Crazy Eddie Fraud - <AUTHOR> https://whitecollarfraud.com/crazy-eddie/crazy-eddie-fraud/ <comment><USER2> This needs a backgrounder on what the Crazie Eddie story was, specifically. I'm not familiar with it. The story presumes the reader is.

OK, Wikipedia has a pretty good article. And ... I question the ethics of directing traffic to the fraudster himself. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie)

 _Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics chain in the Northeastern United States- previously called ERS Electronics ... It was started in 1971 in Brooklyn, New York, by businessmen Eddie and Sam M. Antar. The chain rose to prominence throughout the Tri-State Region as much for its prices as for its memorable radio and television commercials, featuring a frenetic, "crazy" character played by radio DJ Jerry Carroll ... At its peak, Crazy Eddie had 43 stores in four states, and earned more than $300 million in sales.[1]_

 _In February 1987, the United States Attorney 's Office for the District of New Jersey commenced a federal grand jury investigation into the financial activities of Crazy Eddie. In September of that year, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission initiated an investigation into alleged violations of federal securities laws by certain Crazy Eddie officers and employees. Eddie Antar was eventually charged with a series of crimes. Antar fled to Israel in February 1990, but was returned to the United States in January 1993 to stand trial. His 1993 conviction on fraud charges was overturned, but he eventually pleaded guilty in 1996. In 1997, Antar was sentenced to eight years in prison and was subject to numerous fines. He was released from prison in 1999.[2]_

<comment><USER3> I thought it was crazy Eddie from Larry Niven's "A Mote in God's Eye" (forget the co-author).

That term is used to describe an alien mindset that comes up in a certain alien species every so often where they think they can break them out of their explosive population climb and subsequent social destruction before having to rebuild their civilization again.

<comment><USER4> Clickbait title, story involved no Moties or space probes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's what I don't get: Why is everyone so unconcerned about making themselves complicit in crimes like this?

I can understand that you might be able to influence one or two people to become complicit. But it sounds like everyone was taking part in the scheme: everyone in the family, employees at every level, even the auditors contributed a part to the conspiracy.

I mean, dozens of people must have been involved in this scheme. Why didn't anybody of them say, hey, I'm not going to be a part of this? I'm going to report this?

<comment><USER6> It was also puzzling me. I think a link posted below [[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html)] explains it. They are a closed ethnic community. Reporting it would be like betraying not just your employer, but also your people.

The article is really excellent. It is really a closed community. There is an religious edict that bans everyone who marry a non Syrian Jew.

From the article: "Seventy years after the promulgation of the Edict, it seems fair to say that, taken on its own terms, it has been an almost uniquely successful tool of social engineering. The enclave grows and thrives beyond the dreams of its founders. It offers a secure economic future and a sweet family life to those who remain within its confines."

BTW, is it offensive to use the word Jew? If so, how should I have called them?

<comment><USER7> The flip side of strong ethnic ties and ingroup preferences enabling fraud, is that they make it possible for, eg, Hasids to conduct an extemely high-value diamond trade on a handshake basis internally. [https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/21/new-yorks-diamond- dist...](https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/21/new-yorks-diamond-district-and- jewish-tradition/)

<comment><USER8> I don't think that's true; traders in the stock markets with no racial or familial ties regularly make such deals, especially in the days of open outcry markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I owned a small mobile app public co a while ago for a few years. The things I witnessed ran deep and with most listed companies on most exchanges up and down the food chain. The fraud can go many levels deep and begins to look like a giant complex game, and for crazies out there, Sith Lords [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._Byrne#Campaign_agai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._Byrne#Campaign_against_naked_shorting_and_analysts)

One fun fact I remember is that your share price is not calculated based on shares outstanding. Sure, perceived supply and perceived demand account for a lot but many traders and armchair investors are not aware of this larger detail:

The bedrock of your share price is based on available tradeable DTCC-deposited [http://www.dtcc.com/](http://www.dtcc.com/) "unchilled" float. It's all in the float and that includes a few private companies out there that determine your float number, including the DTCC and CapitalIQ [https://capitaliq.com](https://capitaliq.com), which can mean a manipulated or highly inaccurate market cap via your share price which is calculated by your float. And, if a crook has any spies or moles working there, that crook can get a lot done with his buddies which can include stock transfer agents who play a big role here. I got offers like this from time to time.

Market makers and institutions will eventually dial your price in based on your float as it's one of the few solid factors they have for determining price. Shorts are all over this too. Large caps have arsenals of CFO's, attorney's and connections that fighting for an accurate unmanipulated float is trivial. "Bigger Stuff" is happening for them although NFLX was known as a "short incinerator" due to their essentially well-engineered low float which helped them maintain a high but volatile share price historically.

For mid size and small public co's if you're market cap is manipulated, you can see this when you ask for NOBO reports provided by the DTCC combined with reports from CapitalIQ who control how and when the main DB gets updated with the number of shares used to calculate your float aka number of tradable shares any given day, week or month. Try and get them to make corrections if you can, sometimes you won't be able to, depending on who you know or how well your engineering plan for your float is from the start of structuring your public co.

<comment><USER10> Is this similar to penny stock financing? Did you get many calls for these types of loans?

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/josh- saso...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/josh-sason-made- millions-from-penny-stock-financing)

Would these types of loans aggravate the situation? Are these the companies with super high floats?

<comment><USER9> My goodness, when I first started in 2010 I got calls or emails just about every day around 6-7am PST for a year. These guys represent toxic credit lines/loans aka convertible notes/debt or the death spiral, not the better kind found among private startups today e.g. SAFEs. Never accept money from someone that calls you if your a small cap unless you know someone that knows them and they are clean. I was taught that early on by the guy that first invested in MySpace because he had a public co which he used to make that deal through a small NYSE issue I remember.

The way to handle those guys is with some basic Sun Tzu stuff. Most guys would ignore them, but they are so fun to talk to for the lulz.

You have to be real careful because even if smart money gets wind that you have talked to these guys, you might be looking at owning a roach motel by the end of the year. These guys also have the ability to naked short your stock til the cows come home. Something you've got to track. They will sometimes do things like try to book a call through someone partner or shareholder and get an intro, then blab to some subnet of people that you're going to take the deal and mess things up for you while they still short your stock knowing it's going to take a hit just because their dirty asses got near you. They know exactly how dirty gloved they are. Avoiding people like them during trips to NY is also fun and games.

One more point, this is also the main way companies looking to raise money screw their cap table up because, it absolutely ruins their float - this due to the fact that 99% of the time they have to reissue more and more and more of their stock to these death spiral guys to pay them back on the loans after 6mos. The reason its named a death spiral is because the model of most of these crooks follows includes knowing that these fledgling companies are going to have a hard time raising combined with a model that is purely based on shorting these kinds of deals. Amazingly close to absolute fraud.

You really want long term partners and financing from friendlies that understand your long term vision and at least buy into it a little bit. And, what it takes to uplist or cross list to higher quality exchanges if your an OTCBB with a healthy story, volume and price relative to some actual revenue or large partner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This must be the best content marketing I ever read. The author _is_ the convicted felon being written about and he now runs a forensic accounting consultancy.

<comment><USER12> This is not uncommon. This is taking tradecraft and applying it in a useful and valuable way (for society as a whole). Frank Abagnale is one such example.

 _American security consultant known for his history as a former confidence trickster, check forger, and impostor between the ages of 15 and 21._

 _Abagnale also continues to advise the FBI, with whom he has associated for over 40 years, by teaching at the FBI Academy and lecturing for FBI field offices throughout the country._

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

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464/)

<comment><USER13> I think often what attracts these people, beyond getting a certain level of wealth, is the game and the high from knowing they are better than those they go up against.

Switching sides allows them to continue the game and often even continue with a good base level of wealth. This can be hard to do without an existing reputation, but their prior career should have already achieved that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As an accountant, 1/3rd of the auditing class I took in college was just reading about how different companies perpetuated fraud. It made an otherwise boring class, pretty fun. I still currently work in public, and a couple of the partners are incredibly jaded because they worked on clients at some point in their careers who were committing fraud.

</comment><comment><USER15> The Planet Money episode talking to Sam Antar is a great listen: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2009/08/into_the_mind_of_a...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2009/08/into_the_mind_of_a_financial_c.html)

<comment><USER16> Another fascinating story is that of the ultra-insular Syrian Jewish community/subculture to which the Antars belong:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html)

[http://forward.com/news/110943/an-inside-look-at-a-syrian- je...](http://forward.com/news/110943/an-inside-look-at-a-syrian-jewish- enclave/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does this reflect poorly on the auditing industry? Kind of like with the ratings firms during the GFC. It seems that their poor practices have aided and abetted these frauds. Has their behaviour changed?

<comment><USER18> This is a good question, and I would like to know the answers as well. Although, seeing that the credit rating agencies that enabled the Great Recession are still in business...it seems unlikely that they have changed anything.

The only instance I've heard of an accounting company truly blowing up is probably Arthur Anderson after the Enron scandal.

<comment><USER19> I believe that a lot of firms had to split their accounting and consulting businesses after Enron, but this article shows the conflict of interest had quietly been there, and been abused, for decades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was a kid on Long Island when Crazy Eddie was big - it was impossible to not know the commercials' tag line by heart - "Crazy Eddie! His prices are in- saaaaane!"

I was young enough when all of this went down that I remember being super sad the guy in the commercials was a criminal. And then blown away to learn he was just an actor.

<comment><USER21> I'd only heard of Crazy Eddie via a New York area local historical society, the Beastie Boys, who boasted [1]:

      I splash on beats like sauce on spaghetti
      Putting MC's out of business like they're Crazy Eddie

And once made an ad for an album in the style of the Crazy Eddie ads:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OR8O0u2fDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OR8O0u2fDY)

[1] [https://genius.com/Beastie-boys-shazam- lyrics](https://genius.com/Beastie-boys-shazam-lyrics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > I engaged in a calculated plan to subtly distract them with cute Crazy Eddie > employees reporting to me. I encouraged my female employees to flirt and get > friendly with their young male PMM counterparts and discuss audit issues > with them over lunch and dinner on Crazy Eddie's tab.

Human Intelligence at it's core with some Social Engineering thrown in.

</comment><comment><USER23> "The gullible auditors accepted our silly explanation that our employees had sacrificed many years working at below average wages for the opportunity to be part of what they hoped might become a growing public company."

Brilliant line!!! Got stock options?

</comment><comment><USER24> What's funny is how pervasive these games are.

</comment><comment><USER25> > After the funds were transferred to Panama, a family member withdrew those > funds from Bank Leumi in the form of bank drafts or non-negotiable > instruments, to avoid violating disclosure laws on the movement of funds > into the country.

Bank Leumi figured big time in the crash of iBill, they took the money of a lot of merchants and never paid it out.</comment>


Silicon Valley Is Not a Fad - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@duncanr/silicon-valley-is-not-a-fad-5979bd950615 <comment><USER2> I have always been interested in computers and programming since I was little and made it a goal to move to Silicon Valley when I graduated from high school 11 years ago. Now that I'm here and working at my dream job, it's funny how "mundane" it is (in a good, engineering sort of way). Wake up, go to work, program and talk about technical things, then go home. Repeat the next day. My day to day life is very unlike the TV show this place is based on (although that craziness definitely exists around here for those looking for it, but it's not difficult to avoid). Sometimes it's hard to believe this is the tech capital of the world because the infrastructure is just so ordinary and suburban looking.

Weirdly enough, I think my favorite thing about living here is the vegetation. The quirky trees, the rolling hills, and the funky plants are just so different than what you find in the rest of the U.S. My favorite pastime is just driving around here on the weekend looking at it all.

<comment><USER3> It's not really the infrastructure that makes it Silicon Valley. In my 15 years of living here, it's the people. The concentration of tech companies here and talent is astounding! This is the only place where every week there's an interesting meetup with whatever tech of your choosing, be it Rails, Clojure or with management, with how to design/UX, and agile. This is the only place where a cafe is filled with tech people talking about their startups, pitch, their stack, etc.

I have been to many places including different tech metropolitans, like Berlin, but there's still nothing quite like Silicon Valley in terms of what I said above.

Now, my only gripe is that the housing market is crazy. It's funny how only the tech crowd get to afford to live here. I've seen families bunch together just to afford rent.

<comment><USER4> > _This is the only place where a cafe is filled with tech people talking > about their startups, pitch, their stack, etc._

How many people actually find this appealing?

To an outsider, this _is_ the joke of the Silicon Valley show: everybody is always "talking business" and "crushing it", while the vast majority of "engineering work" being done is mostly useless. The Silicon Valley lifestyle is to me the other side of coin as the Wall Street lifestyle.

<comment><USER5> I guess if you don't like software it's not a great place

<comment><USER6> If you do like software, it's still not a great place, because of groupthink. disclaimer : worked with a high rank in a FAANG company for several years...loved that microcosm, but quit because of the boredom of groupthink.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cheery optimism and pride in a place are all well and good. This article feels like it's from a different time, perhaps a decade before. Certainly, there has been a lot of negative press of Silicon Valley in recent years. Much of that has been well-deserved. For years, engineers have pretended to be above the petty tribalism of politics (even as we bikeshedded and fought our editor holy wars), only for the revelations of the last few years of SV lobbying and collusion with the surveillance state to come out.

Of course, this article is more about SV as a cultural place and ideal, and not a political force, more about Manhattan than Wall Street. But it still brushes off high rents as normal, something ever-present. Meanwhile, a San Jose city councilman and his family are evicted because of high rents:

[https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-housing-crisis- council...](https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-housing-crisis- councilmember-raul-peralez-evicted-from-his-home/)

I grew up in San Jose. (I remember when we were the capital of Silicon Valley, not San Francisco.) We now live in a very different Bay Area from that of the irrationally exuberant '90s. I think positive profiles of SV have to be tempered by realistic coverage of the many, many problems this place is experiencing. At the very least, acknowledgement of these problems- and not breezy dismissal- can spur change to make things better. So we can build a Silicon Valley worthy of these utopian fantasies.

<comment><USER8> I still don't quite understand how it's economical for all these huge companies to hire engineers in SV/SFBA for 2-3x as much as in other western markets, and probably more like 10x of non-western markets when the internet to a large extent mitigates a lot of the down- and upsides of geography.

By that I don't necessarily mean everything should be outsourced to India - even Vancouver (same language, same timezone, similar cultural background) has drastically lower developer wages than SFBA & plenty of talent.

<comment><USER9> I think it has to do with desired quality. Hiring high quality engineers can be a difficult task even in the massive talent pool present in SV, and it's only going to be more difficult in cities with smaller pools. That's not to say that quality doesn't exist in these places, but it's certainly not as readily available.

<comment><USER8> These other major tech-centers have less well-paying competition than SV as well. As someone who has done hiring in several companies in Berlin & Vienna the difficulty mostly lies in the fact companies don't want to pay much.

If you are willing to pay 10-15% above market rates (which is still 1/2 of SFBA market rates) there is no shortage of senior engineers in Berlin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's another characteristic that's apparent to only some of us who live here, but many of those who don't...

How out of touch many here are with the rest of the nation's and world's concerns, aspirations, feelings, values, and needs.

For example, we now know that the Internet has a corrupting influence on civil society that's stronger than its capacity to uplift it.

<comment><USER11> > For example, we now know that the Internet has a corrupting influence on > civil society that's stronger than its capacity to uplift it.

You believe the Internet is a net negative for society? I think it's easily one of the greatest inventions in all of history.

<comment><USER12> > I think it's easily one of the greatest inventions in all of history.

Really? I'm surprised you rank it above inventions which allowed the agricultural, industrial or transport revolutions to happen.

Personally the Internet as an invention would rank way below the automobile, wheel, plough, spinning jenny, telegraph, telephone, broadcast television, aeroplane, etc.

<comment><USER13> do you think if the internet had somehow existed prior to these inventions, their creation would have been hastened?

<comment><USER14> No, the inventors would become influencers selling CBD oil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Silicon Valley is not a fad, but not quite a place either. As the author describes it, the drab office complexes are not quite what makes Silicon Valley what it is. In my opinion, a person living half a world away, Silicon Valley is a collective state of mind in a place with the right resources and context. It has talent, capital, and the infrastructure, both physical and intangible. It has free markets, great universities, rule of law, safety, democracy, and most importantly an acceptance of a certain kind of risk taking. This combination is surprisingly hard to recreate. As an Indian living half a planet away, I look upon the place with a mixture of admiration, awe and envy.

<comment><USER8>
        It has free markets, great universities, rule of law,
        safety, democracy, and most importantly an acceptance
        of a certain kind of risk taking. This combination is
        surprisingly hard to recreate.

These all exist to a large extent in a lot of major (and not so major!) western cities. Not that unique.

<comment><USER16> The unique thing here is the same thing that is unique in Shenzhen in China - how much of everything is packed close together reducing externalities and improving communication.

If the is business in the category, you're liable to find it in the SV, even more likely to find it in the Chinese city.

<comment><USER4> > _If the[re] is business in the category, you 're liable to find it in the > SV_

This in an interesting take. My understanding is that SV caters to a very particular business: software. Sure that business is growing (eating the world), but Silicon Valley doesn't strike me as "all business friendly", especially when everyone is trying to grow at all costs, while the rest of the country (and world) operates on small, sustainable businesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yeah, I recently watch a German-produced special about Silicon Valley that concluded Google engineers learn how to network by attending Burning Man. [0]

It's obvious to identify the product of Silicon Valley companies because they generally are marketed globally. But it's really hard to convey what it's like to live and work here. Generally, it's nothing like you might imagine. The architecture is mundane, the weather is great, the traffic stifling. That can describe many places, so then you have to talk about housing costing more than anywhere in the world (at this scale), and $12,000 bottles of Cognac at Costco.

In the end, it's the people who live here. Generally well paid, disproportionately wealthy (but not nearly everyone), probably from another country, not here to show off what they have, but rather, what they can achieve.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQy0ZCx3UCY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQy0ZCx3UCY)

<comment><USER18> > The architecture is mundane

I take issue with this. For most of my career I worked in a standard office building. False ceiling tiles, cubicles, rectangular concrete 'tilt and pour'. It served the job well. It was relatively quiet, comfortable, intimate and fostered my productivity.

Now I work in an architectural masterpiece of modern green engineering. It is loud, impersonal, distracting, and not at all conducive to actually getting work done. It's like the people who designed the building hated engineers and typical engineering personalities and set out to design a building to torture them.

Apple has a similar problem. Apple's senior vice-president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji refused to move his team into their new, piece of shit exercise in architectural masturbation.

<comment><USER16> The main thing to blame is open plan... Read: cheaping out on walls. This includes undamped glass walls and doors.

<comment><USER19> And I just can't figure out if it actually IS cheaper - I mean you're dealing with interior architects after all, as well as the glass walls which can't be cheap either.

Plus, personnel costs (especially in Silicon Valley) are a multiple of floor space, so I can't understand that argument either.

But then, so far, I've never had someone who calls the shots on the open office model go public on why they went for it. I mean the cynic in me thinks it's about cutting costs (but then why do they have developers in SV instead of outsourcing it?) or showing off (open offices look good on pictures / when the manager walks around in it).

<comment><USER20> I don't think it has much to do with money. These companies either have or are already burning trough a lot of it. It is about careerists avoiding accountability. That is why you hire contractors, have open offices and host in the cloud. As long as no one can blame you for anything, which they will to further their own career, you will make it to the next level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article makes me sad. While not a fad, Silicon Valley is the ultimate manifestation of a place where Americans and contagiously the rest of tech workers value work over life.

</comment><comment><USER22> The prime question for me, as it relates to real estate, is:

"Will the majority of Silicon Valley's economic activity ever move to virtual locations?"

I.e., will over half of the meetings at Facebook, Google, etc, ever happen in a game world, with participants logging in with HMDs?

It's hard to make a conclusive prediction, but I have an extremely difficult time justifying a "NO" with even 51/49 odds. I would put the odds at least at 10/1 "YES" but again that's pure speculation.

The only real justification for a strong "NO" is something like "It has been tried before with other telecom tech and it didn't work" but we don't even had access gaze tracking yet, which science shows is crucial for language. We seem assured to have a blistering release of body tracking tech over the next 10 years, and the claim "none of it will change teleconferencing materially" seems impossible to justify.

The counterclaim, "teleconferencing will hit feature parity with in-person meeting for 90% of corporate interactions within 10 years" to me is very easy to entertain.

And if the counterclaim is true, what does that mean for Bay Area real estate? I can't justify a million dollar mortgage if there's even a 50/50 change of this outcome.

HMD teleconferencing vs. meetings in conference rooms seems like a classic disruptive technology situation. Right now HMDs are unacceptably poor in comparison. But they have key advantages the incumbent tech (in-person meetings) can never match: no commute, exponentially more and cheaper housing options, muting, easier and better access to data and visualization in the meeting space, faster transition between workstation and meeting, can include people on other continents, infinite meeting spaces available at all times, etc.

This seems to me the biggest looming change to Bay Area culture, period. I am surprised it's not more discussed.

<comment><USER23> and a lot of it has to do with people's willingness to use those remote methods, and the culture at those companies. Right now there's a lot of young people working in tech that don't have much incentive to be remote. But, in the coming decades, some of them will want families of their own. At that point a desire to move out of the bay area may overcome their resistance to working remotely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Y Combinator, like Silicon Valley itself, tends to produce great innovation with a generous pinch of bullshit."

Interesting way to round off the post!

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always said that Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of the tech industry. When one wants to make a film in Hollywood, and the script calls for a special piece of equipment or prop that's never been made before, one can walk down the street and find three people who can make one for you in an hour because Hollywood is where the movie people congregate.

The same is true for the Valley.

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice read, thoughtful.

Another thoughtful read, from the other side: [https://nplusonemag.com/issue-25/on-the-fringe/uncanny- valle...](https://nplusonemag.com/issue-25/on-the-fringe/uncanny-valley/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Suggested reading: a long-form article about the history of Silicon Valley seen through the lives of the author's own family (Kim-Mai Cutler, 2014): [https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and- fo...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and-found/)

</comment><comment><USER28> biased, since I know the author. Think it's a rather mediocre piece, but I liked this quip a lot:

"It's easy to say silicon valley is full of 'tech bros' if that's the cohort you surround yourself with"

<comment><USER4> > _It 's easy to say silicon valley is full of 'tech bros' if that's the > cohort you surround yourself with_

Everyone hates tech bros, but I don't think tech bros know they're tech bros.

<comment><USER29> Silicon Valley where diversity and inclusion is welcomed, unless you look like someone we don't like, then we hate you, and get out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just wish finance would take off again so all the mercenaries looking for a quick buck but with no personal affinity for technology would have somewhere else to go.

<comment><USER31> When is this sentiment justified and when is it just gatekeeping?

<comment><USER32> Look at the cohorts of Product Managers, Security "Specialists" (Disclosure: they're not engineers, experts, its a totally made up title), Certified Buzzy Buzzwordingtons etc. Its not very hard to see, as the OP pithely pointed out, that Tech seems to be the only place today where its possible to strike gold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The last paragraph includes this about Y Combinator: "in my opinion it's also incubated a lot of nonsense." and "tends to produce great innovation with a generous pinch of bullshit."

Is there some backstory missing here?

</comment><comment><USER34> If we could put a dent in the housing thing, it would be a wonderful place. ATM we are helpless before it.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't mean to insult a PHD, but this piece reads like a middle school persuasion piece. It's pure 'why my city is great', with little objective evidence.

<comment><USER36> A PhD is a piece of paper, not something that elevates the holder to the position of a deity. I don't think it should even be mentioned as something that might temper your criticism.

(General comment only, I haven't actually read the article yet).

<comment><USER37> PhD's who do silly things deserve more criticism because they are supposed to know better, and its funny watching their reaction that you dare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > _In the late two-thousands, at a party in the Mission District_

Do people refer to the first decade of this century as "the two thousands"?

<comment><USER39> Personally excited to enter the twenties so we can refer to decades by standard nomenclature again!

<comment><USER40> Wow I hadn't thought about that. I also think most people haven't yet realised this is the last year of the current decade!

<comment><USER41> wait what happened to March-Dec of 2019?

Since there was no 0 AD, we count decades from 1 - 10, not 0 - 9. yes that's stupid

<comment><USER42> No. Nobody ever does that.

We count centuries that way, because we say "1st century", "20th century", "21st century". (That is, "20th century AD".) Ordinal numbers, based on the year 1 AD.

Nobody says "178th decade", or "213th decade". Decades are cardinal numbers. Nobody starts "the decade" in the 1 year.

<comment><USER41> > _Nobody start "the decade" in the 1 year._

wow rude, I do. I think the 60s started 1961-01-01 and understand that people usually mean "the years that give a quotient of 196 when divided by 10".

I understand that we use ordinals to refer to centuries, also I understand how that's unrelated to which specific years are in a decade/century/millennium

fun fact the Australian constitution came into force on the 1st of January, 1901, aligning with the starting boundary of the 20th century.

<comment><USER40> So if someone mentioned something nice happening in 1960 you'd say "yeah the Fifties were great!" ?

<comment><USER41> wow rude again, that's not 'assuming the best intent of the commentator' and is against this site's code of conduct

> _[I] understand that people usually mean "the years that give a quotient of > 196 when divided by 10"._

since I'm not a pedantic sicko that gets off on telling people they're wrong and lording my hugely advanced intellect over them, I use human words for genuine natural interactions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "You read a lot. We like that." meh!</comment>


Software developed or maintained by the OpenBSD project - <AUTHOR> http://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html <comment><USER2> I thoroughly enjoyed Theo de Raadt recent talk, "Pledge: A new security technology in openbsd". It left me itching to try OpenBSD.

"Pledge() is designed as a mitigation rather than a cure-all, de Raadt explains, but it's a mitigation with an interesting approach: a process or application stipulates the system services it needs, and if it steps beyond its boundaries, it's killed." [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/10/untamed_pledge_hopes...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/10/untamed_pledge_hopes_to_improve_openbsd_security/)

Hackfest 2015: Theo de Raadt presented "Pledge: A new security technology in openbsd"

video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7S1eqKsFk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_7S1eqKsFk)

slides: [http://www.openbsd.org/papers/hackfest2015-pledge/index.html](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/hackfest2015-pledge/index.html)

<comment><USER3> This sounds exactly like seccomp and seccomp-bpf in Linux, so I don't think the feature is special to OpenBSD. Chrome uses it, for example.

From [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox/Seccomp#Intro_to_s...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox/Seccomp#Intro_to_seccomp_and_seccomp- bpf)

"Seccomp stands for secure computing mode. It's a simple sandboxing tool in the Linux kernel, available since Linux version 2.6.12. When enabling seccomp, the process enters a "secure mode" where a very small number of system calls are available (exit(), read(), write(), sigreturn()). Writing code to work in this environment is difficult; for example, dynamic memory allocation (using brk() or mmap(), either directly or to implement malloc()) is not possible.

Seccomp-BPF is a more recent extension to seccomp, which allows filtering system calls with BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) programs. These filters can be used to allow or deny an arbitrary set of system calls, as well as filter on system call arguments (numeric values only; pointer arguments can't be dereferenced)"

<comment><USER4> Pledge is much easier to user that seccomp-bpf and is now forced in more than half of the binary distribuited in the base system. Also, there is a big difference between having a technology and enforcing the technology: Seccomp has been included in linux for a very long time, but is ignored by most developers and not used except in specific instances (ie chrome as you pointed out)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Migrated my personal thinkpad to OpenBSD, other than firefox coughing up now and then - its been smooth so far.

Installing was a breeze, the man pages are well written, never had to run to google much except while partioning.

Also: Never knew sudo was a openBSD project.

<comment><USER6> Didn't openbsd attempt to rewrite sudo recently? There was a point about simplifying its configuration syntax.

Also, as a long time BSD fanboy, I've never considered OpenBSD to be a desktop OS. It's a great OS that I use on routers and servers, but never a desktop. I had a period where I used FreeBSD on my laptop but once I went Linux, I never looked back.

<comment><USER7> Have you tried OpenBSD for desktop? FreeBSD on the desktop is, well, a pain. Hence PCBSD. But OpenBSD is actually pretty good at being a desktop, as long as you can live without some things like Flash and other things that will never be there.

<comment><USER8> PC-BSD is "the Ubuntu of BSD" – a preconfigured GUI, a GUI app "store" etc. If you can install OpenBSD, you don't need it.

FreeBSD on the desktop is not a pain!

<comment><USER7> FreeBSD on the desktop used be take a fair amount of fiddling. If that's no longer true then that's awesome! :)

<comment> vive-la-liberte A major cause of pain people are hit by when they try to use an operating system other than Windows is that they are uninformed about hardware compatibility. Frequently, when someone wants to try out a new OS, they'll try to install on their desktop/laptop/whatever and they will be frustrated to find a broken mess.

The correct way to get started with a new OS is to first try it out in a virtual machine. If you find that you enjoy using it, buy compatible hardware and go metal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I want to write some general things about OpenBSD / the OpenBSD Communtiy I realized while I gave it a spin just this month (in no particular order):

-) they are a "pressure cooker" for development, if they have to brake something in order to advance they will. way different mindest when you compare it to the linux kernel or FreeBSD. this does not mean it's unstable, but from version to version they might radically change something.

-) they strip down their system, if they don't like a license they don't implement it, and if something is too complicated / too big, they don't implement it. one of the contra-zfs-in-openbsd arguments (besides the license) quite simply is: it's so much code, it's so huge, it would be such an immense amount of work to audit it and to really really understand every single part of it.

-) openbsd runs on so many architectures partly because it allows them to catch more bugs. some weird bug you might encounter only while trying to install the system over network on machine xyz that nobody really uses anymore... running on so many multiple architectures gives them more input.

-) openbsd-community is way less elitist than people say/think it is. they expect you to have read the manpages (and they made such an effort to make them as good as possible), to maybe search on the internet yourself, to have tried some things out and to know how to use mailing lists, not too much in my opinion. they probably don't even mind the stigma of being elitists, as it keeps newcomers away. getting help is a privilege, not a fundamental right of every user.

-) they want others to use their tools. while it is probably unfair considering how many tools they provide and how little funding they get, nevertheless they actually genuinely are happy that their tools are used, which is an awesome mindset. but that probably is generally a bsd-license vs gpl kind of thing.

-) run your own sh*t! while many freebsd devs are simply using macs and running freebsd on their servers, openbsd developers are heavily encouraged to run openbsd everywhere they have the chance of doing so. you will find that most (maybe all) devs run it themselves on their notebook/desktop or at least on some of their private machines, which is awesome.

Some further resources:

-) openbsd faq [http://www.openbsd.org/faq/](http://www.openbsd.org/faq/) (especially section 1, 8, 9)

-) [http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html](http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html) just give it a spin, why not? run it as virtual machine and play around, some hours worth while

<comment><USER9> EDIT (for some reason I can't edit above):

-) and just for fun [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlgdvSNpi60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlgdvSNpi60) (I love that video for some reason :D)

<comment><USER10> Good watch, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm always so surprised that OpenBSD seems to have a much smaller/tighter group of people working on the core[1]. Yet they seem to keep up and not only that, but also lead the way in some case (e.g. LibreSSL).

([1] Especially compared to the Linux kernel. Looking at maillist activity or number of different people, the Linux kernel seems to have a lot more people working on it).

<comment><USER12> It's worth remembering that OpenBSD does less--by design. There is no ZFS/Btrfs; there is no LVM; there is no SEOpenBSD, there is no support for mobile phone drivers, and so on. Linux can do many, many things that OpenBSD cannot do, and is making no effort to try to do.

But _this is a good thing._ It's _why_ you're seeing OpenBSD "keep up": they've decided to keep things as simple as possible to enable them to be as secure as possible while still being a real unix, and what you're seeing is the fruit of that decision. The small team can now keep itself incredibly relevant, and can relatively easily stay on top of things in that space. The simplicity means fewer bugs and better security design, and more time to focus on third-party ecosystem support (e.g., LibreSSL, SSH, and so on).

In other words: it's not that OpenBSD is truly keeping up with Linux in general. In a very real sense, it isn't. What it _is_ doing is keeping up, and even surpassing it, in a few very important, very key areas, and that in turn is keeping OpenBSD incredibly useful and incredibly relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is really impressive how much you can streamline and simplify a Unix system if you can afford to cut off legacy stuff. It's also great to see that stuff being spread outside the OpenBSD world.

<comment><USER14> Among the Linux-users I know, OpenBSD has a reputation for being very cryptic and, well, hardcore.

I am not really certain why. The installer is kind of spartan, yes, but it is not difficult to figure out. And not only is the system pretty simple, the documentation is really good, too.

I recently inherited an old laptop that would have ended up in the trash otherwise, and I installed OpenBSD on it. The battery is busted, unfortunately, but otherwise installing the system and setting up XFCE was pretty straightforward.

The community can be a little tough on newbies at times, but if one plays by their rules, they are a very friendly and helpful bunch.

<comment><USER15> > The installer is kind of spartan, yes, but it is not difficult to figure > out.

In fact, it asks the same questions as a typical Ubuntu install: keyboard language, timezone, username + password, partitioning, network. They throw in a couple more questions about enabling NTP and SSH.

> And not only is the system pretty simple, the documentation is really good, > too.

I think that newer users of Linux are not used to searching for documentation in man pages, instead they go look for an answer they can copy-paste off of Stack Overflow.

<comment><USER13> _> I think that newer users of Linux are not used to searching for documentation in man pages, instead they go look for an answer they can copy- paste off of Stack Overflow._

Unfortunately, we see this for (some, newby) system administrators, too. I guess this is the typical issue with "getting it work" versus "getting it right".

<comment><USER16> What about docker .vs. real system administration?...

<comment><USER17> You know, if you use Docker for the right reasons, in the right way, it can be a real time saver.

I'm not really sold on the way Docker specifically tries to be fire-and-forget easy (it often succeeds in being silly and you have to work around it), but containers are good.

There's a lot of very useful software that just expects that it can do whatever it wants on a system, like install its own dependencies from git, run its own version of python etc.

You may want to run such software in production and it is an absolute maintenance nightmare if you install all the dependencies via package management. Upgrading starts with rebuilding and repackaging all dependencies. Not fun, and not a good use of time.

For such software, containers make it feasible to administer as somewhat manageable units: You create the Dockerfile or whatever to install the software you want, and run the resulting image on a host, and bring configuration in via puppet or something. Then, when you need to upgrade, you rebuild your image and deploy it on the host; rollbacks are trivial, as is scaling, or creating test environments.

You can of course achieve the same sort of thing with virtual machines providing you have good orchestration. However, often a deployment can consist of multiple software components that are separate units, but can (or must) share a single host.

I think so long as Linux containers don't actually offer real security, that's the niche where they are useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A wonderful OS!

As a student I installed our faculty's firewalls based on PF, CARP (for failovers), Snort etc.

I wrote even a few articles on BGPD, Spam-Greylisting, Snort Intrusion Detection for a (now defunct) IT magazine from Germany :)

Those were the times, indeed....now back to JavaScript ;)

</comment><comment><USER19> I used to host my personal web site on a Gateway 2000 beige box running OpenBSD installed on floppies. Those were the days.

<comment><USER15> For almost 10 years, the router at my parents' was my first PC (a Pentium 75 MHz with 16 MB of RAM and a 1 GB hard drive) running OpenBSD 3.0 or 3.1; I installed it, configured it, put it in a closet in the basement and didn't have to touch it until it died.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thanks to the OpenBSD developers!

</comment><comment><USER21> Surprised to see Niels Provos' name on that list so many times. Honeyd (and the associated book: Virtual Honeypots) was also developed by him and is quite interesting for anyone with an interest in cybersecurity.

</comment><comment><USER22> Projects maintained by OpenBSD developers outside OpenBSD

* Sudo (...1980...)

wow. I didn't even think about sudo like that...

<comment><USER23> Not only that, the guidance you get (first root email, man afterboot, etc) enforces you to use a limited user instead of root and to learn about sudo.

OpenBSD now is using 'doas' instead of sudo (so the guidance you get points to 'doas', not to 'sudo').

When I did first try openbsd in the 4.x series, it was using sudo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> With regards to malloc, what is the benefit of "random (delayed) free"?

<comment><USER25> Not 100% sure, but I think this is to mitigate exploitation of UAF (Use After Free) flaws.

Adding an unpredictable delay in between when an application frees some memory, and it becomes available for reuse elsewhere will likely reduce the window of vulnerability where an exploit may be able to leverage the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > W^X: First used for sparc, sparc64, alpha, and hppa in OpenBSD 3.3. Today, > most architectures implement it.

Oh come ON! Is OpenBSD still pretending they: a) invented this b) understood it (said "X is impossible" when PAX already did it)

Really, OpenBSD? Really?

Theo and friends explicitly say they don't look at what Linux does, which does explain that they can claim that they are first. 1) Don't look for or at state of the art. 2) Pretend you're doing state of the art, since you've not seen the others.

<comment><USER27> The PAX/grsec people generally appear confounded by this, claiming their patch was first and that they were #1. The reality is that even today their patches remain largely uncommitted _patches_ , and as a community, they didn't push as hard as OpenBSD did and continues to do with upstream projects. They much rather publicly attack OpenBSD, which has historically ignored them preferring to do actual work.

The software ecosystem as a whole has gained far more from OpenBSDs efforts than that of the PAX/grsec teams.

<comment><USER28> This is ridiculous. Since OpenBSD started as a fork of NetBSD, one could similarly claim that innovations in OpenBSD are irrelevant if they have not been picked up and integrated by NetBSD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> OpenBSD does well for the areas it focuses on. It's easy to admire a project that has a narrow focus. The accolades always appear to come from those with the least amount of experience with it however. "I use it for a high performance firewall for my mom" "It's great as a desktop on my old laptop, that I do nothing with." It's like hearing someone praise Steve Jobs for inventing Photoshop, merely because they use it on a Mac. Fire up a high performance database on OpenBSD that uses a production equivalent of modern data. Setup a fileserver on nfsv3, use sshfs, or run the latest Linux version of <insert anything here>. Then talk about your experiences. "We are secure because we don't support firewire/bluetooth" is an invalid argument.

<comment><USER7> You're implying that OpenBSD is a toy OS. It's not. There are people using it for real work under real load. Is it the fastest? Nope. If you're spec'ing out a server and cutting edge performance is your major concern then you should pick something else. But that's not the only criterion in real production environments. There are roles where OpenBSD is not only an acceptable choice, but the best choice. As always, it's about the best tool for the job. No tool is the best for _every_ job.

<comment><USER29> Have you ever used it in any of these roles you speak of? What was your experience?

<comment><USER7> Yes, I have. My experience was good. It's easy to install, configure, and maintain, and it's rock solid. But it's not the only tool in my toolbox.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


On Lisp ebook, in one single html file - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/onlisp/

<comment><AUTHOR> Only one file in a convenient format, for your reading pleasure.

Just in time for the iPad!

* If a kind soul can host the ebook for everybody to see before they download it that would be great

<comment><USER2> How do you code on the iPad? Programming books are not novels, imo, you need to pause every so often and _try_ things out ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> And this is better than <http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html> how?</comment>


DragonFly Release 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dragonflybsd.org/release30/

<comment><USER2> tcplay is included in this release. It's probably the most complete independent implementation of TrueCrypt (outside of TrueCrypt itself) that you'll find anywhere. As a stand-alone application, tcplay works with Linux as well.</comment>


The odds of knowing your cousins: 23andme Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.4brad.com/odds-knowing-your-cousins-23andme-part-1 <comment><USER2> "First of all, we are friends with Anne, the founder of 23andMe. I did some consulting for them and got in as a free customer."

I find a small issue with this disclosure pushed almost all the way to the end of the post. It even somewhat seemed worse than not mentioning it at all, as I had already had the information from the post, and _then_ possible bias was bought into play.

<comment><USER3> Yup - I didn't make it to the end (it was a good read, but I got the point without needing the math) so would never have found that out if it weren't for you posting it here.

Not really a "First of all" if it's at the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious if knowing cousins is more likely if the amount of children is smaller.

Such as on my mothers side families often consist of 4-7 children for each couple, like my mom is one of six, and I don't really know any 3rd or even 2nd cousins; however on my fathers side families usually consist of 1-3 children and I actually know almost all my 2nd cousins and some 3rd cousins.

This may be a little off topic considering the subject is on dna relations though.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you still watch the news? - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering today, how much longer are news shows going to last? I would assume that a lot of people especially in this generation would rather just Google something and read an article rather than watch the news. <comment><USER2> Sure, you CAN just google whatever you want, but I don't think you always know what article you want to read... I don't watch the news, but I listen to CBC like an addict, and it's really because I never know what I'm going to hear. There are always new little "gems" worth hearing that it never even occurred to me "google".

</comment><comment><USER3> Sure. All the time. I enjoy watching news commentary on MSNBC. It's a kick to see exposed all of the despicable right-wing activities.

If I want news FACTS, I stick to the NY Times, however.

</comment><comment><USER4> Last time I watched for more than 5 minutes: 6AM September 11, 2001

</comment><comment><USER5> No.

I use a TV connected to a Mac Mini to watch Netflix and other video sources (documentary, comedy, etc). I don't have cable TV.

I get news via web search and twitter.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't even remember what year it was that I ditched T.V. entirely. Was way before it went digital. Nope, no news on T.V. For me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, as soon as i'm done with school I'm just going to have internet, with Netflix and other services. Land lines and Cable are a waste of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I watch the news at 10 every night here in the UK while I'm getting ready to call it a day.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to do that every night, but now I lay in bed and just read articles on my tablet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Rachel Maddow if my roommate is watching it. Otherwise nope.</comment>


Huawei's Clout Is So Strong It's Helping Shape Global 5G Rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-01/huawei-s-clout-is-so-strong-it-s-helping-shape-global-5g-rules <comment><USER2> > "Having a socialist government basically in charge right now is incredibly > problematic for U.S. goals, and 5G specifically," Michael O'Rielly, a member > of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, said in an interview.

"socialist"? Who says such things? Is he a trump appointee?</comment>


The Real Problem With Facebook And The News - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2016/the-real-problem-with-facebook-and-the-news/ <comment><USER2> Worst about this topic is that some newspapers apparently have expected Facebook to be fully unbiased. I mean really, its a private company that has to work hard to keep its user base, why would they care about unbiased news?</comment>


Building the Mad Max machines - <AUTHOR> http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/jacinta-leong-building-beastly-machines-mad-max-fury-road?none

<comment><USER2> This article from Jalopnik has crazier details about the actual cars. "So what about the War Rig itself? Well, it's a Tatra with six-wheel-drive powered by two supercharged V8s, a 1940s Chevy Fleetmaster welded to the back of the cab, and a Beetle cabin mounted to the tanker. And it's the least insane thing in Gibson's armada."

Edit: yup, forgot link [http://jalopnik.com/how-the-man-behind-the-machines- of-mad-m...](http://jalopnik.com/how-the-man-behind-the-machines-of-mad-max- put-a-hellsc-1704037927)

<comment><AUTHOR> The peacemaker is awesome: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-CFRAwSShs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-CFRAwSShs)

<comment><USER3> Gah that autoplayed and I forgot I had my headset still on. Wow. At least I'm fully awake again. Recommended but turn down the volume on your computer before clicking because that's _really_ loud (un-muffled V8 on a tracked vehicle that makes most Bombardier stuff look very tame in comparison).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The new Mad Max is not a green-screen-fest and it shows. Beautiful movie and it has a physicality that, say, Transformers could never have.

Just give yourself five minutes before you drive home ;)

<comment><USER5> Much like _Road Warrior_.

On the other hand, making a movie where the villains are simply villainous because they are willing to use violence to take oil from people who simply want to live their lives and keep it, that's not exactly the sort of big budget theme Hollywood can stomach. These days the oil scarcity narrative works better for blockbuster audiences with the political subjugation of women as the primary determinant of villainy. Women fighting invaders to protect hearth and home, just don't require enough rescuing for the 21st century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I didn't meet Shira, but I would like to; we corresponded by email while I > was in Australia, and she was in Namibia. I did not travel to Namibia for > the shoot, so I sent files to her to continue.

This is one of the more fascinating tidbits. Two art directors on a major motion picture that never once met - conferring by email.

<comment><USER7> I don't know, but I bet they used Dropbox. Dropbox is huge in the film production world. Lots of files to share among distributed teams.

EDIT- LOL. This comment is currently at -4. I have no idea why.

<comment><USER8> Your comment reads--at least to me--as an advertisement for Dropbox.

<comment><USER7> Hmm. Maybe so. HN is odd about that sometimes.

My intent was merely to add some color commentary. It's not unusual for people on a film project to collaborate remotely, sometimes never meeting. Happens all the time since it's expensive to get people in the same (sometimes far away) place. One of the main tools people use is Dropbox, it's one of those things that really did make the workflow much easier.

Even a small indie film project with no visual effects can have thousands of files that need to be shared between people all over the place. Scripts, schedules, budgets, manifests, insurance documents, rental documents, storyboards, concept art, contracts of a 100 different kinds, lighting diagrams, blueprints, music cues, dailies, etc etc etc. It's really nice to have a tool that makes that easy.

<comment><USER9> Apparently iPods (as drives) were the sharing method of choice during Lord of the Rings production.

[http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipod- helped-t...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipod-helped-to- make-lord-of-the-rings/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The drivability and safety of the vehicles is impressive, given the aesthetic constraints. I grew up around motorcycle and car drag racing, and I know how squirrelly such vehicles can get!

I raced as a kid myself, but quit after one try at racing my dad's bike. It was full-race B-modified Kawasaki Z1, capable of 155mph in the quarter mile. It would start to shimmy around 130mph. Scared the crap out of me! He was mad that I didn't have the guts to just hang on and ride it through.

<comment><USER3> A bike that powerful is something to treat with proper respect and I'm kind of surprised at your dad's reaction. With machines like that it is never the machine that is the limit but _always_ the driver and if you're not confident an accident is just around the corner. Confidence you can fake for humans but machines are fairly unforgiving and the kind of punishment meted out at 130mph+ is not the kind of thing you'd normally wish on your kid. Kudos to you (as a dad...) for knowing your limits rather than ending in hospital. I've had only one major bike spill but it was my first _and_ last in one go, it cured me of my sense that I was in control all the time in a split second (just a bit of loose gravel in a corner that was usually clean, nowhere near 130mph).

<comment><USER10> My dad is an asshole.

And yeah, race track conditions are very different. A drag race is a straight line over more or less flat and smooth asphalt, that can easily be kept clean. The hard part is the vehicles are so fast that even keeping them straight over the width of a two-lane road is a challenge (especially when the front wheels may not be touching the ground for the first hundred feet or more).

I saw a guy get killed racing once, when I was a kid. It was a mixed car/motorcycle event, and the motorcyclists were arguing with the NHRA to get haybales put up around the guard rails at the end of the track. It didn't get done, and a top fuel bike (~7.8 second quarter mile those days) lost control and went into the rail at close to 200mph. That was sobering.

I don't ride motorcycles anymore. Too much sense of my own mortality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        "A specific challenge designing the vehicles was achieving
        esthetic qualities as well as functionality. Our vehicles had
        to look amazing, but beyond that, they also had to drive safely
        at speed!"

This is an understatement. I was impressed.

<comment><USER12> I'm curious if the sound effects were directly recorded from their respective vehicles or if they were mostly done in a studio. A massive component of the Mad Max movie for me was the phenomenal sound work starting from the brilliant score to the unique purr of each vehicle's engine. Only the dialogue mixing is flawed as far as I can tell as I was dumbstruck for two hours straight each time I saw it.

<comment><USER13> Based on a Top Gear (RIP) interview with one of the actors, all of the dialog had to be rerecorded because the engines were so loud. I wouldn't be surprised if they used actual engine noise, given there was so much of it available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honestly, watching this movie I felt like an 8 year old at a monster truck show. Such satisfyingly clever and innovative designs of the vehicles, all REAL machines and not just CGI... really jaw dropping. You just don't see that kinda thing these anymore. I'm still excited by it days after having seen it.

17 years to make this film, and so many chances for it to have died. Amazing the perseverance it must take.

<comment><USER15> Any word if the director is moving on with the second one? I had heard that he wanted to do it anime-style, like _Akira_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hehheh the movie looks like post apocalyptic wacky races

</comment><comment><USER17> If you wanted to watch something in more detail, some minor celebrities in the Australian modified car scene did a marketing job for the movie and made their own "Mad Max" style car.

It's an S15 Silvia with an LS1 v8 on knobbly mud tyres.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp0KnUFYB-- g_NcNczfkX...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp0KnUFYB-- g_NcNczfkXW_T7izPjMHcI)

</comment><comment><USER18> Those machines are nice but somehow I got the feeling they look way too clean. Almost no rust. Very safe. Almost no cracks bumps and what not.. There is missing some creativity here. I think the old movies got this right.

But still: great work!

<comment><USER19> > Almost no rust

They're basically a cult that worships vehicles and being "shiny", I think they'd have rather well-maintained vehicles.

The cars in the first movie were all in pretty good condition, from memory.

<comment><USER20> In the first movie civilisation hadn't completely collapsed yet so the cars and bikes look in pretty good nick - which is how they should have looked. It's only in the second film that things get really post apocalyptic & rusty since at that point civilisation was all but gone. (I watched both films back to back last night)</comment></comment></comment>


The Hacker's Guide to Markets - <AUTHOR> http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-is-market-guide-for-hackers.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The author, Eric Ries, put this draft together quickly based on an email conversation. He bravely embraces the "release early and incorporate feedback mantra."

I probably would have revised it many more times. Which approach has the highest benefit or the lowest cost, I don't know.

This is a long way of saying that we're looking for feedback. What do you think?</comment>


The Tech Brands You Can Trust - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/211074/the_tech_brands_you_can_trust.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Self selected respondents so a balance between fanboys and those with an axe to grind. That said, first and last in laptops matches my experience.</comment>


Chipotle Burrito Hack - <AUTHOR> https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/6-techniques-to-get-more-chipotle-burrito-for-free/

<comment><USER2> Can confirm that asking for half meat A and half meat B nets one more meat.</comment>


Learning to juggle grows brain networks for good  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17957-learning-to-juggle-grows-brain-networks-for-good.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

<comment><USER2> I've been juggling for a few years now and find it both useful for zoning out and thinking about tough problems, and intrinsically satisfying - it's a great feeling to nail a new trick for the first time.

For anyone interested in learning I found this video site extremely helpful:

[http://homepage.mac.com/abramr/juggling/tutorial/category/in...](http://homepage.mac.com/abramr/juggling/tutorial/category/index.html)

Takes you from complete beginner to covering loads of 3 ball tricks, and onto 4 and 5 ball if you are so inclined. Has side by side full speed and slow motion videos.

The mathematical structure behind juggling patterns is quite interesting - various notations have been developed including siteswap:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siteswap>

</comment><comment><USER3> A guy at party who was totally off his face on amphetamine told me this while juggle 3 balls. He said the skill synchronously activated both left and right side of his brain. He was defo on the right lines and since inspired me juggle too.

<comment><USER4> Not to discount this specific tidbit, but perhaps as a rule, it's not the best practice to hold the wisdom of someone in this state in high regard. On the other hand, there seems to be a propensity for humans to do so, dating back to the Oracle of Delphi, so you _are_ in good company it seems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Juggling was recommended to me by a physio because I was getting shooting pains in my wrists. I used this to learn:

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6366713757585864298...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6366713757585864298#)

I find it rather good for thinking about bugs, as it's totally automatic once you get the hang of it.

Learning new things (mills mess at the moment) is great for coding productivity too. I can only handle dropping things every 10 seconds for about five minutes before giving up on procrastination and getting back to work.

</comment><comment><USER6> Different report here:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8297764.stm>

I prefer it to the one in New Scientist - YMMV.

I juggle and think it has loads of benefits. It's nice to see some concrete evidence.

</comment><comment><USER6> A previous item about juggling affecting the brain's structure:

<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5615.php>

</comment><comment><USER7> I became very curious about juggling when I was younger, so one afternoon I started learning how to juggle 3 balls, using some oranges and an animated .gif.

My fascination with juggling only lasted for about a year, during which I learned how to juggle 3 and 4 balls (still can't do 5), flowersticks/devilsticks, diabolos and poi. I remember that learning each one got successively easier.

That being said, I'm not a particularly good juggler. Learning just the basics of each juggling prop and maybe a couple of tricks, was enough to satisfy my curiosity.

I like keeping a set of soft juggling balls around. You can squish them, play with them and throw them at people. Getting up from my chair and juggling for a few minutes really helps reduce the strain on my eyes, back, wrists and mind. I also do some of my best thinking during those minutes.

I'd recommend juggling to any hackers that spent a lot of time in front of a monitor.</comment>


SpaceX Starlink Mega: Illegal Approval? (Battle of the Skies) - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-fccs-approval-of-spacexs-starlink-mega-constellation-may-have-been-unlawful/ <comment><USER2> Clickbait from Scientific American here. It's an opinion piece, which is why it says "may have".</comment>


Bjarne Stroustrup warns of dangerous future plans for his C++ (2018) - n-izem https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/18/bjarne_stroustrup_c_plus_plus/ <comment><AUTHOR> See: "Hints on programming language design" by C.A.R. Hoare Report Number: CS- TR-73-403 Stanford University, Department of Computer Science <CS- TR-73-403.pdf>

Simplicity, readability, and so much more.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See: Niklaus Wirth "On The Design of Programming Languages" Procedures of the IFIP Congress 74, pp. 386-393 <PLHistoryGoodDesign.PDF>

</comment><comment><USER2> This language has been bolting on every trendy new thing in computer science for _over 30 years_. To be on-theme, I think that ship has already sailed.

<comment><USER3> Yet, somehow, programs in C++17 are nicer than in 14, or '11, or '03, or '98, and using it gets more fun each round.

It is hard to delete old cruft, although some of that is happening. But nobody needs to use the old stuff.</comment></comment>


Banned By Facebook. Advice? - <AUTHOR>

My Facebook app, Profile Banner rose to over 1.25m users in less than a month. Facebook just shut it down for violating their terms. I was helping users tag themselves in photos that were not of themselves (possibly).
For sure a contributing factor was that I also allowed people to tag their friends in banners too, but I gave people an easy way to block themselves from that. And a tiny percentage of users ever used this feature. Really, I thought FB would at least contact me requesting a change before taking this drastic action. I'm naive.
Does anyone have any advice on how I might be able to recover from this?
FYI, HN user gdeglin called that this was going to happen. I guess a similar thing happened to one of his apps. <comment><USER3> Find the section of the T&C that most likely deals with why you were terminated. Fix your app to address that concern. Grovel and pray.

Whatever you do, don't slam it up on another url and keep going - <USER2> they'll take more drastic action - perhaps banning all of your apps.

I know an app that was in a grey area, he adjusted his app and was reinstated in a few days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, thanks very much for this advice. That would be great.

I did relaunch the app, but with all the violations disabled. I sent them a message explaining. I had users who were kind of desperate to get their content out of the app.

But maybe I should take even that down? What do you think?

<comment><USER3> I might not have done that until I heard back from one of their compliance group so that you had a contact, but, you might be ok.

I would still petition to get the original app back online so that they do see that you fixed it. Regrettably, that is one difficult group to get quick feedback from because of the volume of tickets they review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know how Facebook is re profanity, but maybe it was also the "FUCK U" banner?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think they have a policy on that, do they? I was moderating out obviously objectionable content. I actually had a pretty lengthy thread on my App Wall regarding the F U banners and I felt like the community thought it was better to let that stuff go than to be overly strict.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you had only 10^N dollars for a cause, what would you choose and why? - <AUTHOR> What cause would you choose? Please state your value for N, and also if there is a larger N which could completely solve the problem.
Inspired by this comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480070 <comment><USER2> Rural EMS. Because in the US it's not funded except in a few places. Not only is it further to a hospital for, say, a heart attack but in some places you can't even get a first responder there in any reasonable time. If N were 5 or more I'd probably start some sort of foundation that focused on training and helping rural agencies apply for grant money. I doubt there is a reachable value of N that would solve the problem, there's no perfect world.</comment>


Show HN: CodyHouse HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Nuggets - <AUTHOR> https://codyhouse.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> These look like some pretty cool interactions.</comment>


Build-your-own-Dropbox service AeroFS releases iOS app for private clouds - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/build-your-own-dropbox-service-aerofs-releases-ios-app-for-private-clouds/

<comment><USER2> > using the AeroFS servers for authentication

I'm not sure this meets the definition of private cloud...

<comment><USER3> Private cloud: "but it allows you to use private servers and directory systems for authentication, keeping the entire system behind your firewall and never touching AeroFS' servers". Their first product, Hybrid Cloud, used AeroFS servers for authentication.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good recruiter/job agency in NYC? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone worked with a good recruiter or agency in NYC to find a job?<p>Would appreciate a recommendation. Thanks. <comment><USER2> best depends on you...do you want someone who can get you into Goldman Sachs? Or someone who has inside connections to a bunch of smaller banks? Or someone who can get you into some tech companies?

All of those are different people, so you need to be more specific about what you are looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You're right. I guess I'm just not sure yet and want to leave my options open. No such thing as a general-purpose recruiter, eh?</comment></comment>


A Simple Trojan Virus - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MinhasKamal/TrojanCockroach <comment><AUTHOR> This program is a Trojan Virus that steals data from PC and emails it back to the author. It spreads among PCs through USB drives. It is undetectable by any antivirus software.

It is created only for educational purpose.

</comment><comment><USER2> hmm... good project for learning purpose</comment>


Patient Number One in a new cancer treatment - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/this-mans-immune-system-got-a-cancer_killing-update <comment><USER2> Five years ago, I had my own immune system rebooted to (so far) eliminate my Stage IV melanoma cancer in a trial at the National Institutes of Health. At that time, without further treatment, I probably had six to twelve months to live.

In essence, the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) adoptive cell therapy was as follows:

1\. The doctors removed a melanoma tumor that was growing in my neck.

2\. In the lab, white blood T cells (T lymphocytes) that were attempting to attack the cancerous tissue in my tumor were isolated into at least five different petri dishes. The white blood cells' growth was stimulated using IL-2.

3\. Those samples that grew the most and attacked the cancerous tissue (2 of the samples, in my case) were then expanded to a total of 130 billion lymphocytes in the lab.

4\. I returned to NIH for a week of immune system preparation, specifically the almost complete suppression of my own active immune system using harsh chemotherapy. This was to allow my body to accept the new lab-grown immune system.

5\. Once my immune system was sufficiently suppressed, I received all 130 billions of the lab-grown lymphocytes. The immune system was then stimulated by having five large doses of IL-2 every eight hours over a two day period. (Note: This was hellish.)

6\. After a week or so, my immune system had recovered and I was released from the NIH Clinical Center to return home. I was given an anti-biotic to take for 4 to 6 months to reduce the possibility of contracting a specific pneumonia (PCP).

7\. I returned to NIH monthly for scans monthly for the first three months. After month one, my tumors had shrunk 33%. After month two, 66%. After month three, they were almost complete gone. My immune systems had essentially been immunized against some of the mutations contained in my cancerous melanoma cells.

8\. I was declared NED (no evidence of disease after 15 months) and a complete responder to the treatment after 21 months.

Now, almost five years post-treatment, I have had CT scans and brain MRIs every six months with still no signs of melanoma. My doctors have told me that I'm likely cured.

Immunotherapy works. I chose this trial because the I liked the fact that my own immune system was being boosted to fight my cancer.

Further info: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumor- infiltrating_lymphocytes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumor- infiltrating_lymphocytes)

My doctor is Dr. Steven Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute.

<comment><USER2> Also, besides the overall success of my treatment, other than regular followup scans, I don't require any further medications of any sort. It's a one-and- done treatment. I'm certain that Big Pharma doesn't like these treatments.

<comment><USER3> Congratulations on a successful treatment! It is so wonderful to hear stories like these. Immuno-oncology is bringing great hope to mutation-rich cancers like melanoma.

>I'm certain that Big Pharma doesn't like these treatments.

You would be certainly wrong on that part. Immuno-oncology has been "Big Pharma's" major focus for the past 5-10 years, inspired in no small part by the work of Rosenburg and many others. One of the most recent approvals discussed on HN was for a CAR T-cell targeted against CD19. Big Pharma would also be very happy to sell immune checkpoint inhibitors for use in combination therapy with adoptive cell transfer.

<comment><USER2> I hope that I'm wrong. Many more patients can possibly be saved with more widespread use of this treatment. Of course, the FDA needs to modernize their own approval processes to deal with such personalized treatments. It's my understanding that my lab-expanded lymphocytes needed to be individually approved by the FDA.

I do know that my specific trial at NIH was sponsored by Lion Biotechnologies as part of that company acquiring a license to reproduce the laboratory processing for the TIL ACT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Chimeric Antigen Receptors are an impressive first step into designed biological technologies. There are new challenges associated with their design and deployment - but there are also a lot of theoretical capabilities that are unmatched non-protein therapeutics. It's very much a new paradigm in treatment. These are 'cures' to human misregulations very much like how small molecules 'cured' patients of foreign diseases a century ago (and do _not_ cure patients of regulatory diseases).

If you want to build your own chimeric antigen receptors we've built a digital infrastructure to allow you [1]. Though we just made public our generic protein design software (thanks ShowHN! [2]), we're employing the same underlying digital infrastructure to build, evaluate, and manage CAR designs in high throughput [3]. The drug approved here was painstakingly designed by hand [4], while we think the technology now exists to permit many more such advances to be created at a much more rapid pace.

[1] [https://serotiny.bio/pinecone/](https://serotiny.bio/pinecone/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446679)

[3] [https://serotiny.bio/notes/applications/car](https://serotiny.bio/notes/applications/car)

[4] [https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/car19/](https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/car19/)

<comment><USER5> Wow, this seems really amazing. I read some background from your show HN, but does your software mostly make DNA plasmids? How would you go about integrating that into a eukaryote? I think in the article they used a retrovirus. Also, plasmids have a maximum size for proteins, do you have a vector to incorporate larger proteins?

<comment><USER4> The software 'compiles' down to DNA - which can be produced and delivered in any form useful to clients. Most of the time that deliverable is a plasmid.

The plasmid DNA is then used as a reagent to manufacture the physical retroviruses that are used to transduce the extracted T-cells which are then reimplanted into a patient.

Practically, multiple plasmids, each containing a single component of a synthetic retrovirus are given to 'viral manufacturing cells', and the output is pool of virus that is infectious only once, and has DNA that encodes the CAR design as its payload. That virus is then given to the extracted T-cells, where it infects them with the viral payload and integrates its genetic payload into their genomes. Once integrated, the cells are tested to ensure they are not further infectious, then reimplated - newly 'upgraded' with DNA that encodes a synthetic CAR protein that is now capable of homing in and killing the target cancer.

Getting all that payload into a plasmid is certainly an art. A lentiviral capsid has a physical pressure capacity such that it can hold <13kb of DNA. This is precisely why it's so important to have good ways of testing/pruning/evaluating new protein designs so that you can prune down a theoretical design into precisely the minimal design required for effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Immunology is one of the biggest fields that are stepping up to fight cancer. In a nutshell, we are programming the patients immune system to kill its own cancer cells, a marked departure from the general toxic chemotherapy that weakened almost every dividing cell in the human body. I believe people in a few decades will look back and express disbelief at the barbaric way we tried to treat cancer.

<comment><USER6> I would like to see a more elegant means to boost the immune function, without so much of the Dr. Frankenstein element. I think supporting the immune function is the way to go, but I think we need a lighter hand, not a heavier one.

<comment><USER4> If you are directing the immune system against cells that the body perceives as 'self', then simply boosting the system to the point it attacks a cancer will likely be detrimental the patient. Cancers and other similar diseases are so difficult to address precisely because they are borne from a patient's own cells, own genome, and own systems. This therapy here is a very pointed mechanism to demonstrate to the immune system what is okay to attack, and what is not - a very particular and specific kind of guidance that a generalized 'boost' would not properly address. And in that way it actually is an elegant, precisely designed system in play here.

<comment><USER6> _Cancers and other similar diseases are so difficult to address precisely because_

My general understanding is that they are so difficult to address because we don't really understand them.

I have a condition that gets partly explained as "overactive immune response." I really hate the concept of autoimmune diseases and I hope that someday it will be mocked as "god, what those barbaric idiots believed back in the day."

<comment><USER4> 'Cancer' is a huge umbrella term. Some cancers we know very well, many we do not. The one's being addressed by these therapies are well enough understood to target therapeutically. Some like cervical cancer, skin and lung cancer are well enough understood to in part be prevented.

But under that umbrella the reason cancers are 'hard to treat' (from the perspective of a pharmaceutical education/industry/knowledgebase that had a century of success curing invading diseases) is because cancers do not present a 'differnece' that can be exploited biochemically. Cancers are by definition a mashup and amalgamation of the components that make up a human - again very much unlike a bacteria, viral or fungal infection.

You are correct though that there is still a lot for us to learn. The technologies in this article are very much a glimpse of the next steps though.

<comment><USER6> That honestly does not fit with my understanding of the problem space. Granted my understanding of the problem space is as a layperson, not a medical professional. But I am a layperson who took care of a relative after their first mastectomy, I have multiple relatives who have had cancer, some of them repeatedly, and one relative was themselves Patient Zero in a cancer treatment study. So, it isn't like I have been unexposed entirely to the intricacies of cancer treatment.

I don't really know how to effectively engage you, but I stand by my initial statement of:

 _I would like to see a more elegant means to boost the immune function, without so much of the Dr. Frankenstein element. I think supporting the immune function is the way to go, but I think we need a lighter hand, not a heavier one._

I don't really feel you are making points that invalidate that desire. Perhaps we just don't understand each other. If so, it is probably best to stop here rather than keep digging a deeper grave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why can't we focus a lot of funding on this project? This is exactly the kind of thing for Government to lead rather than wasting time trying to healthcare out.

<comment><USER8> I agree.

Most people don't seem to realize the kind of progress that's been made in recent years with CRISPR etc. These problems are becoming data problems rather than biology/chemistry problems. The public (government) should certainly be funding many teams with small amounts of money ($10,000 to $100,000 say) rather than pouring billions/trillions of dollars into "proven winners" (big pharma) that mainly come up with therapies rather than doing basic research.

Honestly I think the same argument applies to so many areas of the economy: alternative energy, space travel, growing food, and so on. We could be finding so many "cures" for relatively modest investments that our current system has actually become very expensive due to the opportunity cost of not doing so. I've spent most of my life asking what we are all working for and towards but have come to the conclusion that keeping everyone busy is the goal now, not progress.

<comment><USER9> What about the following CRISPR patent problem?

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsherkow/2017/02/21/how- muc...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsherkow/2017/02/21/how-much-is-a- crispr-patent-license-worth/#3f325ed06b77)

[http://www.nature.com/news/why-the-crispr-patent-verdict- isn...](http://www.nature.com/news/why-the-crispr-patent-verdict-isn-t-the- end-of-the-story-1.21510)

This could discourage smaller companies from picking it up (ex. to build upon it, from which in the long run everyone will profit, see open-source) and make CRISPR-based treatments more expensive / unavailable (ex. large companies owning the patents artificially inflating the price, may be even more than the old technology it replaces).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many of you or people you know would run away from new treatment trials ? I've been surprised to see a few people getting more than annoyed at suggesting it. "I'm not a guinea pig" was the recurrent answer.

<comment><USER11> If you have no options left, I suppose it's the only sensible thing to do. Either you're 100% sure you die from cancer, or you take an unknown chance that might save you.

Then again, not all people are very capable of rational thought.

<comment><USER10> It's rational in the light of people believing labs are just here to take advantage of you and try nasty chemicals on you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The manga _Hellsing_ features a character named Alucard who is no relation to the _Castlevania_ Alucard. This Alucard is, in fact, Dracula himself, who was defeated by Abraham van Helsing and, rather than accept destruction, swore to be a servant of the van Helsing family, who employ him as a powerful weapon against the undead.

I mention this because it seems HIV is the Alucard of immunological treatments: a terrifying incurable disease which we now use as a potent weapon to fight other diseases. The thing that made it so terrifying -- its tendency to attack immune cells -- also makes it incredibly fit to purpose.

</comment><comment><USER13> I fully expect in 30 years few people will die from cancer, but instead we'll be dying from things like antibiotic immune staph and strep.

<comment><USER14> If we can design CARs for cancer specific markers or have the technology to create other immunotherapies, I don't see why we couldn't do the same for any antigen including antibiotic resistant bacteria. A quick search shows that there is some work in this area already.

<comment><USER15> In theory sure, but cancer affects you within month or years, while viral or bacterial infection hit you in hours or days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd love to see a comparison done on the news pieces we're reading today about CAR-T and compare it to the news stories a century ago as penicillin was discovered and began being used as a treatment.

Everyone is afraid to over-hype this, but take a moment and consider that we're now re-wiring the human immune system to fight things it previously couldn't. That's incredible.

Obligatory xkcd on the topic: [https://xkcd.com/938/](https://xkcd.com/938/)

<comment><USER4> Penicillin :: invading diseases (bacterial/viral/fungal)

CARs (& protein biotherapetuics) :: human diseases (misregulation/cancer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >leukemia, lymphoma, and squamous cell skin cancer

Whoa... what is the probability that you'd get all of these without being exposed to a carcinogen?

>retired corrections officer

I wonder if the prison he was working in was built near a superfund site.

[http://www.alternet.org/environment/americas-toxic- prisons-e...](http://www.alternet.org/environment/americas-toxic-prisons- environmental-injustices-mass-incarceration)

<comment><USER18> They mention in the article that the skin cancer appeared to be a metastasis from his bones. I expect that all of these cancers stemmed from a single source in his bone marrow.</comment></comment>


Stalkerware sees all, and US laws haven't stopped its spread - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/stalkerware-sees-all-and-us-laws-havent-stopped-its-spread/ <comment><USER2> Why would the US try to make good laws against something near what is made and used by law enforcement and their ilk too? If they did the public would cry for laws against government spyware next.</comment>