Former Equifax Manager Charged with Insider Trading - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-115 <comment><USER2> Who cares about this one lone guy and his punishment?

Why is Equifax still around.. we have no say or opt in system to allow them to use our personal data for their financial gain.

I didnt agree to this! Isn't there an Equifax competitor that lets you opt in and is all about security. If not one of their competitors needs to rebrand as such or such a competitor needs to enter the market and whoop their a#*!

<comment><USER3> You probably did opt in, many times. Pretty much every businesses that uses their data (like every credit card company) also agrees to send them data, and in turn require you to agree to allow them to send the data.

When you get a mortgage, you have to agree to send the data to equifax -- you can't get a mortgage without it.

So the only way we'll fix this is by getting all of those companies to agree not to send data to equifax, but they like sending data there, because they get even better data in return.

<comment><USER4> Opting in implies a choice.... often times the "choice" is "give up your personal information or you can't get the service at all", even if the service is, say, a water utility.

A large part of the problem is that companies can pretend to use the information as an ID when actually using it to just get credit history. I wish we could simply pass a law saying that identity verification cannot use SSN, and that one must separately opt in to credit checks than to id verification.

<comment><USER5> > service is, say, a water utility

If you need to pay using a credit card then it makes sense that you must get your credit checked.

But there are always alternative payment methods that don't involve credit (like pay by cash). If you truly do not want to consent to having a credit history, you can avoid it.

<comment><USER6> The way utilities work is equivalent to a credit card: you use the service over the course of a month/year, then at the end you pay for what you used. This is a form of debt. If you could pay at the atart, this would be alleviated, but you don't know how much you will use at the start. I'm sure there are various other solutions, but none as simple as verfiying credit history, then waiting to charge until the end of the period.

<comment><USER7> A solution that is as simple: Pay a deposit.

If you don't pay the bill, they use your deposit and terminate your service.

My current ISP didn't even ask for a deposit. I just visited one of their storefronts so they could check my ID to verify my name.

<comment><USER8> In the past I was with an ISP that didn't allow overages, so monthly bills were predictable. They required 1 months payment as a deposit up front and ran a credit check. The only alternative was dial up.

Just because someone isn't giving you credit and never will doesn't mean they won't want your credit details. Nor that you will have leverage to refuse.

<comment><USER7> Credit check and deposit? Since they had no competitor, I guess they could get away with it.

Yes, some companies are rotten, but some do provide just as simple ways to get service without a credit check.

> but none as simple as verfiying credit history

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > To settle the SEC's civil charges, Bonthu has agreed to a permanent > injunction and to return his allegedly ill-gotten gains plus interest.

It doesn't seem very dissuasive to only have to return the ill-gotten gains for insider trading, as it makes the returns of such trading positive if not all insider traders are caught.

<comment><USER10> A permanent injunction is a pretty big deal. I didn't want to spend the time finding the actual court filing corresponding to this press release, but 99% of the time, a "permanent injunction" in this context means a lifetime ban from the sale or offering of securities. Not such a big deal for the average Joe Sixpack, but in tech, where we're often paid in RSUs, options, and grants, it's a huge deal. Plus, there's the felony criminal record that will dissuade employers that aren't publicly traded.

<comment><USER11> Isn't the settlement with SEC to avoid the criminal record? Besides it's supposed to be a civil charge by SEC.

<comment><USER12> > _Isn 't the settlement with SEC to avoid the criminal record?_

No. The SEC is a civil agency which brings civil actions. Settling with the SEC does not prohibit the DoJ, or any state enforcement agency, from bringing criminal charges.

<comment><USER11> OK, make sense, just found out on the SEC website. So there won't be a criminal record before DOJ or local AGs place charges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would like to see sentencing (probationary or prison) for financial crimes correspond to the amount of time it would take the median American to earn the amount of illicit proceeds.

So if someone makes $5M illegally their penalty would be 5x greater than that of someone that made $1M illegally and both would vary in proportion to how many years of someone's life that represents.

<comment><USER14> There are many reasons for punishment, like retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Your proposal sorta makes sense on the retribution angle, but is grossly excessive for rehabilitation and deterrence. On the deterrence side, once someone has racked up, say, 50 years, there is no reason to stop because they will not really get punished further.

<comment><USER15> Rehabilitation has not been a component of US sentencing policy for over 40 years.

<comment><USER14> Fair point - it is a theoretical rationale for punishment but not done in practice so I should have omitted it.

<comment> munk-a I think it's fair to idealistically include it, it is one of the three theoretical goals. I personally think deterrence is the most vital goal of punishment but I think modern society is just concerned with retribution... especially with our "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" philosophy of late.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This feels like a sacrificial lamb, to distract from the upper-level executives who made orders of magnitude more.

</comment><comment><USER17> This sounds like he was thrown under the bus, probably to distract the SEC from investigating the executives who allowed corrupt business practices to continue.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm flabbergasted by how miniscule his investment was. 3500% return on $2k. Did he think it was too small to fly under the radar? Or is he small enough to prosecute?

<comment><USER18> Ugh. Me talk bad. You know what meant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I haven't looked in a while so please correct me if I am wrong. But wasn't there a report that the CTO did the same thing but was cleared? This seems like a much lower level manager.

<comment><USER20> The global CIO resigned, but was never investigated or charged that I'm aware of. The CIO of the U.S. business unit was tapped to be the new global CIO, but he was fired for alleged insider trading, and then charged by the SEC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This low level guy gets punished, but the C level executives who let the system get so shoddy it resulted in the massive breach, they get nothing but a slap on their wrists.

</comment><comment><USER22> How is it that one guy can be punished for insider trading, yet the executives responsible for exposing the business to one of the largest data breaches in history get off with just a slap on the wrist.

Ignorance or negligence behavior when it comes to implementing and maintaining cyber security controls over PPI is not good enough, and the culture needs to change.

<comment><USER23> I think the implicit cultural rule is, you can exploit anyone who stands lower on the society ladder, but you cannot cut into the profits of people more powerful. Thus insider trading is punished, breaching millions sensitive consumer records is not.

This is probably not going to change anytime soon, it goes much deeper than maintaining security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would be hard to discover if he uses his wife or relative's accounts to trade, right?

<comment><USER24> This is why people get busted for insider trading so often. They thing obscuring the purchase _slightly_ will get the SEC off their tracks. Nope.

Even if you had a long-lost friend do it, the big trigger is the purchase itself. Someone buys no options in the past 5 years, suddenly buys a ton of out-of-the-money call options 2 days before a merger. The SEC zeros in on that like a laser.

Then they look at who purchased it. Any connection to the company that acquired/was acquired? No? Do they know anyone who is? Let's get their phone records.

I also think the SEC knows they can't police every transaction, so the ones that are flagged get investigated hard, to make an example of them.

If you really wanted to obscured it, one way would be to have a trail of purchases such that the "big one" doesn't look out of place. However, that would mean you'd need to make a bunch of losing bets.

<comment><USER11> How about transactions made by non-residents, like people trading from outside US. They can transfer out the fund long before SEC can get to it and conclude the investigation.

<comment><USER25> ha hah aha no.

The regulatory system relies on leveraging financial institutions such as the brokers themselves to do the snitching.

So they may voluntarily freeze funds. But even if they don't there is another layer:

Administrative law judges.

These are employees at the federal agencies that are imbued with the power of the judicial branch and rubber stamp injunctions and "emergency asset freeze" orders from their bosses. And by boss I mean the private sector such as FINRA.

So typically the funds get frozen AND the SEC files charges against non- residents. They can get you in most places on the planet, and also wait till you go on vacation to most places on the planet.

<comment><USER11> that's only ability in theory. Besides I don't think SEC can "get you in most places on the planet". First they are only a civil agency and it would be a civil charge. Second, they cannot easily get you in most places, and they won't spend the effort and money to do that even if it becomes criminal charge.

<comment><USER25> they often co-file with the department of justice to get the criminal charges

secondly the indictments leverage financial institutions as well as other federal agencies to be notified when a person - even foreign - is in their grasp or has known whereabouts

SEC indictments are often pretty ballsy. I read one where they indicted people in Eastern Europe who only traded on a CFD exchange. CFD exchanges don't exist in the United States. But the SEC said the traders should have known that the CFD broker would have made actual trades in the US equities markets due to their actions so therefore they have to answer for it.

What became of that? Maybe nothing just like you said

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Of all the people to end in jail, this minor guy is the one? He clearly is not some major criminal but small opportunist.

<comment><USER15> Google a thing called "Fallacy of relative privation." Large crimes do not excuse smaller ones.

<comment><USER27> I believe the GP is making reference to the Equifax executive that sold a lot of stock right before the announcement of the data breach.

<comment><USER15> We don't disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Bonthu sold the put options and netted more than $75,000, a return of more > than 3,500 percent on his initial investment.

who doesn't love options am I right?

any other delta or gamma chasers here</comment>


Travel the world and get a paycheque: The allure of a results-only workplace - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/travel-the-world-and-still-get-a-paycheque-the-allure-of-a-results-only-workplace/article19877929/

<comment><USER2> > When Alex Pineda's bosses decided their employees could work wherever they > wanted, the web developer didn't park his laptop at home or at the > neighbourhood coffee shop. He left for Paris. > "If it doesn't really matter > where I am," he figured, "then why am I in my own apartment instead of a > place in Europe?"

What are the legal implications of this? Technically, this would mean this guy's employer is now employing someone in France (or Germany, Netherlands or Spain which are mentioned later). From the employee's perspective as well, they are almost certainly violating that country's laws if they're on a normal tourism visa.

Remote work seems to be an area where laws (in most or all western countries, as far as I can tell) have not kept up. In the above example, you've got a Canadian remotely working for a Canadian company, but living in a foreign country and spending his money there. Assuming he's using a tourism visa like most would be doing in this position, he's breaking the law but this kind of activity is nothing but beneficial to the foreign country, since he is spending money in the local economy, not competing in the local labor market and not drawing any welfare benefits.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know for sure that I was within the rules. I simply didn't pay attention to them. I remember understanding that in the US it is as you say and I would not be able to work for a company outside the US. I should have done more research but it was all spur of the moment, all I really cared about was how long I was able to stay in each country.

more info: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Canadian_citizens)

<comment><USER2> I agree with you BTW, in your position I'd do the same thing. Pretty much impossible to get caught with this unless you admit it to a border/immigration agent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So how do we do this for software developers? It's very difficult to gauge how much effort a project or bug or story will take. Without that being highly accurate, some people will finish in a few minutes then chill out while others will feel oppressed and be scrambling trying to finish their unrealistic deadlines.

Even letting the team estimate stories then assigning them randomly is difficult, some members are more skilled than others. What Jim could do in an hour will take Bill a week.

One thought would be to track everyone's velocity as an individual all the time and ensure all stories are small, like under a few hours. Then you'd have a small enough cycle that it should be possible to get a lot more accurate with estimating and making sure people produce similarly.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also note similar things have been done by several tech companies: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkiq9FJHQw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkiq9FJHQw8)</comment>


By fighting rooftop solar, utilities are setting themselves up for worse to come - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10905624/utilities-rooftop-solar-storage <comment><USER2> I find this an interesting situation because it so clearly illustrates regulatory capture.

In theory, utilities are granted a monopoly because it is in the public interest to have a common infrastructure. In exchange for that monopoly they accept public oversite from the government in the form of some sort of commission or regulatory agency. And since this is all operating for the public good, the regulatory agency should adopt and enforce regulations that are in the public interest.

Except that in both Hawaii and Nevada (the most recent example), the regulatory bodies are adopting regulations that are actually counter to the public interest to protect the business interests of the monopoly! That can only happen when the regulatory body "Switches sides" and starts operating to service the interests of the regulated rather than the people who gave them the power to regulate.

Look for some interesting fireworks here, and perhaps some federal action.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here in the Midwest there are numerous multi multi million dollar transmission line projects in the works. Recently, where I'm located, the utilities have asked to raise the fixed monthly connection fee while reducing the variable consumption rate(s).

The claim for the lines is for grid reliability and to transfer solar and wind from the west (Dakotas) to the Midwest and Great Lake States.

Those that stand to benefit the most from this are the large consumption users which tend to be large corporations, particularly manufacturing and industry.

Those harmed by the change in rates tend to be those on fixed incomes and those who invested in energy efficiency or who are energy conscious and reduce their own use.

Folks will argue that the benefit to large consumers is also a benefit to the small users. I find it ironic that those that support the big businesses in this case tend to scream "FREE MARKET! CAPITALISM!". Well, the free market and capitalism should mean they shouldn't get to be "free loaders" on the people. And yes, the products and services the big consumers produce would cost more to consumers. But that's how the free market and capitalism works! They should cost more to the people that buy and benefit from those goods instead of having everyone subsidize the the cost of their products.</comment></comment>


Demonstrations of future Web technologies - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/2009/03/web-demo.xhtml <comment><USER2> Wow, this looks like an insane funhouse of mirrors in Safari. (firefox 3.1 only, apparently)</comment>


VCBrags did one last thing before deleting their account - <AUTHOR> https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/vcbrags-did-one-last-thing-before <comment><USER2> Unreadable.

Like trying to follow a story told by a 4 year old.

</comment><comment><USER3> So apparently the account was run by Jason Calacanis (or so he claims).

</comment><comment><USER4> A lot of schoolyard politics here...</comment>


Ask HN: Best resources on parenting? - <AUTHOR> My wife and I are expecting early next year. Wanted to get this communities thoughts on books, articles, etc for successful parenting. <comment><USER2> This probably isn't what you are looking for, but my wife and I have a three month old so I have some very recent experience with this stage and this is what we have learned:

* I read maybe two parenting for Dads books. I do not regret not reading more, they were helpful but marginally so, mostly during pregnancy. Maybe I could have read none and been fine. I probably won't invest a lot of time in parenting books moving forward.

* I got the most value reading generic child development books. Parenting a baby is really just care + development. Figuring out care takes a few weeks (diapers, feeding, etc.) and then it's all about development from then on. Parenting comes much later, plenty of time to read about it.

* The first few years of life are the most important for development by far. You could argue (I mean, the science does) that over half the impact you can have on the developmental outcome of your child happens in the first two years of life. And even then, it's somewhat random.

* On that basis, we take development activities very seriously at this stage, and worry less about parenting in future, if only because it's impact is less significant long-term and we have plenty of time to read if we want. I worry about facilitating development, they are going to be who they are going to be when they grow up.

* I found having parenting peers to be very useful but it's hyper age-based. Our best friend had a child within the same month so we tend to talk to them a lot more than others as a result. Even people with babies at six months are in their own world of problems and priorities.

* Once you figure out care and where you are development wise, the biggest problem for the first six months or so (according to others around us) is sleep. Not much can be done either. This has been our experience. Once you're done with the shock, the obligation, you just have this joyful sleepless daze phase.

* The science on parenting (development + care) has changed materially (for the better) since our parents were parenting. Their advise can be as bad as it is good, we have found Google Scholar 10x more useful than listening to in-laws and our in-laws are arguably wise about parenting (just so out of date).</comment>


The Next Generation of Hedge Fund Stars: Data-Crunching Computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/business/dealbook/the-next-generation-of-hedge-fund-stars-data-crunching-computers.html <comment><USER2> "Mr. Shen at BlackRock thinks there are fewer risks this time around"

\- I wonder how many times this has been said, followed by blowup after blowup.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is becoming a zero sum game.</comment>


Bottlenose, the now engine - <AUTHOR> http://bottlenose.com/

<comment><USER2> This is going to be a tough critique, but that shouldn't be taken to mean that the product is being attacked and should go away.

"the now engine" could mean almost anything. At first I thought maybe it was some kind of reusable software, like a game engine. Is it like Twitter?

Those little snippets at the top of the page read like nice advertising but don't make it very clear what it is or motivate me very much - I would have bailed at this point rather than blithely running a search, if this were not an attempt to provide feedback... these pages are really busy...

Oh. It is a sort of search engine aggregator thing. So I guess this is in the same general area as Google, Google Reader, Twitter. I guess this is a sort of Twitter-search engine. So what is the advantage here?

The perceived speed leaves a little to be desired - acceptable but not at all enticing. Maybe it's a comfortable way of reading things? Not really, the scrollbar at the right is extremely thin and hits seem to be sort of strewn across a large page. Again, the tendency is for the page to be incredibly busy - like those TV channels with 5 tickers moving in different directions, a clock and a weather indicator.

The purpose of many of these tools is not clear. I don't know what "Sonar" would actually do for me. "Scanner" looks like a rearrange of the same search page. The trending Pictures seem quite boring and random. It feels like all the content is in Now, Stream, Scanner and that these aren't that different in the meaningful information they are presenting to me.

Oh, I can click "New Post." So it is Twitter-like platform too? It wants me to log in to check that out. Never mind.

I wish the purpose of this were more immediately obvious, that it was cleaner so that I could focus, and that it was a fast and ergonomic way of doing whatever-the-task-is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi, first off I really intend this post to be constructive, if you feel anything I write is taken negatively rest assured it's more a fact I'm better at working with systems than I am at communicating with written word and having it accurately reflect my thoughts.

I'm going down the same path as you. I've been working on my similar site as a hobby for years. I've learned some things along the way.

1: Your results page is very busy with lots of options and graphs. You've actually gone beyond what I've done in the past. The stuff you've put together is pretty amazing and sweet looking, especially knowing how much work it is. However, the feedback I got in the past when I had lots of information on the screen was that it was too busy and intimidating. Honestly, now seeing someone else build a similar product I can see why people felt that way. It's like "BAM! Here's everything, digest it now!"

2: Real time streaming of anything, in my opinion, is annoying and useless. This is an opinion and opinions are like.. well you know. I built a real time stream on my dev box to try it out, it streamed Twitter and Facebook in 2 columns. I searched for "pizza". I deleted the code and html with great prejudice and it never made it's way to my production box. There's a reason the Twitter interface just has a counter for new posts and doesn't actually stream them.

3\. Your speed is nice, when I hit the page and did a search. The way you load the page I think is a bit nicer to the user than I'm currently doing. So I'll give you some advice, the way I'm doing it I'm not happy with. My idea is to make the "loading..." almost completely gone. The way I'm going to do this is to Accept http request kick off requests to api/cache return page layout which ajax requests to get the data that's probably already now in my cache

4\. Think about the value of all the apis you are using and the information you present. You're doing a lot. You probably don't need to be doing as much as you're doing. For example, the pictures, why? As you built it they seemed really cool and you probably used them a lot. I did when I built something similar for my site. No one else used it. Lots of development time for something no one uses and you're going to support it through redesigns and such?

5\. Make this site your primary search engine. No matter what you're searching for, use your site first. This will show you what it's strengths are and then you can focus on those. I determined my site was best for keeping up on topics I was interested in on a daily basis, or for finding product reviews. This is what I've concentrated on now and has really helped me slim my product down into something manageable.

Let me end this with I'm not trying to be competitor to you, and not looking at you as one. My site is a hobby. I've recently burned out and have gone back to building websites for fun rather than profit. It's a huge relief to think "I'll fix that this weekend and if not the weekend after". So I'm sincerely just offering you advice based on my own multi-year experience for developing in the space you're in. I wish you the best of luck, and hey if you make it good enoguh maybe I can just use your site and work on some of my other ideas :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this startup kind of screwed from the start if one of the competitors is that 17 year old kid who invented a new search engine called apodora?

Source: [http://matadornetwork.com/life/17-year-old-invents-new- searc...](http://matadornetwork.com/life/17-year-old-invents-new-search- engine/)

<comment><USER5> How is apdora related?

<comment><USER4> It lets you search ANY small text item like a feed from not just twitter, but it also indexes ALL conversations under just the limited amount of characters similar to how google does searches which can include things like RSS feeds or facebook posts. It doesn't rely on finding just hash tags or an single twitter API.

In my opinion if the kid puts up his search engine anytime soon this startup is as good as dead for at least it's search engine competitive advantage. The dashboards and some other things are rather nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      Ooops, something went wrong

      We had problems contacting one or more important data sources.
      Please try again later.

Clicked on "Details" and was told:

      We had problems contacting one or more important data sources.
      Please try again later.

<comment><USER7> I had this happen for some searches after it had already begun to render what appeared to be some relevant data to the page. It cleared the data it was beginning to render. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So I went to make an account and it requires that I link it to a twitter account of facebook account. I didn't want to do that, but now whenever I visit this site I'm forwarded to /setup which is the page prompting me to link an account.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe add a "safe search" option for the pictures? Definitely got some NSFW pictures when I was searching for yoyos. (World competition is in a few days, wanted to see the trends.)

</comment><comment><USER10> Another cool application of SockJS. Looks great.</comment>


Udacity's model - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/01/31/udacitys-model/

<comment><USER2> All these free education movement is revolutionary. Knowledges had never been so easily accessible. It used to be that education was only available to the riches. Now with people like Thrun, Ng and Khan giving quality education to anyone, anywhere in the world for free. I can only see the world becoming a better place as more people get educated.

</comment><comment><USER3> This would be a great tool to help with hiring. 100k students means 100k candidates who have completed the exact same exams and problem sets, providing a common basis for interviews. A company would know exactly what was taught in the course, and have a more objective way of evaluating certain skillsets.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ah, this explains why they're a for-profit.

Also, just checked Udacity's site--they have a whole host of new courses slated for 2012 besides the Search Engine/Robotic Car competitions.

<comment><USER5> If Sebastian is able to maintain a high quality offering, then it should be fairly easy to become a for-profit operation - one could for example offer the testing results to various companies for a finder's fee if they hire someone (as the article alludes to), or perhaps offer a class first at a low cost of $10 (with 100K students, that's not bad beans), and then offer it for free, or perhaps (always my favorite to figure out how to apply), let students do a dutch auction bid for the class, etc.</comment></comment>


Nearly 1 in 5 Americans are stashing cash at home in fear of a recession - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/10/almost-1-in-5-americans-hide-cash-in-their-homes-fearing-a-recession.html <comment><USER2> I think people have stashed cash at home for many years. Its called an emergency fund. Major multi-day power outage - ATMs don't work. Credit cards don't work. Cash works. I also stash a couple of 5 gal. gas cans in the garage. And some food in the pantry. I even have spare clothing in the closet.

<comment><USER3> Curious what differentiates 'spare' clothing from 'regular' clothing.

You can only wear one outfit at a time, everything else is spare.

<comment><USER4> I would imagine "spare" clothing would be:

1) More durable than normal clothing. They would not be something stylish enough to wear every day, but useful in a natural disaster. Think heavy duty work clothes.

2) Kept in some sort of safe, sealed container. In case of a flood or fire, your regular clothes could easily get spoiled. Spare clothing would be kept someplace safe and could be retrieved when necessary.

3) Provide extra warmth, in case your house was destroyed or damaged. Depending on the local weather, it might include a heavy coat, gloves, boots, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Making these kinds of moves can prove costly. If you're hiding cash in your home, you're not able to take advantage of compound interest, which helps your money grow exponentially the longer you have it invested._

Over here in the UK the highest interest you'll get on a savings account at the moment is about 0.5%, and most accounts give much less. While compound interest is a factor, it's a trivial one. The interest you're getting on money in the bank isn't going to save you in a recession.

<comment><USER6> Unless you're stashing Gold or precious metals instead of cash, then you have the benefit of not losing the 2-5% that the feds are printing in money yearly. That's assuming you're in the US.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally get the argument for precious metals as a hedge and "insurance policy" against rampant runaway inflation, but don't you lose a lot more than 2-5% when you pay the premium over spot to buy it? Also, how useful/liquid are gold and silver in a serious economic downturn?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This happened a lot for people that lived through the great depression. A probate lawyer gave me advise, any time you buy a home from someone that lived through, or their parents lived through the great depression, to check all electrical sockets, attics, basements, nooks and spaces for money and jewelry.

<comment><USER8> Check the pockets of all their clothing before donating it or throwing it out too. That's a common place for them to hide money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is meaningless with only one data point.

There's nothing to say that this is a new phenomenon, or whether this number has been the average for decades.

This is MSN start page level news and does not belong on HN.

</comment><comment><USER9> In another CNBC news, "More than one in five (21 percent) don't save any of their annual income."

Source:[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/14/her...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/14/heres- how-many-americans-are-not-saving-any-money-for-emergencies-or-retirement-at- all.html)</comment>


Coffee Rust - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/09/coffee-rust/616358/ <comment><USER2> Coming soon, good synthetic coffee.[1] Made from agricultural waste, to be sold at premium prices at first. The process is not inherently expensive, so, like the Impossible Burger, it will move down from the high end to Burger King.

[1] [https://atomocoffee.com/](https://atomocoffee.com/)

<comment><USER3> The picture of the coffee they are pouring on that page appears quite watery.

<comment><USER4> >> appears quite watery.

Particularly watery looking for a cold brew

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'But now the fungicides were no longer working as they had. "La roya does not respect them," Gabriel told me through a translator. One day, with no warning, the golden dots bloomed on a few leaves on a single plant. Gabriel sprayed them, and sprayed again, but the spots widened, then turned dark and dry and cracked through the middle. The leaves crisped, curling at the edges, and fell from the plant when breezes jostled them. The dust, the fungal spores, drifted across the field and infected another bush, or fell to the ground and splashed onto the next plant when rain fell. The cycle of slow plant death began again.'

I did not know that I would see the vision of Miyazaki expressed in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind realized in my lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER6> "From 2012 to 2017, rust caused more than $3 billion in damage and lost profits and forced almost 2 million farmers off their land."

I can't jibe these numbers. That's only $1,500 per farmer.

<comment><USER7> " The World Bank 2010 data for Guatemala indicates that the Gross National Income (GNI) Per Capita for Guatemala is $2,740 and for the Lower Middle class the average annual income is $1,619 in US dollars." - [http://www.terraexperience.com/guatemala_minimum_wage.htm](http://www.terraexperience.com/guatemala_minimum_wage.htm) (primary source 404)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The most interesting part to me was that the British didn't always drink that much tea.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is it possible to add more genetic diversity to coffee? Might taste better too

<comment><USER10> There's quite a lot of diversity in coffee already. Coffees from different regions taste wildly different. Climate change is just ravaging the coffee band. Ethiopian coffee will likely be gone in a couple decades as the growing region is pushed north into the Ethiopian highlands where it can't be grown since the highlands are actually huge pillars of rock rather than highlands as people typically understand them.

It's a shame, really, because Ethiopian coffee is absolutely wonderful.

<comment><USER11> How much of the Ethiopian economy is made up of coffee exports?

<comment><USER12> 34%

(Google has become worse for long tail search queries, but interestingly now has an 'answer box' for wide ranging questions like this one.)

<comment><USER13> Be careful with those answer boxes, they don't always answer the question you want to know. It seems that coffee is 34% of Ethiopian exports, not their economy

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I swore this was going to be about some CoffeeScript + Rust monstrosity

<comment><USER15> Consolation prize: the Rust programming language was named after the rust fungi. [https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/27jvdt/internet_archa...](https://old.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/27jvdt/internet_archaeology_the_definitive_endall_source/)

<comment><USER16> Because it destroys Java?

<comment><USER17> Nice pun. But I think Java will have a bright future with Project Loom coming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Luckily we have technology such as greenhouses that means this is ultimately a cost issue and not an extinction level issue.

<comment><USER19> Coffee grows best in outdoor elevated tropical climates. Similar to cacao, putting a roof over an entire hillside is simply not feasible for even the wealthiest farmers.

One of the foundations of most farming is that given a large are, you can just place the plants and care for the ground they're on, and handle pests that can be seen. That's manageable with lots of farm labor and with available building material. Building a glass louvre around every rural farm between the tropics of cancer and capricorn, replacing the wind and rain, etc is just not how rural third world farming works.

<comment><USER18> Well that still sounds like a cost issue to be honest, worst case is that coffee becomes a luxury item again. Though practically as third world companies develop and greenhouses become cheaper it probably wouldn't climb so high as to stop being sold by the major retailers, Costco, etc. Double or triple in price maybe.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately "luxury" doesn't seem like the likely outcome here. Luxury items are created via artificial scarcity (e.g. diamonds) or just by high cost of expertise and goods (e.g. a luxury car). In order for food to become a luxury item, it needs to be a more costly variation on something which is more readily available. This allows for a constant demand, with a side business in exotic expensive extras.

If coffee, globally, needed to be grown in greenhouses it would just become a novelty tree that school trips visited until the climate turned around and it became an economically viable crop again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe it's time for hipsters to make WW2-era coffee substitutes like chicory and acorns fashionable again: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute)

<comment><USER21> [https://www.victorycoffees.com](https://www.victorycoffees.com)

Not sure if duckspeak =.= or duckspeak.

Edit for sauce: [http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/4.html](http://www.george- orwell.org/1984/4.html)

<comment><USER20> Those appear to be actual coffee?

Chicory coffee remains popular in New Orleans, but they usually blend in actual coffee for the caffeine kick: [https://www.neworleansroast.com/chicory/](https://www.neworleansroast.com/chicory/)

<comment><USER22> I think in practice it's the opposite - they brew actual coffee and blend in chicory for the authentic New Orleans taste kick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I upvoted mechanically without opening the link because that's what I do when I see an entry about Rust.

I'm joking, I did not do that, but it's possible explanation how this link got to the first page of HN.

<comment><USER24> Or, perhaps, because the content is interesting?

<comment><USER23> Perhaps. But if title didn't have the word a Rust, fewer people would clicked.</comment></comment></comment>


Fukushima Marks the End of the Nuclear Era - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,750773,00.html

<comment><USER2> They keep on talking about how advanced japanese nuclear reactors are. But they simply aren't. None of the western type nuclear reactors in service are anything like well designed. and I'm pro-nuclear.

They rely on active safety - systems have to be working in order to keep the system safe, and from meltdown. Rather than passive systems - where you have to work to keep the reaction going. Designs like pebble bed reactors and liquid thorium/salt have been proven to be reliable. Rip the top off a PBR reactor and it just cools down.</comment>


Ask HN: Developer fatigue - <AUTHOR>

I haven't managed to write a line of code for quite a while. I think i've burned myself out! The longer I rest and the more I feel guilty about not coding. Anyone going/gone through this? <comment><USER2> You mean outside of a job where you might be required to code, or are you talking about a day job or freelancing?

If outside of a job, like side projects and such, then go off and do something else for awhile, explicitly and on purpose. If you stew about not coding then you won't code and you won't do anything else (been there done that). So just accept that you won't be coding for awhile, and go do something fun or interesting or world changing or odd.

Read something specific. Ride your bicycle short distances. Learn to cook, in general or something specific. Learn a game. Invent a game (danger, may involve coding). Learn a (human) language; go somewhere that they speak it. Join a sports league. Make weekend trips out of town. Make weekend trips downtown.

If you like, keep a notebook during your adventures, for ideas for later projects. Keep in mind that those later projects might not involve coding; coding is not the only thing in the world available to occupy your head.

If you like, don't come back from your adventures. Be a renaissance man/woman. Those adventures may or may not include code.

If you're talking about inside a job where you're supposed to be coding, then ... just fucking do it. Sorry. But you can still be a renaissance adventurer on the weekends.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol. Cheers mate!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you give up in between?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes sort of. I would previously be able to shut everything out and just code for hours. But now I just keep taking longer breaks from coding: an hour turns into two hours ...etc and then a day is gone.

<comment><USER4> Get away from it completely for a couple months or weeks. Take a job in construction, or writing, or something entirely different. Refresh. You'll probably naturally come back to it later.</comment></comment></comment>


Compiling Lua 5.2 from 2013 with Turbo C 1.0 from 1990 (2014) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jvLY5pUwic <comment><AUTHOR> It seems that this is not unexpected at all since Lua is written in ANSI C [0].

[0] [https://www.lua.org/faq.html#1.1](https://www.lua.org/faq.html#1.1)

<comment><USER2> It is a bit hard for Turbo C 1.0 used in this exercise to be fully ANSI C89 compliant, when it was released in 1987.

[http://bitsavers.informatik.uni- stuttgart.de/pdf/borland/tur...](http://bitsavers.informatik.uni- stuttgart.de/pdf/borland/turbo_c/Turbo_C_Users_Guide_1987.pdf)

So yeah, unexpected.

What they are actually using is Turbo C++ 1.0, and for some odd reason decided to call it Turbo C, released in 1990, which isn't the same Borland product.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_C%2B%2B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_C%2B%2B)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I can not edit the submission title anymore but as pjmlp pointed out, this is not _Turbo C 1.0_ but _Turbo C++ 1.0_ (and the video title is wrong).</comment>


Lessons from Five Years in Mobile News Apps: #1 Don't Have a News App - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/lessons-from-five-years-in-mobile-news-apps-1-don-t-have-a-news-app-c46939195389 <comment> grey-area Really interesting, and probably applicable to other categories of app as well. For small companies the cost of apps on several platforms can be prohibitive, and the benefits questionable if your content is already free.

<comment><USER2> True, although using Cordova to wrap a good mobile site isn't too cost prohibitive. It seems a lot of small companies approach having an app as a marketing tool though. Not having an app is kinda like not having a website in 1999.</comment></comment>


My Experience at Interviews with Microsoft and Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.nakov.com/blog/2008/03/15/rejected-a-program-manager-position-at-microsoft-dublin-my-successful-interview-at-microsoft/

<comment><USER2> The author is correct about how disorganized Google's interviews are, as well as how little respect there is for seniority. Whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage is, I think, an open question.

It's tempting to think that because Google is currently very successful, whatever Google does must be correct. But it's the other way around. Google is so successful that it's hard for them to figure out exactly where they're fucking up.

As for the "I'm famous in Bulgaria" bit, that complaint sounds funny to American ears, but it is a real issue. There are people at top Valley firms who grant just about anybody from MIT or Stanford an automatic interview, and leave candidates from Waterloo or ETH on the resume pile. Do you know what the best school in Bulgaria is? Who the top hackers are? I don't.

<comment><USER3> I am not sure about Bulgaria, but Russians seems to be winning most of the ACM programming contests. (I am not russian, btw) So, there is some real talent over there.

Comming from an ex-comunist country, I can tell you that the schools teach a huge amount of math, physics, and other sciences.

When I came to the US, I thought high-school was embarrasingly easy. I also cruised my freshman year in college, and I started to get really challenged by school only by the second semester of my sophomore year in college.

The other caveat is, that all the good people have left my country, and are working abroad, making pretty good salaries. So, whats left is not necessary the top of the heap.

I am not sure about the situation in Bulgaria, but I bet it is similiar. Saying that you are the "top" engineers of the country, when you know most of the good ones have already left, is not saying much, unless he backs the claims up with real products and feats he has done.

<comment><USER4> _I am not sure about Bulgaria, but Russians seems to be winning most of the ACM programming contests._

I'm an American. As a high school student, I was never interested in programming contests, because I found solving the same problem as everyone else rather boring. I would rather solve a problem that doesn't have an answer.

So I think Russia wins these things because their mentality is different. In America, the really smart people want to do something new. In Russia, the really smart people want to get a high ranking on the programming contests.

I haven't done any real research, though, this is just something I think is true :) One other thing I should mention is that I don't really like losing / failing, so I tend to pick activities that aren't zero-sum. If you don't win the programming contest, you've lost. If you don't solve an interesting unsolved problem the first time, you can try again until you get it right, and nobody will ever know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From my experience interviewing Software Engineer candidates at Google (most of them for positions at Google Zurich actually)

1\. It is not true that you will be hired for a junior position no matter what your previous experience. It is true that you should expect to be hired at a slightly lower position than you would at another company with the same level of experience. On the other hand, promotions are based entirely on merit, not on tenure. I know people who were promoted very high very fast, because they were very good.

2\. It is not true that you will only be asked algorithmic questions. It may happen every now and then, depending on the preferences of the people interviewing you, but in general you should also expect design questions, questions about testing, about engineering practices etc.

3\. I don't know if Microsoft is better organized and managed than Google. I suspect it is _more_ organized and managed than Google. At Google process is something that is actively avoided by design, and the managers tend to interfere as little as possible. Whether you like it or not depends on your personal preferences. I have friends who came from Microsoft and Yahoo and they like it better at Google, but the sample is obviously biased.

<comment><USER6> "It is true that you should expect to be hired at a slightly lower position than you would at another company with the same level of experience."

That is not actually true because _every_ company says this. Google is just conforming to an industry norm here (whether you realize it or not). All companies also say "a year here is worth x years anywhere else" and a bunch of other stuff too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wanted to stop reading when he talked about how famous he was in Bulgaria, but I finally lost interest in his opinion when he said that Microsoft has better products than Google.

Hope he gets his axe sharpened soon...the grinding noise is really overwhelming.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, maybe Google has a spelling section in their interviews ;)

But seriously, I think he likes the "rigor" of the Microsoft process. It is very formal. There is lots of documentation, lots of paperwork, and a very long chain of command, etc. And, it appears he wants to "lead" rather than program. There's nothing "wrong" with this, but I think most of us would rather die than deal with all that. That's why most of us would prefer the informality of Google to the formal corporate structure of Microsoft.

Then again, Google might be "too much" for most of us. I work at a company with 4 other people. That is big enough for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with the note that MS developers are 'more' organized or professional. Need not mean they are better - I think both Google and MS have extremely talented developers (I work at MS)...just that MS being an older company has matured in the development process. Google will soon be there.

</comment><comment><USER9> I question that he wanted to be hired at all. He seemed to go to the interviews for self-affirmation. Although the detailed listing of MS interview questions he was asked was interesting.

<comment><USER10> > Although the detailed listing of MS interview questions he was asked was > interesting.

Actually, I thought the questions seemed shockingly easy, compared to the brain-busters I hear about coming out of interviews elsewhere. Pretty much all of them were sort of hand-wave-y open-ended architectural questions, and I would hope the answers would be obvious to anyone with more than a few years of experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I found interesting is that he turned down the offer and the reason he did so.

Bulgaria is technically either the poorest or one of the poorest countries in the EU (GDP per capita is listed at $12,252 in Wikipedia), so anyone from there should be thrilled to take up a well-paid senior position out West working for well-known company such as Microsoft, right? Wrong, apparently.

I think posts like this go to show that the flow of technically skilled people going from the Eastern European countries out West (or even to North America) may be slowing down if not coming to an end altogether just because the salary differential is no longer compelling enough for them to want to move.

<comment><USER6> Because GDP isn't that useful a measure in this situation. He's not buying things in dollars at US prices, he's buying local goods and services at local prices. He's interested in his purchasing power in whatever economy he happens to be in, so regardless of the dollar amount, he's wealthy in Bulgaria but would be only average in Dublin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Google seems to be more of a startup mentality. After reading this I'd _far_ rather work for Google.

It's probably like the difference between Microsoft and IBM 10 or 20 years ago.</comment>


France Officially Sanctions Drug After 78 of 80 Recover from Covid-19 in 5 Days - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailywire.com/news/france-officially-sanctions-drug-after-78-of-80-patients-recover-from-covid-19-within-five-days <comment><USER2> Oh my, so wrong.

> "The French government has officially sanctioned chloroquine, a drug often > used to fight malaria"

They still don't know the difference between HCQ (sulfat) and CQ (diphosphat).

HCQ - Plaquenil/Quensyl - Malaria. Safe to use.

CQ - Nivaquine/Resochin/Weimer quin - Lupus/Rheuma. Very toxic and unsafe.

It was initially recommended against Malaria, but even one the 2nd World War the German's didn't use it, but something better.

And their various sideffects. They also didn't report the dosis, and the additional anti-inflammatories (for the younger ones - cykotine storms).

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a question, is 78/80 recovery sufficient evidence that a drug is working? Shouldn't they compare this with a placebo or baseline?

<comment><USER4> I'd also think that it's a bit light to deem something as working and valid to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really freaking me out. I'm absolutely pro vaccines, pro science, and pro medicine. But these timespans are incredibly short. Is there no reason why approving a drug for human use for a particular condition normally takes 9–18 months? How can we trust that a drug that has been fast tracked so much (5 days!!!) is safe?

I would be very hesitant to get a nCoV2 vaccine when it comes out if it's been rushed so much. I've asked before but didn't get any answer: are we confident the vaccine would be safe because most of the adverse side effects comme from the additives and we'd be repurposing an existing vaccine with additives known to be safe; so the worst that could happen is that the vaccine is not as effective as hoped without adverse side effects? Or is it an entirely novel vaccine in which case the very compressed testing and approval timeline makes it potentially not as safe?

Put another way: why do human drug trials take so long? Is it only so that medicines stay expensive and pharmas have a high barrier of entry to stifle innovation and competition, or is it really justified to make sure the medicine and vaccines are safe? As if these long amounts of time are necessary, what is different about this that would make a much much shorter timespan just as safe?

Edit to clarify: I'm not affirming additives are what's harmful in vaccines. I'm far from being an MD and I just have rudimentary knowledge of that stuff. I don't know for a fact the risk come from additives, this is just conjecture on my part and I mentioned it here so that other more knowledgeable people can correct/expand. Again, me belief is that vaccines are good, absolutely everyone should get them because they are a very cheap and efficient way to save lives. I'd just like to understand why we need years to approve a new medicine or vaccine but we're pulling all stops for covid19, and what the actual risk would be as a result of this drastically shortened timeframe.</comment>


The Most Unconscionable Drug Price Hike I Have Yet Seen - <AUTHOR> http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/09/11/the_most_unconscionable_drug_price_hike_i_have_yet_seen.php <comment><USER2> I needed some anti fungal cream this summer. My doctor informed me that the cream used to be under $10, but the big pharmaceutical company bought up all the generics and now the cream is $120.

More interesting, I got the same story from the pharmacist at rite aid. She couldn't believe I was going to pay for that and then she said, "People are up in arms over lots of stuff, but this right here is a crime that no one notices. 5 months ago you would have paid a lot less."

<comment><USER3> > and now the cream is $120.

What about tinactin, lamisil, lotrimin, monistat? They are all anti fungal creams OTC for about $10. Is this prescription you had 12x as potent?

<comment><USER4> I can't speak to the author, but I have a loved one with a serious skin condition who has tried just about everything under the sun. Only recently have they found an ointment that works and it is ~$70/oz. Not all anti-fungals are created equal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an example of an arbitrage opportunity. It's a necessary evil of capitalism, and unfortunately, our government has decided that free market capitalism is an appropriate system to use for health care.

Arbitrage can be explained as thus: you have an opportunity to buy $1 for $0.75. How many dollars do you buy? The correct answer is "all of them". In this case, a drug had a sale price of $3 and a market value of $150 per pill (established by its competitor), so an investor basically purchased "all of them" and resold them at a higher price.

If your goal is maximum economic efficiency, arbitrage is necessary. It allows companies to make decisions with the goal of maximizing profit (i.e. maximum economic efficiency) in moral hazard situations: if something is legal but morally dubious, if they don't do it, someone else will force them to. This is necessary because every individual has a slightly different idea of what is "right" and what is "wrong". Businesses don't have morals because they're not people. They are amoral, and arbitrage is the means by which that amorality is maintained. If a person wishes to exercise their moral calculus, they are free to do so when making investment decisions.

I don't believe that to be the case with healthcare. In my opinion, healthcare is a sector that really shouldn't operate along capitalist principles because the goal of a national healthcare system should not be to maximize economic efficiency: it should be to maximize the health and well-being of its citizens. I know that's hard to quantify, but it's certainly not quantified by the dollars spent on health care. IMO government price controls on healthcare are the only solution to the problem. I don't know how that gets implemented, but I do know that the pendulum needs to swing towards socialized medicine if we expect things to get better.

<comment><USER6> You're ranting against free market capitalism when the problem in the article is the result of government interference in the free market.

Retrophin is using legal (government made the laws) maneuvering to prevent competitors from creating generic equivalents of the drug.

So we should throw out all of the benefits of free market capitalism: increased innovation, competition, efficiency, etc. because of cases like this that are usually caused by something distinctly apart from free market capitalism? If anything, this is an example of misguided government regulation.

<comment><USER5> I'm ranting against free market capitalism because the whole point of free market capitalism is to ensure the price of a product is as close to its "free market value" as possible. For health care products, the calculation of value is inherently inaccurate because an individual places a much higher value on his/her own life than the market would.

I do agree that this is an example of misguided government regulation. The problem is that the government tried to use a capitalist solution to a societal value problem (i.e. the orphan drug laws). This created additional arbitrage opportunities. What I'm saying is that we need a serious discussion at a national level about the goals of our health care system, and the optimal means for achieving those goals.

We don't need new government regulation of health care; we need an entirely new systemic approach to health care. We've recently had a national awakening that the approach we've taken to drug abuse doesn't work, and that we were maybe trying to solve the wrong problem in the first place. We need a similar awakening on health care, though I'm doubtful it will happen until health care is out of reach to all but the wealthiest in society.

<comment><USER7> > the whole point of free market capitalism is to ensure the price of a > product is as close to its "free market value" as possible

You forgot competition. In a healthy market, a big difference between manufacturing cost and final price is a strong incentive for competitors to enter the market and undercut prices. You can see this in practise in unregulated markets like electronics, leading to a flood of really cheap devices, for example you can get a Galaxy S4 clone on Alibaba for about $200, whereas an original S4 goes for $400 right now.

You can bet the Chinese would also do cheap generics, if the FDA would let them.

<comment><USER5> Right; but the pharmaceutical industry goes out of its way to avoid competition. They won't develop drugs if there is too much competition.

I understand that someone needs to pay for R&D. Unfortunately, the US government already pays for most drug R&D, but the patents get assigned to the company doing the development in all but a few rare cases.

<comment><USER8> The US gov't does not pay for most drug R&D. It pays for most of the basic science, that often leads to drug candidates, but the industry shoulder nearly 100% of the cost of getting a drug to market.

The combined, private R&D budget for biotech is ~$70B (not including VC funding). Total NIH funding (much of which is not drug focused) is ~$30B.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From linked article: "Thiola, currently sold for $4,000 a year per patient, will be priced closer to rival drug penicillamine, which costs $80,000 to $140,000, Chief Executive Martin Shkreli said on a conference call on Friday."

<comment><USER10> Penicillamine is another example of a pharmaceutical scam; in 1995, the cost to treat rheumatoid arthritis using it as a second-line therapy was $550/year. Even a few years ago the pricing was in the thousands, not tens of thousands. When Valeant purchased Aton, it appears that the first thing it did was jack up the price of orphan drugs. But, hey, if you've got Wilson's Disease, you have no choice but to pay whatever they demand....

<comment><USER11> "Valeant" is all you have to say. You can see what the In the Pipeline author thinks of that company by reading the archives, too. Or any number of other chem/r&d pharma blogs. In particular a lot of ink has been spilled over their ongoing hostile bid for Allergan.

Valeant has a controversial business model. The acquire successful R&D pharma organizations, drastically cut R&D spends, raise drug prices, and then use accounting (IMO) to understate R&D costs as goodwill/depreciation for the acquisitions. Not a fan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Okay, so the price of the Thiola is ridiculous and unjustified. Who's agreeing to pay it??? I don't know how this works, do insurance companies simply roll over any time a company raises the price of some obscure drug by ten fold? Why haven't the insurers (I'm guessing no one pays for Thiola out of pocket) balked at this?

<comment><USER8> The pricing power of a drug is related to a number of factors: (1) competition, (2) size of patient population, (3) severity of disease.

Payers (insurers) balk at the price of drugs all the time. When there are competitors, they have the ability to say "no, you can't have drug A, but you can have drug B". Also, when a drug treats a disease that isn't that severe (erectile dysfunction), they can also say "no, you can't have that drug".

When it comes to a disease like the one Thiola treats (only a few therapies, serious disease, small patient population), payers don't have much choice but to pay whatever the company charge. They can't deny patients a critical therapy.

I'll bet that insurance companies will complain about the price increase, but in the end just pay it. Sure it's ridiculous, but the overall impact to payers is limited since the disease is so rare. They have bigger fish to fry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why has this been flagged off the front page?

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli](https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli)

</comment><comment><USER15> All the text and comments are crossed out with no visible explanation as to why.

<comment><USER16> "Because they can"

Without oversight, this behavior is completely expected.

<comment><USER17> Oversight by who?

<comment><USER16> Oh, I thought that user was talking about the article. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can't you get generics?

<comment><USER19> About as easily as you were able to read the article....

Sarcastic quip aside the "Update" part of the article discusses the various legal maneuvers the company is using to inhibit the production of generics. Apparently it is possible in some cases for the original manufacturer to deny access to the drug to potential producers of generics, which prevents them from doing the necessary testing needed to get regulatory approval.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, the update wasn't there when I read it.

<comment><USER19> Funny how the mutable nature of the web can transform a reasonable question into what looks like a stupid one, through no fault of your own. Have an upvote to compensate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a Canadian, I'm wondering what the drug goes for here.

<comment><USER21> You still need to pay for drugs in Canada but they are generally cheaper than in the US.

However, go to the real home of 'socialist medicine' [who thought up that name?] in Europe or the UK, you pay a fixed price (8 pounds in England - completely FREE in Scotland) for drugs. Drug companies get to charge a fee which differs but if they rip the piss out of the pricing then the NHS gets to set a price (the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme - it's complicated but it's discussed here [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/analysis- publicatio...](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/analysis- publications/analysis/healthcare/Jo_Wolff.pdf)).

Now, countries like India are even more aggressive - rip the piss there and they just license a local company to make the drug and you get a kick in the nuts for your price gouging ways.

The result is companies really rip off US patients and elsewhere they are a lot more careful and can charge dramatically lower prices (but still as much as they possibly can) to avoid regulation or enforcement measures.

Americans really need to rethink healthcare - starting by dropping all the pejorative stuff like 'Socialist Medicine' would help refocus peoples minds.

People in Europe don't focus all their attention on getting healthcare like people in the US - I have a friend who uses his measly 1 week vacation every year to come to Europe and purchase his year's supply of medication as it's way cheaper than even his co-pay, including flights, accommodation etc, to buy over the counter in Europe. That's just nuts.</comment></comment>


Disumbrationism, a Hoax Art Movement of the 1920s - <AUTHOR> https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-hoax-art-movement-fooled-art-establishment <comment><USER2> Interesting.

The unfortunate reality is that a lot of so-called artists have absolutely nothing to say. All they do is "challenge", "undermine" and "subvert" shit, mostly out of subliminal boredom. Since this hoax was aimed to challenge, undermine and subvert "modern art", it is therefore indistinguishable from "modern art" except by the fact that the author was aware of what he was doing and had a more sensible motivation.

It's hilarious how critics try to twist this the other way around, saying "ob, but his parody ended up being modern art after all". There is no "after all". _That 's the whole fucking point._ That's how good parodies work. A parody on Kung-Fu movies is, by definition, a Kung-Fu movie. No one outside of art circles sees this as some kind of "reversal".

(Post)Modern art is a parody that went on for too long, where authors collectively forgot they're doing a parody, started taking themselves seriously, and tuned into pretentious, arrogant twats, who mock others for "not getting it".

You know what comes after post-modern art? The next big "movement"? Internet memes. Mark my words, in 30 years there will be dipshits writing academic papers oh the hidden meanings and symbolism of Grympycat and Pepe the Frog. And there will be other dipshits trying to replicate "meme style", using MS Paint and showing off the resulting garbage in meaningless expositions.

<comment><USER3> The infinite reproducibility of internet art removes a lot of its status -- you can't put an "absurdly high asking price" on an image macro. Most people posting Pepe the Frog don't even know who Matt Furie is.

<comment><USER2> Just you wait. Give it couple decades. Someone will figure it out. Someone will print memes on a reconstructed matrix printer, using handmade ribbons and authentic 1980s paper exported from Japan. Or something of that sort. Maybe a custom-made computer just to show a single meme? Pretentiousness is a powerful force.

I don't know for sure, but just as I type this I get a sense that someone somewhere manually types ASCII art on a typewriter and sells it for tons of cash.

If you end up being right, though, it would be a good thing. It would mean memes will have won against pretentiousness. It would mean the Interned made something post/modern art Borg cube couldn't assimilate.

<comment><USER4> Those that thing/happening I just googled count? [http://www.newyorkartdepartment.org/nyan-cat- city/](http://www.newyorkartdepartment.org/nyan-cat-city/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "The beginnings of Dada were not the beginnings of art, but of disgust." > Disumbrationism was undoubtedly born from the same sentiment.

This seems to be the sentiment of practically every art movement.

If you've seen the Pre-Raphealites exhibit at San Francisco's Museum of Honor, they were basically disgusted with the praise over Michealangelo's muscle people. Why is baby Jesus a Super Saiyan that just completed P90X? One might ask, valid arguments

Art critics are both too gullible and too comfortable in their elitism. Rinse repeat.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Whether Disumbrationism was thoroughly a hoax remains disputable."

For a hoax, there can be no greater praise than this.

</comment><comment><USER7> Whether his intentions were to hoax art or not, he ended up creating art, though not entirely contained by his paintings, but in the whole act itself.

</comment><comment><USER8> I actually quite like the paintings, hoax or not.</comment>


Elon Musk Just Renamed SpaceX's Big F** Rocket - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/19/elon-musk-just-renamed-spacexs-big-f-rocket/ <comment><USER2> Discussion of an article about the same topic, but on a page with less infuriating privacy settings:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18493328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18493328)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure if there was a need for the click-bait title?

The one in the link above wrote the name of the rocket (Starship) and I was still intrigued by it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I learn Aurelia? - <AUTHOR>

Apologies if framework paralysis is a tired subject, but I'm at cross-point where I need to make a career oriented decision in the framework Im going to choose.
Right now, Aurelia looks like it hits all the right points, and it appears to be built in a way that just makes sense and is future forward.  That said, its still so new, and does not have the same kind of exposure to employers that Ember, Angular, and React do.  Ive already eliminated React, despite its acclaim, because I actually am looking for a full MVC-like framework as I don't have the background in application development to know what to do with all the other pieces on my own. Im coming from a "brochure website" background, and have been stuck in CMS hell for years modifying HTML, CSS, JS, and hacking at PHP because Ive never wanted to learn it, but most CMS demand it.
Ive been looking at job listings for Front End Devs and see some employers asking for existing experience in Angular.  Backbone is mentioned almost as often, but I have not seen many asking about Ember, and none as of yet asking about Aurelia experience.
I know I'm not going to be a pro in any of these frameworks for at least a year, so I'm kind of leaning towards Aurelia and crossing my fingers that when I arise from the documentation and feel confident within that framework, Aurelia will be more mainstream.  At the very least I consider it a good start to get my hands dirty with ES6.
Am i crazy to try and learn Aurelia at this point as a career oriented decision? <comment><USER2> There's nothing wrong with learning bleeding edge--it's fun! But don't bank on it to provide a job. I'm not a front end dev, so YMMV and etc, but I think it's always good to learn a popular language/framework and then play with the new and fringe stuff. At the very least, you'll have another bit of knowledge to compare things to. At worst you'll have had some fun learning something new.

If you get really good with whatever you're learning, you can just bid on freelance contracts where no language or toolset is specified.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah sure, why not.</comment>


The Tesla Roadster has been officially logged as a celestial object by NASA - <AUTHOR> https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?CGISESSID=c3cbd47fbf603007d1b627107c28962f&s_body=1#top <comment><USER2> Tesla is on a ride this time. Loud cheers for this man.</comment>


NewsBasis is hiring - <AUTHOR> http://newsbasis.com/newsbasis_is_hiring

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I'd love feedback on the posting. It's the first time I've done this.

<comment><USER2> I think it's an awesome post - really inspiring and narrates perfectly what you guys are doing with the company and the technology.</comment></comment>


Mayfield raises new venture fund, announces hybrid VC/co-founder role - <AUTHOR> http://vcinme.typepad.com/vc/2012/07/a-new-journey.html <comment><USER2> Definitely curious to hear what folks think about this.</comment>


Invention Assignment Review Committee for Personal Projects - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.google.com/docs/iarc/ <comment><USER2> So, any personal project you worked on before your worked for google by default google owns.

<comment><USER2> I'm not making it up.

"That includes new development on personal projects you created prior to employment at Google."</comment></comment>


Material design with Polymer - <AUTHOR> http://www.polymer-project.org/docs/elements/material.html

<comment><USER2> "Material design with Polymer" I thought the headline was about a materials design startup, not a UI library. Can you please add more unrelated jargon and nonsensical analogies from random fields to your documentation?

<comment><USER3> When they use an unqualified, lower-case 'material design' they are referring to the thing that Google announced at I/O yesterday, are they?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Despite all my comments disagreeing strongly with WebComponents and the direction of putting everything in the DOM, I will say that you all did an excellent job with the design aspects of designing for the Z-plane. That's solid stuff and everyone who reads this thread should definitely take the time to read through all the design guidelines for Material, because even if you don't use Material, those ideas are really valuable and can be explored in other frameworks like Famo.us, Ember.js, Velocity.js, React.js. The web is definitely moving in the direction where designing for the Z-plane and subtle animation affordances will matter, and this is great exploration of where things can go.

For those whose experience, is mainly on the web, these are also good resources:

Meaningful Transitions: [http://www.ui-transitions.com/](http://www.ui- transitions.com/)

Capptivate: [http://capptivate.co/](http://capptivate.co/)

The Z-Axis - Designing for the Future:

[http://alistapart.com/article/the-z-axis-designing-for- the-f...](http://alistapart.com/article/the-z-axis-designing-for-the-future)

[disclaimer: I work at famo.us)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not encouraging: [http://imgur.com/riycCA1](http://imgur.com/riycCA1)

<comment><USER6> What OS/Browser combo?

<comment><USER7> I'm getting that and other various quirks with 10.9.3 running Safari 7.0.4, FF 29.0.1 and FF 30.0. Chrome 35 works though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was kind of confused as to the organization of the repos and how this is all brought together. Is there a document somewhere explaining the relationship (hierarchy) of all the repos and what role each plays in the larger polymer material project?

Specifically, where is the code that does the layout for this? I want to see how they are doing the positioning of elements in space. Is it all CSS classes or do they do positioning with javascript?

</comment><comment><USER8> It's very strange that when you click or touch down on a button, the shadow spreads out more, as though the button got further away from the underlying surface. It seems like any "press down" sort of action should, well, make it appear to move down, not up.

</comment><comment><USER9> In Polymer ajax is an element: [https://github.com/PolymerLabs/polymer- ajax/blob/master/test...](https://github.com/PolymerLabs/polymer- ajax/blob/master/test/html/polymer-ajax.html)

<comment><USER4> What a strange strange choice. Instead of moving responsibilities to a imperfect but very flexible turing-complete language (javascript), they are trying to shoehorn everything into a markup language originally designed as an abstraction for documents (html).

I liked a lot of what I saw in the project, but this "ajax as an element" makes me want to facepalm, or at least scratch my head and wonder "why?!?"

Can someone from the polymer team elaborate the reasoning behind this?

<comment><USER10> I'm sure I want to defend this particular implementation without looking at it more but 'declarative' is quite a nice programming style as long as you can easily override it with 'proper' code when you hit it's limits - see Django's models, forms, admin etc.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree with declarative code that can be overridden with "proper" code. However in this particular instance, the declarative API in HTML for getting a resource at a particular URI already exists in the form of the "href" property. I don't understand what AJAX here adds at all, since it's not congruous with the semantics of the term AJAX -> "Asynchronous Javascript and XML". There is no javascript there. There's no notion of "asynchronicity" in a declarative interface since async connotes flow control. And the XML (part) used to refer to the original data structure format that was retrieved, whereas most people these days use JSON and even this example uses JSON.

It's not even clear from this example, what is done with the JSON data fetched here. It's not assigned to a variable or returned by a callback. The script below the element in fact uses globals to access the code, since that is basically what `document.querySelector` does. Putting stuff in the DOM is the equivalent of saving all your variables on the window object and then accessing them with `window.myDomElement`, but in a more verbose, indirect and non-performant way.

        var ajax = document.querySelector('polymer-ajax');
        ajax.addEventListener("polymer-response", function(event) {
            assert.isTrue(event.detail.response.feed.entry.length > 0);
            done();
        });

Furthermore, I noticed in some of the markup elements, the addition of a "url" property. How does "url" differ from "href", especially, when all the examples I saw had URIs pointing to *.html hypertext documents. Is "url" a new property that exists in a standard somewhere? If not, I was under the impression that non-standard HTML properties are supposed to be prefixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> On one hand, I worry that Google is monopolizing the future of the web, but on another, I'm glad because they are effective at producing the features that us developers want.

I have mixed feelings about Polymer, currently its high browser requirements make it too radical to use at work (IE, Firefox & Safari be broken yo), but forward enough to get me experimenting with it on my personal projects. At the workplace, I'll continue to stick to React.

<comment><USER4> I love the look and feel that went into the design of Material here, but with respect to web components, we should be worried that Google is monopolizing the future of the web. See my comment below: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7947119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7947119)

It bugs me that Polymer is being marketed as "polyfills", since the term polyfill generally tends to connote something that fills in for an already agreed upon w3c standard that will appear in all user agents eventually. Whereas web components and shadow dom is still very much in the proposal/experimentation stage and has a ways to go before reaching standardization. There are still some disagreements to be resolved by all those that contribute code to the major user agents.

Calling polymer a polyfills library is misleading and an abuse of the intent of the term polyfill [0].

Also related: "Apple Removes Shadow DOM from Safari"[1][2]

[0] [http://remysharp.com/2010/10/08/what-is-a- polyfill/](http://remysharp.com/2010/10/08/what-is-a-polyfill/)

[1] [http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/164131](http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/164131)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7243122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7243122)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is Polymer? I thought it was a polyfill for Web Components but this seems like a UI library or something.

<comment><USER13> It's both. This is a slightly outdated image, but it describes it pretty well: [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rPbEdmEpHWA/UeW4Xqmg0oI/AAAAAAAAAx...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rPbEdmEpHWA/UeW4Xqmg0oI/AAAAAAAAAx0/33O2gWoYMgI/s1600/polymer- architecture.jpg)

Basically, there's a layer of polyfills called the Platform that will disappear as browsers implement key web platform features natively. On top of that is the main Polymer library, which is a small sugaring library that makes using the individual Platform polyfills together a lot easier. On top of that are a couple different sets of both UI and non-UI web components built using Polymer, namely core-elements and paper-elements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks good but runs extremely slow on my phone (LG G2)

<comment><USER15> Clearly you need a more modern phone.

<comment><USER4> Clearly software should be written more efficiently so that his phone is still capable. The LG G2 is a two year old smartphone. It's pretty unacceptable that something doesn't run well on it, so long as the underlying software (operating system and browsers) are up to date.

<comment><USER16> I suppose the comment before yours is sarcastic, but yeah you are talking about the real issue here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like that they keep developing Polymer, but the IE10+ requirement makes it a hard sell for customer projects :/

<comment><USER18> Considering that this is mostly aimed at creating mobile sites and apps I don't see that requirement as a deterrent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So Polymer is like Bootstrap with Angular? How is Polymer related to Angular or React?

<comment><USER20> Angular can use Polymer components.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Where does Polymer stand in relation to React.js from Facebook?

<comment><USER22> They're only similar in that they're both for building component based DOM UI.

Polymer is tied into the WebComponents standardization effort (also driven by google-related people). Pieces of the DOM are managed by relatively small, contained objects that maintain their own internal state and keep the DOM in sync. It achieves component state synchronization via data binding like Angular or Ember and some sort of KVO mechanism (eventually Object.observe if they're not using that already, I haven't looked at their code in a couple months).

When you write code for React, on the other hand, you basically pretend the DOM is stateless and write your code as if you're writing server side templating code and rendering the entire page from scratch. The framework takes the data structure that the render process builds and efficiently forces the DOM to match what was rendered. At least that's the central concept. There are plenty of caveats.

If anybody has more specific questions, I'm happy to answer them.

<comment><USER23> Is it feasible to use react.js and polymer together in an app?

I mean, is it possible to do this without sacrificing the benefits of reactjs by simply writing state-ish code in reactjs?

(At first blush, I can't think of a sensible way of doing this...)

<comment><USER22> Haven't tried it but you can integrate React with pretty much anything. Looking at the Polymer lifecycle methods[1], I'd start by trying a `React.renderComponent` in Polymer's `domReady` callback for an element and then setState/setProps/forceUpdate in the `attributeChanged` callback.

[1] [http://www.polymer- project.org/docs/polymer/polymer.html#lif...](http://www.polymer- project.org/docs/polymer/polymer.html#lifecyclemethods)

That said, I don't expect it to be common since you'd basically be building a React component with a Polymer shim and getting almost no leverage out of Polymer. I suppose you could write some code to parse out the html template and turn it into React.DOM equivalents but that seems like a lot of effort.

All React integrations I've seen are the result of introducing React into a legacy codebase or they're using React on a component that's rendering a very large DOM subtree and taking advantage of React's O(N_view) instead of O(N_model) scaling and batched updates for perf wins over current KVO techniques.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, what I'd want is the polymer "look and feel" and the react update model... doesn't seem like that's possible.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree that the Polymer Material "look and feel" is really nice and well thought out. The WebComponents ideas it is based on gives me the jibblies though.

You could do the polymer look and feel with the react update model via famo.us (disclaimer: I work for famo.us). Famo.us also plays pretty nicely with Ember.js (tutorials coming soon) and React.js.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I liked the idea of polymer much more than the stuff react and angular did.

But the boilerplate of this system is just too much for me.</comment>


Ask HN: I need some help with an investing-based startup - <AUTHOR>

My friend is working on a product focused on investing. He has been looking for guidance all over and I told him I would get some feedback from the HN community. This is what he emailed me. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I would be happy to ask him for any other information that might be needed.
"""
My interest in finance started when I saved up $5000. I wanted to invest it and approached a stockbroker who suggested that I invest in China (back in 2006) for 22% returns. I walked out of the deal thinking a compounded 22% return was impossible. While practicing medicine, I've pursued a MBA to learn more about finance.
I've started working on a product that estimates the amount of risk you can take, the amount of risk you need to take to achieve your goals and then suggest a simple investment plan that required about 1-4 hours per year. The estimated learning curve is about 10 hours. My initial target market is professionals with little to no knowledge in finance (MDs, non finance PhDs etc..,).
The goal of the product is to provide enough information to allow individuals to invest efficiently and help them pick the right financial planners (advisors who charge less and advocate the right practices). I would have no affiliation with any advisors (to avoid conflict of interest) and our revenue may be through selling this product.
Since some of you may be potential customers or have more experience in financial planning, could you point out how I may fail in this venture and how I could avoid failing. Once concern is having no customers since they don't want to spend adequate time. Another concern is establishing credibility.
I've also composed a survey with a few elements I need to validate and if you have some time (approx. 10 minutes), I would greatly appreciate the feedback.
http://goo.gl/NR54hu
Thank you for your help! """ <comment><USER2> I read an interesting article about Mint.com. I think your product could follow a similar marketing path. It revolved around a blog to establish credibility first.

[http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-mint-grew/](http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how- mint-grew/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an excellent and a very interesting post. Thank you for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As others have pointed out, blogging is absolutely essential to a product like this. Free content for conversion is also really valuable.

Don't be too wedded to your initial revenue model. There are lots of ways you can make money here - subscription, ads, etc. The middle-class investment industry relies heavily on getting a finger on the pulse of the cash flow for ordinary people. If you're deliberately avoiding touching that pulse, and deliberately avoiding remarketing to investment businesses, you may have a hard time getting reasonable return for your work from subscriptions or whatever.

You might want to look into investment clubs and how they work, not as a market but rather as an insight into your customers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure there are many people working on this stuff, but this one I came across recently and it looks good: [https://www.wealthfront.com/questions](https://www.wealthfront.com/questions)

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely looks interesting. Can you also elaborate on how you came across this startup? Were you googling around for something related or did you hear this through a friend?

<comment><USER4> IIRC I saw it on This Week in Startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks cool. Just subscribed to it. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You might want to check Betterment ([https://www.betterment.com/](https://www.betterment.com/))

It's pretty similar to what you're trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER6> Also check out [http://www.nutmeg.com/](http://www.nutmeg.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: Minus price, would you buy custom tailored or mass produced clothes? - <AUTHOR> <comment> J-dawg I'd love to be able to simply buy clothes with sizing that is 100% consistent and doesn't vary from year to year.

Several times I've ordered what I thought was an identical product to something I already own, only to find the fit is slightly different. I'm not sure whether this is due to manufacturing inconsistencies or the style being updated, but it's so frustrating.

I would like to be able to know that I am (say) t-shirt size L and style 'xyz' and body length '3' (or whatever information is needed) and know that I could keep on ordering different products with that same spec forever, and they'd all fit the same. No more wondering whether 'slim fit' means the same thing as it did last year or whatever.

Same with shoes. I've bought running shoes in the same size from the same manufacturer and they've been a totally different fit.

If a company did this and the clothes were actually nice as well, I'd probably be a customer for life.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd buy custom tailored clothing if price were not an issue.

I'm not a standard size, and it's hard to find clothing that fits well. I hate to go shopping, so I usually wear clothing thin until I'm finally forced to go buy something. And then it's a huge hassle going into shops, trying stuff on, nothing fits... So yeah, given that I already have to waste time to buy clothes, I'd rather waste time getting measured once in a blue moon, and then get well-fitting clothes (presumably with a reasonable choice of colors and styles) based on those measurements.

</comment><comment><USER3> This depends on the level of tailoring. There is a vast amount on the internet about this, but as you asked 'you'...

I do buy tailored suits. They're made-to-measure. That's good enough. Somewhat between true bespoke, the baste is adjusted to fit in-person during second fitting. Good fit for baste is key to a good fit for a blazer. The feel/effect is essentially that I'm wearing the most comfortable T-shirt I have, but it is not a t-shirt, but a suit jacket. Trousers don't really need a second fitting.

For fabric, I really like to first feel and see. Super 100s are usually fine; there's a lot of inflation in higher thread counts.

Mass-produced can do production of good quality clothes without issue, they've done so for decades; for example Armani charge a huge amount for what's a nice fabric but adjusting on final fitting really reduces the point of paying more. Good cloth is worth it, but doesn't need to break the bank. Brands usually don't make the cloth themselves, it is a commodity, if fiddly to get exactly what you want.

One big advantage mass-produced has on custom is quality of stitching. Mass- produced means the stitching quality can be really tight/close and of excellent consistency (take a look at your shirt, how consistent is the stitching? how loose is it? Distance between stitches, quality of thread?). For mass-produced, stitching is certainly not done manually. It is fully automated.

Tailored for wool often works better if the workmanship is top-notch (heavier fabrics) but for cotton mass or semi-mass produced shirts mass-produced often brings a much better stitched that can be adjusted to fit, compared to purely tailored/manually machined/bespoke.

Clarification: I live somewhere where there's a great tradition in tailoring, and prices are not high.

</comment><comment><USER4> If price were no option, I would buy custom tailored -- but assuming we're talking about online mail-order here, the tailoring has to take into account all the relevant measurements, not just the ones used for mass-produced sizing.

For instance, women's tops are usually sized with measurements for bust, waist, and sometimes hip. However, a whole lot of them don't fit me because I have unusual arm proportions. And it's impossible to know which will because there are no measurements provided for shoulder/yoke, neck, length, or sleeve length.

Without being able to customize _all_ those measurements, a garment doesn't count as "custom-tailored" in my book.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mass. I like to buy cheap clothes. I don't ever want to stand out as "rich person" to anyone... and in some cases it is preferable to just buy a completely new set of clothes rather than having to wash the current set (time management).

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, I would buy custom tailored or mass produced clothes.

<comment><USER7> Pedant!!!1!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, and I'd say about 50% of us will in the next 3 years via Amazon. Echo measures you, Amazon's latest machines make the item tailored to measurements, it's delivered to your door. Not joking.

<comment><USER9> Check out MTailor to see this vision in action! [https://www.mtailor.com/](https://www.mtailor.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would probably buy custom tailored everything if price weren't a factor. I have annoying proportions so most mass produced clothes seem to fit me poorly.

I don't think it would be that much of a hassle, simply have all your measurements taken and keep that on file somewhere. Whenever you go to buy new clothes submit that info and get your nicely fitted t-shirts.

</comment><comment><USER11> I buy casual clothes (shirts, jeans) one size larger and have them tailored at a local place.

Costs about $10 an item but they fit much better.

<comment><USER12> Hunh, brilliant. Seems like some wisdom passed down from the late 1800's when industrialization was just getting going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> E.g., if I had a device that could take fairly-accurate measurements and custom-make/-order clothes based on those measurements?

Sure, I'd do that in a heartbeat. It'd be great.

If I have to go somewhere and get all measured up, meh: I can usually guess between M/L/XL based on the manufacturer and reviews and for a lot of clothes, that's enough.

</comment><comment><USER13> For jeans and dress clothes, I would absolutely prefer custom tailored. T-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, etc aren't worth the hassle. I would also stick with my Nikes/Jordans that are mass produced (I know exactly what size to get). I am unsure about other shoes, but could see where a custom shoe would be great.

</comment><comment><USER14> It depends. for everyday regular stuff, I don't mind mass produced because I am too lazy to spend time on letting someone measure me. But for things like Suits etc that are more formal and for an occasion, I wouldn't mind custom tailored.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hated getting fitted for a suit, so it follows that I'd hate getting fitted for everything else. I'll take mass-produced, all else being equal.

</comment><comment><USER16> Could you expound on your question?

<comment><AUTHOR> @corep_1: I'm trying to understand if presented with an option to buy tailored clothing vs mass produced what you would prefer. Apart from the convenience of going into a store to pick up something is there another reason why someone would prefer a mass produced clothing item (if price was equal)?</comment></comment>