists might not believe in peak oil, but to expand this idea to say that neoclassical or chicago school economic models ignore the physical constraints of the universe is hyperbole at best.

Of course I doubt many economic models take the life expectancy of the sun into account; but to say that neo-classical models can't account for running out of oil is frankly ridiculous. As oil gets more expensive other means of energy production (nuclear, solar) become more attractive, and/or the cost of energy goes up. Never mind including technological progress as an "input" into your model.

</comment><comment><USER6> This isn't violating any laws of physics instead it is economists not taking into account well economics... companies vested in energy aren't going to say that they aren't going to have energy in the future, same goes for oil and car producers and it actually ends up trickling down.

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of Albert Barlett's Arithmetic, Population and Energy talk:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znsuCphHUU>

</comment><comment><USER8> The community of hackers seems to be in as much denial about impending energy shortages as classical economists. A shame, because hackers are good at finding novel solutions.

<comment><USER9> "The community of hackers seems to be in as much denial about impending energy shortages as classical economists. "

On what do you base this claim?

<comment><USER8> Take Startup School. Did you hear anybody mention anything about scarcity?</comment></comment></comment>


Former federal judge to President Obama: Free the man I sentenced to 55 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/09/former-federal-judge-to-president-obama-free-the-man-i-sentenced-to-55-years-in-prison/ <comment><USER3> In 2004, when Cassell sentenced Angelos, he wrote a lengthy opinion, comparing Angelos's sentence (738 months) with the guideline sentences for the kingpin of three major drug trafficking rings that caused three deaths (465 months), a three-time aircraft hijacker (405 months), a second-degree murderer of three victims (235 months) and the rapist of three 10-year-olds (188 months).

Where is the justice? Is there anyone who could argue this is the way we want our judicial system to work? Why can't we fix this already?

<comment><USER4> Like almost everything the government does that's stupid on its face, mandatory minimums were a reaction to a different problem. Voters were angry because there were wide disparities in sentencing, and it seemed some judges were wont to give out light sentences no matter how heinous the crime. It's probably not unreasonable to say "If you kill someone, you should serve _at least_ this amount of time regardless of circumstances."

It's also not unreasonable to think large disparities in sentencing are fundamentally unfair. The amount of jail time you get is supposed to depend on what you _did_ and not which judge presided over your sentencing.

But along the way mandatory minimums became a way for politicians to project the "tough on crime" image. You'd have a news article about a guy who just got out of jail killing an eight year old in a botched drug deal, then the next day Senator Simpleton is there at a press conference announcing a new bill to add 25 years to everybody caught with a gun at a drug deal.

It's virtually impossible for any politician to stand up at that time and say "That seems like an awfully long sentence for being in possession of a firearm."

<comment><USER5>
        > The amount of jail time you
        > get is supposed to depend on
        > what you did and not which
        > judge presided over your
        > sentencing

I think that's specifically what judges are _for_ in a common law system, isn't it?

<comment><USER6> Yes, correct, but that's not what the populace wanted at the time. Despite the fact that weakening that by definition is weakening the justice systems ability to mete out real, actual justice.

<comment><USER7> Not really, your punishment should fit the crime and therefore be related exactly to what you did (and the circumstances in which you did it) - <USER2> definitely not based on which member of the judiciary you are randomly assigned.

So yes, whilst judges are supposed to have lots of discretion- there should also be oversight to ensure they're somewhat aligned with each other.

Mandatory minimums are a populist solution to headlines about setencing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > He received five years for the gun in the car; 25 years for the second gun > charge, having one in an ankle strap; and another 25 years for a third > firearms charge, the gun police found in his home. He got one day for the > marijuana.

Pretty disingenuous for the lede to lay this all on the war on drugs when the real reason for the long sentence in this particular case is the war on guns.

> His case has been widely championed, including by Utah's Republican Sen. > Mike Lee, former FBI Director Bill Sessions, the group Families Against > Mandatory Minimums and conservative billionaire Charles Koch.

Food for thought for those who think the drug war was/is driven by the "establishment" rather than by the grass roots of ordinary voters.

<comment><USER9> The law in question is specifically a drug law:

 _924(c).Federal drug laws require 5- to 30-year mandatory minimum sentences for possessing, brandishing or discharging a gun during a drug-trafficking crime._

By my reading of that, this applies even if the gun itself was entirely legal.

<comment><USER10> Right, it punishes people for having a completely legal firearm present during another crime. Wouldn't you think that's to discourage guns just as much as to discourage trafficking?

<comment><USER11> Or even for owning one that wasn't present at the time (the gun later found in his home).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How is it that this person was convicted on three gun charges, when two of them were (according to the article) based on nothing but the testimony of a single person? The sentence is absurd even if the gun charges are all true, of course, but this seems like an amazingly lax standard of proof as well.

<comment><USER13> It has to do with the way that sentences are enhanced after a conviction. Probation officers are assigned to research the "facts" of a case after a conviction and write a Presentencing Report for the judge.

Federal sentence ranges are computed using a grid system. Different "facts" adjust the row or column of the eventual range of months a judge legally has to sentence a person within. Probation officers can be extremely thorough and throw in all kinds of things, or can omit things in the sentence computation.

If a person makes a plea agreement with the Prosecutor, they are essentially saying that such and such facts are relevant and these other ones don't apply to the sentence. If there are any possible enhancements not nailed down in the agreement, the Probation Officer can come in and say these are relevant and surprise! Your 5 year plea just became a 15 year sentence.

(edit) Also, multiple convictions for crimes typically have the sentences run consecutively.

<comment><USER12> In short, the facts on which you're convicted may be completely different from the facts on which you're sentenced? Sounds like a rather blatant end run around the whole "beyond a reasonable doubt" thing.

<comment><USER13> Correct. Federal supervision officers have a great deal of discretion when writing their reports. They can take information that has never been shown to the judge and use it to enhance the sentence guidelines that the judge has to follow.

Besides, the reasonable doubt part only applies to a conviction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Remember folks, now that Rand Paul has dropped out, there is one candidate left who is not a drug warrior. This will be the easiest vote I've ever cast.

Edit: I was not fair to Trump on this. He apparently isn't a drug warrior. Still gonna be an easy vote for me though!

<comment><USER15> Sanders, who I assume you're referring to, only supports decriminalization of marijuana. I'll still be staying at home on voting day.

<comment><USER16> Right, because ideological purity is much better than pragmatism. You have no preference at all between the candidates, because none of them favour complete legalisation? You'd rather have no decriminalisation than just some?

<comment><USER15> The drug war is only one of many reasons that I am apolitical. I don't accept that I have a legitimate choice -- to me, voting would be tacit acceptance of the legitimacy of our political process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the gun related charges have caused two issues to happen here:

1) The minimum sentence was exceptionally harsh. 2) Because of the guns, it makes it somewhat of a political hot potato since it looks like he "could" be violent.

<comment><USER18> Any law that mention guns that simply counts their alleged presence is bogus. I can see if it was used in commission of a crime but not "he might of had one in the car". If you judge owning a gun = violent the you are part of the problem that sentences people like this to unjustified sentences (edit: I do not assume that is the parent poster's opinion).

<comment><USER17> You're right. My only point was that in this case the guns are a double whammy, they both caused the ridiculously harsh sentence and then also probably the political reason he's not getting the sentence commuted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just for perspective:

This guy sells marijuana 3x, $350 each, to a narc. He gets 55 years.

Jeffrey Keith Skilling, poster child for white collar crime, convicted of conspiracy, insider trading, making false statements to auditors, securities fraud, and insider trading, gets 14 years.

The justice system in this country is more fucked up than I could have thought possible.

<comment><USER13> No, the justice system is just handing out the sentences that the Congress has decided people in different situations should get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So what would happen to a federal judge if he just didn't impose the mandatory minimum sentence in a case like this? Wouldn't the constitutional separation of powers protect him from any consequences?

<comment><USER13> The judge would get in trouble.

Basically, if he didn't follow the guidelines and went lenient, the Prosecutor would appeal the case and get the sentence into the guideline range.

If the judge went over the maximum guideline amount, the Defendant could appeal the case.

No judge likes having his rulings overturned because he didn't follow the law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Link to the opinion in question: [https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/9733](https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/9733)

</comment><comment><USER22> "The fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates in Fiscal Year 2011 was $28,893.40."

That is at least $1,500,000 million dollars. Very expensive.

<comment><USER23> TIL we pay more money to take care of prisoners than I get paid to take care of myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> He should have refused to apply the sentence.

So the sentence potentially gets overturned on appeal, great. The appellate judges should refuse to apply the sentence.

So they get overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court, great. The Supreme Court should refuse to apply the sentence. Or, I guess they can spend their time overturning thousands of decisions per year.

Burn it down.

[https://popehat.com/2013/12/23/burn-the-fucking-system-to- th...](https://popehat.com/2013/12/23/burn-the-fucking-system-to-the-ground/)

<comment><USER25> Burn it down, and then what? The only precedent the article cites is the French Revolution. How did that work out?

Now if you had said, appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court in the hopes of getting the mandatory sentencing law in question declared unconstitutional, that would be fine. But that isn't what you said.

<comment><USER26> _The only precedent the article cites is the French Revolution. How did that work out?_

Famously, it's too early to tell.

<comment><USER27> Although that response (by Zhou Enlai) was, of course, based on misunderstanding. Zhou thought the question was about the 1968 riots and consequential societal change, not the 1789 revolution.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


UN: Report on extreme poverty and human rights in the United State [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G18/125/30/PDF/G1812530.pdf?OpenElement <comment><USER2> The rebuttal; [https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018-6-23-the- pover...](https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2018-6-23-the-poverty- fraud-in-action-with-un-assist)</comment>


Git-commander simple cli - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/golbin/git-commander

<comment><USER2> Thanks to post here. :-)

One thing the main purpose is to make staging and unstaging easily when doing terminal jobs. And I made it just for fun, but I think it's useful to me at least. :-)</comment>