Ask HN: What does it take to hire for merit, and avoid biases? - <AUTHOR>

Many companies and team leaders state that they always hire for quality, first, yet the hiring process starts with a resume even for junior positions.
I find it hard to look at a resume and not create associations to university, gpa, name, courses, etc which are not directly connected to merit of the candidate for the job.
What techniques do you use to avoid a filtering bias before conducting technical interviews? <comment><USER2> I'm more concerned about a diversity in hiring channels than biases on an individual level. Many startups want 'the best people' but only hire based on a candidate pool already familiar to them: friends and recent alumni of their school.

This is especially problematic when you consider that most startups are created by white males who have had a societally positive bias all their lives. And they tend to associate mostly with people similar to them. This leads unintentional to sexism, racism, and ageism in our industry, and prevents many startups from even talking to a large number of talented people.

I'd encourage you to reach out to older alumni, minority coding groups, and more experienced developers through previous jobs or your board and advisors. More diverse hiring channels will lead to a more diverse candidate pool.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1)Whatever metric you are looking to determine merit, whether it is University affiliation, GPA, or performance on a coding evaluation, don't think of the result as a single number. Think of it as a range. Even a probability distribution. The mean value of technical merit may be higher but the variance is so large that the metric may be meaningless unless you have a large number of applicants.

2)Whatever metric you are looking at, recognize ahead of time that you might be getting it wrong. So you might want to include a sample of candidates from the rest of the pile just to evaluate your evaluation methods. Unless you are the type of company getting dozens of applications from people at top schools then this shouldn't be a problem.

3)Hiring somebody right out of college is a roll of the dice anyway. No matter what their ability, you have no idea how well they work with other people, how well they listen to instructions, or how well they can handle the grind of the 9-5. Once you get to the interview phase I would look more for maturity than technical merit so long as they meet a minimum acceptable criteria. But I also suppose this depends on what stage your company is at.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but how are University/GPA/Courses not directly tied to median candidate merit?

If you had someone in front of you who went to MIT and had a 4.0, and always took the most stringent professors for each course in the curriculum, how on earth do you think they compare to someone from ASU, or some community college, with a 2.15 GPA?

<comment><USER5> They aren't directly tied to merit. They may be indirectly tied to merit; that's the argument many people make. But we also know college attendance, especially at elite schools, and GPA are correlated with other things... things like economic background.

You also have to consider how bias can be self-reinforcing. We know people with stereotypical African-American names are less likely to be hired then people with the same resume but names associated with Caucasians. And black children are much more likely to be suspended or expelled then white counterparts, and to get lower grades, even if their performance and behavior is on par with white students. So credentials like a degree at a good school, and good grades, are not always free of bias.

If you are an employer, you have to consider a number of factors. You may need to fill the position immediately. You may have a certain pay scale in mind without flexibility. You want to avoid hiring a weak or bad employee, and you want to avoid not hiring a good employee who merely looks bad on paper.

In science, we often use randomized samples. You might try taking a random sample of the people who you wouldn't ordinarily pick, the no pile, and interviewing them at technical skills. Or better yet, having somebody who doesn't know who is who interview them purely on technical skills, and not letting them see the resume.

<comment><USER6> "You want to avoid hiring a weak or bad employee, and you want to avoid not hiring a good employee who merely looks bad on paper."

Yes, but the first is a much more serious problem. It's unlikely that a small company will founder if it misses a good hire, but a bad hire can certainly destroy it. Better to err on the side of caution.</comment></comment></comment>


How FaceBook Polices Itself - <AUTHOR> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/facebook-provides-rare-peek-at-how-site-is-policed/articleshow/14298416.cms

<comment><USER2> Comes with a nice flow diagram: <http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/19/facebook- reporting/></comment>


Scroll Anchoring in Firefox 66 - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/scroll-anchoring-in-firefox-66/ <comment><USER2> Awesome. This is going to hurt advertisers. This is pretty much the only reason I've clicked on an ad in years. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I _think_ i understand what this is fixing/implementing, but those videos are absolutely terrible at getting the point across.</comment>


Scientists Discover Heavy New Element - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/science/07element.html <comment><USER2> Damn, that's cool. Everybody always told me that as elements get more massive, they get less stable. Turns out that doesn't have to be the case. Heavier elements could actually get stabler, they speculate that there could be yet heavier elements out there with day or year long half-lifes. Element 117 doesn't seem to get you as far, though. More like a few milliseconds.

So, I guess, don't let chemists tell you anything, there still might be room for Unobtainium (that doesn't decay within milliseconds) in the periodic table :)

</comment><comment><USER3> When will they create Adamantium?</comment>


A Different Kind of Recession - HBS Student Reflects on Visit to India - <AUTHOR> http://www.zacharyclayton.com/2009/03/04/a-different-kind-of-recession/ <comment><USER2> Peoples minds work on such a strong relative level.. You can be upper-middle- class in California and kill yourself from depression. You can live in a slum and work all day and be happy (Theoretically that is, if they weren't constantly reminded by a skyline, TV, commercials and rich tourists of their relative position. In fact, commercials are designed to lower your happiness, as they essentially try to show that life can be better.)

Not only happiness, but truth is relative for people. Exploring boundaries (like travelling) is the only way to be able to better position and evaluate standpoints on any subject.

The minds natural tendency to zoom in must be countered, consciously and regularly. For us, (I assume the people in Dharavi are not reading this) this can also definately be source of happiness and a way to set your focus on the right kind of things in your life.

<comment><USER3> I have always been intrigued by this facet of humankind, that people who are so poor can live life so happily, thinking about the small things in life. Maybe its about choices, the more choices and freedom we have, the more we miss the things we could have been, or could have done ?!

<comment><USER4> Making generalizations about rich and poor is very dangerous. It may well be cultural, and many areas which are poor happen to have that cultural attribute. Perhaps it is also related to media exposure. I doubt that happiness is directly related to wealth or lack of wealth. Obviously there are many happy middle-class people and many sad poor people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been to Mexico and India (Bangalore) and it provides a wake up call on how lucky I am to have been born in California, obtained my degree and get a job at a fortune 50 company. Travel is a good way to get out of your shell and experience what it's like outside your own little world.

</comment><comment><USER6> Agreed that recession is misleading in the title.

I recently got back from India and I didn't make it into Dharavi. One thing that I found though is the fact that India didn't get the Memo that there is a world recession going on.

They are still building and expanding like crazy. On one Island I was they where building 3 new dive shops...

<comment><USER7> That is so true. I live here but even to me it seems that the entire county's under construction!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The "recession" reference seems misleading. Poverty is kind of timeless.

<comment> old-gregg Do we have to supply every submission with a mandatory comment regarding the title?

I mean that was your first reaction, right? After reading the post the voice inside told you _"gee, I wish he picked another title, I better post a comment about it?"_

And by the way, I found the title perfectly fitting and clever: we can bitch and moan about deteriorating US roads and infrastructure, about property values in California going down by 41.3% all we want, but that's far from another, raw meaning of "low".

<comment><USER9> It's a feature that we'll hopefully get added to the codebase eventually --- community revoting on titles. Bad titles are really annoying.

<comment> old-gregg I find loud people who're so "misled" and "frustrated" by titles to be more annoying that titles themselves. Take this thread, for instance: one boring nerd wasted time commenting on "misleading" title, then another computer dork without life revolted, and you responded, and now look - all 3 of us are wasting everybody else's time on this stupid title!

<comment><USER8> More annoying than ad hominem attacks?

<comment> old-gregg Dude... you've got to get outside and see some sunlight. I'm serial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, an entire blog post dedicated to white guilt.</comment>


A vagina boom box for the pregnant woman who has everything else - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2016/01/06/vagina-speaker/ <comment><USER2> Looks like a great addition to @InternetOfShit on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is stupid.

Unless the thing vibrates while playing sound, then I get it.</comment>


Show HN: Timeboxing app for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://rinik.net/zonebox/

<comment><USER2> > A timeboxing app. Duh.

Sorry but as developer who had to google timeboxing this immediately turned me off to your product.

<comment><USER3> You're a developer and don't know what TimeBoxing is? You must not have a CS degree?

<comment><USER4> Not sure if trolling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tried to install your app and run it. The application crashed at launch, details included here if you need to trouble shoot it.

Process: launchd [1985] Path: /Applications/Zonebox.app/Contents/MacOS/Zonebox Identifier: rinik.Zonebox Version: ??? (???) Code Type: X86-64 (Native) Parent Process: launchd [138]

Date/Time: 2013-01-16 15:27:10.376 -0800 OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7.4 (11E53)

Crashed Thread: Unknown

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00007fff5fc01028

<comment><USER6> Yup, same error here. Full dump: <https://gist.github.com/5db045977b157096f448>

<comment><USER7> And here.

      Crashed Thread:  Unknown

      Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
      Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x00007fff5fc01028

<comment><USER8> And my Axe! I mean...same error here as well:

<https://gist.github.com/4553069>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nicely done! Tried it out and will definitely be keeping it. I like the website as well, the utility of the app is obvious from one quick glance.

I think it'll be useful in convincing yourself to do that 15-60 min task that you've been putting off.. or just to get you motivated (I'll fix this bug quickly in 15 mins... and before you know it you've fixed a few).

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice app, and well done for a weekend project!

Try converting this to a menu-bar app (see <http://flexibits.com/fantastical>). Let's face it - this is more of a utility that needs to get out of the way rather than "app" that sits there and takes up space. :-)

Try having a all-screen notification when the time is up (see app "Timey" in App store: <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timey/id414792604?mt=12>)

Combine these two features and I'll happily pay for this app.

</comment><comment><USER11> A few words about what Timeboxing is would be handy on there.

</comment><comment><USER12> For people who don't know what timeboxing is:

[http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/timeboxing- trilogy...](http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/timeboxing-trilogy- part-1-what-and-why)

Even if you aren't into language learning it is a very interesting (and practical) read.

 _"Anyway, the short answer is this: timeboxing is a technique where we place deliberate, prior, artificial limits on the time to perform a given task. Within reason, the tighter (shorter) the time limits, the better."_

</comment><comment><USER13> This is very very good. I only wish I could paste/drag a list like this in and out of it:

        - bla bla do one thing
        - bla bla do some other thing
        + this is done already

Because right now it has my information hostage. And then destroys it altogether.

Thank you.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can simply paste list of things in it, copying is a good idea too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It says quit unexpectedly, not working for me. I'm on LION

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I haven't tested it on Lion. Sorry.

<comment><USER14> Test it on Lion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would be great if I could use this to practice the Pomodoro Technique. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique>

</comment><comment><USER16> I know it's not a very helpful comment, seeing as you've only just started, but I think the website would be better if the screenshot was bigger.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I think it's quite helpful. While I work on the website some more, enjoy the 2x version of the screenshot: <http://email@example.com> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This strikes me as something that would be better as an iPhone app. Still, seems like a great simple app.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't get the point to use this app

<comment><AUTHOR> It helps you with timeboxing: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeboxing>

It helps you get things done by setting aside e.g. 20 minutes to fix bug #123.

I wanted to put this up on website originally, but then decided I just want to keep it simple: <http://sht.tl/jJ0J6>

<comment><USER19> Nice little graphic!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nice and clean interface.

Would be great if I could delete a task (after adding a bunch of test tasks for example)

Would also be great to be able to enter "1h" - it switches it to 1m.

Is this somehow compatible to your App Store App "Zone"?

</comment><comment><USER21> Sad to report that although the website for your apps look real good neither Zonebox or slap worked for me. \- Zonebox crashed on launch \- Slap doesnt let me add any websites.

</comment><comment><USER22> A quick "add time" button that pulls down with a 5,15,30,60,120 minute list might be awesome. This way you can quickly keep working on a task you didn't scope correctly.

</comment><comment><USER23> I like the simple website. Having the download as a .zip may be a little suspicious to some non-technical users but maybe I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER24> I immediately tried entering 4h as a estimate, sadly it didn't work. :-(

</comment><comment><USER25> sounded like an interesting idea - but doesnt actually count down my assigned time on mountain lion

<comment><USER26> I saw the same when I blocked it phoning home. After allowing it to phone home once it now counts down as you'd expect.

Void_, what's the phone home actually doing?

ps. Nice, simple product. Are you going to build this out to include some of Zone's functionality?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is awesome, trying it now.</comment>


Ask HN: Started a job recently, great compensation but dreading work. Tips? - <AUTHOR> The code is just atrocious.
It's obviously been written by people who are architecture astronauts and it hurts daily to work on simple features that would take me 20 minutes in any other setting.
I'm dreading work, and this has never happened to me before. I'm usually excited about work and knocking things out.
The pointman I'm speaking with as I get onboarded with the systems has a very thick accent and a very poor microphone, it's very hard for me to understand, nevermind the mic physically hurting my ears haha
The founder is also pushing for hard deadlines however development is slow because this clusterfuck of a database and architecture is just bonkers lmao
The pay is excellent and in a very interesting niche, but man I am just dreading getting up to work here. I don't know what to do.
Should I quit? It's only been 4 months.
How can I mitigate these feelings and improve the situation? <comment><USER2> Figure out what you want out of this job.

\- If there something you want to learn, focus on achieving that.

\- If you are there for the money, invest in something outside of work you enjoy.

\- If you think you can find a new job easily and this one doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, then use it as a sandbox to test different things without risk (i.e. what'll happen if you push back on unreasonable deadlines? Is there a better way to handle it? Rinse, repeat).

<comment><USER3> I really like your sandbox idea.

Also OP should discuss concerns with their supervisor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can either leave or find a way to make your job fun. I've repeated "Be the change you want to see in the world" about a thousand times since I've started mentoring people, and it's really the only thing you as an engineer can do. Their architecture is a clusterfuck? Come up with ways to improve it and present to some slice of the company that will listen (e.g. director of engineering, C-levels if the company is small enough).

Ultimately, you can make almost any job tolerable just by putting in the legwork. If you're not comfortable doing that or you feel like there's nothing you can do, then it's time to leave. That's how I decided to leave my last job, I realized I couldn't make any more change for the better and so it was time to leave and do something else.

I will say atrocious code is one of the more fixable problems you can find yourself facing. It starts by being a great example and enforcing good practices on anything you get ownership of, but ultimately it will eventually involve a discussion with whoever's in charge to start setting larger organizational policy.

You said it's an interesting niche, and that's an important consideration, but remember that very few companies are "unique"; someone else is probably doing this, and jumping ship is an acceptable thing to do in _any_ job. You are far more valuable to the company than they are to you.

</comment><comment><USER5> You really have three paths:

1) Accept the fact that it is crappy and enjoy your paycheck. Just go to work, accept that your time there is a business transaction in exchange for the paycheck, then go home.

2) Invoke change - speak up, not just about the problems, but with solutions to improve the organization. Encourage discussion, retrospectives, and push on your leadership to make actions happen. If you are having trouble understanding people, tell them. Ask them to get a better mic. If the code is hard to work through, document it as you figure things out - you'll start to understand it, and if it really is convoluted for no reason, documentation and diagrams of it often will make people realize such things, in a way that just looking at code does not.

3) Leave. There is no shame in leaving a job that is not right for you. You aren't helping your employer or yourself by just being miserable every day. FWIW, I've never left an unhealthy job and then later wished I had stayed longer.

<comment><USER6> > Invoke change - speak up, not just about the problems, but with solutions to > improve the organization.

This doesn't work in my experience. You're the new guy and no-one wants to give up whatever political power they've accumulated through things being such a clusterfuck. By doing this, you _will_ step on someone's toes even if you have the best of intentions and didn't mean to; this will upset people who have more power than you do, and will do you in.

1) and 3) are valid options, but I wouldn't advise 2).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The founder is also pushing for hard deadlines however development is slow > because this clusterfuck of a database and architecture is just bonkers lmao

I have run across many a CTO, CEO and founder who had a timeline that would have been reasonable in another place, with better architecture or even a slight twist on what they suggest.

I would take this as an opportunity to learn to speak the language of management. If you can say that with better code things would be "faster" then you have a case to be made, and you should make it. Ask your founder out to coffee, most managers and executives are approachable. Keep in mind that your pitch should be soft. Dont say "our system sucks" say that your timelines would have been more easily achieved in past systems.

The best one off insight I can give you to management thinking is to suggest you read the orange juice test and make sure what ever your going to say is couched in that.

As for your coworker with the accent and the mic, say something! "I don't think I would be having so much trouble with your accent if the audio quality was better, do you have a different mic to try...". You would be surprised how many folks have these sorts of issues and DONT know it because no one says something.

</comment><comment><USER8> Four months is a very short time, but can feel very long. You need at least six months to really understand a complex codebase. I'm in a similar situation as you, our code is terrible and ugly but after digging deep I've started to see some of the reasons why the code is the way it is. My approach has been to pick the most difficult problems that nobody else can fix, and fix them. It's painful but the payoff is pretty good.

<comment><USER9> > You need at least six months to really understand a complex codebase.

This might depend on the definition of 'complex', but I don't agree in all cases.

I'm in a project right now with one other team member - we hit the ground running with 'new' (to us) code. It's been just over 10 weeks, and we have a pretty deep understanding of what's there. Honestly, it's not terribly huge, but there were 6(?) other developers before us over the course of 4 years, and each one left things progressively worse.

In 2 months we have a better understanding of how the code fits together than everyone else who came before - which you can mostly tell via the commit log (and scant comments).

Now... I may be out of line saying they didn't "understand" things - they may have understood and just been too lazy to bother to not break things.

But 6 months is a _long_ time. What you can learn in 1-2 months is just how bad things are, and what the most effective triage techniques can be.

What's helped in this case is that... I've come in as a contractor, and there is no one else to answer to (except the client). There is no one refusing commits because of code style conflicts. No one arguing about db schema changes, or asking for my time in meetings that have nothing to do with this project. So, in that respect, the 10 weeks has been fairly productive.

It's come down to experience, autonomy, lack of politics, and a focus on getting some architecture and tooling in place to allow for repeatable builds, tests and sample data. Not been smooth sailing by any means, and we're still uncovering bugs (big bugs) that date back 16 months or more.

I've been in other situations where fixing the difficult problems would a) uncover bigger issues that b) cause other folks to nix the whole effort, because it rocked too many boats, and my work was rolled back. Disheartening, and if you can't get buy-in, or at least free reign to fix _something_ , it's time to move on.

</comment></comment><comment> a-saleh I was in simmilar situation, even though not as frustrating. Started at a company as a test-automation engineer, but the QA team I was part of was dissolved soon after, and we were redistributed do various development teams.

So I changed to be backend-developer but after three months in that role, I didn't feel like I am really contributing. One of the things was, that didn't really feel that I had that much impact on things we were doing in the team, and I learned that the only part of the application I finally started to comprehend a bit will be handed over to a separate team. Secondly, I was only remotee out of 8 people, rest of them in a single office.

So I changed to the team on the other side of the hand-over. It is mostly remote (3/5 people in different offices), and I do participate much more.

</comment><comment><USER10> Write one page with the absolute priorities to make your time at work better (both for you and the startup) and speak with the highest person in charge with recruitment, face to face behind closed doors. If the chat is constructive, you both will agree a plan and a timescale to make you happy and productive for the common goals.

</comment><comment><USER11> No. You should say "Fuck it. I'm the leader of this circus." Get the point man's address and without asking, overnight him a microphone. Take charge in refactoring the code base to be whatever you want. Go out in a blaze of glory, getting fired for acting like you now own the place. Don't hold back at all, until they fire you. Literally don't hold back the tiniest bit. If you flinch for a moment, or accomodate them in any way, _that 's_ what you'll get fired for. Take no prisoners, OP. Scorched earth.

</comment><comment><USER12> Architecture astronaut, lol. I'm stealing that one.

I'd figure out why the architecture was (over) designed that way first. You might like the answers you get!

<comment><USER13> It's a term of art in our industry and has been around for a while e.g.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let- architect...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architecture- astronauts-scare-you/)

<comment><USER14> nunez is one of today's luck 10,000! [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Do you think it is going to become better?

<comment><USER16> Or, ask yourself can _you_ make it better so it's more enjoyable going forward?

I've had this experience a few times; horrible code base & practices, but I've managed to make it better (and tell my colleagues how to do better going forward) and it's been great ever since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Quit. Seriously. Life is too short.

</comment><comment><USER18> You should quit.</comment>


Free AngularJS training in Paris - <AUTHOR> http://onepoint-angularjs-1.sttc.nukomeet.com/ <comment><USER2> Why Angular and not React?

<comment><AUTHOR> Angular is still widely used.</comment></comment>


Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> The reason is placebos are receiving meta enhancement!

At first the placebo effect only had working for it the patients hope that they might be receiving the treatment pill and might get better. Alternatively, working against it was the concern they were getting the placebo and likelihood of getting worse. (Ie 1/2 odds at recovering)

But, as studies showed that even those receiving placebos were getting better patients came to realize that even if they were getting the placebo treatment they could still get better. So now, the placebo has working for it the patients hope of getting the treatment and getting better plus the hope that in the case they get the placebo they experience the placebo effect and get better anyways. Alternatively, placebo effect now only has working against it the "off chance" that if the patient gets the placebo he also does not experience the placebo effect. (Ie 2/3 odds at recovering)

Now, start with press releases like this and start stating that the placebo is so powerful, it always works--so much so we aren't going to bother giving the real drug to trial patients any more and just give them all sugar pills.. Then you'll get to watch placebo patients start consistently out performing trial drug patients at health recovery that eventually the above statement will be true.

And while I wrote this comment in good humor, I do think it's a valid argument that circular logic explains that the placebo effect is getting stronger because of the placebo effect (people believing in it). In fact, it may be the only valid and legitimate use case of circular logic.

<comment><USER3> There's at least one study recently that shows this effect. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/22/placebo- effect...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/22/placebo-effect- patients-sham-drug) Even if you tell the patients that it's a placebo, they still get better.

<comment><USER4> other article by Steve Silberman ( December 22, 2010 )

"Meet the Ethical Placebo: A Story that Heals" [http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/12/22/meet-the- ethica...](http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/12/22/meet-the-ethical- placebo-a-story-that-heals/)

about IBS placebo study: "Silberman: One interesting aspect of this study is that it suggests that are two layers of belief in the brain — one that knows there's nothing in this pill, and another that knows that a placebo can be an effective treatment. It's as if the brain can entertain two different notions of the effectiveness of a pill at once.

Kirsch: Yes, but they're not contradictory notions. I believe in both. I know that this pill does not contain a physically active ingredient, and I also understand the conditioning process. I know that the placebo effect is real, so I understand that this inert pill might help trigger that healing response within me. We need to recognize and understand that patients are active agents in their treatment, not passive. The placebo effect does not come from the pill. It comes from the patient." _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article isn't keeping up with the best research. (I'm glad that the submission title notes that the article was published in 2009.) In actual practice, placebos only look effective when the statistical tests in a study are poor, and most especially when the symptoms are self-reported by patients. Placebos are NOT effective in treating actual disease states or improving "hard endpoints" such as reduction of all-cause mortality or major morbidity from specific diseases with verifiable physiological signs. See

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo- effect...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo-effect-for- pain/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo- effect...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo-effects- revisited/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-placebo- ef...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-placebo-effect/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo- effect...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/placebo-effects- without-deception-well-not-exactly/)

Placebo effects are strongest for patient self-reported subjective symptoms (classically, pain) and weakest for objective clinical signs measured by experienced observers.

Previous submission of same article as that opening this thread, 622 days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032149>

An earlier comment there

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032710>

had it just right: "As I've said before, this article is incredibly wrong and quite misleading. If you ever wanted evidence that most Americans do not understand how medicines are developed or what the Placebo Effect is, this article (and the responses here) serve as ample evidence. For a more rigorous refutation by a trained professional, please read:

<http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1248>

I'll pull the zinger quote from the article above for you:

>No, it's not like that at all. Perhaps the studies are just that well done, or maybe the drugs being developed suck, or maybe companies are studying more candidate drugs and screening for efficacy. Just about any explanation that doesn't involve aliens is better than 'placebo is getting stronger'."

<comment><USER6> "Placebos are NOT effective in treating actual disease states or improving "hard endpoints" such as reduction of all-cause mortality"

Then how do you explain the metastudy that I linked to below in this thread that found that adherence to placebos reduced mortality as much as actual medications across a variety of diseases?

<comment><USER5> _Then how do you explain the metastudy that I linked to below_

I read the fine abstract of the article you kindly posted in your comment, where it says, "Moreover, the observed association between good adherence to placebo and mortality supports the existence of the 'healthy adherer' effect, whereby adherence to drug therapy may be a surrogate marker for overall healthy behaviour."

This finding (for which I would expect a lot more replication across independent data sets before relying on it too much for my own health) says that patients who make efforts to take care of themselves generally fare better than patients who are so careless that they don't even take physician- prescribed medicines according to the prescription schedule. If, once that difference in patient behavior is taken into account, some patients gain little additional benefit from a particular prescribed drug over the bare lifestyle difference benefit shown by patients taking only placebos, that suggests that the prescribed drugs can be improved (or that physician practice in choosing and dosing the prescribed drugs can be improved) but it doesn't suggest at all that placebos themselves are doing anything beneficial for patients.

<comment><USER6> "it doesn't suggest at all that placebos themselves are doing anything beneficial for patients."

Fair enough. But those patients who don't take their medicine as prescribed are ~25% of all U.S. patients. So in fact adherence studies are a much better measure of the efficacy of medicine than clinical trials, which means that just because a drug has been shown to have clinical efficacy doesn't mean that it actually at all effective in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd imagine placebos are getting more effective due to more people having purely headspace/mindset (or even imaginative) illnesses/causes due to stress factors.

The more it's in your head, the more likely you can cure it with another imaginative treatment... As long as you believe in it.

It's the only reasonable explanation.

Aside from that, the power of belief can also be a reasonably powerful treatment with a positive response on the body/mind.

<comment><USER8> Not sure why you got downvoted, it's not my cup of tea but it is as good an explanation as any other until the cause is known.

<comment><USER9> The poster edited their comment. It originally started something like "tl;dr no really I didn't read the article" and proceeded with the speculation (and hubris that it's the "only reasonable explanation") that remains at the time of this writing.

I downmodded the comment because it's the type of quick, non-substantial response that actually detracts from conversation among those who took the time to read the article and want a real discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nocebo effect:

"The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Intense Belief Kills" ( SEP 14 2011, ) [http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/the-dark- sid...](http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/the-dark-side-of-the- placebo-effect-when-intense-belief-kills/245065/)

 _"If you're still unsure that the nocebo effect could actually lead to premature death, Adler cites one stunning example of the effect from China. A team of researchers found that Chinese Americans die younger than expected "if they have a combination of disease and birth year which Chinese astrology and medicine considers ill-fated." That is to say, if they were born in a year that was astrologically linked to poor lung health, they would die an average of five years earlier from lung-related disease than someone born in some other year with the same disease. Similar effects were not found in the white populations around them. And how much sooner you died depended on the people's "strength of commitment to traditional Chinese culture."

Think about that for a minute. If you were born under a bad sign, you died five years younger from the same diseases as people born under good signs. But only if you believed in Chinese astrology"_

</comment><comment><USER10> Martin Seligman (of both "learned optimism" and "learned helplessness" fame) showed that rats' immune systems are influenced by their psychological state, specifically, the extent of control they had over unpleasant stimuli. This included tumour reduction.

In the light of this, the placebo effect does not seem so far-fetched.

My personal theory is that when an animal feels safe and secure in a non- threatening environment, the immune system is stimulated, because the immune system requires resources, and the body can spare these when it is safe. When volunteers are given placebos, in a controlled and professional setting, it is clearly a safe and stress-free environment. (This could be tested by putting the subjects in the same safe setting, but not giving them the placebo).

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a wild speculation on my part but it just popped to mind. Perhaps the reason faux drugs are more and more useful is because we're using them to treat a rising number of faux illnesses. Maybe some of the cases where placebos are working more and more are illnesses we have dreamt up in a feel good society. Restless leg syndrome for example. I know because I get this from time to time but I don't think its an illness to be medicated... Usually I've just not been active enough or eaten too much dietary sugar before bed. We seem to be finding a condition to explain every little discomfort so perhaps, while some of the conditions may be real for some people, the more vague the symptoms become, the higher the odds someone in the study groups only thinks they have it, and the higher the placebo effect. Imaginary drugs for vague imaginary conditions. Anyhow, just a loose theory that just popped into my head completely unsubstantiated by any research. My legs are itchy, going for a walk.

<comment><USER12> > Restless leg syndrome for example. I know because I get this from time to > time but I don't think its an illness to be medicated...

That's like saying because you have a mole that you know skin cancer is made up.

My wife has, at times, been up from 10pm to 6am, sobbing because she's exhausted yet can't sit still for longer than a few seconds. It's sure as hell not a "little discomfort". It's not "my legs are itchy", it's "I cannot stop moving my legs at all without experiencing extreme discomfort".

<comment><USER11> Agreed, which was why I included: "...while some of the conditions may be real for some people". I'm not disputing real conditions like your wife's, I'm saying some medical conditions these days have symptoms so loosely interpretable by the general public that anyone with achy legs may think they have it, and thus possibly try to medicate it. Perhaps this leads to a greater number of these people in study groups.... and perhaps that leads a measurable rise in placebo effectiveness. Anyhow, just an idle theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing that I didn't read in the article, and haven't heard about is whether the placebo effect continues on after the testing phase.

One thing that I could see affecting results is that people are selected for a trial, which may well influence their mindset ("OOh, I'm taking this incredible new drug in a special trial. It is soo much more effective than anything else on the market!") In other words, being part of the experimental group is more important than the placebo or actual drug being tested.

If these drugs are then available via normal channels, I imagine the placebo drug is not distributed, and the results may also not be monitored anymore.

Is there any indication whether this happens? In that packet of anti- depressants, half are placebo and there is no way to tell which is which? Could be cheaper to manufacture and unlikely to be detected. Not too sure of the legalities either...

</comment><comment><USER14> I found this to be a better article on the subject:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=1)

<comment><USER5> Response from a much better source:

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-decline- ef...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-decline-effect-or-a- exaggeration-of-the-messiness-of-science-and-science-based-medicine/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It raises the question: if humans are so prone to the placebo effect, how is your business affected? Or, is this a phenomenon that's regulated to medicine?

</comment><comment><USER4> Placebo/Nocebo Genes ?

################

for example: <http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs4570625>

\- placebo side: _"rs4570625(G;G) homozygosity was a significant predictor of clinical placebo response, being associated with greater improvement in anxiety symptoms."_ [PMID 19052197]

\- Nocebo side: _"rs4570625 may have a gender-dependent effect on susceptibility to Panic Disorder."_ [PMID 19132526]

################

"rs4570625 GG makes me a believer ?" [http://genes2brains2mind2me.com/2008/12/06/rs4570625-gg- make...](http://genes2brains2mind2me.com/2008/12/06/rs4570625-gg-makes-me-a- believer/)

critics: _"Neuroskeptic savages the "placebo gene"_ [http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2008/12/neuroskeptic_s...](http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2008/12/neuroskeptic_savages_the_place.php)

################

23AndMe service data ( if you have ): <https://www.23andme.com/you/explorer/snp/?snp_name=rs4570625>

</comment><comment><USER6> Apparently placebos are now as good as 'real' medications at preventing death across all diseases:

<http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7557/15.full>

(Or at least all diseases that have had adherence research studying the mortality risk with both drug and placebo therapy.)

<comment><USER16> "...adherence to drug therapy may be a surrogate marker for overall healthy behaviour."

<comment><USER6> Which suggests that non-drug interventions are generally better than drug interventions, at least when people actually do them. (Obviously people are much more likely to take a pill than to change their diet, which is part of what makes the research so interesting.)

Not surprisingly, many of the diseases with the lowest adherence are the ones where people would benefit the most. Type 2 diabetes is literally a disease of non-adherence, with 98% of patients not following their doctor's recommendations.

I've learned a ton from reading through the major adherence research findings over the last couple months, and I think there are a ton of ideas that can be applied to entrepreneurship and web startups especially. DiMatteo actually has a brand new book out on this so you don't even really need to read through all the original journal articles anymore to get the main ideas:

[http://www.amazon.com/Health-Behavior-Change-Treatment- Adher...](http://www.amazon.com/Health-Behavior-Change-Treatment- Adherence/dp/0195380401/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1316476206&sr=8-4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article reminds me of the Decline Effect, a BS way to describe experimental error. Experiments are prone to biases and problems than are worked out over time by a lot of good science.

</comment><comment><USER18> Drug makers are just having trouble coming up with new drugs and making up asinine excuses. Placebos are still placebos.

</comment><comment><USER19> If the mind is behind the placebo effect, can we cut out the middle man with a treatment of "deciding you are going to get better." If we remove the lie behind the placebo, and it still works--is this then a power we all possess, and have been accessing all along, but didn't understand or acknowledge?

<comment><USER20> Yes, this is what I was thinking. Could we teach people mental techniques to "delude" themselves into getting better? Kinda reminds me of doublethink from 1984.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "The fact that taking a faux drug can powerfully improve some people's health—the so-called placebo effect—has long been considered an embarrassment to the serious practice of pharmacology."

Not sure what is embarrassing, unless your treatments are effective only because of this _cough_ homeopathy _/cough_

<comment><USER22> Actually, I've come around to the idea that homeopathy is a brilliant piece of social engineering. The theory of homeopathy is simple, internally consistent and not obviously false, which makes it a good way to harness the placebo effect without lying to the patient. The whole idea that diluting medecine makes it more effective has a number of benefits as well:

Concentration/dilution is a simple, objective, physical property that can be measured for any medicine. It's much easier to think and talk about than wishy-washy concepts like "effectiveness in clinical trials."

Diluting medicines down to really low concentrations take sophisticated equipment, so it's legitimate to charge more for those medicines. By agreeing to pay more for less, patients can strengthen their belief and actually increase the effectiveness of the placebo.

The preoccupation with dilution also makes homeopathy safer. At the extreme, patients are being prescribed purified water. No side effects!

Dilution also mitigates any other harmful effects that the homeopathic industry might have on the world. A few leaves of St. John's Wart go a loooong way when they're diluted down to 1 part per million. Out-of-control homeopathy won't lead to, say, increased poaching of bears and tigers for their internal organs.

The whole thing is brilliant.

<comment><USER23> It only makes it safe to people that are not phyiscally sick (by physically I mean something that wouldn't be cured by using a placebo effect).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Real vs Placebo Coffee

 _"Caffeine expectancies influence the subjective and behavioral effects of caffeine."_ [http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/11/real-vs-placebo- cof...](http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/11/real-vs-placebo-coffee.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An oldie but a goodie (it's been posted before). I think this phenomenon is so interesting I was hoping for a fresh discussion on what may cause this.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd bet visiting the sick is more effective than the placebo effect.

</comment><comment><USER25> I feel better even just reading about placebos.

</comment><comment><USER26> All of the medical industry propaganda airing on network TV (House, Grey's Anatomy, etc.) is really selling the idea that drugs work.

Shouldn't be surprising the placebo response is improving.

<comment><USER27> Does anyone know if any of these shows are funded by the pharama companies? Would be interesting to know?

<comment><USER27> Wow I got downvoted for this. Interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe the reason is: better advertising.

<comment> Anti-Ratfish I could be mistaken, but I remember reading that USA and New Zealand are the only 2 countries that allow direct to the consumer advertising of prescription drugs. This causes all sorts of crappy pressures on prescribers and wastes ole try of $

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> They say placebos are getting more Effective. That seems a euphemism for "new drugs work just as good as placebos", which is to say, not at all.

<comment> Anti-Ratfish Re running old trials is mentioned in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> And has medicine ever actually healed anyone but, rather, each person healing himself?</comment>


China's most popular app is a propaganda tool - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/china-popular-app-propaganda-tool-xi-jinping-thought <comment><USER2> And well, why not? Chinese love their country and their country is doing well. It's very much in the tradition of a Pravda but as they say themselves with a mouthful:

>[Officially called] "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era"<

If you're a part of the party cadres, it's part and parcel of it and you have to signal your devotion. And isn't this a great way.

</comment><comment><USER3> So are America's</comment>


Meteor Is the Best/Easiest Reactive Back End for React - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QtrkXKvQFc

<comment><USER2> It may or may not be, but youtube is the worst place to try and explain it.</comment>


Three Mysterious Philanthropists Fund Fourth-Largest U.S. Charity (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-08/three-mysterious-philanthropists-fund-fourth-largest-u-dot-s-dot-charity <comment><USER2> I interviewed with TGS and two friends of mine work there. They're not "the secret Renaissance Technologies." The only commonality between them is that they're both successful quant hedge funds. They have completely different origins and tend to hire researchers from different areas of science. You might as well call Edgestream the secret RenTec since it also flies under the radar and was founded by someone from Renaissance.

This is an editorialized title which isn't endorsed by the article's content. Moreover it's from 2014. I'm not sure what sparked the sudden interest in these companies on Hacker News this week, maybe it's the new book about Simons and RenTec. But the article's pretty out of date and it doesn't give much info.

Worth noting that TGS is also several times smaller than RenTec. They only just passed 100 employees very recently. It's true they're secretive and they like to hire academics. But that describes a large number of really good quant shops. By design, you don't know who they are and they like it that way. Most don't even have websites!

<comment><USER3> If possible, I'd be interested if you could expand on your point regarding RenTec and TGS hiring from completely different areas of science.

Speaking of Edgestream, are there any other successful funds started by RenTec alum? I know of FQS and Merfin, I believe Merfin has been absorbed by Edgestream at this point. Similarly, I asked this question in a prior thread recently but are there any successful offshoots of Thorpe's Princeton/Newport or TGS?

What are some smaller funds of high caliber that little is known about, if you're willing to say?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was listening to an Ed Thorp interview and he hinted at TGS (though he didn't name-drop).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NPSaHIPwb8&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NPSaHIPwb8&feature=youtu.be&t=2670) (44:30 - 44:55)

</comment><comment><USER5> Stories like these always add fire to the attractiveness of hedge funds, but I keep wondering whether it's still possible to have such wild success in this area these days. The field is so incredibly crowded now compared to a few decades ago, and every finance kid with some decent Quant background probably dreams of working in one

<comment><AUTHOR> A while back I met with a large number of quants for <very large and famous quant fund>, if that's representative of the field, I can understand why rentec, tgs etc. would dominate

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://archive.is/YFG4Z](http://archive.is/YFG4Z)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More: [https://news.efinancialcareers.com/us-en/172972/hedge- fund-j...](https://news.efinancialcareers.com/us-en/172972/hedge-fund-job- didnt-know-wanted-probably-cant-get)

</comment><comment><USER7> Im more curious as to how they were found: can not even the richest of persons be completely secretive of their money?

<comment><USER8> Secretive from whom? I'd kind of hope that as people get richer it gets harder to hide vast sums from the tax authorities and the antiterrorism investigators, but that appears not to be the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> p^2 - 1 = 24n [1]

[1] [https://puzzles.nigelcoldwell.co.uk/fifteen.htm](https://puzzles.nigelcoldwell.co.uk/fifteen.htm)</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News client for Windows Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=5e5a14a9-d08b-45ee-a5c2-b44713868af7

<comment><USER2> Only just downloaded but looks like a really good app which definitely fills gap, thanks. Liked the ability to swipe between the link and the comments - the only request I would have is to include the ability to switch to a mobile optimsed view of the site (using Readability, Google Mobilizer etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it and thanks for the suggestion! FWIW, I know a lot of apps have that feature but I personally never found it very useful, which is why I did not include it, but I'll definitely add it in a future update.</comment></comment>


Could Microsoft Switch to Linux? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/15053/could_microsoft_switch_to_linux

<comment><USER2> "Yes, proprietary software is on the decline" - hum, I'd actually say it is on the increase with all these hosted services.</comment>


Reddit Commenter's Fight for Anonynmity Is a Win for Free Speech and Fair Use - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/05/reddit-commenters-fight-anonynmity-win-free-speech-and-fair-use <comment><USER2> This was an interesting and unexpected (but not unwelcome) interpretation of the First Amendment.

> In a hearing earlier this month, Watch Tower argued that they met the > requirements of the Doe test, claiming that their copyright was infringed > and also that the Doe test did not apply because Darkspilver is not a U.S. > resident. On Friday, May 17, Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim rejected the latter > argument, holding that the First Amendment can apply even if a Doe is not in > the U.S. The court noted that because Darkspilver's speech was on a U.S. > company's platform and has a U.S. audience, silencing them would have > unavoidable domestic ripple effects. As Judge Kim explained, "The subpoena > here was issued by a court in the United States, on behalf of a United > States company (Watch Tower) and was directed against another United States > company (Reddit). Moreover, the First Amendment protects the audience as > well as the speaker."</comment>


Return of the '70s Weirdos - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/142636

<comment><USER2> How sweet. I bet Bill Gates is about to become really interesting after he leaves Microsoft.</comment>


The premier 2nd tier email solution - <AUTHOR> https://www.swifterm.com/2nd-tier-email-marketing-solution/ <comment><USER2> This should probably have a "Show HN" on it?</comment>


Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Is Leaving the Company's Board of Directors - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/24/uber-founder-travis-kalanick-is-leaving-the-companys-board-of-directors/ <comment><USER2> While I don't think this is the case here, it's super interesting that leaving in disgrace can be a valid financial exit strategy. The founder and (ex) CEO of a company is able to sell 100% of their stock without causing a panic, under the condition there is another story which justifies it.

Suppose you were in a position where you thought poorly of the long term viability of the company. Wouldn't engineering a fallout with* the board be ultimately prudent?

*"with" here could even mean "in collaboration with".

<comment><USER3> A methodical and peaceful exit ultimately is more prudent. For speed and financial gain, you might be on to something but I think you pay for it in negative legacy.

<comment><USER4> Right. When you're already super-rich, positive reputation probably matters a lot more to you than negative reputation + more money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone work at Cloud Kitchens? How are things there? They've already raised $700M so it must be a big opportunity.

<comment><USER6> Not a Cloud Kitchens employee, but I interviewed with them. They have bright talent, but the offers aren't all that good, especially for the level of experience they were looking for: they want the cream of the crop of this industry, and they do not want to pay top numbers.

The valuation has the "implicit" success baked into the price already-- and I don't think you could say Uber is a guaranteed success story yet. With CK, you take the risk of being an early employee with very little, if any, upside. This came up in other threads recently, but it's likely better odds to stick with Big N companies.

One angle people might be missing is how much CK is a real estate play. There's real technical problems to tackle, but it requires spinning up these dark kitchens in dense, pricy real estate markets. Conceptually, it's the WeWork of restaurant kitchens, though I'm hesitant to draw that comparison due to the many other connotations of WeWork that I wouldn't associate with CK.

<comment><USER7> Typical Travis, cheap as hell. He publicly said that people would join Uber for purely monetary gains, so he wouldn't want to pay them much. Back in 2016, he instructed his managers to A/B test packages to see how low a package candidates can accept. Indeed, "forced" is more accurate than "instructed". I guess nothing is wrong with Travis' MO. It's a free market anyway. It's just that I wouldn't bet my future career on him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what impact him selling all his stock had on the share price. They floated 180M shares at IPO, Travis owned 117.5M. Average daily volume is about 25M shares.

<comment><USER9> The release of the news might move the market a bit, but typically for these large volume trades, they don't go through the typical exchanges like NYSE. Instead, traders will often deal with another large player through an OTC transaction.

<comment><USER10> Many studies have shown that in the long term, OTC and normal trades have same stock impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really don't know enough about this: why, in general do people step down from the board of directors? Is is as simple as him not owning enough stock to justify it anymore, or are there considerations like whether he's running a competing business? It seems strange for him to leave - since as far as I can tell there's no cost to having him on the board and as the founder he brings a certain level of trust to the operation.

<comment><USER12> Its a job that takes time, commitment and impacts your reputation. It isn't a trivial title on the side while you do real work.

<comment><USER13> Is that true? Many people are on multiple corporate boards, and some boards meet only a few times a year. I've only been on charity boards, but it wasn't a particularly demanding commitment.

I guess the reputation cost is a good point, but Kalanick is always going to be associated with Uber, whether he's officially on the board or not.

<comment><USER14> In a public company there's a real time commitment -- not just regular meetings, but committee meetings, etc.

That said, its more like a 5-10hr / wk commitment, not a full time job.

<comment><USER15> What kind of commitment? Can you give concrete examples?

<comment><USER16> [http://jayshah.me/2018/01/05/board/](http://jayshah.me/2018/01/05/board/) (and discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108235](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108235))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a pet theory that Travis is leveraging his new company to end up attempting a Jobs NeXt Step style reverse take over of Uber.

I could be reading tea leaves, but it seems like something he'd have thought about.

<comment><USER18> Or he is quite happy to have cashed out instead of wasting his life away trying to run a low (if any) margin, weak network effects business with local competitors and regulators nibbling at your sanity.

<comment><USER19> It's kind of amazing that almost 100% of the Uber and Lyft rides I've taken in the last 6 months have had drivers/cars that work for both simultaneously. There only service distinction is which app you use to book the ride, the inventory and employees are all the same.

<comment><USER9> It's interesting that you bring this up. Every time I take an uber or lyft (which is very often), I ask the driver which one they prefer. Around early 2019, I've noticed a lot of drivers say they get more business on uber, but prefer lyft. So, it seems like there is actually a noticeable distinction for the 2 services, at least from the driver's perspective.

<comment><USER20> In NYC at least, they prefer Juno (RIP) or Via. For Uber they drive the minimum amount possible to pay for the lease on their car if they have one.

The whole lease situation is kind of fucky though, they're like a sharecropper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Uber, unlike WeWork, is offering something the market really need. I see a viable path for them moving forward.

</comment><comment><USER22> So he'll no longer make money if Uber stock takes off?

<comment><USER23> If he thought Uber stock would take off, wouldn't he have kept at least some of his stock? (The article notes that he's sold all his remaining stock.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Enjoy the money Travis! You won the game :)

<comment><USER25> Considering what went on at Uber under his watch, I disagree.

<comment><USER24> When he's throwing a yacht party at Cannes Film Festival I guarantee you that nobody will know, care or remember how he has enough money to be in that situation.

Game = Won.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Running down the anchor chain?

</comment><comment><USER27> It's just my person musings but..for non-commodities companies(and I don't think many tech companies are considered commodities)... I think that founders have a certain vision and talent which cannot be separated from the company.

When that founder leaves, unless the company has become a monopoly, the company is basically lost.

No amount of the worlds best and brightest bean counters can replace the talent and spark that founder had.

These are just personal thoughts. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. To see if the board killed the golden goose like Apple did in the 90s.</comment>


Microsoft's Surface Windows 8 Pro: Far too expensive to be a hit - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/21415/microsofts-surface-windows-8-pro-far-too-expensive-be-hit <comment><USER2> The Pro might not be a "hit" but it might be a good fit for enterprise since it will run full Office -- since most companies think they need that. But the RT still has a chance in the consumer space at $499.</comment>


40-Plus Years of Man Page History - <AUTHOR> https://truss.works/blog/2016/12/9/man-splained <comment><USER2> I'm curious as to how many people care about nroff/troff style man pages. I work in the group that delivers the Java JDK, and for many years we delivered nroff/troff man pages for the commands such as java, javac, javap, etc.

Some time ago because of "Corporate Documentation Standards" the sources were converted into some XML-based markup, from which nroff/troff markup was produced -- not entirely successfully. More recently because of "Revised Corporate Documentation Standards" the XML sources were converted into yet another format, and the team responsible has given up maintaining the tool that converted that format into nroff/troff. So the plan now is to deliver straight HTML, with the rationale being "nobody looks at man pages anymore."

As an old UNIX hack I opposed this, to no avail.

Are man pages really irrelevant?

<comment><USER3> Manpages still matter for Linux systems. Not necessarily for GUI-only tools, but any command-line tool should have a manpage. They remain the most convenient and consistent form of documentation for command-line tools, with the possible exception of --help.

If you need to know which command-line option to use for a particular behavior, consider the relative amount of time needed to find out via a browser and search engine, versus installed documentation, versus a manpage. And if the search engine comes close, half the time it does so by finding the relevant manpage (or excerpting the relevant manpage snippet).

The troff markup language remains terribly baroque, and in truth it hardly matters except as "the thing that existing manpages all use so the man tool handles it". Nothing but inertia and existing infrastructure keeps that format necessary, but learning the small subset of it needed for manpages doesn't take long, especially if you copy an existing manpage as a starting point.

Groff knows how to produce HTML from a manpage, and the result can help if you want to provide documentation that works on other platforms.

The conventions of manpages matter far more than the markup details. If "man sometool" popped up with troff-formatted documentation that didn't have the expected sections and section order, it wouldn't have anywhere near the same value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dumb question: Are man pages the only place where any footprint of troff really survives these days?

Sometimes I feel that contemporary markup languages like Markdown, Textile, etc. fall short compared to the syntax that was just as readable and quite a bit more powerful in troff...

<comment><USER5> > Sometimes I feel that contemporary markup languages like Markdown, Textile, > etc. fall short compared to the syntax that was just as readable and quite a > bit more powerful in troff...

I've never used troff myself, but your comment prompted me to look at the spec for it. I also searched for a "markdown vs troff" comparison, but didn't have much luck. Do you know of a head-to-head comparison? I've been using markdown for the past year or so when I don't need the full power of LaTeX. But your comment has me wondering if I'd be better off just using troff?

<comment><USER6> troff takes a little bit more work but it can put out some very nice-looking documents with a lot of control over the formatting and some pretty handy utilities for tables and math and such. For example, pretty much all the Plan 9 papers were written in troff: [https://9p.io/sys/doc/](https://9p.io/sys/doc/)

<comment><USER5> Okay. I guess what I'm wondering is, if I'm already reasonably proficient in LaTeX (for documents where I want/need lots of control) is there an advantage to learning/using troff versus using markdown?

<comment><USER7> No two latex installations are the same.

<comment><USER5> > No two latex installations are the same.

Sure, but that doesn't address my question about whether I should use troff versus markdown for things where I don't need the power and complexity of LaTeX.

<comment><USER7> I meant when in two years you add something to your tex file and make blows- up, that's a reason to use roff if you can get away with it.

<comment><USER5> Gotcha, thanks for the clarification. I guess I don't use very many "exotic" packages, so I haven't had much of an issue with old LaTeX files not compiling. Though, I also rarely have to go back and recompile them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Archive of the first edition of the Unix Programmer's Manual, 1971: [https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/1stEdman.html](https://www.bell- labs.com/usr/dmr/www/1stEdman.html) (PDF, PS, and images)

</comment><comment><USER9> "If you're familiar with HTML, this won't be a complete departure (though there are no closing tags). .TH is the tag for titles, while .SH is for section header. You can format text to be bold or italic with .B or .I, respectively."

I love this retrospective explanation of nroff in terms of HTML.

</comment><comment><USER10> See also the _History_ section of the GNU Troff (groff) manual:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/html_node/History....](https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/html_node/History.html)</comment>


Logic of a DHT in 100 lines of Go... - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/cioc/03422fb6759a9a92cd7a

<comment><USER2> Distributed Host Table?</comment>


What Is Your Favorite Marketing Platform - <AUTHOR>

In my case I mostly like twitter. <comment><USER2> This is a hard one:

I want facebooks platform, and googles ROI... For me google has better returns but higher frustration, and Facebook is lower returns but much less frustration.

Im not spending enough to justify the misery google causes me, so if I'm forced to have a preference it is Facebook. If I was spending 10x what I am, I would want to deal with google (as it stand today, things tend to get wacky when you start spending more money)

Twitter just isn't going to work for me, there is just too much gap between exposure and decision.</comment>


A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/

<comment><USER2> I learnt programming from this book - it is excellent.

<comment><USER3> I just read through the first bunch of pages of both this book and SICP. I'm familiar with Lisp and I've been a programmer for many years, but I've never really been comfortable with Lisp. I have to say that SICP's approach seems much easier to learn from than this book's approach. Just a few pages in, and I felt like I understood how Lisp programs are structured well enough to figure out how any Lisp program works. The diagrams and exercises in this book just seem distracting and too verbose for the concepts they're trying to convey.

It may be a learning-style thing.

<comment><USER4> I think you've found the Lisp found in SICP more easier simply because Scheme (the Lisp flavour used in SICP) is purposely more concise than Common Lisp (the language from the this book).

Some teachers claim they could teach you Scheme in about one hour (see the excellent course of Brian Harvey).

Common Lisp is a different kind of beast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I'm busy kicking the kids off of my front lawn, let me pause to say that it fails in the same way that Emacs fails---first thing I want to see in a book on a process (language, editor, what-have-you) is how to get it started and how to get out. Makes me a curmudgeon, but hey I'm old and came by it honestly... OBTW, it is otherwise a great read and since it is generic to all Common Lisps, of course it doesn't have the necessary how to start and how to stop---(clisp [if installed] and an eventual (quit)), for those who were wondering :)</comment>


ORTC API is now available in Microsoft Edge - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/09/18/ortc-api-is-now-available-in-microsoft-edge/#.VfxOY9MrgoU.twitter <comment><USER2> > Now let's discuss how to move from the ORTC overview diagram to coding for a > simple 1:1 audio/video communication scenario. For this specific scenario, > you will need two Win10 machines acting as two peers

Why two Win10 machines? Is this a Windows 10 feature or a standard web feature?

<comment><USER3> ORTC can interop with WebRTC, so you could create a an Edge to Chrome or Edge to Firefox scenario. In fact, you can implement (to some degree) the WebRTC APIs in terms of the ORTC APIs.</comment></comment>


Programmers must learn licensing or I will kill them all - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhuF0oalOi8

<comment><USER2> 1\. Did he in this day and age really just recommend a license (BSD/MIT) which has no patent license at all?

2\. Did he really just call BSD a "copyleft" license?

Unfortunate.</comment>


Homeless, But Enjoying Hawaii On $3 A Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126675999&sc=fb&cc=fp

<comment><USER3> 1\. I really like Singapore's solution to welfare, it's called work-fare. Singapore only gives the homeless help if they are willing to put in work doing -- something, anything. It could be as simple as carrying a brick from one side to another for an hour. The simple fact that they have to earn their meals negates the sour taste of hand outs and yet still allows for the homeless to have a route to take to get back on their feet.

2\. As a secondary note, while welfare is unfortunate, what is more unfortunate is that we spend more money on murderers than those with mental illnesses roaming our streets. It is a twisted system where doing a crime towards society is given more monetary reward than simply not being able to fit in.

<comment><USER4> I'm not saying you're right or wrong, or that your point is right or wrong, but with as strong a statement as you made in point #2, you should cite references - even if only so that others can be aware of the situation.

<comment><USER5> I think the point is that it's very expensive to keep people in prison, much more so than giving a homeless person a meal. You have to provide a very solidly built, if not large, home for everyone and keep them company 24/7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Applications are now open for Hawaii-combinator:

For 5% of your start-up we fund you with a laptop and $273. It's not much, but it's enough.

It will cover your room and board and full health care benefits for 91 days. No more ramen (like other programs); eat delicious chopped beef steak with vegetables, mashed potatoes, bread, a fresh apple and cake. Demo day on the beach. Apply now!

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the laugh Ed, it is much appreciated.

You could do a series of those based on country stereo types.

The Dutch version:

IJ-Combinator, for 5% of your start-up we fund you with hijacked wifi on a laptop stolen from a parked car and E 19 per day. This lets you eat and sleep at the local Salvation Army. Free drugs on Friday, demo day in the vondelpark under the bridge at midnight. Be sure to bring your own cardboard box.

<comment><USER8> Only German tourists do drugs in the Netherlands. (At least that's the stereotype educated Germans have.)

<comment><USER9> English people have the same stereotype (only English tourists do drugs in the Netherlands).

<comment><USER7> One of them must be wrong then.

<comment><USER10> Both could be wrong

<comment><USER7> _whoosh_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
         Meanwhile, Hawaiian taxpayers face a $1.2 billion budget
         deficit, which is being addressed in part with deferred
         state tax refunds and deferred Medicaid reimbursements.

Hawaii doesn't have a sales tax. It's a tourist destination without sales tax. How silly is that? I get so tired of these "but that's a regressive tax!" wails and nashings of teeth.

For any tourist destination, a sales tax is beautiful, because you get to tax people who don't live there. There is a danger that given two tourist destinations of equal attractiveness, the one without the sales tax may draw more tourists, but this isn't a problem for Hawaii. Where are you going to go, if you want beaches and sun and live on the west coast? Hawaii or Mexico, and there's a lot of people who go to Hawaii that wouldn't be comfortable with Mexico, so it's off the table. For Hawaii to tax their own people but not tourists seems like a strategically poor move.

A homeless program that cost $2M was not nearly as interesting to me as the fact they, of all states, had a budget deficit.

<comment><USER12> I lived in Honolulu for 3 years up until about a week ago. Sales tax is 4.5%.

<comment><USER11> You don't have a sales tax, in that the consumer is not taxed. Instead, you have an excise tax, where the business is taxed. Many businesses will show how much they inflated their prices in order to pay their excise tax, and show this as a line item on the receipt. That's their choice. That doesn't make it a sales tax.

Again, Hawaii is taxing it's own people, instead of it's tourists. In self- defense, many of those businesses pass that tax on to the tourists and itemize it on their receipts, but many don't.

<comment> barry-cotter The effectice payee of a tax has nothing to do with who officially pays it and everything to do with who wants it, or wants shot of it, more badly.

The impact of this excise tax is exactly the same as a sales tax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "I think that we really need to begin to look at who's really homeless - <USER2> by choice and by misfortune - and who's really homeless by choice, and have a different solution for the two different populations."

And thus in a nutshell describes the moral hazard of such programs. It's just another situation of balancing a program for those in truly in need and those trying to take advantage of the system. Very difficult to define boundaries.

<comment><USER14> All I could think when reading the article were they were taking advantage of the system and a lot of peoples hard earned salaries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> <snip> Gary Phillips purchased a $400 airline ticket to Hawaii three months ago. He was homeless in San Diego for years, but is now earning cash from Hawaii's 5-cent redemption program for plastic bottles and aluminum cans.

"I recycle here," he says. "I make money doing that." Some days, over $40, he says. </snip>

So, he collects roughly 800 recyclables a day to earn an average of $40/day. He obviously uses some of that $40 in the local economy as his social services are only costing him $3/day. He receives: "And he sleeps at the IHS shelter for $3 a day, with three free meals, $200 worth of food stamps and the state's free health care program." I'm assuming the $200 in food stamps are per month.

Perhaps this system, at least for this anecdote, is optimized. Could the state have state employees with all employee benefits doing collections of recyclables for this amount? Could the state manage a prisoner work program to collect recyclables for less? Is this homeless person taking money from someone else in the local economy that otherwise would have collected the recyclables?

<comment><USER16> I don't know the actual numbers involved. Let's assume the recyclable deposit is $.05.

If Gary is collecting 800 improperly disposed containers (i.e. litter) per day, the argument the state is getting a good deal is valid. But I suspect the vast majority of the containers were fished out of trash recepticles. The marginal cost to the state of hauling recyclables from a trash bin to the land-fill, and the marginal cost of adding to the land-fill has got to be way below $.05. So I suspect it is not such a good deal for the state.

<comment><USER17> Generally in states that have a refund the purchase is charged to the consumer so the state isn't paying anything for the service. Of course you'd have to add in administration of the program itself, which is a relatively fixed cost independent of whether people return bottles or not.

<comment><USER16> That't right. So when the container is NOT returned, the state is in the money. The benefit to the state is when homeless pick up litter. There is no benefit in paying out a deposit for a container retrieved from a trash bin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to be a problem with not having uniform policies across the nation. I think a similar thing is happening in the European Union with its free movement but no uniform internal policies -- locations that have more generous policies attract needy from the places that don't.

I'm all for universal health coverage and making sure that people who can't find work can get support, but this is why piecemeal solutions don't work. It needs to be national.

</comment><comment><USER18> that last little bit about distinguishing between being homeless by choice versus misfortune is just bollocks -- as someone who has been in those shoes (homeless by choice) and having met a LOT of 'homeless' people I can attest that it is ALL by choice -- sure it might be pyschologically harder for one person to bring themselves back up into 'society' if they have let rougher circumstances befall them but it's still a matter of choice -- living pro- actively instead of re-actively allows you to define your situation rather than letting it define you

<comment><USER19> Except you know, when there's mental illness, physical disease, drug addiction, or some other pretty major reason that they can't just "snap out of it".

You are right that people who don't have that kind of barrier should, and mostly do get back into society after a period of hard times. The chronic ones are homeless for a reason, and it's pretty insensitive to just say that they should live "pro-actively".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How can a computer programmer become homeless, if not by choice?

<comment><USER21> The classic ways are mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, and (quite commonly) all three.

<comment><USER7> I had to look at the item ids to see who wrote that first!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They should send these immigrants back to where they came from.

<comment><USER23> People are creating accounts just to troll? Someone needs to address this.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Gravatar for iOS App Icons - <AUTHOR> https://www.appatar.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> I needed a simple app icon solution for RevenueCat, was surprised it didn't exist. So I built it.

It's a node server that uses the iTunes Search API to fetch the URL for the app icon, caches the URL, then redirects the request to Apple's CDN.

<comment><USER2> Would it be possible to add a search or lookup of some kind? Needing to know the Bundle ID makes this a bit tricky to use for anything but your own apps.</comment></comment>


The One Number That Proves the Inflation Threat Is a Bogeyman - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/the-inflation-threat-is-a-bogeyman/256514/

<comment><USER2> It's important to note that the main reason the graphs do not show inflation is b/c of the massive housing crash.

We have a situation where we have significant inflation in some sectors of the economy, but we also have enough deflation to offset it. I'm not talking about _bad_ deflation, I'm talking about new advances in microchips, etc., that make computers cheaper and more powerful every year.

Inflation and deflation are natural aspects of a dynamic economy. The thing to watch for is when they signal structural problems. If microchips increased in performance so quickly that vendors refused to order inventory and store shelves were empty, then it would be a structural concern. Policymakers find it useful to wave the very imprecise notion "deflation" in front of the public without bothering to mention that it's all due to technological advancement, automation, outsourcing, etc.

Similarly, inflation isn't always bad -- developer salaries are "inflating" now, which sends a signal for more people to learn to write code. This will be self-correcting. The thing to be concerned about is when government action causes inflation sufficient to undermine peoples' willingness to accept the currency.

Policymakers try to get away with doing as much micro-tweaking as they can with the economy. Tax breaks for one select group of people, subsidies for another, etc. These sorts of policies can, over time, create inflation that is not self-correcting, since the policies are rarely ended once they have been created. Consider the massive over-investment in real-estate fueled by tax breaks. This led to an unstable real-estate market that crashed hard a few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> An essential premise of his argument is that real GDP can't decline if jobs are being added. So if jobs are being added, and they seem to be, then real GDP growth must be positive. Real GDP growth is nominal GDP growth (4%) minus inflation, so inflation must be no more than 4% to keep real GDP growth positive.

"Let's try a thought experiment. If inflation really is 10 percent, that implies that real GDP fell around 6 percent last year. How bad is that? That's roughly where the economy was in the first quarter of 2009. Basically, complete free-fall. And thanks to Okun's Law -- which relates real GDP and unemployment -- we can guesstimate what that would mean for jobs. A back-of- the-envelope estimate says that unemployment should have risen between 3 and 4 percent in that scenario. Instead, we added 1.899 million jobs in the last year."

But of course jobs and production (GDP) do not need to grow in lockstep. This assumes that productivity is constant. If productivity is falling, then production could be declining even as the number of jobs increases.

For example, if the star employee (say Steve Jobs) of your company (Apple) no longer works there, your company may still suffer a production loss even if several employees are hired to replace the star. This is a case where production can fall even as employment increases.

<comment><USER4> > _"If productivity is falling, then production could be declining even as the > number of jobs increases."_

Good catch. But where's productivity been going? (Hint: not down. [1])

So while this indicates an assumption that should be identified and recognized, the correction doesn't impact the conclusion in this case.

[1] <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm>

<comment><USER3> The productivity of some workers may be rising, but not all. For example, with all the investment in government we've had, government should be very efficient. Government services such as roads, transportation, education, care for the poor, wars on brown people, business regulations, prisons, etc should be very cheap right? Or could it be that as the private sector increases its productivity, the public sector correspondingly consumes/wastes more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Forget the word inflation -- it is too politically charged and people think it means all kinds of different things.

However, in the long run there is little doubt that an expansion of the money supply will cause a rise in the price of goods and services.

Forget fancy metrics like NGDP and consider this thought experiment: if all of a sudden magically everyone's bank account balance had the decimal point moved to the right one place, what would happen to prices? After a very short transient period, they would increase by about a factor of 10. This is exactly what is happening right now (on a smaller scale and the magic occurs in the treasury department). The difference is that the extra money has been created, but is not really in circulation. Once banks and companies feel they no longer need the money in their accounts and can begin to put it into the general economy, prices will rise. Sure, the fed could take action to take money out of circulation as companies release it into circulation, but that is too politically unpopular and won't happen.

<comment><USER6> A _lot_ of Money was destroyed when all those housing loans died. On net the Fed may have created more money, but it's not as big a deal as you might assume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> All numbers are cooked, especially unemployment. The whole argument of this article is based on leaky correlations. GDP is gamed in many ways. I'm a bit of a skeptic.

Head squid Goldman just slashed their April NFP employment estimates to 125,000, just barely higher than the disastrous March 120,000 NFP print which launched a thousand new QE rumors.

What is the point of this article? Is it to get everyone to nod their heads while they prepare to launch another round of QE? The NFP numbers prove that unemployment is not really doing that great.

I think this article is short-sighted. The prices of things like gas matter because the cost of energy impacts everything. The central planners' only tool is injection of more liquidity, which has a direct impact on the cost of commodities, oil, etc.

We've already been pumping the market with liquidity. Where did it all go? To euro banks, it seems. The employment numbers are not reflecting it, that much we know. Is this article suggesting we keep course?

</comment><comment><USER8> FTA:

> The things people buy the most often -- gas and groceries -- have gone up > the most the past few years. The things people buy the least often -- > gadgets and other goods -- have not. It's an understandable mistake. But > still a mistake.

Can someone explain the math behind this? The important thing is not "how often", but "what percentage of the overall expense", but I would guess that (as percentage of overall expense), gas and groceries are larger than gadgets for everyone?

As an example, in my household, we're about a thousand/month on food & transportation (rising much faster than 2%/year), thousands a month for rent (rising much faster than 2%/year). And while gadgets are getting cheaper (nothing else seems to), they account for ... say, 2% of our overall expenses.

</comment><comment><USER9> Inflation need not be just seen in the country with monitory supply. It can be felt around the world. The flood of money is being felt in developing countries and commodity markets where gold and oil seem to have just taken flying lessons.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great article - mostly I'm amazed that there are folks out there who are supposed to be intelligent, who actually believe 10% inflation is a reality...

<comment><USER11> I believe it because my food bill has increased approximately 50% in 3 years and gas prices are at the same level as during the bubble in 2008 but with a much more subdued economy. I don't understand how an article with an NGDP chart and some fancy hand waving negates this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you refute the point that we can't have positive job growth and negative real GDP? Then how is overall inflation more than 2-3%?

<comment><USER12> It is easy. Fire one 40 hours worker. Hire thirty-nine 1 hour workers. Congratulations! You've increased your "labor force" by 3800% !!!

You have a net loss of 1 man-hour however. I'm not totally sure how this relates to inflation, but jobs absolute numbers and gdp are only slightly related.

Another example would be to fire everyone making more than 100k$/year and relocate them to potato farming. In terms of gdp, this would be a net decrease despite the absolute worker count remaining the same

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a little bit of misunderstanding sometimes when people discuss "inflation". To some, if not most people, inflation means increasing prices. To others, it means increase in the money supply, which eventually may cause rising prices after some latency, especially if the growth rate of the economy doesn't keep up with the increase in money supply.

I have no idea whether "rising price inflation" has been underreported, especially by design, by the government. I would concede that there are political and bottom line reasons (e.g, minimize increases in salaries/benefits tied to COLA), but again, if this is happening, IMO it is probably more just institutional slouch than a top-secret directive from the Federal Reserve bunker.

Overall, I don't have an informed opinion what the facts of the matter are wrt to underreported inflation - I only have anecdotal evidence.

OTOH, it is pretty clear that "money supply inflation" has increased dramatically in the past few years due to the various policies associated with the bailout.

Whether this will cause "rising price inflation" remains to be seen - there is always latency between money supply increase and rising prices. In the bailout policies case, the latency is pretty large, as the bulk of the money went to securing "toxic" assets and so forth rather than directly into the consumer economy.

The overhang of this increase in money supply/government debt naturally constitutes rising price pressure, but again, how much is anyone's guess, as there are deflationary pressures as well (falling asset prices, and such).

<comment><AUTHOR> The Fed has tools like interest on reserves, reverse repos and term deposit facilities to make sure that all of the excess reserves on bank balance sheets don't turn into actual price increases.

Austrian economists conflate increases in the money supply and price inflation, but it's not necessarily true. In fact, mainstream New Keynesians (that includes conservatives like Greg Mankiw) have predicted for years that increasing the Fed's balance sheet wouldn't increase inflation. They have been right.

<comment><USER2> But this is due to the larger forces of supply and demand for US treasury bills. So it's the US's role as an empire that makes its sovereign debt demanded by nations with less solid foundations.

The US enjoys this position largely b/c of its size but also b/c of the frequent policymaking folly that occurs in other nations.

The only thing that can impose true discipline on this process is the existence of competition.... it's the only thing that could decrease demand for US Treasury bills.

It's obvious that we're not currently experiencing hyper-inflation, but the configuration of the world that will allow the trend to continue becomes less certain the further things get extended.

Imagine someone issues you a credit card with a $1 per month minimum payment. As long as you can keep getting the limit increased you'll surely be able to make the payment each month, no matter what other spending you do. The US is able to keep borrowing and borrowing, and its creditors are very lenient b/c they lack a better option.

<comment><USER14> The debt situation might get out of hand, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're headed for inflation. The US has gone for hundreds of years without a default[1] and I'm sort of proud of that as a US citizen, but if worst came to worst we could always just default - unlike, say, 1920s Germany.

[1] There was a few payment in the 1970s that was slightly late due to a clerical error, but that hardly counts.

<comment><USER15> Removing the ability to exchange US dollars for gold was arguably a form of default.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What if we brought back conscription? For science, not war. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kentf/conscription-in-the-name-of-science-f5976a7f1342/?utm_source=hn

<comment><USER2> So, required graduate school for everyone, and make sure they have money for it? Why not just sponsor two years of graduate school for certain fields of study? Which is close to what we have now, only it's voluntary.

How does one tell if a conscripted researcher is slacking off on the job, or if the job isn't just impossible?

Who is going to pay for the vacuum chamber and other hardware for researching the Casimir effect? Hardware like Anton which D. E. Shaw Research uses for protein folding? And how much training does one need even to start researching supersymmetry? That's at least a couple of years into a PhD program already, so only a select few could do it, and only those that were interested in it in the first place.

"a hard problem that has the potential to dramatically aide human beings" ... and who decides? Why are massage training, and singing, and a push for a 35 hours work week less important than cold fusion?

In other words, it sounds impractical, inefficient, and fraught with political difficulties.</comment>


Ask HN: How often do you receive damaged book from Amazon? - <AUTHOR> I use amazon for buying books for about two years. 99% of those orders go through amazon.de (Germany). Besides one or two of those orders I almost always get a book which is damaged in some way.
- Bent corners - Dirty pages - Bent cover - Folded pages - Some weird sticky substance on covers (???)
I think that amazon does tremendously good job at fining this thin border when it becomes 'a problem' and I issue a return, otherwise I just don't bother because I don't want to waste time packing it again and waiting for delivery service to pick it up.
However, I am starting to be furious. I pay for new book and effectively receive used one, something which never happens with direct buy from any other store. I googled around and found posts from 2012 detailing same issue.
I buy only books from amazon and sad truth is that if I only could - I'll buy elsewhere, but a lot of positions I can find only there + I need delivery to other country and it's impossible to find better rates for shipping than amazon's.
Does anybody experience same level of frustration? We are talking about 100-200 EUR order which is not a pack of m&m's at corner shop. It annoys hell out of me, looking at destroyed pages during reading because I care about my physical books. <comment><USER2> I care a lot about my physical book too. I experienced receiving damaged books for several times. If it is not really bad, I just accept it. Returning it just waste my time. But if it is to bad I will request for refund. The worst case was when I purchased The Art of Software Security Assessment. The books is really heavy, but Amazon packing in it very badly and the package torn open, then I think the local post office repackage it using some plastic bag. At the end almost all pages of the books folded badly. I initiated a refund and sending the book back to amazon. The book was around S$70 and the postal cost to return it to US from Singapore was almost S$100 more expensive than the book price. Amazon refunded the book price and also the postal cost. But indeed it is a hassle. As comparison, Bookdepository always pack the books very well and secure. I have never had any experience of getting any edge folded book at all. Unfortunately the price is still not as cheap as at Amazon. It is suck but for now there is no ideal alternative.

</comment><comment><USER3> happened to me a few times recently, too</comment>