An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/12/michael-laufer-drug-prices/ <comment><USER3> That seems both super dangerous, and super awesome.

It's not something that we should have to consider. But this is the world we live in, now; legitimate supply lines of life-saving medicine have collapsed for a fair number of people. I understand why people might be troubled by someone actively going out and advocating this as opposed to simply making the information available, but if you're offered medicine with 95% efficacy that you can afford and use vs. a well-regulated 99.99% that only exists theoretically...well, come on.

<comment><USER4> The cost of medicine I require to be functional enough to hold down a job has risen so much that the copay is the equivalent of the entire out-of-pocket cost from a few years ago.

The medication was discovered in 1969. The application method, which is the shitty excuse for the patents protecting its $2,200/month price tag, was first approved for use by the FDA in 1979. The drug has been for sale in it's current form for over a decade.

<comment><USER5> Enbrel? They just received another patent extension, too.

This is what government granted monopolies look like.

<comment><USER6> This is what the breakdown of working competitive markets look like, and in this case it takes both government monopolies, as well as well as overwhelming short-term greed on the part of the private companies.

Long term don't these companies think that charging outrageous prices for drugs will cause a future voter/government backlash of some sort... or maybe they think they should extract profits now because of a chance of drug price regulation coming to the US in the future?

<comment><USER7> >Long term don't these companies think that charging outrageous prices for drugs will cause a future voter/government backlash of some sort

No, because it demonstrably won't. People say they're angry and then do nothing about it. The US has an entire political party angrily decrying any effort to regulate healthcare as socialist slavery.

The drug companies know they'll be just fine. Maybe some token slaps on the wrist and public performance of cosmetic changes to appease people now and then, but nothing will happen to them.

<comment><USER8> _the US has an entire political party angrily decrying any effort to regulate healthcare as socialist slavery._

Argubly regulation is the problem we're in this mess. Do you think an epipen would cost $600 if there weren't a Government granted monopoly?

We have two parties who love the current amount of regulations on competition - you need to go to an AMA approved medical school to become a doctor, there aren't H1Bs for health care workers, and the government gets to pick and chose who's allowed to sell medication.

They just disagree on the amount of subsidies for poor people. One party thinks prepaid consumption with cross subsidies is insurance and the other party thinks that insurance shouldn't be so binding if you get sick.

<comment><USER6> Regulations can put pressure on prices (and if you look at epipens in particular, part of the regulations allowing the increase of their price have nothing to do with monopoly and a lot to do with getting policy placed into areas where organizations are required to keep an epipen on hand by regulation...).

But in terms of overall effect, one can't ignore other nations which pay much lower prices for healthcare with both regulation for drug patents, as well as regulation on drug prices. That combination manages to deliver better care at lower costs than the US (we pay on average double per capita). So I don't think one can generically fault "regulation" for a poorly performing health market in the US.

<comment><USER8> _So I don 't think one can generically fault "regulation" for a poorly performing health market in the US._

You're absolutely right, however, I do think the worst parts of our medical system exist as consequences of regulation.

The mandate that emergency rooms treat anyone who enters is onerous and there's no free lunch, paying customers are stuck with the bill.

The licencing system isn't optimal for cost effective care.

There's a lot to be desired for people who favor supply side solutions to expensive problems.

<comment><USER6> > The mandate that emergency rooms treat anyone who enters is onerous and > there's no free lunch, paying customers are stuck with the bill.

I don't think that's onerous, I think that is a minimal, and admittedly imperfect, expression of our societal intent that people shouldn't die unnecessarily in emergency rooms - either from lack of being able to pay; nor from a practical standpoint, lack or delay of on-hand proof of ability to pay.

Removing those regulations would cause all sorts of other problems. Someone arrives in an ambulance near-death, if I lack morals then one level of maximized extraction price is to have those patients commit to pay a value that represents the earning potential for that person for the rest of their life. They have to agree before getting admitted. Even more profitable, if I judge that person as having a well connected social network, I can charge even more because I know their friends and colleagues would chip in to save them... I'm not sure how a competitive market with no regulation changes the worst case for this transaction - if someone is near death then moving on to another emergency room is out of the question.

I see universal healthcare with a shared cost-pool as the lowest overhead way to provide for our social moral desires (but then I'm not in fear of the regulation with may be needed to implement that policy).

Insurace with a shared risk pool is a technically workable, but adds even more overhead, and ends up a more expensive way to do the same thing... but again regulations are involved (and fixing very flawed ones at that).

<comment><USER8> I don't defend the status quo. I think this is the right way to resolve healthcare.

I agree with about 95% of this: [https://market-ticker.org/akcs- www?post=231949](https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231949)

We just need smarter regulations:

> every medical facility needs to have a price for each billing code

> every healthcare facility has to publish their prices

> heatlh care facilities must honor their published prices for everyone

> if someone needs car and they can't pay, the government will pay for the > care but the government holds a debt and can garnish wages / use tax refunds > / credit welfare to cover the debt

If people could shop on price for routine care, medical companies would become more efficient and extend those prices to people in an emergency

<comment><USER9> Have you seen healthcare regulations ? The lengths hospitals and drug makers have to go through to prevent ANY mistakes are simply not reasonable.

That's not 1/1000\. Not 1/1000000\. Not 1/1000000000\. Zero. Entire companies get shut down because of a single mistake. Think about how ridiculous that is. A company owns 5 separate factories, and in one of them a product was produced that _may_ , in a panel of doctor's opinions, have caused the death of a patient (mostly one who would have died without the medicine), and all 5 are immediately shut down until an extensive investigation is not just run, but run in an approved manner by outside experts, and the resulting cause was both found, approved by the panel of doctors and the government.

And of course, a company is supposed to take care of any patient they damaged, for life, full treatment for all ailments (not just the one that had something to do with what they did), ...

We used to let people prepare medicines in corner shops with at least a few ingredients they procured themselves. Needless to say, pretty cheap. Mistakes were ... not common, but certainly more so than today.

Until we find a balance between care provided and acceptable risk there will be no reasonably priced healthcare. Until we stop giving health at any cost, and count on "management" mistakes to do cost saving (regulating that people get thrown out of hospital the day after open heart surgery unless there are complications. Well, if you want to survive, you bloody well hope your doctor finds some complication. Needless to say, proposals for making it same day are on the table. Good luck).

And of course, like good capitalists faced with demands like this, companies don't say "are you bloody insane ? This will bankrupt the entire country", they say "How secure do you want it to be ? Perhaps even a bit more ? I mean we can always do better. That'll be $xxx(xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)".

<comment><USER8> I 've seen a ton of healthcare regulations and apprently we're in agreement they leave a lot to be desired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "To deny someone access to a lifesaving medication is murder," he said. And > "an act of theft [of intellectual property] to prevent an act of murder is > morally acceptable."

I agree with the conclusion, but for a different reason. "Theft" is the wrong way to think about IP. The economic function of IP is not to protect producers from consumers, but to protect producers from free-riding by other producers.[1] Thus, for example, stealing pills does not offend a drug creator's IP monopoly. Teaching people to make their own pills, who couldn't afford pills anyway, does not really do so either. It doesn't implicate the real purpose of the patent monopoly, which is to keep _some other company_ from profiting by free-riding on the R&D of the original drug creator.

[1] To use a copyright analogy, copyright does not exist to protect content creators from downloaders, but to protect them from companies like Youtube, which make their profits by selling other peoples' content.

<comment><USER11> > The economic function of IP is not to protect producers from consumers, but > to protect producers from free-riding by other producers.

The function of IP, from a government point of view, is to promote the useful arts and science and to ultimately make them available to the public after a limited amount of protection to the creator. Otherwise, there's no purpose in the government being involved in enforcing monopolies.

<comment><USER10> Promotion of the useful arts and sciences is the language the framers used, but the framers didn't know much about economics. The _economic function_ of IP is to address the market distortion that could result if people were permitted to free-ride on the capital-intensive R&D or other people.

The economic definition is also far more useful. Who knows what specific policies will result in "promoting the useful arts and sciences." Preventing free-riding is a more concrete issue that can be addressed with specific policies.

<comment><USER12> If you're making an economic argument to justify the existence and nature of copyright law in today's society, which in itself I have no problem with, then surely you also have to consider that exponential propagation via entirely non-commercial sharing could still severely undermine the commercial value of a work. If that sort of work then becomes prohibitively expensive to create, doesn't that mean copyright is not doing its job as an incentive and everyone loses out? After all, if I make the next great independent TV show, it doesn't much matter whether 99% of my potential market sees it on YouTube or just torrents it, if either way those potential customers no longer pay me in return for enjoying the work. This seems counter to your original position that the economic function is copyright is about rival producers and not consumers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Open Insulin @ Counter Culture Labs: [https://experiment.com/projects/open- insulin](https://experiment.com/projects/open-insulin)

If you want to look at templates for your own immunotherapy, CRISPR, optogenetic tools etc.: [https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/](https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/)

Which, once built can be then be ordered as DNA, shapeways-style using: [https://serotiny.bio/notes/pinecone/](https://serotiny.bio/notes/pinecone/)

The cure for certain kinds of blindness, just approved by the FDA yesterday is, in total, a well-delivered sequence of ~10,000 base pairs of DNA (mfg cost @ 7¢/bp = $700): [http://www.businessinsider.com/spark-therapeutics- hereditary...](http://www.businessinsider.com/spark-therapeutics-hereditary- blindness-gene-therapy-advisory-committee-2017-10)

<comment><USER14> Oh man. I agree with your sentiment, but this is a remarkable over simplification!

The sequence may cost 700$ to synthesise. But it's delivery vector is a virus. Synthesizing the DNA, encapsulating the DNA in the virus.. not trivial stuff.

While I agree that drug prices in the US are absurd beyond comprehension or justification, and I've had a ring side view of life sci research, drug development as well as the drug pricing; to posit that, hah, a path breaking gene therapy product just costs a few hundreds or a couple of thousands to produce is misrepresenting the complexity as well as the significance of the achievement.

The amount of research (largely public funded but for the clinical trials, which may also have been public funded: no idea) to get to this point is staggering. the company also likely invested large amounts to Shepard a lab possibility into a viable treatment. FDA approval is a big deal because they are, justifiably, exceedingly strict. It is an arduous process.

There has to be a better solution, which would start with allowing the US CMS / Medicare & Medicaid to negotiate drug prices with the manufacturers. The problem is policy.

<comment><USER13> It is a bit of a simplification - but not by that many orders of magnitude ;). The really hard part (like small molecules) is the R&D to come up with that sequence. Unlike small molecules though, most people have the technological prowess to brew beer, make yoghurt, or buy an espresso. I've encapsidated plasmids into viruses for viral delivery in the lab and it took a day or two of work in a BSL2 hood to produce thousands of units of the virus - <USER2> in that case was relatively trivial; though you are right, I've never delivered the virus to humans - and that is not (yet) trivial. But neither is it as complicated as even the most basic of surgeries - literally. As far as I've heard, the 'treatment' to cure blindness with the above (and similar therapies) is a puff of air (containing aerosolized AAV) into a patient's eye, once - while alternative treatments are things like a syringe inserted behind the eyeball every few weeks for the rest of one's life.

I'd argue that the significance of the achievement of these modern gene therapies _is_ in just how simple the technology is relative to other medical procedures. In this case 'simple' is very much a result of an astounding amount of knowledge and work. It's so powerful precisely _because_ it is simple.

And to be clear - I don't actually think anyone should be trying to cure their own cancers with garage-built immunotherapies today. Home-grown insulin- kombucha, maybe... But the technologies of today realistically enable that possibility in the nearish future precisely because they are so elegantly built. Recouping the cost of that R&D to produce something so simple & powerful is always a challenge - and that challenge is far more social in nature than scientific.

<comment><USER14> // offtopic

BTW, big fan of what you and serotiny are trying to do. I've just moved back to my home country.. am dabbling in other stuff at the moment, but the dream is to join with friends and start an automated high throughput industrial biotech company. PhD work used a lot of robotics and high throughput screening & mutagenesis and what have you.. and services like serotiny give me the comfort that my pie in the sky idea has a chance..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We used to have government-funded research programs at universities, now we have for-profit big pharma which by definition creates treatments that cost more. It could be argued that this was by design. So open sourcing cures like this is a natural free market reaction to that.

Since most of the cost of any new medication today is research, we should decouple that cost from production.

The main reason this doesn't happen is that conservatives preach personal responsibility, so want people with hepatitis C to pay for their own treatment at $80,000 a pop. But even if the cost to develop that cure was a billion dollars, that's a tiny amount for the government to absorb. We should be having a space race to cure the worst diseases and then give those cures to the world for free (or nearly free), much like penicillin or the polio vaccine.

Please keep in mind that I'm not politicizing this - it's already been politicized. I'm just explaining what happened.

<comment><USER16> The NIH budget, the largest US government funder of medical research, is bigger now than at any time before 2000 (although it's down a bit from the 2003 peak, adjusting for inflation).

Source: [https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/NIHMech_1.jpg](https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/NIHMech_1.jpg)

<comment><USER15> Thank you, if that's true then I stand corrected. Something to consider though is the NIH is under constant threat of cuts which might discourage going deep on hard problems:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2017/03/16/52039014...](http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2017/03/16/520390147/trump-administration-proposes-big-cuts-in-medical- research)

Also $30 billion is only 0.75% of the projected $4 trillion federal budget for next year. Just percentage-wise this seems like something that should be low on the list for cuts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >A decade ago, while he was volunteering with aid workers in El Salvador, Laufer said a nurse at a remote health outpost told him she'd run out of antibiotics and birth control pills — cheap, generic medicines that even her suppliers couldn't immediately replenish. "This is ridiculous. They should be able to build their own simple lab" to make the pills, he recalled thinking at the time.

This is pure crazy. If these drug were generic (versus patented), the problem of getting them to El Salvador is not a price problem, it's a supply chain/infrastructure/corruption and theft/political (in the case of birth control in a very Catholic country) problem. Some of these drugs are highly complex and building, supplying, and feedstocking chemicals for a lab to make them is even harder than finding the money for a $5/pop or less prescription

<comment><USER18> I would be horrified to think what kind of havoc DIY birth control pill, s that were not manufactured correctly, might do.

I would say a better solution would be to start a not for profit manufacturer, but when India produces dirt cheap genetics, there does not seem much point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For people who are interested, it's referenced in the article, but NurdRage did a synthesis of Pyrimethamine "from scratch".

Only took 2 years and ~$22k, but of course, replicating his synthesis would be a little bit easier... for another PhD Chemist.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddCuWX4vtOA&list=PLU79801KtV...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddCuWX4vtOA&list=PLU79801KtVAU1XsTwHaKkqQoBgz_VYmPS)

<comment><USER20> Not only "from scratch", he even did it from widely available household products.

I think he said in the last video that it would have been cheaper and faster if he had bought some of the precursor chemicals directly instead of having to make them first.

<comment><USER19> Well, from my limited 100-level-chemistry-plus-youtube education, he could have just bought the immediate precursors directly for pyrimethamine itself, i.e. possibly even 2-(p-chlorophenyl)-3-oxopentanenitrile, guanadinium chloride, and Trimethyl Orthoformate, which would make it a 3-step synthesis instead of a 17-step synthesis, so yeah, pretty easy. At the very least he could cut out ~2/3rds of those steps for a 7-step or 6-step synthesis.

So cheaper by easily an order of magnitude, possibly ~$100 a batch or less. Of course, if you want FDA grade instead of technical grade your prices for everything skyrocket and your workup has to improve a bunch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting assertion from the FAQ on Michael Laufer's website[1]:

> _Q: What about quality control? A: It's important to know that making small > quantities of a chemical is vastly different than making it on an industrial > scale. The chemistry isn't even the same. This is a big reason why chemical > engineering is an entire field of study. With smaller reactions, while you > do have to be more precise in your measurements sometimes. There are fewer > things to go wrong._

Why would making small quantities be _vastly different_ than making it on an industrial scale?

I've heard the same thing about cooking and baking. Supposedly, if a recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of baking powder, then you scale it up 50 fold, you can't simply use 50 tablespoons of baking powder. The claim was that you had to use way more baking powder or much less (I forget which). It sounded like nonsense, but now I'm wondering.

[1] [https://fourthievesvinegar.org/faq](https://fourthievesvinegar.org/faq)

<comment><USER22> The most obvious element is heat: heat production grows at the same rate as volume, but heat dissipation grows at the same rate as surface area. So larger scales invariably end up running hotter (particularly when energetic exothermic reactions are involved), and temperature plays a major role in the kinematics of chemical reactions.

The same surface area/volume issue in bulk also plays into reactions that happen at the margins of materials rather than the bulk--metal-catalyzed reactions are a common example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Synthesizing some simpler drugs sounds feasible even with amateur equipment, but still far from trivial. But I can't see that working reliably without the ability to do proper analytics on all steps. And regular people don't just have an NMR spectrometer at home.

Chemical reactions usually don't have a single product, other side reactions are possible. And they also don't use up 100% of the educt, so you have to get rid of that as well. Purifying your products and making sure they're actually what you want is essential.

Getting the dose right is also hard if you don't know how pure your product is, and if you don't have analytical scales (or work at a very large scale that a kitchen scale is enough).

<comment><USER24> > And regular people don't just have an NMR spectrometer at home.

I've only watched NurdRage videos, but it seems like sending samples to commercial NMR labs is pretty feasible as he does that regularly. So that might not be as big of an issue.

</comment></comment><comment> intro-b I can't imagine the size of the overlap between people savvy/interested/experimental enough to attempt this sort of remedy and those desperately poor AND ill enough to do so. While the idea of bio-hacking as a hobbyist or proof-of-concept is becoming less and less uncommon, and people generally appreciate efforts to raise awareness toward a broken and inefficient healthcare and insurance system, attempting to "market" that DIY process using a fancy name, logo, and "mad scientist hacker anarchist intellectual" persona seems disingenuous at best, and potentially dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER25> Honest question: What does it even mean to be an anarchist these days? What is the default "anarchist"? Because Wikipedia isn't really helping.

<comment><USER26> """ Noam Chomsky: Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can't justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just. And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency. """

[http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/noam-chomsky-kind- an...](http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/noam-chomsky-kind-anarchism-i- believe-and-whats-wrong-libertarians)

<comment><USER27> Vs the classical conservative world view in which order, even if it's unjust, is usually better for everyone, even the people on the bottom, than chaos; and that dismantling power structures, if done suddenly or without care, is more likely to result in chaos than in a new, more just, order. I've been wondering lately if there is room for the notion of a conservative anarchist, who questions hierarchy but dismantles carefully and incrementally.

<comment><USER28> _I 've been wondering lately if there is room for the notion of a conservative anarchist, who questions hierarchy but dismantles carefully and incrementally._

Sure! Those are the collaborationists, and are the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

I'm only half-joking, see what happened to the Mensheviks in 1917-1921.

<comment><USER29> Sad but there's a lot of truth to that: if you are fighting against a nation state with an army, you have to have your own army to fight it. And on the day when you are victorious, you'll find yourself sitting on a large plot of land and people and the only intact organization around will be.. your army. And the government you form will closely resemble an army in form and function, and the high ranking members of the army will tend to become high ranking members of the new government. Hardly a blueprint for universal freedom. That's what tends to happen to violent revolutions.

<comment><USER30> The natural response would be instead of fighting a government with an army, experiment and build the structures that you would like to see, without dogma, learning as you go. When these structures solve enough problems for your community, a democratic country may peacefully transition.

<comment><USER29> Yes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> >Then he took another sip from a flute of Taittinger Champagne.

What?

>Swaggering, charismatic, and complex,

Gag me.

>Michael Laufer has become a fixture in the growing biohacker movement ever since he published plans last year for a do-it-yourself EpiPencil — a $35 alternative to the pricey EpiPen.

That couldn't possibly go wrong, eh?

>It's not clear whether anyone has actually ever used a homemade EpiPencil to prevent anaphylactic shock.

So nobody's quite crazy enough to try?

>But that seems almost an afterthought to Laufer's bigger goal — trying to build a DIY movement to attack high pharma pricing and empower patients.

Or, judging by the tone of this article, his attempt to build his own ego.

This is ridiculous and crazy. It's incredibly dangerous to claim to have produced something _life saving_ but not have any actual testing to back it up.

Even lesser drugs that are just designed to lessen symptoms or relieve pain could go horribly wrong if they aren't prepared properly. We have such strict medical requirements because of that.

<comment><USER32> Agreed that the article is a little too flattering to his ego, but what about people desperate for medical aid, can't afford it, and would probably end up with pain/death without this as an alternative? What should they do?

<comment><USER7> Not listen to this guy. As the article notes none of his ideas or creations have ever been tried by anyone, including himself, and require fairly sophisticated ability to set up and make.

In fact from the article it's not clear at all what exactly this guy is offering or how it helps anyone beyond his self-aggrandizing bluster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If anyone's interested in a fiction that partially explores this try Corey Doctorow's new novel Walk Away [1]. It's about people who 'walk away' from regular society. They to create their own high tech society because they completely ignore IP rights, and instead aggressively share techniques using the wiki model.

1\. [http://amzn.to/2ymP8EM](http://amzn.to/2ymP8EM)

</comment><comment> Chiba-City I imagine a curate Wiki of credible home non-invasive therapies and management regimens would garner more positive response than "anarchic" direct confrontations. There are tons of such therapies underwritten by medical researchers across countries. These infantile theatrics mostly subtract from sound cost containment.

</comment><comment><USER34> DIY pharmaceuticals is ....well it sounds immensely dangerous. Not only is the chemistry frightening but quality and chemical availability. It reminds me of Naturopaths and herboligists claiming to cure and treat ailments with supplements. As much as I hate the pharmaceutical industry, I think it's best for now to leave the drug making to them.

<comment><USER35> DIY pharmaceuticals sounds dangerous. Sure! So is eating 47 teaspoon of salt, 480 bananas, or drinking 179 expressos [1].

If you happen to be unable to afford so much coffee, just rent a car and smash into a tree at 100 miles per hour. So driving cars is also immensely dangerous!

I really hate that nany state we are living in where an average 16 year old is lawfully allowed to drive 5,000 pounds metal machine and kill people at even limited speeds of 50 mph, but yet when it comes to DIY pharmaceuticals we immediately see a vision of most population dying at home because they mixed something wrong.

[https://gizmodo.com/how-many-x-would-you-need-to-eat-to- die-...](https://gizmodo.com/how-many-x-would-you-need-to-eat-to- die-1684237567)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Given the level of education nowadays and the wide access to knowledge, I'm convinced that it's legitimate that the average person should at least have the basic medical knowledge, let's say equal to what a doctor in the 30's had known, and be able to treat 90% of the diseases that he/she encounter in his life.

</comment><comment><USER37> There's also a much more conservative and narrowly scoped effort to help late stager cancer patients make their own therapeutic peptide vaccines: [http://alunglife.com/goal-cure-cancer-method/](http://alunglife.com/goal- cure-cancer-method/)

</comment><comment><USER38> There's a guy who has a chemistry YouTube channel and synthesized Pyrimethamine recently, check it out:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kZi3J2S52E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kZi3J2S52E)

</comment><comment><USER39> Next up - DIY Lasik surgery.

<comment><USER34> I got LASIK at 21. It was a miracle. It wore off at 31. I must've gotten it too soon. Back to glasses.

<comment><USER27> Nah, it just does that sometimes. I got it at 35 and it started to wear off 6 years later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sci-fi is increasingly struggling to keep up with reality.

Here's a novel with a similar premise (but more SF setting) that isn't even out yet: [https://www.tor.com/2017/09/18/excerpts-annalee-newitz- auton...](https://www.tor.com/2017/09/18/excerpts-annalee-newitz-autonomous/)

<comment><USER41> my thinking on this is that science fiction authors are lazy and are not often scientifically trained; so they haven't been thinking about these topics at all. This is why science fiction is so dry and boring compared to neuroanatomy, molecular biology, neurophysiology, computational neuroscience, synthetic biology, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Let's say that you need some pharmaceutical that's not available at a reasonable price. Perhaps because there's no generic available. Or because there are only licensed generics, priced just marginally less than the brand. And/or because you have crappy health insurance, or none at all.

Depending on the drug, the best option is either an equivalent from a compounding pharmacy, or one from a low-price country, such as India, Mexico, etc.

Making your own is only worth the hassle and risk if neither of those options is workable. The EpiPen is an unrepresentative example, because it's mostly about mechanics. With most drugs, you need to bulk out the active ingredient(s) to get a reasonably sized capsule or tablet. For capsules, with mannitol or whatever. For tablets, that plus binding agent(s).

The challenge is that thorough mixing is nontrivial.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm a bit skeptical about this. You should see what it takes to manufacture useful amounts of clinical-grade penicillin. It's fairly capital-intensive, and requires a special strain of the mold.

</comment><comment> ar-nelson DIY pharmaceuticals will never be safe, unless the recipes are regulated, at which point there's no point to them anyway.

Imagine this situation: you Google for a recipe for a drug, and find two different recipes. Recipe A is the real one, while Recipe B will kill you instantly. The troll who posted Recipe B went around the internet claiming that Recipe B is real and Recipe A will kill you. There's no authoritative source to consult, because the actual recipe is patented. How do you know which is real?

<comment><USER44> Aren't patents published publicly? So you could just check the patent (Although it may require some knowledge of biology/chemistry to understand).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Lots of medicines are straightforward to manufacture, and as long as you're careful and follow the same sorts of risk-mitigating procedures and quality assurance steps that you would expect from a manufacturer, you would be served no worse by your own generic brand.

That said, ideally we could fix the medicine-specific patent law craziness (and the regulatory inefficiency which necessitates it). Obviously, the specifics are much more complicated than anyone with a side to pick is willing to admit.

</comment><comment><USER46> People struggle to cook food for themselves. Just saying.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is an article written by the biggest fan of a guy with an inflated ego, a child-like view of the world, and nothing to show.

</comment><comment><USER48> What if he instead made a more reliable setup and recipe? Then someone could make a lab and rent it out to people wanting to make their own stuff. It would still be DIY but it would be in a more controlled environment. This model does involve some risk to the lab, but hey have the renter agree to binding arbitration or something.

</comment><comment><USER49> Flash Forward did an excellent (as usual) episode about this, just a week or so ago: [https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2017/10/03/piraceuticals/](https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2017/10/03/piraceuticals/)

</comment><comment><USER50> _" He's developing a desktop lab and a recipe book meant to equip patients to cook up a range of medicines, including a homemade version of the expensive hepatitis C drug Sovaldi, on their kitchen counters."_

Any chemists here? Is it really plausible to synthesize C22H29FN3O9P at home?

</comment><comment><USER51> If a person doesn't have access to medicine and dies:

\- in the East, that's a victim of Communism. \- in the West, that's a poor lazy bum.

In both cases, the person is gone and the society failed him.

So, this guy rebels. Let's not paint him in political colors.

</comment><comment><USER52> Wow. Cool. I wonder how hard are the synthesises of the useful antidepressants like mirtazapine.

Also, I found ASX-05 (Phase III) uses a DM metabolite that is retained much more by the addition of brupropion. DM is the stuff in some cough syrups.

<comment> nv-vn Well, mirtazapine isn't scheduled in the US so you can probably get some precursors with relative ease. You can find the synthesis info online [1] and at least some of the chemicals used in the synthesis are available online [2], though for the price it seems like it might be more economically feasible to just buy a pill from a pharma company.

[1] [http://www.arkat-usa.org/get-file/22868/](http://www.arkat-usa.org/get- file/22868/) [2] [http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/648434?l...](http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/648434?lang=en&region=US)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Related: If you want to understand how and why the American Healthcare system is broken, read the excellent book An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal.

</comment><comment><USER54> This brings to mind a very common ethics 101 class dilemma. Do you steal medicine to keep your loved one from dying? Of course, the answer to that is extremely obvious. I only wish we could help people steal more.

</comment><comment><USER55> The premise in the article, that denying access to medicine is essentially murder is completely untrue. The following premise that people should be able steal is therefore not necessarily true.

</comment><comment><USER56> The day anyone can get dna-programmable yeast and a reactor to grow it- big pharma is goone. What a nice woody sort of word.

<comment><USER57> Because I'm going to trust the kid's medicine down the street with no oversight?

Isn't this kind of like the day 3D printers become affordable, mass manufacturing is done?

<comment><USER58> If 3D printers were not just affordable but infallible, yes. It would be easier to have a bioreactor bubbling away to synthesize your pharmaceuticals than to try and make a lab-in-a-box kit that was equally robust (more like brewing kombucha in your kitchen than Breaking Bad for Dummies), but either way you still need to assay the results...

<comment><USER57> > If 3D printers were not just affordable but infallible, yes.

Infallible and easy to use. But you still need to buy the raw materials, unless we're talking Star Trek energy-matter conversion, which isn't on the horizon.

Otherwise, why would an average consumer think that buying the raw material and feeding it to their 3D printer is that much more convenient than just stopping by Walmart or ordering off Amazon? And would it even be cheaper, since the consumer loses the economy of scale in their individualized production?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I watched Michael present one of the most engaging and exciting talks at HOPE11 in NYC last year. On stage, he proceeded to make Deraprim (The pharma bro's jacked up price anti-toxiplasmosis drug) live on stage and then throw it in the audience. He then called Martin live and said he was his arch rival. Brilliant!

Michael you are a legend and hero for our new dystopian pharma world.

<comment><USER24> > On stage, he proceeded to make Deraprim (The pharma bro's jacked up price > anti-toxiplasmosis drug) live on stage and then throw it in the audience

I'm not familiar with the case, but I feel like probably NurdRages "cake mix" comment probably applies: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd7hXFnSHZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd7hXFnSHZc)

The question always is that when you are making something, what are your dependencies, where are you starting from. Afterall, to make an apple pie from scratch you need to invent the universe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Can anyone give me any insights into how stuff like this (and Goop) gets any traction?

</comment><comment><USER61> I like the _idea_. And I can't possibly see how this could go badly...

</comment><comment><USER62> Something like this will be needed in the event of a civilizational reboot.

</comment><comment><USER63> TL,DR Merkin heathcare sucks.

</comment><comment><USER64> only in america...

</comment><comment><USER65> Just push Trump to do what he promised to do during his campaign: allow the importation of drugs. The rest of the world is mostly paying more reasonable prices, it's only us, USians who are getting reamed by the pharma cartel.</comment>


You Could Have Invented Spectral Sequences (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://timothychow.net/spectral02.pdf <comment><USER2> The title made me think of "You Could Have Invented Monads (And Maybe You Already Have)" ([http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented- monad...](http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented-monads- and.html)), which according to one of the comments in [http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/02/anatomy-of-you-could-have- inv...](http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/02/anatomy-of-you-could-have-invented/) was inspired by this article

<comment><USER3> Though I have to say that [chain complexes]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_complex)) and their [homotopy]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotopy_category_of_chain_com...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotopy_category_of_chain_complexes)) are somewhat more difficult than the structure you need to understand monads. You can even explain monads purely in programming terms, without reference to category theory.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are some illustrations of chain complexes:

Chain Complexes [https://www.mathphysicsbook.com/mathematics/algebraic- topolo...](https://www.mathphysicsbook.com/mathematics/algebraic- topology/constructing-surfaces-within-a-space/chain-complexes/)

Homology for Normal Humans [http://isomorphismes.tumblr.com/post/127950269154/graded- cha...](http://isomorphismes.tumblr.com/post/127950269154/graded-chain- complex-of-a-simplex-homology)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Top of page 2: "Here is a simple example. Suppose we have a chain complex..."

And right there I'm lost because the paper hasn't explained what a chain complex is, and I don't understand the notation. I guess I couldn't have invented spectral sequences.

<comment><USER5> I think this was supposed to be, "if you have an undergraduate education in mathematics along with the basics of algebraic topology, you could have invented spectral sequences".

The prototypical example of a chain complex is a triangulation of an n-dimensional surface. You can take each n-dimensional triangulation into its (n-1)-dimensional boundary, with the property that the boundary of a boundary is empty. Roughly, this means that you have a sequence of maps on "chains" (prototypically, triangulations)

             d_{n}          d_{n-1}         d_{2}        d_{1}
      C_{n} -----> C_{n-1} </comment></comment><comment>--->  ... </comment><comment>-> C_{1} </comment><comment>-> C_0

with the property that d_{k_1}(d_{k})(x) = 0 for all x and all k (or more abbreviated, d^2 = 0), the boundary of a boundary is zero.</comment>


IBM to Start Blocking All Traffic from Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Syria from 1 Feb 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/faq/softlayer-network-wide-ip-blocking <comment><AUTHOR> We received the communication below from SoftLayer (owned by IBM) yesterday.

Essentially they plan to block all traffic from these countries to _all_ customer servers. What this means:

* Any website or service hosted on SoftLayer servers will automatically go "dark" for anyone in those countries from 1st Feb 2016.

* According to this[1] 2013 report SoftLayer hosts 5,000 of the top 100,000 websites. This means 5% of the most important bits of the web are about to become unavailable to some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

* IBM are applying this policy to all customers globally, regardless of their business location.

* They have given their customers just 3 days to put together a case for having an exception to this blanket policy, meaning most businesses won't be able to react in time.

      Start Date: Monday 01-Feb-2016 15:00 UTC
      End Date: Monday 01-Feb-2016 15:01 UTC
      Duration: 1 minute
      Event Type: Planned Event
      Subject: Event 24985077 - Ongoing Actions to Implement Best Practices in SoftLayer Network

      / Event Description /
      We are expanding an existing policy, effective February 1, 2016, as part of our regular efforts to implement best practices in the operation of the SoftLayer network.

      Currently, at customer sign-up, SoftLayer blocks IP addresses that originate from countries that are subject to U.S. trade and economic sanctions.  At this time, these countries are Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.  Starting February 1, 2016, SoftLayer will implement network-wide blocking of these IP addresses.  Expansion of this policy will further prevent the use of SoftLayer services to interact with those countries.  This policy will help to implement the export compliance commitments detailed in SoftLayer's agreements with its customers.

      You can find a brief explanation of how SoftLayer will identify IP addresses from countries subject to U.S. trade and economic sanctions on this KnowledgeLayer article: http://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/faq/softlayer-network-wide-ip-blocking

      Need an Exception?

      If you believe your planned interaction with U.S. sanctioned countries is consistent with applicable export compliance rules, you can request an exemption to the IP blocking policy by contacting email@example.com and providing details about why you believe you are eligible for an exception to this policy.   Be sure to explain the nature of your communications involving U.S. sanctioned countries and the regulatory basis for your belief that an exception is warranted.  Our team will then work closely with you to evaluate your situation.  Please note that requests received after January 23, 2016, may not be processed prior to effective date noted above.

      Dedicated to Your Success.

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/23/where-the-worlds- top-10000...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/23/where-the-worlds- top-100000-websites-are-hosted-infographic/)</comment>


Drone taxis? Dubai plans roll out of self-flying pods - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2017/02/13/dubai-passenger-carrying-drones-could-flying-july/97850596/ <comment><USER2> July, really? I thought this thing was still pretty much vaporware?

<comment><USER3> That's what I thought about the eHang - badly designed (but well marketed) vaporware.

At least the Volocopter has been doing unmanned and manned test flights for over a year [1]. Much better and more advanced concept. Plus it doesn't have rotors on all sides of the aircraft conveniently placed to break your legs.

[1] [http://www.volocopter.com/index.php/en/e-volo-en/timeline- en](http://www.volocopter.com/index.php/en/e-volo-en/timeline-en)</comment></comment>


Implementing a BTree in Haskell with GADT's - <AUTHOR> http://matthew.brecknell.net/post/btree-gadt/

<comment><USER2> One thing I can't really get used to are those short, one-two character-long variables/symbols. For some deity sake, why Br and LF? Line Feed? In Binary Tree? T1, T2, T3? There is Fatboy on T3 in Supreme Commander, that's what I think of when I see this.

Is writing "Tree" that hard? I don't understand why should anyone burden himself with deciphering abbreviations when he can just write the full word.

<comment><USER3> You lot crack me up. I'm the author of the video, and it's clear to me that you didn't watch much of it. You'll find your Tree at 6.15. Indeed, the external interface of this whole thing consists of "Tree", "insert" and "delete". Is that clear enough for you?

And also bear in mind that this is a screencast, so you can't ask me to scroll around the code while I'm building it in front of you. You can either have descriptive identifiers, or you can have more than 10% of the implementation visible at a time. Not both. And frankly, it's my video, which I spent over 200 hours writing and producing, so I think I get to make that choice.

<comment><USER2> I indeed didn't watch the video, and the part I've seen I watched with audio muted. That's because I'm not that interested in Haskell and because I've built many BTrees in many different languages already. Because of this my comment was _not_ aimed at you specifically, which I felt was clear in my first post.

I'm not criticizing your work, rather I point out a larger trend in one community. You should _stop_ being that emotionally attached to your work, because there are people out there who _will_ criticize _your work_ directly. I'm not one of them, however.

I'm also not familiar with making screencasts, but I would suppose that there are some tools for displaying outline of the code. For example, the Speedbar extension for Emacs is able to outline the types, variables and function definitions declared in a module. Take a look here: <http://cedet.sourceforge.net/speedbar-multi-2.jpg> (the left-most one).

Anyway, I'm not in position to criticize your work, and I never did it. So please stop referring to me as "you lot" and save it for when (not if) it will be really necessary.</comment></comment></comment>


Pokéapi – The Pokemon RESTful API - <AUTHOR> http://pokeapi.co/ <comment><USER2> I think it would be usefull at which generation the pokémon appeared.

Eg. Pokémon Red & Blue = Generation 1

</comment><comment><USER3> I would have called it Snorlax, because 'Rest'[1] is his signature move. Or SnorlAPI. Whatever.

[1]: [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Rest_(move)](http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Rest_\(move\))</comment>


Facebook makes it official — an external advertising network is coming soon - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/11/23/facebook-makes-it-official-an-external-advertising-network-is-coming-soon/ <comment><USER2> This article is more alarmist about this than is really justified (IMHO). What they're talking about is Facebook creating a display advertising business, a move so natural (IMHO) that I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

I'm just this will rattle the tinfoil hate brigade but this certainly isn't "selling your data" as such. Publishers would make a call to FB Ad servers that based on whatever algorithm they choose, would then serve you ads, just like every other display business.

Facebook, in addition to knowing what you do, what you've liked and who you're connected to on Facebook, also has a history of pretty much every Website you've visited since they introduced the "Like" button. The comparisons to Google's intent-based advertising on Google search is somewhat misleading as this business would be closer to, say, Google's DoubleClick, a much smaller business that operates on CPM rather than a CPC basis. If Facebook operated a display business on a CPC basis, that would be noteworthy.

I agree with the revenue estimate of adding as much as $5 billion a year. I came up with the same figure myself at Facebook's IPO to give myself a price target of $12-15 (assuming a gross margin of, say, 20%). That estimate might be low but it's not _that_ far off the (current) mark.

Personally I view these two data sources as:

1\. What you say: behaviour on Facebook; and

2\. What you do: the sites you visit.

(2) is what display advertising has been built on to this point and (IMHO) can present a very accurate picture of what your interests, etc for ad targeting.

(1) is the big unknown. My personal opinion is that the value of this data is a lot less than many predict. Actions speak louder than words. My own experience with Facebook is that it presents a narrow view of yourself (in most cases), presents the world how you think you're perceived or how you'd like to be perceived or both.

The problem is that so few people are data producers. Most are data consumers. It's the whole review problem with local: your audience is so small that getting any reviews is hard and no matter what you do (IMHO) the majority of people just aren't going to go around recommending or "Liking" their local plumber.

So time will tell on the value of social signals. I for one am moderately bearish.

Disclaimer: I work for Google in display advertising. All of the views expressed are my own and do not represent the views of Google.

<comment><USER3> This space is very competitive, if FB ads earn publishers significantly less than DoubleClick then nobody will use it. It's a numbers game. Google is in this space for almost a decade now and it's still small compared to Search.

The big thing for Facebook was always their gigantic inventory, never so much the information. They have a few advantages here, but i think Age + Location + Sex are still more important than all your likes together.

<comment><USER4> The correlation with institutions is also a very useful to figure out someone's economic situation. For example if all your friends are in Harvard chances are that you are not poor; and that ads about expensive/luxury services will convert better than for most people.

<comment><USER5> > For example if all your friends are in Harvard chances are that you are not > poor; and that ads about expensive/luxury services will convert better than > for most people.

Perhaps, but a better predictor would still be whether or not the person has searched for anything related to luxury goods in the past, thereby demonstrating not only ability, but actual intent as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gigaom are missing the point. It's unlikely that Facebook targeted ads on third party sites are going to convert at a substantially better basis than Google Ads where Google has a huge depth of expertise and data on optimising for site content.

The biggest problem in ad networks isn't cost-per-click, it's fraud. And that's where Facebook has a huge advantage, Facebook has a much deeper level of expertise of telling a real user from a fake user. And that's Facebook's edge if they decide to roll out an ad network.

<comment><USER7> Is Facebook doing anything about these fake users though? I just started a page like ad campaign on FB (I got a free $50 voucher so I figured what the heck..), but of the ~120 likes I got it seems like 98% of them are fake, or at least people that like 1000's of different pages and don't seem to convert to my actual site at all.

<comment><USER6> Generally the above happens when you don't use targeting on your Facebook ads. Different cultures and groups treat "likes" differently, so you shouldn't be surprised if some groups are a bit gun-ho when it comes to liking pages. Generally I've found that if you're using targeting the US or UK using keyword targets that it isn't generally a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, am I the only one who finds Facebook ads...actually kind of good? Sure, they're horrifying in that they have the necessary information to target me that well, but I'll get advertisements for a local comic shop, or for a game that at least sounds interesting—although the product on the other end isn't always fantastic, I find Facebook ads to be the few that actually show me something I might be interested in.

<comment><USER9> You're clearly not the only one, but I've never seen an ad on Facebook for anything I was even remotely interested in. Mind you, that's mostly my fault, because I refuse to Like anything unless I can control the publicity that Like generates. I don't mind letting Facebook know I Like <X>, but I don't always want all my friends to know that.

<comment><USER10> It is interesting that Facebook is shooting itself in the foot by spamming on Likes and discouraging Liking, instead of using them to target user-friendly ads, which would br a virtuous cycle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This actually sounds like an unsurprising good news. Good because, provided those ads work well, it might create a sort of counter power against Adsense, which will likely benefit publishers and advertisers.

If Facebook gets to treat their publishers properly, as in, not like Adsense seems to do (automated account suspensions & all that), Google might start to see competition here.

</comment><comment><USER12> Protect yourself:

AdBlock: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiob...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom)

Ghostery: <http://www.ghostery.com/>

Do Not Track Plus: <http://www.abine.com/dntdetail.php#>

</comment><comment><USER13> Statements like this just sound a little slimy: _Everything you do and say on Facebook can be used to serve you ads. Our policy says that we can advertise services to you off of Facebook based on data we have on Facebook._

This is an excellent example of why I love the paid SaaS model so much more than advertising. With a paid app, your customer is your user. With advertising, the customer is the advertiser and they have very, very different goals than the users.

<comment><USER14> That's actually a great argument in favor of SaaS I had never considered.

<comment><USER15> someone actually said it back in 2010

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."

[http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven- discontent#325604...](http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven- discontent#3256046)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, Facebook already knows tons about you from keyword-scanning your private messages, analysing your FB usage patterns, "looking for friends" in your phone's contacts, remembering your GPS positions in photographs, etc. And they know where you've been on the net thanks to Like buttons and Comments widgets everywhere.

I guess this is the next logical step. I'm even more scared than I was by Phorm this time, though D:

</comment><comment><USER17> So, why not just block all HTTP requests to anything on a domain owned by facebook unless you are actually viewing a FB page?

<comment><USER18> There's Ghostery, of course - but I found it was extremely slow on my machine (as in, adding seconds of page load time), and while it is almost install-and- forget, it's policy is limited to what the maintainers believe. Everything else is "opt-out" with a GUI that's less than intuitive (or at least was, last time I used it - I haven't been following development in the last two years).

But if you are using Firefox, the real gem for security conscious people is RequestPolicy. The default setting is that every 3rd party access is opt-in rather than opt-out. And when you start using it, you'll realize that there are reasonable sites, but that every news site and many professional bloggers connect to 20 different tracking services each (scorecard, aquantive, google analytics, facebook, twitter, google plus, doubleclick, mediametrix, ... the list goes on and on).

Schneier's website, as a counterexample, only makes a reference to eff.org.

Also, you get to realize the depth of referral links - I see some newegg links (from e.g. fatwallet or dealnews) go through 10 redirects before arriving to the actual website. And that Google and Youtube track every single click on their site, even though they work very hard to make it look as if they send you directly.

Seriously, if you are security conscious, RequestPolicy is a must. It takes more work (e.g. a lot of sites rely on css and javascript from unrelated 3rd parties, and break horribly without them), but in return for 10 more minutes of work over a week, you actually have a good idea of who's trying to track you, and makes everything opt-in rather than opt-out or no-option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I still hope they get the legal and lobby aspects of fb:credits to work.

Using my facebook account (think iphone + facebook app + nfc) to do my daily payments would be a by far more qualitative businessmodel than ads.

Sure currently they are currently closer to sell ads than to implement an digital currency.

But ads is an misaligned business model. Facebook is about people engaging with their world. Liking an artist, checking in a store, listening to the album - next: buying the (collectors edition) album.

Yes i know apple is closer to becoming our digital currency (as they already do it since years). But having currency provider and gate to the internet (iphone) connected seems wrong. Currency and identity feels in a weird way more correct to me.

</comment><comment><USER20> This will have marginal impact on Fb revenue for 2 reasons:

1\. What people share on Facebook <> what people really want to buy\consume\order

People are trying to look nice on Facebook. Facebook has to come up with some non-trivial statistics. What those guy who liked SF Giants and Obama is willing to buy. This requires 'Hunch-like' insights. And we know that Hunch business model was not a big success. Google's exercise is much easier, becuase Google knows what user's looking for, privacy of search request helps a lot. This could be fixed in only one way - through introduction of search engine within Facebook. Facebook could acquire Blekko or hire bunch of people from Google\Bing.

2\. Site owners will get higher CPM with Google than Facebook. And will prefer using Google ads in most cases, not Facebook ad.

This will happen for the same reason as N1, Google has higher advertising relevancy and offered price than Facebook. Facebook will be sucessful at niche sites only - like Zynga, junk sites that are blocked by Google, etc. This could work for brand advertising, with pay-per-view model.

</comment><comment><USER21> This story is sensationalist and false. There is no external advertising network that Facebook wants to sell your data to. Facebook is changing this particular policy so that they can share data among its subsidiaries, like Facebook Ireland and Instagram. The "tracked changes" version of their data use policy [1] makes this clear on the last page (emphasis mine):

> We may share information we receive with businesses _that are legally part > of the same group of companies that Facebook is part of, or that become part > of that group_ (often these companies are called affiliates). Likewise, our > affiliates may share information with us as well. We and our affiliates may > use shared information to help provide, understand, and improve our services > and their own services.

[1]: [https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak- ash3/676592/128/4...](https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak- ash3/676592/128/460431350669077_1584612884.pdf#page=15) (PDF)

<comment><USER22> I don't think this is the story's main point. If Facebook rolls out an AdSense-like product for publishers they're effectively building an external ad network (external as in outside facebook.com, not outside Facebook), right?

<comment><USER20> It does not matter if site already has any Fb services (likes, recommends, sharing)- Facebook callback could be easily added to any site together with advertisment module. It means that Facebook will deliver to ad module that ad that is most likely will be clicked according to site's user fb profile, likes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting to see Facebook's progression from a social network for students to an advertising network. This may actually be good for their shareholders, as social networking seems to have been unprofitable for them. Nothing lasts forever on the internet - except perhaps the text-only websites of professors on .ac.uk domains - and Facebook's future may be not as a social network, but as an advertising network. I'm speculating, but given the general shift (at least as I've seen) away from Facebook as a social network, changing their game might be the only way to stay afloat.

</comment><comment><USER24> Facebook places much more value on its social graph than it really has. What your friends like and what you liked a year ago are mostly irrelevant at the moment you are browsing.

After all, it's been found that, as a generic ad platform, facebook ads are not nearly as effective as google's ad platforms. I bet that, over time, FB will have to make changes to their ad product to be more like AdSense. Or even worse, it could be like the facebook credits farce.

</comment><comment><USER25> The natural place for these ads would seem to be on Facebook canvas apps. They already have those ad slots optimized, since Facebook shows their own ads outside of the canvas area. There is no competition from Google because Facebook does not allow you to use AdSense in the canvas area.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yesterday as I was watching a video on Youtube, I saw a facebook banner ad (yeah "Ads by Google"). As I was logged into Facebook and Google at that time, the 'targeting' was pretty off. I would blame it on Google. Now probably facebook would have better intelligence. Let's see.

</comment><comment><USER27> If anyone believes that Facebook isn't already doing retargeting based on cookies they are completely wrong. It isn't a publicly available feature for advertisers, but they do have it setup and running for specific partners.

<comment><USER28> That's not this is talking about, Facebook's dabble into retargeting is well known (<http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/13/facebook-exchange-results/>). The article is talking about an AdSense competitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I fear for google. This is probably going to demolish adsense.

<comment><USER30> Quite a big prediction there

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Still doesn't solve the "intent" problem.

I doubt that people are going to "Like" erectile dysfunction Pages anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER32> > "Soon, Facebook ads could follow you around the web"

Not if I block them.

</comment><comment><USER33> MySpace trajectory?)

</comment><comment><USER4> The quality of Facebook ads is so shady that I fear this will bring nothing good for the users.

Speaking of wish the most common ads I get in Facebook are those where they trick people into agreeing to get expensive and recurrent SMS messages; like a parasite of your wallet. That should be illegal.

<comment><USER6> They're against Facebook's advertising policy, if you hover over the ads you'll get a little cross in the corner which you can click to report them.</comment></comment>


Naked in public? Dreams Cloud wants to get inside your mind - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57615359-1/naked-in-public-dreams-cloud-wants-to-get-inside-your-mind/

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like a lot is happening in terms of start-ups going after the on-line "Dreams" space, is 2014 the year of online dreams?</comment>


Self-driving car bombs? - <AUTHOR> Are we looking at a future where any hateful person could easily convert a self-driving vehicle into a car bomb? In an America that is becoming increasingly factionalized and hateful, wouldn't this threaten to destabilize society?  Should self-driving vehicles be banned?  Think about a self-driving tractor-trailer loaded with ammonium nitrate soaked with fuel oil.  I am certain there are people in America who would find detonating one attractive.  What sort of targets would be attractive to such people?  Even a SUV could be devastating. <comment><USER2> Why would they get an expensive self driving car when they can buy a much cheaper drone that's much easier to program a flight path for and doesn't come with pesky pedestrian avoidance algorithms? A shrapnel bomb above a crowd could be much better at killing people because it's got a line of site path to much more of the crowd.

They could do this for the last several years but rarely (or never) do, so I'm not anticipating an upsurge.

<comment><USER3> You can pack more explosive into a car and have it to drive to a target far away, keeping you out of sight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You have certainly described a grim future. But if you want to be pessimistic, I feel like drone warfare is far more effective, stealthy, and cheaper.</comment>