William Binney Explains Snowden Docs - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexaobrien.com/secondsight/wb/binney.html <comment><USER2> [https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

At root, for any of these filtering/parsing projects to work, it means splitting and inspecting raw communication streams. The EFF is currently challenging mass surveillance on this point and arguing that these raw communications are are protected papers that are being searched without a warrant[1][2].

[1] - [https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-judge-rule- nsa-i...](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-judge-rule-nsa-internet- backbone-spying-techniques-unconstitutional)

[2] - [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/deeper-dive-effs- backb...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/deeper-dive-effs-backbone- motion)

<comment><USER3> Let's say that the EFF wins. Let's say it exceeds its wildest dreams.

How do you know it had any effect?

Until the next Snowden comes along, you don't. And I'm sure there won't be any more Snowdens. The NSA is going to redo its systems so that nobody can get anything out. This isn't a stretch of the imagination. They obviously have plenty of very technically talented people working there, and they'll get much stricter with access controls now.

Democratic processes cannot change a fundamentally undemocratic system. Secret courts, secret laws, secret executive orders, none of it is even a pretense of democracy. And so, nothing the EFF does can save you. Nothing you can do within the political system can save you, because it is a rigged game, or more accurately, an irrelevant game. It does not matter who wins or loses. It is not the game the NSA plays.

</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===

I'm sure people will ask what my solution is. I wish that I had one, and I hope that you realize the fallacy in insisting that until a more _comfortable_ solution is in front of you, the "solution" you have that will obviously not work should be invested in without any faint expectation of a return.

There is one thing you can do that's simple, though: Don't work for them. Don't work for SAIC. Don't work for Booz Allen. Don't work for the NSA. Without people like us, without engineers, they can't do anything.

And more then that: If you have a friend from undergrad, if you meet someone at a meetup or a hackfest or in a bar that says they work for the NSA, directly or indirectly, treat them like the Statsi agent they are, spit in their face and tell them they're not welcome in your life. Make sure they know that they aren't doing a good thing or the right thing. Make sure they know how utterly, baselessly evil they are.

That's one solution. It's not as blandly palatable as donating to the EFF, but it's one that's less of a waste of your time.

<comment><USER4> >> "treat them like the Statsi agent they are, spit in their face and tell them they're not welcome in your life."

The HN hivemind is mentioned in a negative context quite often. If the parent's view were institutionalized as part of the orthodox/mainstream belief system around here, it might 1) genuinely constrain the NSA's operations and 2) be a socially beneficial application of groupthink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worry a lot that the lionizing of Binney and the too-perfectly-named THINTHREAD is a kind of retconning, and that very few of us would be comfortable with the implications of a fully-realized Binney-designed THINTHREAD either.

From what I've read, THINTHREAD is _also_ a system that involves widespread and intrusive monitoring of US communications. THINTHREAD purports to use "encryption" to solve the privacy problems that arise from retaining information about US citizens. I am not reassured.

<comment><USER6> Binney had the guts to step back and speak out. He could've kept playing ball. THINTHREAD or not, his subsequent actions are worth praise. Credit is given where credit is due. Very little else is out there to encourage people in high positions to follow suit. That's true. THINTHREAD's reassurance of privacy is as laughable now as it was then. Marketing to a naive public like that is so annoyingly ironic when the leading threat (time and time again) is the lack of privacy _from_ a surveillance state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Excellent article.

Binney, after all these years, finally has the some evidence to support the claims he was making all along.

I remember reading about him and thinking how this is a bit too conspiratorial. Probably a disgruntled[+] employee making stuff up knowing it will never be confirmed or denied. I knew at the time about Constitutional protections and all that, and thought well surely someone up there on top wouldn't allow something this blatant to happen.

It wouldn't be surprising if Snowden studied Binney and learned the lesson of how "all they had to do is come and tell their superiors and there was no need for all the public disclosures" is a bunch of bullshit. Binney did that. Also Binney didn't get any proof or documents with him. Can't help but think Snowden learned from that too.

Wonder what is the lesson to be learned by next Snowden who is probably already planning his actions. Try to stay completely anonymous? Fly directly to Brazil for a warmer weather?

Maybe the ultimate lesson we learned then and now is how little people care. NSA learned that too and I wouldn't be surprised if instead of dialing down the level of these programs they will crank it up. Why wouldn't they? They have clear tested proof that the public doesn't mind that much. No need to play the Constitutional farce any more.

[+] It would seem Binney was a bit disgruntled since his system was re- purposed (stolen) and he was pushed to the side. There was an interview where he talks how after 9/11 NSA was on a lockdown, and he snuck in to work and saw all this hardware everywhere. And eventually found out it was to be used for his re-purposed system. But without him on onboard. It was handed over to contractors.

<comment><USER8> > I remember reading about him and thinking how this is a bit too > conspiratorial.

I see this a lot and I honestly wonder. A lot of us knew-without-proof what was going on... suspected strongly may be better wording. We didn't talk about it because either people wouldn't be interested without proof, or we assumed other people knew just as much.

What is it that in fact makes the subject so far-fetched and a topic treated the same way as the "the president is a man-reptile from neptune" kind of conspiracies?

I am really trying to figure out what, in my education (or what little I had of it seeing as I left high school fairly early), caused me to see things in a less "that's crazy talk" way and more as a "it's technically possible and they have endless resources, why wouldn't they do it" subject while other people dismissed it (and some still do).

<comment><USER9> I think it comes down to imagination and confidence. Some people cannot construct scenarios in their mind and analyze their likeliness. And others just want to be accepted and part of the mainstream.

There are also people who simply aren't interested in learning about topics yet feel free to blast their opinions about them. Kind of like how I might say 'country music sucks' when actually there's a lot of good country music but I haven't tried very hard to find the artists I like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me this may explain another reason law enforcement agencies are upset about the recent changes Apple and Google made that prevent them from providing phone data.

If what the article said is true, it's not that they can't see the data, they just can't use it in court. Part of what the article calls the 'Planned Program Perjury Policy' would likely be to reverse engineer a probable cause to get a warrant for the device then serve the warrant to Apple/Google and then take the evidence to court.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was thinking about this the other day:

Is there an analysis that can explain, as detailed as possible, what we know about the surveillance state to the "average Joe"?

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems most of the spying (on unecrypted data) is done thanks to the Executive Order 12333. So your rights aren't even being violated because your Congress representatives said so - they are being violated because a _single man_ decided that decades ago.

So how do we set things in motion to nullify the EO 12333?

<comment><USER13> ACLU is working on it, support them.

[https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/new-documents- sh...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/new-documents-shed-light- one-nsas-most-powerful-tools)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes, Virginia, the government can track your movements.</comment>


Startup Resources from Around the World - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupdigest.com/classifieds/startup-resources/ <comment><AUTHOR> We pulled all of these localized resources from the city specific StartupDigest's we publish. Thought it would be a good idea to put them all on page and accessible outside of the email newsletter.

Would appreciate your thoughts and if you have any city specific (national + international) blogs, news sites, or resources to add leave it as a comment below.</comment>


The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2013/06/29/the-rise-of-the-million-dollar-one-person-business/ <comment><USER3> In our industry, it's pretty safe to count the one-person cases as outliers (hit app, etc), however I can attest to a number of people consistently pulling down 7-figure NET incomes from privately-owned small businesses without ever involving VC's or other investors.

If it's a sustainable pace and you don't become so visible as to be a patent or other legal target you can quietly live very well on that or half that, etc.

Bottom line, there are an infinite number of places to end up between being nobody and being a Zuckerberg/Gates/Jobs and really, most of them can provide a good quality of life.

<comment><USER4> Are they mostly B2B? Or do they sell directly to retail consumers?

<comment><USER5> Most of the people I know doing this are involved heavily in local commerce. Think real estate, insurance, construction, and skilled labor companies (plumbing, A/C repair, landscaping).

<comment><USER6> You aren't going to pull down 7 figures on a one-man AC repair business. In that type of business, you are just renting out your time, and nobody is paying $1,000/hr for an AC repairman's time. You can scale it, definitely, and have an army of repairmen working under you and then make tons of money, but then you're no longer talking about a one-man business.

<comment><USER7> I don't think grandparent comment was meant to imply 1 person business. (You are correct in your math assumptions). I just think they mean "small business funded organically or built from the ground up". Besides "1 person" can also mean "1 person and subcontractors" so where do you draw the line at "1 person" anyway?

The only thing I would add though is that many of these businesses were not started by the person running them they were passed to a family member who got something that they could expand upon where the risk had already been taken.

<comment><USER5> Correct, I didn't mean to imply these were 1 person businesses with a single A/C repair person doing all the work.

To reach $1 mil or more in revenue, these businesses use 1099 contractors or corp-to-corp sub-contracts to meet their labor demands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think about this a lot - I made the jump from salaried worker to self- employed programmer/freelancer/contractor/consultant (depending on how you look at it). But I'm doing enterprise-level architectural programming. It's not very amenable to productizing, so I'm basically stuck being paid for my time.

What that means is that if I want to have a long-term high-security relationship with a couple of key clients, I basically hit a ceiling in hourly rate (a good rate, but slightly below what your general multi-person agency will charge) and I've been at that ceiling for a couple of years now - <USER2> close to $250k .

It appears the way to transition out is to bump the rate up significantly so it doesn't appear you're trying to compete with agencies - maybe around $200/hour or 6k-8k/week. But the problem with that is that the long-term relationships can go out the window. They only want to bring you in for shorter periods of time, and you have to hustle more. So the marginal benefit isn't awesome. And I really like my clients and I hate hustling, so I stick with where I'm at. This higher rate I've had for the last 2-3 years is nice and all, but practically what it means is that I'm projected to be able to retire at age 65 instead of age 75. It's not a dramatic difference in lifestyle.

So instead, I've just been trying to amass a larger emergency fund outside of maxing my retirement savings every year. And then I'll do something with it... what, I don't know.

I know, first-world problems, but it seems that now that I finally have a bit of a nest egg, the income-maximizing move would be to use it to invest in one of these other careers the forbes article mentions. But what? Nest egg money isn't really the limiting factor behind a retail operation, it's the actual retail product idea, and I don't really think that way. What's left is real estate, but I'm regularly told I shouldn't even bother if I'm not a fix-it handyman sort, which I'm not. So I'm sort of in this state of perpetual mulling. I wonder if I could just find a talented-but-poor subcontractor, get my own general contractor license, and handle all the business and project management parts (which I love) despite knowing nothing about construction.

<comment><USER9> First of all, f### "first-world problems" when it comes to something like this. It's personal and it's your life. You only get to perceive one run at this one.

I posted a few things in Patrick's thread that I won't repeat here[1] regarding the move from a simple hourly rate to the ~$1m+ range.

The thing I would work on in your case are your basic assumptions. I would try to get past the "long-term high-security relationship."

It's good to have long term relationships but they are never going to be highly secure. Instead, work on maximizing your value and adjust your income accordingly. If you do think of relationships, think of it in terms of your reputation and your network. If you went to a decent school, use the alumni network. If you worked at a company that has a "former employees" network, use that. Keep in touch with people you've worked well with, even if it's just watching them on LinkedIn and congratulating them on a move or helping them find a new job/gig/whatever.

It's something that can be tough to crack the first time, but you're in a good position already. "Enterprise-level architectural programming" is nerdalinga for "Enterprise Architect," "Consulting CTO," etc.

Getting the first big "gig" is usually a matter of timing your availability with opportunities (i.e., what unlucky people call "luck"). Reach out through your network and have people recommend you. The first strategic position you take will probably be similar to what you have now, but at least you can put your shingle out as "Consulting Enterprise Architect".

Then you should work on getting a couple marquee clients to put on your NASCAR slide. They don't have to be massive, but they should be respected companies. I targeted the top of the Internet Retailer 500 and established build, launch, replatforming, infrastructure, scaling, and security relationships with enough > $1b/year sites that new clients ask about what "leaders" do in the industry. Enterprise work is mostly about minimizing perceived risk.

It's good if you can build partnerships with platform vendors. For example, Oracle PS don't really like to touch projects below a certain size, so I get a lot of semi-qualified leads in the ~$1m range that I can knock out in about four months with a few fellow consultants/friends. If you bring in the vendor to one of your clients, they'll usually keep in touch and mention prospective clients even if they're not going to go out on a limb and drop your name on the desk. I wouldn't knock myself out on this, though – just make sure you are the one making the introduction and are present at the pitch meeting.

Also, you'll need to be solid when talking at the C-level. Get your presentation skills down, have a suit or ten made ( _cough_ go to Anderson & Sheppard once and Shanghai soon after), and gain confidence that you know what you're doing.

You're going to have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit. I actually loved interviewing (both sides) so the sales process (which is generally just letting someone validate claims made by a referring member of the network) is not unpleasant.

I'll also tell you the biggest secret of "consulting": find out what people are complaining about. Write that down on slide one. Find out (or know) how people resolved the top three problems on that slide and put them on slide two. Make those slides beautiful and extremely succinct, so you're conversing, making eye contact, and reading body language. Make it look easy.

One last thing: You should become aware of the product market in this area. EAI is a massive opportunity and even if you just build a toolset leveraging Mule/Camel/ActiveMQ/etc., that's a product you can license to clients. I don't often advise this, but saying there's no productization opportunity leads me to recommend one of the Enterprise Integration Patterns books.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963096)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963169)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963135)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963113)

<comment><USER8> Damn, this is really good advice. I find that as I get more senior, I have less immediate peers that set an example of what sort of next steps are possible, so these are good bits of advice to read.

Yes, the last year has included a lot of prototype experimentation with stuff like EIP (spring integration), amqp (rabbit), jax-ws (cxf mostly), Drools. I can see how pulling the thread on these could eventually turn into a product, but in the meantime it's really just been more about making the recommendation and then doing the implementation. I feel like I'd need a handful of more successful implementations before I can call myself the Consulting Enterprise Architect, but it's getting there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _Many institutions in our society are still structured in such a way that W2 > employees are considered the norm, and it is hard for even well-off people > who are self employed to, for instance, get a mortgage without intense > paperwork hassles._

It was refreshing to read that. Even for an apartment it's almost foreign to most building managers when you say you are self-employed (they might even have an unwritten rule that this means unemployed lol). Even after showing a good transaction history your chances are still pretty slim, it's almost as if they have never heard about anything other than W2 and pay stubs.

<comment><USER11> Even worse for me is that my clients have been in the US and I am in Germany. The landlords here would rather give an apartment to somebody who is on welfare. Seriously.

I'm considering incorporating and granting myself a EUR salary just so there is a steady pay stub.

<comment><USER12> From what I've heard about German employment law, wouldn't you need to form a "work council" and fight with yourself? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My dad started three small businesses on his own over the period of 20 years: a restaurant, an upholstery business, and a long line commercial fishing boat. First, let me just point out that sales (or revenue) does NOT equal profit. I'm pretty sure everyone here knows that. If you count just sales, then the upholstery business marked with inflation would probably be doing $150-200k a year in sales/revenue for a single sole proprietorship. However, count in rent, materials, utilities, etc... my family was probably making about 70k a year in today's dollars. The fishing boat, though, is another story.

Although the fishing boat was incorporated as an S-corp with just my dad as the sole owner and 100% owner of stock, he did employ a crew of people. I mean, there was a boat captain, and at any given time, 7 to 8 guys on board. We had fuel expenses, salaries (which were a portion of the catch), food expenses. If you looked strictly at our sales, which I used to do the bookkeeping for, we would easily net 500k to a million a year in today's dollars. After all expenses were paid and done, my dad would make about $100-120k a year on a decent year.

<comment><USER14> Since we're using accounting terms-of-art, you almost certainly don't mean that you would "net 500k", you mean gross 500k, right?

The popular culture seems to use net to mean "total in the income category", but in accounting it generally means EBITDA, i.e. your dad would gross $1m and net $100k.

<comment><USER13> Oops, yes, my bad. I meant gross. Geez, even I can't get the terms straight.

<comment><USER15> I think we can excuse you, given that the boat was _literally_ netting quite a lot of money... in the form of fish :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's nice to see coverage of an exciting trend (of which I'm happy to be a part), but it always cracks me up when financial publications classify companies based on sales rather than profits. Defining a "million dollar company" as a company with a million dollars in annual sales is absurd.

<comment><USER17> This. If your company clears one million in yearly sales and spends $980,000 to make that happen--you are running a $20,000 per year company. There is nothing wrong with this, but I hate when these metrics get thrown around without context. There are $1M companies that make less profit than a hot dog cart (which subsequently, in the right location is a damn good business).

<comment><USER18> On the other hand, low-margin businesses are often low-risk, stable businesses. A grocery store has crappy margins, but excellent stability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing I will add to the discussion of someone running a 1 man "type" business (which would include both 1 man and 1 man plus some helpers part time, sub contractors, 1099's whatever) is that while the upside is capped the downside is also clipped.

If you have a 15 to 40 person business with lots of overhead and you have a few bad years you can lose lots of money. Because of that overhead.

But if you are running a small operation out of a small office (or even your house) you might not have a big top end potential but you also aren't going to lose much either.

A bad year might mean breaking even or making very little but your probably not going to lose your shirt (at least in 1 or 2 years if you have built up a reserve).

<comment><USER19> Not necessarily.

Plenty of 1-man "professional services" businesses are functioning as middlemen between big companies, or big companies and government. They have low overhead, but usually have a fixed, immovable deadline for paying their downstream companies. As long as the good times roll and the customers pay in time, life is grand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting breakdown, though the title is a bit misleading. The numbers do show a 5% annual increase in single person companies making $1MM+ in 2011, but it's difficult to know whether that reflects a true rise without comparing against historical data.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting that many of these businesses are basically real estate holding companies. I wonder how many of these businesses are just tax- minimization or financing schemes used by larger companies for things like deferred compensation?

<comment><USER21> From what I understand the main purpose is liability shielding. Each property is run as its own LLC, and management is done via a centralized management company. If a person gets injured on the property, the liability effectively gets capped at the liquidation value of the building.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> >I'm not sure that these are all truly one-person businesses. In my reporting, I often come across firms with a regular team of 7 or 10 people, but only one or two classified as W2 employees and the rest working as contractors.

I have to agree, since I find it mind boggling that one-man construction firms are making millions.

<comment><USER23> _I have to agree, since I find it mind boggling that one-man construction firms are making millions._

That's not that uncommon for a general contractor: you do project management and client relations, sub-contractors hire the people who string wires and swing hammers.

<comment><USER24> Patrick is right, I know people who are essentially one person companies doing exactly this and they do pretty well for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is revenues and NOT profits/ so a real estate holding firm may have high revenues but not large profits because of the mortgage costs ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> These numbers seem pretty misleading. What we're interested in are businesses that are started from scratch and derive their income through their own brand identity. What we're reading about are people who pass their consulting pay through an LLC for accounting reasons, or people who own income generating property through a holding company. This is more about how successful people are structuring their finances than about how people are achieving high incomes in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER27> There isn't anything related to farming on there. Seems odd, especially when they're just talking about revenue and with how much money is in that sector right now.

At 6.60 / bushel corn @ 200 bushels per acre, it "only" takes 760 acres of corn to break the $1M revenue barrier. 760 acres isn't necessarily a lot and can be definitely run by one person, especially with some contractor help.

It probably has something to do with what's classified as a Non-Employer, but it just seems like it should be there.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting that technology businesses didn't appear in any of the top grossing slots. I suspect this could be because they get lumped into professional / scientific.

<comment><USER29> As a percentage of the US GDP, small tech businesses aren't much of a blip. Just think of all of those real estate brokers and investors, day traders, hair salon owners, construction contractors that churn through 1M annually in revenue. Every small town across the US has a pile of millionaires like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> _26,744 had sales between $1 million and $2.49 million (up from 24,945 in 2010)_

That's really not that many. And not that big of a rise considering the recovering economy.

</comment><comment><USER31> I see some flaws in this analysis.

\- Point 1

 _26,744 had sales between $1 million and $2.49 million (up from 24,945 in 2010)_

It's a 7% rise, in a year. Those who are in the $100k-$250k range, rose by 6%; not much of a difference.

When we talk (or at least from my perspective) about the rise of a group or minority, it means their growth is much faster than the average and they are probably doing some kind of disruption.

\- Point 2

The author talks about the revenue. The revenue means little. Some solo- entrepreneur are selling their craft. A Software developer working remotely has almost no costs. Some are trading stuff. So their revenues are high, but not really their profit.

</comment><comment><USER32> Real estate agents or brokers don't have the double taxation that we do right? Meaning they wouldn't have to pay corp/llc and employee tax?

<comment><USER33> Neither do "we"?

I know the IRS 15-A rules have a carve out for "computer programmers, etc" that limits how such employees can function as 1-person LLC's for the purpose of 1099 employment with a corporation. (That is, the IRS says in such cases we're employees and a 1-man business won't save you from that, so we should be W2'd). But that doesn't affect double taxation?

LLCs pass through the tax burden to the individual partner so whether that's RE or software engineering, there won't be double taxation on the partnerships profits.

Am I missing something else that affects this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In the 1980s we had a time when people in finance could bring their companies millions of dollars without creating much palpable value. We certainly have a new bread of Masters of the Universe.

</comment><comment><USER35> The details behind the article show a less appealing reality than what we might hope for. Yeoman capitalism hasn't killed off VC-istan just yet. A lot of these $1M/year businesses are for, say, independent real estate brokers. Yes, there are people who get very rich in that game. There are others who fail horribly. I think we're quite a way from a society where talented people can find their way to, if not $1M per year, a reasonable approximation of their actual worth to society. (Fuck, I'd be happy with a regular upper- middle-class income if freed from subordination and its attendant mind-rot.)

Let's stop talking about revenues and figures of "$1 million per year" (because there are a variety of context factors-- geography, profit vs. revenue-- that make us question what that really means) and instead talk about _growth_. This is where it gets interesting. We can look at the growth/risk spectrum between gambler's ruin (take all nonnegative-expectancy risks; thus take over the world economy or die) and non-participation (take no risks; no growth above the risk-free rate-- minus management fees, of course). Most business activity is between those two extremes, but the very middle of that spectrum is underfunded and undersubscribed.

If you want to push for 150-percent-annual-growth-or-sudden-death outcomes like a sociopath gambling with others' money, ambitions, careers and dreams, then there are VCs will fund you, your pathological gambling, and (in most cases) your shitty personality cult. (That's the high-risk, high-growth route.)

If you want to work for some horrible, authoritarian corporation doing shit- ass-boring mediocre work and growing your salary at 7% per year (mostly, a reward for _getting older_ because you're so disconnected from the real work that no one knows what you're worth) then... good news, that is available too. (That's the low-risk, low-growth route... except the long-term existential risks are pretty disgusting because a career of mediocrity, coupled with age, makes one untouchable. See: what fucking academia does to those who don't make it.)

What no one is talking about is the mid-risk/mid-growth range... 20 to 40 percent annual growth with _some_ volatility, but not likely to ruin lives _en masse_. (You might have a thin year, but your average outcome is strong if you work hard, have the talent, and do the right thing. You just need discipline in your strong years.) The problem is that _no one_ is funding that region of the spectrum. But that's the natural home for technology, research, science, as well as the yeoman capitalism that most of us would find much more rewarding (and scalable, and beneficial to society) than this VC-istan, Hollywood-for-ugly-people, bullshit.

You can get jobs at stagnant corporations and jobs (probably not founder jobs, unless you have the connections to partake in Stanford Welfare, but jobs with "equity") in the high-risk VC-istan space. No one seems to have any clue how to fund the mid-risk/mid-growth space, but that's where the future _actually_ lives. See: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais- macle...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais- macleod-17-building-the-future-and-financing-lifestyle-businesses/)

<comment><USER36> One of the key's to high incomes is personal spending habits. Spend 105% what you make and your stuck on debts treadmill. Spend less than 70% of what you make and not only do you have a cushion that lasts longer, but you can take a significant pay cut without issue. Now let's say you have a great idea, if your over 25 then scraping together 6 months living expenses pluss a little working capital is easy, by 30 taking 2 years off is not that risky. After that you can start looking into angle type investing. Granted, the risks are still there but being able to take more of them greatly increases your long term chances.

<comment><USER37> Per Micawber's Principle:

 _Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery._</comment></comment></comment>


Feedback Fatigue - <AUTHOR> http://andysparks.co/post/34236881625/feedback-fatigue

<comment><USER2> interesting series- keep it up!</comment>


Kickstarter Is (Sorta) Debt – A Bolt Case Study - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@maneeshsethi/kickstarter-is-sorta-debt-a-bolt-case-study-4c879753d85d#.gg0vd7cfk <comment><USER2> Hi all --- I'm the founder of Pavlok. Happy to answer any questions you might have!</comment>


Show HN: MuleDrive email attachments to Google Drive and Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://muledrive.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I had this idea when I received emails with attachments on my phone and wanted to save them. Let me know your thoughts and if you think it could be monetized.</comment>


Price collapsing – Audi e-tron Forum - <AUTHOR> https://www.e-tronforum.com/threads/price-collapsing.1580/ <comment><USER2> Am I missing something? Dealers always rip you off on trade ins. This isn't unique to Audis or electric vehicles.

Inventories of expensive cars not selling in an economic crisis probably shouldn't be a surprise either.

</comment><comment><USER3> Other people in that thread pointed out the OP didn't state why they sold their vehicle, but it shouldn't really be a surprise that a high end Audi lost lots of value in the first year. Take a look at BMW 7 series if you want to see a cliff dive.

That said, used car market has been booming during covid. Sales people commenting in r/cars have said inventories are actually really low on used cars and it's driving the prices way up right now, however that doesn't mean all makes and models will rise with the tide.

</comment><comment><USER4> I assume this is in reference to other cars like Model S having a more solid price floor? any reference point on that from people? like bought it for say 80k, and 1 year later sold for X type stories?

<comment><USER5> Model S three year depreciation is about 30%, Model 3 is about 10%.

[https://insideevs.com/features/435693/tesla- model-3-exceptio...](https://insideevs.com/features/435693/tesla- model-3-exceptional-resale-value-among-cars/)

<comment><USER6> The Model 3 is just 3 years old now so the inventory of 3yo models is going to be statistically insignificant. How many people are going to buy a 40k 3yo M3 if they can actually get a brand new one for 44k?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The e-torn was purported to be the Model X "Killer". THis is particularly damning considering it's still eligible for the $10k subsidy the MX is no longer eligible for. I wonder if this means the pundits will finally shut up about Tesla getting crushed as soon as Big Auto gets serious about electric cars.</comment>


Dolphins learn from their peers to use empty shells to catch fish - <AUTHOR> https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30756-9 <comment><USER2> Such complex social behaviors are taught from generation to generation.

And makes even more important the need for conservation to protect pods of dolphins so that they do not lose this collective knowledge. If these pods gets destroyed, then other pods have to figure out the technique from scratch.

Apart from humans, some whales go into menopause. The evolutionary benefit is to have experienced females help raise their grandchildren and pass knowledge to them. This makes it even more important to protect older animals.

<comment><USER3> This article discusses peer ("horizontal") learning of the technique. They distinguish this from parent-child ("vertical") learning and older-younger non-parental ("oblique") learning.

Certainly protection of pods is important in this case as well, but the interesting thing here is not the fact that the behavior is learned, but that it is learned from a peer. Evidently this is the first such finding in toothed whales.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The video linked in the article gives a nice overview and shows videos of different foraging techniques used by dolphins.

</comment><comment><USER4> They also pass Puffer Fish around as a form of social recreational drug use

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE7ZCQzNiJU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE7ZCQzNiJU)

<comment><USER5> There was an interlude in _Women 's Work: The First 20,000 Years_ about reconstruction of early societies by their vocabulary, using reconstructed _root words_ from Uralic:

"So we can imagine them sitting around the campfire of an evening in larger groups, making and mending tools and wraps while they swapped interesting stories of their adventures, of their _friends or comrades_ and of the women's _suitors_. Sometimes people would _wrangle_ , _admonish_ , or _curse_ and sometimes _get high_. But they also knew how to _give presents_ and _distribute goods_."

I'm pretty sure female dolphins have _suitors_ , and these _friends or comrades_ are said to _get high_. Do dolphins _give presents_?

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/10/dolphins- sex...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/10/dolphins-sex-mating- sponges-courtship/)

Do you even shell, pod-mate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well. That's the definition of a meme.

</comment><comment><USER7> If only we could teach them to read and write...

<comment><USER8> We'd need to invent some sort of ink that worked underwater first.</comment></comment>


FBI director says China aims to become "world's only superpower" - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/fbi-director-china-superpower-93ba35f1-7ee9-4795-bc88-bf8e84b0e673.html <comment><USER2> Well.There is no problem in day-dreaming.

<comment><USER3> It could easily happen.</comment></comment>


Show HN: How to test usability of websites remotely - <AUTHOR> https://blog.uxtweak.com/remote-usability-testing/ <comment><USER2> previous comments, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21882635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21882635)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for linking them here. To address "you provide a script tag with data attributes. Don't do that!" \- we do not do that anymore. It was in a first version of a script which we are not using for quite some time now.

<comment><USER2> For a "Show HN" the product home page probably meets the spirit better than a blog post because the landing page is something people can "play with or try out." A blog post is just a thing to read and more suited to ordinary submission. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your opinion. Here is our landing page: [https://www.uxtweak.com/](https://www.uxtweak.com/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who is Bigger? - <AUTHOR> http://www.whoisbigger.com/

<comment><USER2> Also done by [http://pantheon.media.mit.edu/rankings/people/all/all/-3000/...](http://pantheon.media.mit.edu/rankings/people/all/all/-3000/1950/25) at MIT.

To compare here are the top 4 from each:

whoisbigger:

1\. Jesus

2\. Napolean

3\. Shakespeare

4\. Mohammed

Pantheon:

1\. Aristotle

2\. Plato

3\. Jesus

4\. Socrates

</comment><comment><USER3> So apparently Howard Stern is a better author than Angelina Jolie... I'm going to take this with a grain of salt here...</comment>


Ask HN: How do you practice social soft skills in real life? - <AUTHOR> I currently read "how to make friends and influence people", this and many other soft-skills books/trainings offer concepts and ideas of how one should act in a business/social conversations.
I always struggle with applying those concepts in real life, I cannot stop and think about what is the most appropriate reaction for a situation and I quickly forget and get overwhelmed with concepts and ideas from the book.
How did you apply similar concepts in real-life scenarios, and what ideas worked best for you? <comment><USER2> I've found the first step to any self-development project is observation.

Give yourself a free pass for a few weeks or a few months. Your only job: observe yourself.

Observe yourself getting nervous. Overwhelmed. Awkward. Behaving in a way that seems unnatural.

Journal what you find. Journal how you feel when you find yourself in these different situations.

You will feel like an idiot when you do this. That it's a waste of time. This process isn't intuitive, but it is life-changing if you're willing to be honest with yourself.

If you take this seriously, you'll find that most of your fears and awkwardness and inhibitions are the result of past experiences, more specifically, your perceptions of past experiences.

If you can develop the stomach to live in reality, you will be on the cusp of real life change.

Once you've taken an inventory of where you're at, you can begin to implement the things you're learning.

<comment><USER3> Very well written!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got a weekend job at Lowes. It was good because it's basically the opposite of software dev. You stand, walk, move things, help people get the right stuff for their project, and talk to people.

<comment><USER5> I wish I could push this post higher - I have worked a few customer service positions (tutor while in university, cashier at a little natural foods store) and I found both of those positions really flexed my social skills and have made my life much easier in myriad ways (job interviews, to pick a big one.)

<comment><USER4> I actually got the job at Lowes because I went to it as a sort of practice interview. I was looking for a job as a security guard (armed guards make double what I made at Lowes), but the positions I was offered were all about the same pay (unarmed guards don't get paid much). I think part of the reason I did well in the interview is because I was relaxed from thinking of it as a practice interview. This definitely helped me in interviews that I've had since.

Even though the pay was only $10 an hour and I was working 40+ hours at my main job plus 16-20 hours at Lowes, I really enjoyed my job at Lowes. It was much nicer than my software dev job - lower stress, less politics, no pressure to move up or meet some unobtainable metric, and the managers actually understood the work. It's almost like managers who have MBAs focus more on the metrics (output) and less on outcomes and the people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since almost everyone mentioned some form of listening, I will add this: dare to laugh. A lot. It's so relaxing and nice to spend time with people that realize that when you're socializing it's one of the rare and almost sacred times when we can just goof around and have fun. Having a laugh ready to fire off will spread like wildfire in a circle of people you're interacting with. You might feel that it's contrived at first, but then after 30 minutes you'll laugh genuinely along with everyone else and people in that circle will loosen up immensely. I don't know why we're so conditioned to have small talk at hand whenever, but a laugh at hand at whenever is almost unheard of. I dunno, I might live in a boring country.

<comment><USER7> I don't know what country you are from, in my country laughing is never a thing people are supposed to not do.

On the other hand, since it was always very not natural for me, i've used this strategy (basically laughing on command- that is, actually, fake laughing) for many of my teenage years, and it has taken several years and much thought for me to realize that it was making me really miserable.

Now i tend more towards not forcing myself to do anything that wouldn't be natural from me, and this has made me much more satisfied with myself (even if, sure, simply growing up would have that effect anyway..)

If what you are actually saying is you are naturally wired to laugh a lot and you were actually restraining yourself, well then sure, but then also i'm sure you never had much soft skills problems...

<comment><USER6> I hear you, but I will persist in the point I was trying to make. Laughing takes warmup. You might hear an excellent joke and not even snicker at it, but given the proper mindset where you're attentive to the setup, the expectation, and you're just caught off guard, it's so nice to be able to enjoy that moment. It's easily missed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Former interpersonal skills trainer here.

The comments have a lot of good suggestions. I would like to reinforce the emphasis on listening, and the idea of practicing one skill until you have it down, and then moving on to another. Also it is good to take a training course where you actually practoce the skills under the guidance of a teacher.

Also it is good to think afterwards about an interaction that went good or bad, reviewing as close to word-for-word if you can, and see what you can learn that you can use in the future. Also think of situations you have a hard time handling and see if you can think of how the skills you are learning can help, and again plan out what you might say word-for-word, and run though it a number of times, maybe even out loud, to make it more automatic.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Talk less, listen more.

2\. In the listening, include listening to yourself. Do you repeat yourself (verbatim, or patterns) in ways that will quickly or eventually bore those you talk with?

3\. Engage in low-stakes interactions. Join a softball team or running group or work at a dinner program, so that you are around other people but the focus is not about being around other people.

Anyway, that's how it looks to me.

</comment><comment><USER10> Volunteer somewhere that involves interaction with people.

Host or participate in meetups for something you're really into.

Don't worry about what others think of you or making someome happy. Just listen to people and help without expecting anything in return.

</comment><comment><USER11> 1\. Adopt a mind script that every conversation you have will be brilliant experience for you. You can say this to yourself before you even begin talking to anyone.

2\. Once you've done the hardest part (said anything, even 'hi') take a moment to think about what you did well and how you can celebrate yourself.

3\. The emotions you inject into the conversation (tip: smile as you speak) sets the expectation for others to follow. If you're enjoying yourself, others will do...but it sometimes takes them a little while to warm up.

4\. It's easy to mistake a lukewarm/ muted response for rejection. Most of the time it is NOT. The other person is just trying to work out who you are and what you want. During this time, smile, stay upbeat. They'll come round.

5\. Avoid asking questions, which is everyone's polite 'go to'. Instead, make statements. It takes more effort but it helps express yourself. "You look fun!" "That looks interesting!" will inject more emotion than asking a question. (Hint: when statements become easy you can ask questions again).

6\. What on earth do you talk about? Yourself. You need to maintain a conversation to get it going (and the other person on board). Rather than say "that drink looks yum" say "i'm thirsty...and choosing is difficult for me because I'm a software engineer...but that drink looks yum". This helps you share a little more about you and explains why you're making a statement in the first place.

7\. Have a genuine reason to actually talk to people. What's the best reason? Curiosity. Even if you're bored and lonely, say that. "Hi! I'm bored eating my lunch by myself so I thought i'd come say hi for a moment"

Source: I run this site/ youtube www.yourcharismacoach.com

</comment><comment><USER12> The biggest thing for me is to gently check if I'm drifting in a conversation and to make sure that I'm actually listening to what the other person is saying.

</comment><comment><USER13> Firstly it seems to me that I need to be true to myself. Your post has reminded me that there are others who try to evoke some particular responses in others by manipulating their own behaviour, which for me amounts to flying a false flag. Perhaps some people are better fit to carry out deception than others. I personally have not wanted to bring myself to such methods. Yet I know that many people achieve what seems to be success in life through such tactics. Obviously I'll never be rich. Yet I have wonderful friends because the soft, gentle ways of kindness are not the leading edge of a greedy riposte, but genuinely lead on to... simply more of the same. I never have to wonder what is the most appropriate reaction for a situation because I just do as I feel. I have real riches!

</comment><comment><USER14> > I always struggle with applying those concepts

Soft skills are best practiced in forced situations, such as management and conflict resolution. Learning these concepts isn't going to happen so long as you remain in situations where there is low friction from avoiding people or decisions.

</comment><comment><USER15> Now that you've read the book just stop thinking about it. Maybe pick it back up once in a while. You'll apply the ideas to some extent without knowing it and this way it will be natural and not forced, which is better.

</comment><comment><USER16> Be genuine and kind instead of engineering situations.

<comment><USER17> This works for people who naturally have good social skills, but as a way of obtaining practice it seems rather unactionable - rather like "Step 1: be attractive; step 2: don't be unattractive".

<comment><USER16> It works for anyone who is honest and considerate of others.

<comment><USER17> No: it may work if you are honest (but know when the truth is harmful) and considerate of others (but are capable of telling when your attention is harmful). Mere good intention is nowhere near enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Succinctly: you can have sensible default reactions so your brain isn't spinning and the reaction is smooth (think cache). You can take advantage of low stakes contexts to train, as opposed to trying things in a professional context where the price may be hefty(think sandbox). Empathy: seeing a situation from the perspectives of all people involved is _extremely_ useful, effective, and profitable.

Details and rationale:

There are a _lot_ of common situations. These are situations that either have a high probability of happening in a context, or happen frequently. Note I didn't say XOR.

For example, someone complimenting you. A default reaction would be to smile, and say "thank you". Making eye contact with someone: smile and say Hi/Good morning.

This will take the load off of your head. Most people I've seen who describe situations they reacted inappropriately in simply don't have a repertoire or haven't been around the block. Many people get "weird", in their own words, during some of the most banal reactions.

Sandbox: practice on the streets. Buying coffee or groceries. Being tactful and smooth takes practice, and witnessing instances of handling situations. Leveraging everyday situations to learn more about people and expanding your comfort zone. For some people, holding a five minute conversation is daunting. They can practice as they go about their business. The pressure to do that in the workplace can be unbearable, and inappropriate behavior may be a consequence of that. Low pressure situ, low stakes.

The empathy part: the ability to predict how a situation or event will be lived/interpreted/felt by different people is, again, extremely useful. In a professional context for example, running a decision to be made against different world corresponding to people will often lead to a pause and figuring out it ought to be changed because X or Y. In meetings with clients, it allows to have a loop running where you interpret what something means for one member or department of the client organization, and how it'll play with other departments.

Again, this is extremely useful.

Also, as an aside for professional contexts and useful things to do/learn: the moments before, but mostly after a meeting is over where you chat up the people who were there are the most valuable. You rally learn things and information that couldn't/wouldn't be shared because of inhibition or other factors. People will share fears, apprehend, resentment sometimes, enthusiasm with you.

</comment><comment><USER19> Read more similar books until lessons naturally internalize.

Pick one thing/idea/concept and try to apply intentionally all day in real life. See when it worked or not.

</comment><comment><USER20> Become genuinely interested in other people's lives and journeys. Go into every interaction thinking "I wonder what I will learn about this person?"

<comment><USER21> While listening, ask follow up questions. That is really the easiest way to make social interactions smooth, get to know people better and make them appreciate you.</comment></comment>


Please review my pre-beta landing page - <AUTHOR> http://lupamail.com/vqsrw

<comment><USER2> There are so many of these bland, one-sentence + email box sign-up landing pages that it's hard to really care about your product until you give people a reason to. I would try to do something more original than this, maybe taking a cue from the fact that your product is centered around email, maybe design the splash-page like an inbox? (this is just one idea, the point is to differentiate yourself from every other landing page that took 2 minutes to make with existing one-click "create a landing page" services). Also, a video or snapshots, or a few use-cases/scenarios would be good, possibly in a separate "about" section. My 0.02$, in any case good luck!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I posted a few shots on dribbble that show previews of our product! Thanks for your feedback <http://goo.gl/5rpDn></comment>


Parse launches premium feature: end-user branding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2012/05/07/express-your-brand-with-parse/ <comment><USER2> Cool, +1 This is very useful. You guys keep making parse even more awesome than it already was.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just a personal opinion from someone who is not (currently) a customer, but I didn't realize that the free service required you to accept in-app branding.

Personally, I'd much rather pay a small monthly fee for the bottom-tier (free) service than have my app branded in any way by Parse.

I could see keeping the free option open for testing, but I think a mid-range option under $200 (sans branding) would open you up to a lot more potential customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> The free service actually doesn't have any explicit in-app branding requirements. We avoid that wherever possible. These new features allow you to replace what were previously very generic password reset emails, confirmation pages, etc.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Minimum $199 per month to brand your user templates? Ouch.

<comment><USER5> If it's that important to you (and the branding is _extremely_ minimal) there's nothing to stop you writing your own wrappers using the REST API. I actually had to do this for a project that used Parse and finished just before these new features got announced - where we didn't want password reset functionality to go via the parse.com domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty sweet!</comment>


Selling Copyrighted Materials Is Not a Sustainable Business Model - <AUTHOR> http://web.bozho.net/?p=46

<comment><USER2> So you're saying that iTunes and Amazon have no future? If content is really good people will pay for it (example: HBO) and if content has no quality (example: your best friend tweeting a photo of their lunch) then it's worthless.</comment>


Scientists are copying US climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/scientists-copy-climate-change-data-vanish-trump-president-a7473291.html <comment><USER2> Countdown to Kristallnacht for scientists and their data...

<comment><USER3> "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the science community?"</comment></comment>


The FCC will publish phone numbers of robocallers and telemarketers every week - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/21/9583208/fcc-weekly-data-telemarketing-robocalls <comment><USER2> If only they would go after political robo-callers.

It will never happen, but I like to dream big.

<comment><USER3> For my SIP home phone line, I use Asterisk with an audio captcha to filter out most political calls, I enable the captch a couple of weeks before the election, and then disable it after the election. It works well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Url changed from [http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/22/fcc-publish-robocall- numb...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/22/fcc-publish-robocall-numbers/), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you like a book on? - <AUTHOR> I am planning to write a tech book this year. My JS blog is a way to practice writing which I hope will give me the confidence to work on a small book. What sort of tech topics do you think need a new book? Or a book that takes a new angle? <comment><USER2> GPU ray tracing</comment>


International Relations Theory Doesn't Understand Culture - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/21/international-relations-theory-doesnt-understand-culture/ <comment><USER2> The theory as stated in the OP explains everything and nothing - either you say that every country's culture is complex (duh), and that bundle of cultural identities, when taken together provides a relevant guide to how that country will act on the world stage, or you give up all claim to culture being analyzable on the grounds of its complexity.

We do talk in broad brush strokes about how overarching cultural norms impact the way countries act in a way that does seem to marry up with reality. The way the US acts does marry up with a commitment to a broadly liberal international order, underpinned by the principles of the Constitution. The UK acts in a way that is informed by its history and a respect for the rule of law. China and Russia, on the other hand, act in a way that respects individual sovereignty and the 'international order' much less.

The English school has much to say, even if you acknowledge that it may not pick up finer distinctions, and is still tied to a Westphalian view of the world (both valid criticisms)

<comment><USER3> The "international" world order isn't international. It's american. It's called the american world order ( or pax americana ). Of course we support the "international" world order more than china or russia. It was created by us to benefit us. I'm sure china, russia and every other major power would love to establish their own world order.

The talk about constitution, rule of law, etc doesn't matter ultimately. The constitution or the rule of law are just things we follow when it suits our interests. It's why we broke every treaty with native americans and committed heinous genocides against them. It's why we enslaved blacks and then treated them as second rate citizens after slavery. And how many illegal wars have we been engaged in?

All the intellectual niceties are meaningless. At the end of the day, nations act in the way that the elites ( or a sufficient number of the elites ) of the nation want them to act. Nations are created by the elites to benefit the elites.

<comment><USER4> > The "international" world order isn't international. It's american.

This is a contingent fact that's only true as of the end of WWII. The international world order was British before it was American; it was French (however partially) before it was British - and indeed, French is still an international language in diplomacy and e.g. at the UN. It still was, and is, an international order, ruled by the same sort of basic principles and norms. Of course there _are_ some opportunistic advantages to that stewardship role, but that's all they are - advantages. Nobody would rationally want to upset the apple cart, even though they might physically be able to do so.

<comment><USER3> There was no international order before ww2. Besides, the US was easily the largest economy and arguably the greatest naval power ( matching the british empire ) for decades before ww2. The pre-ww2 era was an era of major powers ( US, british empire, russian/soviet empire, germany, japan, etc ). And even then, it was the US forcing them to accept our version of the "international order".

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

French is an offical language of the UN, but so is mandarin, arabic, russian, spanish, etc. Using your logic, the chinese, egypt, russia, etc ruled the world?

There has been one international world order. The american world order. The british empire never created one. Neither did the french, russians, chinese or arabs.

What basic principles and norms? The international world order, like all order, is ruled by the fist ( or might ). A lot of people had to die and will continue to die for "order". "Priniciples and norms" are just fluff we make up to distract from or justify the fist.

Lots of people would want to "upset the apple cart". Do you really think the chinese or the russians or even the germans or japanese or eventually the indians or any other major nation wouldn't want to be top dog?

<comment><USER5> > There was no international order before ww2.

There had been two successive world orders before WWII. The first emerged at the 1815 Congress of Vienna and ended with WWI. The second was created after WWI and ended with WWII. See this Foreign Affairs magazine article for more explanations: [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united- states/2018-1...](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united- states/2018-12-11/fourth-founding)

<comment><USER6> While not a _world_ order, a distinct international order (which GP denies existing before WW2) is usually identified stemming from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Or maybe, "culture" theorists don't understand IR-- or economic development, for that matter. Culture, taken in a broad sense, explains almost everything about which societies become economically successful and which don't! As Deirdre McCloskey's work on the 'bourgeois virtues' makes quite clear, this is true over a huge range of scales, from the fairly small and local to the very large.

<comment><USER7> I am not following you here. If, as you say, "culture, taken in a broad sense, explains almost everything about which societies become economically successful and which don't", then the causality there would be from culture to IR, IR would therefore be dependent on culture, and IR should pay attention to culture. Are you saying that cultures are influenced by ideas from other nations? That seems plausible to me, but that would not make it an either/or situation (either IR does not get culture or culture theory does not get IR.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I read this article closely and it seems like it's a volley in a long-standing debate i'm not familiar with. Can someone provide more context?

<comment><USER9> It's an entirely discrete social science field, so if you want to know more I suppose you can start with the Wikipedia article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_relations_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_relations_theory)

There's plenty in there that isn't about culture, but it's hard to parse TFA without at least skimming over the definitions of Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism.

My personal view, from someone who studied International Relations in undergrad: at the end of the day, these are all just conjectures with few real-world implications. Basically a bunch of academics trying to one up each other with the most creative, elegant and innovative model of how States operate and what drives foreign policy, despite the fact that virtually none of them have ever been in a room where the real meaningful foreign policy decisions are made, and with a very myopic view on the role that Economics / Business / Psychology shape international relations.

<comment><USER10> > despite the fact that virtually none of them have ever been in a room where > the real meaningful foreign policy decisions are made

I always liked this quote about policymaking:

"This is the most pervasive of of all Washington legends: that politicians in Washington are ceaselessly, ruthlessly, effectively scheming. That everything that happens fits into somebody's plan. It doesn't. Maybe it started out with a scheme, but soon enough everyone is, at best, reacting, and at worst, failing to react, and always, always they're doing it with less information than they need.

That's been a key lesson I've learned working as a reporter and political observer in Washington: No one can carry out complicated plans. All parties and groups are fractious and bumbling. But everyone always thinks everyone else is efficiently and ruthlessly implementing long-term schemes."

<comment><USER11> That might well be true, but there are long-term plans, not everything is reactive. The US global hegemony project for example was a long term strategy that was planned and decided upon. Local implementations may be reactions to local circumstances, but it's not like everybody was busy playing cards and they accidentally stumbled into building an empire.

I'm sure it's not a small circle of shadowy people that only meet at 2am and require a heavily sedated black cat for each participant, but there are plans and decisions, and actions carried out that commit the country to tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and military involvement measured in decades. Those aren't "oh gosh, what's this now? well, put some duct tape on it, I suppose" reactions.

<comment><USER10> You're right that some decisions put things on a trajectory that can have massive ramifications for decades. I am still a bit skeptical of anyone's ability to project very far out.

Even a decision to go to war is full of uncertainty. Iraq I was days, Iraq II was decades. A general can never promise you it will come out one of those ways or the other.

Maybe I'm wrong though. It'd at least be nice to imagine someone has a plan and that it's not all just organic chaos.

"The Thick of It" does a good job explaining my side though -- it almost feels like a documentary for policy circles. The environment at that level is unbelievably frenetic. Getting anything done with intention is a near miracle.

But you're probably right that sometimes, at least on rare occasions, important people are able to clear off enough space to make important things happen that are long lasting with intention. I just think it's the exception, not the rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What an important issue. These old-fashioned views screw up almost every large country's foreign policy.

It's fascinating to me that Woodrow Wilson is seen as such a man of peace, when his promulgation of national self-determinism came straight out of his racist Jim Crow views, and was a key element in the development of WWII and its aftermath.

<comment><USER13> > his promulgation of national self-determinism came straight out of his > racist Jim Crow views

Can you expand on this? I'm having some trouble understanding the connection.

<comment><USER12> He was a southern, segregationist racist who segregated the federal government. He believed that there were nations and races and that they fundamentally had different interests.

Sure it was a handy tool to use against a multiethnic empire like Austria- Hungary, but the whole idea of "national self-determination" sprang from his racist beliefs that people are fundamentally different.

<comment><USER4> Hungary wanted out, for reasons that had nothing to do with Wilson. The first "Compromise", partially restoring her sovereignty, is from as early as 1867! And after the Austrians lost in WWI full independence was clearly in the cards, no matter what Wilson would say. "Racism" seems to be mostly a red herring when it comes to Wilson's beliefs, especially since he was also influential in establishing the League of Nations.

<comment><USER12> Wilson was a notorious racist, that's hardly an opinion. As I said he segregated the federal government, praised "Birth of a nation" etc.

And we often use "nation" and "country" indistinguishably (especially Americans) but the point of "national sovereignty" was that each "nation" or "race" (in his time it was common to say "Italian race" or "Irish race") should have self-government regardless of whether they had been living happily together or not.

Not that he felt the US should be slit up or anything — having the "white man" (as they phrased it then) run everything was important to him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Too hand wavy.

On a related note, "On the Plurality of Civilizations"[0] by Feliks Koneczny offers interesting insights. Koneczny, too, wrote this book in the 1930s, but I have no reason to think he falls into the same camp(s) the article mentions. For instance, while he classifies civilizations according to a set of criteria he develops in the book, he does not believe that any society is civilizationally "pure". However, he does believe that any self-respecting civilization does spread and "wants" to spread. Spreading, of course, may be accomplished by sharing ones civilization with others, confident that it is good and right. It may be spread by the sword. I may also be spread in incidental ways, such as the way laws governing marriage may require e.g. that children in interfaith marriages be raised in the faith of the father or the mother which I believe is how Islam spread in Egypt (Muslim women are forbidden from marrying non-Muslim men but Muslim men may marry non-Muslim women but must raise their children in the Islamic faith). In any case, economics suffers from problems, too, when it begins with a false understanding of Man and society. The hyperindividualistic, atomistic extreme on the one hand (e.g. libertarianism) and the collectivist, individual-denying extreme on the other (e.g. socialism) both completely botch the proper comprehension of man and society and how they relate. FWIW, Koneczny avoids both.

[0] [https://www.scribd.com/doc/4464979/ON-THE-PLURALITY-OF- CIVIL...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/4464979/ON-THE-PLURALITY-OF- CIVILIZATIONS-Feliks-Koneczny-Entire-Book)

</comment><comment><USER15> A valid perspective, but it isn't completely obvious that thinking culturally is outdated. America is losing its ability to police the world [0]. Even if that is simply the military looking for more funding, given China's industrial capability it is difficult to see the US maintaining its hegemony for the next generation.

These 'old fashioned' ideas were formed in a world where equals competed from resources, and the 'modern' ideas are being formed in a world where there is only one superpower. The situation could easily change.

[0] [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-military-might-struggle- to-...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-military-might-struggle-to-win-or- perhaps-lose-war-with-china-or-russia-report-says/)</comment>


BuzzFeed missed 2015 revenue targets and slashes 2016 projections - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/26ebf992-00c4-11e6-99cb-83242733f755.html <comment><USER2> Note: hit the "web" link to get to the Google search results with the headline if you run into FT's paywall.

Here's the graf with the 2015 numbers:

> _The company, known for its lists, irreverent content and fast-growing > editorial operation, had projected about $250m in revenues for 2015 but > generated less than $170m, according to three people with knowledge of the > situation._</comment>


Ask HN: Best book/resource for SEO? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a novice when it comes to SEO, so I'd like to ask the community for the best resource out there in order to rank higher on Google. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Start by reading the Google webmaster guidelines:

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER3> There are some decent resources in here and there are some horrible ones. In my experience HN has never been a great resource for this kind of stuff.

I worked as a consultant for many years managing SEO for a number of fortune 500 style companies at a very high and detailed level. I lived and breathed nothing but this for years.

Practically the only book I have come across so far to date which I would feel comfortable recommending to anyone is this: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Art- SEO-Theory-Practice/dp/1449304...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Theory- Practice/dp/1449304214) however for the record they are releasing a new version of this book at the end of this month which you can pre-order here: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Mastering- Optimization/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Mastering- Optimization/dp/1491948965/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll go with the book you're recommending.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> best forum I know of : [https://www.webmasterworld.com](https://www.webmasterworld.com)

Best SEO person I know : [https://www.softwarepromotions.com](https://www.softwarepromotions.com)

And then there is a ton of free e-books out there, but the best way is to build a site and try to get it ranking high.

</comment><comment><USER5> I really enjoyed this one that was required reading for an ecommerce class I had in college. Don't worry, not a textbook: [https://books.google.com/books/about/Inbound_Marketing.html?...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Inbound_Marketing.html?id=VKwD8lKzeEoC&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER6> I highly recommend Alex Becker and his Sourcewave.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/SourceWaveVideos](https://www.youtube.com/user/SourceWaveVideos)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo](https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to- seo)

</comment><comment><USER8> Moz.com is really solid if you're not already familiar. They have tools to manage campaigns, in addition to content and community.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would just trust the first option to appear when you google for it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hey, check these 4 SEO resources:

[https://zen.market/?q=SEO](https://zen.market/?q=SEO)

Helped me.

EDIT: website is built by me. check the 4 links under "Get armed with SEO tools". clicking on search result brings dropdown with all resources. These resources are the most explicit I could find.

<comment><USER7> You're not going to disclaim you're just linking your own site? Also there doesn't seem to be any real valuable resources there.</comment></comment>


West Africa's first female astrophysicist - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/02/22/marie-korsaga-west-africas-first-female-astrophysicist/ <comment><USER2> As somebody (male-ish) who has made a PhD astrophysics in western Europe, I find this great but surprising at the same time.

One thing is that we have here only 20-30% females starting with studying physics. There is a "pyramid effect" that this percentage decreases with more advances grades (bachelor, master, PhD, professor). There are several theories why it is like this. One contribution is surely the culture which is dominated by men and typical male behaviour patterns (which are sometimes even bizzare for not-so-dominant-men).

I worked in a quite interdisciplinary institute, we had collaborations to every continent, but Africa was the least represented. At least everything southern Agyptian. It is very good that there is now >= 1 female holding a PhD in wat Africa :-)</comment>


Loving Hacker News to Death... What next? - <AUTHOR>

I've pretty much ditched my RSS reader in favor of hacker news. After all, everything I'm interested in reading consists of 1) entrepreneurial content, 2) silicon valley news and 3) the latest development trends. Why do I need to subscribe to all these blogs when the best content for me ends up on the front page of HN?
That said, I'm wondering if there is any other content out there that like-minded folks would suggest I turn my attention to.
No techcrunch or any of that crap. I'm talking really good content for hacker/entrepreneurs. Or is this mecca for me and there is no where else to look? <comment><USER2> Oh, oh, don't do this! This is a bad bad thing - don't get all your news from one source and already pre-filtered for you. You lose track of alternative opinions, you lose track of how the rest of the world thinks, and soon you cannot innovate anymore because all your ideas are pretty much the same.

It's terrible terrible mistake to only have one news source.

<comment><USER3> I do agree with you in some respects, but you must also consider that HN isn't "pre-filtered" in the sense of a newspaper. Anyone can submit a link (which can make it to the front page), and you can click over to 'new' to see all links chronologically. I think that's a big flaw in saying "one news source" is bad in today's technology age.

<comment><USER4> The submitters are somewhat pre-filtered as the group of people that submit links to Hacker News is different from journalists and bloggers.

Certainly, it's better than only viewing one blog, or one website or one parent company (e.g. Fox, CNN), but it still has flaws.

<comment><USER3> It wouldn't very well be hacker news if it were submitted by non-hackers, huh?

<comment><USER4> Technically, I'm a non-hacker :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://nonhackernews.com> <http://newmogul.com> <http://newsvine.com> is good for raw mainstream pundit news of the "breaking" kind. and <http://www.newsvine.com/world-news> for world news.

<comment><USER6> Newsvine is way too similar in color and layout to The Onion. I thought, "hey, that's not funny... oh"

<comment><USER4> I seriously think that's one of the reasons they haven't done so well.

<comment><USER5> They can't be doing _that_ badly if they're paying the AP syndication fee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If we didn't read other sources and (especially) aggregators, how would Hacker News continue to thrive?

</comment><comment><USER8> There are other places to look, as mentioned, but in my experience you are not going to find better stories or commentary than HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, reddit (and digg and dzone and <insert social media site>) just don't do it for me. The content is not the right blend.

<comment><USER9> I agree (especially on the Digg part), but I still find quality programming- related articles on Proggit (<http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hacker news seems to have the best signal-to-noise in its community, that's why I'm here. The spinoffs rms posted are probably the best place to look next, but I don't think they have the critical mass userbase (yet).

</comment><comment><USER11> What amazes me about HN is the number of famous hackers who post comments and read. It's also like a democracy in that I can vote (comments up/down). I've also worked out what kinds of posts get karma points, and I've adjusted (eg, by sincerity, sarcasm, pun/wit) to what helps the community most, and thus gets me the most karma.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't know if its worked for anybody else.. but i recently got the stumbleupon bar and if you choose your interest, it gives quite interesting results.

Not comparable to HN or even reddit/programming.

</comment><comment><USER9> A very similar question was asked not so long ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=284019>

It got a lot of interesting answers.

</comment><comment><USER13> >Why do I need to subscribe to all these blogs when the best content for me ends up on the front page of HN?

So you can submit interesting stuff for the rest of us to read :)

</comment><comment><USER14> <http://www.scholarspot.com> still in the works but full of highly relevant hacker videos.

</comment><comment><USER15> Try online comics. You probably know xkcd. Just look at the authors recommendations at the bottom of his page.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've actually added a couple dozen blogs to my RSS reader which I first encountered on HN.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love Hacker news, but, but... has there ever been any discussion about the desirability of having a couple of lines of summary under the headline? The headline only format irks me.

<comment><USER17> Oops, I'm modded down. I presume that this is a stupid idea that has been suggested and rejected n000 times before. Anyone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> reddit.com

<comment><USER19> did you mean digg.com? /sarcasm

I can hardly tell the difference there now. :(

<comment><USER20> Unsubscribe from the [reddit] subreddit and you filter out a lot of bullshit. The smaller, topic-specific subreddits can be filled with users with a brain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> <http://slashdot.org/></comment>


Instadrop: Connect your Instagram account to Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://instadrop.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> Painless and easy, and a bit of glue I didn't realize I wanted until I saw it.

Minuscule nitpick: on the Instagram oAuth screen, it asks if I want to allow "Instadrop - production" access. Now that it's working you can probably drop the "production" part.</comment>


35% of excess deaths from pandemic not caused by Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/35-percent-of-excess-deaths-from-pandemic-not-caused-by-covid-19 <comment><USER2> According to the article, there are 2 types of excess deaths:

\- the virus can also cause death by exacerbating underlying health issues; the body's immune system is weakened while fighting off the illness.

\- the sudden emergence and rapid spread of the disease overwhelmed critical care units when the virus was at its peak, reducing the amount of care any individual patient could receive.

And the argument of "35% excess deaths not caused by COVID-19" is perhaps technically correct due to the reasons above, however, those are indirect deaths that had the root cause of SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus. Notice the difference between COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2? The former is the disease, the latter is the virus.

As Dr. Mike Hansen said in a few of his autopsy report review videos he made in his YouTube channel[1], there are very few direct cause of death in the death certificate he signed and issued for his ICU patients, most related to blood clots and lack of oxygen but the common indirect cause is the SARS- CoV-2. In other words, if it weren't for the coronavirus infection, these deaths could either be prevented or delayed.

So I think it's more nuanced than simply saying we are attributing 35% the excess deaths to COVID-19 whereas these are indirectly caused by SAR-CoV-2 viral outbreak.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6h8TIxeg1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6h8TIxeg1g)

<comment><AUTHOR> No. You are not representing the article or the study accurately. There are many other reasons for excess deaths than the two you mentioned.

From the article:

>there were 96% more diabetes-related deaths than experts predicted. For heart disease, the figure was 89%; for Alzheimer's disease, it was 64%; and for stroke, it was 35%.

>As well as people not being able to get the necessary treatment due to hospitals being overloaded, the study authors also speculate that people may have stayed at home due to the virus despite experiencing worsening symptoms of another condition they may have had.

>They also believe that the pandemic's effects on people's mental health may have played a part.

>As Prof. Woolf notes: "We can't forget about mental health. A number of people struggling with depression, addiction, and very difficult economic conditions caused by lockdowns may have become increasingly desperate, and some may have died by suicide. People addicted to opioids and other drugs may have overdosed."

<comment><USER3> Went through a few years of suffering minor strokes, only finally got stabilized back in January.

Had several bad scares that I didn't go in that I really should have.

Finally had a bad enough scare that I went to ER. Apparently heart isn't doing great, or heading in that direction. I was stable enough to go home. With strict instructs to get additional testing in day's.

Yet I'm Having major problems getting access to a cardiologist due to everything.

So yea, i lucked out in getting stable right before things shut down. But having a seriously hard time getting any follow up care.

So at a certain point this shutdown will kill me. And I'm fairly young.

So I have to balance virus risk with the more likely death due to lack of care.

<comment><USER4> If in your location shutdown policies are preventing you from getting healthcare, they are doing their shutdown wrong. This is very sad.

<comment><USER5> This is known to be happening in the UK too. The expectation is for thousands of 'excess' cancer deaths due to reduced cancer-related medical services.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-53310007/they-paused- my...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-53310007/they-paused-my-chemo- because-of-covid)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53300784](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53300784)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some sources of excess deaths:

1) In Wuhan, when the primary care taker(s) of a child or a disabled or elderly person suddenly become hospitalized and there's no opportunity to arrange backup care, there were many stories of when dependent is found deceased later.

2) Sometimes, a month or two after someone 'fully recovers' from Covid-19, they experience a blood clot. If that clot results in a stroke or heart attack...

3) Sometimes a Covid-19 survivor has organ damage significant enough to be on a transplant list. Due to fewer car accidents, the organ supply isn't what it used to be in the BC era...

<comment><USER7> Problem is that inactivity is also known to cause blood clots and subsequent problems, hence deep vein thrombosis being linked with long distance flights. What happens during lockdown, people stop moving about and spend all day sitting at home.

I think we need to be apply critical thinking to claims of the form, "some one recovered fully but then was struck down by covid19 a second time". That can easily be a correlation/causation fallacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My suggestion is to skip the article and read the original paper instead: [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768086](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768086)

It's not any longer and written in clearer language.

The paper simply summarizes the _reported_ causes of excess death.

</comment><comment><USER9> It would be nice if we counted COVID-19 deaths the way we count flu deaths, which is generally using the "excess deaths" figure. Why some states would go with "50% of excess deaths" or "65% of excess deaths" seems like an odd choice. Are there non-political reasons for doing that?

<comment><USER9> It seems that we are much more generous in how we count flu deaths, so that 15,620[0] confirmed tracked deaths in the most recent flu season ends up as an estimated 42,000.

All the comparisons I've seen this year have been using the 24,000-62,000 flu estimate uncritically when comparing to COVID-19, but apples to apples is apparently 15,620 for flu and 132,056 for COVID-19[1].

Perhaps flu-like estimates will come later, since the CDC tends to wait until the end of flu seasons to release those numbers. We're clearly nowhere near the end of COVID-19 season.

[0] [https://news.yahoo.com/flu-deaths-were-counted- covid-0534499...](https://news.yahoo.com/flu-deaths-were-counted- covid-053449918.html)

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases- updates/case...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases- updates/cases-in-us.html)

<comment><USER10> When is the end of COVID-19 season? Why would the COVID-19 season have different dates than the flu season?

<comment><USER9> We have a very long history with the flu, and know that historically, the season ends around March every year.

COVID-19 is new, and was barely getting started in March. Despite early claims that it would definitely taper off in the summer, apparently based on the fact that the flu does, it is not tapering off at all. We have no idea when COVID-19 will taper off, or if it will before herd immunity is reached (with or without a vaccine).

So we don't know yet when the end will be, and they have different dates because they are different viruses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 The article is not what I expected. The 35% are deaths caused indirectly by the disease, not the results of things like change of behavior or economic downturns.

The 35% are from people who supposedly recovered from Covid-19 but died later from complications or a weakened body. I still would call that Covid-19 deaths.

In the same way that if you fall, break your leg, and later die from infection, we can still say that the fall caused your death, even though what sealed your fate is a bacteria and not mechanical damage.

<comment><AUTHOR> No. Read it again. Some are. Some aren't. We don't know what percent fall in each category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So far. Secondary effects from lockdown will continue long after the pandemic wave is over.

For example, consider how many people delayed a cancer screening or treatment in the last few months. If anyone who loses a month of life to respiratory disease is a "COVID death", then anyone who loses a year to cancer, because they waited to treat it, is a "lockdown death", right?

<comment><USER12> Aren't those "lockdown deaths" still "Coronavirus deaths" though? The reason lockdowns have to be done is to prevent the much larger number of deaths that would occur if coronavirus is allowed to spread unhindered. So it's not clear to me why you need to make this distinction here.

Of course the distinction matters from a biological and medical point of view, but from a policy point of view all you really need to know is that if coronavirus didn't exist then those deaths wouldn't have happened.

<comment><USER11> > The reason lockdowns have to be done is to prevent the much larger number of > deaths that would occur if coronavirus is allowed to spread unhindered.

This claim is _not_ accepted by all in the medical or scientific community. This is just the line from the _epidemiologists_ who have the most influence, and it has been amplified by the media into some sort of unquestionable creed. My guess is the damage that these epidemiologists have done is going to be far worse than the disease itself. If you can't see that their over-simplified non-linear models are essentially just guesses too, then you are missing a big part of the picture.

<comment><USER13> I mean it's really simple.

No lockdown => hospitals overwhelmed => people can't get care they need or people avoid hospitals to avoid getting sick => excess deaths

Lockdown => hospitals less overwhelmed => people avoid hospitals due to lockdown or to avoid getting sick => excess deaths (but less than the no lockdown scenario)

Here in Austin our medical community is practically begging us to take better precautions because our hospital system is starting to hit capacity due to the second wave we're staring down [1]. Saying it's not 'accepted' in the medical community seems wrong.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4kCwo1JMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4kCwo1JMc)

<comment><USER14> >No lockdown => hospitals overwhelmed => people can't get care they need or people avoid hospitals to avoid getting sick => excess deaths

>Lockdown => hospitals less overwhelmed => people avoid hospitals due to lockdown or to avoid getting sick => excess deaths (but less than the no lockdown scenario)

Right, but eventually as things taper off there's a crossover point where the first option will have less deaths going forward. Where that crossover point is the point of contention.

<comment><USER15> Really? how exactly would people go to hospital if they are already overwhelmed& Like, have their cancer surgery in hospital cafeteria?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Lockdowns and fear-spreading are a political decisions, regardless to if we judge them to be wrong or not. So, if people don't go to the doctor, that's because they are worried from what they watched on television. If hospitals collapse, that's because they are either not prepared, or have lots of staff in quarantine. That's not because of a virus, but because of how humans were prepared and chose to deal with the situation.

<comment><USER17> This framing where any action that takes virus seriously is talked about as "fear" is quite manipulative political action too. Let's not pretend the "whether we judge it right or wrong" somehow removes it.

So is attributing overloaded hospitals to "lots of staff in quarantine" given how it looked like in Italy or Spain or New York.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how officials record deaths where the person was just found dead. Do they try to figure out the causes of death? It was reported in New York City that the rate at which firefighters and paramedics were finding dead people at home had increased by 10x over normal rates. They were finding 200 or more people daily.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately, in many places tests were not being performed as part of the autopsy, so to understand how many of those were Covid19 deaths, researchers will have to use a model derived from known cases and causes of death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have been shouting from the roof tops that if we don't implement some sort of UBI and second string PPP program we are going to see many more people die deaths of desperation as their economic livleyhoods are stripped away.

<comment><USER21> Suicide is up in every countries with lockdowns. "Generous" money printing or not.

<comment><USER22> The suicide rate from 1999 until 2019 increased by 35%[1]. It's been an unaddressed growing systemic issue for a long time. As of June 23, the COVID death rate was 36 per 100,000[2] in just a handful of months. As of 2019 the average suicide rate was 14 per 100,000[1]. Unless that suicide rate does an unprecedented 250% jump it's not going to have the impact Covid has had so far, not to mention the rest of the year, which as we can see is going to be messy given the rate of increases (many of the current hotspots had a big jump in deaths per day the last couple of days).

It's tragic that suicide is increasing, it really is, but COVID is the far greater threat.

[1][https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db362.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db362.htm)

[2][https://www.statista.com/chart/21170/coronavirus-death- rate-...](https://www.statista.com/chart/21170/coronavirus-death-rate- worldwide/)

<comment><USER23> Here is a doctor claiming they've seen a 13x increase (+1200%) in suicides: [https://abc7news.com/health/suicides-on-the-rise-amid- stay-a...](https://abc7news.com/health/suicides-on-the-rise-amid-stay-at-home- order-bay-area-doctors-say/6201962/)

<comment><USER24> He later retracted that, as it wasn't true: [https://www.redding.com/story/news/2020/05/29/no-bay-area- ho...](https://www.redding.com/story/news/2020/05/29/no-bay-area-hospital-has- not-seen-a-years-worth-suicides-coronavirus/5279780002/)

<comment><USER23> That's an awesome find, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The explanation is simple. Tests are not reliable. This is what is happening now in Central Asia.

</comment><comment><USER25> Was this article run through Google Translate? It's horribly written.

</comment><comment><USER26> , sxzzs i

</comment><comment><USER27> >up to 35% of excess deaths during the early phase of the pandemic may not have been directly due to COVID-19

Does that mean the other 65% of excess deaths were or "may have been" due to COVID?

<comment><USER28> You can read the article before commenting, you know.

<comment><USER27> I did, I honestly did not feel it was very clear about ANYTHING it said.

There's so many "may" and non specific statements, etc that I'm not at all sure what it is it is saying.</comment></comment></comment>


Bush: "I probably won't even vote for McCain" - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/11/bush-i-probably-wont-even-vote-for-mccain/

<comment><USER2> Already proven false: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/bush-obama- endorsem...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/bush-obama-endorsement- mccain_n_781476.html)

<comment><USER3> It's not "proven", Bush is just claiming he never said it.

He also claimed there were WMDs in Iraq. Jusayyin'.</comment></comment>


Italian council flooded immediately after rejecting measures on climate change - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/14/europe/veneto-council-climate-change-floods-trnd-intl-scli/ <comment><USER2> They'd be better off spending the money on measures to mitigate damage from rising seas (and their sinking city). Venetian impact on climate chance is a rounding error. But they are going to hit worse than everyone else.</comment>


Show HN: Tamper-proof web-apps using Data URLs - <AUTHOR> http://geraintluff.bitbucket.org/caution-presentation/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand the goal of this. Maybe it is related to IPFS. Have you seen it?</comment>


The AppStore Is a Pain - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mail_85203/being-an-ios-developer-must-be-stressful-764cd0090bc6 <comment><USER2> All those mentioned pain points are also valid for Google Play store. If you want to keep your sanity just avoid being depended on those wallet gardens.</comment>