Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes allegedly looking to start another company - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/disgraced-theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-is-allegedly-lo-1826710013 <comment><USER2> This is a based on a Vanity Fair interview (discussed here [1]) with the author of the new Theranos book, which in turn was discussed here [2].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17269314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17269314)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17252311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17252311)

</comment><comment><USER3> She should try politics, were defrauding your stakeholders (voters) is legal.

<comment><USER4> She should start a PR/consulting firm which helps CEOs and executives get away with lies for as long as possible and then helps them to rebuild their career when it all goes belly up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey, maybe she can partner with Martin Shkreli on something!

<comment><USER6> If that fails, there's always Bernie Madoff or Martha Stewart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Look what she did, she created an amazing opportunity," Draper told CNBC. "... I am thrilled with what she's done."

P.T. Barnum was right. :-(

</comment><comment><USER8> She and Doug Evans can make perfect partners, both of them were compared with Steve Jobs in their own market.</comment>


Ask YC: What do you keep on your USB flash drive? - <AUTHOR>

I finally broke down and got a 4GB USB Flash Drive. Since I'm a little late to the game, I was wondering how all of you have yours set up?
My own machines all run Linux or OS X, but I occasionally use other peoples Windows machines, so I have several versions of a lot of these binaries.
I only keep a few useful utilities unencrypted on the drive (PuTTY, TrueCrypt, Firefox, Filezilla, packet sniffer, etc). I then have all my personal files (documents, firefox profile, ssh/gpg keys, etc) in an encrypted Truecrypt file. I also have a simple script set up to sync my personal files with my SVN repo when I plug the USB drive into my laptop.
Anything major I'm missing, or that you've found useful? <comment><USER2> I used to have one like yours. All set up with many environments zipped up & ready to extract. I vaguely remember writing batch scripts (yukk) to automate 7-zip's encryption for a locked up computer that didn't allow truecrypt.

In the end it just wasn't worth it. However long I worked on it, it just didn't compare to having my own laptop. These days I just use my USB drive for transferring documents.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. What do you think of keeping some sort of virtual machine image/player on the flash stick (qemu?).

That way, you effectively get your own computer where ever you go ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in the same boat as you, I run Linux, my girlfriend OSX and friends/parents have windows boxes. I started with portable firefox for both OSX and windows. Same for putty, ftp client, etc... But in the end I realised all I had on there was for online use. So instead of using all those programs, I just put portable firefox on it and added some extentions, like fireftp for ftp and sites like google notebook, meebo. Now all the other things that are on there are a couple of files (mp3, txt snippets), firefox portable and qemu with a basic linux install.</comment>


On the Exponential View - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@azeem/on-the-exponential-view-75cd24525d14#.vfc2b5hmn <comment><USER3> The author lost me very early on by making claims about inevitability. Things like the "global village of free information" are hardly inevitable - <USER2> believe it's a lot more fragile than people think. "Free" is under continual attack from IP monopolists, and "information" is under rising attack from noise injection. The easiest way to take facts away from people is to drown them in bad information.

"Global village" is under attack as well, from a rising desire for closed- nationalist societies.

<comment><USER4> There's a lot more to the article than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was a great article. I enjoyed how he connected many problems facing the world at the current moment, and posited increasing automation as the main reason for wage stagnation since the 1970s. With automation, companies do not need to hire as many workers to achieve the same profits, which is captured by capital rather than labour. Another impressive part of this article is that unlike most papers that only report the problem, he actually proposes some reasonable sounding solutions:

Juno - a ride-sharing service similar to Uber, but that differs from Uber in that it sets aside 50% of the share of capital to be earned by drivers as they give more rides (unlike the more lopsided distribution of Uber that heavily favours capital).

I will definitely give Juno a try if I'm ever in NYC, the only city it's currently offered. Thank you for sharing.

<comment><USER6> Wealth inequality is really an instance of homophily. Money attracts money. The rich get richer.

Wealth inequality harms the economy, because as people get poorer they can no longer participate in economic activity. Businesses need consumers with money to spend.

When enough people become sufficiently poor, uneducated, and angry, then you get Trump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a long read but well worth the time. Takes a higher level look at trends in automation and the econome in general.

</comment><comment><USER8> > ... cities are becoming incredibly important and it's sort of inevitable > that people will flock to cities.

I question this inevitability. There's no reason that the migration from small towns to large cities is guaranteed to continue and not reverse at some point.

</comment><comment><USER9> The author is both a spectacular commentator and a great writer. We need more like this excellent article.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting, well documented article. Good to save for reference.

</comment><comment><USER11> When are you internet addicts going to realize:

1.) You spend too much time online.

2.) You mistake your online sources of knowledge and experiences for reality.

3.) You are endlessly writing science-fiction.

The amount of collective dillusional behavior that has captured the imaginations of participants on social media forums such as this is truly awe inspiring!

<comment><USER12> You sound like one of those old curmudgeons who were warning people about reading books 100 years or so ago.

And you have created a throwaway user profile, which seems to indicate you have an online presence and reputation that you care about.

I'm going to take a guess that your comments apply as much to your own self as to the people you call "you internet addicts".

<comment><USER11> Yes, I am a recovering addict who sometimes reads HN while taking my morning shit. Your perceptions are correct, I am as much reminding myself the epistemological dangers of engaging in social media.

It was a mistake to reengage with this toxic and ignorant community.

However, I still use the internet, just in a restricted manner. I find that removing frictionless sources of information makes for a much more pleasant experience. I use a Chrome plugin called Shut Up that removes all comments. I pay for subscriptions to a number of news sources that hire editors and fact checkers. I redirect all social media sites to 127.0.0.1. I wrote a custom script for YouTube that hides related content.

YouTube, wikipedia, and an RSS reader seem to not trigger the depression I was suffering when I was reading HN, Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.

The election was the final straw as I saw many people fully captured by the illusions of their ever shrinking ideological bubbles which are most definitely caused by social media.

If you twerps dared speak to me the way you talk in these forums I would most definitely start a physical altercation. I can't say I'm ashamed of the asswhoopings I've laid on loose and arrogant lips in the past.

Fortunately for me people have an awareness of the physical repercussions of their actions in meatspace. Reality is what is experienced outside of the world of symbols on a screen!

But yes, again, thank you for reminding me why I need to finally remove the last connection to this hideous forum and trade my smartphone and the $1400/year price tag for a dumb brick and my personal salvation!</comment></comment></comment>


Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/the-new-antibiotics-might-be-essential-oils/384247/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> It's telling that only one of these studies is published in a journal where I can find the full text (with MIT journal access). Sadly, it's only really possible to judge the research in that article, which is questionable. They test the susceptibility of e. coli strains to various oils, at 8-12 uL/mL. I think the only observation one needs point out is that concentration in a person's blood would kill them too. I wish it were otherwise, but you can't believe all peer-reviewed science.

<comment><USER4> This kind of reminds me of all the "X cures cancer" media reports. It's not that hard to kill cancer cells in a petri dish (or in a xenograph model). Tens of thousands of compounds have killed cancer cells in models, but failed entirely in humans.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, a bullet kills cancer pretty well. The trick is targeting just the cancerous cells.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some folks in my circle of friends have been raving about essential oils lately as home remedies for everything from general relaxation, to treating dandruff to avoiding cold/flu symptoms. I'm all about improving our understanding of microbiology and moving away from excessive antibiotics use, but honestly these folks are wellness product hype jumpers though, buying and selling from each other via stay-at-home-mom pyramid type businesses and it's hard not to dismiss it as another way to overcharge pseudo-sciencers

</comment><comment><USER7> I used to have an incurable sinus infection that plagued me every winter. Antibiotics were worthless. Then, after X-rays confirmed my maxillary sinuses were filled to the brim with crud and doctors wanted to cut out large swaths of my sinuses, I decided to hang upside down on my personal quack theory that it might let them drain.

To my somewhat surprise, every day I did this an unholy brew of dark brown mucus and blood would drain out of my nose after a few minutes. A couple weeks later the crud dissipated and so did the sinus infection. I haven't had a serious infection of more than a few days since 2011.

What's my point? Keep an open mind here. Traditional medicine wasn't the answer here. Homeopathy is nonsense, but there are occasional bits of truth to mine from alternative approaches.

<comment><USER8> Since most sinus infections are viral, antibiotics probably did nothing at all.

<comment><USER9> Correct. Northward of 90% of all URTIs (Upper Respiratory Tract Infections) are caused by viruses and _never_ develop secondary bacterial infections. [1]

If you have a bacterial upper respiratory tract infection you usually feel much less well than when the average viral infection.

The usually route of antibiotics appearing to work is that a course of antibiotics is usually 10 days, by which time you're mostly over the viral infection anyway.

1.[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098742/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098742/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My gripe is that "essential oil" is only slightly more specific than "chemical", so it's meaningless to talk about essential oils in general as a fix for anything. You need to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis for every use. An arbitrary essential oil is as likely to be a poison as a cure, but they're all lumped together in the hype. And it's not like we didn't already know that plants are a good source of medicines. /rant

<comment><USER11> Totally. In fact, the fourth thing I think of - after aromatherapy, perfume, and flavouring - is the use of safrole (from sassafras essential oil) in the manufacture of MDMA...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My wife and her friends are into essential oils. I have mixed feelings. Some of the oils do seem to be effective, but there are definite red flags as far as the business behind the oils.

On the shady side, they have the ZYTO hand scanner, a device you place your hand on for a few minutes, and then it tells you all of your deficiencies, and all of the oils you need to buy to fix those deficiencies. My wife and all of her friends swear by this scan, amazed at its accuracy. My scan was not accurate at all. Before the scan, you have to enter your info (name, address, email, etc), so I have always suspected they are using some online marketing database to profile you. If you read about the scanner online, they claim that the reason the scanner doesn't give reproducible results is because it "uses quantum physics", which just screams scam to me.

As far as the oils product itself, I have used several on various skin ailments such as skin tags and warts, and I have been quite impressed at how effective they have been in consistently getting rid of them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Carl Sagan, in his book Demon Haunted World, described his bologna detection kit, a set of principals and tests used to get a feel for the veracity of a claim. Here is my Medical modality bologna detection kit.

1\. It is claimed the modality cures or treats a wide variety of otherwise unconnected symptoms.

2\. Claims about the modality are unspecific. "It boosts the immune system." "It removes toxins."

3\. It is claimed the modality is as effective as already substantiated treatments but trials are not controlled.

4\. Purveyors of the treatment invoke any benefit besides its efficacy and side effect profile. They emphasize its antiquity or how natural it is.

5\. Top researchers of the modality stand to profit from positive outcomes of their research.

6\. There is no likely way for the treatment to work.

7\. Trials are not double blinded.

<comment><USER14> Slightly off-topic, but a Bologna detection kit wouldn't be that difficult to construct: even standard CV software could detect standard Bologna in standard shape. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_sausage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_sausage)

On the other hand, I imagine Italian bologna is prepared with essential oils, so a working Bologna detection kit would also positively identify essential oils.

On the other hand, Sagan's kit would be quite a useful tool in detecting baloney.

As a non-native speaker, I was particularly thrown off by that, and had to look it up. :)

Do I agree with you! Apply the system to homeopathy, and most of it comes off as baloney. The saddest part is, it is often the people who would benefit from 'actual' medicine the most (the sick and the poor) that also fall into the homeopathy trap. At least in the neck of the woods I am from.

<comment><USER13> Ha, my mistake. Baloney is a word you hear frequently but don't see written very often. I presumed the slang used the spelling of the sausage it was derived from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My wife is big into essential oils. She initially bought into the hype. Interestingly the company she started to buy from, has soured her due to their business practices. Among other things selling "pure" oils, that really are not as pure as the claim.

I will say this when she first started with them, I thought it was all voodoo and witchcraft, but after using various oils, I find that certain ones do give relief of certain symptoms. Like we have a blend that "aides" digestion. And when I have heartburn, I rub it on my stomach and within 15 minutes feel better. Is it magic, I have no idea, but it seems to work.

But I also still believe in traditional medicine. If I have an ear infection I'm not going to pour oil in my ear, I'm going to go see a Dr and get a prescription to fix it. I think that there is a group of people out there who are so turned off by the western medical system, that they are looking for anything that they can hook on too, to hopefully provide them with a means to not have to participate in the system.

<comment><USER16> That's a pragmatic approach drawing information from the sources available and not drawing a hard line anywhere.

I've never been able to understand people's tendency to insist on extremes. If you're Republican, everything Democrat is bad, and vice versa. If you are an advocate for Eastern medicine all doctors are quacks. Yadda yadda yadda. These may be extreme and a bit simplified but the tendency seems to run strong in some point.

Although, to put it in another frame, perhaps the people more likely to espouse their views are also the ones more likely to take a strong stance which means as a result I tend not to hear from the more pragmatic among us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just so no one is confused (like I was for a long time), essential oils are so called because they are obtained using plant essences, not because they are essential to us in any way (though they may now be!)

<comment><USER9> The other ones, the ones we need, are correctly called EFAs - <USER2> Fatties Acids[1].

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's interesting to hear about the different impacts of essential oils, though when you consider manuka honey also has healing properties as well, it stands to reason that other natural plant extracts could have similar properties.

<comment><USER18> > it stands to reason that other natural plant extracts could have similar > properties.

That's as old as time.

\- Lemon skin for stomach flu (Salmonella)

\- Garlic for ulcer (H. pylori).

\- Onion for food intoxication (E. coli and S. aureus).

\- Eucalyptus for general respiratory tract infections.

\- Tamarind and cranberry for bladder infection.

\- Coconut oil for intestinal parasites.

\- Honey (any, not just manuka) as a general anti bactericide.

<comment><USER9> And more recently we've learned things like:

Cinnamon for stomach ulcer due to inhibitory affect on H. pylori

Cinnamon for blood sugar regulation

Cinnamon for Parkinson's disease

And that's just one of the 214 herbs I've studied intensively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have used essential oils for nearly everything including internal consumption, external issues, cleaning everything(alternative to bleach, etc), veterinary and can say they work. However, there are a lot of claims out there regarding essential oils that aren't true, so make sure you check a reliable source before you proceed.

Quality is very important, all essential oils are not the same.

It takes a lot of self education to take care of your own health but well worth it in the end.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is so cool:

 _Other research, from a 2011 issue of BMC Proceedings, showed that adding a combination of plant extracts—from oregano, cinnamon, and chili peppers—actually changed the gene expression of treated chickens, resulting in weight gain as well as protection against an injected intestinal infection._

I have used all three of those as part of my treatment for my health issues, rooted in a genetic disorder. This is just so, so cool.

<comment><USER4> Changing gene expression happens all the time due to everyday things like: sunlight exposure, amount of fat you eat, how much sleep you get, etc, etc, etc.

<comment><USER9> So true. "change in gene expression" is one of those three-word-slogans. A change in gene expression occurs ever time we eat as our liver and pancreas ramp up production of various enzymes.

It's probably true that every activity we participate in cause a change in gene expression as the underlying physical manifestation of a change in biochemistry.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but it excites me because my focus has been figuring out how to change the gene expression using diet and lifestyle. I have gotten a lot of flack off of people. I am excited to see language like this in an article about this kind of "natural" approach.

I know what I am doing. I just don't know how to talk about it with other people and it's been very frustrating. So I find stuff like this interesting.

Thanks for your various comments throughout this discussion.

<comment><USER9> Shoot me an email, let's have a conversation. I've been studying this sort of thing for over a decade now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It would help hugely if we all become Vegans or at least vastly reduced our meat/fish consumption. Producing meat and animal products is very inefficient in terms of land and resources and encourages the use of antibiotics.

Of course this is a pipe dream and barring a world extinction threat, is never going to happen.

<comment><USER22> It's far more complex than this. A lot of meat --free-range cattle and sheep particularly--is raised on land which is not arable for traditional crops. Farmed fish too, when farmed responsibly, can provide a lot of food on "land" which could not have produced other food.

<comment><USER23> But we aren't lacking land to grow food. We have so much of it actually that we use a third of the arable land world wide to grow feed for livestock, (which accounts for 40% all grains grown)[1]. If we just ate this grain instead we could feed 3.5 billions people extra[2].

Cattle (and sheep) are extremely inefficient. We use 60% of all farmland to produce beef, but it only provides us with 2% of all calories (5% of protein)[1]. So, the majority of all pastureland plus a big chunk of the arable land is used to produce 2% of all calories. That's not really much of a resource.

So yes, if we raised cattle purely on pasture (which we don't overall) we could actually get some net production of food. But it would still be an insignificant part of our diet.

[1] Grade A Choice? Solutions for Deforestation-free Meat. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012: [http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/Soluti...](http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/Solutions- for-Deforestation-Free-Meat.pdf)

[2] Meat and Animal Feed: [http://www.globalagriculture.org/report- topics/meat-and-anim...](http://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat- and-animal-feed.html)

<comment><USER9> One issue is that arable land isn't, along with other resources, evenly distributed over the plant, nor do the people have equal access to technology maximise production output.

This is why we need trade, which is arguably better than one form or another of centralised government controlled redistribution.

So the issue isn't, and probably never will be, limits to resources, but limits to human resourcefulness - of which there are none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The operative word here is "might". Be sure to read Ioannidis, John PA. "Why most published research findings are false." PLoS medicine 2.8 (2005): e124.

</comment><comment><USER25> Ehhh... I mean its all malarky till enough experiments have been done to move it into the realm of likelihood.

<comment><USER26> Naturally this is just a single experiment, but it does offer some statistically significant results for combinations of antibiotics and lavender, peppermint, and cinnamon oils:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23537749](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23537749)

<comment><USER3> Full text here: [http://goo.gl/i6ooUC](http://goo.gl/i6ooUC)

The lowest oil concentration they see synergy is 0.078% v/v. Assuming that's roughly the same as w/w%, that's 53 grams of oil that would have to be distributed throughout the body of a 68 kg person.</comment></comment></comment>


Voters: Impeach US District Judge Lucy Koh - <AUTHOR> http://www.change.org/petitions/voters-impeach-us-district-judge-lucy-koh

<comment><USER2> Why? We need a better reason than "she ruled in a manner that she saw fit based on the evidence at hand"</comment>


Flat-pack accounting - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6919139 <comment><USER2> It's odd that both of the articles here today about IKEA started with a jab about how difficult it is to assemble IKEA furniture. The reason I buy stuff there is because putting it together is so fun. It's like legos, except you get nice furniture instead of an oddly-colored house :)</comment>


Ask HN: android distribution per country - <AUTHOR>

Hello guys, I'm thinking of building some android apps.
However the ideas I want to explore have a tight connection with some specific countries, so I expect the typical user to originally be from one of those countries.
It it possible (any website? (an android version of checkfacebook.com ? ), any reports?) to find out the number of android devices per country ?
Cheers, Ze <comment><USER2> This gives a partial picture (percents, not actual numbers, and it's just mobile browser share, not total smartphone usage):

[http://connect.icrossing.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/2010/02/mo...](http://connect.icrossing.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/2010/02/mobile-market-share.gif)

<comment><AUTHOR> it's a good start! Thanks</comment></comment>


MCC: Minimal C subset compiler intended to eventually run on my calculator - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/C_Programming/comments/fbp64n/mcc_minimal_c_subset_compiler_intended_to/ <comment><AUTHOR> Source Code: [https://github.com/been- jamming/MinimalCC](https://github.com/been-jamming/MinimalCC)</comment>


Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/patents/US8296192 <comment><USER2> "A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject? Such a law, instead of enlarging our conveniences, as was intended, would most fearfully abridge them, and crowd us by monopolies out of the use of the things we have."

\- Letter to Oliver Evans, (16 January 1814); published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1905) Vol. 13, p. 66.

<comment><USER3> In researching my forthcoming book, Without Their Permission, I found a great letter from Jefferson that went so far as to consider putting limits in the Bill of Rights: "Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding__years but for no longer term and no other purpose."

Letter to James Madison, August 28, 1789 [http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2184/default...](http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2184/default.asp)

<comment><USER4> Those letters are quaint and all, but unless ratified in laws are off topic.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. As per the HN Guidelines [1]:

> On-Topic: ... anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

[1] [http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER6> I think he meant off-topic in a legal discussion because they are merely a lawmakers opinions and not actually law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If these weren't depressing they'd be funny. For those who don't know the patent & trademark office (PTO) defines "obvious" as described in a prior patent or, sometimes, an academic paper. Even if everybody in the field has been doing the same thing for years it isn't "non obvious" unless somebody wrote to the PTO about it. But since it's obvious in reality those nobody except crooks bother to.

The whole system is rigged in favor of "people" who write up patentable junk -- those who have the time to write it into patents -- whereas people who actually build things are busy perfecting the trade skills the patent system was made to protect.

OK - tirade over. Back to my new app. My wife dreamed it up and we're writing it together. When finished and released, if it does well, some fat slob -- who never wrote or programmed anything useful in his life -- will show up to shake us down.

<comment><USER8> That's not at all how the prior art base of the USPTO, nor any other patent office, is defined. The problem is that these are the most easily searchable bases of prior art because their fields necessitate it: academics are required to find everything piece of related are on what they're researching when producing works like a PhD thesis, and as such huge databases of academic work exist which are easily searchable; patents in the US are also required to disclose all know prior art (I believe, US patent law isn't where my experience comes from), and as such, the larger patent offices (the European and US particularly) have had to develop tools for effectively searching patents. Patents are also usually a good source for prior art because they like to disclose things as broadly as possible so they can claim as broadly as they're allowed. If you find a document which describes something within the scope of the claim you're looking at, then you've got a great novelty citation.

The reason sometimes known things are allowed through is because the patent offices can find no proof that it is well known in the form of a single document before something can be called not novel. In some other juristrictions, common general knowledge in the art is more often used when it's known that something is already routine. even if there's nothing that clearly shows is, simply because it's so common.

<comment><USER9> > That's not at all how the prior art base of the USPTO, nor any other patent > office, is defined.

Prior art isn't the issue.

To be patentable, an invention has to be: 1) non-obvious (to someone skilled in the art); 2) novel; 3) (other things).

Prior art addresses the novelty side of things. Not the non-obviousness side.

The requirement of non-obviousness sounds great in theory, but is in reality a joke, since the only test used is that of prior art.

It is possible for an invention to be obvious and yet for no prior art to exist. In technology one (non-obvious, novel, patentable) invention often enables a big pile of (novel but now obvious, and therefore not patentable) inventions. Using prior art as the only test for obviousness ignores this case entirely.

<comment><USER7> Yes - this is what I meant, though I think it's also what I wrote. It's not prior art; it's obviousness, and the USPTO defines non-obvious as published, co-mingling the two. So we see lots of patents for obvious tweaks from one platform to another. For example, the same functionality ported from local computer programs to web-based systems, client-server architecture, and now mobile all seems to qualify as non-obvious. In reality these ports are entirely obvious to anybody who understands that the underlying tech is basically the same.

<comment><USER8> I would strongly dispute this, and ask that you provide some proof that this happens. Examiners are quite well versed in their technology areas, and can see when a known idea has just been tweeked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is another example of a patent with a specific scope being given an incredibly broad title.

This patent is actually on selling web site commenters the ability to have their comment appear in some kind of distinctive format, which might be a different font, or it might be appearing before the other comments.

<comment><USER11> Still doesn't seem like a very novel idea worthy of a patent.

<comment><USER4> It's not. Prior art is newspaper advertisement. You can't patent something as new just because it's done with a computer, as everyone knows.

I bet this will be invalidated as soon as someone tries to enforce it. Easily.

But this viral market attempt suggest they will try to get money from some sucker troll before, which I'm all for.

<comment><USER8> This is not equivalent to a newspaper advertisment because a newspaper isn't online content (though it's close enough that an argument could be made on the _inventive step_ ). However, there is definitely potential that this is novel.

I was going to say that there is also no method of changing a user comment on a newspaper after it has been created, but on a second inspection of the claim, there's no requirement for this within the claim. And based on that, I think you may well be right that there is a good chance of invalidation, because the system boils down to a system where one can place advertisments on specific parts of a piece of online content and being able to pay more for a better looking ad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I find confusing: This is not a technical invention. It's not a device or process. And where is the "inventive step"?

It's a monetization strategy, and not a particularly clever one at that. Since when is the idea of charging money for something a patentable invention? Absurd.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting how much of the commentary here is on the patent being silly, rather than the implications of the monetization technique that the patent describes. We are allowing people to pay a fee to have their expression privileged over others. We are monetizing the salience of information, a betrayal of the very spirit of the Internet (or, at the least, the techno- utopian ideal of the Internet).

So yeah, patents are silly. But perhaps what's in the patent is equally troubling.

<comment><USER14> If you're troubled by the idea of some private website ranking comments by payment, something they can do whether this patent exists or not, you should be happy that patenting one process for doing so makes it more (difficult|expensive) for future sites to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Question: If I build a start up here in Bolivia, it gets big among Latinamerican users - can I take a huge giant shit on the US patent system? Or does the patent system apply if my website application code is hosted on US servers?

<comment><USER16> From what I learned from a WIPO course a decade ago, every country that signed the Paris Convention[1] (like the Berne Convention, but for patents) must treat patents filed in another signing country as valid in their own.

        when an applicant files an application for a patent or a trademark
        in a foreign country [...] the owner benefits from the same protection
        and the same legal remedy against any infringement as if the owner was
        a national owner of this right

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Convention_for_the_Prote...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Industrial_Property)

<comment><USER8> The PCT relates mostly to claims for priority of patents, so if a document is files in say the US, the applicant may then later (within a specified time period) file an application in another PCT country and claim the same priority date as the US application (ie, the date of filing). All patents are applicable within a single nation only, so just because company X has patent Y in country Z down not mean you can't use the invention in country W unless X has a patent to the same invention in country W as well. However, if they've filed using the PCT they will by default designate they wish for all member countries to examine the patent, so until that patent has lapsed in each country, there is a possibility that the inventor may persue protection and you may then be infringing that patent. Fun stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I should get a patent on "making money by asserting patents". Then I would only grant myself a license and hence have the only patent left that can make money.

Seriously. The way out is a blanket "No software patents" statement from congress; or along the line of what Twitter is doing where all inventors have to agree if their patent is used offensively (although lawyers at my company tell me that such a restriction actually has no legal standing).

<comment><USER18> Too late ([https://www.google.com/patents/WO2004095226A2?cl=en&dq=%22pa...](https://www.google.com/patents/WO2004095226A2?cl=en&dq=%22patent+assertion%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Z5f1UZ2VCIv09gTJjIHYCg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA)). Dude beat you to it by several years.

<comment><USER19> They should start using that against patent trolls.

<comment><USER20> What if they acquired a license? We would have come full circle, proving the idiocy of this system and, implicitly, that the intelligence of those who administer it is quite limited at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Couple of years back I'd proposed a cure for patent trolls: Large tech companies form a non-profit group and preemptively attack patent portfolio of companies that they mutually agree to be trolls. The entire business model of trolls hang on a fact that they will be the first attacker so their litigation expenses are small. If a patent troll gets spammed with 100s of lawsuits for bad patent grants at the same time, they will go out of business just from the expense of litigation or at least trolling would not be as much lucrative. Obviously this plan has its own risk: this non-profit group can start attacking legitimate patent holders to keep them out of the game. But even bigger issue is that lot of large companies are already in bed with largest trolls themselves such as IV. I don't see other great ways to curb trolling. The effort like Ask Patent can prevent some bad future patents but it would be very hard to get law in place that cancels bad patents that have already been granted.

<comment><USER12> Part of the definition of "patent troll" is that the troll undertakes no economic activity other than launching lawsuits. Therefore, a troll cannot be sued preemptively.

<comment><USER21> One can certainly file preemptive law suits to seek declaratory judgement that any granted patents are invalid and/or unenforceable. This had been done by some companies who felt there was risk to their business from certain patent owners.

A troll typically holds 100s of patents and always on look out for opportunity to cash them out. If they are preemtively slammed with 100s of lawsuits for each patent they hold, their legal resources would be overwhelmed without possibility of huge rewards. It would be hard to imagine that they would be able to keep shop open for long time when everybody is attacking them for no apparent reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For me the most interesting part in this patent was a "PATENT CITATIONS" section. Most of the patents in this section are quite obvious as well. Like Amazon's "Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network" basically describes every E-Commerce site on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm confused about how something like this actually affects us in the startup world. Should I stop trying to innovate because everything I could possibly think of is already patented.. or simply disregard the existence of these patents?

<comment><USER24> Disregard, then fight it later if you grow big enough to matter.

That said, it can seriously screw you over if you get unlucky: [http://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/](http://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/)

<comment><USER25> > Apparently a corporation can only be represented by an attorney in a > litigation and cannot be represented by the founders or officers

Stuff like that is enraging. Free country, huh? You're not even allowed to represent yourself.

<comment><USER26> No, you're not allowed to represent _the corporation_ , which is a separate and legally distinct entity from yourself. Since the corporation is a legal person, but cannot represent itself (not being an _natural_ person, it cannot operate _pro se_ ), it must be represented by an attorney. That, then, brings in regulations on who may act as attorney (which is not always synonymous with lawyer or barrister) in litigation in a given jurisdiction. If you wish to represent yourself, then you need to be personally party to the litigation, which is what the legal personhood of the corporation protects you from (to a degree).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sometimes I think that obviously ridiculous patents like this are a good thing. They're so absurd that they're nearly satire, and satire is often an excellent critical weapon. How out-of-control does the system get before judges and lawmakers clearly see that it's not operating as intended? Not much further.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is hilarious, actually. I like that the same guy also has pending action on the lucrative "methods for making slip resistant file folders" market.

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20120217211](https://www.google.com/patents/US20120217211)

</comment><comment><USER29> So they are patenting the 'just my 2 cents' ?

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

Although I didn't properly RTFA, there are may ways in which one can hook narcissistic gamblers in forums or news sites. The price of the comment can be set in a bid-like fashion with people raising their bids and paying more and more to keep their comment first. They can also pay to upvote or downvote comments or plain remove them. You can have comment wars with real money in no time :).

Bitcoin sounds like a perfect fit for such a system, allowing anonymous comments as well. But haven't I seen something like this somewhere already - reddit tips , for instance ?

</comment><comment><USER30> Google his name... [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=pts&ei=HaH1UffJBMqf0Q...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=pts&ei=HaH1UffJBMqf0QXJ94GIBg&q=Roddy+McKee+Bullock&oq=Roddy+McKee+Bullock)

</comment><comment><USER31> The title is obviously overreaching, but the content of the patent seems to be extremely broad, as well. I won't claim to have read more than the brief description, but it appears that this patents paid, user-specific formatting for any type of web content.

</comment><comment><USER32> FYI, if you want to learn more about a specific patent, you can read the examiner's reasons for allowance at the public pair website ([http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair))

Looking at that site, the reasons for allowance are the claimed features of:

"...displaying to a reader, who can leave a reader comment in response to said online information, an offer associated with said online information, said offer being an offer to alter a reader comment from said free default format to a distinctive format for a fee"

*with a priority date of 6/6/2009

</comment><comment><USER33> So, the incredibly ridiculously generic claim 1 has been granted? I really have no more words to express what I think about software patents.

<comment><USER12> Claim 1 is fairly specific. All points (a) through (d) have to apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> To spell it out, the precise problem with this specific patent is the ambiguity of the terms used in the claims. "Online information" and "reader comment" can describe the content of any one-to-many data relationship presented on the web.

</comment><comment><USER35> I would like to patent a method for making money by filing completely obvious and trivial patents, pushing it through the PTO, and then suing everyone in sight. I am almost certain there is no prior art for this, right?

</comment><comment><USER36> I was expecting John von Neumann to be listed as the inventor:

 _The system also includes a processor for executing the computer executable instructions, and a memory for storing at least the computer executable instructions._

</comment><comment><USER37> Bollocks! Ok, if one has to defend against this patent, how to go about it?

</comment><comment><USER38> So essentially like VIP membership of any dating site out there.

Or advertising in general.

On the other hand, if we implemented this across the board, we could do away with these cumbersome comment voting systems!

</comment><comment><USER39> Okay, so they own a patent... It takes $ to enforce, protect, and win a litigation for. Once won, they then have to collect... Taken voice - "Good Luck"

</comment><comment><USER40> I honestly couldn't tell if this was a troll or not

</comment><comment><USER41> I see a broadly titled patent like this one as a mechanism scaring small companies into settling. I wonder if it is worth building systems anymore.

<comment><USER8> The title of a patent has absolutely nothing at all to do with it's scope. Any company who was sued would surely consult a lawyer and they would tell them the scope of the patent is defined in the claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The title's of patents are often misleading. Also, prior art allows this patent to be easily (and cheaply) fought in a lawsuit

<comment><USER43> What does "cheaply" mean? One could still buy ramen?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if there is a patent on robbing a bank?

</comment><comment><USER45> ...providing to said reader a preview of said distinctive format comment...

Said US Patent system is, said, such a, said, bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER46> That's it! I'm going to finally file that patent on how gas passes through a butthole!

</comment><comment><USER47> What about a patent to use patent litigation to make money? The you can sue the trolls ;)

</comment><comment><USER48> discussion can be started here: [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/US8296192](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/US8296192)

</comment><comment><USER49> Is this funny or sad? I'm more confused after actually reading it.

</comment><comment><USER50> So this is a patent for self payed advertisement for your own comments?

<comment><USER51> Or the comments of others. So I could pay to tag your comment with a clever gif or something.

<comment><USER52> aka reddit gold.

<comment><USER53> Or Facebook promoted posts

<comment><USER54> Neither of which has a dynamically generated price, and thus neither of which would be subject to this patent.

<comment><USER8> Claim 1, the broadest claim, doesn't require that.

<comment><USER55> It does. 1.b.i.

<comment><USER8> So it does, my mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Cmon guys, this is not a patent on making money on the internet, it's just ONE method of doing it, and to be honest it's a good idea. Don't think it's a good idea, but I bet the 138 upvotes here aren't from readers who understood that.

</comment><comment><USER57> Question: why doesn't prior art entirely rule these out?

<comment><USER8> Do you have some prior art? People on HN love to use terms like prior art without knowing what they mean. You actually have to show that a) it's been done before, or at least something similar enough existed that the difference is not inventive and b) the document(s) was available publicly before the priority date of the application.

<comment><USER57> I don't personally, but I reckon a day with way-back machine may be enough to establish prior art. That's the problem with overly general patents, unfortunately.

Also good to know I've finally become one of the "people on HN" though for having a bit of common sense! It's good folks here, and I'm glad to be part of the community.

<comment><USER8> Give it a go, see what you can find.

There are some problems with the wayback machine when it comes to patents. One of which is that if their robots are blocked using robots.txt, they will remove all previous content that would also have been blocked (or at least, the content can be removed by the author though some means). This is pretty shitty when the best citation is something from the inventor themselves, and they go and delete all history of the content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> So this is a patent for sponsored comments?

</comment><comment><USER59> Seems like its easy to find shitty patents. How about we link to ones we think are well-deserved? Are there any well-deserved patents relating to the web?

</comment><comment><USER60> Is there a patent of patent system yet?</comment>


Show HN: A particle-animation Christmas greeting card - <AUTHOR> https://2018.9elements.com/ <comment><USER2> How does the canvas circles become letters and shapes? Is their source code for this? I've been wanting to know how this is done for some time. Does it use the `fillText` method?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

        t.fillText(a[d], i, s + d * h - a.length * h / 2 + h / 2)

Chrome kindly formats [https://2018.9elements.com/packs/particle_effect-d4e93bdb776...](https://2018.9elements.com/packs/particle_effect-d4e93bdb7760cc54dfac.js) in Developer Mode/Network/Preview, for easier reading.

How I'd do it is create a mask (a hidden black-on-white image of the text), then sample a lot of random or uniform points on that mask (e.g. by walking the image and keeping x% of the black points at random), then display circles at those points (or, as they did, display a circle at (x + a * sin(time), y + a) where (x, y) is the point and a is a parameter that starts high, quickly drops down to zero, and when your mouse moves near a circle, grows back up - and color the circle blue when a is high and yellow when a is low (also, make opacity higher when a is low)

<comment><USER2> Oh I totally forgot you could just use get the direct link to the .js file, was always just previewing in console. But reading the minified file is always difficult to read due to shortened variable names, was hoping for a un- minified source version.

There's a method called `measureText` as well too

The mask though, you can check for differences in color in canvas? That's new to me, I had to look it up and you can [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6735470/get-pixel- color-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6735470/get-pixel-color-from- canvas-on-mouseover).

How would you measure the mask if you have a background image as well though (the starry tree background)?

Everything else I can figure out with the display circles, its just the mask that gets me

<comment><USER4> You could just render to a blank hidden canvas to grab the mask. Canvases dont need to actually be displayed to be used for computational stuff.

<comment><USER2> ahhh right just get `fillStyle` or `strokeStyle` or `fill` or `stroke` to nothing.

What about making the mask though? Is it kind of like in photoshop where you write some text → create outline / curves off of it? Or do you keep it as text?

<comment><USER4> Depends what you want to do. If you want the mask as a bunch of pixel locations you can loop through the image and make a JS Set of x,y coords which arent blank. I am not sure what representations the above app used for their masks. It's all isomorphic. Important step is just to generate the masks using either fillText or strokeText.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice, but I would like to create a card and get the URL to share through WhatsApp, not through email

</comment><comment><USER6> Really cool, until I hit "create" and got a "something went wrong" Heroku error.

Great job, though!

</comment><comment><USER7> Don;t much like this:

> If you create a greeting card we'll send an email to the recipient > containing a link to a page with your greeting. In order to to do so we'll > store all of the above information in our database.

For how long? For what other purposes may it be used?

<comment><USER8> I mean, how else do you expect them to do it? If anything, at least they're (oddly) up front about it.

<comment><USER7> I expect them to answer the questions I just posed.</comment></comment></comment>


Wolfram Alpha API (Google Cache) - <AUTHOR> http://22.214.171.124/search?q=cache:1yOPEKSvoeUJ:www.wolframalpha.com/WolframAlphaAPI.pdf+site:http://www.wolframalpha.com/&cd=20&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

<comment><USER2> This is awesome. I haven't been terribly optimistic about Wolfram Alpha (I feel like it's a huge nerdgasm that regular people just won't get) -- but an API makes it _really_ interesting to me. My mind is swimming with ideas of apps people could build given something like Wolfram's engine. I don't know why I assumed there wouldn't be an API, but I'm sure glad I was wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's feeling more and more like a natural language interface for Mathematica. Which, I think, means that an API is a way to get around the layer of Alpha they've wrapped around Mathematica.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.wolframalpha.com/WolframAlphaAPI.pdf>

works and more up to date (updated on May 14, 2009)

Looks pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER4> It'll be most interesting if you can supply your own knowledge representations. Imagine being able to tie up your own information against the huge repository of data that (appears!) to be present in Wolfram Alpha.

</comment><comment><USER5> How did google crawl this? Was the pdf link _just_ taken down?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you search for site:wolframalpha.com , you'll see that Google even crawled some search results. I guess when it was briefly opened earlier in the week, Google had a look.

Also, I got one of the TC invites to try W|A a couple hours before the main launch. It is much less useful than you'd expect. No data on: crime rates, test scores, alcohol content (though it _does_ tell you the LD50 of alcohol), etc.

Fun stuff: side-by-side comparisons. Compare Apple and IBM, or Harvard and University of Phoenix.

Also, for some of the stocks it shows a "simulated log-normal random walks based on historical parameters" -- a couple charts of ways the stock could theoretically perform in the future. Not too useful, but fun.

<comment><USER6> Hmm how did you find out how to log in!?

I got one as well but could not figure out how to log in.

edit got it: preview.wolframalpha.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, they had to send a follow-up email. It looks like the beta was kind of last-minute; my email from the Wolfram folks misspelled "Wolfram" _and_ "Password" -- and mixed up my password and my username.

But they caught the relevant mistakes pretty fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious to see the sort of services that people build with this. This could be a opportunity to get in at the beginning of something huge. Anyone have any cool ideas?

<comment><USER8> I dream of an automated fact-checker. Of course, to do it right you need Turing Test-passing AI. But if you start small, with the capability to parse a few statements of a few forms, that would still be useful.

I saw an argument on HN recently where people made these statements:

1\. The UK is a much more violent society than the US, statistically.

2\. There are dozens of U.S. cities with higher per capita murder rates than London or any other city in the UK.

3\. Murder rates are higher in the US, but murder is a small fraction of violent crime. All other violent crime is much more common in the UK than in the US.

No-one provided sources; people asked for them later. Suppose HN ran an automated fact-checker over every sentence ever posted, searching for statements of the form: "[country] is (much|a lot)? more [quality] than [country]" - or a more sophisticated regex that captures more applicable cases.

And then, for the sentences that it understands, it checks the claim. Maybe it highlights incorrect statements in red, or just adds footnotes. This might make online debates more rigorous. Not only would a few statements be fact- checked, but the knowledge that a fact-checking program will look at your comment might incentivize people to be more careful with facts.

Newspapers and other media would find automated fact-checkers useful too.

Taking a longer view (like decades), with good speech-to-text technology, it could fact-check TV broadcasts in real-time. This should improve the debate quality not just of obscure internet forums, but also nationally-broadcast TV. Then, maybe, we'd see an improvement in the accuracy of all political debate, which should improve democracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I deeply want the ability to supply my own datasets, which can be graphed/explored with their tools.

<comment><USER10> Then just install Mathematica :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A delicacy for Augmented reality startups such as Mobilizy.

</comment><comment><USER12> 'Wolfram' is a terrible name for a search engine. Many languages around the world do not even use a letter akin to 'w', often using 'v' in place of both 'v' and 'w'. This is one reason for Yahoo's dominance in non-native English speaking countries.

'Wolfram' will be unpronounceable and unmemorable for a large percentage of world's population.

<comment><USER13> Wolfram is the existing brand they have already long established which already is well known in Universities through Mathematica product. Since this product will appeal to a similar set of users, it wouldn't be a good idea to start a fresh with a new brand.</comment></comment>


A Driver's Suicide Reveals the Dark Side of the Gig Economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/nyregion/livery-driver-taxi-uber.html <comment><USER2> You don't see a lot of elevator operators anymore. That used to be a job. It became "deprofessionalized" as now anyone with a finger can operate an elevator. Should we have erected a wall of legislation to protect their jobs?

> For taxi drivers staring down an even bleaker future of driverless cars

These are not "taxi drivers". They are human beings. They are not single- purpose machines who are incapable of doing anything else. Humans are capable of learning a variety of different skills, even if they have already learned one. Articles like this treat them like specially made parts that are only suited for one thing.

<comment><USER3> Humans are capable of learning new things, but in general they don't like to. And they HATE when learning new things is not optional and is a requirement for continued employment.

Just because we can adapt doesn't mean this transition won't be extremely difficult for society and have major consequences. Just look at the riots in Greece when people were told the age of retirement eligibility for state pensions was going from 61 to 63.

<comment><USER4> _" Humans are capable of learning new things, but in general they don't like to. And they HATE when learning new things is not optional and is a requirement for continued employment."_

The attitude towards learning really depends on what one is learning, what the experience of learning is like, and why one is learning it.

People tend to view learning very positively when they are learning something they are intensely interested in, that they feel is very important, and when the process of learning feels effortless and fun.

When learning is painful and frustrating, when it's learning of something one is not at all interested in, that one feels indifferent or even hostile towards, that one thinks is unimportant, and when one feels forced to learn because of economic or other considerations where the power dynamic is highly skewed against the learner, and where the learner has little control over what and how they learn, yes, people tend not to like that.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly what I was trying to say, but you said better. People LOVE learning skills in certain environments like a video game. But I think the serious consequences of NOT learning when you lose your job tends to make learning more difficult.

So even though you want what you are learning to be important. If it is TOO IMPORTANT the scale tips in the opposite direction.

<comment><USER5> I feel like there is much psychological research that concludes the opposite of this. People love learning new things, if there's a clear reward, for instance being jobless and finding a new job because of a new skill. By contrast, people in a cushy job "settle in", and learn nothing, or even unlearn things over time.

In addition to the research, one seems to find many stories of exactly this happening.

Quite the opposite is true: people don't like learning UNLESS there is a clear reward. That's even true for the video game case, where it's simply that the reward is social rather than economical.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. I was unemployed for a few months and I could not get myself to do the things I needed to in order to get the jobs I was interested in. There was so much anxiety associated with this that it triggered avoidance anxiety. What saved me is that studying the things I am naturally drawn to that have a lot of tangential offerings. My advice: find the biggest tree of knowledge that you're interested in and hope that the branches that you can reach will take care of you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most of the comments in here are along the lines of "are we expected to protect the outdated taxi driver? Let them drive for Uber or get a new job!"

In a vacuum, that logic holds. But remember that the government has made taxi driving very regulated for a long time. To become a driver you had to buy their medallion and follow all of their regulations. These regulations imposed a high fixed cost and many recurring costs on taxi drivers. Yes of course these regulations were also beneficial to taxi drivers by restricting their competition, but the point is that this deal was struck between the industry and the government and a lot of individuals staked their livelihood on the details here.

Now the same city governments are basically saying "thanks for all that investment, we are deleting it" when they let Uber and Lyft come in. The city officials also did this with an uncharacteristic speed, basically capitulating immediately in a world where it takes years and years to get anything done. Taxi drivers were rightly surprised and individually harmed, they played by the rules as they were written and were told to fuck off by a bunch of VC- funded engineers with big lawyers and bigger budgets.

This is not a good precedent.

<comment><USER8> > This is not a good precedent.

If you're only analyzing this from the side of the drivers, I would agree. As someone who has used public transpiration my whole life, the service that taxis provide has been average to blatantly discriminatory.

I have stories from Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, and L.A. where I've not been able to get a ride because of how I look. In some cases I've been denied rides at cab stands and been forced to walk to a friends house (over a mile). I've had to ask caucasian women to hail a cab and then do a quick swap to get a ride. I've been asked "where I'm going" and then been told "no sorry I'm not going there." I've been given a joy ride around a city, using my iPhone to realize that the driver is doing loops and taking me out of the way to run up the fare.

Not all taxi drivers were like this, but I have real experiences that make it difficult for me to empathize with a community that really didn't care about my dollar in the first place. I can't speak for riders that never had problems getting a cab, but the traditional U.S. taxi market was barely accessible to me; Uber and Lyft were _never_ like that.

<comment><USER9> What about you caused them to do that? Just skin color? Sorry if it's rude to ask, I'm white and definitely sheltered so I'm just curious.

<comment><USER8> Honestly, I don't know — but I'm sure there is some history or context to their actions. I'm actually mixed — Dad is caucasian/Austrian and mom is African/Sierra Leonian. I grew up in a mixed race household and lived in 5 countries on 4 continents before I was 16. I don't really try to guess people's motivation for their actions, I would rather someone be overt and tell me what's going on. What I can say is that the taxi industry did absolutely nothing to attempt to improve its product for customers like myself.

I'll also say that I work at Uber now. Part of my motivation for working here is motivated by my personal experiences and a desire to improve transportation for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish people would stop blaming companies for doing exactly what they are designed/incentivized to do. That is the capitalist system. We should be blaming the system that allows for the circumstances that many people being displaced by technology are experiencing. Individuals should not have their financial viability completely compromised by shifts in technology or society. Sure, I feel for the existential problems that shifts cause (e.g. seeing your life's work commoditized), but the material, economic harm that comes from it is entirely systemic. Is not Uber's fault that taxi drivers are becoming homeless. It is the government's fault for not providing an adequate social safety net.

<comment><USER11> It sounds like a cliche, but capitalism = freedom. People can choose whether or how they want to get around -- whether it's calling an uber, hailing a taxi, or walking -- and whether the cost of doing so is worth it to them. Similarly, people can decide whether the money they'd make ($69k annually according to this article) driving a taxi is worth it to them, and if not, do something else. There are alternatives.

Capitalism is just the aggregation of all these micro-transactions. Most of the time, intervening in this system means preventing win-win transactions between consenting adults.

<comment><USER12> You cannot choose options in a monopoly or when a major player uses dumping prices and worker churn to force out competition.

The natural end state of capitalism is an efficient and aggressive monopoly or cartel. (Including a cartel with the government.)

How is lack of proper options freedom?

<comment><USER11> Simultaneously complaining about monopoly, which allows firms to keep prices artificially high, and "price dumping" makes little sense.

I have issues with both. It's obviously not a monopoly. Apart from Uber AND Lyft, you have regular taxi's, public transit, personal cars, bicycles and the ability to walk.

As for price dumping, again -- if rich VC's want to compete with each other to subsidize my rides and my drivers wages -- I'm not going to complain about it. Uber and Lyft are the epitome of options vs what was going on in the NYC taxi scene before them.

<comment><USER12> Not at all. Price dumping (also loss leading) is a tactic to build a monopoly or a dominant position on the market. Once competition is driven out, raise prices and barriers to entry to cement the advantages.

Those rich VCs get their money from somewhere. Usually us poor suckers who do not get paid the proper wage. Even a free taxi does not offset it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _" He blamed politicians — mayors Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — and their acquiescence to the rich for permitting so many cars to flood the streets."_

Sounds like this guy didn't really believe in a free market and wanted the politicians to make sure supply was tightly controlled so that he could profit from reduced competition. I'm sorry but I can provide no sympathy for someone with this mentality because I'm quite sure he saw no issue with restricted competition and a very, very significant barrier to entry when he was able to profit from it (those medallions cost more than most people's houses in NYC).

<comment><USER14> To be fair, there is no such thing as the free market. Markets only exist thanks to States. They have never existed independently of a state (I recommend the book _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_ ).

Now back to the free market, Uber is operating at a loss. They're undercutting Taxis and taking huge hits to keep their business running. That kind of pricing is illegal, and we've seen companies like airlines get into huge trouble for operating at a loss to try to kill smaller airlines. It's literally anti-competitive.

If the playing field were fair, it'd be different. But it's not. Uber constantly ignores laws on an international scale, under the name of "disruption." They might be laws you don't like, but they do exist for a reason, and somewhere you have to draw a line.

<comment><USER13> Agree 100% on Uber's anti-competitive practices and pricing structure. Amazon does the same thing - it's retail business which is what Amazon is famous for produces a substantial loss every quarter (and it's increasing). They have been subsidizing their losses with the profits from the high margin cloud business. This is supposedly a very serious felony when you have pricing/market power (and obviously Amazon does have that), yet Jeff Bezos and his executive team remain handcuff-free.

I haven't read that book, but your statement about markets only existing with the state strikes me as very odd. Conceptually, no government is required for a simple barter system - you and I can simply agree to trade X for Y. Perhaps that is key point - if you want to use "money", then the state is required. Although even then you can theoretically just use gold/silver coins.

<comment><USER14> > no government is required for a simple barter system

Ah but we never started with barter. That's the myth the book goes into. The very earliest systems of money were all credit based. Money came about through war (you conquer an area, leave a garrison, force people who have never used coins to pay taxes, coins they only get from soldiers) and barter only appeared when a state failed.

Barter only exists in the void left by states. There is no evidence trading oxen for grain every existed. It's too small scale. Early pre-historical civilizations were more likely to be communistic where everyone helped everyone else (native american tibes were like this .. more like ant colonies).

Even when a barter market emerged, it semi-state like thing had to rise with it. It's a really good book; highly recommended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Taxi and Limo drivers were setting themselves up for such disruption for quite some time. Forget the cost of the ride, if only they (as in, all drivers) had provided respectful and quality service without denying rides or throwing a tantrum for those who chose to pay by card, Uber and Lyft wouldn't have benefited from such anti-incumbency sentiment.

During the pre Uber/Lyft days, a driver himself told me how he worked: Basically, give enough rides till he get's his next meal's money or a bit more. Thats the kind of job security they had. Of course, they were benefiting from the regulatory bubble before Uber and Lyft deflated it instead of popping it.

I feel bad for those who joined the taxi industry just before Uber/Lyft juggernaut started, and were probably singed the worst.But I guess such things happen for those who join industries that are about to be disrupted..

The incumbent Taxi and Limo drivers didn't realize that with Uber and Lyft, they (cab drivers) had lesser political clout, to get favorable terms in regulations.

</comment><comment><USER16> Technological disruption can often be a good thing - more/better product/services can be had for less money - I don't think the HN crowd needs to be convinced of this.

However, it also means that in the short term, the people doing the work that has been disrupted are going to be impacted. And while a few Stanford grads can push an app at the click of a button, it takes humans much longer to adapt to the changes engendered, particularly if they've been doing the same job in the same city for 30 years, supporting a family with that income, and all of a sudden that job only generates a fraction of the money it once did.

Ideally, the society in which this occurs would have a number of safety nets (public healthcare, housing/food assistance, cheap/free education, reliable and affordable public transportation, etc) to ensure that those people do not suffer too much because of the transition.

Put simply, the US does not have many of these safety nets. Labor protection laws are a joke - the US still has no laws mandating paid maternity leave, for one example amongst many. Healthcare is a disaster, meaning that if you are unemployed and get seriously sick, it could literally spell the end of your life. Education is very expensive, making a professional reconversion hard to fathom for most. And housing prices in large cities are spiraling out of control, meaning that if you can't make rent, homelessness is often the next step.

Uber, and so many companies like it, are improvements in some ways - who knows how long it would have taken for taxi companies to let people summon a car from a tap of a button on their phone. But in doing so, they're also destroying the livelihoods of many. If the taxes that Uber paid were put to good use by the US government to offer support in all the ways we've seen above to those affected, it wouldn't be as much of a problem. But here we are.

<comment><USER17> I can agree with most of this - the taxes of the disruptors destroying an industry should absolutely be used to help those displaced. At the same time, people affected need to be realistic. There is no protection for them, so complaining about the changes while doing nothing to help yourself is just a losing game.

<comment><USER18> Complaining draws attention which can lead to interest and eventually actionable conditions for a greater group of individuals than just the affected.

Also, when one is scrambling to make ends meet, it's not always so easy to be more proactive. Surviving in such situations consumes a lot of mental, emotional, and temporal resources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What would all these drivers do once self driving taxis become the norm?

They would instantly go from severely underpaid to completely unemployed. Considering that a market disrupter like Uber has affected them to this extent, do people honestly believe 100,000 new jobs would be available once automation takes their jobs?

<comment><USER20> Airplanes do in fact have the capability to complete a flight from point A to point B without a pilot. Yet, we still embed pilots in the cockpit. Cars might be simpler, but there's way too many gotchas while driving a computer cannot be programmed to handle that a human driver can intuit or defend against.

A completely driver-less future might happen, but it won't be with the current infrastructure. IMHO, you'd need to isolate self-driving lanes from human driver lanes completely before it can become a reality, and slowly phase out driver-only cars with self-driving cars/lanes. Even at that rate, I'm still not certain it would work better than what we have now...

<comment><USER18> >...but it won't be with the current infrastructure... slowly phase out driver-only cars with self-driving cars/lanes.

Upvoted!

I've posted it before and I'll post it again: what advantages does driverless car-based transportation infrastructure offer over a rail system of the same scale? I am genuinely interested to hear counter arguments since, to my mind, well planned/maintained rail systems can better leverage centrally generated power, have better driver (conductor) : passenger ratios, are easier to maintain in aggregate (ie. tracks vs. roads, total number of train cars < total number of motor vehicles, etc.), and so forth.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER21> The last mile problem [0]. A rail system could work for a very densely populated area, but there is way too much sprawl. It's part of the reason why cars are basically seen as a necessity in the US.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_(transportation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_\(transportation\))

<comment><USER12> Come on. Make those trolleybusses (which share most advantages of rail if they get dedicated driving space) and infrastructure problem almost disappears if they have proper batteries to drive like buses through less dense areas.

The problem is not last mile. It idea that last 30 miles are not viable to run extended routes through as it gets too slow to follow the winding paths as plain buses.

The solution is actually pedestrian traffic and biking optimization for last few miles access, not tossing more cars at the problem. Not building areas in cities with crummy access to public transport. Making it less necessary to carry heavy loads personally relying on improved delivery systems instead. (Which should also create some jobs.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Universal Basic Income would have saved him, and help all the other people in an unstoppable disruption.

<comment><USER20> Only temporarily. Without true job creation to sustain things like UBI, welfare, unemployment insurance, etc - you're just living on borrowed dollars and hoping for a better future. Of course, we could always print some dollars and quantitatively ease them into the economy ;)

<comment><USER22> Idk, no stats or data to back this up but...

I really believe that UBI would be sustainable by tapping into the concentrated wealth that arises as an unfortunate and unfair side effect of the economic rules we put in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sucks for who ever invested in the medallions at the wrong time. Other than that I find it hard to feel sorry for the taxi industry.

Cabs refusing to pick people up based on race, refusing to go to certain areas, flat out cheating people by manipulating routes, some times not showing up if called. I've seen it all. Uber seems to eliminate all of those issues as far as I can tell.

</comment><comment><USER24> What's stopping them from switching to driving for Uber and Lyft? Whether or not those are devasting to Taxis the fact still remains those systems are superior to traditional Taxis.

<comment><USER25> Taxi medallions are hellishly expensive. Most of the time, you have a loan to purchase your medallion, that you then spend a long, long time paying off. It's essentially a form of indentured servitude. You can switch to Uber/Lyft. But you still have to pay off that loan for your medallion. And if Uber/Lyft aren't paying the same rate as driving a cab used to, you can find yourself without the money to pay your medallion loan and still make ends meet.

That said, I disagree with the headline blaming this on the gig economy. There's lots to blame the gig economy for, but this is pretty squarely showing the flaws in the old medallion system -- that you need a crippling amount of financial debt in your name to participate in the system.

<comment><USER26> I thought taxi companies owned the medallions -- hoarding them like gold coins -- and charged the driver what amounted to a "rental fee" for using them. IIRC it's unusual for a single driver to own their own medallion.

I could be misremembering though.

<comment><USER27> Basically. From Wikipedia[0]:

 _> Over the years, many medallions once owned by individual drivers were sold to large taxi fleets. As of 2012, about 18% of all taxis were owner operated, while the rest were leased; this is a decline from the 29% ownership rate in 2006._

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#Logi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#Logistics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am surprised that most comments here have zero empathy for a worker in that age group that had been (for lack of a better way to put it) 'put out to pasture'.

Under the same type of thinking (and I wouldn't say that I am a union sympathizer in any way) there would be little use for unions since there will always be a large group of people that are willing and able to take the job at a vastly lower pay rate (for many union jobs).

There has to be a balance but the balance isn't simply removing all restrictions and letting people loose their living.

And no when you are in your 60's you are not going to simply learn and pursue a new career either everything becomes harder and your obligations are such that many times it's simply not practical.

<comment><USER29> There is: in significant chunks of the world we call that "social security".

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't like it that uber is coming to my country also and taxis are being deregulated. Until now you could make a decent living driving a cab, and all the cab drivers were skilled and professional and trustworthy. If you forgot your wallet in the cab you could be sure to pick it up at the lost and found. It just isn't possible to operate a quality servicde with uber's model and prices. You will have unskilled labour for less than minimum wages, ie. they won't be able to afford to buy a home for themselves driving for uber.

This is key from the article: "Implicit in his testament was the anger he felt over the de-professionalization of his life's work"

Somebody here compared this to elevator operators. Come on, what a silly comparison. Driving optimally in a city and finding your way and not crashing is actually a job that takes skill and practice.

</comment><comment><USER31> Taxi drivers can cry me a river.

Maybe if they didn't provide shitty service and lobby for self-serving, anti- consumer laws to limit how many taxis can be on the road, I'd have some sympathy, but no.

They shit their own bed, now they get to sleep in it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Adding the link to Doug Schifter's Facebook post before committing suicide in protest

[https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1888367364808997...](https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1888367364808997&id=100009072541151)

</comment><comment><USER33> One question no one explains is since the value of a medallion is obviously lower now why doesn't the commission have some kind our revaluation and give back money to the people who purchased it at a higher price.

<comment><USER14> Because our baking system is hopelessly corrupt and doesn't favor the struggling US citizen. Look at the 2008 financial collapse.

Banks were bailed out, the US government buying debt $1 for $1 (instead of for cents on the dollar like they should have). They could have, instead of bailing out the banks, forced those banks to sell debt (their mortgages) back to consumers at fractions of a dollar. Most people struggled and fought to get basic loan adjustments. The smart ones walked away from their houses.

The reality is, yes the State needs to step in and adjust the medallion prices and cut the independent owners a break. But only a fraction are owned by individuals. Most are owned by the big companies, which many would argue shouldn't get a break.

Plus it's not like the city of NY has a lot of money to even suggest this. They can't even keep transit funded enough to maintain MTA and keep Penn Station from falling apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a sad story and an unfortunate part of capitalism. But the alternative is worse. You don't (or shouldn't) have a right to make people purchase your product or service at whatever price you want.

</comment><comment><USER34> One of my close friends killed himself. I don't wish suicide on anyone.

I'm sure Doug Schifter's fallacies are obvious to us. He was committing the CBT cognitive distortions of "Personalization" and "magnification". He failed to recognize that his taxi job was an ill-gotten gain, gotten through lobbying, government control, and harming consumers.

Our species is built around the principle of adaptation. When the world changes, you must change with it. Or you die.

<comment><USER35> Eh, Uber is driving taxi companies out of business with billions of dollars in VC money. Offering a dramatic discount in a unsustainable way to ruin your competition is anti-competitive and pretty unethical.

In NYC 88,000 is a livable wage. NYC metro is a very expensive place to live. Calling a livable wage for a weeks work "ill gotten gains" is a bit far fetched. Unions and state controlled monopolies exist for a reason, not the least of which is protecting the broader workforce who don't have leverage against their wealthy employers otherwise.

<comment><USER36> I find it hard to blame Uber for doing something that companies have done for hundreds of years in the US. So what if it's 2018 and a venture capital backed tech company is at the center of it this time? Unions don't prevent new competition, otherwise they'd be rather unethical themselves..one (with a capitalist mindset) might argue.

This is capitalism and if it's too emotionally painful to watch disruption unfold then as a society we need to find a different mode of operation. Why get distracted by the players when the game is the problem?

I've been largely okay with capitalism I guess because I've benefitted from it. But human lives have decreased in value. In a society where making $500, literally, is more valuable than a human life, we'll choose the money every time. That's the game.

Of course I have no idea what to do, in the face of this almost existential crisis, but getting mad a Uber for disrupting an industry is wasted effort.</comment></comment></comment>