How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-15/how-indias-patent-office-destroyed-gileads-global-game-plan <comment><USER2> Here's the decision (pdf): [http://freepdfhosting.com/985d1c013c.pdf](http://freepdfhosting.com/985d1c013c.pdf)

It relies on section 3(d) of the The Patents Act, 1970 (as amended up to Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005) [1]:

> What are not inventions. —The following are not inventions within the > meaning of this Act,— (d) the mere discovery of a new form of a known > substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of > that substance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a > known substance or of the mere use of a known process, machine or apparatus > unless such known process results in a new product or employs at least one > new reactant.

Explanation. — For the purposes of this clause, salts, esters, ethers, polymorphs, metabolites, pure form, particle size, isomers, mixtures of isomers, complexes, combinations and other derivatives of known substance shall be considered to be the same substance, unless they differ significantly in properties with regard to efficacy;

This is the same section that was opposed to Novartis in 2013 [2]

1: [http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=295102](http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=295102)

2: [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-01/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-01/news/38189492_1_glivec- intellectual-property-appellate-board-indian-patent-act)

<comment><USER2> Gilead argued that 1) its compound is not a mere "new form" of a substance known in the prior art, and 2) even if it were, it differs significantly since it is less toxic and more active than other similar compounds.

But the Patent Office says that "efficacy" here means therapeutic efficacy, and it would need to be proven by a clinical trial.

<comment><USER3> Not very sure what they mean exactly, but the FDA mandates clinical trials, right? Can that data not be used to show increased efficacy, if any?

<comment><USER4> FDA trials are only required to compete against a placebo. A drug is accepted if it is safe and more effective than a placebo in a double-blind clinical trial. That's it.

So they have no data to show with, unless they went above and beyond to get it. (Which should teach them a lesson about testing their drugs.)

<comment><USER5> You don't have to have head-to-head data to claim your drug is superior to existing therapies. Yes, head-to-head data is the best way to show it, but if you have two separate trials, each comparing to a placebo, you can draw conclusions about relative efficacy. It's not perfect, but in the case of Gilead, their drug _blows away_ anything else currently on the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can people in now go to India on medical tourism and get the treatment much cheaper?

<comment><USER7> This has always been the case [1] :-). Medicines and medical care in India is cheaper, by many folds, compared to US. Anecdotaly, whenever my Indian friends working in US visit India (parents, family) one thing they never forget is to visit dentists. I initially found it very surprising but understood their reasoning when I came to know that in US you can easily go bankrupt due to medical condition, something that's unheard of in India.

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

<comment><USER8> >>something that's unheard of in India.

Maybe not if you're in the 'upper middle class'. If you're from the lower income classes (maids, drivers, helpers), it's very likely that health issues can bankrupt you.

I personally know an entire family that has sunk into debt that they couldn't possibly pay-off, due to health related expenses for someone in the family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it 84,000 USD(~50 lakh) per person in India too? That's very very expensive,even for India's software professional with 10 to 12 years of experience where average yearly salary will be around 14,000 USD to 20,000 USD. This 84,000 not affordable even for so-called 'upper middle class'.

</comment><comment><USER5> If India wants to break patents in order to make drugs available to low income citizens that's one thing (in this case Gilead was already offering a cheap generic), to say the patent on Sovaldi is not innovative is a bit ridiulous.

<comment><USER10> The article explains it better instead of simply saying it's not innovative. It's worth reading these 2 paragraphs:

"India believes that the patent standards are so low that companies can get patents for inventions very easily," Amin said in an interview. The patent office's examiner ruled Gilead's patent claim "lacks novelty and inventive step," as Bloomberg News noted, and also doesn't demonstrate it's significantly more effective than already known compounds. Amin explains that the controller general's decision holds that "there are a number of earlier compound structures that are very close to what Gilead is trying to get a patent for."

But Sovaldi is a breakthrough drug. Shouldn't that be worth something? "It's important to recognize that what the patent office deals with is whether something is new in science," Amin said. "The decision says there are a number of earlier compound structures that are very close to what Gilead is trying to get a patent for. It's a scientific decision and has nothing to do with the utility of the drug." Gilead didn't offer comment on Wednesday.

<comment><USER11> This is what I think is the vital issue. Taking a known compound and searching for every possible form in order to find one that doesn't happen to have been documented is in fact something that is "obvious to one skilled in the art," because it's a widespread activity. There are specific rules in the US patent system surrounding this issue.

So it's not like the drug maker was necessarily whacked by some rogue judge issuing a weird decision out of the blue. It may very well be that Gilead was taking a known risk at the hands of the Indian patent system.

Does Sovaldi satisfy India's standards for novelty? I don't know. I've had a patent application struck down over novelty, so I know it's not a happy day when it happens.

<comment><USER3> _> Taking a known compound and searching for every possible form in order to find one that doesn't happen to have been documented is in fact something that is "obvious to one skilled in the art," because it's a widespread activity._

But it is not the activity (which describes, essentially, most research) being patented, it is the _result_ of that activity. If the search space is very large, that is actually an indication of the non-obviousness of a solution that works in practice. Drug discovery certainly meets that criteria.

<comment><USER11> Yes, you're quite right. As I understand it, drug discovery has special rules. The search space is large but not infinite. It involves the original drug compound in different "forms" such as crystal structures, particle sizes, counter-ion (whatever thingy attaches to the molecule and makes it soluble, etc.). The chemical effect of the drug in the body is the same, i.e., it bonds with the same receptor molecule in some cell somewhere. But changing those things can have a pharmacological effect such as the speed with which the drug is taken into the body, thus it is a different drug within the context of US and I believe European patent law, but I can't talk about India.

This could be a case of a bad decision in India, of course, but it also could be one where the patent examiners in US and Europe were more lenient than they should of been.

(Disclaimer: I helped work on equipment designed to assist in this kind of chemical searching).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> According to Wikipedia:

Sofosbuvir costs US$84,000 for 12 weeks of treatment used for genotypes 1 and 2 (about US$1,000 per pill) [...] health care costs in California could increase by US$18–29 billion per year because of this medication

<comment><USER12> Calculate the annual cost (which isn't $18-$29 billion, that's the one time cost to cure _everyone_ in CA with it) to cure a portion of the population in CA that has Hep C. Most likely we're talking $3-$5 billion per year.

Calculate the savings that curing those people produces over time (1, 5, 10, 20 years).

I'd be willing to bet the math works out in favor of spending $84,000 one time.

<comment><USER13> > I'd be willing to bet the math works out in favor of spending $84,000 one > time.

I'd love for the state to announce ahead of time how much they would pay for, say, a cure for diabetes. Have them calculate what the NPV is for a lifetime of diabetes treatment. Publish that figure.

Then some drug company can show up with a cure, charge 90% of that figure, and we can see people whine that the drug company is costing the state money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm all against "obvious" patents, but suing to be free to produce a product because it "also doesn't demonstrate it's significantly more effective than already known compounds" is a contradiction in terms. If the other compounds were just as good, then you wouldn't be suing to be able to produce this new one.

<comment><USER15> That logic doesn't always hold up. You could make tiny tiny alterations to some plastic container, put some random bump here or there, or make the flap stick out a little more, and the plastic container might suddenly not be usable due with a third party automatic coffee maker. That's a huge effect, despite the tiny change.

But I doubt that would make that case that because of that huge effect, those random bumps and extended flap deserve patents. We are after all talking about basic shapes here, nobody should be able to patent "a round shape with a tiny bump sticking out" so that others cannot use that shape.

<comment><USER3> I don't see how this addresses grandparent's comment: if it does not have increased efficacy, why are so many people desperate to use it? The amount of alteration is a separate issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm all for patents to protect pharmaceutical companies, but there needs to be a profit limit where the patent expires early.

<comment><USER5> What would that profit limit be? How would it be enforced? What is a "fair" profit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they develop, they won't spend the huge amounts of capital necessary to develop them. When countries like India let competitors produce generics of American drugs, they are stealing the fruits of other people's labor. That isn't to say this theft isn't justified; generics will save the lives of those who can't afford the original. But those lives would have been lost all the same if no such drug had been developed in the first place. Stealing drugs will certainly help India in the short run, but it will slow the advance of medicine in the long run, for Indians and everyone else.

<comment><USER18> I don't think companies spend as much as we believe in researching drugs. Companies spend most on advertising and incentivizing the doctors to prescribe their medicines. The book: Bad Pharma [1] is an eye opener.

The drug "Sovaldi" is making them $2.8ish billion dollars per quarter, that is almost $12 billion a year. I don't believe they spent tens of billions in developing the drug. [2]

1: [http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead- Patients-...](http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients- ebook/dp/B008RLTUUA/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)

2: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-28/gilead-reports- lowe...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-28/gilead-reports-lower-than- estimated-sales-of-sovaldi.html)

<comment><USER19> It's not what they spent developing Sovaldi -- it's the fortune the industry as a whole spends developing drugs that never make it to market.

That said, it's quite likely true that marketing is a bigger share of costs than R&D. Pharma companies are out there to maximize revenue, just like any other corporation. It's a reflection of the poor state of regulation in the US that we pay far more of than our share (compared to the rest of the world).

<comment><USER20> Here's the piece of the picture that everyone's missing from this particular example - an $11b acquisition [1]. Gilead bought Pharmasset for $11b. It no longer matters what it cost Pharmasset to research/test/approve/produce the medicine anymore. Certainly all of that was factored into the acquisition price but since Gilead's total cost ended up being $11b, that is what they need to recoup at the least.

There are 3.2 million hep C patients in the US [2] but most don't feel ill or even know they have hep C. If every single person buys the drug, Gilead must still sell it for at least $11b / 3.2m = $3500/person! But if only 5% buy the drug, they need to sell it for $69,000 just to break event on the acquisition without even taking any other costs into account.

This is just rough calculation to highlight that a sky high acquisition price resulted in a company demanding an equally high price per dose. Gilead paid the high price to acquire Pharmasset because they thought they could sell the drug for at such a high price per dose. If Gilead is proven right (and their stock price from $18 in 2011 to $100 in 2015 seems to reflect that indeed), then this just encourages more and more drug companies to be bought at astronomical prices.

And the worst part of this is that the very government that gave this company the right to operate a monopoly via a patent is now asking them why they're charging so much [3]. None of this happened because of some singular evil cabal. It happened due to misaligned incentives.

Government grants pay researchers, who develop medicines at paid-for-by- public-funds university labs, which sell the patents back to the researchers at fire-sale prices, who then go on to create biotech startups, which productize the research, and then sell to Fortune 100 pharmas, who can then demand almost any amount of money, which CMS will have to pay because USPTO said nobody else can sell this drug, FDA agreed that the drug works, and ACA ensures that the patients cannot be denied any drugs that work at any cost.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmasset](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmasset) [2] [http://www.hhs.gov/opa/reproductive- health/stis/hepatitis-c/](http://www.hhs.gov/opa/reproductive- health/stis/hepatitis-c/) [3] [http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wyden- Grassley%2...](http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wyden- Grassley%20Document%20Request%20to%20Gilead%207-11-141.pdf)

<comment> saiya-jin well that's nice and all, so next time CEO wants a new fleet of jet aircrafts for him, all should pay more for the medicines? Because, you know, we can?

Companies should definitely make profit, but their default modus operandi is "milk the cow as long as possible", which would directly result in many deaths... not much sympathy from the crowd there. Let's not forget simple math here - company is/was charging for medicine that doesn't cost more than few tens of bucks to produce... 69,000? Sorry, ridiculous all the way through. Don't care about research bla-bla

Just turn on that weird device that used to be called TV. During winter, 1/3 of the adds are medicines. Who pays for those adds? All those who buy medicines...

<comment><USER3> _> Don't care about research bla-bla_

Of course you wouldn't, since that's what costs billions to discover the medication that eventually costs "tens of bucks" to produce, which completely undermines your argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What I don't understand is how this would ease the export of this now-generic drug to other countries.

Surely each of them has a patent office, doesn't it?

</comment><comment><USER22> 1\. they'd already licensed it, so the patent holders are already compromising 2.patents are really not that long..5yrs? 20 yrs? nothing like life+99 or whatever it is for copyright.. 3.because patents are relatively short lived the pharma firms have to turn up "hits" which have to pay for all the other misses.. i'm guessing they would really rather market+brand their existing products than invent new ones if the protection they get from patents start to get eroded..not sure thats a good thing..

</comment><comment><USER23> A definite case of seen and unseen consequences.

Developing a biopharmaceutical product requires the following:

1\. A professional who discovers the possibility of a new chemical entity, requires infrastructure: comprised of medical grade equipment (centrifuges, beakers, pipets, filters, microscopes, testing equipment, etc.), experts capable of understanding applications of drug, and many iterations of tests. There will be about 5,000 to 10,000 opportunities for these to address something like Hepatitis C.

2\. The NCE is developed for dosage and scheduling. Again more testing.

3\. The drug needs to be optimized for manufacturing: infrastructure requires additional experts and assessments

4\. Preclinical testing is completed. Only 250 products out of that initial 5,000-10,000 NCE group make it here.

5\. Only now is a submission made to the FDA.

6\. Go through the process of FDA approval starting with human trials. Only around 10 of these from the 250 will be instigated.

7\. FDA human trials, a three to four step process that only 21.5% entering the process will make it through.

8\. Production of drug.

9\. Sale of drug for seven years to recoup costs

10\. Post-Surveillance of drug

11\. In people with an asymetric heart ventricle that exhibits heart murmurs but only on Wednesdays, the approved drug causes uncontrollable urination. The drug company has to deal with trial lawyers who develop a lawsuit in the general area of $300 million. And this lawsuit can be brought against the company throughout the lifecycle of the drug and in some cases, the original patent holder can be held liable for the generically produced NCE's.

12\. Drug finally goes to generic and the generic manufacturers in Brazil and India sell it for pennies, wiping out all profit margins for your product.

13\. A third world nation tries and successfully invalidates a patent that you hold, wiping millions off of the revenue forecasts, thus eliminating the monies needed to test up and coming NCE's. Then someone on a forum

The amazing part in all of this is that a drug gets made at all. The argument that it costs pennies to make, apply the same logic to a cars production. The modern car costs about $1,000 to manufacture, this includes materials and labor costs, the other monies include research, development, marketing, and all the other accouterments that make it possible; why are people not screaming for the costs to be lower, because they understand that there are costs and regulatory capture involved.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/08/11/the- cos...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/08/11/the-cost-of- inventing-a-new-drug-98-companies-ranked/) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development)

<comment><USER24> Can you cite a source for the $1000 to manufacture a car?

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately, this is anecdotal information as my professor, he had worked at Ford, in our finance engineering class made a lecture that raw materials and labor for a vehicle would be $1,000. The additional costs are from tooling, r&d, and other items that ensure a profit margin for the company. I have very unreliable page here: [http://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_it_cost_to_manufactur...](http://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_it_cost_to_manufacture_a_car_in_America)

I tried to find additional information to back up this claim through the web, sadly, sources will either be: 1\. Sales representatives within car sales pointing to an invoice sheet from the manufacturer showing a percent difference or dollar difference, but this would include the tooling, r&d, and operation costs. [http://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/2bvxn5/how_much_does_i...](http://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/2bvxn5/how_much_does_it_really_cost_car_companies_to/)) 2\. Manufacturers who make statements about profitability. [http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-much-does-a- new-...](http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-much-does-a-new-car- really-cost-to-make#post-5335226) 3.

You can find further information about how the $40,000 Volt obfuscates its costs: [http://www.treehugger.com/cars/how-much-does-chevy-volt- cost...](http://www.treehugger.com/cars/how-much-does-chevy-volt-costs-make- bob-lutz-weighs.html)

<comment><USER24> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> And the US continues to subsidize health care across the world. You're welcome world, you're welcome.

Ok, so that's unnecessarily strong sarcasm, but it has more than a few ounces of truth to it. Even Canada has significantly cheaper drugs because US citizens get the privilege of paying more.

<comment><USER26> Thats so great, But remember the all old technologies/ Maths/Science/Writing system/ Languages are not developed in US, US is using rest of world patents with paying anything, May this how they should pay back.</comment></comment>


Julian Assange on Bill Maher last night [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/271-episode/video/february-8-2013-julian-assange

<comment><USER2> I think Assange's interview at TED was a much more concrete discussion of Wikileaks and its role in politics -- there were _real_ examples in the interview:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html)

I feel like Maher hinted at a lot of different things, but never actually went in-depth. The discussion was very vague. I would have loved to learn about more cases where Wikileaks was able to provide information that was able to influence a government's actions.

<comment><USER3> I feel that Assange dodged a few very serious questions posed by Maher.

What if Wikileaks does leak out documents that could escalate a conflict?

<comment><USER4> I think this is a wrong question. The premise is that by picking and choosing which stories to cover you can make the world better for your world view. From this sort of logic you can make the case that Google shouldn't support all possible queries -- what if some of the people using Google use the results to cause harm?

This is a wrong way of looking at things because although some of the help Google provides people will cause the world to be a worse place, the vast majority of its effects are positive... for every person who looks up movie showtimes so they can go shoot people hundreds of millions of people are using google to have a fun family afternoon. Just because a tool can be used poorly doesn't mean it is wrong that it exists.

WikiLeaks is a tool for whistle blowers. It's a tool for people with access to information they feel a moral obligation to share with the world. It's designed to let them do that without throwing their life away in the process. Some of these whistle blowers will be doing things you or I disagree with, some will be doing things we do agree with. That, in balance, this is a good tool to have exist seems straightforward to me.

As for conflict vs non-conflict, I think that conflict often is the first step toward long term improvement. If your government has been lying to you about why it's doing what it's doing, telling everyone the truth is virtually guaranteed to create conflict. Conflict of this sort is _good_. Look at the huge escalation of conflict in the middle east brought about by the cable leaks (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring> is the least biased link I can find, and a reasonable place to start). I completely agree that there are a lot of bad outcomes from these conflicts so far (60,000 deaths in the Syrian civil war, etc)... I'm just optimistic that we'll get some real governmental reforms in the long run (either from successful revolutions, or from other dictators being wary of betraying their people).

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure whether the analogy to Google applies here, as leaks are private information, not to be shared with third parties and Google search queries merely search what is already published.

I was alluding to Bill Maher's example of the Cold War stand-off between the US and Russia. I thought it was a proper example where leaking something out could've caused WW3. But you are right in a sense that this is a hypothetical and we're not really sure how things would really turn out.

Btw, here's an interesting leak that if it was not released, then Israel and US forces might've had some advantage over the Iranians (in case of a war), but now they probably don't: <http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=259954>

<comment><USER5> "here's an interesting leak that if it was not released, then Israel and US forces might've had some advantage over the Iranians (in case of a war), but now they probably don't:"

We _don't_ have a military advantage of Iran? Really? I am not sure if you've noticed, but the US and Israel have some of the most advanced militaries in the world. If the US were at war with Iran, the Iranians would need the help of some other powerful nation to have anything that even resembles a chance of winning.

If that is really the worst leak you can find, I think we are pretty safe in a world with Wikileaks.

<comment><USER6> _We don't have a military advantage of Iran? Really? I am not sure if you've noticed, but the US and Israel have some of the most advanced militaries in the world. If the US were at war with Iran, the Iranians would need the help of some other powerful nation to have anything that even resembles a chance of winning._

Hate to break it to you, but technology isn't everything. Just ask the Taliban.

<comment><USER5> First of all, the leak I was talking about _was about technology_ , supposedly robbing Israel and the US of a particular technical advantage over the Iranian military. If technology is not everything, then the importance of that leak was greatly overstated; if technology matters, the importance of the leak is still greatly overstated.

That being said, while it is true that coordination, tactics, and strategy _can_ outweigh technical advantages, better technology confers a tactical advantage to an army. The greater the difference in two armies technologies, the more pronounced the tactical advantage is. The Taliban did not see anything resembling a victory when the US attacked Afghanistan; they survive now by hiding in caves, and their overall strategy is based on intimidating civilians.

If you want to point to a case where superior technology did not result in victory, you should have pointed to Nazi Germany. There can be little question that the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine had better technology than the Allies, but ultimately Germany lost. I do not think Iran is really in the same position as the Allies were in...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Youtube link for internationals - <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO0I6xJ_zQ>

<comment><USER8> The HBO link seems to work here in Australia - unusual :|

<comment><USER7> Heh, I opened it, enabled flash and nothing happened... assumed it wasn't working (Australia also)

<comment><USER9> Same thing happened to me, but I'm in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to think that Assange was a bit paranoid but the case of Sami al-Saadi (<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20715507>) and the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut approach in the Arron Swartz prosecution has changed my view 180 degrees.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The book Assange is shilling ("Cypherpunks") is available from OR Books here:

<http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/cypherpunks/>

OR Books is also publishing a book called "Hacking Politics" about the anti- SOPA/PIPA protests, featuring contributions from Swartz, Ron Paul, Kim Dotcom, Alex Ohanian, Cory Doctorow, and Zoe Lofgren. It is pay what you will.

<http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/hacking-politics-2/>

Note that both books can be purchased with Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER11> He never really answered the question as to why he thinks that Sweden is ready and willing to extradite him to the US, and that him being wanted for questioning is a pretense.

Is there some evidence that supports his belief?

<comment><USER12> Among other things Swedish prosecutors refuse to question him in the UK, something which has been done recently for an alleged murderer. There is no obvious reason why they would refuse and none has been given by the prosecutor.

<comment><USER13> I don't see how this matters anyway. After they question him, they will still want him to go to jail in Sweden pending trial, and he will still be in the Ecuadorean embassy pretending to be a political prisoner.

<comment><USER12> It matters because it is believed the Swedish prosecutor does not have enough evidence to actually bring charges. After questioning she will either have to bring charges or drop the case. On the other hand, as you say, questioning Assange in the UK has no obvious downside for the prosecutor.

<comment><USER13> Assange's supporters and conspiracy theorists will believe anything except the possibility that someone with a documented history of narcissistic behavior actually sexually assaulted someone.

<comment><USER12> You can believe that Assange had sex with someone without a condom, in violation of their expressed wishes, without believing that 1. sufficient evidence exists for a case to be brought 2. that he is safer in Sweden from onward extradition to the US for what arguably amounts to political persecution.

<comment><USER14> If this was how criminal law worked, Hans Reiser would be working on another filesystem from his house in Oakland right now. Nobody on the Internet believed the case brought against him either.

You cannot reasonably believe that he is less safe in Sweden than the UK. That's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. The list of reasons why his safety changes not- at- all after going to Sweden is compelling and widely documented. Occam's razor strongly indicates that Assange isn't going to Sweden because he simply doesn't want to face criminal proceedings.

<comment><USER15> Or, remaining a "fugitive" is an excellent PR strategy for himself and wikileaks.

<comment><USER14> Conceded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Every show is on DVD. But the one show I love and don't have HBO for, Bill Maher's show. I can't watch old episodes.

sucks.

<comment><USER17> The audio is available as a free podcast from iTunes.

<comment><USER16> That is true. But I still want to see their expressions.

<comment><USER17> Sure. But if you've seen enough episodes, you realize the visuals aren't that big a deal. It's not like Maher is a prop comic or anything.

<comment><USER16> Screw this, I can't tell who is talking.

Give the freaking DVD. I am setting up a petition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Weird, I'm on Firefox and live in the US and all I get is a black screen. It seems to be a full window flash object, but nothing works. Flash works on my machine.

<comment><USER19> it took a minute to start up for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Summary... nothing really new.

Some fairly loaded leading questions and the classic false accusation of charges with regards to Swedish request for extradition (though perhaps in the knowledge that Julian would have an opportunity to correct it).

Julian made an appeal to people from within the Whitehouse with access to secret laws and procedures affecting citizen's rights to come forward and share them with the public via Wikileaks.

Bill makes smart-arse crack about sending in Ben Affleck "like we did in Iran".

<comment><USER21> This is what all US media looks like, from the outside I can't tell what's news and what isn't. Usually I have to wait for a shot with a studio audience in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> amazing</comment>


April Fool: Introducing Strikingly Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.strikingly.com/cloud

<comment><USER2> Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who scrolls up and down through pages with the arrow keys. I don't like it when sites mess with them.

<comment><USER3> You're not the only one.

Google Images drives me NUTS -- up/down work totally unexpectedly, while space-bar works well. Cmd+Up/Down is broken totally. Why Google Images feels like the scrolling paradigm that has been used everywhere else, ever, doesn't work for rows of images, is beyond me...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not directed in particular at this site, but the April Fools on the Web thing is so massively overdone, and has been for so many years, that if you're going to do an April Fools joke on the web, it had better be funny.

If there's a day I'd rather stay away from the web, this is it.

<comment><USER3> Party pooper... :P</comment></comment>


How to write code in modern Fortran (2011) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/documents/13601/162125/fortran_class.pdf <comment><USER2> I had to learn Fortran about 3 years ago, when I got into particle physics.

I had the same reaction: Fortran? Still used? Omg! But after three years, I learned to like it. In its modern form, it is simple, fully vectorized, and fast. I like its syntax more than Python (explicit end is better than significant whitespace). And did I mention it is fast?

So — you have a modern vector math-oriented language comparable to MATLAB or Numpy, but much much faster. And with excellent, state of the art libraries. What's not to like?

<comment><USER3> > And with excellent, state of the art libraries. What's not to like?

Here's my gripe with Fortran: as a computer scientists that works with combustion chemists, astrophysicists, and nuclear physicists, it's disheartening to see the number of domain specific optimizations that these scientists hand code over and over and over ad nauseam in hundreds of code bases all around the world simply because they think their Fortran compilers are good enough. They don't realize that it would be much more productive if their communities standardized around individual DSL compilers capable of doing higher level transformations specific to their individual domains so they don't have to do complicated transformations by hand (and often mess them up). It's fine if those DSL compilers generate Fortran out the back end so they can interoperate with existing optimized Fortran libraries, but holy hell people, we are living in the 21st century, can we please stop programming in primitive data types (without any unit type checking to boot!) and calling MPI send/recv directly. Scientists have better things to be doing with their time than managing bits directly; raise the level of abstraction by building community specific DSLs, standardize, and let's get on with our lives.

<comment><USER4> Fully agree, although it's not really a gripe about Fortran, is it? I suspect it would be the same with another language, given the same users.

<comment><USER3> It's true that it could happen with any language, but it seems to be especially prevalent and widespread with Fortran. Something about the culture of the language encourages people to dig their heels in and assert that it is good enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me modern Fortran is the way to go in high performance computing applications. It's intuitive easy and easy to use, has a large support base with highly optimized compilers. Physics has been backwards in the past with sticking with Fortran 77 for too long. But modern Fortran is way better than anything else in Physics/HPC for many of the reasons given in the presentation.

I urge colleagues and students to not fall for Fortran prejudices, based on crusty old Fortran 77 code. Python is nice and dandy, but it's not for HPC. When you suggest students to stop use Fortran/C and use Python, they might have used the wrong tool in first place, and this has nothing to do with the language.

<comment><USER6> Fortran 77? Fortran IV!

<comment><USER7> Heh. I was talking to an older relative of mine recently who explained how excited he was when FORTRAN IV came out. Finally there was a programming language for 'normal' people which didn't require that you know about computers or programming, but just let you type in the what you wanted to solve and it would just do it for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Keep in mind that the Python data science community is built around Fortran - NumPy and SciPy have BLAS/LAPACK at their core and you still need a Fortran compiler to build them fully from source. I agree that Python and Jupyter are a much nicer interface for students / end users, but if you want to hack on the numerical algorithms themselves, it still seems like Fortran is the best language for it.

<comment><USER9> Is Fortran really the best language or it's just too hard to rewrite the code in C / Rust / Julia? I believe it's just easier to wrap it, as it contains tricky numerical edge cases that are too complex to understand for an average software programmer.

<comment><USER8> I should clarify - I mean that it's the best language because there's a large body of existing code and a community around it, not because Fortran is inherently better. I think you _could_ rewrite it in Rust or Julia or something if you had a bunch of engineering effort and also enough organizing effort to make a good community around it and convince the non-NumPy/SciPy users to move to your new thing too.

<comment><USER10> Fun coincidence: the benchmark game's n-body benchmark just had a Rust version that is now the fastest one submitted so far, beating out fortran [https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...](https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/performance/nbody.html)

<comment><USER5> To pre-empt any wrong interpretations or conclusions: The Rust version heavily relies on optimization annotations and using direct calls to SSE functions. The Fortran version uses no special code and relies purely on the compiler optimizing code and algorithms. The Rust version relies on hand tuned pieces and is several times longer. Just a matter of work for someone to write an equivalent version in Fortran or C that will be equally fast or faster.

If you want to get a real-world impression look at the other Rust implementations that roughly correspond to the Fortran code. They are almost 2 times as slow. This gives you some real-world insight on how much performance you can achieve using Fortran instead of Rust and spending the same time writing code.

<comment><USER10> The C version was ported to be the Rust one, it seems, and uses those intrinsics too. And, eventually this code will get to be a bit higher level while having the same output; those libraries are still a bit experimental though.

Overall, good points!

<comment><USER11> > The C version was ported to be the Rust one, it seems, and uses those > intrinsics too.

No. Although the Rust program was initially presented to me as a "port of fastest C SIMD variant" the programmer made additional optimizations not found in the C program:

\- Moving the loop from outside into "bodies_advance(..)" (SSE pipelining(?))

\- Bundle intermediate variables/arrays as struct NBodySim (caching)

\- Fit array-sizes within struct NBodySim to the number of bodies (caching)

\----

[https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/akgmef/rust_nbody_ben...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/akgmef/rust_nbody_benchmark_ranks_1/ef5oy67/)

<comment><USER10> Nice, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my opinion, the biggest inconvenience with Modern Fortran is that the toolchain is in no way _modern_. There is no language-level support of a linter, a package manager, a document generator (I use Doxygen but it is not Fortran specific), etc. As a language geared toward numerical computing, I feel that it should have a big standard library that covers advanced math, linear algebra, statistics, ode solvers (like Julia). Yet if you want to get something done, you may still need to reinvent the wheels on top of LAPACK. These things hurt productivity more than the syntactical features.

<comment><USER13> There are several tool chains but they are either internal on institutional level or commercial. The main numerical library is NAG. Still comersial but cheap compared to the price of most cluster systems that the code is developed for. Heck, FORTRAN is probably the only language where people pay significant sums for the compilers (e.g. pgi, ifort).

<comment><USER14> Back in my first job we brought NAG libraries as it was far more cost- effective to buy it in rather than having expensive Engineers reinvent the wheel.

Update some of my coding style is still based on from looking at that NAG code :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Although I would prefer to not ever see Fortran code (as I don't know how to call into it easily, C implementations are easier to embed in any language), some numerical methods with simple code but heavy math are just not reimplemented too often.

I believe the real value in Fortran is in these libraries that handle numerical edge cases as well. It would be much easier to move them to a newer language if they would contain unit tests, but they usually don't, so it's just not worth the risk sometimes.

<comment><USER15> The Fortran language defines a pretty clean FFI to bind to other languages. It's not really any harder than binding to C code, which is why it's called BIND(C) and ISO_C_BINDING. That was introduced in F03. The only period when it was murky how to interoperate was in the 90s and early 00s when compiler vendors had their own array descriptor structures that didn't agree with each other. I worked on a language interop tool back then and spent way more time than I'd have liked reverse engineering those undocumented data structures for all of the compilers at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Part of me thinks that comments that are full lines - not after some code should start C and not !

</comment><comment><USER16> Just read a comment about how python and c being slow here. And why FORTRAN help complier to generate quick code. May be it is a DSL. May be ... a language survive for a reason.

First computer lecture the guy said why fortran does not die. It should. That is 1979.

<comment><USER14> Most missing the point post I have seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised for 2 reasons: 1/ CS folks are still talking about Fortran. 2/ The word Modern and Fortran in the same sentence.

Up to a few years ago, I found often myself in discussions with colleagues on the benefits of Fortran vs. less horrible languages such as C. And I always thought that we are so backwards in academia (physics) compared to CS people who have buried Fortran a long time ago. There are even colleagues who use Fortran 77.

Fortunately, things are changing fast now with more and more people using Python. I learned it myself about a month ago and urged my students to stop using Fortran and/or C. I see 0 reasons to torture a new student with Fortran. I am using Jupyter notebooks with my students now and things are so much better: easier/faster debugging, appealing code and interface, higher level features, visualization tools, etc.

<comment><USER18> Why is it a surprise that CS people still talk about something that is, at the moment, alive and well? Fortran remains one of the best ways to get native vectorized code for fast math operations. Yes there are higher abstractions like python, but if you want to write code in the same domain as Fortran, you are using numpy, scipy, pandas, etc., and those are all literally wrappers over low level C and Fortran code. Abstractions don't remove the need for low level, "out-dated" coding models, they just make it easier for most people to build on them.

<comment><USER19> Keep in mind too that a lot of long scientific simulations are more complicated than vectorized loops or linear algebra. Monte Carlo algorithms were developed to simulate neutrons in the Manhattan project and programmed with the help of Von Neumman.</comment></comment></comment>


Survival of the Fibbest - Why We Lie So Well - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703880304575236171715034884.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_11

<comment><USER2> Makes me wonder if a propensity to lie and an ability with math are negatively correlated.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the link between the post title here and the article?

<comment><USER4> It's the WSJ. Anything that reinforces the idea that humanity is nothing but a competitive struggle is fair game.</comment></comment>


Stylish Workout App (iOS) - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/id955376242 <comment><AUTHOR> 'HBFS(Harder Better Faster Stronger)' is a systematic Workout Tracker applying the principle of progressive overload. Actually, this practical and stylish App is a result of considerable efforts. I just recommend you try HBFS.</comment>


Statistics, lies and the virus: Tim Harford's lessons from a pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/92f64ea9-3378-4ffe-9fff-318ed8e3245e <comment><AUTHOR> Syndicated (non-paywall) at:

[https://finanz.dk/statistics-lies-and-the-virus-tim- harfords...](https://finanz.dk/statistics-lies-and-the-virus-tim-harfords- five-lessons-from-a-pandemic/)</comment>


Exploiting Mucosal Immunity for Antiviral Vaccines - <AUTHOR> https://sci-hub.tw/10.1146/annurev-immunol-032414-112315 <comment><USER2> Professor Iwasaki (the author of the study) has been a great resource on Twitter for the latest news on COVID-19: [https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/](https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/)

I have Twitter set to notify me when Iwasaki tweets, the only such notification I have set. I highly recommend following if you have a Twitter account.

</comment><comment><USER3> I might want to read the article, but that person waving at me is so distracting I gave up.

<comment><USER4> uBlock Origin, right-click, block element.</comment></comment>


Coming Soon to America: Bitcoin ATMs - <AUTHOR> http://business.time.com/2013/09/12/coming-soon-to-america-bitcoin-atms/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting concept and can't wait to see it come to Boston

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, Robocoin is the truth.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really excited to get the ball rolling in America!</comment>


Heidegger's hut and Wittgenstein House (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/9db1fbc4-1bc2-11e3-94a3-00144feab7de <comment><USER2> In a similar vein, Jung built his own dwelling:

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

I just discovered this yesterday as I was reading Murakami's 1Q84.

<comment><USER3> I can not think of anything more dissimilar than W designing a house for a family member and Carl Jung exploring his unconscious in Bollingen. W's entire life reads like a flight from the Self seeking shelter in reason, unlike Jung's rather heroic deep dive into the same.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: do cofounders get more equity by putting money after company setup - <AUTHOR>

If a company has been setup with an equity of $1000 for example, but later on it needs more money to run the business and the founders themselves put their own money into the business, do they create more shares?  How does it usually get handled if the founders put money not in proportion with their shares?  What would happen to thier shares? <comment><USER2> IANAL and IANACPA but I'd think the simplest solution would be the best: have a C corp (or switch to a C corp) and then simply allocate more shares at the current share price. The only problem with this would be getting everyone to agree on the share price.

<comment><AUTHOR> ... and getting a lawyer which costs money. Is that right?

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure how to answer that. Clearly we both recognize that attorneys cost money so then your question must be about whether I think an attorney should be involved? If that's the case, then yes an attorney should be involved. You shouldn't be selling shares of stock in your company without involving an attorney to some degree IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I guess contribution as loans would be the cheapest way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> All kinds of things can happen.

One alternative to creating a partial buyout - which is what an equity redistribution would amount to - is to have the additional cash treated as a loan.

The advantage is that this lessens the likelihood of hard negotiations between the founders and the potential for hard feelings which is a risk in those situations. I.e. it avoids the distraction of arguing over shares in what is probably a dead man walking.

The interests of both parties are in keeping the company going. When one or more cofounders give a priority to getting more equity, things are less likely to end well and more likely to end sooner.

<comment><AUTHOR> So if the company has a startup capital of $1000 (certain not enough to run the company), the founder would have to continue to loan the company to keep it alive. Someoneday in the future when the company makes enough revenue it will start paying back the loan. Is that the idea?

<comment><USER3> There are all sorts of situations. As noted a loan is an alternative to a partial buyout.

Supposing that in your scenario, one founder puts in $10,000 and gets 10% of the other founder's stock. Assuming two founders and a fifty-fifty split, that means the company is now valued at $100,000 and the selling founder (that's the one without cash) has realized capital gains of $4950 upon which he will owe taxes.

He may also be pissed off because the real equity, his sweat doesn't fall into the equation. Maybe 45-55 isn't so bad. But each time this happens, the broke founder has less potential upside. And he's been forced to sell. And to sell cheap.

As his equity is reduced, his incentive to walk away is greater. In other words, reducing his equity reduces the alignment between his interests and that of the other founder.

Conversely, if the loan is unlikely to be repaid, then the additional equity probably isn't worth anything anyway.

An advantage of a loan over partial buyout becomes more apparent if the company is liquidated - let's suppose for $4000. In the partial buyout, the 55% stakeholder would receive $2200 and the other stakeholder $1800. In the loan scenario, the lending party would recover $4000 and the other founder nothing.

<comment><USER4> What about: Founder A has $10,000 to invest. Founder A lends $5,000 to Founder B (at some agreed interest rate) and both founders invest $5,000 each, both gaining equal number of shares. Founder B owes Founder A even when the company goes broke.

Would this make it fairer in all situations?

<comment><USER3> The people involved determine what is fair not me. However, I can see some factors to consider in regards to the personal loan.

First it prioritizes cash over effort. This expresses a lack of faith in the startup. Second nothing poisons personal relationships like debt. Third it means that B has an incentive to quit and get a regular job earlier in the company's life cycle because he has an additional bill to pay.

Arm's length marriage is not a good idea.

I think the personal loan makes a hash of things. Suppose founder B writes the critical piece of code? Should he require founder A to pay for it? Suppose he makes the critical sale, should he get more equity?

Founders bring different resources to the enterprise. If one founder is unable to contribute a critical resource, the sensible options are to find a working source or forgo the enterprise.

If you must have your money back, don't invest in a startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Keep it simple until it has to get complex. Have all partners contribute cash proportionally to their share in the business thus keeping the split constant.</comment>


ASUS Lawsuit puts entire industry on notice over shoddy router security - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/asus-lawsuit-puts-entire-industry-on-notice-over-shoddy-router-security/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11168904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11168904).</comment>


Why Canada and the U.S. Should Merge, Eh? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303997604579238301861025662 <comment><USER2> While I'm sure this is merely the WSJ's attempt to generate some controversy by coming back to this issue again, many don't seem to realize that a lot of the reasons against a US-Canada merger are not economic or financial, they are political/social.

A lot of Canadians have a very contradictory love-hate relationship with the US. In fact a great deal of vitriol spewed at our current PM revolves around how his conduct and policies are too American in nature: pro-attack ads, anti- gun control, anti-abortion, naively pro-Israel, etc etc etc.

There would be _huge_ public opposition to such a merger in Canada.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a joke. It would be an incredible mistake for Canada to merge with America.

Who would want to merge into the $17 trillion in public debt, the economy strictly dependent on 0% interest rates (aka inflation), the poverty, the vast welfare expenses (that we can't afford), the collapsing infrastructure, the 14% unemployment, the $700 billion in military expenditures, the 3/4 of a trillion dollar budget deficit, the hundreds of billions in trade deficit, and the $100+ trillion in entitlement liabilities - that America is drowning under? Canada lacks most of those problems currently, and certainly the relative scale of those problems.

Why would Canada want to give up its countless unique national attributes? It would be smothered in any merger, and would see its national identity wiped out by a very obnoxiously aggressive US Federal Government.

Canada is a far more polite, gentle country at a government level. America is a violent, aggressive, quasi police state.

Canada's cities are some of the nicest on earth. The majority of large American cities are a wasteland of poverty and crime (10 out of the top 100 of the most violent large cities).

Canada has nothing to gain and everything to lose by merging up. As it is they get the benefits of being next to the largest economy on earth, with none of the negatives of having to be governed by the politicians in DC. It will never happen.

<comment><USER4> just a few facts: Canada has more public debt than the US by percentage of GDP:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_deb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt) And Canada has a lower GDP growth rate. Unemployment rate is about the same (6.9% vs 7.0%)

US inflation rates are very low right now (~1% for 2013): [http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current- infla...](http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation- rates/)

Crime rates in the US are at historic lows: [http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/11/12170947-fbi- viol...](http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/11/12170947-fbi-violent- crime-rates-in-the-us-drop-approach-historic-lows)

<comment><USER2> They might be at historic lows, but crime rates in the US, particularly gun- related crime, remains absurdly high when compared with the rest of the world. You can compare the gun deaths in the US with the gun deaths in 12 or 13 other countries whose populations sum to be approximately that of the US and note that the gun deaths in those countries are significantly lower.

<comment><USER4> Yep, this is true. But the trend is in the right direction.

Judging by the media though, you'd think you'd be at significant danger of getting shot every time you leave the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Diane Francis has an agenda and should be ignored. She's long been considered a fringe figure in Canada and writes these sorts of things to sell her books. Her general technique is to frame an "us against them" argument that Canada cannot possibly survive unless we do something ridiculously dramatic, namely adopt the US dollar and/or merge with the US.

<comment><USER6> So basically a political troll. That does explain it.

But why the WSJ? Maybe it's a better way to troll Canadians to get an article like this in the US press?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a Canadian who has lived in the US for a long time (but who happens to be in Canada at the moment to visit family), I've long thought a European-style union between the two countries would be a good idea.

I think Canadians would like to keep their own laws and culture, because they wouldn't want to give up their health care system, legal system (which for some reason involves much less litigation and fewer lawyers), and much simpler tax law.

Canadians have also mostly settled several of the large culture war issues that divide the US: they're happy with legal abortion, (mostly) illegal guns, and gay marriage, and are not interested in reopening debate on those issues.

But allowing labour visa-free access and unifying financial systems would provide great benefits. Not to mention how much I hated the moronic hoops I had to jump through to get my green card.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I would be all in for removing barriers to trade (including labor) but that's about it. Also, if Canada were to merge with US, Quebec would almost surely certainly become independent unless the CanadUS agrees to officially become a bilingual country.

<comment><USER9> The U.S. doesn't even have an official language, at the federal level, nor do some of the states. Hawaii has two official languages (English & Hawaiian). Some states have given Spanish and French special status, while others are de facto bilingual.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Consider how the U.S. treats Canadian interests under current conditions. They slap protectionist tariffs on our resources and then institute protectionist polices locking Canadian companies out of U.S. government contracts while simultaneously lobbying the Canadian government to consider U.S. companies for it's public contracts first. This "merger" would further erode Canada's ability to oppose U.S. protectionism while providing little in return. I'm not even going to start going into the privacy concerns.

Becoming the 51st state would actually be a superior option, because at least then we'd have representation in the U.S. government. This merger would make Canada more like a colony!

<comment><USER11> I am so glad to see there are people in the world that actually understand how US works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The North American Integration plan is already in full effect; the key to it's success is a gradual pace.

[http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2005/01/05OTTAWA268.html](http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2005/01/05OTTAWA268.html)

Has anyone shopped at a Target Canada recently? Maybe say on, Black Friday (which meant absolutely nothing in Canada)? Oh hi, Verizon!

<comment><USER13> > Has anyone shopped at a Target Canada recently?

Nope. Then again, I never shopped at whatever the Target stores used to be (K-Mart?).

<comment><USER14> Zeller's

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This will never happen. Canadians don't want to merge with the US. We (subjectively) think our country is much nicer, despite it being encased in snow and ice for half the year (it's minus 30 degrees with over a foot of snow right now!).

Our cultures are quite different, and only the US has anything to gain from a merger. We have everything to lose.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is rather fun because Francis' arguments are so silly. "Grim existential challenges"? She had to invent some for the occasion. (Boo! the Chinese!) Canada is already under the U.S. security umbrella in every way that matters. As for how similar the two nations are (if you don't count French Canada), sure, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences).

I live in what is arguably the most Americany of Canadian cities, and even here this idea isn't even a fringe position. I vaguely remember hearing years ago that some people had once proposed it, but it wasn't considered polite to mention who they were. If it ever turned into a political movement in Canada it would meet with overwhelming resistance. It's an identity thing.

<comment><USER15> > I live in what is arguably the most Americany of Canadian cities

Calgary?

<comment><USER6> Indeed.

<comment> r-s Calgary also has a Muslim mayor, who is extremely popular. I do see your point, I have lived in Calgary for over 25 years and it is a far different city today then even 10 years ago.

<comment><USER6> Not just Muslim, but a brown urban policy geek! It's a point of local pride that we got him while Toronto got Rob Ford; imagine what a fiasco the reverse would have been.

<comment><USER16> Not much worse than Ralph Klein ;)

<comment><USER6> Heh. Nice try! But no, orders of magnitude worse. Which international media sensation did Klein set off?

It's true that Klein obliged the Toronto stereotype of the redneck Albertan (and, shrewd politician that he was, used it to score points with his base). That's one reason it's so poetically fitting that you all elected Rush Limbaugh crossed with Marion Barry.

<comment><USER16> Getting the attention of the American media is one thing, but Klein was a political dynasty.

Ford has yet to claim that longevity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How about we make a trade: we give most of Canada, but keep back Alberta and BC - - and also keep Washington and Oregon. We can call the country 'Cascadia with Alberta'. Maybe this will be Quebec's out too.

All jokes aside, I hope that Canada never decides to merge with the US in anything that would make us 'one'.

<comment><USER18> Can we trade Northern California for Alberta?

<comment><USER17> I was going to include Alberta until I checked the Cascadia stuff -- I think its only logical.

Final call: BC, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Alberta.

It seems fair to me.

<comment><USER19> With Seattle as the new capital (being roughly midway between Portland and Vancouver). A man can dream.

<comment><USER17> And David Bazan for president? It would be amazing if something like this actually happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't help but think that this would be a vastly better deal for the US than Canada. Canada already enjoys much of the benefits touted for a merger (protection of its neighbour, Free trade access to a massive market) while the US has much to gain (massive resources, land, water, better healthcare).

Assuming there was as much in common politically and socially as suggested (there most certainly isn't) the US's stock is very much in decline while Canada's is very much in ascendancy.

The only way a merger could happen would be as a merger of equals necessitated by bigger global threats alongside dramatic social reform/normalisation in the US (I.e. The US starts to catch up with the rest of the Western world in terms of social maturity).

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't imagine anything more than tighter economic integration actually happening, but it's a fun thought experiment to consider how a full-on merger would impact American politics. I (as an American) would certainly welcome the change and fresh perspective.

<comment><USER6> Even conservative politics in Canada are liberal (maybe even far liberal) by U.S. standards. The Senate would become a leftist bastion overnight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good counter-argument:

Jonathan Kay: Diane Francis' plan to merge Canada and the United States has many, many problems

[http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/28/jonathan- kay-...](http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/28/jonathan-kay-diane- francis-plan-to-merge-canada-and-the-united-states-has-many-many-problems/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the quality of the relationship is maintained to a large extent because of the separation. It reminds me a bit of the Mending Wall by Frost: 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, you might wanna take a read of that one again: the neighbor who wants to stop mending the fence, is making fun of the neighbor who won't stop repeating "good fences make good neighbors."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As a Canadian, kindly fuck off. We don't want to be part of your mess of a country.

<comment><USER26> Don't worry. We don't want you.</comment></comment>


Fighting Tech with Tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/11/dopamine_labs_t_dalton_combs_on_tech_addictions_and_habits_on_if_then_podcast.html <comment><USER2> "... losing a dollar hurts more than gaining a dollar..." Big finding? Kahneman won a Noble for it in 2002!</comment>


Sad state of cross platform GUI frameworks - <AUTHOR> https://blog.royalsloth.eu/posts/sad-state-of-cross-platform-gui-frameworks <comment><USER2> Its a great overall look, but I'd like to add some details to the Qt parts.

* he reviewed the QtWidget parts, and the designer for such. This is by now 15 years old tech that has not seen any new development for years. He didn't look at the QtQuick and QtComponents parts which people use now.

* He writes: «You can always buy a commercial license that gives you the rights to statically link your application but it comes with a hefty price.».

This seems an emotional conclusion. First, most people don't actually require to statically link their apps. So this is only required for a small subset of users. Shipping your app on mobile, for instance, can be done with the open source version just fine. I think it helps to actually ask the sales team a price instead of concluding it has a heafty price. Compared to visual studio it actually is cheaper, last I checked...

* «Chart components are missing.»

Actually, there are several. Including 3rd party ones.

* he first states that QML allows one to use Javascript as a con, and then continues in his next line saying it is not nice to have to use C++. I think thats unfair. You can write your entire app in Javascript or C++. You can mix them. Your choice. This are add-ons. Like NPM can be seen as a bunch of add-ons to Node. Complaining about the ecosystem being diverse doesn't really sound like a negative to me...

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently went through this exercise and it really is sad. I actually decided to use the Godot game engine because at the end of the day it's fairly lightweight, you're in complete control over the rendering, the built in components are great (the editor itself is written in the game engine), it supports C#/C++, it runs literally everywhere, and it's completely free/open source.

I'm keeping my eye on Flutter and Avalonia as well but so far Godot seems the most mature on the desktop.

<comment><USER4> It's fascinating that a whole game engine ended up being the right solution. Although, I guess I have heard of people doing the same with Unity. And I've heard good things about Godot as a project in general.

FWIW here's one more relevant option that popped up earlier today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22766639) It looks pretty Flutter-like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the vitriol against JavaScript is unfair, but I absolutely agree that if native cross-platform desktop development weren't so horrendous, many things that currently use Electron, wouldn't. The web's main draw these days is that it's a free, cross-platform GUI platform that sees _active development and community support_. That's the bar.

All of that said - and I've said this elsewhere before - _JavaScript is not the problem with Electron._ I'm so weary of hearing this. Even the web is not really the problem with Electron. Electron's problem is that there's no way to share Chromium instances across installations or processes. _That 's it_.

<comment><USER3> It's both. Go look at your memory usage per tab and it's not uncommon to see hundreds of megabytes for a simple static 2d UI. The way web renders is extremely inefficient then you couple that with a language that has no regards for how a computer actually works and you get to the sad state we're in today.

<comment><USER4> > hundreds of megabytes for a simple static 2d UI

Without a specific example that's hard to argue against, but I would wager it has more to do with images, unnecessarily complex DOM, and possibly just poor engineering, as opposed to JavaScript itself.

> that has no regards for how a computer actually works

You mean like Python? And Lisp? If you're taking issue with the very concept of high-level languages then state it as such, and good luck making a case for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Flutter _may_ deliver, but Google has this nasty habit of killing projects right after you personally buy into them.

</comment><comment><USER6> > I can't quite figure it out, why do people prefer writing Electron apps as > opposed of having a thin backend layer that communicates with the frontend > in the user's existing browser via websockets or long polling or whatever.

that's not possible. For one thing, you need https.

<comment><USER7> A one-and-done installer for an existing browser is too sandboxed to work as he describes, afaik.

If you ran local code and added some plugins with permissions, it would be possible, maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting that the author understandably hates on C++, mentions Python bindings but then never appears to try them. It is true often cross-language docs are not great, but is pretty easy to convert between the two languages with a few examples.

Also, I'd never heard of the limit of LGPL on static-linking. I have a few pure Python projects under this but don't think the rule applies.

</comment><comment> java-man Missing from the list: java swing. Of course, it is missing latest eye candy features like shadows, but otherwise it's rock solid.

<comment><USER9> Having developed in Java for many years now, primarily on Windows for the desktop, Linux for the server side, the occasional MacOS desktop and even Android and Android Wear, I'm very rarely reminded that there are differences in platforms.

The biggest issues I've faced:

* On a headless server you can't load any GUI components (mostly my mistakes).

* Android is still effectively Java7. I blame Oracle and Google for this.

I've even recently moved from Java 7 to Java 11 with very little issue.

I'd be interested in people's thoughts about why "new is better"? My own take: you can't sell tools, tutorials, books, conference tickets, etc for something that just works and is well documented with great IDE support.

<comment> java-man In the context, I take it the question is about why javafx is better than swing?

I would say javafx produces better eye candy, and the programming model is much better in terms of properties and bindings (not that one can't reimplement a similar framework in swing, but in javafx it is just there).

I feel javafx is still lacking in many areas:

\- focus handling is still buggy: one can have multiple nodes having focus and accepting keyboard input

\- WebView behavior differs a lot between 8/9/10/11

\- mouse subsystem has critical issues on linux

I wish javafx got more support from Oracle, but we know that neither Sun nor Oracle viewed the desktop as high priority. I don't think the situation will change, considering the fact that the majority of development switched to browser-based js.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, if you don't mind dropping some cash...

\- Delphi is great if you have a Windows machine and is still quite popular in Europe if you _really_ want to make a career out of it.

\- Xojo is extremely well priced. I cannot say much about it but a friend that is a former Lazarus programmer swears by it.

\- LispWorks CAPI is hands-down the best I've tried, but requires individual licenses for each platform and if you want 64bit you'll be breaking the bank.

> Pascal is showing its age and feels a bit wonky in comparison to C like > languages.

What makes Pascal show its age? Proper records? Generics? :)

<comment><USER11> > a friend that is a former Lazarus programmer swears by it.

I'm not sure swearing evokes much confidence :-P

I've only tried the demo version of Xojo a couple of times but i found its design to be _very_ macOS oriented. The GUI does work in Windows and Linux (and actually i've tried it on both of these systems instead of macOS) but pretty much everything about the layout and design feels macOS-y.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have written multiple applications with Qt, GTK, JavaFX and your blog post is spot on, on everything I read.

This is a very high quality post. It shows you really worked on learning the frameworks, as opposed to writing a superficial post after 1 hour of playing around with a framework.

</comment><comment><USER13> Other interesting cross platform IDEs include imgui when used with Nim. This is remarkably easy to use [https://github.com/nimgl/imgui](https://github.com/nimgl/imgui)

</comment><comment><USER14> Never seen a cross platform gui that I'd rather use than a website.

<comment><USER15> Imagine you have seen a cross platform gui that you'd rather use over a website. What would it look like?

<comment><USER16> Something like Elm but that compiles to native binaries. It should come with Material Design level of HIG documentation and a tone of examples. The compiler and the Native/Kernel parts should be implemented in a modern systems programming language, maybe rust.

<comment><USER15> Why elm? It looks more like a DSL than a real language and a verbose one at that. I'm looking at some of these examples on their website, like the random number generator, and wondering why it takes so much code to print a random number to the screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > QT website is one big clusterfuck of corporate bullshit and hard to find > stuff. They keep redesigning it and every year its getting worse and worse

That captures my own impression accurately

<comment><USER2> I would fully agree about their main website :)

but, yeah, its a website they use to sell stuff. Advertisements tend to work better if they don't get stale.

On the other hand, the doc.* website (its on its own sub-domain) is almost boring and just entirely functional. And that is what techies actually use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Beeware makes native guis on all platforms, android will be ready soon.</comment>


Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break - kruse-tim https://medium.com/@sexandstartups/zebrasfix-c467e55f9d96 <comment><AUTHOR> I think it gets a bit unrealistically altruistic, but it captures a lot.

"We Shall Build Good Ships Here; At A Profit If We Can, At A Loss If We Must, But Always Good Ships."</comment>


Vladimir Voevodsky, Revolutionary Mathematician, Dies at 51 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/obituaries/vladimir-voevodsky-revolutionary-mathematician-dies-at-51.html <comment><USER2> Can someone explain more about what Voevodsky is being credited with when the obituary says his work "changed the meaning of the equals sign"?</comment>


It's time for Microsoft to give up on consumers - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/75423/its-time-for-microsoft-to-give-up-on-the-consumer/

<comment><USER2> I disagree with this: Microsoft has Xbox which is an amazing consumer brand that can extended to a number of devices and grow a larger audience in the process. The key to fixing Microsoft is to focus on what they well: And yes while business is a huge part of that they do have something to offer to consumers.</comment>


Midifinity: An infinite collection of synthesizers - <AUTHOR> http://midifinity.grindselect.com/ <comment><USER2> I love the url hashes</comment>