Sweden Says Controversial Covid-19 Strategy Is Proving Effective - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-19/sweden-says-controversial-covid-19-strategy-is-proving-effective <comment><USER2> I think we'll have to wait for the end of this to see which strategy has been effective and which one has not.

Sweden might not be at a plateau yet and turn into the UK in a couple of weeks time. Or they are indeed at a plateau and they will reach herd immunity with minimal societal and economical damage.

Other countries with hard lockdowns might look good in comparison to Sweden at the moment but might have a hard-hitting second wave.

Whatever the outcome, we won't know until this is over. Which is why I am not a big fan of comparing 'effectiveness' at this early stage.

<comment><USER3> > Which is why I am not a big fan of comparing 'effectiveness' at this early > stage.

The state broadcaster in Australia (ABC) broadcast an hour-long episode of their program "Foreign Correspondent" in which the Singaporean government were granted a platform to explain how their approach was far more civilised and liberal, with better results and more freedoms than the efforts of Australia. They prated on and on about the benefits of their system of both disease control and government trust and how low their disease numbers and civilian discontent was.

The disease control aspect has not aged well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested in hearing about Sweden's strategy, what has and hasn't worked, etc. then I can highly recommend this interview with chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell from earlier this week [1]. It's one hour long but he answers most questions I think people would have about Sweden's strategy.

To give a very quick summary: One-third of the fatalities have been in elderly homes which were not protected as well as they should have been and this is something that they are working on. It seems like recommending that people stay home if they have any symptoms is good enough to keep reduce the spread of the virus enough for the health care system to keep up. And a lot of measures have voluntarily been taken by individuals and companies to reduce the spread as well so it's not like Sweden is just business as usual or something like that.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/Wo10IIMHYXk?t=651](https://youtu.be/Wo10IIMHYXk?t=651)

<comment><USER5> Tegnell has quickly become a rather controversial figure in Sweden with a large host of detractors on one side and a fanclub on the other side. There have been several calls from experts in the field for Sweden to change its policy [1, 2, 3], the latest of which saw 22 professors, researchers and doctors call for politicians to step in and take control. While it undoubtedly is interesting to hear Tegnell speak about his strategy you need to keep in mind that there are many experts in the field who disagree with the way Folkhälsomyndigheten deals with the pandemic.

[1] [https://lakartidningen.se/Opinion/Debatt/2020/03/Sverige- bor...](https://lakartidningen.se/Opinion/Debatt/2020/03/Sverige-bor-byta- strategi-for-att-bromsa-spridning-av-coronaviruset/)

[2] [https://www.dn.se/debatt/folkhalsomyndigheten-har- misslyckat...](https://www.dn.se/debatt/folkhalsomyndigheten-har-misslyckats- nu-maste-politikerna-gripa-in/)

[3] [https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/forskare-kritiska-til- fhm...](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/forskare-kritiska-til-fhm-lat- politikerna-ta-over)

<comment><USER4> There will always be people who don't agree with whatever policy is chosen ofc. Judging by opinion polls Tegnell is actually much less controversial now than he was when the pandemic started here (trust in Folhälsomydigheten rose from 50% in March to 71% in April) [1].

And as is mentioned in [3] the numbers cited by those researchers were not accurate. That doesn't mean that they're automatically wrong, but it's worth keeping in mind.

We'll ofc have to wait a year or two to find out if Sweden's strategy was ultimately a good or a bad one. But if you want to know what's being done and why it's being done then Tegnell is the person to listen to since he's very much at the center of it all.

[1] [https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/70OzwW/fortroendet- for-...](https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/70OzwW/fortroendet-for-tegnell- och-lofven-okar)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see a lot of the "Sweden is sacrificing the elderly for money"-arguments in media. But of course that's not the intent.

What options do countries have? Any vaccine or cure is at least one year away, if not more. There is no miracle cure (Tweets don't count).

Let's say you are a country with SARS-CoV-2.

So, your goals are A. stop the spread, and B. protect the most vulnerable and C. try to keep the number of hospital visits low enough to not collapse the healthcare system, so that people ending up in hospitals have a chance of making it out alive.

Do you 1. lock down the country hard; or 2. keep the country (semi) open, reaching for herd immunity, or 3. do nothing?

If you do #1: prepare to be locked down until a vaccine/cure exists and gets deployed. This is at least 1.5 years. Are you ready for this? Sure, this keeps the death rate low. If you open the lockdown early, people start dying again. Prolonged lockdown hurts the economy, and the healthcare system will also suffer greatly. If the economy collapses, things go to shit really fast, and don't expect help from the hospitals. And, in general, any immunization within the population will proceed slowly if at all.

If you do #2: some people in the risk groups will die because the virus is everywhere. And, for this choice to work, immunization must be a possibility, so that herd immunity can develop in the first place. Over time, the population may resist the virus.

If you do #3: many people in the risk groups die, the healthcare system collapses and you'll be in a really bad place. The population may become resistent, though.

Option #3 is not really good.

Assume you choose #1, i.e. total lockdown. Once you open up the lockdown, you'll be in situation #2. So why not do #2 directly?

If you don't believe that immunization through exposure to the virus can happen, then #1 is the only choice -- hope for a vaccine and be prepared for economic carnage.

But, in all other cases #2 is the saner alternative. I think this is why Sweden is doing what it's doing.

<comment><USER7> Option #2 sounds great if you know what immunity means in this case.

We don't know how long immunity lasts or what it looks like, there are even reports of reinfection.

There are also severe complications to the heart, lungs and liver after the disease, which wouldn't occur with option #1

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can view Swedish ICU admissions data yourself here: [https://www.icuregswe.org/en/data--results/covid-19-in- swedi...](https://www.icuregswe.org/en/data--results/covid-19-in-swedish- intensive-care/). New admissions to the ICU due to Covid-19 appear to be flat or possibly even declining.

<comment><USER5> You do have to keep in mind that hospitals in Stockholm - which is currently the epicentre of infections in Sweden - have adopted a policy to not admit people with a 'biological age' of 80 or over to intensive care, nor will they admit people with a 'biological age' of 70 with at least three serious conditions or 60 or over with at least two serious condition [1, 2, 3, 4]. These guidelines have been in use for a few weeks now even though there still is enough capacity to admit at least some of these people. The guidelines also state that intensive care treatment of patients who fall into one of the two categories should be discontinued. According to these guidelines people who will be denied intensive care will be offered palliative care instead. The concept of 'biological age' is not well-defined here which makes it hard to actually apply these guidelines. It is used because it is not allowed by Swedish law to deny care based on physical age whereas the law does not say anything about triage based on 'biological age'.

[1] [https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/samhalle/a/lAyePy/dokumen...](https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/samhalle/a/lAyePy/dokument- visar-de-prioriteras-bort-fran-intensivvard)

[2] [https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/ingen- intensi...](https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/ingen-intensivvard- for-personer-over-80/)

[3] [https://www.dn.se/sthlm/dokument-visar-vilka-som-inte-far- in...](https://www.dn.se/sthlm/dokument-visar-vilka-som-inte-far- intensivvard/)

[4] [https://cached- images.bonnier.news/cms30/UploadedImages/2020...](https://cached- images.bonnier.news/cms30/UploadedImages/2020/4/10/57973d61-eed9-4b57-8987-085a74af8f59/bigOriginal.jpg) (the actual guidelines for Karolinska university hospital)

<comment><USER4> That policy is precautionary to give doctors guidance on how to prioritize patients if/when the hospitals run out of space/resources.

To my knowledge, these decisions have not had to be made yet. As mentioned in [3] Stockholm has space over and is accepting patients from the Sörmland region.

<comment><USER5> > To my knowledge, these decisions have not had to be made yet.

According to people working in health care in Stockholm they have used these policies for a few weeks now [1], the article (from the 2nd of April, 2½ weeks ago) contains two references to cases where patients were denied intensive care (and, as a consequence, died) who would have received care before these policies were enacted. The (anonymous) nurse states that _Sjukvården är inte öppet ärlig med att vi redan har en katastrofsjukvård där man inte prioriterar de som man bedömer är sjukast, utan de som man bedömer har störst chans att rädda_ which (loosely) translates to _care givers are not open about the fact that we already optimise for throughput instead of prioritising those who need the most care_

[1] [https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9v4z2q/sjukskoterska- vi...](https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/9v4z2q/sjukskoterska-vi-har-redan- katastrofsjukvard)

<comment><USER9> The article is almost three weeks old. The anonymous nurse predicts the imminent total collapse of the health care system where even the field hospitals will overflow and it's too late to do anything about it. This has clearly not happened.

The nurse goes on to blame deregulations and financial aid to banks and corporations. This seems more like the personal feeling of a rather leftist nurse published by a left of center tabloid.

I am sure there have been misinterpretations of the directives and there have probably been times where prioritizations have been done based on local and short term conditions. But it is not an active and commonly used policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They have 3x the deaths per capita than germany and 30x that of south korea. "Better than italy or spain" is a rather low bar.

<comment><USER4> One-third of which were in elderly homes [1]. This is an issue that's being worked on but apart from the failure to protect elderly homes, the Swedish strategy seems to be working well enough at the moment.

[1] [https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/en-tredjedel-av-alla- dods...](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/en-tredjedel-av-alla-dodsfall- fran-aldreboenden-i-sverige)

<comment><USER10> If you discount those 1/3rd (why should you? it's still a policy failure) it would still be 2x the rate of germany.

<comment><USER4> It would still be high but it's honestly way too early to tell if Sweden is doing better or worse than Germany since the virus will likely be around for quite a while.

It's also worth pointing out that different countries haven't been reporting COVID-19 deaths in the same way. Finland, for example, have just now started including nursing home deaths in their statistics [1]. In Sweden, it's my understanding that pretty much anyone who was infected with and suspected of dying due to COVID-19 has been included in the statistics, even if the actual cause of death might have been something else.

[1] [https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finlands_coronavirus_fata...](https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finlands_coronavirus_fatalities_likely_under- reported_by_dozens/11312030)

<comment><USER11> Even if other countries are missing some deaths (most are), these charts look still very different. Sweden 1200 deaths vs Finland&Norway at 80-150: [https://images.app.goo.gl/krLeDxnBHCdQ9817A](https://images.app.goo.gl/krLeDxnBHCdQ9817A)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've noticed that whenever NY Gov Cuomo says the curve is flattening it has the same effect as Gillian saying the words "smooth sailing". I think Cuomo really needs to stop trying to characterize trends based on one day's data. He sounds like a youtube "How To Beat Baccarat" video - bet you could learn to master his strategy get a cool t-shirt for only $29.95.

<comment><USER13> He can't stop everyone else from characterizing one day's data, so even if he knows it's mostly meaningless it's best to get ahead of it. And it's seemed like he does know that - he's consistently tagged "we need a consistent trend over multiple days to be sure" to his analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Social distancing has been a thing for a while in that region.

Look at the "Swedish bus stop meme".

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://archive.md/2eyP2](https://archive.md/2eyP2)

</comment><comment><USER16> Isn't their strategy basically the same that Johnson was doing in the UK initially?

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's an article from a far more reputable news media organization published today also which says the policy is a disaster:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in- swede...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as- elderly-pay-price-for-coronavirus-strategy)

<comment><USER18> And here is one [0] from another reputable news source that says more or less the opposite.

I think it's too early to call out a "winner strategy" \- I think there will be a new wave when the different countries opens up - but that's my guess, and hey - I program computers on a daily basis, as far away as you probably can get from this kind of science.

(and yeah, I am a Swede)

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona- si...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/)

<comment><USER19> None of them is reputable in this question. Both are heavily biased.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess if you call killing bunch of innocent people "effective". But I think it's way too early to start comparing strategies.</comment>


Ninua Pitch Deck and Lessons Learned from 500 Startups Demo Day - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupcafe.com/ninua-pitch-deck/ <comment><USER2> Wow, demo day seems so long ago.</comment>


Strategic Game of Life - <AUTHOR> https://thomashunter.name/games/strategic-game-of-life/ <comment><USER3> I love it!

Please create more puzzles/levels.

And please please try to improve the UI:

\- I find "click to toggle" somewhat annoying. Maybe try "click to set", "ctrl-click to unset"?

\- A light-grey grid background would make it easier to align shapes.

\- Similarly, showing the changing coordinates on mousemove would also help with alignment.

\- Highlighting the current grid square under the cursor allows for more confident placement of cells.

\- It'd be nice if the canvas was centred on the page.

\- Adjustable speed of the simulation. Just a "slow/medium/fast/ultra" selector would be fine IMO.

BTW, do you know about the Hashlife optimization/memoization technique? You probably won't need it to speed up this 64x64 simulation, but in case you hadn't heard about it, check it out because it's a fairly amazing trick (IMHO) and also results in ridiculous speed-ups. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashlife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashlife) and (from external links) I remember this explanation to be fairly clear: [http://www.ddj.com/dept/ai/184406478](http://www.ddj.com/dept/ai/184406478)

</comment><comment><USER4> As much as I love Conway's Life, I always find it frustrating to play games based upon it since it depends so much on single-block offsets and the grid... it's so discrete. I mean it's neat, but I don't generally find it makes for fun boardgames.

I'd love to see it adapted into a physics-driven gridless environment - <USER2> kind of fusion of Osmos and cellular automata.

<comment><USER5> Something like SmoothLife sounds like it would be a good match for what you're thinking about:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJe9H6qS82I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJe9H6qS82I)

<comment><USER4> Sweet merciful crap that's beautiful. Holy poop!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm working on my own "shooter" based variant of Life called "Xtaloid".

[http://www.genjipress.com/xtal](http://www.genjipress.com/xtal)

It's being designed as an homage to 1980s arcade games, complete with color- cycling effects.

Still in development, of course -- I'm hoping to have a fully-polished product sometime early next year for various platforms.

<comment><USER6> This game was great! I didn't read the instructions (bad user, I know) and didn't even know I could shoot for the first game. Once I learned that I had a blast.

Might want to inline those keyboard instructions on the attract screen.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I'm going to be making all that stuff easier, more approchable, etc. Glad you liked it!

Check back in the future for a greatly-expanded site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I mostly just used an R pentomino[0] - solved it more quickly than fiddling about with gliders or spaceships.

Shotgun approach, rather than rapier.

[0] [http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/R-pentomino](http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/R-pentomino)

<comment><USER8> My configuration: [http://imgur.com/UvWrDNN](http://imgur.com/UvWrDNN)

Won in 234 generations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The "pink" area is indistinguishable from white on one of my monitors. I'd darken it.

<comment><USER10> Probably this monitor has bright set too high.

<comment><USER11> Default settings on my monitor made this hard to see too. It's because it is transparent. You can redefine the function that draws the screen by entering:

        function drawArena() {
        	for (var y = 0; y < CELLS_Y; y++) {
        		for (var x = 0; x < CELLS_X; x++) {
        			if (goal.x == x && goal.y == y) {
        				context.fillStyle = "rgb(0,127,255)";
        				if (arena[y][x] && !generations_until_beaten) {
        					winLevel();
        				}
        			} else if (arena[y][x]) {
        				context.fillStyle = "rgb(0,0,0)";
        			} else {
        				context.fillStyle = "rgb(255,255,255)";
        			}
        			context.fillRect(x * TILE_WIDTH, y * TILE_HEIGHT, TILE_WIDTH, TILE_HEIGHT);
        		}
        	}

        // Draw playable zone (if applicable)
        	if (playable.width && playable.height) {
        		context.fillStyle = "rgba(255,127,0, 0.3)";
        		context.fillRect(
        			playable.x * TILE_WIDTH,
        			playable.y * TILE_HEIGHT,
        			playable.width * TILE_WIDTH,
        			playable.height * TILE_HEIGHT
        		);
        	}
        }

in the javascript console (where 0.3 is the new transparency. It won't show up until you click the next level button.

<comment><USER12> I've increased the opacity in the game.

<comment><USER11> Awesome, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We made a game of life game for a game jam once. It's GoL on a diffusion process. You have to prevent the yellow (infection) spreading in the blood stream.

[http://edinburghhacklab.com/GGJ2012/](http://edinburghhacklab.com/GGJ2012/)

<comment><USER14> Oh, that's a nice idea. I'm going to go and implement that in Ready. ([https://code.google.com/p/reaction- diffusion/](https://code.google.com/p/reaction-diffusion/))

<comment><USER14> Here is the thing I made: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUbOQjEiI9A](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUbOQjEiI9A)

As a Ready file: [https://reaction- diffusion.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Ready/Pa...](https://reaction- diffusion.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Ready/Patterns/Experiments/LifeBlur.vti)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was a lot of fun [1]. I used two lightweight spaceships to pass the last level [2]

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/LJLzOpc.png](http://i.imgur.com/LJLzOpc.png)

[2] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Game_of_l...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Game_of_life_animated_LWSS.gif)

<comment><USER16> I used an explosion chain reaction, it was quite pretty: [http://creativepark.net/img2/cwgl.png](http://creativepark.net/img2/cwgl.png)

This game should have more levels :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is an interesting Kaggle competition based on Conway's Game of Life going on at the moment: "Reverse the arrow of time in the Game of Life" [http://www.kaggle.com/c/conway-s-reverse-game-of- life](http://www.kaggle.com/c/conway-s-reverse-game-of-life)

</comment><comment><USER18> I really like the concept, but I found it extremely frustrating to draw and undraw the squares.

</comment><comment><USER19> This was great - I'd love to see more levels. As mentioned, the r-pentamino and other Methuselahs are over-powered. Maybe having some "friendly" cells that disqualify you if activated would make it more balanced.

<comment><USER12> The new version of the game introduces "dead zones", and future levels will require more skill than flooding the arena with chaos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Fun! I've never got to know the Game of Life before, and I couldn't find one on the web where you could go step by step and step back, so I made this [http://www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~jackmab1/life/](http://www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~jackmab1/life/)

Sorry, its probably unusable on phones and stuff.

ps: code's here if anyone wants to fiddle with it, only 100 lines or so [https://bitbucket.org/bjackman/life](https://bitbucket.org/bjackman/life)

yep, this is actually how I just spent about 3 hours of my friday night...

</comment><comment><USER21> If anyone want's to simulate this on there own computer you can use this: [http://golly.sourceforge.net/](http://golly.sourceforge.net/)

</comment><comment><USER22> When you reach the first challenging level (the one with three pulsars and you can draw at the bottom) you were supposed to be educated and ready. But the previous levels didn't do it for me. I suppose I was supposed to remember the pattern in the previous level or something. How many hacker points did I lose now?

Also it's not fun to draw in the tiny little grid. It would make life much easier if the shapes on the right was draggable to the canvas.

<comment><USER12> At the time, I didn't have a level built yet that showed you how to build a proper ship. That's been fixed now though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> cool! But why call it glider? It works like a micro-organism, a name like Amoeba would have been more suitable maybe?

the blue dot can be the "food".

Also, can the plane be made to center, instead of aligning left? I prefer the interaction area to be centered if possible.

<comment><USER9> You seem not to be familiar with Conway's Game of Life.

I think reading about it will answer several of your questions, but surely some of it is just historical (the glider was discovered 43 years ago): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(Conway%27s_Life)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_\(Conway%27s_Life\))

<comment><USER23> thanks, no I didn't think this was that old! Completely surprised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The game if life is to stay alive the longest isn't it?

6 pieces 866 generations: [http://i.imgur.com/pF5TXxR.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/pF5TXxR.jpg)

<comment><USER12> Eventually I'll add a leaderboard and track both fastest and slowest solutions ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Perhaps more interesting: can you modify the rules of game of life in some small way so that it can achieve objectives _on its own_?

</comment><comment><USER26> Suggestion: It would be nice if there were better drawing tools. Like making continuous strokes rather than clicking every single cell.

</comment><comment><USER27> 1393 generations using the shotgun approach.

<comment><USER12> In the future I'll keep track of highest (and lowest) scores, as the more generations it takes, the more fun it is to watch :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "You've won the game!"

After this nothing happens on click to "Next level" except disabling this button.

<comment><USER12> There are only four levels right now... I'm going to bump it up to 20 tonight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Very nice. I put together a little first person platformer atop a Life grid once - was fun to play with.

</comment><comment><USER29> play this on loop whilst playing [https://soundcloud.com/stelios_strong/s-strong-whitestick- fr...](https://soundcloud.com/stelios_strong/s-strong-whitestick-free-d-l)

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't see any pink region. Tried on an iMac with Safari and Chrome.

<comment><USER4> First level is non-interactive demo. You can proceed to the second level by letting it run to completion. Yeah, it confused me too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Would probably be a lot of fun if the interface weren't so horrible.

Fun idea, though.

<comment><USER12> You don't like Times new Roman?!

The UI is a bit better now, still not good though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Need more levels!</comment>


App Store Honour System - <AUTHOR> http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/post/32803382210/apple-app-store-honour-system

<comment><USER3> The music industry sells music on Apple's iTunes Store with zero DRM†. I can send it to anyone and they can just play it. Just like with apps, I can also log in on a friend's PC and re-download my music. Using the music industry as a counter-example in this article is hilariously misguided.

Of all the digital stuff Apple sells, music is by far the easiest to pirate.

—

† No watermarks either. The tracks contain the Apple ID of the purchaser as well as purchase date and time as metadata that is easy enough to strip away.

<comment><USER4> A watermark would be hard to spot by its very nature, so it could still exist.

<comment><USER5> Two people could register accounts, using their own names, addresses and credit cards, from different computers and Internet connections, with different ISPs from some geographical locations sufficiently far apart (e.g. different countries). Then, they would buy the same stuff and strip the meta- data from the files. Next, they hash their files and compare the hashes, by only telling each other half of the hash.

E.g., person 1 would tell person 2 that the first 32 characters of the sha-256 hash (represented as a hexadecimal string) was "47905a1f67a826d1ca5321e3473266d9". Person 2 tells person 1 that the remaining 32 characters are "7616ac096cb069098bcd2e12b2ed0c0d".

In our scenario, these two people have no interest in tricking each other - <USER2> they use the files that they bought and tell the truth when stating their part of the hash. The company from which the files were bought are assumed to not know that these two people are working together, since they might otherwise serve the same watermark to the two people.

Edit: In fact, these "two people" could even be just one guy who traveled to a foreign country, purchased a brand new computer, a pre-payed card, went to a library and registered with bogus details, bought some files. Then, s/he traveled to another country where s/he did the same thing (new computer, pre- payed card, went to some Internet café and used other, bogus, details to buy the same files) and compared the hashes as described above.

Edit 2: Or, s/he could order the pre-payed cards online, bought from two separate resellers using bitcoins, and use two separate VPN-s (also paid for with bitcoins) from a computer that was assumed to not leak any sensitive information (because the computer was bought for this purpose, and therefore never used for anything that could be tied to him/her, s/he used an Open Source Operating System, and s/he switched out the NIC and the USB-stick used to boot the computer between each time), with each VPN session being made from different places sufficiently away from your home, and at times sufficiently far apart (3-6 months, maybe).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this be blocked by device authorization limitations (5 per account)?

For instance, I have a PC, a Macbook Air, iPad, and iPhone; those take up four of the five authorizations. I could theoretically then spend this last one on the friend, sure -- but I'm fairly confident that devices can only be linked with one account at a time.

Furthermore, I'd argue that this issue would only be relevant with relatively expensive Apps. Frankly, I pirate music because most of the stuff I'm looking for is either otherwise unavailable or exorbitantly expensive -- conversely, the amount of effort it takes to pirate a .99c app isn't work the headache and coordination.

I'd argue that this has been Steam's biggest success, as well -- reducing piracy because it's comparatively too much effort.

<comment><USER3> For personal use, you can install apps on all Macs you own or control. There is no limitation in the number of Macs. Presumably installing an app for a friend could also be a legal use – since you control that Mac as demonstrated by logging in.

Even when there was a number limit, it never crossed the PC–iPod barrier. When music still had DRM you could play it on five PCs/Macs and an unlimited number of iPods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ultimately does it matter?

As a developer, what's more important to you: more revenue or noone pirating your software?

I'd say it's possible (and I'd guess, probable) that for the vast majority of App developers, they get more net revenue from the increased exposure and ease of payment that the App store provides than they would get from trying to sell the software through their own channels.

</comment><comment><USER8> The real issue here is proprietary software. If all software was free software, then software piracy would be eliminated.

>Would it be impressive to be able to assert that every single copy of your software was paid for?

I can assert every copy of software I run on my machine is 100% free software. However, I didn't pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER9> The entire basis for this article is a straw man:

> It's fairly trivial for me to buy an application and simply stroll over to > my friend's computer, login using my credentials and download the > application without much issue.

Sure, but you're not most App Store users. It's absolutely _not_ trivial for most people to do this, but a huge pain in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't know if it would even be possible to make piracy completely impossible without having some hardware lock on the device to make sure it only runs signed software, I'm going to assume that there is a pirate version of just about every game on Steam available on a torrent site somewhere.

I'm also not sure I like the idea of having an always-on internet based DRM built into every bit of software I use. Not being able to play a game because my internet connection is down is one thing, having it completely cripple my ability to get any work done is another thing altogether. In fact that may drive legit users towards piracy, since you would only need to be stung by that once.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's really not that simple though. If you use your account to download the app on your friend's device, the download is still associated with your account, not your friend's. Any subsequent attempts to update, restore, etc. that app will require entering your account credentials.

I can't imagine there are enough people dealing with that hassle to material effect sales.

<comment><USER12> The whole updating/upgrading argument can be made for all software. Many pirated versions of operating systems and major software suites can't be updated, but this doesn't stop a huge number of people from pirating it (Windows, Office, and Photoshop to name a few).

There are plenty of apps on the app store where all you have to do is zip up the application's directory and send it to a friend. This means that you don't even need to log into your account on their Mac. All you have to do is install the update, zip it, and toss it in dropbox or send it in an e-mail.

This is a gaping hole in Apple's infrastructure. While circumventing piracy completely is impossible, it really shouldn't be this simple either.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure that "gaping hole" is there by design and I'm happy about it.

Know that it exists and don't use the App Store if you don't like it. Simple as that.

<comment><USER12> I can honestly say that I hope developers do avoid the app store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _The music industry surely doesn't share our mindset, they will just sue you into oblivion._

No, they won't, because it's impossible. They'll sue an extremely small proportion of the "pirates" and lose money in the process: <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/17400810200.shtml>

Ridiculous is thinking this is a better approach than not suing your customers.

 _Would it be impressive to be able to assert that every single copy of your software was paid for?_

Yes, absolutely! What kind of web browser would one use?

Of course, if you mean a licensed instead of paid, then not, it's not. Here: <http://www.debian.org/distrib/>

</comment><comment><USER14> This actually boosted Minecraft's sales, I think. I know that I've shown the game to a friend, and just left it there in the non-updating state and they ended up buying the game. It's how I had the game before I bought it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Some may argue the fact that it is limited to the act of authorizing and installing which prevents the simple distribution of the application (if copying *.app doesn't work). But, this is even worse in a "re-distribution" kind of way - people who bought the software, can now leverage their account to resell the applications at a lower cost - the customer just needs to temporarily provide the computer for distribution of the apps/games.

I personally know of this KIND of thing happening, and their customers are delighted at their service.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's an app on the iOS cydia store that allows you to have any app from the App Store for free. I have it on my phone and use it very very rarely (when I'm not sure if a £9 app will do what I need it to) - I still buy most of my apps and honour the system.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would really be interested in people's thoughts.</comment>


Programmer Interrupted - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/ <comment><USER2> At my last company us developers complained that we were getting interrupted too much, so the boss asked us to keep a list of interruptions. By lunch on the first day we all had 3+ pages, so he believed us and we implemented the following:

Each week, one pair of programmers would be designated the "consulting developers", and a big sign would be put above their desk. They were the _only_ developers that could be interrupted for the week, allowing the rest of us to get a lot of work done. If the consulting developers needed to ask something of other developers, we tried to save it up for lunch, as we mostly all ate together anyway.

This made an enormous difference to our productivity, which everyone in the company took notice of when the number of "development days" we got done each week increased dramatically.

At the start we thought of "sacrifice one for the good of all" and we didn't look forward to our turn. As time went on it actually turned out differently. We usually enjoyed the "consulting" time as it meant a break from the routine of working on endless tickets, and it also kept us in touch with what the rest of the company was doing with regards to deploys, environments, configs, etc. etc.

AFAIK they still do it today

<comment><USER3> Don't you find it distracting listening to people ask the consultants questions all day? Often times about projects you work on? I don't think there is any cure for interruptions other than no at-desk meeting rules or private offices.

<comment><USER4> > I don't think there is any cure for interruptions other than no at-desk > meeting rules or private offices.

A simple feedback mechanism for this would get us quite far already. Just something that will glow red for 'dont disturb,' orange for 'only if you have to' and green for 'go right ahead.'

If someone wants to make (a Kickstarter for) a simple ball that does this I'll gladly transfer my domain names interruptiball.com and interruptaball.com to you by the way. ;)

<comment> X-Istence I've thought about doing something like this, and tying it into a web based services so you can see what state everyone is in.

Might work on this some in the near future, but I am not sure if I want to commit to a Kickstarter ;-)

<comment><USER4> If/when you do... just ping me and I'll hand over the domain names ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a PM, and I consider it my most important responsibility to prevent interruptions from reaching developers. By redirecting inwards-bound interruptions to myself, I've probably reduced developer interruptions by 80% since I started.

What I've found is that the typical developer/engineer is really bad at saying "no" or "not now" to others. The solution then is to work the other side (sales, marketing, etc) to interrupt someone else (me) instead. Even if it's a relatively simple technical question from sales, I can convert the in-person active interruption to a passive email notice (at the very least).

The typical office environment (and system) is not productive, so at this point it's up to the individuals to reduce the impact of the system on the team's productivity. (which is a sad reality...)

<comment><USER6> Curiously enough, in my experience, the vast majority of interruption I receive is not from "external sources" but rather from other developers, typically junior members of the team seeking advice or guidance. I wonder how you would address that?

<comment><USER7> I sit right next to a tester and he is a constant source of distraction.

<comment><USER8> Did you ever bring it up?

<comment><USER7> Several times. I was told to allow him to interrupt me. :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how much money is wasted via lost productivity due to open office plans. On a per-year per-programmer basis private offices are not very expensive.

[http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-price-of-dev-happiness-part- two...](http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-price-of-dev-happiness-part-two/) <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/07/30.html> [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fieldguidetodeveloper...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fieldguidetodevelopers.html)

<comment><USER10> I've been a developer with a private office and I've also been on a small (< 10 person) team in an open office plan. Give me the open office any day. If there's a side conversation not of interest to me, I tune it out. But frequently there are ones that _are_ of interest to me that I'm able to either contribute to or learn something from. It's great for group troubleshooting of sudden issues, too.

<comment><USER11> I suspect the two parent comments (and several more here and every time this topic comes up) point to a fundamental difference between various people, some are more productive in silence and solitude and some thrive on the productivity around them.

While it might sound like the difference between introverted and extroverted, I suspect it isn't quite as simple. It very likely also depends on the job to be done (memory load), the content and quality of surrounding conversation and more ephemeral factors like company culture.

I suspect it also affects how well things like pair programming work out, conversations about it often elicit quite polarized viewpoints on the subject.

<comment><USER9> I really want to learn more about this.

I think there's some level of cognitive bias here with respect to social interaction preferences.

I certainly prefer to hang out with folks in a social setting compared to sitting in an office all day. I understand folks who prefer to do this in a work environment from a camaraderie and a "I'm not in a cave" perspective. That's totally fine and understandable.

But from a real, practical standpoint - are folks that "prefer" to be in an open setting _actually_ more productive than those not?

What type of programming lends itself better to a distraction-filled environment?

How does "culture" fit into the distraction equation, other than "we tolerate more distraction-killing productivity here than elsewhere"?

(We have a chat room where we try and put all side discussions, so folks can virtually "overhear" conversations and chime in if applicable).

I concede that there could be some people who will get so antsy in an office all day that the mosh pit-style work environment "feels" better. I'm not discounting that some folks prefer to be in a noisy environment. I just question whether or not they're actually more productive there or that the organization is better off _in total_ with a noisy environment.

The difficulty I have is that I cannot find any studies that show that a distraction-filled environment creates more knowledge-worker productivity than a quiet one. Mountains of studies scream the opposite.

Personally, I'd rather find other ways to channel that ADHD energy in a more productive manner. :D

<comment><USER10> I would guess it has a lot to do with the team, especially the size but also the level of commitment to the work of the other devs. I've never been around a loud team or in a noisy environment (I'm not counting the sound of other people typing). Blocking out 50 conversations in a day, many of the much more inane or pointless, may be much harder for me than 5 business/tech-related ones. But I've never had to try to deal with that.

Though I doubt that it would be much different for me, personally, because when I'm really in the middle of an interesting problem and cranking stuff out, I just don't notice background noise in the same way I don't notice that it's suddenly four hours later... I mean, maybe I'm just lucky in that, but my own coworkers have never expressed frustration with the environment either, so I don't know just how rare it is. (So I guess the key thing is that if the environment is getting to you, don't just keep it to yourself!)

I also have a (maybe overly cynical?) hunch that in addition to the "ease of distraction by external noises" spectrum there's also a "desire to goof off more if nobody's going to notice" spectrum that comes into play. (He says, as he posts on HN in the middle of the day, heh...)

I've never bothered to look into research on it, but I also don't see any trends of companies with private offices outcompeting ones without. I know the output of the team I was on at the company I worked at where I had a private office was not great, but there are other factors involved there too, of course.

I also think the rotating "consulting developers" idea from grecy above sounds like a pretty good idea, regardless of office layout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would like to point out in my experience that I've found pair-programming to provide excellent interruption-recovery capabilities. Even if both people in the pair are interrupted, they're very good at getting each other back on task and filling in the gaps left in each others' trains of thought.

(Disclaimer. The broader applicability, appropriateness, and overall desirability of pair programming, Extreme Programming, and other agile methodologies, or any of the other implications thereof, are not addressed in this post. Void where prohibited. No warranty, express or implied.)

<comment><USER13> I see it as one giant interruption. I'm not sure what I dislike more, "pair programming" or "open concept".

<comment><USER14> As a college student, I do a lot of pair programming. IMO, the efficiency of pair programming comes down to how well matched the two are in skill, and how well they can communicate with each other. Depending on those two variables, it can be much more productive than a single programmer, or a huge roadblock to getting anything significant done.

<comment><USER15> The problem is the business isn't paying for a single programmer's value, it is paying for two. The only time I have known pair programming actually worked pretty good was when a senior would take a junior under their wing when the junior was first hired. This would facilitate quick ramp-up for the junior to know all practices and the vast amount of things that are not documented (or updated). Keep in mind this only lasted a couple of months max, and not necessarily every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Most of the comments are discussing interruptions in general, and could have been posted on any article about programmer working situation etc, but I think some of the most interesting in this blog post is the attempt to measure cognitive/memory load (both retrospectively, in a research situation, and perhaps eventually live).

Imagine something like the ubiquitous sleep trackers for mobile devices which can track your sleep pattern, and both give you feedback on how you sleep, and also select the best time to wake you up within a certain boundary.

Could we imagine something similar for engineers? We already have very rough tools to provide feedback on productivity, like RescueTime, but a context- aware tool that can model cognitive activity based on edits, switching from one function to another, viewing two files simultaneously, git commits, etc, is far more advanced.

Perhaps if you wanted to ask a programmer a question, you could ask for him to be interrupted sometime during the next half hour, and the system would choose the time where it would be least disruptive?

And I'm also interested in the discussion of ways in which it would be easier to remember/reestablish context. I wonder if some of this is transferable to other domains, for example deep academic "knowledge work" - working with annotated articles, several windows of notes, trying to synthesize ideas etc.

</comment><comment><USER17> I find it hard ever to program for hours straight, no matter what the external stimuli is. However, I've found that test-driven development has worked to get me back on task after I've strayed. The physical act of just entering in "rake test" and seeing "Tests passed" can be enough of a trigger for me to get back into coding...and if I've left some broken tests for me to fix, I have a much easier time remembering what I needed to do next...without the extra overhead distraction of finding my to-do list.

Of course, one could argue that the monotony of writing tests is what keeps me from being fully engaged to begin with :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I saw an interesting situation at Google many years ago. There was a "bullpen" in which 8-10 people sat. That was for my team, a bunch of pager monkeys with a rotating on call rotation. We were operation-oriented as you would expect. Not too far away, the developers for one of our services had their desks.

At least one of the ops people on my team and at least one of the devs on the other team were, well, loud. I don't know if they had hearing issues or what, but they were significantly louder than most people. You know the type. That's just how they are.

Immediately over the cube-wall from us on the other side was a bunch of technical writers. They couldn't get any work done because of the racket from us. We got complaints. My boss used to keep a tally on one of his whiteboards. This is the thing where you go |||| and then put a slash across for the fifth for those who aren't familiar (is this a local culture thing?). I think they ultimately tried to get moved to another building, _away_ from the people they supported.

On a _third_ side, there was a bunch of project managers. This was back in 2007, so OpenSocial was the "big thing" then. So we had to deal with the blathering coming out of them most afternoons: "what if this person is friends with this person on this service, but isn't friends with this person on this other service, and then this third person shares this thing to the second person, does the first person get to see it?"

I'm surprised ANYTHING got done there. Come to think of it, that might explain a few things. Another team up in that same space was the Lively group, and everyone knows what happened with that project.

<comment><USER19> Did you try telling the guys they were loud?

<comment><USER18> Those guys didn't listen when I told them our servers were being hit too hard due to <thing> and <other thing>, so I don't imagine that raising a purely social/meatspace concern would have done any good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Even though I rarely use headphones, the idea that there are actually companies that don't allow engineers to work with headphones blows my mind. I thought I worked in some pretty strict places, but never anything that extreme.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand why companies don't try an approach more like what Universities provide their students. If you need a quiet place to study, you can go to the library, where you may often find private rooms for even more seclusion and quiet. If you prefer someplace busier, try the student union or the food court. Right after getting my CS degree, my boss pointed me towards a desk in an open office environment and I was supposed to start cranking out value for the company in that one environment. Sometimes I like it, I like the impromptu conversations with fellow developers. But other times I need to shut out all distractions and outside noise and movement but I don't have that option.

<comment><USER22> 1) As part of a budget I am charged for the floor space that my team uses in the facility. I would welcome open space and closed space, but don't have the space in this facility to make closed spare look like more than a closet - something most won't respond well to working in.

2) Many tasks (especially engineering that deals with work in the physical domain) require tools, items, equipment of more than just a computer. While we can do shared lab space for development - it does get tricky when you need certain hardware or test setups to do design/work.

It did take me time to adjust outside of academia too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unnecessary or poorly planned meetings are probably the biggest interruption here. God-forbid the pre-meeting meeting. I tend to stick to small, mundane work until a part of the day where I can focus for while. You can get more done instead of frustratingly failing to get deep into larger projects.

<comment><USER24> Our scrums are typically 1-2 hours long, due to an accumulation of topics for "after-meetings". What a soul-sucking waste of time.

<comment><USER25> You guys seem to be using the daily scrum as a planning meeting, I would suggest to add all the after-meeting stuff to the backlog and discuss them in the next sprint planning.

Daily scrums should not take longer than 15 mins. A good scrummaster will keep them under 5 mins in average for a 12 member team.

One thing I usually do when daily scrums start getting out of hand is to politely mention long meetings as a blocker to get my job done. After repeating the same for a few days it will start to sink in...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Whenever possible, I delay interruption by taking 15-30 seconds to cache my current train of thought while holding up a "one moment" finger at the perpetrator. Just distilling my train of thought into a sentence or two, or a mnemonic device of sorts, helps me get back into what I was doing quicker.

<comment><USER27> This would also communicate you are being interrupted and it's not nothing. I would expect it to at least filter the stuff that can wait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The interruption issue has plagued me for the last 10 years. Firstly working at home with flatmates or wife, then with children and now at an office next to the marketing team.

Instead of trying to fight the interruptions themselves, I decided to try and become better/faster at context switching by training myself to compartmentalize the jobs on hand (programming/helping kids/answering questions).

It took a while to figure it out and i'm still getting better at it, but so far it works pretty well and I can jump between contexts much better than i could before. When I get interrupted, I'll take a snapshot of where i am, store it away and 'switch' to the new issue.

</comment><comment><USER29> When talking about productivity, it's important to acknowledge the difference between speed and progress. While working uninterrupted is great for development speed, it might also lead you down the rabbit hole, working with irrelevant features of your liking. I find that regular interruptions helps setting a new course before going too far in the wrong direction.

This is one of the reasons why agile methods work so well. Small tasks limits the scope of concentrated work, reducing the risk of going astray. Pair programming offers a watching party, who can guide and direct while you are busy tunnel-visioning some small method.

</comment><comment><USER30> The best work I've done is when I start in the morning and go for a break only to see it is now dark out.

</comment><comment><USER31> Working from home can be the worst (especially so if you have kids). There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to concentrate on a task for more than 45 minutes when your, "warm-up," time is about half that time... effectively giving you 20-some-odd minutes of actual work at a time. In fact it can be down-right torture.

The best, "snake-oil," solutions I have are:

1\. _Well-delineated boundaries for interlocutors._ This means scheduling my, "off-limits," time and communicating those boundaries to the people around me. Concessions are made by appointment and I try to plan out my time a few days to a week in advance depending on how busy I am.

2\. _Write everything down._ I try to be methodical about this but I am characteristically spontaneous and disorganized. Therefore I keep notebooks nearby when I'm not at the computer, I have a whiteboard near my computer, and I have a very organized filing system on my computer where all of my thoughts eventually end up. I find that having different mediums that I can switch between very helpful -- many an algorithm has been conceived of in the shower, doodled on a piece of graph paper (I'm a very visual thinker) over breakfast, and eventually compiled before lunch after I've finished with my emails for the day. Having record of it in multiple places seems to reinforce my memory and after reading this article I suspect I now have an inkling as to why.

3\. _Never leave a thought unfinished._ This can be frustrating both for myself and my spouse sometimes when it's near the end of the day and I'm only half-way through something important. However I cannot enjoy myself and let my mind wander if I have some half-finished thought still rummaging around in my head. It's easier to let the mind relax and be creative if you can finish each thought... even if it's simply writing the rest of it out or hammering out all of the test cases you can think of. As long as there is some record of it in its entirety my mind seems to be able to be satisfied with it and leave it alone. It also helps so that when I get back to work on the problem that I'm able to get up to speed and not having to, "finish my own sentences."

After reading this article I began to wonder if there were any cognition- enhancing tools that are integrated with popular development environments for assisting programmers in remembering where they were in a large refactoring or what they still have yet to do in various locations of a code-base, etc.

<comment><USER32> I think working at home doesn't mean you work while babysitting your kids. It should be like working at office, minus the commute and seeing your colleagues. If you need to babysit the kids for a while, do that as it is then make up for the development time later on.

I found org-mode to be great in tracking todo items, general note taking, and organizing thought.

<comment><USER31> org-mode is my go-to, I use it for quite a lot of stuff!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This might not be the appropriate thread for a job post, but if you are the kind of programmer who likes library voices, quiet concentration, and no interruptions, this is something we're trying to cultivate for ourselves at CircleCi. Job post here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993738>

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting blog post presenting different types of memory and the use of these types by programmers. However, the introduction of the piece feels a bit off, and the overall coherence is somewhat lacking. It is as if the writer was being interrupted continuously while writing it...

</comment><comment><USER35> Are there any studies that quantify the impact of Google Talk on programmer productivity?

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra I seem to be much interruption-tolerant than all those articles imply. On other hand, I'm lucky if I get any code to write at all, because it's mostly communication, planning, system support and debugging that consume time.

</comment><comment><USER36> I found this section of the article of particular interest:

"A code narrative is an episodic memory aid that helps a developer recall contextual details and the history of programming activity."

I created Labradoc (<http://labradoc.com/>) to encourage a form of manual "code narrative" (e.g. a form of development journal).

Here's an example from one of my personal projects: <http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/android-arduino-handbag>

I find it really valuable for context-switching between projects.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think Pomodoro Technique works well against interruptions or at least against unintended interruptions. That's why I made and use regularly Tomatoes[1] pomodoro time tracker (now I'm on my long break).

[1] <http://tomato.es>

</comment><comment><USER38> Do these numbers get inflated for a programmer with ADHD?

I find it takes me much longer to get back on track after interruptions. I work from home and deal with a ridiculous amount of interruptions. After 9am, I usually have to just give up for the day.

</comment><comment><USER39> there you go, scientific proof that the whole microsoft enterprise stack is counterproductive. every debugging step involves 20 distractions.</comment>


AI systems need to progress from deep-learning models to cognitive models - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/adaptation-if-computers-are-so-smart-how-come-they-cant-read/ <comment><USER2> The original article title, "If Computers Are So Smart, How Come They Can't Read?", would be more appropriate here.</comment>


US considers cloth face masks for the public - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52126183 <comment><USER2> I understand the need to preserve masks and respirators for medical personnel, but did the talking point earlier really need to be they provide no benefit? It feels like now the population has been taught to not wear masks and it'll be an uphill battle to reverse that.

<comment><USER3> The reality is most people would not correctly fit a n95, and an improperly fit n95 would only provide marginal benefit.

Even in article, we are talking cloth face masks. That will provide even less marginal protection to the wearer from contracting the virus. But it will reduce the spread from an infected person. The goal isn't to wear a mask to protect yourself, the goal is to not spread the virus as an asymptomatic carrier

It's not fruitful to worry about a hypothetical. I worry more about asking many Americans to do something they perceive as altruistic.

edit: it is rude to call something FUD if it isn't. I didn't say no benefit, I said marginal. And I think everyone greater risk in a general healthcare systemic collapse, which is what is on the table. If you weigh all the risks, until there are enough for all medical purposes they should go to medical wearers. Then it should be triaged by vulnerability. This seems really common sense. And obviously, a homemade cloth mask, scarf, or t-shirt when forced into a situation around other people is basic common sense, and I didn't feel the need to say it. That's why I'm talking about N95s, not masks, and certainly not cloth masks that are homemade.

edit: downvotes are frustrating. I am almost restating the article verbatim to correct misunderstandings in the comments here about what and why is being suggested.

 _However, on Wednesday, Dr Adams told Good Morning America that the CDC had been asked to review its guidelines on masks, because "we've learned there's a fair amount of asymptomatic spread" \- although he stressed that medical masks should still be left to health care professionals who needed them most._

and

 _However, more and more health experts now say there are benefits.

They argue that the public use of masks can primarily help by preventing asymptomatic patients - people who have been infected with Covid-19 but are not aware, and not displaying any symptoms - from unknowingly spreading the virus to others._

edit: check out [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22752501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22752501) for resources that say indicate otherwise on mask wearing even benefiting the wearer. Don't be an antisocial asshole and buy or wear N95s and give them to healthcare workers, who face a much higher viral loads than you, until supply constraints are resolved.

<comment><USER4> > The reality is most people would not correctly fit a n95, and an improperly > fit n95 would only provide marginal benefit.

Marginal > none

> Even in article, we are talking cloth face masks. That will provide even > less marginal protection to the wearer from contracting the virus. But it > will reduce the spread of an infected person. The goal isn't to wear a mask > to protect yourself, the goal is to not spread the virus as an asymptomatic > carrier

Not true, getting a lower dose of the virus initially gives your body more time to develop antibodies.

<comment><USER5> > Not true, getting a lower dose of the virus initially gives your body more > time to develop antibodies.

Can you substantiate that claim with any evidence, preferably by citing published articles? I'm not disagreeing, I just wasn't able to find any myself.

<comment><USER4> Video of Rishi Desai, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer at Osmosis, Infectious Disease Physician talking about large/small inoculant [0]

And From CEBM [1]:

> The initial dose of virus and the amount of virus an individual has at any > one time might worsen the severity of COVID 19 disease. Viral load is a > measure of the number of viral particles present in an individual. Higher > SARS-CoV-2 viral loads. might worsen outcomes, and data from China suggests > the viral load is higher in patients [2] with more severe disease. The > amount of virus exposure at the start of infection – the infectious dose – > may increase the severity of the illness and is also. linked to a higher > viral load

[0] [https://youtu.be/cFB_C2ieW5I?t=771](https://youtu.be/cFB_C2ieW5I?t=771)

[1] [https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-viral-load-and- the-...](https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-viral-load-and-the-severity- of-covid-19/)

[2] [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099\(20\)30232-2/fulltext)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you go out into public you should be wearing a face mask, period.

You want 3 easy things a mask can help with?

1\. Not being able to put your hands into your nose/mouth and remind you to not touch your face

2\. Prevent the spread if you are asymptomatic but have it

3\. Increase the chance you get a "low dose" even if you do get it (leading to a better outcome for you)

These things matter and will save lives. Even a cloth/homemade mask helps. The CDC lied when they said it didn't and they lied because they knew there weren't enough masks but in doing so they eroded public trust so when they finally do get around to asking people to wear a mask there will be those that won't now. Same way calling it "just the flu" continues to be parroted by people. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

<comment><USER6> The most effective thing you can do is to stay home. Wearing a mask might help, but it may not. There isn't a good study on it.

Medicine has a history of shoddy study design and outright quackery, so without a good RCT, medically trained professionals are loath to prescribe some behavior.

There are studies that show how bad people are at wearing masks.

As for masks effectiveness, it's complicated. They might help filter particles, or prevent the particles you exhale from going/staying airborne. But you may also touch your face _more_ and in more dangerous ways when you're wearing a mask.

There's also a very real risk of moral hazard, but people (see above) don't know the relative risks of social behavior vs masks. If people feel safe b/c they're wearing a mask, that's also self-defeating.

<comment><USER4> > There isn't a good study on it.

Other than countries that are currently wearing masks and are flattening the curve?

> But you may also touch your face more and in more dangerous ways when you're > wearing a mask.

This is simply a terrible argument for a number of reasons, first and foremost: you do not get COVID-19 from touching your face. It has to get in through the mouth or nose.

> If people feel safe b/c they're wearing a mask, that's also self-defeating.

Even if it makes them safer?

I can't even deal with people that want to say "we don't know if masks help" then why are doctors and nurses wearing them?

<comment><USER6> > Other than countries that are currently wearing masks and are flattening the > curve?

Are there countries that are effectively flattening the curve without using masks?

> This is simply a terrible argument for a number of reasons, first and > foremost: you do not get COVID-19 from touching your face. It has to get in > through the mouth or nose.

It either gets in because you touch those places, or because you breathed in an aerosolized form through those places. (I'm assuming you breathe through your face) If a mask causes you to to aerosolize more, or contaminate your hands, then it isn't making you as safe as you thought.

> Even if it makes them safer?

Again, what's the evidence for this? A DOI would be sufficient.

> I can't even deal with people that want to say "we don't know if masks help" > then why are doctors and nurses wearing them?

We don't know if masks help regular people. Normal people haven't been fitted or trained, and that means they are overwhelmingly likely to wear them incorrectly.

Again, we're back to moral hazard, only worse, because you aren't as protected as you thought. Bad protection can be worse than no protection, because it leads to a net _increase_ in risk. For example (all numbers are made up) if you go out twice as often once you've got a mask, but the mask only reduces your risk of exposure by 40%, then yes, the mask has a protective effect, but you wearing the mask leads to a net _increase_ in risk. You would have been better off not wearing the mask, and behaving more cautiously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> RELATED: "Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks" — which I recommend anyone review before expressing a non-scientific based opinion:

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22648603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22648603)

</comment><comment><USER8> Cloth doesn't provide any protection for the wearer but "could" hold on to the wearer's virus thus slowing the spread. Id say it's embarassinng that we came to this but it can't hurt though and may have some effect after all. I think the fashion industry will go into a weird direction, hijabs are the new thing

<comment><USER9> Cloth can still provide some protection. A mask made from a cotton blend t-shirt can be ~70% effective at filtering a virus from droplets in the air. (See this study: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_the_Efficacy_of_Homemade_Masks_Would_They_Protect_in_an_Influenza_Pandemic))

I've made this "single-serving site" to share with friends and family who aren't convinced yet: [https://shouldiwearafacemask.com/](https://shouldiwearafacemask.com/)

<comment><USER8> Absolutely, I expressed myself poorly, they do provide _some_ protection and if everyone wore them it would be even more effective. But, on the other hand, it would also provide a false sense of safety and being followed by lessening the need for self isolation. But we shouldn't resort to such things, where are the real safety masks? Its hard not to get worried about how so unprepared we are and and in an eventual case of other imminent emergencies and crises we might have even worse outcome. We should think more often about how we impact our environment and how the weather has been changing and affecting everything around us. Stay safe

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The maker response in Baltimore includes hand sewn (and washable) face masks, [https://www.flattenthecurvebaltimore.com/shop](https://www.flattenthecurvebaltimore.com/shop). I've been 3D printing face shield parts for the same effort.

</comment><comment><USER11> Should have a day 1 decision. I hope we are better prepared next time.</comment>