500 Exabytes per Raindrop - <AUTHOR> http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/information.html

<comment><USER2> This is easily the most interesting thing I've read all week.

I was talking to some of our systems engineers about the size of the Hadoops clusters at Yahoo. I was pretty impressed with having access to thousands of machines with 10s of petabytes of storage (think kid in a candy shop).

It's nice to be put gently back into my place, by a simple raindrop.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having worked for a bioinformatics company, I can describe my work as handling huge volumes of data.

Modern instruments are ever more computerized and spit out gigs and gigs of 1s and 0s with every use.

And then you have to take all that data and try to turn into something humans can understand.

And every time our instruments get better the amount of data we collect goes up.

Systems biology is basically a data management problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> _To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour_

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure you got this from the Tomb Raider movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This guy needs to read GEB. One could describe a raindrop with even more bits (subatomic particles anybody?) or less (size, volume, shape of raindrop).

<comment><USER7> Plus, of course, he's talking about that raindrop in isolation. To describe it in context with the real world, you also need to factor in the light refracting through it, the position of the observer, and the pace at which it moves both due to gravity and to the earth's rotation. So to describe it accurately from a single position requires knowledge of everything around that raindrop.

In fact, it's possible to say then that you could start with something as simple as, say, a piece of fairy cake, and deduce accurately the nature of everything else in the universe.

Reading this, the thing that stuck out to me was the relatively small size of text (5MB for Shakespeare versus 20GB for Beethoven). It struck me that poetry - particularly haiku, which deals with nature - is sort of a primitive way of applying lenses to the world to create a filter for viewing things by appealing to collective experiences. Just a thought.

<comment><USER8> Primitive? Poetry is probably the most developed form of lossy compression there is.

<comment><USER7> Primitive meaning the concept behind it - capture a moment in time with words - is a very old and simple one.

Don't get me wrong: poetry has become incredibly sophisticated. And it's still as enjoyable to write as it was long, long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is the theory of useful information? According to algorithmic information theory, the less compressible something is, the more information it has. But, the sort of information I'm interested in implies that there is a fairly large ratio of bits to compression. I.e. this text is much more compressible than a random string of letters, and conveys much more information to me than a random string. Is there a precise characterization of this sort of information? It isn't simple the compression ratio, since AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA is very compressible, but conveys very little information.

<comment><USER10> Go the other way. Assume two strings of length k: string a composed of english words, and string b generated by reading /dev/random. String a will be more compressible, length(compress(a)) < k. You can now add MORE "information" to a and compress it until length(compress(a)) = k. Since you can't compress b any further, it already contains the maximum amount of information.

I put "information" in quotes above because the actual "information per bit" of English is pretty low, and that's where the ability to both compress it and comprehend it, not as single bits but as groups of bits, comes from. Still, compressed data is still comprehensible once you uncompress it, so it's a measure of the surface comprehensiblity. It's really a measure of information density. Compressed data has a high information to space ratio, whereas random, uncompressible data has low information to space ratio (or perhaps negative).

You can experiment with this yourself:

       cat > /tmp/string.a
          (paste in some English text cut and pasted from a web page)
       dd if=/dev/urandom of=/tmp/string.b bs=1 count=`wc -c < /tmp/string.a`
       bzip2 /tmp/string.*
       ls -l /tmp/string.*

Experiment with the above for corpora of different lengths. You'll see that as there is more English text, which is information rich, it can compress better than shorter English text (as a compression ratio), and will compress better than random data (which we know contains little information) of the same length.

A string composed solely of 27 As would compress down to perhaps 2 bytes or less (not including the size of the decompressor). You are right: there is not much information in it. Less than 16 bits of information in 27 As.

<comment><USER9> I'm looking for a definition of information that matches up with how we use the word in normal parlance. This definition has to strike some kind of medium between incompressible and completely compressible. I could make something up, but I was wondering what the official version is.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure I follow. The definition of "information" I use everyday matches the "official" version -- I'm not sure how it could be different. What is "completely compressible"? Something can not be compressed beyond the shortest string that can represent it without losing information content.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information#Measuring_informati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information#Measuring_information_entropy)

<comment><USER9> Shannon's information is a measure of the size of a set that an element is selected from, is that right? So a letter conveys log2(26) bits of information. That alone doesn't allow me to discriminate between the information content of a random string and an English sentence, since both supposedly contain the same amount of information by this bare metric.

If I look at the occurrence of subsets of the string, then that would be a better discriminator: the random string's subsets should follow a normal distribution while the English string's subsets will be highly skewed.

However, that doesn't work when I try to discriminate between an English string and a string generated by a simple algorithm, since the latter's subset distribution will also be highly skewed. What kind of metric discriminates the English sentence from either case?

Am I making sense here? I haven't had any formal training in information theory, and my brain is kind of fried right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A raindrop does not have that much information in it. A raindrop only has some simple function that completely describes it, and this function likely has only some bytes. You can't take any information out of a raindrop, because the particles within it are random.

A raindrop is made up of a certain number of atoms, but these atoms are all the same, and cannot store any information. To store information, you need items that are dissimilar to each other. So the comparisons he makes are not correct.

<comment><USER8> As you say, the particles are random(ish), and this is exactly what makes them hard to describe completely with a simple function. "Random" means "the simplest description of it is the literal one", and the literal description of the position, orientation and motion of that many water molecules is a lot of information.

If raindrops were perfect crystals at absolute zero (and there were only one isotope each of hydrogen and oxygen), they would be a lot less information in them.

<comment><USER11> You are looking at things backwards. If you try to describe a raindrop by mapping the position of every single atom or molecule, you are creating information. But the raindrop itself does not contain any information, because it is completely random. It has no memory, and so cannot store information.

There is a very small amount of information in a raindrop, no matter how complex it is from the molecular structure.

The entire argument is flawed. It's based on a completely wrong premise - information is not the same thing as structure.

I can't explain this any better, you will need a leap of intuition to understand what I mean, but when you get it, it will be obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's even more information if the quantum information is deemed important; in excess of 2^(5 x 1020).

Ultimately, one should come away with the understanding that obviously not all that information _is_ important.

<comment><USER13> Well, that's if you want to record the whole state for simulation by a classical computer. It you just want to have the state, it seems like it should be measured in qubits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If we don't know whether the universe is continuous or discrete, how can we know how much _digital_ information is in a raindrop? If the universe is continuous, the distance between any two particles can be measured to an infinitely more fine-grained level, yielding more information.

</comment><comment><USER15> _90 petabytes: the "Deep Web" in 2002 - includes private databases, controlled-access sites and so on._

6 years ago, oh my.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your productivity tips to get things done? - <AUTHOR> Share your productivity tips, how you plan your tasks, how you estimate the time it takes etc.. for a single person project <comment><USER2> 1\. Know when to ask for help. Figure out task deadline in advance, set a timeout, ask for help if you haven't made progress in interim. (Longer version: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/12/07/asking-for- help/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/12/07/asking-for-help/))

2\. Understand your goals: why are you doing this task? This will help you make tradeoffs. Also, try to have multiple goals for a task; this will help you stay motivated.

3\. Write everything down. This will help you get back to work quickly when you are forced to context switch.

(Longer version of 2 and 3: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/03/stay- focused/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/03/stay-focused/))

</comment><comment><USER3> For studies: Variants of the pomodoro technique:

Set a timer, don't do anything except the task you decided on until the timer finishes.</comment>


Coming soon: A way to find and connect with other website owners - <AUTHOR> http://invites.webmakershub.com/

<comment><USER2> I like what it's trying to accomplish, but I don't see this as becoming a success.

1\. I have no reason to join

2\. I will never have a majority of site owners (issue 1 is subordinate to this)

3\. Site owners change

4\. Who do you really want to get in touch with? The owner? The programmer? Tech support?

5\. The barrier to entry stops me.

Personally I'm a bigger fan of humans.txt:

<http://humanstxt.org/>

Even google uses it: <http://www.google.com/humans.txt>

It's a 0-friction way to find out who's behind a site, entirely un-obtrusive, requires the requester give up 0 information.

As a hacker, I have no reason to connect with other website owners. I have lots of reasons to connect with professionals who know what they're talking about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know about humans.txt. Thanks for pointing that out. I will study it.

From the first look I feel it means to do something different from what I intend to do.

In my answer to bsenftner's question below I have explained what I want to accomplish(don't want to repeat it here and clutter the thread). I wonder what you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's an interesting idea, but needs a filter of some sort. "Web site owners" = slightly more competent bloggers, traditional businesses with a web site, purely web based eCommerce, and finally web "destinations" where the surfer is actually the product to advertisers. And I'm throwing out all the bloggers and media sites that are on hosted platforms because they don't "own" their site.

The idea could be good, but needs some filtering of "who" they mean and after that what do you have other than a niche social network? Feels like an advertising funnel, so it really needs to provide value, otherwise why, why at all?

<comment><AUTHOR> why, why at all? Good question... my original thought was that it would be a great place to forge partnerships, link exchange programs, meet suppliers, technology providers and infrastructure providers and even end customers in the field for web services.

I find that very difficult to do currently as the data and secure access is scattered all over the place.

I am willing to challenged in this assumption of mine and I agree that I am just starting with tools for only a fraction of that vision and will have to figure out the rest as I go along.

I agree with the need for the filter... I thought about that too.. but I want to start off with the easier definition to begin with just so I can get something off the ground.

Bloggers will be a very important part of the whole thing and is included in my definition of website owners. When the site is fully ready, they will be handled as a special case.

This was thought provoking. Thanks a lot.</comment></comment>


An effective eye drug is $50, but many doctors choose a $2,000 alternative - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/an-effective-eye-drug-is-available-for-50-but-many-doctors-choose-a-2000-alternative/2013/12/07/1a96628e-55e7-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html <comment><USER4> Top comment from the reddit thread on the same article:

"Ophthalmologist here.

As a physician responsible for prescribing and injecting these drugs, I can tell you that this article glosses over the single most important factor involved in deciding between the three currently-available Anti-VEGF options: compounding pharmacies, and the lack of regulation thereof. Any Ophthalmologist at this point is very familiar with the results of the CATT study which confirmed the equal efficacy and safety of bevacizumab (Avastin) and ranibizumab (Lucentis). The reality is that the actual drug injected into the patient's eye either comes from the manufacturer in a sterile, ready-to- inject form (Lucentis), or an appropriate amount was prepared for intraocular injection by a local compounding pharmacy (Avastin).

Compounding pharmacy regulation is notoriously poor, and the risk of an intraocular infection is not one many retina specialists are eager to take unnecessarily. Endophthalmitis frequently leads to blindness, even with early diagnosis and treatment. As much as everyone wants to think doctors are only interested in lining their pockets, the reality is that most of us simply don't want your grandparent going blind in one eye because a minimum-wage tech at a compounding pharmacy failed to follow appropriate sterile procedure. The American Society of Retina Specialists have been advocating for increased regulation of compounding pharmacies since Lucentis became available. Check out their website.

I guess I should also point out that we get paid the same for injecting any medicine into the eye, regardless of the cost of the drug. And we purchase and stock both drugs in the clinic, and bill insurance for whichever is used. So we don't benefit financially for injecting one versus the other."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1sdxz6/an_effectiv...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1sdxz6/an_effective_eye_drug_is_available_for_50_but/cdwoh5j)

<comment><USER5> Is the implication here that the technician at the "manufacturer" is not minimum-wage?

Or is the implication supposed to be that the minimum-wage technicians who work for the "manufacturer" are magically better at following appropriate sterile procedures?

<comment><USER6> I think it's a fair comparison for the following reasons:

1) Manufacturer techs get paid a hell of a lot better than compounding pharmacy techs. I knew guys in the pharma industry, nothing more than high school pulling down $100K/yr with overtime.

2) There has been a recent incident ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center_meningitis_outbreak)) where 48 people died and over 700 got sick from poor compounding pharmacy controls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a reply purportedly from an O.D.[1]:

 _Eye doctor here. Avastin is currently used off-lable for eye conditions (most commonly wet AMD and macular edema in diabetes). It is only FDA approved for use in treatment of some colon and lung cancers. Generally speaking, even though it fits standard of care within the field of ophthalmology to use this drug, there are still some inherent risks in doing so for the practitioner, thusly, Lucentis is still preferred by some. Also, I 've not encountered this (as MOST insurance companies would prefer practitioners to use the cheaper drug) but I've heard of difficulty with third party payer coverage/ reimbursement when using the off-lable drug.

Another thing to consider, as ajrw pointed out, they ARE NOT as the article mentions "the same drug." Some people respond more favorably to one versus the other. Commonly, the two will be used in succession on the same patient as though no double blind clinical trial has been done to confirm this; both drugs tend to exhibit a slight tachyphylaxis over time (diminished effect). Practitioners have found that when one drug starts becoming less effective, switching to the other VEGF inhibitor can show recapture of the previous level of therapeutic benefit.

I would advise all to take this article with a huge grain of salt. Most practitioners are not aiming to increase insurance costs (obviously, as generally speaking, the higher the bill, the harder it is to get the reimbursement.) Many are probably apprehensive to use an off-lable drug from a medical-legal stand point.

Note: I am not a surgeon. So some of this is slightly presumptive._

1: [http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1sdxz6/an_effectiv...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1sdxz6/an_effective_eye_drug_is_available_for_50_but/cdwmfro)

</comment><comment><USER8> Complicated topic on a global scale.

The rest of the world is very grateful for the US pharmaceutical market. Its unregulated and "free" nature, like consumer advertising for prescription drugs - something completely unheard of in civilized countries - allows for massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry.

those profits do not happen anywhere else. european agencies control and negotiate prices centrally, emerging markets seems to follow the european model (brazil, china, etc.).

those profits do get invested back into r&d, the patent system forces pharma companies to move forward. the recent patent cliff is a great indicator for the system working.

pharma r&d would be severly constrainted if not for the profits generated in the US market. on a global scale it looks like a subsidiy by the US people, paying high markups and taking way more drugs than needed - for the good of the rest of the planet.

thank you. and keep swallowing pills.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article left out a number of very good scientific reasons why lucentis and avastin are _not_ bioequivalent and should not be subsituted.

I found it especially misleading that they used anecdotal evidence to claim that the cheaper drug is equivalent in function and safety.

That said, Genentech is on the wrong side of the PR angle here and unfortunately for them, some internal documents got exposed which make them seem less than angelic here. If the cost differential of producing the drugs really is small, then they don't have a strong position, because it makes them appear as if they are using one of the drugs as a profit center to fund future R&D.

Anyway, the article really glosses over stuff, but you'd need to spend about 5-7 years getting a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry, plus working in industry for a few years before you understand the business and science of what genentech does.

<comment><USER10> _they are using one of the drugs as a profit center to fund future R &D_

How else are they going to fund future R&D?

<comment><USER9> to clarify:

they are using one of the drugs moreso than another as a profit center.

IE, given no other constraints, I'd expect a pharma to distribute its R&D cost over its drug profit centers weighted by the drug's profit margin, and that all the drug's profit margins would be roughly equal: naively, I'd expect them to raise the price of Avastin and lower the price of Lucentis, assuming the costs of producing them truly are similar.

The reality is, likely there are proprietary reasons we're not privy to that causes the cost differential. They could be technical (maybe it does cause much, much more to produce Lucentis), or the could be business (maybe increasing the price of Avastin could cause it to sell poorly against another drug from a competitor)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doctors will typically prescribe the "best" drug to their knowledge which often means the newest drug with the least serious side effects. I don't think they are always out to bilk their patients.

If you are ever in a situation where you have to pay for drugs out of pocket or your insurance doesn't cover enough of the drug _call your doctor and ask for a lower cost alternative_. They can call the pharmacy and often times find a lower cost alternative to fit your budget.

At least this has been my experience with my doctors. I have also had my primary physician straight up tell me the price difference between the best choice and second-best choice doesn't justify the benefits.

<comment><USER11> /I don't think they are always out to bilk their patients./

"Genentech also provides rebates to doctors who prescribe large amounts of the drug."

"Rebate"? No, it's a kickback. Unless somehow the doctor is paying for the patient's prescription.

<comment><USER12> In this case, that is not true at all. I worked for a large retina group for 6 years and now consult for several different retina and general ophthalmology practices, so I'm a little biased, but I've also been lucky enough to see these new drugs through various stages. First of all, Doctors are the ones buying the drug, and they have to keep enough inventory on hand to treat the patients that need it until the next delivery day. The introduction of these higher priced biologics has had a huge affect on the way practices (especially smaller ones) have to manage their inventory. The last practice I worked for was buying between $1.2 and $1.8 millon worth of lucentis, a few hundred grand worth of Eyelea and a boatload Avastin every month. If anything goes wrong during the reimbursement process and the practice isn't paid as expected, it can be devastating. When the use of these drugs started ramping up, there were definitely a few scary payroll periods for us. Putting the right inventory management procedures in place significantly helps this problem, but there's definitely some stress knowing you're on the hook for over 2mil each month. Genentech's rebate and Regeneron's extended payment terms are efforts to alleviate some of this stress on providers while ensuring they are keeping enough stock on hand that they aren't having to bring patients back for a follow up visits just to order the drug. (some practices will see a patient, diagnosis, reschedule for follow up injection, then order the drug. This just wastes everyone's time) Even more importantly though, as said elsewhere in the comments, these drugs are definitely not the same. A lot of us, even the docs, in the industry joked about the high price of Lucentis when it first came out and many doctors (though I'm not sure on the exact number, but I think I remember hearing 80% of anti-vegF injections were Avastin not lucentis) used avastin over lucentis specifically because of the price. In the past few years however, this thinking has changed and it has very little to do with the reimbursement model. In the beginning, these drugs were simply awe inspiring. Before the availability of these drugs, a retina doc's approach to AMD was, "here's an amsler grid.. let me know if anything changes (it will), we'll see you in 6 months to asses how much more blind you've become. There are some vitamins you can take that might slow things down (barely), and oh yeah, there is this cold laser treatment we can try(PDT)that will just shut down that area and maybe prevent the spread. That treatment is going to require us to infuse you with a drug for 15 min, then shoot a laser in your eye for 83 seconds.. oh then after that, we are going to wrap you like a mummy because any form of UV is going to burn the shit out of you.. fun stuf" Now all of a sudden here is a drug (Avastin) that takes half a second to inject, and not only preserves the vision that you have, but if we catch the leakage early, it can even dry it up and improve your vision! I was fortunate enough to work on some of the early trials and honestly the follow up visits were just breathtaking. NVAMD used to be a death sentence to vision.. now it's merely an inconvenience that can be overcome. With that success came Lucentis (Avastin was being used totally off label) an FDA approved drug that was crazy expensive. Patient's couldn't afford it, no one really used it. Then medicare and some other insurances started having issues with off-label use and it actually became easier to get reimbursed for using Lucentis. The CATT trial started and some issues started being raised over whether or not Avastin was actually safe long term. Then there was the scare in Florida were a batch of Avastin from a compound pharmacy was contaminated and a ton of patients lost their sight to infections. So we started using Lucentis a little more frequently, just to see. While the Catt trial shows the two drugs are pretty equivalent.. in everyday practice, it's becoming more apparent that this is not the case. Some forms of AMD respond better to lucentis than Avastin. Diabetics with Macular Edema sometimes respond quicker to Lucentis (and even faster with Eylea!) It becomes more about finding the right drug for the individual patient than just choosing the cheapest option. Most doctors are not trying to screw their patients over, and have protocols in place for finding the best possible drug, and, in my experience at least, most of these protocols do consider the affordability to the patient as well as the effectiveness. (Personally, I think there are genetic variants of these diseases that determine the effectiveness of the drug, we just don't fully understand yet.. once we can more accurately test these variants and build trials around them, this will become more of a non-issue) A few years ago, I would have totally agreed with this article, not anymore. The sad truth is profit drives innovation, it's a bitch developing new drugs, and their has to be enough of an incentive both financially and medically to encourage progress in that field. At the end of the day, the majority of the doctors out there just want was is going to be best for their patients and are continually re-evaluating their strategies to ensure that goal is met.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > In addition, Genentech offers rebates to doctors who use large volumes of > the more expensive drug.

But doctors don't buy the drug, patients and Medicare do. So it is straight up bribery of people abusing legally protected positions of trust?

<comment><USER14> Or, they don't want to explain in court why they picked the cheap drug and the procedure went wrong.

<comment><USER15> Particularly when the cheap drug isn't FDA approved for the treatment in question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I live in a small village and whe have two doctors. After visiting doctor A you'll leave with a bag of drugs, doctor B will not give you anything more than you need, even if you ask for it. The crazy part is people prefer doctor A..

<comment><USER17> When I was growing up my father told me a parable of three brothers, all of whom had grown to be doctors.

One brother was a miraculous curer of all injuries and ills. It did not matter how far a disease or injury had progressed, he could cure the patient. He was known throughout the continent.

One brother was exemplar diagnostician of all injuries and ills. It did not matter what was wrong, he could diagnose the problem and if he was unable to solve the problem he would make a personal introduction the most knowledgeable expert on the matter. He was known throughout the country.

The third brother was just a humble backcountry physician. He wasn't very good at diagnosing or curing diseases. But he visited his clients frequently, and gave them advice on their diet, and home and work conditions. On the rare occasion when his clients got ill or injured, he tended them back to health and when possible helped them to remove the conditions leading to the ill or injury. He was only known throughout the village.

<comment><USER18> And finally there is Dr. Oz, who talked well, was attractive, knew Oprah and was interested in talking about all sorts of diseases and conditions outside his training. He has a TV show, multiple book deals, is a millionaire, and doesn't have to see a patient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >they are reimbursed for the average price of the drug plus 6 percent.

I do not understand why anyone thought this was a good idea, or even one that made sense. What was the purpose here?

<comment><USER20> If they were only reimbursed for exactly the cost of the drug, they'd lose money on expensive drugs because of inventory costs. Inventory costs include interest on money for the time they're holding it, damage and spoilage, security, theft, insurance, etc.

6% is probably a reasonable guess at the average costs. Large, high-volume operations can make a profit by keeping their costs below 6%, and that may create a wrong incentive. But the right answer isn't to change 6% to 0%, because nobody will want to handle expensive drugs.

<comment><USER17> For the most part prescribing doctors aren't the ones who have to deal with inventory costs, it's pharmacies that have the inventory costs. I've even had doctors send me to the pharmacy to pick up injectable medication, primarily because they didn't want to deal with an inventory. So why should prescribing doctors get 6% of cost?

<comment><USER20> Prescribing doctors don't get 6% of the cost unless they're also supplying it. Lucentis is injected with a needle into your eyeball, so you probably want your ophthalmologist to do it in their office.

<comment><USER21> My doctor injects medication into me every few months. I go to the pharmacy to pick it up first, and then go to the doctor to get it injected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What I found most interesting about the article was the complete lack of any idea of the patient paying for the drugs. The word "patient" literally does not appear on the first page, throughout the rest of the article, it only occurs in references to studies, except on the last page, were we find "many decisions are guided by whether the patient's insurance covers the entire cost or just a portion."

It seems that patients aren't agents who have any involvement in anything, in the authors world. They're just objects to be pushed around by insurance companies, doctors, and drug makers.

Regardless of the details of these two drugs, right there you have the problem with health care in America.

</comment><comment><USER23> "it's the same damn molecule with a few cosmetic changes" pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this article.

As any chemist worth their salt will tell you, small differences to molecules doesn't necessarily make them just as easily produced. And similarly any biochemist worth their salt will be able to tell you that small differences can indeed matter a lot!

Reading the wikipedia article for the more expensive drug ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranibizumab](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranibizumab)), it does appear that there are therapeutic differences between the two drugs in terms of associated infections.

The real thing, however, to check when talking about medicines is the Specific Product Characteristics sheet. This is, in essence, what doctors refer to when looking up medicines. [http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/19409/SPC/Lucentis+...](http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/19409/SPC/Lucentis+10+mg+ml+solution+for+injection/)<USER3> [http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/15748/SPC/Avastin+2...](http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/15748/SPC/Avastin+25mg+ml+concentrate+for+solution+for+infusion/) . Avastin is used for a lot more than just eye conditions, it seems, and has shall we say a number of issues.

Something most people fail to realise is exactly how expensive new drug development actually is. You've got experimental labs doing in-vivo tests of thousands of molecules (at least), animal studies to ensure the human trials will be safe, multiple stages of clinical trials in humans with associated insurance, etc. The sole means of recuperating the cost of all of this is through product sales. There are very few actual grants awarded for developing medicines all the way through to production. No tie-in marketing of lunch boxes. No crowdfunding from patient groups.

I do wholeheartedly agree, however, that there are perverse incentives on doctors to prescribe more expensive medication, and the modern pharmaceutical industry is messed up in so many ways. Most doctors too don't even understand properly what it is they are prescribing[1], and the 21st century medical representative system has more in common with jingles and home appliance sales than the clinical educators of the 20th century.

Disclosure: I have family and friends working in this field

[1] Reasons why people become doctors: money, power and helping people. Good doctors get to chose two of out of three. And to be fair to doctors, they have to remember a hell of a lot of academic material in a constantly changing field, and /then/ have social skills and physical skills to master

<comment><USER24> > As any chemist worth their salt will tell you, small differences to > molecules doesn't necessarily make them just as easily produced. And > similarly any biochemist worth their salt will be able to tell you that > small differences can indeed matter a lot!

As an example of this: thalidomide has two different enantiomers (see here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thalidomide- structures.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thalidomide-structures.png)) one of which is harmless (or at least is until it racemizes) and the other of which causes severe birth defects. These are literally __the same atoms and same bonds __with a twist.

If a twist in a molecule makes the difference between a healthy baby and a severely deformed one, then "a few cosmetic changes" can make a huge difference.

<comment><USER25> And for a more common situation involving "a few cosmetic changes" that makes me feel not so bad about talking shit about drug companies, take a look at levocetirizine.

My doctor tried for a couple years to push it on me while fully knowing that I would much rather just go to Costco and buy a year's worth of generic Zyrtec for the after-insurance cost of one month of Xyzal. There is literally no difference in effectiveness or side effects for me between the two. For many people there won't be much of a difference.

<comment><USER14> Tried to push it on you, or prescribed it and you filled it? Often doctors will prescribe the new drug to help patients save money: the insurance company doesn't yet realize it's the same as the cheap generic, and will pay the full cost for you because it's the only drug in its class available. (Buying the over-the-counter drug, you have to pay 100% of its cost from your taxable income, instead of paying $7 from your tax-free income. Then again, given a year's supply of generic Zyrtec is like $20 on Amazon... you'd have to have a pretty high tax rate for that to make sense.)

Obviously, insurers have wised up to this scheme with the "new" allergy drugs, but in other cases, it can be helpful.

<comment><USER25> In some cases it makes sense for sure. I'm guessing that or something like that is probably why Lucentis is also a blockbuster drug. If the price makes sense then what's the point in thinking any more about it? I would just go with the most affordable option.

In my case, he prescribed it and I asked for an alternative after a small case of sticker shock at the pharmacy (and the pharmacist was the one that mentioned it's practically Zyrtec). The next visit he dumped a couple months worth of samples into my lap and told me I should just stick with it and pay for it because it's worth it, so have some manufacturer coupons - you know, the same doctor that prescribed Zyrtec to me before Zyrtec was OTC, hahahaha. I'm still assuming that he wasn't after a kickback as much as it was just sticking with anything that worked at all in the months that I had bronchitis and sinusitis at the same time (with existing allergies and asthma, it was a terrible hell). Except he kept telling me to give it a chance after all that was over. Then I changed insurance plans and he wasn't in network so that was that.

I think the most unfortunate thing is that pricing is pretty opaque. Outside of that and a couple other situations, my doctors have been really helpful in trying to find cheaper alternatives but they don't know what is cheaper other than having someone spend time with the pharmacist going down a list of alternatives. Another anecdote from helping my dad: I used to set aside 2 hours every time he got a new prescription from his ophthalmologist. There were eyedrops that were literally $5/bottle/month, and then there were eyedrops that retailed for over $500 for a fucking 10ml bottle ~1 month supply (I'm looking at you Alphagan P). Every insurance company and plan would be different so someone from the doctor's office had to call the pharmacy and dealing with this took a couple extra hours on my end. Sometimes some brand name would be drastically cheaper than the generic (this happened with Adderall with my old insurance plan). Sometimes the price changed for no discernible reason (not even like anything to do with deductibles). It drove me nuts.

tl;dr don't be sick. it sucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is hardly surprising, and it's unfair to try to turn it into a problem with "entitlement programs". There are many examples of this kind of thing -- and private insurers aren't pushing back on the costs, either.

Take the anti-viral drugs acyclovir and valacyclovir. They're both anti-virals used to treat diseases caused by the herpes simplex virus (e.g. shingles, chicken pox, cold sores, herpes, etc.), and are both commonly prescribed to patients of all ages. The only difference between them is that valacyclovir is a pro-drug -- it metabolizes to acyclovir -- and has slightly higher bioavailability, which means that patients can take three doses a day, instead of five. Otherwise, they're equivalently effective medications.

Granted, three doses a day is easier on patients than five doses a day, but that convenience comes at a cost: valacyclovir costs about five times as much as acyclovir. Your doctor won't tell you this -- she'll just prescribe the valacyclovir, in nearly all cases -- and your private insurance company won't do anything to encourage you to take one drug over the other. About the only way you'd know is if you tried to buy the drug without insurance, and your pharmacist told you that you could use this _other, cheaper_ medication to save a lot of money.

Not only are "entitlement programs" not the problem here, they could actually be the solution: a single-payer health system would have an economic incentive to push back on providers, and encourage them to use more cost-effective drugs. Our current, private insurance system is almost totally blind to cost effectiveness, because nobody in the chain has any incentive to care. The final costs of the system get passed back to employers in the form of annual rate increases, when it's too late to do anything about them.

<comment><USER27> Errrm, it's my understanding that "compliance", i.e. people actually taking their prescribed medicines per schedule, is a _terrific_ problem in the real world. The payoff in patient health can be substantial; in one area I'm familiar with, anti-depressants, there's a _strong_ bias towards those that are normally taken once a day (one of the many advantages of Prozac, the first SSRI).

So I can see lots of physicians routinely prescribing the valacyclovir ... although for someone like me, to whom the whole idea of compliance was a new, almost unthinkable thing when I first learned about it, they'd like go with the acyclovir (especially after I looked up the drugs in question, read up on their pharmacokinetics, etc.; obviously I'm a special case, e.g. nowadays I tell my doctors what to prescribe me for allergies and sinus infections, having learned what works and what's cheap).

Hmmm, come to think of it, when I got an "early" (age early 40s) case of herpes zoster (shingles, and, yeah, it's no fun at all, get the vaccine when you can) in 2003 I was prescribed acyclovir, by a doctor who knew both my financial situation (not great then) and compliance patterns.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, I don't mean to diminish the importance of compliance -- it's a big problem, especially for things like antibiotics and anti-viral meds. And certainly, three times a day is a lot easier than five times a day. But as you imply, you might rationally make a different choice if you (the patient) know the facts. My point is that nobody has any skin in the game in the current system -- from the perspective of the decision makers, the costs are almost totally externalized.

Aside: I also learned about this when I came down with shingles. That was a bummer (not the least of which because I was on COBRA at the time, and the insurance company refused to pay the med costs without going through a complicated reimbursement scheme!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> But don't listen to those that say a regulated health care system is needed.

These companies are just looking out for their own like good Americans.

<comment><USER29> In the long run, the problem takes care of itself when the patent expires in 2019 in the US and 2022 in Europe.

[http://www.fiercepharma.com/special- reports/avastin](http://www.fiercepharma.com/special-reports/avastin)

Until then it's off-label usage. When the time comes, expect an absolute feeding frenzy to make a similar equivalent (with incrementally higher efficacy or slightly fewer side effects) or an alternative formulation to regain those patent rights. I would expect Genentech is already hard at work here.

<comment><USER19> Except that the problem _doesn 't_ take care of itself. By 2019, the same company will likely have on the market a new patented drug in the same family, with roughly the same efficacy as the other two. They can do this pretty much indefinitely.

<comment><USER30> Wrong. Pharmacy doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER31> Yes, it does. They add something like calcium carbonate (tums) to an existing med and patent the combo, or they find an isomer of the drug. Happens all the time.

<comment><USER30> No, it doesn't. Generic companies can make replicates of the original drug easily when the original patent expires.

<comment><USER19> Yes, but those generics will be cheap, whereas the new drug will be expensive. Since the doctors are reimbursed based on a percentage of the cost of the drug, they will choose the more expensive one, just like they do now. A cheap competitor already exists. Adding another cheap competitor won't help when doctors are incentivized to use the most expensive option.

<comment><USER6> You're forgettingabout the incentives of the insurers. They will be the ones to require the cheaper alternative, similar to the way many insurers require the use of Avastin for AMD unless there is a good reason to use Lucentis.

<comment><USER31> > They will be the ones to require the cheaper alternative

They likely can't in this situation, as the cheaper alternative is off-label.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This article seems to miss the bigger picture -- why is Lucentis 40x more expensive than Avastin?

The answer is that drugs aren't priced by how much they cost to manufacture a dose -- nor should they be!

Roughly, they're priced by the cost of R&D (a fixed cost) and the benefit to patients (a fixed benefit per patient). So it makes complete sense that Lucentis is more expensive, because the does size is so much smaller. It's still vastly less expensive to get eye treatment with Lucentis than cancer treatment with Avastin, which runs at ~$100,000/year.

</comment><comment><USER33> The Post conveniently left out that the Pharm company found that "Avastin patients had a 30% higher risk of serious systemic side effects than Lucentis patients did". Why didn't they include the Pharm company's side?

[http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/novartis-digs-safety- data-...](http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/novartis-digs-safety-data-avastin- vs-lucentis-study/2012-05-02)

<comment><USER18> The article does mention and debuffs it. Its the difference between 32 and 40% Its based off one study of small sample size and is not biologically plausible.

>The incidence of what are known as serious adverse events — a catchall category that includes hospitalizations for any reason — was slightly higher in the Avastin group: 40 percent vs. 32 percent. The adverse events included broken bones and urinary tract infections.

"The majority of the adverse events would be difficult to imagine being caused by the drug," Martin said. Martin noted that while small, probably random effects favored Lucentis in some cases and in others they favored Avastin. Neither should be viewed as conclusively related to the drug, he said. >

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> medicine is one of the areas where being economically driven causes problems.

medical research is stupidly expensive and companies need to recover their costs for their to be progress at all. incidentally its the /only/ valid argument i have seen for patents. it also explains a lot of the high expenses involved... its a shame, i feel that this is an industry that desperately needs to be nationalised because, even with the best of intentions, a business must be profitable to survive.

we regularly see layers of rhetoric and polical manuveuring attacking e.g. Obama care, the NHS and similar initiatives and from this i feel we lose out - they criticise the specifics for a political agenda. imo the spirit of these programs is exactly right - the problem is always sloppy implementation by politicians (as with any case where nationalisation is not effective - <USER2> is /provable/ almost in the mathematical sense). We can't expect them to do well though - they are winners of popularity contests which essentially boil down to competitions of rhetoric and salesmanship - they have no reason to have any of the prerequisite skills for us to expect them to do a good job in that arena - or even leadership in general. it is a massive failing of our particular flavour of democracy imo.

on the other side doctors are supposed to be bound by the Hippocratic oath. this utterly rules out not helping people because they can't afford it - <USER3> yet many physicians have to make that choice regularly - which is not just breaking their word, but against the entire spirit of medicine and morality.

all in all its a horrible situation, but one that i believe is incredibly fixable... however articles like this are attacking the institutions which currently allow us to have medicine and portraying it in a way that the common man will empathize with. its just another pile of rhetoric distracting us from being productive imo... if you dig into any of the details as other commenters have mentioned, the factual basis is weak.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'll take a different angle from most of the comments and talk about the prohibition of Medicare negotiating the price of drugs. The article talks about how two other countries have negotiated discounts of 35-45% off the list $2000 USD price. If you want to help hold down prices, all that's necessary is to actually negotiate a volume discount with the drug companies. It's basically an indirect subsidy to the drug companies via Medicare.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's well known that the pharmaceutical industry sends representatives to doctors to persuade them to prescribe their products. Frequently this is achieved with special "incentives" (read: bribery). Some doctors around here have put signs on their doors saying that they do not talk to representatives of pharmaceutical companies.

</comment><comment><USER37> If this kind of stuff outrages you, please ask your Rep to investigate: [http://www.house.gov/htbin/findrep](http://www.house.gov/htbin/findrep)

Since we are talking about taxpayer money, this seems like a great opportunity for a Congressional hearing on the matter.

</comment><comment><USER38> What isn't mentioned is that these drugs are actually injected directly into the eye. My grand father was prescribed both, and had no improvement in vision. When he switched to the expensive one, there were excellent results, and he can now see again.

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought this sort of thing is what insurance companies are expected to handle: to advise on cost-effective alternatives for standard diagnosis codes.

<comment><USER31> The article talks about Medicare, and how it's forbidden by Congress from negotiating prices, among other things.

I'll give you one guess on which industry lobbied for _that_ restriction.

<comment><USER6> The gov't sure as hell negotiates other price concessions from pharma companies:

1\. Medicare only pays "average selling price" which includes all discounts offered to physicians

2\. Medicare demands pharma pay 50% of the donut hole gap which is several billion each year

3\. Medicaid automatically gets a 23% discount on all drugs

4\. DOD, VA and other gov't organizations do negotiation drug prices and they get a 24% discount on top of that

There is plenty of price negotiations on the gov't side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> In Finland this is handled in pharmacies. Pharmacist will always inform you if there is a cheaper alternative to the drug you've been prescribed.

<comment><USER32> Really? Lucentis is injected into the eye by doctors -- it's not something you're taking at home.</comment></comment>


Trump Digital Director: Facebook employees work[ed] every day in our offices - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-ads-russia-and-the-trump-campaigns-secret-weapon/ <comment><USER2> Confirmed by the BBC aswell. Facebook made millions by running personal ads for the Trump campaign, they even earned so much money that Facebook handed them a personal marketing assistant to work out any issue they might have had running their campaign.

And it is this particular campaign that won Trump the presidency, by the way.</comment>


Starting with Lisp: A collection of beginner pointers - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/blog/48/entry-3070-starting-with-lisp/

<comment><USER3> For experienced programmers, the clearest introduction to Common Lisp is the first few chapters of "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp" by Peter Norvig. His writing style is exceptional. Not quite so clear, but also not too dense, is "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham. Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp" is dense (words per page), but is good for a "now I know a little Lisp, what can I do with it" book to read second. Winston's "Lisp (3rd)" goes from an extremely basic intro to heavy-duty AI without building up to it. But you can get it cheap, so it is worth it for a beginning reference.

As a sidenote, when you first look into Lisp, you hear a lot of kvetching and mocking about parentheses. And indeed, there is a point in the learning curve where you get confused about the proper numbers of parentheses for certain kinds of expressions (so-called 'special forms'). And you see Lisp apologists countering that it's not the parentheses that matter; rather the indentation is what helps you understand the code.

In my experience, what happens is that as you become familiar with these 'special forms', you learn to recognize the visual patterns of indentation and parentheses that are particular to each of these expressions. And once you write a number of them yourself, grokking the code of others is no problem. And as in all languages, a decent editor and syntax coloring is helpful.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your straight-up and instructive comment.

> _And indeed, there is a point in the learning curve where you get confused > about the proper numbers of parentheses for certain kinds of expressions > (so-called 'special forms'). [...] In my experience, what happens is that as > you become familiar with these 'special forms', you learn to recognize the > visual patterns of indentation and parentheses that are particular to each > of these expressions._

Yes. This seemingly mundane topic actually interests me a great deal.

One thing that I appreciate about Arc, despite all of the language's shortcomings today (few libraries, no module system, tiny community, scarce documentation, etc.), is that its designer has taken great care to minimize the number of parentheses. The core language almost as a rule doesn't employ parentheses unless absolutely necessary, and it's nice to have a guiding heuristic like this while you're learning because it allows you to internalize the special forms more quickly.

<comment><USER5> Rich Hickey (the creator of clojure) sais something about this too. Something like this:

"Only use parentheses when it is absolutely necessary witch makes it a little harder for macro writers but much easier for users."

If i work with CL i really hate that i have to write pairs in parens. In cond or let: CL: (let ((a 1) (b 2))) Clojure: (let [a 1 b 2])

<comment><USER3> In my code, where the binding forms would typically be longer than (a 1) or (b 2), they each go on their own line, and the editor will align them by their left parentheses. In those cases where the initialization form needs to be broken into another line, the editor will indent the continuation properly, and the 'terminating' parenthesis is actually a helpful visual cue that the form is done.

I haven't written any Clojure so I'm not sure how my brain would react to non- delimited forms (ie, the implicit pairs). I also don't know how Emacs handles the indentation for these, or whether in more complicated cases, my brain would have to work harder to group the binding forms. I read the Clojure specs on 'let' and it appears to be a somewhat different beast than the CL 'let'. In more complicated cases, it doesn't appear to be an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of parsing the 'shape' of the expressions.

<comment><USER4> > _I'm not sure how my brain would react to non-delimited forms (ie, the > implicit pairs)._

You probably wouldn't like it. ;) Seriously though, I think what we're used to plays a tremendous role in our preference here.

> _I also don't know how Emacs handles the indentation for these_

For Arc, anyway, the indentation algorithm is constantly making mistakes. I always hesitate to auto-indent a region because I know I'll have to go through and manually fix things. But I'm not sure this is the language's fault - <USER2> Emacs mode probably just needs to be smarter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would add that reading SICP or HtDP is not enough, you need to work through the exercises to sink in the important programming principles they try to teach you. Also, I miss the Schemer/Lisper series by Friedman et al. in that list.

Just out of curiosity, regarding claims like "Common Lisp has a fairly sized community which is widely regarded as a tough bunch" or "The Scheme community is really one of the most tolerant communities of them all", are those based on personal experience? How did you come up with such conclusions? I'm really interested :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say this is from personal experience based on lurking on CLL and a couple of dumb questions I asked on #lisp once. I don't really mind the CL community, its just that the help starts once you've one (atleast, even the introductory one's) or a major chunk of one book down cold. After that they're really eager to show you the path.

Compare this with many other language communities, people regularly ask questions regarding where are the installer's kept which is answered with great politeness by some good netizen. The contrast only occurs that the benchmark of the CL community starts at a higher bar. Recently though, as I wrote in the blog post, even the big-name lisper's seem to guide newbie's to LispBox's URL or suggesting the command line to install SBCL on Ubuntu which certainly is making CL communities a fairly friendly place to be.

The #scheme guys are just amazing. So are the individual mailing lists of the implementation Racket. Somebody on #scheme actually held my hand (metaphorically) to clear my confusion as to which function is the "main" function where execution starts. I used code a little in C/C++/Java and was expecting a function named "main" even though I was testing individual functions from the DrScheme IDE's split window REPL.

<comment><USER6> I find rather amusing that lispers and schemers differ that much when it comes to lend a hand to people, especially when Scheme is a dialect of Lisp. Do lispers regard the poor schemers in an envious way just because tail-call optimization is part of the Scheme standard? :)

No, seriously. Nowadays, it seems like people sometimes forget what they struggled with when they were learning the ropes of some technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How 'bout Land of Lisp? [1]

\----

[1]: <http://landoflisp.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to include it but I have not read it :) It seems really interesting but is not available in my local bookstores and my current set of books (the one's I mentioned) keep me humming along.

However judging from other people's reactions, I'd say it should a top notch work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just got through reading the first suggested item in the Background section: <http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/lisp.html>

I recommend this to anyone interested in learning about the appeal of Lisp. It's well-written, and lays a nice foundation for those trying to figure out what all the buzz surrounding Lisp is about. I'm sold.

</comment><comment><USER9> A few more tips I found helpful as a beginner:

* Most lisps can compile a binary, even the free ones.

* sbcl seems to have a ton of popularity and support.

* Want to mix Lisp directly into your C code? Try ECL. Most important: it works, and should not take you long to connect it to your program.

* clisp has a nice readline-like commandline; you can get something like it in sbcl with the linedit module

* ASDF isn't horrible, but quicklisp makes packages much easier to get

* cliki.net - browse packages, ideas, etc

* CFFI package lets you use any external library with your Lisp program. Lisp has its own version of C header files that you can build via CFFI.

* Edit lisp in any editor. Emacs is neat. Vim works, too. Both have some extra support tools for Lisp. Emacs is more supported. Worry about learning Lisp first.

* At minimum, your editor should help you figure out what ()s match (or provide them for you). Otherwise, you will spend time counting and being annoyed with ()s rather than loving them.

* Before you write your fourth Lisp program, read some typical Lisp code. Just get a feel for it. Look at how it is indented and arranged. Go back to writing code.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm just beginning my road down the path of learning Lisp. My plan for learning is:

1\. Read the Practical Common Lisp chapters which introduce Lisp features.

2\. Write a web application using Common Lisp (Hunchentoot/Postmodern). After all, the only way to learn a language is to use a language.

3\. Re-read Practical Common Lisp and/or other Lisp books.

I realize that I won't remember 90% of the material read in Practical Common Lisp in Step 1. However, I'm hoping that I can get an overview of the features available in the language to help design a better web application. Knowing some names of features like CLOS, cons cells, plists, alists (and others that I haven't gotten to yet) will just make it easier for me to search for help when I run into problems.

If anyone has any references to good materials for the following:

\- Learning Common Lisp

\- Creating CL applications using Hunchentoot and/or Postmodern

\- Quality Common Lisp API specs

\- Any other tips for an aspiring Lisper

I'd be grateful for any additional information that might help me along the way.

<comment><USER11> I am not sure that writing a web app is the best way to learn common lisp; it introduces a lot of extra complexity (libraries, web server, etc) in a language that is itself quite complex. You'd better start from a simple CLI application as your first project.

Books: there is also Graham's "ANSI Common Lisp", which has a different approach from PCL; I found it clearer as first text (but PCL is a necessary reading anyway, for various reasons). But it's a matter of cognitive styles, start from the one that you prefer.

Absolutely download the Common Lisp Hyperspec and familiarize with it. Is the main everyday referemce tool of any CLisper.

Environment: Emacs + SLIME is the most popular option. Commercial lisps (and their free evaluation versions) also have good IDEs.

Have fun!

<comment><USER10> Well, I had an idea for a web application that I'd otherwise create in Python. I figured I'd use Lisp to get some experience using it (also, my AI class next semester uses Lisp).

While it will probably cause some additional hurdles of complexity (such as figuring how how to use ASDF and manage packages), I find it is hard to motivate myself without a shiny carrot in front of me. The web application is something that I would use and want to build, whereas writing a simple and purely educational program doesn't provide the same kind of motivation.

<comment><USER11> If you can handle, go for it! But if after a while you'll think that lisp is not so different from the other languages after all, it's probably because you tried to learn too many things at once. In that case, persist. :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple made more profit in three months than Amazon has generated in its lifetime - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/11/apple-made-more-profit-in-three-months-than-amazon-has-generated-during-its-lifetime.html <comment><USER2> There's a difference between the start of the dictionary definition of profit

a) noun 1. a financial gain

and

b) GAAP profits

Amazon has made loads of a) and not much b). Perhaps not coincidentally b) are what you are taxed on.

The financial gains made by shareholders in each over the last 5 years as reflected in increase in market cap are about the same for both - $626bn for apple, $648bn for amzn.

For those not into accounting, roughly how it works is if your basic sales are $10bn, costs $8bn then you can put the $2bn in the bank (apple) or spend and expense it on stuff that will increase market share (amazon).

<comment><USER3> If you spend those $2bn in tangible (and in some cases intangible) stuff that is added to the balance sheet, you will still have $2bn of GAAP profit (and will be taxed on it).

There are many ways to compare AAPL and AMZN. Another angle: one is trading at 5 times book value and the other at 25 times book value.

<comment><USER2> Yeah the trick is to spend the $2bn in ways which are expensed rather than added to the balance sheet such as marketing, price promotions and so on.

<comment><USER3> In you do "price promotions", the sales are $8bn and the costs are $8bn. If you overspend on marketing your sales are $10bn and your costs are $10bn. It's true that in those cases the profit is zero, so you won't pay taxes. But it's not obvious that this market share gain will result in much higher profits in the future. The trick is not guaranteed to work as intended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also recall Amazon purposely tries to "stay flush" with expenses and revenue, so naturally this article is true. Amazon sees to avoid taxes, and invests in avenues of expense that benefit it rather than benefitting the tax man. The theory being "how much tax to you pay on net zero income?"

<comment><USER5> Is that also why Walmart and Costco have 2% net income margins? Or why Best Buy makes a whopping $1 billion on $42 billion in sales? Or Target with their fat 4% net income margins.

No, it's because mainstream retail notoriously has horrific margins. There is no scenario where Amazon's retail business will ever generate meaningful margins such that it could be a profit juggernaut. It is not a tax dodge such that they could be yielding massive profits on retail, there is never going to be much profit in that segment.

Right now the only way Amazon is yielding consequential profit, is courtesy of AWS, which does have good margins and is producing nearly all of Amazon's net income.

The retail business - which makes up most of their business - at a standard 2%-4% net income retail margin on ~$140 billion in retail sales, is worth an optimistic $100 to $120 billion; you could push it to $150 billion if you want to give them a larger growth multiplier.

First quarter AWS operating income: $1.4 billion

First quarter total Amazon operating income: $1.9 billion

All the profit-based value in Amazon is in AWS. Retail will always suck, without exception.

That $500m in operating income on the rest of Amazon's $45 billion in sales, is not very far away from the margin you would expect to see on a mainstream retailer. $1b for that segment would be closer to normal if Amazon's growth were more settled (as in the case of Walmart & Target). In this case, that tiny retail profit is still be plowed back into dramatically higher growth than what Walmart or Target have.

<comment><USER6> Is your argument "Amazon is a retail business and Amazon doesn't yield high profits because retail businesses have low margins"?

I guess that's true but so is OP's assertion that Amazon has a reputation for reinvesting would-be profits back into the business.

By the way another way to look at Amazon is the retail business provides significant operating leverage to enable AWS to yield substantial profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And yet, Amazon has given the world way more value than Apple could ever hope to in its lifetime.

If Apple shut down tomorrow, nothing would really change. If Amazon shut down tomorrow, they'd bring down everybody.

</comment><comment><USER8> from the article:

> One Wall Street analyst believes Amazon is still in the "early stages" in > many of its key markets.

With as many things as Amazon has its fingers into, it seems to me to have the potential to end up more profitably than Apple.

<comment><USER9> Amazon's retail business probably has a pretty low margin, and I'm not sure it can make it up in volume. Maybe AWS + Kindle make up for it, but I have my doubts. If you believe in efficient markets (which I, personally, think is bunk), then AMZN's 777B market cap to APPL's 926B means the Market doesn't think so, either. Apple has both large volume and high margins, which is a killer combination. On the other hand, I doubt Apple is going to grow much, whereas Amazon probably has some growth left.

<comment><USER8> Also, a lot of profitability is in Apple's high margins. If that ceases to be a sustainable model....

<comment><USER10> Which is why Apples P/E is so low compared to compared to other tech stocks which I think is totally reasonable. I just got a Pixel 2 and like it more than my old Iphone 6S. With Apples profits so heavily tied to continual sales of 1 main hardware product line, their profit can tank in just a few years and thus I consider very risky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Economies. Of. Scale.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Apple is vastly more profitable than Amazon.

And not a dime of that was paid to shareholders as dividends. So what does it matter?

I once had a local businessman tell me that profit was a waste. You are such a poor leader that you can't find a way to reinvest that surplus in your company and its people? So you give a quarter of it to government and put the rest in the bank so they can use it to make themselves money?

I'm not a fan of Mr Bezos but I think he has the right idea; if shareholders aren't demanding cash then take the opportunity to feed the net revenue back into the company. Some day the shareholders will wake-up...

<comment><USER13> I'm trying to understand what you're going after here. AAPL has a fairly substantial dividend (it was the biggest in the world last year[0], and continues to be fairly substantial given the share price).

If you're talking about AMZN then it makes sense as they buy up more verticals, reinvesting any profits to growth.

In either case the two companies are at different phases of their cycle. Apple is in the stable dividend mode while Amazon is still growing. Either could choose to change that, of course, but shareholders have expectations and to some extent both organizations are up to the whims of shareholder voting.

[0] [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/05/02/app...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/05/02/apple- now-pays-the-biggest-dividend-in-the-world-surpassing-exxon.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Amazon is useful and makes good margins on economical services, where Apple basically defines middle class identity.

Where Amazon is something you use, Apple makes something you identify as part of your personal story. Instagram has a similar play, where it is a platform for democratized celebrity, people "become," Instagram famous. Facebook is more of an individual signalling tool for people who have already won, or who just don't understand the game. To me FBs long game looks like a dystopian malignant Equifax.

Oddly, Reddit has Instagram level upside if only they could hire someone with vision, and build an org that could execute on it instead of handwringing about solving political problems.

Apple is a gatekeeper to aspiration, and the demand characteristics of that are unlimited. The stat in the article does not surprise me at all.</comment>


Video game hacking - <AUTHOR> https://mlafeldt.github.io/blog/video-game-hacking/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, I had no idea how these devices worked :)</comment>


CertiVox confirms it withdrew PrivateSky after GCHQ issued warrant - <AUTHOR> http://www.itsecurityguru.org/node/4780 <comment><USER2> _we had the choice to make - either architect the world 's most secure encryption system on the planet, so secure that CertiVox cannot see your data, or spend £500,000 building a backdoor into the system_

So, just like Lavabit as 'moxie keeps pointing out[1][2], it wasn't actually secure. Still, I like the principled stand they took.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6672442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6672442)

[2] [http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/lavabit- critique/](http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/lavabit-critique/)

<comment><USER3> There is no _actually secure_ \- that's the problem. The best you can do is secure against specific threat models. Up until recently, most people didn't necessarily view government intrusion as a particularly credible threat, so didn't spend the extra time/effort/money mitigating against it.

One of the best things to come out of all these revelations, in my opinion, is a revised view of what threats we should consider which were previously dismissed as paranoid ramblings.

<comment><USER4> You're right that we may have been naive about trusting our governments.

What I don't understand is why anyone trusted businesses (such as CertiVox and Lavabit) to keep their emails secure?

If the businesses themselves couldn't decrypt these emails, there's nothing the government could usefully ask them for.

<comment><USER5> _What I don 't understand is why anyone trusted businesses (such as CertiVox and Lavabit) to keep their emails secure?_

Because they didn't consider "because terrorism" to be a security threat that could penetrate privacy and property laws. Lavabit has proven that the Third- Party Doctrine means that once you give data to a business, you're giving it to the government.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear.

I have an email I want to be secure.

Why am I giving this data to Lavabit in a form that they can decrypt? (Forget the government for the moment.)

Why aren't these systems engineered to mean that only _I_ have the key to decrypt them?

<comment><USER5> I don't know. Why aren't you running your own email server?

<comment><USER4> Me personally? Because I don't actually need secure email (and so didn't use Lavabit or CertiVox).

My point is that if I did want secure email, I wouldn't trust a company whose email system architecture meant that they could read my email.

A personal email server might be a good solution, but then you have to maintain it. It seems as though it should be possible for a company to build an email system (and offer it as a service to customers) whereby they _couldn't_ read user's email.

This seems like a good thing. (And as a nice side-effect, the government can't then issue them with a warrant to read your email. Although that's not to say they can't read your email in other ways.)

<comment><USER5> I'm not aware of any companies providing double-blind encrypted email services, but they may be out there. Certainly they would eventually be accused of providing harbor to terrorists and other unsavories. At best, it sidesteps the problem of the lack of legal privacy protections when using a service provider of any kind.

[http://www.legaltechnology.com/latest-news/data-security- in-...](http://www.legaltechnology.com/latest-news/data-security-in-the- snowden-era-1-double-blind-encryption/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are some details of the legislation in question here[1]. It allows the UK to monitor "in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom" which seems a little broad!

It would be interesting to know if this warrant targeted all users or a specific subset?

I wonder how they decide whether to issue a warrant or just break into the site in question. A warrant could imply that they are unable to attack the provider, or that they want to have a chilling effect.

[1][http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investiga...](http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000/Part_I)

<comment><USER7> RIPA was strongly opposed by the IT and communications community during its 'consultation' period, but was passed largely intact. It was so intrusive a proposal that even people like me who often say 'I'll write and complain' actually did write a letter.

Predictions of its misuse have been borne out, particularly as the authorized users of communication data were never enumerated or restricted. So we have the situation today where local Councils use RIPA to obtain communication data regarding individual citizens' activities.

<comment><USER8> > ..local Councils use RIPA to obtain communication data...

It's worth noting that legislation introduced during 2012 limited the circumstances under which councils could use RIPA powers [1] and required judicial approval for the exercise of those powers [2].

[1]: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1500/article/2/made](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1500/article/2/made)

[2]: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/part/2/chapter/2/...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/part/2/chapter/2/enacted)

<comment><USER9> This only happened after various scandals about privacy invasion by councils.

<comment><USER8> And after a Tory-led government came to power...

<comment><USER9> What's that got to do with it? (genuinely interested).

<comment><USER8> I think it's ironic that those who are in favour of personal liberties are often on the left of the political spectrum whereas, in this instance, it was the Tories who rolled back aspects of surveillance legislation that was introduced by Labour.

<comment><USER9> I think that the left/right distinction is silly myself. A typical red vs blue flag waving exercise rather than solving anything.

Both labour and conservatives seem to mix the tenets of the two freely based on whim rather than manifesto.

On one hand we have Big Society and smash socialism.

On the other hand we have Big Society and smash socialism.

Same turds, different coloured glitter.

All parties have sold out to their corporate sponsors and are as bent as anything.

<comment><USER8> Whilst I don't agree 100%, I don't disagree strongly enough to make an argument of it. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, shows a lot of integrity closing the product instead of still keeping it up in a compromised state to comply with the warrant. We've seen some other providers here in the US even changed functionality to retain keys used in web clients of secure email at the behest of government orders.

This does mean that the UK is now on the list, along with the US, of places where no credible crypto startup is possible, though.

<comment><USER11> > This does mean that the UK is now on the list, along with the US, of places > where no credible crypto startup is possible, though.

I can think of very few developed countries that, when the rubber hits the road, will let you do what you want. Taking measures to aid official police or court investigations is simply an implied obligation in most countries with developed legal systems. Very few countries will tolerate service providers whose raison d'etre is "we won't cooperate with the authorities" except in limited situations like off-shore banking when the primary purpose is to hide assets or information from people in _other_ countries.

This isn't specific to crypto or police investigations either. Say you want to start an accounting firm that guarantees it will never share your records if subpoenaed in a civil lawsuit. This would never fly in the U.S., not now or one hundred years ago, and while I'm not super familiar with European law, I can't imagine it would fly in any western European country either.

<comment><USER12> I think it falls into three groups for communications providers:

1) Laws like CALEA, which (if applicable) require a provider to develop and expose backdoors to the government in advance of a request

2) Building systems where an operator doesn't have access, but where a court order can compel changes to the system, including ultimately shutting it down.

3) Being able to build a system where operator doesn't have access to data, and upon a request, if no data can be turned over, continues operating. Must turn over any data which you do have.

4) No requirement to cooperate, or something equiv to 4th/5th A protections for the end user being extended to service providers.

I used to think the US was #3. I don't believe #4 exists anywhere, at least outside specific kinds of data (medical, legal). The US is at least #2 now, and might actually be #1 in more and more domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The headline attached to this submission is sensationalist and misleading. GCHQ did not force CertiVox to shut down PrivateSky. CertiVox decided to close PrivateSky after they were served with a notice issued under section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which required that they hand over the key(s) required to decrypt one (or more) of their customer's data.

The underlying legislation can be found here: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents)

The relevant section is 49 but sections 53 (Failure to comply with a notice) and 54 (Tipping off) are also of particular interest.

<comment><USER13> I disagree. The headline is reasonable because you can be put in a position in which you're not _forced_ to do something, but it's extremely unreasonable not to do that thing. They weren't forced to close down per se, but their other options were extremely infeasible or reprehensible.

<comment><USER8> > They weren't forced to close down per se...

That's the crux of the issue. They weren't forced to close down, they chose to.

End of discussion.

EDIT: Actually, why don't we see what the CEO of CertiVox has to say on the matter?

"The headline strongly infers our friends at GCHQ "forced" us to take PrivateSky down. That's hogwash."

Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6894316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6894316)

<comment><USER13> End of discussion? No, sir, it is not!

Your interpretation is extremely naïve. I could hold a gun to your head, for example. You wouldn't be forced per se to meet my demands, but you probably would because it would be extremely unreasonable not to. In the same way, the consequences for not complying are: an extremely expensive and possibly unaffordable rewrite, going to jail for a few years, or giving up their customers data in violation of their principles. The GHCQ order effectively put a gun to their head.

<comment><USER8> > I could hold a gun to your head, for example. You wouldn't be forced per se > to meet my demands, but you probably would because it would be extremely > unreasonable not to.

GCHQ never demanded that CertiVox shut down their service. That is the bottom line and, no matter what sort of ridiculous "gun against your head" rationale you come up with or how firmly you plug your ears while shouting "LALALA!" at the top of your voice; you cannot refute that fact.

EDIT: Actually, why don't we see what the CEO of CertiVox has to say on the matter?

"The headline strongly infers our friends at GCHQ "forced" us to take PrivateSky down. That's hogwash."

Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6894316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6894316)

<comment><USER14> Sir Ian, nice try, but we know it's you!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Lobban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Lobban)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So now our legal economic activities depend on the say-so of a shadowy, unelected cabal. I guess we're "destroying the village to save it."

</comment><comment><USER16> "or spend £500,000 building a backdoor into the system"

A nice round number... They had good motive to protect their customers and close the service. Why start talking about this kind of ridiculous development costs, that sound like it got pulled out of the air?

At least I'd be more sympathetic, if they sticked to the facts. I could even support their cause by posting and tweeting that this is terrible. Now I just feel, that cut the BS already, even they apparently were treated wrong and intimidated to shut down their business.

</rant>

<comment><USER17> Since a comment claiming to come from the CEO of PivateSky is dead, it seems worth re-posting so that more people can read it :-

" This is Brian, the CEO. Yea, it was a nice round number out of the air. But it probably wasn't far off the mark.

For all the other comments, below is a blog post on the matter which is going to go live shortly:

With the story about our PrivateSky takedown now public, I want to take the opportunity to clarify a few points in various articles that have appeared since yesterday covering the story.

The headline strongly infers our friends at GCHQ "forced" us to take PrivateSky down. That's hogwash. In fact, the headline contradicts the article, which becomes clear as you read it.

Secondly, a very important point wasn't printed. GCHQ couldn't, by law, request a blanket back door on the system. There are a very rigid set of controls that mean only specific individuals can come under surveillance. The legal request for such surveillance has a due process that must be stridently followed. At no time did I or anyone at CertiVox talk about CertiVox in relation to any RIPA warrant, only the generic process by which these warrants are served.

By saying "our friends at GCHQ", there is no facetiousness intended. The team at CertiVox have the upmost respect for the folks we interacted with at GCHQ. They took the due process I outlined in the previous point very seriously. We found that as an organisation, and every individual involved there, were as worried about a breach of public trust as much as we are.

Finally, I believe very strongly the following should be a larger part of the public discourse of these subjects. What everyone needs to understand is that every developed democracy in the world, even where privacy rights are enshrined to the maximum efficacy by statute, has laws on the books that mandate that Internet Service Providers have facilities to work with law enforcement for the purposes of legal intercept, to enforce public safety and security.

Being L.I. capable is a very important set features and functions that must be in place for any credible, commercial service on the Internet. In endeavouring to make PrivateSky as secure as possible, we overlooked this critical requirement when we built PrivateSky.

When CertiVox positioned PrivateSky as the easiest to use and most secure encrypted messaging service, we really had two significant points of differentiation. First, even though we held the root encryption keys to the system, it was architected in such as way that it would have been all but impossible for our internal staff to snoop on our customer's communications, or for the service to leak any of our customer's data. Secondly, our possession of the root keys, and our use of identity based encryption, made the system incredibly easy to use. For the user, there were no private or public keys to manage, every workflow was handled for the user in an easy to grasp pure HTML5 interface, no hardware or software required, just an HTML5 browser.

We boxed ourselves into a feature set and market position that when called upon to comply with legal statues, we simply had no alternative but to shut the service down. We built it, but we couldn't host it.

Why? Because as you can probably surmise, there is an inherent impedance mismatch between being able to host a commercial communications service that gives the upmost in privacy to its users, against any breach, whilst at the same time being able to operate safely within the confines of the law as it is on the books in most countries on the planet.

Is this wrong? Actually, I don't think it is. This may be an unpopular viewpoint, but I cannot argue against having a well regulated legal intercept function as being necessary to have in place for a society that prizes law and order and the safety of its citizens. This is speaking as someone who lived in NYC during 9/11.

In summary, it's the abuse of the communications interception in the Snowden revelations that has everyone up in arms, as so it should. But that's not what happened with PrivateSky.

What is our next move?

Watch this space.

\-----"

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Just confirmation of another vendor who said no to the government intrusions on their customer data.

I"ll say it again since it bears repeating. How many more companies are complying and giving their keys to the government so they can track people that we won't hear about??

Makes me sketchy on using any "encrypted" email service right now.

</comment><comment><USER18> Drop shadows in all the directions!

I like the idea obfuscating the location of the containers of the data as well as the content.

Shred, encrypt, disperse. You send a token to the recipient and they are able to use that to build location requests for the containers. Once they have the parts, they can assemble and decrypt.

So, in which country can this be developed?

</comment><comment><USER19> CertiVox have released a blog on their site explaining more about PrivateSky shut down: [http://www.certivox.com/blog/bid/359788/The-real-story-on- th...](http://www.certivox.com/blog/bid/359788/The-real-story-on-the- PrivateSky-takedown)

</comment><comment><USER20> My eyes!

<comment><USER21> Same here. I'm sure the content is really interesting but the design is awful! Plus the logo doesn't fit at all the topic of computer security.</comment></comment>


Developers Can Now Access Locations of 250 Million Phones Across U.S. Carriers - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/developers_can_now_access_locations_of_250_million.php <comment><USER3> Don't get worried about privacy, in order to locate a phone a potential user of your location based service first has to create an account at <http://www.veriplace.com/> Then respond to to an SMS to the phone number to opt in.

As a developer you then have to have your application approved and only then do you have the privilege of using their 5 step process to try to get a phone's location

<http://developer.veriplace.com/devportal/developerguide>

A cell tower location will cost you around .02 and an attempt at a more accurate will cost around .05

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm looking through all this, and one question comes to mind: you iphone users know when an app first asks if it can access your location data? Well, I'm thinking here: Does that mean it can access your location data _even when you're not using that app?_

<comment><USER5> In the age of multitasking, I'm not sure that "when you're not using the app" is even defined. But yeah, it looks like this service can get your location _even if you haven't installed an app at all_.

<comment><USER6> It very much sounds like the carriers are selling out their customers location data.

My first thought when I read about this was how the hell do I opt out. I'm guessing you won't be able to until the carriers are inevitably sued.

<comment><AUTHOR> The company says the service is opt in this press release: <http://www.location-labs.com/press_article.php?newsid=80> and in the comments here: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/21/location-labs/> and here: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_geofencing_the_next_...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_geofencing_the_next_evolution_for_location_apps_location_labs_thinks_so.php)

Although, I have to say this is not at all clear (at least to me) from reading through their website or even by reading their privacy policy <http://location-labs.com/privacy.php>

<comment><USER7> This article seems to resemble PR copypasta, but over-looking that, it is a little comforting that the thing is opt-in.

That kind of sheds doubt on the 250M figure, though. Do they mean 250M potential users?

<comment><USER8> Exactly - 250M potential users is what they mean. Right now they probably have very few consumer opt-ins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not a word about opt-in vs. opt-out. Privacy, schmivacy?

<comment><USER10> Reading the developer section of the company website, I understand it's opt-in (per app).

<comment><USER8> It is 100% opt-in, but there is no "app" needed on the actual phone - <USER2> you're totally right if by "per app" you mean "per developer" or "per use case." So I might allow one company to locate my phone for a family-finder scenario, and another company to locate my phone for local weather alerts, for example. No app required in either case. Hope this helps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyone have an idea about how they are getting the location data? Tower triangulation?

<comment><USER8> Their contracts with the carriers allow for remote pings of the GPS chip (if there is GPS on the handset). Otherwise it's just cell tower triangulation.</comment></comment>


User Onboarding - <AUTHOR> http://www.useronboard.com/ <comment><USER2> I love the teardowns that Samuel does. There is so much you can learn from looking at just a bunch of them. Recommended to anyone who runs an app.</comment>


Stratfor CEO: Data wasn't encrypted, and hackers made multiple attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/stratfor-ceo-data-wasnt-encrypted-and-hackers-made-2096774.html

<comment><USER2> So it has been a week or two since the hack went down. Now can somebody point me now to the dirty little secrets Stratfor was hiding from us? Except for the earth shattering news that they had some people in the security business as subscribers - was there anything newsworthy coming out of that hack?

<comment><USER3> I love stratfor, I read it all the time, there is nothing on the site that is remotely scandalous. Now that being said, the hack captured all their email, which haven't be released -- there might be something in there.

Stratfor's Article on the hack: <http://stratfor.com/weekly/hack-stratfor>

<comment><USER4> I wonder if email theft will be the centerpiece of an era of what I would call "information terrorism."

I use that term advisedly, though I know lots of people will object to the t-word. It's not about killing people (though, when it comes to global security, it's difficult to estimate the repercussions), but it is about providing prominent public examples of what happens if you communicate in a way that's publicly comprehensible. Which is to say, speaking openly behind the walls of your organization with the (false) belief that your emails to your colleagues are inherently hidden from a public view.

This creates a huge overhead to communication. We've all written emails that, when a phrase is taken out of context, can bring massive scandal and disrepute on you and your organization. (See, for instance, "hide the decline" or "trick.") So the only option is to clamp down on communication, and when it does happen rely on mealy-mouthed or specialized language whose real meaning no one except the two speakers can understand.

This won't lead to the ossification and death of corrupt organizations that rely on secrecy, contra Assange. It will lead to a Straussian world where all real information is just hidden from the public and kept as public secrets that only the elite are privy to, instead of available to anyone through media like Stratfor.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't use the term terrorism, because it's meaning was difficult to determine before 9/11 {freedom fighter or terrorist, you be the judge} and it's only gotten worse since. Plus it's politically loaded, right now is used to strip people of their citizenship, indefinitely detain them, torture them, etc.

As far as Assange's goals, iirc he was trying to increase the cost of secrecy and corruption; which you seem to think will happen.

As for the climategate emails, I'd say the more interesting portion was trying to block the publication of various scientists they disagreed with.

Lastly, this is a simple problem to solve via encryption. Perhaps attacks like these will have some good in that encryption products will become easier to use. Microsoft outlook is very easy to use with PKI, we need to come up with in the browser to do encrypted webmail.

<comment><USER2> Plus people are (or at least I am) willing to pay for encryption products or services just because it is some sensitive area. Especially for cloud services a client based encryption option would be extremely useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Excellent response to the hack: <http://www.stratfor.com/hacking-news></comment>


Airpush — Push Notification Ads for Android - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/04/29/android-advertising <comment><USER2> > Airpush sounds like a really good way to turn inactive users into active > uninstallers.

Or inactive users of the Ad-full version of your app into buyers of the Ad- free version of your app. If your app is a vitamin, and the ads are annoying, they'll dump you. If you app is a pain-killer, and the ads are annoying, they'll buy it.

Picking a good monetization scheme is fine, but you need to write apps that don't suck, first.</comment>


Reality doesn't exist until we measure it, quantum experiment confirms - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms <comment><USER2> I think that too many are calling this magic, or liking it to paranormal, but 50 years from now we will look back and it will be no more normal than the law of gravity, or other physical 'givens' of the universe</comment>


San Francisco Is a Microcosm of America's Future - <AUTHOR> https://danielmiessler.com/blog/san-francisco-is-a-microcosm-of-americas-future/ <comment><USER2> If only we had some sort of political system where we could tally up choices for leaders, where everyone, rich or poor, made an equal contribution to that tally, and the candidates who won the majority of contributions in the tally would set policy and pass laws.

It seems obvious that under such a system, since there are so many more poor than rich, leaders would be selected who would pursue policies to help alleviate the burdens of the poor and construct a more just and compassionate society.

<comment><AUTHOR> If only.

The reality seems to be far more complicated. Which you know of course.

So frustrating.</comment></comment>


Eat, sleep, rave, repeat: infinite generators in python - <AUTHOR> http://thisjepisje.com/sleep

<comment><USER2> Or a more general version that produces a stream of an arbitrary value:

iter(lambda:'Anything',None)</comment>


Ask HN: Is anyone interested in a sports data api? - <AUTHOR> I'm brain storming for a personal project. It would be similar to http://sportradar.us and be an api for sports stats. <comment><USER2> Sometimes people don't know their interest until an opportunity presents itself. Sometimes people imagine details into a question like this which are orthogonal to what the questioner imagines.

Future interest is going to be more a function of an implementation than a high level description.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your comment. It is very true.</comment></comment>