Abstract Ideas Don't Deserve Patents - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/abstract-ideas-dont-deserve-patents.html <comment><USER2> For software patents, I'm a fan of Richard Stallman's idea that software patents should require working, annotated source code be attached. I think that this would make it easier to compare ideas to those in previous patents.

If patent filers chose to obfuscate their code, ideally their patent would be rejected for being unclear, or at least, they'd have a hard time defending their patent, as the difference between it and an alleged infringer would be quite large.

<comment><USER3> Some algorithm patents do include source code but it is not that helpful. Identical algorithms can be implemented in very different ways within and across programming languages, so there is no comparative value. There are algorithmic equivalencies in implementation that look wildly different in code.

For example, in spatial indexing you can implement some widely used algorithms as either traversing the obvious space decomposition tree or doing lookups using projections onto higher dimensionality space-filling curves. The former is "obvious" but all good implementations use the latter code design because it is much more scalable in real systems even though the algorithms are equivalent.

Most algorithm patents with code go for "matches the high-level description of the algorithm" rather than "is an optimal representation of the algorithm given current computer science". That said, in my experience people are pretty good at reconstructing an algorithm implementation from patent descriptions that do not include code, assuming they have some domain expertise (i.e. in the above example, it should not be necessary to explain the representational equivalency of literal space decomposition and projections onto space-filling curves).

<comment><USER4> Is it fundamentally different from diagrams and drawings in mechanical patent apps? To me, the diagram (or source code) is just another way of describing the patent. Firstly to help better illustrate what it is for, secondly to show you have a working implementation.

<comment><USER5> A working implementation is, and never will be, a requirement got the grant of a patent. The figures show an example of one or several implementations of an idea, but have no baring in the defining the scope of the invention. There's no reason for parents related to software could not include source/pseudo code, it's just usually not very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Abolish software patents.

A world without software patents is a world of free and faster innovation, of equal opportunity, and of open and cheap access to technology.

Firms that have patentable knowledge are strong enough to not need governmental protection. Inventing something before others gives one technical advantage and time to make profit ahead of others.

Too much effort is spent on the patent process, that could be spent directly on innovation.

In today's software world, 20 years of monopoly is like 100 years of monopoly when the constitution was signed.

The solution should probably come from the legislative branch.

<comment><USER7> Why abolish software patents but not all patents?

<comment><USER8> Software patents tend to be the most superficial of them all when it comes to the litmus test of "Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it". (Or, even worse, in many cases it boils down to "could I reproduce this patented system totally by accident without ever even knowing someone else patented this simple system").

A good canonical example of this is Apple's much maligned "bounce scroll" or slide-to-unlock patents (though Apple is hardly alone when it comes to this nonsense).

Any decent software developer could see either of those in action, having never read Apple's patent and never seen Apple's source code and whip up his or her own implementation in less than an hour. That alone should invalidate these patents.

Some will argue that Apple's original idea was unique at the time, so they should have a patent on those grounds, but that's not what patents are supposed to protect (though massive amounts of money being funneled into lobbying and the legal system have served to obscure this in the past couple of decades).

Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. There's really not a true legal IP mechanism for the protection of ideas (even copyright is protection of expression, which is closer to ideas, but not quite the same).

<comment><USER9> >Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it

This reasoning is deeply flawed. There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" _after the fact_ , but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. Take a look at the Occulus Rift for example. Two years ago no one cared about VR. Today there are a handful of companies that claim to have a headset on par or better than the Rift. What changed? The Rift proved that it was viable, and now its relatively easy to follow their path to a successful product. Just because a solution is obvious after the fact, does not mean its creation was equally as obvious.

>Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas.

An apple lawyer could easily say that the "idea" here was unlocking of the phone, while the implementation/invention was the "slide to unlock" functionality. Neither is more right than the other.

Edit: would be an interesting experiment to have public downvotes

<comment><USER10> But, again, the purpose of patents are to protect _inventions_ , not ideas. The idea that VR now has a viable market is not patentable. Unlocking a phone is not patentable.

I don't think any software patents should be granted, but the biggest problem with them in practice is how they are allowed to be written: "a system that does thing X" now is a patent on _anything_ that does thing X, essentially a patent on that idea. Software patents often give the illusion of specificity, but if you look at e.g. the "Siri patent", you see that it really just says it searches multiple databases and displays them in an order based on some heuristic. They're written in a way that it could arguably cover a huge class of inventions, again, essentially patenting an idea, not an invention. This can be especially bad when it gets in front of a jury, as it seems all too reasonable to them that that description does in fact match the competing product in question. Just look at Newegg vs a patent on "A method for transmitting data comprising a sequence of blocks in encrypted form": [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg- infri...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infringes- spangenberg-patent-must-pay-2-3-million/)

<comment><USER9> >The idea that VR now has a viable market is not patentable.

You're missing the point. The issue wasn't that VR now has a viable market (it always did), the issue was that a good implementation was now viable. And its not just that it can be implemented, its that we generally know how they did it. From this perspective, after having seen a fully working prototype, it can seem _obvious_ that VR technology was just on the horizon. My point is this is a fallacy; its easy to say climbing mt. everest is possible when you can look down and see the path someone else just treaded before you. In a similar vein, judging something as "obvious" and thus not patentable after it has been invented is flawed.

<comment><USER11> I agree that things often seem obvious in retrospect, even if they were not obvious before. But that's ok. The point of patents is not to protect things that are obvious in hindsight. The point is to protect things that are not obvious even after you see them. Things that make you want to say: ok, it's right in front of my eyes, but what is this magic?

<comment><USER5> No, they're not. You may like to believe this, but it's not a fact. Many inventions are quite mundane, but doesn't mean they weren't inventive (ie, non-obvious) at the time. And the other thing that most people seem to forget is that examiners must be able to show that the invention is obvious to be able to object to it, there must be proof that a person skilled in the art _world_ do X. you might counter that by saying the applicant must say why it is inventive, but that's something that is impossible to do (except in circumstances where the common general knowledge in the art has been that X is impossible, and then you show that you have done X).

Simple things should not be ineligble for patents, and what you are proposing is excluding from patent protection anything that is simple. Also if you're looking at a patent that is in a field that you're skilled in and you can't understand it "ok, it's right in front of my eyes, but what is this magic?" then the patent hasn't fully disclosed the invention and it shouldn't have been granted (or you're just not skilled enough, many patents require vast amounts of knowledge to be able to understand and the "person skilled in the art" may be a team of people).

<comment><USER12> I think the last paragraph there is self-contradictory. Simple things shouldn't be patentable, precisely because the invention doesn't need to be fully disclosed.

To take a silly example, let's say I propose a patent on the process of painting a house green. That's the entire text of the patent. Should it be granted? No. In part because I haven't fully disclosed the invention. But what could I possibly add? "Step 1. Cover house with green paint."

A government granted monopoly is a big gun. Far too big if the goal is just to provide you with revenue. Government works for the people, not one company, and if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone can benefit from the increase in knowledge. If your "invention" is so simple that we all already know how to do it, then we don't need the "full disclosure" of a patent, and we don't need to buy your description of painting the house green for the enormous cost of having to pay you exhorbitant fees for every green house for the next two decades.

<comment><USER5> Firstly, your example is so ridiculous I can't see how it adds anything to the discussion. No, it would never be granted a patent, so what exactly is your point?

Secondly, you have accurately described the patent system;

> if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, > we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We > want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone > can benefit from the increase in knowledge.

But you go off the rails when you confuse simple and known. The point of a patent is to disclose the invention in a clear enough way for someone else to be ablwe to perform it. Once you know the answer, it probably will seem simple. But that does not mean it's not inventive (ie, no one else has done it before, and you qwere the first to have made that knowledge available to the public).

<comment><USER12> I'm not confusing simple and known; I'm just including both in the decision as to whether something is eligible for patent protection. As the patent office is required to do (the term used in patent law is "non-obvious" rather than simple, but it's the same concept).

You aren't eligible for a patent just because you did something first.

<comment><USER5> Simple is not the same as non-obvious, so no, it's not the term used in patent law. Something is obvious if a non-inventive person skilled in the art _would_ have performed it through routine steps (at least here, some of the mosaics I see coming from the US are batshit insane and no sane person would have used them to come to same result the examiners is claiming - that said, this is a practice that is in favour of the public, it requires the applicant to reduce the scope of the claims further which leads to smaller monopolies).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a BS patent. It's a patent on the "conceptual system" (note: not a software patent) of using a Mechwarrior/Sims/Diablo style character builder interface plus standard search engine techniques to build a fashion search engine. I refused to sign it but somehow the patent was granted anyway.

Also included in the patent is the concept of paying humans to use the system to do searches for you (i.e., email a photo of shoes you like, someone will google it for you).

[http://www.google.com/patents/US20130166591](http://www.google.com/patents/US20130166591)

If a patent is granted in spite of being obviously derivative to the point that the inventor refuses to sign it, something is broken.

<comment><USER14> Actually, what you have is a "patent application". It is not yet a patent, although according to the Patent Offices public pair system ([http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair)) it has had a "Non Final Action Mailed" on 2014-01-14. So it is being examined. Looking at the rejection on the pair system, all the claims of the application have been rejected during this go-round.

<comment><USER5> What? Someone on hackernews who actually understands the patent system enough to know what's actually going on? This is unheard of!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Abolish Intellectual Property. Period.

IP's time (if there ever was one) is over. There is no benefit for real inventors and artists anymore, merely for mega corporations to use the levers of government to maximize their profits at the expense of humanity and freedom. Nothing "intellectual" should be property.

I'm not against corporations or even mega corporations. I think they'd do better for themselves (and their users, more importantly) if they didn't waste years and $billions battling each other and bullying startups and individuals over IP. Instead, they should just focus of making better things.

 _If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property._ \- Thomas Jefferson

<comment><USER16> > Abolish Intellectual Property. Period.

> IP's time (if there ever was one) is over. There is no benefit for real > inventors and artists anymore, merely for mega corporations to use the > levers of government to maximize their profits at the expense of humanity > and freedom. Nothing "intellectual" should be property.

> I'm not against corporations or even mega corporations. I think they'd do > better for themselves (and their users, more importantly) if they didn't > waste years and $billions battling each other and bullying startups and > individuals over IP. Instead, they should just focus of making better > things.

> [Quotation]

This sounds like a noble rallying cry but is ultimately misguided. How does this system reconcile with the incentive structures inherent in pharmaceutical research and drug design?

<comment><USER17> Pharma is a special case. Can we separate IP into pharma and -other- and deal with them separately?

Pharma "development" might be done by academics who get bought out by big pharma after their discovery, or it might be done originally by big pharma. Should pharma IP be protected so they can inflate prices to pad the bank accounts of the inventors even though they were operating in academia at the time of invention?

Pharma costs involve (a) cost to discover a drug, (b) cost to do drug trials, including all bureaucratic red tape in getting the drug approved, and (c) advertising and marketing (both to prospective patients and to the medical establishment). From what I've read, advertising costs exceed R&D. Surely, IP monopoly pricing should not be able to pass along arbitrary marketing costs.

Some drugs are prescribed for serious health problems, some drugs are prescribed and taken on a more voluntary basis, and there's a gray area in between. Should IP owners be able to set arbitrary profit margins for drugs for more serious health problems? Who decides what's serious?

The incentives for much of the pharma industry are all wrong: they market to doctors and potential end-users, even though end users are rarely capable of evaluating drugs, and even though doctors are influenced by marketing directed at them. This isn't so much a cost issue (other than advertising costs, above) but rather a public health issue. Some drugs might not be in the public's interest at all, even while being recommended by doctors, and paid for at inflated prices by patients and insurance companies.

There are so many complications, I'm in favor of dealing with pharma IP separately.

<comment><USER18> You only addressed part of the problem. The OP said IP.. so we're talking about trademarks in addition to patents.

The pharma companies would lose the ability to patent a drug.. which means they would keep it a tradesecret instead. So generic may or may not be able to be produced.

Second: without trademarks, pharma companies could invent Prilosec... and I (and anyone else) could sell a sugar pill named Prilosec. Or rat poison named Prilosec.. or any number of other items named Prilosec.

This is not a result that is in anyones favor.

<comment><USER19> People would still be free to use and purchase based on the generic chemical name.

Furthermore, I would consider tradesecrets a form of IP so, if we are considering a scenario in which IP were abolished, tradesecrets would be abolished too in the sense that they would be afforded no legal protections. True, a formula or process could still be kept secret, but without protection for that secrecy it seems unlikely that real innovations would remain secret for long and market competition would increase as a result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amen.

The most important part about patents to remember why they exist.

Why would congress grant a legal monopoly to anybody? The reason is (or should be) to protect any investment that went into the invention; for the benefit of society as a whole - to make sure expensive research is still going to happen.

An idea does not cost anything. It might have some value if nobody had that idea before, but the idea would have been had anyway regardless of any legal protection. It might suck for the individual having the idea, but society is not served by protecting ideas that came without cost.

Copyright on the other hand is useful and needed, it protects a specific expression of an idea.

If you translated software patents to books, a patent would be like a legal monopoly on "science fiction stories", or "crime stories". Whereas copyright protects a specific store - as it should. Other folks are free to write other science fiction or crime stories.

Anyway... I am not holding my breath. Also there are so many patents already out there, these will likely not be invalidated retroactively.

<comment><USER16> > The reason is (or should be) to protect any investment that went into the > invention; for the benefit of society as a whole - to make sure expensive > research is still going to happen.

This is critical. Not just to enable expensive investment, but to create an incentive structure that encourages scientific research that remains in the public domain. This is a critical point that people often miss in these arguments.

In computerland, we don't come up with new computer science every time we program an application. In pharmaceutical land, you literally have to come up with new science to make a new drug.

Let's not forget that, as software developers, our perspective and opinions on patents are not fungible across all domains.

The patent system in the pharmaceutical industry _enables_ a healthy drug research and design market with proper incentive structures. Abolishing patents in the pharmaceutical industry would retard research, skew incentives, and encourage trade secrets.

A patent free system would most likely result in a system of trade secrecy. Companies would not share their results, they would keep the secret formula to themselves. It would result in perpetual proprietary lockdowns.

After all, why make public the concept that you just spent billions of dollars and years of opportunity cost on? So that competitors can manufacture the drug at essentially zero cost? Nah, we'll just keep that to ourselves, thank you very much.

Trade secrets are a threat to science.

You cannot build a foundation of science on a platform eaten away by trade secrecy. Trade secrecy will deprive humanity of the positive externalities of a significant chunk of pharmaceutical research.

As developers, we see patents as a threat. A sharp implement of the greedy. In the pharmaceutical world, patents are a necessary rung in the ladder of human advancement. Yes, it doesn't always feel good to climb this ladder (consumer drug prices) but without it- there would just be a scrum of companies scrambling to climb up the research pole, each trampling each other's investment returns (incentive) to zero. They'd get bruised and go find easier poles to climb up.

Yes, the patent system in the pharmaceutical industry has flaws. But it is _the best thing we have_ given the alternatives.

If you are interested, please see see my other comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7497872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7497872)

<comment><USER16> Chapters 9 and 10 of this:

[http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfi...](http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm)

Make a pretty damning indictment of my argument.

Although I never really liked the patent system, I believed that it was ultimately "the best system given the alternatives" because I believed that in the absence of patent protection, pharmaceutical output would be reduced from lack of incentive. Historically, this has not been the case.

Although the authors do agree that abolishing the system in one fell swoop would be a bad idea because it would be politically untenable, prevent the reformation of certain institutions e.g. The FDA, and adversely affect medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies. They instead propose a phased reformation process which includes but is not limited to reducing the costs of phase II and phase III clinical trials (via NIH support / reformation), deregulating patent enforcement and instead affect private contract machinery, and ultimately phase out patents entirely.

My argument largely rested on my assumption that pharmaceutical companies were spending their money in a socially optimal way and that pharmaceutical output would be reduced in the absence of trade protectionism. It seems that empirically, the pharmaceutical industry is not an exception to the "trade protectionism is a bad idea" rule-- like I previously tried to argue.

They propose a series of reforms to the patent system (with the eventual goal of phasing it out) that would reduce costs.

I over estimated the amount of R&D money that was being properly spent. I did not realize how effective certain parts of the global industry have been in the absence of patents. And I did not account for the fact that the patent system incentivizes copy cat drug design. I look forward to finding out where else I'm wrong about healthcare economics.

<comment><USER16> For what it's worth,

Here is another place where I made a version of my argument (with some other context added): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7498742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7498742)

Here is where I retracted the faulty assumptions I made in that comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7499369](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7499369)

My unchecked assumptions led to a flawed argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There is clearly no reason for software patents. To look at this issue from another angle, consider the following.

What was the reason for creating the patent system in the first place? To give people an incentive to invent new things: if someone invests the time in coming up with something novel, the legal system would give a temporary monopoly in return.

But in today's world, clearly one would imagine the vast majority, if not all software would have been invented as is, without the incentives that patent protection provides. When one contrasts this with the well-known downsides of software patents, the outcome should be clear: abolish them.

<comment><USER22> > What was the reason for creating the patent system in the first place? To > give people an incentive to invent new things:

No, the point of the patent system is not to incentivise invention. The point of patents is _to destroy trade secrets_. The word "patent" means "open". The whole point of patents is increase society's knowledge of how to do things.

People invent with or without patents. What they don't always do without patents is to say how those inventions work. The bargain inventors make with patents is, tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise to not compete with you for a while.

This is an awesome patent:

[http://www.google.com/patents/US5255452](http://www.google.com/patents/US5255452)

This is what patents are supposed to be about: a magician revealing his tricks. Without the patent system, Michael Jackson may have taken his idea to the grave.

The problem is that almost none of the people patenting software are magicians.

<comment><USER23> Destroying trade secrets may be a benefit of the patent system, but it's historically inaccurate to say that's why the system was created in the first place.

The Constitution itself gives the reason as "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Numerous letters written by the Constitution's framers support the interpretation that the goal is to incentivize creation by granting monopolies.

<comment><USER22> It is not historically inaccurate, it's encoded in the name of the damn thing. The patent system predates the creation of the United States, and its spirit is more than the ambiguous summary of "to promote progress".

The history of patents is long, but Queen Anne's statute is where the the nature of disclosing trade secrets was formalised:

[http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent/p-about/p-whatis/p-histor...](http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent/p-about/p-whatis/p-history/p-history-18century.htm)

<comment><USER23> I'm not saying that patents don't accomplish more than promoting progress. They do! I just believe your claim (" _The whole point_ of patents is [to] increase society's knowledge of how to do things") is overly ambitious. That's an important part of the patent system, yes, but far from "the whole point".

As Thomas Jefferson wrote about the US patent system: "Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, _as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas_ which may produce utility..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What deserves a patent is a, possibly large, investment needed to show that an abstract idea can be a practical.

The magnitude of the investment is one of the reasons people tend to accept the concept of patents more in some field than in others.

<comment><USER25> I disagree. Why does that deserve a patent?

If a particular invention is created that realizes the idea, I agree that the invention should be patentable, but it sounds like your post advocates patents on scientific research.

<comment><USER24> To be honest I'm not advocating anything. I'd like very much to live in a more enlightened age than this, but it's a good idea to understand how things work.

If you need money to do something you will get it from someone who wants to get back something (modulo risk), and the patent system is one way to transform ideas in value that can be traded. It's not the only way, and not all the alternatives are better.

My point was that as long as there is a real work behind a patent, people tend to show more understanding of the need of a patenting system, while being rightfully outraged in cases of patent trolls and/or plain bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's not a lot of debate about whether abstract ideas deserve patents. The consensus is that they don't. The debate is about how to figure out what is an abstract idea and what isn't. On one side, you have an abstract idea like "hedging settlement risk by using shadow accounts" (the patent at issue in CLS Bank v. Alice Corp). Almost everyone on the Fed. Cir. thought this shouldn't be patentable. On the other side, you have something like whatever algorithm is the subject of the gbatteries patent: [http://www.gbatteries.com/technology/](http://www.gbatteries.com/technology/) ("Our patent-pending process maintains the lithium ion diffusion at optimal levels and eliminates concentration polarization and thus allows the Li-ions to be more uniformly extracted from or reinserted into the cathode materials."). That probably should be patentable, because while the charging algorithm might be simple to describe and could easily be reimplemented, it probably took a lot of R&D to design it in the first place.

The question is, how do you draw the line between the two?

<comment><USER27> I persist in thinking that the problem is not with the subject matter test. A computer program is obviously a machine, just as the Federal Circuit and lots of other people intuitively assume.

The problem is with the obviousness bar, which is far, far, _far_ too low. I haven't studied the _Alice_ patent, but let's take what the NYT says about it here:

 _The issue in this case, Alice Corporation Pty. v. CLS Bank International, is whether using a computer to implement a well-established economic concept can be patented. [...] Alice Corporation obtained four American patents that cover a method of settling trades between investors in currency and other financial markets. The approach depends on a neutral middleman to make sure traders complete the transactions they have agreed to. [...] Alice Corporation has argued that its patents cover a specific computer-enabled system and method, not the fundamental idea of using intermediaries in financial settlements. But CLS Bank, which first sued Alice in an attempt to have its patents invalidated, says that Alice's system does not add anything meaningful to a basic idea._

The NYT Editorial Board is using this argument to urge the Supreme Court to rule that this patent's subject matter is inappropriate. But I think this can just as easily, if not _more_ easily, be read as an argument that the invention in question is obvious. Taking some process that was previously done by hand and computerizing it, or some part of it, is, in this day and age, a paradigmatic example of something obvious.

Again: I haven't studied the actual patent. I just think it's unfortunate that everyone is talking about this as a subject matter problem, when we have a screaming obviousness problem that the Federal Circuit is right at the center of.

I want the Supreme Court to tell the Federal Circuit that mere novelty does not entail nonobviousness. In such a highly generative field as software, which has an uncountable number of applications, simply coming up with another one contributes little or nothing to the state of the art. If someone else who encountered the same requirements could implement a system to satisfy them just as easily _before_ reading a putative patent as _after_ reading it, there was no intellectual contribution and the patent should not be valid. This was clearly the intent behind the patent system at its inception. It should be restored.

<comment><USER27> > we have a screaming obviousness problem that the Federal Circuit is right at > the center of

Let me give a cite for that. From [0]:

 _The [Federal Circuit] watered down the rule against obvious patents. Supreme Court precedents prior to the creation of the Federal Circuit held that merely combining two previously-known technologies in a straightforward fashion was too obvious to merit patent protection. To be patent eligible, the Supreme Court held, an invention needed to be "greater than the sum of its parts."

The Federal Circuit developed a more permissive rule that only allowed a combination of known components to be declared obvious if there was specific documentation that someone had suggested that combination prior to the patent application. The court adopted this rule to guard against the danger that hindsight bias would lead people to over-estimate an idea's obviousness. But the court seemed less concerned with the possibility that some combinations are so obvious that no one would bother writing them down._

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue- appea...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appeals- court-wrecked-the-patent-system/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The patent situation has become a circus. There's a company claiming a patent on video advertisements preceding video content, and they're suing every online media company in existence hoping for shakedowns.

I once jokingly suggested a patent about paying online, but lo and behold, someone has that too.

<comment><USER29> Has someone already patented earning money by patenting everything and then suing everyone else?

<comment><USER30> Yes: [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/01/157743897/can- you-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/01/157743897/can-you-get-a- patent-on-being-a-patent-troll)

I wish I were joking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a holder of a number of patents (pending and granted), I'm obviously conflicted here. My early patents came from my days at Nokia Research Centre where there was a "patent quota". Yep, we had to come up with a set number of patents per year, regardless of the quality.

My views on patents were (subsequently) very strongly influenced by this paper: "Against Intellectual Property" by Brian Martin:

[http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/95psa.html](http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/95psa.html)

I would encourage anyone with an opinion on the topic to take a look at it. I'm not sure I agree 100% with everything in there, but the reasoning is very good.

These days, I'm much more in the "abolish software patents" camp than I used to be. The only valid reason I can think to have one now is for "freedom to operate", but I can attest from bitter experience, that simply doing a defensive publication of the core idea is significantly cheaper than obtaining a patent on the pretext of freedom to operate.

In any case, a system that necessitates spending upwards of US$100k to obtain freedom to operate, has something diabolically wrong with it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Patent systems are bad because they deal with concepts which are too vague. I don't think we can fix that.

Lets leave aside economic implications for a moment. What is an invention? Is it really different to a discovery. There is no good way to distinguish between invention and discovery because they're not distinct concepts. Distinctions are semantic, even in an archetypical example of patentable invention like Edison's lightbulb. Inventing a lightbulb is discovering that electricity can heat a filament, it emits light when hot and can be prevented from burning by placing it in a vacuum.

These are exactly the types of problems the law chokes on.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm against software patents, but if we must have them, can't we at least make them shorter? The software world moves too fast for these kinds of patents to have the term lengths that they do.

</comment><comment><USER34> An important distinction here is _why_ the alleged invention should not be patentable: 1) because it is obvious in view of what was done before; or 2) solely because it is software, regardless of whether those in the field would regard it as a significant advance. The latter is a much bigger change from the status quo, but the article sort of conflates the two.

</comment><comment><USER35> The Court should provide machine (processor) level protection and rule that high level programming is obvious, in that it requires only routine experimentation. The challenge for the court is how to make room for machines whose novelty is a software control. I would argue that there should be a moving element test. Is there a software/hardware interface.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Deserve" is a framing that wraps together a moral claim with what is intended to be a purely utilitarian calculus (whether a class of patent "promote[s] the Progress of Science and useful Arts"). As soon as you start framing things in terms of who "deserves" what, the side who can generate greater pathos wins.

</comment><comment><USER37> Make it easier to find prior art and make the loser of a patent suit pay for the suit. That will prevent the most egregious practice of patent trolls bullying small companies into settling befofe the case goes to trial. If the cost of losing a patent litigation was higher, trolling would become economically riskier.

<comment><USER5> > Make it easier to find prior art

How, exactly?

<comment><USER37> USPTO has partnered with askpatents.com of StackExchange fame

I was at the roundtable where they announced it: [http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/sw_partnership_2013...](http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/sw_partnership_20130227_nyc.jsp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Anyone care to conjecture the practical effects of invalidating software patents beyond saving everyone involved time and money to litigate those patents? It may be valuable for that reason alone, but I'm trying to imagine a world where suddenly, overnight, all software patents are eliminated.

</comment><comment><USER39> Except for the patents that huge organizations already own, right? So they can go on using those to beat the crap out of each other and crush threatening offerings from smaller firms. Pick up the ladder after you climb it. Sweet.

<comment><USER6> What are you saying, that the judges should allow this patent?

The solution is to make laws that forbid software patents. And if the old patents can be abolished, the better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> For me, the ad at the bottom of the page is "How To Patent Your Idea".

</comment><comment><USER41> Does anyone have a link around the paywall?

<comment><USER42> Or open the mobile link. [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/abstract...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/abstract- ideas-dont-deserve-patents.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> ok.

</comment><comment><USER44> And they don't get them. Business methods get patents.

Why is this basic, fundamental concept not understood by people who purport to know about "software" patents?

</comment><comment><USER45> Can we talk about paywall links on HN?

<comment><USER46> I think that's a good idea, but as a separate story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I can't read the original article because it is behind a paywall...BUT...abstract ideas do not get patents.

This is not my opinion, it is fact. Look it up.

<comment><USER48> You do understand what the current lawsuit is over, right? It boils down to someone has patented an idea, the other guy says "you can't do that." The original pantentee is saying "but it is an implementation running on a computer"

<comment><USER47> As I made plain - I couldn't read the original article. But let me see if I understand you correctly. a) person A has a patent (which incidentally as a matter of law cannot be for just an abstract idea) b) person B challenges the patent - I am not sure what the grounds for this challenge are because you don't specify them. Is it because B is claiming that the patent was falsely awarded because it was no more than an abstract idea? c) person A disputes the challenge by pointing out that it isn't abstract.

If this interpretation of your comment is correct then I don't see how it is in conflict with my observation that abstract ideas can't be patented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> As someone who is currently residing in the year 2055 and has a neuro- prosthetic, I believe corporations and governments _need_ access to our brain machine interfaces so that when we copy a patented or copy-righted idea to our memory they can safely delete it. How could people make money in my time if I can just remember their data? Support the Data Control Agency!</comment>


Pigs are smart and sensitive, yet we continue to justify killing them for food - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/what-more-evidence-do-we-need-to-stop-killing-pigs-for-food <comment><USER2> Not only smart and sensitive, they are very very clean. We have a minipig and it won't do any of its stuff on its house or surroundings. I'm sure the big ones, if weren't forced because of us humans to live enclosed, would behave the same way.

</comment><comment><USER3> The incorrect premise here is that we won't kill and/or eat smart animals. Cute animals may (or may not) get a pass, but humans don't care about smart animals. After a decade and a half as a vegetarian, I realized we're nowhere advanced enough to make a difference in this or most other causes and a lifetime of vegetarianism won't even make a difference. Hell, we can't even stop killing ourselves and causing mass extinction events through our actions. A human, in its natural state, is the most disgusting, cruelest, nastiest creature in the known universe. Until we can figure out how to provide tools to the majority of people to raise them up out of this state (at least levels 1-2 of Maslow's pyramid), we have no hope in hell of fixing problems like this. This is not an argument to not try. It's simply an explanation of what is. If we ever get to a point where humans are able to fix such problems and have empathy and respect for each other and other creatures, it'll be amazing indeed. I certainly won't see it in my life or any of my peers' children's lives, I'm pretty sure of that, but I think certain cultures have indeed made big strides towards this in the last 50-100 years.

<comment><USER4> > _A human, in its natural state, is the most disgusting, cruelest, nastiest > creature in the known universe._

Claims like this are utterly lacking perspective. Cats will happily torture smaller animals. Primates hunt each other. Dolphins rape. Humans are animals, yes. In no way are they more disgusting or cruel than others, though.

<comment><USER3> Comparing cats torturing other animals to systematic genocide, using nuclear weapons on others, starving whole populations, and other atrocities committed by humans is what lacks perspective. Another big difference is that we are capable of knowing what is right and wrong and _choose_ to still hurt and torture others en masse. We are now close to _choosing_ to likely cause a worldwide extinction event, but somehow a cat torturing a mouse is comparable? No other creature even comes close.

<comment><USER5> > Comparing cats torturing other animals to systematic genocide, using nuclear > weapons on others, starving whole populations, and other atrocities > committed by humans is what lacks perspective.

Are any of these things the 'natural' state of humanity? It looks like you only get to that after at least a few thousand years of cultural development as a whole, and two decades plus socialization to adulthood in a person.

I feel like cats certainly _would_ commit genocide if they had the mental capacity to plan for it.

Overall, I think that it is a wrong view that morality exists as an abstract separate from the current social circumstance and any species (even humans) can be measured against that perfect ideal.

<comment><USER3> There's plenty of armies that recruit young children around 8, 9 years old as they have been for thousands of years. You don't need nuclear bombs to commit genocide or kill whole populations. Blades and spears will do just fine. So, yeah, I do think this is the natural state of humanity. Even a little kid who is not even an adult human is easily coaxed into a monster and has been so for thousands of years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And yet the wild population still needs to be controlled.

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-plague-of- pig...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-plague-of-pigs-in- texas-73769069/)

<comment><USER7> Opportunistic omnivores that wreak havoc on wherever they go? Sounds like another sentient species I'm acutely familiar with. If you replaced "wild hogs" with "humans" the narrative wouldn't read much differently, but probably on a government/national scale. Do you believe our population be controlled by mass killings?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I actually started cutting pork out of my diet after a comment on HN about vegetarianism and meat choices pointed out the same thing. I still eat it -- because it's so ubiquitous -- but am trying to shift to chicken whenever I have the choice.

Eating something that's smart and social just seems wrong to me, when there are plenty of stupider animals as alternatives.

Also... watch _Okja_ on Netflix ( [https://www.netflix.com/title/80091936](https://www.netflix.com/title/80091936) ), especially the ending.

<comment><USER9> As a counterpoint I recently saw an astonishing-if-true stat of the number of animals killed per million calories by food [1]. About 14x as many chickens die vs pigs. Even if pigs are smarter, that may change the way you weight the ethics a bit.

We should all be eating brainless bivalves perhaps? [2]

[1]: [http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc](http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc)

[2]: [https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for- eati...](https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eating- oysters-and-mussels/)

<comment><USER7> So with reference 2 I don't understand how you can be okay eating mussels but not okay eating eggs or dairy. If a hen naturally drops eggs and those eggs don't turn into chicks, they will rot anyway. And dairy involves no death. So why would one be "vegan" and eat oysters but not eat dairy or eggs?

<comment><USER10> Dairy and eggs both involve the death of animals. Dairy cows produce milk for their offspring. In order for us to get milk the offspring must be removed. Typically males are sold for veal, females continue as dairy cows. The production of laying hens results in roughly 50/50 male vs female chickens. Most of the males are killed shortly after hatching as they are not the variety kept for meat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know this sounds selfish, but I sometimes wonder if it would be possible to genetically engineer a pig to stay a cute young piglet for it's entire life, rather than turning into a large, hungry adult pig. In this way, pigs could be companion animals, rather than food animals, and I haven't thought through all the angles, but if I was a pig, it seems that would sound be more appealing for sure. (Compare below images:

[http://beavercreekfarm.co/wp- content/uploads/2015/01/Charlot...](http://beavercreekfarm.co/wp- content/uploads/2015/01/Charlotte_5738_LR-1024x681.jpg)

[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/b/bb/Free_...](http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/b/bb/Free_walt_disney_piglet_wallpaper.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140415074205) )

<comment><USER12> Well, we /did/ turn wolves into Pomeranians.

<comment><USER13> The neoteny is real.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pigs are vicious animals that will ruthlessly attack other animals and even humans. (In places where feral hogs run loose, they are found very difficult to control.)

Besides, bacon is delicious.

</comment><comment><USER15> So if we've decided an animal is dumb or insensitive, it's fine?

Based on what scale? Are cows dumb enough? What about chickens? Goldfish can be trained to swim through obstacle courses, so are they too smart?

</comment><comment><USER16> I care about animals. I try to at least only buy cage free eggs and meat from humanely treated animals.

However I wonder if the author is also against killing lions, wolves and other predators. Those animals are so brutal in how they kill they make people look like angels. I don't understand how naturalists can so vigorously protect animals who's life depends on mauling other animals regularly.

<comment><USER17> it is something of a massive troll, but this essay does take your idea seriously: [http://www.jpe.ox.ac.uk/papers/consistent-vegetarianism- and-...](http://www.jpe.ox.ac.uk/papers/consistent-vegetarianism-and-the- suffering-of-wild-animals/)

<comment><USER18> This is delightful, and very close to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat Manifesto, which is in his cookbook/textbook on eating meat entitled, Meat. Basically, the contract we have with domesticated animals is that we'll remove the daily suffering of a wild animal's life, and in exchange we will eat you a time we specify. Having slaughtered animals myself, and watched animals die at the hands of foxes and (oh God) fishers. I'd say turning them upside down and making a single cut across their carotid artery is about as easy as it comes.</comment></comment></comment>


Evaluating the Genuine Fake (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/09/13/lydia-pyne-genuine-fakes-how-phony-things-teach-us-about-real-stuff <comment><USER2> For those intrigued by the subject of the Fake, I highly recommend Orson Welles' film "F for Fake"

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

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate vegan food because of this. I've no problem eating vegetables, but why the ____would I want them looking like meat? Thanks but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER4> Vegetarian burgers, sausage, etc always struck me as pretty funny. Especially when there is some obvious attempt to make it look like meat.

<comment><USER5> I saw "non-beef beef" at the supermarket the other week. It's like a culinary paradox.</comment></comment>


I've Worked Entirely for Fully Centralized Companies - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/ive-worked-entirely-for-fully-centralized-companies-9e8a0e3e6e4a?source <comment><USER2> The Equifax breach could've been prevented by proper encryption at rest. Blockchain only makes the database distributed, but the trust still needs to be put in the "editors" of this database.</comment>


Coding bootcamps are not training real software engineers - <AUTHOR> https://www.switchup.org/blog/bootcamps-are-a-good-warmup-but-holberton-is-the-real-game <comment> tony-allan I like understanding new teaching models but don't like having one sold to me.

Discussion of alternatives was superficial.

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you think is missing in the comparisons?

<comment> tony-allan "Bootcamps leave graduates with not enough skills to find a job or to find only a low-paid position." \-- Bootcamps get students in the front door with entry level jobs. They then have an opportunity to acquire new skills by learning on the job and through additional study which can lead to successful careers.

I would argue that universities aim teach their students how to think which has the result of producing graduates that are "creative problem solvers, able to evolve to take on new skills."

I'm not saying that progressive education, done well, cannot also produce great results.

Three different paths open to anyone with an aptitude for programming. All require effort and persistence.</comment></comment></comment>


The Company That Tears Cars Apart to Find Out Exactly How They're Built - <AUTHOR> http://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-that-tears-cars-apart-to-find-o-1787205420 <comment><USER2> But but but the copyright cartel promised me that if we can reverse engineer the products we own then starving African cat babies will die. Or something. But I'm pretty sure there are lots of cars and lots of car companies. What went wrong^Wright?</comment>


Real-time heatmap example with Javascript and HTMLCanvas - <AUTHOR> http://www.patrick-wied.at/static/heatmap/ <comment><USER2> It's also down from here: <http://www.websitecheck.org/www.patrick-wied.at>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've emailed Patrick, so let's hope he can bring it back up soon.

It's a shame sites can't handle HN-level traffic automatically. My own site got borked when I put it on here without knowing much about web server configurations. Are there some standard practices which one should know?

<comment><USER3> Basic VPS (on stable provider) + nginx + php-fpm + eaccelerator, barely noticing any kind of traffic spikes (handled SlashDot, HN, HabraHabr, Reddit, Delicious, many others).

Of course it depends on how intensive your app is, but for moderately loaded site - this combination is more than enough. For ex. I've tested Wordpress with this configuration - it can handle nearly 70 mil. hits per day (including into this number hits to images, so probably around 10 mil. actual visitors).

Wouldn't recommend for real-time upgrade (during spike). For real-time go for this: <http://gist.github.com/638751> (if load average > 5 - sorry, exit). Crude, cruel, but helped me survive being unexpectedly TechCrunch'd on Apache (didn't know about nginx at the time), then you can finally edit your files, go for caching of nearly everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a really neat idea, but it seems to track how fast the mouse moves over the canvas instead of the amount of time the mouse is over parts of the canvas.

</comment><comment><USER5> hey guys its up again, I didn't know that my webserver wouldn't be able to handle such an amount of traffic. I reconfigured the webserver, now it should be ok. I'm going to add iPhone/iPad touchmove support for the canvas heatmap example in the next days. cheers, Patrick

</comment><comment><USER6> if anyones interested these guys created something similar for the node knockout competition.

<http://paularmstrong.github.com/nko-jackalope-promo>

</comment><comment><USER7> hackernewsed

<comment><USER8> Upvoted anyway!

<comment><USER9> Why upvote a dead story?

<comment><USER8> <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/facetious>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's not just you! <http://www.patrick-wied.at> looks down from here.

<comment><USER10> Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NInuBeY...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NInuBeYXdBkJ:www.patrick- wied.at/static/heatmap/+http://www.patrick- wied.at/static/heatmap/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)</comment></comment>


Show HN – Get Your Own Maps – Pixel Perfect - <AUTHOR> https://getyourmap.com/ GLMap is a framework for iOS developers with a simple mechanism for integrating detailed and lightweight offline maps into any application. <comment><USER2> This looks really promising, particularly the ability to switch styles on the fly. It could perhaps work as an onramp to get an app out there before switching to something custom-built as traffic builds. I'm tempted.

(Declaration of interest: I invented MapCSS, the styling language which this uses.)

<comment><USER3> Glad, you like it. And thanks for MapCSS. ;)

<comment><USER2> Out of interest, what sort of storage are you using for the vector data? Is it OSM PBF, MapBox vector tiles, or something custom?

<comment><USER3> It's custom msgpack based tile format + sqlite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Particularly interesting for game developers who can use it deeply customize maps to fit well into their gaming experience. I am tempted to build a monopoly-like game with the _real world_ up for sale and purchase. And one like Need for Speed with real-world traffic. Even one for amateur marathon runs on countryside terrains.

<comment><USER5> You mean like this?

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

<comment><USER4> Oh yes, I also used to make casual games in flash for social platforms like facebook back in 2009. These days it's OpenGL and mobile. The market size is bigger and user experience better. Btw, 5m accounts in three months despite so many launch issues is not bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am currently working on a location-based game for iOS and have been using Google Maps SDK and I'm extremely interested in this.

Google Maps has refused to respond to all requests for custom styled maps on iOS despite being the most requested feature.[1]

I've also tried MapBox but both have been giving very bad performance on iPhone 4... this could be just my code, however as a game I really need to perform a lot of animation on the map itself and these 2 options perform quite poorly in my experience.

Another issue with map SDKs is that there's usually no way to turn off road names. I just need the road vectors to be rendered (like Ingress) so players get a baring of where they are relative to their roads, but not necessarily the name of the roads. I imagine that it would be more performant if I could turn that off. Neither Google nor Mapbox allows this unfortunately.

Might give this a go to see how well it works with all the things we're throwing at our map functionality. Thanks!

[1] - [https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api- issues/issues/detail?id=...](https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api- issues/issues/detail?id=4968&q=apitype%3AIosSDK&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Introduced%20Fixed%20Summary%20Internal%20Stars)

<comment><USER7> How does this differ from MapBox? I was going to use MapBox, but just learned about this one.

<comment><USER6> Looking at their getting started page, it seems to be much simpler to integrate in terms of getting the barebones map up and running.

I haven't had time to dive into it yet so don't take my word for it but I suspect it would be similar in feature and performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks nice, but since it's completely unclear who's behind this, I personally wouldn't buy. People, add an imprint at least, better an "About us" page.

<comment><AUTHOR> The person behind this is a good friend and a great developer who has other great products including:

[http://wirelessdjapp.com/](http://wirelessdjapp.com/)

He is called Evgen Bodunov and here is his profile on linkedin:

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/molind](https://www.linkedin.com/in/molind)

A link to a lecture he gave on Map Rendering using OpenGL ES 2.0:

[http://vimeo.com/73200653](http://vimeo.com/73200653)

<comment><USER8> Good for him. Tell him to put that information on the web page.

<comment><USER3> I'll add it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also worth considering: [https://code.google.com/p/mapsforge/](https://code.google.com/p/mapsforge/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Always cool to see more uses of openstreetmap. Gives me even more motivation to work on it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks cool, but does it do affine/perspective rendering? I'm looking for a map service that allows me to project the map but still render labels in 2D. Or preferably, to get the various layers on their own framebuffers to be rendered arbitrarily. Elevation data would be a plus also.

<comment><USER12> GDAL is a pretty cool opensource library that will do affine transformations. And it looks like you can use it with IOS projects. So you might want to check that out. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12643898/incorporating- gd...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12643898/incorporating-gdal-ogr- into-an-ios-project-a-quick-guide)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks great, but I'm not an iOS developer so I can't use it :(

Are you thinking of expanding to other platforms other than iOS?

<comment><USER3> Yes, we'll add Android support later this year.

<comment><USER14> How about the web platform?

<comment><USER3> GLMap.framework made for offline maps on mobile devices. Most of it written in C++11, and we can't port it to JavaScript + WebGL.

As far I know Mapbox works on WebGL map rendering solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are you based in Karlsruhe (which is displayed on your front page)? I graduated from the KIT there…

<comment><USER3> We're based in Minsk, Belarus. I was in Karlsruhe on SotM-EU'14 recently, and I like shape of the city centre. It's looks beautiful on map. :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can you help me find a Kevin Hale article about logo design?  - <AUTHOR>

I remember an article about how good logos should look good in one color, as a silhouette, without shading. I thought it was by Kevin Hale and posted at Particle Tree but I can't seem to find it. Can anyone help me find this? Thanks. <comment><USER2> Maybe it was at treehouse.com instead of particletree.</comment>


Amazon.com begins rolling out new homepage design - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/09/amazoncom-begins-rolling-out-new-homepage-design.html

<comment><USER2> I _love_ the new masthead/search area, but I still think the main content area needs a little work -- everything has a "floating in space" look to it because the layout doesn't contain enough visual anchors to prevent it from looking unstructured.

All in all, I like where this is going.

<comment><USER3> I feel like there's lots of blank space in the main area and everything seems to be cramped into the nav.

I feel like somebody like my parents wouldn't know where to click (or even start to look) if they were looking to buy a book.

<comment><USER4> Search.

I hardly ever browse by category, they're too generic. Whenever I'm looking for something on Amazon, I go right for the search bar.

This new design makes an emphasis on search so I'm guessing Amazon noticed that other people use the same the same way I do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this strategy really working that well for them? I have all four of these back-to-back:

"More Items to Consider" "Related to Items You've Viewed" "Inspired by Your Browsing History" "Additional Items to Explore"

Then at the end, "Continue Shopping: Customers Who Bought Items in Your Recent History Also Bought" They must move a lot of product this way. I don't know that it makes for a very effective homepage, because of the overwhelming clutter, but I must be wrong because they've been sticking with this for years.

</comment><comment><USER6> While they're at it, they should really remove the Kindle ad from the homepage already. They know I own one, why keep trying to sell me it?

<comment><USER7> Does the site recognize you? ("Hello, nphase" at the top)

<comment><USER6> Yes. I also have the prime logo instead of the normal ones, and the 2 items in cart that were added a few days ago but not purchased yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this.

Clear user flow. Less distracting colours - Dark colour against mainly light BG should = call to action. Iconography, search icon instead of go. Removing the cart from the blue bar gives it separate visual identity than search.. Less help text/descriptive text.. more white space.

A breath of fresh air from Amazon, lets hope they take this redesign throughout quickly. I like designs that carry me through the site on a soft fluffly cloud.

</comment><comment><USER9> very similar to the google redesign

      * {
        padding: 25px;
        border-random: 1px solid #ccc;
      }

done

<comment><USER10> border-random, nice touch ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Huge focus on digital stuff. You have to use a drop-down menu to get to physical goods...

And this used to be a bookstore.

<comment><USER12> That's the operative phrase: "used to be".

Amazon is now general merchandising, though focused on information (printed/electronic) products.

Wal-Mart's biggest current competitor is Amazon. There's a large initiative at Wal-Mart to develop an R&D lab near San Francisco: [http://www.baycitizen.org/technology/story/inside-walmart- la...](http://www.baycitizen.org/technology/story/inside-walmart-labs/)

Good luck matching Amazon's culture with that mandatory drug test requirement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I will be glad when this finally rolls out. I am a marketplace seller and whenever amazon makes any changes, there are tons of other bugs that come along with it and my sales drop dramatically until they are fixed.

The last major set of changes happened in July.

But, I would rather have it now then mid-December,.

<comment><USER14> How are you going to benefit from these new changes as a seller?

<comment><USER13> It will probably have negative effects on my sales. The new changes will showcase digital purchases/downloads and I'm selling physical goods.

<comment><USER14> It does seem to highlight digital stuff on the homepage. But if I look at any particular product page, then I see new related category links on the top. Those might help your business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had the new design for about a week, before it even showed up on HN, but it seems to have gone away for me.

<comment><USER16> Same here. I've been seeing the redesign for at least a week already. I wonder how I keep getting in test groups. It seems like every time a major site like Google or Amazon does a redesign I end up seeing the it way before everyone else. I wonder how these sites chose who to show the redesign to first as test cases?

<comment><USER17> It's done randomly. They do a controlled test of a feature by turning the feature "on" for a window of time, and measure users' reactions in the control vs. experimental groups in real time. Experimental bias is minimized by the traffic being simultaneous, having a large sample size (visitors), and randomly deciding who gets put in which group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone else feel weird about the ad in the top-right?

They've got some copy written up about the change here: <https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000347381>

TL;DR: More Amazon revenue = lower Amazon prices.

I'm not quite buying it. You don't go to Walmart and see ads for McDonalds — you see a whole McDonalds. Amazon, like Walmart, is the sort of company that tries to sell _everything_. Wouldn't Amazon rather find a way to sell whatever is being advertised? Perhaps this is just a way for them to scrape a bit off the top of sales they don't (or can't) offer in-house.</comment>


Apple internal music video – I Think We're a Clone Now (1994) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnCqNH7V9R0 <comment><USER2> I wasn't into the Mac scene in '94 can someone explain? My whole time using Macs clones were fought every step along the way. I can't tell if this video is pro licensing or anti-clone...

This reminds me of near the end of the dotcom bubble where startups were making these kind of videos. There was one where the whole team was at a rented mansion doing a lip-sync. I wish I could find it but I think it got wiped from the internet after backlash. I remember it showed employees lounging around a pool.

Edit: a few minutes googling for that video I mentioned and I realized we may have finally hit a point where you can be forgot online. Not because the content disappears but because there is so much new content / noise that finding anything more than a few weeks old is very difficult.

<comment><USER3> With the switch to PowerPC architecture, Apple started a Licensing programme that would allow other companies to build official Mac clones. Power Computing was the first company to get into the business: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Computing_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Computing_Corporation). Steve Jobs pulled the plug on the clone idea when he returned to Apple and bought out Power Computing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is not really an internal video, it's a video made on campus by some employees. It reflects the rudderlessness and low morale of the company at the time, as it pursued a new strategy seemingly at odds with its values led by a complete nonentity of a new CEO.

</comment><comment><USER5> For those not familiar with 80s music, the song being parodied is Tiffany's "I think we're alone now." Original music video from 1987 here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Q3mHyzn78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Q3mHyzn78)

<comment><USER6> Itself a cover of the 1967 song by Tommie James and the Shondells: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMFLUXTEwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMFLUXTEwM) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Think_We%27re_Alone_Now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Think_We%27re_Alone_Now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The YouTube comments for this video mention the existence of something called ARPLE. I think I probably want a copy of this. Where can I learn more about it?

</comment><comment><USER8> Here is another classic .. pretty sure Apple played it at a WWDC

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W--13mBc788](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W-- 13mBc788)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is so cringeworthy, I can barely watch.

<comment><USER10> That one is really a pleasure to watch/listen to in comparison with this, from the same guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-- 13mBc788](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--13mBc788)

<comment><USER11> Idk, I thought they were both pretty good. Especially since he sang on both of them.</comment></comment></comment>


How to radically simplify your user interface - <AUTHOR> http://nathanbarry.com/judo-application-design/

<comment><USER2> While it is a must to have a really simple user interface, I do not agree with the idea that such an interface has anything to do with feature minimalism. Sure these are not mutually exclusive, but the correlation that latter leads to former is far from being correct. Or straightforward.

A great example that contradicts the minimalist theory is that of Facebook. Faceboook has a very complex interface and that you can observe by seeing someone who joins Facebook now. And yet the usability, experience and interface of the social network is great. Given a subtask - say throwing a party or sharing pictures of one - Facebook does a splendid job to help its users do whatever they undertook.

And they give a lot of features of varying complexity and clutter at one place.

<comment><USER3> Another thing I noticed from the article was that the improvements to the U/I are not always improvements.

E.g. the set-your-own pricing option, it's nice to be able to do either way from a single line edit, but there still has to be an affordance provided to the user to let them know that it's even possible to enter a '+', and that adds clutter.

Likewise with merging the opt-in email option to the combo box... by leaving it blank instead of explicitly saying that the client _won't_ be spammed you may lead to anguish on the part of the user, as they now have to figure out whether the entry is blank because of a software bug, to signify that the client will receive a "default" email, or whether the client will receive no email at all.</comment></comment>


The Sorry Saga of the Brewster Buffalo - <AUTHOR> https://www.warbirdforum.com/saga.htm <comment><USER2> No doubt I'll be downvoted to oblivion for this, but in my personal opinion, the F35 will be remembered by History as a repeat of the Brewster Buffalo's saga.

"jack of all trades, master of none." \- in other words just not good enough to win against the competition in any role.</comment>


China Orders Airlines to Ground All Boeing 737 Max 8 Aircraft - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/business/boeing-737-max-8-aircraft-crash-china.html <comment><USER2> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19356138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19356138) for comments</comment>


Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility? - <AUTHOR> http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-perils-of-contract-workers/ <comment><USER3> I've done mostly contract work because I liked the freedom when I was younger. Now I notice a lot of people my age have moved on to management or jobs "higher on the ladder" while I stress about the uncertainty of income when contracts end. I assume the lifestyle might suit people who are extraordinarily good networkers, but I feel mostly tired these days. My younger self didn't know about the fatigue the responsibility for a family brings.

In a fixed career you have a chance to build something up, while in contracting you're often back to square one with each new contract. You might have more experience, but you don't have the sort of trust and responsibility which you earn if you work long enough in a company or with the same group of people.

It's hard to find truly permanent jobs these days.

I think it's also biting companies in the long run, as I notice more and more graveyards of abandoned projects and services running without anybody present who was involved in building or setting up. But those costs don't seem as obvious to those in charge who'd rather not have to hire permanent workers.

(I work in software engineering and security.)

<comment><USER4> And contracting in a high-paying field like software development is one thing. Contracting for low-skill labor through a marketplace like Uber, TaskRabbit, Handy, etc. provides even less opportunity for any sort of career development.

<comment><USER5> I feel an odd magnetic sway towards the future envisioned in Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash" where the gig-economy IS the economy.

<comment><USER6> What could be more alluring, living in a shipping container in one of the shanty slums most of Snow Crash's people live in or being one of the lucky few to live in a corporate enclave?

I'm just glad we're going to have the opportunity to live in a cyber-punk dystopia!!!

<comment><USER7> I just started reading Snow Crash, really loving it.

<comment><USER8> Read The Diamond Age afterward. It's not exactly a sequel, but all indications seem to show that it takes place in the same world, a couple decades later.

<comment><USER9> Approx 80-100 years according to Wikipedia [1]. Though no source is cited.

The world of Snow Crash, where a few corporations own the entire world with a very tiny government, is also the basis of the book Jennifer Government [2] by Max Barry.

I found that book a bit easier to read. Diamond Age, I can't get through it yet. Cryptonomicon, also by Neil Stephenson is on my list, as well as Neuromancer by Gibson.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#Snow_Crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#Snow_Crash)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am taking a break from being a senior sysadmin because I got burnt out for the third time and am happily pursuing a data science degree. I've been the contractor and the employee.

My two cents is that companies have become so focused on killing upward mobility on purpose as a cost saving measure due to what I feel is increasingly more short term thinking. I can't tell you how many times during my contracting days I heard a story about how $company used to have one or more full time employees who setup, managed, and knew all their systems, but they decided they would rather save the salaries and just use the contractor "when needed". Of course half the time it was some halfassed MSP type shop that didn't know their ass from their elbow, didn't really care about being proactive, and milked billing enough the companies ended up spending just as much money as the salaries but with 1/8 the effectiveness. Throw in outsourcing to foreign countries (Goldman Sachs) and abuse of H1Bs and yeah, I'd say the rise of contract workers is killing upward mobility.

That said, its not the contractors fault, its managements. My view is this is largely because the CTO and CIO positions are failing to properly brief the Cs/board of directors on why they shouldn't be doing this, and that is largely because the CTO/CIO is too much a management and not enough tech. Often I would even see companies without a CTO/CIO, and some poor greybeard would be haphazardly trying to run an IT department and speak board speak at the same time, in the end doing neither well because they had little backing from higher up.

This is why so many companies are literally drowning in their own technical debt due to greediness and short term thinking!

I think its time for more technical people to go get an MBA and shake up the stagnant CTO/CIO positions.

For a long time I just wanted to be in a cold data center all day with my head in a terminal doing good work. As a senior sysadmin though I have learned that I should have been playing the politics game in the meeting room to protect my department and the company. I wish I had learned this sooner.

</comment><comment><USER11> Contract workers or Uber workers is a bad deal for all, with some short term gains.

For a worker, yes, its less of office politics and having to deal with crappy co-workers. But that is how you grow. I learned so much when I am working with people than being all alone. So, having couple of people approach the same problem in different ways, helps you learn, teach & grow. I was learning something new everyday, when I was working in a team. Plus contract jobs are effecting the basic needs of human beings - "food, clothing & shelter", due to the very nature of uncertainly. Basically I am more worried about the basics and not as focused at my job when I have a full time job. I feel that I am just completing the task at hand to get paid. I don't analyse the issue and try to find a solution or seek for some improvement. Plus working in a specific domain for a period will help in gaining experience and you have build up skills.

For a employer, how much ever you document a solution, there is going to be knowledge gaps. Only when you have someone working on a problem for a while, will they be able to come up with a better solution. Each employee comes come a different background and will view the problems differently. That will bring about a nice work culture.

Team work is not given enough credit. Instead, there is always the focus on one rock star that does it all. I personally feel that for that one rock star to actually perform, there needs to be a team behind to support.

<comment><USER12> You write as if "contract work" means you never talk to anyone at all, and it's just not the case. As a freelance developer, I have to communicate with clients and end users all the time. I subcontract out some work, so I have to work with them, oversee some work, manage timelines, etc.

> Plus contract jobs are effecting the basic needs of human beings - "food, > clothing & shelter", due to the very nature of uncertainly...

Until your job (or department) is eliminated, or targeted for reductions. You'll have a similar level of uncertainty, but will have less control over doing anything about it.

> I was learning something new everyday, when I was working in a team.

Great for you, but at some point, you won't be learning much. Or you'll start to learn that "we're doing it joe's way because he's been here the longest". Or "we're going to use nodejs because XYZ... " but what it really means is dave wanted to learn node so his resume looked better when he left for the next job last month.

> and having to deal with crappy co-workers. But that is how you grow.

You can "grow" in a number of ways. Figuring out how to get clients, get work done and deliver projects to get paid is at least as much 'growth' as learning how to deal with office politics and crappy co-workers, many of whom may not share your work ethics, drive or priorities (yet their ethics, drive and priorities will still impact your ability to get things done).

> I personally feel that for that one rock star to actually perform, there > needs to be a team behind to support.

And I've seen the opposite - where 1 or 2 people did 90% of the work - <USER2> were the true experts (domain, tech, etc) yet the entire team was praised, even when they either didn't contribute or in some cases were actual drains on the project. To publicly call out the bad team members, by, say, moving them to a different project, would look bad and make the manager(s) look bad, so things were kept as they were.

There is no one right setup for all projects or personalities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've done a lot of contract work as a software engineer over the past 5 years. It's a good way to experiment with a lot of different companies and industries.

It's generally true that contractors can't get promoted within the company. It's not unusual to see 40+ year old contractors still working as engineers.

The money is great but you really need to have a low risk investment strategy on the side... I don't think you can get rich from contracting but you can have a very decent retirement.

Contracting is good if you're burned out with startups that lead nowhere. It's the closest I've felt to being my own boss.

<comment><USER14> As a contractor in the UK I feel like I have better pay and prospects than 90% of staff members.

Not 'promotion', but more respect for my expertise and more choice about my working practices.

'Promotion' is not something I've often observed happening in any of the software departments I've worked with of late.

It does scare me when people say things like "40+ contractors _still_ working as engineers", as if 40 is old. I'm 40 next year and less than halfway through my working life (according to the government, obviously I'd like to retire early).

<comment><USER15> I agree with your assessment of being a contractor in the UK. I work as an IT contractor in the UK as well and have been a permanent employee before that.

Permanent members of staff seldom get the same money as skilled contractors and have to put up with a lot more restrictions around holiday and work life balance.

I would equate a contractor in the UK to being the equivalent experience of being a consultant without the politics and drama that comes with it. I have worked for almost a decade as a consultant in different countries and much prefer being a contractor to that.

Promotions seem to normally equate to more responsibility with a meagre if at all pay increase for permanent members of staff. People forget that there is only 1 CTO in an organisation, not everyone can ever get to that level. Most get stuck in middle management hell doing unfulfilling jobs.

<comment><USER16> Any tips for transitioning to contracting? Should you be in a certain place (experience, ability, etc) or is just about taking a leap of faith?

<comment><USER15> I would be happy to give some assistance and guidance if you would like. Get in touch with me, my email is in my profile.

<comment><USER17> If you're willing then I too would love to pick your brain about this. Can't see an email on profile though.

<comment><USER15> Sorry about that. I have added it. Feel free to send me an email and I will get in touch asap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Upward mobility? Research came out 3-4 years ago I believe that showed that social mobility no longer existed in the US. It is normally measured by how many people die in a different tax bracket from their parents. As of a few years ago, that simply wasn't happening. If you were born to poor parents, you die poor. If you were born to rich parents, you die rich. On the overall statistical scale, there is no mobility.

<comment><USER19> Trying to find references for this, I've found a New York Times article(1) that claims that upwards social mobility has not changed in 50 years. The article points to the research site(2), where they say:

> Our work shows that children's prospects of earning more than their parents > have fallen from 90% to 50% over the past half century.

Is the second source referring to absolute mobility?

(1) [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/business/upward- mobility-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/business/upward-mobility-has- not-declined-study-says.html?_r=0) (2) [http://www.equality-of- opportunity.org/](http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/)

<comment><USER20> I think perhaps he overstated the effect but this article will give you a bunch of information on social mobility in the US.

[http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/nov/06/jeb...](http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/nov/06/jeb- bush/us-workers-least-mobile-developed-world-jeb-bush/)

<comment><USER19> Amazing, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > "One big issue is training," notes Bidwell. "As an employee, your employer > may pay to train you and keep you up to date on new technologies. They will > also give you a chance to try new kinds of work and learn that way. As a > contractor, nobody is paying for you to learn

I've now been contracting as a developer for as long as I was a permanent employee and I've learnt more as a contractor. Sometimes it's been a bit of luck with a job but the rest is mostly from only having to do the job you're in for - so no reviews, company meetings and the rest, plus I can pick and choose (and afford) to go to more workshops and conferences.

It can be easier to be complacent as a perm employee but less so as a contractor.

<comment><USER22> That's very different than what they're talking about.

Firstly they're not talking about your kind of contracting.

Secondly, as developers we have a lot of power and freedom because our job is to use the very tools which make it easy to learn.

Other people need more formalised training, or help even getting started using the new tools.

It feels like you're trying to blame the workers, the victims, here.

<comment><USER21> Oh, I wasn't incinuating any blame with that comment, just that it's not always the case.

I read the article as covering all types of contracting, include my own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I come from a blue collar family and was one of the first to take a white collar job in 2007. I planned on making a long term commitment to my first employer, but spent 6 years fighting tooth and nail for more responsibility and money.

Eventually I had enough and tried jumping into contracting (but ended up in consulting). At this point my career and pay went through the roof. I'm making (literally) twice as much money now, and finally achieved the title I was after.

Most of the companies I've worked at don't value the domain knowledge their current work force has. They waste time and money taking risks on new resources like myself.

I don't feel I'm personally a bad investment, but if companies we're willing to prioritize their current work force, I wouldn't have to bounce around employers to get where I feel I'm best utilized.

<comment><USER24> This!

It reminds me of a great Clay Shirky essay:

[http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2013/11/healthcare-gov-and- the-...](http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2013/11/healthcare-gov-and-the-gulf- between-planning-and-reality/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Or upward mobility was dead and spurred contract working. Rates have changed little in the last 20 years. We know our masters sell us for $120/hour when we only make $40/hour. I was stagnated for 10 years before I went solo in 2006.

</comment><comment><USER26> Look to Japan for an example of a working underclass of part-timers / contractors and their lack of stability, mobility and career prospects vs full timers.

Japan's unusual hiring practices in large traditional corporations (Straight from university or bust) doesn't help.

</comment><comment><USER27> Any time you can earn more than you spend, and take advantage of compound interest (index funds, etc), you could eventually become rich, i.e. upward mobility.

In terms of jobs, it seems there are fewer guarantees and fewer formulas to follow (you used to be able to work somewhere for 30 years and count on a pension).

Upward mobility is still alive and well, but it's through self education and using the internet. Constantly improving is the only way to beat the game. Discipline, etc.

<comment><USER28> Agreed, upward mobility exists, it just takes forever, literally a full lifetime. Chances are you won't really benefit from it, either you'll have a nice retirement or your kids will get a better start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Its always struck me as odd that Contractors in IT in the USA don't get the premium you do in the UK. I would expect 3x my FTE rate as a self employed contractor and that's before the better tax treatment even after the reforms to tax on dividends.

<comment><USER30> From what I read, it looks to me like actually, in the UK, it's permanent workers which have pretty poor salary for the IT market.

<comment><USER31> Yes. Bus/tube drivers have similar salaries to what many companies are offering to software engineers. So it's a bit ridiculous situation. Often the same company which offers low perm salary will hire contractors with high daily rate (which roughly translate to 2-3x money after taxes) without blinking an eye.

<comment><USER30> Any idea about why? I could understand a big difference if firing employees was very difficult for employers, but AFAIK after Thatcher firing people in the UK is pretty easy.

<comment><USER32> IMO, in the UK the FT employment (for "senior" roles) is for suckers who don't realize their actual value. If companies can't find enough of them, they bite the bullet and supplement with contractors. Hence the two separate pays for the same job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Upward mobility to what?

As a software contract worker, the last thing I want is "upward mobility".

That means more bullshit and less actualy hands on development.

Being a contract worker let's you control your taxes better and you can find another gig without feeling like you killed the family cat when you 'leave for another opportunity'.

If your thing is upward mobility, then incorporate yourself. Slap on CEO and Director title on your LinkedIn profile and call it a day.

</comment><comment><USER34> This mentality is far worse then the article describes. The short sighted lack of institutional knowledge is, for technology companies, a serious issue. We are knowledge workers, and we know too clearly how technology management tries to treat salaried developers as inter-changeable. Add in contract technology developers and you have a recipe for success-causes-failure situations as there are black holes in the institutional knowledge of the flagship revenue generating product the company offers.

I see time and time again, technology management not grasping it is the comprehensive solution, the product that allows customers to solve their problems without other software that make the difference. Any key technology is great, but without all the "document / project" wrapper, multiple import/export options, and API interfaces that contract developers are often tasked to create that enable the "key technology" to have the accessibility to be successful. Without all the "interface and GUI stuff" you do not have a product. That "interface and GUI stuff" is a core competency, yet technology management rarely recognizes this.

<comment><USER35> > This mentality is far worse then the article describes. The short sighted > lack of institutional knowledge is, for technology companies, a serious > issue. We are knowledge workers, and we know too clearly how technology > management tries to treat salaried developers as inter-changeable. Add in > contract technology developers and you have a recipe for success-causes- > failure situations as there are black holes in the institutional knowledge > of the flagship revenue generating product the company offers.

Quoting a bit of comedy:

        As long as there are ill-defined goals,
        bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be
        Real Programmers willing to jump in and
        Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for
        later.

        -- "Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL"[0]

There are a lot of consultants who stand to make a ton of money due to lack of institutional knowledge.

[0] [http://web.mit.edu/humor/Computers/real.programmers](http://web.mit.edu/humor/Computers/real.programmers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Do all contract workers have their own companies, do their bookkeeping etc? Seems like a lot of hassle just to do gigs.

<comment><USER14> I do.

Rather that than fill in holiday forms, attend company meetings, have annual performance reviews etc etc.

<comment><USER36> Yeah, but you don't risk going to jail just because you're bad at bookkeeping.

<comment><USER14> I don't do it myself, I pay an accountant. There are lots of accountants around that cater for this sort of stuff. I pay £120 per month and they keep the company ticking over, let me know what it owes and who to, when I need to pay etc. They also prepare my personal tax return each year.

I'm not going to jail anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Yes.

The problem is that automation will be taking even more jobs away in the near future.

It's going to be a hard transition for people.

<comment><USER38> We've heard the same argument throughout industrialization. And everything was fine. Nothing is uniquely different now.

Starving blacksmith, out of work horse trainers; yet an entire new industry, the automobile essentially created from nothing that employed more, created more wealth than all horse related commerce in the history of the world.

It's arrogant to think that this time it's different, that somehow our technology advances are finally going to wipe out the common worker. These arguments that automation is going to collapse society, etc— straight out of the Marxist playbook; they were saying the same thing about factory machinery a century ago, weaving looms, for example.

Everything will be fine.

<comment><USER39> Exactly! Nothing will happen that a global war or two can't sort out.

<comment><USER40> Every displaced worker can retrain as an infantry soldier within weeks.

<comment><USER39> Every displaced worker can be repurposed as training targets for the drones and then upcycled to Soylent Green after the training session!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> IMHO the single best thing about contracting is not having to deal with office politics and chasing promotions... which is also a downside, career-wise, as you don't get promoted, ever.

</comment><comment><USER42> As a contract worker it's unlikely you move up thru the organization you've been placed with. You may move up the org of the company who you contract with but your best bet is to opt for the trigger strategy and hop from one job to another with the accrued expertise, of there is expertise you can leverage. If it's repetitive stuff, then, there is little leverage and the best bet might be in moving to the management track.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm a consultant and think about going independent every so often. The thing is there's only so many hours to sell.

I'd rather be at my firm with bonus tied to account revenue which is generated by teams of people. That way your pay is disconnected from your time and has much more room to grow.

</comment><comment><USER44> There are costs and benefits to choosing this line of work. The benefit is obviously the freedom to work when you want. Meanwhile, there is a hefty cost of being a contract worker - which comes with a lot of hurdles.

</comment><comment><USER45> At least when it comes to software development, contract work in that field ain't what it used to be :(

</comment><comment><USER46> Yes. This is a further consequence of the maximization of profit at the expense of the common person.

</comment><comment><USER47> Well, duh. Is that really an article from today, or did something from a decade or two back get recycled.

</comment><comment><USER48> I make double the money I made as an employed dev, so I think I moved upward quite good.</comment>


Specular Showdown in the Wild West - <AUTHOR> https://blog.selfshadow.com/2011/07/22/specular-showdown/ <comment><USER2> Needs (2011) in the title.

It covers Linear Efficient Antialiased Normal (LEAN) Mapping for specular lighting effects in real-time simulations such as 3D game engines.

[0] [https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~olano/papers/lean/lean.pdf](https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~olano/papers/lean/lean.pdf)</comment>