How to Make a Handheld EMP Jammer - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2016/10/12/become-very-unpopular-very-fast-with-this-diy-emp-generator/ <comment><USER3> Or, "How to kill people with pacemakers". Seriously, there are a lot of bad uses for this which have nothing to do with phones.

<comment><USER4> Or one of those going off on a plane. Horrible consequences.

<comment><USER5> You'd need a lot more current in order to cause horrible consequences for an airplane. Lots of redundant systems, lots of testing for electromagnetic tolerance.

<comment><USER6> This is what a setup for testing airplanes for EMP tolerance looks like: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS-I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS-I) Note that this isn't used anymore.

And here's an anechoic chamber for testing military craft: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefield_Anechoic_Facility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefield_Anechoic_Facility)

Now I'm curious to see an A380 in an anechoic chamber... Are full airplanes normally tested in a chamber? Or only the individual systems?

<comment><USER7> Why do you need a chamber?

<comment><USER8> Fully anechoic chambers are for antenna pattern testing and scenario testing where you don't want reflections; you want to simulate free space such as planes in the air.

Semi-anechoic is for electromagnetic compliance testing. They have absorber on walls but not floor. Typically don't want signals to get out. Bare floor sort of mimics earth, as ground plane can guide wave.

Some chambers are fully reflective with mode stirrers, but those are specifically for EM susceptibility testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This won't destroy your phone. Phones are extensively tested when it comes to both creating and withstanding EM interference. Best it could do - maybe - <USER2> crash one that is on the edge of its spec and you would probably have to get pretty close for that (fall off as the square (edited) of the distance).

<comment><USER10> Shouldn't the signal fall off with the square of the distance (inverse-square law)?

<comment><USER11> aiui.

its not linear.

either it induces a voltage high enough to cause disruption or it doesnt.

the limiting factor is the voltage not the power (power is tiny)

<comment><USER11> and what i mean by that, is we are talking about a pulse of high voltage and very very high frequency (maybe even gamma radiation) and its effect on electronics.

thats not a case of power falloff. Because interaction with the environment and target is non linear.

for example if it blasts a phone to reset from a few centimeters it could easily drop all calls in a 20 meter radius. but upping the power/voltage 4 times may only add milimeters to the range of blasting the phone to reset because so much is absorbed by the case. but upping the power/voltage 5 times could add a meter to blasting the phone to reset because the case now no longer absorbs enough energy to prevent the interference. Also resonance and harmonics play a huge role in the effect.

All conjecture. but my point is you cant apply school boy physics to the problem because its not a problem they teach in school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just to clarify after seeing several posts below. The magnetic and electric near fields fall off from 1/r^3 to 1/r^2, depending on component. The far fields fall off at 1/r, hence the familiar 1/r^2 for power (not amplitude).

[http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/near-far- field.h...](http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/near-far-field.htm)

This thing operates in the near field, so it is pretty much useless past a distance of a coil diameter.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you wanted to do this right, you'd match the impedance to the antennae impedance of a typical phone antennae.

This gets around the square rule, sort of, and you won't need a suitcase full of batteries to power the thing.

</comment><comment><USER13> Things like that were used to cheat slot machines [http://empjammer.com/how-a- emp-jammer-working](http://empjammer.com/how-a-emp-jammer-working)

<comment><USER9> Much cheaper to use an electric gas lighter.

That's what we used to test on stuff that was supposed to be reliable and it is amazing how hard it is to defend against it. If you could survive 10 seconds or more without a latch losing state or some other bitflip then it was usually a pretty good job. Even so, this required physical contact to something made of metal on the machine (even if most of it is properly grounded there always is some exposed metal that isn't).

I hope the engineering on that product is better than the English, it is barely understandable.

<comment><USER14> Heh - showing my age here, but I remember using gas lighters (stolen from school heaters) to zap free game credits into Asteroids machines...

<comment><USER15> What did you do? Just heat it up till it does "something"?

<comment><USER14> Just zap some of the metal around the coin slot until it either crashed or gave you free games.

(These were the piezo spark-ignitors, not pilot flames...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've often thought about using a wok as a dish and putting a magnetron at the focus. High power directed microwaves would probably damage a lot of things. And made from kitchen hardware...

<comment><USER17> Probably safer to let somebody else try this... ;) A couple of Ukrainians made a cool YouTube video recently where they built something similar and used it to blow up some cell phones. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIU8WZR9DNA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIU8WZR9DNA)

<comment><USER15> They seem to have absolutely no sense of self preservation.

Can they really expose their hand to that (below the temperate at which they get a burn) with no internal/hidden damage whatsoever?

<comment><USER18> It's not ionizing radiation, so the only damage is from the heat. So they probably can expose their hand without damage.

<comment><USER19> Just because it's non-ionizing doesn't mean it's safe. HERF will simply _cook_ you, and just like your kitchen microwave oven it will cook the strongest at the antinodes. This means you can get _very_ nasty burns _inside_ your hand that don't show on the surface.

Just being near some antennas when it is transmitting can give you a very nasty RF burn. A magnetron that can damage electronics (or cause almost any visible effect) is going to do you what it does to your food.

Seriously, don't mess with high-energy RF without proper safety training. Waving around an open magnetron that could be reflecting back at you in unknown ways is incredibly dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems like a device that is possible to cause a lithium battery fire because of the discharge rate.

</comment><comment><USER21> What component is failing in order to cause that iphone's screen to fade out in that way?

</comment><comment><USER22> Why a second external coil? It isn't aligned with the first coil and so the induced EMF is minimized (usually such coils are co-axial).

</comment><comment><USER23> It doesn't destroy phones, though. It resets them at max according to the video and tests.

</comment><comment><USER8> Funny he can build an EMP generator but can't properly bias an LED.

</comment><comment><USER24> this reminds me of a coworker who tried to create a tiny DC motor with a battery, a magnet, and _non-enameled_ wire. yeah, that didn't work out too well for him. I tried to explain why the wire needed to be enameled, but the cargo-cult science was strong with him.

</comment><comment><USER25> How would the design need to be changed to make it possible to zap a phone from a distance of 1-10 meters?

<comment><USER26> You need 1.21 Gigawatts for that.

(Seriously, though, you'll need to square the power source as you double the distance.)

<comment><USER25> Does that mean the rest of the system can stay the same? Aassuming minimal adjustments required to wire gauge as power increases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sweet! ... My EMP generator only works on Samsung Galaxy Note 7s!

</comment><comment><USER28> " _18650 lithium battery cell_ "

Or, possibly, explode into flaming death.

<comment><USER28> Ok, so let me put it another way: how much resistance does that circuit have?</comment></comment>


Vodka blamed for high death rates in Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25961063

<comment><USER2> That's so stupit and hypocritical: the most addictive and dangerous substance is easily accessible while weed or something else is criminal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well shut the front door! Alcohol blamed on death? Would never have guessed that...</comment>


UseR 2014 Interview with Hadley Wickham - <AUTHOR> http://datascience.la/a-conversation-with-hadley-wickham-the-user-2014-interview/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hadley Wickham is one of the best known R developers, and is responsible for the "modern R" movement (or Hadleyverse.) In this interview he talks about his approach and philosophy towards Data Science and R development.</comment>


Flowslide: Revolving door for keeping two crossing streams of traffic separate - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-qkxs24Dmg <comment><AUTHOR> Stumbled into this here and figured it was interesting: [https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/117400/what-is- th...](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/117400/what-is-the-purpose- of-the-revolving-doors-before-immigration-in-cdg-airport)

Specs: [https://www.ribaproductselector.com/Docs/4/08634/external/CO...](https://www.ribaproductselector.com/Docs/4/08634/external/COL323579.pdf)</comment>


Musk deletes Facebook pages of Tesla, SpaceX after challenged on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-musk/musk-deletes-facebook-pages-of-tesla-spacex-after-challenged-on-twitter-idUSKBN1GZ2MZ <comment><USER2> Widely discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16659656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16659656)

</comment><comment><USER3> IMHO I don't think Mark Z. is going to lose sleep over that.</comment>


CISA is now law. - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/18/house-senate-pass-budget-with-cisa/ <comment><USER3> It sucks, but inevitable. The simple reality is that the internet has become almost completely not usable for businesses just trying to business. I think instead of fighting this stuff we should fight for educational laws such that when your browser comes up or all advertising by any ISP should include warnings your information is easily accessible by government agencies - <USER2> how it's available.

In fact, I'd like to see Google's default web page (as well as Bing and DuckDuckGo) have a list of very very plain spoken warnings about how easy your data can be compromised. Browser finger printing, MITM attacks, etc.

<comment><USER4> > has become almost completely not usable for businesses just trying to > business

Maybe they should have invested in proper end-to-end crypto and actually care about security. If you business depends entirely on a resource, it's usually a good idea to protect that resource.

> Google's default web page

Why would google do that? You're asking them to completely undermine their business model. Google/Facebook/etc are just as bad as governments in their desire to vacuum up as much personal data as possible. Usually, there isn't much of a difference between government and business - national security letters, PRISM, and FAIRVIEW (AT&T) mean that whatever these private business have is also available to government (or anybody else that can gain access to the data).

Both sides like the arrangement, so why would they put up warnings? That would only reduce the amount of data they get to play with.

<comment><USER3> There should be a law that warnings should be present.

<comment><USER4> Why would the _government_ pass such a law that reduces their surveillance capability?

The question is how to fix institutional corruption block the public-private partnerships. When that is accomplished will we have the _luxury_ of worrying about legislating warni8ngs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And if anyone has anything to say about it, the CIA, NSA and FBI will take note.</comment>


Ask HN: Good desktop software for time tracking? - <AUTHOR>

Hello all!
The company I work for is looking for a desktop application for time tracking of projects.
Here is what we need :
- works on Windows and Mac
- does not require an open browser to work
- can add notes to each time segment (in order to know what's being worked on)
I'd really like to stay away from anything too "big brother"...but it's becoming important, as we grow, to have a good idea of how much time is being spent on things.
What do you guys/gals think? <comment><USER2> We use Hubstaff and are happy with it. My only complaint is that you can only manually add time in 10 minute periods.

[https://hubstaff.com/](https://hubstaff.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The only thing 'scary' that I can see about hubstaff is the screenshot stuff...do you guys use that? If so, how did that go over with the staff?

<comment><USER2> We do use the Screenshot stuff only when there is a question about the time clocked. Staff accepts it, as it only takes screen shots while the clock is ticking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.toggl.com](https://www.toggl.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Dude, thats freakin' slick - I like it... Gonna go for the free trial.

<comment><USER4> Is this offline?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, they have an online version - a desktop version (which I guess syncs when a network is availabel?) - and a mobile version. Seems pretty nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> org-mode

<comment><AUTHOR> cool, but I'm the only coder here...and don't use emacs (I like where you're head is at though)</comment></comment>


Why Alien Life Will Be Robotic (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/why-alien-life-will-be-robotic <comment><USER2> I would assume they will have managed to master nano tech, gray goo/replicator.</comment>


TV Networks decide to block Google TV from their online streaming services - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/tour-networks-blocked-google-tv-53606

<comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr:

ABC, NBC and Hulu are all blocking access to their on-demand streamed TV services when accessed on a Google TV box.

ABC and NBC are claim the browser is unsupported (Google TV is Chrome 5 and is supported), although it's clearly them wanting to get a licensing deal from Google and putting up interference in the meantime.

At least Hulu is upfront, and says they don't want to serve Google TV without the viewer having a paid Hulu Plus account.

\----

For me this is a net neutrality issue as much as anything else. Bits is bits coming into my modem and into my house. What kind of display and device I want to use to consume the mediaon is my business and not the content providers.</comment>


Real-time Personalized News - <AUTHOR> http://cotaste.com/ <comment><USER2> Can you please explain how exactly this is personalized, and how this is real- time?</comment>


Peter Thiel Parts Ways with Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-luminary-peter-thiel-parts-ways-with-silicon-valley-1518696120 <comment><USER2> A readable non-paywall version: [https://archive.is/N4qEP](https://archive.is/N4qEP)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tim Ferris on the same issue:

> Silicon Valley also has an insidious infection that is spreading -- a > peculiar form of McCarthyism > ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)) > masquerading as liberal open-mindedness. I'm as socially liberal as you get, > and I find it nauseating how many topics or dissenting opinions are simply > out-of-bounds in Silicon Valley. These days, people with real jobs (unlike > me) are risking their careers to even challenge collective delusions in SF. > Isn't this supposed to be where people change the world by challenging the > consensus reality? By seeing the hidden realities behind the facades? That's > the whole reason I traveled west and started over in the Bay Area. Now, more > and more, I feel like it's a Russian nesting doll of facades -- Washington > DC with fewer neck ties, where people openly lie to one another out of fear > of losing their jobs or being publicly crucified. It's weird, unsettling, > and, frankly, really dangerous. There's way too much power here for > politeness to be sustainable. If no one feels they can say "Hey, I know it > makes everyone uncomfortable, but I think there's a leak in the fuel rods in > this nuclear submarine..." we're headed for big trouble.

Source: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7erct8/i_am_tim_ferri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7erct8/i_am_tim_ferriss_host_of_the_tim_ferriss_show_and/dq6zrh1/)

I've witnessed this first hand, and alongside the congestion and housing problems that no one wants to handle, it was a big reason I decided to leave the Bay Area for good.

<comment><USER4> What topics, exactly, are so taboo? McCarthyism was about a specific ideology. And, mind you, people were getting dragged into court over it, which Ferris is certainly not at risk of. In fact, this is in a thread about a guy who shut a media outlet down. What is Ferris worried that he can't talk about?

<comment><USER5> There are a tiny minority of liberals who, rather than embracing breaking down barriers and a hunky-dory co-existence like the rest of us, erect barriers of purity and constantly call people out.

They're annoying.

On the other hand, that's the dominant mode for the entire right half of the spectrum so take their complaints with a grain of salt. And who gives the above-mentioned annoying liberals their biggest platform? Right wing media. Gotta feed the wurlitzer.

It's not a "differing and diverse political opinion" to think people of color and women are inherently less worthy, it's just racist/sexist.

<comment><USER6> Still no one is willing to name the beliefs that 'you just can't say.' In McCarthyism it was communist/socialist beliefs. What political beliefs can't you espouse in public without being shunned? For Thiel it's probably the pro- authoritarian/pseudo-monarchist beliefs of the neo-reaction guys he runs around with. Gotta be honest, I don't mind those being shunned.

<comment><USER7> You just named some of the beliefs that you can't say. Basically you agree with Thiel.

One more thing to note: you've called the guy "pro-authoritarian/pseudo- monarchist". Is this how he describes himself ( I guess no )? I grew up in a country with strong far-right culture. Nazis are calling themselves nazis.

<comment><USER6> Peter Thiel himself doesn't describe himself that way but the people he pays attention to explicitly do. Here:

 _Yarvin told Yiannopoulos that he had been "coaching Thiel."

"Peter needs guidance on politics for sure," Yiannopoulos responded.

"Less than you might think!" Yarvin wrote back. "I watched the election at his house, I think my hangover lasted into Tuesday. He's fully enlightened, just plays it very carefully."_

and then combine that with the fact that Yarvin calls himself a Jacobite and you've got the monarchy/authoritarian connection.

The Thiel thing goes a whole lot deeper than Damore or some of the other common examples of "SJW" pushback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I grew up in Alameda and have lived in LA for 10 years now. Oakland/Berkeley/SF notwithstanding, LA isn't that significantly different when it comes to politics and I'm sure Mr. Thiel is aware of that.

<comment><USER9> It goes beyond the general political mindset and what parties people in respective cities vote for. In SV people will blacklist you and even publicly call for you to be fired/ostracized if you are a conservative, as Thiel himself experienced. I have many friends who are moderates - not even conservatives - and they can't speak their minds among coworkers because they fear that their careers will suffer. It's a weird echo chamber where only the most radical left gets to dominate the conversation.

In LA, I mean entertainment is a fairly liberal industry, but it's not the only game in town. Plus Orange County is nearby and that's the last bastion of Republicans in the state.

<comment><USER10> > last bastion of Republicans in the state.

[http://www.ppic.org/content/images/PoliticalGeogFigure-4_web...](http://www.ppic.org/content/images/PoliticalGeogFigure-4_web.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I spearheaded the Lincoln Initiative study referenced in the article.

If you're interested, you can see 5 key findings here:

[http://joinlincoln.org/viewpoint-diversity](http://joinlincoln.org/viewpoint- diversity)

We have a comprehensive report coming out in a month.

<comment><USER12> Quickly departed the site upon being interrupted by the pop-up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Society goes back and forth on what is considered 'right' and 'wrong'. You only need to look at older movies to see how things change.

What was once considered neutral or even progressive is now considered racist/sexist/etc. Watch 'Dumbo', 'Animal House', 'Blazing Saddles', etc. None of those would be filmed today. Yet we still have not cured many of the ills that plagued society in both times.

The left must relent and let conservative voices be heard. In the long run, it will be destructive to the left if they do not.

<comment><USER13> Sorry, I left two points disconnected:

If you are on the left side of the aisle and are not disturbed by this modern day McCarthyism because you are absolutely certain you are 'right', you need to review what was 'right' in past days and realize it is all relative and will change. Persist in smothering free speech and you'll end up as tomorrow's Nazi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Two thoughts:

1\. I have the feeling that this is not limited to the silicon valley. It feels very similar in my industry (banking) and I assume some other industries too.

2\. I think there is more than one force at hand. A more militant liberalism may be one force but I can think of another major one: social medias. Basically an army of "anonymous" twitter / facebook / other accounts (they may not be individually anonymous but together they are), waiting for any pretext to shout their indignation, always looking for new ways to be offended. I don't think the population and opinions behind is a new evolution, but it just has a very powerful way to express itself now, by inundating social medias with angry comments, memes, effectively running virtual mob-lynchings.

This is combined with a traditional bias in medias to give some legitimacy to "the street", i.e. if enough people are demonstrating, vociferating slogans, they are deemed to somehow be representative of the opinion of the population when in reality they only represent the opinion of this limited group. Combine that bias with social medias, and medias tend to report these outrages as a mainstream opinion, even if it is only that of a vocal minority, adding their own weight to the lynching. I don't think we should give much credit to these social media storms, no more than an angry mob should be a party to a civilized debate.

<comment><USER15> People should protest instead of tweet. It's more effective. I think a lot of groups are also trying to get their voice heard and understood. I think the essay style (that PG used) is a good one and maybe the speech format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sometimes I wish California would simply purge all republicans so it can become the bluest of blue state. That way, we can have a large scale experiment to see what kind of "utopia" will be cooked up under 100% liberal control.

<comment><USER17> Don't we already have this on a small scale in the San Francisco Bay Area?

<comment><USER18> lol. SF home owners & board of supervisors have over time voted against housing density to keep a neighborhood as-is, believe it was perfect the day they arrived, and that proposed changes to it must be stopped, definition of a conservative. Many of these were the anti-establishment in the 1960s and 1970s turned conservative once they became the establishment. They just don't want to admit it to themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is good for LA and the broader community. I don't believe that Thiel will be getting out of tech.. but maybe media tech is his next big thing. I think there is a big play in the conservative social network news area. These filter bubbles become their own verticals as Murdoch knows well. He can also have a big impact shaping the LA tech industry. This is also good for UCLA and USC.

The Liberal / Conservative culture wars need to stop and we need to have debate. There is too much passive aggressive behavior on both sides. If debates have to be moderated than so be it but the moderators need to do their jobs and people need to respect them.

<comment><USER19> I just hope LA can carve out it's own culture and not become the next SV. I really, really don't want that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Recommend using Read Across the Aisle if you want to get past the paywall: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read-across-the- ai...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read-across-the-aisle/)

</comment><comment><USER21> good riddance.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Non-paywall [https://pastebin.com/krfQwUVt](https://pastebin.com/krfQwUVt)

</comment><comment><USER22> I can't read the article on the website.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a loss to the sector to lose somebody who thinks deeply (Zero to One is a good book), cares and wants to make the World better through technology and investment in firms dedicated to the same.

It's not a loss to the sector to lose somebody who thinks the path to doing that is intolerance, dominance, lack of accountability and an insistence on some Ayn Rand-ian gibberish philosophy of the World.

He was intolerant of Gawker. He dominated them by suing them to the hilt via the Hogan case. He is anti-regulation which in this case is a synonym for anti-accountability. Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand. So, yeah, good riddance.

If software is eating the World, it's important the people building and operating it are as diverse as possible, otherwise there is a risk it unconsciously or consciously becomes biased in its actions and consequences towards a single social group at the expense of others.

Of course a one-party political philosophy is a problem in the long term, but so is Trump's stance on equality - one Thiel endorses - and for now at least it's important the voices of diversity and accountability win out for the long run.

TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out! Come back when you've got a little more mature and empathic towards others if you want!

<comment> tuna-piano I feel like we're living in different universes.

-You seem to say diversity is good, but not diversity of political thought?

-What are Thiels stances on equality that you see as so abhorrent?

-He was involved (as a financier) of a lawsuit... I struggle to see the huge moral deal here. He didn't decide the outcome - six jurors did, abiding by the laws, in a court![1]

-Is being a strong supporter of Ayn Rand a good reason that someone shouldn't be involved in Silicon Valley?

[1][http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/gawker-trial-jurors- made...](http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/gawker-trial-jurors-made- absolutely-correct-decision-awarding/story?id=37887552)

<comment><USER24> Why even bother? All this comment you've replied to actually does is prove Thiel's point. It still amazes me that the irony is so lost on them..

<comment> tuna-piano Haha.

Peter Thiel - "People here don't accept conservative ideas"

Commentor - "I love diversity, but get the hell out with those opinions!"

...

Obviously there are some opinions I find abhorrent and wouldn't want to be associated with (Nazis, etc). However, I think both that I'm more tolerant of offensive opinions than the commentor, and that I also find really nothing very offensive about what I've read about Thiel.

Thiel doesn't seem that far right to me, and has been ostracized. But is any thought too far-left to be accepted in SV? You can support Venezuelan policies, Cuban policies, taxing rich people 90%, racism against whites and asians... and no one's trying to kick them out of civil society.

<comment><USER25> Your list of straw-men is incredible. I'm certain I can find active criticism from Silicon Valley regarding all of those topics.

<comment> tuna-piano Yes, I think it's socially ok to criticize the extreme left (all my examples were extreme left positions).

I do not think it's socially ok in SV to be more than a little conservative. After all, companies Thiel was associated with were pressured to kick him out just for the fact that he supported a candidate that was voted for by ~50% of the country! Maybe that's because of Trump's other non-political characteristics, but I'm not so sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good news. I may now be available for relocation to SF.

</comment><comment><USER27> Who cares what people like Tim Ferris and Peter Thiel think?

These guys get their ideas published, and linked to and shared left, right and center, so is it possible, that maybe their political ideas suck?

Lack of exposure is not the issue, so what is? Maybe their ideas are just.. stay with me here... bad?

<comment><USER12> I'd stop short of knowing or caring whether their respective ideas suck or not, because getting back to the first point, it's really not so all-fired, gull-darned important what a guy thinks who's being quoted mainly because he's rich (or some other variant of a cult of personality). Take me, add a billion dollars, and boom: instant quotable thought-leader and visionary whose every tantrum and brain-fart is broadcast for all. Elon Musk goes in that box as well.

Besides which, you can move wherever you want. It's not like you have to turn in your Silicon Valley membership card and secret key. And there's a big world out there. Especially if you're rich. Just move, don't try to make a "statement."

<comment><USER28> You honestly think it's purely based on money? You read many quotes from Rob Walton or Jacqueline Mars?

<comment><USER12> I explicitly said "or some other variant of a cult of personality." But being rich is enough. Some billionaires choose to be quiet, but if tomorrow they decide to become "vocal proponents" of something or other, and make use of their prerogative to be quoted, the outlets will absolutely carry it, knowing the clicks will follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't get why should people be tolerant of bullies?

<comment><USER30> I think it depends on how one defines "bullies"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Was that young-people's blood thing ever verified, or is vanity fair getting sued next?

</comment><comment><USER32> Well, is it really that surprising that the Silicon Valley is not this thought freedom paradise, being under such strong government control in so many levels? Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want.

Silicon Valley companies are very much subjected to the NSA and other governmental agencies. Have you seen all the projects funded by DARPA? [http://www.alphr.com/features/373546/10-brilliant-darpa- inve...](http://www.alphr.com/features/373546/10-brilliant-darpa-inventions)

</comment><comment><USER33> So basically Thiel is crying and running away because he now gets a little taste of what is means to be a minority?

Ha!

</comment><comment><USER34> So torn about this being posted. I get his relationship to the tech scene. I get how it makes sense. At the same time, the comments are going to quickly devolve onto the very sniping he's leave. Probably more so today given the Florida shooting.

With all due respect to @alva, can we let this post wither on the vine? Not today. Not after yesterday.

<comment> aaron-lebo Don't really see the connection. You sure your comment isn't more likely to send the conversation that way?

<comment><USER34> No. His stated reason in the article or leaving is an anti conservatism streak in SV. Intrinsic to them is a belief in self defense and weapons ownership. You can't debate the whole concept of his exodus without name calling and vitriolic attacks lobbed by both sides.

In the past month there have been two, at least , posts that became so political that they were flagged. Ironically one was on free speech. I just don't have the stomach for it today. In general I'm not sure there is any good to be had with this kind of material on HN.

<comment><USER35> You make a statement decrying the politicization of comments directly after making a sweeping incorrect generalization about conservatives?

Owning a firearm is not some prerequisite for being a member of a political party. There are large numbers of conservatives that do not own firearms and do not care about firearms ownership. It may surprise you that there are also large numbers of people who are socially liberal who own firearms, such as myself. None of us are ok with school shootings. I am perfectly willing to have rational conversations about the merits of responsible gun ownership with people who are capable of having that conversation, but that has nothing to do with the issue at hand here.

<comment><USER34> I am too. I own an AR15. Sad, and looking at the comments was right, that this particular post not going to provide a beneficial discuss on any topic defined as good by the site guidelines. There are comments that say that conservatism needs to be eradicated. Why is that HN appropriate?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Innovations of 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.popsci.com/best-of-whats-new-2018 <comment><USER2> My desk got warm from the laptop overheating. No wonder. This page generated close to 900 requests and countless adware. Will we ever get "website optimization" on the innovation list?

<comment><USER3> I got android popups from the article asking if Firefox could have permission for my audio and video.

Now I wonder if you say yes to those once in your mobile browser if ad tech can use those permissions on any site to record you

<comment><USER4> I've been getting that from a ton of sites. I'm not sure why it's happening nor have I dived in to find out. Wonder if it's a Firefox issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This whole 'article' feels a lot like an ad for various consumer products.

<comment><USER6> I think you and 'ekianjo must have scrolled directly to "Entertainment" section and stayed there. Elsewhere, between space probes, military interceptors and radars, medicine (including IoT medicine; who thought it was a good idea?!) and glass floors on high towers, this article isn't very much about consumer culture.

(Unless you want to say that all those other things are just meant to create a stronger desire in visitors to buy the few things they _can_ buy on this list; given my cynical view of advertising industry, I could believe in that.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Unrejectable Cookies Blocking Access to Articles

Yup, that was an innovation in 2018... (Greetings from the EU)

<comment><USER8> the great firewall of europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The copy is not very well written, for example the part about the engine with variable compression has it backwards. The longer stroke lowers the compression which is favorable to the turbo.

</comment><comment><USER10> Phew, my 2013 Macbook is lagging from that page..</comment>


Can I use WhatsApp if my phone is rooted or using custom ROM? - <AUTHOR> https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/android/26000005 <comment><USER2> That message could be clearer. My informal answer would be: "Most likely 'Yes', but if you encounter any problems, don't ask WhatsApp for help."

I'm running a Xiaomi Redmi Note using Mokee (non-rooted) instead of the official MIUI 7. It works perfectly. I just get a notice that WhatsApp is not supported on custom ROMs upon installation. But, no problems after that.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Your messages will not be protected with end-to-end encryption." This sounds clear, but is it correct?

<comment><USER2> I'm so sorry. I overlooked that part. That was a big mistake on my part.

You might want to ask on the StackExchange or on [https://www.xda- developers.com/](https://www.xda-developers.com/) if there is a workaround to WhatsApp encryption on custom ROMs (in case you don't get an answer here).

Although, I'm not sure you should be using WhatsApp for secure messages to begin with: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13389935)</comment></comment></comment>


Syntax highlighting for writers - <AUTHOR> http://www.mrspeaker.net/2012/03/24/syntax-highlighting-for-writers/

<comment><USER2> I think this nicely illustrates why syntax highlighting is so much less popular with the older crowd. If you grew up without it, it looks bloody stupid. (On the other hand, if we had grown up learning to write colorized English from childhood, having to write without highlighting would be extremely aggravating.)</comment>


Earthquake Prediction Based on Machine-Learning Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603785/machine-learning-algorithm-predicts-laboratory-earthquakes/ <comment><USER2> Just want to let you folks know if you're in private browsing mode, you can't read MIT Tech Review articles.</comment>


Serial Swatter Bragged He Hit 100 Schools, 10 Homes - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/01/serial-swatter-swautistic-bragged-he-hit-100-schools-10-homes/ <comment><USER3> Hrmf, in a society where police doesn't shoot innocent unarmed people swatting as a concept doesn't really exist - it's called "prank call" and while it's still a rather serious crime, it's something that's solved by a fine and a strong talking to.

Policemen killing unarmed innocent people is the problem that really needs solving - how the hell can innocent people be killed by policemen and not a single person in police chain of commands gets jailed? Why wasn't a single head of police removed from post and why aren't training approaches being reevaluated?!

<comment><USER4> You are correct in everything you wrote, except for one thing.

> Policemen killing unarmed innocent people is the problem that really needs > solving

No, policemen killing unarmed innocent people is _a_ problem that really needs solving. But it isn't solved yet. Until it is, swatting someone should be considered an act of violence. The person calling in the swat is doing so specifically because of the potential for violence, and they should be punished accordingly.

Stopping the police from shooting unarmed and innocent people is the long term solution. Until that is in place, there needs to be consequences for those who would exploit police violence for their own ends. These are issues that can be worked on in parallel.

<comment><USER3> I would honestly say (although I'm not from US) that preventing the police from murdering any innocent person is of paramount priority over pretty much anything. Stopping the police violence shouldn't ever be a "long-term solution".

Punishing the caller after all won't do anything to save more people - <USER2> killings are happening at alarming rate with swatters or without. It'll just satisfy your lust for revenge which doesn't really do anything. Just consider the rising amount of jailed people in US and comparatively low change in crime rate. Use brain to solve problems, not your first emotional response.

<comment><USER4> And not being from the US, I think you're ignoring the reality of how large a problem "preventing the police from murdering any innocent person" actually is here. It shouldn't be, but it is, and we have to work in the world we live in, not the one we wish for.

In the current reality in the US, calling the police about a violent crime underway will provoke a violent response. The caller certainly knows this. We should absolutely be working very hard to change that, but until it changes, trying to hand wave it away by saying, "it shouldn't be that way," ignores reality.

<comment><USER5> > how large a problem "preventing the police from murdering any innocent > person" actually is

Are we excluding problems for first-in-line treatment because they are "large?" If so, that's new in the American political experience.

<comment><USER4> No. My original comment stated "These are issues that can be worked on in parallel."

<comment><USER6> I would like to add to your statement that in the criminal justice system, intent plays a big role in determining the punishment for the crime.

Given the public knowledge of police violence in the US, especially in responses to potentially violent situations, the intent of swatter in the US is very different from the intent of a prank-caller elsewhere, and should be seen differently.

To paraphrase, if you approach a gate, and I open it for you with a remote, that act doesn't make me a bad person (living in a gated community, I often do that without thinking).

The same act would be quite different if I knew there's an angry alligator on the loose inside, and I opened the gate to see how fast you'd run from the said alligator (moreso if you didn't even intend to enter).

The problem of the free-roaming alligator is not to be neglected, but it will take time and effort to solve. In the meantime, people who open the gate won't be treated too kindly.

A counterpoint would be that, as sad as the consequences are, at least more people are aware of the gator as a result - and not just the ones who have to live next to it while the landlord keeps doing nothing for decades.

<comment><USER7> What an oddly specific and tangential metaphor that was...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A reasonable, mature, and just society will pay very little attention to this person, but pay very much attention to the vulnerability that this person has irresponsibly disclosed.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it needs to be an either or. I would like to see this swatter executed and I would like to see major police tactics reform.

<comment><USER9> You can't have major police tactics reform without a reform of gun laws to go around with it. Police have to assume that there is a possibility that anyone that they interact with is armed to the teeth. I'm not sure you can reasonably ask police to unilaterally disarm and still expect them to be able to handle mass shootings when they do occur.

<comment><USER10> >> Police have to assume that there is a possibility that anyone that they interact with is armed to the teeth.

They should be trained to interact professionally and as calmly as possible with people who are armed to the teeth. If it's such a regular occurrence, why are they dealing with it with the same panicked exaggerated responses as an untrained civilian would?

I think we need a discussion as a society around how much risk we expect police to take on. Similar to how astronauts or military personnel take on calculated risks.

Human spaceflight is REALLY expensive if you want only 1 death per 10,000 launches.

Having police is REALLY expensive in terms of innocent civilian casualties if you want 1 death per 10,000 interactions with "believed to be armed" (but maybe not actually armed) civilians. How many deaths of innocent people equal the death of one police officer? What is the proper ratio? 10 to 1? 100 to 1?

<comment><USER8> It should be less than 1:1. The police officer should be asked to take on more risk than the general public if they are to claim that they are "brave."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like a pretty effective method for terrorism.

I'm afraid of the police because they are essentially unchecked and usually their behavior is rubber-stamped.

The simple fact that they charge into a situation without __ANY __reconnaissance highlights exactly why I 'm afraid of the police.

The thought of them showing up at my house because "someone" called the police is actually a terrifying thought.

An organized group calling in SWATTING situations around the country would create a serious level of fear.

<comment><USER10> I certainly don't encourage it, but an organized group calling in a huge amount of swattings, so much so that it becomes a regular occurrence, might actually be a way of reducing the danger in swattings and reduce police aggressiveness.

If each police force responds several times to this kind of prank call, it would hopefully demonstrate to them the need to change their operating procedures.

Unfortunately several dozen or more innocent people might be killed or wounded before they realize their rules of engagement etc. need updating.

<comment><USER5> > an organized group calling in a huge amount of swattings, so much so that it > becomes a regular occurrence

> I certainly don't encourage it

Why not? This seems like a very reasonable, sober approach to testing this problem. If SWAT teams can't pass this test, they need to be put on pause until they can be repaired.

I mean, we do this sort of pentesting for things as trivial (at least by comparison) as bank accounts and health records. We're talking about people being murdered in cold blood here. I damn well think that a SWAT team needs to be able to demonstrate that it can survive a falsified report without murdering somebody.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12>
      > Over 20 schools and homes
      > Homes I'm about 10 now
      > Schools I'm at about 100

Is no one going to reference the typo in that admission?

Isn't it possible he meant to say 10 schools?

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm still surprised that police would go shooting up a place without even verifying that the situation they are supposed to be handling even exists.

<comment><USER14> I would really like to see a discussion how different police forces in different countries would handle this. My guess is that German police would first stay outside and look at the situation. I doubt they would go straight in. The American attitude of going straight in seems in line with high speed chases. I think in most countries these would be viewed as too dangerous.

Does anybody anything about strategies of different police forces?

<comment><USER15> They did stay outside. There is body cam video[777].

Person came out of house and made a lot of hand movements. Got shot.

[777] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKp05HDXCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKp05HDXCU)

<comment><USER14> That's just nuts. Can't they hide behind their cars or something and watch? Why shoot from such a distance just based on movement? I don't know what I would do if I got woken up at night, a flashlight in my face. With them being so trigger happy you are almost guaranteed to be shot. Imagine your dog or child ran out in this situation. How are you supposed to behave? Stand still and watch them get shot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Personally, while I feel it's not pre-meditated murder, I do feel like it's involuntary manslaughter.

I would like to see him get 10 years minimum without access to a phone or outgoing communications.

</comment><comment><USER17> That guy has so destroyed his life swatting the fed means he's going to be a person of interest for life to the TLA's

</comment><comment><USER18> Why don't we employ the NSA to provide value here, by tracing back the few swatters that are responsible for the majority of these events? We know they have the capability.

<comment><USER16> Probably because even if they could do it, we don't want the NSA to start feeding potential criminal activity to the local police.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I could actually imagine things being better if proof-of-identity was required for a phone number.

I really don't want IP access to run by the same scheme though.

How do these swatters fake phone numbers?

<comment><USER20> Long story that I'm not fully familiar with short: the phone system suffers from the same trust issues that the internet does. That is, it wasn't designed with things like adversarial users in mind.

EDIT: Am I incorrect in this statement? I'd love more feedback.

<comment><USER21> Right but in this case it was unproxied VoIP, right? It should be easy (in the sense of not requiring a forced universal protocol upgrade, I mean) to at least protect against this kind of attack — a caller from an LA IP claiming to be in Kansas.

<comment><USER20> There is another story happening in parallel to this where the Police arrested the wrong person based off the IP in use. IPs are just too ephemeral to trust for any form of location data.

Not to mention the caller chose to call a line which would normally not have a lot of need for those protections, in comparison to 911.

<comment><USER19> "IPs are just too ephemeral to trust for any form of location data"

That is just policy decision. It would, for example, be possible to declare that no single IP should be used for more than two customers during a single X hour block.

<comment><USER20> A policy decision by whom? Specifically, how do you do this when IP spaces are controlled by various unfriendly countries around the world? Politics aside, the required technical coordination would be a nightmare. We can barely handle BGP without conflicts as-is.

IPv4 space is also quite limited, and new devices are popping onto networks all the time. I'm not even sure a IP time window is feasible without a full move to IPv6 - something that policy makers have been trying to push on for years without success.

<comment><USER19> >A policy decision by whom?

By your government?

> Specifically, how do you do this when IP spaces are controlled by various > unfriendly countries around the world

You begin a "911-certified program" that requires your local ISPs to register their IP ranges with some central authority. The rest is a bunch of detailed but solvable details.

Your idealism when it comes to making this seem more complicatated that it really is seems misplaced.

<comment><USER22> Your suggestion just isn't realistic when you look at how VoIP systems work in practice. What you usually have are SIP clients talking to SIP servers which then involve a bunch more servers and proxies and a slew of other protocols. SIP traffic from the endpoint and the associated RTP stream could be tunneled, often for very good reason. You can't prevent that with any kind of IP registration scheme because then the client can't roam which defeats the best reason to deploy VoIP in the first place. Providers are routing calls dynamically for reliability and cost reasons. Sometimes when you ask a server to terminate a call it just redirects it elsewhere. Even endpoints can arbitrarily redirect calls.

Ultimately none of the providers involved can know where either end of the call is. We can't even know their IP address for certain, let alone their physical location. What we have for 911 is a form where the customer declares their physical address and a disclaimer warning the customer that should they move then emergency calls will not be routed to the most appropriate call center and the operator will get the wrong address.

There's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent malicious people from abusing it. Any attempt to do so would result in honest users being unable to call for help in emergencies causing far more harm than the abuse we're trying to prevent.

<comment><USER19> You are not going to convince me, or anyone else who understand the tech, that this is a fundamentally unsolvable _technical_ problem, I promise. It all boils down to compromises between regulation vs freedom, etc.

So, I do take issue when you say things like:

> There's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent malicious people from > abusing it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Happens When a Healthcare Startup Leaves You With the Bill - <AUTHOR> http://omnifeed.com/article/valleywag.gawker.com/what-happens-when-a-healthcare-startup-leaves-you-with-1598186714 <comment><USER2> There is, sometimes, a tendency on the part of young, ambitious entrepreneurs, to be overly optimistic and assume that they can gatecrash an industry they know nothing about, set up a slick website and disrupt the big, bloated, uncool incumbents.

Sometimes that works out but I believe that a new entrants chances of success are a lot higher if they have somebody on board who is actually familiar with the industry sector they're trying to disrupt.

None of Oscar's founders have worked in health insurance previously. They come from tech entrepreneur/VC, consulting and technology backgrounds.

Edit: Here's a good example of where some industry expertise might have been useful: _"..it was a design decision to limit the information presented to hospital's on what is covered in detail (like inhouse labs)."_

There's currently a big trend in design towards making things simple. But there's a difference between making stuff simple and dumbing it down. Sometimes, stuff looks complicated _because it 's complicated_.

<comment><USER3> I have Kaiser. It's vastly simplified because the people paying for my care are the same people who are providing my care. They also seem to have a real "get you up and running so you can get back to work" kind of attitude, which meshes well with my own values.

I mean, consider for a moment how much of a pain in the ass it is to get an insurance claim on your house or your car or whatever filled. Multiply that by the complexity of medicine, and... yeah. You can see how it would get complex fast.

Maybe this is an area where horizontal integration is the order of the day?

<comment><USER4> > how much of a pain in the ass it is to get an insurance claim on your house > or your car or whatever filled.

I have had nothing but excellent experiences with both my car insurance company and my homeowners insurance company.

The trick to having a good relationship with your insurance company is to have a good insurance company.

<comment><USER5> Have you ever filed a claim that would would send the expected value of your account negative? Since that's a tricky calculation, here's an alternative: have you ever made a claim that (even momentarily) sent the value of your account negative?

Insurance companies are always polite, efficient, and tolerant when they're taking your money (including making small payouts). Why wouldn't they be? But that's not where they add value to the equation. If it was, everyone would just self-insure. They add value when they have to pay out a lot of money for an unlikely adverse event. By definition, only a small fraction of customers ever get to judge this part of their insurance company, even though doing so is really the only way to judge the quality of the product they were paying for.

<comment><USER6> They should force sales and claims to be the same person. Problem solved. Right now, its good cop/ bad cop. Insurance only works in this framework if you have a lawyer to advocate for you...otherwises its endless dark-pattern fighting. Its truly atrocious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "So I went to my new Oscar-approved doctor, who recommended routine blood work. The hospital called up Oscar and Oscar's operations department assured both the in-hospital labs and administrators that this blood work would be covered by my plan so we went ahead with it."

Urgh American health care is just so _weird_. It makes my skin crawl.

<comment><USER5> It's evil, inconvenient, and (amazingly) it's even less efficient that its government-run counterparts both inside and outside the US: [http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc...](http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004083)

What will it take to convince people of this? Our society already accepts that markets aren't a suitable medium for every human endeavor, how long must we continue to experiment with private (basic) health insurance before we add it to the list of exceptions?

If our health sector ran as efficiently as everyone else's (as a fraction of GDP/capita), the money we currently pay for medicare and medicaid would suffice to provide universal coverage for every single person in the US.

[http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc...](http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005522#III)

<comment><USER8> > If our health sector ran as efficiently as everyone else's (as a fraction of > GDP/capita), the money we currently pay for medicare and medicaid would > suffice to provide universal coverage for every single person in the US.

This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison for several reasons (some which overstate the amount of money, some which understate).

One, there are a number of things which fall under Medicare's budget which you and I wouldn't think of as the "main" purpose of Medicare in this context (ie, providing medical insurance to the elderly).

On the other hand, look at the profit margins of any hospital broken down by insurance status. Virtually any hospital hemorrhages money on uninsured patients, Medicare patients, and Medicaid patients. They make this up by charging patients on private insurance, and in the end eke out low single- digit profit margins if they're lucky (most aren't). If you're on private insurance, you're essentially subsidizing the medical care of the aforementioned groups (whether you pay it in the form of your deductible, or in the form of your premiums[0]).

As the largest payer, Medicare has the leverage in order to decide what it will and will not pay for, and providers have very little choice but to accept that, whether or not it's economically feasible for them. (This is the exact inverse of the situation most of us are in with our ISP/cable providers (we have an essential monopoly on broadband access in most parts of the US). When there is a single purchaser, this is known not as a monopoly but as a monopsony[1])

It's easy to say that "costs are too high" \- that's fine, but _where_ are they too high?

The easy response to this is that hospitals and doctors are making too much money. But in reality, most hospitals are struggling just to say solvent, which is why we've seen massive consolidation in hospitals in the last several years as hospitals go out of business. The same is true of doctors, who are selling to these larger hospitals because their private practices are now financially unsustainable[2]. Of course, this really just pushes the problem up the food chain, because those same hospitals are already struggling to keep the lights on.

I don't really have an answer to this, by the way... I just want to relay an appreciation of why the situation hasn't been fixed yet - it's very complex, and nearly every option involved has significant, serious tradeoffs that nobody really wants to address (whether for political reasons, ethical reasons, or otherwise).

[0] Remember that the size of your premiums are (loosely) linked to the expected value of providing medical care for you. Mathematically this is trivial to show - in reality, the market isn't so efficient, but it's simple enough to say that if your insurers' costs go up, in the long run, your premiums will as well.

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

[2] This 116-page report gives a very extensive analysis of the economic state of physicians. Don't be fooled by the title - this trend began long before the ACA, even though the scope of this study was the impact of the ACA specifically (which has contributed to the trend which previously existed): [http://www.physiciansfoundation.org/uploads/default/Health_R...](http://www.physiciansfoundation.org/uploads/default/Health_Reform_and_the_Decline_of_Physician_Private_Practice.pdf)

<comment><USER9> >This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.

It really is, and has nothing to do with the current state of Medicare and what it covers. Our per-capita government health care expenditures are far higher than systems that both have better outcomes and that also don't charge at the point of delivery.

Our doctors make twice as much as everyone else's doctors, and that is only sustained because they are both protected from competition from foreign doctors, and also restrict supply domestically. Our drugs are 10x the prices paid in other countries. Our broken patent system contributes to massively bloated prices in medical devices.

We wouldn't have a government budget deficit if our system was as efficient as any other system in the developed world. The saddest thing is that in _after_ our government spends more than everyone else, we as individuals then go out of pocket even more, and the majority of our bankruptcies and foreclosures are a result of medical difficulties. I would go on, but all of this is as boring and obvious as it is ultimately unsustainable.

[http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc- calculator.html](http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc-calculator.html)

edit: [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/fixing-our- fis...](http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/fixing-our-fiscal- health-budget-deficits-and-health-care-costs)

<comment><USER10> Your drugs are expensive because the rest of the world freeloads by artificially restricting the selling price of drugs, leaving the US to bear the brunt of the R&D costs.

Your FDA and legal system pushes up the price of medical devices.

But yes, you have the most unnecessarily complex and convoluted health care administrative structure known to man.

<comment><USER11> Often times there are very good reasons for those restrictions, especially when pricing for a drug deviates dramatically from actual R&D / operations costs. Take the case of orphan drugs:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2013/10/05/are-300...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2013/10/05/are-300k-drugs- disruptive-to-the-healthcare-system/)

Besides runaway pricing, many drugs for which companies are given patents and sole-distribution rights, have already been on the market for decades, just never with proper FDA approval. There are other tax incentives and grants provided as well for reintroducing "new" drugs that were already on the market.

[http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/pharma- windfall/2013/no...](http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/pharma- windfall/2013/nov/9/mining-rare-diseases/)

Makena scandal:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV_Pharmaceutical#Makena_pricin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV_Pharmaceutical#Makena_pricing_controversy)

Many many other drugs with runaway pricing as well:

Armodafinil and Sodium Oxybate for instance

Europeans decide to enforce price controls? Can't say i blame them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had a conversation with a friend recently who was a doctor. He was telling me that he had 3 patients in a fairly short period of time that had come in with mysterious symptoms (they were all in their 70's) and that had died soon after being admitted. While he knew that he had technically done everything by the book to treat them, he worried that he had made a mistake along the way that possibly could have been the cause of their death.

It made me appreciate that the code that I produce as a web developer most of the time would never have me facing those same ethical dilemmas -- there are very few times a bug in a web app would cause people to die or to be financially ruined.

In this case, however, you can see what happens when an ambitious startup ends up trying to apply things web developers had done for years (A/B testing, "design" decisions) to avenues of life where people's livelihood or health is at stake -- people can end up getting hurt. "Failing hard and fast", the motto many people have regarding startups, cannot be taken with the same arrogance. If you want to change the world in ways that impact people on a personal level, be ready to be very careful with the trust your customers put in you.

<comment><USER13> Absolutely.

I've been in healthcare for a bunch of years (I dunno, sheesh, I guess like 14?). For a big stint of that I built systems that aim to prevent medication errors in hospitals by telling clinicians when doses were due, etc.

I know of at least two incidents where code that I wrote failed in a way that (due to some edge-case concurrency in one case, and daylight savings time in another case) didn't make it clear to a nurse that another nurse had given a medication to a patient and the patient received a double-dosage of a pretty severe drug.

Imagine getting that call. It's every bit as fucking terrible and humbling as you'd think.

Far more numerous (thankfully) were the calls that we got reporting that we stopped double dosages or even order-of-magnitude label misreadings on drugs. I know of more than a handful of instances that code I wrote may have literally saved a life.

I've been lucky to have found myself at companies that take this stuff really, really seriously. It's a really hard balance to strike when failure is as devastating as it can be in healthcare, but the status quo is pretty terrifying also. In general every health IT shop's culture finds some balance between making decisions based on fear, and trying to achieve a velocity that allows problems to be fixed quickly and the greatest positive impact possible against the problem they're solving.

I talk to a lot of people who want to work on "big/real problems" and list "healthcare" as one of them but when it comes down to it are often pretty freaked out about the stakes. It's weird to be used to the gravity of it, I certainly am now. I can't even wrap my head around what it would mean to work on something that doesn't hurt people when it fails.

<comment><USER14> Also in the industry, but on the HL7 interface side.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've seen studies that suggest, for example, a 75-90% reduction in med error rates in hospitals that have gone to computerized barcode systems. So there's a tremendous amount of good to be done in the field.

But, as you point out, the potential damage that can be done by mistakes makes for a fair bit of anxiety at times. Fortunately, it's been my experience that people in the field tend to take testing _very_ seriously as a result.

Another interesting thing on that aspect - I'm one of the only people in my department that doesn't have a prior clinical background. I almost wonder if the fact that they're less trusting of the technology at times is a _good_ thing to some extent.

<comment><USER13> _> I'm one of the only people in my department that doesn't have a prior clinical background. I almost wonder if the fact that they're less trusting of the technology at times is a good thing to some extent._

I totally agree. Over time I've come to really value working with teams made up of a variety of backgrounds. I think it's incredibly valuable to not end up in group-think on either end of the spectrum when it comes to how to approach problems, assessing risk, and healthy cynicism about technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The problem with insurance companies is that they are fundamentally conflicted. As for-profit businesses they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits. Unfortunately the only way to maximize profits is to decline coverage.

The problem with Obamacare is that it does nothing to fix this problem. Who wants to be the guy responsible for that many lost jobs?? So, instead they propped up the insurance companies and made everything more complicated for everyone.

The only solutions I see are to have non-profit insurance companies or a single payer system.

<comment><USER16> [https://www.blueshieldca.com/bsca/about-blue- shield/health-r...](https://www.blueshieldca.com/bsca/about-blue- shield/health-reform/our-involvement/healthcare-quality-value/our-pledge.sp)

One of california's largest health insurance companies is a not for profit and doesn't stockpile money. why is healthcare still expensive?

<comment><USER15> Doctors would say health care is expensive because of the threat of lawsuits which forces them to carry expensive insurance. It's easier for hospitals to price gouge when they're billing a faceless corporation instead of an individual.

<comment><USER17> > Including legal fees, insurance costs, and payouts, the cost of all US > malpractice suits comes to less than one-half of 1 percent of health-care > spending.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2006/07/the_medical_malpractice_myth.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is actually a Valleywag article, which is a banned domain on HN so the original link is using a workaround to show the article. ([http://valleywag.gawker.com/what-happens-when-a- healthcare-s...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/what-happens-when-a-healthcare- startup-leaves-you-with-1598186714))

In this case, the article is actually pretty good.

<comment><USER19> Valleywag shouldn't be banned. It can be a bit gleeful about the Valley's moral meltdown, but it's the only outfit in "the tech press" that tells the truth. Everything else is payola.

<comment><USER18> I agree that Valleywag shouldn't be banned on the basis that they often contribute unique articles not discussed by other tech outlets. (e.g. [http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-laundry-quarters-startup- is-...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-laundry-quarters-startup-is- dead-1596481798))

Although to be fair, there are a few "rich people in tech suck because they're rich" articles which are more hostile.

<comment><USER19> _Although to be fair, there are a few "rich people in tech suck because they're rich" articles which are more hostile._

Not because they're rich, but because they've departed so far from the founding values of technology.

Picking on the average "Google bus" rider is mean-spirited and pointless, but the "leaders" of private-sector technology really are rapacious assholes. This sector of the economy really is run by horrible human beings and pointing out is not mindless hostility, but confronting one of _the_ most important issues that our generation faces.

<comment><USER20> I'm curious what you think "the founding values of technology" are, and when they were established (the founding of "technology"? Like the wheel? Or just transistor-based technology?), and by whom/what.

<comment><USER19> _I 'm curious what you think "the founding values of technology" are_

I'm talking about the pay-it-forward culture of the 1950-70s Valley when it was cheap to live there and people did everything they could to help each other out. This was the era when Hewlett-Packard refused to do a layoff: instead, it cut costs with a 10% pay cut and a day off work every other week. There was a time when software had an R&D culture, and Northern California was full of people trying to do something new and interesting.

Now, startups are a safety career for failed McKinseys and Goldmanites, whose VC friends put them into executive positions and let them boss nerds around, but it wasn't always that way. You didn't go in thinking you'd be a billionaire, but you could get what would now be an upper-middle-class lifestyle and work in the sort of R&D environment that doesn't exist anymore, because the slimeballs killed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sorry for over repeating what people always say, but I am genuinely so grateful for the UK's NHS.

<comment><USER22> I get private healthcare in the UK through my job - the only time we have used it was when my teenage son got his tonsils out.

What was amusing was that at one point the anaesthetist came up and said there had been a mistake in the billing and I'd have to pay part of the bill directly. Having heard all the horror stories from the US I was thinking it was going to be a huge amount of money - he very apologetically gave me a bill for £12.00 (yes, twelve pounds) :-)

[NB Worth noting that although we do have private health care, anything serious that has happened to us over the last few years was fixed by the NHS].

<comment><USER11> You smug bastard. Joking, but i'm in the US and have had so many issues in my life with huge medical bills and debt collectors, denial of care, insurance refusing to pay because a doctor messed up the paperwork, insurance not covering certain medications, or saying the dosage needed to be changed, that i'm almost not. :-p

<comment><USER22> Well, as anyone will tell you who lives in the UK, the NHS isn't perfect, but I personally happen to think that the model we have of a pretty good health care system for _everyone_ and private health care for the tiny minority who want it seems to work fairly well.

Mind you the NHS is socialism... but perhaps telling that the founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, called his book on the subject _In Place of Fear_ \- which sums it up really.

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

NB I find illnesses and injuries in a family stressful enough to deal with as it is - adding bureaucracy and financial stresses would be a nightmare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have posted it before, but any time a healthcare thread pops up I like to mention a project I co-founded (before Obamacare/Affordable Healthcare Act).

Primary care coverage for $20/month $10 copay for ARNP/PA visits and $25 copay for Doctor visit. Even if someone is covered on the exchange this type of primary care plan can be far more cost effective than paying the copays under many of the plans. See: [http://pfccmember.com/Membership_Plans.html](http://pfccmember.com/Membership_Plans.html)

>So I went to my new Oscar-approved doctor, who recommended routine blood work...On April 28th 2014, I received a first bill from the hospital detailing how Oscar covered none of the in-hospital labs and I would need to pay $1640. A second round of labs before April 28th pushed the total bill to over $2000.

Even our little start-up was able to negotiate $99 for blood work labs, which is out of pocket to the patient. If the same patient uses insurance that rate skyrockets, usually requiring patients to pay out of pocket anyway because of giant deductibles.

<comment><USER24> It is absolutely ridiculous how pricing schemes like that are even legal. Have insurance that covers a non-typical lab test? They bill $1000 to your carrier (regardless of what th e contracted rate will be) and you are usually responsible for a fraction of that because of deductibles. Don't have insurance and are a cash-only customer? They bill you $150. Have insurance and insurance declines to pay? You get billed $1000.

A real example of this, my son had a routine vaccination performed at a Baylor clinic and my insurance company drug their feet on remitting payment to them. So, Baylor turned around and invoiced me for $1250 and was ready to send that to collections. Turns out that the agreed rate with my insurance carrier for that vaccination was well under $100.

<comment><USER25> It gets even worse than that. Some people are stuck with an HSA.

A HSA is _not_ insurance (it covers nothing), but it _looks_ like insurance (so hospitals still charge you the 'ten times more' price).

A $100 doctor visit, becomes $900 "charged" to your HSA (because you 'have insurance' so they can eat the artificially-inflated cost). But since HSA never covers anything, the insurance always just passes that $900 bill on to you. They stamp "THIS IS NOT A BILL" on the top, but that's a lie, it _always_ requires you to pay money.

You call up the hospital and explain "I don't have insurance, I need the sane price." They say "we can't give you that price, you have insurance." No one in healthcare understands that HSA's aren't insurance, and cover nothing, so no one will let you pay a manageable sum of money.

<comment><USER26> HSAs are, by legal requirement, only available if you are enrolled in a High- Deductible Health Plan [1], which is insurance and does pay for _something_ , though (as the name suggests) it has a very high annual deductible (for which the HSA is used).

So if you have an HSA, you do, in fact, have insurance.

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

<comment><USER27> or you might have an HSA left over from when you used to have insurance. (FSAs expire at the end of the year, but HSAs are permanent.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find the phrase "Don't A/B test with people's lives" to be in search of something catchy, or a zinger. The reality of big insurance has always been to be paid more than they pay out. Simple. You've always been a number to an insurance company.

<comment><USER29> > The reality of big insurance has always been to be paid more than they pay > out.

Well yes, that's how a company stays solvent...

The problem with health insurance is that it's been perverted into a discount club rather than being insurance for catastrophic occurrences. It divorces consumers from the true cost of services and hence service providers are free to play with the costs all they want. Hell, you can't even really get an upfront estimate for a procedure...

Car insurance covers accidents, theft, etc. That's it. Can you imagine how much e.g., an oil change would cost if it were commonplace to use car insurance for such routine maintenance? That's what really went wrong with health insurance in the US, and we're too far down that road to fix it.

<comment><USER28> I've always viewed it as an arms race to see who can get away with what between providers, insurers, and patients (and before ACA, employers to a degree).

The true cost of service at this point includes having staff and systems (with their own support staff) to negotiate and calculate the cost on both the insurer and the provider side.

So, in a way, if you have one particularly tough to deal with insurer, that cost gets distributed among all patients, and their insurers as well. In addition, the basic cost of any visit now includes some of that administrative overhead.

In the oil change analogy, if you had to walk into the shop, and there was a base price of $50 to cover the administrative costs, you had to wait until you saw a mechanic to decide if you really needed an oil change, and they charged $50, and then you paid the $20 dollars for the oil change, you can bet by now someone would have started marketing a per-visit copay style insurance for cars too.

None of this is to say I disagree with you, just that it's even worse than I think we all think it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems similar to third-party warranty companies. They offer full coverage for low amounts, but when the time comes for them to pay up, they're impossible to deal with. Can't reach them on the phone, they need things to be faxed(!) over, and then because of so-and-so reason, it won't be covered.

Healthcare shouldn't be handled by startups. Its too expensive and there's too much riding on it for something that could go belly-up at any moment to handle.

Of course, that brings up the question: How do you actually start an insurance company? I'd imagine that in a perfect world, the government could guarantee your coverage until you get enough in your coffers to handle things without a backup.

<comment><USER31> I've talked to a couple health-care startups on the East Coast that have started by tackling one small aspect of healthcare and built off of that. Prescription drug tracking. OR procedures and checklists. There are tons of companies in the medical startup space that are doing good work, there are tons of areas that traditional big tech companies have failed to innovate in that are ripe for being upset.

Playing fast and loose with insurance claims sounds more like outright fraud.

<comment><USER14> >I've talked to a couple health-care startups on the East Coast that have started by tackling one small aspect of healthcare and built off of that. Prescription drug tracking. OR procedures and checklists. There are tons of companies in the medical startup space that are doing good work, there are tons of areas that traditional big tech companies have failed to innovate in that are ripe for being upset.

While this is true, one of the problems currently being faced by the industry right now is that all of these niche vendors have their own ideas about how data should be handled, and it's resulted in a fair amount of balkanization of the healthcare IT industry.

It's getting better, and HITECH and the ACA are finally pushing toward real standardization and data interchange, but from where I'm sitting (working in healthcare integration), it's probably going to take us another decade to sort out the mess things are in today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> >In the emerging health and wellness markets, startups like Oscar intimately disrupt and destroy their customer's lives through incorrect datasets where an A/B testing mentality results in exorbitant fees, angry hospital administrators and patients with no recourse except to bankrupt themselves paying bills they didn't expect.

This doesn't make sense to me. How is an A/B testing mentality at fault for this? It has nothing to do with the incorrect datasets... you don't A/B test your data structure... I hope. A/B tests are blamed later in the article too, not really sure why.

</comment><comment><USER33> This story seams par for the course when dealing with insurance companies regardless of if it's startup or not. I've had the same exact issue with everyone from "United" to "Humana" and more recently "HealthNet" You will be told something is in network and it's not, a lab location is listed on their website as in network and then they claim it's not covered later. Sadly, this seems to be an area where legislation needs to bring out the big stick and force them to cover services that they had listed as "in-network" bad data is no excuse.

<comment><USER11> Wish more people knew this. A lot of professionals on here might personally have a stellar health insurance plan through their employer that covers almost anything no questions asked, but those same big insurers will administer cut- rate plans to the majority of plan-holders and deny payment at the drop of a hat, or pick and choose what necessary care / medications they will / won't pay, often after the fact, seemingly arbitrarily or if submitted paperwork isn't flawless.

It's a pretty good racket really; provide quality, hassle-free coverage to the high income, professional class, or anyone else that might have any say or sway or influence in government, and then for the working class majority refuse to ever pay out more per person than you are payed. That way you can cost-save like crazy and make obscene profits, but no one that matters cares and based on their experience it just looks like belly-aching and blowing things out of proportion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> With bogus physician bills my SOP is to call the office and tell them that I will let the bill run to collection and dispute it in court. This strategy never failed, physicians are mortally afraid of having to admit that their billing practice is questionable.

With refunds from the insurance company I have found that a nice letter "please pay up 10 days from now or I will get a title in court" works wonders. I never had to no, not once.

<comment><USER11> More likely, doctors are very averse to lawsuits, and would sooner provide care to one patient at a loss than defend against a lawsuit, especially when it doesn't seem like a bluff because you seem like someone who could afford it (not typical btw).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It happened to me ~10 years ago with another health care startup. The sign up booklet looks good and we switch to it. I was with a big company ( - Nokia )at that time. But when the time comes to pay hospital/doctor bill, it has all kind of reasons not too.

I documented the phone calls with them, put the detail on a yahoo group and make sure the group was opened to everyone who want to join and also invited their company's PR/Marketing to join that group.

The issue was resolved immediately. I don't think that company is alive today. Healthcare insurance start up is not easy. I don't trust them base on that experience.

The main issue with insurance is always how much you can trust them when they need to pay up. In the short term, they can always promise low rate to get your attention. But that only get the young folks to switch. After one been thru the experience I been thru, it is hard to trust that kind of company again.

In today's internet age, it is impossible for any "startup insurance" company to do that kind of "hack" to try keep their cash flow and not immediately to have their reputation out to everyone in the world.

</comment><comment><USER36> In the U.S., insurance is regulated by the states and each state has a regulatory agency where one can go with complaints about insurance companies. I find it surprising that the abused customer in this story didn't file a complaint with the government. That would have probably made the insurance company stand up and take notice much more than complaining about them on Twitter.

<comment><USER11> I never knew this, and sincerely doubt most people do. But besides this rare start-up, if you're an established player like Blue Cross, does one or dozens or even hundreds of complaints even matter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> With a healthcare startup, you will almost always pay more. Large insurance companies are able to bargain the best rates through many means based upon their size.

Even when the provider disagrees (with capitated services for example) and bills the member, the larger insurance companies will reimburse the member and then bill the provider.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why not link directly to the article than that slow feed site?

[http://valleywag.gawker.com/what-happens-when-a- healthcare-s...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/what-happens-when-a-healthcare- startup-leaves-you-with-1598186714)

<comment><USER38> Because valleywag is a banned domain on HN for some reason

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm sorry but I've had all these problems and many more with traditional health care companies. As a diabetic I'm intimately familiar with the health care system. It's a hard space to work in and I'm happy to see startups trying to tackle it. But it won't solved soon. Unlike Dropbox, where they "solved" sync more or less there is no one thing in health care, but many.

</comment><comment><USER40> From the Oscar front page: "Free doctor visits via phone". WTF is this? How can a doctor visit by phone? All this story is just a smell on how deeply broken the entire US health system is (together with all the healthcare- systems of 3rd world countries).

<comment> k-mcgrady I could see this being really useful. There are many times I have needed questions answered by the doctor (e.g. I've been diagnosed with x - can I still do y safely) and the only way is with an appointment which wastes both our time. I wish my local GP would set aside 1 hour per day to answers questions via email or phone. It would make things much more efficient.

<comment><USER41> The issue with that, is there's no good way for the doctor to get paid for doing it. Prior to 2009 there was no billing code for phone calls or email and currently the rules around what is a "billable" consultation are complex and the coverage by insurers is far from uniform.

More info here: [http://patients.about.com/od/followthemoney/f/Why-Doctors- Wo...](http://patients.about.com/od/followthemoney/f/Why-Doctors-Wont- Telephone-or-Email-Patients.htm)

<comment> k-mcgrady I was thinking more about my own healthcare system where the government pays the doctor. So his salary would just stay the same. In the US or other systems like it I can see how that would be an issue.

<comment><USER42> well use something like the UK model where dr's can have both a NHS contract plus private patients.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Open Source Project– 1,700 Salaries Now with LinkedIn, Twitter, PMs- Share Yours - <AUTHOR> https://blog.step.com/2016/06/16/more-salaries-twitter-linkedin/ <comment><USER2> Can you guys get more small to medium size companies? I have no interest in working for one of these behemoths.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, there aren't yet enough compensation data points for other companies for us to do an analysis. But, we did include a link to the raw data where people have contributed their compensation for some of these smaller companies: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BYn35bPjeUTZY_W_dkAQ...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BYn35bPjeUTZY_W_dkAQGb2WRkEMaLV2l8OVcrq4Xeo/edit?usp=sharing)</comment></comment>


BitUnmap: Attacking Android Ashmem - <AUTHOR> https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2016/12/bitunmap-attacking-android-ashmem.html <comment><USER2> Very cool write-up, and a nifty little vulnerability.

Something that's either not in the article, or which I missed, is how many Android phones in the wild are vulnerable.

<comment><USER3> All of them that aren't the expensive ones that Google sells.

On the 300€ price border, I am yet to get an Android device that had more than one single update.

<comment><USER4> This was part of the November update which as far as I know isn't even out yet.

<comment><USER3> It won't change the fact which devices eventually will get the update.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Livestream of a guy writing a bootloader and kernel in 100% Rust - <AUTHOR> https://www.twitch.tv/gamozo <comment><AUTHOR> Project is here: [https://github.com/gamozolabs/chocolate_milk](https://github.com/gamozolabs/chocolate_milk)

I found it pretty fun and educational to watch as a Rust N00b.</comment>