If you imagine a business making surgical facemasks is working 24/7, guess again - <AUTHOR> https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/04/03/if-you-imagine-that-a-local-business-making-surgical-face-masks-is-working-247-guess-again/ <comment><USER3> The mask situation in the US is truly fucked up right now. I've been finding and sending masks and other PPE to the US from China. Started out for friends and family then it expanded to friends-of-friends, then anybody. It has a really weird dynamic.

I've contacted over 100 hospitals. They don't want to help themselves. It's all about pushing people into a web form that fronts a bureaucratic system that supposedly allocates resources efficiently through a central clearing authority (never heard back from any of them), covering their ass in regards to regulatory requirements, and not allowing anyone to take advantage of them by charging money.

Individuals aren't much better. They've had so much conflicting information drilled into them that of the few who still think masks are needed by regular people, many feel so guilty about getting them that they can't bring themselves to do it. Or can't wear them in public because people will judge them for taking away from nurses even though the same hospitals the nurses work at have made it clear they would rather have their employees work unprotected than buy something not approved by the FDA or stoop so low as to work with someone who can't donate everything for free.

Have had way better success working with retired civic-minded business guys who can buy stuff through their local civic group and just get it done. It takes a surprising amount of almost outright harassment from these dudes to get the hospitals to either accept a donation or come up with a list of what they need and arrange funding, but so far getting hooked up with this type of person has been the only way I've found to get PPE (at least the kind that's still available) into a hospital.

<comment><USER4> Hospitals do seem to graciously accept donations, even opened (half-used) boxes of masks. You can just drive up and hand them off. Second-tier healthcare facilities, such as elder care centers and rural clinics, are also desperate for PPE right now.

We just drove up to the UCSF hospital and dropped off a couple hundred pounds of supplies. No fuss:

[https://www.rinse.com/blog/rinse/covid-19-medical-supply- dri...](https://www.rinse.com/blog/rinse/covid-19-medical-supply-drive)

Here's an example organization with a long list of facilities accepting donated supplies:

[https://www.donateppe.org/](https://www.donateppe.org/)

I'm sure it's harder to convince the terribly inefficient US health care bureaucracy to pay for this. I noticed our local Chinese American community, combating a worrisome rise in racism, has been active in the philanthropic distribution of masks. You might try raising funding that way, instead of through the bureaucracy.

I've also noticed a reluctance to accept the Chinese KN95 standard. People don't trust it, for better or worse. I think they would rather have homemade cloth masks, to be honest. Not sure how you can change that perception.

Best of luck in your efforts!

<comment><USER5> The economic reality is that most of the chinese supply chain that creates most of the masks is KN95 because China mobilized their country for their needs first. Quality is definitely an issue, but the bureaucratic layers of many of the hospitals in the US are definitely protecting the business at the expense of the safety of front line workers. Most of them simply don't understand what is going on at the ground level of the supply chain.

<comment><USER6> As someone who spends way too much time hanging around with cynical lawyers I am not surprised by the current state of affairs.

We've spent the last 30yr using civil case law to heavily incentivize organizations to build process and follow that process even when it's stupid, push decision making higher up and remove the capacity for decisions making down low (like middle manager level) where they can happen fast.

It's not that the people want to protect the business at the expense of patients but that the business itself is structured in a way that it's impossible for the people who make it up to do break protocol that says they have to meet X Y and Z criteria when sourcing supplies without it being a fire-able offense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One angle that this article missed: anti-price gouging sentiment has a lot to do with why the factory isn't running 24/7\. Imagine if he could charge 10x his normal price (ie $1/mask, which is much less than the value a mask provides.) I suspect plenty of employees would happily work 100 hour weeks for the duration of the crisis if they were getting paid $150/hr. Instead, he's forced to take a slower, more conservative approach to ramping up to avoid risking bankruptcy.

<comment><USER8> Same in Taiwan, mask making has not been very profitable. Taiwan imports 93% of masks from China.

Govt stepped in quickly on the brink of this outbreak though. Govt called 34 companies together each responsible for different parts of mask manufacturing from material, machine parts, installation, assembly, etc and govt up front paid 6 million USD for 62 production lines to be installed and assigned military personnel to help man the lines 24/7.

Daily mask production ramped up from 3 million to 10 million in 3 weeks. This is only barely covering Taiwan's domestic needs. Taiwan is now aiming for daily production of 20 million.

For distribution, govt rations out all manufactured masks. Currently each citizen gets 9-10 masks every 2 week and I believe each doctor receives 40 per week. The price of the masks for regular folks is fixed at around 1 USD for 6 masks. It is free for med staff.

As for the installed production line, once the mask maker reached the production quota of 5 million masks for a particular production line, the mask maker gets to keep that production line for free. Note that the mask makers, once involved in this project, pretty much gave their business as usual.

I would think it is tax dollar well spent.

EDIT: Try and include some English references: \- [[https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202003090013](https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202003090013)] \- [[https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2020/03/10/...](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2020/03/10/2003732422)] \- [[https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/03...](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/03/02/2003731896)] \- [[https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/coronavirus- how-...](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/coronavirus-how-taiwan- is-cranking-up-mask-production-to-meet-shortfall)] \- [[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/02/15/20...](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/02/15/2003731015)]

<comment><USER9> My Taiwanese friend living there that I met at Stanford says 3 masks per person per week.

<comment><USER10> About a 1 month ago it is 3 masks/week. Now it's 9 masks/2 week. I live in Taiwan and can confirm the information is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is shameful that the US has abandoned its manufacturing base and allowed its productive capacity to be destroyed. The pandemic exposes how weak this makes us, but I don't know that things will change when the pandemic eventually ends. Once things calm down, I doubt people will retain the ability to see the downsides of always chasing the absolute lowest cost supplier.

<comment><USER12> It is a shame. But what's interesting about this is that even the manufacturing base we do have could be scaled up quickly to meet more of the demand, yet it's not. So why does it save us to have manufacturing base if you won't scale it to meet surge demand when needed.

The hospitals not signing contracts with him is bad. But probably the more surprising to me is that the government isn't calling him up to say "hey we will pay you $BIG to start producing masks for us 24/7 that we will distribute". Where $BIG is enough for him to offset his concerns. After this pandemic slows down the government can continue buying from him to restock (and constantly refresh) the stockpile.

How has the government not by now started to track all the items we need, all the items we have, and called every damn company that can possibly produce those items or know who can to tell them to start cranking? Why do we continue to hear about discoveries of masks in warehouses and the like? The logistical failures here seem to be extreme.

<comment><USER13> Depends. What contracts will he have to take on to meet that? I think that's his complaint. He can't get what he needs on the spot market most of the time, he has to sign a supply contract and machinery maintenance contracts and everything else. At best, if he can't make use of the extra capacity when the world isn't experiencing a critical pandemic, he breaks even on the pandemic work. At worst, he loses his shirt again.

The materials you are talking about aren't usually found on a warehouse shelf because they deteriorate over time. You wouldn't want to put expired material through a machine because it becomes brittle and breaks.

And as for why we haven't started tracking materials more closely? Kushner's running this show. The word you're looking for is incompetence.

<comment><USER14> Cut him some slack. He's got like 20 jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow. Looks like he learned his lesson. On the other hand, we American consumers haven't.

I'll echo what most have said here already: the moment this crisis is over, we'll be overseas trying to find the cheapest possible price. We don't care about keeping the local guy in business. We care about _our margins_.

I'd hate to say it but what made us great, could very well be our downfall...

<comment><USER16> "Your margin is my opportunity."

-Jeff Bezos

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a red herring issue. The problem isn't that Chinese won't sell the US masks. It's that the US is trying to buy too many too late. We could have spent the past decade stockpiling them.

American protectionism is actually part of what created this problem: it was only this week that the Chinese KN95 standard was approved for use by the FDA.

<comment><USER18> Ironically USA Today ran a piece (not opinion) about the Obama administration using the strategic stockpile for various things during his tenure, but never refilling it.

<comment><USER19> yeah I see the rationale for it being that they were developing a new mask type that would be comfortable and reusable that they could stock up on. they didn't think that the entire global infrastructure would be so overwhelmed that they couldn't procure them in time. turns out they should have known to keep a reserve of them(100m was the number they would have stocked, though 300m is needed for this particular pandemic) now obama's team didn't hoard enough indeed and he deserves a bit of blame but it's also 3 years into trump's term... at a certain point you do need to accept responsibility for your failings and not reupping that supply is a failing.

<comment><USER20> Considering how many billions of dollars get spent on military jets, a few million dollars for throwaway masks seems affordable.

<comment><USER21> "That's with a B"

[https://youtu.be/CB-hJUtYhxQ?t=608](https://youtu.be/CB-hJUtYhxQ?t=608)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The question that this story doesn't answer (unless I missed it) is why hospitals are refusing to sign contracts right now when they are so badly in need of masks. Either that, or pay whatever price is necessary to get the factory to produce more masks without a contract. Is it lack of budget? Legal/administrative hurdles? Something else?

<comment><USER23> For starters, this guy doesn't actually make the masks hospitals need. They need n95 masks; this company makes plain surgical masks.

<comment><USER24> Don't hospitals need both?

<comment><USER23> In general, sure, but since n95 masks protect against corona and plain surgical masks don't...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I took a quick skim of the article and it looks like all it would take to solve this problem is for him to raise prices (clearly the current prices are below the market clearing rate) and forcing customers to pay upfront (or at least put the money in a trust or something).

>"Last time he geared up and went three shifts a day working his tail off," the mayor recalled. "As soon as the issue died, he didn't have any sales. He had to pay unemployment for all these people, and he had to gear down."

Doesn't seem to be a real issue if those extra costs are factored in

>Hospitals promised to stick with him afterward, but they broke their promise. The allure of cheaper Chinese masks was too great for hospital purchasing groups to ignore.

Ask for money upfront, or get it in writing and sue later.

<comment><USER26> Raising prices in a crisis is probably criminal under price gouging laws.

<comment><USER25> Addressed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22789745](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22789745)

Also, if the situation is really dire, I'm sure the government can grant him a waiver

<comment><USER27> "Probably" not illegal is a hell of a risk to take. All it takes is one prosecutor who thinks he can make his career over crushing pandemic profiteering and you're screwed. It doesn't even matter if you somehow win in the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I cannot blame him one bit, and as a small business, he cant absorb the losses from having to scale back either.

I sincerely hope the lasting change from this crisis is a changing attitude towards where we build things.

</comment><comment><USER29> Buying American doesn't increase shareholder value or executive bonuses. Reducing costs does. At least, that's the mantra

Walmart became the giant it is because while people agree that supporting local businesses is important (especially when they and their neighbors own those businesses), they still could not help themselves and chose to do their shopping at Walmart because it was cheaper. Then many of the small local businesses died.

Modern (American/western/and-possibly-everywhere-else) people are really terrible at balancing short vs long term priorities.

<comment><USER30> When you're living paycheck to paycheck, every dollar matters.

The problem is things are cheaper from china, because China as a nation invested in their ecosystem of manufacturing. Ports, roads, tax incentives, loans e.t.c

US on the other hand did not invest in themselves as heavily. It's like a rich son having someone else do his assignments and when the end of year exam comes, he's fucked because he didn't put the effort in learning himself.

The more we take China take the lead and we rely on them, the more we lag behind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> For clothing, the Berry Amendment ensures that the US has strategic capacity, by mandating that certain government purchases are made from suppliers that assemble US fabric with US labor. Maybe there needs to be a similar policy for medical equipment.

<comment><USER32> > For clothing, the Berry Amendment ensures that the US has strategic > capacity, by mandating that certain government purchases are made from > suppliers that assemble US fabric with US labor.

Honestly, US government policy should be to buy _everything_ that could be remotely considered strategic or useful in an emergency from US suppliers that use US labor and materials. Small exceptions could be made for proprietary things made by NATO allies, but even that stuff should really have a second source supplier located in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> >> "Create American jobs. Buy American. … It's hot air."

This quote really got me. Being in Texas you would think people value American made.

<comment><USER34> It's fascinating to read this article after reading the tweets asking "why are we depending on foreign manufacturers for protective gear?!?". Well, the answer was in here, because everyone wants to buy from the cheapest supplier...

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The photos on ebay and amazon of the Chinese factories making surgical masks (not N95) appear to be 99% automated.

The machines in that article appear rather different.

But it's not just hospitals, all of US is built on "just in time" fulfillment for decades now. That's why a government stockpile was important for emergencies, it's not unrealistic to expect government to have that role. You just can't have people in charge of government that spend all their time dismantling it and expect it not to fail.

</comment><comment><USER36> That is an awful website for people in the EU. 4 different pop ups then 20 seconds after page load a final one saying you can't read the page outside the USA.

<comment><USER37> I found a bookmark a while ago that attempts to make sites like this readable. Not good at all, but almost works.

"javascript:(function() { document.querySelectorAll('*').forEach(function(n) { var p = getComputedStyle(n).getPropertyValue('position'); if (p === 'fixed' || p === 'sticky') { n.style.cssText += ' ; position: absolute !important;'; } }); })();"

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There's no way to win selling cheap but critical supplies on the spot market. If the price goes down your customers flee. If the price goes up you can't charge the higher price because that would be "gouging".

So his solution is contracts. The fact that people aren't signing them shows their true intentions.

What I can't quite figure out is why, during the good times, a $0.10 consumable for a $4000 operation needs to be made more efficient so badly that the only way to produce the thing is in a communist country with no environmental controls.

<comment><USER39> _What I can 't quite figure out ..._

That's simple to figure out, and it is not specific to hospitals. Some purchasing manager says "hmmm ... I'm paying $100,000 per year for this product. But I can buy it overseas for only $20,000". Score!

At the end of the year, that purchasing manager writes a report to his manager saying something like "saved the hospital $10,000,000 by optimizing our supply chain". Or some such.

How much some random operation costs doesn't factor into his decisions at all. That's not what he's being compensated for.

The only way this mindset changes is if _top management_ insists on it. But usually top management is constantly pushing to cut costs. Their bonuses depend on it.

<comment><USER40> Yeah, this is the kind of way I considered this article. There's so many operations including medical hospitals purchasers that are trying to follow the current mantra of as little idle inventory and wastage of inventory on the shelf as possible for as cheap as possible. This makes sense for people purchasing finished goods but doesn't make as much sense for people making finished goods who may need primary material goods in quantities and timings that do not scale well in increments. It also makes no sense from a machining and tooling efficiency investment to replace a particular operation with a machine to do it 100x as fast if making 100x of the particular sub-assembly completely overwhelms the maximum capacity of the next step unless it is also improved.

There's just a minimum volume cost to most finished goods below which it just costs money to do the work at all. Sure if the volumes go way up there's economy of scale at work and the fixed costs of scaling up go down so prices can be reduced in a way that doesn't affect the manufacturing business to be more competitive but there's a bottom in the other direction.

You can insulate that with long term contracts from the buyers so that you can get favorable contracts with the suppliers, but when you have purchasers going quarter to quarter and saying lowest price = best value you just are playing a totally different game for a smaller manufacturer. The current model of a small American manufacturing business seems to currently reward doing the same boring product at the same boring volume so that the company will exist in 20 or 30 years by investing in specialist equipment that does one or more steps of manufacturing better than generalist equipment and creating a niche stable market for yourself as the depreciation/fixed cost of that specialist equipment per total units made approaches next to nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Many voters want the government run like a business, and this is a good example of why you don't run the government like a business.

</comment><comment><USER42> > "Last time he geared up and went three shifts a day working his tail off," > the mayor recalled. "As soon as the issue died, he didn't have any sales. He > had to pay unemployment for all these people, and he had to gear down."

This would be a good time to hire temp labor through a staffing agency; you pay a bit of a premium for that, but you also don't put the employees directly on your payroll that way (they're employees of the staffing agency instead, so said agency is then responsible for finding new work). People need the jobs, America needs masks, this guy wants to make and sell masks, win-win-win.

Like, I didn't really see a compelling reason in the article why that factory _isn 't_ working 24/7\. I know of plenty of companies that deal in similarly- high-demand-in-pandemics products (my employer included) that _are_ ramping up and running 24/7 and doing everything they can to get those products to people who need them. Most of them are doing that by hiring temps.

</comment><comment><USER43> Not sure writing the feds is a way to change the free market system. Not for one guy; not on a dime.

Perhaps a measure allowing emergency part-time workers? Why does he have to be 'fooled again', why not just increase production temporarily?

It sounds to me, this guy is being spiteful. Wants to make a point. Maybe not the right climate to make his point in.

<comment><USER44> If you can't make the point now, when can you make it? Once the pandemic is under control, no one will care.

The bottom line would appear to be that capitalism is, by far, the best system we have, but only when it operates inside a walled garden.

We should impose tariffs on essential items so as to allow local employees to be paid a fair and living wage, put restrictions on the multiple between the lowest wage in a company and the highest, limit growth to preserve the competitiveness of markets, and ensure that the true cost of production, including the environmental damage associated with production, distribution, and disposal is accounted for locally.

Imagine if this small business was allowed to charge a fair price for their product without competition from a totalitarian state that has bred 1.6 billion slave workers to exploit the planet and conduct a covert economic war to undermine democratic free-market countries.

Imagine if the earnings of every CEO were capped at 3x the lowest wage on the factory floor. Imagine people having stable jobs that fulfill a genuine need while producing something in a sustainable and environmentally-responsible fashion. Imagine that those hard workers get health care and generous vacations and a living wage.

Is it so ridiculous to dream of limited capitalism? Sane capitalism?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Smart to have hospitals sign longer term contracts for supply now. Sounds like he learned his lesson last time.

Also this guy sounds kind of butt hurt about buy American rheteroic. I agree but if you are charging 5x on a commodity vs china, I mean rah rah America only goes so far.

</comment><comment><USER46> Seems like a good opportunity to sign 5-year supply contracts with healthcare organizations.

<comment><USER47> The article doesn't give details but it sounds like that's what he tried last time and is what he trying again:

 _Hospitals promised to stick with him afterward, but they broke their promise._

And later

 _Now, it's only selling to U.S. hospitals. But Bowen asks hospitals to sign contracts. Who can blame him?

Or as the mayor puts it, "He'll gear back up, and he'll produce, and they'll probably do it to him again."_

I imagine as a small business he may not have pockets deep enough to pursue legal action against hospitals that are breaking contacts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> How long does it take to build a mask factory? Maybe we should stockpile machines that can rapidly ramp up production of millions of face masks per day in preparation for the next pandemic.

<comment><USER49> > Maybe we should stockpile machines that can rapidly ramp up production of > millions of face masks per day in preparation for the next pandemic.

Unfortunately that is not how machinery works, you would need personnel to maintain them, and also switch them on periodically, and repair them otherwise your stockpile of machines won't work anymore in - say - three to five years of stockage.

And BTW you would also need to have a huge stockage of spare parts, as in the same three to five years the current model (the machines that actually running in production) will be release/model Mark V, and they have different parts from the Mark I you have stocked ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is interesting. Being a Brazilian, our government has been always protectionist. Even in the current New Republic period. "Industries vital to our country must be protected". And oddly enough, that idea was shared by many politicians, even when they were opposed to each other.

The govt has been harshly criticized by the recent, new libertarians, for the import taxes increased prices to the end consumer and scared away foreign investors. Turns out that we had national mask makers ready to step up. Plus, textile and other industries decided to also jump in to help. I bought three masks before taking a flight recently, I didn't have any trouble finding them, paid less than a dollar for a locally made N95 equivalent; it seems that many of my flight mates had the same idea. I guess our old politicians nailed it, at least this time.

</comment><comment><USER51> 1\. Domestic production 2\. Low prices 3\. Surge capacity meeting sudden demand

You get to choose 2 of the 3. This guy wants protectionist policies to help him stay in a more sustainable business. You can't fault him for wanting to serve his own interests. But we could've prepared for this by having the proper stockpile in anticipation of an emergency.

</comment><comment><USER30> It seems US is very much going for short term gratification instead of long term building of industrial nation. Moving manufacturing offshore into China and other cheaper countries + mega multinational corporations starving small businesses or buying them up so they can get away with price gorging and lobbying for favorable laws.

China said no to Google and Facebook, they let Baidu and Tencent build the technological prowess. China manufactures most of the worlds electronics, they help their cities foster ecologies. e.g Shenzen, Guangzhou, Tianjin e.t.c

Meanwhile US has been losing its manufacturing edge over time. We can't be price competitive to China because we haven't invested in the ecosystem necessary for mass scale production. Our governmental leaders have frequent conflict of interests because they've worked at previous mega corps.

US can no longer think and take actions for the interest for the whole nation. Corporate interests are winning out. Seeing how the $2 trillion stimulus was a giant coop, to Jared Kushner (neopotism) saying "National Stockpile is for us, and not for the states." COVID-19 is exposing how incapable we are as a nation to be self sufficient.

Is US a democracy? I am not so sure. Without fair competition, we aren't a capitalist society either.

</comment><comment><USER52> There is a serious problem with understanding surpluses here.

Do you really care if your monthly water bill is $1 or $5?

Think - if you're at $5 a month, I mean you could save 500% (!!) by going to another provider at $1!

No - you don't care at all. At such a low price and vast surplus (the difference between what you pay, and what it's worth to you) - <USER2> considerations are paramount.

The difference between 10 cents and 2 cents is stupid. They could be 50 cents and it would not be 'price gouging' because there's tons of surplus to go around.

If we're going to talk about 'gouging' we need to talk about the _entire medical system_ \- it's just one big massive gouge.

There basically needs to be a strategy of price regulation and sourcing, as simple as that.

A simple rule like 'must be bought and fully sourced in the US' is easy, because it still implies a lot of competition.

For some products there could be a strategic reserve, and also a strategic production capacity.

Same for the entire military supply chain.

It's time to re-think globalism.

</comment><comment><USER53> Here in Hong Kong, folks have set up six mask production lines already, working round the clock to produce surgical masks. Don't know how they managed to get the equipment but kudos to them.

That's because people don't hate businesses and businesspeople, and are thankful for their effort.

Low-quality surgical masks here retail for 40-50 USD per box (50pcs), and there are no plans to introduce any price controls. That means that resourceful people are stimulated to abandon their family and regular jobs, and work round the clock to set up production lines, because they want to earn money.

I assume in America the sentiment towards businesspeople and pricing is somewhat different.

<comment><USER54> > Low-quality surgical masks here retail for 40-50 USD per box (50pcs)

That seems weird. They're half that on AliExpress, including shipping to NZ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Article isn't available outside of the US. I assume it's about how everything is the greatest, and they're working 30/8, not 24/7?

<comment><USER56> [https://outline.com/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog...](https://outline.com/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/04/03/if- you-imagine-that-a-local-business-making-surgical-face-masks-is- working-247-guess-again/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.dallasnews.com/new...](https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/04/03/if- you-imagine-that-a-local-business-making-surgical-face-masks-is- working-247-guess-again/)

[https://archive.is/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/...](https://archive.is/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/04/03/if- you-imagine-that-a-local-business-making-surgical-face-masks-is- working-247-guess-again/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Why can't N95 mask production be completely automated so production can quickly scale with demand while also keeping costs down?

<comment><USER58> N95 masks use a special plastic fabric that can only be produced with really specialized machines. That's usually the bottleneck since it takes months to make and install the required equipment. Also, keep in mind that the production process is already highly automated anyways.

<comment><USER57> That level of automation is what I was wondering about, how much it would take to remove humans entirely. Admittedly I was working under the assumption that the producer of the masks wasn't also manufacturing raw materials as that wasn't addressed in the article and may be a separate issue in and of itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Something about this story doesn't add up. If this were 99% of the manufacturers I know, they would be operating 24/7 right now. Call every available temp agency and load that place up. The only fathomable excuse is if they can't get enough material. The guy running this company sounds like a politician not a businessman. Edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. I'm serious. If this company were near me I would be asking if I could run second shift. In theory this guy is both leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table per day and contributing to our country's deficiency of equipment while trying to argue for some sort of long term agreement because he has leverage at the moment.

<comment><USER60> Read the story. It's what he did in 2009 and got burned by it. Almost bankrupted him. He's learned his lesson.

<comment><USER61> The situation in 2009 is so far from this, that it's not even comparable. Face masks are going to be in high demand for the next year or so, probably beyond that because a rollout of the vaccine is going to be slow.

<comment><USER62> I'm sure he's aware, what you're overlooking is that when China starts producing again he's instantly undercut by a 5x margin and history has shown him no one in the US cares about buying American if it means paying more, then he lays off all the workers again and goes out of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I don't really get this article.

If you have the foresight, and money, to pay to transplant an entire industry from a place which manufacture masks for 2 cents as opposed to one that does it for 10 cents, wouldn't it be a lot easier, cost efficient, and sensible, to simply by 2 masks whenever you need one for a total of 4 cents for the 2 masks, and keep 1 of those 2 masks in your stockpile?

You end up spending about 4cents per mask, and you've built up a massive stockpile in addition to that for emergency situations. And you've only paid 20% of the money you would have for the masks the article is advocating.

Frankly, this was a disaster in federal planning. Trying to twist this into some sort of issue with the supply chain system is kind of ridiculous.

Also, if you actually look at the US right now, the idea that American companies would be manufacturing anything full throttle is beyond ridiculous. China in fact manaaged to completely lockdown Hubei province in a way the US can never dream of, which allowed them to continue their industrial manufacturing, and actually be able to supply masks to states and hospitals around the country (of course, life would be a lot easier if the federal government coordinated the procurement so states weren't outbidding each other only to have the Federal government pirate their supplies to ha d off to private entities that then resell it to the same states for even more...).

</comment><comment><USER64> Another way to frame the situation: America is in dire need of surgical masks, and its top manufacturer is more interested in martyring themselves than to help out.

It seems like this is what the Defense Production Act is for? It's not like GM, where invoking the act doesn't seem to speed anything along because they don't make ventilators normally, and have to spend several days retooling their factories. In this case, you have a manufacturer that has excess capacity and is simply refusing to use it.

Also, how is this supposed to make people trust American manufacturers any more than the Chinese? The Chinese are actually _making_ masks at full capacity and exporting them... meanwhile, our own homegrown industries are busy navel-gazing and feeling bitter about some past slights.

<comment><USER65> Probably because China doesn't have (or maybe enforce?) "price-gouging" laws. This 100% wouldn't be happening if we just let people charge what they want for their own property.

<comment><USER64> How does this make any sense? China is not price gouging on PPE, at least not to the point where this guy's factory pricing is competitive

<comment><USER65> We don't know how much money it takes for a Chinese factory to produce these masks. Even though they're cheaper, the prices they charge could very well be considered price-gouging under some State laws. The absolute price of an item doesn't really matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Sad story, but if he had kept the employees and built a stockpile at a loss, he'd quickly recover those past losses and score a huge profit now. So: believe in your product and mission, pandemics do happen.

A solution for the future would be be high import taxes for products of "national interest".

<comment><USER67> If your creditors and landlord don't believe in your product and mission, I'm not sure how that's actionable. Small businesses aren't in a position to make big financial bets.

If Goldman-Sachs wanted to stockpile masks made at 10 cents each and take on the risk of never being able to sell them, great. I cannot fathom how someone running a non-diversified business could possibly make such a choice.

<comment><USER66> > If your creditors and landlord don't believe in your product and mission, > I'm not sure how that's actionable

They own their plant, as 30 seconds of research show. [https://www.prestigeameritech.com/press- releases](https://www.prestigeameritech.com/press-releases)

They've been in the business long enough and through at least one pandemic before (see below) to make this something other than a "belief" issue. Even small companies can build reserves if their business model works.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best niche to choose for freelancers? - <AUTHOR> How on earth do you choose a niche that will both be profitable and one that you'll enjoy?
I'm a successful freelancer making roughly $80,000 a year ($100 per hour) in the Mountain West. Yet I'd like to boost that so I can send my kids to private school and pay off some medical bills.
These bills are currently taped on my wall, and when I see them I think about branching out from my current skill-set (Full-stack LAMP apps (don't laugh, there's decent work out there with PHP)) to something more profitable.
So:
Niches: What niche would you recommend I choose to become more profitable, and that will be around for the next few years?
Languages: Should I focus on a new language like Golang? Or Start learning mobile development with iOS?
And thank you in advance for the mentorship. Sometimes I feel a little lost and don't know the best choice to make. <comment><USER2> Are you making $80,000 gross or net?

Either way, honestly, I would say you don't have a niche problem, you have a (potentially) marketing, sales, and rate problem.

As you point out there is plenty of work as a Full-stack LAMP engineer. It might not be exciting or the new kid on the block but there is plenty of it to go around. The problem is that you either:

A) Aren't doing enough business - If you are making $80,000 gross you are only working 800 hours a year. That could be good or bad, but right now I bet it doesn't feel like enough.

B) Aren't charging enough - $100 an hour is pretty inexpensive for a consultant of any sort.

C) All of the above!! This is the right answer by the way.

I will link to one of my favorite comments on this topic for you to read, it was by tptacek, and I keep it bookmarked [1]. But the long and short is, raise your rates, specialize in things your existing customer base needs, find new customers that also need those things, raise your rates, focus on business objectives for your customers, stop billing hourly, raise your rates, generalize, raise your rates. You probably should just keep on raising your rates.

So what does this mean for a full-stack LAMP engineer? Are you really good with Wordpress or Magento? Raise your rates and start selling wordpress and magento services. Are you exceptional at tuning MySQL? Raise your rates and start selling high scalability MySQL tuning. Are you an expert in making apps more stable and easier to deploy? ... You get the idea. Don't go away from what you are good at. Dive deeper into it.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247615)

<comment><USER3> This is a good post, but as far as WordPress goes $100 an hour is almost unheard of.

<comment><USER2> Sure it is, if you are a "Wordpress Engineer", you are absolutely right. However, if you are a "Web Based Marketing, Strategy, and E-Commerce Consultancy", suddenly you are making $250+ on Wordpress stuff. I can name off more high end sites built on Wordpress than I would care to where the companies pay huge amounts up front plus on going fees to keep them up and running smoothly.

<comment><USER4> This right here is critically important advice and you should listen to it carefully. Calling yourself a "Wordpress Engineer" will help you get work on freelancing sites, but for your bill rate, it's like a boat anchor tied to another boat anchor tied to a that big ass flying rock from Deep Impact.

There is no easier way to position yourself away from the money and into cost- center accounting than to put the name of specific technologies into your title or branding. One thing almost every freelancer can do instantaneously to improve their business is to scour their branding, titles, and marketing copy for jargon and tech names. There's a place for that kind of stuff, but it's not the front page of your website, or on your consulting one-sheet.

If you're a "Wordpress Engineer", one thing that's very likely is that you have a bunch of clients. They're not paying you, well, anything really, but you do have a bunch of them. So take a few hours some time this week and call a bunch of them and ask what they did with your work, why they commissioned it, what they were hoping to get out of it, and whether that worked out.

Two things will happen:

* You will probably generate at least one new paying contract. Any time you mass-call a bunch of clients, you will get new contracts. My partner Dave and I twice had to call large groups of our clients to report that we may or may not have accidentally and stupidly destroyed the Internet. Each time, we got new gigs from the exercise.

* You will know _a lot more_ about what you should be calling your service offerings, rather than "Wordpress Engineering".

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. It often comes down to labeling. For instance, if you call yourself a freelancer your clients might think "cheap, disposable, commodity", but if you call yourself a consultant and can show that you deliver, then you can charge a premium price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In terms of technologies, JavaScript is here to stay for many years and depending on the industry can be very profitable, too. A LAMP background lends itself to branching out to other web-based technologies. JavaScript will be a natural extension to your current skill set.

However, I'd advise against focussing on a technological niche alone. I'd suggest focussing on a business niche (industry, specific business problem) and additional skills that are complementary to coding (teaching, consulting). Try to position yourself as a business problem solver rather than someone who turns requirements into computer code.

Learning something completely new such as Golang or mobile development only makes sense business-wise if you already have customers who might be interested in that.

There's nothing wrong with learning new skills but in terms of business success learning a new technology - especially if it's a relatively new one such as Golang - is equivalent to developing a polished product before having the first customer or in other words: The exact opposite of the Lean Startup / MVP way of doing business.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I make $80,000 gross, not net. And I think you are right about the positioning issue. If I can figure out some sort of business niche, it doesn't matter half as much as what tools I use. Maybe I'm looking at this as "I can do woodwork, so what brand of tool should I use?" where I should be looking at this like "I can do woodwork. Should I make cabinets, fine furniture, or custom handcrafted toys?"

So thanks trcollinson and BjoernKW. I think that once I figure out how to position myself, the rates will naturally increase (I'm not shy of asking for $150 per hour if I know I'm worth it).

In short, it's time to Niche!

</comment><comment><USER6> If you liked Thomas's (tptacek) advice, look up Patrick McKenzie's blog ([http://www.kalzumeus.com/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/)), particularly the post titled "Don't call yourself a programmer":

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

He also has an e-mail list, and other training:

[https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...](https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1)

I believe there are several other resources focused on the non-technical side, I'm not sure how to separate the signal from the noise however :)

* tptaceck advice: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12207015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12207015)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Universal rule on best niches, find Good Clients.

Guys who pay your 'modest' fee in a timely fashion, are cool to work with, no mean emails late at night.

Who is the ideal Economic Buyer for your services? Industry/Vertical/Segment/Geography?

If you can define target client, you can go prospecting for them. Suggest reading New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development >[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales- simpli...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales- simplified?ac=1&from_search=true)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll check it out next time I'm at the library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Languages:

If you're not using it already check out the Laravel (php) framework.

It's growing fast, similar to Rails, easy to use, lots of great tools and the hourly rate on Laravel projects is comparable to the rate on Rails projects.

Check out Vue.js as well.

You'll be integrating in to a great community of developers and leveling up your skills, opening up yourself to new opportunities.

Laracasts.com will get you started.

Niches:

Web Applications for businesses is a good niche, higher rates, more interesting projects, longer term development + maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm a little confused. If you're working 40+ hours a week at $100/hour, you should be making > $200k per year gross. If you're only grossing $80k, then you're only working like 2 days a week. If that's the case, I think you're doing great! Just keep doing what you're doing, and add on a few more days a week (maybe take on another client).

<comment><AUTHOR> But I'm not working 40 hours a week. At least not billable hours. Usually, freelancers can clock in 25-30 billable hours max, because the rest of the time is spent on admin, sales, outreach, learning, etc...

The biggest thing is finding clients, but I think that is an easier task once I figure out my positioning.

<comment><USER9> Sure, I get that. But even at 25 hours, you're grossing over 10k per month, no?

If it's an issue of finding clients, that, in my experience, has little to do with the technology choice. I freelanced in PHP for over 5 years, and I rarely (if ever) talked "tech" with clients. I kept discussions much more high-level than that. They didn't care how exactly I was building their projects.

Definitely check out RFP's (requests for proposals). Government agencies, universities, etc put them out. Start replying to them, and you should find plenty of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How and where are you getting clients now?

<comment><AUTHOR> One company had a site that was down. I called them up, said I knew how to fix it (there was some extra characters after the php closing tag), and so I fixed it, and they had me do more work. Another client called me when I was looking for a job and had my resume on a job board. Another client was through networking. Another client was through a fellow freelancer who was overworked.

To get clients there are two main paths: 1\. Hang out where clients hang out (networking events, business luncheons, etc), and talk to them about their problems. 2\. Talk with other techies and see if they have work they can't or don't want to do.</comment></comment>


The Value of Bitemporality – Whose Time Is It Anyway? - <AUTHOR> https://juxt.pro/blog/posts/value-of-bitemporality.html <comment><USER2> There are a couple of good books on bitemporality, Richard Snodgrass' "Developing time-oriented database applications in SQL" is pretty much the bible on the subject and goes into great detail. "Managing Time in Relational Databases" by Tom Johnston and Randall Weis is another great book, a little more hands on with the code.

I'd love to see someone translate the concepts in both books to a useful postgres package. As Snodgrass points out, "Unfortunately, due to the noncompliance of all existing DBMSs, a few of these fragments run on no existing platform" and thus only discusses how they can be applied to DB2, MSSQL, Sybase, Oracle8 and UniSQL.

<comment><USER3> At my place of work, we leverage temporal and bitemporal tables in PostgreSQL extensively (I'd estimate that ⅔ of our Schemas are either temporal or bitemporal).

We have a few custom tools to make them more ergonomic to create and update, but the core functionality is derived from an open source extension, I believe. Although, googling for it now, while away from my work computer, I can't seem to find it... :/

... after looking it up on my work computer, it turns out we wrote our own implementation. It's less than 200 lines of SQL, and uses three relatively common extensions. I wish it was open source, because it'd be super helpful to have in the future. But hey, at least it's good to know that it can be/has been practically done?

<comment><USER4> Anyone know whether the [pg_bitemporal]([https://github.com/scalegenius/pg_bitemporal](https://github.com/scalegenius/pg_bitemporal)) project is still being developed? There's a talk on YouTube which showed promise but the Github repo seems pretty dead.

<comment><USER5> YES! And moreover, I am actively using it in production, we've added lots of new functions, and made it PG 10 comatiable

<comment><USER4> Oh great! I enjoyed your talk and look forward to trying it out. I just briefly browsed the repo and didn't see much in terms of documentation. Where do you recommend I should start?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A toy example of this would be keeping a diary in a text file in a git repo. The journal entry dates in the text file are independent of the commit dates.

</comment><comment><USER7> How does Crux compare to Datomic?

<comment><USER8> Crux is quite a different beast to Datomic, in that it is schema-less, designed to work with Kafka, bi-temporal and some other architectural differences. Similarities are that they are both built (mainly) in Clojure and support Datalog queries (albeit different dialects)

Disclosure: I work at JUXT but not directly on Crux

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Why would you stop at two time axes? Why not go for three, or four, or N > many?

This question is confused, because it's taking a derived property as fundamental. It takes as fundamental the fact that there are two associated times, rather than as fundamental the fact that there are _these particular_ associated times, of which there happen to be two. If you can't think of a _particular_ third associated time to add, the idea of "going to three" is meaningless on its own.

<comment><USER10> My mind immediately jumps to thinking about branching valid time timelines, but having thought about this a _lot_ over the last few months I think actually all other kinds of timelines can be implemented using valid time + additional indexing.

<comment><USER11> I thought about it, too, but I guess then you really dive into the field of versioning systems and probably it won't be a database system anymore. That is also manual conflict handling...

I think branching/merging itself wouldn't be that hard to implement, at least if you have a versioned index at the very core (disclaimer: I'm also developing an Open Source temporal storage system). But then you'd have checkouts, handling conflicts...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We've implemented a full Asserted Versioning Framework (Johnson and Weis) for Postgres, and use it in production. Using it for about 18 months for both OLPT and OLAP. works beautifully :)

<comment><USER5> [https://github.com/scalegenius/pg_bitemporal](https://github.com/scalegenius/pg_bitemporal)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My takeaway is (for applications that need this):

#1: Keep rows immutable. Don't use UPDATE or DELETE.

#2: Store the time columns you need, e.g. insertion or transaction time, and/or event generation time, etc.

<comment><USER11> Hm, and why storing so much information redundantly? Why not providing a tailored index structure... basically snapshotting page-trees efficiently :-)

<comment><USER12> If the db internally supports efficient temporal tracking, then yes by all means. If it doesn't, then I don't see a way for the developer around the redundancy.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Text Editor for creating Voice Over Audio - <AUTHOR> https://play.ht/editor/ <comment><USER2> interesting - but then, no pricing info.

there is 'click to start with 14 day free trial'

but nothing showing what possible future costs could be - so it's already cost me time, and now I assume it will cost me more time to sign up with info, possibly get spammed later, possibly have to deny cc charges, and how knows what else - just so I can found out how much it costs.

If a tech thing wants my money, and wants me to spend time filling out a form, I need more price transparency than an Emergency Room visit.

If I click try it out, I get a screen asking me to sign in by giving my google, fbook, twitter or email info.. I'm assuming password as well.. and then I notice it says 'sign in with your play account'

so using my 'notsure-I-trust-this-place-email-addy' won't work if it requires a play account sign on.. assuming this means 'Google Play' aka Google Store / android account? Or is this a play around account, one to test since I clicked 'give it a try'

Do apple people know what a "Play account is" \- do they have one? Wait, is this some kind of android app not a desktop thing. Is this going to be able to take random money from my cc via google? IS google going to be able to shutdown my access to it after I have paid for it?

Would I lost access to this if I lose access to my google account?

Might need to address these things in a FAQ or something.</comment>


Has anybody noticed how sophisticated the new Facebook bots have become?  - <AUTHOR>

https://www.facebook.com/kaye.dawson.716
https://www.facebook.com/haley.borden.9
https://www.facebook.com/alice.dawn.100
https://www.facebook.com/michelle.layson.31
They talk to each other. They visit local stores like walmart. They invite people to local events and invite friends to call local radio stations (legit I called) to buy tickets to a "midget wresting" event. (not sure if this is legit, guy on phone was just baby sitting the phone today and asked me to call back tomorrow.) They post comments about pictures that are somewhat relevant. They selectively like users posts.
Supposedly these stated popping up around 10 days ago in my area. Has anybody else noticed them and seen any other surprising behaviors? <comment><USER2> How are you sure they aren't just robotic people?

The problem here is two fold, on the one hand peoples actions are measurable and have patterns. We're forming our expressions to fit inside computer constructs. From our perspective we seem more and more like robots.

On the other hand, the bots are becoming more and more human. Eventually it may become hard to tell the difference between bots and people on the internet without some sort of proof of sentience.</comment>


Emacs follow-mode - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/970292/emacs-multiple-columns-one-buffer

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been using Emacs for 32 years (hard to believe) and never knew about this incredible but apparently obscure feature of Emacs.

On my 27" cinema display, even using 12pt Monaco for my tired old eyes for extreme legibility, I can get 4-5 columns of 90 lines each, when editing source files or text, for an effective "screen length" of 360-450 lines. With 10pt, you can get 500+ lines "on screen" easily.

Docs: [http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/emacs/Follow- Mode...](http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/emacs/Follow-Mode.html) .

<comment><USER2> I simply rotate my flatscreen monitor to make it upright. This way i get 900x1600 resolution, and >80 lines (10pt monospace) in one screen.

32 years of emacs! Wow!

<comment><USER3> I've not been alive for 32 years....

But still learning Emacs, I still run it in viper mode. My old habits die hard. I love to troll the other unix admins at work with vi keybindings in emacs.

I'm assuming you aren't rotating your screen under linux, xinerama isn't very robust on things like that.

<comment><USER2> Yep, using linux (and KDE). Screen rotation works perfectly. [stock intel 965]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In vim, with scrollbind:

      nmap <silent> <Leader>ef	:vsplit<bar>wincmd l<bar>exe "norm! Ljz<c-v><cr>"<cr>:set scb<cr>:wincmd h<cr>:set scb<cr>

Source: <http://markmail.org/message/kbnyhxffy6zs7pic>

<comment><USER5> There is also this:

<http://mysite.verizon.net/astronaut/vim/index.html#MPAGE>

<comment><USER6> This seems to be a 404 for me.

Is it working for other people?

<comment><USER7> Yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I try to not be surprised by the power and flexibility of Emacs. Having been impressed so much over the years, I've tried to come to know it as simply "awesome". That said, it's _hard_ to not be impressed when it shows itself as even more awesome, even when you thought you were prepared for that eventuality ;)

<comment><USER9> emacs is one of those things I really would like to use, but never actually manage to bring myself to switch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> follow-mode is great. I use functions that:

1\. split into three or four windows

2\. balance the windows (so each takes up equal amount of space)

3\. turn on line highlighting

Line highlighting helps because when using follow-mode it can become difficult to quickly spot where the cursor is without it (e.g. if you do an incremental search, the cursor could end up in any one of the many windows).

You can find the functions I wrote here, search for functions that end in "-and-follow":

[https://github.com/nileshk/emacs/blob/master/nileshk/functio...](https://github.com/nileshk/emacs/blob/master/nileshk/functions.el)

What I'd like to have is a function that dynamically opens just enough windows so that the entire file you are editing is entirely visible (possibly with an upper limit for number of windows that can be set).

<comment><USER11> line highlighting is just what I need! For vim, it's

      :set cursorline

Note: it's slow on old computers [http://vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com/Vim-7-slows-down-when- highl...](http://vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com/Vim-7-slows-down-when-highlighting- cursor-line-td1148280.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The documentation is misleading. You can use follow-mode on an arbitrary number of windows that show the same buffer.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think a fun interview question might be how to implement follow-mode.

<comment><USER14> Wow, what role are you interviewing for?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You can do that in Sublime Text as well: File -> Clone File

<http://www.sublimetext.com/>

<comment><USER5> Will the cursor automatically swap between the buffers when you reach the edge? (e.g. buffer 1 is showing page 1 and buffer 2 is showing page 2; when you get the end of page 1, the cursor/focus switches to buffer 2, rather than it just being two independently scrolling views into the same file)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right--this is not just multiple views on one file/buffer, this is multiple views that are synchronized to follow one another, to give you the full effect of one long view.

<comment><USER16> I'm not seeing that by default in Sublime Text 2 (2076) - is there anything I have to toggle?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, my grandparent comment was about Emacs, not Sublime Text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Thanks for the post! The way I solved this problem in the past was to rotate one of my monitors 180 degrees. People always make comments when they walk into my cube for the first time, but you sure can fit a lot of txt on the screen. Maybe now I can go back to a normal orientation on my monitor.

</comment><comment><USER18> "A Guided Tour of Emacs" has a screenshot of the follow-mode along with a simple explanation: <http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/>

</comment><comment><USER19> This would be good to build into the windowing system so it could apply to any application. Split any application window horizontally or vertically and put the two parts where you like on the screen.

</comment><comment><USER20> OTOH if you need follow-mode, aren't your functions too long?

<comment><USER21> Probably, but sometimes you have to work on other peoples's code. The worst for me was a 312 line function, which nearly caused me to quit.

<comment><USER22> I don't think that people give this situation enough credit. I once took over a project of about 30,000 lines of C++, with only about one line of commenting per 1,000 lines; and was frustrated with a lot of tools/documentation/suggestions that amounted to "don't write code like that". (Doxygen ended up being my friend)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Alright, cool. So how is it called in vim? ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> Hey, really cool trick. Thanks for sharing!</comment>