America might wield its ultimate weapon of mass disruption - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2020/08/15/how-america-might-wield-its-ultimate-weapon-of-mass-disruption <comment><USER3> The US is pushing against every nation, except IL. Even old partners from five eyes are not save anymore. Recent pushes against Canada demonstrate that. - The rest of the world is constantly shocked about US actions against almost every nation or institution (UN, WHO, ICJ, many more). Slowly they realize that they need to build new alliances that are not only in favor of the US. China sees the vacuum and is being pushed in new directions. Latest move: In the Middle East, cooperating with Iran, shocking Israel with that move. - <USER2> US are hurting themselves in the long run by trying to make politics by brute force.

<comment><USER4> The next president is going to have to go around and sew broken relationships the current administration has torn apart.

<comment><USER5> Bad news: people outside the US have memories longer than 4 (or 8) years.

Even if the next POTUS _does_ make nice, there will thereafter always be the memory of how rapidly Trump tanked the USA's relationships. As a result, nobody will be able to count on US cooperation/amity for long term planning purposes without building in contingency plans for a "what if the next POTUS reverses course abruptly" situation.

It _might_ be fixable with a constitutional rebalancing to reduce the ability of the president to rule as an executive without congressional oversight, but that hardly seems likely short of there being a revolution or civil war.

So US "soft power" is probably irrevocably damaged, at least for the next 8-20 years.

<comment><USER6> Yeah no one's going to forget that a big chuck of the US voted for the current administration and will vote for them again. And they especially aren't going forget that the majority of business leaders are supporting the current administration. That includes all FAANG companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> China government is eager to try following the steps of USSR with better starting conditions - at least some of them. We can turn to history and see what steps were taken in Cold War and how they turned out to have some rough prediction of results today.

<comment><USER8> Everyone knows how that turned out for the USSR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > And it, too, has a last-ditch deterrent: selling its $1.1trn stock of > American treasury bills, equivalent to 4% of the total outstanding. > America's highly liquid bond markets may prove capable of absorbing the > shock.

The Fed would be forced to buy those bonds to maintain its interest rate targets. And since the Fed by law must remit its profits to the Treasury, the end result would be the net interest rate on that debt would drop from whatever it is now to zero. Hardly what I'd call a crushing blow. Imagine trying to threaten your banker by telling him if he's not careful you're going to move your money from your savings to your checking account.

</comment><comment><USER10> People are overlooking one important point here

The system is a detail here, a major one sure, but the main thing is that the Yuan is not fully convertible

Cutting China off means that either they turn the Yuan into a fully convertible currency or they'll use something else (limited choices here)

Cutting China off: US sellers can't pay China. Will they cut everybody else from transacting with China? I think that China would see this as justification for very harsh actions.

Funny thing is, if China is forced to make their currency convertible, this will result in a more Open China, not less. Weird times we're in

<comment><USER11> A more open China would mean trillions more in capital flight, a complete non starter for the CCP. If you genuinely believe that there is even a chance of a more open China, you have no been paying attention to the actions of the emperor for life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Won't this just encourage China to make their own system like they're doing with computer chips now?

<comment><USER13> Maybe, and if they succeed, what will the US do then? This is a terrifying path.

<comment><USER14> Just another cold war

<comment><USER15> What is a Cold War called when only one side is playing? Because that's been the history for the last three decades.

<comment><USER16> not only one side is playing. China has a history of blatant violation of copyright law (helping Chinese companies steal research & tech that US companies spent billions of R&D money on) and using that to attempt to undercut US companies.

China also constantly bans US companies[1] from accessing Chinese customers (eg. Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter etc).

It's imperative that the US castrates China & CCP and doesn't allow it to spread its toxic influence further.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> After the first Gulf War, the attempted embargo on oil from Iraq led to a limited market in which oil was priced in Euros. That was bad for the US.

An attempt to cut China off from the USD international payments system will lead to a parallel system denominated in some other currency, possibly Remnimbi. That will be bad for the US too.

Not for nothing they call Afghanistan the Graveyard of Empires.

<comment><USER11> The Chinese cannot lead with a RMB system which maintains the capital controls which they currently enforce. For an RMB system to take hold it needs to be freely exchangeable, and that would lead to trillions in additional capital flight from China. A complete non starter for the CCP.

The fact is that the dollar is king. Even the BRI, which many describe as China's master plan to influence the world, are denoted in Dollars.

<comment><USER18> Correct, this is why it is reported that China and other nations like Iran are trying to create an alternative currency to sidestep dollar restrictions.

<comment><USER11> And that won't much more useful to them than the RMB. The Saudi's, whom supply a significant percentage of China's oil, don't want RMB nor some new currency which has the Iranians involved. The Saudi's don't buy as much from China as China buys from them. So they don't want to be stuck with billions of a currency they can't use for anything. But dollars? They can use to that to buy whatever they want from whomever they want.

That's because USD is used one one side 88% of all FX trades[1]. If you were going to buy something from another country you already were going to use dollars.

[1]: [https://stats.bis.org/statx/srs/table/d11.3](https://stats.bis.org/statx/srs/table/d11.3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/YJrfN](https://archive.vn/YJrfN)

</comment><comment><USER19> This would just hasten the demise of the already broken US.

Lot's of silent downvotes - I'm happy to debate, do not be afraid to comment and tell me what you disagree with.

<comment><USER20> The Covid crisis showed perfectly just how broken the US is. The country in its current state is hopelessly divided, terribly corrupt and it doesn't have a functioning government or healthcare system. Politicians and civilians seem to pride themselves in making dumb and arrogant statements that show their lack of knowledge and experience. Democracy seems on the chopping block too. Trump is a major cause of this broken image, but for my generation it really started with the potential vice president Sarah Palin.

As a European I can say that the only people who still look up to the USA as a great country are the people who base their views on Hollywood instead of the news.

<comment><USER21> I Love America. I don't think the problems you describe are unique to the US.

> _'and it doesn't have a functioning government or healthcare system'_

Can you elaborate here? I can have no job or health insurance, and I can obtain treatment at the hospital.

Likewise, I participate in city council and roundtables with city and state officials. They listen to the community and policy changes are affected based on that. Govt seems to work pretty well locally. Federal govt is not relevant at that level.

Could it all be better? Sure. But your hyperbole is a bit much.

<comment><USER22> > I can have no job or health insurance, and I can obtain treatment at the > hospital.

For emergency care, yes. Not for an MRI or a hip replacement or dialysis or physical therapy or cancer treatments or prostheses or cataract surgery or...

This is this weird myth that won't die. It's absolutely true that emergency rooms are universally required to treat anyone who walks in the door. It's also true that ER care makes up something like 3% of US health care delivered.

<comment><USER23> "I can have no job..." 50 million people in the US are on Medicare or Medicaid, and can and do absolutely receive those services, based on age or income level. The ones who cannot are those whose income is too high for those service and choose to forgo or cannot afford health insurance.

<comment><USER24> And then pay deductibles and co pays and god forbid your out of network.. your making excuses for a broken system which most of the 1st world surpasses in almost every way

<comment><USER23> I'm not trying make excuses for a broken system. I'm just trying to add some information that the poster I was replying to may have lacked. I'm not making a value judgement. Those on medicare/medicaid generally have low to no deductibles and co-pays. Those with private insurance may have large deductibles and out of pocket expenses. I certainly do, but I have multiple people in my household with chronic health issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is like the economic policy of the Hells Angels, borrow vast amounts of money then freeze out, ostracize and threaten. We already have the splinternet evolving fast and Chinese style surveillance in North America. The dollar as reserve currency remains omnipotent and this is naked imperialism imo

<comment><USER25> 'Naked imperialism' wasn't intended to bash the USA, what I MTSW we have come to a point of naked imperialism between the two superpowers: China vs the offshore imperialists who control the USD</comment></comment>


Prediction Markets: Donald Trump's Nomination Chances Better Than 50 Percent - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/upshot/now-a-solid-bet-trumps-nomination-chances-are-better-than-50-percent.html?_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> Other predictions: [http://predictwise.com](http://predictwise.com)</comment>


With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/5975653/with-genetic-testing-i-gave-my-parents-the-gift-of-divorce-23andme/ <comment><USER3> There are some serious facts missing in the story here. When were his parents married? When was the half brother born? Was this a known fling? This was definitely something traumatic that happened, but we are left way too hanging for this to be an interesting story.

<comment><USER4> From the other article ([http://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/6107039/23andme-ancestry- dna-tes...](http://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/6107039/23andme-ancestry-dna- testing)):

 _When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. "I thought it was the coolest genetics story, my own personal genetics story. I wasn't particularly upset about it initially, until the rest of the family found out, and their reaction was different."

His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son. "Years of repressed memories and emotions uncorked and resulted in tumultuous times that have torn my nuclear family apart. We're not anywhere close to being healed yet, and I don't know how long it will take to put the pieces back together."_

<comment><USER5> So it wasn't honesty that was the problem, its was people's emotions.

<comment><USER6> More than emotions, it was that their lives were being affected in some form: something else was being added to it that was not there when they decided to enter into a relationship. Particularly for the mother, she basically entered into a relationship without all the facts known. Maybe she would have decided differently at the beginning.

Personally, I am not sure why the sister is so upset. It's just another sibling, which should bring happiness. But in a world where lawsuits are common, maybe she also feels threatened (sharing of inheritance, for example?).

I think it is fair that the mother is upset. She has to deal with more "baggage." But I don't think this is worth divorcing over. Things must not have been that solid for this to end up in divorce. A strong marriage should have survived this.

<comment><USER7> > A strong marriage should have survived this

It's probably not a good idea to speculate on the relative strength of other people's marriages, especially internet speculation. We still don't know everything that happened; nor should we. So, let's not pretend that we know what is going on here.

The basis of the story is that with genetic testing with a service like 23andMe you can find things that you may not have wanted to have known or expected. Let's just leave it at that.

<comment><USER8> > So, let's not pretend that we know what is going on here.

Absolutely. When we make bold assertions like "X would Y" we are bringing a huge amount of personal bias, baggage and most of all ignorance to the table. It blinkers us to the vast range of possible realities that our impoverished imaginations (and our imaginations are always impoverished) are incapable of conjuring.

As an exercise, before posting "X must be Y" it is very much worth-while thinking of half-a-dozen movie scripts that could tell a story that would fit the known facts. In the present case they might look like:

1) Basil Fawlty-like character goes off the deep end upon discovering child from before his marriage

2) Uptight wife divorces husband for youthful indiscretion

3) Husband's former double-life as a spy revealed by accident of genetic testing

4) Husband's former criminal life revealed by accident of genetic testing

5) Christian wife divorces when accident of genetic testing reveals husband was not a virgin at marriage as he had always claimed

6) Radical feminist wife leaves husband when she finds out he once patronized --and impregnated--a prostitute...

The only thing we can say with any degree of certainty is that the reality is far weirder than anything we can imagine. It almost always is.

In none of the above cases would the marriage necessarily be describe as "not strong" prior to being put to the test.

To claim that "a strong marriage should have survived this" is vacuous tautology: [http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1087](http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1087). It is true that a marriage strong enough to survive whatever happened would have survived whatever happened. It is also true that a big enough blow will disrupt anything weak enough to be disrupted by that blow ([http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/hymn_strain.html](http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/hymn_strain.html))

<comment><USER9> I would even say it was probably a stronger marriage than most since it lasted at least a couple decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been wondering if any agency in the US government has been using DNA databases to do "genetic triangulation"\--and if not, when they'll start.

I'm in 23andme, and I get messages saying "someone who is your 4th/5th/6th cousin wants to connect" all the time. I figure if I was given a bit of DNA from a crime scene, by cross-referencing all of the 4th,5th, and 6th cousins, the number of potential people matching that DNA has got to be tiny.

Science fiction dystopias used to hypothesize a complete DNA database but I'm pretty sure even the spotty coverage we have now is pretty powerful.

<comment><AUTHOR> DNA storage is a very tricky area ethically. You're dead right that even spotty coverage is sufficient to make all sort of inference, while on the other hand we have much more DNA from crime scenes than we have the resources to process, and when we do process it it can lead to the exoneration of people who were serving long sentences.

[http://hstlj.org/articles/concerns-associated-with- expanding...](http://hstlj.org/articles/concerns-associated-with-expanding- dna-databases/)

<comment><USER11> _> we have much more DNA from crime scenes than we have the resources to process_

If it's just a matter of computational power for a given price, that problem will easily be solved in a few years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lacko f administrative will ont he part of police departments seems to be the largest part of the problem, if stories of unprocessed rape kits by the hundreds are anything to go by. Thankfully some states have committed to clearing the backlog and not allowing it to build up again.

[http://www.endthebacklog.org/](http://www.endthebacklog.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Summary: 23andMe's genetic database may uncover shitty behavior of people close to you that they would rather you not know about. They hide this behind a checkbox asking you if you want to see info about possible close relatives, but the author thinks there should be big flashing warnings that it might show information you aren't ready for.

Of course, the other way to interpret this is that his parents weren't really okay with the status quo, at least one of them either hadn't put enough thought into what happened, didn't know the whole story, or was entirely in the dark. The author may feel that it would be better to not know that information, but that information is truth, and represents who the people involved really are or were. I have little patience for being asked to help support others delusion.

Edit: s/rather now know/rather not know/

<comment><USER13> Note that in this case, no shitty behavior was uncovered. I initially thought this story was going to be about adultery, but it turns out it wasn't:

> _When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting > married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. > [...] His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father > went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his > estranged son._

<comment><USER9> No shitty behavior was uncovered? Hasn't anyone considered that Thomas was the product of rape? Or any other thousands of possibilities which we have no idea about.

<comment><USER13> After reading the second article, which gives more detail, I think that's unlikely. Obviously we're missing information, but it's not stated anywhere that there was foul play of any kind. You cannot just assume something horrible happened _unless_ at least some kind of hint is given in the article.

<comment><USER9> I didn't assume, I just was saying there are thousands of possibilities which might have varying degrees of virtue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >>"My parents divorced. No one is talking to my dad. We're not anywhere close to being healed yet and I don't know how long it will take to put the pieces back together."

We don't know the circumstances under which the father and his then-girlfriend had given up their son for adoption. However, that seems to have happened decades ago.

I'm not sure why no one is now talking to the dad for something that happened decades ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps he kept it as a secret all this time. Many people regard hiding such a fundamental piece of information for such a long time as a breach of trust. The interesting thing to me about the story is that a morally neutral technology can lead to bitter disagreements by unexpectedly presenting a moral dilemma.

<comment><USER15> Morally neutral technology does this all the time. Human social interactions are filled to the brim with lies of all kinds- falsehoods, fabrications, lies by omission, etc. Technology is gradually stripping them away.

<comment><USER16> This is very nicely documented in an SF story about the ability to view the past Asimov?.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Genetically it may be difficult to tell a grandfather from a half-brother, but logically it seems like you could easily add some basic checks like "is dude A more than x years older than dude B? No? Well lets rule grandfather out then".

</comment><comment><USER18> I work for a major genetic research and diagnostics laboratory. This is what's known in the biz as "incidental findings" and in a clinical setting is an enormous no-no (not as big a deal in research).

It's this kind of careless disclosure of sensitive information that makes more than a few of the non-consumer-facing organizations (not to mention the FDA) a bit wary of companies like 23andMe.

I haven't used 23andMe so I can't speak to how well their ordering system addresses this issue beyond what the article states. Regardless, customers ordering these kinds of panels should be well informed as to what they're getting into.

EDIT: I did mean "wary" not "weary"

<comment><USER15> _a bit weary of companies..._

It is "wary". Please. _Please._

<comment><USER19> 'weary' is perfectly valid. You're welcome. _You 're welcome_.

<comment><USER15> Ok, you got me there, in this case it happened to be valid grammar. Though IMO it was clear the writer meant "wary".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a similar situation. I had a close cousin contact me on 23 and me that I wasn't familar with. He is adopted and looking for his parents. My dad took the test so we have narrowed it down. He recently found his mom, so I know it's his dad that I'm related to. Bottom line, we still haven't figured out who the dad is and I'm afraid to push it because it may cause an outcome like this. I invited the adopted cousin to a family reunion but he declined.

<comment> w0rd-driven Life is way to short to hide behind fear of the unknown. Think of yourself in these shoes? Would you want to be held back by someone well meaning? I personally wouldn't. I can't even begin to fathom what being estranged from your parents feels like and I'm not about to ever get in the way of someone trying to reconcile that if I have even the _slightest_ bit of information that can help relieve that. It's not my place to deny them. If that brings hell to my family, I would tell them to put their big boy/girl pants on and grow the fuck up, full stop and I completely adore my family. This isn't a decision they get to stop, stifle, or refute. Let the estranged cousin make all the decisions. You're there to help empower them to do what they feel lead to pursue, nothing more or less.

I hope none of this feels like a personal attack. At the end of the day you're still entitled to your decision and opinion. I just know how I would feel or act. The feelings of only one person matter in this instance and it wouldn't be me, if I were in your shoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Genetic testing is a really cool concept. There is a parallel with the internet, is that for every new person tested value of testing increases for everyone. Sufficient number of people tested should allow us to identify really subtle patterns in genetic code and will be a boon in healthcare and family planning. For example a dating site, that takes genes into account while matching people. Unfortunately there are huge privacy implications to consider.

<comment><USER22> It raises a lot of ethical questions. There was a great movie that touched those issues: "Gattaca".

<comment><USER23> Gattaca was very prescient and thought-provoking movie, one of my favorites. The story described a future where individuals are allowed or denied opportunity based on a genetic test at birth. I think the point was that technology cannot predict or limit the human heart.

That same idea applies here too. This article illustrates that there will be other, nuanced perils to bioinformatics besides rewarding genetic lottery winners and punishing losers. Genetic testing is a powerful tool that should be used wisely. Of course, it will be a bumpy road until society settles on what "wisely" means.

<comment><USER24> Well, Gattaca raises a bigger point that just "Should we discriminate based on DNA?" In Gattaca, people can choose to genetically enhance their offspring to attain certain qualities. The protagonist's parents chose to make him in a "natural" way and hence he was considered to be the less extreme version of Untermensch. The director chose to portray such policies / societal norms as morally wrong (primarily through an emotional appeal). But it doesn't touch upon the other side of this issue. How well did humanity perform after humans were artificially evolved into what by some could be considered a new species. Except a few discriminatory cases -- much less than say Women and other minorities experience at the moment -- Gattaca doesn't seem too horrible, with space ships and space colonization. The movie can be thought of as depicting a Neanderthal that happens to be stuck in a Homo Sapiens Sapiens dominated society, and after facing adversity -- eventually succeeds. I think the issue is larger than that. Perhaps it's trying to make us consider the possible collective benefits of Humankind as a whole if it were allowed to fast-track its natural evolutionary processes. After all, if all humans became "Homo Sapiens Sapiens Sapiens" wouldn't we be better off?

<comment><USER25> People are still forced to work under threat of starvation, upper class people still work in open plan offices, lower class people still handle dangerous chemicals.

Despite space ships the depicted civilization didn't improve a lot. (and that's just the work conditions - leisure time practically doesn't exist in the movie)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> IMHO, genetic testing wasn't the cause of the divorce; it was the family's intransigence at the dad wanting to get in touch with his long-lost son. What kind of a people are these, that they'd want to kick the father out for wanting to get in touch with a son he never knew he had, from before the marriage?

<comment><USER27> Or maybe a few paragraphs of text aren't really enough - or even intended - <USER2> describe the full situation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder how many sperm or egg donors will register on 23andme and receive an interesting email... Or how many children conceived in that way will find half brothers and half sisters. I wonder if you could see traces of "prolific" sperm donors via their related offspring...

<comment><USER29> [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?pagewa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html?pagewanted=all) and [http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/01/24/more-children- from-...](http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/01/24/more-children-from-sperm- donors-seeking-out-genetic-family/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The genetic testing didn't cause the divorce, keeping secrets did.

This is also a very good argument for honesty - it's very hard to figure out when and how you'll get called out on lies.

<comment><USER31> Keeping secrets isn't the problem here.

Whether secret or known, why should any woman want a man that would be so careless with his own offspring that they end up being adopted by strangers and searching for their parents all their life?

Whether secret or not, why should any woman want a man who has children by another woman?

Whether secret or not, why should any woman want a man who is apparently really bad at using contraceptives?

Maybe it wouldn't have been a divorce, it just would never have been a marriage in the first place. But whatever the eventual result, the problem was that the father was a piece of shit.

<comment><USER32> > _Whether secret or not, why should any woman want a man who has children by > another woman?_

Are you trolling? Marrying someone with pre-existing children is so profoundly non-scandalous that it was the premise for The Brady Bunch.

<comment><USER33> Mr. or Mrs. Brady Bunch didn't hide the fact that they had previous children or relationships. Its very possible that the father lied to the mother about having the prior relationship. Its also possible that his previous behavior had nothing to do with the divorce, and it was his current reaction.

Either way, I think the author being a geneticist should pretty much understand that if you're trying to find relatives, you might actually find relatives.

I tend to think this should be opt-in, but as long as both parties have the box checked, it seems like perfectly valid functionality to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> s-phi-nl Relevant xkcd: [http://xkcd.com/830/](http://xkcd.com/830/)

"We can't be sure, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and its hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex."

<comment><USER34> Who has college yearbook photos? I don't remember any yearbook, and it certainly doesn't have my photograph in it. There were something like 25,000 undergrads anyway - how would that even work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Somewhere, there's a product manager or developer coming to terms with the fact that the decision to check that box by default tore at least one family apart.

<comment><USER36> Funny enough, it was exactly the opposite. It was Opt-in, now it's Opt-out.

<comment><USER37> Opt-out is really to blame here. Almost everything is opt-out in the US. Go look at how the EU handles data/privacy sensitive stuff: most of the time, it's opt-in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is confusing. "This is how it happened: when you share around 25 percent genetic similarity with someone, that means that either it's your grandfather, uncle, or half-sibling".

I have half my dad's DNA and half my mom's, so does my sister. So therefore wouldn't we both share 50% of our DNA? If we were brothers it would be closer to 100%. So a half sibling should be the same as a sister in this aspect. I have a half brother too, so we both got 50% of our DNA from our mother. So we are 50% similar, not 25%.

Is my math wrong?

<comment><USER39> You got 23 of your mother's 46 chromosomes, and your half-brother got a different set of 23 of your mother's 46 chromosomes. On average 11.5 of those chromosomes will be the exact same ones -- that's 25% of your total DNA.

With a full sibling of the opposite sex, you share about 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes (half of the 23 each of you got from mom will be the same) and 11.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22; you know the 23rd is different), for a total of 22.5 out of 46 which is 49%.

If you're both the same sex, you share on average 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes and 12.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22, and you know the 23rd is the same), which makes you around 51% similar.

<comment><USER38> Ah that makes sense. I knew I was missing something but wasn't sure what. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm amazed at people preferring living under a lie for the rest of their lives and dying like that than finding out the truth in case it might be bitter. I would trade a supernuclear family for truth any day of the week.

Slightly off topic, but no wonder it's also difficult to make people realize the reality about religion(s). The same 'ignorance is bliss' head-in-the-sand mentality is working behind the scenes many times.

<comment><USER41> >I would trade a supernuclear family over truth any day of the week.

This is interesting. If you had an incredibly happy life, why would you always choose potentially emotionally damaging truth over that? Especially if the alternative is that you never know there is a lie and that lie doesn't actually matter.

<comment><USER16> I have a hard time envisioning 'emotionally damaging truth'. More truth is always better, even if it is uncomfortable. Operating on un-truths can be damaging, truth should allow you to function better, not worse.

The problem with this story is that effectively nothing had changed that wasn't already there.

I found out my dad had been married prior to being married to my mom. It's a long and interesting story but it never made me think less of him (insofar as that was still possible), in fact in some ways it redeemed him and made me understand him a little bit better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've never understood the dynamic between 23andMe and the FDA. It's just information - what's to stop someone from setting up the same service in Bermuda? Would they really stop Americans from mailing a spit kit somewhere?

<comment><USER43> The issue with the FDA is saying "Since you have this gene your chance of X disease is 5%" when there are other factors that influence this and this hasn't been evaluated by a doctor.

And then people making decisions solely based on this number.

<comment><USER44> It's because they're a bureaucracy and they are protecting their turf. They call the spit kit a medical device and want to regulate it as such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm just trying to think about what would happen if those parents in the story were me and my wife. Would we break apart? I'm guessing/hoping no, but the real answer may be completely different.

</comment><comment><USER46> The rate of non-paternity is commonly quoted to be around 10%. If genetic testing becomes more common, we're likely to see even more of these divorces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattributed_paternity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattributed_paternity)

<comment><USER46> To clarify, other estimates put misattributed paternity in the range of 1-4%, but that's still a whole lot of marriages (especially considering that most marriages have multiple kids).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> On one hand, I believe that people have the right to know the truth to things; on the other hand, not many people are able to really handle the unpleasant ones.

Sometimes I wonder, did forgetting/hiding of the hard truth caused the inability to handle them? Or because of?

<comment><USER48> I just visited the site and their promo video at the top of the front page is all about two sisters finding each other. You cannot fault this company for finding unknown relatives. Hell, I know my dad was married/divorced before he married my mom and I want to do this to see if anything pops up, but will probably wait until the medical screen is available again.

Note: They currently do not offer the medical checks due to government audit or something.

<comment><USER49> The issue is health-related genetic information must be given to the individual by a qualified genetic counselor. Informing an individual about genetic health risks requires counselors with adequate training re: potential outcomes associated with the genetic factors and ability to express these facts and concepts in plain language.

To me that seems a sensible standard to uphold, and obviously not a task a company like 23andMe could responsibly accomplish. Perhaps there could be a mechanism for the test results to be forwarded to a qualified counselor who could go over the results with the individual who provided the genetic sample.

<comment><USER9> Not only that but they also must prove that the services they are offering are scientifically and medically sound and they aren't just making shit up.

And it doesn't look like these types of companies have a great track record....

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/i-had-my-dna- pictu...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/i-had-my-dna-picture- taken-with-varying-results.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

> 23andMe said my most elevated risks — about double the average for women of > European ethnicity — were for psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, with my > lifetime odds of getting the diseases at 20.2 percent and 8.2 percent. But > according to Genetic Testing Laboratories, my lowest risks were for — you > guessed it — psoriasis (2 percent) and rheumatoid arthritis (2.6 percent).

> In the case of Type 2 diabetes, inconsistencies on a semantic level masked > similarities in the numbers. G.T.L. said my risk was "medium" at 10.3 > percent, but 23andMe said my risk was "decreased" at 15.7 percent. In fact, > both companies had calculated my odds to be roughly three-quarters of the > average, but they used slightly different averages — and very different > words — to interpret the numbers. In isolation, the first would have left me > worried; the second, relieved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> weird this article came out after buying pre-nov2013 kits off ebay so we can see our health information....last night my wife and I just spit into our 23andme kits and we shipped it out this morning. Wish me luck on the truth! :)

<comment><USER51> That's a great idea. I didn't know older kits were for sale. I'm 10x more interested in the health information than my ancestry!

<comment><USER52> Also note that if you are not able to get such a kit (or even if you are) you can download the raw text file from 23AndMe and run it through Promethease from SNPedia. It is not nearly as clean and curated as 23AndMe but it's still interesting.

<comment><USER51> Thanks, yeah, that's pretty cool. I just watched a Youtube video on how to export raw data from 23AndMe and search for things on SNPedia. As long as 23andMe keeps the export option around I won't be spending a lot more for a kit from ebay. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> _" We all know that genetically it's hard to distinguish a son from a grandfather"_

Shouldn't that read, "a brother from a grandfather"?

</comment><comment><USER54> Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Something tells me the author would have checked the box even if it required a physical key. Time to reread the myth of Pandora's Box.

</comment><comment><USER55> There is an encouraging side to this agony: At least some of the people in that family cared, really cared, about the issues of intimacy (that is, open communications in the sense of _giving knowledge of themselves_ to each other, as in E. Fromm, _The Art of Loving_ ), honesty, trust, fidelity, etc. This fact is "encouraging" because now it is far too easy to conclude from various circumstances, stories in the media and/or tabloid media, _the hookup culture,_ etc. that in US culture these issues have been regarded as meaningless, that any sexual behavior is no more _meaningful_ than, say, a game of ping pong, that the standard marriage vows are just lines in a stage play comedy/fantasy, that a couple stays together only so long as the combination of money and sex are appropriate, etc.

YMMV, and not everyone agrees, but there is a body of thought that the fundamental problem of life is doing something effective about the anxiety of feeling alone, that the best solution is the _joining_ with and love of spouse and the associated _family_ and its _bonds_ (as in common marriage vows), and that _love making,_ especially causing conception of another human, is a crucial part of family formation, _bonding_ , _joining_ , love, and security against the anxieties of being alone. Then infidelity, dishonesty, deception, violation of vows, etc. are torpedoes just below the water line of a Good Ship Loving Home and Family and, thus, a disaster for all involved.

Net, good to see, even with the agony of this story, that some people still care about the ideals of a traditional family.

It is easy for someone to be fooled about traditional views of love, home, and family, that is, regard these views as so good, beneficial, and attractive, nearly universally, that a candidate life partner would also leap to embrace and honor the views. Alas, too often too many people fail to see and/or act on such views.

 _Art_ is sometimes defined as the _communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion,_ and some of the strongest emotions have to do with the family and love issues here. Then, we can find some art that communicates the agony of love, home, and family destroyed. E.g., there is the Renata Scotto performance of the aria "Un bel di vedremo" from the Puccini opera _Madama Butterfly_ as at

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSdz2hM_o4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSdz2hM_o4)

Apparently Puccini was correct that audiences would see the reasons for the agony expressed in that aria; that is, many in the audience would understand that love making was one of the most important issues in all of life and that often _casual sex_ was quite serious and not at all casual. Similarly for the intimacy of giving knowledge of self, honesty, trust, fidelity, etc.

To me, good to know; to me, regarding traditional marriage vows and love, home, marriage, and physical love making as _casual_ or just a joke is rot in the foundations of our society. So, it's good to see that not everyone accepts such rot of our society.

<comment><USER16> It feels as if you're just using the story to see your own preferences confirmed. For all you know from the facts as displayed by the story that was a perfect family and the dad never knew he made the woman pregnant. It is also possible the mom had several sex partners before the marriage and did not get pregnant. It may not have been all that casual, relationships do end.

So if you want to draw unfounded conclusions go right ahead but the story definitely does not confirm your chosen beliefs.

In fact, if there is one thing that you can take away from this story it is that mere information was capable of destroying one of those homes full of love you're going on about without either partner ever breaking their marriage vows.

<comment><USER55> > It feels as if you're just using the story to see your own preferences > confirmed.

In part, right.

> For all you know from the facts as displayed by the story that was a perfect > family and the dad never knew he made the woman pregnant.

Strictly speaking, yes. But we have to expect that usually the man will know if the woman he had sex with did get pregnant. E.g., legally he can be on the hook for supporting the child until she/he is 18. Also if the couple was intimate enough to conceive a child, then typically they are also intimate enough to communicate that they did conceive a child.

> In fact, if there is one thing that you can take away from this story it is > that mere information was capable of destroying one of those homes full of > love you're going on about without either partner ever breaking their > marriage vows.

Strictly speaking, yes. But the story is not very complete in the details, e.g., we don't have dates. So, a guess from the story is that the child discovered was the result of adultery within the marriage; indeed, otherwise there was relatively little reason for the discovery to break up the marriage.

Whatever did happen when, adultery or not, that the marriage did break up does indicate that at least one of the partners cared a lot about the issue of the so far unknown child; that is, someone really cared a lot about, if you will, 'traditional family values' whether there was actual adultery or not.

Yes, some relationships can be both not casual and broken up. But one of the main reasons for a relationship is 'commitment' where both partners believe that with their relationship they have a long-term, not just a 24 hour, solution to 'the fundamental problem of life', doing something effective about feeling alone. Then, being _casual_ about a relationship ending shows too little understanding of much of the reason for a relationship, that is, knowing that have the problem of being alone solved for 24 hours, 48 hours, a week, a month, a year, a decade, for life. Indeed, lots of details in our legal system are to this end thus indicating that some people value such commitment. Or, a relationship should not be like a car that just trade in on a new model -- pun intended. Such a trade in has to suggest that the origin of the relationship involved a lie, that is, a false claim or suggestion that there was love in the sense of commitment. Indeed, some people who pursue and defend casual sex do admit that one of the main issues is not lying, that is, being clear that the sex is just casual, say, like playing a game of ping pong, and not a commitment for the future.

For your last paragraph, why did the information destroy the home if there was no adultery and, really, the father was not aware of the pregnancy? So, since the home did break up, I have to suspect that there was some deception involved, either adultery or at least just deliberate lack of communications, that is, deliberate concealment. Such poor communications is a lack of _intimacy_ and, thus, a lack of _intimate love_ and, thus, a bad biggie for the relationship. Or, as in E. Fromm, the couple is supposed to _give knowledge of themselves to each other_ , if you will, take all their clothes off between their ears.

I have to return to my broad view: Casual sex isn't; sex is serious; really there's no such thing as casual sex. I'm pleased that some others see something at least similar.

<comment><USER56> From the other comments you can see quotes from a version of the story showing that there was almost certainly no adultery.

The rest of your conjecture is mostly you applying your own bias to an absence of information. It's a circular argument to use that to support a sense of traditional values.

For all we know the previous relationship was years long and not at all casual. Unless you're going to interpret _any_ non-marriage relationship as 'casual' I don't think you have any evidence in favor of your main point. Especially since this shows a sliver of failed intimacy utterly destroying love and marriage vows. It's not like the man was living a double life, this is something that _never came up_. To say that their multiple decades of intimacy were not good enough and this shows the true importance of intimacy is nothing more than No True Scotsman.

And I severely doubt that it shows the importance of sexual intercourse either. Just the importance of children, which everyone (to first approximation) agrees with.

<comment><USER55> Not everyone will agree with my preference for _traditional family values,_ which is fine. Still, I'm not following you:

I'm not getting your answer to the question of why the sudden knowledge of the child conceived, say, before the marriage, broke up the (long) marriage? My answer is that either (1) evidence of adultery or (2) (as you claim is argued in this thread, no adultery so) lack of open communications, that is, lack of that part of _intimate love_. To me, answer (2) looks tough to believe. That is, why break up love, home, and marriage over a _love child_ conceived before the marriage, especially given the chance that the man was unaware of the pregnancy? Since you also don't like answer (1), adultery, I'm left without knowing what your explanation is.

My personal preferences aside, if adultery is the only believable answer, then it looks like someone regarded adultery as a really serious problem, enough to break up love, home, and marriage, and, thus, evidence of strong respect for (my) _traditional family values_.

And, you lost me on a second point: It seems that you are saying that the _important glue_ of a romantic relationship, with marriage or not, is having children and not really just sexual intercourse. In that case, given that the marriage did have children, why use sexual intercourse, with children or not, from adultery or not, as a reason to break up the marriage?

I'll try to be more clear: A _traditional_ view of much of the _meaning_ of sexual intercourse is the implied _bonding_ and, thus, _joining_ of two lives. It's mostly the promise of long term love, bonding, joining, security, etc. that makes sexual intercourse attractive and important. In this way, sexual intercourse becomes important in the marriage, even without children yet or ever. But in part you seem to be saying (1) what is important about sexual intercourse in the marriage is any resulting conceptions yet (2) are saying that loss of love and home, beyond considerations of children, is a tragedy. So, it seems that with (1) you are saying that sexual intercourse without children is not very important but with (2) you are saying that loss of that part of love is important. You seem to be saying that Bob and Martha can have a great marriage with three great children, still are _swingers_ and have semi-public sexual intercourse with a crowd of strangers or casual friends, yet break up their marriage once there is knowledge of a _love child_ conceived before the marriage. I can understand traditional values and even swingers, but I can't understand how such parts of those two can be combined in one marriage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is a press release about how cool 23andme is, wrapped in a sorry story.

<comment><USER58> Hardly. This is a story about how 23andme is a good way to find out things you wish you'll never find out, and about how 23andme screwed up their find-your- relatives feature and didn't seem to care about what happened to this poor guy.

This is a story that makes you think twice about whether 23andme is a cool, fun purchase/present.

<comment><USER5> Long time 23andme user here (one of the first genotyped customers). 23andme's interface is extremely clear about what data is/will be made available to you, and what the possible consequences are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> It's fantastic that, in this enlightened age, the simple fact that about 30% of people, across cultures, have wrong idea about their biological father, is still deeply suppressed.

This is why such ad hoc testing has been prohibited in many countries (Germany, most recently.)

Yes, about every third reader of this is deluded about her/his biological father. Deal with it.

<comment><USER60> Source? That seems absurdly high

<comment><USER61> Yeah, it's off by an order of magnitude. For most countries in Western Europe it's about 1%, sometimes less.

<comment><USER62> Also it's significantly lower for people with college educated parents - majority of HN demographic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> That what happens when you put the algorithms in front of people.

Didn't it cross anyone's mind that such things would be uncovered? Or that it would always "be cool"? Opt-out? Really?

Money and technology before ethics.

But I'm still left with a question. What does "25% similarity" means? I mean, humans have more than 99% in common genes with the Chimpanzee, so is this a specific set of genes or what exactly?

<comment><USER63> I assume it's tracking chromosomes. Humans have 46 chromosomes, and each chromosome is basically a copy of one from our parents, plus some mutations. You can count the average rate of mutation per generation (which is very low, something on the order of 100-200 total mutations in the entire genome), and then count the differences between one chromosome and another chromosome. When comparing genomes for two individuals, you'll get a low number of differences for some chromosomes and a higher number of differences for others.

So when I hear 25% similarity, I'm thinking that it means that 25% of the chromosomes for person A are very similar to chromosomes for person B, and that the remaining chromosomes are not as similar. This is just relative similarity, the overall similarity will be quite high.

<comment><USER19> You're right about the relative similarity (and that's the key point), wrong about the number of chromosomes being involved in the 25% calculation. It's about the proportion of bases (letters in the sequence) that can differ between two people that actually differ between these two people. See mbreese's comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293159)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I'll be brutally honest - dishonest people will always pay for their misbehavior. Lies and secrets always get uncovered. Smart people always think decades ahead. Decades ago, it was clear that DNA testing will be daily business, so, simply, you're gonna pay for doing things without thinking, sorry. That's how it should be anyway. When you do genetic testing, you need to be smart enough to understand what it could reveal to you - both positive and negative. But, hey, let's sue and ban services like 23andMe just because stupid people do stupid things! Like it's not a harm already to us already that FDA removed health information (well, for new customers, at least) from 23andMe. What I cannot get is why health information is not allowed even for new customers abroad who are not a subject of worries for FDA? Things like this will force innovative companies in the field to move outside of highly and insanely regulated United States where people, for example, remove their breasts just because Angelina Jolie told them so! I am talking in general, not about this specific article. All my family members have 23andMe testing during the early days and still have access to the health information (although it doesn't seem like it's being actively updated). There's [http://www.snpedia.org/](http://www.snpedia.org/) and [http://www.promethease.com/](http://www.promethease.com/) that kinda feel that gap now. Anyway, I've go immense value out of 23andMe, found out a lot of health information about me and my family and I'm afraid that stupidity of some can lead to negative consequences in this area! In your personal life, at least, be open and honest, it prevents cancer, and it makes you immune to certain types of "discoveries"! It's that simple!

<comment><USER65> If you read the article, you would know that this story does not come from dishonest acts such as adultery, but instead a complex set of emotions playing out between a family.

<comment><USER64> And did you read my comment? I'm talking about in general, not about this particular story I don't really care about.</comment></comment></comment>


Everpix, Snapchat, and The Startup Lie - <AUTHOR> http://subimage.com/blog/2013/11/07/everpix-snapchat-and-the-startup-lie

<comment><USER2> _When small start-ups I've spoken with do make money, they often find it difficult to recruit additional investment because most venture capitalists — and often the entrepreneurs they finance — are not interested in building viable long-term businesses. Rather, they're interested in pumping up enough hype and valuation to find a quick exit through an acquisition at an eye- popping premium._

This highlights the difference between VC and bootstrapped firms. The VC expects 30-50% annualized returns. To get that you need hypergrowth. If you want modest growth, avoid the VCs. But they exist because there is a need for people to fund moonshots. They would rather have one business succeed with a 20x exit and have 4 fail, then have 5 firms exit at 2x.

Where I differ from the OP is I don't see this as a morality play. I see "getting an exit" as a way to redeploy risk capital. Once the business is stable, ownership should transfer from risk investors to more traditional one. Or to more traditional companies.

To get to Everpix - could they have succeeded if they just bootstrapped and focused more on Marketing earlier on? I don't know. I wish their founders well.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6694674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6694674)

Duplicate.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to see a post-mortem explaining how they possibly could have a $35k/mo AWS bill for a platform that only serviced 55k users.

<comment><USER5> Seriously, they should have went with dedicated boxes on something like Softlayer comme Dropbox. Unlike CPU-cycles, storage needs are relatively predictable as people usually don't remove photos after uploading them.

<comment><USER6> Softlayer - yikes! Was with them once and never again. AWS is far more flexible and cheaper (based on my experience). Not to mention the full suite of services available under the 1 umbrella from AWS where Softlater just cannot compete.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Is M-Theory the Leading Candidate for Theory of Everything? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-is-m-theory-the-leading-candidate-for-theory-of-everything-20171218/ <comment><USER2> It has produced fascinating models and really useful tools, not to mention compelling questions, but it's still mostly not falsifiable in anything like a foreseeable future, and that is a huuuuuge problem.</comment>


GSMGo – SMS HTTP Server with REST API, Written in Go Language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gen2brain/gsmgo <comment><AUTHOR> GSMGo is SMS HTTP server with REST API, written in Go language.

Server enables you to send SMS messages with simple HTTP POST request:

# curl -X POST -d '{"text": "Message Example", "number": "+38164182xxxx"}' [http://localhost:38164](http://localhost:38164)

GSMGo uses libGammu so it has support for many different phones. Check Gammu Phone Database for details [http://wammu.eu/phones/](http://wammu.eu/phones/) .</comment>


What do you do with the Brilliant Jerk? - <AUTHOR> http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/what-do-you-do-with-the-brilliant-jerk/ <comment><USER2> Covering for people on holidays? What an JERK!

Bringing in the most revenue and publishing the most? PSH! What a totally useless bit of dead weight!

Oh, and the other people in the group _respect_ this guy? What are they idiots? Don't they know they should be respecting _me_?

/s

edit: ya know, reading this and some other things about how "smart people" are so bad at communicating, except to other "smart people" makes we wonder what the managers are actually doing.

Clearly the can't actually manage the talent, they can't even figure out how to talk to them. You see that's you're job, managers, _managing the talent_. If you can't handle that thing that is right there in your title, then what the hell are you doing here? You're not fit for the job.

To me the answer seems obvious: flatten out your org, put "smart people" at the top, and ditch the guy whose response to acquiring talent is to fire them. _He's_ the weak link.

<comment><USER3> I've worked with some "brilliant jerks" before. But they were never the type to cover on holidays, bring in the most revenue, etc. The brilliant jerks I knew tended to be selfish and negative. Perhaps he didn't share the company vision, but this guy didn't sound like a jerk (well, until he started suing the company after he left).

I will say that the true jerks have a way of worming their way into the company. For example they'll do a lot of work with the goal of making sure they're the only one who understands some certain process. Then they horde knowledge and never want anyone else in there or any documentation to exist. The team is afraid to fire them because nobody knows or has the time to learn that part of the system.

<comment><USER4> I was hoping / expecting the article to conclude with a recommendation on how to best channel the energy / talent of the "brilliant jerk". Not have this person fired. Promote him, but limit him, under a specifically defined position in the company where the boundaries are set - e.g. Head of Product Development, Head of Business Ops, Line Management, Finance...

I'm a Stargate fan and when I read brilliant jerk, I thought Rodney McKay and Nicholas Rush. Yeah, they had there issues, but at the end of the day, you can count on them...

<comment><USER3> I was also hoping for something along the lines of "how to get better productivity from difficult people"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am uncomfortable with the advice being doled out here. In all cases mentioned, the "brilliant jerks" were clearly invaluable to the venture. In both cases they would _literally_ not have gotten past the early startup stage without them. However, once they become inconvenient to manage, the "only" solution was too fire them.

Not only does this strike me as a mismanagement of talent, but it is almost bordering on the unethical. While I do not claim to know the specifics involved, some of the anecdotes gave me pause :

>> _And the Brilliant Jerk speaks the truth. But I have also seen him stick his head in the door and deflate an entire management team. A growth company needs enablers, not disablers._

A growth company also needs sensible advice, and sensible advice should not be confused with being a "disabler". Too often I have seen rational advice get dismissed because reality isn't compatible with someone's bold new plan.

Not knowing the specifics here, it's not too hard to imagine a scenario in which a "management" team gets carried away with lofty and unrealistic goals only to be "deflated" by someone with actual technical insight.

<comment><USER6> I mostly agree with you. But I have also seen how one person with a really bad attitude can affect an entire team.

<comment><USER7> If that person happens to be _the_ person without which it would have been impossible to have that team in the first place, then maybe the right thing is to find out _why_ they have that bad attitude and what can be done to change it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pigeon-holing people is a great way to make them into lesser human beings, and companies into the insensitive bureaucracies that good talent loves to avoid.

Talk to the person for pete's sake. If they're underperforming or their net contribution to the company (via culture or performance) is negative, then work with them to improve or work with them to change jobs. Maybe they need a different position. Maybe they need to leave and start their own company.

But if you label them, put them down, and attempt to deal with them "as a problem" rather than as a human being, then yes, you will have problems.

This is just an example of inept management of talent, nothing more. I encourage everyone to disregard this article except as a case study in how not to manage people, and try to do better.

<comment><USER8> I'm going to reply to myself with a counter-argument. I just remembered the "No Asshole Rule," which is a great book with similar themes. I think there's a difference between someone who is simply an asshole, and someone who is tenacious and sometimes a jerk _to management_ (which the OP article seems to show) and disagrees openly. The latter might be an asset, the former is almost always a net negative.

The point is, you have to evaluate these situations on their merits. If someone really is dividing the company and producing a negative effect, then obviously you need to deal with that in some way. But if they're not destroying the culture (indeed most are adding to it in some way if they care about the company and work hard), then it's not a cut-and-dry decision.

However, the No Asshole Rule makes some very good points along these lines, so perhaps there is merit to the idea of avoiding jerks at any costs from the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is the kind of argument that you see from "stage 2" or "stage 3" management teams installed at a startup. These are the people brought on when the investors or CEO decide (mistakenly) that they now need "real" management, and then proceed to hire the worst possible kind.

This kind of management strives to guide the now-profitable and low-risk venture towards a state of permanent mediocrity; the remaining smart, stellar people merely stand in the way.

The new management's desire is to secure their position in the organization by instituting policies that require that information and knowledge flow through them, amassing a greater base of direct and indirect reports, and redefining their internal metrics of "success" in a way that's genuinely divorced from external reality.

The Brilliant Jerk in this situation should be promoted, the new management should never have been hired.

<comment><USER10> Funny thing. I'm in this very exact situation and, indeed, I feel like the Brilliant Jerk these days.

We recently made our B-series round. The CEO and CFO have been in closed door meetings for months, leaving us adrift. The VC firm has installed people on the board and in the office, so _they_ need attention. The people around here that put in the late nights and hair-tearing conference calls are pretty much being ignored. Communication has fallen off a cliff. But hey, we're a Real Company now!

Good thing I'm turning in my notice next week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So because this guy can't manage high-end talent, his answer is to fire any high-end talent that somehow makes it through the door. Great advice :/

I've mentioned it previously here (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4503224>) but this is a classic example of management ineptitude and ego passing up opportunities because it's "hard" to be challenged by someone more intelligent than yourself.

<comment><USER12> Where does this attitude come from? It's like saying "Well, I could hire someone with a power-tool to fix up my house, but I don't know how those fancy machines work. I know! I'll hire that old carpenter down the street and watch him work over his shoulder!"

<comment><USER13> It comes from the fact that the power tool user won't just fix your house, she'll also yell at you about how the design is bad and you need to be doing these other six things to fix it. The carpenter will just shut up and do his job.

So if you're someone who wants to plan your own house (and _especially_ if you're someone who feels like you need "authority" to do it) you have a built- in incentive to ban power tools from the workplace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is dangerous advice. Brilliant people work for your startup for less than they could make at bigcorp because they believe in the vision. If you show them the door as soon as you get what you want out of them, you're in for a world of hurt.

This seems to be exactly what happened to the OP. The superstar spent years after poaching employees and starting trouble.

<comment><USER15> He says the Brilliant Jerk quit and then spent years poaching employees and starting trouble. Working on an amicable parting well before that is the OP's advice.

<comment><USER16> As long as any failure to engineer an amiable parting is blamed on the "jerk."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is an accurate tl;dr of this article:

"I am too stupid to manage employees smarter than me so I label them and get rid of them. I am always correct and everyone else is wrong and this has nothing to do with me being the boss."

Also that line about Gates and Jobs is just there so the author can try and draw a parallel to them and thus inflate their position and validate their actions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I figured the Hacker News crowd would hate this article but I thought it was well written and worth posting. I've been a bit of the Brilliant Jerk myself in jobs and I've also been a manager at places with a Brilliant Jerk problem. I've personally seen how the rest of a group can do much better if you remove someone causing problems. Sometimes you find the other non-jerks are brilliant too, they just need the room to shine.

The key takeaway for me from this article is that startup employee culture is as important as technical ability. It's a scaling challenge; if you need to go from 3 people to 20+ and one of those earliest people is poisoning the culture you have a real problem. Hopefully good management can address that problem without going so far as firing someone. But sometimes the solution is to get rid of a jerk, no matter how brilliant they are.

<comment><USER18> I think the article uses the term "Brilliant Jerk" to describe someone who is technically brilliant but not politically apt or motivated by money ("brilliant businessmen"). That's not what I (and probably you) mean by the term. Managers that view allowing employees to work from home or giving them challenging technical work as "coddling" are the real jerks in my opinion (albeit not brilliant ones).

The article could be right if it spoke about genuine "brilliant jerks". Companies I've worked have passed on candidates who aced the technical interview but then proceeded to yell at at interviewers when there was a disagreement or make sexist remarks (duh on the latter point).

I am not saying it doesn't happen, I've yet to encounter any existing employees who were truly brilliant jerks: I've encountered brilliant engineers who had trouble related and showed impatience with average (that is average compared to other engineers within the company) engineers, but none were worth firing. They also had a particular eye for under-appreciated talent and would often spot and mentor employees with high potential, but who had underperformed (compared to their potential that is -- they may have still done well in a stack ranking, but they had the potential to contribute a lot more) whether due to lack of focus, lack of self discipline, or plain inexperience (almost always a lack of debugging skills).

I have also encountered employees who were jerks, were technically good (but never true outliers) but were political and were more interested in growing their power rather than technical excellence. They would be worth firing, but the problem is jerks follow a "kiss up, kick down" pattern: traditional ("micro-") managers love them and give them free reign to bully other employees (including the technically brilliant but less socially and politically apt individual contributors).

No solution is going to be perfect -- and I am not nearly experienced enough to speak from anything but gut feel -- but what seems to work (and have created engineerings organizations where I enjoy/have enjoyed working) is:

1) Filter out jerks, ladder climbers (those more motivated by status and money than by impact, learning, or solving hard problems) as a part of the hiring process (which includes -- but is not limited to -- the interview process).

2) Take extra-ordinary steps to reduce company politics. This is easier said than done: good[1] startups avoid that because everyone is aligned to the same goal, the trick is maintaining that kind of an alignment as the companies grows. I am currently reaping the fruits of such an atmosphere, but I am still learning and trying to understand how this is accomplished.

[1] There are just as many terrible startups as there are amazing ones -- and there is less of a thing such as "an average startup". Quality (in terms of "place to work") follows an inverted Bell Curve. I have heard (but fortunately haven't experienced firsthand) my share of horror stories of small startups that are far more political at 20 people than Google was at 20,000 people. Naturally, the earlier the stage, the greater the variance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "The likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Roger Ailes have had no problem showing Brilliant Jerks the door, and all built world-class brands faster and better than the rest of us."

It might be true but there was a period when SJ himself was a brilliant jerk. I don't think firing him did any good to apple.

<comment><USER20> Bill Gates, too, was a brilliant jerk, and probably in a bigger if different way than Jobs.

<comment><USER8> Could it be that people are complex? That they are more than a two word label? What a conclusion that would be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looking at the context, their "start up" is a group of _doctors_. A medical practice. If you can obtain the right mix of credentials, this is one of the most time-tested service businesses there is. Medical practices regularly persist for decades at a time.

A web search for "STI Knowledge" [http://www.the-resource- center.com/catalogs/sti_knowledge_ce...](http://www.the-resource- center.com/catalogs/sti_knowledge_certifications.HTM) suggests they do training seminars for help desk staff.

Sounds to me like this guy doesn't have a clue about the kind of talent management applicable to high-tech startups.

</comment><comment><USER22> I sense serious incongruity between the author's aspersions and the "jerk's" performance and accomplishments.

Before firing a brilliant team member with what the author perceives as an incorrigibly caustic attitude, he'd better be very sure there are not genuine issues in the organization that really ought to be resolved first.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a very feel-good article, but the reality is that it's very likely that if you're working at a startup that's going to succeed, the boss himself is a "brilliant jerk."

The world needs brilliant jerks. They get things done, partially because they're brilliant but also sometimes because they're jerks.

<comment><USER23> The world needs brilliant jerks but perhaps at the helm of their own company.

<comment><USER24> Yes. How is the Brilliant Jerk doctor who has "spent the next couple of years attacking the company from every conceivable angle: poaching employees, helping competitors and starting legal battles" company doing versus his old company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Or take it this way: the "brilliant jerk"'s vision was no longer the same as the "boss"'s vision for where the company should be going (and bien sur, the other employees sheepishly followed the "boss"'s vision). Just don't call someone a jerk if your vision (shared by the heard of sheep you control) is not the same as your vision the team's vision! Some very smart people are "lone wolves" and they should be respected for what they are, not called jerks because they scare/disturb your other faithful "sheeployees".

</comment><comment><USER26> > He was the one doctor who dampened the unity with subtle but consistent > complaining about why the group couldn't do some things and shouldn't do > others.

1\. Saying why you shouldn't do something is not complaining. If done correctly, it helps you avoid really big errors.

2\. Unity is often overrated. If a company is "united" in making poor business decisions that are bad for the long-term health of the company and this "brilliant" guy is being a "jerk" for suggesting they do something else. I find "unity" as a goal sounds really nice, but when that replaces actual discussion, you end up with a very dangerous organization susceptible to self- deception and self-harm that go full speed ahead because they're "united".

I really don't like this advice at all. I think it might work for the smart guy who underperforms, but for the example the author quoted, I think this is terrible, terrible advice.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hahaha, I've been in that position before. Was asked to join an exercise tracking startup. They decided to pivot to calorie counting and focus on users who only walk for exercise and do it once or twice a month. They also didn't like fixing bugs and building test harnesses and the like in many cases, thinking they often just helped a few people.

I did my job, but I sure as hell poured all my weekend and personal time into the exercise stuff and bug fixing. Really pissed off the CTO who took it personally that I was not working on his weight loss stuff in my personal time as well as my on the clock time. I think, to run a good company, you have to combine everyone's desires. Letting me work on my things in my time would have been the way to do that. Instead the managers just go ape shit over someone who doesn't fit into the homogenous culture they want.

</comment><comment><USER28> The nail that sticks out gets the hammer. Brilliant management strategy.

<comment><USER16> Sarcasm?

<comment><USER29> [https://docs.google.com/open?id=1esoJHLqo69cxlDT0xPgR42zSIX0...](https://docs.google.com/open?id=1esoJHLqo69cxlDT0xPgR42zSIX0LoBu69FiwDgadYycHfCz4H4qmE1TFYDCK)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The problem is this: it's incredibly difficult to distinguish a brilliant person who lacks people skills from a jerk who convinces people they're brilliant. The doctor in the author's story sounds like the latter. The key clue: the doctor always worked for people on holidays and weekends. I find that jerks are generally very good at looking much busier than they actually are, and this is a very good way to do that.

<comment><USER10> The article says he offered first to work on holidays. I'd like to believe sick people don't take holidays off and doctors would probably be pretty busy on these days, just like any other.

Maybe the Jerk doctor in this article is fed up with stepping in and working extra to keep the business working and the reciprocity has dried up.

<comment><USER30> Yup. This was why I said it's difficult to distinguish a brilliant person who has little people skills from a jerk who's good at convincing others they're brilliant. And you're certainly correct to point out that this doctor could have been nothing more than a management scapegoat. I've seen that _and_ lived it.

At the same time, I've seen people convince others that they're doing the business a favor by hoarding all the work, working long hours, taking credit for others' work, and building up systems that require _their knowledge_ to operate. This is all well and good in a startup where you have few people, but it's murder any time you go beyond that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> In my mind the labels "brilliant" and "jerk" contradict each other. When someone is truly bright they will realize how much can be gained from learning to interact with other people, building rapport with coworkers etc. These skills can be practiced and the payoff is immense. I'd bet that even Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had to build rapport with at least their immediate reports.

There are certainly corner cases. For example a company developing a particular technology might need some savant for a while to build the proof- of-concept product. However once that's done this employee's abrasive nature can have a negative impact on other employees and company culture. In this rare case I'd choose compassion for the employee. This could involve working with them, giving them projects they enjoy that don't involve working with others or even recommending them to another company with a note about their talent and people skills trade-off.

There's also the case where an employee is regarded as brilliant but lacking people skills and is just plain dysfunctional. The technical skills are lacking but people are afraid to confront the person because they will yell or become angry. In this case the person should be fired ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER32> The article sounds like the author didn't like people listening to someone other than himself.

The writer didn't say what his input or benefit was to this outfit. I know who I would have fired.

Firing to keep things running smoothly is easy. Managing people to move forward is tough.

</comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me of this:

[http://bhorowitz.com/2011/01/04/when-smart-people-are-bad- em...](http://bhorowitz.com/2011/01/04/when-smart-people-are-bad-employees/)

The solution - if it's worth it, personally mitigate their bad behavior. If you can't make them a net positive, drop them.

<comment><USER34> I watched a manager try (almost) his hardest to mitigate an asshole employee. The employee insisted on being an asshole and used the mitigation as an excuse to be even more of an asshole.

I say "almost" above because the manager should have fired his ass. He didn't because he was a personal friend that he personally brought into the company, which was another failing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Seems to me that this quote applies: "If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."

</comment><comment><USER36> Well that's the first time I've ever read a complex justification for firing people who don't like you in the new york times.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think the negative comments here are missing the fine points of the article.

* Stage of growth is important. In the beginning, success is more about individual effort. When you get bigger, it's more about overall team culture.

* It's not just "being a jerk" that's the problem. It's being a naysayer, working against the culture.

At a certain size, the negative effects of someone's behavior on the culture can outweigh the positives of their brilliance. And when that happens, you have to let them go.

</comment><comment><USER38> An interesting read, I've been in both situations one where the 'toxic rockstar' was managed out and one where the 'toxic rockstar' was tolerated because of their code output.

The critical bit though is toxicity. There are people like Jeff Dean at Google who are 10x more productive than anyone else but make everyone work harder, and there are people who are 10x more productive but they make everyone around them feel like crap. That makes them toxic.

So if your brilliant engineer spends their time telling younger or less brilliant engineers how they just threw out all their crappy (but functional) code and re-wrote so that they could tolerate reading it, it doesn't bring others along. If they 'sign up' for all of the work so it will "be done right" and then slow the whole project down because nobody can work on it, they aren't "adding value."

I think the author was going for people who had become toxic, not people who were still moving everyone forward.

<comment><USER9> > _So if your brilliant engineer spends their time telling younger or less > brilliant engineers how they just threw out all their crappy (but > functional) code and re-wrote so that they could tolerate reading it, it > doesn't bring others along. If they 'sign up' for all of the work so it will > "be done right" and then slow the whole project down because nobody can work > on it, they aren't "adding value."_

The problem might be hiring the younger or less brilliant engineers, and also placing them in positions where they cause significant damage, as it's driving your brilliant engineers to be toxic.

<comment><USER38> That is certainly a possibility. Its kind of a sucky place to be where you have to choose between one bright engineer or a bunch of less bright engineers because they can't work together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This post reminds me of a story we studied in the school called 'Pied Piper'- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin>

What a horrible advice. This guy is basically asking you to make your employees sacrifice their whole lives to make your company successful. And then when you and your company actually make it big, mercilessly kick them out without their due deserved rewards.

This sort of thing creates the 'Zynga stories', where senior executives don't want the chef to get rich. Or that the hardworking programmer in his cubicle no matter how hardworking he is doesn't deserve to get rich. And no matter how lazy the senior executive is, by the virtue of his designation, big college degree status is automatically inclined to a better compensation.

This might work for a one of case. But on a longer is a disaster for the start up ecosystem. If these stories spread, no good guy will ever want to work for a start up.

</comment><comment><USER40> Actually, I agree with the article: if you have a Brilliant Jerk on board, please fire them as soon as they've got another job. Think of it not as your company outgrowing this person. Rather, face that this Jerk is simply in another level. Your big, homogeinized corporation can't play it anymore. They need to graduate to bigger things.

Honestly, if I were to manage the kind of self-driven, startup oriented, charismatic doctor that the article talks about, I would feel like I was wasting their talent every time they came to work. This kind of talent doesn't belong in a proverbially esclerotic Enterprise, it belongs in a medical startup or something. Kick them out and send them to an employer that really needs someone like them. You're not that startup, you're BigCorp now. Put on your grey suit.

</comment><comment><USER41> I had a hard time reading this (like others did) because I felt like I was one of the brilliant jerks he is talking about.

But there is something to the effect of a "bad apple" on the barrel as a whole: [http://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/toss-the-bad-apple- employe...](http://www.inc.com/matthew-swyers/toss-the-bad-apple- employee.html)

From my own experience, the best way to diffuse me when I'm turning into the "brilliant jerk" is to give me some projects with some breathing room. I'm a lot less jerky when I having being through a serial stream of "jumping on the grenade" on critical/stressful projects that were about to explode.

</comment><comment><USER42> Spot on. Passion is great, and a necessary ingredient to get a start-up off the ground, but even if someone produces double the value of anyone else at the company, it's still a net loss if he's demoralizing the team.

<comment><USER16> You quantify every facet but the last. How are you measuring "demoralization," and at what multiple of value does the net loss even out? In other words, show your work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> i think the author's point was a bit subtler than most of the comments here give him credit for; he just clouded the issue with the unfortunate word "jerk". what he's describing is a high-performing, brilliant person who, when he doesn't agree with the new direction the company is taking, neither leaves nor realigns himself, but spends his time and energy trying to drag things back around to his preferred vector. however productive he might have been, he clearly has at least the potential to be a net drain now.

</comment><comment><USER44> Can someone explain the tl;dr of this post to me ? This is what I got :

Brilliant jerk is great for a startup but get rid of him if you are no longer a startup and growing rapidly ?

<comment><USER43> here's my take on it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4577003>

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Suggestion: abdicate and re-hire this guy as your next CEO.

</comment><comment><USER46> Bad title for the article in my opinion. Anyone who is brilliant should be smart enough to not be a jerk - it's in his or her best interest to be perceived positively. Valuable jerk? sure. Now that sounds like a dilemma.

</comment><comment><USER47> I don't have a strong position on this but wasn't Steve Jobs kicked out of Apple for roughly the same reasons? They thought he was too radical and mercurial to handle a larger company?

</comment><comment><USER29> What you should do with this jerk - put him in charge.

</comment><comment><USER48> > _The likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Roger Ailes have had no problem > showing Brilliant Jerks the door_

Any examples of that?

</comment><comment><USER49> Sounds like the brilliant jerk was the one who wrote the article.

</comment><comment><USER50> Suck them dry then kick them out. Brilliant management.

</comment><comment><USER51> Nice way to get rid of honest and insightful employees.

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."--Thomas Paine

</comment><comment><USER52> Dunbar's number: you can only maintain personal relationships with about 150 people.

When a company grows beyond this limit, it has to be managed by process and hierarchy. The human brain simply cannot apply tribal management to a few thousand employees, contractors, suppliers, customers, business partners, etc.

If you tell your friends "You guys are crazy, that will never work", they interpret it through an emotional lens that will probably make them enthusiastic about trying harder with a different approach. If you do the same thing to a task group you barely know, their enthusiasm will evaporate and at least a few will start working on their resumes. This is the Brilliant Jerk problem.

Some of these Brilliant Jerks can probably be retrained to work in the new, larger company. The thesis of the article is that some of them cannot, and it is best to jettison them sooner rather than later.</comment>


How Hash Algorithms Work (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.metamorphosite.com/one-way-hash-encryption-sha1-data-software <comment><USER2> The first section is wrong (emphasis mine):

> A hash function is simply an algorithm that takes a string of any length and > reduces it to a _unique_ fixed length string.

Hash functions strive for uniqueness but unless it's precalculated to ensure that it's true (by hashing every combination or deriving the parameters of the hash function accordingly), it's not guaranteed. A _cryptographic_ hash function gives a high probability of uniqueness but again it's not guaranteed.

> The word 'cat' will hash to something that no other word hashes too, but it > will always hash to the same thing.

Say I have a (terrible) hash function H(X) => 1\. Now "cat" will hash to the same value as the string " _I don 't understand hash functions_".

<comment><USER3> When I read that sentence, I assumed that the author meant that the computed hash for an input must be deterministic.

But she doubles-down on the uniqueness claim later:

 _Each hash is unique but always repeatable The word 'cat' will hash to something that no other word hashes too, but it will always hash to the same thing._

This is such a large misunderstanding of hashing (as well as being obviously impossible) that it is hard to trust the rest of the article.

<comment><USER4> This is why I love HN; I either discover a great resource, or know what to avoid and why, and I almost always learn something in the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >The word 'cat' will hash to something that no other word hashes too, but it will always hash to the same thing.

Don't hashing functions have collisions?

<comment><USER6> > Don't hashing functions have collisions?

They do. The text is somewhat misleading and not properly explaining that.

All hash functions have collisions. But from a cryptographically secure hash function we expect that nobody is able to find such a collision. They exist, but the computational power to find one is not available to humans.

<comment><USER7> >They do. >All hash functions have collisions.

This is wrong. There is something called a perfect hash function:

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

>a perfect hash function for a set S is a hash function that maps distinct elements in S to a set of integers, with no collisions. In mathematical terms, it is a total injective function.

They are very handy for hash tables with constant worst-case lookup time.

<comment><USER8> While very useful, you can only construct a collision-free hash function if you know all possible inputs. Otherwise perfect hash functions can only give guarantees over the frequency of collisions.

In the more general case, for a hash function with n bits output, the pigeon hole principle demands that we have a collision at least every 2^n inputs.

<comment><USER9> Though 2^n could be much larger than the number of items in the observable universe fairly quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really a walk through of the SHA-1 algorithm.

It's also worthwhile to note that the statement that a hash takes a string and reduces it to a fixed length string is a little misleading. They really work at the binary level and this is seen in the example where the input is converted to binary assuming ASCII and the output hex encoded.

<comment> Ar-Curunir you could easily define hash functions that work over A..Z if you wanted; there's nothing special about that.

The misleading part is about the reduction to a unique fixed length string; that's not possible unless the input domain is equal to (or smaller than) the output domain (and even then it's not necessary). Any other function is guaranteed to have collisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "A Comprehensive and fundamentally innacurate guide"

Saying they're unique is just very very wrong.

<comment><USER12> I can subscribe to this statement. I found that i don't get the same SHA-1 hash of 'test' as he did.

$ echo 'test' | sha1

4e1243bd22c66e76c2ba9eddc1f91394e57f9f83

:-P

<comment><USER13>
        echo -n 'test' | sha1

will give you the same output as the article by removing the new line.

        a94a8fe5ccb19ba61c4c0873d391e987982fbbd3

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The title probably should be 'Cryptographic Hash Algorithms'. The definitions from the post are approximately true for cryptographic hashes but not really for hash functions in general.

<comment><USER15> Does anyone have a "more" comprehensive guide they can recommend? There were parts of this I really liked but some of the "why" left me confused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a nice article, although they probably need to say that they're talking about cryptographic hashes earlier on, at least mention that some hashes are very easy to find collisions with.

</comment><comment><USER17> So there's a lot of talk about how encryption algorithms relying on the difficulty of factoring primes could be weakened by quantum computers in the near future.

Are there any technological advances or scenarios where the security of hash algorithms could be weakened (other than computers just getting fasters via ~Moore's Law).

<comment><USER18> Surely you mean factoring numbers _into primes_ as primes cannot be factored.

<comment><USER17> Right :X

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As someone extremely new to this; can this procedure be worked backwards to retrieve the original text? If no, why not?

<comment><USER20> You can't retrieve the original text because information is lost in the process and many inputs hash to the same value. However, if the range of inputs is relatively limited, you can try hashing inputs until you find the right hash (see rainbow tables for discovering user passwords from the hash value).

<comment><USER21> >many inputs hash to the same value

?

The chances of a sha256 collision is essentially zero barring a vulnerability being found in sha2. Far more likely for a comet to wipe out earth in your lifetime.

<comment><USER22> Chances of practically finding a collision are indeed really small, though as you can easily calculate, there exists a sha256 hash value such that there are at least 2^256 different 512-bit long bit strings that map to it (and actually most of them should have this property).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a question about Step 5 in the post, it states:

Is "Step 5: Add '1' to the end"

Is this a delimiter for beginning of the padding or does it server some other purpose?

</comment><comment><USER23> >Finally, if I were to give you only 'a94a8fe5ccb19ba61c4c0873d391e987982fbbd3' and tell you that it came from the SHA-1, you should have absolutely no way to figure out what was put into the function to create that.

add a "rainbow tables" caveat to that.

</comment><comment><USER24> Title is missleading. From the title I expected something about how to design a hash algorithm, but the article is just a walk through the specific operations SHA-1 performs w/o further explanation.

Can anyone recommand resources about the actual design of (cryptographic) hash algorithms?

</comment><comment><USER25> A hash function takes variable length input and returns a fixed length output, that's all. Then there are sub-categories optimized for things like use in hash tables or building blocks in crypto, all with varying emphasis on uniqueness, output size and speed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Would someone be able to ELI5 step 6 for me? I don't understand the math needed in order to determine that 399 zeros needed to be added.

<comment><USER27> 49 + 399 = 448 448 mod 512 = 448, because 512 goes into 448 zero times with a remainder of 448.

<comment><USER26> Thanks! Notice the error in their second example?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is the name of the hashing algorithm broken down in the article?

</comment><comment><USER29> Title is very misleading. Only one hash function is presented. Afaict the presented hashing function is not even named. Is it SHA1? No motivation is given, just (pseudo)code.</comment>


Meteor Summer Hackathon: June 29th in SF - <AUTHOR> http://hackathon.meteor.com/

<comment><USER2> I think this is great, but the timing is strange. Many Node developers from around the country (world?) will be in the Bay Area from June 27-30 for NodeConf, a couple hours outside of SF. It seems like it would be better to put on a Node-related event in SF right before or after NodeConf.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great to see the Meteor team engaging with the developer community and organizing a hackathon. A great reference for anyone organizing one of these for the first time is the Hack Day Manifesto:

<http://hackdaymanifesto.com></comment>