Tokyo Olympics "looking at a cancellation" if coronavirus not contained - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/olympic-official-tokyo-cancellation-coronavirus-contained-4ca69a5a-b573-4ec5-8714-959d04ae8592.html <comment><USER3> I've been checking for updates on the virus several times a day since it first started being reported in Western media around Jan 20 (in part because it's been a fun distraction, in part because I have friends in Wuhan). I like to think I'm generally an optimist, but I think it's been clear for several weeks now that this is going to have a significant worldwide impact.

There are just too many factors in favor of uncontained worldwide spread at this point - within the 1st week of reporting it already looked like China's numbers were incomplete (and potentially manipulated) and the scale was greatly underestimated.

Untraceable transmission all over the place, relatively low-traffic countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka seeing cases very early on, extremely long incubation periods with airborne transmission without symptoms, false negative tests with people either catching the virus after leaving quarantine or not testing positive (both really bad signs), governments demonstrating weak and ineffective containment of potentially infected travelers (Japan: "no symptoms so they can go home!"), more infections than SARS in a small fraction of the time, the US only testing ~400 people thus far, entire families in Wuhan being wiped out. Basically everything is in place for this to be a serious pandemic.

I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without major problems arising. Given a couple weeks, sure, but by then it will be too late.

As an aside, BNO has been doing an excellent job of posting timely and sourced updates that make it easy to keep up to date with every new confirmed case (scroll down to the Timeline section):

[https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest- coronavirus...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus- cases/)

Hopefully I can look back at this comment in a couple months and chuckle at my paranoia!

<comment><USER4> > I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries > that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian > governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major > cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without > major problems arising. Given a couple weeks, sure, but by then it will be > too late.

It may well _seem_ that way in retrospect. When it does, just remember that those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistleblowers, and refused to let international experts in.

<comment><USER5> Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things.

Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug.

<comment><USER6> > Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the > governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping > malls?

Look at Italy right now.

> Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light > a hand on things.

Sure, but this has nothing to do with authoritarian states vs democracy. You'll find a ton of authoritarian states doing exactly the same. It's just a matter of who's the ruling class, and in most places in the world (100% of liberal democracies but also most authoritarian states), it's the business owners, so of course they will try and save their business before their people.

> Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if > it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) > but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug.

Western people aren't uncontrollable. The one who are, are the one who are pissed of by their plutocratic governments and have lost all faith in them. I'm pretty convinced that Switzerland will be fine, and I'm not surprised Italy is in the same kind of shit than Iran.

I'm French, and we've been lucky so far, but I expect chaos when it's going to start. The government has long lost all political legitimity here, and people absolutely distrust them, so I don't think they will not peacefully comply to government attempt to limit the propagation.

<comment><USER7> Here's the thing with Italy. They're the first Western country to get a major outbreak. They're being told to do things and assuming that it will stop the virus. But the truth is, containment does not actually stop the virus. It simply slows it.

When or if this hits the US or elsewhere in Europe, and it becomes obvious that despite the quarantine in Italy, the virus still continued to spread, they will question the measures being taken. As time goes on, the West will become critical of government response and may be difficult to control.

In China when the government tells its citizens to do something, they just do it. They don't ask why. They don't deliberate on whether it's the correct choice. They simply follow the directions. In the West, everything is up for debate. People don't like to be told what to do.

<comment><USER8> > Here's the thing with Italy. They're the first Western country to get a > major outbreak.

Here is the other thing with Italy: differently from other neighbor countries, they have been testing people without symptoms.

Numbers: until February the 24th, Italy performed ~8500 tests (mostly on people without symptoms, but that were in contact with confirmed SARS- CoV-2-infected patients), while UK did ~6500 (focused on people with influenza-like symptoms), Germany ~1000 and France ~500.

This is better from a safety point of view (you get to discover all problematic patients earlier and you can quarantine them before they spread the infection even more). But is makes "your stats look worse" (cit. The wire) because now you look like the epicenter of the infection.

Guess what? The testing method has now been changed ("aligned") to what the other countries are doing, so that the numbers do not look that much worse.

Source: [https://www.ilpost.it/2020/02/25/tamponi-coronavirus- italia-...](https://www.ilpost.it/2020/02/25/tamponi-coronavirus-italia-regno- unito-francia/)

<comment><USER9> This is amusing to hear in light of all the "saving face" talk about China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone tangentially attached to the sports community, the olympics is already a bit screwed up anyway, simply because the sports seasons (and thus the qualification pathway) for many events in the games have been significantly disrupted by the coronavirus. Many athletes who were in touching distance of qualifying will not be able to, and other athletes will be sent in their stead (if it happens at all) Olympic qualification in most sports is _extremely_ complicated, and this is having a serious effect.

That being said, sport is not so important (imho) that public safety should be put at risk, and cancelling the games (or postponing them) would seem a sensible option if things continue to get worse.

<comment><USER11> It is not your humble opinion. Sports are just entertainment nowadays. Lowest priority.

<comment><USER12> You're not wrong, but you have a bit of a dismal look at it. Sports, like other forms of entertainment, are a sign of culture, and culture is the touchstone of a good workforce. Just like it's important to take short breaks in the office, even small amounts of entertainment is important to keep us happy and focused. Large events, such as the Olympics and Oscars, give a pattern to the years, something to talk about and look forward to. They provide cohesion and fraternity. The Olympics staying up isn't a higher priority than health, but it's a mighty sign of things going wrong when they're not being hosted.

Plus, y'know, a lot of problems have been solved, so these kind of events provide jobs and boost local and global economies.

<comment><USER11> To be honest, I have never seen sports as "culture". Neither the Oscars. They are just PR events in this day and age.

By the way, hosting the Olympics does _not_ boost the local economy. Quite the opposite, in fact, at least in many cases. They are a heavy loss and increase in debt for almost every city that did it, as well as detrimental for the environment overall. Governments do it as a long term investment in publicity.

<comment><USER13> Well there is the big difference - you don't see sports as culture. What is culture to you?

<comment><USER11> Education, science, art, "enlightenment"...

Giving awards in a posh ceremony to commercial movies and running very fast for a medal does not sound like any of those to me.

Yes, sports are a very big deal in many countries. Fancy social gatherings too. Neither means necessarily "culture".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. There is nearly zero reason for me to show up at work. I can do nearly everything from home, often better. At work, I'm in a large, open building surrounded by thousands of people.

Am I overreacting? I know there's a good chance we're all going to get COVID-19, but if I can delay it a bit, I lessen the hit to our soon-to-be overworked heath care system and preserve resources for those who can't hide.

I think those of us who have the ability to work from home for a while might want to consider agitating for it to be official policy for the next month or so.

<comment><USER15> >I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while.

Am in the UK and not the US but given that I'm healthy and relatively young I don't really see the point. This disease is scary in the aggregate, i.e it imposes huge economic costs. The average case of it is basically having flu symptoms, and I never stayed at home unless I got sick during bad flu seasons.

I'm not really sure why people paint being infected with this like the bubonic plague or something, there is already a bunch of corona viruses raging around all the time anyway.

edit: lots of downvotes because I don't lock myself in because of a corona virus? People here seem to love hysteria a these days.

<comment><USER16> This is a more-deadly-than-average coronavirus, or so it seems.

It is really hard to tell, because it is still very new outside of China, and you can't trust any of the data coming from there -- so we won't really know for 2 more weeks, until the first big round of cases from open countries end in either recovery or death. That said, the Chinese statistics put median time between first symptoms and death (amongst fatal cases) at only 8 days -- and the 600 cases from the cruise ship are all older than that now, with 3 deaths as of yesterday, which suggests that the 2% mortality rate being bandied about is probably not wildly wrong. (It might be 1% or 3%, but probably not 10%+ like fearmongers are saying or 34% like MERS was -- unless fatalities from the cruise ship are being suppressed or there is something special about that group, or, I guess, if the median of 8 days turns out to be wildly, wildly wrong)

Concern seems highly warranted. Vigilance seems warranted. The "ZOMG we all gonna die!" going on does not.

But it sure does get ratings and score political points.

Edit: I have been using [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) to view graphs and tables of the coronavirus data chopped a bunch of different ways. They list sources for all of it, though I haven't vetted the sources.

One of their charts shows a breakdown of closed cases into % cured and % dead. That is currently at 92%/8%, with the recovery rate continually improving, but flattening out. That graph makes it look like the mortality rate may end up higher than 2% -- but still probably not radically so, and we really are extrapolating from very little data.

<comment> _-___________-_ > One of their charts shows a breakdown of closed cases into % cured and % > dead. That is currently at 92%/8%, with the recovery rate continually > improving, but flattening out. That graph makes it look like the mortality > rate may end up higher than 2% -- but still probably not radically so, and > we really are extrapolating from very little data.

I think there's a really large number of people who have been infected who will never be a "case", so I think 2% is still really high. Just look at e.g. Italy where there was no awareness of it spreading until people were already dying - meaning that it had been spreading for some time. Given that a large number of people seem to be asymptomatic or have mild illness, it's highly likely that many other people were infected in the same "cluster" and never knew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This same tough decision-making process will play out thousands of times in the next few months.

Any event that draws an international crowd poses an elevated risk. You can't know where people have been or what kind of screening process has been applied. If you're planning on attending a tech conference with an international crowd, now is the time to reconsider.

The possibility of asymptomatic transmission through casual contact poses unprecedented challenges. As does the low number of cases on which to draw information from outside of China.

The problem right now is the extremely poor quality on the information around the disease. Maybe this thing will behave like other infections and "burn itself out" as summer in the northern hemisphere approaches. Maybe it won't. There's quite literally no way to know.

<comment><USER7> The disease has spread in places like Singapore and Thailand, which are warmer in February than most Northern Hemisphere cities are in summer. The notion that everything will just die down come Spring is blindingly optimistic.

<comment> saiya-jin How do those place fare with regular flu? Parents optimism comes from the notion that in colder climates, there is almost no flu during warm months.

<comment><USER18> Influenza is a totally different virus though. That said, other corona viruses do tend to display seasonality but experts are uncertain about this latest one:

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/what- happ...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/what-happens-to- coronavirus-covid-19-in-warmer-spring-temperatures/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those of you curious about the state of COVID-19 in Japan, I created an open source tracker that has gained a lot of momentum.

Source Code: [https://github.com/reustle/covid19japan/](https://github.com/reustle/covid19japan/)

Tracker: [https://covid19japan.com](https://covid19japan.com)

Twitter Thread: [https://twitter.com/reustle/status/1229313493808992257](https://twitter.com/reustle/status/1229313493808992257)

<comment><USER20> Thankyou. Nothing like well displayed data to shine sunlight on everyone's paranoia :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's already been established that hosting the Olympics in the current fashion is generally a money loser for the host city. All of those resources expended to build state-of-the-art facilities, housing, transportation, etc...with rosy ideas of how they might be repurposed after the Olympics....which generally don't come to fruition.

And that's when the Olympics actually occur, and the host city is able to gain some revenue from visitors coming and spending a considerable amount of money.

If Tokyo builds the required infrastructure and then no one comes, I've got to think future host cities will re-think this madness.

Personally I'd like to see a distributed Olympics, with mostly pre-existing facilities being used. Maybe swimming happens in Copenhagen, basketball in LA, beach volleyball in Phuket, etc. Maybe some events could be held in smaller countries or cities that had never been able to complete for a full Olympics before. A larger percentage of the world population would be local to some part of the Olympics, perhaps for once highlighting sameness rather than differences.

Or screw it, we could just let dumb governments keep throwing piles of money at this nonsense.

<comment><USER22> The LA Olympics are, from what I recall from a Bill Simmons podcast[0], going to be one of the cheapest to host in history. Salt Lake City also continues to use most venues from the 2002 games[1].

Some of the highlights from the podcast on the 2028 LA Olympics:

* Only major construction that is occurring is an upgraded temporary track in the Coliseum, renovation on USC's swimming arena, and building a train line to the airport (which, IIRC, was in the long term plans already and is just being re-prioritized). The track from the Coliseum will be broken down and split among various high schools who can benefit.

* There are some additional temporary structures going up, such as bleachers for beach volleyball.

* The LA games are doing what you suggested and are using existing venues for almost everything. UCLA dorms are going to be the Olympic Village and USC dorms will host media. USC, UCLA, MLS, NFL, and NHL/NBA arenas will be used to host various events. There is no brand new permanent construction.

[0] [https://m.soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/mayor- eric...](https://m.soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/mayor-eric- garcetti-and-casey-wasserman-on-landing-the-2028-summer-olympics-ep-243)

[1] [https://www.deseret.com/2017/2/4/20605641/utah-s-secret- sauc...](https://www.deseret.com/2017/2/4/20605641/utah-s-secret-sauce-keeps- olympic-venues-viable-15-years-after-games)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Johns Hopkins has an world map with daily update of current coronavirus cases

[https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

<comment><USER24> I would have expected to see Russia reporting more than two cases given the travel between the two countries.

<comment><USER25> Russia is not the most transparent country when it comes to such news, to put it mildly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This may seem silly but this is one of my first confirmations about how serious this is.

<comment><USER27> Does anyone know if ya can catch this thing twice?

Or are we expecting it to mutate similar to cold n flu viruse?

<comment><USER28> Seems like yes, but not because it mutates, it's just that the immune response can be weak. Probably more of a risk for people with weak immune systems to start with.

Everything I've read suggests that Coronaviruses are more stable, genetically speaking, than the flu.

[https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/its- possible-...](https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/its-possible-for- coronavirus-to-reinfect-recovered-patients-chinese-expert-warns/)

<comment><USER29> > Coronaviruses are more stable, genetically speaking, than the flu.

By more stable you mean less likely to mutate?

Would that mean a vaccine would be more effective in protecting against covid19 than a regular seasonaly changing flu?

<comment><USER28> As far as I can tell, yes:

> Coronavirus non-structural proteins provide extra fidelity to replication, > because they confer a proofreading function, which is lacking in RNA- > dependent RNA polymerase enzymes alone

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Replication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Replication)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Coronavirus will burn itself out in May when temperatures rise. Just like common flu virus, increasing sunlight and humidity will stop the spread of the virus during summer.

Source: professor John Nicholls a clinical professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong and expert on coronaviruses had a conference call where he explained most likely outcome.

transcript here: [https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...](https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/conference- call-coronavirus-expert)

<comment><USER31> Yeah its pretty wild to compare the rates of infection and mortality inside main land china with the rest of the world. The high infection/death rates aren't showing up in the rest of the world. The interesting follow question is why?

It could be a number of things, my guess is a sampling issue. Given how secretive the Chinese govt is we'll likely never know.

<comment><USER7> You're grossly misinformed. The China outbreak was so strong initially because they had no idea what they were dealing with. The spread and infection is invisible for weeks. There are many people spreading Coronavirus as we speak without knowing a thing.

Korea, Iran and Italy all have major outbreaks which only revealed themselves this week, but likely began 2-3 weeks prior. Iran has clearly no idea how many cases are in its country, its numbers are 15 deaths and <100 cases. That's over 15% death rate. Makes no sense compared to all other reported number, their real total cases are likely over 1000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The significance of the 2020 Olympic games cannot be overstated. All of Japan has been preparing for this for far more than a decade. Just look at stuff from early 2010s regarding topic such as 8K TV and 5G networks. They have been working towards this singular event where Tokyo will be center at the world stage. It would be tragic (but understandable) to see it cancelled. I hope they can do it a year later instead or something like that.

<comment><USER33> I don't understand why would they care so much about it... it doesn't really matter.

<comment><USER34> Sounds like you've never been to a dinner party.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> For anyone looking for more, try the subreddits /r/Covid19 (scientific/medical info), /r/CoronaVirus (maintstream news), and /r/China_Flu (social posts).

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure I trust Reddit, or indeed any social media, for reliable reporting on such an emotive topic. There's already so much misinformation and conspiracy theories about the disease.

<comment><USER35> I agree. That's why I listed the 3 different subs with different moderation criteria. I would much prefer to hear from someone like Dr. Cole than a random anonymous tweet: [https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/f9dbeq/covid19_wha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/f9dbeq/covid19_what_do_we_have_to_fear_from_a_pandemic/)

> Dr Jennifer Cole is an Associate Fellow at RUSI. She was previously Senior > Research Fellow, Resilience and Emergency Management from 2007-2017. Her > research interests focus on international threats from emerging infectious > diseases and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the UK's emergency > preparedness and response capabilities, with particular regard to CBRN(E), > pandemics, flood management, cyber security, resilient communications and > the role of training and exercising in resilience.

> [https://rusi.org/people/cole](https://rusi.org/people/cole)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Ive been somewhat surprised at the coverage or lack thereof that this story has been getting on HN.

This virus is disrupting manufacturing from China in a major way. It seems like one of the biggest tech stories of the last decade at least, and for some reason the stories about it seem to drop off of the front page really quickly.

Are people flagging these or something for not being tech? Any of my network who does manufacturing is pretty concerned right now about supply chain.

<comment><USER25> > Are people flagging these or something for not being tech

Could be, or it could be because they don't want to fan the flames of panic or it could be because they'd rather not know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why not just postpone it for the same time next year? It's still possible and not a complete cancellation either.

<comment><USER39> I think it would be better to postpone it to a cooler time of the year also.

Not sure if you've visited Tokyo in summer, but it's a ridiculous time to be having it.

<comment><USER38> Yes, I have been in Tokyo in summer, it's surprisingly hot and humid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> 80 years ago, in 1940, Tokyo hosted the Summer Olympics for the first time, but it was canceled due to the outbreak of WWII and Japan had invaded China.

80 years after, in 2020, Tokyo Summer Olympics could be canceled due to outbreak of coronavirus from China.

<comment> t-writescode Coincidence?!

Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Are the effect of the coronavirus on the stock market could be opportunity for investing?

The SP500 went down 8% this past 4 days. I'm wondering if that will go lower those next days.

I have a bit amount of money on the side, I didn't know where to invest. Would now be a good opportunity to lump sum all the money, or would you Dollar Cost Average?

Anyone else with the same dilemma, and would have more arguments?

<comment><USER42> the vulture approach to investing tends to be materially profitable yet karmically ruinous

<comment><USER43> Another way to look at it is that you're optimistic that the crisis will be resolved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Thee next big cancellation will be the Cannes Film Festival, with ~40.000 foreigners invading this town for two weeks. This will cost a lot of money.

</comment><comment><USER45> > Japan's leaders are so out of touch with the lives of ordinary people that > they seem genuinely uninterested in their plight. That, in turn, allows an > entire bureaucracy to wallow in denial, even over a crisis like the > coronavirus outbreak and just a few months away from the Olympics.

[] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus- japan...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus-japan- abe.html)

<comment><USER46> Similarly, the mayor of Boston chastised Sony for cancelling its PAX East appearance, and accused Sony of supporting bigotry. The bureaucratic disconnect is universal.

[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-02-24-boston- may...](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-02-24-boston-mayor- petitions-sony-to-return-to-pax-east)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm in the middle of writing a general update / reassessment (usual caveat: nonexpert space alien cat on the Internets).

1\. The wider spread is concerning.

2\. Institutional trust, capabilities, and competence in numerous countries is a key factor. Notably in Iran, though also North Korea (its zero case reports is increasingly implausible), and Africa (many ties to China, no cases outside Egypt's _sole_ case).

3\. Testing and monitoring are critical, but limited. Keeping ahead of spreads, testing and screening protocols, and back-tracing community transmissions to a confirmed source, will be key to limiting further outbreaks.

4\. Second-order impacts are likely to be far greater than the medical consequences, all told. China's CO2 emissions are down by a quarter, not because a quarter of the population is medically impacted, but because preventive efforts, including transport, work, and education shut-downs, have tremendously reduced total activity. Reported cases are 0.005% of the population, deaths 0.0002%. It's concerns (valid), not medical severity itself, which are driving these impacts. Recognising that the _present_ costs are well worth a potential future avoided risk are well-worth paying is a message that needs to be effectively communicated.

</comment><comment><USER48> Here are estimates from MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College:

=> Estimated fatality ratio for infections 1% (including those who don't go to see doctors)

=> Estimated Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for travellers outside mainland China (mix severe & milder cases) 1%-5%

=> Estimated CFR for detected cases in Hubei (severe cases) 18%

The last line (18%) applies when the outbreak becomes prevalent in an area and overwhelm hospital capacity. If not contained, dozens of cities around the world may become Hubei!

Ref: Report 4 here: [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease- ana...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana..).

From Report 6: "we estimated that about two thirds of COVID-19 cases exported from mainland China have remained undetected worldwide, potentially resulting in multiple chains of as yet undetected human-to-human transmission outside mainland China."

Follow their Twitter at @MRC_Outbreak

<comment><USER48> For people still thinking it is just another SARS, MERS, or Swine Flu, check out these graphs: [https://ncov.r6.no/](https://ncov.r6.no/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> It will be cancelled.

Mathematic models made by epidemiologist experts from Harvard and prediction from John Hopkins guys are giving huge numbers

between 40 and 70% world adult population will be infected in one year and numbers of deaths will be between 30 and 150 million if their predictions are correct and china didn't lie with the 2% death rate

Read the threads from their twitters, the situation is much much worse than the media is telling constantly with the influenza comparison, and this guys are not nuts, they are top minds of epidemic control.

A brief from their conversations and information would be:

\- It is absolutely impossible to stop covid and will be a pandemic

\- The death rate could hit 10% in some countries

\- Expect between 30 and 70% of the world to be infected

\- millions of deaths

\- Governments duty now is not to stop the disease as they can't, but try to slow it until we understand it better, have real numbers (chinese ones cannot to be trusted), and we develop a vaccine so the R0 can be <1

\- Governments are likely going to adopt the hardest restrictions they can get away, expect quarantines on every country

\- Health services on third world countries will collapse, first world will have problems as we are not prepared

\- CDC is already saying the virus will be with us more than one season

\- hope we can avoid more deadly mutations

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1228373884027592704.html?...](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1228373884027592704.html?refreshed=1582681665)

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1231425805898657795.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1231425805898657795.html)

[https://ccdd.hsph.harvard.edu/research/ncov-making-sense- of-...](https://ccdd.hsph.harvard.edu/research/ncov-making-sense-of-an- epidemic/)

[https://twitter.com/T_Inglesby](https://twitter.com/T_Inglesby)

[https://twitter.com/DrEricDing](https://twitter.com/DrEricDing)

[https://twitter.com/mlipsitch](https://twitter.com/mlipsitch)

<comment><USER50> > china didn't lie with the 2% death rate

Keep in mind that 2% is just a guess, of people officially diagnosed the death rate is supposedly 4.8%:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/f9134d/48_fatality...](https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/f9134d/48_fatality_rate_50k_study/)

<comment><USER49> We need to take into account also the asymptomatic people that will never report the disease

<comment><USER51> Just as the majority of people who catch the flu don't get tested for it, only the serious cases do.

So we know covid19 spreads much easier than the flu and is orders of magnitude deadlier than the flu for those that get tested/confirmed compared to those that get tested/confirmed with the flu.

<comment><USER52> The flu has been around for so long that I would assume we have very reliable estimates of how common it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Containing it? It's hopeless. Just cancel earlier so the economic loss can be contained.

<comment><USER54> Containment is still desirable even in a scenario where this has spread to all countries and on-track to become endemic.

Why? Because it buys time. If a vaccine can be developed, which is likely but certain to take some months, then you can inoculate the populace and end up in a situation where it's endemic-but-managed.

If you don't contain, however, then you assuredly burn through whatever portion of your populace will succumb to this thing, all but ensuring your nation's health service becomes overwhelmed, and as a bonus you stoke mutation due to a greater number of hosts.

Fatalism is not useful here and should not be encouraged under any circumstances. Containment efforts are _never_ in vain.

<comment><USER55> > which is likely but certain to take some months

The news today reported 12 to 18 months for mass availability of a vaccine.

<comment><USER56> There was an article about an experimental way of creating new vaccines that could potentially get it out faster.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/drugmaker-moderna-delivers- firs...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/drugmaker-moderna-delivers-first- coronavirus-vaccine-for-human-testing-11582579099)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I wonder how long until other international events start to be closed? I live almost trackside at a formula 1 event in a few weeks and I'm not exactly enthusiastic about people coming in from all over the world and cramming onto the public transport while they're drunk and sweaty.

It probably can't be contained anyway but large international events could cause some huge spikes in transmission.

<comment><USER58> China GP is cancelled, and they are thinking about cancelling the Italian GP.

More will certainly follow.

<comment><USER59> What is GP?

<comment><USER58> Sorry, Formula 1 gran prix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Time for a remote distributed Olympics!

<comment><USER61> ah, finally something we can use blockchain for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> This might be enough to kill the Olympics. There have been such near- cancellations before (consider Moscow and LA in the middle of the cold war), but the context was different: the Olympics were seen as an important trans- national counterforce to the conflict of the two superpowers' spheres of influence at a time when there were few such opportunities. This was ostensibly the original basis for the Olympics being revived/reinvented in the 1890s. Hosting the games could "make" a city (e.g. Melbourne and Tokyo in the 1960s).

Nowadays the Olympics are simply one of a set of large international commercial activities and one of the most corrupt of them. Hosting them is typically a disaster for the hosting cities and fewer are interested in doing so. If the games are cancelled people will still seek entertainment, and these days with so many other options, the Olympic Games may not be missed enough to survive.

<comment><USER63> Cities will have to smarter with reusing existing and purpose built stadiums and buildings. One cancellation will not kill the brand.

<comment><USER62> Cities all _know_ they have to be smarter but have not demonstrated an ability to do so. Just asserting they need to be doesn't really suggest any change might happen.

As for a single cancellation: I discussed why this time could be different from the two previous examples. If you think that's wrong I'd like to read the counterargument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Look like things getting out of control, world need to assemble the core team which include world's top virology scientist, pharma company and top AI team and jointly discover the drug in faster way

and they open source they works on github or other plateform to invite others people to get involve to make thing on faster and best way

<comment><USER65> The problem is not discovering the vaccine, it is ensuring it is safe. See the recent Dengue vaccine incident of what can go wrong when new vaccines are rolled out without proper caution: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengvaxia_controversy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengvaxia_controversy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Wow, I've been reading Axios as my primary news source for years - first time I've seen it linked on HN, though!

I highly recommend it to other people here. The reporting tends to be smart and to the point, their UI/UX is smooth and modern, and their ads tend to be more subtle than similar news sites.

<comment><USER67> You can click the site name in the title and see all the post from that site. It's pretty regular. [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=axios.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=axios.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> One thing that's not being noted is that the disease has almost 1 in 500 mortality rate for under 40.

<comment><USER69> We all have family, etc. over 70 though.

<comment><USER70> I don't.

<comment><USER70> Those, who think I do: please name anyone. I just wanted to point absurd generalization "we all".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I'm pretty confident that eventually we will have effective remedies that will keep people who contract it from having to be hospitalized, which is the real problem here.

</comment><comment><USER72> I know we haven't yet resolved what is happening now. But I'm curious - <USER2> happens this coming winter with this virus?

It is my understanding that SARS and MERS were extinguished - they are not circulating anymore in the general population. Given the dispersion of this virus already, I can imagine hotspots rotating around the globe until the winter.

Will it then explode in numbers once again in the colder temperatures/lower humidity of winter?

<comment><USER73> It _is_ Winter in parts of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Every time COVID-19 comes up people talk about the "low" mortality rate. But that hinges on enough medical resources. This disease quickly drains medical resources due to so many becoming critically ill. Without effective containment, a country will see their medical resources exhausted, and then the mortality rate won't be 2% ~ 5%. Exactly how high that will be remains to be seen.

<comment><USER75> ~20% of cases are severe and require advanced medical support. I guess it is a good approximation of death rate without medical support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Nassim Taleb (author of "Black Swan") wrote a quick mini paper on the risks of Coronavirus back in January. I think this crowd on HN would be interested:

[https://www.academia.edu/41743064/Systemic_Risk_of_Pandemic_...](https://www.academia.edu/41743064/Systemic_Risk_of_Pandemic_via_Novel_Pathogens_- _Coronavirus_A_Note)

</comment><comment><USER77> Referencing the [http://coronavirus-realtime.com/](http://coronavirus- realtime.com/) website, the graph of the number of infections over time is suspiciously non-exponential right now. I think China and the rest of the world are both struggling to collect data on confirmed cases.

<comment><USER78> That whole website is an iframe with donation buttons and ads overlaid. The original url is [https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

<comment><USER77> Yep, and they come up higher on the search results in bing and google. Not sure if I really recommend them, but their dang domain name sure is a hell of a lot easier to remember. Maybe I would recommend them on that fact alone- in a public health crisis, easy access to critical information is important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Will the tech sector fare better than the general economy during this? After all, no physical contact is the norm there.

<comment><USER80> Depends on what real-world businesses and processes the tech are supporting. Most tech doesn't exist in isolation and involves things like manufacturing and logistics. Other tech companies are supported by ads which are funded by the aforementioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Here's a new, succinct account of how terribly the Abe government is handling the situation:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus- japan...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus-japan- abe.html)

</comment><comment><USER82> I hope it won't happen but the Olympic could make it spread to countries the virus might not reach otherwise

</comment><comment><USER83> My brother and his group of friends are all going to coachella and are talking about concerns with coronavirus, as its heavily visited by international goers.

Apparently in the past, a huge herpes outbreak occurred, so its a good litmus for massive spread of something.

Wonder if events like this will also be cancelled.

</comment><comment><USER84> Rather then cancelling completely, a limited option would be to run the games in quarantine with just athletes, officials, and media. No spectators allowed. Athletes confined to the Olympic Village for a couple weeks before and after the Games, and bused to event venues with no public contact.

</comment><comment><USER85> The Olympics won't be cancelled.

Why?

Because the percentage increase of foreigners coming into Tokyo as a result of the Olympics is negligible compared to the numbers going in and out on a daily basis.

I love a good end-of-the-world scenario as much as anyone. But, gimme a break... What rational benefit would there be in cancelling the Olympics? The only risk of disease arising from the Olympics is the spread of herpes, chlamydia, and ghonorhea in the Olympic village (a small price to pay to party with uber-fit gymnasts...)

We've heard these warnings so many times...

Ebola, Avian Flu, SARS, MERS, West Nile Virus, Mad Cow Disease, H1N1, Zika Virus, etc., etc....

Wake me when the dead start not staying dead... Now THAT would be a virus I could can get behind. Until then, I fully expect to watch the Olympics this summer (and maybe an episode or two of The Walking Dead), and read through some of these hysterical posts and chuckle.

</comment><comment><USER86> The European football cup is looking like it will be canceled as well.

<comment><USER87> Any news source on this? UEFA seems to be saying there is no chance of cancelling the Cup... which I find believable, as the governing bodies for the various soccer leagues and competitions tend to be more money-hungry than other sports.

Edit: grammar.

<comment><USER73> ...because they're scumbags. Just to complete the thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Cancelled or postponed? By now they must have already spent a huge amount of infrastructure. And why outright cancel? _why_ can't you "just do it in October"?

<comment><USER89> Asking athletes to perform in dramatically different conditions than they train for (which will be the case for at least for outdoor events) is practically asking them to drop out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> [https://predictionbook.com/predictions/198425](https://predictionbook.com/predictions/198425)

</comment><comment><USER91> I will be working our precinct polls on Super Tuesday. I will try to practice the common preventatives for exposure. Wash or use wipes regularly (no need for anti-bacterial). Make a conscious effort not touch your eyes, nose or mouth with your hands until you have washed. Insist anyone coughing or sneezing cover their mouth (offer them a tissue). I've had my flu vaccine in preparation but of course that is worthless against this new strain. I'll do my civic duty on Tuesday as promised, but if things continue to degrade, there is no way in hell I'm working November. I'm in the "elderly" high risk group and not feeling especially lucky...

</comment><comment><USER92> Will the coming warmer weather in the northern hemisphere slow down COVID-19? That is, is temperature a factor?

</comment><comment><USER93> I believe a lot more things should be cancelled because of coronavirus. The less we travel, the less it spreads.

Effectively the entire world is connected with flights and transport. A contagious virus can prolly wipe out most of humanity in a short period of time.

I'd say Airlines should give free refunds to people who don't wish to vacation in this environment. It's prolly wishful thinking though.

</comment><comment><USER94> Would a vaccine for Covid-19 work if the virus can re-infect people who have already recovered from it?

<comment><USER95> Vaccines can involve a number of techniques that can provoke a stronger immune response than a natural infection.

<comment><USER96> ...which notably was the case in one of original SARS vaccine attempts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Surely European Football Championships this summer is under threat too?

<comment><USER98> Hopefully there's a green light for games televised from empty stadiums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Can it be athletes only?

</comment><comment><USER100> I hope Americans will be fine but I fear it will get bad with the chaotic and ineffective leadership of Donald Trump combined with a privatized and highly individualized health care system.

The American idea that health care is a privilege you have to pay for will hit a brick wall when you deal with a pandemic which does not give a shit about how rich or poor you are.

With a minimalistic welfare state, lower class people will be forced to go to work and will not afford having health checkups. That will risk spreading the virus and cause more fatalities.

What happens when private hospitals have to take on lots of patients who cannot pay? Will there be a race to the bottom trying to push patients over to other hospitals, dump them off on a curb as soon as possible?

I cannot see how a relentlessly profit driven health care system can cope with a serious pandemic.

<comment><USER101> >With a minimalistic welfare state

The US spends nearly 20% of GDP on welfare. More (as %GDP) than Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Israel, Switzerland, and many others. In terms of total spending, it's #2 in the world.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending)

<comment><USER102> How much of that 20% goes to pay malpractice insurance and lawsuits?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> The cat is out of the bag so to speak. On a personal level all we can do is hope we recover well and quick, if and when we are exposed. Every day you breath in millions of viruses. You don't die because you have an immune system that has earned you the privilege to survive on this planet. Short of a vaccine we're just waiting for the battle and the reward of a new skill in our immune systems armory.

That said, getting sick is terrible and it'd be great if we could nerf nature. I pray for everyone's health and recovery.

</comment><comment><USER104> The solution is to spread this virus as fast as possible. Everybody gets infected, develops immunity, problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER105> The title is missing the key word Olympics.

<comment><USER106> Ok, let's have Olympics above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> > coronavirus not contained by late May

??

It cannot be "contained" any more. Consensus is it's pandemic, it's not hard to see.

Do we not understand how this works? What do reporters or the public think can happen?

Even if there is a vaccination, which in reality will be years off, we can't even vaccinate measles across the world and certainly not by 'May'.

We can't even supply gloves and face masks at the levels we need.

<comment><USER108> IIRC the SARS outbreak in 2003 was "contained" within that year.

<comment><USER109> We were able to essentially starve SARS out of new people to infect. It had a 2-7 day incubation period, was not contagious before symptomatic, and spread by bodily fluid (coughing up water droplets, spread by touch to another).

COVID-19 has a 21+ day incubation period, is contagious before you're symptomatic, and is possibly airborne (I haven't heard strong confirmation of that yet, but it's definitely more virulent).

<comment><USER110> And apparently it can survive on a stainless steel surface for 36 hours. [0]

Also from [0] however:

"Sunlight will cut the virus ability to grow in half so the half-life will be 2.5 minutes and in the dark it's about 13m to 20m. Sunlight is really good at killing viruses. That's why I believe that Australia and the southern hemisphere will not see any great infections rates because they have lots of sunlight and they are in the middle of summer. And Wuhan and Beijing is still cold which is why there's high infection rates.

In regards to temperature, the virus can remain intact at 4 degrees or 10 degrees for a longer period of time. But at 30 degrees then you get inactivation. And High humidity the virus doesn't like it either. That's why I think Sars stopped around May and June in 2003 – that's when there's more sunlight and more humidity. The environment is a crucial factor. The environment will be unfavourable for growth around May. The evidence is to look at the common cold – it's always during winter. So the natural environment will not be favourable in Asia in about May."

I believe this is the main reason May is the deadline for containment.

[0] [https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...](https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/conference- call-coronavirus-expert)

<comment><USER111> If it's inactivated at only 30 degrees (86F), that suggests an unconventional combat strategy of just heating buildings to that temperature—that's basically a hot summer day. We're not talking an autoclave here.

<comment><USER112> Good luck convincing a landlord to heat a building to 86 degrees in the wintertime, and then convincing tenants not to turn on the AC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> I played way too much Plague.

</comment><comment><USER44> Very likely not. Olympics are in the summer, the virus doesn't even survive the spring. By May it will be gone.

<comment><USER114> This is wildly optimistic.

MERS is a similar virus and it is pretty much endemic in the Middle East.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> A friend of mine who worked for defense creating viruses is convinced it's man made because of the way the virus is structured.

Whether it's true or not. It's an interesting case, and I wonder why no one is writing about this possibilty in the media. Those ideas are quickly dismissed as crazy conspiracy theory. Where every big government is actively working on creating viruses for both defense and offense.

Especially because in Wuhan there is one of these labs.

Around the world outbreaks out of viruses out of these labs happen regularly. Even on purpose sometimes, but most of the time accidently.

<comment><USER20> Virologists seem pretty happy to say that the virus is _not_ man made. [0]

It is amazing to me the crazy theories circulating about this virus. Does anyone remember similar stories from Zika or Ebola 2015 outbreaks?

0\. [http://virological.org/t/tackling-rumors-of-a-suspicious- ori...](http://virological.org/t/tackling-rumors-of-a-suspicious-origin-of- ncov2019/384)

<comment><USER116> > Does anyone remember similar stories from Zika or Ebola 2015 outbreaks?

Yes, lot of similar ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> This is just typical "will it happen or won't it" pre-Olympics FUD. It's a perennial clickbait theme that always works.

[http://aroundtherings.com/site/A__74354/Title__IOC-Chief- Can...](http://aroundtherings.com/site/A__74354/Title__IOC-Chief-Cancellation- of-PyeongChang-Olympics-Very-Close/292/Articles)

[https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-02-04/should- the-201...](https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-02-04/should- the-2016-olympics-be-canceled)

[https://www.theguardian.com/sport/shortcuts/2012/jun/12/coul...](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/shortcuts/2012/jun/12/could- olympics-be-rained-off)</comment>


Teardown: DDC Mobile X900 - <AUTHOR> https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/teardown-ddc-mobile-x900/all

<comment><USER2> The thing that scares me is that as an EE in a previous life, I've seen worse things come out of one man bespoke engineering companies. One thing that sticks in my mind was a PLC replacement for some old relay logic in a factory. Rather than use a proper PLC, they glued some relays can first down to the bottom of a shielded box with hot snot and drove it with a BASIC stamp soldered to some veroboard. The whole thing packed in one day (duff relay) and I was contracted to fix it. Had to write the entire unit off and start again.

This thing was controlling what I can only describe as a giant maiming machine that would kill everyone for several feet if it went wrong.

Also one reason why a lot of "maker" contraptions scare the shit out of me. 2cm frim certain death and electrocution a lot of the time.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't pin it all on the maker community - fake iPhone chargers are just as bad

<comment><USER2> They're not quite as terrible as the recent press makes out. Prior to the hype around this we had nearly 20 years of low quality wall wart switch mode supplies. Very few people got hurt and very few people do today. Even if they completely burn out its a low risk.

Conversely my official Lenovo T400 charger has a 90-110v AC potential between its virtual ground and true ground which occasionally gives me a tingly finger.

The maker community though have no basic electrical safety knowledge as a whole and are concerned with making it work, not making it work safely.

<comment><USER3> >The maker community though have no basic electrical safety knowledge as a whole and are concerned with making it work, not making it work safely.

Ouch. What are you basing this on? What could be done to improve the situation?

<comment><USER2> Various observations over the last few years on projects that have been posted. I'll usually flag up anything dangerous with some constructive help on why it is dangerous and how to make it safe.

Simply education. Every electronics book should open with an electrical safety section as well. Know thy enemy.

Having myself been zapped a couple of times, once due to faulty equipment and once due to idiocy on my part, I can assure you its worth the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Similarly, here is a $12 phone, again a design with only 2 main ICs, but with far fewer features (although it does have Bluetooth and an ARM...): [http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3107](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3107)

The mention of "XCPU RISC" in the datasheet led nowhere but RDA's site, and I suspect that it's some sort of MIPS clone. They also have an ARM-based SoC, the RDA8810.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love these Chinese crap phones. The effort spent in order to optimize the system to cut the BOM is truly astonishing.

<comment><USER6> Anyone else notice the ribs in the battery cover that were ground down by hand to make the cell fit snugly?

[https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/2/5/1/SFE_00...](https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_tutorials/2/5/1/SFE_0046.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't be the only one that wants a cellphone made out of pot metal.

<comment><USER8> Phone, flashlight, and self-defense tool, all in one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Resumé: If all you need is a cellphone with no frills and the weight and shape of a Motorola brick phone… the X900 is for you.

<comment><USER10> No frills?? Dual SIM and TWO keypads!

<comment><USER11> And a 320x240 pixels camera. That's over 70,000 pixels! Imagine how many photos you could fit on a 32gb memory card!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is a teardown of a $7 phone. It "looks a bit like a Nokia". The vendor applied a "Samsung" faceplate because she'd run out of all the others.

[http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/$7_cell_phone](http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/$7_cell_phone)

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow. I had a really shitty commute this morning, and this just made my morning so much better.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is genuinely gorgeous. The best bit is the Nokia badge!

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is a serious question, I wonder if DCC (the phone's company) makes any money from this wonder of electronic enigneering?

</comment><comment><USER16> What's the price of the beautiful little monster? It would help complete the awesome picture.

<comment><USER17> As mentioned in the blog post's comments, Nate paid ~ 28 USD for this. Another comment links to Alibaba Express, in case you want to buy a similar one:

[http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Luxury-Mobile- Phone-X900-Flas...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Luxury-Mobile- Phone-X900-Flashlight-Loud-Speaker-2-0-Color-Screen-Camera-Bluetooth- MP3-MP4-FM/1262109605.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a monstrosity! I like it :)</comment>


I'm Brian Fox, Author of the Bash Shell, and This Is How I Work (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/12/im-brian-fox-author-of-the-bash-shell-and-this-is-how-i-work/ <comment><USER2> I thought this answer gave much more insight into his success than knowing what kind of phone, computer or editor he uses:

> What's your best time-saving shortcut or life hack?

> Listening when other people talk.

</comment><comment><USER3> Brain Fox: "I recommend that people read the Orchid source code."

Oho. Link?</comment>


How most Flash games insert highscores and why it's not smart - <AUTHOR> http://www.miniclip.com/php/HS/hs.php?version=2&timer=123110120761385&key=20f1a1a23007871ed6a5e84b347039b0&location=xD&score=1337133713&username=HackerNews&gamename=bubbletrouble&formaction=gethighscores&dwm=2

<comment><USER2> How you post the data is a small portion of protecting a score - kids also use Cheat Engine to modify values in-memory which will be submitted properly. There's a community where they share instructions on how to modify games as well as a handful of sites where modified versions get published.

MochiDigits are really worth checking out for protecting in-memory values:

[http://code.google.com/p/cunitescore/source/browse/trunk/as3...](http://code.google.com/p/cunitescore/source/browse/trunk/as3/unitescore/mochi/MochiDigits.as?r=92)

For the submission process ... Flash is a _very_ weak and open product, aside from browser debuggers and whatnot you can just decompile most games and see first hand what the source is. I lean towards obfuscating it just enough to not be "change this parameter in the URL", if you need more security than that you really need a user system + consequences for cheating ala Kongregate.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      The "Hoff" says "NO"!

Was there supposed to be something other than an image macro at the end of the link?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, yes. I forgot to test the link afterwards...

Apparently, anyone having "hacker" in the username gets blocked, if you change that to "HN" it works. I made a different link without hacker in it, then got distracted, and when posting it apparently copied it from the wrong browing tab. Let's resubmit, this kinda sucks...</comment></comment>


OOP Before OOP with Simula - <AUTHOR> https://twobithistory.org/2019/01/31/simula.html <comment><USER2> It's worth boring that OOP was invented by Lisp programmers. Simula was the first language were you could write class. At the University of Oslo in Norway, most computer science courses used Simula up until the late 1990's. Some of the lectures was held by the inventors of OOP themeselves.

<comment><USER3> Well, there was also first language to do prototype OO (sketchpad) back in 1962. Also the first VPL and probably constraint based programming language as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't surprise me. If I look how people build class systems with JS before ES2015, I'd guess all languages that have closures and higher order functions could invent OOP. Maybe that isn't even needed IDK.

<comment><USER5> People did it in C way back, with usually structs containing their value and a table of functions associated with them (vtable). You can do "inheritance" by having the parent struct be the first member of the child struct. You can do all sorts of fun stuff (composition is easy of course, injection also). The only thing of note, is that you can't "curry" the source, you'll always have to give the "source/this/self" object as an argument to the method. This isn't any different from how you could in python, for example, do : `"my string".split(" ")` or `str.split("my string", " ")`.

(just some fun little experiments I did last year [https://github.com/jRimbault/DataStructures/blob/master/lib/...](https://github.com/jRimbault/DataStructures/blob/master/lib/struct/String.h), there isn't any vtable, but it does show a string "class/struct" with all private fields, and methods for creating, managing those objects)

<comment><USER6> > You can do "inheritance" by having the parent struct be the first member of > the child struct. You can do all sorts of fun stuff

I have done this, 'fun' is not how I describe the result to colleagues

<comment><USER5> Alright, -fun +nightmarish. Still fun though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like Perl's approach to OOP. Almost 100% of it is a single function, bless(). Everything else is just namespaces, which isn't specifically an OO thing. There's no magic "this" or "self", so the OO is very easy to understand.

<comment><USER8> Um, perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point, but Perl 5's object model was based on that of Python.

And _every_ method of a Perl 5 object receives a $self scalar as its first argument ( see [https://perldoc.perl.org/perlobj.html](https://perldoc.perl.org/perlobj.html) ).

In fact, Larry Wall specifically stated in the 11th "State of the Onion" speech that he "stole" Python's object system for Perl 5.

I remembered him saying this, so I went to find the transcript. However, I could not find a transcript of the actual speech. I did, though, find this perlmonks.org quote of Larry Wall (from that speech):

"I don't really know much about Python. I only stole its object system for Perl 5. I have since repented."

[https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1212836](https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1212836)

So unless you mean Perl 5's "$self" is somehow "non-magic" (whatever you mean by that), I guess I don't understand what you mean when you say it has no "this" or "self".

<comment><USER7> It doesn't have $this or $self. It has @_, which predates the OO that went into Perl.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, just getting back to this.

Yeah, it has @_, and in the Perl object model, the first entry in the @_ array is a reference to the object, which is almost always called $self.

Anyway, what people name the reference doesn't matter. The point is that it functions like 'this' and 'self' do in other languages, and it is very much required in object methods (which differ from normal subs in that they are passed that first argument automatically).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whoever talks about OOP without mentioning simula should never be hired.</comment>


Pydbattach - attach to running Python process (proof of concept) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/albertz/pydbattach/blob/master/demo_pyinjectcode.sh

<comment><AUTHOR> Note: I resubmitted this and linked to the main page now because I know have a general working version of it.

See here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2588054>

Not sure if this is bad habit on HN. I didn't found a way to edit the link though.</comment>


An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112 <comment><USER2> In case you're wondering, the study's authors point out:

> Our goal is not to extend the current limits of viability, but rather to > offer the potential for improved outcomes for those infants who are already > being routinely resuscitated and cared for in neonatal intensive care units.

One of the biggest current problems with pre-term babies, the study notes, is a respiratory condition called bronchopulmonary dysplasia:

> an arrest in lung development secondary to premature transition from liquid > to gas ventilation

So having the lambs (and, eventually, the preterm infants) remain in a liquid environment allows their immature lungs to continue developing, so that when they eventually transition to gas ventilation (breathing air), their lungs are able to function correctly.

<comment><USER3> >Our goal is not to extend the current limits of viability

In the interest of looking at thing squarely in the face, this can eventually (and therefore _will_ ) be used to extend the "current limits of viability".

It's important not to put blinders on because this has a very real impact on medical ethics. Is it ethical, for instance, to develop human embryos outside of the womb for convenience?

<comment><USER4> >Is it ethical, for instance, to develop human embryos outside of the womb for convenience?

Why not, assuming outcome is identical?

<comment><USER5> Because, over the long term, it would reduce the selective pressure on the ability to gestate embryos in vivo, unnecessarily increasing dependence on technology.

We should try to avoid adding extinction to the list of consequences of the collapse of technological civilization.

<comment><USER6> How _could_ "technological civilization" collapse, at this point? We have extremely well-distributed records—spoken, written, digital, and more—of all of our technology and how to use it. "We forgot how" worlds are just impossible at this point, unless we all get a disease that renders us incapable of tool-usage, reading, and speech. (At which point we're not human anyway.)

<comment><USER7> Although I agree that this is unlikely, until we are multi planetary, with at least four worlds/stations, this is not the case.

<comment><USER6> To restate that: what precise type of disaster would destroy "technological civilization"—presumably, all traces of it, because it's pretty easy to bootstrap back up†—but not the human species itself? Because that's the only case where humans not being capable of non-technologically-assisted reproduction would matter.

† See the book _The Knowledge_ , and then consider a world where you have access to not only that, but also hard copies of the US Patent filing database, and 6 billion people to parallelize the bootstrapping process across. (And even that ignores the amount of "skipping ahead" that just the existing knowledge already loaded into people's heads would enable.)

Unless we all got amnesia at once, _and_ all lost the ability to read (and those who can, to read braille), we'd be back to civilization before the generation was over—and back to simple longevity-extending practices like freezing sperm and ova long before that.

<comment><USER8> >To restate that: what precise type of disaster would destroy "technological civilization"—presumably, all traces of it, because it's pretty easy to bootstrap back up†—but not the human species itself?

Technology onset: Grey-goo type scenario

Human onset: massive cultural shift to demonize knowledge.

It's happened before. It didn't wipe all technology away, but it slowed progress to a stand-still.

<comment><USER6> Do you think it'd be possible to _choose_ to "demonize knowledge", in a world where we _know_ that the only way to reproduce requires technology? I would expect our biological imperative to reproduce would get the better of that attempted social more quite quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To clear some confusion - they did not grow this lamb in the bag starting from conception.

The major limiting factor as to when it can be transferred to the bag is when the umbilical vessels are large enough to safely and efficiently cannulate. Oxygenation, nutrient delivery and waste removal are all done via the umbilical vessels through external devices.

The biggest road block in growing a baby in a bag fully ex utero would be the period before when the umbilical vessels are accessible. Before this time in utero, local mommy angiogenesis in the wall of the placenta serves the role of the umbilical vessels. Replicating this ex utero is a completely different problem.

<comment><USER10> Yes, a different problem. But at the other end, it is already possible and even routine to raise fertilized ova into implantable embryos in vitro.

This new method however does fill a medical need, or at least shows the road to filling that need, meaning the problems of raising prematurely born infants.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but that does not require complicated structures like blood vessels. Embryos and ova are small enough to grow on cell culture in which diffusion is enough to provide oxygen and nutrients, with only the need to replace culture fluid every few days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have been reading the ["The Vorkosigan Saga"]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga)) and one of the consistent themes is the "Uterine Replicator". Sounds very much like what this could become in the future.

Not only is this book series great and very entertaining, I think it tackles some technology and social ideas that others in the genre do not.

<comment><USER13> In part this is the result of being written by a female, strongly feminist author who has the gender implications of sci-fi technology in mind.

On a separate note, I quite enjoy the way that she also explores the relationship of a "backwards" polity with a more advanced international community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is one of the most important and powerful work/research I have seen in over a decade, I'm literally at tears realizing the potential of this technology. Thank you so much for working on this, history will remember it and be thankful.

<comment><USER15> What makes you say that? What are some of the potential benefits?

<comment><USER16> Extreme premature births are the leading cause of infant mortality in the US. Even if the infant survives, they often have incredibly complex consequences that cause lifelong issues because, e.g. the lungs have not fully developed but are required to be used after birth.

It's possible that keeping extremely premature infants in an 'artificial uterus' could decrease some of these complications, especially those related to respiration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What an amazing idea, pushing the boundaries of medicine...

In the table with experiment outcomes I see one lamb that survived for a while without mechanical ventilation... Was this the best outcome of the set? I couldn't make out if some of them were actually viable, and survived?

<comment><USER18> Couldn't understand, too, if their lives were terminated on purpose or all couldn't survive outside the environment. I'd appreciate any insight of it.

<comment><USER19> Sounds like the lambs were terminated immediately after coming out of the biobag, so the researchers could get a clear picture of how lung development progressed in the biobag without confounding factors coming from spending too much time in the open air.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While this is amazing and I'm certain it's going to save a number of lives.. Does anyone else get the sense that we're going to start seeing "farms" full of these bags in an effort to save time / money / stress on cows and sheep?

<comment><USER2> Remember that this technology does not cover the full gestation period. It only works starting at the edge of viability.

In order for an extremely premature lamb to end up in one of these bags, either preterm birth must be induced, or surgery must take place. Neither of those options is low-cost or without the potential for significant complications. You would likely end up with high rates of mortality and morbidity, and even if the BioBags were able to successfully sustain the animals, they would probably never be considered suitable for anything other than research.

There may come a day when a BioBag is able to cover the full gestation period, but even then, I highly doubt that it would be cheap enough for use with livestock.

<comment><USER20> Maybe my imagination it too dystopian today but I'm imagining artificial insemination to get a dozen lambs gestating and then you could C-section (or slaughter) the ewe after a few months.. That would take you from 1-2 lambs every 2 years to a dozen lambs in year 1.

<comment><USER15> That's basically how you get mice embryos at the moment. There are several companies that provide this service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Super interesting research! I wonder: is there a limit on how long the lamb could be kept in this extra-uterine system? In other words, could the lamb be grown in this system until it's an adult?

</comment><comment><USER22> CHOP regularly does top-notch work. This looks super cool.

<comment><USER23> In case anybody else is confused:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Hospital_of_Phila...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Hospital_of_Philadelphia)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Brings Axlotl tanks to mind.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wake me up when we can make women obsolete

</comment><comment><USER26> this tech will render invalid the whole pro-life/pro-choice argument.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is the S&P 500 rallying in a crisis? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to process a disconnect between the unemployment crisis brought on by the virus, an incoming housing market implosion and a decreasing Index of Consumer Sentiment with the fact that the S&P 500 is up 500 points in the past month - it's on track for the best month since 1974.
I don't understand monetary policy or macro-economics in general, but I'm struggling to grasp the gap between my intuition and reality.
What's the deal? <comment><USER2> Here is a great twitter thread from Gavin Baker at Atreides Management that may help with how to think about it...but don't expect a straight answer, because there is no straight answer

[https://twitter.com/GavinSBaker/status/1255215997730066435](https://twitter.com/GavinSBaker/status/1255215997730066435)

"...the irresistible force of the largest stimulus ever vs. the immovable object of the sharpest economic slowdown in history..."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link, checking it out now :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So far we've made back about half of the crash. The bottom was when Corona growth could still be considered exponential. All the bad economic data was already anticipated at this point.

Over the last few weeks it has become apparent Corona doesn't have much room to accelerate. The worst possible scenario is fairly well understood now and it's not all that bad. I assume most of the "rally" is taking horror scenarios off the table. Hence it's more of a reverse correction.

</comment><comment><USER4> S&P 500 is a Capitalization-Weighted Index meaning the larger companies make up much more of a percentage of the index. And in this environment companies that are large with lots of cash are in a super good position and people are fleeing to them for safety. So their prices rise (a lot in some cases... see Amazon) and so the S&P 500 goes back up a lot. It is worth noting it's still down like 400 points for the year though.

</comment><comment><USER5> The FED said there is an infinite amount of money and like they say in investing, never fight the FED.

I think a lot of people assume the jobs are not really lost and will be back after the virus. I guess we have to wait and will see how many of those jobs are really lost.

<comment><USER6> If FED uses their infinite money to to prop up the market, and tech jobs/tech companies/products and big finance/wealthy people run the world, could the non-tech jobs lost be inconsequential?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In addition to all other arguments - it's up 500 points in the last month after dropping over twice as much the month before. The virus is still a net negative for the market.</comment>


U.S., companies: Internet surveillance does not indiscriminately mine data - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-company-officials-internet-surveillance-does-not-indiscriminately-mine-data/2013/06/08/5b3bb234-d07d-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story_1.html

<comment><USER2> If I were a Chinese official reading this, my #1 priority would be to try to get access to PRISM.

No matter what checks and balances the US may employ to make sure legitimate access stays within bounds, any time you have an automated system, you're open to the possibility that someone can get access and automate it in ways you don't like.

<comment><USER3> >If I were a Chinese official reading this, my #1 priority would be to try to get access to PRISM.

No it wouldn't. You'd be after the things Chinese spies are already after: trade and military secrets. They don't care who's calling who.

<comment><USER2> Just to clarify. Prism is separate from the Verizon data dump. We're talking access to information that Google, Facebook, and other internet giants can track about you. Including emails.

China is demonstrably interested in this. When they broke into Google's network, they went straight for the private emails of Chinese dissidents. (With, apparently, much less success than they would like.) When they broke into the NY Times, they went looking for any information about dissidents that the NY times might have.

From the sounds of it, access to PRISM gives them that, all nicely gift wrapped and correlated with other signals of interest, tools to locate known associates, etc.

Why are they interested in this? The Chinese leadership apparently do not see a war with the USA as their top risk. (Though they do prepare for the possibility.) That is because they know that the USA is not in the habit of lightly invading nuclear powers which could easily level multiple US cities in retaliation. But overthrow by revolution is something they are terrified of, with good cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They simply don't get it: I DO NOT BELIEVE THE US GOVERNMENT HAS ANY RIGHT TO VIEW MY DATA THAT I ENTRIST TO PRIVATE COMPANIES. In the event they somehow have stumbled upon the right, I should be notified that my data has been examined.

<comment><USER5> How can you trust the US government less than private companies?

Data mining exists at every company because of its value.

I'm much more concerned that private companies (Lexis Nexis I'm looking at you) have access to so much of my data and have no obligation to inform me of what data they have.

The US government exists to protect the United States and its citizens. If we put left vs right politics aside, why is there inherit distrust of the government? What would make you trust them? More transparency?

If anybody is to blame it is congress. As elected representatives, they should have ultimate responsibility as to what happens in this country. They should also be held liable for ALL of their actions, but good luck getting them to approve that. How can congress enact laws that only affect themselves or give them more power? That is corruption and should be considered treason.

<comment><USER6> > How can you trust the US government less than private companies?

The US government can throw me in jail, private companies cannot. The US government can sick the IRS, FBI, and Secret Service after me; private companies cannot.

Congress has a lot of the liability, but so does the President. Read up on FDR's use of the IRS and what happened to the various Tea Party groups in 2010 with 501(c)4 status[1]. This is why the expansion of federal government reach is feared.

1) someone will argue about the nature of 501(c)4 so just remember that Obama's reelection campaign relaunched as one to advocate for his political agenda for his 2nd term.

<comment><USER5> What is your point about the Tea Party groups and 501(c)4? In my opinion, that is just another loophole that needs to be closed, same as religious organization tax exemption.

<comment><USER6> One side was treated different than the other. Pure and simple failure to follow the rules. When government agencies don't follow the rules and treat all as equals then we have problems. Clearly having a 501(c)4 with a political bent isn't the problem or else Obama's reelection campaign relaunch would have seen the same scrutiny and rejection.

> In my opinion, that is just another loophole that needs to be closed, same > as religious organization tax exemption

Regardless of your wish to close loopholes, the current law needs to be followed: equally and fairly. Going back to how taxes should work is a side trail and not relevant to how the government has acted against different parties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best thing the government could do to legitimately appease citizens is pass a statute that nothing gathered through these means will be used to prosecute anything but terrorism or threats to national security. If that's the real purpose, then they should have no problem putting it in writing.

<comment><USER8> Just playing Devil's Advocate here...

What's to stop them from classifying... say .... computer hacking... as a threat to National Security?

<comment><USER3> That's what happened with RICO. When it was passed they told us racketeering was only organized crime. Now you can get RICO charges doing just about anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two ways I could see this being set up:

1\. NSA goes to Facebook and tells them to install a server/rack in their data center. The server needs to be on a port that can "see" all traffic unencrypted. The servers then transparently record data and analysts on the backend parse it into something useful.

2\. NSA puts servers on premises but instead they are pushed formatted feeds of data. This would require them to work more closely with the company to make sure they provide a feed that is workable. They would store the data and as requests for data came in the server would feed it back.

<comment><USER5> You're assuming that the NSA requires physical access to unencrypted data.

The NSA has been in the IT security game for a very long time, they employ the best of the best, and have practically unlimited funds. I'd imagine that very complicated algorithms determine who to monitor and what keywords to look for. Images from the middle east or a VPN are likely more heavily analyzed than images from a college campus inside the US.

Why set up shop at specific social media companies when they have physical access to backbone routers and root certificate private keys?

Yes, it would be easier to just ask FB/Google/Apple to give them unlimited read access to their databases, but that would be a scandal waiting to happen.

<comment><USER10> [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism- server...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server- collection-facebook-google)

The slide with the explicit formulation was published, written by NSA, that made claims of "not inside companies" much less believable:

"Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple."

This supports the claims of Glenn Greenwald's article and is exactly what companies claimed not existing.

Read the slide: they explicitely name the collecition on the "fat pipes" under other code names. As they have the access to the big pipes, the real time data (c.f. the other slides, earlier) from the inside of companies is certainly unencrypted.

<comment><USER5> Ok, so the one thing we have figured out in the past couple of days is that the NSA undoubtedly has the ability to collect almost all user data and internet traffic, even for US citizens.

Your link is broken, should be: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism- server...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server- collection-facebook-google)

Now, what do they do with it? The guardian is claiming that 77,000 reports have referenced PRISM but it is also the name of an internal accounting program ([http://www.dot.gov/individuals/privacy/pia- prism](http://www.dot.gov/individuals/privacy/pia-prism))

We have a long way to go with this NSA issue. I believe that they are a great agency but have a very difficult job to preform, and unfortunately their mission sometimes requires questionable actions. They're powerful enough to make anything they want legal retro-actively, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Many people assume that the NSA has been "spying" domestically for decades, because it's arguably necessary in order to sufficiently protect the country. I love technology but am already tired of this debate. You are not going to prevent the NSA from data-mining, end of story.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link correction.

The Federal Aviation Administration's "PRISM" is obviously not the one discussed now in public, and not the one ending in the reports to the president. I invite everybody once again to read the Post and Guardian, they obviously have so much material and try to post only as much as to make the public aware of the legal aspects of the system: the blanket special court orders, allowing companies not to do anything, not even track what is being requested, the orders valid for months and practically automatically renewed. It is "legal."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gotta love a headline that's worded in such a way that it looks like a fact. Thirty straight days of these on every major outlet and most people who were not already concerned won't be doing anything differently, if they ever did. As a bonus, no need to worry about breaking the story anymore.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems to indicate the NSA is performing some sort of MITM, or running intercepts from inside the datacenter after the traffic has been decrypted:

"PRISM allows "collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations," rather than directly to company servers. The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from the NSA to the systems installed on their premises"

"From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for PRISM access may "task" the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff."

</comment><comment><USER12> Two things about the submission title, which is currently: "WaPo: Execs From Internet Companies Acknowledge PRISM"

1\. The original title for the article is "U.S., company officials: Internet surveillance does not indiscriminately mine data"

2\. The excerpt that the submitted title refers to is this: "Executives at some of the participating companies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged the system's existence and said it was used to share information about foreign customers with the NSA and other parts of the nation's intelligence community."

Some, not _all_ of the companies involved. So too soon to conclude that the public statements were lies...but Zuckerberg and Page, at the least, could be said to have lied if the companies referred to in the OP are them (both Page and Zuckerberg said that they (they as in "we") had no prior knowledge of PRISM at all)

<comment><USER13> There's definitely some questions here, though.

"government employees cleared for PRISM access may "task" the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff."

What does that mean? Does the company have any oversight over what's being requested? It doesn't sound like it. How does that square with the statements from the CEOs that each request is carefully considered and restricted?

"The server is controlled by the FBI," an official with one of the companies said. "We do not offer a download feature from our server."

This is a very fine distinction that doesn't matter much. Word games are being played here.

<comment><USER14> > What does that mean? Does the company have any oversight over what's being > requested? It doesn't sound like it. How does that square with the > statements from the CEOs that each request is carefully considered and > restricted?

This was covered yesterday, in the NYT article [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech- companies-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies- bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html) :

> The data shared in these ways, the people said, is shared after company > lawyers have reviewed the FISA request according to company practice. It is > not sent automatically or in bulk, and the government does not have full > access to company servers. Instead, they said, it is a more secure and > efficient way to hand over the data.

So, it seems, there are Google-lawyer mechanical Turks clicking "OK" or "Contest" (or whatever) for each FISA order in the Google FISA-order queue. _If_ the lawyer clicks "OK" it seems the requested information is slurped automatically from the Google user-data servers into the PRISM server's outbox (and/or a live data feed is set up). If the lawyer clicks "Contest" then presumably something messier and more manpower-intensive happens. A system like this raises plenty of questions - but it doesn't at all automatically conflict with or falsify what the tech CEOs said.

EDIT: Actually there's apparently a direct conflict between the NYT's version and what WaPo appears to be saying here:

> According to a more precise description contained in a classified NSA > inspector general's report, also obtained by The Post, PRISM allows > "collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to > equipment installed at company-controlled locations," rather than directly > to company servers. The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from > the NSA to the systems installed on their premises, according to sources > familiar with the PRISM process.

That _seems_ to imply that there's no Google-lawyer mechanical Turks reviewing the individual FISA orders. Given that that would contradict both the NYT report and the statement from (for example) Page and Drummond [http://googleblog.blogspot.ie/2013/06/what.html](http://googleblog.blogspot.ie/2013/06/what.html) this is a big deal. Given the WaPo's demonstrated ability to misunderstand information from NSA sources, for the moment I'm inclined to assume that the _Post_ has got this wrong, too - but let's see. (Another possiblity might be that some companies are waving FISA orders of the form "give us the personal data of Suspect X" through automatically, while others still have a lawyer clicking "OK".)

<comment><USER12> This passage confused me too. But this part:

> _According to a more precise description contained in a classified NSA > inspector general's report, also obtained by The Post, PRISM allows > "collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to > equipment installed at company-controlled locations," rather than directly > to company servers. The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from > the NSA to the systems installed on their premises, according to sources > familiar with the PRISM process._

Could refer to queries on accounts/targets that have already been approved. In that sense, it's not much different from a traditional wiretap...once it's in place, the government investigators want the ability to monitor it continuously...the difference in this context is that this "wiretap" encompasses Internet activity, which may require active querying beyond passive listening.

<comment><USER14> Could well be. (Though I'd assume that as long as a "virtual wiretap" is in place on an individual the NSA gets a firehose of everything which happens to that user account (or at least everything the FISA order permits) and then just filters out whatever doesn't interest it.) For my part I wouldn't be surprised if "The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from the NSA to the systems installed on their premises" just turns out to mean "The connection between the on-site server and Fort Meade is protected by SSL" (and probably dedicated fibre). To someone looking at the NSA as the bad wolf here it sounds like an odd thing to emphasise, but from the perspective of an actual NSA agent the security of these off-site servers handling top-secret material (in an environment full of highly-technical leftists and libertarians!) must be an obvious concern. Just for a start, you wouldn't want anyone at Google _other_ than the appointed lawyers taking a look at what you're requesting surveillance on... But that's just a guess of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One question: Where is Anonymous in all this? I was expecting all kinds of DDOSing going down in the last 48 hours, but they have been unusually quiet.

</comment><comment><USER16> > "The server is controlled by the FBI," an official with one of the companies > said. "We do not offer a download feature from our server."

Now we know why they phrased their statements so specifically.

<comment><USER17> your comments seem to be helbanned (i am writing it here since it's the newest non-helbanned comment of yours)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some guy on Tumblr picked apart Yahoo's carefully worded denial, actually [1] turns out it's totally bunk

[1] [http://peterhassett.tumblr.com/post/52499296411/exclamation-...](http://peterhassett.tumblr.com/post/52499296411/exclamation- setting-the-record-straight)

<comment><USER19> Analysis of text related to subjective ideas can make anything bunk ("What do they mean 'all men are created equal'? Isn't our individualism what makes us great", etc.). Line by line analysis are particularly insidious because any idea can be proposed and appear to be a reasonable response without any likelihood of response from the original party.

If you want to find problems with the various companies' responses, you sure can. I am positive things have happened with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, etc. and the government that most people would find offensive. But playing semantic games that push particular agendas without the full story is misleading and imprudent.

<comment><USER20> But he makes some good points, especially about the heavy use of the word "volunteer" and also "give", all which imply Yahoo! isn't freely giving access to the NSA. Yahoo! never said that they were disallowing NSA lawful requests for bulk data, which is the topic of concern.

(Of course Yahoo! isn't volunteering information, that is not concern at all, if the NSA demands then its not volunteering information)

The issue is that all the PR from Facebook, Google and Yahoo! are using very specific non-broad language to say they are not doing a very certain thing, a thing that is not the concern. The concern is about lawful access to all servers and not one piece of PR said this was not happening.

(In the current definition everything the NSA is doing would be considered lawful as the Government post 9/11 is able to use its various provisions to allow for a whole manner of things that we might disagree with, but we are not writing the law, they are.)

<comment><USER4> He misses the part about them not giving the government "unfettered" access. That's narrow enough to meet the criteria of "otherwise" access.

That's the problem with all of these statements. They're very specific with their language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone say exactly what this paragraph is supposed to mean (or really mean, if there's a difference):

 _Intelligence community sources said that this description_ [direct access] _, although inaccurate from a technical perspective, matches the experience of analysts at the NSA. From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for PRISM access may "task" the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff._

So they get data from an ad-hoc query without interaction with the company's staff. And yet it is not direct access? I've read the other back-and-forths but I'm still not sure what this could even trying to imply.

Edit: and read - _According to a more precise description contained in a classified NSA inspector general's report, also obtained by The Post, PRISM allows "collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations," rather than directly to company servers. The companies cannot see the queries that are sent from the NSA to the systems installed on their premises, according to sources familiar with the PRISM process._

But that the meaning is no more clear. Or the meaning is, we buy an "indirect access cable at Best Buy and so everything is OK", ie, the distinction is nothing but word games.

<comment><USER14> There's a major apparent contradiction between that second quotation and other sources (the NYT, Google itself) - see my other comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5847846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5847846)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> yet</comment>


Kill your browser in a single click (well, force-quit required anyway) - <AUTHOR> http://nt4.com/js/64g

<comment><USER2> Force quit not required on linux/firfox 37. Normal close function works. I think a blog post explaining why it is would be better.

<comment><AUTHOR> i was just surprised, can't restart firefox at all w/ mac os x, safari not much happier but at least it recovers... was just surprised that a 64MB file can so easily KO it..</comment></comment>


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