Relativity  Space (YC W16) Gets a Launch Site at Cape Canaveral - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/1/17/18185136/relativity-space-3d-printing-terran-1-rocket-cape-canaveral-florida <comment><USER2> This is great news! I love to see new companies in this field.

Rocket Lab is also using 3D printing successfully on their process: [https://www.rocketlabusa.com/](https://www.rocketlabusa.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> > Relativity wants to make building a rocket almost entirely automated.

They sound as ambitious as Tesla was - for using automation in manufacturing Model 3.

Another startup idea - lets 3D print electric cars

<comment> King-Aaron I don't know how far the project has gone since their announcements, but there are startups doing this :)

[https://all3dp.com/4/xev-start-production-3d-printed- electri...](https://all3dp.com/4/xev-start-production-3d-printed-electric- car-3d-printing-mega-factory/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Relativity will try to realize its more ambitious long-term goal: taking this manufacturing process to the Red Planet and building a rocket using 3D printers on Mars."

Why not aim to build a fuel factory first, to refuel spacecraft for return trips?

<comment><USER5> Maybe because a fuel factory wouldn't be immediately profitable on Earth like building rockets? On Earth there are plenty of cheaper ways to make fuel.

I do agree though that fuel is the most important thing to start making on Mars though. That and air and water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this the first YC backed Space startup?

<comment><USER7> No, there is also e.g. bagaveev.com .

<comment><USER6> Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there another way to get to "Real AI" than deep learning? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Well, nobody knows since strong AI doesn't exist yet.

That said I'm not sure why it would be assumed deep learning is necessarily a path to that, let alone the only path.

I suspect that if you asked a strong AI to bootstrap itself, it'd probably figure out quite a few radically different ways to do so. There probably isn't just one path.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps some kind of evolutionary algorithm might work.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do employers prefer traditional college education over online ones? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Employers don't care either way - what they care about is getting high quality employees.

Candidates want to be able to signal to an employer that they are a high quality employee. The way this is done is by using the college admissions process as the means of signalling (the harder to get in the better the graduates must be).

Any new college faces the problem of attracting high quality students since they are not able to provide the needed signalling that their graduates want. The historical way this has been overcome is by paying big dollars for star teachers and researchers. This will draw in some good students who care more about quality than the signalling, these good students will raise the entry requirements which will then bring in more good students creating a virtuous circle.

I hope you see why online colleges are worthless if what you want is employer signalling - they may of course still provide a good education, but they are not going to help you get a job.</comment>


Got a deck? Solar panels now a plug-in appliance - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57432731-76/got-a-deck-solar-panels-now-a-plug-in-appliance/ <comment><USER2> Some rural locations have very expensive electricity so this is a great option for plug and play.

The fact that it's only half the 15 amp maximum for house wiring safety and that it turns off when there is a blackout so electricians don't get killed by the backfeed are really nice touches.

Now bring on the clones for half the price ;-)

<comment><USER3> Generally the expensive part in rural locations is paying to get miles of lines in. This cannot be used offgrid.

Also, when you have a long line to a rural location, and the power goes out due to an ice storm, welcome to the bottom of the repair priority list. I've been there for up to 1.5 weeks before. :) Having the solar power cut out at this point is not a good design feature.

Sounds great for urban use though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This price would have sounded great a few years ago, but you can get whole house solar installs for ~$4k, enough to replace your power. We got a 4.6 kw system installed on our house for less than $4k out of pocket. Check out SolarCity or any solar company that offers a lease to own program.

<comment><USER5> You can't compare the price of leasing a product to the price to own something outright.

<comment><USER6> For something that loses value over time, I would argue that it makes a good deal of sense to compare the price of leasing to the price of owning outright.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> i was just reading about micro inverters the other day. one possible advantage is that smaller systems (less than 1KW?) may not be subject to the certified electrician, plan reviews, mains interconnect shutoff for solar on the outside of the house, etc. read up on it a little, and doing a micro install may really save some money.

read through this[1], and you get an idea the panels and inverter is the easy part. the hard part is compliance with local ordinances.

i just started reading about the micro inverters[2] and these are very different than a 12vdc to 110vac inverter you plug into your car. they track the mains power to dump your solar power back into the line at the correct phase to the grid, and if the mains shuts off, these have to shut off (called island mode? ) and not back feed. from what i can tell, these little inverters are around $1/W so for a 230W PV panel, plan on spending at least $500 total to get the matching micro inverter. really a pretty good deal.

[1] [http://www.rctlma.org/building/content/docs/284_79_photovolt...](http://www.rctlma.org/building/content/docs/284_79_photovoltaic_power_system_permits_reqs.pdf)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_micro-inverter>

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't quite get this. For a DIY kit, I wish they'd use simpler language. Do I just prop these up in the backyard and plug them in to an outside outlet? Is that it?

<comment><USER9> That's what I don't quite get either... so, you plug this into your outdoor outlet. Does that then provide extra power to your house? To just that circuit?

<comment><USER7> it will back feed through the breaker of the circuit you plug it into and help power anything on that side of your breaker box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great writing! I've known about this hardware for years but it still sold me. (at least until the 20 year payoff calculation.)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have two problems with this. First, it is a severe safety issue for power company linemen if your local power company does not know about your system and know where the external shutoff switch is. Second, we installed a solar system last year and the installation (physical panel installation and electronics, with interactions with the local power company) as only about 13% of the bill ($1800/$13600).

<comment><USER12> From the third paragraph:

"If there is a loss of grid power, the panels will stop delivering current because it could be a danger to line workers, according to the company."

<comment><USER11> I missed that, thanks! That makes the $1000 panel kit (which probably generates 200 to 250 watts when it is sunny) very price competitive. That said, I really like my large professionally installed system and I like getting paid by my local power company.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, the plug-n-play is neat but why not do it properly, and get a two-way meter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why is the system limited to 5 solar panels? Is there a reason I would not be able to purchase 25 of these and put them on the deck I don't have?

Their site looks like they could use a little design assistance: <http://spinrayenergy.com/>

Their "Product Specs/Data" page is a 404.

<comment><USER14> From the site:

"Already bought a "DeckPower120" solar appliance and want to add more green power? "DeckPower120" solar was designed for easy connection, and additional kits can be added over time, up to 5 kits can be connected into a single outside receptacle, and can produce over 1,000 watts of clean green energy!"

<http://spinrayenergy.com/DeckPower120.html>

So that's a total of 25 solar panels (each kit has five panels).

So if you have 1000 watts* / 120 v you get 8.3 Amps. Most (US) household 120 are wired at 15 amps max (via the wire gauge + circuit breaker). 20 amps circuits require heavier wire and larger circuit breakers.

*1000 watts assume max output from solar panels.

I should send this to my master electrician brother to see what he thinks of these.

<comment><USER5> Incorrect, each kit only comes with 1 panel. So 5 kits means you get 5 panels.

"The DeckPower120™ solar appliance comes with everything you need to start receiving FREE supplimental home solar energy: (1) 240 watt high efficiency mono-crystalline solar panel listed to UL 1703 "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone know if how many years of usage it would take to gain back the cost of the $1000 panel kit?

<comment><USER16> It depends on:

 _Where (climate) and_ Location on house (shading) and _Electricity Price and_ Discount Rate and *Utility/Government Incentives (vary by utility)

but at $5.50/W (assuming installation is free) in a place like Phoenix, you're looking at about 27 years before incentives, about 20 years after.

$5.50/W is kinda steep nowadays, but probably a decent deal for a hobbyist- sized system of this nature.</comment></comment>


Scala.js - Write in Scala for the browser - <AUTHOR> http://lampwww.epfl.ch/~doeraene/presentations/scala-js-scaladays2013/#/

<comment><USER2> First of all, if you watched the slides, you just ran the first `hello world` Scala-js app in your browser. The slides use the scala-js runtime. Developer tools have scalajs-runtime.js at 1.7MB compressed and about 4s to download/execute, then about 1.5s on subsequent refreshes.

Now, having seen the talk at Scala days here are a few notes/thoughts:

This is currently the result of 4 months worth of work, and Sébastien Doeraene, the author of the slides and the code there-in, is going to be working on it at EPFL for the next 4 years or so for his doctorate.

This is being done by replacing the backend portions of the Scala compiler that emit java bytecode with ones that emit javascript.

When the slide showing that it is 16MB came up everyone laughed and the author acknowledged how large a number this is. It is the result of having to bring in the entire the Scala standard lib. He is planning to work on ways of cutting this number down.

At the end of talk Martin Odersky commented from the audience that this is an attempt by the EPFL at making Scala useable for large webapp development. If it proves successful more resources will put towards supporting it.

I plan to try this out for internal sites used by my company. Currently we split and then have to duplicate a lot of our code between Scala / Javascript. Scala for the server software, Javascript for frontends which are webapps. I haven't had time since I got back to do much more than clone the git repo.

</comment><comment><USER3> 16MB minified. Ok; for what?

"How to scale to Rich Internet Applications?"

Good question. They didn't answer it. Is the Scala code going to be much more compact? And what problems scaling JS to rich applications were they thinking of, exactly? They don't say.

<comment><USER4> Hi,

The slides shown there are, well, slides. They are meant to support a _talk_ , and that talk addressed your comments, at least partly. It is also worth noting that it was Scala Days, and as such I took it for (almost) granted that the audience is converted to Scala.

The problem is that JavaScript, with its scripting nature, has never been designed to support programming in the large. The lack of type safety is often mentioned as one of the major difficulties of JavaScript. That is why there are other languages targeting JavaScript.

We scale to Rich Internet Applications by using the language Scala, which is a scalable language. I won't try and make a whole point here. Some people have moved from Java to Scala for that very reason.

And, yes, the 16 MB are for the standard library. But minifying was only the first step towards reducing that size. I have at least 4 ideas, which I believe will each divide that size by ~2. That should bring it down under 1 MB.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your reply. I would be interested to read the whole argument. I don't know what "scripting nature" is. JavaScript has first-class functions and is nearly syntactically identical to Scala. It doesn't have a type system, but I'm not convinced that's a problem for scalability. Java has a type system, and you say people are moving away from it because it's not scalable, so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 16MB runtime is really painful. Having to pack a huge amount of the standard library (List is backed by a lot of other traits for example) into the js is going to be very difficult to reduce.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, and I'm not sure scala will be that useful without the standard libs, much like C# or Java.

Seeing the presentation, I'm thinking more of using it with something like node-webkit[1] though. Didn't LightTable use clojure-script or something? But then, why don't just use one of JVM's GUI framework?

[1]: [https://github.com/rogerwang/node- webkit](https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit)

<comment><USER6> I'm doing something for fun with Clojurescript and node-webkit and for me it's mostly that I want the fast start up time, but also to get to just work with html instead of having to learn a gui framework.

Also I just want to mention that Clojurescript compiles to javascript that's compatible with Google's Closure compiler, which can do dead code elimination and will remove the parts of the standard library that you don't use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While in principal, I love this... Because JS is not my favorite language... I just don't see the real world benefit. It's going to:

1.) increase difficulty debugging (compiled js -> scala) 2.) decrease productivity, see #1

Why not just write javascript? Though that's my argument against any of these compile to js kits (coffee script being the big one). So maybe I'm just trolling (sorry).

Again, super cool. The author is waaay smarter than I for implementing this, but... The real world.

<comment><USER6> I can only speak for clojurescript, but I'm ok with trading off some debugging pain for way better semantics / nicer code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I enjoy both javascript and scala.

For work and anything I would want to put on a web site it is more practical to write javascript and when I've had time for my own projects I've enjoyed scala.

For me this is a great direction. The idea that I'd suddenly replace my javascript is silly. But being able to pull in things I'm familiar with from both into the same prototype (and at the same layer) of something and debug it all in the debugger I'm most familiar with (and with correct code line references!) is awesome.

Similarly, for someone who is learning scala and doesn't have/want java+IDE experience, this could lead to learning scala as a language with much less overhead and/or while learning a more useful combination of debugger and editor.

I think the overly negative comments come from those who view javascript as the "problem" that every new way to integrate languages with it must have been designed to tackle. Since every language has trade-offs, there is always ample criticism available from that vantage point...

</comment><comment><USER9> I hoped for something like clojurescript with Scala. Its finally happening which is great step. But for now , I am happy with Dart.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting! Maybe it can learn from Scala on Android:

For Android development, install Scala runtime into rooted phone, so you don't need to "minify" your code (faster roundtrip). For Scala.js, maybe use Chrome Extension?

For production, ProGuard (removes unused code in Scala) and Closure Compiler (optimizes JS).

</comment><comment><USER11> I have not used Scala before. What's the motivation for this? I can think of two reasons - a) to make native Scala programmers feel home with Javascript and b) Scala is a superior language than Javascript, will therefor make many things easier.

How much of this is (b)?

<comment><USER12> I've used javascript for many many years and, as of 6mo ago, started using Scala (I do a lot of distributed programming on hadoop, storm, and recently spark). Scala is now one of my favorite languages because of Spark ([http://spark-project.org/](http://spark-project.org/)). Scala very nicely blends the functional and imperative styles and it always favors programming without side-effects. Anything you can do in java you can do in fewer lines and you will see fewer bugs.

That said- it's not a superior language, just a different paradigm. With Scala you get very strong typing, functional constructs (so incredibly powerful), matching, options, very clean closure syntax, etc.. You'll eventually fall in- love with _, too.

I haven't used scala.js yet, but here are some downsides to Scala proper: * slow the compile * tooling isn't great (this true of anything jvm to some degree though)

<comment><USER13> > tooling isn't great (this true of anything jvm to some degree though)

Well, you have plenty of very decent tools to inspect a running JVM state, and that's priceless. Eclipse is alright if you manage to set it up once with the tools you need and don't fiddle with the setup afterwards. Although slow, it packs a lot more features out of the box than Visual Studio. The debugger is pretty good too (including remote debugging).

If you compare it to state-of-the-art tooling for more fringe languages like Python or Haskell, it's lightyears better, really.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think that this is a great project, and would be exactly what I need for ProofPeer ([http://www.proofpeer.net](http://www.proofpeer.net)) because I have lot's of code that needs to run both on the server and in the browser. I am using Clojure/Clojurescript currently and am pretty happy with it. But I am missing the possibility of defining abstract datatypes in Clojure, so my first choice would have been Scala if Scala.js would already be mature and reasonably production ready.

</comment><comment><USER15> It'd be interesting to integrate this into the GWT toolchain, so you can write both java and scala for the browser!

<comment><USER16> You mean like [http://scalagwt.github.io/samples/Showcase.html](http://scalagwt.github.io/samples/Showcase.html)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope it covers "Debug with breakpoints in Scala for the browser".

<comment><USER18> He recently announced support for sourcemaps, so yes. Yay!

<comment><USER17> Cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The video recording is now available! [http://www.parleys.com/play/51c380bfe4b0ed8770356866](http://www.parleys.com/play/51c380bfe4b0ed8770356866)

</comment><comment><USER19> good job on making this, but.. it's useless</comment>


Japanese flu drug 'clearly effective' in treating coronavirus, says China - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china <comment><USER2> > Medical authorities in China have said a drug used in Japan to treat new > strains of influenza appeared to be effective in coronavirus patients, > Japanese media said on Wednesday.

It's very important to consider the source here. Getting reliable information from China has not been easy. Details mean everything in drug development work, and the reports about favipiravir have been sketchy at best.</comment>


The Side-Project Considered as a Necessity - <AUTHOR> http://www.exratione.com/2011/03/the-side-project-considered-as-a-necessity.php

<comment><USER2> You may wish to revisit your blog template at some point --- <http://i.imgur.com/kUngf.png> \--- although it displays fine when I full screen the window.</comment>


Do you think no-JS users are OK to ignore? - <AUTHOR> Whenever I bring up no-JS clients, for whatever reason, there are often comments that no-JS users are not worth catering to, because either there are too few of them, or they disable JS by choice, or that they just don't exist (as in response to a StOv question I posted recently.
Is there anyone out there that thinks that no-JS users are still important, regardless of why they happen to have JS disabled?
Why is the view that no-JS can be ignored so prevalent? <comment><USER2> I choose to browse with JS disabled, I'd say it depends on the page/site/service. For me if there is personnel value to the site i enable JS, if the page just fails. But if its something random a news/shopping site with another source i just close the page.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. I think they're ok to ignore. Modern web applications, for better or worse are written in JavaScript. If someone chooses to opt out of society (as small as that society might be), that is a personal choice that should be respected but not necessarily catered to.

Most software teams are under tight schedules, with fierce competition, and are trying their hardest to deliver some value to most people. Telling them to now rewrite their application to work without JavaScript is the equivalent to making things still compatible with IE6.

<comment><USER4> > Modern web applications, for better or worse are written in JavaScript.

As a non-JS user, I have no expectation that I can use web applications, so I don't disagree here.

However, most of the web does not consist of web applications. What about those sites? I don't see any compelling reasons (other than spite, maybe) for those sites to fail to work without JS.

<comment><USER3> I couldn't agree with you more. Sorry if this was not clear.

IMHO websites (as opposed to web apps) don't need any JavaScript at all. Since the goal of most websites is to get as many as people as possible to see whatever content you have then you should absolutely make sure it looks decent and works well without JS.

<comment><USER5> Folks like me who use Raspberry Pi for web surfing will also agree. There are far too many sites requiring javascript for things that definitely _don 't_ improve the user experience, and instead make the experience clumsy (reloading the text just because javascript wants to do something to it, for example) and slow as molasses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sometimes it feels like I am listening to a mechanic who is saying you don't really need to use 3rd gear, because you can just jump from 2nd to 4th, so he doesn't need to look into the funny noise the transmission makes.

</comment><comment><USER6> Imho it depends on your target audience, monetization plan and amount of traffic.

Audience isn't tech-savvy? Ignore them.

Monetization depends on JS (ads served via js etc)? Ignore them.

If you have little traffic and few conversions, investing extra money in a good no-js UX might not be worth it. If you're getting lots of traffic, even a small increase in conversion might mean hundreds of sales a day which quickly makes a bit of development time worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if making sure your site is readable without JS also has the effect of making your site more legible to screen dictation. I haven't met many web devs who make accessibility a primary concern. Mozilla seems to note that heavy reliance on JS can break accessibility.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/Accessibility...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript)

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked a related question on StOv, and have been told that either "99.999999%" or "100.1%" of screen-reader users browse with JS enabled :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't it just the same reason linux gaming is ignored?

People who have disabled JS intentionally are likely to be a tiny minority of security conscious users, yet, if your business is an almost 100% JS rendered webapp, why would you go through the cost of maintaining an html/css-only version?

This is of course beside the point that JS is indeed best used very carefully imho and I'd prefer an almost no-JS web, but the current market simply doesn't cater to the opinions of software dev types :/</comment>


Fake goods are fine, says EU study  - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7969335/Fake-goods-are-fine-says-EU-study.html

<comment><USER2> So, once again the police will ignore what the people what

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?</comment>


The Curiously Different Inflation Perspectives of Men and Women [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/commentary/2001/1101.pdf <comment><USER2> Look at Table 1 in the study, and another far more interesting thing jumps out: inflation perception varies enormously according to income. Low income people report much higher rate of inflation (across gender) than high income people. At the lowest level of income, people report 9+% inflation, while at the highest level of income, it is under 5%. In fact, the difference in inflation expectations based on income swamps the gender difference.

Austrian School economists have anticipated this, and would point out that this is the natural outcome of our monetary policy. Inflation perception is higher at the lowest income groups because _inflation is higher for things they purchase_. Over time, this effect increases inequality, another effect already observed.

Yet, conventional economic wisdom attributes the rise in inequality not to Fed policy but to technology change (on the "right"), tax-cuts-for-the-rich (on the "left") ...

<comment><USER3> Do the actual statistics bear out the theory that inflation is significantly higher for the things that low-income groups purchase? See, for example, this graph:

[http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=CPIAUCSL,CWSR...](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=CPIAUCSL,CWSR0000SA0),

<comment><USER4> From an non-scientific back-of-the-envelope thought process, it would seem that at least the "perception" would be higher.

At lower income levels, a much higher percentage of one's total income is spent for life's basics (i.e., food and fuel being the big two). Therefore any increase in food or fuel costs (both of which have risen rather much the last few years) takes an ever bigger bite out of an already small income pie. Therefore making low income individuals very sensitive to price changes in these basics. Potentially leading to a perception of a higher overall inflation than what is actually happening in the market as as whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "at this point, all we can say with any confidence is that it does not appear that women have a higher perception of inflation than men because of the things they buy, the frequency of their shopping, or their knowledge of officially reported"

Really? This is ridiculous. Men and women do buy very markedly different things in general, especially in family life. For example, men disproportionally buy technological items which contribute significantly to the stable CPI.

CPI isn't just bread and butter... if it were inflation rates would be higher. Since the government can point to easier access to quality-of-life-enriching items like computers, which fall in price for equivalent goods year over year, it can manipulate the stats and make inflation look very low. This is appropriate for an "ideal" household that buys exactly that the CPI index holds.

But on the other and someone who buys disproportionally the items that are rising faster than the CPI really does feel a higher inflation rate.

It certainly seems conceivable that women tend to buy items that are rising in price faster than the CPI more than men.

It's also possible that marketing gimmicks disproportionally target women, with clothing coming to mind for example: perhaps sticker prices rise much faster than inflation, but post-"SALE" prices don't. This is a gimmick designed to encourage buying of deep sale prices, that may play better in clothing than in other industries, and that thus women fall victim to more. But since the sticker prices rise, they're noticeable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because CPI measures a rate, explanations like this only work in the short run. As computers/etc become cheaper, they become a smaller and smaller fraction of CPI. In the long run, CPI will be completely dominated by whatever factor grows the fastest.

The article provides some evidence that this is not a short run phenomenon, nor a phenomenon limited to the US. A similar gap is present among Swedes in 1977, and persisted in the US from 1987-2000.

<comment><USER6> It's because the CPI is actually gamed. You just have to change the basket of goods measured fast enough to keep the rate down. Like the substitution of hamburger for steak that Greenspan did. The website detailing how this "isn't shady" is laughable. <http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiqa.htm>

Check out <http://www.shadowstats.com/>: "One of my early clients was a large manufacturer of commercial airplanes, who had developed an econometric model for predicting revenue passenger miles. The level of revenue passenger miles was their primary sales forecasting tool, and the model was heavily dependent on the GNP (now GDP) as reported by the Department of Commerce. Suddenly, their model stopped working, and they asked me if I could fix it. I realized the GNP numbers were faulty, corrected them for my client (official reporting was similarly revised a couple of years later) and the model worked again, at least for a while, until GNP methodological changes eventually made the underlying data worthless. "

<comment><AUTHOR> Steak -> burger -> dog food. Then what?

Most of the "tricks" proposed by conspiracy theorists for tweaking CPI only work once or twice.

<comment><USER6> Right, obviously you can only go so far on the steak to hamburger. But there are lots of places for abuse. The problem is that the definition for the CPI keeps changing, and thus, it's meaning over time is less useful.

What this study showed is that perceived inflation is real and doesn't jive with the numbers that the economists produce. Who is right? A 500 person sample will be good to predict the sentiment of the US as a whole. Gallup says that they only need 1,000 people to get +-4% so this is reasonable.

Ask yourself, which is more likely? The entirety of the US population doesn't understand how prices affect them day-to-day. Or that some economists have devised a moderately useful but not flawless metric?

Price formation comes from the relative values that every human being places on the marginal unit of a good. Prices are an emergent property of people interacting chaotically in a marketplace. To suggest that literally EVERYONE's ability to sense the change in price over time you also need to throw out the very people that set the prices to begin with.

EDIT: Link to gallup [http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup- polling-wo...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup-polling- work.aspx)

<comment><AUTHOR> Given that the US population can't even agree with itself, it's likely that the US population does not, in fact, understand how prices affect them day to day.

Or, more precisely, the US population does not accurately remember prices from years ago. I definitely couldn't tell you how much milk cost in 2005.

<comment><USER6> Right but these people are getting polled regularly, not every five years. So they don't have to remember how much milk has gone up since 2005, but rather how much milk has gone up in the last 3-6mo. It's not easy but it's not impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The authors clearly state they used statistics to adjust for all the basic factors like what they buy (using single people instead of married couples) etc. so after you read the 3 pages there are not a lot of options left.

I do have an idea that they didn't test however:

The women I have dated in the past seem to have selective memory about what they purchase. They seem to shop and talk about shopping like people who gamble. They will tell their friends all about the item they saved $50 on 8 months ago but rarely talk about the items they overpaid for. (gamblers like to talk about wins, but not losses) I can't speak to the shopping habits of most men, but I go to a store and quickly get what I need for a reasonable, but sometimes high price and exit as quickly as possible. I rarely remember what I paid for particular items I got on sale, but know that a shirt should cost about $50. Etc.

Is it possible that the sample of the women I have dated are similar to a statistically significant number of women who have selective memory about past purchases? I obviously don't know the answer, but if it is true, I think that is a reasonable thing to test and is backed by the fact that women perceived clothing as a significant driver of the inflation above the men (page 3).

[Note] Some of what may be driving this is cultural like women not wanting the guys they are with to think they are wasting money and the desire to talk about the deal they got like shopping is a skill with their friends. This may be US/Swedish style cultures.

Researchers could test this by surveying other cultures which are less similar to US culture which couldn't prove this theory, but could disprove it.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting that they took this angle on the reporting, since the study also shows that men and women disagree much more with the CPI than they do with each other. Maybe that's common knowledge already?

</comment><comment><USER3> If you asked me which major party was more likely to preside over a period of high inflation, I would say "Democrats" (even though I vote for them). Yet according to this commentary, the demographic groups that perceive and expect the highest inflation are women, singles, nonwhites, and lower-income groups—all of whom tend to vote for Democrats!

Perhaps people who are more likely to feel that the economy is sucking are also more likely to take pessimistic views of every economic indicator, even the ones that, in fact, are not sucking.

</comment><comment><USER9> If people tend to disproportionately forget small price changes and remember large price changes when taking surveys, it could skew the results this way.

Both the distribution of observed price changes, and the probability of forgetting/remembering, could be different between men and women.

For example, suppose women buy equal amounts of two different goods X and Y.

On even-numbered years, manufacturers raise the price of X by 6% and keep price steady on Y. On odd-numbered years, manufacturers raise price on Y by 6% and keep price steady on X.

Actual inflation is 3% but women see a price jump of 6% per year in one of the products they buy. If they only notice/remember changes in prices and ignore/forget prices staying the same, then they'll report inflation as 6%.

Men buy equal amounts of X, Y and Z, where Z increases by 2% per year. Thus, men report an average price increase of (2% + 6%)/2 = 4% per year, again ignoring the non-inflating good.

All these numbers and effects are totally made-up speculation, but the idea seems sound and reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER10> People answer survey questions differently. Its cultural. Some want to not appear dumb, so give conservative and careful responses. Others want to provide an answer that will provoke further dialog, so may overstate the case.

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be interesting to see this same question asked for income brackets and ethnic groups.

<comment><AUTHOR> If only the authors thought of looking at income brackets. If they did, they might have included the data on page 2, table 1.

<comment><USER11> lol, thank you for assisting the special needs HN readers like myself :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> my immediate reaction was to blame food prices (and gender roles), so i was surprised to read that food prices in ohio have risen less than other products. i am pretty sure that's not the case here in chile, and i thought that it was a global effect (there have been various "scares" related to poor harvests over the last few years). see, for example, <http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/rising-food-prices>

so how come food prices are so stable in ohio?

<comment><USER3> The US Federal government subsidizes agriculture to a certain extent, using price supports to keep prices above a certain floor, and the US is also a net exporter of food, so that may be blunting the impact of rising food prices.</comment></comment>


Caffeine use disorder - <AUTHOR> http://hub.jhu.edu/2014/02/07/caffeine-really-is-a-drug <comment><USER2> I discovered that if I only consumed caffeine when I had a Migraine headache, that it was the most effective medicine I could take provided I didn't already have a tolerance built up so I gave up caffeine in my 20s.

Frankly, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I was plagued with minor but persistent headaches for almost a month and was exhausted most of that time since I was used to grabbing a cup of coffee to get me started in the morning. I avoided caffeine for almost 15 years until about a year ago when I finally found a medicine that has successfully prevented Migraine (completely). Now and then I enjoy a cup of coffee (or a Coke -- I'm a skinny guy) but I've not gotten to the point of it being a regular thing.

The difference is huge. I am convinced that Caffeine is a much more powerful stimulant than we coffee drinkers think it is. When I am feeling tired, a cup of coffee will completely wake me up and I'm _full_ of energy. I can't see how I managed to drink two of these every morning and still barely feel the effects. If I have two cups now, I'm _overwhelmed_ with jittery feelings, my mind races, and I go from the heightened concentration of one cup to not being able to concentrate at all due to my mind going in every direction at once.

<comment><USER3> What was the medicine that ended up helping your migraines?

I suffer from migraines semi-regularly and have at separate times taken Maxalt, Imitrex, or generic OTC migraine meds + caffeine.

<comment><USER4> Excedrin worked for me before I quit coffee.

Also, since starting a low-carb keto diet two years ago, I haven't had a single migraine (I used to get 2-3 per month, both painful ones and visual auras). When I was a pediatric neurology prof a few years ago, a keto diet was standard of care for the kids, and the department was starting research into keto for chronic migraines. Give it a try!

<comment><USER5> I had the same result after switching to a keto diet 10 months ago. Do you know if there are any research papers on this? I was really surprised how effective the change in diet was because I did it on a whim without receiving medical advice.

<comment><USER6> Not exactly research paper, and not migraine but it was mentioned in a ted(x?) talk linked from HN a week ago or so IIRC. The talk was about keto and cancer but touched into keto against epilepsy as well. I think the Charlie Foundation or something was mentioned as well.

Maybe some of that research can hold some pointers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've given up caffeine for Lent[1]. It's been hard.

Beforehand, I knew I had a bad coffee habit. In a typical day I'd drink, maybe 6 or 7 mugs of strong coffee. I'd tried to cut down many times, but never succeeded; there just seemed to be too many reasons in my life to have another coffee.

So when Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent) came, I thought, "Now's the time to quit."

The first day was fine. I didn't notice anything. I guess I was still flushing the remaining caffeine out of its system.

The second day certainly wasn't. I had a headache, and felt tired, dizzy and confused.

The headache didn't last long, but the other symptoms persisted for about ten days. In hindsight, I should have consulted a physician before attempting this, because it could have aggravated other medical conditions I have.

I now have twelve days left of my caffeine fast. Do I feel healthier? Do I sleep better? No, not really; I feel pretty much the same as I did before, but without the urge to drink coffee all the time.

I think the real benefits will come when I let myself drink coffee again. I intend to only use it when I really need a pick-me-up. The less often I use caffeine, the more effective it will be.

[1] Lent is a period of 46 days' self-denial observed in many Christian churches.

<comment><USER8> > I've given up caffeine for Lent

I've heard from many people on HN and elsewhere individually choosing something to give up for Lent.

In my understanding, the traditional Lenten restrictions in most Christian churches that observe Lent are pre-specified dietary restrictions that are the same for everybody (for example, it was unexpectedly convenient for me as a vegan to visit Eastern Europe because the Eastern Orthodox churches' Lenten fast was similar to veganism).

Is the practice of giving up a personally-selected thing for Lent something that many people have chosen to do individually as a sort of new interpretation of the tradition, or is it now also recommended by some churches?

<comment><USER9> I can only really speak from the Roman Catholic perspective, but traditionally there are three pillars of Lent: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. The requirements for fasting have varied over the centuries. The strictest fast is the Black Fast [1], which was regularly observed (I think) sometime around the Early or High Middle Ages. It's similar to the fast observed by the Orthodox, though it intensifies during Holy Week (only bread, salt, herbs, and water allowed). Up until the early twentieth century or so, Catholics were required to fast every day of Lent except Sundays [2] (i.e., take only one full meal a day with two small meals that cannot, combined, form a full meal).

In the modern Roman Catholic Church the fasting requirements have been substantially relaxed. The only requirements are fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstaining from meat on Fridays. The other days of Lent are still penitential days, but the bishops of the region have the authority to determine the form of the penance. In the United States the bishops have stated that it is acceptable to substitute fasting for some other form of penance determined by the individual.

My impression is that the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches still observe a much more rigorous fast, more like the Roman Catholic Church used to a few centuries ago. As a side note, I've always been the most impressed with the Coptic Christians. They observe, by far, the most rigorous fasting schedule. They fast 210 days out of the year! [3]

[1]: [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02590c.htm](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02590c.htm)

[2]: Hence Lent is strictly speaking only 40 days (a more biblically significant number) because the Sundays are excluded from the fasting.

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_and_abstinence_of_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_and_abstinence_of_the_Coptic_Orthodox_Church_of_Alexandria)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I weaned myself off of caffeine entirely seven months ago. Being free of caffeine has greatly improved the quality of my sleep and made my mood more even throughout the day. I really appreciate being able to jump straight out of bed in the morning without depending on that coffee to get my brain working.

<comment><USER11> I tried a couple times to get off caffeine, never worked properly... I don't feel obvious caffeine effects, but I need it to not be a wreck.

Later I discovered I was self-medicating my ADHD...

Now I am taking proper ADHD meds, and this allowed me to greatly reduce my caffeine use (that was wandering into dangerous and expensive territory, with me needing to drink litres of red-bull clones to work), still need it sometimes though, my ADHD meds dosage is still too low it seems (my medic is adjusting my meds still).

Without caffeine + meds I can't do anything properly, I lose random objects (including a cup of coffee! I made myself a coffee yesterday, moved it somewhere in the house, and could not remember where, I spent 5 minutes wandering around looking for where I put my coffee), forget to do stuff, including important stuff, forget to eat/drink water/sleep, and all other sorts of not good behaviour.

<comment><USER12> Do you still live in Brazil? I've read criticisms here on HN, of doctors too eager to diagnose ADHD (specially in children) - did you felt that your doctor was aware of those issues?

I ask because I'm not sure if I have ADHD or just regular anxiety/lack of focus that could be fixed by exercising/meditation/finding another job. And I don't want to go to the doctor to get hooked on drugs I don't need...

<comment><USER11> I am still in Brazil...

And I've been hearing about the ADHD overdiagnosis problem for a while, and I've been staunch that I didn't had ADHD until my life was the shithole that it is now (I am 28, unemployed, don't own any property, have negative net worth, no friends, no romantic partners...)

Then what I found was the opposite, as an adult, seeking for ADHD diagnosis (or diagnosis of whatever I had), led to most doctors spin around in circles trying to find everything that I could have that is NOT ADHD, because they assumed I was just some kind of junkie or someone wanting to cheat tests in university, because here in Brazil all ADHD meds are of highly controlled nature (ie: they are classed the same as Morphine for example).

Eventually I found my current medic... that still is going VEEEERY slow in the dosage, the highest dosage she ever gave me was 1/5 of the maximum, and about 1/3 of what people get on average.

Still, even this low dosage helped, before I had the meds, I reached a point where I was spending more on caffeine than food every day (and this is in a country that exports coffee and erva mate, thus caffeine in general here is really cheap)

<comment><USER13> > ...they assumed I was just some kind of junkie or someone wanting to cheat > tests in university

I live in the US and had the same reaction from doctors. One doctor spoke with me for a few minutes (literally like 5 minutes) and decided I was trying to abuse uppers to gain an edge at school/work, despite having been previously diagnosed with ADD and treated as a teenager (and despite asking for help, not medication). It was a really, really humiliating experience. I eventually was prescribed medication but I've since lost and regained medical insurance, so I no longer have that prescription. I often have difficulty staying on task, but I cope with it myself out of fear of going through that awful process again.

To me it seems that adults seeking help with ADD/ADHD are looked at with immediate suspicion. I always assumed it was a lack of mental health education for doctors in the US, but now I suppose it might be a global phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My old co-workers would drink coffee throughout the day and constantly complain about not having enough energy and they would look physically drained. They required it to feel normal. Reminds me very much of people I know who smoke weed to feel normal because they are so used to it.

As another commenter mentioned, not drinking caffeine makes it's effects much stronger when you actually need it. I don't drink tea/coffee/soda/energy drinks etc. So on the rare occasion that I down an energy drink the effect is extremely pronounced. Literally buzzing.

<comment><USER15> I was drinking 8-10 cups of coffee a day for a couple years, but on the weekends I wouldn't have any and I would be fine. I thankfully did not have averse health problems, but I ended up being put on adderall as my doc thought I might have ADD. I immediately cut my intake to 1, maybe 2 cups a day as anymore would make me sick.

I went off adderall as it was not a great solution, turned out I was mostly miserable and bored at that company. I was trying to keep myself engaged by getting high on caffeine. After quitting, I drink 3-4 cups a day and some days none.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The thing to remember with caffeine is its half-life in non-smokers is 8 hours (it is 3 hours in smokers). I have a rule to never have any drink with caffeine after midday - if I break this rule even by an hour I suffer that night and the next day. Caffine is a morning drug.

<comment><USER17> I can drink coffe at night before going to bed and still sleep like a baby. I wonder if something is wrong with me.

<comment><USER18> Built-up tolerance? After drinking triple espressos like water in university I could drink coffee at 10 pm and still fall asleep an hour later. Of course, I'd wake up feeling more tired than before with a splitting headache, but that's what the triple espressos were for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Excessive use of anything tends to be bad. "Normal" intake of coffee [1] may have plenty of health benefits, so why quit? Because self control?

I'll drink my 3-4 cups of black filtered coffee a day with a good conscience.

[1] Not including other high-caffeine drinks (energy drinks) or mixing your coffee with lots of sugar and milk, which would be bad mostly for other reasons than the caffeine itself.

<comment><USER18> > _For healthy adults, the FDA says 400 mg a day is OK. But consuming much > more than that can have dangerous, negative effects. And the milligrams add > up quickly. A medium-size coffeehouse coffee can contain more than 300 mg, > and most 16-ounce energy drinks contain between 160 and 240 mg of caffeine…_

3-4 cups might be on the high end of the safe spectrum, depending on what your idea of a "cup" is. (For the record, 3 half-litre beer steins of coffee a day turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea, even if hearing colours was briefly entertaining.)

<comment><USER20> > (For the record, 3 half-litre beer steins of coffee a day turned out to be a > spectacularly bad idea, even if hearing colours was briefly entertaining.)

I've consumed caffeine to the point of serious gastric distress and very mild heart palpitations and I've never experienced synesthesia. I'm unwilling to push beyond that to higher doses, but two or three 12-cup pots a day of light roast filtered black coffee is about average for me, so what the Hell? Is there just that much individual variation here?

<comment><USER21> IIRC, the only well documented case of synesthesia is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme_%E2%86%92_color_synes...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme_%E2%86%92_color_synesthesia) . It's an interesting case because the color and letter recognizing parts of the brain are very close, so it's logic that some info may leak and get correlated.

Perhaps someone can design an (safe) experiment to measure the effect of caffeine in synesthesia ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Addiction is harmful when it reduces the quality of life. Caffeine is addictive but it causes harm to only some people.

For example: If you have problems with sleep, and just can't give up caffeine use and take sleeping pills instead, you have a drug problem.

</comment><comment><USER23> Personal suggestions:

1) Dark roast coffee has less caffeine and is (in my subjective opinion) tastier. So if one wants the taste of coffee without less of the effects, consider an espresso or a Turkish coffee. The latter is just called "coffee" in much of Eastern Europe, one can pick up a beautiful cezve on Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cezve)

2) Yerba Mate is 75 mg of caffeine per serving: higher than tea, but less than coffee. Can be made in an French Press or a tea pot and served like conventional tea.

3) Caffeine gum: not particularly pleasant to chew, but comes in a more precise dose (100mg) and is "kicks in" faster.

Personally, I'd like to see more genetic studies on this: I am not particularly affected by caffeine: I've never experienced withdrawals (despite consuming caffeine heavily -- from coffee and energy drinks for a long period of time) nor do I see coffee raise itself in potency after a week or two of abstinence. This is different for others and I would really like to understand why.

<comment><USER24> > I've never experienced withdrawals

I don't believe you. How long have you gone without it? When did you start drinking caffeine? What's your definition of withdrawal?

<comment><USER25> Different people react differently. For a variety of conditions, I take moderate doses of opioids (tramadol 50mg qds or codeine 60mg qds) and benzodiazepines (tamazepam 20mg daily), both of which are well-known to cause dependence. I've abruptly stopped both a number of times (strongest example - going without the tramadol for three months, after taking that dose for over six months) without any ill effects or withdrawal (other than the original conditions returning to about the same as they were before treatment).

Edit: with -> without

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just a few thoughts to add. Living in the Pacific Northwest, home of Starbucks and a bunch more vendors, caffeinism is nearly a way of life. Around here it's pretty easy to find examples of the effects of overdoing caffeine intake, so my comments are based partly on observation as well as "standard" practice.

Caffeine, like all drugs affects people differently and can cause an array of side-effects. , Besides interfering with sleep, a few are worth mentioning.

Caffeine can cause increase in gastric reflux or other GI conditions. Anyone who needs "acid reducers" is well-advised to avoid caffeine. Caffeine is also notorious for increasing anxiety symptoms, those prone to panic attacks may be more vulnerable. Cardiac effects are also a potential issue, as caffeine can contribute to abnormally rapid heart rhythms. Naturally as always mileage varies, universal rules don't really exist.

If a person has such conditions, no harm in reducing or avoiding caffeine for a while. If the problem improves, then you know what to do, if not, well, resolving the problem is going to require at least a bit more investigation.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've used occasions when I had the flu to quit, figuring that I feel shitty anyway, so the withdrawal symptoms won't matter that much.

Of course eventually I took it up again - unfortunately after a couple of weeks of withdrawal, it tastes really good.

But what fascinates me is that being easy to quit might be part of why it is hard to quit. It's easy to say "heck, I'll quit tomorrow, it is so easy after all".

<comment><USER28> Quitting an addiction is easy, any junkie can do it... several times a day ;)

I went cold-turkey a few years ago, lasted several months, helped immensely with palpitations and sleep-pattern problems. In fact, I should probably do it again at some point this year, but with kids and work it becomes difficult to plan the inevitable couple of weeks of "zombie time". Maybe doctors should start considering it a real addiction, justifying off-time for treatment.

<comment><USER29> I took leave to do it. Caffeine withdrawal head aches are nasty. Make sure you titrate off, don't go cold turkey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As someone trying to quit caffeine for health reasons I can relate to this.

My current strategy is to replace coffee with caffeine pills so I can control the amount exactly and reduce it slowly until it reaches zero.

Also, having to take pills when I feel bad feels rather ridiculous and makes it obvious that I am addicted.

<comment><USER31> I'm also having a caffeine problem, haven't considered pills at all.

Is there a specific brand / type of pill that works well for reducing amount over time?

<comment><USER32> I've mostly switched to caffeine pills when I need caffeine (which varies, usually I try to go caffeine free). For me I find 100mg is a good amount, though if I could find 50mg pills I would try that. My preferred source is "jet alert" since I couldn't really find anything else that wasn't just 200mg.

Also, I always use an L-theanine supplement when I take caffeine, it's amazing how much it changes things. Instead of feeling all jittery and agitated I just feel less tired and more alert. This is roughly the equivalent of just drinking strong green tea.

<comment><USER33> Exactly this. You can buy them combined at [http://www.powdercity.com/products/l-theanine-caffeine- capsu...](http://www.powdercity.com/products/l-theanine-caffeine-capsules) It's night and day compared to caffeine only.

<comment><USER32> This is awesome! Thanks for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I would argue that the most commonly used drug is not caffeine, but sugar.

<comment><USER35> I've cut out a ton of foods in my life to fix various issues with my body. Sugar is one that remains because it causes me no ill effect. Caffeine was giving me withdrawal headaches if I slept in and missed my schedule.

<comment><USER36> On the flip side, I get tend to get inflammation when I consume too many added sugars. This usually manifests as joint pain, headaches, and breakouts. It has forced me to have a much healthier diet. Thanks for sharing your insights!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm one of those weird people for whom caffeine doesn't really seem to do anything. My normal daily consumption of the stuff is zero, because I don't drink coffee or tea. Every now and again if I have an essay crisis after a bad night's sleep, I'll pop three or four times the "don't take more than this" dosage of Pro Plus, which seems to have a fairly minor effect. It has been a few months since I last did this.

I prefer theobromine.

</comment><comment><USER38> This reminds me of the best article I've ever read on caffeine: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-berardi-phd/coffee- health...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-berardi-phd/coffee-health- benefits_b_3881377.html). TL;DR: There is an enzyme called CPY1A2 which determines if caffeine is bad or good for you.

</comment><comment><USER39> If you want to give it up, and are a coder, find a few days when you don't need to code. I tried a few times, and always went back to it because my code sucked for a few days. I finally kicked the habit only about a month ago, when I decided to do it during a week-long testing effort with minimal new coding to worry about.

And the same as many others have said... I sleep better, feel better, etc, etc.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if a low dose of modafinil or an amphetamine is less physically damaging than an equivalently effective dose of caffeine.

</comment><comment><USER41> Caffeine has such a strong effect on me (physically and psychologically), I can even tell its effect in some (not fully) decaffeinated coffees. This started one day, I've been a regular drinker before. Since then, almost only decaf.

<comment><USER42> I am lucky to have a nervous disorder that keeps me from drinking caffeine. Any amount and I get a headache. I can even tell how much is in something by the intensity of my headache. It is surprising how many things have caffeine.

The worst soft drink is orange soda. There were orange soda ads many years ago that used the Beach Boy's "Good Vibrations".

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I quit coffee recently, and feel better. But I still have a single cup of tea in the morning.

For those who have quit, am I likely to see any benefits from stopping tea as well?

</comment><comment><USER44> moderator should add (2014) tag to title as article is fully two years old from February 7, 2014.

</comment><comment><USER45> This discussion about coffee has become too scientific. When I was a child, my parents would not let us drink coffee, but tea was not only allowed it was part of daily routine as long as I remember. We didn't question. When I grew up someone told me the story about two life-term prisoners in medieval times, one of them allowed to drink only tea, the other coffee. The coffee-guy lived longer. That was enough for me to stake my rights and start drinking coffee in high school.

<comment><USER46> If you're basing decisions off a single anecdotal* data point from "medieval times", I can see how anything else would seem "too scientific" in comparison.

* And fictitious

<comment><USER45> I made a lot of good decisions based on incomplete data, and I'm not sure why you labeled this story fictitious. Here's some background: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_III_of_Sweden's_coffee_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_III_of_Sweden's_coffee_experiment)

<comment><USER47> If you want to drink coffee, drink coffee. Using a goofball medieval study (with a sample size of literally 2 people) to justify your personal choice is pretty silly.

<comment><USER45> Your problem with sample size in this particular case is that you fail to account for its duration. Convert sample size to temporal units and you might draw different conclusions since p-values might not look as bad now. An average FDA trial is 3 years, so assuming the prisoners lived for 40 years on their prescribed caffeine diet, you get sample size of 2*40/3 = 26.7. Not bad for 17th century. Last but not least, turn off --verbose mode.

<comment><USER48> This fallacy is known as "pseudoreplication": the erroneous belief that multiple samples (or a long measurement) of dependent data (i.e. the same person year after year) is equivalent to getting many independent samples.

If you measure the same two people year after year, you just measure their genetic predispositions and personal habits more and more precisely. You cannot distinguish them from the results of your coffee/tea intervention.

[http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/pseudoreplication.html](http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/pseudoreplication.html)

<comment><USER45> In case of caffeine addiction tests, I would argue that a life-long trial of fewer people over a short-term trial of many people would produce more statistically significant results because the impact is accumulative over a long period of time. Consider asbestos or even smoking. Compare the results of 10 lifelong smokers vs 1000 smokers who tried it just once.

Anyways, did you read the article on wikipedia? The prisoners were twins and their rations was the same - 3 intakes per day.

<comment><USER48> The goal of a trial is to eliminate other possible explanations for the phenomenon in question. You take a large sample, and randomly assign people to groups, so all the idiosyncratic variations average out.

With only one person per group, you can't eliminate many possible reasons for their differing life spans: one may have caught a disease the other was not exposed to, they may have had different nutrition, different amounts of exercise, different habits, a zillion other things.

After all, do other twins die at exactly the same time? No. They die years apart for many other reasons. Unless this twin experiment could eliminate all those possible reasons, it shows us nothing about coffee specifically.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


They're Not Middle Class, They're Well-Off, and That Should Worry You - <AUTHOR> https://whatever.scalzi.com/2019/07/12/theyre-not-middle-class-theyre-well-off-and-that-should-worry-you/ <comment><USER2> > The folks the NYT is visiting are all nervous; they're waiting for necks to > be on the chopping block

It's like someone flipped a switch in the 1980s. It shouldn't be this way.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, nothing trickled down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think one article is looking at combined income of a family and the other is looking at single income. The author is rather dismissive of the justifying NYT piece as well which in my opinion raises a good point about our perception of middle class. Some people want to apply a rigid definition to the term that is defined by income which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense given the variance in incomes regionally. Others perceive it as more of a lifestyle whose membership is more determined by spending habits, additional expenses, other lifestyle decisions, etc.</comment>


Car color&risk of car crash injury: population-based case control study (2003) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1455.full?hits=10&FIRSTINDEX=0&SEARCHID=1110070404449_14968&VOLUME=327&gca=bmj%253B327%252F7429%252F1455&FIRSTPAGE=1455 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.bookofjoe.com/2005/03/how_do_minimize.html](https://www.bookofjoe.com/2005/03/how_do_minimize.html)</comment>


Show HN: Find your most followed followers on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://followed.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Example: <http://followed.io/rattazong>

</comment><comment><USER2> Um, what kind of use case do you envision?

(Confession: I have had too little sleep and mostly want to remember to come back to this later but am trying to not just make a comment that is pure noise for other people. If it's a stupid question, never mind and carry on.

Thx)

<comment><AUTHOR> It helps me to find out how big my Twitter range is. If there are people with lots of followers following me, the chance to reach 'important' people is higher.</comment></comment>


Show HN: How to Build Probabilistic Marketing Forecasts - <AUTHOR> https://mackgrenfell.com/marketing-forecaster <comment><USER2> So, this is spam for something where somebody converted an Excel sheet that does some percentage calculations into some kind of webapp, isn't it?</comment>


Munich now a major contributor to open source - <AUTHOR> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/munich-now-major-contributor-open-source <comment><USER2> I still don't know if the move to open source was a success or a failure ? I have seen articles written from both perspective. Obviously, some actors are really interested to paint it one way or the other. At least, it seems they are sticking with it, and not moving to another solution.

<comment><USER3> IIRC that "Linux is not successful" story was initially written by the opposition of the current Munich leaders and that story became popular because of the poor translations. I think that there was no real consideration of leaving Linux.</comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/21/amazon-boss-jeff-bezoss-phone-hacked-by-saudi-crown-prince <comment><USER2> Pavel Durov argued that WhatsApp's vulnerabilities are intentionally created as part of surveillance programs with government agencies. [1]

If that were true, Bezos's case would be an example of how that approach to security is double-edged. Backdoors can be just as useful to foreign intelligence as they are to whoever pushed for their implementation.

[1] [https://t.me/s/durov/109](https://t.me/s/durov/109)

<comment><USER3> That's one hell of a tinfoil-hat theory. How would you even orchestrate that from within a public company with so many developers involved?

<comment><USER4> Considering how few developers understand the subtleties of security, it would not be all that difficult.

Also, FWIW we know that Google did this with its data center breach and likely many other cases.

At WhatsApp/Google scale the attack is extremely cost effective.

<comment><USER5> Are you referring to the data center breaches exposed by the Snowden leaks? Because Google claimed that they were unaware of the breach and quickly took action to correct it [1]. Are you suggesting that Google was complicit?

[1] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/meet-muscular-nsa-accused- of-t...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/meet-muscular-nsa-accused-of-tapping- links-between-yahoo-google-datacenters/)

<comment><USER4> I don't think Google has given us any reason to believe that it was not complicit. For instance, why not include warrant canaries on gmail accounts?

There is not really any fundamental difference between abetting the data center breach and opting not to offer warrant canaries. Likely tens of thousands of Google users are searched every day due to easy FISC warrants and wide investigative nets.

The state sponsored attacks on Google would of course allow Google to plausibly deny cooperation, but obviously Google has every incentive to cooperate fully, as is evidenced by the lack of warrant canaries.

<comment><USER6> Warrant cannaries are of dubious legality and have yet to be seriously tested in court. It makes total sense that a large company would not adopt something potentially illegal.

A person on StackExchange put it well

> The distinction between revealing the existence of the subpoena by action, > rather than by inaction, is a false one. It's exactly the kind of cutesy > legal formality that non-lawyers love to rely on, but real judges ignore. If > you tell someone: "Hey, you know John Smith's three sons, Joe, Ted, and > Bill? Joe and Ted are good people; they have never molested any children. As > for Bill--well, I don't have anything to say about Bill." If Bill is not a > child molester, you have defamed him, and you are not going to convince a > judge otherwise. [1]

Here's how the EFF puts it.

> Are there any cases upholding warrant canaries?

> Not yet. EFF believes that warrant canaries are legal, and the government > should not be able to compel a lie. To borrow a phrase from Winston > Churchill, no one can guarantee success in litigation, but only deserve it.

I'm also not sure how warrant canaries relate to your parents' point.

[1]: [https://law.stackexchange.com/a/333](https://law.stackexchange.com/a/333)

<comment><USER7> I would just point out there is a very clear legal distinction between action and inaction. Further, all of this only applies to the issuance and proper service of an order compelling silence. I think the EFF's common statement that if the canary requires affirmative action to not deploy the court is in a tough spot to compel that action. Also, I can say with a large amount of certainty, that no judge blatantly ignores procedural or semantic formalities out of hand. The judge in question may way the relevant factors and disagree with an argument, although some judges built caseloads of precedent on just such minor quibbles, but it is literally the judges job to at least consider a technical argument on its merits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So MBS or someone in Saudi intelligence is somehow behind the leak of the photos to the National Enquirer, and the subsequent divorce of the Bezos?

<comment><USER9> Where's the Feds on this? I don't find it comforting that attacks happening on the US's free press go unanswered by law enforcement.

We should be indicting MBS.

<comment><USER10> Not only has the US president declared the press the "enemy of the people", he also has a personal vendetta against Jeff Bezos for hurting his feelings. And he's got a personal lackey doing his personal bidding at the head of the DOJ.

If anything, it's more plausible to have been directed by the President (though it probably wasn't) than for any consequences of these actions to come from this administration (which certainly won't happen).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK, so I'm just a random anonymous coward. And arguably obsessed with my hobby.

But I'm puzzled that Bezos would be corresponding with MBS on the same device that he uses for potentially embarrassing personal stuff. Isn't that just a totally obvious OPSEC fail?

Edit: But that's what he did, isn't it?

And how could that be considered safe?

<comment><USER12> I think this a good question.

The problem is that even the head of a ginormous company with a strong connection to computer security generally (through AWS) is going to take actions based on convenience rather than OPSEC discipline.

I think it's natural for any given human to chat with all one's friend on the same level, with the same device and so-forth. A given individual can train themselves to have hard walls in their personal dealings but I'd suspect that individual would be a mid-level specialist, not the owner/manager/CEO who gets their position by their ability to manage and connect with people, not through technical expertise.

<comment><USER11> I guess. But even before the Khashoggi assassination, MBS was arguably an obvious threat. I can't imagine considering him a "friend".

I mean, I'd be gobsmacked if he mixed personal and business on the same devices. That could be disastrous, not just embarrassing. So a third device category doesn't seem unworkable.

Edit: Also, wouldn't someone like Bezos have security advisers? And how could they have failed to warn him?

One could make a similar argument about MBS, of course.

<comment><USER12> This reminds me of the way that Barrack Obama tried to keep his personal cellphone once he became president. Having a personal relationship with the wealthy and powerful is a unique thing since these are the ultimate decision makers. I would guess that Bezos or anyone like him chats frequently with very powerful people and that this is factor in him maintaining his own power and influence. And mobile devices would seem to magnify that ability of the very topmost people to connect directly with each other - ie, this was all done by secretaries and through protocol but that's slower and can let one big boss instantly sway another.

Of MBS doing his own spying and hacking is another way topmost people are becoming "do it yourself-ers".

<comment><USER13> I shudder to think what would have happened if Obama had ultimately refused to give up his personal phone, and every half-talented hacking group on the planet had pwned it six ways from Sunday—what a national security disaster that would have been! Oh wait

<comment><USER14> The Clinton server wasn't really interesting because she broke the rules...it was because the Chinese/whomever could grab stuff and the owners had plausible deniability.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure GP was actually referring to President Trump's refusal to give up his personal tweet gun^W^Wsmartphone.

<comment><USER14> I'm just talking tech, not partisan politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I pointed this out 11 months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122206)

<comment><USER17> Some informative links to make you scared about democracy, or just your safety:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_\(spyware\))

[https://citizenlab.ca/2019/10/nso-q-cyber- technologies-100-n...](https://citizenlab.ca/2019/10/nso-q-cyber- technologies-100-new-abuse-cases/)

[https://citizenlab.ca/2018/06/government-spyware- surveillanc...](https://citizenlab.ca/2018/06/government-spyware-surveillance- mexico/)

[https://citizenlab.ca/2017/02/bittersweet-nso-mexico- spyware...](https://citizenlab.ca/2017/02/bittersweet-nso-mexico-spyware/)

[https://citizenlab.ca/](https://citizenlab.ca/)

<comment><USER18> Why are these down voted? I'd say these Citizen Lab reports are HIGHLY relevant to this discussion topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how often less high profile folks get hit with stuff like this?

On one hand, zero days are rare and expensive.

OTOH someone who isn't the CEO of a major company might not notice the malware, or if they do, not know they should forward it to an organization like Citizen Lab.

<comment><USER20> > zero days are rare

really?

<comment><USER21> Zero days are plentiful. But there are only a handful that you could buy today which could potentially give you access to a CEO's phone. The only other option is to build your own team to find a zero day for you, which is not cheap or quick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Apparently I'm the only person on earth who wants to know what kind of phone Bezos was using, which OS version, etc. It seems like this detail is conveniently being left out of every story.

Anyone have any additional details? I understand that it was a WhatsApp vulnerability (Pegasus?) but I'd still like to know more about the device.

<comment><USER23> Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights report confirms it was iOS (page 2)

[https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/SRsSumexFr...](https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/SRsSumexFreedexAnnexes.pdf)

more: [https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...](https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25488)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pegasus as expected according to another person claiming to have been hacked, also a report expected out in the coming months [https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/12197417733014528...](https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/1219741773301452800)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm glad it's fixed now. [https://www.facebook.com/security/advisories/cve-2019-11931](https://www.facebook.com/security/advisories/cve-2019-11931)

<comment><USER25> At the time, FB said it didn't believe the bug had been exploited: _In this instance there is no reason to believe users were impacted._ [0] The alleged hack of Bezos happened in May 2018, about 18 months after the Nov 2019 bug fix. I wonder if FB's statement was just boilerplate PR or if they really did substantial forensics to have "no reason to believe users were impacted".

[0] [https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/11/20/update- whatsapp-...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/11/20/update-whatsapp-now- mp4-video-bug-exposes-your-messages/)

<comment><USER26> Anecdotal, but a lot of times phrases similar to that are used because the real answer is "We don't have any way of knowing if users were actually impacted" and it's obviously far better for PR to phrase it that way.

<comment><USER27> It does sound better but here's the thing: this is Jeff Bezos. He's one of the most high-profile people on the planet. If his phone was hacked through WhatsApp, he clearly filed a complaint and told them what had happened. They just didn't manage to patch it for over a year and then stated they 'had no way of knowing' even though this clearly proves it happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there any detail on the nature of the exploit? It seems to have been triggered by receipt of a video in WhatsApp. Was the flaw in WhatsApp itself? Or would the exploit have occurred regardless of which messaging/transfer mechanism was used to deliver the video? Has this been fixed? Is it even a documented exploit or is it simply known that it had something to do with the WhatsApp video, but not the actual methodology?

</comment><comment><USER29> One thing which this article doesn't address at all, is what is the beef between MBS and Bezos? Why would the Saudi prince leak this data? How did Amazon upset him?

<comment><USER30> Perhaps as a favor to Trump who constantly whines about WaPo and Bezos?

<comment><USER31> I think at the very least they would have bet on the WH looking the other way while they conducted an attack on a prominent US citizen. At worst it could be another "favour" attached to military procurement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Explanation 1:

Lauren Sanchez(bezos' new girfiend) along with her brother Michael(who is also her agent), leaked the story to force Bezos to divorce his wife and get along with her.

Explanation 2:

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia personally sent a trojan file, downloaded all the data, distributed it through a gossip rag he happens to be friends with, for some kind of revenge/message

I get why Bezos has to go with explanation 2 because explanation 1 would indicate the girl he wants to have sex with or her brother is manipulative. I dont see why the rest of us have to go along with this. Even this anonymous source says he has "high confidence" not anywhere near certainty.

<comment> streb-lo Is explanation 2 supposed to be outlandish?

A country like Saudia Arabia is going to use every tactic possible to combat their asymmetry with the West. It's not the crown prince personally having someone cook up a trojan for him -- it's their national apparatus deciding that free potential leverage over influential Americans is a worthwhile pursuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Last time I stayed at an AirBnb in Prague, the owners preferred method of communication was WhatsApp. When I went to install it I was confronted with no other choice than allowing it to import all my contacts, even though there was only one person I wanted to communicate with.

I was aware of these vulnerabilities and generally am protective of handing out PII, especially information others have entrusted to me. So I didn't give it access to hundreds of business and personal contacts spanning decades of work and life.

How do others deal with this who perhaps don't have the choice to just say "I'm going to text you instead for the 4 days we are going to have a need to communicate"? Do you keep a full set of contact data outside your phone's contacts for information you don't want shared? Private and public contacts?

<comment><USER34> Somewhat recent Android versions have work profile which at the very least gives you a sandbox for all apps you want to be isolated from the main profile. Unfortunately, all those work profile apps still share data between themselves. Maybe it was improved lately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The wider question here is how to handle Saudi Arabian trades in Western markets. Every and any deal undertaken by a state actor (MBS, any of the 1000s of princes the place is littered with, the sovereign wealth fund or the state or semi state companies) could well be the result of insider trading...

And thats just the public markets. Imagine the advantage you would have in startup investing if you could covertly read all the internal discussions, the founders texts and emails, remotely access their meetings with lawyers, accountants and other VCs.

No wonder SA is suddenly interested in Silicon Valley

</comment><comment><USER36> This gives me tremendous respect for Jeff.

Most likely his marriage fell apart because of this costing him personally ~25B. But that means that he didn't give in to whatever Mr Prince wanted.

<comment><USER37> Yes, it seems he was pretty hardcore about it. "Go ahead, publish it."

Since J. Edgar Hoover, it is has been an open secret that blackmail drives the upper echelon of politics and media. The Bill Clinton thing is another example, pretty sure he put his foot down and said fuck it, hence Lewinsky turning up with a tainted dress from 8 months ago, and down goes the U.S. president. How many just acquiesce and play along quietly?

More people should have guts like Bezos (probably did). Though at some point, I'm sure the shadow people will just fall back on good old violence, like the Epstein case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> What brand was the phone and OS?

<comment><USER39> It doesn't matter. The Whatsapp exploit affected both IOS and Android: [https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/13/whatsapp- vulnerab...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/13/whatsapp- vulnerability-left-ios-open-to-spyware-attack)

<comment><USER38> That's interesting. How would that work? Under Android, all apps effectively run inside a Java sandbox, right? So how would the attackers be able to install spyware through Whatsapp?

<comment><USER40> There are more exploit chains for Android and iOS that can be used once RCE is achieved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So, anyone want to hazard a guess on why the prince would want the optics of being seen to have been responsible for the hack (as opposed to trying to cover that up by, say, not using his very own account)?

<comment><USER42> Firstly, he's an idiot. His staff obviously don't brief him on the likely consequences of actions, they just go do it. Because he's a brutal dictator who has disloyal people executed.

Secondly, Saudi's don't have their own advanced cyber capabilities (unlike Iran, UAE, Israel, etc), they rely on buying help. And single use, no interaction, 0day RCEs for recent phones (and we can assume latest iOS or Pixel) are not that available. So they used what they could get their hands on.

It beats me that they couldn't steal the phone of someone else in Bezos's WhatsApp contacts and impersonate them. Maybe Bezos wouldn't have opened the attachment. But overall, I think they are just dumb.

There remains a small possibility that someone hacked the phone of MbS (I mean, everyone has thoughts about doing that) and then pivoted to attacking people in his contacts. But the whole NSO group involvement makes me think it wasn't that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is it that easy to be hacked with WhatsApp?

<comment><USER44> Well, here's a list of known WhatsApp hacks that were revealed in 2019:

Call hack [0]: [https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-hack-phone-call-voip- bu...](https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-hack-phone-call-voip-buffer- overflow/)

Video hack [1]: [https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/whatsapp-hacking- vulnerabi...](https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/whatsapp-hacking- vulnerability.html)

GIF hack [2]: [https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/whatsapp-rce- vulnerability...](https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/whatsapp-rce- vulnerability.html)

That call hack was famously used by NSO, hitting thousands of people [3]: [https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/whatsapp-nso-group- malware...](https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/whatsapp-nso-group-malware.html)

Hack that let anyone crash the apps for all members of a group chat [4]: [https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/whatsapp-group- crash.html](https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/whatsapp-group-crash.html)

I think I'm actually missing one more. These are just the widely known ones, mind you, and just for 2019.

<comment><USER45> "The flaw (CVE-2019-3568) successfully allowed attackers to silently install the spyware app on targeted phones by merely placing a WhatsApp video call with specially crafted requests, even when the call was not answered."

Geez that seems pretty incompetent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Whatsapp allows desktop clients. I use it too. It is technically possible for someone to hijack this desktop client and do this without MBS's involvement, as long as MBS authorized that desktop. I think you need proximity, but you can have a computer near the prince, and that computer being remotely controlled by someone sitting far away.

Not saying this happened ... but there are many ways to blame it on prince and many ways to defend him (and blame a subordinate).

<comment><USER47> I thought the Whatsapp desktop client was just a glorified remote control for the phone, and could not actually function as a standalone client by itself?

<comment><USER46> It is a remote control, but a case could be made that even though the prince had the phone with him, someone did it from his computer [ Of course assuming he was not looking at his phone at that time. ]

I am not on prince's side, just saying ...

<comment><USER48> If you're thinking of a private actor, I think that once you have access to MBS phone, you run to Doha before attacking Bezos. Qatar would pay a ton of money for that access.

If you're thinking of a state actor except Saudi Arabia, I think there would be much easier and more discreet vectors to Jeff Bezos Whatsapp than MBS phone (literally almost any of Bezos other contacts would be less risky).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This is why for the past 7 years I have rejected any files sent to me, and insist on receiving cloud links such as google, dropbox etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> > _This analysis found it "highly probable" that the intrusion into the phone > was triggered by an infected video file sent from the account of the Saudi > heir to Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post._

Any more information on how this type of attack works? Is it a vulnerability in Whatsapp, or was whatsapp just the delivery platform?

<comment><USER50> first paragraph: The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone "hacked" in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian.

So, not snapchat, but whatsapp. And it's quite surprising for me. So, Saudis have 0 days which work on whatsapp on iphone (I suppose Bezos uses iphone)? I mean, FB and AAPL, which both can afford tens of billions in security research, were pwned by saudi 0day? hmmm...

<comment><USER51> Wouldn't be that surprising. Zero days are available to the highest bidder and Saudi princes have deep pockets.

<comment><USER50> Honest question. Given that RCE's are extremely rare, can't FB and AAPL announce 100M USD bounty to get them first and patch them, avoiding bad PR and brand impact? Damn, make it 200M?! Or bad actors can easily pay 5x more to exploit said 0 day on a few targets, so hackers will sell to them instead?

<comment><USER52> I would like to see bounties offered no questioned asked too.

That way someone on the payroll of nefarious inc. my decide to share it with Google or Apple the same time as their boss.

<comment><USER50> Actually, this is my second question. How much money FB/AAPL are ready to pay for a security researcher who can find 0 day in their software to work full- time for them? Is Nefarius Inc. really competitive with them, salary-wise? I just can't grasp the economics here. Back in 90's, being a bad guy was probably more lucrative, but now, when established IT companies have market cap in trillion zone... what makes people work for nefarius inc?

<comment><USER53> > what makes people work for nefarius inc?

Very good pay; the ability to work remotely; pride/prestige; community; political reasons.

Being a good digital thief is still very lucrative, especially for people living in low income areas with relatively lax law enforcement. These people can run encrypted computer extortions, steal bitcoin wallets, run/sell botnets, fence digital goods, run underground ad networks, and consult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I am not buying this story. With all the other possible options, why would someone like MBS do it from his very own phone which this article claims? It sounds more like someone is trying to frame MBS.

</comment><comment><USER42> Talk about lousy deniability.

I wonder how many Alexas there are in Saudi.

</comment><comment><USER35> Don't deal with the Saudis. History will look back on you the same way it looks back on people shaking hands with Hitler. I'm not kidding.

<comment><USER55> The US is the world's largest weapons exporter and Saudi Arabia is the world's largest weapon importer. I'm not sure even a Hitler level calamity would make the US stop dealing with them. They're holding their hands and complementing their "leadership skills" ffs...

<comment><USER35> I think the oil will run out (or we'll transition to other energy sources), then Saudi will just wither and the special relationship will disappear.

But yeah, it won't end because of morality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This sounded plausible until I read the first sentence. Why would MBS be the one executing the attack, and using his personal account to do it?

<comment><USER57> The Saudi Royal Family simply do not care and walk around with impunity. They thumb their nose at the law and the world order and think they deserve to do whatever they want. This is exactly the same as the Khagoshi execution where overwhelming evidence and implication, but, play naive and put on a big sham investigation. Just how when Russian agents poisoned the Skripals and said they were their to view a church steeple.

<comment><USER56> This does seem the most likely, as hard as it is to believe. I guess when you have hierarchies based on blood rather than competency, this is what you end up with.

<comment><USER57> That and no outside government has every held them accountable for anything. Or him accountable for anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> as per usual there will be zero consequences

</comment><comment><USER59> >Jeff Bezos chatting with Mohammed bin Salman on WhatsApp

Not sure whether this is a yet another fake story sponsored by the Qataris, who infiltrated the liberal western media with their isalmist and ultra left minions all over in the name of diversity, since their rift with the Saudis in mid 2017 or the richest man on Earth is actually retarded enough to chat with a head of state like Saudi Arabia on fucking WhatsApp

</comment><comment><USER60> My gut response to this is "bullshit"

Not based on the Saudi's not buying zero-day-exploits, but on them using them from the crown prince's account directly against Jeff.

<comment><USER61> Why? Bezos isn't going to open any other videos from someone else. The US executive branch won't do a thing, in case the Saudis decide to stop buying US treasury bonds in exchange for oil. Then they might stop buying weapons, which funds the inflated military industry, and then they might buy weapons from someone else and begin keeping larger reserves of their currency. This exchange is worth more to those in power than Bezos' love life.</comment></comment>


Hidden dangers of team building rituals - <AUTHOR> http://semantici.st/hidden-dangers-of-team-building-rituals/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone grow up anymore? Or is it just high school until you retire?

<comment><USER3> Having dealt with "grown-ups" in several PTAs, they never grow up. It's like middle school until you die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Excellent article! The utter thoughtlessness verges on malice (given the tech world's supposed ability to find knowledge on the net). I've often had to intervene whenever some manager microaggressed people into his infantilizing vision of "team building", with the tacit approval of devs who lap it up.

Same goes with those who refuse endorsing the product/company. Because there's usually no way they want an employee actually giving a self-critical appraisal of the product/company.</comment>


Your Site Only Works with WWW? How and Why to Fix It - <AUTHOR> http://EmagineEngine.com/blog_article/8_0_1_0/ <comment><USER2> "Fix"...right. This is in fact a really bad idea and should be avoided.

The main argument for shortening domains seems to be based on what people will type. But every web browser I've seen will try "www.xyz.com" any time you type just "xyz". So leave the interpretation of lazy typing to the browser bar where it can be converted into a canonical form on behalf of the user.

There are plenty of reasons _not_ to make the raw domain a web site. Here are a few:

\- Potentially destroys popularity rankings in search engines because there are multiple addresses for every page. One popular site instead looks like two less-popular sites.

\- So-called CNAME in DNS cannot use bare domains. IP addresses must therefore be hard-coded in a way that is more difficult to change quickly as needed (e.g. load-balancing, discovery of a DDoS attack, whatever). So users of the raw domain "xyz.com" will see your site go down for longer than it should have, even if you've already managed to bring "www.xyz.com" back up by changing its IP address.

\- Configurations where patterns may be useful don't work, e.g. neither "{glob}.xyz.com" nor "www.{glob}" will match a bare domain. Maybe you don't care if you have just one site to worry about, but this gets old if you have a lot of domains to worry about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good info there. Should note that the article is agnostic about which is better (with or without www). It tells how to make it work with both versions of the domain, and then suggests redirecting to one of those domains to focus link juice.

Also note that in our experience, Google Chrome does not redirect automatically to www. And Chrome is very, very popular now.

<comment><USER2> Chrome doesn't do that exactly, it requires Control-Enter (which I admit many people wouldn't try). The autocomplete/search during typing does tend to product correct domain suggestions too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you have to be told this, odds are, you should not be the one tinkering with DNS _or_ web server config files.

The most frustrating pattern is when www.example.com works and example.com goes to their Outlook Web Access. It used to happen so much that I wonder if it was some misguided default configuration used by some hosting company.

</comment><comment><USER4> Using mod_rewrite seems like massive overkill here. A simple RedirectMatch will handle it just fine.

Also, I agree strongly with this, and I redirect www to non-www on every domain I control. <http://no-www.org/></comment>