In the medical response to Ebola, Cuba is punching above its weight - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/10/04/in-the-medical-response-to-ebola-cuba-is-punching-far-above-its-weight/ <comment><USER2> Decades ago Cuba made training and exporting medical personnel their "thing" and they ended up owning that part of the world market despite being a small and very poor country.

There is a direct tech analogy with Finland and cell phones.

From the small country PoV, if you can't compete in the strategic nuclear bomber world market, or the manufacturing robot world market, you can probably find some market segment, however small, to focus on and take over. Like cellphones, or 3rd world medical care.

Other countries could, and probably will, do the same.

There is the interesting analogy that Finland isn't doing so well in the post Nokia, iphone and android world. Wonder what could happen to Cuba if the demand for docs dried up (optimistically due to 3rd world advancing into training their own medical workers, and not by the entire 3rd world dying of ebola or in ensuing strife after the epidemic)

<comment><USER3> What I thought was most interesting in the Cuba case was how little technology it takes to train Doctors. Outside of surgery Doctors tend to have other people doing the high tech hands on work like operating an MRI or Doing blood- work. But, as they training people to operate in the 3rd world even surgery tends to be fairly low tech.

In reality it's the opportunity costs that makes training doctors so expensive. So, in many ways less developed nations have a huge cost advantage when supplying doctors. The real issue is after exporting them they probably don't send all that much money back home.

<comment> guard-of-terra The real issue is that developed countries refuse to import doctors.

Developed countries have medical doctors associations which keep a close eye on who can become doctor and how, thus limiting the number of doctors in the country and sustaining their high wages.

From what I've heard, you have to get an expensive education and then live thru a long and undercompensated and exhausting internship in order to become a full doctor and get all the perks. Any immigrant will also have to face that kind of internship (not easy for someone without a source of income) plus they have to re-learn a lot of things in order to pass the certification.

I might be fuzzy on the details, but still: we're lucky in our IT, we have comparative small amount of bullshit and entrenching.

<comment><USER4> It's just the opposite:

[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9647519c-207a-11e3-b8c6-00144feab7...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9647519c-207a-11e3-b8c6-00144feab7de.html#axzz3FNWxlNtQ)

Doctors tend to leave undeveloped countries for developed countries.

<comment> guard-of-terra It's behind paywall.

<comment><USER4> Here's the research discussed at the FT link:

[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001513)

<comment> guard-of-terra "and by agreeing to provide care in areas that are underserved by US physicians"

This changes the perspective slightly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How interesting, just yesterday I watched a TED[1] talk about Cuba's ELAM (Latin American School of Medicine)[2].

> Established in 1999 and operated by the Cuban government, ELAM has been > described as possibly being the largest medical school in the world by > enrollment with approximately 19,550 students from 110 countries reported as > enrolled in 2013.

[1] [http://www.ted.com/talks/gail_reed_where_to_train_the_world_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/gail_reed_where_to_train_the_world_s_doctors_cuba)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELAM_%28Latin_American_School_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELAM_%28Latin_American_School_of_Medicine%29_Cuba)

<comment><USER6> I assume it must be the same school, but a undergrad friend and roommate was a pre-med and came from a very interesting family. His family was all about immigration in the US, and was very tight with the Latin American community where they lived (he even grew up for a period in Mexico, and spoke perfect Mexican Spanish, as was his American father who raised him there).

He clued me into the existence of full-ride scholarships for Americans to study in medicine. American students with a full medical education in Cuba! I was very impressed. I guess it is this.

[http://www.ifconews.org/node/707](http://www.ifconews.org/node/707)

This kid was amazing and very altruistic. However, he pulled his application bc of the sad reality of US medicine; he was told point blank by some med school mentors he would never practice medicine in the US with that degree, and it was pointless as he would likely redo all of his medical education and required certification/boards stateside lest he have any intention of ever practicing medicine in the States.

I am still glad, despite all the fucked up political harassment by the USG, this scholarship remains.

<comment><USER7> Preventing foreign physicians from practicing in USA is kind of the whole point of having a "profession" with lobbyists like the AMA. If they had to compete with H-1B'ers, they couldn't afford to spend so many years and dollars in training. Also health care would be much cheaper, which would step on a lot more toes than just those of the M.D.'s.

<comment><USER6> I completely agree with you. But this was a group of doctors dissuading them. It was more an argument about stigma (that other US doctors would never hire them, regardless of him re-studying and re-boarding might not save the potential of a career).

I would love such an opportunity. I think we should also open up medicine in the US as you describe, but I also must be honest: expect the quality and knowledge of doctors _on average_ going down. I live abroad in the MENA region, and most of the doctors here are from abroad (the first medical school in country is part of the educational complex I work in; the first graduating class will be this year or next year). Even at good hospitals, people check nationality of the doctor as a result and you always go only to doctors you friends have visited and recommend if not an emergency. Whether it is general fear or racism whatver you call it is another debate. You will notice some doctors meet minimal standards here but I would be afraid to call them doctors (one told me you have to be careful which kind of fish you eat because the Quran explains so; religion has its place but I will not tolerate that from a doctor, and I never visited her again).

Allowing doctors all over the world while maintaining a minimally required level of education and skill with such different education systems and credentials will be awful. I live that every day I visit the hospital with my son, even for a simple doctor's visit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Off-topic, but I had the opportunity to have several cuban PhDs teach some of the final classses in college (Multi-agent systems, computer intelligence, etc) ... All of them were incredibly good in their fields, better than any other professors I had in school, and as good as some of the brightest I've met in this field.

There were also some docs in other disciplines and they were all incredibly good. Based on that experience I think cuba is hardly "punching far above its weight", but reflecting great care, passion and responsibility as they do in other fields... We just assume a lot of things about cuba. I sure did before.

<comment><USER9> I don't think the "above its weight" in the title refers to the quality of Cuban education, but the size of its economy.

So, if you look at the number of qualified personnel committed to the epidemic by country, and divide over their per capita GNP, indeed Cuba is punching way above its weight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cuba was the world's best experiment in total communism. Unfortunately the US ruined the experiment by imposing an embargo for decades out of spite. Still, when you compare Cuba to neighboring Dominican Republic they're doing better under many measures, including health, education and a GNP per capita of $5890 vs DR's $5620.

<comment><USER11> > Still, when you compare Cuba to neighboring Dominican Republic

What kind of comparison is that? The DR is practically a failed state. By any rational metric Cuba is an economic and human rights disaster and continues to be. Its other, capitalistic, neighbor Mexico has 2x that GDP per capita. Heck, its only because of Western pressure that Cuba is only now, after decades of spite against its own people, started releasing political prisoners.

[http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country- chapters/cuba](http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/cuba)

>Unfortunately the US ruined the experiment by imposing an embargo for decades out of spite.

Pardon me if I think my nation should tolerate nuclear missiles 90 miles off our coast from a country aligned with our enemies who have a stated doctrine of first strike and tactic nuclear usage with zero warning in advance, held by a dictator who wanted nuclear war.

[http://townhall.com/tipsheet/meredithjessup/2009/09/24/nytim...](http://townhall.com/tipsheet/meredithjessup/2009/09/24/nytimes_castro_wanted_soviets_to_nuke_usa)

I'm all for lifting of sanctions, but Cuba needs to up its game first. Rewarding the autocratic and oppressive Castro regime makes no sense. Democratic reforms, regime change, freedom of ownership, open elections, multi-parties, the right to sue, the right to travel, a free press, the right to petition, etc must all be respected. You're not automatically entitled to my money.

<comment><USER12> >Pardon me if I think my nation should tolerate nuclear missiles 90 miles off our coast from a country aligned with our enemies

Don't you think people of other nations may have the same intolerance to their enemies' nuclear missiles deployed right on their borders? The Cuban missiles were symmetric response to deploying the Jupiter missiles in Turkey - which is right on the border with USSR [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-19_Jupiter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-19_Jupiter)

"They were all removed by the US as part of a secret agreement with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis."

Do onto others what you don't want others do onto you :)

<comment><USER13> The USSR was a totalitarian communist empire openly determined to conquer and enslave the entire world. The USA was a champion of liberty that pursued strategies intended only to defend the free world against the USSR. Your moral equivalency game indicates you're either ignorant of recent history, or that you're _on the other side_.

<comment><USER14> I hope this is sarcasm.

Sure, the USSR was a totalitarian state. That said, both sides pursued an aggressive, expansionist policy via proxy. The "champion of liberty" installed thoroughly repressive regimes all over South America which had little to envy to the Soviet Union. It didn't prove itself above manufacturing border incidents to trigger the Vietnam war, either. Was the USSR worse? Certainly. But this doesn't make the US the good guy in the story.

<comment><USER15> The propaganda of the Cold War is breathtaking in its effectiveness. The USSR are the bad guys, comic book villains out to destroy the world. The US are plucky do-gooders, fighting to save the world from evil yet again (after single handedly winning WWII). There is no room for nuance. There is no grey area in perhaps the greyest of all conflicts since the Great Game. Both the US and USSR inflicted terrible damage to nations all over the world through proxy wars, intelligence agency coups. The ramifications of those conflicts are still felt throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and South East Asia.

And that all gets swept aside by "The USA was a champion of liberty that pursued strategies intended only to defend the free world against the USSR." Read the Wikipedia article on "Covert United States Foreign Regime Change Actions" [0], and see how many of those nations benefited in the long run, and how some incredibly brutal regimes were installed or propped up throughout the third world, simply because they weren't communists.

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

<comment><USER13> You should have said "the anti-American garbage that leftist teachers are feeding to grade-school kids is breathtaking in its effectiveness" but in order to do that, you'd have to have some understanding of the true (not the _political_ ) version of history.

What's really amazing is that you think your 1960s, nihilistic, self-loathing, theyre-all-the-same cynicism is _thoughtful_ and _original_ , and you assume that the reason I disagree with you is that I haven't heard of such a notion before, and must not be as educated as yourself...

<comment><USER14> Well, even without opening a history book (sadly, "leftist teachers" did not get rid of Allende all by themselves), one would think that the US military adventurism of the last decade would have equipped US citizens (I'll go out on a limb and assume you are one) with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Governments have most often been waving various pretenses to make their actions look good. Manifest destiny, the white man's burden, the necessity to bring the socialist paradise... "Championing liberty" is just one of them. But you don't "champion liberty" by setting up something like the School of the Americas[1], or selling arms to Iran to fund Contras terrorists[2]. This is a different concept, which is "protecting your interests by whatever means available".

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

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would these Cuban doctors be likely to escape to the US via Liberia? Normally it's illegal for them (doctors) to travel outside of the country:

[http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130116-cuba-lifts-travel- re...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130116-cuba-lifts-travel-restrictions)

(edit) Apparently the US explicitly permits Cuban doctors working abroad to emigrate to the US -- in contrast with most refugees, who have to physically set foot in the country to gain asylum.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism#Defection)

[http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/fs/2009/115414.htm](http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/fs/2009/115414.htm)

[http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702037310045760...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203731004576045640711118766)

 _"...a wave of Cubans who have defected to the U.S. since 2006 under the little-known Cuban Medical Professional Parole immigration program, which allows Cuban doctors and some other health workers who are serving their government overseas to enter the U.S. immediately as refugees. Data released to The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act shows that, through Dec. 16, 1,574 CMPP visas have been issued by U.S. consulates in 65 countries."_

<comment><AUTHOR> That's funny, the US are keen on maintaining the embargo against Cuba but at the same time don't mind welcoming their doctors and thus admitting their superiority in medical education.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure that welcoming Cuban doctors necessarily means admitting superior medical education. Most countries like well-educated immigrants, no matter what their former nation was. The US welcomed Nazi scientists to help build rockets and bombs, too. That wasn't a commentary on the Nazi regime other than that they had good scientists that were willing to defect.

<comment><USER14> I don't know, hearing stories of immigrants with good degrees having to do menial work in Europe isn't that uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can we end the stupid sanctions now? The USSR is gone and we trade massively with China for F's sake. Cuba doesn't have the best human rights record on Earth, but neither does China or Saudi Arabia to give two other examples with which we trade extensively. All this does is harm the Cuban people and paradoxically actually strengthens the existing regime there.

<comment><USER13> Cuba is a brutal communist slave state. But so is China. I think the shameful thing is not that we have sanctions against Cuba, but that we do _not_ have sanctions against China and some of the other barbarian regimes out there (e.g. Vietnam, Saudi Arabia).

<comment><USER18> If Cuba is a brutal communist slave state, so is China. Do you own any Apple products or anything else manufactured by Foxconn?

<comment><USER13> What are you going for, here? The old, "if you benefit from something, you're not allowed to criticize it" angle?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A chronically under-recognized point is buried in the article:

 _It 's not a simple picture. Critics have complained that Cuba has begun to sacrifice the health of its citizens at home to make money sending medical workers abroad, and the conditions for these medical workers themselves have been criticized_

<comment> guard-of-terra Cuba now has roughly the same life expectancy as the USA - a bit more than 79 years.

I.e. it doesn't seem that they sacrificed a lot.

<comment><USER20> The US isn't exactly setting the bar for healthcare.

<comment><USER21> It's not about the United States being the best, it's about them being the "reference standard" for life quality in developed nations. Everybody compares themselves to the US from economic metrics to quality of life, as one will do when a superpower has dominated geopolitical dynamics for as long as the US has.

<comment><USER22> In many areas, yes. But from Europe at least, the US healthcare system seems so obviously broken that it's relatively rarely used for comparisons. Sweden is more common, I'd say.

Now if we're talking about innovation, technology, culture -- THEN there will be wistful comparisons to the US

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Their contribution will save thousands of lives. Ebola is a slow moving tsunami that we, as a world, can stop. If we don't step up and contribute the needed resources, literally hundreds of thousands of people will die. The sooner the better. Hats off to Cuba, but for the rest of the world, especially countries that can contribute, this should be a wake up call.

<comment><USER7> Is there any doubt that "hundreds of thousands will die" of ebola in the next year? The reports I've seen are a bit more pessimistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Aside from the condescending title, we also have this, in the first sentence:

 _Cuba, a country of just 11 million people that still enjoys a fraught relationship with the United States_

To describe Cuba's position with regard to the U.S. (entering its 6th decade of basically vindictive and pointless economic sanctions) as a "fraught relationship" is certainly an interesting circumlocution. It's kind of like saying that the skinny kid in junior high who keeps getting pushed into lockers "enjoys a fraught relationship" with his peers.

<comment><USER25> Seems like you got offended just for the sake of getting offended. The title isn't THAT condescending, they're giving Cuba props for weighing in more than another country of its size and GDP.

As to the "fraught relationship" issue, what? I'm not sure what terminology you would have prefered they used but most of the alternative words choices are just 'fraught' synonyms anyway.

The Cuba sanctions are well known and a lot of people (myself included) think they're unwarranted. I'd definitely call what Cuba and the US have a fraught relationship.

Do I think the US bullies Cuba a bit? Yes. Do I think that the word choice was bad? No.

<comment><USER24> Anyway, the point about the "fraught relationship" depiction is that it's basically an elephant-in-the-room thing. Such language might work to describe the relationship between the U.S. and Russia (or China), because those countries are essentially peers on the global stage. But to use it in the US/Cuba case pointedly ignores the fundamentally one-sided and, in the view of many inside (and essentially everyone outside) the U.S., petty-minded and abusive nature of that country's treatment of its much more vulnerable southern neighbor.

There's also an unpleasant blame-the-victim tinge to it.

The Post could have stated the obvious, of course, and acknowledged the elephant in the room. But it knows very well that in order to maintain its image as the (lessor of two) "papers of record" within the center of Federal power, that just would not do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Brazil got a program that imports around 10 thousand cuban doctors. And they are nearly slaves to the cuban regime.

Brazil pays around 4k USD for each doctor, but he only keeps 1,2k. Everything else goes to the Castro's regime.

And that's because our oposition made a huge noise about that, because they used to receive about 400 USD, and the rest of the money to castro.

They have a good health program? Maybe. But I won't swap my freedom for that.

</comment><comment><USER27> It is easier to create new drugs if you are not subject to strict regulations and if you are not afraid of lawsuits from people that participate in trials.

What slows down the research in USA is the safety mechanisms imposed by FDA. This is almost the same for every country that is not a dictatorship.

source: worked a decade for pharmaceutical companies.

<comment><USER28> There's a more general and more interesting pattern at work here. As humanity, we have grown too fond of our safety and comfort over the past 50 years to the point of being unwilling to take the risks that are necessary for us to grow further. The levels of risk-aversion we have reached, especially in developed countries is actually akin to a terminal disease that is already ensuring the demise of most "western powers". It's paradoxical in a very beautiful way.. that will eventually serve to remind us that life isn't really about being safe and secure. Safety, security and privacy are unnatural values that have been drilled into us, quite elaborately, over generations. They are fake values that only serve to hold us back and inhibit our innate greatness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Don't be unduly impressed. It's common for a totalitarian state to focus its resources and "punch above its weight" in a specific area or two, but it's at the expense of the rest of their economy and the general well-being of its people. Its also a common tactic used to shore up support at home and win superficial plaudits abroad.

The Soviets were able to keep pace with the US militarily and in space. The also had world-beating athletics, chess and classical arts (ballet, orchestra etc). All this came at the high price of individual freedom and _basic_ human prosperity. Milton Friedman aptly observed this gap between "public affluence and private squalor" as the defining outcome of centralized socialism. Christopher Hitchens, at that time a committed socialist, described his disillusionment w/Cuba while volunteering there in 1968 as follows:

 _Cuba was torn between grim austerity for its people and flamboyant hedonism for its revolutionaries, and one's elementary socialist principles managed to register the gross injustice of this even while hoping (perhaps) that the engine of history would make up the deficit._ \- [http://www.city- journal.org/2008/18_2_spring_1968.html](http://www.city- journal.org/2008/18_2_spring_1968.html)

It is, I guess, better that Cuba has chosen to focus on healthcare rather than war-mongering, but it doesn't recommend their method of government as preferable to our own. It doesn't recommend their hundreds (perhaps thousands) of political executions or their death squads or their forced labor camps. It doesn't recommend their complete suppression of free speech and their prosecution of Cubans wanting to _leave_ this self-proclaimed "paradise".

And it seems quite unethical to praise Cuba for it's export of medical expertise while ignoring the fact that relatives of these experts are essentially _held hostage_ to ensure they won't defect. If you don't see something _extremely_ sinister and disgusting about this, I'd posit you don't have the capacity for suspicion and disgust.

 _.. the government "bars citizens engaged in authorized travel from taking their children with them overseas, essentially holding the children hostage to guarantee the parents' return. Given the widespread fear of forced family separation, these travel restrictions provide the Cuban government with a powerful tool for punishing defectors and silencing critics."_ \- Human Rights Watch, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba)

I'd posit that a fair (and fairly obvious) measure of a political system is the market for voluntarily migration. The fact is that _almost no one_ migrates into Cuba and millions have braved, and continue to brave, incredible costs and dangers to migrate _away_ from Cuba.

American style democratic capitalism is not without its flaws, and we must be eternally vigilant to resist and reverse attempts by both state and corporate power to impinge on our rights & freedoms in their own selfish interests. But, unlike Cubans (and former East Germans etc), we have the political infrastructure and basic human freedom to improve our system for the better. We shouldn't sacrifice these hard earned and extremely rare circumstances in the vain hope of securing _marginally_ better health outcomes (or marginally better security, chess skills, literacy rates etc) by means of totalitarian socialism.

<comment><USER30> Don't worry. If agencies like NASA and Elon Musk manage to get anywhere with their Mars ventures, we can go back to praising America and free enterprise soon enough (since it apparently is a choice between that and communism/totalitarianism).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cuban doctors are incredible for doing much with little.</comment>


TensorPort – Built for Cloud TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> https://www.tensorport.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I just saw this on Reddit. Has anyone tried it?</comment>


Young 'pranksters' skewed landmark sexuality study - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/01/young-pranksters-skewed-landmark-sexuality-study <comment><USER3> > more than 70 percent of the self-reported adolescent nonheterosexuals had > somehow gone "straight" as older teens and young adults.

Sexual orientation isn't a fixed value that stays the same forever. Especially during teenage years, a lot of people are still unsure of their preferences and may identify a in a certain way at a certain point in time that they won't down the line.

And yes, of course teenagers are likely to check random boxes as well - <USER2> to be silly, or because they fear that their results may be identified and used against them by parents/teachers.

None of those 2 things should be shocking for anyone who's ever worked with teenagers.

<comment><USER4> Say that to some gay rights activists and they will get VERY upset (usually those that defend that gays are born gay, and thus this is why gays must have several rights, and why the religions should not consider it wrong).

I had a particularly heated discussion once, with a hetero woman that was sympathizer of gay rights, she was VERY convinced that sexual orientation was fixed, she told me that there is no such thing as "ex-gay", and all "ex-gay" are just closeted homosexuals and will become gay again given enough time.

I gave her some articles about ex-gays complaining about receiving MORE flak after becoming ex-gay than when they were gays (including there is a existance of... closeted hetero, people that were gay, and do not assume to be hetero because both hetero and homosexuals then attack them, assuming he is still a sort of traitor gay), this still did not convinced her.

Then I showed a discourse by Luiz Mott (leading gay rights activist in Brazil), where he claims that he was hetero, and now is gay by his own choice, and that he was NOT born gay.

This STILL did not convinced her, she told me that Luiz Mott was a liar, but only in that case (and that everything else he says is true).

Sometimes people disappoint me.

<comment><USER5> Using a throwaway as I am not out yet and If I am out, I would be disowned at best or killed at worst. Sexuality is fluid. That is 100% true. Though I'd never been attracted to women, sexually, I had fooled with a friend in Uni, who is bi. He says that he started liking guys only after he was 20. He never thought about having sex with guys before and asked why he wanted to have now, he said initially he was curious and now he likes it after trying for the first time.

The concept of sexuality being fluid can be a touchy topic to gay activists and also some gay people is because of the religious people. If everyone starts to think that sexuality can be changed, the bigots and crazy religious people will put more effort into the conversion therapy. In the current state of the world, that will do more harm than good.

<comment><USER6> I suspect there are degrees of fluidity: that some people have a flexible orientation largely driven by choice and experience (I know at least one person who reports this is how it is for her), but for others, orientation is largely fixed and even significant conditioning efforts don't make much of a difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm just stunned their data is as good as it is. In high-school I never answered a single survey like that honestly. Nobody I knew did. The idea that adults would be shocked to learn that all teenagers had unprotected sex with hundreds of random partners a month was too amusing.

In retrospect, there may have been a reason we had to go to so many educational 'assemblies'...

<comment><USER8> I'm on the reverse end of the spectrum. When researchers came in to ask questions about violence and weapons in schools, I truthfully tried to help them as best I could. It was only later that I understood that, when they asked if I'd seen a student fire a weapon at school in the past month, they hadn't meant for me to include the latin club's trebuchet.

<comment><USER9> I helpfully told them that I used theobromine weekly (in the form of chocolate).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Being in this demographic (I graduated high school in 1996), right away this reminded me of a friend of mine who was so not gay but claimed bisexuality in this time period. I don't think it was in any way a prank, I just think there was a certain trendiness about it. Looking back, a sort of aggressive tolerance of GLBTs feels like a defining factor for my generation from the kids who came up in the late 80s.

After my generation it just seems to be taken for granted a bit more, and thus uninteresting to youth culture. I realize this is just anecdotal, but suffice it to say that this result does not surprise me in the least and I think researchers are bit out of their depth when they try to ascribe logic to the phenomenon ex post facto. The "data" they have does not reflect the dominant cultural psychology of the time which is paramount in any youth study.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the assumption that self-reported data can be trusted makes a mockery out of every field of study that relies on it.

Setting aside the fact that it's hard enough to design a double (triple?) blind study of mice, setting aside the fact that people will lie and joke around for pleasure, how can you ever get past the fact that 'who we are' and 'who we want to be' are inextricably linked?

<comment><USER7> > _double (triple?) blind study of mice_

Would that be a study where the _mice_ are not aware of if they are in the control or not?

Has the placebo effect been seen in mice?

<comment><USER12> You've never heard of the three blind mice? I believe the farmer's wife won a Nobel prize for her work in regeneration of severed limbs.

<comment><USER7> I'm a little ashamed to admit that you had me googling for that. ;)

Seriously though, the idea that mice might have a placebo effect is fascinating. I would have thought that the placebo effect would require some high-level form of self-awareness (which perhaps mice do have, I don't really know) and an understanding of at least the purpose of medicine. Maybe not though...

<comment><USER13> Mice are the most intelligent species on Earth. In fact, they are so smart that they are immune to placebo effects. However, they act like they aren't because our reactions provide them much entertainment - [http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Mice](http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Mice)

Edited to add: On a more serious note, I don't know if mice are susceptible to a Hawthorne-like effect [http://psychology.about.com/od/hindex/g/def_hawthorn.htm](http://psychology.about.com/od/hindex/g/def_hawthorn.htm) Even physical science researchers have to deal with observer effects [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29)

Edited to clean up brain-drained errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My favourite part is from a related study where the youngsters "miraculously grew back missing limbs".

I think we are all getting better at noticing badly designed studies. A while back some study in the UK was publicised saying that nearly a 1/2 of 12 year olds had committed a crime, and 1/4 a violent crime. Yes. 12 year olds. The expected out cry was muted. I assume most people did what i did and imagined a study like this

* researcher walks into playground and asks group of kids if any have ever committed a crime.

\- I might have taken a mars bar from the corner shop once. \- Well I take a mars bar every week \- That's nothing, I take the cash out the till while he is watching you take the mars bars. \- yeah well last week he saw me do that so i stabbed the cashier. \- Only stabbed him, I took a shotgun the last time and had to reload while the blood was pumping out of his twitching body and I slipped on his guts on the way out of the shop.

</comment><comment><USER15> This came out of Cornell??

1) Adolescents are well known to be more confused about sexuality than adults, often conflate friendship and charisma with sexual attraction, and often experiment with sexuality and later decide what's for them. It's not surprising at all that the number of bisexuals would drop.

2) As I read this, they changed the question from "romantic attraction" to "sexual attraction" between the two surveys. Seriously???

</comment><comment><USER16> > "We should have known something was amiss," says Savin-Williams. "One clue > was that most of the kids who first claimed to have artificial limbs (in the > physical-health assessment) miraculously regrew arms and legs when > researchers came back to interview them."

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm kinda surprised the researchers were "stunned" by the initial results, trusting those young whippersnappers to be al truthful...

</comment><comment><USER18> _"We should have known something was amiss," says Savin-Williams. "One clue was that most of the kids who first claimed to have artificial limbs...miraculously regrew arms and legs when researchers came back to interview them."_

...You can't pay for better monologue material than this.

</comment><comment><USER19> Straight out of the /Onion/.

</comment><comment><USER20> The actual percentage of homosexuality or bisexuality in adolescents is probably much higher. I am sure that there are many that answered as hetero out of fear, confusion, or peer pressure. 5 to 7 percent seems like a ridiculously low number.

<comment><USER21> One reason we gather data is because our opinions of what "seems like" reality are likely biased in significant ways based on our experiences, philosophies, and wishful thinking.

Generally speaking, surveys from various western countries seem to indicate 1-5% of adults identify as LGBT, with a slightly higher percentage of adults reporting either some same-sex attraction or same-sex sexual experience at some point in their lives. It came as a surprise when surveys revealed a higher incidence of homosexuality among teens (5-7%), who are generally more reluctant to self-identify as LGBT and less likely to be sure of their sexuality; it now appears that those answers were unreliable.

See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation#Modern_survey_results) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I kept looking at the address and title bar expecting to see "the Onion"...

</comment><comment><USER23> "One clue was that most of the kids who first claimed to have artificial limbs (in the physical-health assessment) miraculously regrew arms and legs when researchers came back to interview them."

Assessing sexual tendencies and their occurrence in the population clearly is difficult. But is it really that hard to figure out rates of prosthetic limbs? I'd have thought there was sound data about that. And if those numbers looked funny, why would you trust the rest of the data?

</comment><comment><USER24> I must say, I don't see the potential for confusion in "have you ever had a romantic attraction to a man/woman?". I mean, there is definitely a difference between romance and sex, but the question still seems pretty clear in what it asks. Maybe they should have asked about both.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fortunately this is a longitudinal study, so the effects can be seen over time with the same people.

</comment><comment><USER26> Back in college there was a Gay, Bi and Lesbian group. My mate and I decided to gatecrash it (he even took his girlfriend). This was considered typical college behaviour, _to explore the universe_ ...

... although I tended to prefer the local fetish club. One night I managed to survive until eight in the morning, and heard all this action coming from the third floor.

"What's going on?", I said... "Some gay porn mate." "Hardcore?" "I presume so."</comment>


Ask HN: Which DNS service/s outside of AWS to use? - <AUTHOR>

I'm on the look out for a new DNS provider which offers dynamic fail over and location based routing out side of route 53. Ultimately I'd like to have 2 such services to allow for redundancy in providers.
What solutions do you guys use?
Any wisdom is appreciated! <comment><USER2> For over 13 years, Dyn has powered industry leading uptime for the biggest web brands, small businesses and personal users around the world. Take a look at Dyn's various DNS products and evaluate what's right for you.

<http://dyn.com/dns/>

<comment><USER3> After being with Dyn for 8+ years, this last week I moved from them to Amazon. The Dyn interface is chaotic - so bad I contemplated just reverting to hosting DNS myself in PowerDNS/Poweradmin (<https://www.poweradmin.org/trac/>).

I never had downtime issues with Dyn, and the performance was satisfactory. But I tried talking a coworker through updating our TXT/SPF record and told him he'd have to "stumble around until he found the right interface" - at that point I realized we deserved better.

<comment><USER4> The unbelievably terrible interface was a major factor in us moving our stuff from Netnames to Amazon.

Amazon Route53 is just ridiculously easy to use. Also, machine-controllable. Not as good as shadow primary, but second-best option and saves us so much frustration just doing stuff.

Though if there were someone who was as non-sucky to use as Amazon, I'd be interested too.

<comment><USER5> If you really want AXFR check out Route53d <http://code.google.com/p/route53d/>. Acts as an AXFR to route53 API proxy. The route 53 sample code also has import/export to bind zone file format.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Never used it but I believe Rackspace offer is pretty similar to the AWS one : <http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/public/dns/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps Point? (<https://pointhq.com/>) Don't use them myself, but I've heard good things.

</comment><comment><USER8> DNSPark is very nice with great redundancy and very low prices.

<http://dnspark.net/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I think zerigo do have all that although I only use their non geo service. They have an API to automate changes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Went with Dyn - thanks.

Route 53 is nice but its concerning to have hosting and DNS with the same provider.

</comment><comment><USER10> My company uses Rackspace with Cloud Sites with their DNS. Very few issues and great customer service.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can't go wrong with Dyn.</comment>


Ask HN: Any early stage startup looking for CTO/Chief Architect - <AUTHOR>

EDIT: Should have mentioned this before but I'm only looking in San Francisco. Sorry for any confusion.
I am a startup engineer. I currently work in a senior role at a high scale, high profile, very fast growing startup where I manage the majority of the backend and operations. I've helped grow the company from 5 employees to now over 60 in about a year and a half. Now I want to work somewhere where I can have more say over the direction of the technical side of things. I'm looking for a startup that is still less than 5 employees (or at least less than 5 engineers), funded and tackling interesting problems. You don't need to have a ton of traction (or any all really). You don't need to be profitable. I enjoy seeing a startup grow from those early stages to something big.
If that sounds like you, and you want to chat and see if it might be a fit, email me at email@example.com and tell me a little about your company.
Thanks for taking time to read this.
p.s. I'm doing this anonymously because pretty much everyone I currently work with reads HN. <comment><USER2> I'd be curious if you get any replies, could you please reply in a bit with a little info about the quantity and quality of emails you get.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the first post the other day I got no responses. ZERO! Today I got 2. Both were legit options and companies I'd seriously consider. I mistakenly did not mention originally in my post that I'm looking in San Francisco and one of the replies was from a company in Santa Monica which is too bad. The other is in San Francisco and I hope I we can at least sit for a chat soon. Might be something good.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it's the headline. When I read the headline, I thought it was an early stage company looking for a CTO/Chief Architect</comment></comment></comment>


Great Firewall architects fingered for GitHub attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/31/github_ssl_man_in_the_middle_attack/ <comment><USER2> In reference to the White House petition to bar entry into the US to those involved in Internet censorship:

      This petition – which has now amassed over 9,000 signatures
      and could theoretically end up influencing US policy –
      calls...

Only ~91,000 signatures to go. The Register has a previous article referencing the same petition when it had approx. 7000 signatures. 1) Do they not realize the petition is currently still under 10K signatures? 2) Do they not realize that these petitions are essentially meaningless?</comment>


Estonia institutes volunteer cyber army - <AUTHOR> http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10404

<comment><USER2> "The people who work in IT in the U.S. tend to be quite suspicious of government," says Stewart Baker, a former general counsel at the NSA. "Maybe they think that they're so much smarter than governments that they'll be able to handle an attack on their own. But there's a standoffishness that makes it much harder to have that kind of easy confidence that you can call on people in an emergency and that they'll be respond."

That section made me laugh, seriously, it's not because they think they are smarter and better, they just don't want to deal with the gov and be told what to do.

<comment><USER3> I thought it's that they didn't trust the government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everything old is new again. It would be interesting to see online groups much, like militias in the 1700s, getting called up by the government in a time of war, but keeping out spies would be difficult. Let's face it you are working with some of the few people on the planet that actually understand encryption and stenography.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting concept, but what exactly is a volunteer cyber-soldier supposed to do?

</comment><comment><USER6> The other side of cyber armies:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party>

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a much more interesting story about Estonia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Do_It_2008>

They got 50,000 people to clean up 10,000 tons of dumped rubbish spread over the whole country with a year of buildup and planning and 5 hours of work on the day.

<comment><USER8> Those stuff are _very_ common in former communist nations. The whole country does "trash collection day" for one day, then liters for 364.

<comment><USER9> I wish I could downvote you.. :S

<comment><USER8> Why can't you? Cat got your mouse pointer?

P.S. I was a commie myself, just yesterday:

<http://twitter.com/BigThingist/status/23033284455833601>

<comment><USER9> > Why can't you? Cat got your mouse pointer?

Lack of karma, I guess...

PS. I'm Estonian ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a cool country. The more I hear about Estonia the more I like it.</comment>


Dear Apple, Your Chargers Are Crap - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caslee-sims/post_9808_b_7837854.html

<comment><USER2> What the article fails to mention is that this is an example of Apple's form over function mentality. Powercords used to have reliefs around the bendy bits so that the abused connections could handle being bent. But Apple decided it looked nicer to not have the reliefs and went with a straight cord. Sure, it may look more minimalist, but it is massively less effective. They don't care because the customers they want to attract won't blink at spending $100 for a new power-supply (Macbook).

I'm saddened mostly that the copy-cat nature of the industry has let most other manufacturers to copy this flawed design.

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently bought a new one myself after the plastic wrapping broke, leaving the wire exposed. On the new one, I wrapped a few of those bendy, fuzzy pipe cleaners that people use for crafts around the spot where the plastic typically breaks, in hopes of strengthening it. Hopefully, I'll get some extra life out of this one.</comment>


Microsoft's tiny hut in shadow of Apple store - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/microsoft-touts-kinect-temporary-hut-shadow-apple-store

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple generate queues by releasing compelling products, Microsoft are going for Celebs:

      The goal of the hut is to build buzz for next week's
      grand opening of the Microsoft store – a huge bash
      which will feature appearances by baseball legend
      Edgar Martinez and Seattle Sounders FC goalkeeper
      Kasey Keller on Thursday, a performances by
      The Black Keys on Friday and a concert
      by OneRepublic on Saturday.

<comment><USER2> actually, haven't Jet, John Legend, and others played Apple product announcements? I'm surprised I wasn't able to find a list of who's played on stage at Moscone during an Apple product release.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple tends to have Musicians playing at the iTunes events which seems fair enough: it's showing some the product on offer.</comment></comment></comment>


Prominent Mexican anti-corruption blogger goes missing - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/news/el-5antaurio-blogger-missing/

<comment><USER2> What's the value in protecting one's identity if colleagues are going to release it to the (possibly corrupt) government and media? If he does return, there's no way he can continue with the pseudonym, and in the (unlikely?) event of a safe return, it sounds as if he'd now be in jeopardy for past reporting.

It seems there's no positive end game, even if he is found safely.

<comment><USER3> There are four possible states for someone in his profession.

1\. Identity is secret. This is his ideal state.

2\. Police know his identity, drug cartels do not. Not as good as #1, as he has to worry about corrupt police working with the cartels, or poor police security letting his identity out.

3\. Police do not know his identity, but the drug cartels do. This is the worst possible case. The cartels can target him, and the police cannot help him.

4\. Police and drug cartels both know his identity. Worse than #1 and #2, but better than #3, as he might get some help from the police.

If he had disappeared voluntarily (for instance, if he had gone on vacation), he would have told his colleagues. We can thus infer that he was probably taken by the drug cartels. That means he's in state #3 or #4. By making sure the police know his identity, his colleagues ensure he is in state #4, not #3, which is better for him.

The positive end game for him if he is found safely is moving away from Mexico (or at least from the drug cartel territories), assuming a new identity, and trying to live a normal life doing some job other than reporting on drug cartels. The moment he was taken both his pseudonym and real identity died-- the only question now is if that also means the end of his life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> please, americans, stop buying drugs that go through mexico.

i don't care if it should be legalised or not. you still have a choice. so this guy's blood (and his unimaginable suffering) is on your hands. and he's just one of thousands.

[and, to pre-empt the excuses, how do you _really_ know what is home-sourced?]

<comment><USER5> I don't like this argument because you can replace "drugs" with anything a government decides to make illegal. If a product or service is made illegal and there's still a demand, it will be sold on the black market and everyone knows what that funds.

The people who created laws that pushed these "drugs" into the black market knew this too and they also had a choice; collect the money themselves through taxes and use it as they see fit (probably to, I don't know, reduce drug use) or keep funding these kinds of activities.

Obviously if all/some drugs were legalized they'd find something else to sell, but why make it easy for them by giving them total monopoly over some of the most sought after substances on earth, with an endless supply of customers, some who are legitimately in need.

Also, when it comes to legalization vs "getting everyone in America to stop buying drugs", I think legalization is a lot more realistic.

P.S. I know one sure fire way to make sure it's home-sourced, unfortunately I can't do that because it carries some risk, jail.</comment></comment>


Give A Beer - <AUTHOR> http://giveabeer.com

<comment><USER2> Cute, but in Canada a Keg costs way more than $30, more like $150+</comment>


Python/Visual Studio 1.5RC out: Mac/Linux client libs for Azure - <AUTHOR> http://pytools.codeplex.com/releases/view/82130

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity is there anything like this for Ruby?</comment>


Why isn't there a category for simple "Relaxing" games in the Apple app store? - <AUTHOR>

Let's just think about it, there are tons of game categories in the app store - action, education  games and even music. But there is no place where developers could upload something easygoing and relaxing gam. And that is a problem. Just remember the flappy bird thing, people were getting mad from playing it and there were no other games that could calm them down.
We realized that when we tried to upload our game RUB! to the app store. First five times we were declined by Apple censors, because the game was too simple for Apple standards. But it was simple on purpose. The whole concept was just to rub the screen for points. But because there was no "games for chillin' and relaxing" category we had to make it less simple and not as cool as we had in mind.
We believe that  perhaps there should be a place in the app store where some "simple" nice games would find there place. We truly believe that games should not make you mad, but instead should make you smile and forget for a second all your problems. That is why we are asking Apple to add  "games for chillin' or relaxing" category to the app store.
This is our app that we are talking about: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rub/id697927329?mt=8 <comment><USER2> * I strongly disagree with Apple banning Apps based on their uninformed perception of how simple an App is. You shouldn't have to change your vision to get accepted. Apple can have any rules they want to on their App store, but these are dumb ones. Their main job should be checking to see if an App contains security or privacy issues.

* I think your App idea of rubbing the screen isn't for most people. Some people might like it for whatever reason, and they should have the option to try it.

* Traditionally, it seems as if game genres describe a style of play. If you describe something as Action or Strategy or Simulation or Puzzle most gamers know approximately what the game would be like. Does the word "Relaxing" really fit in next to these other terms? It's a really tough call for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes,this is very good idea to make new "relaxing" category in app store!</comment>


How Germany got it right on the economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112306280.html <comment><USER3> The problem with this article is that is glosses over one major problem: if Germany's currency moved in accordance with its economy rather than the entire European Union then its exports would be grossly overpriced and uncompetitive. It's the formation of the EU and a single currency that has allowed it to remain an exporting country rather. The article can not compare apples to oranges and make sense.

<comment><USER4> But you could make the same argument against any US state that remains cost competitive due to the currency. And it also discounts the fact that Germany did very well during the period when it did have it's own currency. As it is, German economic performance does have an effect on the Euro, being the largest member state.

<comment><USER5> >But you could make the same argument against any US state that remains cost competitive due to the currency

True, but, there is a policial union of states in the US that doesn't exist in the EU. The EU is a monetary union without a political union, this means that it's politically unpalatable to explicitly redistribute tax money from the relatively rich to poor regions (Germany/France to Greece/Portugal) in the same way as Washington or London might to W.Virginia or Newcastle.

<comment><USER6> Europe is redistributing enormous amount of money from rich to poor countries within EU. Spain would still look like an underdeveloped country without the massive injection of money coming from the EU. EU (the organisation), even with problems here and there and the need to take a good diet, is working wonderfully at equalizing the rich/poor countries. This is why most of the countries do not want Turkey to be part of EU, under the EU rules, this would mean an insane amount of money going to Turkey every year for maybe 30 years or more.

With respect to the article itself, not everything is rosy in Germany, a large part of the population is living out of the social help system (7.5 millions people) and another large par is getting miserable wages, in the range of 4€/h or less. So yes, the German economy is robust, but the social state is struggling too.

<comment><USER5> > Europe is redistributing enormous amount of money from rich to poor > countries within EU

Yes, they are, but it's a political hot potato, arguably without mandate, and I doubt that it's on the scale of national regional development funds.

Don't get me wrong, I am pro Europe, but I think politicians have done an abysmal job of explaining the project to voters (esp in the UK).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While certainly Germany has done a lot right and deserve credit for their current economic strength, we have to recognize that they've both chosen a very different path: i.e. stability over growth, and also have a very different culture than we Anglo-Saxons - which I would argue are quite inter- related.

When it comes to quality manufactured goods, Germany is legendary and has strongly biased its economy over the past 100 years to take advantage.

The US & Briton on the other hand, have always been first movers to adopt breakthrough tech - often at the expense of quality, stability of investments, etc, and are seemingly always better at the "soft" side of business: sales & marketing.

The world needs both the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon models, and seemingly they both are still going to head down the same paths as before will little change in overall direction - with the exception of America trying to get better educated the Germans trying to become better sales/marketers.

<comment><USER8> Just as a plug for German innovation -- consider the 19th century: if you include Austria/ Vienna, people who spoke German (and were often Jewish) basically invented modern thought, ranging from mathematics to chemistry to music to philosophy to psychology etc. England was great in applied physics and math, France in dynamics and biology, but in theoretical math, music, and philosophy Germany TOWERS above anyone in the 19th century.

It all went south with the Kaiser's attempt to imitate Napolean and then National Socialism; but if Germany had avoided militarism and kept the Jews they basically would own Europe by now (they sort of do even with the setbacks of the first half of the twentieth century).

<comment><USER9> To say that Germans _"invented modern thought"_ is pushing it. Perhaps you can qualify that with an appropriate definition of "modern thought". The first few disciplines were around long before the 19th century.

<comment><USER10> > To say that Germans "invented modern thought" is pushing it

Kant was German. As was Hegel. And Marx. Maybe it's just me, but I'd say that the history (including that of intellectual thought) of the last 200 years would be completely different if it weren't for these 3 guys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure I understand the impetus for articles like this. It's the same as the articles arguing why Taiwan's education system is better than the US' or arguing that Canada's healthcare system is better.

Certainly it is valuable and important to understand foreign policy systems and lessons can be learned from these observations. But it is equally important to remember that they are foreign systems. I am yet to be presented with an example of a foreign system that would directly transport to the US and be equally successful.

The US has problems in healthcare, in education and possibly in its economic systems, but non of it is a result (at least in my opinion) of picking the wrong policy system. Largely the policy systems countries choose are based on the demographic, values, economic values, etc. Germany's economic systems work for Germany because they are build for Germany.

I recognize that this article is not directly making the argument that the US should convert to a German style trade and employment system, but it implied multiple times. I would appreciate articles like this much more if they focused more on exploring the system for itself and less time comparing it to the system in the US.

Having said all that, Germany's co-determination system, as described in the article, is an interesting concept. I guess the down side would be a fear of causing separation between the interests of labor leaders and labor workers.

</comment><comment><USER12> I find it interesting that over the last hundred years or so, especially in the US, the 'hidden cause' of financial upheavals is usually legal - <USER2> something as simple and innocuous as changes to the rules for how savings/superannuation are taxed.

When you think about this it makes sense, the rich pay attention to these changes, and move their money accordingly. It's like trying to stabilise a rowboat, you notice that the starboard is a little low, so you order everyone to rush to the port side...

Another interesting parallel is between Apple and Germany. Apple's detractors have been screaming at them for over a decade about how they are going to lose because they don't have market share. Meanwhile, the computer manufacturers who pursue market share at the expense of profitability go bankrupt in droves ("we're making a loss on each unit, but we'll make it up in volume").

Disclaimer: I'm not German, but I do drive a German car :D

<comment><USER13> I too favor German cars - although I did have a BMW that was manufactured in the US and I wasn't too impressed with it.

Having said that, I wouldn't mind owning the product of a certain Italian VW/Audi brand...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Gordon Gekko, in the original Wallstreet said greed is good for all stakeholder interests because it eliminates wastes.

Shareholder vs. Stakeholder (employees, customers, community,and investors as opposed to just investors) is an important consideration for CEOs. Wallstreet makes it difficult for companies to plan longterm, and many companies speak of the importance of the CUSTOMER (and the community), but mean INVESTOR.

CEO Entreprenuers get the chance to choose for themselves, stakeholders vs just shareholders. The work of some German companies over the last two decades is an encouraging example.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think one of the interesting things about Germany, Japan, and China is that they are NOT strictly capitalist countries, and they do NOT follow Chicago style economic models (which, ahem, seem to be inaccurate when one attempts to verify them empirically). I think a little bit of socialism is necessary to keep a thriving _industry_ (not finance) driven economy going. Trade barriers, spending on long term public education and welfare and infrastructure, long term economic planning not based on this quarters dividends, a dash of regulation to curb the worst abusers, some subsidies to beef up struggling sectors that contribute the greater good, an efficient and highly monitored bureaucracy, and zero tolerance for anti-social behavior (whether by the powerful or the proletariat); these are what made the USA an industrial economy from 1776 to about 1976, and they are still a recipe for success.

<comment><USER15> There's an awful lot of assumptions to unpack in this comment so I'm not going to address everything. But can we all agree that a country which had GSEs pouring $500 billion into the mortgage market and a decade's worth of government holding short term interest rates at 0% isn't some kind of laissez- fare paradise?

You had "Chicago style" economists yelling at the government to dismantle Fanny and Freddie for years before the collapse, those shining examples of government long-term economic planning. For decades free market economists advocated replacing the Federal Reserves short-term focus on quarterly GDP with a mandate to maintain long-term price stability. Oh, and they have been railing against both parties for racking up such a huge public debt.

Then when the shit hits the fan, all people remember is a caricature of "Chicago-style" economists, not what they actually said and did.

The narrative that the United States lost its way through too much deregulation and free market fundamentalism is cheap rhetoric that doesn't become any more true the more often it is repeated. It is symptomatic of too much education by the way of opinion articles.

<comment><USER8> You might be right if you said that my argument was too simplistic... but I think there is plenty of "cheap rhetoric" on your side as well, and the ad hominem attack ("too much education by way of reading opinion articles" is pretty slimy, if you ask me. I could easily have said "too much watching of Fox News"....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An excellent article that clearly illustrates how, if you properly educate and invest in your population and provide a societal structure that allows these people to have a say, then, instead of society imploding, it actually flourishes. Not that anyone in western govt's are listening...

<comment><USER17> Germany has other serious problems though, demography particularly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Okay fine, but the article doesn't really tell us anything about _why_ Germany is able to base their economy on export and manufacturing. Is it simply a matter of political will? What do worker wages and income distribution look like? How about education? Without examining these elements, the implication that other economies should be more like Germany seems pointless.

</comment><comment><USER19> Weren't the problems with the American economy foretold before the financial crisis? We haven't even hit the big problems. You can only borrow for so long and kick the can down the road.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963807></comment>


Amtrak Has Lost Money for Decades. A Former Airline CEO Thinks He Can Fix It - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amtrak-has-lost-money-for-decades-a-former-airline-ceo-thinks-he-can-fix-it-11562385660?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> One rare instance where I can contribute some inside information. I met the director of all of Amtrak's development efforts a few week ago over a cookout. And he laid down how the whole system works. Basically, Amtrak was created as part of a government bailout effort to rescue the train companies, who were making money from freight but losing money on commercial routes.

The train companies went to the US government and said "bail us out or we all go out of business". So the senate created Amtrak as a private company, and purchased all of the money losing assets (all passenger routes) from the train companies. The US government owns all voting shares, and the train companies owns all non-voting shares. So Amtrak is a quasi public-private utility companies, where the cost is bore by public in tax money.

Here is the kicker, the special interest group that lobbied for the US government to create Amtrak was ... the US airlines. They bet that passenger trains would be obsolete in a few decades, so the tax payers would not be holding the bag for too long.

50 years later, we are still holding the bag. According to my sources, they will be break even across all routes in a couple of years. By the way, all passenger trains in Europe , China and Japan lose money too.

<comment><USER3> Fascinating. In the lead up to that, passenger trains used to be heavily subsidized by the mail cars:

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

Postal employees would sort the mail while it traveled. Parallel processing!

Centralized automated sorting helped kill that model, along with the fact that an air and truck system really squeezes the viability of rail.

I read once that there's a sweet spot for passenger rail at about 250 miles, but it loses to air any farther and roads any shorter. Can't seem to find that source though, and I might be off by 50 miles. TSA might be one of the best things to happen to Amtrak, hard to say.

<comment><USER4> > _TSA best thing to happen to Amtrack_

In both NYC and Boston, the track for boarding isn't shown to the waiting area until arriving passengers had a chance to leave the train. Once your track number is shown you have only a couple minutes to board, and depart.

This means you can arrive at NYC's Penn Station or Boston's South Station 5 minutes before departure and walk right onto your train.

When I factor the terminal location and the boarding convenience at both ends of my trip, I can get door to door from midtown NYC to downtown Boston faster by Acela than by air.

Before TSA, the flights won. I could hit LGA curbside 15 minutes before gate close and be in my plane seat. Now, the variability is much too high, and TSA is too likely to be completely mismanaging surge situations, so typically 2 hours buffer is needed as a _guarantee_ instead of 15 mins.

<comment><USER5> In that specific case, it's hard to justify taking Acela over a bus. Acela is at best an hour faster and something like 4x the cost (or more) It is certainly more comfortable, but unless we get true high speed rail that shortens the travel time between Boston and NYC to < 2 hours I can't ever justify personally paying for it. I've only ever taken Acela between Boston and NYC when an organization I was working for was willing to foot the bill.

In Europe, I took trains that hit speeds of 195 MPH for long stretches. That sort of speed would make rail a real viable third way between car/bus and air for long distance travel.

<comment><USER6> I've only taken the normal train between the two cities. For the regular train when you plan 2 weeks out the prices were comparable. The slow train is only 1/2 hour slower than the accela. I found it much more comfortable than the bus and easier than driving.

The main thing to me is the comfort level and that I can do other things than concentrate on driving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> By what metric should we rate the value of infrastructure like Amtrak's? Should it really be profitability? Maybe I'm not reading the right articles, but I never see highway or interstate infrastructure judged by their ability to turn a profit (with rare exception they never do). Rather, they are judged by factors like how many more people can travel, how they decongest traffic, or even the economic activity that they enable.

If we take into account the number of cars that are removed from the road, and the economic activity enabled by fast eastern seaboard commutes to financial and political centers, then where does the balance lie for this service?

To not sound wishywashy, I bet it looks more favorable.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wrote some software that was used by Amtrak, the people implementing the software on the trains said that the food being sold on the trains was usually not what was being loaded on and off the trains, but was instead supplied by the employees, so that they could make extra cash. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but with a captive audience, I'm surprised Amtrak does so poorly.

Another issue is that cargo trains get precedence, so travel times are often excessively long.

</comment><comment><USER9> There were a techy startup or two making overnight sleeper-bus service between LA and SF over the last few years. Apparently the ride quality was rough, but they had a solid business model. How Amtrak hasn't seen this opportunity of a far more comfortable, spacious travelling hotel (ie 9pm to 8am) between the two cities (and similar routes) is mind-boggling to me.

<comment><USER10> They don't own the train lines. Their schedule is at the whim of (guessing on that route) BSNF

<comment><USER9> I know this to be true; it just surprises me Amtrak, as large as it is, doesn't have more leverage / bargaining power here. I understand tying up a line can be an issue and the rail network is a relatively complex thing, but if it enables a service to make money and BNSF makes a cut, I'd think it would be viable. I don't think freight lines are exactly at capacity (generalizing here), nor are they gushing with cash these days either. IIRC Union Pacific just laid off 7000 jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We need to fire the romantics and rail fans and have leadership that actually serves travelers. Approximately nobody actually relies on the long distance routes. Shut down the long distance routes, and spend that money improving service in routes where you actually have a hope of stealing significant market share from air and road travel.

We were having a similar problem with WMATA. People wanted to keep money losing late night service to help the "night life" (and invoking late shift workers as a fig leaf). New WMATA GM said it'd be cheaper to just provide Uber rides for the late shift workers and stood fast against extending hours. Maybe not the hero we want, but the hero we need.

<comment><USER12> So wait, we should have late shift workers depend on companies that subsidizes its rates relying on a "greater fool" theory of access to capital (VC, now Wall Street), exploits its labor force (drivers) and uses far less energy efficient vehicles (cars)?

Oh and btw most of these shift workers can't afford to ride Uber/Lyft much less if the fare is surging. A $7 ride is what, half an hour of minimum wage work? That's pretty steep. Maybe we have WMATA reimburse the worker, but who hasn't had a large gap between filing a receipt and getting reimbursed? Now add being potentially financially precarious, doesn't seem ideal.

If only we had a service that could transport large numbers of people using electricity to pre-defined locations so that they could have a far cheaper final leg of their trip. Oh wait...

<comment><USER11> It costs metro $45 per ride to stay open late. It'd be much cheaper to just have WMATA subsidize an Uber.

<comment><USER12> I'd guess that late at night an Uber ride from downtown DC to Shady Grove will run you close to that. It definitely will cost more after say, a late night game at Nationals Park. Uber isn't public transit, it serves a different purpose and shouldn't be seen in the same way as public infrastructure.

When I lived in DC, I loved taking the metro but I couldn't rely on it when it got late. If I were king for a day, I'd force the creation of a new ring-type line and make the system run late with far more trains. This would cost money, it would be subsidized. It will make life better for all DC area residents and reduce the terrible traffic in the area. It would also may help mitigate downtown housing prices and slightly increase housing prices out in the suburbs. An enormous number of lives would be improved for a relatively small $35-$40 subsidy per ride.

<comment><USER11> Public infrastructure should still be subject to cost-benefit analysis, just like everything else. That doesn't mean it can't be subsidized, but it must still achieve the necessary results at the lowest cost.

A $40 Uber is what it costs to get me all the way to Annapolis late at night. That's not a "small" subsidy, its an insane waste of money that could be put to better use. If the concern is really low-income late night workers, it'd be cheaper to just lease those people an EV.

A ring-type line in DC would also be a terrible idea and would do nothing to reduce traffic. Any ring would run through mostly low-density areas where neither the starting point nor end point would be walkable to the train station. (The possibility has been studied.)

<comment><USER12> There's zero reason to say that a ring line _must_ through low density areas. You can place the ring (or partial ring) underground at a variety of locations that would be higher density, you could have it be further out from downtown as a mix of above and below ground, it's just about what we are willing to pay. Obviously, an all-above-ground follows-the-beltway route would be pretty low density.

As you know, the DC Metro has several U shaped lines. It takes a ridiculously long time to get from say, College Park to Dupont Circle. Or from the stadium to Silver Spring. A few linker lines would make the downtown system far quicker internally and also accelerate those kinds of trips, even if it doesn't create a full ring. The goal should be much like the NY system: I can get anywhere in DC relatively easily using only the Metro.

I think the way you've phrased the cost-benefit is exceedingly narrow. Operating a train is a fixed cost, if it's highly utilized the cost goes down. As such, making the service more useful can shift the cost-benefit. Also, there are benefits (for example fewer cars on the road) which don't seem to be taken into account.

Finally a key assumption here is that Uber's price is real. I personally don't think Uber's current prices are sustainable. They are either 1.) subsidized by investor capital or 2.) dependent on paying drivers essentially minimum wage (maybe even less) or 3.) both. If you didn't have Uber around would your analysis shift? (genuine question) In the past I doubt we'd have said, "Taxis are a replacement for public transit." We should be careful of making a similar argument today.

Re. low wage workers, it's a concern. You make some good points, but I'm not sure I buy that the answer is Uber or leasing EVs. How many have access to a charger for that EV? How many can get a driver's license? The poor often live precariously, they may not be able to park that car a month or two from now, or who knows what other problems might come up.

In short, I think focusing on top line cost-per-ride is a very incomplete way to look at infrastructure.

p.s. $40 from downtown DC to Annapolis, wow Uber is cheaper out there than here in the bay area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anybody who's interesting in doing something cool on a train should seriously consider the Synchrony demoparty.

[https://synchrony.nyc/](https://synchrony.nyc/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I have used Amtrak a great over the past 13 years that I have lived in NYC. Back around 2006 a 10-hour trip from NYC to Pittsburgh cost me $60. Now it is much more expensive.

I still love Amtrak, though. Their iPhone app is pretty good, their customer service has always been excellent, and I really enjoy traveling by train -- it is so much more comfortable and efficient than any other mode of transport, and it is a great environment for getting work done.</comment>


On humanity, a big failure in Aaron Swartz case - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit/bj8oThPDwzgxBSHQt3tyKI/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw

<comment><USER2> The excerpt, containing new (to me, anyway) information, that makes this article worth posting:

 _Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. He said JSTOR signed off on it, but MIT would not._

<comment><USER3> Wait, I thought the idea is that the prosecutor represents The People and not The Victim? It's very confusing to me how JSTOR and MIT are involved and yet not involved.

I wonder if this will turn up in MIT's report.

<comment><USER4> It's a longstanding legal debate, but in practice victims' opinions have a significant role in many plea bargains. Part of it, as far as I can tell, is that the U.S. doesn't have a purely protect-the-public conception of what the purpose of criminal law is, but also has a strong undercurrent of retributive justice. It's pretty common to hear people talk about a trial helping victims "achieve justice". So it's much easier for a prosecutor to sign off on a plea bargain if the victims support it than if they don't, even if their opposition wouldn't have legal standing.

And more recently there is some weak legal standing for victims' opinions on the matter. A number of states, and the federal government, have enacted "victims' rights" laws giving (alleged) victims some right to have their opinions heard in a case. The federal version [1] confers two rights relevant to having their opinion heard (though not necessarily followed) when negotiating plea bargains: 1) "The right to be reasonably heard at any public proceeding in the district court involving release, plea, sentencing, or any parole proceeding." and 2) "The reasonable right to confer with the attorney for the Government in the case."

[1] [http://www.justice.gov/olc/2010/availability-crime- victims-r...](http://www.justice.gov/olc/2010/availability-crime-victims- rights.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One quote I took from the news story:

"The thing that galls me is that I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk," Good told me. "His reaction was a standard reaction in that office, not unique to Steve. He said, 'Fine, we'll lock him up.' I'm not saying they made Aaron kill himself. Aaron might have done this anyway. I'm saying they were aware of the risk, and they were heedless."

<comment><USER6> Coupling that Heymann was specifically warned about Swartz's mental state with his (Heymann's) previous prosecution of Jonathan James, leading to _his_ suicide, has me seriously thinking this guy needs to see the other side of a defense table.

I'm sure there are laws protecting prosecutors from prosecution for actions carried out during the course of their duties, but those laws have to have limits. Having been forewarned that Aaron was a suicide risk, proceeding as the AUSA did reeks of criminal negligence, commonly defined as an act that is "careless, _inattentive, neglectful, willfully blind_ , or in the case of gross negligence what would have been reckless in any other defendant." (emphasis added)

<comment><USER7> > _has me seriously thinking this guy needs to see the other side of a defense > table._

Along with a prosecutor that decides to mitigate a suicide risk by locking him up. Just to be safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Mods, please revert the title to the more informative version that this was submitted under. Everybody hates this practice.

<comment><USER9> I don't hate this practice, it prevents a lot of the hyperbolic editorializing you see elsewhere on the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Off topic: refresh the page twice, and you get a paywall until you clear your cookies. Curious tactic... and somewhat ironic given the subject of the article.

On topic: _Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. He said JSTOR signed off on it, but MIT would not.¶ "There were subsets of the MIT community who were profoundly in support of Aaron," Weinberg said. That support did not override institutional interests._

I'm a little unclear about what MIT's "institutional interests" were in regards to Aaron's case... can anyone clarify?

<comment><USER11> Probably the departments of MIT unconnected to the computer science one where they may have different opinions on academic property

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In other news, the online petition to remove Carmen Ortiz from her office, reached the necessary 25k signatures threshold.

<comment><USER5> And the petition to remove Steve Heymann, the prosecutor on this case, only has 2k of the 25k signatures needed.

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant- us-...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney- steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb)

<comment><USER11> It will be covered by the same response made to the Ortiz petition....they group similar petitions, such as the secession ones by individual states

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The more I learn about what happened, the sorrier I feel for Aaron. It must have seemed like the whole world was against him.

</comment><comment><USER14> Steve Heymann is a murderer.

<comment><USER15> So if some girl breaks up with a guy who she knows has depression issues, for some silly reason, does that make her a murderer too? Aaron was responsible for his own actions.

That doesn't make the prosecutors good guys - far from it. But they didn't kill him.

<comment><USER16> So if some girl or boy with popularity in school verbally threatens me or accuse me of being fat, stupid, a Jew, a religious nut, a christian or atheist or whatever and bullys me into suicide it is not their fault? What Aaron did was great, moral and maybe illegal but that doesn't warrant the 35 years of federal prison. Maybe days.

And before you say anything about the persecutor doin his job the elected Nazi Hitler were just following orderz and the law.

They killed him. And they knew he was at suicide risk. I would end my life rather than going to federal prison until I'm 65 for freeing tax payers research. Federal cases 80% conviction rate.

I hate the game and the players willing to play the game.

<comment><USER17> Why are you mentioning the figure of 35 years? According to the WSJ, the prosecution was planning to push for seven years at trial, and were willing to offer six months in exchange for a guilty plea. It's also my impression that many people end up being released early, so the actual time spent in prison would've been shorter.

<comment><USER18> You're making it sound like no big deal. Maybe by that time, the damage was done. Anyway, the real issue is the Orwellian pressure tactics used by the state to destroy a relatively powerless individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Right, humanity is the one that failed, not the entitled twerp lacking in respect for the wishes of content creators other than himself.

His actions had consequences, and he feared to pay. I have trouble sympathizing.</comment>


Is Microsoft Running Out of Time for Tablets? - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/is-microsoft-running-out-of-time-for-tablets/

<comment><USER2> I don't think they are running out of time, I feel more like they just do not understand the market.

The average consumer who purchases an iPad doesn't want a computer. They are intimidated by computers. They want a device that will let them Facebook, and surf the web, and watch content without the hassle of setting anything up or making decisions about how the device should function. These people don't want to write in Word on a piece of glass. They want to hit a button and go without the hassles of program errors and blue screens. In other words, they don't want Windows.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just a glimpse of the future of Windows. The days when Windows had 90% of the market will soon be over. In a few years it should only have less than 50%, maybe around 30%. The rest will be eaten up by both Apple and Google.</comment>


HN bug - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/rPds2.png

<comment><USER2> Oddly enough I'm working on fixing that (and a bunch of other things) right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> This sort of thing happens when HN is going through one of its regular reboots.

</comment><comment><USER4> what's with the black bars

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't want the point of the image to get lost in the noise of the nearly two dozen other posts.</comment></comment>


"No handshakes, please" (Feb 2020) - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/13/21128209/coronavirus-fears-contagion-how-infection-spreads <comment><USER2> Well, the guy who ordered the hazmat suit had the right idea it looks like.

I remember reading balajis take apart this article on twitter soon after it was written. [https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447944287932416](https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447944287932416)

We should have paid more attention then...</comment>


Juggernaut self-contained habitat for plants - <AUTHOR> http://philross.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm inspired by his other works too

<http://philross.org/ross/index.php?kind0>

<http://philross.org/ross/index.php?kind040></comment>


Ask HN: how to stop loving - <AUTHOR>

I know its offtopic , but i like to know how to stop loving <comment><USER2> Why would you want to do such a thing?!? Love is great!</comment>


ClausIE: Clause-Based Open Information Extraction - <AUTHOR> https://gate.d5.mpi-inf.mpg.de/ClausIEGate/ClausIEGate <comment><USER2> A while ago, I tested Stanford's Core NLP Open IE implementation and UW (now AllenAII)'s version[1]. The UW version was much better.

The paper for this make it look pretty good compared to that. I'll be trying it.

[1] [https://github.com/allenai/openie- standalone](https://github.com/allenai/openie-standalone)

<comment><USER3> I came to the same conclusion. OTOH OpenIE is around 4x slower than CoreNLP and the memory requirements can also be a problem (~4GB JVM heap space).

I would be really interested on how ClausIE stacks up to that.

ClausIE also seems to be using CoreNLP _and_ OpenNLP.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Paper at [https://people.mpi- inf.mpg.de/~rgemulla/publications/delcorr...](https://people.mpi- inf.mpg.de/~rgemulla/publications/delcorro13clausie.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Clausie homepage: [https://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/departments/databases-and- informa...](https://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/departments/databases-and-information- systems/software/clausie/)</comment></comment>