Nobel Economist: Now Is No Time to Give Up on Markets - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123759849467801485.html <comment><USER2> I think you couldn't give up on markets even if you wanted to. You can pretend there are no markets, ala communism, but you can not eliminate markets unless you invent a limitless supply of energy.

<comment><USER3> > you can not eliminate markets unless you invent a limitless supply of > energy.

Even inventing a limitless supply of free energy would not eliminate markets because limitless free energy would not eliminate all scarcity.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't it? Given limitless energy, you can literally create matter out of thin air (E=mc^2) ...

You could create new planets, replicas of anything, etc. Hell, you could even distort time to fit your needs.

Granted, it would take more energy than exists in the universe - and a little technology that we haven't tried outside the lab yet. But we already have the fundamental tech to make that happen - it would just take a bit more scaling up and fine tuning.

Hey, he did say _limitless_

<comment><USER5> Non-material things like status or reputation can be still scarce even with limitless energy:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity#Unavoidable_scarc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity#Unavoidable_scarcity)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's nice. It was Merton and Scholes --- _two_ Nobel economists --- who convinced LTCM and its customers that it was safe to place 15-30:1 leveraged bets on market volatility; that time, we only lost single-digit billions.

</comment><comment><USER7> the economics "nobel" is not a real Nobel. it's a bogus prize. just saying. see here -> [http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/nobel_by_association_be...](http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/nobel_by_association_beautiful_mind_non_existent_prize)

<comment><USER8> The correct name is Nobel Memorial Prize.

It is not a "bogus" prize - I can assure you that you have to be pretty smart to earn one.

<comment><USER7> you don't have to be "smart", you have to fit in. economics is a self- referential discipline. there is no real standard of truth or verity or validity of a theory and hence a lot of bickering even about fundamental questions. and so, there are "schools" of thought. whichever is the current flavor of the month (or rather decade) will carry one of its own to the "highest prize". in terms of hard to get, i'd argue the so-called clark medal is harder. anyway, economists try to act all "science-y" and serious but the fact is, those who arguably understand economics very well (say a soros) and those who win fake nobels are not the same people...

<comment><USER8> > you don't have to be "smart", you have to fit in. economics is a self- > referential discipline. there is no real standard of truth or verity or > validity of a theory and hence a lot of bickering even about fundamental > questions.

The closer a theory fit to practice (e.g. economic modelling) the better it is.

> those who arguably understand economics very well (say a soros)

There is a difference between understanding macro economics and a person doing dubious and unethical things to get money (e.g. Soros). Soros was involved in many dubious financial transactions and was found guilty of insider trading in France. What he did in Hong Kong may not be entirely illegal but it certainly is completely unethical.

Also - their is a difference between macro-economics and things such as stock trading or currency speculation.

On the other hand - most people have a problem with a lot of economists because of what their results are (i.e. not progressive).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How could Nobel set a prize for every field that depends on mathematics but not mathematics itself?

</comment><comment><USER10> Meh. The Nobel prize for economics is bogus when they rewarded people from different school of economics with opposite view on how the economy work in many respect.

Hayek got rewarded for his work on ABCT theory and the recent nobel prize winner Paul Kugman basically disagree with ABCT.

<comment><USER11> Some of what Einstein said goes completely against what Newton said. They were both geniuses.

<comment><USER12> If Newton were to meet Einstein, he'd accept Einstein's adjustments after a few hours (days?). If Hayek were to meet Krugman, they'd be ruthlessly arguing months later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Agreed, now let's go back to hacker news, not economics/politics.

<comment><USER14> Agreed, head over to <http://newmogul.com> if you're interested in this stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you guys read the article? I thought there were quite a few things hacker- ish about the subject and his views.

<comment><USER15> Did you read the title? It sounded like politics!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think there was an intriguing question towards the end: How DO you shrink special interest groups?</comment>


What was John Nash like as a professor? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-was-John-Nash-like-as-a-professor

<comment><USER2> This is gold:

 _Appropriate to today, Gerard, The space futurist, asked John and Freeman about what computers will mean to us in the next 50 years. Freeman said "everyone would have one or more to do many tasks so that humans could spend time doing more important things"._

 _John paused for about a minute and said "Freeman that is ridiculous, computers will be used to calculate better chances to date the pretty girl next door that does not notice you"._

<comment><USER3> The best comment, in my opinion, is the one that had this nugget. Sadly, it isn't the top rated comment. Here's the link:

[http://www.quora.com/What-was-John-Nash-like-as-a- professor/...](http://www.quora.com/What-was-John-Nash-like-as-a- professor/answer/Brian-Roemmele)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I resented a lot of my lecturers at uni for nakedly scorning their roles as teachers in favor of their research. What is the point of me paying the (rapidly increasing) university fees if the people I am paying to teach me cannot bring themselves to deign to teach? It was, and is, insulting.

</comment><comment><USER5> So, given the number of times a post from Quora has made the front page now-- have any doubters changed their mind about Quora's value?

<comment><USER6> What I've learned about Quora from this link is that the highest voted answer (currently) is historical hearsay, when an answer with half the points is based on actual, first-hand experience.

<comment><USER7> This happens on every moderated forum all the time, including HN. I've learned to get over the idea that the most correct answer will be moderated highest. One reason is that the righter answer might have been posted later. Another is that a less right answer might have been written in a more entertaining or attention-grabbing way.

If you want a HN example, take my post on "Google's Android faces a serious Linux copyright issue."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2337340>

It was moderated 8, and contains the precise answer to the issue/controversy (it quotes the exception from Linux's COPYING file that both LWN and Linus himself cited later to refute the alleged "copyright issue")

The highest-voted comment on the article (38) does _not_ mention this exception, and is full of inaccuracies like "Unless these programs are actually copying parts of the kernel into their source, they are not derived works."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2337054></comment></comment></comment>


Nassim Taleb: clown of quantitative finance - <AUTHOR> http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/nassim-taleb-clown-of-quantitative-finance/

<comment><USER2> You sound a bit like a quant who lost his job, Scott. And even if Taleb is right only in 50% of what he says that's better than most quant traders were/are most of the time...Oh and BTW on your Greek citatation: the Danaos ain't the Greek but the Danaos! Cheers</comment>


Dropbox Experiencing Slowness & Inaccessible Files - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/dropbox-users-experiencing-slowness-inaccessible-files/

<comment><AUTHOR> The ball is being dropped by DropBox on communication. The twitter feed @DropboxOps has one tweet:

<https://twitter.com/DropboxOps/status/237954805333622784>

No further explanation, estimates, or details. The status page: <http://status.dropbox.com> is simply down.

This is the first big issue I can recall DropBox ever having. I am sure they will learn, and implement better communication in the future.</comment>


How Secure Is GPG? - <AUTHOR> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=819719

<comment><USER2> It is pretty secure. Get it?

If one uses GPG on linux with blowfish or twofish and a pass phrase not made of words in the dictionary one has a high level of privacy. Enough to stop the NSA? I speculate not.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Enough to stop the NSA? I speculate not._

Aye, and that's the question isn't it. Does the NSA _actually_ have the ability to defeat what is considered modern, secure, strong encryption, or do they have backdoors in popular security program? We don't know, which is a little bit disturbing.

<comment><USER2> I am suspicious of their input on the target hardware for AES. I like to think there are combinations of options to GPG that would require special attention to be defeated. I always wondered what the Soviet version of DES was.

Perfect privacy is a one time pad. But distributing key material is tricky. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_time_pad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_time_pad)</comment></comment></comment>


Campaign Zero: End police violence in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.joincampaignzero.org/ <comment><USER2> This treats police violence as the problem rather than a symptom of the deeper problem. If we still have police enforcing inequity, and enforcing it unevenly, at that, then the problem will just erupt in different symptoms. Friendly, nonviolent Fred Rogers-style police keeping the poor in their ghettos don't fix anything.</comment>


Made by Hand - <AUTHOR> http://thisismadebyhand.com/

<comment><USER2> Here's an interview with the knifemaker in their next episode: <http://www.chow.com/food-news/55121/obsessives-knifemaker/> Definitely looking forward to this series!

</comment><comment><USER3> The use of italic Adobe Caslon Pro (from Typekit) gives this site a clean look that fits with the video's visual style and the project's general theme.

I know that Wyld, based on Caslon, is available for "private purpose" with TTFs at <http://www.orbitals.com/programs/index.html> but can anyone recommend any open/libre versions of Caslon?</comment>


Top 5 Things You Should Never Do At Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2013/09/02/the-top-5-things-you-should-never-do-at-work/

<comment><USER2> That was as nuanced and insightful as a cosmo article.</comment>


Apple Watch: Asking Why and Saying No - <AUTHOR> http://stratechery.com/2014/apple-watch-asking-saying/

<comment><USER2> This post strikes me as somewhat charitable. The nearest thing to a killer feature on this watch is turn-by-turn+haptic feedback. Some features Tim demoed in the keynote were distinctly Newton-ian - what would SJ have to say about an app to let you send little scribbles to your friends' watches? That's Garry Trudeau territory. On the whole, this device seems like a "phone for your phone" to me. Imho, Apple should have waited a couple years for the technology to catch up. Eg: until they could miniaturize the innards to not require pairing with an iPhone; until the battery could last at least a week; until the low end price could be around $200. In its current state, I can't imagine there's very many people who "need to have it."</comment>


Trump administration may force AT&T to sell CNN, Ruper Murdoch interested to buy - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cnn-rupert-murdoch-sale-interest-latest-trump-reports-at-t-a8049061.html <comment><USER2> [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-09/merger- ba...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-09/merger-battles-and- disgorgement)</comment>


Facebook envy? Amazon.com patents social networking system - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/06/amazon_wants_to_be_facebook_e-tailer_patents_social_networking_system.html <comment><USER2> Isn't this patent thing getting ridiculous. More important: if you do something on year A and file a patent on year A+9 when lots of companies are already doing products like yours, do you still have the right to patent something?

Can you write down a lot of ideas and then patent only the ones people developed into products? That's a sure cost-saver.

<comment><USER3> No, you can't. If you do something on year A, and file a patent on year A+9 when lots of companies are doing products like yours, those products would count as "prior art" at the time of the filing. Even if such a patent were granted (and it happens, on occasion), it wouldn't likely survive a challenge in court.

<comment><USER2> So, this Amazon patent is completely worthless, right?

<comment><USER3> Well, that would take a lawyer (or somebody skilled in reading patents) to say, after reading it carefully-- which isn't something you can do quickly.

This patent was filed in 2008, but it is a continuation of a patent filed in 2004, which was split off from another patent filed in 2004, which was a continuation of a patent filed in 1999, which was a continuation of a patent filed in 1997.

In other words, it is possible that there are claims here that predate any of Facebook's prior art-- but that would depend upon the specific claims in the prior patents.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. I had a strong suspicion they wouldn't make it that easy...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Learn web development - from novice to employable - <AUTHOR> http://howtocode.io

<comment><USER2> I just subscribed, but I think that if your video was 2 minutes shorter you would get many more people to sign up!

</comment><comment><USER3> Please check, the email subscription is failing.

I tried to subscribe but it redirected me to a failure page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Strange. I see people subscribing fine (a little over 500 so far). Try once more and if it doesn't work, e-mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll add you manually.</comment></comment>


MCG: Visual Functional Programming - <AUTHOR> http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/chris/mcg-visual-functional-programming <comment><USER2> Looks like a rather solid system. Although, this approach when you have to connect blocks with arrows (which also can be seen in many enterprise ETLs) is not convenient, in my opinion. Text-based programming languages are convenient because you don't have to explicitly indicate which line should be executed after which. Function pipelining is so convenient exactly because it eliminates explicit passing results from one function to another. That's why in our EasyMorph ([http://easymorph.com](http://easymorph.com)), which is also a some kind of visual programming language[1] used to replace scripted data transformation, we pack data transformations in logical blocks (very much like function pipelining) so that almost no arrows needed. Another point is about project readability. When all blocks look the same it's hard to understand what the function does. So we paid a lot of attention to designing distinct and informative icons.

[1] [http://bi-review.blogspot.ca/2015/06/easymorph-as-visual- fun...](http://bi-review.blogspot.ca/2015/06/easymorph-as-visual- functional.html)

<comment><USER3> The boxes and lines approaches work very well when you're doing coordination programming tasks rather than algorithmic and numerical ones. Instead of forcing people to use rigidly specified academic / formal systems like UML sequence and activity diagrams, Visio has withstood the UX of most business users' needs that have little background in programming. A lot of what your system does seems to be a close analogue to what SRC Computers developed in its compilers to perform dataflow analysis with some auto-vectorization logic. However, a lot of the CPU-FPGA crossover works better with vector-centric languages like Matlab or Fortran than primarily scalar constructs like in C or Java.

One thing I can say with confidence is that general purpose visual programming languages are extremely difficult to produce due to UX / UI expectations, but for smaller companies significant progress can be made with domain specific visual languages which your product seems to be aiming at. Good job avoiding one of the tar pits of failed programming paradigms of the past century.

<comment><USER4> What UI/UX expectations make it difficult to make visual programming languages general purpose?

<comment><USER3> One thing I observed as an everyday user and developer on a visual language / ecosystem was that design patterns emerged that were really easy to do in most text programs that were really cumbersome to do in block diagrams but I could find almost nothing that was easier in a visual language than a textual one. For example, most modern class-based OOP systems have virtual inheritance possibilities where you can overload behaviors and we have compiler resolution that determines what can and can't perform the override. I have not found an easy way to show this visually across many block diagrams without introducing a lot of confusion (eg. dotted lines instead of solid ones, collapsing box groups together) because of issues like dynamic dispatch. This stuff is pretty easy to form the constructs as a competent programmer but once I was in a visual language I was flipping around pages and pages of pretty blocks that started to get in the way rather than guide me towards understanding the 500 blocks I dropped down and the rats nest of lines pointing everywhere with switch statements galore. In our system I tried to write dependency injection and other elements of aspect oriented programming in but the inability for easy to associate referential steps in our specific system really messed with usability and thus debugging capabilities. As a power user I was not that much more productive than a relative novice in our system, and that really bothered me on what kept my productivity in the system from growing.

Eventually it all came down to inability for automatic, sensible scoping of logical components to be performed in our software due to lack of awareness of what the user is actually looking for because of lack of typing (we didn't have data structures / types - numbers and strings were all the same raw data) - all the analysis that could be done effectively for users was done following program execution, not really static analysis of a dataflow / graph. Everything was a side effect in a block diagram system just like how it can be in OOP, but unlike in OOP I had a heck of a time pointing references to a fragment under test to, say, a mock step easily (we did add them in eventually but scoping the substitution was insane). We have automatic folding in text editors that does pretty well, too, but grouping a bunch of randomly laid out shapes on a canvas together and hiding them while selecting them with a mouse was really painful for the minimal value it'd provide.

What happens is that the structure of the dataflow becomes a concern orthogonal to the basic algorithmic steps like looping, string manipulation, logical operators, arithmetic operators. Because most of the limitations of software production happen due to people's lack of tooling or abilities to reason about their data and behaviors efficiently / effectively, this means that given the failures so far in visual programming systems we probably need to re-think usability first before trying to develop a programming system around it.

The reasons we were able to get much success in our product with a visual programming paradigm was 1\. we used users' existing expectations from products like Visio to help with onboarding / training 2\. we developed complex logic like web requests in normal code (Java) and packaged them up into block diagram components that are easy to configure, so it was a lot like Automator constructs 3\. everything was fairly easy to trace during program runs (required for auditors anyway)

This all came with a large amount of resource costs though which is why it never really would have worked as a consumer product unfortunately.

<comment><USER4> Fantastic! Really insightful feedback. How to do sensible scoping of logical components has been something I've been trying to rethink recently. Currently, you can read through text and imagine the logical components. But it'd be interesting to see more discussion put into modes of visual expressions, especially when combined with more textual information.

What would you classify as easy to associate referential steps? I've been using html5 components to combine hierarchical structure while being able to still use manual id/herd to provide the occasional "slice" outside the normal data stack. However, it still requires modifying a textual code stack.

Also the aspect oriented programming part sounds interesting. Did you ever try having "behavioral subnodes" which modify the parent node? I found it to be powerful, but only when used in a hierarchical data flow pattern. Though I haven't built the gui side of that approach yet.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm working on a set of programming tools based on many of these ideas, and trying a few angles to visualized those orthogonal concepts in a more interactive way. Oh, and the resource cost does seem to be a blocker for consumer products in this area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A bit off topic, but a big concern in my opinion: the amount of different programming languages that graphic software professional _users_ (not professional devs) must learn if they want to control their workflow with scripting. Usually professional graphic software users use several software packages not just one. As far as I can keep up:

autocad (lisp, .net, experiments on js)

revit (.net, experiments on ruby)

adobe suite (js)

archicad (GDL)

sketchup (ruby)

3Dmax (maxscript)

blender (python)

Is about time to create a _lingua franca_ \+ a specific DSL that could allow to interact with all of them.

 _edit: I know that this is not easy to implement, but as a professional user it would pay off to learn a lingua franca and be able to automate minor tasks by myself. Learning several languages doesn 't._

<comment><USER6> In 3D applications, these days, python is more or less everything you need for daily tasks. Even 3dsmax has relative python support now.

<comment><USER7> As does Maya an several other packages

> Some Programs that support Python: Maya, Modo, Houdini, XSI, Massive, > Blender, Photoshop (indirectly),3ds max (indirectly)

[http://www.chadvernon.com/blog/resources/python-scripting- fo...](http://www.chadvernon.com/blog/resources/python-scripting-for-maya- artists/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No mention of Maya, Houdini, Shake ?? meh. I was into cgi/compositing before hitting graduate programming, and was always surprised how a lot of lazy dataflow / DAGs brought to 'programming' but nobody really felt the same. There was an hidden vibe from the PLT research guys that DAGs were limiting compared to a usual functional programming language. I never knew why, and now I'm even more curious.

<comment><USER9> >> here was an hidden vibe from the PLT research guys that DAGs were limiting compared to a usual functional programming language. I never knew why, and now I'm even more curious.

I think the key insight is that in a functional programming language functions need to be able to be values that flow through the graph and that can be dynamically created. Supporting lazy evaluation and expressing data-flow is insufficient to make a language truly functional.

The challenge I would give a data-flow language to see if it is truly functional is this: can you create a general "compose function" or "partial apply" node in these packages that works based on run-time inputs.

<comment><USER8> I hear you, but since many FP languages are turned into DAGs before compilation, I always thought CGI software just didn't think about 'first class' graphs and thus no meta level operators. It would be very interesting to try though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where I'm from, MCG means something quite different. :)

<comment><USER11> Too right mate, I was thinking it was AFL footy, a cricketing app or something similar. :-)</comment></comment>


Our attempt to disrupt messaging - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Ekambos/disrupting-messaging-70bc5006aa7b#.akzj9b4ur <comment><USER2> From their privacy policy: "We cannot decrypt or otherwise access the content of a message. We also can not decrypt what physical person actually send or received a message."

Well, that's great to hear, but as always: These are just words on a page, how can I know it's true? Where's your code? Where's your security audit? Who's the team?

I really like the idea, and believe if done right it actually can do some so- called disruption, but I think in this market a real disruption will only come if you manage to decentralize (at least so I don't need to trust your servers to be up for me to get my messages) and open source it, but still cater to the masses.

You're running a freemium business model, a model which works well (some ways even better) also with open source code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well we guess, when it comes to small companies that are trying to make their way people are more demanding ? Do you ask WhatsApp and co source code ? We have absolut no interest in user data. Thats why you can use Dikalo without even signing up. The messages never reach our servers in clear and we dont even save users emails in clear. We will have security audits. For sure. We are just getting started. Just give us a try :)</comment></comment>


How I use email for marketing - <AUTHOR> http://nathanbarry.com/email-marketing

<comment><USER2> Agreed on the plain text emails. It's actually a pain to configure mailchimp for a plain text (basic html) email.</comment>


Beyond crisis: four ways public relations can reinvent itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2016/04/29/beyond-crisis-four-ways-public-relations-can-reinvent-itself/#ace31fd3e714 <comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify: I changed the title because I thought there was much more to this story than what the author or publication chose as a title. IMHO It's an interesting analysis of how lean & design thinking can be applied to efficient content & communication. I think it goes beyond a niche discussion between public relations professionals.

And from our experience with our startup, it's what a startup should look for when creating content or looking for efficient marketing solutions (whether in-house or outsourcing it).

<comment><AUTHOR> Title edited back to show Forbe's title. But I think that it should have been more about how lean and design thinking can be applied to content and marketing.</comment></comment>


The Simple Solution to Tracking and Privacy Concerns in Advertising - <AUTHOR> http://www.iateyourblog.com/post/29055874991/the-simple-solution-to-tracking-and-privacy-concerns-in

<comment><USER2> Didn't Opera have such configurable info a few years ago when the browser was still displaying ads? They stopped doing it, I guess the advertisers weren't happy with it, or too many people entered fictional info that never matched the advertisers' targeting prefs (99 years old granny from Azerbaijan...).

<comment><AUTHOR> I never heard of that but it could certainly be possible.

<comment><USER2> They added the banners in 2000 and removed them in September 2005 - to give you an idea about the time I am referring to. If anyone's curious, they can probably still download version 8.0 or so from sites such as cnet.com (but beware the crapware installers they use there).

I actually tracked down a version of Opera 5 (from 2000) and installed it in a VM, here's a screenshot of the ad preferences: <http://666kb.com/i/c69ez5xf671f79fk4.png>

As you can see, it's more or less what the article suggests. Opera gave up on the idea after 5 years - but then again the (worse) feeling of being tracked by everyone and everything didn't exist back then.</comment></comment></comment>


Forth implemented in Rust trait system - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Ashymad/fortraith <comment><USER2> I don't see why people won't just take the step D and Lisp do-- allowing full use of the programming language at compile time.

You can execute an ordinary functions at compile-time to read a DSL from a string or read attributes (reflective metaprogramming) on your program's classes. Take the string it outputs, use mixin(), and you have code. For example:

        // Sort a constant declaration at Compile-Time
        enum a = [ 3, 1, 2, 4, 0 ];
        static immutable b = sort(a);

"a" only appears in the compiler's memory. "sort" is a normal function that runs at compile-time. "allowing accessto the full language at compile-time" is similar to what dynamic languages such as Python and JavaScript give you, except D is a static language with GCC and LLVM backends.

<comment><USER3> The most useful values at compile time are types, so straight-up interpreting the core language at compile time is not enough. You need meta-typed named values to transport types in, and meta-functions to pass them to.

Fortraith cleverly re-purposes existing features, doing some violence to language usage conventions to achieve it.

<comment><USER4> > so straight-up interpreting the core language at compile time is not enough. > You need meta-typed named values to transport types in, and meta-functions > to pass them to.

Can you please explain what you mean by this?

<comment><USER5> In Rust (for example), Types are not Values. You can't store them in variables, pass them to functions, etc.

However, at macro-expansion time, often what you want to do is examine a Type and expand the macro differently based on some information about the Type.

So you would like your Macro language to have some notion of manipulating Types that is absent from the language itself

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Definitely interesting, but I don't see any mention of being able to use this interactively or incremental compilation, which is what makes Forth, Forth. Forth isn't just syntax. It's an operating system and a programable programming language.

<comment><USER7> The term "concatenative language" fits better for adaptations of Forth that also discard major semantics of Forth. There is a holistic quality to Forth that results in a lot of idioms that are not obvious, and concatenative systems that deviate from the whole tend to fall into an unexplored territory.

For example, in CASE ... OF ... ENDOF ... ENDCASE, the input value is consumed when OF is entered. But this means that the default result, positioned before ENDCASE, has to move the input value to the top of stack so that it can be consumed before the result. The examples in the ANS standard prefer using >R ... R> as a scratchpad for this purpose, so that any number of results may be pushed into the data stack, while the input is moved onto the result stack and then pushed back to the data stack. But the whole existence of the return stack and words that use it is a curious detail that doesn't come up if you start from an RPN calculator instead of a complete Forth system. Someone writing a RPN system in an applicative language, upon seeing this semantic, might be tempted to beef up the syntax rather than add this idiom. And in Forth this idea likely was only arrived at through the numerous iterations Moore made to achieve better expression in fewer words, since the return stack is useful everywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> You got me. I was too lazy to implement the return stack. But it should be fully possible. The hardest part was not implementing things in the trait system, but parsing any non-trivial syntax using the clunky macro_rules!. For this reason if/else/then are not a special syntax but words that block and unblock subsequent word execution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a pretty superficial treatment of Forth. It's more of a simple RPN calculator than a Forth.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is brilliant! Equivalent, in its way, to C++ template metaprogramming. It was cheeky to do a Forth instead of an ML. The traditional way to demonstrate TC is by sieving primes at compile time.

C++ is actively replacing its compile-time ML with core language features, but isn't there yet. Still, it has been many years since I needed to code any of my own TMP.

<comment><USER9> Sort of, arithmetic is implemented (through the trait-eval crate) from the Peano axioms. Probably it is not very fast, even in comparison to C++ standards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, could possibly be sped up by using typenum[1] instead of trait-eval, as it is not Peano axioms based.

[1] [https://docs.rs/typenum/](https://docs.rs/typenum/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Rust's trait system is Turing complete

has anyone tried implementing rust in rust's trait system

<comment><USER11> Turing complete≠uses the syntax of your favorite programming language.

<comment><USER12> Any Turing-complete system can do anything a general computer can do, which includes compiling your favorite programming language.

<comment><USER11> No, that's not what Turing complete means. Turing complete means it can do an arbitrary computation, but "implementing Rust" usually means it needs to be able to take in a string of code and produce a binary, which means your program needs to have some way of actually doing that. Sure, you can encode the compiler into the Turing machine, but an arbitrary Turing-complete tarpit may not actually have the syntax to know what a string is. Usually the best you can do is encode the programming language into some form the machine can understand. (For example, with Fractran you'd encode your input as some sort of Gödel numbering before giving it to the program.)

<comment><USER13> Compiling _is_ an arbitrary computation.

Encoding the inputs/outputs for a given TC system may be a pain, but that is irrelevant to expressiveness power.

<comment><USER11> Right, I'm not saying you can't put the compiler for the encoded input/outputs into the machine or that it's not expressive enough. I'm just saying that you'll have to encode stuff, it's not like traits somehow can magically give you a "compileToRust()" function that you pass the unmodified code into.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but when someone mentions some system is TC they are not claiming input/output is easy to encode.

In fact, in most cases, when you hear the TC claim it is about an exotic system :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow that's what I call an emergent property!

</comment><comment><USER15> Sick! :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Finally, Rust is production-ready.

It is neat to see something more practical than an Brainf* interpreter.

<comment><USER17> A list of even more practical pieces of production code in Rust: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Shipped](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Shipped)

<comment><USER11> I suspect you missed the /s</comment></comment></comment>


A letter from Paper (FiftyThree) to Paper (Facebook) - <AUTHOR> http://news.fiftythree.com/post/75486632209/every-story-has-a-name-fiftythrees-story-began?new_url=true <comment><USER2> People are going to call the app by Facebook "Facebook Paper" because "Paper" is simply too generic. 53's drawing app name is not strong either. Their iOS app is not called "Paper", but "Paper by FiftyThree". Their icon is not of paper, but of a napkin style rendering of "53". For all intents, the drawing simulation brand name is "FiftyThree". There was a brief moment in history when people thought "I wonder if 53 was acquired". That time has passed, and no one will mistake them from now on.

"Facebook Paper" is an alternative interface to Facebook.

"Paper by FiftyThree" is a drawing application.

Other than that they are both software, there's little room for confusion. 53 can get upset and write a blog post about it, but there is no substantive damage done. They'll probably sell more of their own product because of this.

<comment><USER3> "Windows", "Apple", aren't too generic. This is perfectly reasonable for 53 to ask this of Facebook.

<comment><USER4> I suggest you read up on Microsoft v Lindows before you use that example.

<comment><USER5> That case never made it past the trial court, and ended in an out-of-court settlement in which Microsoft paid a paltry sum to make the problem go away, setting no legal precedent. Furthermore, the surrounding circumstances included an injunction from a Dutch court against Lindows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pfft. What a silly request. This is an entirely different application.

Should we expect an upcoming blog post from 53 complaining that Crayola has released a new product entitled "Pencil"?

If you want to protect your name, use a protectable name. If you're going to use an entirely generic name then deal with it... wait hang on... Dunder Mifflin just called... they want their name back too.

Cool company, great products, daft blog post.

<comment><USER7> Insofar as FiftyThree is merely making a polite request as a matter of professional courtesy rather than threatening legal action, then I don't think your criticism applies. They didn't get nasty about it, they didn't cite some bizarre legal arguments where they claimed to forever own the word Paper. They just made a cordial request. I think that's entirely reasonable and makes them come across very good in this situation.

<comment><USER8> Making a cordial request about it to Facebook is one thing; publicizing it (probably in an effort to shame Facebook) is another.

<comment><USER7> There's a very real possibility that FiftyThree is going to get impacted in all kinds of searches because of this. I don't begrudge them for taking advantage of a marketing opportunity that will get written about in the media that they'd be fools to not take advantage of. Their business could conceivably be on the line.

You're certainly free to disagree or feel all the sympathy you want to for Facebook here, but I don't think most people would see it the same way.

<comment><USER9> These are the risks of choosing a product name that is one of the most common items in the world. The benefits are familiarity and comfort; the risk is that anyone can start using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are some great opinions posted so let me add some data from uspto.gov (use 'trademark search' from the menu) and a touch of what I understand of Trademark law after filing a few myself:

53 was granted a US Trademark on the phrase 'Paper by FiftyThree' on December 2013 for trademark categories 21 23 26 36 38 and it appears international category 9 with a first-used-in-commerce claim of March 2013.

53 are obligated to enforce their mark in those categories otherwise they risk losing it. This is the same reason Facebook goes after anything with 'face or book' that even vaguely seems similar. If they don't they risk losing the Facebook mark.

The law sides with the trademark holder as long as they enforce the mark.

As many people have mentioned, 'Paper' is generic and 53 didn't get the word 'Paper' by itself. It was granted the mark 'Paper by FiftyThree'. Since Facebook's app isn't called 'Paper by Facebook' this leaves some wiggle room if FB wants to challenge the claim if it heads to court. Facebook has deep pockets and good lawyers, so perhaps they've already calculated the risk and is willing to fight in court. 53 may not be able to afford that fight (cash or distraction wise).

TL;DR: 53 is obligated to enforce their Trademark and the letter to Facebook is a manifestation of that obligation. Unfortunately their mark isn't just on the word 'paper' so it will be interesting to see if this fades away or the parties head to court.

<comment><USER11> > 53 is obligated to enforce their Trademark and the letter to Facebook is a > manifestation of that obligation.

But the _open_ letter is not. A simple C&D would have protected them; publishing it is purely about marketing.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, seems an intentional move from the marketing playbook: If goliath gets news, pick a public fight when you're David. A very cheap investment for that level of exposure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My first thought when I read the Facebook Paper announcement was along these lines.

This is a big social faux paus on Facebook's part - at least among the developer community - but I really don't see either company changing their Paper's name. I imagine it'll go similarly to Google's Go name collision[1].

How should the little guy in these situations be legally protected? On one hand it's clear that "candy" shouldn't be trademarked, but "paper" is just as generic a term. Maybe the lesson here is not to name your product generic nouns and avoid the trouble all together.

1\. [https://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9](https://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9)

<comment><USER13> That's what I thought of, since two programming languages are even more alike.

Did it not turn out to be a legal issue because there was ultimately little commercial interest behind the Go![1] language?

Apple Computer had to pay Apple Corps, even though it seemed like the computer industry had little to do with the music industry at the time[2], so it is confusing how the conflict can be ignored until it goes away.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_%28programming_language%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_%28programming_language%29)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The irony here is that Facebook are extremely aggressive about protecting their own name. They have sued other companies for using generic words as _part_ of their names, like 'face' or 'book' or 'wall'.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/25/business/la- fi-0826-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/25/business/la- fi-0826-facebook-suit-20100825)

</comment><comment><USER15> It's a matter of respect. Paper (FiftyThree) is a well known brand and app, so basically the Facebook developers were 100% aware that they were utilizing someone's name (at least they should have been), and therefore they went ahead to publish their new app with complete disregard for what already existed.

<comment><USER8> On the other hand, FiftyThree have chosen a very common English word for their product name. You can't call dibs on a word like "paper", and this was a risk they should have taken into account. Either choose a proper (and trademarkable) name, or choose a common word and expect such consequences. You can't have it both ways, and I think even considering Facebook's Paper, FiftyThree have probably made the right tradeoff. Whining about it now just makes them look bad.

<comment><USER16> What about something like "Square?" That's about as generic as it gets, yet is there any question as to what someone is referring to when they are talking about "Square" in the context of an app?

<comment><USER8> If Square whines about someone else using the name, I will say the same thing. It's a tradeoff, and they've made their choice.

<comment><USER15> There are two sides of the story. Square (Paper in this case) probably does not benefit greatly from whining (from both PR and legal perspectives), but why would a company take the name to begin with. Either they were blind, or confident that there brand would bypass whatever was existing, or they are hoping to ride off existing brand recognition for a quick boost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a big fan of Paper from 53 (not the most feature-filled drawing tool, but definitely the most pleasant to use) and respect that they wrote a polite request about this and tried to use this as a marketing opportunity rather than threatening legal action or citing some bizarre trademark argument where they claim to have the right to force others not to use a word. 53 comes across pretty well here thus far IMO.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's helpful to analyze this the way a U.S. court likely would. Suppose hypothetically that the following are true:

(A) that the mark PAPER is protectable for what 53 sells -- and I think that's highly likely; PAPER in this context strikes me as a "suggestive" and therefore protectable mark [1]; and

(B) that 53 was the first user of the mark; and

(C) that there's a "likelihood of confusion" about the origin, sponsorship, or endorsement of the companies' products or services -- this entails looking at seven or eight factual questions, namely the "strength" of the mark; the proximity of the goods; the similarity of the marks in appearance and/or sound; any evidence of actual confusion; similarity in marketing channels used; the type of goods and the degree of care likely to be exercised by the purchaser the junior user's intent in selecting the mark; and the likelihood of expansion of the respective product lines [2].

In that situation, as the junior user, Facebook would (or should) be liable for infringement.

Another point: 53 can be damaged by "reverse confusion," namely people thinking that _53_ is the one that's ripping off _Facebook_ [3].

[1] [http://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/detail/manual/TMEP/Oct2012/TMEP-1...](http://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/detail/manual/TMEP/Oct2012/TMEP-1200d1e6993.xml)

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

[3] [http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/reverse-confusion- trademark...](http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/reverse-confusion-trademark/)

</comment><comment><USER18> _One of Facebook's board members is an investor in FiftyThree._

This line tells the whole story. This isn't just the case of a large company perhaps not noticing another product in the digital space with the same name. This is very deliberate, and the CEO comes across as flabbergasted with Facebook's decision.

</comment><comment><USER19> Honestly, I think we'll see more downloads of Paper (53) because of confused people looking to download Paper (FB). I see this is as a huge PR win for 53 and both will end up co-existing and succeeding (probably).

There are TWO billion-dollar storage companies with Box in the name. Now that's confusing.

<comment><USER20> I don't know how often I hear at work "Put it in my dropbox", where "my dropbox", of course, refers to Box.com.

I did work on a project once where most of the contributors referred to Google Drive as their dropbox, as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I first heard about Facebook's Paper, I wondered how that conversation could have possibly gone down...

"So we're building this great new experience, and we want to call it Paper..."

"Isn't there already an incredibly popular mobile application called Paper?"

"So?"

Some variant of this conversation must have happened, right? It's not like nobody at Facebook has heard of 53 - how did this name ever get out the door?

It seems like most of us here on HN think of 53's Paper when we think of 'app called Paper' \- perhaps this isn't the case in the overall consumer market (but then again, Paper - 53's, that is - was once featured prominently on Apple.com - not just the app store, but the main website) - but to me at least, it feels like Facebook is using a name which is 'already taken'.

</comment><comment><USER22> Might I suggest that this is not the first time Facebook has drawn the ire of the tech community and won't be the last.

It seems Facebook simply doesn't care. FiftyThree's complaint will blow over in a few days.

 _However_ , FiftyThree is signing up plenty of new users from the story. They're probably genuinely upset but this won't be their death and it might even be a good thing. I'd never heard of Paper beforehand.

</comment><comment><USER23> Companies, even hip web 3.0 companies, need to stop taking generic common nouns and declaring them trademarks. From Surface to Paper, these names are far too easy to confuse.

<comment><USER24> I recall people complaining about all the made up words being used for company names from the web 2.0 era.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Humans have done just fine for a long time managing their own mental namespaces. Paper already means different things in different contexts before either of these apps - "I am writing a paper", "have you read today's paper?", "have your papers ready for inspection". There are also many different brands and types of paper with very different material properties and use cases.

Choosing an already in use word for any new publicly accessible thing complicates the global namespace a little more than it already is, but if it is the name you really wish to give it, sometimes a little distributed parsing overhead is better than the alternatives - trademarking "paper" or calling your product "Payper" instead.

</comment><comment><USER26> I feel for FiftyThree but the ship of anyone caring of FB's missteps has long sailed.

FB being the first $1 trillion company seems inevitable. FB is the borg of all borgs.

<comment><USER27> A slightly related anecdote: Yesterday I saw grafitti that said "resistance is fertile". A good twist, I thought, especially for potential startups that could go the way of "let's make another photo app" vs. "let's solve something important".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There was a drawing app called Paper in the App Store in October 2011, five months before 53 released their app. It doesn't look very good, but that's not the point.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper/id474402870?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper/id474402870?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER29> All respect issues aside, generic names like this are a pain in the ass. "go" (google) and "react" (facebook) are similar. For example, Twitter-folk have taken to using #ReactJS to mean Facebook's React UI framework, but react.js[1] has been around a while already, and it does some similar stuff (if you squint a bit).

You can't mention or search for them without barfing out the company name, and sometimes a specific property alongside to be unambiguous about your meaning. It makes finding discussions and blog posts harder because people don't have a common language for these poorly-named things.

It just seems like these companies are shooting themselves in the foot. Is natural word-of-mouth growth no longer a concern?

[1]: [http://reactjs.com/](http://reactjs.com/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Can both not exist? I don't see how there could be overlap or confusion from potential customers.

<comment><USER31> "I always use Paper on my ipad for all my pictures, you should check it out"

Which app would you download from the appstore ?

<comment><USER30> It just seems a bit melodramatic. Should Google Mail have been named Google Post, just because Yahoo Mail was first? They aren't operating in the same space; furthermore, Facebook didn't name it just "Paper" in the App Store, they've named it "Paper - stories from Facebook".

<comment><USER32> Exactly. It's a single generic word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The world of app names is weirdly. Obviously you cannot put up an app named Facebook but most likely you can put one named FB Calculator. The way I see it, _parts_ of an app name can be protected, others are generic. It is like subdomains: news.ycombinator.com cannot ask news.fiftythree.com to stop using _news_.

Anyhow, what's the name of that FB Android app that turns your phone's desktop into a FB desktop? Or was it iOS app? What exactly was it anyway? FB OS?

Don't worry Paper53, PaperFB is probably another fluke, a quick yet clumsy response to Medium's menacing growth, to the _wall 's_ irrelevance, to the teens running away....

<comment><USER34> its called Facebook Home

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If 53 didn't register Paper as a trademark, they are pretty much SOL, right? If they did, it's pretty clear that Facebook's property creates confusion in the market. Trademark law seems pretty clear here, but IANAL.

<comment><USER36> IANAL either, but my understanding is that, in the US, they don't need to file a trademark as long as they can prove they were using the name in commerce first.

As far as international usage, that's a different story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The bigger your footprint becomes in the arena of the Internet, the more care it takes to make sure you are not stepping on other's IP. The problem with the Interwebs is that IP crosses so many silos and this isn't just a problem of name but of application of the use here. I can't see FB being more than apologetic to FiftyThree. As much as FiftyThree thinks they have just cause here - its more of a use / intention than it is the confusion with name. I highly doubt anything will come of this, because of the logical difference. Its an identity thing vs. market clash over the same product.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady If I was in FiftyThree's position I would be pissed off. But it is a very common word. Simply changing the name of the app to 'Facebook Paper' would probably help with a lot of the issues it might cause.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, it will be pretty ridiculous if FiftyThree manages to enforce some kind of IP over the use of the word "paper" as a name for a product... Trademarking common English words, anyone?

<comment><USER39> Windows, Apple, etc are all trademarked, pls stop being an arm chair lawyer and recognize there is a huge amount of precedent in using common english words to trademark things other than their common usage.

MS can trademark Windows in conjunction with computer interfaces, but not if they decide to make windows that go in houses. That's where the common usage trademark issue arises. Also, if like kerosene the word becomes common usage then the trademark can be revoked.

The law is nuanced, there is no blanket ban on trademarking words in common usage.

<comment><USER38> Yes, I understand that. It just looks to me like a lack of much overlap between the products. In the case where the products don't overlap, if you are successful at legal action against the other product then it starts to look a lot more like "trademarking a word" rather than "trademarking a word as a name for a product that operates in X space", and one of these two things is much more irksome than the other. If it makes you feel any better, this is not my "legal opinion", this is my John Publik voter's opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I, for one, do not think Facebook should change the name because these guys do not own the word "Paper." It would have been different if their app was called FiftyPapers and Facebook used the same name.

</comment><comment><USER41> To be honest, I thought of FiftyThree first, too, when I heard the Facebook announcement. Reading between the lines on this blog post, it doesn't sound like FiftyThree has any legal claim or trademark to hold against Facebook (even if they wanted to litigate).

Facebook has already "gone live" with the Paper name—I think it's too late to change it. Whether it's malicious (are they "building their story" off FiftyThree's work?) or not ("Oops") is almost irrelevant here.

</comment><comment><USER42> _> There's a simple fix here. We think Facebook can apply the same degree of thought they put into the app into building a brand name of their own._

It seems to me that both FB and 53 applied the same degree of thought.

IMHO, I find it absurd that private companies want to make common words their own. Couldn't the "degree of thought" 53 put into their naming process led them to think that "paper" was an extremely generic word and this conflict was bound to happen?

</comment><comment><USER43> Since the Apple store rankings are intentionally opaque and controlled by Apple for its own gain, I secretly hope that the Apple artificially ranks 53 Paper above Facebook Paper. At the end of the day Paper has been an excellent app for the Apple ecosystem and it would be a nice way to say "thanks" to 53. If this happens, then Facebook's use should help 53 get more downloads since most users will go along with the first result in the store.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yesterday: Vitriol slung at King for trying to trademark "Candy." Today: Much more sympathy for 53 attempting the "trademark of public opinion."

<comment><USER44> That's to be expected. In both cases vitriol is directed at the Goliath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This app is very unrelated to Facebook as we know it: our friends and their content. That is just one part of the app. It's more a curated news app on the whole.

Either Facebook released this as a project their engineers did to test out interfaces or they are collecting data from this app about what is shared and what content is viewed to improve their own feed algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think Facebook should change Paper's name mainly because Paper is a horrible name for this product, which is actually "Facebook without all the crap you never use". The fact that "Paper by FiftyThree" is a name already in use is another factor, why fight this battle when the name isn't even very good?

<comment><USER38> Right, it's simplified Facebook. Facebook with all the extra bits removed. The hardback _book_ reduced to the _paper_ back...

<comment><USER46> Yeah, I mean it's not the worst, it's just not like, "MUST DEFEND THIS AWESOME NAME" level IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Please don't monopolise language! If you tell me I cannot use the word Paper any longer, I resent that deeply, even if Apple and others have done that. Paper is not distinctive enough, not even very imaginative, 'creative' dare I say, of an app that claims to be all about creativity.

</comment><comment><USER48> The actual app titles from the App Store seem different enough to me, and I'm a huge fan of FiftyThree.

Paper by FiftyThree (FiftyThree, Inc.)

Paper - stories from Facebook (Facebook, Inc.)

Another distinction to keep in mind is FiftyThree's Paper is iPad only and Facebook's is iPhone only (although it will install on iPad).

</comment><comment><USER49> 53 has chosen to use generic single word nouns for their products. Paper, Pencil, Book. When you do that, you do not deserve the consideration the author is expecting from Facebook.

Yes it may cause confusion, but they should have used unique names for their products if they wanted the differentiation.

</comment><comment><USER50> Over here in Android land, there's no confusion at all, because neither app is in the Play Store. :P

</comment><comment><USER4> No, you don't own the word Paper.

</comment><comment><USER51> Maybe they'll release it as Facebook Paper... But to be honest, if there's a genuine app already bearing that name, they're better off going with something else...

<comment><USER52> It's listed as "Paper – stories from Facebook" on the App Store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Search for "Paper" in the App Store? Problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER54> Won't this only benefit FiftyThree now that many more people are searching the App Store for "Paper"? Seems like a victimless crime.

</comment><comment><USER55> I admire FiftyThree but this ship has sailed. Unless FiftyThree is willing to lawyer up, I can't imagine anything changing.

</comment><comment><USER56> "And that is why, folks, we are proud to announce our newest product : Facebook".

That should do it ;)

</comment><comment><USER57> It's like Apple Inc and Apple Corps.

Lesson to self, avoid generic names.

<comment><USER58> The generic name seems to have worked out well for Apple though, hasn't it?

<comment><USER59> Which Apple? it worked out okay for the company that came along and took the name later. Apple Corp has essentially lost their name at this point though

<comment><USER60> Apple Corps has nothing to cry over, I am sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> next they're going to write to wb mason that they should change the name of their product to "printer sheet" or something like that....

</comment><comment><USER62> I don't get it, does this involve actual paper?

</comment><comment><USER63> See also: Microsoft Windows vs. X Window System.

</comment><comment><USER64> Sweet jesus I cannot read that font.

</comment><comment><USER65> is this trademark 'descriptive', 'distinctive', or 'generic' ?</comment>


Show HN: App fOr WriTiNg iN RanDom CApS - <AUTHOR> http://okplusone.com/randomcaps <comment><AUTHOR> First time submitting on Hacker News. I got inspired by the movie Paper Town and wrote a small app to be able to message my friends using random caps. It is available both on Android and Iphone. Would love to hear comments on how to improve the UI, and add new features.

t H a n k y O u!</comment>