Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html <comment><USER2> Summary: elevation estimates using data from SRTM [1] are too high in built-up areas, because unlike with LIDAR data it's not able to tell the difference between "this is high ground" and "this is low ground with a building on it". Which means many coastal urban areas are more vulnerable to sea level rise than people had previously estimated.

They try to get a better estimate by building a more complex model, and calibrate it using LIDAR where that's available. This lets them say not just "things are worse than we thought" but "these specific parts of these populated areas are at risk".

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Radar_Topography_Missi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Radar_Topography_Mission)

<comment><USER3> Where does this fit in? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21310972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21310972)

<comment><USER2> If ice cliffs in the Antarctic won't collapse catastrophically that decreases our estimate for how quickly the sea is likely to rise, which is certainly good news!

But we're still going to get some rise, and accurate elevation modeling is important for figuring out what effects that's likely to have.

Roughly, you can think of these as two disconnected efforts: get the best estimate you can of the distribution of possible future sea levels, and get the best estimate you can of the impact of different sea levels on humanity. Your link is the former, this link is the latter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To put this in context we're talking about 4 to 5 mm per year of sea level rise on average globally for the next several decades.

Some areas will be more and some less as sea level rise isn't uniform (for instance isostatic rebound on the west coast of Canada will result in a net sea level drop in some areas).

Mitigation will be key as even if we eliminated carbon emissions completely today there's already committed warming in the system that will result in sea level rise through the century. We're just talking about how many extra mm per year on top of the 3-4mm or so that it is now.

<comment><USER5> The rise has been 3 mm a year (1/8 inch) since 1990 or about 4 inches.

[http://sealevel.colorado.edu/](http://sealevel.colorado.edu/)

This has been averaging millions of measurements of satellite altimeter over oceans. That is considered more accurate than tidal gauges which are subject to local changes such subsidence near river mouths.

The 3 mm is a combination of land glacier melt and water thermal expansions. I have heard talks all over the map as to which factor is more dominant.

So 4-5 mm a year in the near future is not too off.

<comment><USER4> I liked table 1 as a nice summary from a referenced paper in the above paper, found here:

[https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2014...](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2014EF000239)

Their data suggests thermal expansion is the primary culprit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a summary of the paper I gave before when a NYT piece covered it yesterday.

For USA and Australia, high-resolution/precision lidar-based maps are available of coastal areas. For other regions of the world it is not the case (or severely limited). However, gaining an insight into the elevation of land is crucial to determine a region's vulnerability to sea-level rise. NASA's SRTM has almost global coverage of elevation levels, but is known to be too low resolution to be meaningful for this application (esp. in urban areas). A neural network was trained on the USA lidar data to augment the SRTM data (i.e. make the resolution higher). The network was verified on the Australian lidar dataset (and they got a good match; the model was already published elsewhere before [1]). The point of this paper was to then have the newly- derived elevation maps be exposed to sea-level change. This is where the maps with flooded cities come from [which were in the NYT article].

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00344...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034425717306016)

</comment><comment><USER7> Makes you wonder when coastal property prices start plummeting. And when banks stop granting mortgages for buying coastal homes. I don't believe this is happening yet.

<comment><USER8> Is there a way to short these real estate investments and fleece climate- change-denying ideologues who are keeping coastal property values high? Do well by doing good! :D

<comment><USER9> If there was, you'd probably be paying a lot to hold the position for 30 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Slightly unrelated, but first author on this paper is Scott Kulp, an acquaintance and fellow ACM member from my undergrad days, and above and beyond one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. As in, double majored in Math and Comp Sci in undergrad, completing it in three years while looking dreadfully bored in every lecture we had together, smart.

</comment><comment><USER11> Plug for thisplacewillbewater.com - they have a great map of what 4C warming will look like and you can also buy biodegradable stickers to post around and raise awareness if you live in an area that will be underwater.

<comment><USER12> Looks like SpaceX predicts <.5C rise given their Boca Chica launch site.

[https://seeing.climatecentral.org/#12/25.9917/-97.1329?show=...](https://seeing.climatecentral.org/#12/25.9917/-97.1329?show=lockinAnimated&level=1&unit=feet&pois=hide)

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

<comment><USER13> Or that they'll have more than one launch site in 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> weird how sea level rise is always used as the doomsday scenario rather than the much more serious threat of delicate ecosystems collapsing and famine that would affect everyone.

<comment><USER15> this!

i'm finding that people - educated, thoughtful, caring people - have real trouble wrapping their heads around this threat, how serious it is, and how fast its coming.

these same people are very concerned about plastic pollution. real issue, but not civilization ending. and if we stopped the major sources tomorrow, we'd be fine. CO2 does not work this way.

i think it's because people can see and feel plastic. but they look out their window and things look...fine (apologies to california and other places where things are not fine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Over all, the research shows that countries should start preparing now for > more citizens to relocate internally, according to Dina Ionesco of the > International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental group that > coordinates action on migrants and development.

How the hell is Vietnam supposed to prepare for non-existence?

<comment><USER17> It doesn't have to? Look at a map of Vietnam, then look at the (relatively small) portion of Vietnam presented in the article's graphics...

<comment><USER18> A "relatively small" portion that's still a major territory loss that includes everything south of Ho Chi Min, and much of the city - of 10m. I'd say they have to. Perhaps quickly as these estimates appear to be based on RCP2.6 - that's the most optimistic track assuming _everyone_ is meeting Paris goals. Right now, no one is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Since the threat is so imminent, are there specific climate change predictions that have come true?

<comment><USER20> One of the predictions was that we'd get stronger heat waves in West Europe. We broke several old records this year. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-49100271](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49100271)

<comment><USER21> But you've been in a warming trend for millennia in Western Europe -- the Danube and Rhine used to freeze over in the time of Tacitus.

<comment><USER22> The Danube and Rhine river froze over in times my parents can remember. A strong contributing factor to why rivers today don't freeze any more is that we're using them to cool power plants and similar.

<comment><USER21> They froze frequently, and this was not something noted in the 18th century, before power plants. You had reindeer in the Black Forest in Caesar's time. Europe was quite a bit colder in historical times.

<comment><USER23> The current temperature is clearly significantly hotter, and the rate of change is greater,

There has not been a "warming trend for millennia." The temperature rose steadily for about 1000 years since the Roman times, up through the Medieval Warm Period, then cooled steadily until about 1800, and then have shot up recently.

Take a look at the graph at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Did I just miss the link to the research material?

How much higher will it be? 6 inches? 2 feet?

<comment><USER25> I believe the paper is [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z).

If I'm reading the paper correctly, the authors don't argue that sea levels will rise more than previously predicted. Rather, they argue that the classical technique for estimating impact by using elevation (SRTM) is overestimating elevation and therefore underestimating the impact of rising sea levels. The authors claim that their technique (CoastalDEM) also underestimates the impact of rising sea levels, but reduces the systemic bias present in previous estimates.

<comment> radford-neal Thanks for the link. One statement from the paper: "this analysis assumes a static coastal topography".

This seems like a significant limitation, especially when a lot of the affected area consists of river deltas (eg, most of Bangladesh, the Mekong delta in Vietnam). One would expect that a rise in sea level in a delta would lead to increased silt deposition on the newly-submerged parts of the delta, reducing the impact compared to a naive calculation, perhaps quite significantly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> At what point do we first see mass floodings from unusually high tides, such as during proxigean spring tide? Surely it must be soon if Veitnam will be underwater in just 30 years time?

<comment><USER27> Apparently it's already happened.

> _The findings don't have to spell the end of those areas. The new data shows > that 110 million people already live in places that are below the high tide > line, which Mr. Strauss attributes to protective measures like seawalls and > other barriers._

<comment><USER28> So basically we have 110 millions of people living in "dangerous" areas so far yet nobody was impacted?

<comment><USER29> Essentially, yes. The Dutch have been living with this for hundreds of years; it will cost, but it is certainly possible to construct mitigatory measures.

<comment><USER30> So the way it affects them is by requiring the expensive construction of seawalls, drainage and other defensive mechanisms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> is there any noticeable effect of earth's rotation and uneven gravity field on distribution of sea-level change?

<comment><USER32> Yes gravity, and to a lesser extent rotation, have a (somewhat unintuitive) impact on how the sea level will change across different parts of the globe. There's a good overview of this topic here: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng- interactive/2018/...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng- interactive/2018/sep/12/greenland-antarctic-ice-sheet-sea-level-rise-science- climate)

Edit: video showing gravity changing over time due to melt: [https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2016/07/21/gravity- gre...](https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2016/07/21/gravity-greenland- dropping-no-really/)

<comment><USER33> The sea level as it stands today is already effected by gravity. And this is in fact built into the wgs84 datum. So vertical elevation is measured relative to that assumed sea level after the effects of gravity. And a rise in sea level would presumably be measured relative to that existing datum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z)

</comment><comment><USER35> Does anyone have any sources for good projects for the USZ?

</comment><comment><USER36> More? I can't think of one that's been erased yet.

<comment><USER37> Indonesia is moving Jakarta's capital status and government functions to a new city on Borneo. Of course, they cannot move Jakarta itself, which is also sinking due to groundwater extraction, and will be flooded unless they build a costly barrage system. They need to get the Dutch back to show them how (the Dutch will need a place to move anyway :)

Thailand is also discussing a similar plan to move the capital from Bangkok to Ayutthaya, the historical capital before the Burmese invasion of 1767.

New York is planning a sea wall system in southern Manhattan - _The Big U_ \- but what they really need is a truly BIG barrage from Long Island to Staten Island across the Narrows, and a smaller effort between the island and the New Jersey mainland. Closing the East River will be more difficult, depending on how much of the shoreline will be included. By coincidence, the Dutch also used to control New York.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Any chance this gets published if it somehow found the opposite to be true?

<comment><USER39> To answer your conspiratory rhetorical question: Yes it would.

There are some good news from research reported, like "Slowdown in Antarctic mass loss from solid Earth and sea-level" feedbacks[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6444/eaav7908](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6444/eaav7908)

Just because there is less good news than bad news, does not make science biased.

<comment><USER38> > To answer your conspiratory rhetorical question: Yes it would.

The accusatory tone of your response only reinforces my concern. It doesn't even require a "conspiracy" as you gibingly added. If a scientist considering publishing findings counter to consensus expects to be met with this kind of reaction from their peers, and shouts of "denier" at large, that's all it takes to put a finger on the scale to bias what gets published.

<comment><USER23> You protest too much and show your clear intent.

First, your "Any chance" question was clearly begging the question. The framing was that you believed the article _wouldn 't_ get published if it went the other way.

Then, when shown evidence that such articles do, in fact, get published, and that there is _no_ conspiracy against them, you somehow suggest that... _that_ response will keep scientists from publishing their work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> They had predicted almost a foot rise in sea level for 2020-25 in 1984. So we will see what happens. Source: [https://books.google.com/books/about/Projecting_Future_Sea_L...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Projecting_Future_Sea_Level_Rise.html?id=c1Hls8bvKT8C)</comment>


Polite Russian teenagers fight rude drivers withstickers(desktop has english caps) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpg9CX1lRrA

<comment><AUTHOR> Youtube on desktop shows the english subtitled version.</comment>


The year of high- and low-lights at an Internet startup - <AUTHOR> http://jeff.henshaw.org/?p=225 <comment><USER2> Several good lessons both on the positive and the negative side.</comment>


Moodle: Official Music Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCQtwZuqChc

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a video project for a Taylor University COS class by David Perkins (transfered from Full Sail University). So far, only the CSE department here uses Moodle (by lead of Dr. Cramer and Dr. Toll), but hopefully we can switch the whole campus over soon :).</comment>


Stanford's new course on building a startup - <AUTHOR> http://startup.stanford.edu/

<comment><USER2> Sounds more like a "how to build a web app" course. [0]

Building a startup involves a lot of "soft skills" that not all developers are familiar with: marketing, talking to customers, overcoming all sorts of psychological blockers/fears about putting yourself, your ideas, and your product "out there" for all people to judge.

When I saw the title, I hoped that it would focus on those aspects of building a startup, sort of like the 30x500 course by Amy Hoy. [http://unicornfree.com/30x500](http://unicornfree.com/30x500)

[0] There's nothing wrong with doing a course for how to build web applications. I just don't think it's the same thing as building a startup.

EDIT:

It seems the official name of the course is "Startup Engineering", which makes a lot more sense than the submission title: "How to build a startup".

Please fix the title of the submission so that this comment might be deprecated.

<comment><USER3> _Building a startup involves a lot of "soft skills" that not all developers are familiar with: marketing, talking to customers, overcoming all sorts of psychological blockers/fears about putting yourself, your ideas, and your product "out there" for all people to judge._

Give me the specs for a $19.9 ebook on that, please :) I've been of the mind to write something like that for a while.

<comment><USER2> Haha, a book would be nice, but I think really the only way to learn this is by experiencing it. The book should be more of a guide about how to put yourself in the environment that forces you to learn this stuff.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I agree you can only actually learn by doing. No amount of book-reading will equal your first startup in terms of practical knowledge and how to apply it. That said, one's own startup is necessarily narrow in scope and there is a ton that the active practitioner can learn from anecdotes from other startups, especially across different markets and industries, and with different talent and network constraints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey guys - this is the instructor here. You can sign up for the class at coursera.org/course/startup. The startup.stanford.edu webpage will be updated sometime tomorrow to start tracking the Coursera MOOC content.

Happy to take any feature requests, bug reports, etc. here or via email (balajis at stanford dot edu).

<comment><USER6> Hi Balaji. I plan to build a website as a part of your class. Since I am not very tech savvy (basic knowledge of html, css, and python), will you still recommend taking your course?

<comment><USER5> Hi Smirnoff: try out the first few lectures and see if it fits your background. The key is how quickly you can pick up the web programming stuff.

<comment><USER6> Great. I will give it a try!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title and description are somewhat at odds. "Startup Engineering", the title, makes sense - the kind of things a certain breed of startup are looking for in software engineers.

On the other hand, "Stanford's new course on building a startup from the ground up" offers only one week for "Promotion, CAC/LTV/Funnel, Regulation and Accounting" \- things that are a little bit important for building a business.

And by "startup" this clearly only applies to a certain breed. If you wanted to start a Biotech startup (as a random example), the class is nigh useless.

It's a way narrower course than some of the descriptions suggest.

<comment><USER5> Hey Formite - this is the instructor here. I actually did start a reasonably successful biotech/genomics company named Counsyl[1] (~200 employees, testing 3% of US births, $65M in funding) and I do think the ambit of the course is broad enough to assist with that.

It's a good strategy these days to build one's business on top of a software core, with APIs for all major business functions and physical interface layers only when absolutely necessary. That's really the overall principle that I'm trying to communicate, along with examples in practice. Let's see if I end up being successful in this pedagogical goal!

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/23/counsyl](http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/23/counsyl)

<comment><USER7> balajis - Thank you very much for your reply, and I'd like to say that I'm happy to be corrected. I've signed up for the class despite my concerns that it's...tangental at best to my interests...but if you succeed, I be quite content in being wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been following the edTech space very closely for almost two years now. So I have a good idea on what free online courses are out there. I also went over all the comments below.

Here is a google doc with a collection of the best eight online courses available on platforms like Coursera, Udacity, Venture Lab, and iTunes. Together these courses form a kick-ass Internet Startup Major.

[http://bit.ly/125Yidy](http://bit.ly/125Yidy)

happy to edit if you have suggestions

</comment><comment><USER9> Building a startup is different than building a web app. It's sad to see that the instructors are not aware of the massive difference between the two.

Building a startup course should have no technical details. I'd recommend Udacity "How to build a startup" course any time and even for small businesses.

<comment><USER10> The main lecturer co-founded one of the biggest personal genomics companies in the US, so I'm quite certain that he realizes the difference between the two.

The course emphasizes using CS-related skills in any startup for product development and getting insight into your market. Example exercises are things like scraping competitor data, wading through genomic data from the cmd line and building internal APIs for managing company data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was excited about this. But then I realized it was mostly about software development.

Something I've realized was that it's not even worth it for me to work on my own ideas. I might as well focus on taking all the money my clients are willing to throw at me and look into hiring people to work on my ideas for much less money than I can make.

I'd love to see a course along the lines of transitioning from software developer to small business owner. At some point it stops making financial sense to read about balancing photons in radioactive black trees when you already make more point and clicking on a DBMS UI. I need to hire a few people to start helping me out. So much comes along with that that I'm not prepared for.

<comment><USER12> While there's some merit to what you're saying -- you're advocating an arbitrage, since you make more money developing for clients and can hire people for much less you still have money left over. But keep in mind the passion and dedication it takes to make a great product and know that you might not get that when simply hiring someone for less money than you make.

<comment><USER11> You make a valid point. One that I often make. However, I'm more of talking about moving my passion and dedication over to running a business and not just blindly sending projects to other firms/freelancers.

<comment><USER12> Yup. I'm actually working with some freelancers right now and paying for it with my day job (though I'm not a developer myself and chose to work with people specialized in certain areas).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The course launches tomorrow/today on Coursera:

[https://www.coursera.org/course/startup](https://www.coursera.org/course/startup)

</comment><comment><USER14> Just enrolled. It looks like this is the second time the class has been offered. Has anyone on HN already taken the course? What did you think?

<comment><USER15> I also took the class in the winter at Stanford and had an awesome experience. We focused on the things that mattered and a bunch of really cool startups came out of the class. I can also imagine that it'll be excellent online -- Balaji put together great writeups of the content we covered that I'm still referencing now and I believe the (amazing) guest lecturers were filmed.

<comment><USER16> Have you got any links to some of the startups that came out of v1 of this class?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Old discussion (4 months ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5089487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5089487)

</comment><comment><USER17> It would be helpful for a class on Startup Engineering to elaborate on company building rather than jumping to product building immediately.

Quoting Fred Wilson:

 _[...] most of our portfolio companies build the product first, then the business, then the company. And building a company is often difficult for founders because they are so focused on the product._ [1]

That said, the course does seem to touch on important topics to build a web product with tools out there today. I found the Unix section [2] a bit ambitious. If someone came in with little knowledge of Unix prior to this, as the PDF seems to assume, it provides just enough rope to hang yourself with.

The Introduction [3] also ends with "Time to start coding", which seems like a great way to build a SaaS product, but maybe not a company.

[1] [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/building-a-company-vs- buildi...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/10/building-a-company-vs-building-a- business.html)

[2] [https://spark-public.s3.amazonaws.com/cme184/unix.pdf](https://spark- public.s3.amazonaws.com/cme184/unix.pdf)

[3] [http://spark- public.s3.amazonaws.com/cme184/introduction.pdf](http://spark- public.s3.amazonaws.com/cme184/introduction.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> "startup" == "SaaS web startup", apparently.

<comment><USER19> Can you expand this critique? I'm a recent grad with the prerequisite knowledge they ask for (barely) and aspirations to build cool stuff. Is my time better spent elsewhere? If so, where?

<comment><USER20> If the cool stuff you want to build includes things like alternative energy sources (solar, wind, wave, and so on) then 90% of the course will be of little benefit to you. However, if your definition of cool stuff can be boiled down to "software on the internet" then this course will likely be helpful.

<comment><USER15> I actually disagree a bit here -- Balaji and Vijay (the instructors) have both built incredibly successful companies based on many of the principles that they teach in the course. Sure, the online course won't teach you to do genomics or protein folding or build solar panels, but what it will do is allow you to create many of the components that support businesses like those. Thinking in a broader sense about what APIs for various business functions can do and how they can help you can be a tremendous help and this class can teach you how to build those APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I took this course with Balaji at Stanford - definitely the best course I've taken. It was open-ended enough to let me pursue my own entrepreneurial/tech interests but provided enough support to help me avoid mistakes and learn relevant material. Can't wait to see how this course goes on a global level.

</comment><comment><USER22> Misread the title as "Stanford's new course on building an airship". Disappointed now.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have very little programming experience/skill but really want to take this course and am up for a challenge. Is it doable?

Anything that I could do to supplement the course to make up for my disadvantage?

<comment><USER24> > Is it doable?

I guess there's no harm trying.

> Anything that I could do to supplement the course to make up for my > disadvantage?

If you want to learn programming, I can recommend "How to design programmes" (Full text available online at htdp.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have an idea, and requires lot of coding hours , I feel if i start coding , By the time i finish the product will have many more competitors :) , Should i do a Proof of concept and look out for investors ?

<comment><USER23> No. No. No. No.

I just spent the last year of my life doing a 'proof of concept' and 'looking out for investors'. You'll spend your life always with a sense of insecurity drawn on by the fact that you don't have a real product.

Now, if your favorite Uncle is an investor and absolutely loves you, that's a whole different story. But realistically, make a product, find users who love it, then campaign for them by finding people to invest.

Otherwise you'll lose sight of why you're doing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "In the second part, you will apply these concepts to develop a simple command line application, expose it as a webservice, and then integrate other students' command line apps and webservices together with yours to create an open-source mobile HTML5 app as a final project."

I am a little confused. Does that mean we cannot simply develop our own startup idea? Why do we have to integrate other students' apps?

</comment><comment><USER27> Anyone know if there's a list of the project ideas (some of which it sounds like became startups) from previous classes? I've looked around on Google but didn't find any such list. It would be interesting just to see what some of the ideas have been and which ones got traction...

</comment><comment><USER28> Seems to me like they added course material for the first 2 weeks and then stopped...I wonder why. Anyone at Stanford with any insight?

<comment><USER5> The full Stanford course materials for the Jan-Mar timeframe are at stanford.coursera.org/cme184-001. The startup.stanford.edu URL tracked the first few weeks, but this was redundant for Stanford students and another page to keep up to date. So the material there is more of a teaser for people interested in the Coursera MOOC class.

That said, it will be more useful for the Coursera students to have a site that is accessible when logged out, so look for startup.stanford.edu to track the MOOC course material beginning tomorrow evening or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Question: Does this cost money?

<comment><USER30> It's free online: [https://www.coursera.org/course/startup](https://www.coursera.org/course/startup)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there a reason I can't access the material from the winter semester?

<comment><USER5> The material has changed significantly since v1. Page will be updated soon to track Coursera materials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Seems very interesting. I signed up, when is it starting?

</comment><comment><USER33> Page keeps loading for me, then bogs down, and then freezes completely and kills my chrome browser. Anyone know what's up?

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Google Chrome 23.0.1271.64 (Official Build 165188) m

OS Windows

WebKit 537.11 (@132838)

JavaScript V8 188.8.131.52

Flash 184.108.40.206

User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/23.0.1271.64 Safari/537.11</comment>


Tech bubble for everyone, or just me? - <AUTHOR> http://techbubbleforeveryoneorjustme.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just kidding, fellow HNers, please think very carefully before upvoting.</comment>


Automated and intelligent surveillance project INDECT pales 1984 - <AUTHOR> http://www.indect-project.eu/

<comment><AUTHOR> Challenging project for sure, I'd actually be quite interested in the data mining techniques employed, but I guess that any private company who'd even research such a thing would be considered as evil as they go...

Say what you will about google - at least they provide an opt-out option...</comment>


Thoughts on Investing - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/thoughts-on-investing <comment><USER2> Discounted cash flow is king of investment valuation, IMO. It allows for great analysis of companies and assets way before many other methods provide valuable input (before profitability etc). If there is not significant cash flow or a decent metric to value future cash flow, I would invest work or time instead of money.</comment>


Recommended reading for Recommender Systems? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking at working on a project that will involve a recommender system and was wondering if there was any reading that people here would recommend. I've done a little poking around and found quite a few papers and the equivalent of text books. Knowing that these things can vary greatly in quality and practical application I was hoping there might be a few people here that could recommend a book/paper/website or two.
Thanks
Mike <comment><USER2> You can look at the netflix's winners papers:

\- Progress report: <http://www.netflixprize.com/community/viewtopic.php?id=998>

\- Latest: [http://cacm.acm.org/news/32450-award-winning-paper- reveals-k...](http://cacm.acm.org/news/32450-award-winning-paper-reveals-key- to-netflix-prize/fulltext)

And:

\- Recommendation Algorithm Wants To Show You Something New: [http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/26/1821208/Recommend...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/26/1821208/Recommendation- Algorithm-Wants-To-Show-You-Something- New?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29&utm_content=FriendFeed+Bot)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence- Bu...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence-Building- Applications/dp/0596529325)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd be very interested also. So far I have looked at clustering as the first bet. Does anyone else have any suggestions?</comment>


Myths programmers believe - <AUTHOR> https://atilanevesoncode.wordpress.com/2018/06/12/myths-programmers-believe/ <comment><USER2> I've worked on some really large cross-cutting codebases, probably the largest of which are these two:

\- an integrated aircraft and radar simulator that was originally written in the 80s and has code from multiple languages, added and morphed over time by many generations of different staff, and still in heavy use at least as late as when I worked on it in the 00s.

\- a suite of different search engine services for a large (Alexa top 400) ecommerce product search engine and online store.

My experience after working on these huge, legacy, complex codebases is that if you need a "go to definition" feature in your editor or IDE, it's a symptom of a notably bad codebase (not just regular bad with all the usual suboptimalities that come up in corporate software, but notably worse than that).

It's particularly bad when you have to use it to chase down an eventual base implementation in a hopelessly convoluted stack of inheritance.

The pieces of software I've seen have the longest shelf life have been written with exacting and unforgiving focus on simplicity and separating units of code, in such a way that the details of an implementation are never far.

It's sort of like the code's design is a conceptual KD-tree, so conditioned on being in a sub-section of the code, you know for sure anything you depend on is nearby and not far away, and _certainly_ not hidden in a stack of inheritance.

This is not an argument against "go to definition" capabilities in editing tools. I just take a little issue when the author says,

> "Text editors can't and don't have features like autocomplete, go to > definition, …"

> "This usually shows up in the same discussions where Emacs is a terminal > program. It also usually comes up when someone says an IDE is needed because > of the features above. I don't program without them, I think it'd be crazy > to."

I use Emacs and I never want autocomplete or "go to definition" features. I hate them. In the cases when I unfortunately _need them_ it's a symptom of exceptionally bad software, not an endorsement that these features are themselves good things generally, except in so far as they offer help in exceptionally bad codebases.

Insecticide is not a good thing generally. It's a good thing in bad cases when there's an insect problem, but if you find yourself in that situation really often, and you need insecticide so often that it becomes as familiar to you as your morning coffee, then it's a sign of a much bigger problem.

<comment><USER3> > I use Emacs and I never want autocomplete or "go to definition" features. I > hate them. In the cases when I unfortunately need them it's a symptom of > exceptionally bad software

I can understand wanting to be able to code without these features, but I can't understand "hating" them. I use "go to definition" not because I can't find a function definition, but because it gets me there faster. What's the moral advantage of opening a file and searching, vs hitting "M-."?

<comment><USER2> If you're just talking about the first time you need to open the file, then sure, who cares.

But I'm talking about the typical way of working when I have multiple files open and move between them or place them into multiple Emacs windows. In that case, it is SO much faster to jump based on knowing which file I intend to move to, rather than moving to a file because it happened to be the file that contained a given definition.

If I have to think, "go to wherever function X is defined" that's a drastic mental slowdown compared with "C-x b <file where I already totally know where function X is because of the code structure>".

It's similar with autocomplete, even for very long names. I am fast at typing, so the little disruption of needing to enter a visual scan mode to select the right entry from e.g. some JEDI autocomplete option is a huge time cost for me added up over all the times I would write out e.g. function or class names in my code.

They are both the sort of thing that superficially sounds like it would save you time or cognitive load, but they don't, unless you happen to be in the pathological codebase scenario I was describing and you _need_ the tools because the project's code organization does not permit being able to reason efficiently about it from local mental caches.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure what code completion you're using, but if it's contextual, I'm very lost as to how typing a ridiculously long name would be faster than auto completing it. Especially since once you're used to the auto complete, you can basically use shortcuts for specific things you're using in that context a lot. "BindingOperations.EnableCollectionSynchronization()?" oh, that's "bop.ecs". There should be very few options to pick from unless everything is very similarly named...

<comment><USER5> I also find autocompletion invaluable when I'm working with an API I don't interact with regularly enough to have everything memorized, mere mortal that I am. I might not remember exactly what naming convention the methods conform to, or what order the arguments need to be in, and autocompletion gets me both of those essentially for free, without having to pull up the docs for every method call.

<comment><USER2> I can agree with this — if you're really working on a codebase that you rarely interact with, then sure, "jump to" and autocomplete features are helpful.

Over my career, the relative amount of time spent doing that is really tiny though. It doesn't invalidate the value of autocomplete or "jump to" features for this use case, but for me it's not common enough to matter a whole lot. Other forms of searching work just fine too.

My other comments are written regarding the case when you're hopping around an in-house codebase, and beyond some initial burn-in, you should have a lot of working knowledge of the details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I mean that the inherent complexity of the task at hand doesn't go away and > might even be harder to solve with a simple language.

I see this so often everywhere. "Yes, but with this simple framework/database/language you don't have that complex problem anymore!". No, it just ignores the problem completely so eventually it will bite you and you now have to solve the complex underlying problem in the wrong domain.

Problems never go away, you just move them to a different place. The trick is which place to move them to.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hacker News paydirt!</comment>


Scheme to Destroy Your Competition with RivalMap - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/10/scheme-to-destroy-your-competition-with-rivalmap/ <comment><USER2> It's really annoying that `Scheme' here, could have had two meanings, and that I first read it as `R5RS type Scheme.' I've become quite the fan of `R5RS type Scheme,' and it would be great if there was a `killer app' which would help you destroy the competition. RivalMap, though, does look quite handy for `Scheming.' I can imagine that the stuff it does could eliminate some very boring jobs.</comment>


Ask HN: How did you first hear about HN? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I don't remember, I got here almost 10 years ago. But it was most probably from following a link on a blog, since the first time a co-worker of mine ever mentioned HN was a few months ago.</comment>


You Can't Sacrifice Partition Tolerance (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://codahale.com/you-cant-sacrifice-partition-tolerance/ <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like this is basically just glossing over this part:

> Some systems cannot be partitioned. Single-node systems (e.g., a monolithic > Oracle server with no replication) are incapable of experiencing a network > partition. But practically speaking these are rare;

I'm not sure how the writer came to the conclusion that these systems are rare. The website I'm working on now has a single monolithic Postgres server, and the majority of systems I've worked on connected to single monolithic datastores, so at the very least these systems exist. These aren't particularly _interesting_ examples, but when talking theoretically like with the CAP theorem, you don't get to just ignore the rare or uninteresting cases. These seem like relatively common examples of choosing CA.

Of course, when you try to shard such databases, you're going to run into serious problems.

I guess the claim I can credit to the author is that CA _really really really_ means _no partition tolerance_. _Even one network partition_ puts you in CP or AP territory. But I don't think that means CA stores don't exist.

It may be that I'm just not understanding things correctly, though; the CAP paper is definitely a challenging read for me.

<comment><USER3> If you read the next sentence he says

> But practically speaking these are rare; add remote clients to the > monolithic Oracle server and you get a distributed system which can > experience a network partition (e.g., the Oracle server becomes > unavailable).

<comment><USER4> The theory in question addresses distributed database systems. A remote client connected to a monolithic database is not a distributed database system. If there is a network partition between the client and the server then you don't get C or A. You get nothing.

The P refers to partitions between nodes of the database system. Not clients.

So that point in the article doesn't seem to make sense.

<comment><USER5> > You get nothing.

You don't get nothing, you get inconsistency that could require even human intervention to fix. For example, if client lost connection right before the database was able to respond that his commit was successful. Client then retries and you get a typical double billing problem.

That's because monolithic database with a remote client is in fact a distributed system and strong consistency in a distributed system requires proper distributed algorithms and protocols, where clients are nodes too. You cannot guaranty consistency otherwise (to be precise, you will need clients to be able to wait indefinitely to guaranty strong total consistency, but if clients are used by humans they will not do that and the only consistency you can guaranty for a human is eventual consistency).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The implication derived from a trivial probability argument is misleading. Failures are correlated, so 1-(1-P)^n is an upper bound, firstly, but secondly and much more importantly, the value being computed is the wrong value. Failure of a node is not partition. To non-trivially partition a cluster of N nodes requires (N-2) failures, when the cluster is fully connected, for example (as e.g. on any bus network). Handling trival partition is, well, trivial, in some important senses.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's worth keeping in mind that viewing a system as CP or AP usually isn't nuanced enough: [https://martin.kleppmann.com/2015/05/11/please-stop- calling-...](https://martin.kleppmann.com/2015/05/11/please-stop-calling- databases-cp-or-ap.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Liked everything up to this part;

"When it comes to designing or evaluating distributed systems, then, I think we should focus less on which two of the three Virtues we like most and more on what compromises a system makes as things go bad."

It seemed like the entire point was that really there are only 2 Virtues (Consistency, Availability) and given a partition you will chose one or the other. The only database that doesn't have network partitions also isn't distributed.

<comment><USER5> > and given a partition you will chose one or the other

There is no sacrificing consistency though. It's about whether you use CRDTs or something to keep the system working when network partition happens or you don't and let the system stop working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The original CAP paper was intended as a high-level discussion item for students. Brewer has since emphasized that it is more of an academic approach than applicable to real-world distributed databases.

Other computer scientists have either modified or narrowed it to be more useful.

So it's fun to read the original CAP paper, but it's less useful than you would expect. When somebody asks me about CP vs. CA, I realize they in fact don't anything at all about distributed databases.</comment>


'I'm not an epidemiologist but': The rise of the corona influencers - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/im-not-an-epidemiologist-but-the-rise-of-the-corona <comment><USER2> I've been comparing this with the Swine Flu pandemic of 2009.

H1N1 ended up not being as fatal as SARSCoV2, but we didn't know that at the time. People were saying it had a CFR of >1% in Mexico (where the original outbreak was). That number dropped way down as better data came in after the outbreak.

But still, up to 575,000 people may have died from it. That's not nothing.

And... nobody cared? People were calm. It was on the news, but there was no panic.

I think part of it was how social media has changed the way we consume and respond to information. I've seen extreme panic on FB, Reddit, HN, Twitter -- which seems to cause more panic. Everything in the media is turned up to 11 now.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic)

It's interesting to go back further and read this Bird Flu article from 2005, where a UN Health Official warned of 150 million possible deaths, and said things like, "It's like a combination of global warming and HIV/Aids 10 times faster than it's running at the moment." So, the media has always turned things up to 11, but something about the current era has exacerbated the issue.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia- pacific/4292426.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4292426.stm)

<comment><USER3> SARS doesn't even come close to the infectiousness of COVID-19. China only registered like 8k patients by the end of it, even you times that by 10, that still dwarfed by the COVID-19 on global scale, and it is only the beginning.

The reason COVID-19 get singled out might not be the mortality rate alone (it looks edging close to 10% right now in Italy, which is alarmingly scary), but more on its impact on paralyzing our health care system with a swarm of people requires hospitalization. And it achieves all this in record time.

I don't agree this is a perception problem, the threat is real. Social media can panic, but you can't really tell people it is OK when patients are lying/dying on the floor of hospitals.

<comment><USER4> It's worth remembering that the "fatality rate" you're quoting accounts only for people who have been tested and then died. We have no idea what the denominator in an accurate fatality rate calculation would be. Many thousands of mildly symptomatic infections aren't recorded.

<comment><USER5> South Korea does exhaustive and they get a fatality rate of 1%. WHO gives 1% max + 20% needing hospitalization. The various cruise ships also give a good idea.

At the start, the "Many thousands of mildly symptomatic infections aren't recorded" claim had plausibility. Now it needs to die in fire. This stuff has demonstrated it's qualities at scale and we need to get with it.

<comment><USER6> "I'm not an epidemiologist but" that South Korea number is misleading because it's calculated as death/"people that tested positive". That undercounts the death rate because some of the people that tested positive are still sick and might die. The correct formula is death/"closed cases" which takes into account only people that have recovered or died. That number in SK is currently around 5% though trending down as cases are closed. [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south- kore...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/)

<comment><USER5> That's not quite right.

Your link shows the seriously ill among the unclosed cases as 59 people. If those dies, it won't increase the death significantly - maybe bump it to 1.5%.

But an increase to the base death rate doesn't matter. We should know a 1% death rate is going to be catastrophic and take action.

Edit: originally read you as arguing the death rate as too high so different argument. It's probably better to assume a higher death rate regardless anyway so I changed "you are wrong" to "not quite right" too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When you have things like the New York Times publishing articles about how the CDC is publishing misleading information, or the WHO and the South Korean government publish contradictory guidelines, or the federal government announcing one thing one day and the opposite thing the next day, then you really can't just blindly trust an authoritative source any more. It's impossible, because the authoritative sources don't agree with each other! Everyone is forced to do their own amateur analysis. It is no surprise that given the situation, many people are publishing their own amateur analyses.

IMO this is better than the situation in previous similar disasters. Like in the 1918 influenza epidemic, many governments censored information, and there was no social media to circumvent this, so the public understanding of the real situation was quite poor.

<comment><USER8> I think _everyone's_ understanding of the situation is quite poor, not just the public's. If you read studies of the previous epidemics such as SARS, H1N1 etc, you will see that early in the epidemic cycle everyone tends to exaggerate the impact in all aspects, sometimes by orders of magnitude, in part because it's safer to err on the side of caution rather than not be cautious enough, and in part for selfish reasons ("woo-hoo, I get my 15 minutes of fame after working for peanuts in some godforsaken epidemiology lab for a decade"), but mostly the former. For bird flu, for example, the initial prediction was "up to" 150M deaths worldwide: [https://slate.com/technology/2009/05/the-problems-with- the-w...](https://slate.com/technology/2009/05/the-problems-with-the-world- health-organization-s-approach-to- pandemics.html#:~:text=Back%20in%20the%20fall%20of,could%20die%20of%20bird%20flu.&text=The%20WHO's%20Global%20Influenza%20Preparedness,the%20H5N1%20avian%20flu%20scare). This estimate, supposedly, came from one of he most "informed" people in the world.

People just hate unknowns, and especially "unknown unknowns" and therefore latch onto the most dramatic damage estimates and act accordingly, often further exacerbating the situation.

<comment><USER9> This is why the lack of testing is so galling: more information would help everyone -- predictors and consumers of those predictions -- stay calmer.

<comment><USER10> I want to see serological testing results from random samples of the population... hopefully we get that soon.

<comment><USER11> Is there any idea on when exactly this might happen? Here in the UK we're hearing about this a lot in the daily updates, but there is never a concrete time. It could be a gamechanger.

<comment><USER10> I have no idea of any plans to start doing the testing, but:

[https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/biomerica- begins-s...](https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/biomerica-begins- shipping-samples-of-10-minute-test-for-covid-19-virus-exposure-/)

[https://www.biomedomics.com/products/infectious- disease/covi...](https://www.biomedomics.com/products/infectious- disease/covid-19-rt/)

Maybe we need more people on Twitter to start demanding it? (I'm not really being sarcastic, as crazy as that sounds.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is what happens when there's a leadership vacuum at the top. People start trying to figure it out for themselves.

I've been loudly talking about what's happening in Italy, because we had time to get ready in the US if we took it seriously.

<comment><USER13> Arguably there has been a leadership vacuum for decades, where expert bureaucrats are lecturing and patronizing the population, while themselves are being proven wrong and clueless more often than not, with no negative consequences, see the 2008 crisis, etc.

<comment><USER14> Do you have more than a single instance to point to in which expert bureaucrats are lecturing and patronizing while being wrong?

From my perspective it seems clear that the American public has been in the grips of anti-intellectualism for quite a long time. In 1980 Asimov made the following famous statement:

 _There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. "_

<comment><USER13> Here are some examples of dubious advice from experts: the Iraq war, regime changes throughout the middle east, interventionism in general, margarine instead of butter, fat is bad/sugar is good, antidepressants are harmless, medical doctors don't understand Bayes' rule, etc. etc. etc.

For the record, I'm not American, and not anti-intellectual.

Here's a better example of patronizing by experts from the current crisis: "The average person should not wear a mask. Not only it doesn't protect against the virus, but it actually may harm."

What they mean is: it may harm by giving a false sense of certainty. Clearly the average person is too stupid to understand the difference between perfect protection and "not quite perfect, but better than nothing" protection.

<comment><USER14> I don't see the lecturing and patronization that you referenced in your original comment with some of the examples you provided. That's the part of your post that I disagree with.

In your Iraq war example I don't recall bureaucratic experts being involved in support of it. General Shinseki famously thought Rumsfeld's predictions were wrong and Hans Blicks (spelling?) was famously skeptical of Bush administration claims.

I'll certainly agree that we've had crappy political leadership in the U.S. but I won't agree that bureaucrats have let the nation down in matters of science. Experts get it wrong and consensus expert opinion is sometimes wrong. There will continue to be examples of where consensus expert opinion is wrong.

You can find individual experts who are patronizing and lecturing as you put it. It's been rare in my experience that consensus expert opinions that aren't motivated by money, greed, power, or fame are condescending or lecturing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems like a positive trend. The article quotes a guy saying Twitter is two days ahead of newspapers, but that's severely underselling it; many Twitter sources were saying "watch out, this isn't likely to be localized" in late January and "this will be a problem everywhere, start preparing for a lockdown" in mid-February. If it's possible for people to be a month ahead of the mainstream media, that's not a matter of higher verification standards - there's gotta be some structural obstacle in place that systematically prevents the media from noticing important new things. And if that's true I'm glad to have alternative sources without the obstacle.

<comment><USER16> Many Twitter sources were also saying that it's nothing or a hoax or whatever right up until a week or two ago (and probably some still are).

<comment><USER17> Your and GP's comments are a perfect illustration of the social media bubble effect. Some people saw an entire news feed telling them it was nothing to worry about, and another group saw a news feed saying it was going to be a global pandemic. It's easy to point the finger after the fact, but you have to understand that people will believe what they perceive as being "common knowledge", and in this day and age that means whatever their twitter and facebook friends say for the majority of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't blame people when you see/hear contradictory things. People look at China, Japan, Taiwan, SK etc. everyone covered in masks and then newspapers like NYT and even the Surgeon General of the US coming out saying don't wear masks. So ordinary people scratching their head that who is right? So this is what happens really. There is none to "look up to"

At least the NYT is now backtracking but it's too little too late [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus- face-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face- masks.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> I think the 'OMG so much disinformation!' storyline is a tempest in a teapot.

I won't speak for the rest of the world but the entire United States has effectively shut down thanks to an invisible threat that almost certainly has not affected anyone you know. Yet people are generally calm, considerate, and taking appropriate measures. There are _always_ outliers who will buck that trend, but they are pretty far and few between. Don't get fooled just because the media has highlighted those exceptions as if they are widespread.

Where I'm at people are staying home, closing their businesses, keeping their distance from others, and expressing genuine concern. But they aren't panicked.

There are a few people I'm connected with on social media that insist the measures being taken are excessive. Some are just natural skeptics. Some of them are desperate for attention. A few others believe there are aliens at Area 51.

And they might even be right that we've overreacted - time will tell. But in the meantime, they are staying home and taking the recommended precautions anyway, despite their rhetoric.

Focus on the attention whoring cranks at your own psychological peril. But my experience suggests the actions and behavior of my fellow citizens and residents have, so far, been worthy of praise.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is what happens when you ask celebrities and politicians for their input on critical things for which they have absolutely zero qualifications or expertise. They are not experts, and we should not ask them, or even give one second of airtime to their opinions.

Why we give them any time on the stage is beyond me.

The video of the football manager biting back is perfect[1], and we need to realize this every time a politician or celebrity is asked something of consequence.

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2020/03/05/jurgen-klopp- no...](https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2020/03/05/jurgen-klopp-not-an- expert-on-coronavirus-football-liverpool-spt-intl.cnn/video/playlists/intl- sports-football/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I feel like this is implying this is a bad thing, which it absolutely is not. Am I the only one who hasn't stumbled onto any conspiracy theories whatsoever?

I've found the internet to be an invaluable source of outstanding information on this virus (dashboards of diagnoses, research on variants, journal articles on origin, updates about potential treatments) and have found most people to relatively reasonable (e.g. frustrated about lack of testing, but nothing resembling conspiracy theories). That said I focus on HN/reddit.

<comment><USER22> It probably has to do with whom you talk to and what sites you frequent. I've seen lots of conspiracy theories about how this was engineered by China in order to crash Western economies with China getting back on its feet first so it could take advantage of the West while we are down. Seriously. I've heard many people saying that social isolation is going to be permanent going forward. I've heard that the government is going to use this to enforce martial law. I've heard that Trump is going to use this to cancel the upcoming election and invoke something or other to put himself into power permanently, a la Putin. Etc. That's just the tip of the iceburg. There are tons of conspiracy theories. I know people who are starting to stockpile guns and ammunition (and probably TP) in insane amounts. I know people who are pulling all of their money out of the banks. I know others that are buying gold. A lot of gold. In my view, people are verging into extreme unreasonableness.

On the other hand, there is the other side of not being reasonable. Yesterday a friend was at the park with her kids. Another mom was on her phone talking to her doctor about her kid's fever and cough. The same kid that she had brought to the public park!

I know people who are planning trips to Hawaii while the kids are on this extended vacation.

There are a lot of people who are not taking this at all seriously.

<comment><USER17> The doomer and prepper crowd will twist any news to fit their narrative. You can go back through the last 20 years of blog posts and see these same predictions made about every large news story. If you hear people quoting this stuff remind them that it's the same thing people said about the financial crisis, hurricane katrina, 9/11, and y2k, and none of those things ever happened.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, but the people I am talking about were never ever doomers and preppers before. They were just ordinary people who never had any interest in that sort of stuff. Why is it different this time? I have no idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Epidemiologists who ignore economic effects are almost as bad. Plans that involve destroying the economy to contain the virus are unacceptable.

</comment><comment><USER24> > "I have a two-hour podcast every week," he said. "Very few people are > listening because it's long and complicated."

I think this is a good example of an opportunity the population here on HN can exploit, and which many others can't: We can metabolize a deeper-than-average scientific discussion and help convert that into reliable and responsible social discourse. It's just a matter of making the time, of seeking out the expert-level information, and digging in.

This is also more respectable IMO than mainly just being critical of information and influencers. A lot of the so-called influencers are good people who are trying to help out where they can. That's why they're getting attention; the social organism is looking for help right now. The critical viewpoint is not nearly as effective under these circumstances, in part because it shoots down solutions more than it creates or identifies them.

<comment><USER16> I don't think the commentary I've seen here is that much better than what I see e.g. on reddit. Maybe on average, people here are better at reading primary scientific sources, but that is still a small minority of people that either can or take the time to do so.

<comment><USER25> I am a scientist, with extensive training in biochemistry and cell and molecular biology, and I can tell you that the commentary here has been abysmal. Factual information with citations (often, multiple) is routinely grayed out due to herd downvoting, while wild speculation and opinion are at the top of threads.

Folks here know about enough science and math to be persuasive when extrapolating, but not enough to truly understand what they're reading, and that's dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Speaking of misinformation, buzzfeed news originally posted this

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus- cases-deaths-flu)

with the title _" Don't Worry About The Coronavirus. Worry About The Flu."_ They have since scrubbed or edited much of the content of the article, surely not to hide their completely irresponsible behavior.

edit: If anything, the real story here is the absolute, abject failure of both national and international health organizations and traditional media to provide accurate and up-to-date information on this emerging pandemic and how Twitter and Reddit filled that gap.

<comment><USER27> I have anxiety disorder and have been seeing a therapist for years. I've been freaking out about this disease since January (saw on reddit) and been prepping. My therapist kept saying me this is just the flu, and made me read articles like this. I read this article back when it's title was "Don't Worry About The Coronavirus. Worry About The Flu."

My point is, I don't think this is irresponsible. This is something else. This new pandemic is an unprecedented occurrence. Normally, the rational thing to do for to not be scared of a pandemic like this because all previous instances (avian, swine flues, SARS, MERS etc) ended up being ok. So, it seemed like being scared for this disease was irrational, panicky, anxious etc. I really don't disagree with that. Even many experts back then were arguing this will be like them. Turns out we just overfit to our immediate history of pandemics.

<comment><USER26> I think that you shouldn't lose sleep over any pandemic (this one included) but any pandemic contains low-probability of high-impact. Novel pathogens will almost always turn out to be nothing, except when they are something.

This has always been a tail risk situation, something which the media is exceptionally bad at evaluating correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Mark Handley, UCL is very clear: he doesn't do interviews and he doesn't do analysis 'what does it mean' he just published charts and sticks to his knitting.

Wise man.

[http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/](http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/)

 _Q: You aren 't an epidemiologist. Why should I listen to you?_

 _You probably shouldn 't. I'm a computer scientist and I've spend decades analysing data, but you should talk to a real epidemiologist if you want to understand the underlying causes. Computer scientists do know a lot about exponential growth though._

 _Q: I 'm a journalist. Will you appear on my TV show?_

 _No. You should have a real epidemiologist on your TV show._

Mark Handley, UCL. _

<comment><USER29> It's pretty easy to descend into numerology this way. The vomiting camel being the most egregious example [1]. It's just not a reliable or informative way to creating information from numbers.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk037xDQF2Ya- Hu4vjdEs...](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk037xDQF2Ya- Hu4vjdEs-d3M3xhqrQ:1584571272332&q=vomiting+camel)

<comment><USER28> Do you think that applies in this specific instance? Do you wish Mark to stop doing this, rather than in general deprecating data science absent analytics?

<comment><USER29> I do. These charts don't seem consistent or useful to me, some of the things that they "show" are artefacts, the numbers have not been refounded as data in the sense that the information required to make them genuinely informative is not available, understood or used here. Handley references data collection having been changed in the UK, but cannot quantify the impact. He does not note that testing is being done differently all over the place, some countries are doing drive throughs as an example. I think that some places are doing one test, others are double testing cases. The list of problems goes on. This is part of the noise that is going to confuse and delay effective responses.

Btw. This is analytics absent Data Science....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They give eric ding a hard time, but he was sounding the alarm while other epidemiologists were downplaying it. Because of him, I stocked up on groceries over a month ago, decided not to buy a house, and got prepared to work from home and started selling stocks before the market crashed. If I had listened to the 'real' experts, I'd have lost twice as much money in the crash and I'd have been scrambling to find food for my family right now.

I took everything with a grain of salt, but I was alarmed enough about worst case scenarios to start preparing.

<comment><USER31> Are you out of food where you are?

Where is it this bad, already?

<comment><USER32> My local whole foods is sold out of the cauliflower crust frozen pizza I like. End times my friend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> 2 days ago, UK government was still recommending Ibuprofen. A few days before that, I had aready found some info that NSAIDs should be avoided if you have CoronaVirus, and you should be taking Paracetamol instead.

I'll take my "influencers" any day, thank you very much!

<comment><USER34> Is there any /solid/ data on that?

I've seen the short _Lancet_ piece which speculates about co-morbidities and an ACE-related mechanism, but the text is explicitly very speculative.

<comment><USER33> French Ministry of Health tweeting that is solid enough for me.

But feel free to wait for scientific paper in 18 months!

<comment><USER34> It certainly makes sense as a precaution, but I'm surprised how widely this advice has spread.

As near as I can tell, it's based on a) 4 sicker-than-expected youth who were taking NSAIDs b) a difficult-to-disentangle association and c) a plausible but by no means ironclad mechanism.

<comment><USER33> There's a difference between a void of evidence because there's little (or no) effect, vs. a void of evidence because the potential causal factor (and observations of it) (in this case: novel coronavirus) hasn't been present long enough to allow more/better evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 'I'm not a physician but': The rise of anti-vaxer influencers

This medical influencer issue seems to be a much more common thing: from Goop eggs, to anti-vaxers, to corona-influencers.

The solution seems to be the need to increase scientific knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER35> All of those people on Twitter were way ahead of Buzzfeed.

</comment><comment><USER36> one of top Apple podcasts right now is "A White Nationalist Has Rebranded Himself as Coronavirus Expert. And People Are Flocking to Him." [https://news.yahoo.com/white-nationalist-rebranded- himself-c...](https://news.yahoo.com/white-nationalist-rebranded-himself- coronavirus-084738034.html)

</comment><comment><USER37> You can also take any deep learning project you have, train it with corona data and milk least little publicity.

</comment><comment><USER38> Not trying to spread misinformation, but what do you guys think about it being a bioweapon developed at the Wuhan level 4 biochemical warfare lab?

Does anyone think there's any possibility that is, in fact, its true origin?

<comment><USER39> Yes, there's a possibility. It's highly implausible though for many reasons, including: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Anti Vaxx, Climate Denial, Flat Earth, Moon Fake, Kennedy, 9-11, Co- co- co- corvid... 19. [1]

[1] Feel good hit of the summer, Homme, J. et-al (2000)

</comment><comment><USER40> Fox News probably has more influence. They did a complete change of direction a few days ago. One morning, Trump and Hannity had disappeared from the front page of the Fox News site, and more or less reasonable statements appeared. Within half a day, Trump changed course, and he started appearing on the Fox News site again.

Still the most useful graph: [1] The Financial Times updates that daily. No projections, just actuals. It's striking how consistently the infection rates track a straight line on a log-linear graph. The US is on the same track as Italy, 12 days behind. So is most of Europe. Only a few Asian countries show signs of control.

[1] [https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea- aeb3-955839e06...](https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea- aeb3-955839e06441)

</comment><comment><USER41> So for context, last night I made a subreddit for discussing over-the-counter drugs, supplements, and other interventions for coronavirus: [https://www.reddit.com/r/covid19stack](https://www.reddit.com/r/covid19stack)

I already knew this before I made the subreddit, which I did just because I find this stuff interesting, but honestly right now there is very little appetite from the general public in terms of experimenting with treatments or prophylactic measures that could potentially hurt them. Maybe that will change in a few weeks, but right now there is very little risk of people being harmed by whatever misinformation is currently out there.

As of right now most people don't even believe the virus can hurt them in the first place. It's hard enough just to folks to stay inside.</comment>


Credit danger as 3D printers make black market cards - <AUTHOR> http://www.gadgetguy.com.au/credit-danger-as-3d-printers-make-black-market-cards/ <comment><USER2> Misleading title in article.

The 3D printers are being used to make card skimmers. Almost any kind of plastic blank can be used to make mag-stripe credit cards.

The article says: "Unfortunately, these trends point to more credit card details being out there thanks to 3D printers and the ease of which they enable scammers to build card skimming devices."</comment>


Language of the month: Dead in the water - <AUTHOR> http://shezi.posterous.com/47443968

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty excited about the language. I like the combination of ruby syntax with static typing. The author is just nitpicking on puts, type declarations. It is a DIFFERENT language from Java. And it's resonating with a number of HN readers already.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. There's enough people familiar with Ruby out there now to give a language like Mirah, the early adopter userbase it needs to grow and get traction.

Also I think Mirah has targeted a real niche, a true alternative JVM language to Java that doesn't have the baggage of its own standard library.</comment></comment>


Venture Capitalists V. Founders: Battle At Mochi Media - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/29/venture-capitalists-v-founders-battle-at-mochi-media/ <comment><USER2> Don't know Mochi Media but this is the very type of downstream risk for founders that Delaware poses - once VCs control a company, they can cram down a merger or sale without needing to get the consent of those who control the common stock (i.e., the founders).

In California, they would need the approval of both classes of stock to do such a cram down and it could never happen unless the founding team approved.

I have posted on this on this site ("Why not to incorporate in Delaware"). See my profile under "submissions" for the link.

</comment><comment><USER3> Transparency would be great, instead of back-room dealings.

One of the reasons why I like sites like <http://thefunded.com>

For too long, bad behavior has been allowed as long as it stayed hidden from public view.</comment>


Go 1.1.1 is released - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-nuts/iJFhI8K5a2Y/ICf4fVqg3yEJ

<comment><USER2> Only bug fixes, mostly in the runtime. Some of them might be important if you're running Go in production like "runtime: fix heap corruption during GC".</comment>


Passwords Aren't As Secure As We Think - How to Fix That - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5445101/your-passwords-arent-as-secure-as-you-think-heres-how-to-fix-that

<comment><USER2> "Having our passwords in plaintext is more secure than obfuscating them precisely because, when a user is not misled by a false sense of security, he is likely to use the software in a more secure manner."

I'm sorry but this is bullshit. The reason for the (admittedly weak) obfuscation is to keep out the casual snooper, e.g. your little brother or sister who shares the family computer. It's not meant to keep out a skilled cracker, nor to protect those savvy enough to think about these issues.

Why do we geeks tend to only think about things from our perspective? I think we should coin a phrase for it. Maybe the myth of the "sufficiently smart user".

<comment><USER3> It's a tradeoff. "dumb user and smart attacker" vs "start user and dumb attacker". Most users' assessment of security is "Could I break it?" which isn't a very good standard in terms of protecting against even a slightly savvy sibling who can download one of the programs mentioned.

<comment><USER2> You've missed an entire class of users. Believe it or not there are people who know _nothing_. Literally. They don't understand that when they save their password it's stored on their disk. They don't understand what a disk is, and they don't understand what a file is. They don't have the luxury of even thinking "could I break it", they are completely oblivious to the risks or how any part of the system works. A computer is like a television to these people. A black-box appliance.

I was baffled but there are people out there - not senior citizens but 20 year olds - that really don't understand or care to understand any of that stuff. It's a magic box to them. They have no idea chat histories are stored on disk even though they see them in MSN. The fact that they have logged in makes them think no one else can see them. Likewise the fact that their saved password is stored is over their head unless someone explains it to them. Not everyone has someone to tell them these things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would hope most people here would realize that if you click "save password" then your password is, well, saved...

Oh also, someone with physical access could just as well install a keylogger. It's a pretty difficult threat to guard against.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yay for OSX, with nearly every app using your keychain (TDES encryption). Centrally integrated, secure password storage should be standard in OSes by now, as trusting every app (or website, without something like OpenID) to store your password securely is ludicrous. That's like expecting every programmer to be a security expert, and to make bug-free software (hint: HAHAHAHAH).

"Having our passwords in plaintext is more secure than obfuscating them precisely because, when a user is not misled by a false sense of security, he is likely to use the software in a more secure manner."...

...is completely laughable. I'd be willing to bet that the VAST majority of Pidgin users have no idea that their passwords aren't stored securely. To make matters worse, I don't recall Pidgin ever warning me that its storage was insecure, so they're not even _trying_ to educate their users.

And TrueCrypt is an awesome concept + tool. Gotta love the ability to have an entire hard drive look like it's just random data. You can't get much better security than that, as you can deny there's anything there, and "they" don't even know where to begin.

</comment><comment><USER6> I still prefer schemes without any kind of software for my passwords... Something like that:

[http://blog.sucuri.net/2009/10/password-security-without- pas...](http://blog.sucuri.net/2009/10/password-security-without- password.html)

A javascript app for that would be good, btw :)

<comment><USER7>
      echo "qwerty http://www.facebook.com" | md5

That will appear in plain text in your terminal history file. And, if you are on a multi-user machine, even non-privileged users will be able to see your command line.

You should never put any password or private key on a command line (any command line, not just in your terminal). Instead, use the unix-standard getpass function or it's equivalent in your language/library of choice.

<comment><USER6> I agree. What I said is that I do something similar to it, not exactly the same.. I have a little shell script that I run:

./pass-site.sh <http://facebook.com>

" #!/bin/sh

SITE=$1 stty -echo read UPASS stty echo PASS=`sha1 "$SITE $UPASS"` echo "PASS: $PASS" "

<comment><USER7> I think that is equally insecure. Won't the backticks run that command line with $UPASS exposed as plain text in the process metadata?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "anyone with physical access to your PC" if that's the criterion, none of the proposed remedies really help. Someone with physical access to your machine or the ability to run privileged code will very likely get your passwords despite the quality of your Firefox master password.

<comment><USER9> And this is a solved problem: if you don't want people analyzing your preference files and/or caches, put at least one layer of encryption between the two. All modern OSes support encrypting your home directory, and most of them also support encrypting your hard drive in its entirety. In either case, physical access becomes pretty useless.

<comment><USER8> None of this helps against physical access to your machine, at all.

<comment><USER9> I think we're talking about different definitions of "physical access"--you're probably meaning "being able to type on the keyboard and have the computer respond," while I just mean "being able to grab the HD and run." Encryption protects you from physical espionage as long as the computer is off, and they have to turn it on (and encounter the passphrase dialog.) Encryption doesn't protect you when it has already been unlocked, of course.

<comment><USER10> Yes, you're talking about a definition of 'physical access' you just made up in order to salvage your argument, while everyone else (including the original article) is using the commonly understood one of... well, having physical access to the computer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Take a trip through music history with Archive.org's Great 78 Project - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/17/9/great-78-project <comment><USER2> "First things first for younger readers: An audio record generally can be defined as a flat, circular medium with a spiral groove cut into it to modulate an audio signal."

When things like this warrant explanation, I feel old.

<comment><USER3> Is that description even necessary? For LaserDisc and cassettes I could understand since they seem to have really disappeared, or at least you can't buy them in shops AFAIK. Vinyl on the other hand hasn't died out, I still regularly buy vinyl and I know many DJ's who still exclusively play vinyl. There are numerous record players for sale, and numerous articles about vinyl's resurgence in the last couple years. Sony[0] has even announced plans to start producing vinyl again after 3 decades. Vinyl may not be as mainstream as in the 70s but they are far from dead.

[0] [http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/news/sony-music-brings- back-...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/news/sony-music-brings-back-vinyl- records/index.html)

<comment><USER4> Cassette tapes are having a minor resurgence. Well, I hope it is minor. I can think of no good reason to use them today. Then again, I can think of no good reason to use vinyl today either.

There are probably better articles, but this was the first one in my search for a link:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/23/14360162/cassette-tape- sa...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/23/14360162/cassette-tape-sales- increase-physical-music-2016)

So, yeah... Cassettes seemingly haven't quite disappeared.

<comment><USER5> Matt from Techmoan did a couple of videos about how to make cassette tape sound very good:

[http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2017/1/24/pre-recorded- cassette...](http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2017/1/24/pre-recorded-cassettes- can-sound-good-really.html) [http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2017/5/8/a-true- tech-classic-th...](http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2017/5/8/a-true-tech-classic- the-sony-tc-d5-field-recorder.html)

They're worth watching but to be honest it hasn't made me want to convert all my music to tapes.

Edit: The link I was actually looking for is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA)

<comment><USER4> Neat, thanks. I remember the old 'metal' tapes as sounding better. I imagine we could make them sound better with today's tech. Like you, I have no desire to return to them.

No, I much prefer digital audio playback. I'm pretty happy with CDs, though I typically burn them myself from quality files, if I use them at all. I'm more likely to just use an MP3 player.

I was a performing stage musician for a long time and as a second income. I'd like to think I know sound fairly well. I can, for example, appreciate a tube amp. What I can't appreciate is why people are using things like vinyl and cassette tapes. That just makes no sense to me, at least it doesn't when they say it is for the quality of the results.

No, no... Give me a high quality digital version and I'm happy. The missus' ex was an audiophile so she came equipped with a bunch of expensive gear and she often prefers vinyl. I've listened to the current tech results and I am not impressed. I'm happier with the digital files. I don't hear added 'warmth.' I hear inconsistent playback and artifacts.

But, yeah, I don't have any reason to convert my music to cassette tapes. And no, I don't want the album on vinyl.

<comment><USER6> >What I can't appreciate is why people are using things like vinyl and cassette tapes.

It's like mechanical watches: an objectively inferior product that's appealing because it's full of complicated moving parts.

<comment><USER4> That is understandable, to some extent. Though, I never see that as the listed reasoning. The closest that I see is that it's about the whole experience of loading the record and examining the jacket and linear notes while listening.

Well, that and cassette players aren't really all that interesting - at least not to me. A mechanical watch can be a thing of beauty. A cassette player probably could be, but I haven't seen one that is.

Though that makes me wonder if someone would buy a cassette player that was made so you can see the internal mechanisms in action and with the mechanical pieces being milled from things like brass. An ornate mechanical cassette player engineered for precision, if you will.

Anyhow, beauty and art is subjective - so I could understand someone finding the mechanical workings of a cassette player to be interesting and enjoyable. It may even be more enjoyable to someone who didn't live through those years and has mostly been exposed to all digital devices. Though, I don't think I've ever seen that as the justification.

Of course, they don't need to justify it for me. They can do what they want. I just find it strange.

Though now I'm kind of curious about a precision made cassette player that has exposed mechanical components. I bet someone would buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It always amazes me how short and limited our civilizations cultural memory is. It's great this is being done, perhaps this generation of musicians will find a new song in the archive to reinvent. This was done heavily in the 60's for rock, especially with blues, but the lens they were searching through was different, I am sure there are a lot of great songs that current listeners could enjoy (probably with added bass) that were not reintroduced in the 60's.

</comment><comment><USER5> Also, how to download all the 78 rips at the archive.org: [https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/08/14/downloading-all- the-78...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/08/14/downloading-all-the-78rpm- rips-at-the-internet-archive/)

(Don't actually do this, or if you do download some, give them a donation)

<comment><USER8> Or someone could just put them all into a central torrent.

Edit: Why not provide a method of getting all the torrent files for the associated songs then bulk adding to one's torrent program of choice?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So much fascinating content here. For example, just listened to Josh White's 1942 "House of the Rising Sun"...

[https://archive.org/details/78_house-of-the-rising- sun_josh-...](https://archive.org/details/78_house-of-the-rising-sun_josh- white-and-his-guitar_gbia0001628b)

...except the lyrics are a biiiit different than the ones made famous by The Animals in the 1960's. Though sung by a man, this older version of the song is from the point of view of a woman forced into sex trafficking at a whorehouse, warning her sister not to do the same. (The Animals' version was more about a man gambling.)

<comment><USER10> I thought this story had just been posted recently, but ls shows Feb 26 2017 House Of The Rising Sun - Josh White and his Guitar.mp3

Another "and his guitar" version, with animals lyrics. [http://wizard.dynu.com/house_of_the_rising_sun.ogg](http://wizard.dynu.com/house_of_the_rising_sun.ogg)</comment></comment>


Vim powered browsing with Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/akhodakivskiy/VimFx

<comment><USER2> I use pentadactyl (fork of vimperator). How different is it from pentadactyl?

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems much lighter weight and doesn't change your interface so much. I tried pentadactyl and it felt (to me) that it changed the browser experience too much. This has fewer commands and options, but seems like "just what I need" as opposed to "everything". I came across it looking for Vimium for Firefox.</comment></comment>


Reid Hoffman: My Rule of Three for Investing - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/19/reid-hoffman-my-rule-of-three-for-investing/ <comment><USER2> If you liked this article you'll probably also enjoy this interview with Reid on the VentureVoice podcast: [http://www.venturevoice.com/2006/11/vv_show_40_reid_hoffman_...](http://www.venturevoice.com/2006/11/vv_show_40_reid_hoffman_of_lin.html)

Man I miss the times when VV had new interviews coming out every couple of weeks. They were consistently very high quality and insightful.</comment>


The Price of a Child (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/the-price-of-a-child/ <comment><USER2> I imagine that people were largely indifferent to the loss of a child in "ye olden times" because it was expected, and they hardened themselves to the probability. Childhood mortality was atrocious back in the day.

<comment><USER3> Maybe not. Listening to the History of England podcast, was pointed to the poem "Pearl" [https://interestingliterature.com/2016/02/03/a-short- summary...](https://interestingliterature.com/2016/02/03/a-short-summary-of- the-medieval-poem-pearl/) and [http://www.billstanton.co.uk/pearl/pearl_new.htm](http://www.billstanton.co.uk/pearl/pearl_new.htm) which includes a father's grieving for his lost two year old daughter. So some evidence that these losses were keenly felt.

<comment><USER4> Another example are Laments by a great Polish 16th century poet (Kochanowski).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laments_(Kochanowski)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laments_\(Kochanowski\))

<comment><USER5> Also from the American tradition I wish my baby was born. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFpU3zslpHw](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFpU3zslpHw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Title reminds me of [https://mises.org/library/children-and- rights](https://mises.org/library/children-and-rights). (Do not endorse).

</comment><comment><USER7> The article doesn't answer the central question of "Why did the value of a child change from worthless to nearly priceless?"

If children transformed from economically useful little people to economically useless, then the conclusion should be that they became _even more_ worthless.

I'm not seeing a clear explanation of why children are perceived as more valuable nowadays.

<comment><USER8> A combination of rarity, utility and sunk costs.

The article seems to be wandering down the tangled nest of errors called the labor theory of value, or one of its offshoots. This bedevilled people for a long time who could not explain why a diamond was worth so much when it cost little effort to make and is objectively useless.

Modern children are diamonds. They are not that difficult to make, mostly useless but give great utility to the parent. Modern children are also rare, thanks to birth control. Most affluent societies are below replacement rate, while 1800s societies had kids everywhere. The most spoiled and indulged children are the ones who don't have any siblings.

So... \- kids give their parents pride and joy (like a diamond) \- kids are relatively rare compared to the prior period \- the upbringing of a child is 20 year project for parents now, so the loss of effort as they get older increases the pain of loss

Most of these points are in reverse to the prior period, when you'd have 5 or 6 children in the hope of getting 2 or 3 to adulthood, which was onset much earlier. You had more, invested in them less, and everyone else had more as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Priceless but also very expensive :) I wonder if someone researched the cost of raising a child all the way to adulthood.

<comment><USER10> There's plenty of number floating around various source, one at random claims US$263,000[1] in the US and AU$812,000 in Australia[also 1]. Of course, it depends how much you spend (private school or public, $400 shoes or $40). A single parent on welfare in Australia will spend substantially less than a couple who have a combined income of one million. Also the single parent on welfare gets benefits like discounted healthcare (free primary care) and discounted public transport.

1\. [http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/cost-of- raising-c...](http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/cost-of-raising- children-in-australia-is-rather-massive/news- story/cbbe4eab3f4539323931c22a1a1c30bf)

<comment><USER11> The price of raising a child in Poland seems to be 170k PLN(42k USD) from 0-19 years of age[0]. Completely free healtcare and education, including higher education, seem to keep the cost low.

[0] [http://smith.pl/sites/default/files/zalaczniki_201508/dzieci...](http://smith.pl/sites/default/files/zalaczniki_201508/dzieci_2015_raport.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Don't forget the extra taxes paid to provide the schooling and hospitals!

It's a good thing for these to be spread out - otherwise those who don't have kids are free riders on those that do. A healthy educated child not only supplies a lifetime of taxes paid, they also provide the labor to care for the ageing who didn't have children.

<comment><USER11> Income tax in Poland is at 19% at the moment - surely it's not a lot more expensive than anywhere else in the world?

<comment><USER8> I might just move to Poland then!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what the process of losing a child was like for mothers in the 18th century. Somehow I have trouble believing there was that little sorrow

<comment><USER13> You can capture their sentiment by reading letters sent to announce the loss of said child. You can even observe how big a change occurred in the 19th century.

In the early 19th (and before that), the loss of a child is described almost in passing. There was grievance of course, but child mortality was normal then; almost expected. By the end of the 19th century it had become unusual. And indeed, dramatic.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Spartan browser for Windows 10 reportedly supports Chrome extensions - <AUTHOR> http://www.windowscentral.com/microsofts-spartan-browser-windows-10-reportedly-supports-chrome-extensions

<comment><USER2> Hmmm, reminds me of the old days - Embrace and Extend.

Accept a standard and then extend it with proprietary lock-ins.</comment>


10 reasons to choose Ubuntu 12.10 over Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/advice/operating-systems/3413022/10-reasons-choose-ubuntu-1210-over-windows-8/

<comment><USER2> The main reason is that Ubuntu is Free Software. That means the users are in total control of their machine and data, because they have the freedoms to use, understand, enhance and distribute the software.</comment>