NYC Votes to Close Rikers Island - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/nyregion/rikers-island-closing-vote.html <comment><USER2> More impressed with changes to bail and what constitutes a misdemeanor and more. modifying the war on drugs to target those exploiting others instead of merely using would go a long way to meeting their lower incarceration numbers they want.

but let us not kid ourselves, those numbers are not majority small time offenders. a city that large has a good number of people not fit to be around the rest

<comment><USER3> Not specific to NYC, but the United States always seems to have plenty of money for the criminal justice system and incarceration, but relatively little for drug addiction rehab and treatment.

But look at the cost per day to keep one person in jail for a nonviolent drug offense...

Decriminalization in Portugal: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal)

<comment><USER4> There were lots of European countries were serious drug abuse problems in the 80s and many were able to solve them (Berlin, Amsterdam, and Switzerland all come to mind) with a range of policies on the supportive to punitive spectrum. I don't know why Portugal tends to get disproportionate attention.

<comment><USER5> Because Portugal decriminalized everything.

<comment><USER4> Motivated reasoning, then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd just like to know how spending 8 billion on new buildings will fix the scandal and corruption issues. I get that the new jails will be more modern and humane but that's only part of the issue. The only thing this appears to be doing is freeing up a lot of interesting real estate for development while leaving more questions than answers.

<comment><USER7> This is NYC. The one rule in the big apple is that real estate trumps everything. Nothing happens there without an underlying benefit to property owners. That said, reforming jails isn't one of those things that societies do in isolation. Jail/prison reform always rides on the back of some other program. What matters is that they make the change. Whether that change is funded by altruism or greed doesn't matter to those on the inside, today and tomorrow. They only care about the change itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rikers is a nasty place. I know guards that work there. Very soul crushing.

Borough jails aren't going to be any easier to maintain if the federal ones are anything to go by.

<comment> core-questions Isn't that supposed to be part of the dissuading nature of punishment? Like, aren't we supposed to deter the more basal among us from committing crimes based on their fear of what will happen to them?

Obviously not to the extent of cruel and unusual punishment, but having a rough go of things seems reasonable enough for a jail environment. It's not a damned country club.

<comment><USER9> As it turns out, not many people commit crimes because they are fun.

Deterrents like hash punishments work, but only to the extent that the person has an option. Many people who turn to crime have no or few professional skills, and would struggle to make a living completely legitimately. Hence, they do what anyone would do in that situation, and commit crime to survive.

And when individuals are locked away in prisons for years at a time with no rehabilitation, nothing's really changed. They are still in the same situation as before, except now they have a criminal record, making their situation even more dire.

This leads to a revolving door effect where many individuals end up back in the same prison they just left. Not only does this ruin the person's life, it also costs the public in both lost productivity, and costs associated with housing imprisoned individuals.

Many modern countries short circuit this cycle by educating and rehabilitating imprisoned individuals so by the time they leave their cells they are ready to join the economy as an effective worker.

Think of it this way, if your child was struggling to get passing grades in school, what would be more effective? Locking them in their room with a book, or hiring a tutor?

<comment> core-questions > Hence, they do what anyone would do in that situation, and commit crime to > survive.

I will believe this when a person is stealing food, or even selling drugs. I will not believe this when a person is involved in violent acts, rape, murder, etc. which nobody "needs" to do to survive.

> Not only does this ruin the person's life

Arguably already ruined before they went to jail, in terms of their trajectory. Very, very few of these people are on the cusp of turning their lives around; it seems much more likely that they're just on the verge of getting caught, time and time again, until it finally happens.

> it also costs the public in both lost productivity

I don't believe this. It's rare that someone in this situation would have been productive at all, their entire lives, if the standard of "productive" is "pays more into the tax system than they take out". Even if they never went to jail, there's no reason to assume they'd be helping society somehow with their presence. And what of the many other unemployed non-criminals who could be being productive in whatever role you're imagining for our criminal sort? If we're worried about lost productivity, surely they come first.

> Many modern countries short circuit this cycle by educating and > rehabilitating imprisoned individuals so by the time they leave their cells > they are ready to join the economy as an effective worker.

This is such an academic view of the issue. Ex-cons seldom get any kind of good job - they're relegated to taking jobs that are stuck hiring them because they literally cannot find anyone else at their price point.

> Think of it this way, if your child was struggling to get passing grades in > school, what would be more effective? Locking them in their room with a > book, or hiring a tutor?

What an utterly vapid comparison. Struggling to get good grades is not even remotely the same thing as committing crimes; and it's not like most of these criminal sorts haven't had 18 years of second chances and resources being thrown at them.

You can't reach some folks. You can stop them from reaching you.

<comment><USER9> > I will not believe this when a person is involved in violent acts, rape, > murder, etc. which nobody "needs" to do to survive.

Agreed. There is a spectrum of individuals, and not everyone is good. However, if you break down the types of crime, non-violent crimes are very much the majority (0). Most people don't like hurting other people.

If you want an example of a working system with the mentality of "Rehabilitate over Punish", see many of the Nordic countries (1).

> in the past decade, the number of Swedish prisoners has dropped from 5,722 > to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million. The country has closed a number > of prisons, and the recidivism rate is around 40%, which is far less than in > the U.S. and most European countries.

You can argue this is due to other factors such as overall wealth of the nation, but that further proves my point that crime is more often an act of desperation rather than one of sadism.

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

[1] [https://www.mic.com/articles/109138/sweden-has-done-for- its-...](https://www.mic.com/articles/109138/sweden-has-done-for-its- prisoners-what-the-u-s-won-t)

<comment><USER9> Additionally,

> and it's not like most of these criminal sorts haven't had 18 years of > second chances and resources being thrown at them

A lot of these kids _haven't_. You're assuming everyone grew up in a middle class neighborhood with good teachers and was never pressured by gangs and never mistreated by authority. That's simply not the case. If you examine the personal history of many imprisoned people, you'll find a common pattern of poverty, limited chances, and family issues. All of which aren't the fault of the individual.

<comment> core-questions > You're assuming everyone grew up in a middle class neighborhood with good > teachers and was never pressured by gangs and never mistreated by authority.

I'm not assuming that at all, I just don't buy it as an excuse for anything. Should we let such problems fester forever? Aww, gee, this kid grew up around gangs, guess we better give him a free pass for a few crimes that we wouldn't give to a privileged kid?

If anything we need to be harsher on gangland so as to eventually stomp it out. Unless you think that we should just accept organized crime as a fact of life and stop trying? Damn, those Brazilian favelas are looking better all the time, eh?

> If you examine the personal history of many imprisoned people, you'll find a > common pattern of poverty, limited chances, and family issues.

Probably also find a common pattern of low IQ.

<comment><USER9> > Should we let such problems fester forever?

Absolutely not. We should take measures to ensure that individuals in those areas are on a path to better futures, if not for themselves, then for their posterity who will continue to live in that area. But you don't give people better fathers and mothers by taking them away and abusing them. If anything, doing that would just inspire distrust in the government and authority in general into those kids, leading to a poor future outside of society.

> better give him a free pass for a few crimes that we wouldn't give to a > privileged kid

I never said anything about treating people differently based on their backgrounds.

> If anything we need to be harsher on gangland so as to eventually stomp it > out. Unless you think that we should just accept organized crime as a fact > of life and stop trying? Damn, those Brazilian favelas are looking better > all the time, eh?

Ironic you mentioned Brazil, a country with massive crime issues and a grim future, and also aligns with your "Harsh on Crime" stance[0]. Whereas some of the lowest crime rates in the world can be seen in Switzerland, Denmark and Norway, where prisons are rehabilitation first[1].

> Probably also find a common pattern of low IQ.

Wouldn't that imply education would help?

You seem to be contradicting yourself, I recommend reading up on the topic a bit more to form more informed opinions.

[https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/18/prison- coul...](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/18/prison-could-be- productive/punishment-fails-rehabilitation-works)

[https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=1338...](https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=133881)

[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rehab-not-punishment- must-d...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rehab-not-punishment-must-drive- prison-system-key-leaders-tell-panel)

:)

(0) [https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2540444/inside-brazil- prisons-...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2540444/inside-brazil-prisons-gang- wars/) (1) [http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/crime-rate-by- cou...](http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/crime-rate-by-country/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hoping this will reduce the number of people who await trial in jail and we can move to more supervised release for people.

</comment><comment><USER11> Aside from the history of the prison, I imagine there are more profitable uses for that land as well.

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't be surprised if this is why it's closing. I'm sure there's some nice kickback from land developers that will put multi-million dollar condos there or something of the sort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It'll be interesting to see how they actually pull off the prisoner reduction numbers in practice. Hopefully they don't just start ignoring petty theft like some other places have done. That would likely eventually result in the policy pendulum swinging hard the other way eventually.

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe a small nitpick, but it was actually the city council that voted, not NYC as a whole.

<comment><USER15> A nitpick for whom? OP copied the title from the Times.

<comment><USER13> >A nitpick for whom?

For people living in the CA filter bubble where everything is done via ballot measure.

Edit:I shouldn't have to explain this but not literally everything in CA is done via ballot measure.

<comment><USER15> I see. Just pointing out that OP did not incorrectly summarize.

I sometimes forget that there are those who read the HN comments before clicking on the article.

<comment><USER16> And in this case the paywall means a lot of us are discussing only the title!

<comment><USER15> Also an excellent point

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For their next trick, I would encourage them to abolish and reform the NYPD. Although I fear if someone seriously tried, there would be a coup.

<comment> core-questions I'm not sure I understand. How is a city supposed to function with no police force? Wouldn't it essentially be anarchy? How long would it take for looting to start, once people realize nobody will stop them? It only takes an hour or so of rioting, usually....

If you did something like this, the result would likely be having the National Guard come in and restore order and be far more oppressive than the NYPD is.

<comment><USER18> I think people intend something more like the RUC -> PSNI transition, with a wholesale replacement of only senior staff and a rebuild of the ethos.

Some of the US police problems might be solvable by a floating Federal civilian force which could come in from outside to replace and investigate the most corrupt local forces.

<comment> core-questions That sounds more reasonable than "abolishing" it.

I'm not an American, but it seems to me an issue with a federal police force is that federal laws may differ from state laws (e.g. with regards to prohibited substances, among other issues).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Whats the TLDR for the paywalled? Not from the US, but I get the impression a lot of people were in Rikers on remand, some for years without trial. Is that addressed, or it this just a move them to another prison?</comment>


Submit several ideas to YC? - <AUTHOR>

Is it possible to submit several ideas to YC? Would it be contraproductive (not focussed enough)? Or would it be better to just mention the other ideas in the respective form field?<p>Has anybody ever been accepted for a secondary idea they mentioned on the form field, rather than the main idea? <comment><USER2> The idea often changes during the interview, sometimes to other stuff the founders proposed in their application, and sometimes to stuff we collectively cook up on the fly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that answers the question, I'll keep it to the form field for additional ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Snipshot was i believe.

Also i heard that iminlikewithyou and scribd had to substantially change their idea in the interview.</comment>


IBM's Watson 'is a Joke,' Says Social Capital CEO Palihapitiya - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/08/ibms-watson-is-a-joke-says-social-capital-ceo-palihapitiya.html <comment><USER2> > "The companies that are advancing machine learning and AI don't brand it > with some nominally specious name that's named after a Sherlock Holmes > character."

The fact that he doesn't check a statement before speaking it on TV really speaks to how seriously you should take the rest of the article.

>IBM isn't at the forefront of artificial intelligence, Social Capital CEO and founder Chamath Palihapitiya told CNBC on Monday, and he certainly isn't a fan of IBM's Watson.

>"At the end of the day, when you are making deep methodical investments in technology companies, it is fundamentally first and foremost about the jockey," he said.

Err, so does the tech matter or not?

</comment><comment><USER3> If Geoff Hinton, Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, Andrew Ng or any other reputed ML/AI scientist would have said Watson "is a joke" I'd give their opinion more weight.

I don't think those guys would because there's plenty of R&D happening at Watson and Almaden Research Labs.

Seems like everybody's slinging mud at big blue these days...

<comment><USER4> Ben Goertzel has said (from the beginning) that Watson is just another narrow AI system.

<comment><USER5> I know deep AI is the new hotness, but we still don't know whether it will work. Personally, I think expert systems died too soon, and we're going to see a resurgence.

I wouldn't be surprised if expert systems + operant conditioning don't end up being better at general intelligence than all of the fancier machine learning. That's a very old fashioned view, but I'm an old fashioned guy. My point is just that we don't know.

<comment><USER6> Deep learning has already "worked" on many tasked and has also pushed the state of the art in a large range of fields. It's not going to solve every problem but I don't really understand what you mean by not being sure whether it "works".

<comment><USER5> When I say "work" I mean "lead to human-grade general intelligence".

Of course for niche intelligence AI has been working forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And I bet whatever he's selling is ""Exactly like HooliChat, but without the suck-ass parts."</comment>


Aliens cause global warming (2003) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf <comment> t-h-e-chief There are some nice opinions put forth in this essay, but that's just it: opinion does not carry the same weight as a scientific theory. And all the great examples of scientists ignored by their peers, had done the hard work of producing actual data.</comment>


Show HN: Swift Optionals in 3.5 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fte-oZ50RU8

<comment><AUTHOR> Understanding the Swift Languages concept of Optionals (or nil protocol). It's under four minutes and I hope gives a good overview. Let me know if I can improve it while still keeping it short.</comment>


How to Get the Most Out of Your Eccentric Programmer/Genius - <AUTHOR> http://lispy.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-eccentric-programmergenius/ <comment><USER2> Interesting writing but lots of sweeping generalizations which leaves me with nothing to take away from the article. The word "eccentric" means "unusual" - i.e. not prone to sweeping generalizations.

<comment><USER3> Yes. This personality type is prone to making sweeping generalizations. I'll put that down as another generalization about him.

<comment><USER4> That's a bit of a generalization, don't you think? ;-)

<comment><USER5> I'd even say it is a hasty generalization.

<comment><USER6> People like you always say that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> that article was disturbing. things i've known about myself for a long time but hesitated to put into words for fear someone else would get too good a handle.

it's somehow comforting to know that it's not just me.

<comment><USER8> Shit, just pick up any book on Asperger from Amazon.

<comment><USER7> that's not it -- i don't exhibit any of the social limitations on interaction; i feel empathy, am better than most at reading body language, am a reasonable public speaker, able to generate emotional response from an audience, etc. while i'm fond of and take comfort in ritual (i use a shaving kit, with a brush and bowl, for instance) it is not a governing behavior, and i don't lose myself in repetitive actions. they actually bother me. so that's likely not it.

i don't think the article is describing something that's disorder-ly, just a particular type of mental modeling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The theme behind this article is a bit dated. I'm reminded of the (probably fictional) story 15 years back about the sysadmin who only worked fully nude from 11pm until 6 am because he was that important and one of the only dudes in the universe who _knew unix._

These days there are plenty of Ivy-League-Type-A-personality people who are both easy to work with and good at programming. In most situations nobody is required to deal with an extreme weirdo.

For these articles to be useful, they should be about how said weirdos can alter their behavior to be productive. I know people and even have family members that exhibit some of the traits described, and they are un or underemployed because nobody is interested in putting up with their personality quirks. Nor does anyone need to put up with them. It is still hard to find good programmers, but not nearly as hard as it used to be.

Writing it from the perspective of how to manage these people is pointless, because it is rare that anyone would be required to work with the person described. They can simply find someone better and less socially bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER10> _When you first meet, you will become his "pet project" for a time._

So it's not just a coincidence that every woman I date has more baggage than an airport? Then I figure that out and keep dating them anyway, perhaps even more resolutely.

Welp, if I'm doomed to date women orders of magnitude more insane than I am, they at least better continue to be exceedingly attractive.

<comment><USER11> Nice stealth-brag there, but maybe a bit unnecessary. After all, everyone knows that programmers get the hottest chicks!

<comment><USER10> Someone is always pissing in my cereal!

More of an attempt to sorta justify it all, if even just to myself. There are far more interesting things to brag about.

<comment><USER11> Saying you've had several "exceedingly beautiful" girlfriends is just pointless among programmers on the Internet.

We can't really prove it either way, but us being programmers and all, it's just exceedingly unlikely.

<comment><USER12> Not that programmer. He got the idea from Superman III and Office Space, but instead of funds transfer software he was coding the matching algorithms for Okcupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He has little patience for articles that start with "How to" and never actually _say_ how to.

<comment><USER3> Hey, it's the holistic answer to the "how to". What, should I have broken it down into 12 steps?

To sum it up: let him solve problems his own way. Let him develop tools/abstractions that help him hide the sort of details and menial tasks that sap his strength. Force him to get up and go exercise or relax. Don't hold a nebulous infinishable to-do list over his head to guilt trip him-- he will come down off of his creative high and beat himself up for being irresonsible and may even shut down emotionally. Allow him to relate to people one at a time-- a hike with only _one_ of the children, dates and activities without a big crowd. Don't take it personally when he absolutely dreads doing activities you think are "fun". Go stand by his desk until he gets that nagging little task done. Tell him things like, "if you don't get anything else done today, please look into x; it's really important to me." And no, he doesn't need all of a June Cleaver, a secretary, and a personal accountant-- he does need someone to play the part of a "coach", though. And someone that can organize some of the pesky details into something he can act on can be critical to this guy getting anything done.

<comment><USER13> _Don't hold a nebulous infinishable to-do list over his head to guilt trip him-- he will come down off of his creative high and beat himself up for being irresonsible and may even shut down emotionally._

Wow, I didn't even notice this one the first read. It's EXACTLY what I'm going through right now.

It's a test of wills. I'm in the middle of a huge rewrite of a critical app while they insist on bombarding me with minutia (digital whining) every single day. For the first time ever (with them), I refuse. "Live with it until after Labor Day; I'm busy." Stay tuned...

(Anyone looking for a good programmer?)

<comment><USER14> I thought you were on your own already - or is this a contract?

Dealing with people is difficult - perhaps you could setup some sort of emailing ticket system where the minutia can go into queue. This way it will not interrupt your important rewrite or other pressing matters.

<comment><USER13> It's a contract.

Things change rapidly and these people understand how well some business problems can be addressed with technology. They also have a pretty good feel for what it will take. Their biggest problem is that they want everything now.

I have a habit of almost always saying "yes". But sometimes you just gotta say no. Not easy for anyone.

Hopefully, once I get this thing into production, I can go back to normal chaos mode :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> | Alternately, the effort of getting back in gear so many times in a week or two will gradually wear him down until he's exhausted, depressed, or worse.

Yep. This is something I've kinda known for a while, but it's right up in my face now. I am currently a (cheap) consultant doing on-site technical support (for, literally, everything), network administration, business processes and systems, and on and on and on. And, when I'm not doing that, I'm trying to get back in to gear for web design and software development.

I'm utterly exhausted. I now have to take a moment when a client hits me with a new problem, and close my eyes, and consciously remember everything related to their particular system.

</comment><comment><USER16> I, for one, found it very striking in most of it.

Generalizing isn't half bad when there's actually distinctive attributes to generalize on.

</comment><comment><USER17> a secretary and an accountant are both usually good ideas. Usually businesses have the accountant part down pat (most people I know like this live so far below their means that being bad with money doesn't really matter) but often companies will ask this guy to do things that are better suited to the secretary. S/he should be designing the inventory system, if some thing s/he builds needs to go in the inventory system, have someone else deal with that part. 'uninteresting details' are better left to those who are good at dealing with 'uninteresting details'

</comment><comment> ryan-allen From TFA: "For now we're going to assume that people like this are not sick even though a subset of the traits may sound superficially like some cases of autism or even schizophrenia." Who the hell is this guy? What kind of call is that? He has no background in this subject matter but his writing as if he's authoritative. Stop linking to him!

<comment><USER3> Let me expand out that opening line for you.

The post explores a perspective for the express purpose of generating and connecting ideas and experiences. Other established interpretations are possible, but we will temporily set them aside so that we can hash out what is (potentially) a new idea.

Why is that so hard for some people to get? It's like you're unable to grasp how mathematics and science is done. You take a premise or form a hypothesis... then you see what you can build on it. 9 times out of 10 it doesn't go anywhere... but the time for rigor is later, not at the beginning.

It's as if the phrase "for the sake of discussion" is completely beyond your mental capacity or something....

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _To most people, "it's just words" ..._

Kudos.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ask him some smart questions. This will stimulate him to deliver his best.

</comment><comment><USER11> Your eccentric programmer genius also responds well to ego-stroking articles explaining what a precious, unique little snowflake he is!

Don't show this to him though, as reading it would cause a mental context switch, and make him feel all sapped and drained!

As we all know, your eccentric genius worker ant is at least 30 times more productive than Joe Average, so making him reattune the universe with his humming inner harmony would result in billions worth of lost productivity!

<comment><USER20> I smell envy.

Everyone responds well to ego-stroking articles. The real question is, can you inject some useful stuff along with the ego-stroking?

<comment><USER11> I smell a positive response to the article :p

The problem is that there have been lots of articles like this floating around, during the past year for example, and every time the central theme is "We're So Special".

It's getting old.

<comment><USER16> It's part of human nature to want to be like other people.

Even if it's all pretentious bullshit, horoscopes masqueraded, why can't you let the people who feel struck feel struck?

It's just like religion. You can't prove anything to be wrong, you just know, but you also let people live with the lie, because it makes them happy.

Did I get vague? I didn't mean to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "As far as dating and relationships go, women should be careful with this guy."

This guy must be living in Fantasyland. Since when are women interested in Aspies? We aren't exactly the type who often has his hair cut or likes to go to a restaurant.

<comment><USER3> There's a certain type of female that is completely addicted to the sort of raw intimacy and lavish attention that this type of person will deliver during the early stages of the relationship. They will overlook all kinds of problem signals if they are getting what they need in their inner core.

As another person said, this type of woman will have serious issues. That won't change the fact that you're getting laid.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you tune your life? - <AUTHOR> Time is a valuable asset and we have a limited amount to spend on our project, considering that we have also to live a good life to avoid stress and burnout. How do you tune your life and manage your time to be able to waste as less as possible?
I will begin with what I do. I have a full time job and I work on a personal project on my spare time. Of course with all this work the risk of burnout is big, as I already experienced in the past: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1545774
I can tell you how I manage right now. I'm 20 minutes biking from work, and usually 15 minutes from anywhere else. Biking saves me a lot of commuting time, because I don't have to rely on public transportation. Here in Amsterdam I can bike where I want and it's much faster than taking a tram. Moreover it's healthy, so I can keep fit during the week too.
I start working at 9, but I wake up at 6, so each morning I get a couple of hours to work on my project. This implies of course that I have to go to sleep early in the evening, so I usually go to bed at 10 to have the sufficient amount of sleep, which is crucial to stay productive.
I'm now in the proceeds to buy a house. The main reasons to buy a house still apply, but I have some more: living in my own house will mean I will not have to deal with a landlord, which is making me lose a lot of time right now. Moreover when I will be living alone, I will pay someone to clean the house instead of doing it myself. I value my time more than the money cleaners ask and I'm willing to spend money to get back time. Washing machine for clothes, dishwasher for dishes and I don't iron clothes at all (if you learn how to hang them it's almost useless).
To avoid the burnout, I made up some rules: no work in the evenings, so when I go home from work and I'm tired I don't have the pressure of doing something on myself and I can spend those 2 spare hours after dinner relaxing (reading a book or some hobby). On friday I dance tango, on weekends I usually work on my project but still I go to parties or out with friends. Sometimes I go on a trip somewhere. I go running for one hour every weekend, to keep fit, release stress and clear my mind. This all helps to avoid burnout and stress.
How do you tune your life? <comment><USER2> I had a bad burnout this summer. I literally couldn't stand looking at any code. Although 4 weeks trip with no access to computers - only new cities, mountains and heavy metal gigs - fixed me.

I've two big problems. First is I work from home. So sometimes I work 12-16 hours a day. By "work" I mean I sit in front of my laptop, but it doesn't mean I'm productive. Second problem is that being INTJ, I don't have much friends, so I usually end up staying at home for days (and coding most of the time) until I run out of groceries.

After I got back from my "sanity trip", I started doing several things to avoid burnout.

\- Cycling. Used to do 30+ kilos almnost every day. Now it's getting cold here, so I do few short rides a week.

\- Walking. If I'm not cycling, I try to get out of the house every day. Just to wander in downtown or get rolls from a bakery 15 minutes away.

\- Eating out. I occasionally go for lunch with friends working nearby.

\- Limiting my hours at keyboard. I moved most of my reading to Kindle, either in bed or outside. Previously, even after work-hours I was slipping from reading back to work easily. Kindle helps to avoid this.

\- Meeting with friends at least once a week. Even if you think you don't have friends, try calling people you know and ask them out. There's a big chance that they have nothing to do as well :)

\- Heavy metal. This helps me stay sane A LOT. Listening to records is good. Live shows are even better. After a nice (well, nice in metal way) gig I've energy for whole week. If you don't like heavy metal, listen to rock, classic, jazz or whatever you like. Listen not while working, but truly listen to music. And go to live shows. That's where music becomes Music.

So far, so good. I'm putting in less hours, but delivering more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I listen to music while biking (not heavy metal, though), and you are right, it helps a lot. It completely changes my mood. Even if I'm biking in a freezing cloudy day, I start thinking it's a nice ride.

<comment><USER2> Are you riding offroad? I do not listen to music while biking, it seems to be too dangerous. At least in traffic.

On the other hand, riding while listening to Slayer may get waaay too aggressive :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in Amsterdam, here bikes rule the city and there are bike lanes or closed roads everywhere. The traffic is not high either, because with all the canals driving a car here is a hell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me a lot what I used to do before and it inevitably led to burnout and disaster. So I will be straightforward with you, STOP trying to fix yourself like you were one of the problems you like to hack on. You already have a very good life, but it is not a matter of what you do, it is about how you do it. Just let go off your need for control.

I discovered that what I needed was good nurturing. Good people. Good food. Good books. Good sleep. Good exercise. Good solitude. Good work (something you do for the love of it, not for some illusionary reward).

If you do it, you will see that all the discipline and things that you need will just come into your life. This is how children do (field-tested) and there is NO reason why we should do it differently. You are NOT a problem to be solved!

<comment><USER4> >STOP trying to fix yourself like you were one of the problems you like to hack on

Great advice, very difficult in practice. Just finding an activity or practice where you can quiet your mind is absolutely essential. When I let my inner dialogue take over and worry, worry, worry about all of the THINGS I need to DO, I reach burnout quite quickly. For me practicing meditation in some form or another (whether through actual sitting, taking walks, etc) is absolutely essential to my personal well being. It is when that inner dialogue is running out of control that "fixing myself" ends up going on the to-do list, which is really quite absurd!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a note: it is not normal to lose a lot of time talking to your landlord. I rent, and I haven't spoken to my landlord in a year. Also, you can get a cleaner for a rented apartment, too?

Still, maybe if you have bought a house, at least you don't have to worry about it anymore. On the other hand, sometimes I have the impression that people who own actually worry MORE. That's also what Greenspun said, or so I seem to remember (can't find the blog entry right now).

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately here in Amsterdam landlords are quite abusive, and mine is not an exception. When there are problems in the house it takes always a lot to fix them. And other unpleasant things I won't bother you with. Of course this is not the reason I buy a house for, but it's a nice plus.

I could hire cleaners in this house too, of course, but I live with flatmates that should agree on it too, and they don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me the best way to tune my life has been to hack it completely.

My wife and I saved money while learning to create projects on our own + start working remotely too (gradually).

We then moved to the country-side so that we can take better advantage of what we had earned. We can currently sustain between 5 and 8 years of doing whatever we like (after buying a house, which we consider), so we own the most part of our time.

This basically translates into a lot more time for hacking/projects/marketing, but also time with kid, cooking, yoga, music etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> Your rules are great. Obviously different things work for different people, but this is what I do:

1/ I'm nomadic. This means I don't have household things to worry about which frees a LOT of time. No washing-up for me :)

2/ I work 8am to 9pm Monday-Saturday with a 2 hour break for lunch and a 1hr trip to the gym

3/ I take regular walks and use our app (which I won't advertise here) to stay active.

4/ During the evenings (9-11:30) I write music, play L4D2 with friends, go to the pub, watch cartoons and draw.

5/ SUNDAY - KEY POINT #1: I go walkabout. I go for a 10-20mile walk along the beaches and cliffs of South England. I eat in pubs, drink a couple of real ales now-and-then... maybe have a nice coffee somewhere... maybe read a book. I never work that day. If I work just once, I can guarantee I will burn out within a fortnight.

6/ SUNDAY - KEY POINT #2: During my walkabout I spend at least 2 hours thinking about life - in particular what's important to me, what truly drives me and how I can add value during my short time on earth. I think about my family, my friends and how I can do the best for them without burning myself out.

7/ Every-so-often a take a few extra hours (even days) out to spend quality time with family and friends. Because 6 always shows that 5 and 4 are not enough ;)

Point 6 is utterly important IMO - everyone should spend an hour or two meditating on what is truly important to them.

<comment><USER7> Oh, and lots and lots of tea, coffee and decent music during the week ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _dishwasher for dishes_

The trick to doing less dishes is not using a dishwasher but to have less dishes. If you're not a family of 4 you don't need to dirty 4 plates. Put only 1 of each thing in your main cabinet and the extras in a separate cabinet. Wash them by hand after using.

Also for productivity, use timers like WorkRave <http://www.workrave.org> . Taking breaks is a key to getting stuff done. The harder the problem and the more you have avoided it and let it build up, the more frequent the breaks you will need to tackle it.

Also if you use todo list, the most important thing to right next to each task is an estimate of the time it will take to complete. As soon as I did this I realized I how notoriously bad I was at estimating the time it takes to complete certain tasks and improved.

<comment><USER2> Protip: do not use dishes. Eat from cutting board or pot.

<comment><USER8> Those are still dishes imo (at least the still need to be cleaned at some point). Also if I take time to cook anything with pots it's more than I would eat in one sitting . And I enjoy the process of eating more and pay more attention to what I eat if I put everything I'm about to eat on a plate in front me. The easiest way to tell if you are eating healthy is to see if the plate is "colorful" as opposed to all looking the same.

[ a balanced meal to me is a plate divided in 4 different color quadrants not eaten at the computer, so a plate is a useful tool in this respect ]

<comment><USER9> > The easiest way to tell if you are eating healthy is to see if the plate is > "colorful" as opposed to all looking the same.

This is an example of "common knowledge" that may actually be incorrect. While it's important to eat a variety of foods throughout the day, I've heard that eating a variety of foods in a single meal makes digestion more difficult.

(Sorry for the lack of references. My Google-fu is failing me right now.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have taken time out of my profession to start a company, and I am still involved with a charitable organisation and my personal learning.

Day to day I use to do lists to ensure that I have a daily focus, but once a month I write down whats important to me and preen anything that isnt.

I also have a strong, supportive partner. I only met her 9 months ago and I was already well into the startup. She has been a god send.

</comment><comment><USER11> Being uber conscious about health, I spend some bit of my time cooking everyday. I would love to outsource this or find a healthy eat-out option. Since I only work on my start-up, there isn't much of a juggling.

Wake up at 6 Have tea Read a bit Make and eat breakfast Be at work by 9 (it's a 5min walk to my work place) work till 12.30 Have lunch n a short break Start work again by 2.30 Work till 7 Gym for an hr Shower n dine Read/ TV/ Movie Get to bed by 11

No gym on wednesday evenings. I seem to crave for a break mid week than weekend. I go to a pub/ movie or meet friends Wednesday evenings. I work Saturdays. Stay out late in the evenings. Wake up a lil late on Sunday. I take an hour or two out on a Sunday for my hobbies.

working out religiously, listening to the music of your choice and eating healthy will help you avoid a burn-out.

</comment><comment><USER12> Your schedule looks similar to mine.

\- I wake up at 5 and go to bed at 9.

\- I also work from home so I don't waste time on commute.

\- I run for 1 hour every 2 or 3 days and do some exercises in other days.

\- I cook a lot at home. Eat lots of salads and fruits.

\- All errands are reduced to minimum. Very few things now can't be done using internet. Strange thing about your landlord. I haven't seen mine in months.

\- I usually work during weekends. Then I make longer 2-3 week breaks once every 2 months to compensate. My day job is flexible enough to allow it.

\- I don't own lots of stuff so things are easy to take care of around home.

</comment><comment><USER13> It would depend on what I am tuning my life for at a particular period fo time.

Earlier, I used to tune my life with the purpose of filling two of my biggest bottlnecks to reaching my dreams, experience(/knowledge) and money.

I used to work long hours at my regular job to learn as fast and as much as I could. Then I used to go to another city on the weekends to do weekend work and make more money as future capital.

My way of living also used to be dead cheap (it still is, but with a different focus though). For a year earlier, I used to live in a 10' by 8' bedroom with just an airbed and the rest of the room filled with the all the rest of my belongings.

I also stopped cooking and became dependent on cheap, lean frozen foods from walmart and ethnic stores. In my view, when doing two jobs, the cooking and cleaning is an utter waste of life and time that can be better spent acquiring knowledge, including how to make money.

Later, I started a company while working fulltime. Then I started tuning my life to let me do that. Cut down social life and other thigns to a bare minimum, still lived cheap provided it didn't cut my ability to what I had to do, cut down the earlier weekend job.

Now I spend time learning stuff that would enable me to run my company better, execute ideas better, reaching out to my friends who might be insterested in joining what I am doing.

i still dont' cook and clean, waste of time especially when you know how to eat cheap. The airbed burst a few years ago, now I sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor - good way to remind I haven't reached my dreams yet and not oversleep too!

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't, and since I stopped trying, my life has been a lot smoother. Instead, I play to my strengths and weaknesses. If I'm feeling hyper and in the zone, I'll work as much as possible. If I feel crap and need a week or two of barely doing anything, I'll do that. Incredibly self indulgent, but it works far better than the years of trying to have a system or "rules." This is only possible because I run my own business, though.

</comment><comment><USER15> btw, chances are, that buying a house will actually be more of a time sink and hassle, compared to an apartment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, I will sort it out if it happens. I will have more control than now, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Couldn't help adding this on:

Don't go on in the fear of another burnout. It will severely curtail your pushing yourself to your limits. Its only by pushing your limits and breaking them that you expand your limits. And it's by expanding your limits that you expand your capabilities.

Use the knowledge that you gained from your previous burnout to backoff when you are approaching another burnout. And if you did go through another burnout, use your experience from your last burnout to learn how to recover from this burnout. And then, keep pushing yourself on further.

Let the fact that you recovered from one burnout be a source of confidence. Thats one way to see it. The other way would be to keep going on in fear of another burnout and fail to try expanding your limits and capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER16> Food. Eat healthy. That alone has changed my life. If you eat healthy it's a whole lot less probable that you'll experience burnout because you tend to to feel better about yourself and have more energy to spare.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think I am really in 'tune' (by your definition) as I would like to be, but to be in harmony with your surroundings and environment, I think you need to observe them first and then decide on advantages and disadvantages and how you can change them.

For me, the realization was couple of things. After years of work in a small company that declared the biggest growth in Turkey, I joined up a startup only to see how it can fail in this country. After that, I have been freelancing for the last year, with the long term hopes of getting myself in the SF area. So I think hopes do help. I told the three employer offers I got last month that I would like to work remote from home office, two of which accepted. I took one of the jobs, subletted my house in the busiest part of Istanbul and moved south to the Mediterranean coast. I practiced Aikido three days a week while I was in Istanbul. Now they are asking me to teach it here, since I seem to be the highest level in the region. I like swimming, and I can do it here for free instead of paying lots of cash to a gym with a pool in Istanbul.

So in order to 'retune', I chose the way to change things drastically. Everything is not settled yet, and moving things around has not made me productive at all, and I should really be coding instead of responding to this but how did this happen:

\- I realized I had to change somethings completely. Turkey is becoming a one city (Istanbul) country and I started to hate that fact. I started to hate the fact that everyone feels like they can only make money in that one city in the country. Like the rest of the country is just a hinterland serving that city. I like the city, but I think it is now at the edge of madness.

\- I am now 36, and all those ideas are going to die if I don't do something about it.

\- I don't enjoy working for other people's ideas anymore when I don't believe in them.

\- Noticing that even my U.S. Computer Science education wasn't up to par, and I had to retrain myself, which is an ongoing effort.

\- I get paid 3 times less than a U.S. programmer. Though it also means I can find programmers cheap here in case I need to hire them, I have trouble finding capable programmers that also get things done.

\- There are no programmers my age that I know of. Well OK, I know one, and I am currently working for him.

\- The need to start my own company and projects some time.

\- If the programmer minds are meeting in the SF area, I should be there as well.

\- I felt like I had to get rid of some of the strange loops in my life. My girlfriend (with whom I ended up leaving each other) warned that the loops are in the mind and I'll take them along to anywhere I go. This also has truth in it.

\- The realization that I don't hack anymore. Even my hobby projects have turned into dull events.

So I decided I will make my own bay area first, however fake, and work from there. Thus I moved.

\- I made a "field test" first to see if it would actually work. Basically. on my off month, I came here and worked on my hobby projects. I found that I was less stressful and more productive. What I didn't figure out was that this project was something different, and hobby projects always are fun. Boring projects can be harder to do on the country side.

\- I have no proper networking to be really freelancing. Basically it is just that previous people that I worked with that like to give me work. This might not work since I won't be meeting anyone in the industry from here. But that is ok. I think I can build up my network from the net. Or move somewhere else. Or die trying.

So basically now I got my own view of a bay, looking west from my rented house. Hopefully I will get some work done today. So I changed it all. And I am all out of tune, because starts are a delicate points in time.

Another thing, before I did this, I was telling everyone that I was going to do it. Move south, work freelance from home. I told it to so many people, so often, and it became a reality. Basically writing it here also is a step in that direction.

<comment><USER18> Sorry for writing this here but I couldn't find your email in your profile. I am a Turkish CS student currently studying in US, and i would love to chat with someone with your experience. Please send me an email if you are interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My weekdays:

8-9: drink coffee, walk dog

9-12: code

12-1:30: hit the gym or afternoon hike with said dog.

1:30-5: code

5-7: Read HN/news/talk with friends

7-9: Smoke pot, code or watch some HBO & unwind

9-12: Bowl of cereal, fall asleep around midnight

Wash, rinse, repeat

</comment><comment><USER20> wake up, weed, tea, something in my stomach.. hn.. code code code. hn, code code, something in stomach, weed, tea, code, tea, weed, code, tea, hang out with friends

i moved out to the country to spend more time coding because it was too easy to be distracted living downtown.

i basically didn't work or do anything productive for 5 years so i don't mind working a lot for a while

<comment><USER21> That's a lot of, um... tea.

<comment><USER22> Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Erdos used to drink almost a gallon of tea a day (or so I've heard). And boy oh boy, could his brain work.

<comment><USER3> I guess you misunderstood Locke1689, he referred to a lot of, um... code!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I work really hard on my side projects in the winter, and enjoy the summers. There are only so many summers in one's life and it's good imho to enjoy them.</comment>


Dutch adopt controversial 'herd immunity' strategy - <AUTHOR> https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/coronavirus-dutch-adopt-controversial-herd-immunity-strategy-1.4204578 <comment><USER2> There are not a lot of other choices. The Netherlands is doing the same as other countries but our prime minister is more fair/ open about the virus.

Yes most people will get the virus anyway, anywhere. All measures are there to "flatten the curve". [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/03/13/8155022...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2020/03/13/815502262/flattening-a-pandemics-curve-why-staying-home-now- can-save-lives)

Netherlands has all the policies in place to flatten the curve. Work from home, schools closed, no big events. etc.

Its only fair that the prime minister says: everybody will get it. heck 50% to 75% of the cases are asymptomatic.

<comment><USER3> > Netherlands has all the policies in place to flatten the curve. Work from > home, schools closed, no big events. etc.

This is not nearly enough, unfortunately; we know this because other countries tried it initially and failed to keep the outbreak contained. You should stay at home as much as possible, and minimize your interactions with others if you must go out for whatever reason. Also, you should definitely be wearing protective equipment when outside the home. If only to protect others who might be vulnerable.

<comment><USER4> > Also, you should definitely be wearing protective equipment when outside the > home.

Here in Austria, you can't even get masks or single-use hand gloves anymore. And I hear the same is happening in Germany. Moreover, we are advised _not_ to buy protective gear for individual use because that is needed for workers with much exposition to other people (like cashiers in supermarkets, helpers and medial staff). We have a lockdown, so everyone should stay at home and only go outside if necessary.

<comment><USER3> > Moreover, we are advised _not_ to buy protective gear for individual use > because that is needed for workers with much exposition to other people

There's no real reason for this - not for low-grade ("surgical" or even "dust- proof") masks at least, and these are most critical in order to protect _others_ in case you're sick and asymptomatic. Chinese suppliers are shipping those out as fast as they can make them, and many factories that normally make e.g. textiles and the like could retool and start making them if it came to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This "herd immunity" strategy is just a sophisticated form of denial. UK announced it on Thursday and abandoned it the following Monday.

It doesn't take into account the high hospitalisation rate and the fact that mortality is a function of hospital stress.

<comment><USER6> The Dutch government isn't in denial though. Cafes, restaurants, schools universities and day cares are closed. Large gatherings are forbidden and people are encouraged to work from home and be sensible about having contact with other people.

According to the PM, the chosen strategy should prevent both a super high hospitalization rate and a lengthy lock-down of the entire country.

<comment><USER7> They are closed because members of the public wanted them to be closed. If you look at this [https://www.elsevierweekblad.nl/nederland/achtergrond/2020/0...](https://www.elsevierweekblad.nl/nederland/achtergrond/2020/03/tijdlijn- coronacrisis-in-tweets-rivm-743404/) you'll see a pattern of denial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is going to be one of the costliest panics in history.

A 1000 person test case was ran in isolation and they found this disease to not be very deathly, and this population was skewed toward the elderly.

Half the world's population lives in a 2 hour flight away from Wuhan, and even without testing, there have been no random spikes in deaths especially considering most of that world is significantly poorer and without proper healthcare infrastructure.

The tragedy here isn't about the immediate health impacts, of which are low, but of the second and third order effects to society and the world.

That office cleaning night crew ain't getting paid. New tax revenues to fund potential research at universities isn't raised. Those with still less fashionable diseases, will have even less money for their cause.

<comment><USER9> This is a health issue not because of the disease being too deadly but by being a perfect combination of not being deadly enough and requiring intensive and long care for those affected by a severe case. This is not about you dying of COVID-19, it's about you dying because you got into an accident and didn't have enough ICU beds available to treat an injury you shouldn't die from. It's about avoiding crumbling to the pressure of the healthcare system which would trigger even bigger panics, even more social unrest and so on.

Don't spread misinformation or opinions as a fact, you don't know what this is gonna be, I don't know and no expert knows, this is unprecedented territory in contemporary society. You are not better than a corpus of experts all around the world that are trying to contain the side and after-effects of it, the economy taking a huge hit and its ripples flowing through the fabric of our society _is part of this crisis_ and would be of any major outbreak.

<comment><USER8> The fact is we don't have any facts.

Then there's the fact that everyone replying to me are wielding the unknown as truths and pointing at China and Italy while at the same time disregarding literally the other 2 billion people in the area who haven't had any of the average-to-worst case scenarios depicted by people like yourself.

I'd love to see what the infrastructure looks like in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the like and why haven't we seen the large scale run on hospitals like everyone's talking about.

Happen to have any sources?

<comment><USER10> Especially from lets say bali eh? Why haven't large numbers of tourists in bali been stricken with covid 19?

As of 5 feb there were supposed to have been 5000 chinese tourists trapped on bali after flights were halted.. [https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se- asia/indonesia-to-stop-...](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se- asia/indonesia-to-stop-flights-to-and-from-china-amid-wuhan-virus-concerns)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> China has shown that it's possible to contain the virus even though they were initially criticized for it being "draconian".

They've capped out at under 100k cases (at least for the first wave) with 3k deaths: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2020_coronavirus_patients...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2020_coronavirus_patients_in_China.svg)

Imagine if china had gone for the herd immunity strategy instead. With a population of 1.4billion and letting everyone get infected you are looking at _42 million deaths_.

If draconian measures is what it takes, that is what the world should do.

<comment><USER12> China had no choice left because they suppressed and censored the epidemy. But after that strong measures were necessary. Other countries could have opted for the Korean or Taiwanese strategy: test early, often and broadly + quarantine suspected cases.

But it's too late for that in most countries now. Confinement it is!

<comment><USER13> It's kind of racist to describe the chinese response as suppressing and censoring and then for others its, "well woops, we were a little slow on response".

<comment><USER14> The Chinese government silenced the doctor first raising the issue and blocked him from communicating about the disease. If other countries do that, then they will also be suppressing and censoring. Have other countries done that?

<comment><USER13> Well, by definition there's only one doctor in the world that first raised the issue. Other countries have done similar things.

Ex. USA

\- silenced one of the NIH's director of infectious disease only allowing him to say what the government wanted

\- released propaganda and misinformation from the highest levels downplaying the severity

\- prohibited doctors from testing people to keep the confirmed numbers low

idk, i'm sure you could find more. I'd describe the US' response more critically than the chinese. The US already knew how bad it was, and the poor behavior was from the top of government, not just some local body.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems a lot of the media is focused on the fact that people are being exposed to the virus. However, the Dutch are adopting a controlled way of doing this while protecting those at risk. All measures to limit contact are in place, in a big departure from what others who claim "herd immunity" are doing.

Any comparison to the (previously?) British approach where in the weekend even concerts weren't cancelled and people are still being forced to go to the office by their employers doesn't quite hit the mark.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's not yet clear to me if there's a difference between what Rutte proposed and the 'flatten the curve' strategy. Isn't it the same thing by a different name?

If that's the case then they're aiming for something better controlled than in the UK, where they seem to still be in denial.

</comment><comment><USER17> Man, what a pickle.

Every country, every world leader, is faced with agonizing decisions. All are shades of right/wrong. All are simply trying to do the best job they can.

Not an easy time for anyone.

</comment><comment><USER10> S.korea, taiwan, singapore...are not "locked down" either eh?

</comment><comment><USER18> They've just reverted.

<comment><USER18> That was the UK, not NL.</comment></comment>


Linus Torvalds Wishes Intel's AVX-512 a Painful Death - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/linus-torvalds-wishes-intel-avx-512-a-painful-death <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23809335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23809335)</comment>


What would happen if all Americans went vegan? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/what-would-happen-if-all-americans-went-vegan <comment><USER3> I'm not a vegan, or interested in becoming one, but this "study" is just stupid. Just look at some of the basic assumptions:

"researcher Mary Beth Hall began by estimating the impact of converting all land now used by the livestock industry to cropland for human food"

Why on earth would you do that? Livestock are much less efficient at using land than crops, in terms of how much land you need to produce a calorie. Furthermore, a HUGE percentage of our current crops are used to feed livestock. Without even Googleing it, the assumption should be that we would not use all pasture land for crop land. The total amount of land under crops might even go down under the vegan scenario, since eating the food directly would be more efficient.

Also:

"Burning the excess waste would add some 2 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere, they estimate."

First off, is burning the most likely way this would be disposed of? Why not compost.

Second, crops are carbon neutral. They take CO2 from the atmosphere when growing, so how can they add CO2 to the atmosphere when burnt?

"Fertilizer demands would also go up while the supply of animal manure dwindled."

Again, only true if the amount of crops increased. I'm doubtful.

The points about nutrition are better made though. Animal products are rich in some minerals and vitamins that are sparse in a vegan diet. Not entirely missing, but sparse. But then that's why I'm not a vegan.

<comment><USER4> If that is really why youre not vegan I recommend the book 'How not to die' by Michael Gregor.

The health benefits of a whole food plant based diet are astonishing, and the whole missing vitamin mineral thing is trivially taken care of.

Becoming vegan will lead to immediate and long term health benefits. And from personal experience its much easier and more fun than you could dare to expect.

<comment><USER5> ...and I'm sure eating an egg here and there from your back-yard hen (AKA living garbage disposal) will absolutely ruin all of it... /s

I don't disagree that theres a lot of room and a some benefits to reducing meat consumption. But I don't think that's the same as it being sensible for everyone to be vegan.

<comment><USER6> Vegans will always say their way is better. There's a commitment there with zero room for compromise, and I think IMO for many it's a fad.

<comment><USER7> It's not a fad. Veganism is like a cult. Vegans are starving their infants to death for their "religion".

[https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/wjqbem/judge- convicts...](https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/wjqbem/judge-convicts- parents-after-baby-dies-from-vegan-diet)

Plant-only diet is terrible for humans just like a meat-only diet. The best diet for humans is a balanced diet.

<comment><USER6> ..and pets...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Where to start with this study.

* Study authors are tied to dairy farming and, animal and poultry farming.

* America is never going to be a vegan, or even vegetarian nation. There are too many jobs tied up in fattening cattle and pigs to go that route.

* Americans manliness is tied up into how much they kill, it's not going to happen.

* There are some horrific oversights such as the fact that a large portion of our farming is already for animal feed. Something like 800 million people could be fed if we planted different crops instead of animal feed.

* There is literally no reason to go vegan instead of vegetarian for most people. Almost all the ethical reasons behind veganism can be routed around with minimal effort.

* As someone who eats a mostly vegan diet, the dietary concerns for the vast majority of people are nonsensical. Yes, of course there are exceptions to everything, but there are entire countries that are mostly vegan/vegetarian that don't have these issues. B vitamins and calcium? Has his person done zero research? Both are absurdly easy to obtain in vegan form in the local grocery store of most somewhat populated areas right now, if everyone was vegan these would be staple foods.

This is absolutely the worst kind of sensationalized junk science to once again discredit a lifestyle that affects no one negatively.

</comment><comment><USER9> I haven't read the paper ($10), but, based on the press release, they seem to be making some very strange assumptions about how things would work out:

 _...began by estimating the impact of converting all land now used by the livestock industry to cropland for human food. That would increase the amount of agricultural waste—corn stalks, potato waste, and other inedibles now fed to livestock—and eliminate the animals that now eat much of it. Burning the excess waste would add some 2 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere, they estimate. Fertilizer demands would also go up while the supply of animal manure dwindled. That would mean making more artificial fertilizer, adding another 23 million tons of carbon emissions per year._

Converting _all_ the land used by livestock into cropland for human food? That seems highly unlikely, just based on my (admittedly grade school level) understanding of ecology. I'd expect moving humans lower on the food chain to reduce the overall amount of plant matter it takes to sustain them. So Id' expect you could probably let all the pasture land reforest, and then convert a portion of the land used for feed crops to human food, and let the rest reforest as well.

Burning all the by-products also seems drastic. I'm going to assume that an expert in agriculture would have a good reason to not even mention composting. But even without that, and even if other uses couldn't be found, you could at least turn them into a net carbon sink by burying them in a nice anaerobic landfill. And even without that, the apparent that feeding that stuff to cattle makes the carbon somehow disappear is bizarre. The vast majority of that carbon will still end up in the atmosphere, via the animal's lungs.

Their estimate of net fertilizer demands seems like it has just got to be based on some careful selection of the boundaries of the system they're considering. I grew up in corn and soybean country, so, while I'm not a farmer myself, I am well aware that it takes more than just manure to sufficiently fertilize the nation's feed crops. The enormous reduction in artificial fertilizer demand from reduced need for those feed crops has to be included in the formula if you want to get some accurate figures.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm gonna go out on a limb and bet the study grossly underestimates how much more fertilizer would be required to turn pasture into cropland, as pasture is normally far less suitable to cropland, and thus is used as pasture.

Not that there is a need to convert very much of that land to cropland - <USER2> and wheat produce far more food per acre than livestock.

Most or all of that land would turn back into wilderness and we'd all die in car wrecks from the millions more deer crossing the roads.

</comment><comment> ni-hil The only thing that article tells me is that if I want to know anything about this I need to read the paper. I think it's an interesting subject and they could have made a good article but this is just lazy reporting.

<comment><USER11> I think you described 90% of science reporting. If you want substance you have to read the (frequently paywalled and expensive) paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think there's an evolutionary reason why we didn't remain vegetarian or vegan. I don't know the science, but I do know plenty of people live healthy lives on meat-eating diets, and do just fine. Questions like this really only lend themselves to hyperbole. There is really nothing a meat-eating person can say that a vegan will agree with, and likely vice-versa. It's a zero-sum argument.

</comment><comment><USER13> Other summaries of this article have noted that reducing GHG emissions from American agriculture by 28% is equivalent to reducing _total_ American emissions by 2.6%. (Though, as other HN commenters have noted, just converting all land area devoted to animal agriculture to direct production of human- edible foods is unrealistic; I'd expect somewhat larger benefits in a realistic scenario where a lot of that land goes idle. But _all_ agriculture together accounts for only 9% of American emissions to begin with.)

I personally don't eat beef, and have ethical concerns about animal treatment in food production systems, but people whose only source of information is "Cowspiracy" badly overestimate how large a proportion of American GHG emissions stem from animal agriculture.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Burning the excess waste would add some 2 million tons of carbon to the > atmosphere

Hello? This is what composting is for - those materials could be turned back into the land, making for better producing land. This could make some of the pasture land that is no so great into better producing.

</comment><comment><USER15> This similar study by the same authors seems a bit more reasonable.

[https://iapreview.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publica...](https://iapreview.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=323593)

> _Despite greater total availability of energy, a feasible solution could not > be identified, meaning that the yearly nutrient requirements of the U.S. > population could not be met under the defined constraints. Deficiencies in > vitamins (A, D, E, B12, and choline) and minerals (Ca) were the primary > cause of this infeasibility. Although eliminating animals from the food > production system may seem advantageous based on surface-level comparisons > of system energetics, a more comprehensive analysis of the food production > system highlights the unique and essential role of livestock products in the > food production system. This suggests that substantial gains in > environmental impact could be made by simply reducing daily intake, rather > than affecting dramatic shifts in consumption pattern._

Two animal scientists had a silly hypothesis "is it a good idea to remove all farm animals", and proved the answer to be no.

Too bad they don't provide access to these studies. To me it looks like they just left it at that, and didn't investigate any further, e. g. the question of how many farm animals could be removed while still meeting all dietary requirements.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if meat cubes will count as vegan when those come about.

I hope so, cause I'd love to go vegan for all the environmental reasons, but god damn do I love meat, and cooking is my primary hobby so I'm not willing to give up all the history of recipes surrounding meat. For now, buying local is my solution.

<comment><USER6> How can one give up bacon? Should be a philosophical question.

<comment><USER16> Hah, to be fair I haven't had bacon in a long time. It'd be much easier for me to give up bacon if I know I can just have steak and eggs instead ;)

That would be the biggest hard no to veganism for me - lack of eggs. It's too critical for baking for me.

<comment><USER4> Substitute freshly ground flax seeds (linseed) and water. You'll get a huge Omega-3 hit, and you'll be surprised how after a while you not only don't notice but end up preferring it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "we don't currently produce in sufficient quantities to make it a > sustainable diet for the entire population"

I wonder what we are missing in our crops that, if grown, would bridge this gap?

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally, I don't find it persuasive or constructive to start a thought experiment with "what would happen if this thing that will never happen actually happens."

Instead, I think you just get divisive click bate. Vegans will click thinking, "damn right!" Non-vegans will likely ignore it, thinking, "okay loony."

I think a stronger argument would lead with a direct fact or point of alarm. For example, "every non-vegan is contributing <blah> to greenhouse gasses."

<comment><USER19> How about we also consider some less extreme hypotheticals, such as what might happen if everyone substituted _Tenebrio_ meat for their _Bos_ meat consumption.

I think they taste fine, but the spouse gets super-squicked at just the _thought_ of _me_ eating them. Apparently, it's just fine if _the turtle_ eats them. That's an unfair double-standard right there. We're both opportunistic omnivores, after all.

And the vegan police can't exactly stop me from throwing grain meal in a bucket and raising my own beetles, so the 100% vegan thing won't be happening anyway.

<comment><USER20> Why even go that far. Just hypothetisize having everyone only consume white meat and not red meat, the latter of which is both more taxing on the human physique, not just on the environment.

<comment><USER19> It's a lot easier for the food cops to find a backyard chicken coop than an indoor beetle-raising operation. And let's be honest with ourselves; in order to enforce 100% veganism, there will have to be "war on meat" food cops.

I'm not going to stop eating meat unless someone literally puts a gun in my face, and then I will start again right after the gun is out of my face, and the gun-pointer is done roasting in my buried Morlock3000(TM) barbecue. It's _technically_ not cannibalism if I feed the unfortunate Eloi to carnivorous insects and then eat the bugs, right?~

You can't force people to stop eating meat, and the veganism ecological argument will _never_ be convincing enough to get 100% acceptance. You get far more traction out of finding ways to make the existing lifestyle _status quo_ less damaging to the ecosystem. So now you're back to reducing the impact of the global beef herd in ways that don't involve reducing it all the way down to zero head of cattle.

<comment><USER20> > It's a lot easier for the food cops to find a backyard chicken coop than an > indoor beetle-raising operation.

Wasn't so hard in the new Blade Runner

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We would likely suffer from mass malnutrition. If you want to see what a country looks like that has gone "all vegan" just look at North Korea. Protein, from animals, is critical for not just survival, but growth and sustainability of the population. Relying on plant-based and artificial sources of protein is a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER21> This is false and serious FUD. There are a handful of vitamins/minerals that aren't found in meat-free diets (B12 is the big one) but they're all easily covered by fortified foods and/or taking a daily multivitamin. "Protein from animals" is absolutely not critical, and protein is found in all sorts of meatless sources. Nuts, leafy greens, etc.

<comment><USER22> My wife went vegan and it caused her to become anemic. She talked to two different doctors, and tried different supplements. She is far healthier with a little meat in her diet than without. I'm not claiming this is the norm, but you should realize that not everyone tolerates a diet completely devoid of meat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd go on a rampage.

</comment><comment><USER24> How presumptuous of them

</comment><comment><USER25> What would happen? 90% of them would go back to non-vegan diat in a relatively short time [1]

<comment><USER16> Did you intend to link something? I see the [1] but no link

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What will happen is infant mortality will rise to astronomic proportions and everyone will be a miserable pile of walking gas.

This so called study is meaningless.

<comment><USER16> I'm curious about your 2 assertions, because they are new oppositions to veganism I haven't heard before. Where did you learn that veganism causes rising infant mortality, and also that veganism causes an increase in gas?</comment></comment>


Gory medical case shows why you should never, ever swallow a toothpick - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/a-toothpick-nearly-killed-a-pro-athlete-piercing-his-intestines-and-an-artery/ <comment><USER2> I'm 27 and its never occurred to me that people swallow toothpicks... I don't even get how they manage that in the first place.</comment>


Italian Startuppers/Developers - <AUTHOR>

I'm really curious about how many italian startuppers and/or developers are reading this post. It would be nice to get in touch..Raise your hand guys! <comment><USER2> Hi there!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> hey olgeni! anyone else?</comment>


Wikipedia over DNS - <AUTHOR> https://dgl.cx/wikipedia-dns

<comment><USER2> I've often wondered if malware use this as a communications channel with C&C servers. DNS queries are often passed unrestricted through firewalls and it would be simple to have one or more domains setup where the query is the information you want to pass and a custom DNS server receives the data and replies to either confirm the receipt of data or answer requests for instruction.

For example, you could encode harvested data (eg: keystrokes) as a DNS query for h28sdhnz890j1hadsl.sj12h89shbapqp8n15kl258.example.com. The TXT record you get back would be the server's response signed with the C&C server's private key. This is so that you can use multiple domains and rotate them in case one gets seized and the signed response prevents spoofing.

Such a system would be quite passive and likely to fly under the radar on most systems.

<comment><USER3> So-called covert channels can involve DNS, ICMP, packet transmission timing, even processor responsiveness (think of communicating morse code using the timings of a program that switches between a compute-loop and idle, as observed from another program on the system), and any number of other techniques.

Here's a very quick presentation on DNS channels and DNS tunnels from a few years back:

<http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/files/tuns-sec09-slides.pdf>

A key question with controlling any of these sorts of channels is not necessarily blocking them, but limiting the bandwidth of the channels.

<comment><USER4> _> <http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/files/tuns-sec09-slides.pdf> _

Interesting presentation, thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly, although the talk was released in 2009, I still don't see his todo list of "release the code" completed. I think I'm going to email the guy; it would be interesting to look at his code.

<comment><USER5> This is the guy in question ;).

The code is pretty much a hack which I haven't got around to tidying up (but mail me if you really want it).

It's really just glue anyway -- the interesting bits are done by:

* <http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Parse::MediaWikiDump>

* <http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Text::Summary::MediaWiki>

The script then saves the produced summaries in SQLite, then some code based on Stanford::DNSserver (<http://www.stanford.edu/~riepel/lbnamed/Stanford- DNSserver/>) does a lookup in SQLite, follows #redirects and returns a TXT record.

These days I'd probably use PowerDNS's pipe backend to implement it rather than a full DNS server in Perl (there's helper modules like ruby-pdns that make writing a DNS server with specialised purposes incredibly easy).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The main issue with this is that DNS is already a fairly taxing protocol, especially for large organizations that have big zone files to transfer.

<comment><USER5> While this might be true if you try to AXFR large zones I think most people who have large zones have solutions to this, it's just like scaling anything else.

For example there's IXFR which is helpful when doing dynamic updates.

Alternatively don't use DNS for transfers -- there's nothing forcing its use, except for talking to clients -- SQL replication works (e.g. with PowerDNS), or the approach most spam blocklists take and rsync zones around for serving by a special server (rbldnsd); DNS just becomes a common query protocol because every client supports it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reading the title, I imagined it'd be about a further abstraction to the DNS: a service where by you query an authority, eg: Wikipedia, a sequence of search terms, eg: Hot Sauce Committee, and it gives you the most relevant URL, eg: <http://www.beastieboys.com/>.

<comment><USER8> Heh, that can easily be done, e.g. by modifying the Gist which I posted earlier and connecting it to Google API ("I'm Feeling Lucky")

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How awesome would it be if Dropbox had "tunneling over DNS" build in? Basically the usability of Dropbox with the ability to get to it at airports, etc. would be awesome.</comment>


Ask HN: Which books would you suggest to a college student? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I'm a sophomore undergraduate. I find myself reading mostly CS books. I like to read, but I haven't read much outside of non-fiction. I feel like I'm becoming too one-dimensional.
I want to be more open-minded, and am interested in Philosophy and History. I'd be grateful if someone could recommend me some books to read. <comment><USER2> Go to those sections (Philosophy and History) in your university library and read the titles of all the books. Take books which titles grab your attention, and read the table of contents. If you see a Chapter that interests you, read that chapter. If you think the book is worth reading whole, grab the book.

EDIT: Also consider subscribing to magazines. I love these: McSweeney's and Lapham Quarterly. McSweeneys is great for fiction and Lapham Quarterly for non fiction/historical perspectives on topics.

EDIT2: It is also important to remember that books are for you to enjoy and you should never feel forced to read books you don't want to read (except if it is required reading on a course) nor finish reading books just because you have started them (sunk cost fallacy).

But, there are advantages to reading whole texts, especially non-fiction. In today's day and age, we can search for terms and read precisely what we need for a paper. However, if you read the whole text you might read some unexpected gems that will enrich you. I find that reading the table of contents and skimming through paragraphs is a great way to avoid missing these gems. However, please note that "skimming" does not mean "move your eyes and pretend you are reading". You still need to make an effort to understand what the author is trying to convey. If you find yourself lost in thought after "skimming" through a couple of paragraphs then you are not doing it correctly. Ideally you want to summarize the paragraph to a single idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for the answer, efferifick! I feel very empowered :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In general, suggest an on-going reading program of biographies/autobiographies of leaders in tech. Some obvious ones Jobs/Gates/Bezos.

Often overlooked these days, Andy Grove > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242433.Andy_Grove](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242433.Andy_Grove)</comment>


The real surprise of the App Store isn't number of downloads or revenue - <AUTHOR> http://www.last100.com/2008/08/11/the-real-surprise-of-the-app-store-isnt-number-of-downloads-or-revenue/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate. My ageing N95 has a "Download" link in the applications folder. This allows you to browse and buy apps. I've never done it because most of the Apps in their are naff and the ones that aren't are not worth the £6-10 they cost to me.

<comment><USER3> Virtous cycle must be formed between size and quality of the audience and variety and quality of the content. Those cycles do not build themselves. That is why Apple's App Store is a success and Nokia's or Handango is not.

<comment><USER2> I'd totally agree with that, I think I was more pointing out that Nokia do have a way to bill Apps to the consumer over the phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not really that earth shattering. AppStore will help drive more people to the iPhone platform, thus bringing more revenue to ATT.</comment>


How Surveillance Inhibits Freedom of Expression - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/how_surveillanc_1.html <comment><USER2> Discussed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18475164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18475164).

</comment><comment><USER3> The article is good, but the comments are even better.</comment>


Some auto insurers are sending refunds to customers as crash rate falls - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/06/828187071/some-auto-insurers-are-sending-refunds-to-customers-as-crash-rate-falls <comment><USER2> It's worth mentioning some states have caps on how much insurance can make, in other words if they're not absorbing a base amount of risk, they have to give the money back because people are paying too much to insure against something where the risk is low. I've gotten checks back from auto insurance before where they made too much money that year due to lack of payouts.

<comment><USER3> This sounds like a great system on face value, but it also adds a perverse incentive for insurers to drive _up_ repair costs (and hence their premiums) in order to increase their own revenue. I've heard this effect put forward as one reason that the U.S. medical system's prices are so overinflated.

<comment><USER4> Fortunately (afaik) there are no in/out of network auto mechanics, and the mechanics don't negotiate rates with the companies (again afaik). The barriers to setting up an auto repair shop are also far lower than setting up a hospital.

<comment><USER3> Insurance companies don't dictate 'preferred repairers' where you live?

<comment><USER5> Preferred does not mean mandatory. It is illegal for an insurance company to require you to use their repair shop.

<comment><USER6> No but some (UK insurers at least) write into the policy that you pay a lesser excess if you use one of their preferred garages

<comment><USER3> Yep, same in Australia (at least last time I made an insurance claim, which was something like 15 years ago).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anecdote: The few times I've driven in the last couple weeks I've noticed at least one person driving like they forgot how to drive. I don't know if everyone is just amazed that the streets are empty, or if people really have forgotten how to drive or what, but it's very eerie.

<comment><USER8> I noticed something similar. My theory is that the set of people who are unwilling to heed stay-at-home orders has a significant overlap with the set of people who are inattentive or reckless drivers. As a result, there is a disproportionate number of bad drivers still on the roads.

<comment><USER9> Anecdotal, but I've had to still go to work and many of the people I see driving are old, like 60+ (lots of gray hair/ wrinkles).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> State Farm is in theory a mutual company, i.e. owned by its policy holders. Years ago (like more than 20) I used to get the occasional profit distribution check, but that stopped happening in the 2000s. Apparently they discovered the concept of Hollywood accounting.

<comment><USER11> IIRC, the last time I checked (sometime back last year), State Farm actually had spent the last few years running at an underwriting loss— they were taking in less in premiums than they were distributing in claims. They were mostly remaining solvent (and paying admin costs) through investment income.

Which is probably about how they should operate. As a mutual company, if they're routinely having to return profits to policyholders, their premiums are too high.

<comment><USER12> >> State Farm actually had spent the last few years running at an underwriting loss

This is common amongst mutual and non-mutual companies. The spreads are pretty thin and a few ticks of variance in one direction can drive down profits massively. It's not a great business to be in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting tidbit at the at end of the article I thought others may enjoy:

> Allstate reports that while accidents are less frequent, the crashes that do > occur seem to be more severe. The likely culprit? Speed: Drivers can go > faster than usual on pandemic-emptied streets.

<comment><USER14> Drivers who drive rudely are being way more rude around here now that the roads are empty. Like, they used to hit 35mph because there was traffic obstacles in their way, and now they're hitting 45mph (in our 25).

<comment><USER13> 45 in a 25? That's incredibly aggressive - and scary!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also some of these companies are mutual companies meaning they are owned by their policy holders.

</comment><comment><USER16> They would have to lower rates otherwise by law, and presumably take a loss next year. If they lower rates too much, they will get way too many short-term customers. If they don't lower enough, they will lose many long-term customers. This is a half-measure.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is the kind of thing that will separate companies in the future. If you're a good corporate citizen consumers will notice in ways current generations don't. We don't notice in the numbers necessary for companies to change their behavior.

</comment><comment><USER18> Called this a few weeks back: Ask HN: Will auto insurance premiums go down? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22719791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22719791)

</comment><comment><USER19> My wife and I were already considering dropping my car from the two car policy we have when it renews next month. I personally think we'll be in a "shelter in place" mode through most of June at the earliest and with us both working remote and daycares being shut down here in my part of TX the need to cover two cars no longer exists. If I need to re-add the car to the policy in July or August at least I'll have saved maybe a few hundred bucks, but if our insurer joins this trend the hassle of dropping might not be worth it.

<comment><USER20> But...if you take it off the policy, there's still risk of having it stolen or it burning down, that then obviously isn't covered.

And...few hundred bucks from June to August?? How expensive are your policies? I'm paying £400(~$500) per year for a fully comprehensive policy on a brand new Volvo XC60, dropping the policy for a month or two would save me so little money it's almost not worth the hassle.

<comment><USER19> _But...if you take it off the policy, there 's still risk of having it stolen or it burning down, that then obviously isn't covered._

You do have a point, I'd be pretty pissed if it was stolen. It's sitting in my driveway and not in a garage so chances of spontaneous combustion are pretty low :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Allstate is known for being an ethical and fair company. I work for their subsidiary and this is normal behavior for them. I am proud they are doing this.

<comment><USER22> Well, that depends. Like most large companies, there's a "Criticism" section for it on Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allstate#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allstate#Criticism)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are there any specific statistics on the fall of payouts or traffic fatalities?

</comment><comment><USER24> I made all 11 first levels with 3 stars, except #3... I can't get a better score than 16 moves. Still chasing that eureka moment. I enjoy it thanks :)

<comment><USER24> AAWWW YEAH FINALLY GOT IT! 15 MOVES BABY!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Insurance companies are coming out of the pandemic relatively unscathed, because the pandemic isn't a typically covered event for business interruption?

<comment><USER26> More importantly, pandemics are correlated risks, so the insurance company is not reducing any risk by insuring against it.

If they did, everyone's insurance rates would go way up after a pandemic in about the same amount as they would have to pay for the pandemic.

<comment><USER27> As it is, insurance companies are _both_ not insuring against it _and also_ teeing up to massively increase rates [1].

Why only dip once when you can dip twice?

[1] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/03/26/health- insurance-p...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/03/26/health-insurance- premiums-could-rise-by-over-40-du.aspx)

<comment><USER28> There are lot of types of insurance that exclude pandemics, but health insurers are unlikely to be one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just got a ~15% refund through Esurance. For reference, I've never been involved in any sort of insurance claim.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't like this. It seems to set a precedent that in the opposite situation (I dunno, a haze that pushes up auto-accidents?) then they might take the opposite tack. People pay insurance to (massively simplified) even out payments for unlikely events, and messing around with that -- even in a direction that short-term seems good for consumers -- seems questionable.

<comment><USER31> But they do this already. In Colorado many insurers raised rates when we had a large hail storm that caused widespread damage. Allstate roughly doubled my premium because of it (or so they said), even though I parked my car in a garage both at home and at work at the time. I found a better rate elsewhere, but I'm sure others just paid it.

So the fact that they're offering a reduction seems fair, I guess. Although I wonder if they're really only seeing a 15% reduction in costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It begs the question - does lockdown mean coronavirus is a net "positive" on lives lost, as people will be saved not driving, going out, being stressed, even catching Flu etc. I haven't seen anything about this but the question is worth asking.

Also worth saying I fully agree with the lockdowns simply because of exponential growth.

<comment><USER33> Estimates are 38,000 for 2019 in vehicle related deaths, this does not include all the others who suffered injuries at any scale. However the virus won't reduce this by the number it is likely to take, I am sure someone could work it out

epidemics should be measured against the death rate from all causes across a year. However immediate numbers are much more newsworthy and allow political interest to drive whatever message they want from them.

so if you want to find a silver lining there are always ways to mince numbers. to be honest looking for a silver lining is much more productive than the panic, doom, and gloom, efforts

<comment><USER34> > to be honest looking for a silver lining is much more productive than the > panic, doom, and gloom, efforts

It certainly is not. The "panic, doom, and gloom, efforts" are what drove us to take action in the face of unrelenting baseless optimism that would have single handedly killed millions. Being afraid of something is _not_ the worse thing that can happen! Please stop acting like it is!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Geico?

<comment><USER36> It seems that now they are also providing some money (credits) back: [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/warren-buffetts-geico- offers...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/warren-buffetts-geico- offers-2point5-billion-in-credits-as-coronavirus-cuts-driving.html)

<comment><USER37> Yep, details at: [https://www.geico.com/about/coronavirus/](https://www.geico.com/about/coronavirus/)

The credit will be coming off your policy renewal bill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The lives saved from reductions in pollution and crashes is at this point larger than the covid19 death toll. We already had a pandemic that got displaced by a new one.

</comment><comment><USER39> I want to tell you all AAA California is being scummy and you need to call them to get a refund credit to be posted into your account.</comment>


Libervia: Ethical and Free (Libre) Social Network - <AUTHOR> https://www.arizuka.com/en/projects/libervia/ <comment><USER2> No news since mid 2016. The screenshots look like they were taken in 2010.</comment>


Exeter, we have a problem - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mrwaddell.net/archives/488

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a link to the Phillips Exeter Academy problem sets in mathematics referred to in the submitted article:

<http://www.exeter.edu/academics/72_6539.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER2> I went to Exeter. While the math curriculum is awesome and unique it is not without its problems. Students who are not already highly exposed to math tend to struggle, and whats more there is a lot of room for students to slack off and not reap all the benefits from the class, falling rapidly behind. Overall it's a great program and works well for the best math students, but for the mediocre math student it seems to me to be lacking.</comment>