All Our Patent Are Belong To You - <AUTHOR> http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you <comment><USER2> So an informal non-aggression pact is nice, but absolutely no automobile manufacturer would rely on that when a new car costs a significant fraction of a billion dollars to bring to market. (If I were a cynical man, I might think this didn't escape their notice.)

If it were me, and the true intent was to distribute the Tesla patents as widely as possible, I would have said "Tesla pledges to license its entire patent portfolio, on a worldwide non-exclusive no-royalty basis, to any interested party. We will ask for consideration in the amount of $1 for a 99 year license. Your lawyers and accountants can reassure you that these sort of symbolic commitments hold up in court. They'll also no doubt ask to see the full terms, which are about as boring as you'd expect, and which are available from our Legal Department."

<comment><USER3> If I were Tesla, I'd also request that the licensing party grant a reciprocal bulk license to Tesla as well. Or, barring that, that Tesla reserves the right to revoke the license if you initiate a patent lawsuit against it.

<comment><USER4> Does there exist such a patent license with no security holes? I would imagine that it would read, "License will be revoked if you 1) Sue me for patent infringement. 2) Sell a patent to a company that sues me for patent infringement (like Intellectual Ventures does). 3) Sponsor the development of a patent, and the owner of the patent sues me for patent infringement. 4) Contract with a patent pool that sues me for patent infringement. 5) Sue my partners or customers for patent infringement (like Apple vs. Google's partners)..." and so on ad infinitum.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.defensivepatentlicense.com/](http://www.defensivepatentlicense.com/)

(i'm not asserting it is perfect, just that it is an effort towards what you describe)

<comment><USER6> It's an interesting attempt. The problem I'm seeing is that it seems to do nothing about non-practicing entities, or to prevent the sort of thing Microsoft et al have done with Rockstar, essentially paying to license a bunch of questionable patents with the foreseeable effect of giving the non- practicing entity enough cash to create a menace for their competitors.

What could be an interesting solution is to prevent people who want the protection of the mutual license from licensing patents from anyone else under any other terms. So if you want the protection of the license and a patent troll approaches you, your only choice is to either vanquish the troll or buy the patent outright and immunize everyone.

That should mean no more Rockstars at least, and should make life more difficult for trolls because they couldn't license patents anymore, only sell them outright.

<comment><USER7> > it seems to do nothing about non-practicing entities

It doesn't do anything about non-practicing entities because it can't. There's no formulation of words that could cause a license to have any bearing on NPEs.

Your potential wording would make the patent license completely unusable. Perhaps an alternative might be something along the lines of: _You may not license a patent that has been involved in legal dispute. If a licensed patent is subsequently involved in legal dispute, either this license or that license must be terminated within NN months._

<comment><USER6> > It doesn't do anything about non-practicing entities because it can't. > There's no formulation of words that could cause a license to have any > bearing on NPEs.

That isn't true at all. You can do something about NPEs by changing the behavior of their targets. You take away the ability to license a patent without securing a license for everyone and now the troll can no longer rely on extracting nuisance value settlements from large numbers of targets, because for the target the cost of losing the reciprocal license (and having to fight all of _those_ patent holders) now exceeds the cost of invalidating the troll's patent. And if everyone sees the same calculus and everyone fights, trolling as a business model could become unprofitable.

> Your potential wording would make the patent license completely unusable.

Why is that? The ideal endgame would be to bring about a de facto nullification of software patents. The more patents that become licensed under the defensive license, the more incentive there is to put all of your own patents under it, which creates all the more incentive for others to do the same. Obviously you wouldn't have e.g. IBM signing on the first day, but as it snowballs the incentive to do so increases over time. At the end of the chain you would have a situation where there would be ten times as many patents that IBM is infringing than they own and the only way they could get a license to those patents is to join the agreement with everyone else.

I would think another interesting feature would be to allow anyone who has signed on to the agreement to use any of the signatories' patents offensively against anyone who hasn't, in exchange for a large chunk of the proceeds, essentially on a contingent fee basis. I believe a third of the amount recovered is typical? That would allow patent trolling to eat itself, because patents lawyers could sign on to the agreement at no cost (since they don't characteristically own patents) and then have instant access to a huge corpus of patents to go sue everyone else with, until such time as everyone relevant has signed on. And it would also create an incentive to sign on in the early days, because if you sign on and have any good patents there is a reasonable chance that some lawyers will go out and sue Microsoft et al at their own expense and then give you half the money. Until there are a lot of signatories that should be about as profitable for existing patent holders as hiring a lawyer to go sue people on your behalf without the defensive conditions, unless everybody starts signing on right away, which would be even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love Elon Musk, and kudos to them for doing this, but it's useful to read between the lines:

> Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto > headquarters.

This is consistent with my view of how engineers in the traditional disciplines view patents.

> At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that > the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive > manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla

This is the precise thing that patents are designed to prevent: to keep the market from turning into a race to see who can outsource most efficiently to China and inundate the public most completely with advertising.

> The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs > for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers > are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of > their total vehicle sales.

So the other manufacturers didn't copy Tesla's technology, either because they are incapable of it or because they didn't feel there was enough money in it relative to their traditional markets.

> We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world > would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.

In other words, it helps Tesla more to have lots of companies developing electric cars to push back on regulatory barriers and consumer perceptions than it does for them to protect themselves against larger manufacturers copying their technology. Also buried in here is the assumption that Tesla is, now, far enough ahead of its potential competitors that it doesn't matter if they copy the technology.

I think this is the right move for Tesla, but there's a lot of dynamics at play that have nothing to do with the usefulness of patents in general.

<comment><USER9> I think it partly an ethical thing. Patents doesn't (most of the time) benefit society, they only create monopolies (which are about as helpful as those in many socialist countries, i.e. not very much).

I think Musk cares more about advancing electric cars than suing and squeeze profits out of patent monopolies.

<comment><USER10> Don't know what you have against socialist countries(ie: most of the G7) but you definitely have monopolies in the U.S.

<comment><USER11> The U.S. is a welfare state like most of the G7. The only variance is how the U.S. welfare state is implemented. We're absolutely not a Capitalist country; maybe 30 or 40 years ago we were still a mixed economy. It's about as far away from Capitalism as you can get before crossing over into Venezuelan style Socialism. The US Government has enough power, through numerous means, to directly control every aspect of the economy as it sees fit or if it cares to. The US flavor of Socialism, is going to be Fascism (or totalitarianism, or inverted totalitarianism; whatever the case, the vague generalities are understood).

We definitely have government protected monopolies though, no doubt about that. Tons of them in fact. From defense contractors, to telecom, to banking, to healthcare, and so on. Most major industries are filled with some variation of massive corporations protected from competition by the government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is no legal covenant here. I imagine Tesla's definition of "good faith" is "we evaluate on a case by case basis".

Which amounts to "if we like you" and "we reserve the right". If they wanted these patents to be open source, they would license them explicitly.

<comment><USER13> I'm curious about this. To what degree is a CEO writing and publicly distributing the statement, "Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." legally binding? "In good faith" actually strikes me as reasonably interpretable by a court, so I guess the question is just how much "he said so in a blog post" counts. I'd love to hear a lawyer weigh in on this.

<comment><USER14> "Good faith" is somewhat subjective, and usually it depends on context. Generally speaking, it means acting in an as-stated, forthright, non-deceptive manner.

For example, if I agree to explore a partnership with you "in good faith," it means I am serious about the possibility of a partnership. I am not merely wasting your time for the purposes of distracting you, defrauding you, conducting market espionage, or sending false signals. Basically, I am acting "in good faith" when I honestly believe I am doing what I claim to be doing, for the reasons I claim to be doing it. You assume I am acting in good faith, and vice versa, unless a pattern of actions or evidence gives sufficient cause to doubt it.

IANAL, but I've dealt with "good faith" issues in business development and licensing contracts more times than I wish I'd had to. There is usually an implicit assumption that all contracts are entered into in good faith unless proven otherwise -- which means I'd almost definitely want to enter into an agreement with Tesla if I were to use their technology.

<comment><USER15> Bad faith would be GM patenting an obvious extension to a Tesla patent. What I think Musk is trying to do is poison the electric car patent pool with Milk and Honey. It isn't just Tesla patents that matter, but the whole landscape. Patents stifle the spread and pace of good idea distribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Alex Tabarrok comments on this: "I believe that this announcement will be discussed in business schools for years to come much like Henry Ford's announcement of the $5 a day wage."

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/06/tes...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/06/tesla- says-all-our-patent-are-belong-to-you.html)

<comment><USER17> Just like everyone remembers when the US bought up and public-domained all the aeronautic patents.

 _EDIT_ I should explicitly say that I am being sarcastic. Mr Tabarrok is believing what he wants to be true.

<comment><USER18> Most people are actually unaware of Ford's "innovations" on pay, or the reasoning behind them, but that does not dilute the profound impact the actions had.

<comment><USER19> It's 4th grade US history curriculum.

<comment><USER20> most people don't live in the US

<comment><USER19> Approximately 100% of people under the jurisdiction of US patent law and influenced by the American auto industry do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Assuming that this search represents nearly all of them, that is approximately 133 patents:

[https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#q=inassignee:%22T...](https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#q=inassignee:%22Tesla+Motors,+Inc.%22&safe=off&tbm=pts)

Edit: Nice catch, peter_l_downs ... I didn't realize that the estimated search result of 6,430 would be off by such a large factor.

<comment><USER22> This is not like IBM making some of its less important patents available to the community. This is huge.

How many times in the past has a private company opened up its core patents for everyone to use? There aren't that many precedences.

<comment><USER23> In 1956 AT&T opened all of it's patents to everyone without royalties to settle an antitrust suit, including the transistor.

[http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1036.pdf](http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1036.pdf)

<comment><USER24> Didn't know that! That turned out well. To the innovators go the spoils.

<comment><USER25> The opposite, actually. This is about giving the spoils to everyone who _didn 't_ invent the transistor.

<comment><USER26> the spoils to everyone who _innovated on_ the transistor.

<comment><USER25> Not necessarily, unless they also got patents on their innovations.

<comment><USER6> You're aware that it's possible to make money on an invention without patenting it. First to market advantage, a foothold in the market, continuing brand recognition as the go-to source for that product, a head start on the next round of innovation, increased sales across the industry as the product becomes more valuable to customers, increased sales of complementary products and services, etc.

<comment><USER27> Or just keeping it a trade secret, like WD-40.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> In the biotech space there exists a system called "patentleft" which theoretically provides royalty-free licensing of patents with the stipulation that any derivative works / improvements also be licensed under the same terms.

Seems like there is good potential to build on the momentum of Tesla's announcement to formalize the process, and answer the questions that I'm sure will emerge in this thread - eg more akin to an Creative Commons (which is very well defined and practical).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patentleft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patentleft)

<comment><USER29> How common is this - are there any well known examples? (If so, they're not in wikipedia!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sounds to me like the "in good faith" clause is to retain the patents for a defense should someone try to come after Telsa for infringing.

Quite an interesting business move and pretty unprecedented as far as I know, at least for a non-software company. Presumably he is hoping that this will encourage improvement to infrastructure. He is also probably thinking he can build higher quality cars and cheaper than others, irrespective of if they are electric or not (probably this is true).

<comment><USER31> That is certainly the most plausible reading of that phrase, but it still seems like it could be put into a licence pretty easily, along the lines of "User of these patents hereby relinquishes all claims of infringement against Tesla Motors for any patents the user may own or license".

<comment><USER32> i read "in good faith" as "you may use these as you wish but don't turn around and try to sue us for using something you hold a patent for"

i could be totally off the mark though

<comment><USER33> I read it more along the lines of "you may use these as you wish but don't try to turn around and screw the electrification of transportation, harming humanity's future for your own short-term gain". Musk isn't doing it for money after all.

<comment><USER34> > Musk isn't doing it for money after all.

No, it's for money.

It's the charging stations. There aren't enough of them, and it's the biggest problem they have.

Tesla needs the big manufacturers to build electric cars so they will put charging stations everywhere.

<comment><USER33> You're right that the problem is they can't scale charging stations up fast enough. But my point was that Musk is running Tesla not to earn money, but to fix a particular global problem. His _terminal goal_ is electrification of transport, as opposed to typical terminal goals of many CEOs, i.e. "to have a lot of money". Money is only instrumental for Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, > wants to use our technology.

I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get tough.

It's nice to hear this, sure, but I fail to see the meat in this announcement.

<comment><AUTHOR> They have to keep the patents (or donate them to a trusted third part, as a bunch of tech companies have done). They unfortunately need the protection. Otherwise, someone could sue _them_.

I think Musk's word in this case is good. He's not a nobody; his reputation is stellar.

<comment><USER36> They should license the patents for free to anyone who wants to use them. There's no word needed.

<comment><USER37> Looks who's talking, the largest patent holder and bureaucratic entity on Earth. Yeah, right ;)

<comment><USER38> I believe that was the joke. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Volvo famously acted similarly with their invention of the seatbelt.

<comment><USER40> It was actually their invention of the three-point seatbelt in 1959.

[http://www.wired.com/2009/08/strapping-success- the-3-point-s...](http://www.wired.com/2009/08/strapping-success-the-3-point- seatbelt-turns-50/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> "Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology."

What exactly does that little "in good faith" clause mean in there?

<comment><USER42> People are optimistic but I'm with you.

For example, using the Supercharger network __requires __that the automotive company offer energy for free for life to customers, and charge up front at the point of sale for all energy requirements for the life of the vehicle.

That's Musk's business model and is enforcing it for anyone who wants to use his "open infrastructure".

Which is bollocks to me: only wealthy people buying extremely expensive vehicles are going to want to prepay for a decade or two's worth of electricity. It means BMW and Audi will Supercharge, but Toyota and Ford? You can't ask budget customers to prepay a decade's worth of travel costs. You can't competitively and aggressively price a vehicle like that.

I imagine "good faith" means "follow OUR rules for the industry", which makes me sad. I'd like to see things be a bit more open than that, and I have very little doubt that this "standard" will be duplicated by companies unwilling to play by wealthy rules.

<comment><USER43> > but Toyota and Ford? You can't ask budget customers to prepay a decade's > worth of travel costs.

A 2014 Ford Focus gets ~40mpg. Assuming 12,000 miles/year, that's ~300 gallons of fuel. Assume, conservatively, $3/gallon. That's ~$900/year for fuel, or $2700 over 3 years. The cost to get supercharger access from Tesla is $2000 at time of purchase ($2500 after delivery).

To finance $2000 at even a ridiculously high 10% over 3 years is $64.53/month, fully loaded principal and interest. This is already less than most people pay per month for gasoline/petrol.

And that's THREE YEARS. After that, to fuel at Superchargers is essentially free (already amortized).

<comment><USER44> "Budget car customers" include a lot of relatively poor people who cannot afford to make that fixed-amount decently-large payment every single month. And certainly not upfront at time of sale. Have you never seen someone who can "only put twenty buck of gas" ?

<comment><USER45> Yea, but someone in that position probably shouldn't be buying _any_ new car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Fun aside: Tesla patent wall in question via Steve Jurvetson

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/14405402742/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/14405402742/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Inspite of all the negative reactions here, I applaud this move. The preceding statement to the one with 'good faith' is pretty important

>"If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal"

</comment><comment><USER48> The interesting subtext here is that for Tesla to fulfil its potential more support for electric cars in wider society is needed, and while everyone else struggles to build electric cars the infrastructure won't catch up.

Opening up, in this sense, could be seen to be a selfish endeavour, but still a positive one, aiming to position Tesla as the Apple of the electric car market, only mildly less litigious.

</comment><comment><USER49> I see this as essentially an open note to hardware tech companies asking them to come by and talk about licensing and interop deals without worrying that Tesla will be a hardcase about any possible IP infringement.

<comment><USER50> That may not have been their intention, but that's what came to mind for me as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> He makes an interesting implicit argument - that it's okay to use patents to block established players from innovating with you, but not to block new startups from challenging you.

<comment><USER51> He's not saying that. He's arguing that, were Tesla not to take the patents, there was a good chance one of the established auto makers would have taken them. _This_ would have been the problem, as the entrenched players probably would have used the patents to stifle innovation in order to maintain dominance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> What can an innovator do besides filing a defensive patent?

I've heard of various strategies like publishing the work in as many forums as possible; publishing it on IP.com; filing a patent application and withdrawing it; filing it and pledging; etc.

It would be nice if there were a step by step guide written by an attorney-- ideally an ex-patent attorney--that goes lists the steps in order of priority/cost/ease for both individual innovators and companies with deeper pockets.

<comment><USER53> There used to be a mechanism called the "statutory invention registration" but that got eliminated in the 2013 AIA.

This is another option (although kind of outside the box in terms of what RPX normally used for), although it's likely to be pricey: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> There are almost no instances where patents turned out to be good for community. Wright Brothers stifled all competition by patent litigation causing US to be lightyears behind airplane tech. Edison similarly stifled lighbulb development causing Americans to pay for bad quality at higher prices than European counterparts. Steve Jobs tried to extinguish smartphone revolution causing funny things like removal of fairly generic features like pinch and zoom.

One would argue that they might not have been encouraged to invent these stuff if there were no patents. Even if that was true, the fact is that they had already ammassed massive fortunes even before they started patent wars. One would expect these visionary geniuses to let go patents in interest of advancing the state of art after they have gotten more money than they know how to reasonably spend. Elon Musk is the only one doing this here on the top of risking everything on fields that few entrepreneurs would dare. Hats off to him.

</comment><comment><USER55> Interesting point:

> At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that > the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive > manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn't > have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car > programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn't burn hydrocarbons) at the > major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of > far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.

I read this as effectively saying that it's easy for them to take this step, relative to companies in other industries (Apple, Google, Amazon, et al) because none of Tesla's competitors even have the ability to make use of their technology. Makes me wonder if Musk would have done the same thing if Tesla were a software company.

<comment><USER44> That's because he is being disingenuous there, he is not talking about money invested in R&D but percentage of electric cars in total sales.

Those companies have an established market share which correspond to a massive number of non-electric car sales, it is not surprising in the least that the new developing area they are coming in (electric) is being very small right now. That's doesn't mean they aren't doing a lot of R&D or lack the ability to uses those patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> If I were building a giant battery factory, I would also encourage others to make electric cars.

<comment><USER57> Or if you wanted to be John D Rockefeller, rather than Henry Ford.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is a bold move, and of course open to interpretation. But I am still optimistic about it. You can argue why they have patents in the first place, remember that if they didn't or sold it to a third party it will come back to bite their ass.

It is much better to hold the patent and allow others to used without being worried about getting sued. I am sure the big auto makers may consider taking advantage of this situation to crush tesla, but Elon Musk is known for not getting distracted by the petty things.

</comment><comment><USER59> I really admire Elon Musk--a lot. His insight that Tesla's real competition isn't the Fords, Chryslers, etc., but rather it's the momentum behind gasoline cars. And, if that momentum is the actual competition, then that momentum/competition can be broken by open sourcing Tesla's technology… I think that his specific move on patents (as it relates to the auto industry) is an excellent example of having the perfect balance of having customer obsession and being competition aware.

</comment><comment><USER60> What I find hilarious about the discussions going on here is the fact that everyone's generally concentrating on the terrible pain of 'patent abuse', instead of the spectacularly obvious Elephant in the room which is trying to do as much as possible to stop the only home we currently have slowly turning into Venus (the hot, inhospitable planet, not the fictional Goddess of old).

</comment><comment><USER61> Are there any legal documents that certify this? I'm not a lawyer, but would this post actually count as a "license"?

</comment><comment><USER62> "We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China," said Musk in the interview. "If we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book."

Perhaps Tesla relies on trade secrecy as well?

<comment><USER63> It´s easier to keep a rocket under trade secrecy than a car that can be disassembled and copied as soon as you got your hands on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> This may be the wrong venue to say this, but the war against proprietary technology and patents doesn't totally make sense to me. I've read about many of the popular cases where large corporations use patents as a legal tactic to stall competitors, and I understand how it hurts innovation.

On the other hand, can't patents protect smaller companies? Open sourcing projects and technology has its case-by-case pros and cons. I agree the increase in open source adoption has had a largely positive impact on the development community. But there seems to be a lot of stigma against 'proprietary' as a whole.

How is your company supposed to grow if you can't protect your technology from being easily replicated by competitors?

<comment><USER65> > On the other hand, can't patents protect smaller companies? Open sourcing > projects and technology has its case-by-case pros and cons. I agree the > increase in open source adoption has had a largely positive impact on the > development community. But there seems to be a lot of stigma against > 'proprietary' as a whole.

You are conflating several concepts in the space of a paragraph.

Can patents protect smaller companies? Maybe, if you have the resources to defend yourself in court. If you are seeking investment, you can file for brain-dead patents as a way to prop up your valuation and quiet investor fears. Sadly, this seems to be the main motivation these days among startups.

'Open source' entails a public release of source code and associated artifacts under a copyright grant with certain freedoms. Traditionally, patent grants have not been a part of these licenses, probably because the pervasiveness of software patents is a relatively new phenomenon. It is only with version 3 of the GPL that it gained explicit patent grant and retaliation clauses, and most other open source licenses still don't have such clauses. But the bigger question is what 'open source' even means in the context of Tesla. It is not like they're going to release detailed plans and blueprints from production facilities and upwards that would allow competitors to make perfect replicas of Tesla cars.

'Proprietary' usually refers to trade secrets. If you file something as a patent, which is a form of public disclosure, it is no longer a trade secret.

Most of my peers are strongly against software patents. They don't consider it a moral obligation to open source your company's code or release proprietary information that represents a competitive advantage. In this moral framework, patenting is considered an anti-social act, and releasing source code and proprietary information are considered altruistic acts, ceteris paribus. Note that this doesn't mean that _not_ releasing source code is an anti-social act.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> this is another marketing ploy. this is also the beginning of Elon preparing for his next career move. Elon's realizing he has hit the technical and economic limits of all battery vehicles and can't deliver. now that he has given away all his patents, he will make moves to distance himself from Tesla. he will hand over the reins to someone else. step away. start another unrelated business. and when tesla crashes and burns (no pun intended) he will be able to say it wasn't his fault, that he left them with all the tools and "they" couldn't make it happen. in the executive world they call it the "sideways shuffle" or the "Teflon shoulder".

</comment><comment><USER67> Funny how the companies with the best engineering also tend to be those with the best business ethics. Kudos to Tesla for being once again disruptive and innovative in the risk-averse and ailing automotive industry.

</comment><comment><USER68> Does Tesla want the big automakers to build cars with equal capabilities as the Model S? Assuming they did so, would they not be more cost-competitive due to economies of scale? Their mission of promoting sustainable transporation might be at odds with their fiduciary duty to their shareholders then.

If Tesla really wanted to see the big auto makers build more capable electric cars, AND if they also want to be a profitable enterprise, THEN, the best course of action would be to OEM the powertrain parts that they have already invested in inventing and building.

<comment><USER69> Note that Tesla owns the super charging stations, and is also aiming to stand up a large scale battery production facility. Assuming that the patents would lead to other auto-manufacturers to use the same standards that Tesla uses, this would mean that the would need to either build their own batteries, or buy them from Tesla. Since Tesla is making the Gigafactory so that the price of batteries will drop, it's likely to be cheaper to buy them from Tesla than standing up their own infrastructure to handle it. So, even if they aren't selling as many cars as the big automakers, they can still sell batteries and access to the super charging stations to the big players.

In any case, I think a sufficient amount of people would probably still buy a Tesla because of the brand recognition, even if the big auto-makers were making solid electric cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I wonder if this will spur WikiSpeed (an open source car group) to also support an electric engine module?

[http://wikispeed.org/](http://wikispeed.org/)

</comment><comment><USER71> Didn't Twitter declare something similar?

Is there anything they can do that's binding outside of a declarative 'we won't sue you unless...' statement?

<comment><USER41> IIRC, Twitter's approach was to also give the inventor a transferable license to the patent. That way if Twitter used it offensively, the inventor could independently license the patent to the company who was being sued.

<comment><USER53> That's very reminiscent of the Spooner vs. Tucker argument about dual ownership of a patent; Spooner conceding to Tucker that co-inventors should each be able to freely license, then Tucker asking if one inventor were to give away the license to the world for free would he be infringing on the other inventor's rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> > Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, > wants to use our technology.

What does that even mean? How do you make cars in bad faith?

</comment><comment><USER73> This is a pretty good gesture. It will be good to spurt innovation since smaller players in the area don't need to worry about infringing.

What about the defensive measure? To defend against being sued. It would be good if Tesla pools the patents with others to form an "open patent" club where all the interested parties can join and use the patent to defend against infringement lawsuits.

<comment><USER74> Think you mean 'spur' not 'spurt'.

Sorry to be a pedant! Great points. :-)

<comment><USER73> Thanks for pointing out the error. I'll pay closer attention next time I use it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> These are big words, even coming from the extreme underdog in the auto industry.

What exactly is Elon committing to here? Is Tesla planning on releasing any design documentation, or technical specifications or manufacturing process information?

It's great that they won't enforce patents in an effort to not stifle innovation, but do they plan on taking any _actions that will encourage innovation_?

<comment><USER76> Since many auto manufacturing companies doing R&D and Tesla, having already created technologies good enough to bring to market, there will definitely be incentive for taking action. Tesla has already created technologies to run cars that rival (performance) gasoline cars, and access to those technologies/designs will accelerate their own EV efforts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> It's not all give, there is some take. By bringing other manufacturers on board, Tesla gets more assistance in building their recharging network, which is a formidable undertaking. Similarly, the more manufacturers of viable electric vehicles there are, the more mainstream they are, and the larger the overall pie. Tesla does stand to gain something out of sharing.

</comment><comment><USER78> Does anyone know if Musk requires non competes of Tesla's employees?

Separately using the "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" meme (as has been pointed out below by peterarmstrong ) appears to be a clear "in your face" to "the man".

Most people I would imagine aren't aware of this meme (I wasn't) and using it in a public press release seems a bit odd to me.

</comment><comment><USER79> Finally Good PR actually means doing something good! hopefully companies/firms will do more advertising, marketing and PR that consists of contributing value to society and CSR. This will hopefully also shake up the awful inefficiencies within charities (not taking anything from the amazing work they do) instead of polishing a turd or diverting money to ads.

</comment><comment><USER80> This is one of the most clear & succinct - and more importantly high exposure - statements on the value of open source that I've seen to date. The same message from other sectors like 3D printing has been thoroughly muddied by the proprietary side of the market - who have benefited from the expiration of key patents & widespread open source designs.

</comment><comment><USER81> Translation: our pinch point is supplier scaling.

</comment><comment><USER82> Without an explicit licensing agreement, one should consider the fate of Troy, even if Tesla's present intentions are good.

</comment><comment><USER83> It i were Google (and manufacturing cars) or Volvo (who also has a impressive driverless car: [http://goo.gl/qWU7DS](http://goo.gl/qWU7DS) ).

I would go all in on this. A niche product (in the current condition) and usable driverless electric cars.

You aren't really competing with Tesla, because you have a total different audience.

</comment><comment><USER84> (1) I love this.

(2) Having limited legal knowledge, I'm curious what he means with "a lottery ticket to a lawsuit". Is he indicating that patenting something would make a company more likely to get sued? My basic understanding is the opposite, that patents yield protection from lawsuits rather than create exposure to them. Is this flawed?

<comment><USER33> Looking at software patents, I read (2) as saying that a patent is a lottery ticket, in which winning tickets are the patents someone accidentally infringed, thus opening a way for you to sue them out of their money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Some speculation: This is necessary to close a deal on the huge battery plant. Not sure why I didn't think of this immediately given the timing.

Reason? The partner(s) want to sell all the capacity even if Tesla can't buy it all, and they want everyone to know there won't be any issue buying Tesla batteries.

</comment><comment><USER86> So, would this mean that Tesla would be open to a cottage industry where anyone could start a company building a different body type on top of their drivetrain?

More specifically - could you just buy the S chassis/drivetrain from tesla and build say a delivery van body on top of it?

</comment><comment><USER87> If it was anyone else I'd be a lot more skeptical. There is something different about this guy so he might just mean exactly what we would like him to mean. Mmm hmm, yeah, I'm going to stay positive until proven I shouldn't be.

</comment><comment><USER88> I am more interested in the mentioning of "the spirit of the open source" part. Just image that if one day we are in a world that full of all those "open source electronic cars", to me it will just be too beautiful to see.

<comment><USER89> Well, seems as though projects like [http://www.osvehicle.com/](http://www.osvehicle.com/) and [https://localmotors.com/](https://localmotors.com/) will be all over this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Good move! At this point Tesla knows that market needs to be created and it is impossible to achieve unless auto industry works in tandem. Once the market expands, the pie is bigger for everybody.

</comment><comment><USER91> I seem to recall that there is a precedent to this in the microcontroller market in the 1970s and 1980s (and possibly further in the past). Does anyone have link(s) to this business practice.

</comment><comment><USER92> Is the title a reference to "all your base are belong to us?"

<comment><USER92> To answer my own question, yes and the Elon Musk reference is already added in wikipedia. That was quick.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us)

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I can't help but think of Howard Aiken's words, "don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."

</comment><comment><USER94> That's great. I wonder if they will do a similar thing with their proprietary supercharger plug. They'd need a way to charge non-Tesla drivers for the energy though.

</comment><comment><USER95> This is awesome and inspiring even if it's just PR.

"Tesla, other companies ..., and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform"

Indeed.

</comment><comment><USER96> I love Elon's PR. He reframes himself as a champion of humanity, above ego competition, to make you feel good (and I do!). He simultaneously criticises the competition, in those terms.

And I also agree he was right to fear the better-resourced incumbents to duplicate his tech for free, unfounded though it was.

He doesn't mention this, but at this point, he is _also_ well ahead of his real competition (fellow disruptors) in market terms, and so it won't harm him to release these patents.

<comment><USER96> It's weird, I always get downvoted on HN for saying I love Elon, and analysing what he's doing. Something similar used to happen with Apple posts.

<comment><USER96> See what I mean?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" this sentence sounds grammatically incorrect to my non-native-English ear (O_o)

<comment><USER98> You are correct. "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" is a reference to this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us)

FYI, in correct English the sentence would read, "All of our patents belong to you."

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Wow, not even more than a day after their meeting with BMW. I wonder if something was said to provoke this announcement.

</comment><comment><USER100> So Telsa Keeps their patents but anyone can use them? What are some cool non- automotive applications for their patents?:)

</comment><comment><USER101> I'm curious Mr. Musk, does this mean "Give us a call and we will license you our patents at no cost."?

<comment><USER102> Phone and ask?

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Is Tesla getting worried of other technologies like fuel cells? [http://www.hyundainews.com/us/en- us/Media/PressRelease.aspx?...](http://www.hyundainews.com/us/en- us/Media/PressRelease.aspx?mediaid=40904)

</comment><comment><USER104> FFS, change the title back to what it was submitted with! "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" makes no sense out of context. At least the original title said something about Tesla Motors.

<comment><USER105> Mr Musk, I expected better grammar from you.

<comment><USER106> It's a meme: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base)

<comment><USER78> Thanks for pointing that out (I didn't know that). That said I think it's a bit immature and out of place in a public blog post (which will no doubt be repeated elsewhere) for such a visible company that wishes to be taken seriously.

<comment><USER107> Not everyone subscribes to the theory that companies must have a grim and humorless face. I don't see why a lighthearted title is a bad thing. It's not like it's lowbrow or mean-spirited humor.

<comment><USER78> Why? Because it's not just being lighthearted. It appears to be bad use of english.

<comment><USER33> Bad use of english is purposeful - it's a meme, one of the oldest and most widely recognized on the Internet. He's just showing some humour (not the first time).

[http://xkcd.com/286/](http://xkcd.com/286/) seems relevant here ;).

<comment><USER78> So you are saying that the audience for the blog post consists of an overwhelming number of people that understand that meme? As opposed to people who do not? I disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> I wonder if they will consider more open source also?

</comment><comment><USER109> lol, in germany if you are an employee in a company like BMW, you are not even allowed take your personal cellphone with you

</comment><comment><USER110> Finally, progress. A great lesson to all!

</comment><comment><USER111> Pretty awesome :) if it will not be empty words we maybe could have much more momentum in the field of electric cars.

</comment><comment><USER112> one who takes patent for buttons should learn from tesla's move.

</comment><comment><USER113> So Tesla goes Android.

</comment><comment><USER91> But, but, how will Tesla find the incentive to innovate without patents?

</comment><comment><USER114> Love the Zero Wing reference.

</comment><comment><USER115> If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that _some_ people, at least, can rise above petty human squabbling and competition and are _legitimately_ working to better humanity -- look no further than this thread. Every top comment is a skeptical one. "This is clearly a great PR move, but has no teeth." "How do you enforce this guarantee?" Etc.

These are reasonable questions, but as Shaw said, all progress comes from unreasonable men. I cannot help but be fundamentally depressed as I read these comments. In my view, Elon Musk has, moreso than any other human except maybe Bill Gates, given every absolute inch of human effort and genius to fight to solve the world's biggest problems. And all we have for him, after benefiting freely from the fruit of his labor, is skepticism. We want more. It's not enough. It's never enough.

Yes, Tesla Motors is a company operating in a media-hyped 2014 America. I know some of you are butthurt that he engages in the same "dishonest" PR tactics that other companies do. _GET THE FUCK OVER IT_. The end product he's producing will _save humanity_. That all of America has not rallied behind Musk and Tesla as the most important movement and achievement in the last 100 years of human history absolutely blows my mind.

Not only do we not recognize his goals or his achievements, we actively try and bring him down and shit on his accomplishments. "Well, they invented a pretty cool electric motor, sure, but they were kind of dishonest in that one press release that one time."

Go fuck yourself.

I want to say "I'm done with Hacker News", but we know that's not true. I'm supremely disappointed in all of you. Godspeed, Musk. I thought this was a great announcement, and I'm behind you 100%. I just hope you can finish your work before our shitty, myopic, destructive society tears you down. Here's to faith.

<comment><USER116> Elon Musk is one of the most interesting inventors of our time, and comes across as a completely stand-up guy. Watching companies like Tesla and SpaceX take on and solve these incredibly difficult problems is inspiring. I'd guess that this patent move is motivated by goodwill, and any benefit to Tesla probably goes together with the larger goal of bringing good to the world.

But when I see "this man will _save humanity_ by selling chemical battery powered automobiles" it comes across as more than a bit hyperbolic. There is plenty of opportunity to criticize cynical attitudes without making such a ridiculous claim.

<comment><USER115> Fair enough. I'm emotional. I don't usually cuss when making logical points. What I meant to say is, electric battery technology will move humanity in the right step which I strongly believe will have a big impact on curbing climate change, which I feel is one of the biggest challenges humans collectively face.

<comment><USER116> OK, that makes more sense. For the record I'm not at all concerned about the climate changing (although I'm very interested in conservation and efficiency in general). Additionally it seems that an electric car is not actually going to emit less whatever than one of these wonderful new four-cylinders unless/until we make like France and build out more nuclear infrastructure.

Still, Tesla is doing a lot of good by leading the way towards technologies that could bring much improved living conditions, especially in places like Beijing and Los Angeles.

<comment><USER117> You're wrong on the emissions point - even a contemporary, luxury electric car like the Model S causes less CO2 emissions from a well-to-wheels perspective than an effiient gasoline car, even if run exclusively on coal-generated electricity. The crucial part of the calculation is to also take into consideration the energy required to produce the fuel, which is often skipped when analyzing the CO2 emissions of fossil-powered cars. The drivetrain (batteries) is somewhat more energy-intensive to produce, but the difference is made up after 20,000 miles or so. There's a lot of FUD from the established automobile and energy industries on this topic.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk)

On the climate change front, you're probably in disagreement with scientific consensus, but this is not my field of expertise.

<comment><USER74> > On the climate change front, you're probably in disagreement with scientific > consensus, but this is not my field of expertise.

Not just probably in disagreement, definitely in disagreement: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)

A lot of us like to believe we're rational actors in the world, but denying scientific consensus on this is very irrational, if not just badly misinformed.

<comment><USER118> the idea of climate change goes against everything conservatives and libertarians believe in. first, it disproves the randian notion that everyone working in their own self interest is positive. Second, it's a problem that can only be solved by government. When something goes against people's core values so deeply, no amount of proof in the world will change their mind. not believing in global warming is a big part of their identity. not to mention, if they accepted climate change, it'd be pretty hard to continue listening to talk radio or Fox News and watching their favorite commentators blatantly lie about climate change. Because hey, maybe if Sean hannity is wrong about climate change, maybe he's wrong about other stuff too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER119> Elon Musk is a heartthrob.

<comment><USER119> looks like anti-Musk zombies at it with the downvotes in the comments

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> You want to make money or you want to change the world ?

I really liked Tesla here, there is the "good faith" deal, but still...

</comment><comment><USER121> Elon Musk #Respect

</comment><comment><USER122> Holy shite.

</comment><comment><USER123> How can you not love this guy?

<comment><USER124> I do love the humor, that sets them even further apart from the old crew

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> Perfect move by Tesla, they've hit a wall on progress that the big auto companies and government will allow.

Let's see what a mob of similar armed companies will do.

</comment><comment><USER126> If you want to learn more about Elon Musk, you can start here: [http://everyelonmuskvideo.tumblr.com/](http://everyelonmuskvideo.tumblr.com/)</comment>


What Makes Jersey Interesting: Injection Providers - <AUTHOR> http://codahale.com/what-makes-jersey-interesting-parameter-classes/

<comment><USER2> Wrong article for that title.

[http://codahale.com/what-makes-jersey-interesting- injection-...](http://codahale.com/what-makes-jersey-interesting-injection- providers/)</comment>


Ask HN: Have you had any experience with FundingUniverse.com?  - <AUTHOR>

I've heard very mixed reviews of FundingUniverse, and personally had a negative experience with them as a tech startup, although they never provided a service to us. I'd love to know if any other startups have used FundingUniverse.<p>TechCrunch did an article on FundingUniverse (mostly on an acquisition) http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/11/fundinguniverse-buys-twitjump-to-help-startups-leverage-twitter/ <comment><USER3> Hi BDClimber - my name is Alex (<http://www.about.me/AlexLawrence>) and I'm a partner at FundingUniverse. We've actually been on TechCrunch again - here is the link ([http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/17/lendio-helps-small- business...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/17/lendio-helps-small-businesses- secure-loans-raises-6-million-500-free-invites/)). You'll note from the article we've changed our business model and are called Lendio as a result. You can go to FundingUniverse.com and read about the change too (or follow us on Twitter @Lendio). I'm sorry you had a negative experience - even though we didn't do anything for you. I'm a bit confused what that means, but I'd like to learn more. Would you mind emailing me? firstname.lastname@example.com will do the trick. We've tracked $240M+ loans (that we know of, the number is much higher since we didn't use Lendio technology to track loans before). We have hundreds and hundreds of testimonials and thousands of customer feedback forms. We aren't perfect, but only a small percentage of our customers are unhappy. Unfortunately, they are the ones that usually voice complaints online - <USER2> just like this one, we communicate directly and openly to see if we can help. I'll watch for your email and hope we can fix any negativity you personally experienced.</comment>


Mozilla juices Firefox's JavaScript with IonMonkey - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57511013-93/mozilla-juices-firefoxs-javascript-with-ionmonkey/ <comment><USER2> Wait, did I just read that correctly? Microsoft is going to make their OS less responsive to the web by disabling JIT for browsers other than IE? IE is horrid, it just makes no sense why they would do this to the detriment of their users. Microsoft... this is why you're a curse word to front end devs.

<comment><USER3> The no JIT is only for the metro interface and ARM based machines - this is only for tablet like machines and is for the same reason apple do the exact same, the apps are all sandboxed and can't write executable memory regions. Normal x86 machines will behave just as they do now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd rather a direct link from Mozilla... But can't find anything decent. Can anyone help here?

<comment><USER5> Here it is: [https://blog.mozilla.org/javascript/2012/09/12/ionmonkey- in-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/javascript/2012/09/12/ionmonkey-in- firefox-18/)

They'll also blog on the upcoming weeks about details of the architecture

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The security argument for not allowing other JIT's that Microsoft and Apple keep throwing out there is really just a lame excuse to not allow other browsers be more competitive than their own, and I'm sick of it. Other browser makers are just as responsible if not _more_ responsible than them when it comes to security, so it's a really really bad argument and I'm surprised some people actually buy into it.

<comment><USER7> It's just about not allowing 3rd party code to have writable code pages. In principle, this is good - most programs don't write code to memory, unless they're suffering a security problem. It's just unfortunate that the few legitimate uses of this are also culled.

<comment><USER8> If they were serious about security, they'd do without JIT in their own browsers too. But that would be silly.

<comment><USER9> But IE10, unlike competing browsers, isn't just a "browser" on Windows 8, it's one of the fundamental development platforms built into the OS, along with .NET, WinRT, and Win32. Of course it has special privileges

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> <http://arewefastyet.com/> still is being updated and has IonMonkey scores.

V8 is still in the lead in 2 (out of 3) of the benchmark suites.

<comment><USER11> V8's "lead" on SunSpider is as much a fantasy as reality, since SunSpider performance is (IIRC) largely derived from how fast you can run setTimeout callbacks and not your actual JS performance. The tightly clustered scores on that graph make this pretty clear.

On the other hand, it's pretty interesting to me that we're now in the state where SpiderMonkey wins at Kraken and v8 wins at v8bench. I wonder if there's some unconscious bias involved there, where each test suite contains cases the engine's developers care about the most, so they end up winning that test suite?

<comment><USER12> SunSpider hasn't (ever) relied on setTimeout performance (and AWFY runs everything through JS shells, and the standalone harness doesn't rely upon any callback-providing host objects). The closeness in performance is simply because it practically doesn't do anything that challenging to optimize — the biggest challenge is getting the compile time/execution time trade-off right.

Kraken was developed fairly unrelated to SpiderMonkey, so I wouldn't say there's any deliberate bias there — V8 was explicitly optimized for the V8 benchmark suite as a deliberate aim, with several design decisions made to optimize for it, so it's advantage there is unsurprising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How does this compare to Chrome?

<comment><USER11> In my experience at present, comparing Chrome Canary with Firefox Nightly, SpiderMonkey and V8 both win on particular use cases now (sometimes quite dramatically).

V8 tends to win on stuff that depends on garbage collection since they have a generational collector, and SpiderMonkey only has incremental.

SpiderMonkey wins on some computation workloads because V8 still has a huge limitation where they often have to store floats as individual allocations on the heap (that's the best explanation I can come up with, at least; impossible to tell for sure from the Chrome profiler)

V8 also wins on some use cases that make use of new ES5 features like Object.defineProperty, because their optimizations do a better job with them.

IonMonkey is definitely a big improvement over the previous generation of SpiderMonkey, though. They're closing the gap.

P.S. It's a little hard to measure this stuff because V8 has some optimizations that happen to be perfect for benchmarks but provide a much smaller win for applications (Loop invariant code motion, for one). Nothing naughty going on here, you just need to be aware the numbers are lies.

<comment><USER14> IonMonkey does loop invariant code motion as well, and of course it's not "naughty", that's a widely used and standard compilation technique. It's also exactly what you want: there are many instances when keeping an invariant statement inside a loop results in clearer code, and there's no reason you should have to realize that and make your code more awkward and less maintainable when it's something the compiler can handle easily.

What it sounds like you're describing is that people are still writing terrible benchmarks. The days of this sort of thing on jsperf being useful are numbered:

function benchmark() { for (var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) { var result = computationWithNoSideEffects(); } }

Yes, a good compiler will turn that into a noop. And no, that's not being naughty either. It's just a terrible benchmark.

(also, when using crankshaft, doubles in V8 are unboxed and not allocated on the heap).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> TBH, these numbers pale in comparison. I don't care if FF is a few instructions faster than Chrome. It's good competition. Chrome and IE both have multi-process capabilities which make the whole experience significantly better. FF has yet to catch up to that.

<comment><USER16> Multi-process architectures do not guarantee fluidity. In the case of more than 15 tabs, Firefox nightly is more responsive on my laptop than Chrome Canary. YMMV

What about IE being multi-process makes the experience with that browser better? Without specificity, this is like me saying X is better than Y because of some attribute of X that Y does not have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is my first hacker news post using Chrome. JaegerMonkey and TraceMonkey both failed, I'm tired of waiting. The three curent builds of FF (nightly, beta and release) are horrendous on Mac. Two Windows and 15 tabs (total) will cost you ~1GB to ~1.5GB ram. After sticking with FF since before it was called Firefox, I have made the move to Chrome. FF simply became unusable in a work environment.

I'm tired of Mozilla coming out with their righteous BS about standards etc. They get distracted by every shiny object (mobile OS, mobile browser) when their flag ship product is in dire need of some love (UI/UX , memory leaks, JS speed, etc.) Part of their goal this year was to close the gap with Chrome, for me I've only seen it widen and I dont think Chrome has improved that much...

<comment><USER18> Chrome for Mac is a 32-bit application. Firefox for Mac is a 64-bit application. If you force Firefox to open in 32-bit mode (by editing Firefox.app's "Get Info" settings in the Finder), its memory footprint is smaller (but you lose some of the 64-bit benefits of large address space and ASLR).

Also, I assume you are adding up the memory footprint of all of Chrome's processes? ;)

<comment><USER17> Thank you, but your post is somewhat patronizing. Yes, I have accounted for each Chrome process. And you forgot to tick one of the 'we're in denial that FF sucks' boxes...what plugins are you using (aka blame the plugins).

I'm apposed to hacking the settings and installing 32-bit versions. It should give somewhat acceptable performance out of the box. I'm not adding bandaids, FF has wasted enough of my time.

<comment><USER18> I wasn't suggesting that forcing 32-bit mode was a solution. I was just pointing out that comparing the memory footprint of 32-bit and 64-bit applications is not apples-to-apples.

Also, Mac OS X 10.6 and earlier do not support ASLR for 32-bit applications and ASLR's effectiveness is reduced with a smaller address space.

See Chromium Issue 18323 ("Need more bits: 64-bit Mac version") from 2009: <http://crbug.com/18323></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SpaceVault – Finance your ticket to space - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacevault.world <comment><USER2> Why isn't this considered extreme naive and borderline scam aka. someone gets rich today, and you'll loose everything over time? What is the reasoning?</comment>


Ask HN: How should a professor market themself to transition to industry? - <AUTHOR> A friend of mine is looking to transition from being a tenure-track computer science professor at an R1 university to industry, probably in an engineering role. A lot of recruiters seem unsure of what to do with a professor. Since professors are a unique hybrid role consisting of fundraising, developing prototype software, and managing students, it can be hard to convey that to recruiters/HR.<p>Other than randomly applying for entry or mid-level dev positions, what should they do? <comment><USER2> There are three value props in B2B: increase revenue, decrease cost and mitigate risks. Pick one or more and find a way to demonstrate in plain language how they can help a company accomplish them. Be a startup of one: what is the one-liner, what's the 30 second pitch, how does it make me money/save me money/reduce my risk of losing my money? Why does it require the fancy knowledge?

</comment><comment><USER3> A friend of mine is looking to transition from being a computer science professor to industry, probably in an engineering role. A lot of recruiters seem unsure of what to do with a professor. Since professors are a unique hybrid role consisting of fund raising, developing prototype software, and managing students, it can be hard to convey that to recruiters/HR.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is the professor tenure-track or adjunct? It makes a big difference. Also, professor's jobs generally never have anything to do with fund-raising. A tenured professor will have 3 concerns: teaching, publishing and community service. An adjunct will only be required to teach. Anything else would be exceptional to the role.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I've updated my post: tenure-track at an R1 university.

In regards to fundraising, I am also a professor and I spend most of my time fundraising. It's basically my main job...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


ASK YC: Dilemma - A few VCs interested, but we dont need funding. What do we do? - <AUTHOR> We're a super early stage startup. I've been talking to a VC connection of mine for a while, exchanging ideas, helping plan next steps etc. Recently, a few notable VCs have gotten in touch wanting to meet up. How do I approach this? We don't need any funding, but don't want to lose their interest. Do I tell them flat out we don't require funding? I would love to keep in touch and  get advice and work their connections though... <comment><USER2> It is my understanding that VCs will never hunt you down and beg you to take their money. Even if everything goes perfect as far as they're concerned, it will be a while before you would get a check. The VCs want to meet with you for two reasons:

1\. They are interested or invested in what you are doing. They may be planning on investing in that market, or they may have even already invested in a startup and want to scout out their competition. They may also be invested in a complimentary area and are thinking about how what you're doing could add value to what they already have.

2\. They are curious and think that what you're doing has potential (read: They think you can make them money). They may or may not try to invest, but the possibility of investing is used as "bait" to get you to meet with them... except in this case you don't want the bait.

In either case, I suggest meeting with them. Let them take you along for the ride, but always be cautious. There is a possibility that you could benefit from their contacts, and starting the money talks now will help if/when you need it in the future. Just be aware of the fact that they might be meeting with you to gather information that can be used against you.

Good luck! You've obviously started something that has at least got their attention - for better or worse!

</comment><comment><USER3> As any VC will tell you, don't raise money if you don't need it.

<comment><USER4> Marc Andreessen says, to "[raise] as much as you can. Without giving away control of your company, and without being insane." (<http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/07/the-pmarca-guid.html>)

I don't have the experience to say whether or not I agree, but it's another viewpoint worth considering.

<comment><USER5> It kind of depends on what your strategy is. Netscape had to staff up _quick_ so they raised as much as they could. In their case, they needed as much as they could get, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish we had this problem.

We're a new startup (called Elleo Ltd.) and we have developed a very interesting piece of technology, semantic engine, a prototype that actually works! Please let me also mention that this is no semi-functional semantic engine (as we've all seen around) but a real thing on which our team (we are 3 world champions in programming!) worked for over a year. We believe with our hearts that there's a need for our technology and that we can truly create a new mean, a meaning that will make the world a better place.

Sadly, as you probably already all figured, we're all technical guys and we have no idea how to "business-talk" and lift our startup off the ground, so that we can carry on working on this full-time.

We've been reading a lot (and I mean a lot) on startups, VCs, etc.., we've even attended The Next Web conference in Amsterdam but what we still didn't quite figure is how to approach VCs and get them hear what we have to say.

I would very appreciate if you can give me an advice on this.

Also, if you'd be interested learning more about our exciting project, please contact me on jparicka(at)gmail.com. Otherwise, wait for a demo which should come out shortly.

Thank you!

Jan

<comment><AUTHOR> Jan - will shoot you an email. I can tell you what we did and maybe it'll help. Also, sent an invite for our startup so you can check it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Say "maybe", or "not right now", or "my partners aren't sure" and they should feel at home. :-)

<http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the_pmarca_guid_2.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes meet with VCs, but don't sign anything and take any money until you have a good idea about whats up for grabs.

When you accept VC money its the equivalent of going public, you will have to make sure your start up turns around a profit or sells rather quickly...

</comment><comment><USER9> When you don't want/need money is the best possible time to be talking to VCs. You might decide that with the right terms, you could use some capital after all. Or, you might realize that they're not as interested as you thought.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great advice guys, thanks a lot! I'll be honest with them, and hope they'll keep in touch and help us out on the ride up (hopefully not down!).</comment>


To Keep Passwords Safe from Hackers, Just Break Them into Bits - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429498/to-keep-passwords-safe-from-hackers-just-break-them-into-bits/

<comment><USER2> If LinkedIn, the article's whipping boy for bad password storage, had somebody with the brains and capability to purchase and integrate this multi-machine password storage system, LinkedIn would have had somebody with the capability of implementing a secure password hashing system like pbkdf or bcrypt or scrypt and wouldn't need to buy a mega priced security solution from RSA.

<comment><USER3> All they needed was someone with the intelligence necessary to type:

gem 'devise'

into a textfile.

<comment><USER4> Sure thing:

Security announcement: Devise v2.2.3, v2.1.3, v2.0.5 and v1.5.4 released

[http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2013/01/security- announceme...](http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2013/01/security-announcement- devise-v2-2-3-v2-1-3-v2-0-5-and-v1-5-3-released/)

<comment><USER3> Upgrade immediately unless you are using PostgreSQL or SQLite3.

So using a real database mitigated the entire issue. Secondly, this security issue doesn't allow you to retrieve every user's password in 8 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone needs to show these guys Stripe CTF 2.0 Level 8.

[https://github.com/stripe-ctf/stripe- ctf-2.0/tree/master/lev...](https://github.com/stripe-ctf/stripe- ctf-2.0/tree/master/levels/8)

<comment><USER6> Haha, this is the first thing I thought of when reading this article.

In reality, it would probably be difficult to execute on a live production server via the TCP port method. The artificial delay they added in to prevent timing attacks might cause a heavy load on the server, so if they leave that out that would be another possible attack vector.

<comment><USER7> I enjoyed a lot stripe 2.0 and I have watched Dan Bone on coursera. In the article, they just split the password in two. 128bit/2 -> 64bits. This remains two much for brute force like TCP port method or timing attack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm confused by their logic. Customers are those who are unable to keep one set of servers appropriately secured and unable to mitigate compromises through the use of better techniques (eg bcrypt).

So the solution is to run a second set of servers. Why would those be any better or differently secured?

<comment><USER9> Because this method makes RSA some money?

<comment><USER10> sudo apt-get install ssss

or

sudo port install ssss

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Threshold cryptography might be an interesting approach when you _need_ to keep credentials (vs. hashes of credentials), but I'd probably go with keeping my credentials encrypted under keys stored in a hardware security module (HSM) with rules on access (rate limit, etc.), first. Vastly cheaper (even though HSM prices are generally a form of rape), and simpler.

</comment><comment><USER12> I like the little plug at the bottom for physical OTP devices, which completely neglects to mention that RSA is a leading player in this space. I wonder if the writer accidentally went the completely wrong direction with that sound bite.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sounds a bit like "envaulting": <http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/10223648>

This is from a crypto startup called Envault that was founded on the idea of splitting data in pieces - they keep a fraction of the ciphertext somewhere "in the cloud" and off the local storage of your device when not in use. This is advertised as being very very safe.

I never heard any crypto guy with credentials comment on their tech though which is usually a bad sign...

</comment><comment><USER14> Can't you just use bcrypt/scrypt and be done with it?

<comment><USER3> That's really the sad part... technically it's a superior solution to bcrypt/scrypt but the reason why LinkedIn got pwned was because they MD5'd their passwords instead of bcrypt/scrypt.

<comment><USER15> If I remember correctly they were also not using a salt. They stated that "members whose passwords have not been compromised benefit from the enhanced security we just recently put in place, which includes hashing and salting of our current password databases."[1]

[1] [http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/06/06/linkedin-member- password...](http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/06/06/linkedin-member-passwords- compromised/)

<comment><USER6> It blows me away that nobody at LinkedIn had heard of rainbow tables, or that they didn't think it was THAT important.

<comment><USER16> The problem is that when you make this mistake early, it's not easy to fix, since you don't have the passwords yourself. Though I guess they could have rainbow-table'd their own password database and migrated everything over to a better scheme, rather than waiting for users to successfully log in.

<comment><USER17> It's not really that difficult. Let's say you've got a column called 'insecure_pass' that is storing a simple md5 hash of users' passwords.

Four simple steps:

1) You add a new password column to your DB (secure_pass) and modify your account creation / password change code to store bcrypt(md5(password)) in that column in parallel with just md5(password) in the old insecure_pass column.

2) You run a job that migrates insecure_pass to secure_pass by calculating bcrypt(insecure_pass) and storing that in secure_pass.

3) You turn on "dark reads" for secure_pass on login and log if there are any cases where validation against secure_pass failed when validation against insecure_pass succeeded. If a log message shows up, you did something wrong.

4) You move over to "light reads" for secure_pass and stop updating/validating insecure_pass. Once that's deployed, you drop the insecure_pass column from your DB.

<comment><USER16> That's a really good idea. If you can't protect the passwords, you can at least protect the hashes, with almost no loss of speed or security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No doubt I'm missing something dumb, but would one get similar benefits from simply storing half of the password hash on one server, and half on the other? To authenticate the password, you would then just authenticate it against both servers which can tell you whether their half matches. What is the advantage of the technique described[1] in the article compared to this?

[1] That's putting it a bit kindly. 'that we were told exists' might be more fair.

</comment><comment><USER19> Yeah...this is nice, but really who's gonna implement it? Only folks with a lot of resources and need to protect something more serious than passwords on a social network.

Or organizations who are vulnerable to the RSA sales person attack. ;)

As others have hinted - once you have folks sophisticated enough to do tricks like using multiple operating systems, you'd hope they're going to catch the basics...

<comment><USER20> I believe that in some future time the password of a social network will be one of the most important passwords a person can have.

You can change banks easier than you can migrate all your contacts to another social network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Hi Alice, this is Bob from Ops. Can you reset the root password on storage- server-A and storage-server-B? The ticket is PCR-1337. Thanks."

<comment><USER19> In theory if your'e going to the trouble of having different OSes on the two systems, you'll have separate admin staff, as well...

<comment><USER21> In theory if you're going to the trouble of hashing your users' passwords, you'll salt them too. None of us would be in this thread if these types of theories were true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd really like to know more. I've looked around and can't find anything. Can anyone link to the paper they published on this?

<comment><USER23> As I linked further down, this is probably based on Adi Shamir's (of R _S_ A) threshold sharing scheme [1] [2]. Essentially, this approach splits any "secret" into _n_ parts, requiring that _k_ of them are necessary to reconstruct the original secret.

It relies on the fact that _k_ points are necessary to reconstruct a _k-1_ order polynomial. So if you hand out _n_ points, with _n_ > _k_ , then any _k_ of these points can be used to reconstruct the polynomial, whose _y_ -intercept is the "secret". The coefficients of the polynomial are random.

There are other [3] sharing schemes, and for the trivial _k_ = _n_ case, Shamir's scheme is probably overkill.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing>

[2, PDF] [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80.8910&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing>

UPDATE: Here are some links to RSA's "Distributed Credential Protection" offering [4] and the white paper [5] describing it.

[4] [http://www.emc.com/security/rsa-distributed-credential- prote...](http://www.emc.com/security/rsa-distributed-credential- protection.htm)

[5, PDF] [http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white- papers/h11013-r...](http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white- papers/h11013-rsa-dcp-0812-wp.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Talk is cheap. Let's see the math.

<comment><USER23> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing>

by Adi Shamir, the "S" in RSA

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Security by obscurity.</comment>


Ask HN: SaaS to sell physical subscriptions online? - <AUTHOR> Hi!
I'm starting a physical subscription service and I need a SaaS to manage that. I'm using WordPress for the main website so content management is not a requirement.
Is there a company that:
1. Integrates with PayPal 2. Allows the user to register and update custom defined fields 3. Charge recurring payments every month 4. Let me know of new sign-ups/cancel
I looked into WordPress plugins, but they are all expensive and too much for my needs. I want something zero friction. Is there such a thing?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> How expensive are the WordPress plugins?

There's a Shopify Plugin for $20/month [https://apps.shopify.com/shopify- recurring-payments](https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-recurring-payments) (plus whatever Shopify and the payment provider charges).

<comment><AUTHOR> My subscription will be around 3USD/month so I'm very price sensitive. All the plugins I found where on the 100USD/month range.

I am testing this idea so looking for cheap stuff at the beginning.

EDIT: Just tested this plugin and it doesn't work with my country (Brazil)

<comment><USER2> We started (API SaaS) with [https://plasso.com/membership](https://plasso.com/membership) but had to find a different solution because of European b2b tax handling. Maybe plasso or [https://recurly.com/product/speed-time-to-value/hosted- payme...](https://recurly.com/product/speed-time-to-value/hosted-payment- pages) works for you (Brazil).</comment></comment></comment>


Lightning Generator Made of Water (DIY Marx) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfZFSay_1A <comment><AUTHOR> Did you know that _capacitors and resistors_ \-- could be made out of only _water_?

?

Well, water and jars in the case of capacitors, water and tubes in the case of resistors...

The referenced video shows this in practice and effect -- and more...</comment>


By creating automated tools we have changed the way of application development - <AUTHOR> http://snaphy.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We build mobile applications for Startups and Enterprises. The idea to start a technology company in India is not a new one, but to start a company that purely focus on automating technology is something we don't see everyday and yes it is kind of unique in it own way.

It all started when we were developing our first Android application and then be realized that lots of work that we do can be reused and after that we started to create our automated tools.

At Snaphy, our main focus is to speed the current development process and to reduce the cost of development by using our automated tools. Using this approach we have designed a Backend system which can be integrated with any application and will reduce the time and cost in maintenance.

Snaphy backend contains all the basic features that you will find in any backend system along with some mind blowing features which will change the way you see admin panel in old times. Our automated tools are building blocks all products that we create at Snaphy.

We are looking forward to creating some more tools and started getting our hands dirty with concept of Artifical Intelligence.</comment>


Harley-Davidson's sales growth struggle sends shares tumbling - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-harley-davidson-results/harley-davidsons-sales-growth-struggle-sends-shares-tumbling-idUSKBN1ZR1HT <comment><USER2> The U.S. motorcycle market has yet to return to pre-recession levels. Harley's inability to attract younger customers is the same problem affecting the entire industry.</comment>


Show HN: SaveThatCall, my app to save and download phone calls & voicemails  - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I just launched SaveThatCall, which allows users to record and download phone calls in MP3 format. I built it after having a personal need to download a recorded voicemail message and finding no easy and inexpensive way of doing it.
http://www.savethatcall.com
It is built using Google App Engine and Twilio, with payment processing through PayPal and some audio file work done with a Python script running as a daemon on Dreamhost.
Your feedback is appreciated! <comment><USER2> The images in the front page are beautiful even if they don't seem to be related at all with the service. The text below it feels like its floating, maybe a white background like the image and the form on the right?

Besides that, the service seems pretty good. Don't know how much need there is for this though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I've never had much luck designing compelling UIs, so I just snagged a cute template for $15 from ThemeForest. After I had finished coding the site, I applied the theme. It went from having a raw (but functional) HTML interface to what's online now in a single day... And that's including several unlinked pages that support downloads, cancellations of service, etc.

I wish I could figure out how to get the site to show up in a Google search so I could gauge others' interest in it!</comment></comment>


38 years ago he made the first cell phone call - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/01/greene.first.cellphone.call/index.html?hpt=C1

<comment><USER2> "Think how the Bell Labs research engineer must have felt when he heard Cooper calling him from the noisy streets of Manhattan."

Getting a call from a noisy street could have hardly been rare at the time -- there used to be coin-operated phones all over Manhattan, and every other city. (In these days of cell phones, they're a bit harder to find, but still around.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Saw a segment about Martin Cooper on 60 minutes. [http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6512514n&tag=rela...](http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6512514n&tag=related;photovideo)

The guy is probably over 80 years old today, but is still in pretty good shape.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just checked, it's the same Bob Greene who wrote a couple of great books on Michael Jordan.

<comment><USER5> Yup, the same Bob Greene that nobody in Chicago really misses anymore.

<http://goo.gl/rcjUo> (Spy Magazine Dec '88 via Google Reader)</comment></comment>


Mobile Web Apps: Are We There Yet? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gaslight.co/post/40842300308/mobile-web-apps-are-we-there-yet

<comment><AUTHOR> All great points, but I take offense to the shots at responsive frameworks. There's still learning that has to happen there from developers. Grids are powerful and learning to work within frameworks instead of against them is a very important step that many people often ignore.</comment>


Top of the list on all search engines, now what? - <AUTHOR>

Is that a good thing? Considering 300+ million in the USA, 3 Billion people on the planet. The site's concept is based on a fictional artist. What should one do with this awesome positioning? What possibilities or opportunities are there? Juan Corbett. <comment><USER2> It's not hard to rank high for a neologism, particularly if you own the domain name and practice SEO basics.

The profitability of a site depends on a lot of factors.

For one thing, traffic. How many people care about your keyword?

#1 for a high-traffic keyword can get you thousands or hundreds of thousands of visits a day. #1 for a low-traffic keyword can get you two or three visitors a month.

Then the other issue is, how much money potential is in your keyword? Advertising isn't the only way to make money, but it applies widely, doesn't take a lot of thought (maybe you're more interested in making content) and sometimes pays well.

How much you get from advertising depends on supply and demand. There are certain topics where there's a huge amount of content out there, so much that it dwarfs the advertising spend, so that it's hard to get a good eCPM. (Programming blogs and sites about cars in this category.) There are also areas where I think current advertising networks can't really discover products and services that certain audiences would really dig.

On the other hand, there are other areas where the supply of content is small compared to the advertising spend, some areas where the advertising spend is preposterously high (ambulance chasing lawyers, hotels in certain certains) and advertising can be lucrative there.

If your site is supported by advertising there's an inverse relation between click-thru and user engagement; Facebook ads are cheap because Facebookers are so sucked into what they're doing on the site that they don't look at the ads.

\----

Now, maybe that's not feasible for you, or you need something more. Perhaps you'd like to develop "Juan Corbett" into a brand - you need to get his name into people's consciousness. That's a problem in marketing that goes beyond SEO; social media operations is a worthwhile path for you, but you'll also need to develop the arts of PR.

If you want to monetize the "Juan Corbett" brand there are many choices beyond advertising. Perhaps you can sell his art, either in the form of expensive things (original paintings to hang on the wall), moderately priced things ($100 prints to hang on the wall; i see Warhols going on eBay for about that much all the time...), and cheap thing s (mugs, refrigerator magnets.)

Past that there's the whole world of book deals, TV deals, movie deals, and generally turning "Juan Corbett" into a celebrity. You ought to find somebody who knows that world.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, each and everyone of you. I really do appreciate all insight. Long time reader of Hacker News, first time poster on any forum. I have learned a great deal from lurking around here, ever mindful there is much, much more to learn.

The concept for the character " Juan Corbett " website grew out of an art project. As a graduating dual major in Communication Design and Studio Painting, I am familiar with the fine arts, and the design of marketing. SEO and how the Worldwide Web operates are skills/knowledge I am currently acquiring.

Right on the "competition keyword". We did a lot think'n & drink'n to come up with it. Thanks to Terra with those insightful words. Developing a "Brand" is worthy of exploration. I refuse to put a bunch of ads on the site, (unless they are ours, (grn).

Again, thanks to all ya'll. jc ...

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations. What do you want visitors to the website to do after they arrive?

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html>

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> That depends on what keywords you're on the top of the list for. Also whether you deserve to be ranked highly for those words and whether when your current QDF slips you can maintain your position and make the use of it that you want.

So what's your website, what keywords and what's your goal?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure if it is deserving either. Thank you for any insight. I'm a newbie to SEO and was thinking the positioning was a good thing. I've been lurking around sites like these trying to learn how this crazy World Web operates.

The website is juancorbett.com. Keywords? I plug in the name into the browser search and it comes up #1. Goals?, Like most of here, to work on projects that are fun and make a little bank. jc, I am an Artist/Designer.

<comment><USER4> OK, I wonder if I can rank higher by tomorrow?

<comment><USER5> Maybe I can rank higher for juan corbett's name? <http://alicious.com/2010/juan-corbett-name/>

<comment><USER4> Yahoo:2, Bing:-, Google:4 (slipped a place overnight).

So, no then. But I did manage to rank above HaneyArt though, which isn't bad for overnight and considering the lack of domain keywords.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Behavioral Revolution: Or, the problem of perceiving the problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/opinion/28brooks.html?em

<comment><USER2> That was pretty good.

One trick I use to substract my own bias is to pretend that I am on the other side. If I hold some stock I am naturally more likely to defend it to my friends. Then I pretend that I shorted that stock and start defending the opposite position. Then I look which position is more idiotic. :)

Sometimes it even works, although I didn't get it work reliably.</comment>


Rating TOS: Big Tech must be held to account over user consent - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/40e558ce-158a-11e9-a168-d45595ad076d <comment><AUTHOR> I read with interest the recent case of the Google Developer who had his account terminated for frivolous reasons. Terms of service specify the legal parameters within which a company most operated. People don't read them, they are broad and one-sided. We need companies to incur an economic cost for user abuse. Read my full article at the link above in the Financial Times. (You might need to Google it to get there directly without hitting a paywall). In a nutshell, we need a rating system for terms of service. If you are interested, hit me at email@example.com.</comment>


Does cold emailing work? - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering whether cold emailing potential clients works.I would like to try it!! <comment><USER2> Good question. I had to cold email a lot of blogs and websites for a long-tail ad network, and I must admit, after some tweaking and spinning, I was able to get a response in some 10% of the emails sent (of course, the first filter you turn on is WHO to cold email). And the concept behind has to be: let's start a dialogue. But to give some perspective, my intention was to pay them for their inventory, and if you intention is to get their money, then I believe the response may be way, way lower.

<comment><AUTHOR> how about having them give me money indirectly i.e proposing them a solution for problem that they encounter.</comment></comment>


The Spy Photo That Fooled NPR, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, and Me - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/the-spy-photo-that-fooled-npr-the-us-army-intelligence-center-and-me/277276/

<comment><USER2> _we should be skeptical about any Internet source that fills a gap in the historical record too neatly_

This should be carved into the side of Mt Rushmore in 50 foot letters of fire.</comment>


Police will soon know the location of every car - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/license-plate-readers-a-useful-tool-for-police-comes-with-privacy-concerns/2011/11/18/gIQAuEApcN_print.html

<comment><USER2> My car recently got towed using this technology.

Long story short, I moved and later on ended up passing through the town my car was still registered in, so I stopped for an hour. I came back an hour later to continue my journey, and my car was booted, and 15 minutes later a tow-truck came to take my vehicle away.

All over two unpaid parking tickets from long ago.

While I might be on the wrong side of the law, it's interesting to get a glimpse of the future of law enforcement.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm preaching to the choir here, but the very last line in this article made me look up an old post on Bruce Schneier's blog (May 2006).

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_p...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html)</comment>


Intel Gives Moore's Law a Makeover - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/05/13/intel-gives-moores-law-a-makeover/ <comment><USER2> Must be rewriting it to address performance hits from Meltdown and Spectre.</comment>